sands were carried away
and made to work in mines and on distant plantations, as slaves, until
their health was destroyed, and they, too, were no longer an obstacle
to Spanish control, though the lack of their hands was a hindrance to
Spanish enterprise. Ponce took his share of the gold and treasure he
had forced these unfortunates to supply, and went back to Spain with
it. Sea air had spoiled his complexion, fighting had roughened his
manners, slave-driving had made his voice coarse. Possibly, also,
his princess had recovered from her disappointment. Maybe she had
been married off to some nobody of Portugal, or France, or Austria,
for state reasons, and had entered on the usual loveless life of
royalty. Or she may have beguiled her maidenly solitude by drinking
much wine of Oporto, Madeira, and Xeres with her dinner, thereby
acquiring that amplitude of girth, that ruddiness of countenance, and
that polish of nose, which add so little to romance. At all events,
we hear nothing more of the affair.

In the course of years Ponce took to himself the gout, rheumatism,
dyspepsia, and a few such matters, and he scolded his dresser more than
usual because his clothes did not fit at the waist as they had done,
once. He parted his hair with a towel, and it was grizzled where
it curled about his neck and temples. Then he recalled the tales
the Boriquenos had told of the bright waters that gushed from the
earth amid banks of flowers,--waters so sweet that who drank would
drink again, and with every draught would throw off years and pain
until at last he was a youth once more,--a youth with hot blood,
sparkling eyes, lithe muscles; a youth who saw the world full of
beauty and adventure. Ah, to be once more as he was when the princess
beamed on him; to throw away his cares, his ails, his conscience,
his regrets; to sing and dance, to ruffle it with other cavaliers,
to dice, to drink, to feast, to win the smiles of ladies! It was a
joy worth trying to attain.

He sailed once more, an older, sober man. He discovered Florida,
bathed in its springs, drank from its flower-edged streams, but to no
avail. Bimini, the place of the living waters, evaded him. Boriquen,
renamed Porto Rico, could offer no more. But, though his living
presence passed, the first building on the island--the White House,
near San Juan--remains, and he left his name in the town that was
first among the Antillean cities to raise the flag of a republic
that should w