RISING at dawn, I walked to the sea and along it until I came at last to those dunes beneath which I had stretched myself that day of grayness. Now it was deep summer, blue and gold, and the air all balm and caressing. The evening before I had seen the three ships where they rode in river mouth. They were caravels, and only the Santa Maria, the largest, was fully decked. Small craft with which to find India, over a road of a thousand leagues—or no road, for road means that men have toiled there and traveled there—no road, but a wilderness plain, a water desert! The Arabians say that Jinn and Afrits live in the desert away from the caravans. If you go that way you meet fearful things and never come forth again. The Santa Maria, the Pinta and the Nina. The Santa Maria could be Master Christopherus’s ship. Bright point that was his banner could be made out at the fore.
Palos waterside, in a red-filtered dusk, had been a noisy place, but the noise did not ring genially. I gathered that this small port was more largely in the mood of Pedro and Fernando than in that of Sancho. It looked frightened and it looked sullen and it looked angry.
The old woman by the Tinto talked garrulously. Thankful was she that her son Miguel dwelled ten leagues away! Else surely they would have taken him, as they were taking this one’s son and that one’s son! To hear her you would think of an ogre—of Polyphemus in the cave—reaching out fatal hand for this or that fattened body. Nothing then, she said, to do but to pinch and save so that one might pay the priest for masses! She told me with great eyes that a hundred leagues west of Canaries one came to a sea forest where all the trees were made of water growing up high and spreading out like branches and leaves, and that this forest was filled with sea wolves and serpents and strange beasts all made of sea water, but they could sting and rend a man very ghastly. After that you came to sirens that you could not help leaping to meet, but they put lips to men’s breasts and sucked out the life. Then if the wind drove you south, you smelled smoke and at night saw flames, and if you could not get the ship about—
In mid-afternoon I left the sands and took the road to La Rabida. By the walled vineyard that climbs the hill I was met by three mounted men coming from the monastery. The first was Don Juan de Penelosa, the second was the Prior of La Rabida, the third was the Admiral of the Ocean-Sea.
Fray Juan Perez first saw me clearly, drawn up by wall. He had been quoting Latin and he broke at Dominus et magister. The Admiral turned gray eyes upon me. I saw his mind working. He said, “The road to Cordova—Welcome, Juan Lepe!”
“Welcome, Excellency!”
I gave him the name, seeing him for a moment somewhat whimsically as Viceroy of conquered great India of the elephants and the temples filled with bells. His face lighted. He looked at me, and I knew again that he liked me. I liked him.
My kinsman the Prior had started to speak to me, but then had shot a look at Juan de Penelosa and refrained. The Queen’s officer spoke, “Why, here’s another strong fellow, not so tall as some but powerfully knit! Are you used to the sea?”
I answered that I had been upon a Marseilles bark that was wrecked off Almeria, and that I had walked from San Lucar. He asked my name and I gave it. “Juan Lepe.” “I attach you then, Juan Lepe, for the service of the Queen! Behold your admiral, Don Cristoval Colon! His ships are the Santa Maria, the Pinta and the Nina, his destination the glorious finding of the Indies and Cipango where the poorest man drinks from a golden cup! Princes, I fancy, drink from hollowed emeralds! You will sail to-morrow at dawn. In which ship shall we put him, Senor?”
“In the Santa Maria,” answered the Admiral.
So short as that was it done! And yet—and yet—it had been doing for a long time, for how long a time I have no way of measuring!
Juan de Penelosa continued to speak: “Follow us into Palos where Sebastian Jaurez will give you wine and a piece of money. Thence you will go to church where indeed we are bound, all who sail being gathered there for general confession and absolution. This voyage begins Christianly!”
Said Fray Juan Perez, “Not to do that, Juan Lepe, were to cry aloud for another shipwreck!”
He used the tone of priest, thrusting in speech as priests often do, where there is no especial need of speech. But I understood that that was a mask, and could read kinsmanly anxiety in a good man’s heart. I said, “I will find Sebastian Jaurez, and I will go to church, Senors. A ship is a ship, and a voyage a voyage!”
