y beach, our green wood. Up went
the little curls of smoke.

We had breakfast. So great was now the deference to him who three days
ago had been "madman" and "black magician", "dreaming fool" and "spinner
without thread!" Now it was "Admiral", "Excellency", and "What shall we
do next?" and "What is your opinion, sir?"

The immediate thing to do proved to be to come forth from cabin and mark
the beach thronging with thrice the number of yesterday, and the canoes
putting off to us. We counted eight. Only one was a long craft, holding
twenty men; the others came in cockle boats, with one or two or three.
Not only canoes, but they came swimming, men and boys, all a dark grace
in the cerulean, lucid sea. They were so fearless--for we came from
heaven and would not harm them. We were going to make them rich; we were
going to "save" them.

A score perhaps were helped aboard the _Santa Maria_. The Pinta, the
Nina, had others. They were like children, touching, staring, excitedly
talking and gesturing among themselves, or gazing in a kind of fixed
awe, asking of the least sailor with all reverence, bowing themselves
before the Admiral, the over-god. The Admiral moved richly dressed, rapt
and benignant, yet sparing a part of himself to keep all order, measure,
rightness on the ship, and another part to find out with keen pains,
"What of other lands? What of folk who must be your superiors?"

They had brought offerings. Half a dozen parrots perched around, very
gorgeously colored, loquacious in a speech we did not know. We had
stacks of the large round thin cakes baked on stones which afterwards
we called cassava, and great gourds, "calabashes" filled with fruit, and
balls of cotton in a rude thread. We gave beads, bits of cloth, little
purses, and the small bells that caused extravagant delight. But ever
the Admiral looked for signs of gold, for he must find for princes and
nobles and merchants gold or silver, or precious stones or spice, or all
together. If he found them not, half his fortunes fell; a half-wind only
would henceforth fill his sails.

And at last came in a canoe with three a young Indian who wore in his
ear a knob of gold. Roderigo Sanchez saw this first and brought him to
the Admiral. The latter, taking up an armlet of green glass and a hawk
bell, touched the gold in the ear. "Do you trade?" Glad enough was the
Indian to trade. It lay in the Admiral's palm, a piece of gold as great
as a filbert.

Juan Lepe