1492

by Mary Johnston

  CHAPTER XXI

  MARTIN PINZON did not return to us. That tall, blond sea captain wasgone we knew not where. The _Santa Maria_ and the Nina sailed southalong the foot of Cuba. But now rose out of ocean on our southeastquarter a great island with fair mountain shapes. We asked ourIndians--we had five aboard beside Diego Colon--what it was. "Bohio!Bohio!" But when we came there, its own inhabitants called it Hayti andQuisquaya.

  The Admiral paced our deck, small as a turret chamber, his hands behindhim, his mind upon some great chart drawn within, not without. At last,having decided, he called Juan de la Cosa. "We will go to Bohio."

  So it was done whereby much was done, the Woman with the distaffspinning fast, fast!

  As this island lifted out of ocean, we who had said of Cuba, "It is thefairest!" now said, "No, this is the fairest!" It was most beautiful,with mountains and forests and vales and plains and rivers.

  The twelfth day of December we came to anchor in a harbor which theAdmiral named Concepcion.

  On this shore the Indians fled from us. We found a village, but quitedeserted. Not a woman, not a man, not a child! Only three or four ofthose silent dogs, and a great red and green parrot that screamed butsaid nothing. There was something in this day, I know not what, but itmade itself felt. The Admiral, kneeling, kissed the soil, and he namedthe island Hispaniola, and we planted a cross.

  For long we had been beaten about, and all aboard the ships were wellwilling to leave them for a little. We had a dozen sick and they cravedthe shore and the fruit trees. Our Indians, too, longed. So we anchored,and mariners and all adventurers rested from the sea. A few at a time,the villagers returned, and fearfully enough at first. But we had harmednothing, and what greatness and gentleness was in us we showed it here.Presently all thought they were at home with us, and that heaven bredthe finest folk!

  Our people of Hispaniola, subjects now, since the planting of the flag,were taller, handsomer, we thought, than the Cubans, and more advancedin the arts. Their houses were neat and good, and their gardens weededand well-stocked. The men wore loin cloths, the women a wide cottongirdle or little skirt. We found three or four copper knives, but againthey said that they came from the south. As in Spain "west--west" hadbeen his word, so now the Admiral brooded upon south.

  These folk had a very little gold, but they seemed to say that theirswas a simple and poor village, and that we should find more of allthings farther on. So we left Concepcion, the cross upon the rockshowing a long way through the pure air.

  For two days we coasted, and at the end of this time we came to a harborof great beauty and back from it ran a vale like Paradise, so richlysweet it was! Christopherus Columbus was quick to find beauty and lovedit when found. Often and often have I seen his face turn that of a childor a youth, filled with wonder. I have seen him kiss a flower, lay acaress upon stem of tree, yearn toward palm tops against the blue. Hewas well read in the old poets, and he himself was a poet though hewrote no line of verse.

  We entered here and came to anchor and the sails rattled down."Hispaniola--Hispaniola, and we will call this harbor St. Thomas! Hewas the Apostle to India. And now we are his younger brothers come afterlong folding away. Were we more--did we have a fleet--we might set acity here and, it being Christmas, call it La Navidad!" Out came thecanoes to us, out the swimmers, dark and graceful figures cleaving theutter blue. Some one passing that way overland, hurrying with news, hadtold these villages how peaceful, noble, benevolent, beneficent we were.

  The canoes were heaped with fruit and cassava bread, and they hadcotton, not in balls, but woven in pieces. And these Indians had aboutneck or in ear some bits of gold. These they changed cheerfully, takingand valuing what trifle was given. "Gold. Where do you get your gold? Doyou know of Cipango or Cathay or India? Have ever you heard of Zaiton,or of Quinsai and Cublai Khan?" They gave us answers which we could notfully understand, and gestured inland and a little to the east. "Cibao!Cibao!" They seemed to say that there was all the gold there that areasonable mortal might desire. "Cibao?--Cipango?" said the Admiral."They might be the same."

  "Like Cuba and Cublai Khan," thought Juan Lepe.

  Around a point of shore darted a long canoe with many rowers. Othercanoes gave way for it, and the Indians already upon the _Santa Maria_exclaimed that it was the boat of the cacique, though not the caciquebut his brother sat in it. Guacanagari was the cacique. His town wasyonder! They pointed to a misty headland beyond St. Thomas's bay.

