“Bring back the wine, Ruiz! The sick will have better than that ere long, so we’ll pledge each other, you and I, old friend, to the end of our troubles and a fair wind to El-Dorado!”
Before the can was dry the men of the forlorn hope had forgotten their hunger and their weakness and had started at the sound of the gun to scramble up the rocks to get a better sight of the long-expected, oft-despaired-of argosy of their hopes which they now so fondly believed had come to their aid at last.
Men who had scarce been able to crawl down to the water’s edge an hour before now ran nimbly as schoolboys up from the beach to the plateau, and Pizarro’s heart, ever as soft towards his companions-in-arms as it was hard towards his enemies, bled for them as he watched them, lean and ragged and crippled with disease, staring with hunger-hollowed eyes out into the mist which still hid the vessel from them. But the next moment the instinct of command returned to him, and he said in a loud, cheery tone—
“We must do something else than stare at the sea, comrades, if we don’t want Almagro to sail past the island in the mist. Uncover the gun and bring up some powder and a length of match so that we may answer their signal.”
They ran to obey him like men who had never known an hour of sickness. Beside the cairn was a heap of sail-cloths and well-tarred canvas which, when stripped off, revealed a mounted culverin, a Spanish piece capable of throwing a ball of two or three pounds in weight. It was scarcely uncovered before the powder arrived. The gunners loaded with a good charge, well rammed home. Then Pizarro took the match from Ruiz, who had kindled it, and fired it with his own hands. As the echoes of the report rattled away among the rocks every man on Gallo strained his ears to catch the answering sound from the sea. After a space of about a minute it came.
“She is yonder!” cried Ruiz, pointing out into the mist. “I saw the flash. There goes another gun, and there she comes like a ghost out of the clouds. Now, glory to the Lord of Hosts, who has heard the voice of our distress! On your knees, brothers, and give thanks, for the time of our misery is ended!”
Then down he went on his knees with hands uplifted, and, save Pizarro, every man followed suit, and there arose from that wild place as strange a sound of mingled praise and prayer as ever had risen from earth to Heaven. Men with shrill, cracked voices sought to raise the triumphant strains of the Te Deum, others, hoarse and husky, broke out into the Magnificat, and others again wept and laughed by turns, bringing forth nothing but a babble of words mingled with shrill cries and broken by sobs, until suddenly the quick, stern voice of Pizarro broke through the babel, bringing every man to his feet.
“Ruiz, Pedro de Candia, Alonso de Molina, come hither!”
The three men went to him where he stood apart from the rest by the flagstaff. They saw that the flush had died out of his cheeks, that his brows were frowning, and his eyes dark with an evil foreboding. He turned and faced them and said, in the hard, stern tones that they had so often heard from his lips in the moments when all others about him had despaired—
“We give thanks too soon, I fear me, comrades. That is not Almagro’s ship. She is twice the size, and look yonder—behind her, there comes another out of the mist. Think you that fortune has so smiled upon Almagro that he went away with that poor little caravel of ours to return with two such ships as those? Nay, unless my heart is lying to me, not friends but enemies are yonder—enemies to our high enterprise, if not to our persons, for ere long you will learn that those ships come from Pedro de Arias, and not from Almagro and de Luque.”