San Domingo?"

"Well in body, but sick at heart because of the fleet."

"Because of the fleet?"

"The fleet, senor, was a day away when the hurricane burst. Half the
ships were split, lost, sunken! The others, broken, returned to us. One
only went on to Spain. The gold ships are lost. Only, they say, the gold
that pertains to you, goes on safely on that one to Cadiz. Gwarionex the
Indian is drowned, and Bobadilla and Roldan are drowned."

CHAPTER XL

THE Indians called it Guanaja, but the Admiral, the Isle of Pines. It
was far, far, from Hispaniola, far, far, from Jamaica, over a wide and
stormy sea, reached after many days of horrible weather. Guanaja, small,
lofty, covered with rich trees among which stood in numbers the pines we
loved because they talked of home. To the south, far off, across leagues
of water, we made out land. Mainland it seemed to us, stretching across
the south, losing itself in the eastern haze. The weather suddenly
became blissful. We had sweet rest in Guanaja.

A few Indians lived upon this small island, like, yet in some ways
unlike all those we knew. But they were rude and simple and they talked
always of gods _to the west_. We had rested a week when there came a
true wonder to us _from the west_.

That was a canoe, of the mightiest length we had yet seen, long as
a tall tree, eight feet wide, no less, with twenty-five rowing
Indians--tall, light bronze men--with cotton cloth about their loins.
Middle of this giant canoe was built a hut or arbor, thatched with palm.
Under this sat a splendid barbarian, tall and strong, with a crown of
feathers and a short skirt and mantle of cotton. Beside him sat two
women wrapped in cotton mantles, and at their feet two boys and a young
maid. All these people wore golden ornaments about their necks.

It was in a kind of amaze that we watched this dragon among canoes draw
near to and pass the ships and to the shore where we had built a hut for
the Admiral and the Adelantado and the youth Fernando, and to shelter
the rest of us a manner of long booth. It seemed that it was upon a
considerable voyage, and wanting water, put in here. The Guanaja Indians
cried, "Yucatan! Yucatan!"

The Admiral stepped down to meet these strangers. His face glowed. Here
at last was difference beyond the difference of the Paria folk!

We found that they were armed,--the newcomers. Strangely made swords of
wood and flint, lances, light bucklers and _hatchets of true