1492

by Mary Johnston

  CHAPTER XXXVII

  JUAN LEPE lay upon the sand beyond Palos. The Admiral was with the courtin Granada, but his physician, craving holiday, had borne a letter toJuan Perez, the Prior of _Santa Maria_ de la Rabida.

  I thought the Admiral would go again seafaring, and that I would go withhim. Up at La Rabida, Fray Juan Perez was kind. I had a cell, Icould come and go; he did not tell Palos that here was the Admiral'sphysician, who knew the Indies from the first taking and could relatewonders. I lived obscure, but in Prior's room, by a light fire, for itwas November, he himself endlessly questioned and listened.

  Ocean before me, ocean, ocean! Lying here, those years ago, I had seenocean only. Now, far, far, I saw land, saw San Salvador, Cuba that mightbe the main, Hayti, Jamaica, San Juan, Guadaloupe, Trinidad, Pariathat again seemed main. Vast islands and a world of small islands, vastmainlands. Then no sail was seen on far Ocean-Sea; now out there mightbe ships going from Cadiz, coming, returning from San Domingo. Eightyears, and so the world was changed!

  I thought, "In fifty years--in a hundred years--in two hundred? What iscoming up the long road?"

  Ocean murmured, the tide was coming in. Juan Lepe waited till the sandshad narrowed, till the gray wave foamed under his hand. Then he rose andwalked slowly to La Rabida.

  After compline, talk; Fray Juan Perez, the good man, comfortable inhis great chair before the fire. He had hungered always, I thought, foradventure and marvel. Here it happened--? And here it happened--?

  To-night we fell to talk of the Pinzons--Martin who was dead, andVicente who now was on Ocean-Sea, on a voyage of his own--and of otherswho had sailed, and what they found and where they were. We were at easeabout the Admiral. We had had letters.

  He was in Granada, dressed again in crimson and gold, towering againwith his silver head, honored and praised. When first he came into theQueen's presence she had trembled a little and turned pale, and therewas water in her eyes. "Master Christopherus, forgive us! Whereupon,"said the letter, "I wept with her."

  Apparently all honors were back; he moved Admiral and Viceroy. Hisbrothers, his sons, all his house walked in a spring sun. He had beenshown the letters from Bobadilla, and he who was not lengthy in speechhad spoken an hour upon them. His word rang gold; Christ gave it, hesaid, that his truth was believed. Don Francisco de Bobadilla would quitHispaniola--though not in chains.

  Fray Juan Perez stirred the fire. Upon the table stood a flask of wineand a dish of figs. We were comfortable in La Rabida.

  Days passed, weeks passed, time passed. Word from the Admiral, word ofthe Admiral, came not infrequently to white La Rabida. He himself, inhis own person, stood in bright favor, the Queen treasuring him, lovingto talk with him, the Court following her, the King at worst only acool friend. But his affairs of office, Fray Juan Perez and I gathered,sitting solicitous at La Rabida, were not in so fair a posture. He andhis household did not lack. Monies were paid him, though not in full histithe of all gains from his finding. What never shook was his titleof The Admiral. But they seemed, the Sovereigns, or at least KingFerdinand, to look through "Viceroy" as though it were a shade. And inHispaniola, though charged, reproved, threatened, still stayed Bobadillain the guise of Governor!

  "They cannot leave him there," I said. "If the Colombos are not men forthe place, what then is Bobadilla?"

  Fray Juan Perez stirred the fire. "King Ferdinand, I say it only to youand in a whisper, has not a little of the King of the Foxes! Not, tillhe has made up his mind, doth he wish there a perfect man. When he hasmade it up, he will cast about--"

  "I do not think he has any better than the Adelantado!"

  "'Those brothers are one. Leave him out!' saith the King. I will readyou his mind! 'Master Christopherus Columbus hath had too much from thebeginning. Nor is he necessary as he was. When the breach is made, anymay take the fortress! I will leave him and give him what I must but nomore!' He will send at last another than Bobadilla, but not again, if hecan help it, the old Viceroy! Of course there is the Queen, but she hasmany sorrows these days, and fails, they say, in health."

