Aldana had rightly judged, that the surest means for succeeding in the mission on which he had been entrusted by the president, was to communicate the knowledge of the general pardon among the soldiers. For this purpose, therefore, he devised exceedingly proper measures to diffuse the intelligence among the troops, but which were at the same time exceedingly dangerous for Juan Hernandez. Aldana gave him copies of all his dispatches in duplicate, and entrusted him with letters for several principal persons in the camp of Gonzalo. Fernandez concealed such of these papers as he judged necessary in his boots, giving all the rest to Pizarro. Taking Gonzalo afterwards aside, he told him secretly that Aldana had endeavoured to prevail upon him to publish the royal pardon in the camp; and that accordingly he had thought it prudent to pretend compliance, and had taken charge of that general amnesty among his other dispatches, both to blind Aldana by the expectation of, doing what he wished, and on purpose to get these from him for the information of Gonzalo; pretending to be ignorant that Gonzalo knew of any such thing existing. Gonzalo thanked him for his prudent conduct, and considered him as a person worthy of entire confidence and much attached to the cause. He then received the papers which Fernandez offered, threatening the severest punishment against Aldana. Having thus craftily deceived Gonzalo, Fernandez contrived to deliver some of the letters he had in charge, and allowed some of them to fall on the ground, as if lost, yet so as they might be found by those to whom they were addressed. When Gonzalo quitted Lima to encamp on the road towards the sea-port of Calao, he left Pedro Martin de Cicilia in charge of the city as provost-marshal. This man, who had attached himself to Gonzalo with much zeal from the very commencement of the troubles, was now about seventy years of age, yet healthy and vigorous, of a rough and cruel disposition, and entirely destitute of piety towards God or of loyalty to the sovereign. Gonzalo had given him orders to hang up every person he might find loitering in the city with out a written permission, or who might return thither from camp without a pass. Martin executed these rigorous orders with so much exactitude, that, meeting a person who came under the foregoing predicament, he had not sufficient patience to have him hanged, but dispatched him directly with his poignard. He generally went about the streets followed by the hangman, carrying a parcel of ropes, and loudly declared that he would hang up every one whom he found in the city without permission from Ganzalo.