1492

CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE ships were the Consolacion, the Margarita, the Juana and the San Sebastian, all caravels and small ones, the Consolacion the largest and the flagship. The Margarita, that was the Adelantado’s ship, sailed badly. There was something as wrong with her as had been with the Pinta when we started from Palos in ‘92.

The men all told, crews and officers and adventurers, were less than two hundred.

Pedro de Terreros, Bartholomew Fiesco, Diego Tristan, Francisco de Porras were the captains of the caravels Juan Sanchez and Pedro Ledesma the chief pilots. Bartholomew Fiesco of the Consolacion was a Genoese and wholly devoted to the greater Genoese. We had for notary Diego Mendez. There were good men upon this voyage, and very bold men.

The youth Fernando Colon sailed with his father. He was now fourteen, Don Fernando, slim, intelligent, obedient and loving always to the Admiral.

Days of bright weather, days and days of that marvelous favorable wind that blows over Ocean-Sea. The twenty-fifth of May the Canaries sank behind us. On and on, all the sails steady.

We were not first for Hispaniola. All must be strange, this voyage! Jamaica, not San Domingo, was our star. Rest there a moment, take food and water, then forth and away. West again, west by south. He was straitly forbidden to drop anchor in any water of Hispaniola. “For why?” said they. “Because the very sight of his ships will tear asunder again that which Don Nicholas de Ovando is healing!”

The Margarita, that was next to the Consolacion in greatness, sailed so infirmly that mercy ‘twas the seas were smooth. It was true accident. She had been known at Palos, Cadiz and San Lucar for good ship. But at Ercilla where we must stop on the Sovereigns’ business, a storm had beaten her upon the shore where she got a great wound in her side. That was staunched, but all her frame was wrenched and she never did well thereafter. In mid-June we came to an island of the Caribs which they called Mantineo. Here we rested the better part of a week, keeping good guard against the Caribs, then sailed, and now north by west, along a vast curve, within a world of islands. They are great, they are small, they are of the extremest beauty! San Martin, Dominica, Guadaloupe, San Juan—the Boriquen whence had come, long ago, that Catalina whom Guacanagari aided—and untouched at, or under the horizon, many another that the Admiral had named; Santa Maria la Antigua, Santa Cruz, Santa Ursula, Montserrat, Eleven Thousand Virgins, Marigalante and all beside. What a world! Plato his Atlantis. How truly old we are God only knows!

The Margarita sailed most badly. At San Juan that is the neighbor great island to Hispaniola, council, two councils, one following the other. Then said the Admiral, “We are to find the Strait that shall at last carry us to clothed Asia of all the echoes, and to find we have but four small ships and one of them evidently doomed. And in that one sails my brother. What is the Sovereigns’ command? ‘Touch not on your outward way at Hispaniola!’ What is in their mind here? ‘Hale and faring well, you have no need.’—But if we are not hale and faring well by a fourth of our enterprise? They never meant it to a drowning man, or one whose water cask was empty! Being Christian, no! We will put into San Domingo and ask of Don Nicholas de Ovando a ship in place of the Margarita.”

Whereat all cheered. We were gathered under palms, upon a fair point of land in San Juan le Bautista. Next day we weighed anchor, and in picture San Domingo rose before us.

He felt no doubt of decent welcome, of getting his ship. Fifteen sail had gone out with Ovando. Turn the cases around, and he would have given Ovando welcome, he would give him a good ship. How much more then Christopherus Columbus! The enterprise was common in that all stood to profit. It was royal errand, world service! So he thought and sailed in some tranquillity of mind for San Domingo.

But the Adelantado said in my ear. “There will be a vast to-do! Maybe I’ll sail the Margarita to the end.” He was the prophet!

It was late June. Hispaniola rose, faint, faint, upon the horizon. All crowded to look. There, there before us dwelled countrymen, fellow mariners, fellow adventurers forth from the Old into the New! It was haven; it was Spain in the West; it was Our Colony.

The Admiral gazed, and I saw the salt tears blind his eyes. His son was beside him. He put his hand upon the youth’s shoulder. “Fernando, there it is—I found and named it Hispaniola!”

The weather hung perilously still, the sea glass. It was so clear above, below, around, that we seemed to see by added light, and yet there was no more sunlight. All the air had thinned, it seemed, away. Every sail fell slack. Colors were slightly altered. The Admiral said, “There is coming a great storm.”

The boy Fernando laughed. “Why, father!”

“Stillness before the leap,” said the Admiral. “Quiet at home because the legions have gone to muster.”

It was hard to think it, but too often had it been proved that he was in the secret of water and air. Now Bartholomew Fiesco the Genoese said. “Aye, aye! They say on the ships at Genoa that when it came to weather, even when you were a youngster, you were fair necromancer!”

The sky rested blue, but the sea became green oil. That night there were all around us fields of phosphorescence. About midnight these vanished; it was very black for all the stars, and we seemed to hear a sighing as from a giant leagues away. This passed, and the morning broke, silent and tranquil, azure sky and azure sea, and not so sharply clear as yesterday. The great calm wind again pushed us.

Hispaniola! Hispaniola! Her mountains and her palms before us.

We coasted to the river Hayna and the Spanish city of San Domingo. Three hours from sunset down in harbor plunged our anchors, down rattled our sails.

