Palos to the Canaries, we had sailed south. Now for long,
long days the sun rose right aft, and when it set dyed with
red brow and eyes and cheek and breast of the carved
woman at our prow. She wore a great crown, and she
looked ever with wide eyes upon the west that we chased.
Straight west over Ocean-Sea, the first men, the first ships!
If ever there had been others, our world knew it not. The
Canaries sank into the east. Turn on heel around one's self,
and mark never a start of land to break the rim of the vast
sea bowl! Never a sail save those above us of the _Santa
Maria_, or starboard or larboard, the Pinta and the Nina.
The loneliness was vast and utter. We might fail here, sink
here, die here, and indeed fail and sink and die alone!
Two seamen lay sick in their beds, and the third day
from Gomera the Santa Maria's physician, Bernardo Nunez,
was seized with the same malady. At first Fray Ignatio
tried to take his place, but here the monk lacked knowledge.
One of the sailors died, a ship boy sickened, and the
physician's fever increased upon him. Diego de Arana began
to fail. The ship's master came at supper time and looked
us over. "Is there any here who has any leechcraft?"
Beltran the cook said, "I can set a bone and wash a
wound; but it ends there!"
Cried Fernando from his corner.
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