An hour later, Danny was at the bus depot, waiting for the Greyhound
that would take him over to Richmond, where he would meet a train for
the south and Florida.
* * * * *
It was a rambling white stucco house with a red tile roof and a pleasant
grove of palm trees in front and flame-red hibiscus climbing the stucco.
The lawyer, whose name was Tartalion, met him at the door.
"I'll get right down to business, Mr. Jones," Tartalion said after they
had entered the house. "Your uncle wanted it that way."
"Wait a minute," Danny said, "don't tell me they already had the
funeral?"
"Your uncle didn't believe in funerals. His will stipulated cremation."
"But, it was so--"
"Sudden? I know, the will wasn't officially probated. But your uncle had
a judge for a friend, and under the circumstances, his wishes were
granted. Now, then, you know why you're here?"
"You mean, what he left me? I thought I'd at least get to see his--"
"His body? Not your uncle, not old Averill Jones. You ought to know
better. Sonny," the lawyer asked abruptly, "how well did you know the
old man?"
The sonny rankled. After all, Danny thought, I'm nineteen. I like beer
and girls and I'm no sonny anymore. He sighed and thought of his history
class, then thought of Uncle Averill's opinion of history, and felt
better. He explained the relationship to Mr. Tartalion and waited for
the lawyer to speak.
"Well, it beats me," Tartalion admitted. "Why he left it to a nephew he
hasn't seen in ten or eleven years, I mean. Don't just look at me like
that. You know that contraption he had in the basement, don't you? How
he wouldn't let a soul near it, ever? Then tell me something, Danny. Why
did he leave it to you?"
"You're joking!" Danny cried.
"I was your uncle's lawyer. I wouldn't joke about it. He said it was the
only thing he had worth willing. He said he willed it to you. Want me to
read you the clause?"
Danny nodded. He felt strangely flattered, because the contraption in
Averill Jones' basement--a contraption which no one but Averill Jones
had ever seen--had been the dearest thing in the old bachelor's life.
Actually, he was not Danny's uncle, but his grand-uncle. He had lived
alone in St. Augustine and had liked living alone. The only relative he
had tolerated was Danny, when Danny was a small boy. Then, as Danny
approached his ninth birthday, the old man had said, "They're teaching
you too much at school, son. Too many wrong things, too many
highfalutin' notions, too much just plain old hogwash. Why don't you
kind of make yourself scarce for a few years?" It had been blunt and to
the point. It had made Danny cry. He hadn't thought of what had happened
that last day he'd seen his grand-uncle for years, but he thought of it
now.
* * * * *
"But why can't I come back and see you?" he had asked tearfully.
"On account of the machine, son."
"But _why_, uncle?"
"Hey, come on now and stop your blubbering all over me. If you can't you
can't."
"You have to tell me why!"
"Stubborn little critter. Well, I like that. All right, I'll tell you
why. Because the machine has a funny kind of fuel, that's why. It
doesn't run on gasoline, Danny, or anything like that."
"What does it do, uncle?"
But the old man had shaken his head. "Maybe someday after I'm gone
you'll find out. If anyone finds out, it will be you, and that's a
promise."
"You still didn't tell me why I have to go away."
"Because--well, don't go telling this to your folks, son, or they'll
think old Uncle Averill has a screw loose somewheres--because that
machine I have downstairs runs on faith. On faith, you understand? Oh,
not the kind of faith they think is important and do a lot of talking
and sermoning about, but a different kind of faith. Personal faith, you
might say. Faith in a dream or a belief, no matter what people think.
And--you know what ruins that faith?"
"No," Danny had said, his eyes very big.
"Knowledge!" cried his uncle. "Too much so-called knowledge which isn't
knowledge at all, but hearsay. That's what they're teaching you. In
school, other places, every day of your life. I'll tell you when you can
come back, Danny: when you're ready to throw most of it overboard. All
right?"