The Consolacion’s long boat danced by her side. The Admiral would send to land but one boat, and in it for envoy Pedro de Terreros, a well-speaking man and known to Don Nicholas de Ovando. Terreros was envoy, but with him the Admiral sent Juan Lepe, who through the years in Hispaniola had tried to heal the sick, no matter what their faction. The Admiral stayed upon the Consolacion, the Adelantado upon the Margarita.

The harbor was filled with ships. We counted eighteen. We guessed that they were preparing for sailing, the little boats so came and went between. And our entry had caused excitement. Ship and small boat hailed us, but to them we did not answer. Then came toward us from the shore a long boat with the flag of Spain and in it an official.

Our wharf! Juan Lepe had left it something more than a year and a half ago. San Domingo was grown, many Spaniards having sailed for the west in that time. I saw strangers and strangers, though of Spanish blood. Walking with the officer and his people to the Governor’s house gave time for observation and swift thought. Throng was forming. One had early cried from out it, “That’s the doctor, Juan Lepe! ‘Tis the Admiral out there!” That it was the Admiral seemed to spread. San Domingo buzzed like the air about a hive the first spring day. Farther on, out pushed a known voice. “Welcome, welcome, Doctor!” I looked, and that was Sancho. Luis Torres was in Spain. I had seen him in Cadiz. The crowd was thickening—men came running—there was cry and query. Suddenly rose a cheer. “The Admiral and the Adelantado in their little ships!” At once came a counter-shout. “The Genoese! The Traitors!”

I saw—I saw—I saw that there was some wisdom in King Ferdinand!

The Governor’s house that used to be the Viceroy’s house. State—state! They had cried out upon the Genoese’s keeping it—but Don Nicholas de Ovando kept more. While we waited in the antechamber I saw, out of window and the tail of my eye, files of soldiery go by. Ovando would not have riot and disturbance if twenty Admirals hung in the offing! He kept us waiting. He would be cool and distant and impregnable behind the royal word. Juan Lepe saw plainly that that lavish and magnanimous person aboard the Consolacion would not meet here his twin. The Adelantado must still, I thought, sail the Margarita. And yet, looking at all things, that exchange of ships should have been made. A Spaniard, wheresoever found, should have cried “Aye!” to it.

The Governor’s officer who still kept by us was not averse to talk. All those preparing ships in the harbor? Why, they were the returning fleet that brought Don Nicholas in. Sailing to-morrow—hence the hubbub on land and water. They had a lading now! He gazed a moment at us, and as we seemed sober folk, saw no reason why we should not have the public news. Forth it came like water out of bottle. Bobadilla was returning. “A prisoner?” “Why, hardly that! Roldan, too.” “A prisoner?” “Why, not precisely so.” Many of the old regime—Bobadilla’s regime—were returning and Roldan men likewise. Invited to go, in fact, though with no other harsh treatment. One of the ships would be packed with Indian rebels, Gwarionex among them. Chained, all these. The notable thing about the fleet, after all that, was the gold that was going! A treasure fleet! Bobadilla had gathered gold for the crown. He was taking, they said, a sultan’s ransom. He had one piece that weighed, they said, five thousand castellanos. Roldan too had gold. And the Governor was sending no man knew how much. More than that— He looked at us, then, being a kindly soul, quoth, “Why shouldn’t the Admiral know? Alonso de Carvajal has put on board the Santa Clara for the Admiral’s agent in Cadiz five thousand pieces—fully due, as the Governor had allowed.”

Door was opened. “His Excellency the Governor will see you now.”

Why tarry over a short story? Don Nicholas de Ovando pleaded smoothly the Sovereign’s most strict command which in any to disobey were plain malfeasance! As he spoke he looked dreamily toward blue harbor and the Consolacion. And as to a ship! Every ship, except two or three, old and crippled and in the hands of the menders, no whit better it was certain than the Margarita, was laded and on the point of sailing. Literally he had none, absolutely not one! He understood that Jamaica was expressly named to the Admiral for resting and overhauling. Careen the Margarita there and rectify the wrong—which he trusted was not great. If ships had been idle and plentiful—but he could not splinter any from the fleet that was sailing to-morrow. He was sorry—and trusted that the Admiral was in health?

Terreros said, “His ship is worse off than you think, Excellency. He has great things to do, confided into his hands by the Sovereigns who treasure him who found all. Here is emergency. May we carry to him invitation to enter San Domingo for an hour and himself present his case?”

But no—but no—but no! Thrice that!

The Governor rose. Audience was over.

For the rest he was courteous—asked of the voyage—and of the Admiral’s notion of the Strait. “A great man!” he said. “A Thinker, a Seer.” He sent him messages of courtesy three-piled. And so we parted.

This was the Governor of whom one said long afterwards,

“He was a good governor for white men, but not for Indians.”

As life and destiny would have it, in the place without the Governor’s house I met him who was to say it. Terreros and I with the same escort were for the water side, the Consolacion’s long boat. The crowd kept with us, but His Excellency’s soldiers held it orderly. Yet there were shouts and messages for the Admiral, and for this one and that one aboard our ships. Then came a young man, said a word to the officer with us, and put out his hand to mine. It was that Bartolome de Las Casas with whom I had walked the white road, under moon, before the inn between Seville and Cordova.