‘You are bent on killing me,’ groaned the miserable Vicar. ‘Can you not see that I am unable to stand on my feet? Have you no mercy? But do as you please, take me where you will: it makes little odds when or how I die.’
He suffered himself to be wrapped in a blanket and then lowered into the skiff, and from the jetty Pedro Fernandez carried him on his own back to the Residency. There he confessed Don Lorenzo, as well as four other dying men who had been borne into the sick-room, and administered the sacrament. When he had done, he was taken tenderly back to his cabin, their thanks and blessings ringing in his ears.
Early on the following morning, the 2nd of November, Don Lorenzo died, worn out by his convulsions, one of which was so violent that it tore apart the muscles of his belly. May God pardon him! Doña Ysabel grieved deeply at his passing and gave him the same funeral honours as Don Alvaro, though his cortège was a pitifully small one, and for want of a priest the Chief Pilot read the Burial Service. The Captaincy-General was now extinct, Don Lorenzo having omitted to nominate a successor.
The whole de la Isla family was swept away. During the last week of October Don Juan’s devoted wife and daughter had died of the fever in great uneasiness of mind; now he himself, too late to benefit from the Vicar’s last administrations, confessed his sins directly to his Maker, and met death with so cheerful a heart that already he seemed a pilgrim on the highroad to Heaven. This honourable and gallant man had never uttered a single word in regret of the blind bargain that he had made by venturing in these Isles; being altogether unlike his fellow-merchants, the brothers Castillo, whose curses and laments concerned little else. Both Diego and Luis Barreto, who received constant attention from Doña Ysabel’s servants and were supplied with sustaining and dainty foods, threw off the fever quickly enough, and Don Diego succeeded to the command of his brother’s company.
Andrés Castillo died next, followed by his brother Mariano and Doña Maria Ponce. By this time the savages had ceased their war on us, though knowing very well in what a cleft stick we were caught, and that ten determined men, coming at night, could easily have overpowered our sentries and taken possession of the camp. Whether it was fear of our artillery, or fear of catching our fever, that held them back, or whether they pitied us, must remain a matter for conjecture; at any rate, they continued to leave substantial gifts of food at the camp-gates, for which we paid them with the clothes of those who had died. Yet, notwithstanding this amity, the Colonel’s nephew was found one morning on the beach, half in and half out of the water, an arrow stuck through his heart; and a wound at the back of his head as though he had fallen against a jagged stone. Since no vengeance was required from the natives, I suspected that the two Barretos, jealous for Doña Mariana’s honour, had lain in wait for him one night, stunned him with a club, and then thrust the arrow into him by hand. She took the news calmly—how could she do otherwise?—but suffered the more.
On the 5th of November, Doña Ysabel moved back to the Great Cabin, pleading that the Residency held memories of the General’s last hours, and of Don Lorenzo’s, too poignant for her to bear; yet the demon of lust still spurred her to crime. She had allowed three days for Pedro Fernandez’s grief to assuage, and now opened a covert attack upon him; having in the meantime seen him often and spoken sweetly and piously of their common bereavement. On the fourth evening, she said: ‘My friend, if I am not mistaken, it is God’s will that we should at last abandon our mission to these islands, and leave the hopes and prayers of my poor husband unfulfilled; very soon we shall be without a priest. But for this, though abandoned by all except the very few, I should stay to the bitter end. You, I know, will never desert my cause, whatever may happen, now that, like myself, you are left alone in the world. I could not truthfully say as much for anyone else, no, not even for my own brothers.’
Pedro Fernandez assured her that he was deeply honoured by her confidence in him, which was not misplaced, and that he held her in higher veneration than any woman alive, or any man either, except it were His Majesty the King and the Holy Father at Rome; but sorrowfully agreed that, if the Vicar did not recover, it must be as she said. ‘Nevertheless, my lady, this need not be our last visit to your domain. You are Don Alvaro’s sole heiress, and one day, having fitted out another expedition, better equipped, as well manned, stronger in the Faith and in every other way, you will return to resume the task which you laid down; and on that day I undertake to sail with you.’
He told her of his ambition to discover the great southern continent of Austrialia, of which the Chinese claimed to have knowledge, and his zeal to begin the work of converting its teeming millions: ‘Then, my lady, you shall be Vicereine, and I (if you will not despise one of low station) will command your fleets.’