  The Indian from the great canoe came aboard, a handsome fellow, and hebrought presents not like any we had seen. There was a width of cottonembroidered thick with bits of gleaming shell and bone, but what wasmost welcome was a huge wooden mask with eyes and tongue of gold. FrayIgnatio crossed himself. "The devil they worship,--poor lost sheep!"The third gift was a considerable piece of that mixed and imperfect goldwhich afterwards we called guanin. And would we go to visit the caciquewhose town was not so far yonder?

  It was Christmas Eve. We sailed with a small, small wind for thecacique's village, out from harbor of St. Thomas, around a headland andalong a low, bright green shore. So low and fitful was the wind that wemoved like two great snails. Better to have left the ships and gone, somany of us, in our boats with oars, canoes convoying us! The distancewas not great, but distance is as the power of going. "I remember,"quoth the Admiral, "a calm, going from the Levant to Crete, and ourwater cask broken and not a mouthful for a soul aboard! That was a long,long two days while the one shore went no further and the other cameno nearer. And going once to Porto Santo with my wife she fell illand moaned for the land, and we were held as by the sea bottom, and Ithought she would die who might be saved if she could have the land. AndI remember going down the African coast with Santanem--"

  Diego de Arana said, "You have had a full life, senor!"

  He was cousin, I had been told, to that Dona Beatrix whom the Admiralcherished, mother of his youngest son, Fernando. The Admiral hadaffection for him, and Diego de Arana lived and died, a good, loyalman. "A full outward life," he went on, "and I dare swear, a full inwardone!"

  "That is God's truth!" said the Admiral. "You may well say that, senor!Inside I have lived with all who have lived, and discovered with all whohave discovered!"

  I remember as a dream this last day upon the _Santa Maria_. Beltran thecook had scalded his arm. I dressed it each day, and dressing it now,half a dozen idling by, watching the operation, I heard again a kind oftalk that I had heard before. Partly because I had shipped as Juan Lepean Andalusian sailor and had had my forecastle days, and partly becausemen rarely fear to speak to a physician, and partly because in thegreat whole there existed liking between them and me, they talked anddiscussed freely enough what any other from the other end of ship couldhave come at only by formal questioning. Now many of the seamen wantedto know when we were returning to Palos, and another number said thatthey would just as soon never return, or at least not for a good while!But they did not wish to spend that good while upon the ship. It was agood land, and the heathen also good. The heathen might all be going toburn in hell, unless Fray Ignatio could get them baptized in time, andso numerous were they that seemed hardly possible! Almost all might haveto go to hell. But in the meantime, here on earth, they had their uses,and one could even grow fond of them--certainly fond of the women. Theheathen were eager to work for us, catch us coneys, bring us gold, puthammocks for us between trees and say "Sleep, senor, sleep!" Here evenTomaso Passamonte was "senor" and "Don." And as for the women--only theskin is dark--they were warm-hearted! Gold and women and never any coldnor hunger nor toil! The heathen to toil for you--and they could betaught to make wine, with all these grapes dangling everywhere? Heathencould do the gathering and pressing, and also the gold hunting in rocksand streams. Spain would furnish the mind and the habit of command. Itwere well to stay and cultivate Hispaniola! The Admiral and those whowanted to might take home the ships. Of course the Admiral would comeagain, and with him ships and many men. No one wanted, of course, neverto se
e again Castile and Palos and his family! But to stay in Hispaniolaa while and rest and grow rich,--that was what they wanted. And no onecould justly call them idle! If they found out all about the land andwhere were the gold and the spices, was there not use in that, just asmuch use as wandering forever on the _Santa Maria_?

  Mother earth was kind, kind, here, and she didn't have a rod like mothercountry and Mother Church! They did not say this last, but it was whatthey meant.

  "You don't see the rod, that is all," said Juan Lepe.

  But there had eventually to be colonies, and I knew that the Admiral wasrevolving in his head the leaving in this new world certain of our men,seed corn as it were, organs also to gather knowledge against hisspeedy return with power of ships and men. For surely Spain would begrateful,--surely, surely! But he was not ready yet to set sail forSpain. He meant to discover more, discover further, come if by any meanshe could to the actual wealth of great, main India; come perhaps toZaiton, where are more merchants than in all the rest of the world, anda hundred master ships laden with pepper enter every year; or to Quinsaiof the marble bridges. No, he was not ready to turn prow to Spain, andhe was not likely to bleed himself of men, now or for many days to come.All these who would lie in hammocks ashore must wait awhile, and evenwhen they made their colony, that is not the way that colonies live andgrow.

