l and greatly framed, lofty of port, dressed
with magnificence, silver-haired, standing forth from his officers and
men, the banner over him, would be taken by any for Great Captain, chief
god of these gods, and certes, at the first they thought that we were
gods! The Indian put his hands to his face, shrank like a girl and came
slowly to his knees and lower yet until his forehead rested upon the
earth. The Admiral lifted him, calling him "son."

Those of his kind watching from the wood now sent forth a considerable
deputation. There came to us a dozen naked men, fairly tall,
well-shaped, skin of red copper, smeared often with paint in bars and
disks and crescents. Their hair was not like the Negro's, the only other
naked man our time knew, but was straight, black, somewhat coarse, not
bushy but abundant, cut short with the men below the ear. They are
a beardless people. Our beards are an amazement to them, as are our
clothes. A fiercely quarrelsome folk, a peace-keeping, gentle folk will
sound their note very soon. These belonged to the latter kind. Their
lances were not our huge knightly ones, nor the light, hard ones of the
Moors. They were hardly more than stout canes, the head not iron--they
had no iron--but flint or bone shaped by a flint knife. Where the paint
was not splashed or patterned over them, their faces could be liked very
well. Lips were not over full, the nose slightly beaked, the forehead
fairly high, the eyes good. They did not jabber nor move idly but kept
measure and a pleasant dignity. They seemed gentle and happy. So were
they when we found them.

Their speech sounded of no tongue that we knew. Luis Torres and I alike
had knowledge of Arabic. We had no Persian that might be nearer yet, but
Arabia being immemorially caravan-knit with India, it was thought that
it might be understood. But these bare folk had no notion of it, nor
of the Hebrew which Luis tried next. The Latin did not do, the Greek
of which I had a little did not do. But there is an old, old language
called Gesture. If, wherever there is a common language there is one
people, then in end and beginning surely we are one folk around the
earth!

We were to be friends with these islanders. "Friends first and last!"
believed the Admiral. Indeed, all felt it so, this bright day. If they
were not all we had imaged, sailing to them, yet were they men, and
unthreatening, novel, very interesting to us with their island and their
marvelous b