Five days from Hispaniola we met a
hurricane that carried us out of all reckoning. When stillness
came again we were far south. No islands were in
sight; there was only the sea vast and blue. There seemed
to breathe from it a strangeness. We were away and away,
said our pilots, from the curve, like a bent bow, of the Indian
islands. A day and a night we hung in a dead calm.
Dawn broke. "Sail, ho! Sail, ho!"
We thought that it might be the Portuguese and made
preparation. Three ships lifted over the blue rim. There
was now a light wind; it brought them nearer, they being
better sailers than the _Santa Cruz_ and the _Santa Clara_. We
saw the banner. "Castile!" and a lesser one. "El Almirante!"
Now we were close together. The masters hailed, "What
ships?"--"From Hispaniola!"--"From Cadiz. The
Admiral with us! Come aboard, your commander!"
That was Luis Mendez, and in the boat with him went
Juan Lepe. The ships were the _Esperanza_, the _San Sebastian_
and the _San Martin_, the first fairly large and well decked,
the others small. They who looked overside and shouted
welcome seemed a medley of gentle and simple, mariners,
husbandmen, fighting men and hidalgos.
The Admiral! His hair was milk-white, his tall, broad
frame gaunt as a January wolf. Two years had written in
his face two years' experience--fully written, for he was
sensitive to every wind of experience.
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