many a grunt of satisfaction. To be sure, no brave among them but might
the next moment decide to try out the merits of his gift upon the
bestower, but this danger the adventurers had to risk. More timidly the
women, their eyes fixed wistfully upon the gaudy red and yellow cloth,
approached the strangers, offering in their turn bits of abalone shell
polished to iridescent beauty.

They seemed in truth a gentle, friendly people, so much so that at
length the sailors, deeming it safe to undertake the second part of
their errand, began to plead for water and to request, besides, an
interview between their captain and the chief. All this by means of
signs in which they displayed no little wit and skill, the Englishmen
accomplished until, well on toward the middle of the morning, they made
ready to return to the ship, the casks they had brought brimming with
sweet mountain water, while with them they bore as well the promise of
an interview of state between the great chief Torquam and Sir Francis
Drake, to take place upon the beach at sunset.

And then at once the little village of Toyobet seethed again with
excitement. For these good paleface friends and their god-like commander
a fitting welcome must be prepared. Fleet-footed messengers, bearing
flaming torches, sped in hot haste along the mountain trails that all
who saw might know without words spoken of the assembling of the tribe.
To the distant village at the isthmus they hurried, and to the cove on
the western coast, some twenty miles away, to which a band of warriors
had gone several days before to hunt the otter. That no one among his
people might remain in ignorance of his command, Torquam even caused
signal fires to be kindled on each of the twin peaks, extinct volcanoes,
near the center of the island. Smoke rising there was visible from every
corner of his land, and woe to any subject who dared to disregard that