Part 29 (1/2)
”Not as much, Excellency, as would raise an ave in a parish priest, or a sigh in an old woman. I may have my misgivings, for we all have weaknesses, but none of them incline to any dread of sailing about the ocean, since that is my happiness; nor to any concern about wife and children, not having the first, and wis.h.i.+ng not to think I have the last.”
”If thou hast misgivings, name them. I could wish to make one firm as thou, wholly my friend.”
”I doubt not, Senor, that we shall reach Cathay, or whatever country your Excellency may choose to seek; I make no question of your ability to beard the Great Khan, and, at need, to strip the very jewels from his turban--as turban he must have, being an Infidel; nor do I feel any misgivings about the magnitude and richness of our discoveries and freights, since I believe, Senor Don Almirante, you are skilful enough to take the caravels in at one end of the earth and out at the other; or, even to load them with carbuncles, should diamonds be wanting.”
”If thou hast this faith in thy leader, what other distrust can give thee concern?”
”I distrust the value of the share, whether of honor or of jewels, that will fall to the lot of one Sancho Mundo, a poor, unknown, almost s.h.i.+rtless mariner, that hath more need of both than hath ever crossed the mind of our gracious lady, Dona Isabella, or of her royal consort.”
”Sancho, thou art a proof that no man is without his failings, and I fear thou art mercenary. They say all men have their prices; thou seemest clearly to have thine.”
”Your Excellency hath not been sailing about the world for nothing, or you could not tell every man his inclinations so easily. I have ever suspected I was mercenary, and so have accepted all sorts of presents to keep the feeling down. Nothing appeases a mercenary longing like gifts and rewards; and as for price, I strive hard to keep mine as high as possible, lest it should bring me into discredit for a mean and grovelling spirit. Give me a high price, and plenty of gifts, and I can be as disinterested as a mendicant friar.”
”I understand thee, Sancho; thou art to be bought, but not to be frightened. In thy opinion a single dobla is too little to be divided between thee and thy friend, the Portuguese. I will make a league with thee on thine own terms; here is another piece of gold; see that thou remainest true to me throughout the voyage.”
”Count on me, without scruple, Senor Don Almirante, and with scruples, too, should they interfere. Your Excellency hath not a more disinterested friend in the fleet. I only hope that when the share-list shall be written out, the name of Sancho Mundo may have an honorable place, as will become his fidelity. And now, your Excellency, go sleep in peace; the Santa Maria shall lie as near to the route to Cathay, as this south-westerly breeze will suffer.”
Columbus complied, though he rose once or twice more, during the night, to ascertain the state of the weather, and that the men did their duties. So long as Sancho remained at the helm, he continued faithful to his compact; but, as he went below with his watch, at the usual hour, successors were put in his place, who betrayed the original treachery of the other helmsman. When Luis left his hammock, Columbus was already at work, ascertaining the distance that had been run in the course of the night. Catching the inquiring glance of the young man, the admiral observed, gravely, and not altogether without melancholy in his manner--
”We have had a good run, though it hath been more northerly than I could have desired. I find that the vessels are thirty leagues further from Ferro than when the sun set, and thou seest, here, that I have written four-and-twenty in the reckoning, that is intended for the eyes of the people. But there hath been great weakness at work this night among the steersmen, if not treachery: they have kept the s.h.i.+p away in a manner to cause her to run a part of the time in a direction nearly parallel to the coast of Europe, so that they have been endeavoring to deceive me, on the deck, while I have thought it necessary to attempt deceiving them in the cabin. It is painful, Don Luis, to find such deceptions resorted to, or such deceptions necessary, when one is engaged in an enterprise that surpa.s.seth all others ever yet attempted by man, and that, too, with a view to the glory of G.o.d, the advantage of the human race, and the especial interests of Spain.”
”The holy churchmen, themselves, Don Christopher, are obliged to submit to this evil,” answered the careless Luis; ”and it does not become us laymen to repine at what they endure. I am told that half the miracles they perform are, in truth, miracles of but a very indifferent quality; the doubts and want of faith of us hardened sinners rendering such little inventions necessary for the good of our souls.”
”That there are false-minded and treacherous churchmen, as well as false-minded and treacherous laymen, Luis, I little doubt,” answered the admiral; ”but this cometh of the fall of man, and of his evil nature.
