DIEGO looked into the eyes of the boy who stood by his side, and in
their sullen depths he saw a gleam of malicious triumph, which he did
not fail to understand. The boy was gloating over the plight he had
fallen into.
It made it no easier for Diego to submit to the mockery of the other
that he was being treated to his own sauce. The sauce was all the less
palatable that it was of his own making. And, then, to have it served
by a miserable jail-bird!
“You will do well to keep your distance,” he said to the boy.
“Ha, ha!” jeered the boy, “so young to die!”
“Say that again,” said Diego, “and I will so do to you that you will
forget the jail you came from.”
A flush rose to the sallow face of the boy, and he said fiercely
between his teeth:
“So young to die!”
[Illustration: “‘HE IS VERY YOUNG TO DIE,’ SAID A MOCKING VOICE.”]
Perhaps you know how boys do in these days on such occasions. Four
centuries have made no difference; boys did the same then. These two
forgot their fellow-voyagers and seemed to think they were alone on the
narrow ledge that skirted the rail. They glared rage and defiance at
each other; they measured each other from head to foot. Then, like a
flash, for he was a quick boy, Diego struck the other boy on the cheek.
The latter was knocked off the rail, but was on his feet and up again,
and was rushing at Diego, when a strong hand caught him by the collar
and lifted him off his feet, and another strong hand fell thwack,
thwack, on first one side and then the other of his head; and then he
was dropped.
The two hands belonged to Martin Alonzo Pinzon; and as he aimed at
impartiality, he had no sooner released the convict boy than he caught
up a rope’s end and laid it lustily over Diego’s shoulders, thus giving
his cousin an opportunity to form an estimate of the difference between
his method and Fray Bartolomeo’s. The advantage seemed to be with
Martin Alonzo, for Diego had no need to pretend a distress he did not
feel. His anguish was genuine.
“Now,” said Martin Alonzo, comprehending the scowling convict as well
as the squirming Diego, “before this happens again take thought that
I am the master of this vessel and can do all the fighting.” Then he
looked over the crew that had gathered quickly around, and added,
meaningly, “_All_ the fighting, mind you!”
With that he roared out another order, and it was a marvel how the
sailors jumped to his bidding. As for Diego, he saw in his cousin
another sort of man from the gentle, long-suffering Fray Bartolomeo.
Nevertheless, he and his antagonist exchanged looks of dislike.
However, they said nothing to each other, though each thought to
himself that a more convenient time might come; forgetting, each, that
they expected never to see land again.
Well, the little disturbance, odd as it may seem, did much towards
raising Diego’s spirits. Besides, he was not much given to low spirits,
and, with all his terror of the voyage, he was, like most of the other
sailors, willing to forget the future since there was no way yet
apparent of avoiding it.
He had come on board so soon before sailing that it had not been
possible to assign him to any duty, and so there was nothing for him to
do but watch the others work, or to look over the rail at the shore as
it seemed to glide slowly by.
[Illustration: “THEN, LIKE A FLASH, FOR HE WAS A QUICK BOY, DIEGO
STRUCK THE OTHER BOY ON THE CHEEK.”]
One thing that he did especially was to follow his antagonist with his
eye, as he went about his work; and, in spite of his dislike for him
and prejudice against him, he could not help admitting that he seemed
to understand the business of a sailor very well. And once he heard the
man who had gone aboard with him address him as Juan Cacheco.
When the _Pinta_ reached the mouth of the river, she dropped anchor
again near to where the _Santa Maria_ and the _Niña_ were anchored.
The former was the admiral’s vessel and the largest, and the latter
was commanded by a brother of Martin Alonzo, and was the smallest. The
largest was small enough, and it did not surprise Diego to hear his own
thought uttered in a dismal, surly growl on the other side of him.
“Three crazy tubs for a crazy voyage!”
