152 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 



" The lady's eye was on the adventurer, and noted his 

 look. 



" * Do this for me. I will send you with a pinnace, I 

 will name you a lieutenant Before you go, and when you 

 return, I will pay you here in this chamber two hundred 

 ounces of gold. Stay here now as you are, and you 

 remain the bankrupt soldier, pointed out as the man who 

 left Narvaez in Florida.' 



" Steadily Ortez weighed in his mind his chances of 

 life, and the golden sum that was as sure to him on the 

 promise of that woman as though belted at his waist. 

 His eye looked at the soft light that came in at the win- 

 dow, and the spattering fountain in the court below, 

 vacantly, while one could count two score ; and then, 

 turning to the widow, he said : 



" ' I will go,' adding, with Spanish grace, ' and may 

 our Lady Mother keep you well till my return.' 



" In a few days the adventurous soldier was again in 

 the Mexican Gulf, steering for the battle-fields where he 

 had left his chief. He sailed among islands covered with 

 mangroves, and pillared on coral, touching at every 

 prominent point, and threading the broad lagoons where 

 the sea-ferns spread their palms to the light of the upper 

 air. When opportunities offered, he landed on the 

 shore, and tried, by presents and gentle words, to gain 

 from the natives the information he desired, but they 

 remembered the fierce forays of Velasquez and Narvaez, 

 and only treated with the adventurer to betray. He was 

 induced one day by the Apalaches to visit the shore, and 