He had had to say all right. It was the last time he had ever seen his
uncle, but those weren't the last words Averill Jones had spoken to him,
for the old man had added as he got up to go: "Don't forget, son. Don't
let them pull the wool over your eyes. History is propaganda--from a
winner's point of view. If a side lost the war and got stamped on, you
never see the war from its point of view. If an idea got out of favor
and stamped on, the idea is ridiculed. Don't forget it, son. If you
believe something, if you _know_ it's right, have faith in it and don't
give a mind what people say. Promise?"
Danny, his eyes stinging with tears because somehow he could sense he
would never see Uncle Averill again, had said that he promised.
"... to my nephew, Danny Jones," the lawyer was reading. "So, you see,
you'll have to go right down there and look the thing over. Naturally,
I'll have to leave the house while you do so and I won't be able to
return until you tell me I can--"
"But why?"
"Weren't you listening?"
"I guess I was thinking about my uncle."
"Well, the clause says you're to examine the machine alone, with no one
else in the house. It's perfectly legal. If that's what your uncle
wanted, that's what he'll get. Are you all set?"
Danny nodded and Tartalion shook his hand solemnly, then left the room.
Danny heard the lawyer's footsteps receding, heard the front door open
and close, heard a car engine start. Then, slowly, he walked through the
living room of his dead uncle's house and across the long, narrow
kitchen and to the basement stairs. His hands were very dry and he felt
his heart thudding. He was nervous, which surprised him.
* * * * *
But why? he thought, why should it surprise me? All my life, Uncle
Averill's basement has been a mystery. Let's face it, Danny-boy, you
haven't exactly had an adventurous life. Maybe Uncle Averill was the
biggest adventure in it, with his secret machine and strange
disappearances. And maybe Uncle Averill did a good selling job when you
were small, because that machine means mystery to you. It's probably not
much more than a better mousetrap, but you want to believe it is, don't
you? And you're nervous because the way Uncle Averill kept you and
anyone else away from his basement when you were a kid makes it a kind
of frightening place, even now.
He opened the basement door with a key which the lawyer had given him.
Beyond the door were five steps and another door--this one of metal. It
had had a time lock in the old days, Danny remembered, but the lock was
gone now. The metal door swung ponderously, like the door to a bank
vault, and then Danny was on the other side. It was dark down there, but
faint light seeped in through small high windows and in a few moments
Danny's eyes grew accustomed to the gloom.
The basement was empty except for what looked like a big old steamer
trunk in the center of the dusty cement floor.
Danny was disappointed. He had childhood visions of an intricate maze
of machinery cluttering up every available square foot of basement
space, but now he knew that whatever it was which had taken up so much
of Uncle Averill's time could fit in the odd-looking steamer trunk in
the center of the floor and thus wasn't too much bigger than a good-size
TV set. He walked slowly to the trunk and stood for a few moments over
the lid. It was an ancient-looking steamer: Uncle Averill must have
owned it since his own youth. Still, just a plain trunk.
Danny was in no hurry to open the lid, which did not seem to be locked.
For a few moments, at least, he could shield himself from further
disappointment--because now he had a hunch that Uncle Averill's machine
was going to be a first-class dud. Maybe, he thought gloomily, Uncle
Averill had simply not liked to be with people and had used the ruse of
a bank-vault door and an empty steamer trunk to achieve privacy whenever
he felt the need for it.
Remembering the history class, Danny decided that--after all--sometimes
that wasn't a bad idea. Finally, he called himself a fool for waiting
and threw up the trunk-lid.
A small case was all he saw inside, although the interior of the trunk
was larger than he had expected. A man could probably curl up in there
quite comfortably. But the case--the case looked exactly like it ought
to house a tape-recorder.
Danny reached in and hauled out the case. It was heavy, about as heavy
as a tape-recorder ought to be. Danny placed it down on the floor and
opened it.
What he saw was a battery-powered tape-recorder. His disappointment
increased: Uncle Averill had left a message for him, that was all.
Dutifully, however, he set the spools and snapped on the switch.
A voice from yesterday--Uncle Averill's voice--spoke to him.
