ONE by one were incoming, were folding wings, were anchoring, Spanish
ships. Three were larger each than the _Santa Maria_ and the _Pinta_
together; the others caravels of varying size. Seventeen in all, a
fleet, crowded with men, having cannon and banners and music. Europe was
coming with strength into Asia! The Indians on the beach were moved as
by an unresting wind. They had terror, they had delight, and some a mere
stupidity of staring. The greatest ship, the first to anchor, carried
the banner of Castile and Leon, and the Admiral’s banner. Now a boat put
off from her, boats also from the two ships next in grandeur.
As they came over the blue wave Juan Lepe stepped down sand to water
edge. Not here, but somewhat to the west, before La Navidad would one
look for this anchoring. He thought rightly that the Admiral came here
from La Navidad, where he found only ruin, but also some straying Indian
who could give news. So it was, for presently in the foremost boat I
made out two Guarico men. They had told of Caonabo and of Guacanagari’s
fortunes, and of every Spaniard dead of that illness or slain by
Caonabo. They would put Juan Lepe among these last, but here was Juan
Lepe, one only left of that thirty-eight.
The boat approached. I saw the bared head, higher than any other, the
white hair, the blue-gray eyes, the strong nose and lips, the
whole majestic air of the man, as of a great one chosen. Master
Christopherus--Don Cristoval--_el Almirante_! One of the rowers, and
that was Sancho with whom I had walked on the Fishertown road, first
saw me and gave a startled cry. All in the boat turned head. I heard the
Admiral’s voice, “Aye, it is! It is!”
Boat touched sand, there was landing. All sprang out. The Admiral took
me in his arms. “You alone--one only?”
I answered, “One only. The most died in their duty.”
He released me. “Senors, this is senor Juan Lepe, that good physician
whom we left. Now tell--tell all--before we go among this folk!”
By water edge I told, thirty men of Spain around me. A woeful story, I
made it short. These men listened, and when it was done fell a silence.
Christopherus Columbus broke it. “The wave sucks under and throws out
again, but we sail the sea, have sailed it and will sail it!--Now were
these Indians false or fair?”
I could tell how fair they had been--could praise Guarico and
Guacanagari and Guarin. He listened with great satisfaction. “I would
lay my head for that Indian!”
Talk with him could not be prolonged, for we were in a scene of the
greatest business and commotion. When I sought for Guarin he was gone.
Nor was Guacanagari yet at hand. I looked at the swarming ships and ship
boats, and the coming and coming upon the beach of more and more clothed
men, and at the tall green palms and the feathered mountains. This
host, it seemed to me, was not so artlessly amazed as had been we of the
_Santa Maria_, the _Pinta_ and the _Nina_, when first we came to lands
so strange to Europe. Presently I made out that they had seen others
of these islands and shores. Coming from Spain they had sailed more
southerly than we had done before them. They had made a great dip and
had come north-by-west to Hispaniola. I heard names of islands given by
the Admiral, Dominica, Marigalante, Guadaloupe, Santa Maria la Antigua,
San Juan. They had anchored by these, set foot upon them, even fought
with people who were Caribs, Caribals or Cannibals. They had a dozen
Caribs, men and women, prisoners upon the _Marigalante_ that was the
Admiral’s ship.
This group about Juan Lepe, survivor of La Navidad, talked like seasoned
finders and takers. For the most part they were young men and hidalgos,
fighters against the Moors, released by the final conquest of those
paynims, out now for further wild adventure and for gold with which to
return, wealthy and still young, to Spanish country, Spanish cities,
Spanish women! They had the virtue and the vice of their sort, courage,
miraculous generosities and as miraculous weaknesses. Gold, valor,
comradeship--and eyes resting appraisingly upon young Guarico women
there upon the silver beach with Guarico men.
I heard one cry “Master Juan Lepe!” and turning found Luis Torres. We
embraced, we were so glad each to see the other. My hidalgos were gone,
but before I could question Luis or he me, there bore down upon
us, coming together like birds, half a dozen friars. “We bring
twelve--number of the Apostles!” said Luis. “Monks and priests. Father
Bernardo Buil is their head. The Holy Father hath appointed him Vicar
here. You won’t find him a Fray Ignatio!”
