"I cannot sail to-morrow,
but I will sail the day after!"
We were put to hard labor for the rest of that day, and
through much of the moonlit night. By early morning again
we labored. At mid-afternoon all was done. The _Pinta_,
right from stem to stern, rode the blue water; the Nina had
her great square sails. The Guanches stored for us fresh
provisions and rolled down and into ship our water casks.
There was a great moon, and we would stand off in the night.
Nothing more had been seen of the Portuguese ships, but
we were ready to go and go we should. All being done,
and the sun two hours high, we mariners had leave to rest
ashore under trees who might not for very long again see
land or trees.
There was a grove that led to a stream and the waterfall
where we had filled the casks. I walked through this alone.
The place lay utterly still save for the murmuring of the
water and the singing of a small yellowish bird that abounds
in these islands. At the end of an aisle of trees shone the
sea, blue and calm as a sapphire of heaven. I lay down
upon the earth by the water.
Finding of India and rounding the earth! We seemed
poor, weak men, but the thing was great, and I suppose the
doers of a great thing are great. East--west! Going west
and yet east.--The Jew in me had come from Palestine,
and to Palestine perhaps from Arabia, and to Arabia--who
knew?--perhaps from that India! And much of the Spaniard
had come from Carthage and from Phoenicia, old Tyre
and Sidon, and Tyre and Sidon again from the east.
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