niards catch us
there, they will cut our throats to a surety, if they can; but if
you are ready to take your chance of that, I have nothing against
it. I feel as if I am taken aback a bit, just now, as it comes new
to me--my own fancy being that you intended to trade with the
Turkish ports and islands, and had taken a strong crew on board to
beat off any pirates that they might meet."

"And you, Pengarvan?"

"It is as I expected, Captain. I thought that you did not bring the
Spaniard on board at Cadiz, and sit plying him with wine, and
talking to him by the hour, for nothing. So when I saw what was
being done on board the Swan, it came to me that you intended to
try a venture in the Spanish main."

"Here is a map which I got from the Spaniard," Reuben said, laying
it out upon the table. "Here, you see, all the great islands are
marked in their places, with their ports and the Spanish
settlements. There are besides these, the Spaniard said, numbers of
small ones not marked on the chart. In these large islands, Cuba
and Hispaniola, the Spaniards have made themselves masters of the
people, and reduced them to slavery; and there would be no touching
at these with either safety or profit. The small ones have been
only occasionally visited, and with these we may do trade.

"Here is the line of the mainland, to the south of the islands. You
see it runs along as far as the easternmost of them, and then turns
away to the south; while from the north the mainland comes down
well nigh to Cuba. One reason, the Spaniard said, why they have not
sailed west to find out this land of gold, is that there is a great
current, which runs in between the islands and the southern land,
and sweeps out again with great force between the Bahamas and this
northern land; and that they fear being swept away by it, and
getting driven into whirlpools; and moreover they say that there
are great storms to be encountered, in the waters to the west.

"Now the fact that there is a current into, and another current out
of, this western sea, seems to show that there is no exit to the
west; and that the water that comes in at the south finds itself in
a great bay, and so is forced to pass out to the north. How great
this bay may be I know not, but surely it cannot be too great to
search. At any rate it is clear to me that, somewhere to the west,
these two great lands that we see to the north and south join. Now
that men who have, with much toil and risk