ow command you to hold yourself and your company in
readiness to march. When we arrive at Leon, I promise you that full
justice shall be done to your friend De Cordova, and to yourself."

De Soto fully comprehended the significance of these threats. He wrote
immediately to Cordova, urging him to be on his guard. The inhabitants
of Leon and Grenada, learning of the intention of Don Pedro,--to take
the government into his own hands,--entreated De Cordova to resist the
tyrant, promising him their unanimous and energetic support. But De
Cordova declined these overtures, saying, that all the authority to
which he was legitimately entitled was derived from Don Pedro, and
that it was his duty to obey him as his superior officer, until he
should be deposed by the Spanish crown.

Just before Don Pedro, with his suite, left Panama for Nicaragua, M.
Codro returned from Spain. He brought dispatches to the governor, and
also secretly a letter from Isabella to De Soto. The spies of the
governor, in his castle in Spain, watched every movement of M. Codro.
The simple minded man had very little skill in the arts of duplicity.
These spies reported to Don Pedro that M. Codro had held a secret
interview with Isabella, and had frankly stated that he was entrusted
with a private message to her. Don Pedro knew that such a message
could have gone only from De Soto; and that unquestionably M. Codro
had brought back from his daughter a response. We may remark in
passing, that the letter from Isabella to De Soto informed him of the
inflexible fidelity of Isabella, and filled the heart of De Soto with
joy.

The malignant nature of Don Pedro was roused by these suspicions to
intensity of action, and he resolved upon direful revenge. As the new
governor was hourly expected, he could not venture upon any open act
of assassination or violence, for he knew that in that case summary
punishment would be his doom. Calling M. Codro before him, he assumed
his blandest smile, thanked the artless philosopher for the services
he had rendered him in Spain, and said that he wished to entrust him
with the management of a mineralogical survey of a region near the
gulf of San Miguel.

The good man was delighted. This was just the employment which his
nature craved. He was directed to embark in a vessel commanded by one
of the governor's tools, an infamous wretch by the name of De
Valenzuela. This man had been for many years a private, and was then
engaged in k