* * * * *
"Hallo, Danny," it said. "The way the years roll by, I forget exactly
how old you are, boy. Seventeen? Eighteen? Twenty? Well, it doesn't
matter--if you still believe. If you have faith. Faith in what? Maybe
now you're old enough to know. I mean faith in--not having faith. That
is, faith in not taking faithfully all the silly items of knowledge
they try to cram down your throat in school. See what I mean? Remember
what I always said about history, Danny: you get propaganda, is all,
from the winning side. If you got faith enough in yourself, Danny, faith
enough not to believe everything the history books tell you, that's the
kind of faith I mean. Because such a faith gave me the most interesting
life a man ever lived, make no mistake about that.
"I'm dead, Danny. Yep, old Uncle Averill is dead. Because this
tape-recorder won't be left you in my will until I am dead. But, no
regrets, boy. I had a great life. How great--nobody knows. Only you,
you're about to find out. Do you believe? Do you believe the way I have
in mind? Make no mistake about it now, son. If you don't believe, you
might as well burn these spools and go home."
Danny considered. He remembered what had happened in his history class.
Wasn't that the sort of faith Uncle Averill had in mind? Faith not to
believe in historical fairy tales? Faith to doubt when one ought to
doubt? Faith to be skeptical....
"Good," said the voice from the past. "Then you're still here. Look in
front of you, Danny-boy. The trunk. The old steamer. Know what it is?"
"No," Danny said, then clamped a hand over his mouth. For a moment he
had actually believed he was talking to the dead man.
"It's a time machine," said his Uncle's voice.
There was a silence. The tape went on winding. For a moment, Danny
thought that was all. Then the voice continued: "No, your old
grand-uncle isn't nuts, Danny. It's a time machine. I know it's a time
machine because I used it all my life. You expected some kind of
complicated gadget down here, I know. I made everybody think it was a
gadget. Going down to your basement and tinkering with a gadget is fine
in our culture. Hell's fire, boy, it's approved behavior. But locking a
bank-vault door behind you and curling up in a steamer trunk, that isn't
approved. Now, is it?
"I'll tell you about this here time machine, sonny. It isn't a machine
at all, in the strict sense of the word. You can see that. It's
just--well, an empty box. But it works, and what else ought a fellow to
care about.
"Funny how I got it. I was eighteen or twenty, maybe. And my
Grand-uncle Daniel gave it to me. Daniel, get me. Daniel to Averill to
Daniel. So when you have a grand-nephew, see that his name's Averill,
understand? Keep it going, Danny. Because this trunk is old. A lot older
than you think.
"And you can travel through time in it. Don't look at me like that, I
know what you're thinking. There isn't any such thing as time travel. In
the strict sense of the word, it's impossible. You can't resurrect the
past or peek into the unborn future. Well, I don't know about the
future, but I do know about the past. But you got to have faith, you got
to be a kid at heart, Danny. You got to have this dream, see?
"Because you don't travel anywhere. But your mind does, and it's like
you wake up in somebody else's body, drawn to him like a magnet,
somebody else--some_when_ else. Your body stays right here, you see. In
the trunk. In what they called suspended animation. But you--the real
you, the you that knows how to dream and to believe--you go back.
"Don't make the mistake I made at first. It's no dream in the usual
sense of the word. It's real, Danny. You're somebody else back there,
all right, but if he gets hurt, you get hurt. If he dies--taps for Danny
Jones! You get me?"
* * * * *
The dead man's voice chuckled. "But don't think this means automatically
you'll be able to travel through time. Because you got to have the
proper attitude. You've got to believe in yourself, and not in all the
historical fictions they give you. Now do you understand? If you're
skeptical enough and if at the same time you like to dream
enough--that's all it takes. Want to try it?"
Suddenly the voice was gone. That was all there was and at first Danny
could not believe it. A sense of bitter disappointment enveloped
him--not because Uncle Averill had left him nothing but an old steamer
trunk but because Uncle Averill had been, to say the least, off his
rocker.
The fabulous machine in the basement was--nothing.
Just a steamer trunk and an incredible story about time-traveling.
