Often a man would stop and fall to weeping.

But the lust of gold consumed us, and presently we only sorrowed because we had no sumpter mules to aid its transit, and had a terror of the infernal plain and valley we had travelled...." "Captain Bovill made camp in a mead outside the city, and one of us shot a deer, so that we supped full.

He unfolded his purpose, which was that we should pack about our persons such jewels as were the smallest and most precious, and some gold likewise as an earnest, and by striking northward through the mountains seek to reach at a higher point in its course the river by which we had entered from the sea.

I mistrusted the plan, for the chart had shown but the one way, but the terror of the road we had come was strong on me and I made no protest.

So we packed our treasure, so that each man staggered under it, and before noon left the place of the kings." "And then?
Was the road desperate ?" Raleigh's pale eyes had the ardour of a boy's.
"Desperate beyond all telling.