THE ships were the _Consolacion_, the _Margarita_, the _Juana_ and the
_San Sebastian_, all caravels and small ones, the _Consolacion_ the
largest and the flagship. The _Margarita_, that was the Adelantado’s
ship, sailed badly. There was something as wrong with her as had been
with the _Pinta_ when we started from Palos in ‘92.
The men all told, crews and officers and adventurers, were less than two
hundred.
Pedro de Terreros, Bartholomew Fiesco, Diego Tristan, Francisco de
Porras were the captains of the caravels Juan Sanchez and Pedro Ledesma
the chief pilots. Bartholomew Fiesco of the _Consolacion_ was a Genoese
and wholly devoted to the greater Genoese. We had for notary Diego
Mendez. There were good men upon this voyage, and very bold men.
The youth Fernando Colon sailed with his father. He was now fourteen,
Don Fernando, slim, intelligent, obedient and loving always to the
Admiral.
Days of bright weather, days and days of that marvelous favorable wind
that blows over Ocean-Sea. The twenty-fifth of May the Canaries sank
behind us. On and on, all the sails steady.
We were not first for Hispaniola. All must be strange, this voyage!
Jamaica, not San Domingo, was our star. Rest there a moment, take
food and water, then forth and away. West again, west by south. He was
straitly forbidden to drop anchor in any water of Hispaniola. “For why?”
said they. “Because the very sight of his ships will tear asunder again
that which Don Nicholas de Ovando is healing!”
The _Margarita_, that was next to the _Consolacion_ in greatness, sailed
so infirmly that mercy ‘twas the seas were smooth. It was true accident.
She had been known at Palos, Cadiz and San Lucar for good ship. But
at Ercilla where we must stop on the Sovereigns’ business, a storm had
beaten her upon the shore where she got a great wound in her side. That
was staunched, but all her frame was wrenched and she never did well
thereafter. In mid-June we came to an island of the Caribs which they
called Mantineo. Here we rested the better part of a week, keeping good
guard against the Caribs, then sailed, and now north by west, along a
vast curve, within a world of islands. They are great, they are small,
they are of the extremest beauty! San Martin, Dominica, Guadaloupe,
San Juan--the Boriquen whence had come, long ago, that Catalina whom
Guacanagari aided--and untouched at, or under the horizon, many another
that the Admiral had named; _Santa Maria_ la Antigua, Santa Cruz, Santa
Ursula, Montserrat, Eleven Thousand Virgins, Marigalante and all beside.
What a world! Plato his Atlantis. How truly old we are God only knows!
The _Margarita_ sailed most badly. At San Juan that is the neighbor
great island to Hispaniola, council, two councils, one following the
other. Then said the Admiral, “We are to find the Strait that shall at
last carry us to clothed Asia of all the echoes, and to find we have but
four small ships and one of them evidently doomed. And in that one sails
my brother. What is the Sovereigns’ command? ‘Touch not on your outward
way at Hispaniola!’ What is in their mind here? ‘Hale and faring well,
you have no need.’--But if we are not hale and faring well by a fourth
of our enterprise? They never meant it to a drowning man, or one whose
water cask was empty! Being Christian, no! We will put into San Domingo
and ask of Don Nicholas de Ovando a ship in place of the _Margarita_.”
Whereat all cheered. We were gathered under palms, upon a fair point of
land in San Juan le Bautista. Next day we weighed anchor, and in picture
San Domingo rose before us.
He felt no doubt of decent welcome, of getting his ship. Fifteen sail
had gone out with Ovando. Turn the cases around, and he would have
given Ovando welcome, he would give him a good ship. How much more then
Christopherus Columbus! The enterprise was common in that all stood to
profit. It was royal errand, world service! So he thought and sailed in
some tranquillity of mind for San Domingo.
But the Adelantado said in my ear. “There will be a vast to-do! Maybe
I’ll sail the _Margarita_ to the end.” He was the prophet!
It was late June. Hispaniola rose, faint, faint, upon the horizon.
All crowded to look. There, there before us dwelled countrymen, fellow
mariners, fellow adventurers forth from the Old into the New! It was
haven; it was Spain in the West; it was Our Colony.
The Admiral gazed, and I saw the salt tears blind his eyes. His son was
beside him. He put his hand upon the youth’s shoulder. “Fernando, there
it is--I found and named it Hispaniola!”
The weather hung perilously still, the sea glass. It was so clear above,
below, around, that we seemed to see by added light, and yet there was
no more sunlight. All the air had thinned, it seemed, away. Every sail
fell slack. Colors were slightly altered. The Admiral said, “There is
coming a great storm.”
The boy Fernando laughed. “Why, father!”
“Stillness before the leap,” said the Admiral. “Quiet at home because
the legions have gone to muster.”
It was hard to think it, but too often had it been proved that he was
in the secret of water and air. Now Bartholomew Fiesco the Genoese said.
“Aye, aye! They say on the ships at Genoa that when it came to weather,
even when you were a youngster, you were fair necromancer!”
The sky rested blue, but the sea became green oil. That night there were
all around us fields of phosphorescence. About midnight these vanished;
it was very black for all the stars, and we seemed to hear a sighing as
from a giant leagues away. This passed, and the morning broke, silent
and tranquil, azure sky and azure sea, and not so sharply clear as
yesterday. The great calm wind again pushed us.
Hispaniola! Hispaniola! Her mountains and her palms before us.
We coasted to the river Hayna and the Spanish city of San Domingo. Three
hours from sunset down in harbor plunged our anchors, down rattled our
sails.
