"As for your feelings towards me," indignantly replied the prisoner, "it matters not to me one whit; but as to my conduct towards the king, my sovereign, your charges are false! If what you impute to me were true, holding as I did at my command four ships and three hundred men, by whom I am beloved, why should I not have gone straight to sea without permitting anything to impede my purpose? Safe in the consciousness of my innocence, I returned at your command; and little did I dream of being treated so rigorously and with such enormous injustice. This is my reward for trusting you: a dungeon, with slander, indignities, and chains." "Yea, traitor," rejoined Pedrarias, hotly, "a dungeon is truly your merited reward for despising the alliance I would have made with you. Truly, I shudder to think of what my family has escaped: of the foul blot which the marriage of my daughter with one of your stamp would have spread upon my proud escutcheon. And all the time you had an Indian mistress, for whom you sent to accompany you on the expedition which would have placed you well beyond my reach. But know, traitor and scoundrel, that she has confessed, and thus the means by which you would have covered my daughter's name with obloquy have been those for encompassing your own destruction!" "Who, Cacica, the pledge of amity between me and Careta? She has confessed? Nothing had she to confess, for I sent her no message. After my word was given to you that I would not see her, of a truth, I saw her no more. You are a liar, Pedro Pedrarias, and were I but free, with my good sword in hand, fain would I render you unable to utter more false statements against me and those who were once true to me!" "Ha! Would you, then? Here, jailer, double this fellow's irons, and if he protest, weight him to the floor with them! My throat you would slit, eh? Old as I am, you will find that when it comes to the cutting of throats, Don Pedrarias de Avila needs not rely upon his own unaided sword. There is one in my employ who wields a more potent weapon--mark you--and that is Gomez, the headsman. I go to tell him now to sharpen his axe for four!" "For four?" exclaimed Balboa, as the old man retreated from the cell. "Who else have you enmeshed in your net, base wretch? Will not one victim suffice you? Who are they? Tell me." "Who?" repeated the old man, mockingly, peering at his victim through the bars. "Why, who but Hernan de Arguello, Hernan Muños, Valderrabano, and Botello. Were they simply your friends, it were enough; but they are more: they are traitors to the king, and to me, Pedrarias de Avila, governor-in-chief of Darien, whose authority you have endeavored to usurp."