  "It may be," said Juan Lepe. "I myself were content for him to rest TheAdmiral only. But his mind is yet a hawk towering over land and sea andclaiming both for prize. He mingles the earthly and the heavenly."

  "It is true," said Fray Juan Perez, "that age comes upon him. And true,too, that King Ferdinand may say, 'Whatever it was at first, this worldin the West becomes far too vast a matter for one man and the old,first, simple ways!'"

  "You have it there," I answered, and we covered the embers and went tobed in La Rabida.

  Winter passed. It was seen that the Admiral could not sail this week northe next.

  Juan Lepe, bearded, brown as a Moor, older than in the year Granadafell, crossed with quietness much of Castile and came on a springevening to the castle of Don Enrique de Cerda. Again "_Juan Lepe fromthe hermitage in the oak wood_."

  Seven days. I would not stay longer, but in that time the ancient treeswaved green again.

  Don Enrique had been recently to Granada. "King Ferdinand will changeall matters in the West! Your islands shall have Governors, as manyas necessary. They shall refer themselves to a High Governor at SanDomingo, who in his turn shall closely listen to a Council here."

  "Will the High Governor be Don Cristoval Colon?"

  "No. I hear that he himself agrees to a suspension of his viceroyaltyfor two years, seeing well that in Hispaniola is naught but faction,everything torn into 'Friends of the Genoese' and 'Not friends!'.Perhaps he sees that he cannot help himself and that he less parts withdignity by acceding. I do not know. There is talk of Don Nicholas deOvanda, Commander of Lares. Your man will not, I think, be sent beforea steady wind for Viceroy again--never again. If he presses toopersistently, there can always be found one or more who will stand andcry, 'He did intend, O King--he doth intend--to make himself King ofthe Indies!' And King Ferdinand will say he does not believe, but it ismanifest that that thought must first die from men's minds. The Queenfails fast. She has not the voice and the hand in all matters that oncewas so."

  "He is one who dies for loyalties," I said. "He reverences all simplythe crowns of Castile and Leon. For his own sake I am not truly soanxious to have him Viceroy again! They will give him ships and let himdiscover until he dies?"

  "Ah, I don't think there is any doubt about that!" he answered.

  We talked somewhat of that great modern world, evident now over thehorizon, bearing upon us like a tall, full-rigged ship. All thingswere changing, changing fast. We talked of commerce and inventions, ofletters and of arts, of religion and the soul of man. Out of the soilwere pushing everywhere plants that the old called heretical.

  Seven days. We were, as we shall be forever, friends.

  But Juan Lepe would go back to La Rabida. He was, for this turn of life,man of the Admiral of the Ocean-Sea. So we said farewell, Enrique deCerda and Jayme de Marchena.

  Three leagues Seville side of Cordova I came at eve to a good inn knownto me of old. Riding into its court I found two travelers entering justbefore me, one a well-formed hidalgo still at prime, and the other ayoung man evidently his son. The elder who had just dismounted turnedand I recognized Don Francisco de Las Casas. At the same instant he sawme. "Ha, Friend! Ha, Doctor!"

  We took our supper together in a wide, low room, looking out upon theroad. Don Francisco and Juan Lepe talked and the young man listened.Juan Lepe talked but his eyes truly were for this young man. It was notthat he was of a striking aspect and better than handsome, though he wasall that--but I do not know--it was the future in his countenance! Hisfather addressed him as Bartolome. Once he said, "When my son was atthe University at Salamanca," and again, "My son will go out with DonNicholas de Ovando." Juan Lepe, sitting in a brown study, roused atthat. "If you go, senor, you will find good memories around the name ofLas Casas."

  The young man said, "I will strive in no way to darken them, senor."

