. He sent out brave Pedro de
Valdivia,--that remarkable man who conquered Chile, and made there a
history which would be found full of thrilling interest, were there room
to recount it here. He sent out, too, his brother Gonzalo as governor of
Quito, in 1540. That expedition was one of the most astounding and
characteristic feats of Spanish exploration in the Americas; and I wish
space permitted the full story of it to enter here. For nearly two years
the knightly leader and his little band suffered superhuman hardships.
They froze to death in the snows of the Andes, and died of heat in the
desert plains, and fell in the forest swamps of the upper Amazon. An
earthquake swallowed an Indian town of hundreds of houses before their
eyes. Their way through the tropic forests had to be hewn step by step.
They built a little brigantine with incredible toil,--Gonzalo working as
hard as any,--and descended the Napo to the Amazon. Francisco de
Orellana and fifty men could not rejoin their companions, and floated
down the Amazon to the sea, whence the survivors got to Spain. Gonzalo
at last had to struggle back to Quito,--a journey of almost matchless
horror. Of the three hundred gallant men who had marched forth so
blithely in 1540 (not including Orellana's fifty), there were but eighty
tattered skeletons who staggered into Quito in June, 1542. This may give
some faint idea of what they had been through.

Meanwhile an irreparable calamity had befallen the young nation, and
robbed it at one dastardly blow of one of its most heroic figures. The
baser followers who had shared the treachery of Almagro had been
pardoned, and well-treated; but their natures were unchanged, and they
continued to plot against the wise and generous man who had "made" them
all. Even Diego de Almagro, whom Pizarro had reared tenderly as a son,
joined the conspirators. The ringleader was one Juan de Herrada. On
Sunday, June 26, 1541, the band of assassins suddenly forced their way
into Pizarro's house. The unarmed guests fled for help; and the faithful
servants who resisted were butchered. Pizarro, his half-brother Martinez
de Alcantara, and a tried officer named Francisco de Chaves had to bear
the brunt alone. Taken all by surprise as they were, Pizarro and
Alcantara tried to hurry on their armor, while Chaves was ordered to
secure the door. But the mistaken soldier half opened it to parley with
the villains, and they ran him through, and kicked his corpse d