She brushed away a tear, assuring him that he was more to her than all the grandees of Old Spain, but that—more was the pity—the resplendent prospect he laid before her could never be realized. Although she was fit to wrestle with and overcome the difficulties of setting a new expedition on foot, as she had done before—‘and I confess,’ she sighed, ‘that my husband was more hindrance than help when I was working on our joint behalf’—one stumbling-block only barred the way: that Don Alvaro had left no male heir.
‘I verily believe,’ she continued, ‘that if I could present myself before His Majesty at Madrid and, falling at his feet, beseech him to confer the Captaincy-General upon my infant son by Don Alvaro, he would not hesitate to do so. Then every door would fly open and all purse-strings be loosed, a thousand bold knights would clamour to sail under my pendant, and I should once more be Governeress of the Isles of Solomon; and you, friend Pedro, for your faithfulness, would be my son’s trusty guardian. In due course, with God’s help, you would make me Vicereine of Austrialia—what a sweetly-sounding title—and Holy Church would reap the richest harvest of souls since its foundation. But, alas, these are fond dreams! Because of Don Alvaro’s saintly continence, no heir waits in my womb for posthumous birth. The King will despise the suit of a barren widow, and this island, and all the rest, will be relinquished to the claws of him who held them before we came.’
She rose and hurried away, as if to vent her grief in private—having a very nice sense of the tragical.
***
By this time, the sick troops had straggled back aboard the San Geronimo in the hope of being confessed by Father Juan before he died, and only the Ensign-Royal, Sergeant Andrada and twelve healthy men remained in the camp. They lived together in the guard-house, protecting the sailors who filled what was left of our casks and jars and then trundled them on handcarts from the spring to the jetty. Since fuel was also needed, several huts were pulled down, and the timbers sawn into convenient lengths. The natives watched this activity from a distance and, seeing that we were about to take our leave, treated us to a chorus of derision, but otherwise kept the peace.
On the 17th of November, the sails being at last back in the ships, the Ensign-Royal hauled down the flag, marked the remaining buildings with the Cross of Saint Andrew to protect them from the savages, and came aboard the flagship with his men. Doña Ysabel had given orders that all dogs must be left behind because of the scarcity of provisions, and it grieved us to watch the faithful animals course along the beach in a pack, yelping and howling reproachfully at us. Only one dared leap into the sea and swim out to the San Geronimo. It was Carlotta, the smallest of them all, and though some would have shot the poor creature, or let her drown, she was taken aboard and soon found a new home in the forecastle, where the sailors made much of her.
Thus we abandoned the settlement, even before it had been decided where to go next, or how. The ships were in a ruinous condition, and none of us had the least notion by what means they were to be victualled. The Chief Pilot asked Father Juan to approach God for guidance, which he did with much feeling. ‘O Lord,’ he pleaded, ‘hearken to the prayer of Thy dying priest! We have sinned, and Thy hand has chastened us. Oh, forgive us our trespasses, inspire our leaders with wisdo
m and waft us all safely to a Christian port!’ Then falling back exhausted on his pillow, he said between a sigh and a groan: ‘My son, I am spent, I can do no more. Send Andrés Serrano; I must make my last Will.’
This was a simple business, because the good Father had little to bequeath, except the five hundred pesos of his venture for which nobody would now have given him even five in good silver, and because all went to the Bishop of Lima, to be distributed among the Cathedral clergy. Sergeant Andrada and two soldiers were ordered to watch at his sick-bed in turn, and about midnight one of them, who was something of a scholar, read aloud to him from Fray Luis de Granada’s Symbol of the Faith, which heartened Father Juan greatly, so that he renewed his hopes of living. At dawn, the Chief Pilot came to feel his pulse. ‘Reverend Father,’ he said, sadly, ‘the time is running short.’
‘I know it, my son,’ he answered. ‘God be praised: we shall soon be on our way, leaving behind us this corner of Hell that has cost us so dear.’
‘Alas, Father, do not deceive yourself. It would be well if you prepared yourself for the journey from which none return.’
