It was a long task, for I had to explain things to him which he had not the experience to grasp. In the first place I had to find out if he knew about the gold; to my astonishment he did, and said he could take me straight there. Of course he did not know about the value of gold, but he had noticed the yellow stuff in the rocks when he had been out hunting. I now explained to him that this yellow stuff was what all white men craved. That some would do anything for it. That if they came to hear of it being here they would come in big ships and take it, driving him and his people out of the valley to wander amongst the Papoos, if they did not do worse. That they would have weapons which his people could not resist. He seemed scarcely to understand me, for in his simple mind all men of my colour were friends, “amis” as the Norman captain had taught his ancestors.
To explain things I asked him what he thought the Mongol pirates would have done had they beaten us instead of our beating them.
“Killed us all,” he replied promptly.
“That is what the white men would do, only in another fashion,” I told him.
Then, my boyish reading coming back again, I related the story of the Conquest of Mexico and all its horrors.
“Deedrick,” he said at last, that being their pronunciation of my name, “brother, why tell me all this?”
Then, though greatly loath, I told him that Paul had found the gold, and that the sight of it had changed his nature. That he had proposed to me to build a vessel and go to where our countrymen lived to the north, and bring them back and show them the gold.
“But why?” he asked, in bewilderment. “Is he not happy here?”
It was cruel work, like kicking a dog who would lick your hand, but I had to do it. I told him that men like Paul had such a desire for gold and all it would buy in our country, that they would do anything to get it; that it made them worse than the pirates; that it turned a good man into a bad man. Be it remembered that crime was almost unknown amongst these people; petty quarrels there were, but nothing more, therefore it was extremely hard for me to explain to Zolca.
I then said that we must not trust Paul; that he was bold and clever, and now that he had set his mind on it he would never let the matter rest.