When Balboa and her brother appeared before her, she clutched at her heart, as if to still its beatings, but said nothing, though a single glance told her what had occurred. She led her brother away, to a hut outside the palm-thatched structure which served Balboa as a dwelling, and was about to bathe his bruised forehead, when he repulsed her with a gesture of disgust. She did not ask why, for she knew, and he did not waste words in telling her that she was a traitress, and was solely responsible for what had occurred to him. In silent dignity he gathered up his bow and arrows, which had been left with the Cacica when he was thrust into the dungeon, and without one word of farewell stalked off into the forest. Then the Cacica knew that she had incurred the hatred of her tribe, as well as lost the respect of her master, by revealing the plot of Zemaco. She had done it for love of Balboa, as she had assured him; but now that she realized her position, as an outcast from her people, and, despised by the brother who had risked his life to save her own, she hated her master, and loathed him. Thenceforth she lived only for revenge; but, with the cunning of a savage, she concealed her real feelings from Balboa, and appeared to him only the dutiful slave. She lived silent and apart, but ever nursing a scheme of vengeance which in due time cost Vasco Nuñez de Balboa his life. Through the treachery to her people of the Cacica, and the confession elicited by torture from her unhappy brother, Balboa came into possession of all the facts regarding the purposed insurrection of the caciques. He lost no time in acting upon this information, but promptly summoned his officers in council. His chief reliance was, as may have been divined already, the stout-hearted Colmenares, who had shared with him the dangers of several expeditions, in all of which he had borne himself with courage and resolution. While the magistrates were uncertain what course should be pursued, some advising an immediate retreat from a place so fraught with danger to themselves, both from the savages and from the climate, which was killing off the settlers by scores, Colmenares alone gave his commander the advice he liked. Balboa had settled in his own mind what he should do, but he desired to be supported by a certain show of authority, conferred by his coadjutors, in order to have a loop-hole for escape in case the adventure should prove disastrous.