1492 Part 25

Yonder line of cranes standing in the shallow water, watching us, may, G.o.d wot, be tall magicians in white linen and scarlet silk!"

He crossed himself. The cranes had lifted themselves and flown away. "If they heard--"

"Are you in earnest?"

He put his hands over his eyes. "Sometimes I think it may be fact, sometimes not! Sorcery is a fact, and who knows how far it may go? At times my brain is like to crack, I have so cudgeled it!"

That he cudgeled it was true, and though his brain never cracked and to the end was the best brain in a hundred, yet from this time forth I began to mark in him an unearthliness.

These islands we named the Queen's Gardens, and escaping from them came again to clean coast. On we went for two days, and this part of Cuba had many villages, at sea edge or a little from the water, and all men and women were friendly and brought us gifts.

I remember a moonlight night. All were aboard the _Cordera_, the _Santa Clara_ and the _San Juan_, for we meant to sail at dawn. We had left a village yet dancing and feasting. The night was a miracle of silver.

Again I stood beside Christopherus Columbus; from land streamed their singing and their thin, drumming and clashing music. At hand it is rather harsh than sweet, but distance sweetened it.

"What will be here in the future--if there are not already here, after your notion, great cities and bridges and shipping, and only our eyes holden and our hands and steps made harmless? Or nearly harmless, for we have slain some Indians!"

He had made a gesture of deprecation. "Ah, that, I hardly doubt, was my fancy! But in the future I see them, your cities!"

"Do you see them, from San Salvador onward and everywhere,--Spanish cities?"

"Necessarily--seeing that the Holy Father hath given the whole of the land to Spain." He looked at the moon that was so huge and bright, and listened to the savage music. "If we go far enough--walking afar--who knoweth what we shall find?" He stood motionless. "_I_ do not know. It is in G.o.d's hands!"

"Do you see," I asked, "a great statue of yourself?"

"Yes, I see that."

The moon shone so brightly it was marvel. Land breeze brought perfume from the enormous forest. "It is too fair to sleep!" said the Admiral.

"I will sit here and think."

He slept little at any time. His days were filled with action. Never was any who had more business to attend to! Yet he was of those to whom solitude is as air,--imperiously a necessity. Into it he plunged through every crack and cranny among events. He knew how to use the s.p.a.ce in which swim events. But beside this he must make for himself wide holdings, and when he could not get them by day he took from night.

We came again to a mult.i.tude of islets like to the Queen's Gardens. And these were set in a strange churned and curdled sea, as white as milk.

Making through it as best we might, we pa.s.sed from that silverness and broken land into a great bay or gulf, so deep that we might hardly find bottom, and here we anch.o.r.ed close to a long point of Cuba covered thick with palms.

We went ash.o.r.e for water and fruit. Solitary--neither man nor woman! We found tracks upon the sand that some among us would have it were made by griffons. One of our men had the thought that he might procure some large bird for the Admiral's table. Taking a crossbow he pa.s.sed alone through the palms into the deeper wood. He was gone an hour, and when he returned it was in haste, with a chalk face and great eyes. I was seated in the boat with the master of the _Cordera_ and heard his tale. He had found what he thought a natural aisle of the forest and had stolen down it, looking keenly for pigeon or larger bird. A tree with drooping branches stood across the aisle, he said. He went around the trunk, which was a great one, and it was as though he had turned into the nave of the cathedral. There was s.p.a.ce, but trees like pillars on either side, and at the end three great trees covered to the tops with vine and purple grapes. And here he saw before him, under the greatest tree, a man in a long white gown like a White Friar. The sight halted him, turned him, he averred, to stone. Two more men in white dresses but shorter than that of the first, came from among the trees and he saw behind these a number in like clothing. He could not tell, now he thought of it, if they were carrying lances or palms. We had looked so long for clothed folk that it was the white clothes he thought of. The same with their faces--he could not tell about them--he thought they were fair. Suddenly, it seemed, Pan had fallen upon him and put him forth in terror. He had turned and raced through the forest, here to the sea. He did not think the white-clad men had seen him.

