1492 Part 27

The Admiral talked with me that night. Gout again crippled him. He lay helpless, now and then in much pain. "I should go home with Antonio de Torres, but I cannot!"

"You are not very fit to go."

"I do not mean my body. My will could drag that on ship. But I cannot leave Hispaniola while goes on formal war. But see you, Doctor, what a great thing their Majesties plan for, and what courtesy and respect they show me! See how the Queen writes!"

I knew that it was balm and wine to him, how she wrote. The matter in question was nothing more or less than an amicable great meeting between the two sovereigns and the King of Portugal, the wisest subjects of both attending. A line was to be drawn from top to bottom of Ocean-Sea, and Portugal might discover to the east of it, and Spain to the west! The Holy Father would confirm, and so the mighty spoil be justly divided.

Every great geographer should come into counsel. The greatest of them all, the Discoverer, surely so! The Queen urged the Admiral's presence.

But he could not go. Sense of duty to his Viceroyship held him as with chains. Then Bartholomew? But Bartholomew was greatly needed for the war. He sent Don Diego, a gentle, able man who longed for a cloister and a few hundred monks, fatherly, admirably, to rule.

Antonio de Torres stayed few weeks in Hispaniola. The Viceroy and Admiral would have his letter in the royal hands. Torres took that and took gold and strange plants, and also six hundred Indian captives to be sold for slaves.

War went on in Hispaniola, but not for long. We had horses and bloodhounds and men in armor, trained in the long Moorish strife. There was a battle in the Vega that ended as it must end.

Behechio and Anacaona fled to the high mountains. Manicoatex and Gwarionex sued for peace. It was granted, but a great tribute was imposed. Now all Hayti must gather gold for Spain.

Now began, a little to-day and a little to-morrow, long woe for Hayti!

It was the general way of our Age. But our Age sinned.

The year wheeled to October. Juan Aguado came with four caravels to Isabella, and he brought letters of a different tenor from those that Torres brought. We heard in them the voice of Margarite and the Apostolic Vicar.

But now the Admiral was well again, the Indians defeated, Hispaniola basking in what we blithely called peace. Aguado came to examine and interrogate. He had his letters. "Cavaliers, esquires and others, you are to give Don Juan Aguado faith and credit. He is with you on our part to look into--"

Aguado looked with a hostile eye toward Viceroy and Adelantado. Where was a malcontent he came secretly if might be, if not openly, to Aguado.

Whoever had a grudge came; whoever thought he had true injury. Every one who disliked Italians, fire-new n.o.bles, sea captains dubbed Admirals and Viceroys came. Every one who had been restrained from greed, l.u.s.t and violence came. Those who held an honest doubt as to some one policy, or act, questioned, found their mere doubt become in Aguado's mind d.a.m.ning certainty. And so many good Spaniards dead in war, and so many of pestilence, and such thinness, melancholy, poverty in Isabella! And where was the gold? And was this rich Asia of the spices, the elephants, the beautiful thin cloths and the jewels? The friends of Christopherus Columbus had their say also, but suddenly there arose all the enemies.

"When he sails home, I will sail with him!" said the Admiral, "My name is hurt, the truth is wounded!"

In the third week of Aguado's visit, arose out of far ocean and rushed upon us one of those immense tempests that we call here "hurricane".

Not a few had we seen since 1492, but none so great, so terrible as this one. Eight ships rode in the harbor and six were sunk. Aguado's four caravels and two others. Many seamen drowned; some got ash.o.r.e half-dead.

"How will I get away? I must to Spain!" cried Aguado. The Admiral said, "There is the _Nina_."

The _Nina_ must be made seaworthy, and in the end we built a smaller ship still which we called the _Santa Cruz_. Aguado waited, fretting.

Christopherus Columbus kept toward him a great, calm courtesy.

It was at this moment that Don Bartholomew found, through Miguel Diaz, the mines of Hayna, that was a great river in a very rich country. The Adelantado brought to Isabella ore in baskets. Pablo Belvis, our new essayer, p.r.o.nounced it true and most rich. Brought in smaller measures were golden grains, k.n.o.bs as large as filberts, golden collars and arm rings from the Indians of Bonao where flowed the Hayna.

