Beata,
Soana, Mona were the little islands that we found. We
sailed between them and our great island, and at last we
came to the corner and turned northward, and again after
days to another corner and sailed west once more, with hopes
now of Isabella. It was the first week in September.
In a great red dawn, Roderigo, the Admiral's servant,
roused Juan Lepe. "Come--come--come, Doctor!"
I sprang from my bed and followed him. Christopherus
Columbus lay in a deep swoon. Round he came from that
and said, "Roderigo, tell them that I am perfectly well, but
wish to see no one!" From that, he came to recognize me.
"Doctor, I am tired. God and Our Lady only know how
tired I am!"
His eyes shut, his head sank deep into the bed. He said
not another word, that day nor the next nor the next. Roderigo
and I forced him to swallow a little food and wine, and
once he rose and made as if to go on deck. But we laid
him down again and he sank into movelessness and a sleep
of all the faculties. Juan de la Cosa took care of the _Cordera_.
So we sighted Isabella and in the harbor four caravels
that had not been there when we had sailed in April.
CHAPTER XXXII
TWO men came into the cabin, Don Diego Colon, left
in charge of Hispaniola, and with him a tall, powerful,
high-featured man, gray of eye and black and silver
of hair and short beard.
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