We took him to the Admiral who listened, then brought his hands together. "Hath it not--hath it not, I ask you--sound of Prester John?"

With the dawn he had men ash.o.r.e, and there he went himself, with him Juan de la Cosa and Juan Lepe. The crossbowman--it was Felipe Garcia--showed the way. We found indeed the forest aisle and nave, and the three trees and the purple grapes, a vast vine with heavy cl.u.s.ters, but we found no men and no sign of men.

The Admiral was not discouraged. "If he truly saw then, and I believe he did, then are they somewhere--"

We beat all the neighborhood. Solitary, solitary! He divided the most determined of us--so many from each ship--into two bands and sent in two directions. We were to search, if necessary, through ten leagues.

We went, but returned empty of news of clothed men. We found desolate forest, and behind that a vast, matted, low growth, impenetrable and extending far away. At last we determined that Felipe Garcia had seen white cranes. Unless it were magic--

We sailed on and we sailed on. The _Cordera_, the _Santa Clara_ and the _San Juan_ were in bad case, hurt in that storm between Jamaica and Cuba, and wayworn since in those sandy seas, among those myriad islets.

Our seamen and our shipmasters now loudly wished return to Isabella.

He pushed us farther on and farther on, and still we did not come to anything beyond those things we had already reached, nor did we come either to any end of Cuba. And what was going on in Hispaniola--in Isabella? We had sailed in April and now it was July.

It became evident to him at last that he must turn. The Viceroy and the Admiral warred in him, had long warred and would war. Better for him had he never insisted upon viceroyship! Then, single-minded, he might have discovered to the end of his days.

We turned, the _Cordera_, the _Santa Clara_ and the _San Juan_, and still he believed that the long, long coast of Cuba was the coast of the Asia main. He saw it as a monster cape or prolongation, sprouting into Ocean-Sea as sprouts Italy into Mediterranean. Back--back--the way we had come, entering again that white sea, entangled again among a thousand islets!

At last we came again to that Cape of the Cross to which we had escaped in the Jamaica tempest. One thing he would yet do in this voyage and that was to go roundabout homeward by Jamaica and find out further things of that great and fair island. We left Cuba that still we thought was the main. Santiago or Jamaica rose before us, dark blue mountains out of the dark blue sea. For one month we coasted this island, for always the weather beat us back when we would quit it, setting our sails for Hispaniola.

We came to Hayti upon the southern side, and because of some misreckoning failed of knowing that it was Hayti, until an Indian in a canoe below us, called loudly "El Almirante!" And yet Isabella was the thickness of the island from us, and the weather becoming foul, we beat about for long days, struggling eastward and pushed back, and again parting upon a stormy night one ship from the others. The _Cordera_ anch.o.r.ed by a tall, rocky islet and rode out the storm. Here, when it was calm, we went ash.o.r.e, but found no man, only an unreckonable number of pigeons. The Admiral lay on clean, warm sand and rested with his eyes shut. I was glad we were nigh to Isabella and his house there, for I did not think him well. He sat up, embracing his great knees and looking at the sea and the _Cordera_. "I have been thinking, Doctor."

"For your health, my Admiral, I wish you could rest a while from thinking!"

"We were upon the south side of Mangi. I am a.s.sured of that! Could I, this time, have sailed on--Now I see it!"