Danny sighed and began to walk back toward the cellar stairs. He paused.
He turned around uncertainly and looked at the trunk. After all, he had
promised; at least he'd promised himself that he'd carry out his
peculiar uncle's wishes. Besides, he'd come all the way down here from
Whitney College and he ought to at least try the machine.
But there wasn't any machine.
Try the trunk then? There was nothing to try except curling up in it and
maybe closing the lid. Uncle Averill was a practical joker, too. It
might be just like Uncle Averill to have the lid snap shut and lock
automatically so Danny would have to pound his knuckles black and blue
until the lawyer heard and came for him.
You see, sonny? would be Uncle Averill's point. You believed me, and you
should have known better.
Danny cursed himself and returned to the trunk. He gazed down at the
yawning interior for a few seconds, then put first one foot, then the
other over the side. He sat down and stared at a peeling blue-paper
liner. He rolled over and curled up. The bottom of the trunk was a good
fit. He reached up and found a rope dangling down toward him. He pulled
the lid down, smiling at his own credulity, and was engulfed in total
darkness.
But it would be wonderful, he found himself thinking. It would be the
most wonderful thing in the world, to be able to travel through time and
see for yourself what really had happened in all the world's colorful
ages and to take part in the wildest, proudest adventures of mankind.
He thought, I want to believe. It would be so wonderful to believe.
He also thought about his history class. He did not know it, but his
history class was very important. It was crucial. Everything depended on
his history class. Because he doubted. He did not want to take Columbus'
bravery and intelligence for granted. There were no surviving documents,
so why should he?
Maybe Columbus was a third-rater!
Maybe--at least you didn't have to worship him as a hero just because he
happened to discover ...
Now, what did he discover?
In absolute darkness and a ringing in the ears and far away a dim
glowing light and larger and brighter and the whirling whirling spinning
flashing I don't believe but strangely somehow I have faith, faith in
myself, buzzing, humming, glowing ...
The world exploded.
There was a great deal of laughter in the tavern.
At first he thought the laughter was directed at him. Giddily, he raised
his head. He saw raw wood rafters, a leaded glass window, a stained and
greasy wall, heavy wood-plank tables with heavy chairs and a
barbarous-looking crew drinking from heavy clay mugs. One of the mugs
was in front of him and he raised it to his lips without thinking.
It was ale, the strongest ale he had ever tasted. He got it down somehow
without gagging. The laughter came again, rolling over him like a wave.
A serving girl scurried by, skirts flashing, a rough tray of clay mugs
balanced expertly on one hand. A man with a sword dangling at his side
staggered to his feet drunkenly and clawed at the girl, but she shoved
him back into his seat and kept walking.
The third wave of laughter rolled and then there was a brief silence.
"Drink too much, Martin Pinzon?" Danny's companion at the long
board-table asked. He was an evil-looking old man with a patch over one
eye and a small white spade-shaped beard and unshaven cheeks.
"Not me," Danny said, amazed because the language was unfamiliar to him
yet he could both understand and speak it. "What's so funny?" he asked.
"Why's everyone laughing?"
The old man's hand slapped his back and the mouth parted to show ugly
blackened teeth and the old man laughed so hard spittle spotted his
beard. "As if you didn't know," he managed to say. "As if you didn't
know, Martin Pinzon. It's that weak-minded sailor again, the one who
claims to have a charter for three caravels from the Queen herself.
Drunk as Bacchus and there's his pretty little daughter trying to get
him to come home again. I tell you, Martin Pinzon, if he isn't ..."
* * * * *
But now Danny wasn't listening. He looked around the tavern until he saw
the butt of all the laughter. Slowly, drawn irresistibly, Martin
Pinzon--or Danny Jones--got up and walked over there.
The man was drunk as Bacchus, all right. He was a man perhaps somewhat
taller than average. He had a large head with an arrogant beak of a nose
dominating the face, but the mouth was weak and irresolute. He stared
drunkenly at a beautiful girl who could not have been more than
seventeen.
The girl was saying, "Please, papa. Come back to the hotel with me.
