The Spaniards’ attention was instantly caught and held.  The young Indian went on, with the same careless contempt, “You see those mountains over there?  Beyond them is a great sea.  The people who dwell on the border of that sea have ships almost as big as yours, with sails and oars as yours have.  The streams in their country are full of gold.  The King eats from golden dishes, for gold is as common there as iron is among you,”—­he glanced at the cumbrous armor and weapons of his guests.  Indeed the panoply of the Spaniards, made necessary by the constant possibility of attack, and the weight of their cross-bows and other weapons, was a source of continual wonder to the light and nimble Indians, and of much weariness and suffering to themselves.  Many in time adopted the quilted cotton body armor of the natives, and used pikes when they could in place of the musketoun, which was like a hand-cannon.

This was not the first time that Balboa and many of the others had heard of the Lord of the Golden House, but no one else had told the story with such boldness.  The young cacique said that to invade this land, a thousand warriors would be none too many.  He offered to accompany Balboa with his own troops, if the white men would go.

Here indeed was an enterprise with glory enough for all.  Balboa returned to Darien and began preparations.  Valdivia, the regidor of the colony, had been sent to Hispaniola for provisions, but the supply he brought back was absurdly small.  One of the serious difficulties encountered by all the first settlers in the New World was this matter of provisioning the camps.  For the Indians the natural fruits and produce of the country were sufficient, and they seldom laid up any great store.  The small surplus of any one chief was soon exhausted by a large body of guests.  Moreover, the country had no cattle, swine, fowls, goats, no domestic food animals whatever, no grain but the maize.  The supply of meat and grain was thus very small until Spanish planters could clear and cultivate their estates.  On the march the troops could and did live off the country with less trouble.

Balboa decided to send Valdivia back to Hispaniola for more supplies.  He also sent by him a letter to Diego Colon, son of the great Admiral and governor of the island, explaining his need for more troops in view of what he had just learned about a new and wealthy kingdom not far away.  He frankly requested the Governor to use his influence with the King to make this discovery possible without delay.

Weeks passed, and Valdivia did not come back.  Provisions again became scarce.  Then a letter from Balboa’s friend Zamudio, who had gone to Spain in the same ship with the Bachelor Enciso, in order to defend Balboa’s course.  Everything, it seemed, had gone wrong.  The King had listened to the eloquence of the Bachelor, and would probably send for Balboa to come to Spain to answer criminal charges.  It was said that he meant to send out as governor of Darien, in the place of Balboa, an old and wily courtier, one of Fonseca’s favorites, named Pedro Arias de Avila, and usually called Pedrarias.