safe-conduct given; for table-talk could be no better subject than the
question of ransom.

Facing the square of Nueva Cordoba was a goodly house, built by the
Church for the Church, but now sacrilegiously turned to other uses and
become the quarters of Sir John Nevil and Sir Mortimer Ferne, who held
the town and menaced the fortress, while Baptist Manwood and Robert
Baldry kept the fleet and conquered battery. The place had a great
arched refectory, and here the English prepared their banquet.

Indian friends by now had they, for in the town they had found and set
at liberty three caciques, penned like beasts, chained with a single
chain, scored with marks sickening to look upon. The caciques proved not
ungrateful. Down the river this very day had come canoes rowed by men of
bronze and filled with spoils of the chase, fish of strange shapes and
brilliant hues, golden, luscious fruits, flowers also fairer than
amaranth or asphodel, gold beads and green stones. Gold and gems went
into the treasure-chests aboard the ships, but all besides came kindly
in for the furnishing of that rich feast. Nor were lacking other viands,
for grain and flesh and wine had been abundant in Nueva Cordoba, whose
storehouses now the English held. They hung their borrowed
banqueting-hall with garlands of flowers, upon the long table put great
candles of virgin wax, with gold and silver drinking-vessels, and
brought to the revel of the night a somewhat towering, wild, and
freakish humor. Victory unassuaged was theirs, and for them Fortune had
cogged her dice. They had taken the _San José_ and sunk the caravels,
they had sacked the pearl-towns and Nueva Cordoba, they had gathered
laurels for themselves and England. For the fortress, they deemed that
they might yet drain it of hoarded treasure. The poison of the land and
time had touched them. The wind sang to them of conquest; morn and eve,