‘Why did you not warn me sooner?’ he groaned. ‘I felt so little pain that I thought I was treading the road to recovery.’ Calling for a crucifix and grasping it with both hands, he prayed in anguish: ‘O eternal Father who sent me here, I know not what I ought to do or say! Where is there a priest to stand by me in this hour of need? Soon my power of speech will fail.’
Almost at once his death agony came upon him, yet his lips formed the words: ‘Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit,’ and with that he expired.
There was talk of a burial in the Churchyard, but nobody cared to return to the camp once our last distasteful goodbyes had been said. On the pretext that the natives might desecrate his remains, it was decided to bury them at sea.
***
That day the wind, which ever since our arrival had blown from the east and south-east, suddenly backed to the north. It was not a gale, nor even a half-gale, but with the help of huge waves which came rolling through the mouth of the bay, it sufficed to break three of our four cables; and the fourth, being only a slight one, appeared altogether too weak to hold a vessel of her size. The rocks were close, and as the Chief Pilot could not hope to avoid shipwreck by hoisting sail, he warned us that we must be prepared to take to the boats. Matia made a grim jest of the matter. ‘Have no fear for the ship, your honour,’ he said. ‘Terridiri blessed that cable with his shark’s head off Santa Cristina, and prophesied that she would never run aground. Besides, is this not the only one of the four that was not sprinkled with holy water when we left Callao?’ He was indignantly silenced and threatened with a flogging, but his words went the round of the ship and the superstitious soldiers, no longer having a priest to guide them, took his blasphemy for sober truth. Even so, the cable did indeed hold fast, for which mercy the Chief Pilot and I, at least, thanked Him from whom it proceeded; and the wind veered again to east.
Early next morning, Sergeant Andrada approached Don Diego, who now exercised the greatest authority in the flagship after Doña Ysabel, and said: ‘Your honour, I dreamed last night that you sent me ashore on Orchard Isle across the bay, and there I found enough pork and biscuit to victual your whole company for a month.’
‘Go to it, Sergeant!’ replied Don Diego. ‘Take the long-boat and every fit man you can muster, and we shall see whether you are as good a dreamer as the patriarch Joseph.’
‘But what will be my reward?’
‘A tenth part of all you bring back, and for that I pledge you my word.’
Sure enough, he returned before noon with five large canoes in tow, laden nearly to the gunwales with yam-biscuit, which he had found hidden in some thick bushes overhanging a creek, and twenty pigs; he claimed that he had slaughtered at least one hundred in all, but lacked the means of transporting them. His comrades told us that he had led them straight to the creek, pretending to be guided by a divine instinct, and secured the canoes; and thence to a village near by, where a large pen full of pigs was found, as if in preparation for a feast. There, though hospitably received by the Chieftain and given ten pigs and many coconuts, he asked for more, and when this was refused, fired on his hosts without warning. He killed a score of them, and every pig in the pen, though aware that the long-boat would hold no more than twenty. The villagers fled and were chased out of sight until a pit-fall opened in the path, when three of our men tumbled through upon sharp stakes; their shoes saved them from being impaled, but even so a targeteer came out with an ugly gash in his leg.
Andrada, a bloody-minded man who had hated all natives since the loss of his front teeth, seemed by no means the kind of person whom God would bless with a revelation. When I pressed my enquiries, Juarez told me the truth, namely that the village nearest to our camp was allied to the one on the islet, and that all its pigs and biscuit had been sent across the bay by night, to prevent our seizure of them; and that the Sergeant had wormed this secret from a woman hostage by dangling a string of glass-beads before her.
