"You excite my curiosity to the utmost; and I wait with impatience for the beginning of your tale."
The two men seated themselves as comfortably as they could in the rancho; and Don Estevan Diaz, without farther digression, commenced his long-deferred story. He spoke the whole day long, and when night fell was still speaking.
Don Fernando, his eyes eagerly fixed on the narrator, his heart palpitating, and his eyebrows compressed, listened with liveliest interest to the tale, the strange events of which, as they were unrolled before him, made him shudder with emotions of mingled rage and horror.
Taking Don Estevan's place, we will ourselves recount to the reader this mournful history.
[CHAPTER XV.]
DON GUZMAN DE RIBERA.
In the year 1515 Juan Diaz de Solis discovered the Rio de la Plata,—a discovery which cost him his life.
According to Herrera, this river to which Solis had first given his own name, took the one it now bears from the fact that the first silver brought from America was shipped at this point for Spain.