There are also righteous and true miracles, that come of the power of G.o.d, and which are intended to uphold the faith, and to encourage those who love and honor his holy name. I do not esteem any thing that hath yet befallen us to belong very distinctly to this cla.s.s; nor do I venture to hope that we are to be favored in this manner by an especial intervention in our behalf; but it exceedeth all the machinations of the devils to persuade me that we shall be deserted while bent on so glorious a design, or that we are not, indirectly and secretly, led, in our voyage, by a spirit and knowledge that both come of Divine grace and infinite wisdom.”
”This may be so, Don Christopher, so far as you are concerned; though, for myself, I claim no higher a guide than an angel. An angel's purity, and, I hope I may add, an angel's love, lead me, in my blind path across the ocean!”
”So it seemeth to thee, Luis; but thou canst not know that a higher power doth not use the Dona Mercedes as an instrument in this matter.
Although no miracle rendereth it apparent to the vulgar, a spirit is placed in my breast, in conducting this enterprise, that I should deem it blasphemy to resist. G.o.d be praised, my boy, we are at last quit of the Portuguese, and are fairly on our road! At present all our obstacles must arise from the elements, or from our own fears. It gladdeneth my heart to find that the two Pinzons remain true, and that they keep their caravels close to the Santa Maria, like men bent on maintaining their faith, and seeing an end of the adventure.”
As Luis was now ready, he and the admiral left the cabin together. The sun had risen, and the broad expanse of the ocean was glittering with his rays. The wind had freshened, and was gradually getting further to the south, so that the vessels headed up nearly to their course; and, there being but little sea, the progress of the fleet was, in proportion, considerable. Every thing appeared propitious; and the first burst of grief, on losing sight of known land, having subsided, the crews were more tranquil, though dread of the future was smothered, like the latent fires of a volcano, rather than extinguished. The aspect of the sea was favorable, offering nothing to view that was unusual to mariners; and, as there is always something grateful in a lively breeze, when unaccompanied with danger, the men were probably encouraged by a state of things to which they were accustomed, and which brought with it cheerfulness and hope. In the course of the day and night, the vessels ran a hundred and eighty miles still further into the trackless waste of the ocean, without awakening half the apprehensions in the bosoms of the mariners that they had experienced on losing sight of land. Columbus, however, acting on the cautious principle he had adopted, when he laid before his people the result of the twenty-four hours' work, reduced the distance to about one hundred and fifty.
Tuesday, the 10th of September, brought a still more favorable change of wind. This day, for the first time since quitting the Canaries, the heads of the vessels were laid fairly to the west; and, with the old world directly behind them, and the unknown ocean in their front, the adventurers proceeded onward with a breeze at south-east. The rate of sailing was about five miles in the hour; compensating for the want of speed, by the steadiness of their progress, and by the directness of their course.
The observations that are usually made at sea, when the sun is in the zenith, were over, and Columbus had just announced to his anxious companions that the vessels were gradually setting south, owing to the drift of some invisible current, when a cry from the mast-head announced the proximity of a whale. As the appearance of one of these monsters of the deep breaks the monotony of a sea life, every one was instantly on the look-out, some leaping into the rigging and others upon the rails, in order to catch a glimpse of his gambols.
”Dost thou see him, Sancho?” demanded the admiral of Mundo, the latter being near him at the moment. ”To me the water hath no appearance of any such animals being at hand.”
”Your Excellency's eye, Senor Don Almirante, is far truer than that of the babbler's aloft. Sure as this is the Atlantic, and yonder is the foam of the crests of the waves, there is no whale.”
”The flukes!--the flukes!” shouted a dozen voices at once, pointing to a spot where a dark object arose above the froth of the sea, showing a pointed summit, with short arms extended on each side. ”He playeth with his head beneath the water, and the tail uppermost!”
”Alas!--alas!” exclaimed the practised Sancho, with the melancholy of a true seaman, ”what these inexperienced and hasty brawlers call the fluke of a whale, is naught but the mast of some unhappy s.h.i.+p, that hath left her bones, with her freight and her people, in the depths of the ocean!”
”Thou art right, Sancho,” returned the admiral. ”I now see that thou meanest: it is truly a spar, and doubtless betokeneth a s.h.i.+pwreck.”
This fact pa.s.sed swiftly from mouth to mouth, and the sadness that ever accompanies the evidences of such a disaster, settled on the faces of all the beholders. The pilots alone showed indifference, and they consulted on the expediency of endeavoring to secure the spar, as a resource in time of need; but they abandoned the attempt on acccount of the agitation of the water, and of the fairness of the wind, the latter being an advantage a true mariner seldom likes to lose.