It was daylight again, a dawn of dense mist, without wind or hail, ere
any member of the ship's company thought of sleep. Then Elsie went to
her cabin and dreamed of a river of molten gold, down which she was
compelled to sail in a cockle-shell boat, while fantastic monsters swam
round, and eyed her suspiciously.
When, at last, she awoke after a few hours of less exciting slumber,
she came out on deck to find the sun shining on a fairy-land of green
and blue and diamond white, with gaunt gray rocks and groves of copper
beeches to frame the picture. There was no pillar of smoke on the
lower hills to bear silent testimony to the presence of the Indians;
but the canoe lying alongside told her that the previous night's events
were no part of her dreams, and a man whom she did not recognize--a man
with closely cropped gray hair and a deeply lined, weather-tanned face,
from which a pair of sunken, flashing eyes looked kindly at her--said
in Spanish: "Good morning, señorita. I hope I did not startle you when I came
aboard. And I said things I should not have said in the presence of a
lady. But believe me, señorita, I was drunk with delight."