_The Three Who Came With Columbus._
For a while there was no sound save the soft swish-swish of the waves
as the "Santa Maria," the flagship of Columbus, ploughed its way
through the darkness. The moon had long since disappeared and one by
one the stars had left the sky until only the morning star remained to
guide Alonzo de la Calle, crouching above his pilot wheel. The man's
eyes ached for sleep, his fingers were numb from dampness and fatigue,
his heart heavy with despair. "Dawn," he muttered at last, "almost the
last of the night watches; Gonzalo will take my place at the wheel and
I can sleep."
In the shifting light of the ship's lantern, swinging from the mast
above his head, the pilot saw Bernal, the ship's doctor, advancing
toward him; a little dark man, who dragged one foot as he walked. He
would have passed without speaking; but Alonzo, hungry for
companionship, caught his arm.
"You are in high favor with Columbus," he began, "and he confides in
you. Tell me, is he still determined to go on if the next few days do
not bring us to land?"
The ship's doctor nodded almost sullenly, yet there was pride in his
voice when he spoke. "The admiral will not turn back. Not though the
very boards of our three vessels mutiny and refuse him obedience. He
will go on!"
"It is madness. It is already seventy days since we left our fair land
of Spain, and----"
Bernal interrupted him with a mocking laugh. "'Our fair land of
Spain'," he sneered, "is not the land of the Jew nor have we found it
fair." But before he could speak further, the other clapped a warning
hand over his mouth.
"Hush!" exclaimed the little pilot, "Hush! We may be overheard, and,
though our admiral is gentle to the sons of Israel, it might fare ill
with us if the crew were to learn that there were 'secret Jews' on
board. See, some one is coming----. Be silent," and he pointed to one
who moved slowly toward them.
But Bernal laughed. "It is only Luis de Torres, the interpreter, one
of our own people. _Shalom Aleicha_," he addressed himself to the
newcomer, who answered, "_Aleichem Shalom_," but softly, glancing over
his shoulder as he did so.
"Even in the midst of the Sea of Darkness you fear to use our holy
tongue," taunted the physician. "We are no longer in Spain where the
very walls of our houses had ears to hear our _Shema_ and tongues to
betray us to the officers of the Inquisition when we failed to come to
their cursed masses." His face twisted with rage as he pointed to his
useless foot. "In Valencia I was denounced to the Inquisition,
tortured almost unto death. But I escaped with my life; and now
instead of spending my last days in peace in the land of my fathers I
have come on this mad voyage across a sea without shore." He laughed
harshly. "Yet even on these endless waves, I am safer than in the
pleasant land of Spain."
Luis de Torres, who had stood leaning over the vessel's side, turned
toward the speaker, his sensitive face showing pale and grave in the
light of the swaying lantern. "Ah, Bernal," he said sadly, "has not
the whole world become a great sea of endless waves for the unhappy
children of Israel?" He shuddered slightly and drew his rich cloak
more tightly about him. "I am a strong man; but I sicken and grow
faint when I think of the tens of thousands of our brethren we saw
scourged from the land of Spain even as we embarked and our three
vessels were about to leave the port."
"Truly," Alonzo muttered, "truly, even a strong man may wish to forget
what our eyes have seen. Night after night as I stand at my wheel I
can see them, old men and little children and women with their babes.
Where will they find rest?"
"There is no rest for Israel." It was Bernal who spoke in his sullen
passion. "'Twas the ninth of _Ab_ when our brethren were driven
forth--the ninth of _Ab_; the day on which our Temple fell. Then we
were scattered beneath the sky, but we thought at last that in the
land of Spain we had found a refuge. But there is no refuge for
Israel, no rest for Him until death."
The sad eyes of Luis de Torres glowed with a strange light. "Nay,
friend," he corrected gently, "the God of Israel will not forget His
children forever. Who knows that this new route to India, of which the
admiral dreams, may not lead us to a new land, an undiscovered place
where no Jew will suffer for his faith. But, O God!" he cried with
sudden pain, "We have waited so long, and still our people wander and
are tossed to and fro, as we are tossed about by the waves of this
unknown sea. Must each century bring its new _Tisha B'ab_, must we
indeed suffer forever? Where is rest for us? What land will give us
refuge?"
He raised his face to the brightening sky, his hands tearing at the
gold chain about his throat. No one spoke for a moment, nor even moved
until Alonzo turned back to his wheel, his eyes bright with strange
tears. A cry burst from him; a cry of unbelieving joy.
"Land! Land!" and he pointed a trembling finger toward the misty
outlines of palm trees, straight and slender beneath the early morning
sky. Bernal echoed his cry with a great shout and in a moment, from
every part of the ship, men came pouring, wide-eyed and unbelieving
that they had crossed the Sea of Darkness at last. In their midst came
a quiet man; a tall man with iron-gray hair and a firm mouth, who at
first spoke no word, only gazed dumbly at the fulfillment of his
dreams, stretching before him in the silvery light.
"We have reached India," said Columbus at last.
Those about him laughed shrilly in their joy or wept or prayed.
Alonzo, his eyes snapping with excitement, wrenched his wheel with
hands no longer tired, and Bernal, the sneer for once absent from his
lips, gazed with tense face toward the palm trees.
Only Luis de Torres stood apart, his face still convulsed from his
passionate outburst of grief for his people. For, like the others, he
could not know that instead of a new route to India a mighty continent
had been discovered; nor did the unhappy dreamer dream that a very
land of refuge and of hope for the wandering sons of Israel, lay
before him across the smiling waters.