CHAPTER XII
IT was a strange thing how utterly favoring now was the wind! It blewwith a great steady push always from the east, and always we ran beforeit into the west. Day after day we experienced this warm and steadfastdriving; day after day we never shifted sail. The rigging sang asteady song, day and night. The crowned woman, our figurehead, ran,light-footed, over a green and blue plain, and where the plain ended noman might know! "Perhaps it does not end!" said the mariners.
Of the hidalgos aboard I like best Diego de Arana who had cast off hismelancholy. He was a man of sense, candid and brave. Roderigo Sanchezsat and moved a dull, good man. Roderigo de Escobedo had courage, buthe was factious, would take sides against his shadow if none other werethere. Pedro Gutierrez had been a courtier, and had the vices of thatlife, together with a daredevil recklessness and a kind of wild wit.I had liking and admiration for Fray Ignatio, but careful indeed was Iwhen I spoke with him!
The wind blew unchanging, the stark blue shield of sea, a water-world,must be taken in the whole, for there was no contrasting point in it tocatch the eye. Sancho, forward, in a high sweet voice like a jongleur'svoice, was singing to the men an endless ballad. Upon the poop deckEscobedo and Gutierrez, having diced themselves to an even wealth orpoverty, turned to further examination of the Admiral's ways. Endlesslythey made him and his views subject of talk. Roderigo Sanchez listenedwith a face like an owl, Diego de Arana with some irony about his lips.I came and stood beside the latter.
They were upon the beggary of Christopherus Columbus. "How did the Priorof La Rabida--?"
"I'll tell you, for I heard it. One evening at vesper bell comes ourAdmiral--no less a man!--to Priory gate with a young boy in his hand.Not Fernando his love-child, but Diego the elder, who was born inLisbon. All dusty with the road, like any beggar you see, and not muchbetter clad, foot-sore and begging bread for himself and the boy. Andbecause of his white hair, and because he carried himself in that absurdway that makes the undiscerning cry, 'Ah, my lord king in disguise!'the porter must have him in, and by and by comes the prior and stands totalk with him, 'From where?' 'From Cordova.' 'Whither?' 'To Portugal.''For why?' 'To speak again with King John!' 'Are you in the habit ofspeaking with kings?' 'Aye, I am!' 'About what, may I ask?' 'Aboutthe finding of India by way of Ocean-Sea, the possession of idolatrouscountries and the great wealth thereof, and the taking of Christ to theheathen who else are lost!'"
"Ha, ha! Ha, ha!" This was Escobedo.
"The prior thinks, 'This is an interesting madman.' And being acharitable good man and lacking entertainment that evening, he bringsthe beggar in to supper and sits by him."
Roderigo Sanchez opened his mouth. "All Andalusia knows Fray Juan Perezis a kind of visionary!"
"Aye, like to like! 'Have you been to our Queen and the King?' 'Aye, Ihave!' saith the beggar, 'but they are warring with the Moors and willpull Granada down and do not see the greater glory!'"
All laughed at that, and indeed Gutierrez could mimic to perfection. Wegot, full measure, the beggar's loftiness.
"So the siren sings and the prior leaps to meet her, or tarantula stingshim and he dances! 'I am growing mad too,' thinks Fray Juan Perez, andbegins presently to tell that last week he dreamed of Prester John. Theend is that he and the beggar talk till midnight and the next morningthey talk again, and the prior sends for his friends Captain MartinAlonzo Pinzon and the physician Garcia Fernandez. The beggar gains themall!"
"Do you think a beggar can do that?" I said. "Only a giver can do that."
Pedro Gutierrez turned black eyes upon Juan Lepe, whom he resented thereon the poop deck. "How could you have learned so much, Doctor, while youwere making sail and washing ship?" He was my younger in every way, andI answered equably, "I learned in the same way that the Admiral learnedwhile he begged."
"Touched!" said Diego de Arana. "So that is the way the prior came intothe business?"
