1492 Part 35

Counter-magic."

"Then they are enchanters!" cried Alonso de Zamorro.

Our great cl.u.s.ter gave back. "Fix an arrow and shoot him down!" That was Diego de Porras.

The Adelantado turned sharply. "Do no such thing! There may be spells, but the worst spell here would be a battle!" We let fly no arrow, but the belief persisted that here was seen veritably at work the necromancy that all along they had guessed.

A party crossed to the main with the Adelantado and pushed a league into as tall and thick and shadowy a forest as ever we met in all our wanderings. Here we found no village, but came suddenly, right in the wood, upon a very great thatched hut, and in it, upon a stone, lay in state a dead cacique. He seemed long dead, but the body had not corrupted; it was saved by some knowledge such as had the Egyptians.

A crown of feathers rested upon the head and gold was about the neck.

Around the place stood posts and slabs of a dark wood and these were cut and painted with I do not know what of beast and bird and monstrous idol forms. We stared. The place was shadowy and very silent. At last with an oath said Francisco de Porras, "Take the gold!" But the Adelantado cried, "No!" and going out of the hut that was almost a house we left the dead cacique and his crown and mantle and golden breastplate. Two wooden figures at the door grinned upon us. We saw now what seemed a light brown powder strewed around and across the threshold. One of our men, stooping, took up a pinch then dropped it hastily. "It is the same they threw against us!"

"Wizardry! We'll find harm from them yet!" That song crept in now at every turn.

We sailed from the Garden south by east along the endless coast that no strait broke. At first fair weather ran with us. But the _Margarita_ was so lame! And all our other ships wrenched and worm-pierced. And the Admiral was growing old before our eyes. Not his mind or his soul but his frame.

He bettered, left his bed and walked the deck. And then we came to the coast we called the Golden Coast, and his hope spread great wings again, and if our mariners talked of magic it was for a time glistening white.

Gold, gold! A deep bay, thronged at the mouth with islets so green and fair, they were marvel to us who were sated with islands great and small. We entered under overhanging trees, and out at once to us shot twenty canoes. The Indians within wore gold in amount and purity far beyond anything in ten years. Oh, our ships could scarce contain their triumph! The Admiral looked a dreamer who comes to the bliss center in his dream. Gold was ever to him symbol and mystery. He did not look upon it as a buyer of strife and envy, idleness and soft luxury; but as a buyer of crusades, ships and ships, discoveries and discoveries, and Christ to enter heathendom.

Gold! Discs of great size, half-moons, crescent moons, pierced for a cotton string. Small golden beasts and birds, poorly carved but golden.

They traded freely; we gathered gold. And there was more and more, they said, at Veragua, wherever that might be, and south and east it seemed to be.

Veragua! We would go there. Again we hoisted sail and in our ships, now all unseaworthy, crept again in a bad wind along the coast of gold,--Costa Rico. At last we saw many smokes from the land. That would be a large Indian village. We beat toward it, found a river mouth and entered. But Veragua must have heard of us from a swift land traveler.

When a boat from each ship would approach the land--it was in the afternoon, the sun westering fast--a sudden burst of a most melancholy and awful din came from the forest growing close to water side.

One of our men cried "Wizards!" The Admiral spoke from the stern of the long boat. "And what if they be wizards? We may answer, 'We are Christians!'"

The furious din continued but now we were nearer. "Besides," he said, "those are great sh.e.l.ls and drums."

Our rowers held off. Out of the forest on to the narrow beach started several hundred sh.e.l.l-blowing, drum-beating barbarians, marvelously feathered and painted and with bows and arrows and wooden swords.

An arrow stuck in the side of our boat, others fell short. The Admiral rose, tall, broad-shouldered, though lean as winter where there is winter, with hair as white as milk. He held in his hand a string of green beads and another of hawk bells which he made to ring, but he did not depend more upon them than upon what he held within him of powerful and pacific. He sent his voice, which he could make deep as a drum and reaching as one of those great sh.e.l.ls. "Friends--friends! Bringing Christ!"

An arrow sang past him. His son would have drawn him down, but, "No--no!" and "Friends--friends! Bringing Christ!"

And whether they thought that "Christ" was the beads and the bell, or whether the bowman in him did send over good will and make it to enter their hearts, or whether it was somewhat of both, they did suddenly grow friendly. Whereupon we landed.

Gold! We took much gold from this place. One of our men, touched by the sun, sat and babbled. "Oh, the faithful golden coast! Oh, the gold that is to come! Great golden ships sailing across blue sea! A hundred--no, a thousand--what do I say? A million Indians with baskets long and wide on their backs and the baskets filled with gold! The baskets are so great and the gold so heavy that the Indians are bowed down till they go on all fours. Gold,--a mountain of pure gold and every Spaniard in Spain and a few Italians--golden kings--" When we had all we could get, up sail and on!

Sail on and on along the golden coast of Veragua! Come to a river and land, for all that again we heard drums and those great sh.e.l.ls strongly blown. Make peace and trade. And here again was gold, gold, gold. We were now a.s.sured that the main was far richer than any island. Turbulent hope,--that was the chief lading now of the four ships. Gold! Gold!

Golden moon disks and golden rude figures. We found a lump of gold wrought like a maize ear.