Papa, don't you realize you're sailing tomorrow?"
"Gowananlemebe," the man mumbled.
"Papa. Please. The Queen's charter--"
"I was drunk when I took it and drunk when I examined those three
stinking caravels and--" he leaned forward as if to speak in deepest
confidence, but his drunken voice was still very loud--"and drunk when I
said the world was round. I--"
"You hear that?" someone cried. "Old Chris was drunk when he said the
world was round!"
"He must a' been!" someone else shouted. Everyone laughed.
"Come on, papa," the girl pleaded. She wore a shawl over her dress and
another shawl on her head. Her blonde hair barely peeked out, and she
was beautiful. She tried to drag her father to his feet by one arm, but
he was too heavy for her.
She looked around the room defiantly as the laughter surged again.
"Brave men!" she mocked. "A bunch of stay-at-homes. Won't somebody help
me? Papa sails tomorrow."
"Papa sails tomorrow," said someone, miming her desperate tones. "Didn't
you know that papa sails tomorrow?"
"Not sailing anyplace at all," the father mumbled. "World isn't round.
Drunk. Think I want to fall over the edge? Think I--"
"Oh, papa," moaned the girl. "Won't someone help me to--" And she tugged
again at the man's arm--"to get him to bed."
A big man nearby boomed, "I'll help you t'bed, me lass, but it won't be
with your old father. Eh, mates?" he cried, and the tavern echoed with
laughter. The big man got up and went over to the girl. "Now, listen,
lass," he said, taking hold of her arm. "Why don't you forget this
drunken slob of a father and--"
Crack! Her hand blurred at his cheek, struck it like a pistol shot. The
big man blinked his eyes and grinned. "So you have spirit, do you? Well,
it's more than I can say for that father of yours, too yellow and too
drunk to carry out the Queen of Castile's bid--"
The hand flashed out again but this time the big man caught it in one of
his own and twisted sideways against the girl, forcing her back against
the table's edge. "I like my girls to struggle," he said, and the girl's
face went white as she suddenly let herself go limp in his arms.
The man grinned. "Oh I like 'em limp, me lass. When they're pretty as a
rose, like you, who's to care?"
"Papa!" the girl screamed. The big man's face hovered over hers,
blotting out the oil-lamp lights, the thick lips all but slavering....
* * * * *
"Just a minute, man!" Danny cried, striding boldly to them. Hardly
pausing in his efforts to kiss the again struggling girl, the big man
swatted back with one enormous arm and sent Danny reeling. Whoever he
was, he was a popular figure. The laughter was still louder now.
Everyone was having a great time, at Danny's expense now.
Danny crashed into a chair, upending it. A bowl of soup came crashing
down, the heavy bowl splintering, the hot contents scalding him. He
stood up and heard the girl scream. Instinctively, he grasped two legs
of the heavy chair and hefted it. Then he sprinted back across the room.
"Behind you, Pietro!" a voice cried, and at the last moment the big man
whirled and faced Danny, then lunged to one side, taking the girl with
him.
Danny couldn't check his arms, which had carried the heavy chair
overhead. It came down with a crash against the edge of the big plank
table. The chair shattered in Danny's arms. One leg flew up and struck
the big man in the face, though, bringing blood just below the cheek
bone. He bellowed in surprise and pain and came lumbering toward Danny.
Danny was aware of the girl cowering to one side, aware that another of
the chair's legs was still grasped in his right hand. He was but a boy,
he found himself thinking quickly, desperate. If the giant grabbed him,
grabbed him just once, the fight would be over. The man was twice his
size, twice his weight. Yet he had to do something to help the girl....
The giant came at him. The big arms lifted over the heavy, brutal
face.... And Danny drove under them with the chair-leg, jabbing the tip
of it against the man's enormous middle. Pietro--for such was the man's
name--sagged a few inches, the breath rushing, heavy with garlic, from
his mouth. But still, he got his great hands about Danny's throat and
began to squeeze.