  Beltran said, "Some of you would like to do a little good, and some arefor a sow's life!"

  It was Christmas Eve, and we had our vespers, and we thought of the dayat home in Castile and in Italy. Dusk drew down. Behind us was the deep,secure water of St. Thomas, his harbor. The Admiral had us sound andthe lead showed no great depth, whereupon we stood a little out to avoidshoal or bar.

  For some nights the Admiral had been wakeful, suffering, as Juan Lepeknew, with that gout which at times troubled him like a very demon. Butthis night he slept. Juan de la Cosa set the watch. The helmsman wasSancho Ruiz than whom none was better, save only that he would take arisk when he pleased. All others slept. The day had been long, so warm,still and idle, with the wooded shore stealing so slowly by.

  Early in the night Sancho Ruiz was taken with a great cramp and aswimming of the head. He called to one of the watch to come take thehelm for a little, but none answered; called again and a ship boysleeping near, uncurled himself, stretched, and came to hand. "It's allsafe, and the Admiral sleeping and the master sleeping and the watchalso!" said the boy. Pedro Acevedo it was, a well-enough meaning youngwretch.

  Sancho Ruiz put helm in his hand. "Keep her so, while I lie down herefor a little. My head is moving faster than the _Santa Maria_!"

  He lay down, and the swimming made him close his eyes, and closed eyesand the disappearance of his pain, and pleasant resting on deck causedhim to sleep. Pedro Acevedo held the wheel and looked at the moon. Thenthe wind chose to change, blowing still very lightly but bearing us nowtoward shore, and Pedro never noticing this grow larger. He was lookingat the moon, he afterwards said with tears, and thinking of Christ bornin Bethlehem.

  The shore came nearer and nearer. Sancho Ruiz slept. Pedro now heard asound that he knew well enough. Coming back to here and now, he lookedand saw breakers upon a long sand bar. The making tide was at half, andthat and the changed wind carried us toward the lines of foam. The boycried, "Steersman! Steersman!" Ruiz sat up, holding his head in hishands. "Such a roaring in my ears!" But "Breakers! Breakers!" cried theboy. "Take the helm!"

  Ruiz sprang to it, but as he touched it the _Santa Maria_ grounded.The shock woke most on board, the immediate outcry and running feet therest.

  The harm was done, and no good now in recriminations! It was never, Ibear witness, habit of Christopherus Columbus.

  The Santa Maria listed heavily, the sea pounding against her, drivingher more and more upon the sand. But order arrived with the Admiral. Themaster grew his lieutenant, the mariners his obedient ones. Back he wasat thirty, with a shipwreck who had seen many and knew how to toil withhands and with head. Moreover, the great genius of the man shone indarkness. He could encourage; he could bring coolness.

  We tried to warp her off, but it was not to be done. We cut away mastto lighten her, but more and more she grew fast to the bank, the wavesstriking all her side, pushing her over. Seams had opened, water wascoming in. The _Nina_ a mile away took our signal and came nearer, layto, and sent her boat.

  The Santa Maria, it was seen, was dying. Nothing more was to be done.Her mariners could only cling to her like bees to comb. We got thetwo boats clear and there was the boat of the Nina. Missioned by theAdmiral, Juan Lepe got somehow into cabin, together with Sancho and LuisTorres, and we collected maps and charts, log, journal, box withroyal letters and the small bags of gold, and the Admiral's personalbelongings, putting all into a great sack and caring for it, until uponthe _Nina_ we gave it into his hand. Above us rang the cry, "All off!"

  From Christopherus Columbus to Pedro Acevedo all left the Santa Mariaand were received by the Nina. Crowded, crowded was the Nina! Downvoyaged the moon, up came with freshness the rose-chapleted dawn. Awreck lay the Santa Maria, painted against the east, about her a lowthunder of breakers. Where was the _Pinta_ no man knew! Perhaps halfwayback to Spain or perhaps wrecked and drowned like the flagship. TheNina, a small, small ship and none too seaworthy, carried all of Europeand Discovery.