I asked him, "How did you like Spain?"
He looked at me with a remote and childlike eye and began
to speak of houses and roads and horses and oxen.
A message came from the Admiral at head of column. I
went to him. Men looked at me as I passed them. I was
ragged now, grizzle-bearded and wan, and they seemed to
say, "Is it so this strange land does them? But those first
ones were few and we are many, and it does not lie in our
fortune! Gold lies in ours, and return in splendor and
happiness." But some had more thoughtful eyes and truer
sense of wonder.
We found Guacanagari in a new, large, very clean house,
and found him lying in a great hammock with his leg bound
with cotton web, around him wives and chief men. He sat
up to greet the Admiral and with a noble and affecting air
poured forth speech and laid his hand upon his hidden hurt.
Now I knew, because Guarin had told me so, that that
wound was healed. It had given trouble--the Caribs poisoned
their darts--but now it was well. But they are
simpler minded than we, this folk, and I read Guacanagari
that he must impress the returning gods with his fidelity.
He had proved it, and while Juan Lepe was by he did not
need this mummery, but he had thought that he might need.
So, a big man evidently healthful, he sighed and winced and
half closed his eyes as though half dying still in that old
contest when he had stood by the people from the sky.
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