It was
a great and comely feast. But before the feast, as in Cuba,
the dance.
I should say that three hundred young men and maidens
danced. They advanced, they retreated, they cowered, they
pressed forward. They made supplication, arms to heaven
or forehead to ground, they received, they were grateful,
they circled fast in ease of mind, they hungered again and
were filled again, they flowed together, they made a great
square, chanting proudly!
Fray Ignatio beside me glowered, so far as so good a
man could glower. But Juan Lepe said, "It is doubt and
difficulty, approach, reconciliation, holy triumph! They
are acting out long pilgrimages and arrivals at sacred cities
and hopes for greater cities. It is much the same as in
Seville or Rome!" Whereupon he looked at me in astonishment,
and Jayme de Marchena said to Juan Lepe, "Hold
thy tongue!"
Dance and the feast over, it became the Admiral's turn.
He was set not to seem dejected, not to give any Spaniard
nor any Indian reason to say, "This Genoese--or this
god--does not sustain misfortune!" But he sat calm,
pleased with all; brotherly, fatherly, by that big, easy,
contented cacique. Now he would furnish the entertainment!
Among us we had one Diego Minas, a huge man and as
mighty a bowman as any in Flanders or England. Him
the Admiral now put forward with his great crossbow and
long arrows.
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