"Ophir!" said the Admiral. "Mayhap it is Ophir! Then have we pa.s.sed somewhere the Gulf of Persia and Trapoban!"

With that gold he sailed, he and Aguado and two small crowded ships.

With him he carried Caonabo. It was early March in 1496.

But Juan Lepe stayed in Hispaniola, greatly commended by the Admiral to the Adelantado. A man might attach himself to the younger as well as the elder of these brothers. Don Bartholomew had great qualities. But he hardly dreamed as did Christopherus Columbus. I loved the latter most for that--for his dreams.

Days and days and days! We sought for gold in the Hayna country and found a fair amount. And all Hayti now, each Indian cacique and his country, must gather for us. _Must_, not may. We built the fortress of San Cristoval, and at last, to be nearer the gold than was Isabella, the Adelantado founded the city of San Domingo, at the mouth of the Ozema, in the Xaragua country. Spaniards in Hispaniola now lived, so many in Isabella, so many in San Domingo, and garrisons in the forts of St.

Thomas, Concepcion, and San Cristoval.

Weeks--months. July, and Pedro Alonzo Nino with three caravels filled with strong new men and with provisions. How always we welcomed these incoming ships and the throng they brought that stood and listened and thought at first, after the sea tossing and crowding, that they were come to heaven! And Pedro Nino had left Cadiz in June, three days after the arrival there of the _Nina_ and the _Santa Cruz_. "June! They had then a long voyage!"--"Long enough! They looked like skeletons! If the Admiral's hair could get whiter, it was whiter."

He had letters for the Adelantado from the great brother, having waited in Cadiz while they were written.

Juan Lepe had likewise a letter. "I was in the _Nina_, Don Juan de Aguado in the Santa Cruz. We met at once head winds that continued. At first I made east, but at last of necessity somewhat to the southward.

We saw Marigalante again and Guadaloupe, and making for this last, anch.o.r.ed and went ash.o.r.e, for the great relief of all, and for water and provision. Here we met Amazons, wearing plumes and handling mightily their bows and arrows. After them came a host of men. Our cannon and arquebuses put them to flight but three of our sailors were wounded.

Certain prisoners we took and bound upon the ships. In the village that we entered we found honey and wax. They are Cannibals; they eat men.

After four days we set sail, but met again tempest and head winds, checking us so that for weeks we but crept and crawled over ocean. At last we must give small doles of bread and water. There grew famine, sickness and misery. I and all may endure these when great things are about. But they blame me. O G.o.d, who wills that the Unknown become the Known, I betake myself to Thy court! Famine increased. There are those, but I will not name them, who cried that we must kill the Indians with us and eat them that we might live. I stood and said, 'Let the Cannibals stand with the Cannibals!' But no man budged.--I will not weary thee, best doctor, with our woes! At last St. Vincent rose out of sea, and we presently came to Cadiz. Many died upon the voyage, and among them Caonabo. In the harbor here we find Pedro Alonzo Nino who will bear my letters.

"In Cadiz I discover both friends and not friends. The sovereigns are at Burgos, and thither I travel. My fortunes are at ebb, yet will the flood come again!"

Time pa.s.sed. Hispaniola heard again from him and again. When ships put forth from Cadiz--and now ships pa.s.sed with sufficient regularity between Spain in Europe and Spanish Land across Ocean-Sea--he wrote by them. He believed in the letter. G.o.d only knows how many he wrote in his lifetime! It was ease to him to tell out, to dream visibly, to argue his case on fair paper. And those who came in the ships had stories about him-El Almirante!

Were his fortunes at ebb, or were they still in flood? There might be more views here than one. Some put in that he was done for, others clamored that he was yet mounting.

But he wrote to the Adelantado and also to Juan Lepe that he sat between good and bad at court. The Queen was ever the great head of the good.

