"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?"