So the Governor ordered his secretary, Pero López, to write the
letters forthwith, urging Don Diego to yield to the call of his
Majesty's service, and reminding him of the labours undergone by his
father to acquire honour and fame; so that he should not lose, by his
conduct, all that the old Adelantado had gained. The letter to Don
Diego pointed out too that nothing had been altered by his father's
death, as it was understood that he [the son] lacked level-headed and
prudent men to give him temperate advice but that, nevertheless, he
ought not to pin his faith on arms and artillery alone, for if the
conscience be not clear, force avails but little, seeing that it is
ordained from above by command of the Most High God that justice must
prevail. Besides this, he wrote other things counselling him what was
proper, and bidding him give ear to what Lope de Idiáquez and the
factor Mercado would say, from him, when they should get back. Letters
were also written to the captains, urging them to join the service of
the king, and they gave private letters to the messengers for many
other persons in the camp.
CHAPTER LXXIV
_How Vaca de Castro, notwithstanding that he had entered into
these negotiations, sent Alonso Çamarilla as a spy to the camp
of Don Diego, with letters to many who were there, and how he
was captured by Juan Diente when scouts were sent out from
Vilcas, and on confessing what he went for, was put to death._
Having issued the despatches to the messengers who were to carry them,
the Governor Vaca de Castro resorted to a precaution, by which he
sought, privily and without the messengers who were engaged in the
negotiations knowing it, to send a spy. This spy was a certain Alonso
García Çamarilla, a great walker whom we mentioned in an earlier book,
when he was sent by Hernando Pizarro, during the siege of Cuzco, to
Yucay with Manco Inca. They then wanted to kill him, but he escaped
from thence by his swiftness of foot, because his place of sepulture
was destined to be at Vilcas. In all the land there was not a man
ready and fitted to act the spy, unless it were this one, and Juan
Diente who captured him, as we shall relate. Having removed his beard
and casting off his Spanish clothes, he put on the garb of an Indian,
rubbed his lips and back teeth with that precious herb which grows
on the skirts of the Andes, and leaving the sword of which he was
unworthy, he took a staff in his hand, and in a pouch or small wallet
he put the letters which Vaca de Castro gave him for the camp of Don
Diego. Having acquainted himself with the features of that camp and
the method that was observed in it he was to return with all diligence
and make his report. In such wise was Alonso García despatched, that
anyone who saw him set forth from the camp would, of a certainty, have
believed he was some Indian. Lope de Idiáquez and the factor Mercado
also took their leave of the Governor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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