Meanwhile Almagro, after long delays, had sailed with sixty men in the second vessel from Panama to follow Pizarro. He found the "track" by trees Pizarro had marked at various points, according to their agreement. At Punta Quemada he landed, and the Indians gave him a hostile reception. Almagro's blood was hot, and he charged upon them bravely. In the action, an Indian javelin wounded him so severely in the head that after a few days of intense suffering he lost one of his eyes. But despite this great misfortune he kept on his voyage. It was the one admirable side of the man,--his great brute courage. He could face danger and pain bravely; but in a very few days he proved that the higher courage was lacking. At the river San Juan (St. John) the loneliness and uncertainty were too much for Almagro, and he turned back toward Panama. Fortunately, he learned that his captain was at Chicama, and there joined him. Pizarro had no thought of abandoning the enterprise, and he so impressed Almagro--who only needed to be _led_ to be ready for any daring--that the two solemnly vowed to each other to see the voyage to the end or die like men in trying. Pizarro sent him on to Panama to work for help, and himself stayed to cheer his men in pestilent Chicama. Governor Davila, at best an unenterprising and unadmirable man, was just now in a particularly bad humor to be asked for help. One of his subordinates in Nicaragua needed punishment, he thought, and his own force was small for the purpose. He bitterly regretted having allowed Pizarro to go off with a hundred men who would be so useful now, and refused either to help the expedition or to permit it to go on. De Luque, whose calling and character made him influential in the little colony, finally persuaded the mean-hearted governor not to interfere with the expedition. Even here Davila showed his nature. As the price of his official consent,--without which the voyage could not go on,--he extorted a payment of a thousand _pesos de oro_, for which he also relinquished all his claims to the profits of the expedition, which he felt sure would amount to little or nothing. A _peso de oro_, or "dollar of gold," had about the intrinsic value of our dollar, but was then really worth far more. In those days of the world gold was far scarcer than now, and therefore had much more purchasing power. The same weight of gold would buy about five times as much then as it will now; so what was called a dollar, and _weighed_ a dollar, was really _worth_ about five dollars. The "hush-money" extorted by Davila was therefore some $5,000.