"Well," says Will Cary, taking his cigar out of his mouth, "at least we have got something out of those last Indians.It is a comfort to have a puff at tobacco once more, after three weeks'
fasting."
"For me," said Jack Brimblecombe, "Heaven forgive me! but when Iget the magical leaf between my teeth again, I feel tempted to sit as still as a chimney, and smoke till my dying day, without stirring hand or foot.""Then I shall forbid you tobacco, Master Parson," said Amyas; "for we must be up and away again to-morrow.We have been idling here three mortal days, and nothing done.""Shall we ever do anything? I think the gold of Manoa is like the gold which lies where the rainbow touches the ground, always a field beyond you."Amyas was silent awhile, and so were the rest.There was no denying that their hopes were all but gone.In the immense circuit which they had made, they had met with nothing but disappointment.
"There is but one more chance," said he at length, "and that is, the mountains to the east of the Orinoco, where we failed the first time.The Incas may have moved on to them when they escaped.""Why not?" said Cary; "they would so put all the forests, beside the Llanos and half-a-dozen great rivers, between them and those dogs of Spaniards.""Shall we try it once more?" said Amyas."This river ought to run into the Orinoco; and once there, we are again at the very foot of the mountains.What say you, Yeo?""I cannot but mind, your worship, that when we came up the Orinoco, the Indians told us terrible stories of those mountains, how far they stretched, and how difficult they were to cross, by reason of the cliffs aloft, and the thick forests in the valleys.And have we not lost five good men there already?""What care we? No forests can be thicker than those we have bored through already; why, if one had had but a tail, like a monkey, for an extra warp, one might have gone a hundred miles on end along the tree-tops, and found it far pleasanter walking than tripping in withes, and being eaten up with creeping things, from morn till night.""But remember, too," said Jack, "how they told us to beware of the Amazons.""What, Jack, afraid of a parcel of women?""Why not?" said Jack, "I wouldn't run from a man, as you know; but a woman--it's not natural, like.They must be witches or devils.
See how the Caribs feared them.And there were men there without necks, and with their eyes in their breasts, they said.Now how could a Christian tackle such customers as them?""He couldn't cut off their heads, that's certain; but, I suppose, a poke in the ribs will do as much for them as for their neighbors.""Well," said Jack, "if I fight, let me fight honest flesh and blood, that's all, and none of these outlandish monsters.How do you know but that they are invulnerable by art-magic?""How do you know that they are? And as for the Amazons," said Cary, "woman's woman, all the world over.I'll bet that you may wheedle them round with a compliment or two, just as if they were so many burghers' wives.Pity I have not a court-suit and a Spanish hat.I would have taken an orange in one hand and a handkerchief in the other, gone all alone to them as ambassador, and been in a week as great with Queen Blackfacealinda as ever Raleigh is at Whitehall.""Gentlemen!" said Yeo, "where you go, I go; and not only I, but every man of us, I doubt not; but we have lost now half our company, and spent our ammunition, so we are no better men, were it not for our swords, than these naked heathens round us.Now it was, as you all know, by the wonder and noise of their ordnance (let alone their horses, which is a break-neck beast I put no faith in) that both Cortez and Pizarro, those imps of Satan, made their golden conquests, with which if we could have astounded the people of Manoa--""Having first found the said people," laughed Amyas."It is like the old fable.Every craftsman thinks his own trade the one pillar of the commonweal.""Well! your worship," quoth Yeo, "it may be that being a gunner Ioverprize guns.But it don't need slate and pencil to do this sum--Are forty men without shot as good as eighty with?""Thou art right, old fellow, right enough, and I was only jesting for very sorrow, and must needs laugh about it lest I weep about it.Our chance is over, I believe, though I dare not confess as much to the men.""Sir," said Yeo, "I have a feeling on me that the Lord's hand is against us in this matter.Whether He means to keep this wealth for worthier men than us, or whether it is His will to hide this great city in the secret place of His presence from the strife of tongues, and so to spare them from sinful man's covetousness, and England from that sin and luxury which I have seen gold beget among the Spaniards, I know not, sir; for who knoweth the counsels of the Lord? But I have long had a voice within which saith, 'Salvation Yeo, thou shalt never behold the Golden City which is on earth, where heathens worship sun and moon and the hosts of heaven; be content, therefore, to see that Golden City which is above, where is neither sun nor moon, but the Lord God and the Lamb are the light thereof.'