What was beyond that, by itself under trees, we found an ancient, broken, true wall, stone and lime. The stones were great ones, set truly, with care. The wall was old; the remainder of house, if house or temple there had been, broken from it. Now the forest overran all. We did not know when or by whom it was built, and we found no more like it.

But here was true masonry. All of us said that the world of the main was not the world of the islands.

Ciguarre. These Indians declared it was Ciguarre we should seek. Now that we were in Veragua--seek Ciguarre.

So we sailed beyond Veragua hunting the strait which we must pa.s.s through to Ganges and Ind of old history.

CHAPTER XLII

PUERTO BELLO! Beautiful truly, and a harbor where might ride a navy. But no gold; and now came back very evilly the evil weather. Seven days a blast rocked us. We strained eyes to see if the _Margarita_ yet lived.

The _San Sebastian_ likewise was in trouble. No break for seven days. It was those enchanters of Cariari--magic asleep for a while but now awake!

Storm. And two ships nigh to foundering. When wind sank and blue came back, we left Puerto Bello and turned again south by east, but now with crazy, crazy ships, weather-wrenched and worm-eaten, _teredo_ pierced.

They looked old, so old, with their whipped and darkened sails. And when we dropped anchor in some bight there was no gold, but all night we heard that harsh blowing of sh.e.l.ls and beating of drums.

Francisco and Diego de Porras, Alonso de Zamorra, Pedro de Villetoro, Bernardo the Apothecary and others, the most upon the _Consolacion_, others on the _Margarita_ and the _Juana_, now began to brew mutiny.

We sailed on, and upon this forlorn coast we met no more gold. Our ships grew so worn that now at any threat in the sky we must look and look quickly for harborage, be it good or indifferent bad. To many of us the coast now took a wicked look. It was deep in November.

No gold. These Indians--how vast anyhow was India?--were hostile, not friendly. Our ships were dying, manifestly. If they sank under us and we drowned, the King and Queen--if the Queen still lived--never would come to know that Christopherus Columbus had found Veragua thrice more golden even than Paria! Found Veragua, met men of Yucatan; and heard of Ciguarre.

At last not only the mutinous but steadfast men cried, "If there is a strait it is too far with these ships!"

For a time he was obstinate. _It must be found,--it must be found!_ But one night there fell all but loss of the Margarita. When next he slept he had a dream. "The good Queen came to me and she had in her hand a picture of five stout ships. Out of her lips came a singing voice.

'Master Christopherus, Master Christopherus, these wait for you, riding in Cadiz harbor! But now will you slay your son and your brother and all your men?' Then she said, 'The strait is hidden for a while,' and went."

That day we turned. "We will go back to Veragua and lade with gold, and then we'll sail to Jamaica and to Hispaniola where this time we shall be welcome! Then to Spain where the Queen will give me a stronger fleet."

Our ships hailed the turning. Even the Adelantado, even Diego Mendez and Juan Sanchez and Bartholomew Fiesco who were of the boldest drew long breath as of men respited from death.

Not so many have known and lived to tell of such weather as now we met and in it rolled from wave to wave through a long month.

Would we put to land we were beaten back. We had never seen such waves, and at times they glowed with cold fire. The sea with the wind twisted, danced and shouted. We were deaf with thunder and blind with lightning.

When the rain descended, it was as though an upper ocean were coming down. A little surcease, then return of the tempest, like return of Polyphemus. Men died from drowning, and, I think, from pure fright. One day the clouds drove down, the sea whirled up. There was made a huge water column, a moving column that fast grew larger. Crying out, our sailors flung themselves upon their knees. It pa.s.sed us with a mighty sound, and we were not engulfed.

The Admiral said, "G.o.d tries us, but he will not destroy us utterly!"

The boy Fernando, in a moment's wild terror who was ordinarily courageous as any, clung to him. "O my son! I would that you were in La Rabida, safe beside Fray Juan Perez! My son and my brother Bartholomew!"

Now came to us all scarcity of food and a misery of sickness. Now two thirds would have mutinied had we not been going back--but we were going back--creeping, crawling back as the tempest would allow us.

Christmas! We remembered our first Christmas in this world, by Guarico in Hispaniola, when the _Santa Maria_ sank. Again we found a harbor, and we lay there between dead and alive, until early January. We sailed and on Epiphany Day entered a river that we knew to be in golden Veragua.

The Admiral called it the Bethlehem.

Gold again, gold! Not on the Bethlehem, but on the river of Veragua, not far away, to which the Admiral sent the Adelantado and two long boats filled with our stoutest men. They brought back gold, gold, gold!

The cacique of these parts was Quibian, a barbarian whom at the last, not the first, we concluded to be true brother of Caonabo.

With threescore of our strongest, the Adelantado pushed again up the river of Veragua, too rough and shallow for our ships. He visited Quibian; he traded for gold; he was taken far inland and from a hill observed a country of the n.o.blest, vale and mountain and Indian smokes.

The mountains, the Indians said, were packed with gold. He brought back much gold, Indians bearing it for him in deep baskets that they made.

Quibian paid us a visit, looked sullenly around, and left us. Not in the least was he Guacanagari! But neither, quite yet, did he turn into Caonabo.

The Admiral sat pondering, his hands before him between his knees, his gray-blue eyes looking further than the far mountains. Later, on the sh.o.r.e, he and the Adelantado walked up and down under palm trees. The crews watched them, knowing they were planning.