Diego turned to see if the remark was addressed to him and to see who
had uttered it. It had evidently not been made to him, for which he was
glad when he saw the ugly, sullen face of the companion of Juan Cacheco
turned towards the other two vessels. He started to move away from the
man, when the latter shifted his gaze from the vessels to him, and
said, in a tone of half-surly friendliness:
“I think we’re of the same opinion as to that. Eh, boy?”
“I know naught about it,” answered Diego, without making any effort to
conceal the repugnance he had for the man, whom he did not think of as
a fellow-voyager, but only as a convict.
“Hah!” ejaculated the man, showing by his sudden change of tone and by
his scowl that he comprehended Diego’s feeling towards him. “‘Tis the
cockerel that crowed so bravely on the quay and changed his tone so
soon after. We’ll clip your comb before this voyage is half done, my
little bird, or my name is not Miguel de la Vega.”
Now Diego was as hasty of temper as he was lacking in prudence, as his
quick and taunting answer showed.
“Miguel of the plain, or Miguel of the prison, it is all one to me.
Only I will say this to you, that you may find it harder to get my
comb than you think. It may not be so easy to steal other persons’
belongings on board ship as you found it on shore, perhaps.”
“Ah! say you so?” was the answer of the man, his brevity and lowering
brow giving Diego a very unpleasant sensation, and making him wonder if
a less sharp retort might not have answered his purpose as well.
He certainly had not made a friend of the man; but, for the matter of
that, why should Diego Pinzon, who was an honest boy, with good blood
in his veins, and something of a scholar, withal, have any desire
to be friendly with a man who had only escaped the punishment of his
crimes by his willingness to risk his life in the perilous undertaking
on which they were both embarked?
He moved slowly forward, thinking of these things, and making up his
mind that he would speak to his cousin and demand of him as a right
that he should not be obliged to have his watch with any of the convict
members of the crew. He had a very lively respect for his masterful
cousin, but he could see nothing unreasonable in the request he had to
prefer, and so looked about to see if there might be an opportunity to
speak with Martin Alonzo.
There was no hope of finding the captain of the _Pinta_ in an idle
moment at such a stage of the voyage; but at the moment Diego looked
around he saw him standing aft, gazing aloft at some operation which
his new crew was performing in the rigging, and performing very ill,
if one might judge from his contracted brow. He gave a hasty, frowning
glance at Diego as he approached, and then turned his eyes aloft again.
Diego was not yet to be put down with a mere frown, and so held his
place in front of his cousin until the latter looked at him again and
said, gruffly:
“Well, boy?”
Diego cleared his throat for such a speech as he would have made at the
convent to the reverend prior.
“I pray your pardon, good cousin--”
“Are you so in love with the rope’s end that you crave more of it?”
interrupted Martin Alonzo, brusquely.
“I do not understand you, cousin,” stammered Diego.
“Then you shall, and that right speedily. Look alive, you lubbers aloft
there!” he roared to the sailors in the rigging. “What! will you go to
sleep on the yard? I’ll be the death of some of you yet! Now harkee,
boy,” he said, with an abrupt turn to Diego, “Fray Bartolomeo said you
were ready of tongue, and doubtless ’twas a merit in the convent; but
on the _Pinta_ ’tis only a dangerous gift. I, only, have the privilege
of the gift of language here--all the others of you may as well know
at once that the only gift you may exercise with safety is that of
readiness of limb when I give the word.”
“Yes, good cousin,” said Diego, more meekly.
“And cousin me no cousins,” said Martin Alonzo. “I am your captain and
naught else while we are on the voyage together. And now to the point.
What word have you with me?”
Truly here was no soft-hearted fray to be cajoled with ready words.
Diego choked a little and then came to the point more directly than
ever he had before.
“I came to ask that in arranging the watches you would put me with the
honest men instead of with the convicts.”
“Who speaks of convicts?” demanded the captain, sharply.
“Why, ’tis well enough known that the crew is partly made up of prison
men.”
“Ay! is it so? And you are so nice that you must choose your company,
eh?”
