A great floating castle, filled with white men, had arrived at the mouth of the river; and had opened a trade with the natives, exchanging glass beads, looking glasses, and trinkets, for gold ornaments and articles of Mexican workmanship.
Their leader, he heard, was called Grijalva.

The cazique had been afraid that, if Roger had heard that other white men were in the river, he would make an effort to join them; or if they heard that a man of their color was in the town, they would insist upon his being handed over to them.

He had therefore hurried him away inland, and had issued the most stringent orders that none should, by signs or otherwise, acquaint the newcomers that a white man was in the town.

A guard had been placed over the house in which Roger had dwelt, and none of those within it had been allowed to go out, while the strangers were in the river.
These had sailed away, the day before Roger was fetched back.

He was not altogether disappointed at having missed the strangers, who were of course Spaniards; for he wanted, if possible, to see something more of this beautiful country before he left; and he was, moreover, more than doubtful as to the reception he should meet with at the Spaniards' hands, when, by his ignorance of their language, they discovered that he was a foreign intruder, in what they considered their territory..