r mule hath harness of exquisitely chased silver! Here comes a
noble chief and his favourite wife, with a retinue of slaves. The
soles of his sandals are of gold, the straps are studded with gems;
pearls are sewn in hundreds in his bright-hued robes! Yet is he
completely eclipsed by the splendour of his spouse. She is sprinkled,
hair and clothing, with the precious yellow dust. The breeze blows it
from her hair; she shakes it with a careless laugh from her silken
garments; the slaves walk behind on a gold-strewn pathway. They value
it no more than the beggar values the dust that blows along the Chepe
in London on a July day. Ah! a gloriously generous headpiece hath
Paignton Rob. Why stint the tale of glittering grains? In the land of
"El Dorado" the sands of the rivers can be coined into minted money.
Would mine hostess--who has so lavishly fed three poor sailor-men--like
to go to a banquet in the palace of "El Dorado"? Nothing
simpler!--'tis done with a wave of Rob's brown hand. See! the table
is gold; the platters are the same. The pillars of sweet cedar that
support the lofty roof are richer by far than those of Solomon's
temple. And the "gilded one" smiles at his queen, and lifts a cup of
rosy wine to his lips. Do the company notice that miracle of dazzling
light he holds in his delicate brown hand? 'Tis cut from one precious
stone. It is like a living fire, and the red wine glows warmly through
it.

Such the land of "El Dorado"--the golden realm!--the home of an
everlasting summer! Rob pauses dramatically; he comes to a full stop.
How mean is the parlour of the comfortable Wood Street tavern! How
paltry its pewter pots and clumsy flagons! How dull its smoky beams
and walls!

"Ah! Ah!"--longing sighs echo and re-echo. Then come questions,
timidly put at first, for no man would dare to throw suspicion on the
seaman's stories. But--but who has seen any of these things?

Who? Why, Rob knows men, who know other men, who have heard from other
men, who actually listened to dying Spaniards or faithful natives
recounting how they themselves had seen these sights. Rob himself had
gazed upon a sack of gold dust brought by a Jesuit missionary from "El
Dorado's" kingdom. The monk had shovelled it with his own bare hands
from the bed of a shallow lake. Nick Johnson, with a nervous and
apologetic cough, announced that he had seen a bag of pearls brought
from that same favoured land; and brother Ned,