A bull-necked, dark-browed, choleric looking man addressed me. His
Benedictine dress became him ill. He should have been a Captain of Free
Lances in whatever brisk war was waging. He said, “The survivor, Juan
Lepe?--We stopped at your La Navidad and found ruin and emptiness. There
must have been ill management--gross!”
“They are all dead,” I answered. “None of us manage the towers so very
well!”
He regarded me more attentively. “The physician, Juan Lepe. Where did
you study?”
“In Poitiers and in Paris, Father.”
“You have,” he said, “the height and sinew and something of the eye and
voice of a notable disappeared heretic, Jayme de Marchena, who slipped
the Dominicans. I saw him once from a doorway. But that the Prior of La
Rabida himself told me that he had accurate knowledge that the man was
gone with the Jews to Fez, I could almost think--But of course it is not
possible, and now I see the differences.”
I answered him with some indifferent word, and we came to the Haytiens,
and how many had Fray Ignatio made Christian? “I knew him,” said the
Benedictine. “A good man, but weak, weak!”
Juan Lepe asked of the Indians the Admiral had taken to Spain. “But
six reached us alive. We instructed them and baptized them. A great
event--the Grand Cardinal and the King and the Queen attending! Three
died during the summer, but blessedly, being the first of all their
people in all time to enter heaven. A great salvation!”
He looked at the forest and mountains, the sands, the Guaricos, as at a
city he was besieging.
“Ha!” said Father Buil, and with his missionaries moved up the beach.
Luis and I began to talk. “No need to tell me that Spain gave you
welcome!”’
“The royalest ever! First we came to Lisbon, driven in by storm, and had
it there from King John, and then to Palos which, so to speak, went mad!
Then through Spain to Barcelona, where was the court, and all the bells
in every town ringing and every door and window crowded, and here is
the Faery Prince on a white charger, his Indians behind him and gold
and parrots and his sailors! Processions and processions--alcalde and
alcayde and don and friar and priest, and let us stop at the church
and kneel before high altar, and vow again in seven years to free the
Sepulchre! He hath walked and ridden, waked and slept, in a great, high
vision! Most men have visions but he can sustain vision.”
“Aye, he can!”
“So at last into Barcelona, where grandees meet us, and so on to the
court, and music as though the world had turned music! And the King and
Queen and great welcome, and, ‘Sit beside us, Don Cristoval Colon!’ and
‘Tell and tell again’, and ‘Praise we Most High God!’”
“It is something for which to praise! Ends of the earth beginning to
meet.”
“Aye! So we write that very night to the Pope to be confirmed that the
glory and profit under God are to Castile and Aragon. But the Queen
thought most of the heathen brought to Christ. And the Admiral thinks of
his sons and his brothers and his old father, and of the Holy Sepulchre
and of the Prophecies, and he has the joy of the runner who touches
the goal!--I would you could have seen the royalty with which he was
treated--not one day nor week but a whole summer long--the flocking,
the bowing and capping, the ‘Do me the honor--‘, the ‘I have a small
petition.’ Nothing conquers like conquering!”
“He had long patience.”
“Aye. Well, he is at height now. But he has got with him the old
disastrous seeds.--Fifteen hundred men, and among them quite a plenty
like Gutierrez and Escobedo! But there are good men, too, and a great
lot of romantical daredevils. No pressing this time! We might have
brought five thousand could the ships have held them. ‘Come to the
Indies and make your fortune!’--‘Aye, that is my desire!’”
I said, “I am looking now at a romantical daredevil whom I have seen
before, though I am sure that he never noticed me.”
“Don Alonso de Ojeda? He is feather in cap, and sometimes cap, and even
at stress head within the cap! Without moving you’ve beckoned him.”
There approached a young man of whom I knew something, having had him
pointed out by Enrique de Cerda in Santa Fe. I had before that heard his
name and somewhat of his exploits. In our day, over all Spain, one might
find or hear of cavaliers of this brand. War with the Moor had lasted
somewhat longer than the old famed war with Troy. It had modeled youth;
young men were old soldiers. When there came up a sprite like this one
he drank war like wine. A slight young man, taut as a rope in a gale,
with dark eyes and red lips and a swift, decisive step, up he came.
“Oh, you are the man who lived out of all your fort? How did you manage
it?”
“I had a friend among these friendly Indians who rescued me.”
“Yes! It is excellent warfare to have friends.--You have seen no knight
nor men-at-arms, nor heard of such?”
