Doubtless now, in the San Salvador islands,
in Cuba and in Hispaniola, among those Guaricos fled from
us to the mountains, would be infants born of Spanish
fathers. Juan Lepe contemplated that filling in the sea between
Asia and Europe with the very blood.
Sickness broke out. It was not such as that first sickness
at La Navidad, but here were many more to lie ill. Besides
Juan Lepe, we now possessed three physicians. They
were skillful, they labored hard, we all labored. Men died
of the malady, but no great number. But now among the
idle of mind and soul and the factious arose the eternal
murmur. Not heaven but hell, these new lands! Not wealth
and happy ease, but poverty and miserable toil! Not forever
new spectacle and greedy wonder, but tiresome river,
forest and sea, tiresome blue heaven, tiresome delving and
building, tiresome rules, restrictions, commandments, yeas
and nays! Parties arose, two main parties, and within each
lesser differings.
The Viceroy stiffly withstood the party that was not his,
and upon some slur and insolence took from a man his office.
Followed a week of glassy smoothness. Then suddenly, by
chance, was discovered the plot of Bernal Diaz de Pisa--the
first of many Spanish conspiracies. It involved several hundred men and was no less a thing than the
seizure in the dark
night of the ships and the setting sail for Spain, there to
wreck the fame of Christopherus Columbus and if possible
obtain the sending out of some prince over him, who would
beam kindly on all hidalgos and never put them to vulgar
work.
Pages:
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273