1492

CHAPTER XLIII

WE left one of our ships in the Bethlehem and we lost another upon this disastrous coast ere we got clear for Jamaica.

We were sea specters. We had saved our men from the San Sebastian as from the Margarita. Now all were upon the Consolacion and the Juana. Fifty fewer were we than when we had sailed from Cadiz, yet the two ships crept over-full. And they were like creatures overcome with eld. Beaten, crazed, falling apart.

On the Eve of Saint John we came to Jamaica.

The ships were riddled by the teredo. We could not keep afloat to go to Hispaniola. At Santa Gloria we ran them in quiet water side by side upon the sand. They partly filled, they settled down, only forecastle and poop above the blue mirror. We built shelters upon them and bridged the space between. The ocean wanderers were turned into a fort.

Jamaica, we thanked all the saints, was a friendly land. They brought us cassava and fruit, these Indians; they swarmed about us in their canoes. The gods in trouble, yet still the gods!

We were forty leagues from Hispaniola, and we had no ship!

Again there volunteered Diego Mendez. We ourselves had now but one Christian boat. But there existed canoes a-plenty. Chose one, with six Indians to row! Leave Diego Mendez with one other Spaniard of his choice to cross the sea between us and Hispaniola, get to San Domingo, rouse all Christian men, even Don Nicholas de Ovanda, procure a large ship or two smaller ones, return with rescue!

We sent off Diego Mendez with strong farewells and blessings. The vast blue sea and air withdrew and covered from sight the canoe.

A week—two weeks. Grew out of the azure a single canoe, and approached. “Diego Mendez—Diego Mendez!”

It was he alone, with a tale to tell of storm and putting ashore and capture after battle by Jamaicans no longer friendly, and of escape alone. But he would go again if so be he might have with him Bartholomew Fiesco. They went, with heavily paid Indians to row the staunchest canoe we could find. This time the Adelantado with twenty kept them company along the shore to end of the island, where the canoe shot forth into clear sea, and the blue curtain came down between the stranded and the going for help. The Adelantado returned to us, and we waited. The weeks crept by.

Great heat and sickness, and the Indians no longer prompt to bring us supplies. Sooner or later, each of these dark peoples found a Quibian or Caonabo.

The most of us determined that Diego Mendez and Fiesco and their canoe were lost. Hispaniola knew nothing of us—nothing, nothing! Suddenly the two Porras brothers led a mad mutiny. “Leave these rotting ships—seize the canoes we need—all of us row or swim to Hispaniola!”

There were fifty who thought thus. The Admiral withstood them with strong words, with the reasoning of a master seaman, and the counsel now—his white and long hair, and eld upon him—of Jacob or Isaac or Abraham. But they would not, and they would not, and at last they departed from us, taking—but the Admiral gave them freely—the dozen canoes that we had purchased, crowding into these, rowing away with cries from that sea fortress, melancholy indeed, in the blinding light.

They vanished. The next day fair, the next a mad storm. Two weeks, and news came of them. They were not nigh to Hispaniola; wrecked, they lost five men, but got, the rest of them, to land, where they now roved from village to village. Another week, and the Indians who came to us and whom we kept friendly, related with passionate and eloquent word and gesture evils that that band was working. Pedro Margarite—Roldan—over and over again!

After much of up and down those mutineers came back to us. They could not do without us; they could not get to Hispaniola in Indian canoes. The Admiral received them fatherly.

No sail—no sail. Long months and no sail. Surely Diego Mendez and Bartholomew Fiesco were drowned! Hispaniola, if it thought of us at all, might think us now by Ganges. Or as lost at sea.

Christopherus Columbus dreamed again, or had a vision again. “I was hopeless. I wept alone on a desert shore. My name had faded, and all that I had done was broken into sand and swept away. I repined, and cried, ‘Why is it thus?’ Then came a ship not like ours, and One stepped from it in light and thunder. ‘O man of little faith, I will cover thy eyes of to-day!’ He covered them, and I saw.—And now, Juan Lepe, I care not! We will all come Home, whether or no the wave covers us here.”

To mariners and adventurers he said at no time any word of despair. He said, “A ship will come! For if—which the saints forfend—Bartholomew Fiesco and Diego Mendez have not reached San Domingo, yet come at last will some craft to Jamaica! From our island or from Spain. How many times since ‘92 has there been touching here? Of need now it will be oftener and oftener!”

But still many pined with hope deferred.—And then, out of the blue, arose first Diego de Escobar’s small ship, and later the two good ships sent by Don Nicholas de Ovando.

The Admiral of the Ocean-Sea lodged in the Governor’s house in San Domingo. Who so courteous as Don Nicholas, saving only Don Cristoval?

Juan Lepe found certain ones and his own eyes to tell him of island fortunes. Here was Sancho, a bearded man, and yet looked out the youth who had walked from Fishertown to Palos strand. “Oh, aye! San Domingo’s growing! It’s to be as great as Seville, with cathedral and fortress and palace. White men build fast, though not so fast as the Lord!”

“The Governor?”

“Oh, he makes things spin! He’s hard on the Indians—but then they’ve surely given us trouble!”

He told of new forts and projected towns and an increasing stream of ships, from Spain to Spain again. “We’re here to stay—as long as there’s a rock of gold or anything that can be turned into gold! The old bad times are over—and that old, first simple joy, too, Doctor!—Maybe we’ll all ship for Ciguarre.”

But no. The colony now was firm, with thousands of Spaniards where once had stood fivescore. Luis Torres sat with me and he told me of Indian war,—of Anacaona hanged and Cotubanama hanged, of eighty caciques burned or hanged, of peace at last. Now the Indians worked the mines, and scraped the sands of every stream, and likewise planted cotton and maize for the conquerors. They were gathered in repartimentios, encomiendas, parceled out, so many to every Spaniard with power. The old word “gods” had gone out of use. “Master” was now the plain and accurate term.

The Governor was a shrewd, political, strong man,—not without his generosities to white men. But no dreamer! He put down faction, but there was now less faction to put down. All had been united in mastering the Indian, and now with peace the getting of wealth was regularized. He had absolutely the ear of King Ferdinand, and help from Spain whenever he called for it. Yes, he was fairly liked by the generality. And had I noticed the growth in cowls and processions? Mother Church was moving in.

The next day I met again Bartolome de Las Casas.

September now—and a ship from Spain, bringing the news that the Queen was ill. There was another who was ill, and that was the Admiral of the Ocean-Sea:

“I must go—and we quarrel here, this Governor-in-my-place and I—I must go, rest at La Rabida with you, Doctor, and Fray Juan Perez to help me. Then I must go to court and see the Queen.”

The Adelantado said, “Both you and the Queen will get well. What, brother, your voyages are just begun! But let us sail now for Spain. I think well of that.”

And the son Fernando, Yes, yes, let us go home, father, and see Diego!