"It is as I expected, Captain. I thought that you did not bring the Spaniard on board at Cadiz, and sit plying him with wine, and talking to him by the hour, for nothing. So when I saw what was being done on board the Swan, it came to me that you intended to try a venture in the Spanish main." "Here is a map which I got from the Spaniard," Reuben said, laying it out upon the table. "Here, you see, all the great islands are marked in their places, with their ports and the Spanish settlements. There are besides these, the Spaniard said, numbers of small ones not marked on the chart. In these large islands, Cuba and Hispaniola, the Spaniards have made themselves masters of the people, and reduced them to slavery; and there would be no touching at these with either safety or profit. The small ones have been only occasionally visited, and with these we may do trade. "Here is the line of the mainland, to the south of the islands. You see it runs along as far as the easternmost of them, and then turns away to the south; while from the north the mainland comes down well nigh to Cuba. One reason, the Spaniard said, why they have not sailed west to find out this land of gold, is that there is a great current, which runs in between the islands and the southern land, and sweeps out again with great force between the Bahamas and this northern land; and that they fear being swept away by it, and getting driven into whirlpools; and moreover they say that there are great storms to be encountered, in the waters to the west. "Now the fact that there is a current into, and another current out of, this western sea, seems to show that there is no exit to the west; and that the water that comes in at the south finds itself in a great bay, and so is forced to pass out to the north. How great this bay may be I know not, but surely it cannot be too great to search. At any rate it is clear to me that, somewhere to the west, these two great lands that we see to the north and south join. Now that men who have, with much toil and risk, made a discovery of a new land should claim it, for their king, seems to me fair and right; but not that they should claim sole traffic, with lands of whose very existence they know nothing; and therefore, although it is true that the pope has given these western islands to Spain, I see not how he can give to them land not, as yet, discovered. "If there is, as the natives in the islands say, a land lying somewhere to the west, where gold is abundant, I see no reason why, if we are first there, we should not gather great stores. The bales and boxes, that were brought round from London, contain a great quantity of all the things that are, as the Spaniard told me, most prized by the natives. Glass beads of all sorts and kinds, vessels of brass, iron hatchets and arrowheads, hawk bells, mirrors, and trinkets. The venture is, I admit, a perilous one; but if we succeed, every man on board will have a share in the profit."