NOTHING less than the strong desire to escape from the domination of
the admiral would ever have kept Martin Alonzo beating to windward in
that storm, when he could have run before it to shelter on the Cuban
coast.
As it was, he had to give up all idea of making the island of Bohio;
and all the night long the little vessel plunged through the towering
waves, carrying almost no canvas at all, but being hurried along at a
rapid rate towards the north.
During all the next day, and the next, the storm raged, and the
sailors, with the faint-heartedness that seemed characteristic of them,
began to murmur that they had only exchanged one evil for a worse, when
land hove in sight and closed their lips.
The Indians could tell Diego nothing of this new land, and so Martin
Alonzo determined to make it and explore it, in the hope of finding
there the much-desired gold. Besides, it was advisable to go into
shelter; and as he drew nearer to the land he saw that it was a
collection of islands, none of a very great size, giving him the
assurance of a harbor in some one of the channels between the islands.
He was fortunate in finding a safe harbor before night came on, and
there he dropped anchor and remained until morning. At the first streak
of dawn the deck was alive with the sailors, eagerly scanning the land
to gain some notion of its promise. It was sadly disappointing, being
neither so attractive nor so populous as the country they had just
left, and, what was far worse, gave every augury of containing no metal
of any sort.
As the bad weather continued, however, Martin Alonzo spent several
days in the comparative security of the inland sea formed by the
far-stretching cluster of islands, going ashore every day only to
confirm the first dismal impression of the barrenness of the land, and
at last emerging into the open sea again, determined to sail to the
south and come upon the famed Bohio, which they all had come to regard
as their promised land.
The weather was not propitious for the voyage, but all hands were
agreed that they would rather take their chances of a storm than to
remain among the profitless islands where they were; so Martin Alonzo
set his course to the southeast, and took leave of the islands that
had done no more than shelter him.
For several days they beat about in an unusually tempestuous sea, and
the only consolation Martin Alonzo drew out of the long voyage was the
belief that the admiral would be unlikely to make the attempt to cross
over from Cuba in such weather.
However, the voyage bade fair to come to an end at last; for one
afternoon the men on the lookout gave the welcome cry of land. By the
time it was near enough to be seen distinctly, it was too late to
enable them to make out anything but that it was a rocky coast, with
high mountains rising up in the background.
The storm, too, had been gradually increasing in violence, so that the
ship could not even lay to until daylight, but was obliged to take an
easterly course and run before the wind, which seemed suddenly to have
altered its course, and was now blowing steadily from the northwest--a
sign, according to Martin Alonzo, that the storm would presently abate.
The storm, however, did not trouble the sailors now; for the prospect
of soon fingering that gold for which they were all so eager gave them
patience in the midst of their impatience. It was now that Diego was in
great demand among them.
His merry humor and constant flow of spirits had long ago made him a
prime favorite with the men, while his knowledge of the Indian language
made him of importance. It was to him that all questions relative to
the nature of Bohio were always addressed, and now that the _Pinta_ had
broken loose from the fleet, Martin Alonzo had given him permission to
answer all questions freely.
It may not be amiss to say that Miguel was the only one of the crew who
had not taken kindly to Diego; and his aloofness was due as much to his
jealousy of Juan’s liking of Diego as to his own sullen temper. Once
or twice, when an occasion had offered, he had made a showing of being
ready to injure Diego; but he had been very quickly warned that any
such act on his part would end disastrously for himself, and therefore,
although it was very well known that he was unfriendly to the boy, no
one gave it any serious thought, and Miguel, indeed, always acted as if
he had yielded to the force of public opinion.
“Where is Fray Diego?” asked Rodrigo de Triana, on the evening after
Bohio had been sighted. The sailors had fallen into the way of calling
him fray, partly as a jest and partly because his superior knowledge of
book learning seemed to make the sobriquet a natural and proper one.
“Here he is,” answered Diego, who, with Juan, had been lying on the
deck near the foremast, but in the shadow, so that he had not been
recognizable. “What is it, my son?”
By way of joke he often assumed the clerical manner, which he mimicked
as well as he did most things.
“Come hither, and tell us more of this land we have sighted, at last.”
