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?"