us utterly!"

The boy Fernando, in a moment's wild terror who was ordinarily
courageous as any, clung to him. "O my son! I would that you were in La
Rabida, safe beside Fray Juan Perez! My son and my brother Bartholomew!"

Now came to us all scarcity of food and a misery of sickness. Now two
thirds would have mutinied had we not been going back--but we were going
back--creeping, crawling back as the tempest would allow us.

Christmas! We remembered our first Christmas in this world, by Guarico
in Hispaniola, when the _Santa Maria_ sank. Again we found a harbor, and
we lay there between dead and alive, until early January. We sailed and
on Epiphany Day entered a river that we knew to be in golden Veragua.
The Admiral called it the Bethlehem.

Gold again, gold! Not on the Bethlehem, but on the river of Veragua, not
far away, to which the Admiral sent the Adelantado and two long boats
filled with our stoutest men. They brought back gold, gold, gold!

The cacique of these parts was Quibian, a barbarian whom at the last,
not the first, we concluded to be true brother of Caonabo.

With threescore of our strongest, the Adelantado pushed again up the
river of Veragua, too rough and shallow for our ships. He visited
Quibian; he traded for gold; he was taken far inland and from a hill
observed a country of the noblest, vale and mountain and Indian smokes.
The mountains, the Indians said, were packed with gold. He brought back
much gold, Indians bearing it for him in deep baskets that they made.

Quibian paid us a visit, looked sullenly around, and left us. Not in
the least was he Guacanagari! But neither, quite yet, did he turn into
Caonabo.

The Admiral sat pondering, his hands before him between his knees, his
gray-blue eyes looking further than the far mountains. Later, on the
shore, he and the Adelantado walked up and down under palm trees. The
crews watched them, knowing they were planning.

What they planned came forth the next day, and it was nothing short of a
colony, a settlement upon the banks of the river Bethlehem.

Christopherus Columbus spoke,--tall, powerful, gaunt, white-headed,
gray-eyed, trusted because he himself so trusted, suasive, filled with
the power of his vision. His frame was growing old, but he himself
stayed young. His voice never grew old, nor the gray-blue light from
his eyes. Here was gold at last, and Veragua manifestly richer than all
Hispaniola; aye, richer than Paria! Behind Veragua