adventurers and the faithful Yeo. A
hundred times have they held such a council, and in vain; and, for aught
they know, this one will be as fruitless as those which have gone before
it. Nevertheless, it is a more solemn one than usual; for the two years
during which they had agreed to search for Manoa are long past, and some
new place must be determined on, unless they intend to spend the rest of
their lives in that green wilderness.

"Well," says Will Cary, taking his cigar out of his mouth, "at least we
have got something out of those last Indians. It is a comfort to have a
puff at tobacco once more, after three weeks' fasting."

"For me," said Jack Brimblecombe, "Heaven forgive me! but when I get the
magical leaf between my teeth again, I feel tempted to sit as still as a
chimney, and smoke till my dying day, without stirring hand or foot."

"Then I shall forbid you tobacco, Master Parson," said Amyas; "for we
must be up and away again to-morrow. We have been idling here three
mortal days, and nothing done."

"Shall we ever do anything? I think the gold of Manoa is like the gold
which lies where the rainbow touches the ground, always a field beyond
you."

Amyas was silent awhile, and so were the rest. There was no denying that
their hopes were all but gone. In the immense circuit which they had
made, they had met with nothing but disappointment.

"There is but one more chance," said he at length, "and that is, the
mountains to the east of the Orinoco, where we failed the first time.
The Incas may have moved on to them when they escaped."

"Why not?" said Cary; "they would so put all the forests, beside the
Llanos and half-a-dozen great rivers, between them and those dogs of
Spaniards."

"Shall we try it once more?" said Amyas. "This river ought to run
into the Orinoco; and once there, we are again at the very foot of the
mountains. What say you, Yeo?"

"I cannot but mind, your worship, that when we came up the Orinoco,
the Indians told us terrible stories of those mountains, how far they
stretched, and how difficult they were to cross, by reason of the cliffs
aloft, and the thick forests in the valleys. And have we not lost five
good men there already?"

"What care we? No forests can be thicker than those we have bored
through already; why, if one had had but a tail, like a monkey, for
an extra warp, one might have gone a hundred miles on end along the
tree-tops, and found it far pleasanter walking than