“What is become of it, then?  I cannot hear that our men plundered you of any.”

“Your men?  No, senor!  What fifty men dared not have done, one woman did! a painted, patched, fucused, periwigged, bolstered, Charybdis, cannibal, Megaera, Lamia!  Why did I ever go near that cursed Naples, the common sewer of Europe? whose women, I believe, would be swallowed up by Vesuvius to-morrow, if it were not that Belphegor is afraid of their making the pit itself too hot to hold him.  Well, sir, she had all of mine and more; and when all was gone in wine and dice, woodcocks’ brains and ortolans’ tongues, I met the witch walking with another man.  I had a sword and a dagger; I gave him the first (though the dog fought well enough, to give him his due), and her the second; left them lying across each other, and fled for my life,—­and here I am! after twenty years of fighting, from the Levant to the Orellana—­for I began ere I had a hair on my chin—­and this is the end!—­No, it is not!  I’ll have that El Dorado yet! the Adelantado made Berreo, when he gave him his daughter, swear that he would hunt for it, through life and death.—­We’ll see who finds it first, he or I. He’s a bungler; Orsua was a bungler—­Pooh!  Cortes and Pizarro? we’ll see whether there are not as good Castilians as they left still.  I can do it, senor.  I know a track, a plan; over the Llanos is the road; and I’ll be Emperor of Manoa yet—­possess the jewels of all the Incas; and gold, gold!  Pizarro was a beggar to what I will be!”

Conceive, sir, he broke forth during another of these peacock fits, as Amyas and he were riding along the hill-side; “conceive! with forty chosen cavaliers (what need of more?) I present myself before the golden king, trembling amid his myriad guards at the new miracle of the mailed centaurs of the West; and without dismounting, I approach his throne, lift the crucifix which hangs around my neck, and pressing it to my lips, present it for the adoration of the idolater, and give him his alternative; that which Gayferos and the Cid, my ancestors, offered the Soldan and the Moor—­baptism or death!  He hesitates; perhaps smiles scornfully upon my little band; I answer him by deeds, as Don Ferdinando, my illustrious grandfather, answered Atahuallpa at Peru, in sight of all his court and camp.”

“With your lance-point, as Gayferos did the Soldan?” asked Amyas, amused.

“No, sir; persuasion first, for the salvation of a soul is at stake.  Not with the lance-point, but the spur, sir, thus!”—­

And striking his heels into his horse’s flanks, he darted off at full speed.

“The Spanish traitor!” shouted Yeo.  “He’s going to escape!  Shall we shoot, sir?  Shall we shoot?”

“For Heaven’s sake, no!” said Amyas, looking somewhat blank, nevertheless, for he much doubted whether the whole was not a ruse on the part of the Spaniard, and he knew how impossible it was for his fifteen stone of flesh to give chase to the Spaniard’s twelve.  But he was soon reassured; the Spaniard wheeled round towards him, and began to put the rough hackney through all the paces of the manege with a grace and skill which won applause from the beholders.