The _Cordera_, the _Santa
Clara_ and the _San Juan_ were in bad case, hurt in that
storm between Jamaica and Cuba, and wayworn since in
those sandy seas, among those myriad islets. Our seamen
and our shipmasters now loudly wished return to Isabella.
He pushed us farther on and farther on, and still we did
not come to anything beyond those things we had already
reached, nor did we come either to any end of Cuba. And
what was going on in Hispaniola--in Isabella? We had
sailed in April and now it was July.
It became evident to him at last that he must turn. The
Viceroy and the Admiral warred in him, had long warred
and would war. Better for him had he never insisted upon
viceroyship! Then, single-minded, he might have discovered
to the end of his days.
We turned, the _Cordera_, the _Santa Clara_ and the _San
Juan_, and still he believed that the long, long coast of Cuba
was the coast of the Asia main. He saw it as a monster
cape or prolongation, sprouting into Ocean-Sea as sprouts
Italy into Mediterranean. Back--back--the way we had
come, entering again that white sea, entangled again among
a thousand islets!
At last we came again to that Cape of the Cross to which
we had escaped in the Jamaica tempest. One thing he would
yet do in this voyage and that was to go roundabout homeward
by Jamaica and find out further things of that great
and fair island.
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