  He might be a year or two the younger side of thirty.
The father, it wasevident, had great pride in him, and presently having sent him onsome errand--sending him, I thought, in order to be able to speak ofhim--told me that he was very learned, a licentiate, having masteredlaw, theology and philosophy. He himself would not return to Hispaniola,but Bartolome wished to go. He sighed, "I do not know. Something makesme consent," and went on to enlist Doctor Juan Lepe's care if in theisland ever arose any chance to aid--

  The son returned. There was something--Juan Lepeknew it--something in the future.

  Later, Don Francisco having gone to bed, the young man and I talked. Iliked him extraordinarily. I was not far from twice his age, as littleman counts age. But he had soul and mind, and while these count age itis not in the short, earthly way. He asked me about the Indians,and again and again we came back to that, pacing up and down in themoonlight before the Spanish inn.

  The next morning parting. They were going to Cordova, I to the sea.

  The doves flew over the cloister of La Rabida. The bells rang; in thesmall white church sang the brothers, then paced to their cells or awayto their work among the vines. Prior had a garden, small, with a treein each corner, with a stone bench in the sun and a stone bench in theshade, and the doves walked here all day long. And here I found theAdelantado with Fray Juan Perez.

  The Admiral was well?

  Aye, well, and next month would come to Seville. A new Voyage.

  We sat under the grape arbor and he told me much, the Prior listeningfor the second time. The doves cooed and whirred and walked in the sunand shadow. According to Don Bartholomew, half in his pack was dark andhalf was light.

  Ovando? We heard again of all that. He was going out, Don Nicholas deOvando, with a great fleet.

  The Adelantado possessed a deal of plain, strong sense. "I do not thinkthat Cristoforo will ever rule again in Hispaniola! King Ferdinand hashis own measure and goes about to apply it. The Queen flinches now fromdecisions.--Well, what of it? After all, we were bred to the sea, I havea notion that his son Diego--an able youth--may yet be Viceroy. He hasestablished his family, if so be he does not bring down the structure byobstinating overmuch! He sees that, the Admiral, and nods his head andsteps aside. As for native pride and its hurt he salves that with greatenterprises. It is his way. Drouth? Frost? Out of both he rises, greenand hopeful as grass in May!"

  "What of the Voyage?" asked Juan Lepe.

  "That's the enterprise that will go through. Now that Portugal and Vascoda Gama are actually in at the door, it behooves us--more and more itbehooves us," said Bartolomeo Colombo, "to find India of All the Wealth!Spain no less than Portugal wants the gold and diamonds, the drugs andspices, the fine, thin, painted cloths, the carved ivory and silver andamber. 'Land, land, so much land!' says King Ferdinand. 'But _wealth_?It is all out-go! Even your Crusade were a beggarly Crusade!'"

  "Ha! That hurt him!" quoth Fray Juan Perez.

  "Says the King. 'Pedro Alonso Nino has made for us the most profitablevoyage of any who have sailed from Cadiz.' 'From Cadiz, but not fromPalos,' answers the Admiral."

  "Ha! Easy 'tis when he has shown the way!" said Fray Juan Perez.

  Don Bartholomew drew with the Prior's stick in the sand at our feet. "Heconceives it thus. Here to the north is Cuba, stretching westward howfar no man knoweth. Here to the south is Paria that he found--no matterwhat Ojeda and Nino and Cabral have done since!--stretching westward howfar no man knoweth, and between is a great sea holding Jamaica and we donot know what other islands. Cuba and Paria curving south and north andbetween them where they shall come closest surely a strait into the seaof Rich India!" He drew Cuba and Paria approaching each the other untilthere was space between like the space from the horn of Spain to thehorn of Africa. "Rich India--now, now, now--gold on the wharves, canoesof pearls, not cotton and cassava, is what we want in Spain! So the Kingsays, 'Very good, you shall have the ships,' and the Queen, 'Christhave you in his keeping, Master Christopherus!' So we go. All his futurehangs, he knows, on finding Rich India."

  "How soon do we go?"

  "As soon as he can get the ships and the men and the supplies. He wantsonly three or four and not great ones. Great ships for warships andstoreships, but little ships for discovery!"

  "Aye, I hear him!" said Fray Juan Perez. "September--October."

  But it was not until March that we sailed on his last voyage.