I look back and I see a strange, a
boyish and a happy day.
The sun was westering. We felt the exhaustion of a
long holiday with novelties so many that at last the senses
did not answer. Perhaps the Indians felt it too. Often and
often have I seen great wisdom guide the Admiral. An
hour before approaching night might have said "Go!" he
took us one and all back to the ships. "_Salve Regina_" was
a sound that evening to hear, and afterwards it was to
sleep, sleep,--tired as from the Fair at Seville!
CHAPTER XVI
AT first, the day before, we had not made out that the
Indians had boats. Later, straying here and there,
we had seen them drawn upon the shore and covered
with boughs of trees. They called them "canoes", made
them, large and small, out of trunks of trees, hollowed by
fire, and with their stone knives. We had seen one copper
knife. Asked about that, they pointed to the south and
seemed to say that yonder dwelled men who had all they
wished of most things.
From dark the east grew pale, from pallor put on roses.
This day no mariner grumbled at the call to awake. Here
still lay our Fortunate Isle, our San Salvador; here our
ivory beach, our green wood. Up went the little curls of
smoke.
We had breakfast. So great was now the deference to
him who three days ago had been "madman" and "black
magician", "dreaming fool" and "spinner without thread!"
Now it was "Admiral", "Excellency", and "What shall
we do next?" and "What is your opinion, sir?"
The immediate thing to do proved to be to come forth
from cabin and mark the beach thronging with thrice the
number of yesterday, and the canoes putting off to us.
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