They had also a number of prisoners whom they felt it necessary to
take with them, since to set them free would be to divulge their weakness
to their enemies. Nature and circumstance seemed to combine against them,
yet if they ever wished to see their native lands again they must face
every danger, trusting that some of them, at least, might escape to enjoy
their spoils.
After questioning their prisoners, they decided to take a route by way of
the city of New Segovia, which lies north of the lake of Nicaragua, about
one hundred and twenty miles from the Pacific and seventy-five miles from
the waters of a river that flows, after a long course, into the Atlantic
opposite Cape Gracias-a-Dios. In order to gain further information about
the route, sixty men were sent to explore the neighboring country. These
advanced till they were near the small city of Chiloteca. Here, worn out
by their journey and learning that they were in a thickly settled country,
most of the pioneers decided to return. But eighteen of the bolder spirits
had the audacity to advance on Chiloteca, a place of perhaps a thousand
inhabitants.
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