It was not until the tenth day after starting on the journey that they reached the village of the grand cacique, Caonabo. The boys were curious to see a chief of whom they had heard so much during their progress through his dominions, and they certainly were impressed by the fact that instead of going out to meet them with his warriors, as the other caciques had done, he merely sent a deputation to meet them and conduct them to him.
The village was a large one and very populous, though not a whit more civilized in appearance than any of the other villages, so that the boys could not help wondering if the stories about Zipangu had not been exaggerated by the travellers who had been there. Certainly there was gold enough; but the palace was not roofed with it, and if it had been--the palace being a mere hut--it would not have come to much.
The population was all out to gaze on the wonderful beings from the skies, and they wore a great quantity of gold on their otherwise naked bodies; but such was their respect for their cacique that none of them dared make any advances to the strangers until they had had an audience with him.
“I begin to be a little afraid of this Caonabo, of whom his own people stand in such awe,” said Diego.
[Illustration: “OF COURSE THE KNIFE CUT HIS FINGERS.”]
“And I also,” said Juan; “but here we are, and we shall soon know what he thinks of us. I hope he will think well enough of us to do us no harm, but not well enough of us to keep us.”
CAONABO, Cacique of Maguana, differed so strikingly in his appearance and manner from his subjects that the boys were struck by it at their first glance at him. He was not only larger and more muscular, but he bore himself with a hauteur and dignity that any Old World monarch might have envied.
He eyed the boys with wonder, it is true, but there was something in his manner that made Diego mutter to Juan:
“I’m afraid he won’t accept the story of our descent from the skies.”
“And he looks fierce enough for a cannibal,” said Juan.
They afterwards learned that Caonabo was, in fact, a Carib and a cannibal, who had come to the island from his own home, when he was a young man, and who had won his place as the most powerful and most feared of the island caciques by his courage and his sagacity.