Sergeant Andrada was duly awarded two pigs and three sacks of biscuit for his pains; one pig he sold to the Purser for five silver pesos, the other he kept for himself. After the troops had been well fed on chitterlings and black puddings, the carcases were salted down; but since Don Diego refused to give the crew any part of the spoils, Pedro Fernandez was forced to go foraging himself. This proved an adventurous excursion. That same day he took the long-boat back to Orchard Islet, accompanied by twenty sailors and half a dozen soldiers from the frigate. They landed at a village less than a league from the scene of Andrada’s misdeeds and, despite a flag of truce, were met with a shower of arrows and sling-bolts. A couple of shots fired above the enemy’s heads soon routed them, and our people entered the village, but found only a few baskets of biscuit and no roots, except those used for the making of an orange dye. They pursued the natives up a hill to a small fertile plain, planted with yams and every sort of fruit-tree, where the sailors cut large bunches of bananas and felled three palms for their coconuts, and also found a store-house crammed full of biscuit. After another bloodless skirmish, they succeeded in carrying off the whole of this valuable booty, and stowed it aboard the boat; which the Chief Pilot then sent back to the flagship. He ordered the crew to rejoin him as soon as they might; in the meantime he would have taken his party down the coast to collect more provisions from a certain palm-covered headland, where he would wait until he was fetched off. Striking inland again, and meeting with no opposition, he worked his way round to the point; and there felled a score of trees, gathered almonds and coconuts, and cut a quantity of palm-cabbage, which is good against scurvy.
The long-boat had not returned by late afternoon, and the party chafed at the delay. Pedro Fernandez, fearing that it had been intercepted and captured, led them back along the coast towards their original landing-place, in the hope of finding a canoe which could be sent to the flagship with news of their whereabouts. The men, however, were convinced that the boat had reached the San Geronimo in safety, and that Don Diego had persuaded his sister to sail away with their victuals, leaving them marooned. Nothing that the Chief Pilot could say would persuade them that this was a foolish notion. In the end he grew indignant, swearing that even if sufficient sailors remained in the ship to work her, or any officer capable of shaping a course, Doña Ysabel would never have assented to so mean a proposal.
They marched wearily along the shore until sunset, when they rested awhile and then pursued their journey; but, the path fading out, they had to force their way over jagged rocks and through slimy mangrove-marshes and thick forest that seemed never to have been disturbed since the day of its creation. At one place they were obliged to make a detour, wading up to their middles in the sea. By midnight they could go no farther, because two of the soldiers convalescent from fever fell down in a faint; but at about cock-crow they heard shouts and saw the lantern of the long-boat, which had been cruising in s
earch of them. The wind had been contrary, and the crew were in no condition to use the oars. The Chief Pilot embarked his men with joy, though they were utterly fatigued and, after retrieving the cabbages and nuts, regained the San Geronimo as dawn broke.
He slept for five hours, but was then summoned to a Council in the Great Cabin, of which the proceedings are attached.
Nothing else of moment took place on that day, the last we were to spend off Santa Cruz; but when night fell, Captain de Vera went ashore with six men to disinter the General’s coffin, which he did without being molested by the natives, and carried it down to the jetty. Juarez Mendés and Matia Pineto were of his party. They had asked leave to be the last to quit the island, an honour that had been conceded to them by the Ensign-Royal when the flag was hauled down. This was granted, and they re-embarked; but upon their hailing the galleon, Don Diego told the Captain to take the coffin aboard the frigate, and said that this was Doña Ysabel’s order. I could readily believe it: though she wished to fetch the corpse to Manila as a means of scotching any rumour that Don Alvaro had died an unnatural death, to sail in the same ship with it was a very different matter.
***
PROCEEDINGS OF DOÑA YSABEL’S COUNCIL
On board the San Geronimo, lying in Gracious Bay, the Island of Santa Cruz, on the 18th of November, 1595.
Those present were: Doña Ysabel Barreto, Governeress of the Isles of Solomon; Major Don Luis Moran; Captains Don Diego Barreto, Don Felipe Corzo, Don Diego de Vera, Don Manuel Lopez; Ensigns Don Luis Barreto, Don Toribio de Bedeterra and Don Diego de Torres; also the Chief Pilot, Captain Don Pedro Fernandez of Quiros, with Martin Groc, pilot of the San Felipe galeot.
Doña Ysabel opened the proceedings by stating that it was her intention to quit Santa Cruz without delay and shape a course for San Cristobal, one of the Isles of Solomon, in a last attempt to find the Santa Ysabel galleon. Should this be granted, she would then do what appeared best for the service of God and His Majesty. If, how-over, the search proved fruitless, she would make for Manila in the Philippines, there to refit her flotilla, engage priests, recruit settlers and, returning to the said Isles, continue to fulfil His Majesty’s orders. She now called on the military officers to express their opinion at the wisdom of these proposals.
The Islands of Unwisdom Page 34