as if the recollection had still terrors for him.

"If ever the Almighty permitted hell on earth 'twas that valley. There
was no stream in it and no verdure. Oathsome fleshy shrubs, the colour
of mouldy copper, dotted the slopes, and a wilderness of rocks through
which we could scarce find a road. There was no living thing in it but
carrion birds. And serpents. They dwelt in every cranny of stone, and
the noise of them was like bees humming. We lost two stout fellows
from their poison. The sky was brass above us and our tongues were
dry sticks, and by the foul vapours of the place our scanty food was
corrupted. Never have men been nearer death. I think we would have
retreated but for our captain; who had a honest heart. He would point
out to us the track in the chart running through that accursed valley,
and at the end the place lettered 'Mountain of God.' I mind how his hand
shook as he pointed, for he was as sick as any. He was very gentle too,
though for usual a choleric man."

"Choleric, verily," said Raleigh. "It must have been no common
sufferings that tamed Robert Bovill. How long were you in the valley?"

"The better part of three days. 'Twas like sword-cut in a great mountain
plain, and on the third day we came to a wall of rock which was the head
of it. This we scaled, how I do not know, by cracks and fissures, the
stronger dragging up the weaker by means of the tow-rope which by the
mercy of God we carried with us. There we lost Francis Derrick, who fell
a great way and crushed his skull on a boulder. You knew the man?"

"He sailed with me in '95. So that was the end of Francis?"

"We were now eleven, and two of them dying. Above the rocks on the plain
we looked for ease, but found none. 'Twas like the bottom of a dry sea,
all sand and great clefts, and in every hollow monstrous crabs that
scattered the sand like spindrift as they fled from us. Some of the
beasts we slew, and the blood of them was green as ooze, and their
stench like a charnel house. Likewise there were everywhere fat vultures
that dropped so close they fanned us with their wings. And in some parts
there were cracks in the ground through which rose the fumes of sulphur
that set a man's head reeling."

Raleigh shivered. "Madre de Dios, you portray the very floor of hell."

"Beyond doubt the floor of hell. There was but one thing that could get
us across that devil's land, for our bones were molten with fear. At
the end rose further hill