It is easily half forgotten that our continent has its chronicles which link us with the age of chivalry; that its soil once sustained the march of men armed cap-a-pie, as bold of heart, greedy for renown, and thirsty for blood, as ever a crusader. They came, proof-valiant against all peril; of a fire-eating, eager courage surpassed alone by their truculence and cruelty; of a courage to meet not only dangers real, but a myriad direful ones born of fancy. For they were, withal, men of imagination and fine, wide credulity. They peopled the West with Amazons, giants, dragons, and legions of beings of varied and curious monstrosity. They were prepared in mind not only to fight battles, but to encounter sorcerers, witches, and the Fiend himself; to undergo all manner of spells, charms, enchantments, and kindred grisly experiences and phenomena. They sought earnestly, conscientiously, and with diligence, for golden Manoa and its emperor, El Dorado, and for the Fountain of Perpetual Youth. If they failed to come upon these, and did no preternatural deeds, they were none the less heroes, animated by the spirit of knight-errantry, which with them took its final leave of earth. *THE CRIMSON CONQUEST* *CHAPTER I* _*Booty from Peru*_ Toward the end of a day in the year Fifteen Hundred and Thirty-one, as the air cooled slightly with the sun’s decline, the plaza of the little Spanish city of Panama grew languidly animate. The square had blazed, shimmered, and baked all day, shunned in its fervor except by those compelled to cross it in order to avoid the exertion of going round, or by the few straggling natives whose half-naked bodies and sun-tanned hides were proof; but this was the hour of listless awakening, and groups formed at the corners, exchanging gossip—if by a blessing there was gossip to exchange—and awaiting the sole break in the sultry monotony of the day, the evening parade of the garrison with its stimulating bang of the culverin at sunset. The dominant type in these groups was that of the fighting man. Some were sailors, a few were planters; but most of the swarthy faces wore the unmistakable marks of the soldier. The dress and bearing of a small number indicated rank; but all, save a sprinkling of ecclesiastics and civil officers of the Crown, were adventurers, and bore evidence, in their worn apparel, in their scars, and in their bronzed and weatherbeaten features, of severe campaigns and hardship.