1492 Part 22

"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 'n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 n.o.ble 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 G.o.ds 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 a.s.surance 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 l.u.s.tful 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.

CHAPTER XXVIII

FINDING young Sancho upon the _Marigalante_, I kept him beside me for information's sake. He, too, had his stories. And he asked me how Pedro and Fernando died.

In this ship were two sets of captives, animals brought from Spain and Indians from those fiercer islands to the south. The _Monsalvat_ that was a freight ship had many animals, said Sancho, cattle and swine and sheep and goats and c.o.c.ks and hens, and thirty horses. But upon the _Marigalante_, well-penned, the Admiral had a stallion and two mares, a young bull and a couple of heifers, and two dogs--bloodhounds. The Caribs were yonder, five men in all.

He took me to see them. They were tall, strong, sullen and desperate in aspect, hardier, fiercer than Indians of these northward lands. But they were Indians, and their guttural speech could be made out, at least in substance. They asked with a high, contemptuous look when we meant to slay and eat them.

"They eat men's flesh, every Caribal of them! We saw horrid things in Guadaloupe!"

Away from these men sat or stood seven women. "They were captives," said Sancho. "Caribs had ravished them from other islands and they fled in Guadaloupe to us."

These women, too, seemed more strongly fibred, courageous, high of head than the Hayti women. There was among them one to whom the others gave deference, a chieftainess, strong and warlike in mien, not smoothly young nor after their notions beautiful, but with an air of sagacity and pride. A ship boy stood with us. "That is Catalina," he said. "Ho, Catalina!"

The woman looked at him with disdain and what she said was, "Young fool with fool-G.o.ds!"

"They came to us for refuge," said Sancho. "We think they are Amazons.

There was an island where they fought us like men--great bow-women! Don Alonso de Ojeda first called this one Catalina, so now we all call her Catalina. At first they liked us, but now that they are safe away from Caribs--all but these five and they can't hurt them--they sit and pine!

I call it ungrateful, Catalina!"

We moved away. There came from the great cabin where they had wine and fine sweet cakes the Admiral and Guacanagari, with them Don Diego and three or four cavaliers. Guarin was not with the cacique, upon the _Marigalante_. He would not come. I had a vision of him, in the forest, seated motionless, communing with the deepest self to which he could reach, seeking light with the other light-seekers.

Christopherus Columbus beckoned me and I went the round of the ship with him and others and his guest, this far-away son of Great India. So, presently, he was taken to view the horses and the cattle. Whoever hath seen lions brought to a court for show hath seen some shrinking from too-close and heard timorous asking if the bars be really strong. And the old, wild beasts at Rome for the games. If one came by chance upon them in a narrow quarter there might be terror. And the bull that we goad to madness for a game in Spain--were barriers down would come a-scrambling! This cacique had never seen an animal larger than a fox or a dog, Yet he stood with steadiness, though his glance shot here and there. The stallion was restless and fiery-eyed; the bull sent forth a bellow. "Why do they come? What will they do here? Will you put them in the forest? The people will be afraid to wander!"

He looked away to sky and sea and sh.o.r.e. "It grows toward night," he said. "I will go back to my town."

The Admiral said, "I would first show you the Caribs," and took him there where they were bound. The Haytien regarded them, but the Caribs were as contemptuously silent as might have been Alonso de Ojeda in like circ.u.mstances. Only as Guacanagari turned away, one spoke in a fierce, monotonous voice. "You also, Haytien, one moon!"

"You lie! Only Caribs!" Guacanagari said back.

The cacique stood before the woman whom they called Catalina. She broke into speech. It was cacique to cacique. She was from Boriquen--she would return in a canoe if she were free! Better drown than live with the utterly un-understandable--only that they ate and drank and laid hold of women whether these would or would not, and were understandable that far! G.o.ds! At first she thought them G.o.ds; now she doubted. They were magicians. If she were free--if she were free--if she were free! Home--Boriquen! If not that, at least her own color and the understandable!

Guacanagari stood and listened. She spoke so fast--the Admiral never became quite perfect in Indian tongues, and few upon the _Marigalante_ were so at this time. Juan Lepe understood. But just as he was thinking that in duty bound he must say to the Admiral, "She is undermining reputation. Best move away!" Guacanagari made a violent gesture as though he would break a spell. "Where could they come from with all that they have except from heaven? Who can plan against G.o.ds? It is sin to think of it! _El Almirante_ will make you happy, Boriquen woman!"

We left the women. But Guacanagari himself was not happy, as he had been that Christmas-tide when first the G.o.ds came, when the _Santa Maria_ was wrecked and he gave us hospitality.

The Admiral did not see that he was unhappy. The Admiral saw always a vast main good, and he thought it pearl and gold in every fiber. As yet, he saw no rotted string, no snarl to be untangled. It was his weakness, and maybe, too, his strength.