The day arrived in which the sentence of death was to be carried out, and found the little town of Acla overspread with gloom. The horrified inhabitants moved about as in a dream, unable to wholly comprehend the nature of their dread surroundings, hardly daring to allow their tears to flow, much less their voices to be raised in protest. For they realized that in Pedrarias, the governor, they had a man to deal with not in his right mind, warped by envy, malice, jealousy, until he had become a frenzied maniac. They dared not provoke his wrath by protest, even in a whisper, for they were cowards all, rendered so by their subserviency to the crown, which might commit any atrocity and yet be accounted blameless. Pedrarias had sentenced his prisoner to death in the name of the king, yet he allowed him no appeal, either to the king or to the Council of the Indies; for he knew that sentence would be reversed and the discoverer set free should his voice reach the throne. It never reached it, save as wafted across the sea and ocean in the indignant outcry of the people--after the deed was done by which Balboa lost his head. Then it did not avail to redress Balboa's wrongs nor to bring Pedrarias to justice, for he continued in his crimes for years, and at the last died in his bed, like many another wretch of lesser note. But the day had arrived, Balboa's last on earth. The hot afternoon wore away, and the sun sank towards the mountains which the prisoner had been the first to explore, and touched with its rays the roofs of the dwellings he himself had erected. The dungeon door was thrown open, and forth came Balboa, preceded by his jailer and loaded with clanking chains. But the burden of the chains was as naught to the armor he had carried in the days of his great deeds, and he bore himself erect, dauntless in mien as of yore. He searched the village square with flashing eye, sweeping his glance over the assembled crowd of cowards, held back by mailed soldiers under the command of his former comrade and lieutenant, Francisco Pizarro. He was no coward--that Balboa knew; but he had his own reasons for serving Pedrarias, as already narrated. If Pizarro had but weakened, if he had allowed his sense of justice to prevail over his lust for power and lucre, and said one word for Balboa, all the men under him would have joined in an effort to save the man they loved from him they loathed and hated. But Pizarro was a clump, a stick, a stone--anything inanimate, or, in other words, a soldier--and when Balboa's piercing glance fell on him he looked to the ground and remained immovable. Preceding the prisoner walked the public crier, who announced: "This is the punishment inflicted by command of the king and his lieutenant, Don Pedrarias de Avila, governor of this colony, upon this man, as a traitor, and usurper of lands belonging to the crown."