" "Alone?" I asked. "I, Paul Bac," he answered.
I looked at him a moment. He was a little red-haired man, slightly
made, but alert and active-looking. He knew no Spanish, no Indian
dialects, and he had no comrade. I told him that I thought he didn't
know what he was doing. "Ha!" he said. "Listen: I go to Payta; I go
by train to Chito; zen I reach ze Morona River; from zere I reach
Marinha. Listen: El Dorado is between ze Caqueta and ze Putumayo
Rivers, in ze forest." I would have asked him how he knew, but I had
to break away to relieve the lookout. I wished the little man good
night; I never spoke with him again.
I thought of him all that watch, as I kept scanning the seas. I should
be going up and down, I thought, landing passengers through surf, or
swaying bananas out of launches, or crying the sounds as we came to
moorings. He would be going on under the stars, full of unquenchable
hope, stumbling on the bones of kings. He would be wading across bogs,
through rivers and swamps, through unutterable and deathly places,
singing some songs, and thinking of the golden city. He was a pilgrim,
a poet, a person to reverence. And if he got there, if he found El
Dorado--but that was absurd.
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