"He enters with such vigor," said Gutierrez, "that what does he do butwrite an impassioned letter to the Queen, having long ago, for a time,been her confessor? What he tells her, God knows, but it seems that itchanges the world! She answers that for herself she hath grieved forMaster Columbus's departure from the court and the realm, and that ifhe will turn and come to Santa Fe, his propositions shall at last bethoroughly weighed. Letter finds the beggar with his boy honored guestof La Rabida, touching heads with Martin Pinzon over maps and chartsand the 'Book of Travels' of Messer Marco Polo. There is great joy! Thebeggar hath the prior's own mule and his son a jennet, and here we goto Santa Fe! That was last year. Now the boy that whimpered for breadat convent gate is Don Diego Colon, page to Prince Juan, and the Viceroysails on the _Santa Maria_ for the countries he will administer!"
Gutierrez shook the dice in the box. "Oh, Queen Luck, that I have servedfor so long! Why do you not make me viceroy?"
Said Escobedo, "Viceroy of the continent of water and Admiral of seaweedand fishes!"
Diego de Arana took that up. "We are obliged to find something! Nosensible man can think like some of those forward that this goes onforever and we shall sail till the wood rots and sails grow ragged andwind carries away their shreds or they fall into dust!"
"Who knows anything of River-Ocean? We may not find the western shore,if there be such a thing, for a year! By that time storm will sink usten times over, or plague will take us--"
"There's not needed plague nor storm. Just say, food won't last, andwater is already half gone!"
"That's the undeniable truth," quoth Roderigo Sanchez, and looked with aperturbed face at the too-smooth sea.
Smooth blue sea continued, wind continued, pushing like a great, warmhand, east to west. The Admiral spent hours alone in his sleeping cabin.There were men who said that he studied there a great book of magic. Hehad often a book in his hand, it is true, but Juan Lepe the physicianknew what he strove to keep from others, that the gout that at timesthreatened crippling was upon him and was easier to bear lying down.
Sunset, vesper prayer and _Salve Regina_. As the strains died, therebecame evident a lingering on the part of the seamen. The master spoketo the Admiral. "They've found out about the needle, sir! Perhaps you'dbetter hear them and answer them."
Almost every day he heard them and answered them. To make his seamen,however they groaned and grumbled and plotted, yet abide him and hispurpose was a day-after-day arising task! "Now," he said equably, in thetone almost of a father, "What is it to-day, men?"
The throng worked and put forward a spokesman, who looked from theAdmiral to the clear north. "It is the star, sir! The needle no longerpoints to it! We thought you might explain to us unlearned--What wethink is that distance is going to widen and widen! What's to keepneedle from swinging right south? Then will we never get home to Palosand our wives and children--never and never and never!"
Said the Admiral, "It will not change further, or if it does a verylittle further!" In his most decisive, most convincing voice heexplained why the needle no longer pointed precisely to the star. Thedeviation marked and allowed for, it was near enough for practicalpurposes, and the reasons for the wandering--
I do not know if the wisdom of our descendants will confirm hisexplanation. It is so often to explain the explanation! But one as wellas another might do here. What the _Santa Maria_ wanted was reassurance,general and large, stretching from the Canaries to India and Cathay andback again. He knew that, and after no great time spent with compassneedle and circularly traveling polar star, he began to talk gold andestate, and the pearls and silk and spices they would surely take forgifts to their family and neighbors, Palos or Huelva or Fishertown!
It was truly the hope that upheld many on a voyage that they chose tothink a witches' one. He talked now out of Marco Polo and he clad whatthat traveler had said in more gorgeous attire. He meant nothing false;his exalted imagination saw it so. He was painter of great pageants,heightening and remodeling, deepening and purifying colors, makinghumdrum and workaday over to his heart's desire. The Venetian in
hisbook, and other travelers in their books, had related wonders enough.These grew with him, it might be said--and indeed in his lifetime wasoften said--into wonders without a foot upon earth. But if one took asfigures and symbols his gold roofs and platters, temples and gardens,every man a merchant in silks and spices, strange fruit-dropping treesand pearls in carcanets, the Grand Khan and Prester John--who could saythat in the long, patient life of Time the Admiral was over-esteeming?The pity of it was that most here could not live in great lengths oftime. They wanted riches now, now! And they wanted only one kind ofriches; here and now, or at the most in another month, in the hands andlaps of Pedro and Fernando and Diego.
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