ly at work the necromancy
that all along they had guessed.

A party crossed to the main with the Adelantado and pushed a league
into as tall and thick and shadowy a forest as ever we met in all our
wanderings. Here we found no village, but came suddenly, right in the
wood, upon a very great thatched hut, and in it, upon a stone, lay
in state a dead cacique. He seemed long dead, but the body had not
corrupted; it was saved by some knowledge such as had the Egyptians.
A crown of feathers rested upon the head and gold was about the neck.
Around the place stood posts and slabs of a dark wood and these were cut
and painted with I do not know what of beast and bird and monstrous idol
forms. We stared. The place was shadowy and very silent. At last with
an oath said Francisco de Porras, "Take the gold!" But the Adelantado
cried, "No!" and going out of the hut that was almost a house we left
the dead cacique and his crown and mantle and golden breastplate. Two
wooden figures at the door grinned upon us. We saw now what seemed a
light brown powder strewed around and across the threshold. One of our
men, stooping, took up a pinch then dropped it hastily. "It is the same
they threw against us!"

"Wizardry! We'll find harm from them yet!" That song crept in now at
every turn.

We sailed from the Garden south by east along the endless coast that no
strait broke. At first fair weather ran with us. But the _Margarita_
was so lame! And all our other ships wrenched and worm-pierced. And the
Admiral was growing old before our eyes. Not his mind or his soul but
his frame.

He bettered, left his bed and walked the deck. And then we came to the
coast we called the Golden Coast, and his hope spread great wings again,
and if our mariners talked of magic it was for a time glistening white.

Gold, gold! A deep bay, thronged at the mouth with islets so green
and fair, they were marvel to us who were sated with islands great and
small. We entered under overhanging trees, and out at once to us shot
twenty canoes. The Indians within wore gold in amount and purity far
beyond anything in ten years. Oh, our ships could scarce contain their
triumph! The Admiral looked a dreamer who comes to the bliss center in
his dream. Gold was ever to him symbol and mystery. He did not look upon
it as a buyer of strife and envy, idleness and soft luxury; but as a
buyer of crusades, ships and ships, discoveries and discoveries, and
Christ to enter heathendom.