in his
left the proud flag of Spain, took solemn possession of the South Sea in
the name of the King of Spain.

The explorers got back to Darien Jan. 18, 1514, and Balboa sent to Spain
an account of his great discovery. But Pedro Arias de Avila had already
sailed from the mother country to supplant him. At last, however,
Balboa's brilliant news reached the king, who forgave him, and made him
adelantado; and soon after he married the daughter of Pedro Arias. Still
full of great plans, Balboa carried the necessary material across the
Isthmus with infinite toil, and on the shores of the blue Pacific put
together the first ships in the Americas,--two brigantines. With these
he took possession of the Pearl Islands, and then started out to find
Peru, but was driven back by storms to an ignoble fate. His
father-in-law, becoming jealous of Balboa's brilliant prospects, enticed
him back to Darien by a treacherous message, seized him, and had him
publicly executed, on the trumped-up charge of high treason, in 1517.
Balboa had in him the making of an explorer of the first rank, and but
for De Avila's shameless deed might probably have won even higher
honors. His courage was sheer audacity, and his energy tireless; but he
was unwisely careless in his attitude toward the Crown.

V.

THE CHAPTER OF CONQUEST.

While the discoverer of the greatest ocean was still striving to probe
its farther mysteries, a handsome, athletic, brilliant young Spaniard,
who was destined to make much more noise in history, was just beginning
to be heard of on the threshold of America, of whose central kingdoms he
was soon to be conqueror.

Hernando Cortez came of a noble but impoverished Spanish family, and was
born in Estremadura ten years later than Balboa. At the age of fourteen
he was sent to the University of Salamanca to study for the law; but the
adventurous spirit of the man was already strong in the slender lad, and
in a couple of years he left college, and went home determined upon a
life of roving. The air was full of Columbus and his New World; and what
spirited youth could stay to pore in musty law-books then? Not the
irrepressible Hernando, surely.

Accidents prevented him from accompanying two expeditions for which he
had made ready; but at last, in 1504, he sailed to San Domingo, in which
new colony of Spain he made such a record that Ovando, the commander,
several times promoted him, and he earned the reputation of a model