They dressed in the costume of their youth. The marquis “never wore other than a jerkin of black cloth with skirts down to his ankles, with a short waist a little below his breast. His shoes were made of a white cordivant, his hat white, with sword and dagger after the old fashion. Sometimes upon high days, at the instance and request of his servants, he wore a cassock lined with martins’ furs which had been sent him from Spain,” but his coat of mail was underneath, as appropriate to his body as its steely sheath to his heart. Illiterate, greedy, fearless, and proud, wading through blood to establish the Christian faith, he was murdered at last; and as he fell, traced in his own blood a cross upon the stone floor, kissed it, and died. Then there was the able monster, Carvajal, who went about accompanied by three or four negroes to strangle people. He jeered as they did so, “showing himself very pleasant and facetious at that unseasonable time.” He left behind him a wake of spiked heads of “traitors” to the king. He wore a Moorish burnous and hens’ feathers twined together in the form of a cross on his hat, bought masses with emeralds for his soul’s repose, and at the age of eighty-four went to his execution in a basket, saying his prayers in Latin. “Being come to the place of execution, the people crowded so to see him that the hangman had not room to do his duty. And thereupon he called to them and said: ‘Gentlemen, pray give the officer room to do justice.’” CHAPTER VI PIRATES AND TREASURE FLEETS “Gold,” said Columbus, “constitutes treasure, and he who possesses it has all he needs in this world, as also the means of rescuing souls from purgatory and restoring them to the enjoyment of paradise.” Raleigh remarked that: “Where there is store of gold, it is needless to remember other commodities for trade.” Gold--the evil spell overshadowing Peru, pouring out her immeasurable riches to impoverish Spain. Gold--the most incorruptible of all metals, itself the cause of most corruption! Peru has always been cursed by wealth. The gold of the Incas was the cause of their destruction, the wealth of the Spanish conquerors, theirs; it brought about wars among themselves and ravages of foreign pirates upon the sea. When the era of precious metals seemed to wane, islands of guano were discovered, apparently an endless source of wealth. But it was greedily exhausted by foreigners. Then came the discovery of nitrate fields, where fortunes are merely scraped off the top of the ground. But that particular territory has been annexed by a prosperous neighbor. One wonders what undiscovered wealth may still be threatening this lavish country. The days when fleets of treasure sailed from the distant cordilleras of the Spanish Main had begun. The tall, enchanted galleons of Lima spread sail, with their