Danny saw the wood rafters, the window, a bargirl standing, mouth open,
watching them, the drunken man and his daughter, then a blurry, watery
confusion as his eyes went dim. He was conscious of swinging the club,
of striking something, of extending the club out as far as it would go
and then slamming it back toward himself, striking something which he
hoped was Pietro's head. He felt his mouth going slack and wondered if
his tongue were hanging out. Exerting all his strength he struck numbly,
mechanically, desperately with the chair-leg.
And slowly, the constriction left his throat. Something struck against
his middle, almost knocking him down. Something pushed against his legs,
backing him against the table. He looked down. His eyes were watery, his
throat burning. The giant Pietro lay, breathing stertorously, at his
feet.
A small hand grabbed his. "Father will come now," a voice said. "I
don't--don't even know who you are, but I want to thank you. I thank you
for myself and the Queen, and God, senor. You better come quickly, with
us. Does it hurt much?"
Danny tried to talk. His voice rasped in his throat. The girl squeezed
his hand and together with her and the drunken man who was her father,
he left the tavern. The giant Pietro was just getting up and shaking his
fist at them slowly....
* * * * *
It was a small top-floor room in an old waterfront building in the
Spanish port of Palos. Or, Danny corrected himself, the Castillian port
of Palos. Because, in this year of our Lord 1492, Spain had barely
become a unified country.
"Are you feeling better, Martin Pinzon?" the beautiful girl asked him.
He had given the name he had heard, Martin Pinzon, as his own. The room
was very hot. The August night outside was hot too and sultry and
starless. The girl's father was resting now, breathing unevenly. The
girl's name was Nina. One of the small caravels in her father's
three-ship fleet was named after her. Her full name was Nina Columbus.
Nina brought another wet cloth and covered Danny's swollen throat with
it. "Does it hurt much?" she said, and, for the tenth time, "we have no
money to thank you with, senor."
"Any man would have--"
"But you were the only one. The only--never mind. Martin, listen. I have
no right to trouble you, but ... it's father. Tomorrow is the second day
of August, you see, and it is all over Palos that tomorrow he sails with
the Queen's charter...."
"Then if you're worrying about that big man, Pietro, you can forget it.
If you're sailing, I mean."
"That's just it," Nina said desperately. "Father doesn't want to sail.
Martin, tell me, do you believe the world is round?"
Danny nodded very soberly. "Yes, Nina," he told her softly. "The world
is round. I believe it."
"My father doesn't! Funny, isn't it, Martin?" she said in a voice which
told him she did not think it was funny at all. "All Spain--and Genoa
too--think that tomorrow morning my father, Christopher Columbus, will
journey to the unexplored west confident that he will arrive, after a
long voyage, in the East--when really my father, this same Christopher
Columbus, lies here in a drunken stupor because he lacks the courage to
face his convictions and ... oh, Martin!" Her voice broke, her pretty
face crumpled. She sobbed into her hands. Gently, Danny stroked her
back.
* * * * *
"There now, take it easy," he said. "Your father will sail. I know he'll
sail. Do you believe the world to be round, little Nina?"
"Yes. Oh yes, yes, yes!"
"He will sail. He will prove it and be famous. I know he will."
"Oh, Martin. You sound so sure of yourself. I wish I could ..."
"Nina, listen. Your father will sail."
"You'll help us you mean?"
"Yes. All right, I'll help you. Now, get some sleep if you want to wake
up and say goodbye to him in the morning. Because I'll be getting him up
before the sun to--"
"Are you a sailing man too? Are you going with him?"
"Well ..."
"Wait! Martin, I remember you now. Martin Pinzon. At the meeting of the
organization to prove the Earth's round shape. You! You were there. And
once, once when he was not drunk, father said that a Don Pinzon would
command one of our three ships, the Nina it was, the caravel which
bears my name. Are you this Don Pinzon?"
Slowly, Danny nodded. He remembered his history now. The Nina _had_ been
commanded by one Don Pinzon, Don Martin Pinzon! And he was now this
Martin Pinzon, he, Danny Jones. Which meant he was going with Columbus
to discover a new world! A nineteen-year-old American youth going to
witness the single most important event in American history....