“Not under those names.”
“How far do you think we may be from true houses and cities, castles,
fortresses?”
“I haven’t the least idea. By the looks of it, pretty far.”
“It seems to me that you speak truth,” he answered. “Well, it isn’t what
we looked for, but it’s something! Room yet to dare!” Off he went, half
Mercury, half Mars, and a sprig of youth to draw the eyes.
“Was there nothing ever heard,” I asked Luis, “of the _Pinta_ and Martin
Pinzon?”
“He is dead.”
“You saw the wreck?”
“No, not that way, though true it is that he wrecked himself! I forget
that you know nothing. We met the _Pinta_ last January, not a day from
here, with Monte Cristi there yet in sight. When he came aboard and sat
in the great cabin I do not know what he said, except that it was of
separation by that storm, and the feeling that two parties discovering
would thereby discover the more, and the better serve their Majesties.
The Admiral made no quarrel with him. He had some gold and some news of
coasts that we had not seen. And he did not seem to think it necessary
to seem penitent or anything but just naturally Martin Pinzon. So on we
sailed together, he on the _Pinta_ and the Admiral on the _Nina_. But
that was a rough voyage home over Ocean-Sea! Had we had such weather
coming, might have been mutiny and throat-cutting and putting back,
Cathay and India being of no aid to dead men! Six times at least we
thought we were drowned, and made vows, kneeling all together and the
Admiral praying for us, Fray Ignatio not being there. Then came clear,
but beyond Canaries a three days’, three nights’ weather that truly
drove us apart, the _Pinta_ and the _Nina_. We lost each other in the
darkness and never found again. We were beaten into the Tagus, the
_Pinta_ on to Bayonne. Then, mid-March, we came to Palos, landed and
the wonder began. And in three days who should come limping in but the
_Pinta_? But she missed the triumph, and Martin Pinzon was sick, and
there was some coldness shown. He went ashore to his own house, and his
illness growing worse he died there. Well, he had qualities.”
“Aye,” I answered, with a vision of the big, bluff, golden-haired man.
“Vicente Pinzon is here; his ship the _Cordera_ yonder. What’s the stir
now? The Admiral will go to see Guacanagari?”
That, it seemed, was what it was, and presently came word that Juan
Lepe should go with him. A body of cavaliers sumptuously clad, some even
wearing shining corselet, greaves and helm, was forming about him who
was himself in a magnificent dress. Besides these were fifty of the
plainer sort, and there lacked not crossbow, lance and arquebus. And
there were banners and music. We were going like an army to be brotherly
with Guacanagari. Father Buil was going also, and his twelve gowned men.
“Who,” I asked Luis, “is the man beside the Admiral? He seems his kin.”
“He is. It is his brother, Don Diego. He is a good man, able,
too, though not able like the Admiral. They say the other brother,
Bartholomew, who is in England or in France, is almost as able. How
dizzily turns the wheel for some of us! Yesterday plain Diego and
Bartholomew, a would-be churchman and a shipmaster and chart-maker! Now
Don Diego--Don Bartholomew! And the two sons watching us off from Cadiz!
Pages both of them to the Prince, and pictures to look at! ‘Father!’ and
‘Noble father! and ‘Forget not your health, who are our Dependance!’”
Waiting for all to start, I yet regarded that huge dazzle upon the
beach, so many landed, so many coming from the ships, the ships
themselves so great a drift of sea birds! As for those dark folk--what
should they think of all these breakers-in from heaven? It seemed to
me to-day that despite their friendliness shown us here from the first,
despite the miracle and the fed eye and ear and the excitement, they
knew afar a pale Consternation.
At last, to drum and trumpet, we passed from shining beach into
green forest. I found myself for a moment beside Diego Colon--not the
Admiral’s brother, but the young Indian so named. Now he was Christian
and clothed, and truly the Haitiens stared at him hardly less than at
the Admiral. I greeted him and he me. He tried to speak in Castilian but
it was very hard for him, and in a moment we slipped into Indian.
I asked him, “How did you like Spain?”
He looked at me with a remote and childlike eye and began to speak of
houses and roads and horses and oxen.
A message came from the Admiral at head of column. I went to him. Men
looked at me as I passed them. I was ragged now, grizzle-bearded and
wan, and they seemed to say, “Is it so this strange land does them? But
those first ones were few and we are many, and it does not lie in our
fortune! Gold lies in ours, and return in splendor and happiness.” But
some had more thoughtful eyes and truer sense of wonder.
