"I'd have wagered you'd
be with us, and here you are in the nick of time."
"What's in the wind now?" I asked, as I drew a chair to the table at
which the three were seated.
"The greatest and best chance that was ever offered to seafarers,"
answered Hartog. "Read that, and say whether any man with the blood of
a rover in him could sit tamely at home when such a country as this is
waiting to be explored."
With these words he pushed toward me a parchment yellow with age, but
very clearly written, so it was easy to decipher. The paper, a
translation in Spanish from some ancient tongue, read as follows:
"The Ruby Mountains. Among these mountains there are certain great and
deep valleys to the bottom of which there is no access. These valleys
are full of rubies. Wherefore the men who go in search of them take
with them a piece of flesh as lean as they can get, and this they east
into the bottom of the valley. Now there are a number of white eagles
that haunt these mountains and feed upon the serpents in which the
valley abounds. When the eagles see the meat thrown down, they pounce
upon it, and carry it up to some rocky hill-top, where they begin to
rend it.
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