Chapter XI: The First Find

Great storms are very terrible, and weeks of drenching rains, Montoro de Diego, and his friend Ferdinand Columbus, had time to discover, were most disagreeable accompaniments to travels whether by water or land. As for poor Don Aguilar, the hardships of the way killed him, as Fernando Colon had foreseen, before he had a chance to purchase a draught from that dreamt-of fountain of youth. And long-continued dismal weather very nearly also killed the courage at least of most of the old hidalgo's companions.

After that first great storm, a few days were passed at Port Hermosa, to refresh the crews, and repair the caravels, and then Columbus started forth again to find the wished-for, but non-existent, strait through the Isthmus of Darien. Having spent about five months in this fruitless search he gave it up, greatly to the delight of the whole of his companions. They were much more anxious after what they considered the infinitely superior quest for the gold mines of Veragua, distant about thirty leagues from Porto Bello.

What with cross currents, however, contrary winds, and bad weather, those thirty leagues took nearly a month in the traversing, and it was not until the day of the Epiphany, 1503, that the Admiral reached the mouth of a river, to which he gave the name of Belen, or Bethlehem. In the immediate neighbourhood of this river was the country said to be so rich in the precious mineral that Columbus felt convinced that, as further discoveries would find the Garden of Paradise in the new-found world, so also he was on the borders of that land of Ophir whence king Solomon had drawn his stores of the valued treasure. Meanwhile, every one but himself, and his son Ferdinand, was very eager to get similar treasure for his own purse, and so soundings somewhat less cautious than usual were taken, the four caravels crossed the bar at the mouth of the river Belen, now swollen by past months of rain, sailed some little distance up it, and there cast anchor for a season of exploration.

Montoro was as wild with eager excitement and delight as any one, when he obtained leave to go with the first boats sent on shore.

"Do you then, too, care so much for gold?" asked his friend Fernando, in a disappointed tone, as he saw his companion's glowing face. "I had not thought it of thee."

"Nor need now," was the quick answer. "I go not to hunt for gold, but glory. My father's wealth they robbed him of. The glory he won on the walls of Alhama will cling as long as time shall last to the name of Don Montoro de Diego. Such glory, and not gold, would I win also."

"Nobly spoken, my lad of the quick temper," said Señor Diego Mendez, in smiling allusion to the time when he had hindered hasty words by putting his hand over the boy's mouth. Since that day Diego Mendez had many times taken note of his young companion. Neither Montoro's ability, courage, wit, nor readiness were lost upon him, and the occasion was soon to come now when he was to show his appreciation of them.

As the boats' crews stepped on shore, one or two of the eager seekers after fortune gathered up handfuls of the glistening sand, eyeing it sharply, as they did so, in such a way that Diego Mendez exclaimed with a laugh:

"Why now, comrades, would it not be well, think you, just to set to work, and shovel the shore pell-mell into the boats, and carry it off at once to Spain? Of course you'd be rich then, no doubt, without further trouble."

"Well, we've had enough of that, at any rate, already, to deserve some pay," grumbled one, while a couple of others sulkily enough dropped their glittering burden to avoid further ridicule.

"How pretty it is though," exclaimed Montoro, who stood watching the wet grains as they fell shining in the sunlight. "And here is some more up here!" he cried in astonishment half-an-hour later, suddenly stopping short from his companions, in their progress through the forest, and dropping on his knees beneath a tree.

"Some more what?" asked half-a-dozen voices at once, as their owners crowded round in amazed watching of their young comrade, who was most busily grubbing away at the tree's roots.

"Ay, indeed, some more what?" repeated the Adelantado, in equal surprise. "What is it that you have found?"

"Why some more of that shining sand," was the ready reply. "And of course it is nothing worth really, only that it is somewhat strange, methinks, to find it up here so far from the sea wet and shining."

"Strange! ay, strange indeed," echoed Diego Mendez, now quickly pressing through to his namesake's side. "Passing strange, my lad, if it be indeed, as you say, shining because, this dry, hot day, it lies there wet. But--is it so?"

