Day by day, along a coast that now as a whole bent
eastward. And yet no strait--no way through into the sea
into which poured the Ganges.
CHAPTER XLI
THE weather plagued us. The rains were cataracts,
the lightning blinding, the thunder loud enough to
wake the dead. Day after day, until this weather
grew to seem a veritable Will, a Demon with a grudge
against us.
The _Margarita_ sailed no better; she sailed worse. The
Admiral considered abandoning her, taking the Adelantado
upon the _Consolacion_ and dividing his crew among the three
ships. But the Adelantado's pride and obstinacy and seamanship
were against that. "I'll sail her, because San
Domingo thinks I can!"
Stormy days and nights, and the Admiral watching. "The
_Margarita_! Ho, look out! Do you see the _Margarita_?"
In the midst of foul weather came foully back the gout
that crippled him. I would have had him stay in his bed.
"I cannot! How do you think I can?" In the end he
had us build him some kind of shelter upon deck, fastening
there a bench and laying a pallet upon this. Here, propped
against the wood, covered with cloaks, he still watched the
sea and how went our ship and the other ships.
Day after day and day after day! Creeping eastward
along a bad shore, in the teeth of the demon. The seas, the
winds, the enormous rain wore us out.
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