"But gods and angels are beginning
to slip and slide, back there by the ships! We have
the less temptation here."
He began to speak of a sailor and a brown girl upon
whom he had stumbled in a close wood a little way from
shore. She thought Tomaso Pasamonte was a god wooing
her and was half-frightened, half-fain. "And two hours
later I saw Don Pedro Gutierrez--"
"Ay," said Juan Lepe. "The same story! The oldest
that is!" And as at the word our savages, who had been
talking together, now at the next resting place put forward
their boldest, who with great reverence asked if there were
women in heaven.
Through most of this day we struggled with a difficult
if fantastically beautiful country. Where rock outcropped
and in the sands of bright rapid streams we looked
for signs of that gold, so stressed as though it were the
only salvation! But the rocks were silent, and though in
the bed of a shrunken streamlet we found some glistening
particles and scraping them carefully together got a small
spoonful to wrap in cloth and bestow in our pouch of
treasures, still were we not sure that it was wholly gold. It
might be. We worked for an hour for just this pinch.
Since yesterday morning our path had been perfectly
solitary. Then suddenly, when we were, we thought, six
leagues at least from the ships, the way turning and entering
a small green dell, we came upon three Indians seated
resting, their backs to palm trees.
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