We found Guacanagari in a new, large, very clean house, and found him
lying in a great hammock with his leg bound with cotton web, around him
wives and chief men. He sat up to greet the Admiral and with a noble
and affecting air poured forth speech and laid his hand upon his hidden
hurt.
Now I knew, because Guarin had told me so, that that wound was healed.
It had given trouble--the Caribs poisoned their darts--but now it
was well. But they are simpler minded than we, this folk, and I read
Guacanagari that he must impress the returning gods with his fidelity.
He had proved it, and while Juan Lepe was by he did not need this
mummery, but he had thought that he might need. So, a big man evidently
healthful, he sighed and winced and half closed his eyes as though half
dying still in that old contest when he had stood by the people from the
sky. I interpreted his speech, the Admiral already understanding, but
not the surrounding cavaliers. It was a high speech or high assurance
that he had done his highest best.
“Do I not believe that, Guacanagari?” said the Admiral, and thinking of
Diego de Arana and Fray Ignatio and others and of the good hope of La
Navidad, tears came into his eyes.
He sat upon the most honorable block of wood which was brought him and
talked to Guacanagari. Then at his gesture one brought his presents,
a mirror, a rich belt, a knife, a pair of castanets. Guacanagari, it
seemed, since the sighting of the ships, had made collection on his
part. He gave enough gold to make lustful many an eye looking upon that
scene.
The women brought food and set before the Spaniards in the house.
I found Guarin and presently we came to be standing without
the entrance--they had no doors; sometimes they had curtains of
cotton--looking upon that strange gathering in the little middle square
of the town. So many Spaniards in the palm shadows, and the women
feeding them, and Alonso de Ojeda’s hand upon the arm of a slender brown
girl with a wreath of flowers around her head. Father Buil was within
with the Admiral, truculently and suspiciously regarding the idolater
who now had left the hammock and seemed as well of a wound as any there!
But here without were eight or ten friars, gathered together under a
palm tree, making refection and talking among themselves. One devout
brother, sitting apart and fasting, told his beads.
Said Guarin, “I have been watching him. He is talking to his
_zeme_. --They are all butios?”
“Yes. Most of them are good men.”
“What is going to happen here to all my people? Something is over
against me and my people, I feel it! Even the cacique has fear.”
“It is the dark Ignorance and the light Ignorance, the clothed Ignorance
and the naked Ignorance. I feel it too, what you feel. But I feel, O
Guarin, that the inner and true Man will not and cannot take hurt!”
He said, “Do they come for good?”
I answered, “There is much good in their coming. Seen from the mountain
brow, enormous good, I think. In the long run I am fain to think that
all have their market here, you no less than I, Guacanagari no less than
the Admiral.”
“I do not know that,” he said. “It seems to me the sunny day is dark.”
I said, “In the main all things work together, and in the end is honey.”
Out they came from palm-roofed house, the Admiral of the Ocean-Sea and
Viceroy of what Indies he could find for Spain and Spain could take, and
the Indian king or grandee or princeling. Perceiving that what he did
was appreciated for what it was, Guacanagari had recovered his lameness.
The cotton was no longer about his thigh; he moved straight and
lightly,--a big, easy Indian.
It was now well on in the afternoon, but he would go with the Mighty
Stranger, the Great Cacique his friend, to see the ships and all the
wonders. His was a childlike craving for pure novelty and marvel.
So we went, all of us, back through vast woodland to cerulean water.
Water was deep, the _Marigalante_ rode close in, and about and beyond
her the _Santa Clara_, the _Cordera_, the _San Juan_, the _Juana_,
another _Nina_, the _Beatrix_ and many another fair name. They were
beautiful, the ships on the gay water and about them the boats and the
red men’s canoes.
We went to the _Marigalante_, I with the Admiral. Dancing across in
the boat there spoke to me Don Diego Colon, born Giacomo Colombo, and I
found him a sober, able man, with a churchly inclination. Here rose the
Marigalante, and now we were upon it, and it was a greater ship than
the _Santa Maria_, a goodly ship, with goodly gear aboard and goodly
Spaniards. Jayme de Marchena felt the tug of blood, of home-coming into
his country.