1492 - Mary Johnston (best novels to read in english txt) 📗
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Guacanagari, big and easy and gentle, said, “Live here, you who are so great and good! We will take you into the people. We shall be brothers.” We understood them that the great white heron was their guardian spirit and would be ours. I said, “They do not think of it as just those stalking, stilly standing birds! It is a name for something hovering, brooding, caring for them.”
The Viceroy spoke with energy. “Tell them of Father, Son and Holy Ghost!”
Fray Ignatio stood and spoke, gentle and plain. Diego Colon made what headway he could. Guacanagari listened, attentive. The Franciscan had a certainty that presently he might begin to baptize. His face glowed. I heard him say to the Admiral, “If it be possible, senor, leave me here when you return to Spain! I will convert this chief and all his people—by the time you come again there shall be a church!”
“Let me ponder it yet a while,” answered the other.
He was thoughtful when he went back to the Nina. Vicente Pinzon, too, was anxious for light. “This ship is crowded to sinking! If we meet wretched weather, or if sickness break out, returning, we shall be in bad case!” Roderigo Sanchez also had his word. “Is it not very important, senor, that we should get the tidings to the Sovereigns? And we have now just this one small ship, and so far to go, and all manner of dangers!”
“Aye, it is important!” said the Admiral. “Let me think it out, senor.”
He had not slept at all, thought Juan Lepe, when next morning he came among us. But be looked resolved, hardy to accomplish. He had his plan, and he gave it to us in his deep voice that always thrilled with much beside the momentary utterance. We would build a fort here on shore, hard by this village, felling wood for it and using also the timbers of the Santa Maria. We would mount there her two guns and provide an arsenal with powder, shot, harquebuses and bows. Build a fort and call it La Navidad, because of Christmas day when was the wreck. It should have a garrison of certainly thirty men, a man for each year of Our Lord’s life when He began his mission. So many placed in Hispaniola would much lighten the Nina, which indeed must be lightened in order with safety to recross Ocean-Sea. For yes, we would go back to Palos! Go, and come again with many and better ships, with hidalgos and missionary priests, and very many men! In the meantime so many should stay at La Navidad.
“In less than a year—much less, I promise it—I the Admiral will be here again at La Navidad, when will come happy greeting between brothers in the greatest service of our own or many ages! Sea and land, God will keep us so long as we are His!”
All loved Christopherus Columbus that day. None was to be forced to stay at La Navidad. It was easy to gain thirty; in the end there tarried thirty-eight.
The building of the fort became a pleasurable enterprise. We broke up with singing the Santa Maria, and with her bones built the walls. Guacanagari and his people helped. All was hurried. The Admiral and Viceroy, now that his mind was made up, would depart as soon as might be.
We built La Navidad where it might view the sea, upon a hillside above a brown river sliding out to ocean. Beyond the stream, in the groves, a quarter-league away, stood the hundred huts of Guarico. We built a tower and storehouse and wall of wood and we digged around all some kind of moat, and mounted three lombards. All that we could lift from the Santa Maria and what the Nina could spare us of arms, conveniences and food went into our arsenal and storehouse. We had a bubbling spring within the enclosure. When all was done the tower of La Navidad, though an infant beside towers of Europe, might suffice for the first here of its brood. It was done in a week from that shipwreck.
Who was to be left at La Navidad? Leave was given to volunteer and the mariners’ list was soon made up, good men and not so good. From the poop there volunteered Pedro Gutierrez and Roderigo de Escobedo. The Admiral did not block their wish, but he gave the command not to Escobedo who wished it, but to Diego de Arana whom he named to stay, having persuaded him who would rather have returned with the Nina. But he could trust Diego de Arana, and, with reason, he was not sure of those other hidalgos. De Arana stayed and fulfilled his trust, and died a brave man. Fray Ignatio would stay. “Bring me back, Senor, a goodly bell for the church of La Navidad! A bell and a font.”
Juan Lepe would stay. There needed a physician. But also Jayme de Marchena would stay. He thought it out. Six months had not abolished the Holy Office nor converted to gentleness Don Pedro nor the Dominican.
