They ran to obey him like men who had never known an hour of sickness. Beside the cairn was a heap of sail-cloths and well-tarred canvas which, when stripped off, revealed a mounted culverin, a Spanish piece capable of throwing a ball of two or three pounds in weight. It was scarcely uncovered before the powder arrived. The gunners loaded with a good charge, well rammed home. Then Pizarro took the match from Ruiz, who had kindled it, and fired it with his own hands. As the echoes of the report rattled away among the rocks every man on Gallo strained his ears to catch the answering sound from the sea. After a space of about a minute it came. “She is yonder!” cried Ruiz, pointing out into the mist. “I saw the flash. There goes another gun, and there she comes like a ghost out of the clouds. Now, glory to the Lord of Hosts, who has heard the voice of our distress! On your knees, brothers, and give thanks, for the time of our misery is ended!” Then down he went on his knees with hands uplifted, and, save Pizarro, every man followed suit, and there arose from that wild place as strange a sound of mingled praise and prayer as ever had risen from earth to Heaven. Men with shrill, cracked voices sought to raise the triumphant strains of the _Te Deum_, others, hoarse and husky, broke out into the _Magnificat_, and others again wept and laughed by turns, bringing forth nothing but a babble of words mingled with shrill cries and broken by sobs, until suddenly the quick, stern voice of Pizarro broke through the babel, bringing every man to his feet. “Ruiz, Pedro de Candia, Alonso de Molina, come hither!” The three men went to him where he stood apart from the rest by the flagstaff. They saw that the flush had died out of his cheeks, that his brows were frowning, and his eyes dark with an evil foreboding. He turned and faced them and said, in the hard, stern tones that they had so often heard from his lips in the moments when all others about him had despaired-- “We give thanks too soon, I fear me, comrades. That is not Almagro’s ship. She is twice the size, and look yonder--behind her, there comes another out of the mist. Think you that fortune has so smiled upon Almagro that he went away with that poor little caravel of ours to return with two such ships as those? Nay, unless my heart is lying to me, not friends but enemies are yonder--enemies to our high enterprise, if not to our persons, for ere long you will learn that those ships come from Pedro de Arias, and not from Almagro and de Luque.” “The good Saints prove you wrong, Señor!” said the tall and, in spite of his rags, still graceful-looking cavalier who had answered to the name of Alonso de Molina. “Yet though they should have come to take us back to Panama by force, yet forget not that there are true hearts among us who have sworn to follow you, and will, though you lead us to the mouth of the Pit itself.”