“This, Juan Lepe,” said the Admiral in that peculiarly warm and thrilling voice of his, “is such a voyage as you have never been!”
I made reply, “So be it! I would have every voyage greater than the last.” And as they put their steeds into motion, walked behind them downhill and over sandy ways into Palos. There I found Sebastian Jaurez who signed me in. I put into my pocket the coin he gave me and drank with him a stoup of wine, and then I went to church.
It was a great shadowy church and I found it full. Jaurez piloted me to where just under pulpit were ranged my fellow mariners, a hundred plain sailormen, no great number with which to widen the world! A score or so of better station were grouped at the head of these, and in front of all stood Christopherus Columbus. I saw again Martin Alonso Pinzon who had entered the Prior’s room at La Rabida, and with him his two brothers Francisco and Vicente. Martin Pinzon would be captain of the Pinta and Vicente of the Nina. And there were Roderigo Sanchez of Segovia, Inspector-General of Armament, and Diego de Arana, chief alguazil of the expedition, and Roderigo de Escobedo, royal notary, and with these three or four young men of birth, adventuring for India now that the war with the Moor was done. And there were two physicians, Garcia Fernandez and Berardino Nunez. And there was the Franciscan, Fray Ignatio, who would convert the heathen and preach before the Great Khan.
The Admiral of Ocean-Sea stood a taller man than any there, tall, muscular, a great figure. He was richly dressed, for as soon as he could he dressed richly. A shaft of light struck his brow and made his hair all glowing silver. His face was lifted. The air about him to my eyes swam and quivered and was faintly colored.
Fray Juan Perez preached the sermon and he used great earnestness and now and again his voice broke. He talked of God’s gain that we went forth upon, reaping in a field set us. One thing came forth here that I had not before heard.
“And the unthinkable wealth that surely shall be found and gained, for these countries to which you sail have eight-tenths of the world’s riches, shall put Castile and Leon where of old stood Pagan Rome, and shall make, God willing, of this very Palos a new Genoa or Venice! And this man, your Admiral, how hath he proposed to the Sovereigns to use first fruits? Why, friends, by taking finally and forever from Mahound, and for Holy Church and her servant the Spains, the Holy Sepulchre!”
In the end, we the going forth, kneeling, made general confession and the priest’s hands in the dusk above absolved us. There was solemnity and there was tenderness. A hundred and twenty, we came forth from church, and around us flowed the hundreds of Palos, men and women and children. All was red under a red sunset, the boats waiting to take us out to the Santa Maria, the Pinta and the Nina.
We marched to waterside. Priests and friars moved with us, singing loudly the hymn to the Virgin, Lady of all seamen. Great tears ran down Fray Juan Perez’s checks. It was a red sunset and the west into which we were going looked indeed blood-flecked. Don Juan de Penelosa, harking us on, had an inspiration. “You see the rubies of Cipango!”
It is not alone “great” men who bring about things in this world. All of us are in a measure great, as all are on the way to greater greatness. Sailors are brave and hardy men; that is said when it is said that they are sailors. In many hearts hung dread of this voyage and rebellion against being forced to it. But they had not to be lashed to the boats; they went with sailors’ careless air and dignity. By far the most went thus. Even Fernando ceased his wailing and embarked. The red light, or for danger or for rubies in which still might be danger, washed us all, washed the town, the folk and the sandy shore, and the boats that would take us out to the ships, small in themselves, and small by distance, riding there in the river-mouth like toys that have been made for children.
The hundred and twenty entered the boats. It was like a little fishing fleet going out together. The rowers bent to the oars, a strip of water widened between us and Spain. Loud chanted the friars, but over their voices rose the crying of farewell, now deep, now shrill. “Adios!” The sailors cried back, “Adios! Adios!” From the land it must have had a thin sound like ghosts wailing from the edge of the world. That, the sailors held and Palos held, was where the ships were going, over the edge of the world. It was the third day of August, in the year fourteen hundred and ninety-two.
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