“At the hands of the priests. They would have made a martyr of me, and used their engines to bend my mind. Being obstinate by nature I mocked them till they wearied of the play. But they left their marks on this arm and leg. The scar I had got some months before in a clean battle.”
“Tell me all. What did Robert Bovill seek? And where?”
“We sought the Mountain of God,” said the seaman reverently.
“I never heard o't. My own Manoa, maybe, where gold is quarried like stone.”
“Nay, not Manoa. The road to it is from the shore of the Mexican gulf. There was much gold.”
“You found it?”
“I found it and handled it. Enough, could we have brought it off, to freight a dozen ships. Likewise jewels beyond the imagining of kings.”
Raleigh had raised himself on his elbow, his face sharp and eager.
“I cannot doubt you, for you could not lie were it to win salvation. But, heavens! man, what a tale! Why did I not know of this before I broke my fortune on Tom Keymis' mine?”
“I alone know of it, the others being dead.”