im from turning aside.

He permitted this well-intentioned despotism not through any lack of
spirit, but partly because it was well-intentioned, and mostly because
his immediate present seemed of little consequence to him. He felt
himself to be an embryo prophet who awaited his hour; when that should
strike, he would concentrate. Not until he was twenty-two years of age
did he expostulate, and by that time it was too late; his training had
made him dependent upon money for success. His mother had the money,
and she selected the Bar as a suitable profession for him; then it was
that he broke his twelve years' silence, and scandalised her with the
information that his great ambition was to follow in his father's
footsteps, and to find both him and El Dorado, fulfilling the promise
which he had given as a child. Startled by this unexpected confession,
she had charged him with disloyalty and ingratitude to herself; to
avoid complications and a breach which he foresaw would become
irreparable, he had accepted her choice and studied for a barrister.
This utterance of his secret, however, had only served to make him
aware of the intensity of his own desire. He could not work, he could
not rest, he could not apply his mind; always he saw before him the
tropic river with its multitude of carnation, crimson, and
orange-tawny birds, its low green banks where the deer come down to
graze, and far ahead and visionary the swampy lake, built on whose
shore the golden city raises up its head. So books, and law, and
London became for him the custodians of his captivity--things to be
hated and despised.

In the three years which followed he had made one friend, a mining
engineer, by name Druce Spurling. In him he had confided, and Spurling
had responded with a sympathy which did him credit, kindling to the
romance of the story. He had tested with his expert knowledge the
evidence which Granger had laid before him for the belief that such a
city as El Dorado had existed, and he had been satisfied--or, at any
rate, had been made certain that in the watershed of the Orinoco gold
was yet to be found in great quantities, as in the Spaniard's time. He
had promised that, so soon as he had the capital, he would help him in
his quest. Granger coveted the journey for its adventure, and the
opportunity of fulfilling his promise to his father; Spurling only for
its possibilities of attaining wealth. In their community of ambition
this difference of