Fray Ignatio crossed himself. "The devil they worship,--
poor lost sheep!" The third gift was a considerable piece
of that mixed and imperfect gold which afterwards we
called guanin. And would we go to visit the cacique whose
town was not so far yonder?
It was Christmas Eve. We sailed with a small, small
wind for the cacique's village, out from harbor of St.
Thomas, around a headland and along a low, bright green
shore. So low and fitful was the wind that we moved
like two great snails. Better to have left the ships and gone,
so many of us, in our boats with oars, canoes convoying us!
The distance was not great, but distance is as the power
of going. "I remember," quoth the Admiral, "a calm,
going from the Levant to Crete, and our water cask broken
and not a mouthful for a soul aboard! That was a long,
long two days while the one shore went no further and the
other came no nearer. And going once to Porto Santo
with my wife she fell ill and moaned for the land, and we
were held as by the sea bottom, and I thought she would die
who might be saved if she could have the land. And I remember
going down the African coast with Santanem--"
Diego de Arana said, "You have had a full life, senor!"
He was cousin, I had been told, to that Dona Beatrix
whom the Admiral cherished, mother of his youngest son,
Fernando.
Pages:
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198