_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."