The _Consolacion’s_ long boat danced by her side. The Admiral would
send to land but one boat, and in it for envoy Pedro de Terreros, a
well-speaking man and known to Don Nicholas de Ovando. Terreros was
envoy, but with him the Admiral sent Juan Lepe, who through the years in
Hispaniola had tried to heal the sick, no matter what their faction.
The Admiral stayed upon the _Consolacion_, the Adelantado upon the
_Margarita_.
The harbor was filled with ships. We counted eighteen. We guessed that
they were preparing for sailing, the little boats so came and went
between. And our entry had caused excitement. Ship and small boat hailed
us, but to them we did not answer. Then came toward us from the shore a
long boat with the flag of Spain and in it an official.
Our wharf! Juan Lepe had left it something more than a year and a half
ago. San Domingo was grown, many Spaniards having sailed for the west
in that time. I saw strangers and strangers, though of Spanish blood.
Walking with the officer and his people to the Governor’s house gave
time for observation and swift thought. Throng was forming. One had
early cried from out it, “That’s the doctor, Juan Lepe! ‘Tis the Admiral
out there!” That it was the Admiral seemed to spread. San Domingo buzzed
like the air about a hive the first spring day. Farther on, out pushed a
known voice. “Welcome, welcome, Doctor!” I looked, and that was Sancho.
Luis Torres was in Spain. I had seen him in Cadiz. The crowd was
thickening--men came running--there was cry and query. Suddenly rose a
cheer. “The Admiral and the Adelantado in their little ships!” At once
came a counter-shout. “The Genoese! The Traitors!”
I saw--I saw--I saw that there was some wisdom in King Ferdinand!
The Governor’s house that used to be the Viceroy’s house. State--state!
They had cried out upon the Genoese’s keeping it--but Don Nicholas
de Ovando kept more. While we waited in the antechamber I saw, out of
window and the tail of my eye, files of soldiery go by. Ovando would not
have riot and disturbance if twenty Admirals hung in the offing! He
kept us waiting. He would be cool and distant and impregnable behind
the royal word. Juan Lepe saw plainly that that lavish and magnanimous
person aboard the _Consolacion_ would not meet here his twin. The
Adelantado must still, I thought, sail the _Margarita_. And yet, looking
at all things, that exchange of ships should have been made. A Spaniard,
wheresoever found, should have cried “Aye!” to it.
The Governor’s officer who still kept by us was not averse to talk. All
those preparing ships in the harbor? Why, they were the returning fleet
that brought Don Nicholas in. Sailing to-morrow--hence the hubbub on
land and water. They had a lading now! He gazed a moment at us, and as
we seemed sober folk, saw no reason why we should not have the public
news. Forth it came like water out of bottle. Bobadilla was returning.
“A prisoner?” “Why, hardly that! Roldan, too.” “A prisoner?” “Why,
not precisely so.” Many of the old regime--Bobadilla’s regime--were
returning and Roldan men likewise. Invited to go, in fact, though with
no other harsh treatment. One of the ships would be packed with Indian
rebels, Gwarionex among them. Chained, all these. The notable thing
about the fleet, after all that, was the gold that was going! A treasure
fleet! Bobadilla _had_ gathered gold for the crown. He was taking, they
said, a sultan’s ransom. He had one piece that weighed, they said, five
thousand castellanos. Roldan too had gold. And the Governor was sending
no man knew how much. More than that-- He looked at us, then, being a
kindly soul, quoth, “Why shouldn’t the Admiral know? Alonso de Carvajal
has put on board the _Santa Clara_ for the Admiral’s agent in Cadiz five
thousand pieces--fully due, as the Governor had allowed.”
Door was opened. “His Excellency the Governor will see you now.”
Why tarry over a short story? Don Nicholas de Ovando pleaded smoothly
the Sovereign’s most strict command which _in any_ to disobey were plain
malfeasance! As he spoke he looked dreamily toward blue harbor and the
_Consolacion_. And as to a ship! Every ship, except two or three, old
and crippled and in the hands of the menders, no whit better it was
certain than the _Margarita_, was laded and on the point of sailing.
Literally he had none, absolutely not one! He understood that Jamaica
was expressly named to the Admiral for resting and overhauling. Careen
the _Margarita_ there and rectify the wrong--which he trusted was not
great. If ships had been idle and plentiful--but he could not splinter
any from the fleet that was sailing to-morrow. He was sorry--and trusted
that the Admiral was in health?
Terreros said, “His ship is worse off than you think, Excellency. He
has great things to do, confided into his hands by the Sovereigns who
treasure him who found all. Here is emergency. May we carry to him
invitation to enter San Domingo for an hour and himself present his
case?”
But no--but no--but no! Thrice that!
The Governor rose. Audience was over.
For the rest he was courteous--asked of the voyage--and of the Admiral’s
notion of the Strait. “A great man!” he said. “A Thinker, a Seer.” He
sent him messages of courtesy three-piled. And so we parted.
This was the Governor of whom one said long afterwards,
“He was a good governor for white men, but not for Indians.”
As life and destiny would have it, in the place without the Governor’s
house I met him who was to say it. Terreros and I with the same escort
were for the water side, the _Consolacion’s_ long boat. The crowd kept
with us, but His Excellency’s soldiers held it orderly. Yet there were
shouts and messages for the Admiral, and for this one and that one
aboard our ships. Then came a young man, said a word to the officer with
us, and put out his hand to mine. It was that Bartolome de Las Casas
with whom I had walked the white road, under moon, before the inn
between Seville and Cordova.