lined with crimson. He asked his name, and the man said he was Gerónimo de Aguilar, ordained in minor orders, a native of Ecija, and relative of the Licenciado Marcos de Aguilar, known to Cortés in Española. He and Gonzalo Guerrero, a sailor and a native of Palos, were the sole survivors of the expedition which, nearly eight years before, had left Darien for Española, under Valdivia, whose shipwreck and horrible fate I have elsewhere detailed.[1]
If backward at the beginning in the use of his tongue, Aguilar talked well enough when started, giving his thrilling experiences in words which filled his listeners with amazement. On escaping from the lord of Maya, who had eaten Valdivia and the others with the same relish that the Cyclops ate the companions of Ulysses, the survivors threw themselves on the mercy of a neighboring cacique called Ahkin Xooc. He with his successor, Taxmar, enslaved them, and treated them so severely that all died but himself and the sailor, Guerrero. There is a law of relativity which applies to happiness and misery, no less than to mental and physical consciousness. By ways widely different these two men had saved themselves; the former by humility and chastity, the latter by boldness and sensuality. Securing services under Nachan Kan, cacique of Chetumal, the sailor adopted the dress and manners of the people, rapidly rose in favor, became the chief captain of his master, married a woman of rank, and began to rear a dusky race; so that when the messengers of Cortés arrived he declined to be ransomed.[2] Then blushing beneath his tawny skin the sanctified Aguilar went on to tell of his own temptations and triumphs, in which he had been as lonely as was Ethan Brand in hugging the unpardon-
- ↑ See Hist. Cent. Am., i. 350, this series.
- ↑ Aguilar intimated another reason why Guerrero remained, that he had taken part in the fights against Córdoba and Grijalva at Potonchan, which is very doubtful. Then it is said that his face was tattooed and his lips turned down, and when Aguilar besought him to go the children clung to him, and the wife first begged, and then threatened, to make Aguilar desist. Cogolludo, Hist. Yucathan, 23; Bernal Diaz, Hist. Verdad., 18-19; Torquemada, i. 370.
