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Domingo, and Luque's pretensions were explicitly transferred to him. Yet it is unsafe to pronounce, at this distance of time, on the authority of mere negative testimony; and it must be admitted to form a strong presumption in favor of Pizarro's general equity in the distribution, that no complaint of it has reached us from any of the parties present, nor from contemporary chroniclers.10
The Spanish reported that he had 1,000 killed, the next day reduced the number to 300, and finally to the statement that "the enemy's losses must have been enormous," the usual phrase when the true number is humiliating. Luque's losses have never been officially reported, but it is variously estimated at from seventy-five to a hundred men.
At least half of Maceo's army, certainly not less than 2,000 cavalry, had been moving up to Luque's rear and came upon him, surprising him just as this second attack was being made. For a time it was a question whether Luque's command would not be wiped out. They were practically surrounded by Maceo's men, and for fully an hour and a half the fighting was desperate.
The Cubans give horrible details of a battle at Paso Heal, between General Luque's army and a division of Maceo's forces under Bermudez. Witnesses of the encounter claim that the Spaniards invaded the hospital and killed wounded insurgents in their beds, and that, Bermudez, in retaliation, formed a line, and shot thirty-seven Spanish prisoners.
"Some of Luque's niggers, those tall, lean, hungry fellows from Santiago, managed to hack their way through a wire fence and get behind a detachment of the enemy who had made a stand under a hill. They charged, and for a wonder they got close enough to use their machetes. It was bloody work the kind you read about no quarter. Somehow Jacket managed to be right in the middle of the butchery.
The Spanish found that the enemy had, instead of being routed, simply fallen back and taken a position on another hill, and scattered firing went on for a considerable time, while Luque prepared to attack again. Then, against 2,000 of Maceo's men, was directed all of Luque's command, over 4,000 infantry, 200 cavalry, and eleven pieces of artillery.
Pizarro burned to emulate his kinsman. Having formed a partnership with Diego de Almagro, a soldier of experience, and Hernando de Luque, a priest supplied with worldly means, he secured an old vessel that had been designed by Balboa for a similar expedition, refitted it with Luque's money, and with a hundred adventurers sailed from the port of Panama in November, 1524; leaving Almagro to follow in a smaller vessel.
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