He dropped his hands from his knees and turned full toward me. I saw that lying thus for an hour he had gathered strength and now was pa.s.sed, as he was wont to pa.s.s after quiet, into a high degree of vision, accompanied by forth-going energy. "Now I see, and as soon as I may, I will do! Beyond Mangi, Champa. Beyond Champa, the coast trending southward, India of the Ganges and the Golden Chersonese. Land of Gold--Land of Gold!--are they not forever pointing southward? But it is not of gold--or wholly gold--that now I think! _Aurea Chersonesus_ maketh a vast peninsula, greater maybe than Italy, Greece and Spain taken together. But I will round it, and I will come to the mouth of Ganges! Then again, I read, we go southward! There is the Kingdom of Maabar where Saint Thomas is buried, and the Kingdom of Monsul where the diamonds are found. Then we come to the Island of Zeilan, where is the Tomb of our Father Adam. Here are sapphires, amethysts, topaz, garnet and rubies. There is a ruby here beyond price, large as a man's two fists and a well of red fire. But what I should think most of would be to stand where Adam laid him down.--Now from the Island of Zeilan I sail across the India sea. And I go still south, three hundred leagues, and I find the great island of Madagascar whose people are Saracens and there is the rukh-bird that can lift an elephant, and they cut the red sandal there and find ambergris. Then lifteth Zanzibar whose women are monsters and where the market is in elephant teeth. And so I come at last to the extremity of Africa which Bartholomew Diaz found--my brother, Don Bartholomew being with him--and named Good Hope. So I round Good Hope, and I come home by Cape Bojador which I myself have seen. I will pa.s.s Fez and Ercilla and the straits and Cadiz. I will enter the River Sagres at Palos, for there was where I first put forth. The bells of La Rabida will ring, for a thing is done that was never done before, and that will not cease to resound! I shall have sailed around the earth.

Christopherus Columbus. Ten ships. Ten chances of there being one in which I may come home!"

"There have been worse dreams!" said Juan Lepe.

"I warrant you! But I am not dreaming."

He rose and stood with arms outstretched, crosswise.

"'Nought is hid,' saith Scripture, 'but shall be found!' Here is Earth.

Do you not think that one day we shall go all about it? Aye, freely, freely! With zest and joy, discovering that it is a loved home. For every road some man or men broke the clods!"

They hailed us from the _Cordera_. One had seen from topmast the _Santa Clara_.

Still we sailed by the south coast of Hispaniola. We knew now that it was not c.i.p.ango. But it was a great island, natheless, and one day might be as c.i.p.ango. Beata, Soana, Mona were the little islands that we found.

We sailed between them and our great island, and at last we came to the corner and turned northward, and again after days to another corner and sailed west once more, with hopes now of Isabella. It was the first week in September.

In a great red dawn, Roderigo, the Admiral's servant, roused Juan Lepe.

"Come--come--come, Doctor!"

I sprang from my bed and followed him. Christopherus Columbus lay in a deep swoon. Round he came from that and said, "Roderigo, tell them that I am perfectly well, but wish to see no one!" From that, he came to recognize me. "Doctor, I am tired. G.o.d and Our Lady only know how tired I am!"

His eyes shut, his head sank deep into the bed. He said not another word, that day nor the next nor the next. Roderigo and I forced him to swallow a little food and wine, and once he rose and made as if to go on deck. But we laid him down again and he sank into movelessness and a sleep of all the faculties. Juan de la Cosa took care of the _Cordera_.

So we sighted Isabella and in the harbor four caravels that had not been there when we had sailed in April.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

TWO men came into the cabin, Don Diego Colon, left in charge of Hispaniola, and with him a tall, powerful, high-featured man, gray of eye and black and silver of hair and short beard. As he stood beside the bed, one saw that he must be kinsman to the man who lay upon it. "O Bartholomew! And is this the end?" cried Don Diego, and I knew that the stranger was that brother, Bartholomew, for whom the Admiral longed.

These three brothers! One lay like a figure upon a tomb save for the breathing that stirred his silver hair. One, Don Diego, tall, too, and strong, but all of a gentle, quiet mien sank on his knees and seemed to pray. One, Don Bartholomew, stood like rock or pine, but he slowly made the sign of the cross, and I saw his gray eyes fill. It seemed to me that the Admiral's eyelids flickered. "Speak to him again," I said.

"Take his hand."

Bartholomew Columbus, kneeling in the _Cordera's_ cabin, put his arm about his great brother. That is what he called him,--"Christopher, my great brother, it is Bartholomew! Don't you know me? Don't you remember?

I must go to England, you said, to see King Henry. To tell him what you could do--what you have done, my great brother! Don't you remember? I went, but I was poor like you who are now Viceroy of the Indies--and I was shipwrecked besides and lost the little that we had sc.r.a.ped--do you remember?--and must live like you by making maps and charts, and it was long before I saw King Henry!--Christopher, my great brother! He lies like death!"

I said, "He is returning, but he is yet a long way off. Keep speaking."