1492 - Mary Johnston (best novels to read in english txt) 📗
- Author: Mary Johnston
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There was little space about him. The Nina seemed to quiver, packed and dark with men. His deep voice went on, and they could hear him, but he did not seem to know that they were there. “As though upon a raft, here a thousand leagues in Ocean-Sea! Yet wilt Thou care for thy Good News. I will come to Spain, and I will tell it. Chosen, and almost by very name pointed out in Thy Book! The first Christian shore that I touch I will walk barefoot and in my shirt at the head of twelve to the first shrine. And, O my Lord, never more will I forget that that tomb in which thou didst rest, still, still is held by the infidel!” He beat his breast. “Mea culpa! mea culpa!”
His voice sank, he looked at the sky, then with a turn of the wrist at the wheel he put that by and became again the vigilant Admiral of a fleet of one. “She will hold together yet a while! When the tide is out, we can get to her and empty her. Take all ashore that can be carried or floated and may be of use. Up and down—down and up!”
The inhabitants of Hispaniola were now about us in canoes or swimming. They seemed to cry out in distress and sympathy, gazing at the Santa Maria as though it were a god dying there. Their own canoes were living things to them as is any ship to a mariner, and by analogy our great canoe was a Being dying, more of a Being than theirs, because it had wings and could open and fold them. And then back came our boat with Diego de Arana and the others, and they had with them that same brother of the cacique who had come to us in St. Thomas Harbor. And had we been wrecked off Palos, not Palos could have showed more concern or been more ready to help than were these men.
We had three boats and the Indian canoes and hands enough, white and copper-hued. Now at low tide, we could approach and enter the Santa Maria. A great breach had been made and water was deep in her hold, but we could get at much of casks and chests, and could take away sails and cordage, even her two cannon. Eventually, as she broke up, we might float away to shore much of her timber. When I looked from the wreck to the little Nina, I could see, limned as it were in air, the Viceroy’s first colony, set in Hispaniola, beside Guacanagari’s town. All Christmas day we toiled and the Indians at our side. We found them ready, not without skill, gay and biddable.
Toward sunset came Guacanagari. All the little shore was strewn and heaped with our matters. And here I will say that no Indian stole that day though he might have stolen, and though our possessions seemed to him great wonders and treasure beyond estimation. What was brought from the Santa Maria lay in heaps and our men came and went. The most of our force was ashore or in the boats; only so many on the Nina. The Admiral, just returned to the ship, stretched himself upon the bench in her small cabin. Powerful was his frame and constitution, and powerfully tried all his life with a thousand strains and buffetings! It seemed still to hold; he looked a muscular, sinewy, strong and ruddy man. But there were signs that a careful eye might find. He lay upon the bench in the cabin and I, who was his physician, brought him wine and biscuit and made him eat and drink who, I knew, had not touched food since the evening before; after which I told him to close eyes and go away to Genoa and boyhood. He shut them, and I sitting near brought my will as best I could to the quieting of all heavy and sorrowful waves.
But then the cacique came. So small was the Nina that we could hear well enough the word of his arrival. The Admiral opened his eyes and sat stiffly up. He groaned and took his head into his hands, then dropped these and with a shake of his shoulders resumed command. So many and grievous a sea had dashed over him and retreated and he had stood! What he said now was, “The tide of the spirit goes out; the tide comes back in. Let it come back a spring tide!”
Guacanagari entered. This cacique, whose fortunes now began to be intertwined with ours, had his likeness, so far as went state and custom, to that Cuban chieftain whom Luis Torres and I had visited. But this was an easier, less strongly fibred person, a big, amiable, indolent man with some quality of a great dog who, accepting you and becoming your friend, may never be estranged. He was brave after his fashion, gifted enough in simple things. In Europe he would have been an. easy, well-liked prince or duke of no great territory. He kept a simple state, wore some slight apparel of cotton and a golden necklet. He brought gifts and an unfeigned sympathy for that death upon the sand bar.
He and the Admiral sat and talked together. “Gods from heaven?”—“Christian men and from Europe,” and we could not make him, at this time, understand that that was not the same thing. We began to comprehend that “heaven” was a word of many levels, and that they ascribed to it everything that they chose to consider good and that was manifestly out of the range of their experience.
In his turn the Admiral was ready for all that Guacanagari could tell him. “Gold?” His eyes were upon the Indian’s necklet. Removing it, the cacique laid it in the god’s hand. All Indians now understood that we made high magic with gold, getting out of it virtues beyond their comprehension. In return the Admiral gave him a small brazen gong and hammer. “Where did they get the gold?” Again like the Cuban chief this cacique waved his hand to the mountains. “Cibao!” and then turning he too pointed to the south. “Much gold there,” said Diego Colon. “Inland, in the mountains,” quoth the Admiral, “and evidently, in very great quantity, in some land to the south! This is not Cipango, but I think that Cipango lies to the south.” He asked who ruled Hayti that we called Hispaniola. We understood that there were a number of caciques, but that for a day’s journey every way it was Guacanagari’s country.