“I am a Pinzon,” said Diego, with a touch of offended pride.
“A Pinzon! Ay, to be sure!” said Martin Alonzo, scornfully. “And,
prithee, why are you going this voyage?”
“Because you forced me, and no other why,” said Diego.
“Tut! will you quibble with me as if I were a fray at the convent? Why,
then, did I force you? Speak up like a Pinzon, now!”
“Because I gave the good brothers so much trouble.”
“You stole a melon, did you not?”
“Among other things, I did.”
“And if you stole a melon, in what are you better than these men who
stole purses, perhaps? You did it for mischief and to satisfy your
gluttony, and how do you know what bitter temptations these men had?
Now, let me hear no more of your superiority. The men who are here are
sailors, and I know nothing else of them until they force me to. As for
you, your watch has been assigned, and your place is where you have
been put. Now go forward, where you belong.”
Well, there was that in Martin Alonzo’s tone and manner that kept
Diego’s ready tongue in check, and made him turn and go forward very
meekly; though not without a tingling sense of shame at having been
likened in so public a manner to the convicts he had so despised.
He, indeed, had spoken softly enough; but Martin Alonzo had not.
Perhaps his was a voice that did not readily lend itself to a whisper.
Anyhow, he had so spoken that many on the little vessel had caught the
pith of the whole conversation, and Diego felt very certain that, among
others, Juan Cacheco had heard and was grinning with glee.
At that instant there was nothing he would have liked better than to
have had a pitched battle with that lad; but he had learned already
to exercise some self-restraint, and so went into the forward cabin
without even exchanging glances with Juan.
[Illustration: “‘NOW GO FORWARD WHERE YOU BELONG.’”]
If he had felt disinclined to the voyage before, he felt much more
so now, when the prospect of the future offered so strong a contrast
to the past, which he had brought to a close by his own folly. More
than once that night he had it in his mind to slip overboard and swim
ashore; but the folly of it was too apparent to him for him to act upon
the idea, and when the call came in the morning for the watch to go on
deck, he was ready with the others.
It seemed to him when he looked around in the dim morning light as if
especial trouble had been taken to humiliate and cross him; for he
found himself in the same watch with Juan Cacheco and Miguel de la
Vega, the two whom, of all others, he would most have wished to avoid
companionship with.
He had not much time for bitter thoughts, however, for Martin Alonzo
had tumbled on deck at the same time with the sailors, and had at once
begun to roar out order after order; so that Diego, unless he was
minded to taste of the rope’s end again, must needs jump to the word.
Fortunately for him, he was enough of a sailor to understand the orders
given, and was nimble enough to acquit himself tolerably well--better,
indeed, than many of the men, some of whom found themselves on board a
vessel for the first time in their lives. Besides, he was soon engaged
in a hot rivalry with Juan Cacheco, each boy striving to outdo the
other in nimbleness and expedition.
The _Santa Maria_ and the _Niña_ showed as much life as the _Pinta_,
and it did not take long for all to understand that the little fleet
was now about to start in good earnest on the long and, as they
believed, fated voyage.
Sullen curses and deep anathemas were muttered all over the _Pinta_,
and it was plain to Diego that a more unwilling crew had never set
sail. He might have wondered that the men did not refuse to obey
the orders of the commander, had he not gained such an opinion of
Martin Alonzo as rendered such a wonder idle. Moreover, he knew that,
despite their unwillingness to go, there were many who had nothing but
imprisonment to hope for if they refused to go.
Still, it was strange and terrible to him to hear the men all about
him cursing as they worked at getting the vessel under way. Cursing
the voyage, cursing the captain, and, most of all, cursing Christoval
Colon, the mad adventurer, who had prompted the voyage, as they
declared, at the instigation of the Evil One.
In the first moments of despair at leaving their native land behind
them, the men had made little concealment of their words; but later,
Diego noticed them whispering together in knots, though always careful
to give Martin Alonzo no cause for anger.
