“That is it,” said Juan, “and while we are with them we can exchange our bells and beads for gold, and so return to the ship loaded with it.”
It was the best plan they could devise, and worked better than well, so far as the exchange of their bells for gold was concerned; for when Diego took up some of the gold ornaments of the men and showed his interest in them, they were offered to him with a generous willingness that asked for no return.
Neither he nor Juan would take advantage of the generosity, however, but gave in return the glass beads which they had. They would have given them all away had not the cacique interposed, making them understand that he wished some saved for the cacique Caonabo, and telling them that if gold was desired by them they had only to wait to obtain all they could wish.
The boys would have preferred to get their booty at once, but yielded, thinking that what they had was enough to make them rich. How they wished they could communicate with Martin Alonzo, and let him know that they had at last discovered that Zipangu, the land of gold, for which they had sought so long and at last so hopelessly!
That was not to be just yet, however, for the cacique gave orders for a return, not merely down the mountain, as it turned out, but to the place they had come from, putting the boys in the especial care of the Butios, who proved a faithful guard over them, and watched them jealously. Not, as it seemed, that they feared an escape, but that they held them so precious.
As soon as the boys settled to the conviction that escape at present was quite out of the question, they remembered that they were hungry, and conveyed that information to the Butios, who no sooner understood it than they called a halt, and procured them not only cakes of maize flour and roasted yuca, but brought them for drink small calabashes of a sort of liquid which they called cocoa, and which the boys found very refreshing.
After that they went on again, and in the woods where the boys had bathed, they stopped long enough to procure litters for the boys and for the cacique, and in these the journey was continued.
At first they returned along the way the boys had just come; but in a little while they turned to the south and crossed the mountains by an easy pass, and presently could look down on a beautiful and fertile valley. For half a day’s journey the whole party went together; but coming then to a village of considerable size, a stop was made and the party separated, scattering to their homes.
After that the progress they made was swifter, the party consisting only of the cacique, ten of the Butios, and a body-guard of twenty warriors, armed with war-clubs and long, heavy swords of some hard, polished wood, showing that, however gentle the men might be with their visitors, they had it in their natures to fight if there were occasion, differing in this from the other Indians the boys had seen.
For several days they travelled, their fame preceding them and causing their progress through the valley to be a sort of triumphal march. At each village they were respectfully shown to the wondering inhabitants, and the cacique occasionally favored the other caciques with a dance to the music of the bells. And at each village it seemed to be known that the visitors desired gold, for there was always awaiting them either rings, bracelets, or what they learned to prefer, nuggets of virgin gold. The nuggets were of various sizes, the largest being two of the size of a hen’s egg, each.