"Yes," Danny said slowly, "I am Don Pinzon."
"But--but you're so young!"
Danny shrugged. "I have seen more of the world than you would believe,
Nina."
"The Western Sea? You have been out on the Western Sea, as far as the
Canary Islands, perhaps?" she asked in an awed voice.
"I know the Western Sea," he said. "Trust me."
She came very close. She looked long in his eyes. "I trust you, Martin.
Oh yes, I trust you. Listen, Martin. I'm going. I'm going with you. I
have to go with you."
"But a girl--"
"He is my father. I love him, Martin. He needs me. Martin, don't try to
stop me. I want you to help me aboard, to see that he ... oh, Martin,
you'll have so much to do. Because the rest of our crew--some of them
being hired even now by the three caravel pursers--will be a crew of
cut-throats and ne'er-do-wells embarking into the unknown because they
have utterly nothing to lose. Father needs you because the others won't
care."
"The three caravels will sail west," Danny told her. "Believe me,
they'll sail west. Now, get some sleep."
Her face was still very close. Her eyes filled with tears, but they were
not tears of sadness. She took his cheeks in her hands and kissed him
softly on the lips. She smiled at him, her own lips trembling.
"Martin," she said.
His arms moved. They went around her, drew the softness of her close.
She murmured something, but he did not hear it. His lips found hers a
second time, fiercely. His hands her shoulder, her throat, her ...
"Flat," Columbus mumbled. "Flat. Abs'lutely flat. The Earth is--flat as
a pancake...."
"Oh, Martin!" Nina cried.
* * * * *
It was raining in the morning. A hard, driving rain, pelting down on the
seaport of Palos. The three caravels floated side by side in the little
harbor and a large, derisive crowd had gathered. The crowd erupted into
noisy laughter when Columbus and his little party appeared on foot.
"I need a drink," Columbus whispered. "I can't go through with it."
"Father," Nina said. "We're with you. I'm here. Martin is here."
"I can't go--"
"You've got to go through with it! For yourself and for the world. Now,
stand straight, father. They're looking at you. They're all looking at
you."
Columbus, thought Danny. The intrepid voyager who had discovered a new
world! He smiled grimly. Columbus, the history books should have said,
the drunken sot who didn't even have the courage to face his own
convictions.
They walked ahead through the ridiculing crowd. Danny's throat was still
sore. He was not frightened, though. He possibly was the only man in the
crew who was not frightened. The others didn't care what their
destination was, true: but they wanted to reach it alive. Danny knew the
journey would end in success. The end of the journey meant nothing to
him. It was written in history. It was ...
Unless, he suddenly found himself thinking, I came back here to write
it. He grinned at his own bravado. What would they have said in freshman
psych--that was practically paranoid thinking. As if Danny Jones,
Whitney College, Virginia, U.S.A., could have anything to do with the
success or failure of Columbus' journey.
They reached the small skiff that would take them out to the tiny fleet
of caravels. The crowd hooted and jeered.
"... going to drop off the edge of the world, Columbus."
"If the monsters don't get you first."
"Or the storms and whirlpools."
Columbus gripped Nina's hand. Martin-Danny took his other arm firmly and
steered him toward the prow of the skiff. "Easy now, skipper," Danny
said.
"I can't--"
"There's wine on the Santa Maria," Danny whispered. "Much wine--to make
you forget. Come on!"
"And I'm going, father," Nina said. "Whether you go or not."
"You!" Columbus gasped. "A girl. You, going--"
"With Martin Pinzon. If--if my own father can't look after me, then
Martin can."
"But you--" Danny began.
"Be quiet, please," she whispered as Columbus climbed stiffly into the
skiff. "It may be the only way, Martin. He--he loves me. I guess I'm the
only thing he cares about. If he knows I'm going."
"To the Santa Maria!" Columbus told the rowers as Danny and Nina got
into the skiff.
"To the New World!" cried Danny melodramatically.
"What did you say?" Nina asked him.