-there was told the story of the
bit of gold, the Symbol of the Sun, as it had been told to Padre
Vicente years before.

"Yes--I did mean to tell you of the finding of it," he announced
amiably. "I have listened to all your discourses and romances on the
journey--and good ones there were among them! But mine would not have
been good to tell when seeking recruits, it might have lessened their
ardor--for a reason you will shortly perceive!"

"I plainly perceive already that the good father has saved us thus far
from a fright!" decided Don Ruy.

"Since a man lived through it you can perhaps endure the telling of
it--even here in the half darkness," said the priest, and noted that
Don Diego was sharpening a pen, and Chico taking an ink horn from his
pocket. The journal of the good gentleman had grown to be one of the
joyful things of the journey, and the more gay adventurers gave him
some wondrous tales to include.

"It is not a pretty tale, but it may teach you somewhat of these brown
people of the stone houses--and some of the meaning back of their soft
smiles! It is not a new tale of to-day:--it goes back to the time when
the vessels of Narvaez went to the bottom and a few men found their
way westward to Mexico."

"De Vaca and his men?" said Don Diego. But the priest shook his head.

"Earlier than that."

"Earlier? Holy Father:--how could that be when no others--"

"Pardon me:--you are about to say no others escaped, are you not? Have
you forgotten De Vaca's own statement as to two other men who went
ashore before the sinking of the vessels, and who were never heard of
again?"

"I have heard of it with great special interest," announced Don
Ruy--"heard it in the monastery on the island of Rhodes where the
white man you speak of (for one of the lost ones was a negro) had as a
boy been trained in godly ways by the Knights of St. John. There the
good fathers also educated me as might be and tried with all zeal to
make a monk of me! Ever before my mind was held the evil end of the
other youth who fled from the consecrated robe,--for he had made a
scandal for a pretty nun ere he became a free lance and joined hands
with Solyman the Magnificent against Christendom,--oh--many and long
were the discourses I had to listen to of that heretic adventurer! He
was a Greek of a devout and exalted Christian family, and his name was
Don Teodore."

Juan Gonzalvo--called Capitan Gonzalvo in favor of his wide experience
and wi