The piece of information that died within him was to the effect that three hundred years ago five Elizabethan barques had anchored where the _Euphrosyne_ now floated.

Half-drawn up upon the beach lay an equal number of Spanish galleons, unmanned, for the country was still a virgin land behind a veil.

Slipping across the water, the English sailors bore away bars of silver, bales of linen, timbers of cedar wood, golden crucifixes knobbed with emeralds.

When the Spaniards came down from their drinking, a fight ensued, the two parties churning up the sand, and driving each other into the surf.

The Spaniards, bloated with fine living upon the fruits of the miraculous land, fell in heaps; but the hardy Englishmen, tawny with sea-voyaging, hairy for lack of razors, with muscles like wire, fangs greedy for flesh, and fingers itching for gold, despatched the wounded, drove the dying into the sea, and soon reduced the natives to a state of superstitious wonderment.