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For this purpose, he intended to embark with his treasure from the port of Lima for Nicaragua, where he proposed to enlist a party of soldiers, and to fit out one or two vessels with which to cruize for some time along the coast of Peru against Gonzalo and his confederates, by landing, and pillaging in such places as were unprovided with troops: But, as he had not sufficient knowledge or experience for conducting such an enterprize, he wished to find a person properly qualified to act as commander on this occasion, and had a strong desire to induce Vela Nunnez to undertake the direction of the enterprize, as a gentleman experienced in war, and who was besides in a great measure bound to seek an opportunity of being revenged upon Gonzalo for the death of his brother the viceroy and many others of his friends and relations.
Having continued a long time at Quito without receiving any intelligence of the measures which were taken by the viceroy, Gonzalo became anxious to learn what was become of him.
If all that has been said above concerning so many imaginary islands and continents appears to be mere fable and folly, how much more reason have we to consider that as false which Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo conceits in his Natural History of the Indies, "That there was another discoverer of this navigation of the ocean, and that the Spaniards held anciently the dominion of these lands."
Then it was that the qualities of Gonzalo Pizarro, as a fit leader in the hour of despondency and danger, shone out conspicuous. To advance farther was hopeless. To stay where they were, without food or raiment, without defence from the fierce animals of the forest and the fiercer natives, was impossible. One only course remained; it was to return to Quito.
Therefore, until his majesty were fully informed of the whole series of events, and had issued new orders on the subject, it became necessary to prevent the president from coming into Peru, more especially as Gonzalo Pizarro was informed by letters from Spain, that the president was not authorized by his majesty to deprive Gonzalo of the government, but merely to preside in the royal court of audience.
One night that Gonzalo Silvestre happened to stand centinel in the second watch, the moon shining very bright, he observed two armed Indians in their plumes of feathers, passing over the ditch on a tree that lay across instead of a bridge. These men came to a postern which they entered without asking leave, on which Silvestre gave one of them a cut on the forehead, on which he immediately fled.
But it required more than a breath to scatter the iron soldiery of Peru. Gonzalo Pizarro, meanwhile, was busily occupied in mustering his army. His first step was to order from Guamanga sixteen pieces of artillery, sent there by Vaca de Castro, who, in the present state of excitement, was unwilling to trust the volatile people of Cuzco with these implements of destruction.
It was, indeed, a most decisive action; and Gonzalo Pizarro, as he rode over the field strewed with the corpses of his enemies, was observed several times to cross himself and exclaim, "Jesu! What a victory!" No less than three hundred and fifty of Centeno's followers were killed, and the number of wounded was even greater.
And at length Diego Arias received such a blow near the heart that he fell dead. And Don Diego Ordonez went to the bar and laid hold on it, and cried out to Don Arias Gonzalo, Send me another son, for I have conquered two, thanks be to God. Then the judges came and said that the dead knight was not yet out of the lists, and that he must alight and cast him out.
In the year 1490, the king sent Gonzalo de Sosa to Congo with three ships, carrying back with him the ambassador of the king of Congo, who had been brought over to Portugal in 1484, by Diego Caon. During his residence in Portugal, this ambassador and others of his company had been instructed in the Christian religion, and baptized.
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