We knew from him that Pedro Margarite and Father Buil and Juan Aguado altered nothing there. But elsewhere now there were warm winds, and now biting cold. And warm and cold, he could not get the winds that should fill his sails. He begged for ships--eight he named--that he might now find for the sovereigns main Asia--not touch here and there upon Cuba sh.o.r.e, but find the Deep All. But forever promised, he was forever kept from the ships! True it was that the sovereigns and the world beside were busy folk! There were Royal Marriages and Naples to be reconquered for its king.

We heard of confirmations of all his dignities and his t.i.thes of wealth.

He was offered to be made Marquess, but that he would not have. "The Admiral" was better t.i.tle. But he sued for and obtained entail upon his sons and their sons forever of his n.o.bility and his great Estate in the West. "Thus," he wrote, "have I made your fortunes, sons and brothers!

But truly not without you and your love and strengthening could I have made aught! A brother indeed for my left hand and my right hand, and to beckon me on, two dear sons!"

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

TWO years! It was March, 1496, when he sailed in the _Nina_. It was the summer of 1498 when Juan Lepe was sent as physician with two ships put forth from San Domingo by the Adelantado upon a rumor that the Portuguese had trespa.s.sed, landing from a great carrack upon Guadaloupe.

Five days from Hispaniola we met a hurricane that carried us out of all reckoning. When stillness came again we were far south. No islands were in sight; there was only the sea vast and blue. There seemed to breathe from it a strangeness. We were away and away, said our pilots, from the curve, like a bent bow, of the Indian islands. A day and a night we hung in a dead calm. Dawn broke. "Sail, ho! Sail, ho!"

We thought that it might be the Portuguese and made preparation. Three ships lifted over the blue rim. There was now a light wind; it brought them nearer, they being better sailers than the _Santa Cruz_ and the _Santa Clara_. We saw the banner. "Castile!" and a lesser one. "El Almirante!"

Now we were close together. The masters hailed, "What ships?"--"From Hispaniola!"--"From Cadiz. The Admiral with us! Come aboard, your commander!"

That was Luis Mendez, and in the boat with him went Juan Lepe. The ships were the _Esperanza_, the _San Sebastian_ and the _San Martin_, the first fairly large and well decked, the others small. They who looked overside and shouted welcome seemed a medley of gentle and simple, mariners, husbandmen, fighting men and hidalgos.

The Admiral! His hair was milk-white, his tall, broad frame gaunt as a January wolf. Two years had written in his face two years'

experience--fully written, for he was sensitive to every wind of experience. "Excellency!"--"Juan Lepe, I am as glad of you as of a brother!--And what do you do, senors, here?"

Luis Mendez related. "I think it false news about the Portuguese," said the Admiral and gave reasons why. "Then shall we keep with you, sir?"

"No, since you are sent out by my brother and must give him account.

Have you water to spare? We will take that from you. I am bound still south. I will find out what is there!"

Further talk disclosed that he had left Spain with six ships, but at the Canaries had parted his fleet in two, sending three under Alonzo de Caravajal upon the straight course to Hispaniola, and himself with three sailing first to the Green Cape islands, and thence southwest into an unknown sea.

So desolate, wide and blue it looked when the next day we parted,--two ships northward, three southward! But Juan Lepe stayed with the _Esperanza_ and the Admiral. As long since, between the _Santa Maria_ and the _Pinta_, there had been exchange of physicians, so now again was exchange between the _Santa Cruz_ and the _Esperanza_.

Days of blue sea. The _Esperanza_ carried a somewhat frank and friendly crew of mariners and adventurers. Now he would sail south, he said, until he was under the Equator.

Days of stark blue ocean. Then out of the sea to the south rose a point of land, becoming presently three points, as it were three peaks. The Admiral stared. I saw the enthusiasm rise in his face. "Did I not write and say to the Sovereigns and to Rome that in the Name of the Holy Trinity, I would now again seek out and find? There! Look you! It is a sign! Trinidad--we will name it Trinidad."