CHAPTER XXXII
TWO men came into the cabin, Don Diego Colon, left in charge ofHispaniola, and with him a tall, powerful, high-featured man, gray ofeye and black and silver of hair and short beard. As he stood besidethe bed, one saw that he must be kinsman to the man who lay upon it. "OBartholomew! And is this the end?" cried Don Diego, and I knew that thestranger was that brother, Bartholomew, for whom the Admiral longed.
These three brothers! One lay like a figure upon a tomb save for thebreathing that stirred his silver hair. One, Don Diego, tall, too, andstrong, but all of a gentle, quiet mien sank on his knees and seemed topray. One, Don Bartholomew, stood like rock or pine, but he slowly madethe sign of the cross, and I saw his gray eyes fill. It seemed to methat the Admiral's eyelids flickered. "Speak to him again," I said."Take his hand."
Bartholomew Columbus, kneeling in the _Cordera's_ cabin, put his armabout his great brother. That is what he called him,--"Christopher, mygreat 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 youcould do--what you have done, my great brother! Don't you remember? Iwent, but I was poor like you who are now Viceroy of the Indies--and Iwas shipwrecked besides and lost the little that we had scraped--do youremember?--and must live like you by making maps and charts, and it waslong before I saw King Henry!--Christopher, my great brother! He lieslike death!"
I said, "He is returning, but he is yet a long way off. Keep speaking."
"But King Henry said at last, 'Go bring us that brother of yours, andwe think it may be done!' And he gave me gold. So I would come backto Spain for you, and I reached Paris, and it was the summer of 1493.Christopher, my great brother, don't you hear me? For it was at Paristhat I heard, and it came like a flood of glory, fallen in one momentfrom Heaven! I heard, 'Christopherus Columbus! He has found the Indiesfor King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella!'--Don't you hear, Christopher?All the world admiring--all the world saying, 'Nothing will ever go justthe same way again!' You have done the greatest thing, my great brother!Doctor, is he dying?"
"He will not die," I said. "You are cordial to him, though he hears youyet from leagues and leagues away. Go on!"
"Christopher, from Paris I got slowly, slowly, so slowly I thoughtit!--to Seville. But I was not poor. They gave me gold, the French Kinggave it, their nobles, their bishops. I walked in that glory; it floodedme from you! All your people, Christopher, your sons and your brothersand our old father. You build us again, you are our castle and greatship and Admiral! When I came to Barcelona, how they praised you! WhenI came to Toledo, how they praised you! When I came to Seville, how theypraised you! But at Seville I learned that I was too late, and you weregone upon your second voyage. Then I went to Valladolid and the Queenand the King were there, and they said, 'He has just sailed, DonBartholomew, from Cadiz with sixteen ships--your great brother whohath crossed Ocean-Sea and bound to us Asia!'--But, sweet Jesu, whatentertainment they gave me, all because I had lain in our old woodencradle at Genoa a couple of years or so after you!--Genoa!--They sayGenoa _aches_ because she did not send you. Christopher, do you rememberthe old rock by the sea--and you begged colors from Messer Ludovico andpainted upon it a ship and we called it the Great Doge--"
The Admiral's eyes opened slowly like a gray dawn; he moved ever soslightly in the bed, and his lips parted. "Brother," he whispered.
We got him from the _Cordera_ to Hispaniola shore, and so in a litter tohis own house in Isabella. All our town was gathered to see him carriedthere. He began to improve. The second day he said to Don Bartholomew,"You shall be my lieutenant and deputy. Adelantado--I name youAdelantado."
Don Bartholomew said bluntly, "Is not that hard upon Diego?"
"No, no, Bartholomew!" answered Don Diego, who was present. "If it werequestion of a prior of Franciscans, now! But Christopher knows and Iknow that I took this stormy world but for lack of any other in blood toserve him. Our Lady knows that I never held myself to be the man for theplace! Be Adelantado and never think of me!"
The Admiral upon his bed spoke. "We have always worked together, weColombos. When it is done for the whole there is no jealousy among theparts. I love Diego, and I think he did well, constraining his nature toit, here among the selfish, the dangerous and factious! And others knowthat he did well. I love him and praise him. But Bartholomew, thou artthe man for this!"