But the Admiral had assigned me to return with the Nina. I told him in the evening between the sunset and the moonrise what was the difficulty. He was a man profoundly religious, and also a docile son of the Church. But I knew him, and I knew that he would find reasons in the Bible for not giving me up. The deep man, the whole man, was not in the grasp of bishop or inquisitor or papal bull.
He agreed. “Aye, it is wiser! I count two months to Spain, seeing that we may not have so favorable a voyage. Three or maybe four there, for our welcome at court, and for the gathering a fleet—easy now to gather for all will flock to it, and masters and owners cry, `Take my ship— and mine!’ Two months again to recross. Look for me it may be in July, it may be in August, it may be in September!”
The Viceroy spoke to us, gathered by our fort, under the banner of Castile, with behind us on hill brow a cross gleaming. Again, all that we had done for the world and might further do! Again, we returning on the Nina or we remaining at La Navidad were as crusaders, knights of the Order of the Purpose of God! “Cherish good— oh, men of the sea and the land, cherish good! Who betrays here betrays almost as Judas! The Purpose of God is Strength with Wisdom and Charity which only can make joy! Therefore be ye here at La Navidad strong, wise and charitable!”
He said more, and he gave many an explicit direction, but that was the gist of all. Strength, wisdom and charity.
Likewise he spoke to the Indians and they listened and promised and meant good. An affection had sprung between Guacanagari and Christopherus Columbus. So different they looked! and yet in the breast of each dwelled much guilelessness and the ability to wonder and revere. The Viceroy saw in this big, docile ruler of Guarico however far that might extend, one who would presently be baptized and become a Christian chief, man of the Viceroy of Hispaniola, as the latter was man of the Sovereigns of Spain. All his people would follow Guacanagari. He saw Christendom here in the west, and a great feudal society, acknowledging Castile for overlord, and Alexander the Sixth as its spiritual ruler.
Guacanagari may have seen friends in the gods, and especially in this their cacique, who with others that they would bring, would be drawn into Guarico and made one and whole with the people of the heron. But he never saw Guacanagari displanted—never saw Europe armed and warlike, hungry and thirsty.
The Nina and La Navidad bade with tears each the other farewell. It was the second of January, fourteen hundred and ninety-three. We had mass under the palm trees, by the cross, above the fort. Fray Ignatio blessed the going, blessed the staying. We embraced, we loved one another, we parted. The Nina was so small a ship, even there just before us on the blue water! So soon, so soon, the wind blowing from the land, she was smaller yet, smaller, smaller, a cock boat, a chip, gone!
Thirty-eight white men watched her from the hill above the fort, and of the thirty-eight Juan Lepe was the only one who saw the Admiral come again.
THE butio of this town had been absent for some reason in the great wood those days of the shipwreck and the building of La Navidad. Now he was again here, and I consorted with him and chiefly from him learned their language. The Admiral had taken Diego Colon to Spain, and to Spain was gone too Luis Torres, swearing that he would come again. To Spain was gone Sancho, but Beltran the cook stayed with us. Pedro and Fernando also.
Time passed. With the ending of January the heat increased. The butio knew all manner of simples; he was doctor and priest together. He had a very simple magic. He himself did not expect it to reach the Great Spirit, but it might affect the innumerable zemes or under and under-under spirits. These barbarians, using other words for them, had letter-notion of gnome, sylph, undine and salamander. All things lived and took offense or became propitious. Effort consisted in making them propitious. If the effort was too great one of them killed you. Then you went to the shadowy caves. There was a paradise, too, beautiful and easy. But the Great Spirit could not be hurt and had no wish to hurt any one else, whether zemes or men. To live with the Great Spirit, that was really the Heron wish, though the little herons could not always see it.
This butio—Guarin his name—was a young man with eyes that could burn and voice that fell naturally into a chant. He took me into the forest with him to look for a very rare tree. When it was found I watched him gather plants from beneath it and scrape bits off its bark into a small calabash. I understood that it was good for fever, and later I borrowed from him and found that he had grounds for what he said.
La Navidad and Guarico neighbored each other. The Indians came freely to the fort, but Diego de Arana made a good alcayde and he would not have mere crowding within our wooden wall. Half of our thirty-eight, permitted at a time to wander, could not crowd Guarico. But in himself each Spaniard seemed a giant. At first a good giant, profoundly interesting. But I was
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