Diego noticed, too, that the convicts were not the only ones who
whispered so suspiciously together; though of what was being said
he could gain no notion, for at his near approach to any one of the
whispering groups the whispering would instantly cease, and he would be
regarded with scowling looks. Indeed, he was not long in discovering
that he was in disfavor with the majority of the crew, and he very
rightly attributed that fact to his cousin’s loud voice, which had
betrayed his, Diego’s, feelings towards the convict crew.
His situation was so different from what he had always been accustomed
to, that it threw him into a very unhappy frame of mind. His bold
temper and gay spirits had always made him an unquestioned leader
among the boys at the convent, and his quick wit and readiness to
acquire knowledge had made him a favorite with the friars, even when
he was fullest of mischief. Here he was a sort of outcast. His cousin
was unreasonably harsh with him; the convicts, whom he had scorned,
despised and disliked him, and the honest portion of the crew passed
him by with scarce a civil word.
The result of it all was to make him very sullen and dejected. His gay
spirits deserted him completely, and he went about his work without
a word for anybody, but always with a black look ready for any one
who might challenge it, and particularly for Juan Cacheco, who took a
malicious pleasure in the misery of the lad who had taunted him in his
time of misery.
Had circumstances been different, Diego would have gone to his cousin
with his fear of some mischief brewing on board the _Pinta_; but, as
it was, he felt that anything he might say would only be received with
rough upbraiding, and so, in spite of hearing now and again an ominous
and threatening word dropped by the whispering men, when they did not
suspect his presence, he kept silence and let the talk go on.
Mutiny was what he suspected; but from the few words he had overheard
he was quite certain that the only object of the mutiny was to force
Martin Alonzo to return to land, and he was too little in love with
the voyage to care to prevent the sailors having their will in that
respect. His thought was that if he could only get back to Spain, he
would make good speed to the convent, and so conduct himself that there
would never again be any need for extreme measures against him. Ah, if
he could but be in those quiet, peaceful cloisters again!
Yes, he was really of a mind to let the mutiny progress; not merely
because he had no sympathy with Martin Alonzo, but quite as much
because the terror of the sailors, which had been daily growing since
leaving land behind them, had communicated itself to him.
They were on the third day out now, and the faces of the men wore that
dull, stolid look of terror, despair, and threatening which seemed to
have transformed them from human beings to brutes, a likeness that was
further borne out by the constant, low mutterings that broke from their
lips whenever two or three came together.
Whether Martin Alonzo suspected anything or not, Diego could not tell
by any sign he ever made. The burly captain went about the deck always
in his masterful, confident way, and the men were too much afraid of
him to give him any cause for complaint against them.
On this third day, especially, when Diego was satisfied that matters
among the sailors were drawing to a head, as if ripe for action,
Martin Alonzo was absolutely free from any sign of suspicion. There
seemed a storm brewing, and before he left the deck at night, he had
everything put in readiness to be made snug and tight at a moment’s
notice.
Diego was so certain that something would occur that night that, at the
last moment, his resolution to remain reticent deserted him. It seemed
to him that it would be right to make an effort to put his cousin on
his guard; and with that purpose in view he placed himself nearer aft
than he had any business to be, in the hope that Martin Alonzo, in
passing, would give him the opportunity he sought for speech with him.
Well, Martin Alonzo saw him; but as it was a part of that worthy
sailor’s plan to give Diego a good lesson in obedience and subjection,
he merely noticed him to snatch up a rope’s end and order him forward
with a sharp blow across the shoulders.
That effectually closed Diego’s lips to him; but as he caught the sound
of a jeering laugh from Juan Cacheco, as he passed him, he turned
fiercely on him and muttered between his shut teeth:
“Your turn will come, you prison dog!”
“And so will yours; and sooner than you think,” was Juan’s answer, no
less fiercely spoken.
“It won’t be too soon,” said Diego.
“Ah! won’t it?” was all Juan’s answer; but it had an ominous tone.