“A cacique who ruled them all?” No, there was no such thing.
“Had ships like ours and clothed men ever before come to them?”
No, never! But then he seemed to say that there was undoubtedly a tradition. Gods had come, and would come again, and when they did so great things would follow! But no cacique nor priest nor any knew when the gods had come.
The Admiral made some question of Caribs. Again there was gesture southward, though it seemed to us that something was said of folk within this great island who were at least like Caribs. And where was the most gold and the greatest other wealth that they knew of? Again south, though this time we thought it rather south by west. The Admiral sighed, and spoke of Cuba. Yes, Guacanagari knew of Cuba. Had it end far yonder to the westward, or no end? Had any one ever come to its end? The cacique thought not, or knew not and assumed deliberation. Luis and I agreed that we had not met among these Indians any true notion of a continent. To them Hayti was vast, Cuba was vast, the lands of the Caribs, wherever they were, were vast, and vast whatever other islands there might be. To them this was the OEcumene, the inhabited and inhabitable world, Europe—Asia—Africa? Their faces stayed blank. Were these divisions of heaven?
Guacanagari would entertain and succor us. This canoe —oh, the huge marvel!—was too crowded! Yonder lay his town. All the houses that we might want were ours, all the hammocks, all the food. And he would feast the gods. That had been preparing since yesterday, A feast with dancing. He hoped the great cacique and his people from far nearer heaven than was Guacanagari would live as long as might be in his town. Guarico was his town. A big, easy, amiable, likeable man, he sat in nakedness only not utter, save for that much like a big hidalgo offering sympathy and shelter to some fire-ousted or foe-ousted prince! As for the part of prince it was not hard for the Admiral to play it. He was one naturally.
He thanked the cacique to whom, I could see, he had taken liking. Seven houses would be enough. Tonight some of us would sleep upon the beach beside the heaped goods. To-morrow we would visit Guacanapri. The big, lazy, peaceable man expressed his pleasure, then with a wide and dignified gesture dismissing all that, asked to be shown marvels.
GUACANAGARI’S town was much perhaps as was Goth town, Frank town, Saxon town, Latin town, sufficient time ago. As for clothed and unclothed, that may be to some degree a matter of cold or warm weather. We had not seen that ever it was cold in this land.
Guacanagari feasted us with great dignity and earnestness, for he and his people held it a momentous thing our coming here, our being here. Utias we had and iguana, fish, cassava bread, potato, many a delicious fruit, and that mild drink that they made. And we had calabashes, trenchers and fingers, stone knives with which certain officers of the feast decorously divided the meat, small gourds for cups, water for cleansing, napkins of broad leaves. It was a great and comely feast. But before the feast, as in Cuba, the dance.
I should say that three hundred young men and maidens danced. They advanced, they retreated, they cowered, they pressed forward. They made supplication, arms to heaven or forehead to ground, they received, they were grateful, they circled fast in ease of mind, they hungered again and were filled again, they flowed together, they made a great square, chanting proudly!
Fray Ignatio beside me glowered, so far as so good a man could glower. But Juan Lepe said, “It is doubt and difficulty, approach, reconciliation, holy triumph! They are acting out long pilgrimages and arrivals at sacred cities and hopes for greater cities. It is much the same as in Seville or Rome!” Whereupon he looked at me in astonishment, and Jayme de Marchena said to Juan Lepe, “Hold thy tongue!”
Dance and the feast over, it became the Admiral’s turn. He was set not to seem dejected, not to give any Spaniard nor any Indian reason to say, “This Genoese—or this god—does not sustain misfortune!” But he sat calm, pleased with all; brotherly, fatherly, by that big, easy, contented cacique. Now he would furnish the entertainment! Among us we had one Diego Minas, a huge man and as mighty a bowman as any in Flanders or England. Him the Admiral now put forward with his great crossbow and long arrows. A stir ran around. “Carib! Carib!” We made out that those mysterious Caribs had bows and arrows, though not great ones like this. Guacanagari employed gestures and words that Luis Torres and I strove to understand. We gathered that several times in the memory of man the Caribs had come in many canoes, warred dreadfully, killed and taken away. More than that, somewhere in Hayti or Quisquaya or Hispaniola were certain people who knew the weapon. “Caonabo!” He repeated the name with respect and disliking. “Caonabo, Caonabo!” Perhaps the Caribs had made a settlement.
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