each ship.  While the white men wondered what this could mean, several old crones appeared at the doors of the houses and began a furious shrieking.  This seemed to be a signal.  The maidens dived into the sea and made for the shore, and a storm of arrows came from the canoemen.  The fight, however, was not long, and the Spaniards won an easy victory, after which they had no further trouble.  They found a harbor called Maracaibo, and twenty-seven Spaniards at the earnest request of the natives were entertained as guests among the inland villages for nine days.  They were carried from place to place in litters or hammocks, and when they returned to the ships every man of them had a collection of gifts—­rich plumes, weapons, tropical birds and animals—­but no gold.  The monkeys and parrots were very amusing, but they did not make up, in the minds of some of the crew, for the gold which had not been found.

Ojeda returned from an exploring journey one day with a ruffled temper.  “A gang of poachers,” he sputtered,—­“rascally Bristol traders.  We shall have to teach these folk their place.”

“What really happened?” Vespucci inquired privately of Juan de la Cosa.  The old mariner’s eyes twinkled.

“It was funny.  You see, we were coming down to the shore, ready to return to the ships, when we spied an English ship and some sailors on the beach, dancing after they’d caught their fish and eaten ’em.  Up marches our young caballero with hand on hilt and asks whose men they are.  But they answered him in a language he can’t understand, d’ye see, and after some jabbering he makes them understand that he wants to go on board to see their captain.  I went along, for I’d no mind to leave him alone if there should be trouble.

“So soon as I set eyes on the captain I knew him for a chap I’d seen years ago in Venice.  He did me a good turn there, too, though he was but a lad.  I knew he was a Bristol man, but I hadn’t expected to see him or his ship so far from home.  He could talk Spanish nearly as well as you do.

“‘What are you doing here?’ asks our worshipful commander.

“‘Looking at the sky,’ said the other man, cool as a cucumber.  ’I think we are going to have a storm.’

“‘Don’t bandy words with me,’ says Ojeda.  ’You are trespassing on my master’s dominions.’

“‘Your master is the Admiral of the Indies, no?’ says the stranger, and that pretty near shut our young gentleman’s mouth for a minute, for between you and me I think he knows that Colon has not been well treated.  But he only got the more furious.

“‘Do you insult me?’ says he, and whips out his Toledo blade and bends it almost double, to show the quality.