If you go that way
you meet fearful things and never come forth again. The
Santa Maria, the _Pinta_ and the Nina. The Santa Maria
could be Master Christopherus's ship. Bright point that
was his banner could be made out at the fore.
Palos waterside, in a red-filtered dusk, had been a noisy
place, but the noise did not ring genially. I gathered that
this small port was more largely in the mood of Pedro and
Fernando than in that of Sancho. It looked frightened and
it looked sullen and it looked angry.
The old woman by the Tinto talked garrulously. Thankful
was she that her son Miguel dwelled ten leagues away!
Else surely they would have taken him, as they were taking
this one's son and that one's son! To hear her you would
think of an ogre--of Polyphemus in the cave--reaching
out fatal hand for this or that fattened body. Nothing then,
she said, to do but to pinch and save so that one might
pay the priest for masses! She told me with great eyes
that a hundred leagues west of Canaries one came to a sea
forest where all the trees were made of water growing up
high and spreading out like branches and leaves, and that
this forest was filled with sea wolves and serpents and
strange beasts all made of sea water, but they could sting
and rend a man very ghastly. After that you came to
sirens that you could not help leaping to meet, but they
put lips to men's breasts and sucked out the life.
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