“Ay, do, good fray,” cried one after another of the men. Although a
stiff gale was blowing, it was not a cold one, but rather laden with
heat, as if it had come from a warm region, and the men were lying
about the deck, clad in only shirts and trousers.
“Why,” said Diego, “there is nothing new to tell you. I have told you
all I know twenty times over.”
“Then tell us for the twenty-first time,” said Rodrigo.
“How well that worthy Rodrigo calculates!” said Diego, paternally. “He
can add one to twenty and know the result. It is because he has taken
to counting maravedis lately, no doubt.”
Everybody laughed, for it was very well known that Rodrigo had spent
many times over, in imagination, the ten thousand maravedis which were
to be his for first seeing land.
“If he get them,” interposed Miguel, sourly. “Deserters are not like to
have many favors shown them.”
“Oh,” interposed Juan, who often came between Miguel’s crookedness and
the anger of the men, “he will never think again of his maravedis after
he has been a few days at Bohio, if what Diego tells has but a grain of
truth in it.”
“This is Bohio, then?” demanded one of the men, eagerly.
“The Indians say so,” answered Diego, “and are so mightily afraid at
the very thought of landing here that I think they must be right.”
“They say the inhabitants are great warriors and cannibals, do they
not, Diego?” asked Juan.
“They do, indeed,” answered he.
“But the gold,” inquired one, as if the question had not already been
asked and answered a hundred times. “Do they say there is a plenty of
it?”
“Plenty and plenty; but what is the use of my telling that so many
times? By the morning we shall know all about it; and if we are not all
roasted and served up before we can get away, I have no doubt that we
shall all be as rich as we ought to be.”
“Ay! if we are not roasted,” growled Miguel.
“Have no fear, my son,” said Diego, in his most benevolent tones; “for
unless it should be in the dark, I doubt if any savage would take so
much as one bite of you. And unless your flesh be far sweeter than your
temper, even the darkness would not win you a second bite.”
The men laughed heartily, and Miguel muttered under his breath; while
Juan, leaning over to Diego, whispered uneasily:
“I pray you, Diego! You promised you would not torment him.”
“Then let him stop his croaking. If there be mischief, he is in it. If
there be doubts, he has bred them. Always scowling at me, and always
ready with his eternal croaking.”
“It is true, Diego; but he is almost alone on the ship now, and you
have all the friends. Besides, you promised me.”
“Well,” said Diego, contritely, “I will try to rule my tongue.”
With his change to better thoughts and feelings, Juan had been unable
to continue the close intimacy with Miguel which had been begun in the
prison; but he was of too generous and loyal a nature to cast him off,
and so he had all through been placed in a very uncomfortable attitude
towards him.
It is quite likely that there would have been more said on this
occasion that would have led up to harder words, for there is
nothing your idle sailor likes better than a quarrel, unless it be
a good story. There was now, however, no time for either of those
time-killers; for the lookout suddenly shouted that ominous word which
always sends terror to the sailor’s heart:
“Breakers! Breakers off the starboard bow!”
In an instant all was confusion, and Martin Alonzo was shouting orders
that sent the men flying about the vessel, some here and some there.
The _Pinta_ was suddenly brought about, and pointed almost at right
angles to her course. Diego, Juan, Rodrigo, and Miguel, quick to the
order of the captain, had jumped into the bow, and were hanging on by
the low rail, awaiting the next word, when the _Pinta_ swung around in
the topping seas.
The frail craft quivered and shook for a moment, and then buried
her nose in a monster wave. When she came up again a cry--wild and
terrified--fell upon the ears of the men.
“Save him! save him! O Miguel!” The cry was from the lips of Juan.
And Rodrigo, straining his eyes from the other side of the deck, saw
three terrible things: Diego dropping through the blackness of the
night, Miguel with his hand upraised, Juan leaping from his place into
the air.
“Man overboard!” yelled Rodrigo.
But the ship was in great danger, and no boat could live in such a sea;
and so, though shuddering and anxious, Martin Alonzo continued to give
orders, and the ship shot away through the waves after a moment of
quivering hesitation.
[Illustration: “DIEGO DROPPING THROUGH THE BLACKNESS OF THE NIGHT.”]