Alonso de Ojeda burst into a great laugh. "Well done,
Catalina!"
The Admiral's place could ever be told by his head over
all. Moreover his warm, lifted, powerfully pulsing nature
was capable of making around him a sphere that tingled
and drew. One not so much saw him as felt him, here,
there. Now I stood beside him where he leaned over rail.
"Gone," he said. "They are gone!" He drew a deep
breath. I can swear that he, too, felt an inner joy that they
had escaped clutching.
But in the morning he sent ashore a large party under
his brother, Don Diego. We received another surprise. No
Indians on the beach, none in the forest, and when they
came to the village, only houses, a few parrots and the
gardens, dewy fresh under the sun's first streaming. No
Indians there, nor man nor woman nor child, not Guacanagari,
not Guarin, not Catalina and her crew--none! They
were gone, and we knew not where, Quisquaya being a huge
country, and the paths yet hidden from us or of doubtful
treading. But the heaped mountains rose before us, and
Juan Lepe at least could feel assured that they were gone
there. They vanished and for long we heard nothing of
them, not of Guacanagari, nor of Guarin who had saved
Juan Lepe, not of Catalina, nor any.
This neighborhood, La Navidad and the shipwreck of the
_Santa Maria_, burned Guarico and now this empty village,
perpetual reminder that in some part our Indian subjects
liked us not so well as formerly and could not be made
Christian with a breath, grew no longer to our choice.
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