was certain, the air of this strange place made them all more
thirsty than they ever had been in England, and their water-supply had
given out. Sebastian and a crew of the younger men tumbled into a
boat, cross-bow and cutlass at hand, and went ashore to fill the
barrels, while John Cabot kept an anxious eye on the land. Sebastian
himself rather relished the adventure.

They found a stream of delicious water,--pure, cold and clear as a
fountain of Eden. Among the rocks they found creeping vines with rather
tasteless, bright red berries, in the woods little evergreen herbs with
leaves like laurel and scarlet spicy berries, dark green mossy vines
with white berries--but no spice-trees. The forest in fact was rather
like Norway, according to Ralph Erlandsson, who was a native of
Stavanger. Sebastian, who was ahead, presently came upon signs of human
life. A sapling, bent down and held by a rude contrivance of deerhide
thong and stakes, was attached to a noose so ingeniously hidden that the
young leader nearly stepped into it. He took it off the tree and looked
about him. A minute later, from one side and to the rear, a startled
exclamation came from Robert Thorne of Bristol, who had stepped on a
similar snare and been jerked off his feet. This was quite enough. The
party retreated to the ship. On the way back they saw trees that had
been cut not very long since, and Sebastian picked up a wooden needle
such as fishermen used in making nets, yet not like any English tool of
that sort.

[Illustration: "A SAPLING, BENT DOWN, WAS ATTACHED TO A NOOSE
INGENIOUSLY HIDDEN."--_Page_ 87]

They saw nothing more of the kind, although they sailed some three
hundred leagues along the coast, nor did they see any sort of tilled
land. This certainly could not be Cipangu or Cathay with their seaports
and gilded temples. Whatever else it was, it was a land of wild people,
savage hunters. John Cabot left on a bold headland where it could not
fail to be seen, a great cross, with the flag of England and the
Venetian banner bearing the lion of Saint Mark.

There was wild excitement in Bristol when it was known that the little
_Matthew_ had come safely into port, after three months' voyaging in
unknown seas. August of that year found the two Cabots at Westminster
with their story and their handful of forest trophies, and the excited
and suspicious Spanish Ambassador was framing a protest to the King and
a letter to Ferdinand and Isabella.

H