Accordingly, the next noontide, trumpets, and a proclamation madebefore the great cross in the middle of our town. The Viceroy's new-comebrother had every lieutenant power.
I do not know if he ever disappointed or abused it. He became greathelper to his great brother.
These three! They were a lesson in what brothers might be, one to theother, making as it were a threefold being. Power was in this family,power of frame and constitution, with vital spirit in abundance; powerof will, power of mind, and a good power of heart. Their will was goodtoward mankind.
They had floods to surmount and many a howling tempest to out-endure.By and large they did well with life,--very well. There was alloy, basemetal of course, even in the greatest of the three. They were stillmen. But they were such men as Nature might put forward among her goodlyfruit.
The Viceroy lay still in his bed, for each time he would rise camefaintness and old fatigue. The Adelantado acted.
There was storm in Hispaniola, storm of human passions. I found LuisTorres, and he put me within leg-stride of the present.
Margarite! It seemed to begin with Don Pedro Margarite.
He and his men had early made choice between the rich, the fruitful,easy Vega and the mountains they were to pierce for gold and hunt overfor a fierce mountain chief. In the Vega they established themselves.The Indians brought them "tribute", and they exacted over-tribute, andreviled and slew when it pleased them, and they took the Indian women,and if it pleased them they burned a village. "Sorry tale," said Luis."Old, sorry tale!"
Indians came to Isabella and with fierce gesture and eyes that castlances talked to Don Diego. Don Diego sent a stern letter to Don PedroMargarite. Don Pedro answered that he was doing soldier's duty, as theSovereigns would understand when it came before them. Don Diego sentagain, summoning him upon his allegiance to Isabella. He chose for amonth no answer to that at all, and the breezes still brought fromthe Vega cries of anger, wails of sorrow. Then he appeared suddenly inIsabella.
Don Diego would have arrested him and laid him in prison to await theAdmiral's return. But with suddenness, that was of truth no suddenness,Margarite had with him three out of four of our hidalgos, and more thanthat, our Apostolic Vicar of the Indies! Don Diego must bend aside,speak him fair, remonstrate, not command. The Viceroy of the Indiesand Admiral of Ocean-Sea? Dead probably!--and what were these Colombos?Italian wool-combers! But here stood hidalgos of Spain!--"Oldstory," said Luis Torres. "Many times, many places, man being one inimperfection."
A choppy sea had followed Margarite's return. Up and down, to and fro,and one day it might seem Margarite was in control, and the next, DonDiego, but with Margarite's wave racing up behind. Then appeared threeships with men and supplies and Don Bartholomew! Margarite saw Don Diegostrengthened. He was bold enough, Margarite! on a dark night, at eve,there were so many ships before Isabella but when morn broke theywere fewer by two. Margarite and the Apostolic Vicar and a hundreddisaffected were departed the Indies! "Have they gotten to Spain? Andwhat do they say? God, He knoweth!--There have been great men and theyhave been stung to death."
"Ay, ay, the old story!" I said, and would learn about the pacificationof the Indians.
"Why, they are not pacified," answered Luis. "Worse follows worse. PedroMargarite left two bands in the Vega, and from all I hear they turneddevils. It looked like peace itself, didn't it, this great, fair, newland, when first we stepped upon it, and raised the banner and then thecross? It's that no longer. They're up, the Indians, Caonabo and threemain caciques, and all the lesser ones under these. In short, we areat war," ended Luis. "Alonso de Ojeda at the
moment is the Cid. Hemaneuvers now in the Vega."
I looked around. We were sitting under palm trees, by the mud wall ofour town. Beyond the forest waved in the wind, and soft white cloudssailed over it in a sky of essential sapphire. "There's an aspect hereof peace!"
"That is because Guacanagari, from his new town, holds his people still.For that Indian the scent of godship has not yet departed! He sees theAdmiral always as a silver-haired hero bringing warmth and light. Heis like a dog for fidelity!--But I saw three Indians from outside hiscountry curse him in the name of all the other tribes, with a kindof magical ceremony. Is he right, or is he wrong, Juan Lepe? Or is heneither the one nor the other, but Something moves him from above?"
