But he was still weak, and still I tended the
others for him.
The _Pinta_ had signaled four men ill. But Garcia Fernandez,
the Palos physician, was there with Martin Pinzon,
and the sick recovered. The Nina had no doctor and now
she came near to the Santa Maria and sent a boat. She had
five sick men and would borrow Bernardo Nunez.
The Admiral spoke with Nunez, now nearly well. Then
the physician made a bundle of drugs and medicaments, said
farewell to all and kindly enough to me, and rowed away to
the _Nina_. He was a friend of the Pinzons, and above the
vanity of the greater ship. The sick upon the Nina prospered
under him.
But Juan Lepe was taken from the forecastle, and slept
where Nunez had slept, and had his place at the table in the
great cabin. He turned from the sailor Juan Lepe to the
physician Juan Lepe, becoming "Doctor" and "Senor."
The wheel turns and a man's past makes his present.
A few days from Gomera, an hour after sunset, the night
was torn by the hugest, flaming, falling star that any of us
had ever seen. The mass drove down the lower skirt of the
sky, leaving behind it a wake of fire. It plunged into the
sea. There is no sailor but knows shooting stars. But this
was a hugely great one, and Ocean-Sea very lonely, and to
most there our errand a spectral and frightening one.
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