d rock which rose range on range for miles. "But it is strange to
find you, at least, throwing cold water on a daring plot."

"What if I had a still more daring one? Did you ever hear of the golden
city of Manoa?"

Yeo laughed a grim but joyful laugh. "I have, sir; and so have the old
hands from the Pelican and the Jesus of Lubec, I doubt not."

"So much the better;" and Amyas began to tell Cary all which he had
learned from the Spaniard, while Yeo capped every word thereof with
rumors and traditions of his own gathering. Cary sat half aghast as
the huge phantasmagoria unfolded itself before his dazzled eyes; and at
last--

"So that was why you wanted to burn the ship! Well, after all, nobody
needs me at home, and one less at table won't be missed. So you want to
play Cortez, eh?"

"We shall never need to play Cortez (who was not such a bad fellow after
all, Will), because we shall have no such cannibal fiends' tyranny to
rid the earth of, as he had. And I trust we shall fear God enough not to
play Pizarro."

So the conversation dropped for the time, but none of them forgot it.

In that mountain-nook the party spent some ten days and more. Several of
the sick men died, some from the fever superadded to their wounds;
some, probably, from having been bled by the surgeon; the others mended
steadily, by the help of certain herbs which Yeo administered, much
to the disgust of the doctor, who, of course, wanted to bleed the poor
fellows all round, and was all but mutinous when Amyas stayed his hand.
In the meanwhile, by dint of daily trips to the ship, provisions
were plentiful enough,--beside the raccoons, monkeys, and other small
animals, which Yeo and the veterans of Hawkins's crew knew how to catch,
and the fruit and vegetables; above all, the delicious mountain cabbage
of the Areca palm, and the fresh milk of the cow-tree, which they
brought in daily, paying well thereby for the hospitality they received.

All day long a careful watch was kept among the branches of the mighty
ceiba-tree. And what a tree that was! The hugest English oak would have
seemed a stunted bush beside it. Borne up on roots, or rather walls,
of twisted board, some twelve feet high, between which the whole
crew, their ammunitions, and provisions, were housed roomily, rose
the enormous trunk full forty feet in girth, towering like some tall
lighthouse, smooth for a hundred feet, then crowned with boughs, each of
which was a stately tree, who