"Have you never seen again the butio, Guarin?"
"No."
We sat and looked at the rich forest, and at that strange, rude, smalltown called Isabella, and at the blue harbor with the ships, and theblue, blue sea beyond. Over us--what is over us? Something seemed tocome from it, stealing down the stair to us!
The fourth day after his return, Don Francisco de Las Casas, Don JuanPonce de Leon, and others told to the Viceroy, lying upon his bed in hishouse, much what Luis Torres told Juan Lepe. "Sirs," he said, when theyhad done, "here is my brother, Don Bartholomew, who will take order.He is as myself. For Christopherus Columbus, he is ill, and must be illawhile."
The sixth day came Guacanagari, and sat in the room and talkedsorrowfully. Caonabo, Gwarionex, Behechio, Cotubanama, said, "Were theseor were these not gods, yet would they fight!"
The Admiral said, "The Future is the god. But there are burrs on hisskirt!"
Guacanagari at last would depart. He stood beside the bed and thesilver-haired great cacique from heaven. The Admiral put forth a lean,knotted, powerful hand and laid it on the brown, slim, untoiled hand. "Iwish peace," he said. "My brother Bartholomew and I will do what we cando to gain it. Good peace, true peace!"
Without the room, I asked the cacique about Guarin. He was gone, hesaid, to the mountains. He would not stay with Guacanagari, and he wouldnot go to Caonabo or Gwarionex. "All old things and ways are broken,"said Guacanagari. "All our life is broken. I do not know what we havedone. The women sit and weep. And I, too, sometimes I weep!"
The seventh day came in Alonso de Ojeda from St. Thomas.
The Viceroy and the Adelantado and Ojeda talked alone together inthe Viceroy's house. But next day was held a great council, allour principal men attending. There it was determined to capture,if possible, Caonabo, withdrawing him so from the confederacy. Theconfederacy might then go to pieces. In the meantime use every effortto detach from it Gwarionex who after Guacanagari was our nearestgreat cacique. Send a well-guarded, placating embassy to him and toCotubanama. Try kindness, kindness everywhere, kind words and gooddeeds!--And build another fort called Fort Concepcion.
Take Caonabo! That was a task for Alonso de Ojeda! He did it. Five daysafter the council, the Viceroy being now recovered and bringing strengthto work that needed strength, the Adelantado vigorously helping,Isabella in a good mood, the immediate forest all a gold and greenpeacefulness, Don Alonso vanished, and with him fourteen picked men, allmounted.
For six weeks it was as though he had dropped into the sea, or riseninto the blue sky above eyesight.
Then on a Sunday he and his fourteen rode into town. We had a greatchurch bell and it was ringing, loudly, sonorously. He rode in and atonce there arose a shout, "Don Alonso de Ojeda!" All his horsemen rodewith him, and rode also one who was not Castilian. On a gray steed abare, bronze figure--Caonabo!
The church bell swung, the church bell rang. Riding beneath the squattower, all our people pouring forth from our poor houses upon thereturned and his captive, the latter had eyes, it seemed to me, butfor that bell. A curious, sardonic look of recognition, appraisal,relinquishment, sat in the Indian's face. From wrist to wrist of Caonabowent a bright, short chain. The sun glittered upon the bracelets and thelinks. I do not know--there was for a moment--something in the sound ofthe bell, something in the gleam of the manacles, that sent out faintpity and horror and choking laughter.
All to the Viceroy's house, and Don Alonso sitting with ChristopherusColumbus, and Caonabo brought to stand before them. Indians make much ofindifferent behavior, taunting calm, when taken. It is a point of honor,meeting death so, even when, as often befalls, their death is a slow andhard one. Among themselves, in their wars, it is either death or quickadoption into the victor's tribe. They have no gaols nor herds ofslaves. Caonabo expected death. He stood, a strong, contemptuous figure.But the Viceroy meant to send him to Spain--trophy and show, and to bemade, if it could be, Christian.
1492 Page 32