Just as that question was put Montoro raised his stooping face with almost a startled glance at the questioner. He had told Fernando, and told him truly, that it was glory, not gold, that he desired. Still treasure meant power to return to his mother, power to give her comfort, power perhaps to win back his ancestral home. And he knew now that his hand was full, not of grains of sand, shining because they were wet; but of grains of gold, shining with their own lustre.

"No," he breathed, for a moment awed by his discovery. "No, my Señor, this is no sand heavy with the spray of sea waves. This is the treasure you are seeking."

Montoro's find put a stop to all further explorations for that day, excepting explorations about those roots. The entire party fell into a state that might, far more literally than usual, be termed one of 'money-grubbing' excitement. More diligently than the greediest pigs ever grubbed for a feast round about oak trees or beeches, or Spanish pigs grub for truffles, did those Spanish gentlemen grub with fingers and nails round about the trees of that wild American forest.

Montoro put a crown to the triumphs of his keen-sighted eyes by finding quite a fair-sized little lump of gold at the edge of a streamlet, which he put by carefully for Fernando; and then he employed himself in gathering a supply of the abundant fruits to carry back to the ship for the general benefit.

"Nay then," said Antonio de Alaminos, gratefully accepting a bunch of bananas, "but these are worth all the gold that was ever found or fought over, my lad. Our God gives us these as loving gifts. I sometimes think that He has given us gold as He gave the forbidden fruit--to try us."

Montoro raised his eyes for an instant and then lowered them again, as he murmured:

"Often hath my mother said that there are many things more worth."

"Truly are there," was the assent. "But hark!" he added in a louder tone and more quickly, "here is the Admiral. He is calling for us."

The summons was an important one. So satisfactory were the accounts brought back of the country, not only as regarded the promise of gold, but as to its general appearance of fertility and beauty, that the Admiral forthwith resolved upon the establishment of a colony.

"You think not," he demanded as Montoro and the pilot drew near; "you think not, Mendez, that it is the finding of this glittering dust only, that hath dazzled your eyes with respect to the virtues of the land?"

Mendez was about to reply with due gravity when his friend, Rodrigo de Escobar, broke in boldly, exclaiming:

"Nay then, as the Jewish spies said of old so can we say now, that it is a goodly land and a pleasant; and if it overfloweth not with milk and honey, neither is it inhabited with a people akin to the Anakim; and it has at least the grapes of Eshcol, and many a pleasant thing besides."

The Admiral smiled gravely.

"All which meaneth, I take it, Señor Rodrigo, that whosoever else believeth thy report, thou believest it thyself."

De Escobar bowed, while one beside Montoro muttered with a low laugh:

"Most assuredly friend Rodrigo would believe everything favourable of a land that flowed with that best of all sweet golden honey, the real gold itself, even though all else were desert."

"And small blame to him," retorted Tristan, captain of one of the other caravels, who had just come on board to hear the news. "Señor de Escobar is much of my own way of thinking--that life united with poverty is but a poor sort of an affair, not worth the trouble of the guardianship."

This being the general opinion, and a very slight amount of questioning eliciting the universal adhesion to Rodrigo's proposition, that a land where gold was to be gathered, even about the roots of the trees, was a good land to stay in, it was not difficult to obtain volunteers for the new colony.

Besides, even for those who were not so madly eager for gold Veragua had many attractions, seeing that the land abounded in rich fruits, the water in fish, the soil was fertile, and the Cacique and his people friendly.

"And what more can you want?" said Amerigo Vespucci decisively.

"What more can any men want?" said another, with a shrug of the shoulders. "Especially men like us, who have had for these weeks past to munch our biscuit in the dark, lest our stomachs should turn at seeing how many and how fat were the other eaters we were obliged also to devour."

"Bah!" ejaculated De Escobar, as he flung over a morsel of the said biscuit at the same time into the water. "It is too abominable of thee, Tristan, thus to remind a hungry wretch of the foul nature of his food. For thy barbarity thou shalt owe me thy first--"

"Nay, Señor," interposed Montoro Diego out of the dusk; "here is somewhat to make amends for thy lost supper. These great nuts have hard outsides; but within they are better than our little ones of Spain."