een of the dwindling band
were slain by Indians, who surrounded their stranded canoe. Food gave
out too, and the survivors were starving when Ruiz got back with a scant
relief but cheering news. Very soon too Almagro arrived, with supplies
and a reinforcement of eighty men.

The whole expedition set sail again for the south. But at once there
rose persistent storms. After great suffering the explorers got back to
the Isle of Gallo, where they stayed two weeks to repair their disabled
vessels and as badly shattered bodies. Then they sailed on again down
the unknown seas. The country was gradually improving. The malarial
tropic forests no longer extended into the very sea. Amid the groves of
ebony and mahogany were occasional clearings, with rudely cultivated
fields, and also Indian settlements of considerable size. In this region
were gold-washings and emerald-mines, and the natives had some valuable
ornaments. The Spaniards landed, but were set upon by a vastly superior
number of savages, and escaped destruction only in a very curious way.
In the uneven battle the Spaniards were sorely pressed, when one of
their number fell from his horse; and this trivial incident put the
swarming savages to flight. Some historians have ridiculed the idea that
such a trifle could have had such an effect; but that is merely because
of ignorance of the facts. You must remember that these Indians had
never before seen a horse. The Spanish rider and his steed they took for
one huge animal, strange and fearful enough at best,--a parallel to the
old Greek myth of the Centaurs, and a token of the manner in which that
myth began. But when this great unknown beast divided itself into two
parts, which were able to act independently of each other, it was too
much for the superstitious Indians, and they fled in terror. The
Spaniards escaped to their vessels, and gave thanks for their strange
deliverance.

But this narrow escape had shown more clearly how inadequate their
handful of men was to cope with the wild hordes. They must again have
reinforcements; and back they sailed to the Isle of Gallo, where Pizarro
was to wait while Almagro went to Panama for help. You see Pizarro
always took the heaviest and hardest burden for himself, and gave the
easiest to his associate. It was always Almagro who was sent back to the
comforts of civilization, while his lion-hearted leader bore the waiting
and danger and suffering. The greatest obstacle all along