But, with his awakening thoughts, apprehension,
rather than pride or exultation, followed the consciousness
of his new discoveries. Had he not reason to
fear the return of the strange people by whom the isle
was visited, as it would seem, periodically? That
they were a barbarous people he could not doubt; that
they would resent his presence, and treat him as an
enemy, he had every reason to dread. He should be
a victim to some one of their cruel sacrifices. He
should be immolated on the altars of one of the bloody
deities of the Caribbean worship. The man brave by
nature, and in the situation of Lopez de Levya, might
well entertain such apprehensions. How much more

[figure description] Page 262.[end figure description]

vividly would they occur to the imagination of one
so timid and feeble of soul as our Maroon. They
kept him—assuming various forms of terror—in a cold
sweat for several days; and though the impression
was naturally weakened and dissipated the more
familiar the images became, yet any immediately
impelling thought brought them back upon his spirit
with a ghastly and withering influence. Three days
elapsed after this discovery before he found himself
able to recur to it without a vague and overpowering
sense of terror. But the pearls shone in his eyes.
He had grown wealthy on a sudden. He drew forth
the numerous strings which he found suspended in the
cavern. Every Spaniard of that day had an instinctive
appreciation of treasure. Lopez had never seen
so much riches at a glance before. He examined his
pearls in the sunlight. He cleansed them of their
impurities by the ocean's side. And he was the
master of all this glitter. He had never dreamed of
such vast possessions. In Spain—but when he thought
of Spain, and felt the probability, in all its force, that
he should never again behold its shores, he was almost
moved in his desperation to fling his newly found
treasure into the deep. But the latent hope, which
dreamed of the possible approach of some future
mariner, forbade the sacrifice; and restoring his possessions
to the dark crevices from whence he had
taken them, he stretched himself out upon the eminence
which vaulted his possessions, and which had now become
with him a favorite place of watch, to gaze upon

[figure description] Page 263.[end figure description]

the broad plain of ocean by which he was girded on
every hand.