1492 - Mary Johnston (best novels to read in english txt) 📗

FINDING young Sancho upon the Marigalante, I kept him beside me for information’s sake. He, too, had his stories. And he asked me how Pedro and Fernando died.

In this ship were two sets of captives, animals brought from Spain and Indians from those fiercer islands to the south. The Monsalvat that was a freight ship had many animals, said Sancho, cattle and swine and sheep and goats and cocks and hens, and thirty horses. But upon the Marigalante, well-penned, the Admiral had a stallion and two mares, a young bull and a couple of heifers, and two dogs —bloodhounds. The Caribs were yonder, five men in all.

He took me to see them. They were tall, strong, sullen and desperate in aspect, hardier, fiercer than Indians of these northward lands. But they were Indians, and their guttural speech could be made out, at least in substance. They asked with a high, contemptuous look when we meant to slay and eat them.

“They eat men’s flesh, every Caribal of them! We saw horrid things in Guadaloupe!”

Away from these men sat or stood seven women. “They were captives,” said Sancho. “Caribs had ravished them from other islands and they fled in Guadaloupe to us.”

These women, too, seemed more strongly fibred, courageous, high of head than the Hayti women. There was among them one to whom the others gave deference, a chieftainess, strong and warlike in mien, not smoothly young nor after their notions beautiful, but with an air of sagacity and pride. A ship boy stood with us. “That is Catalina,” he said. “Ho, Catalina!”

The woman looked at him with disdain and what she said was, “Young fool with fool-gods!”

“They came to us for refuge,” said Sancho. “We think they are Amazons. There was an island where they fought us like men—great bow-women! Don Alonso de Ojeda first called this one Catalina, so now we all call her Catalina. At first they liked us, but now that they are safe away from Caribs—all but these five and they can’t hurt them— they sit and pine! I call it ungrateful, Catalina!”

We moved away. There came from the great cabin where they had wine and fine sweet cakes the Admiral and Guacanagari, with them Don Diego and three or four cavaliers. Guarin was not with the cacique, upon the Marigalante. He would not come. I had a vision of him, in the forest, seated motionless, communing with the deepest self to which he could reach, seeking light with the other light-seekers.

Christopherus Columbus beckoned me and I went the round of the ship with him and others and his guest, this far-away son of Great India. So, presently, he was taken to view the horses and the cattle. Whoever hath seen lions brought to a court for show hath seen some shrinking from too-close and heard timorous asking if the bars be really strong. And the old, wild beasts at Rome for the games. If one came by chance upon them in a narrow quarter there might be terror. And the bull that we goad to madness for a game in Spain—were barriers down would come a-scrambling! This cacique had never seen an animal larger than a fox or a dog, Yet he stood with steadiness, though his glance shot here and there. The stallion was restless and fiery-eyed; the bull sent forth a bellow. “Why do they come? What will they do here? Will you put them in the forest? The people will be afraid to wander!”

He looked away to sky and sea and shore. “It grows toward night,” he said. “I will go back to my town.”

The Admiral said, “I would first show you the Caribs,” and took him there where they were bound. The Haytien regarded them, but the Caribs were as contemptuously silent as might have been Alonso de Ojeda in like circumstances. Only as Guacanagari turned away, one spoke in a fierce, monotonous voice. “You also, Haytien, one moon!”

“You lie! Only Caribs!” Guacanagari said back.

The cacique stood before the woman whom they called Catalina. She broke into speech. It was cacique to cacique. She was from Boriquen—she would return in a canoe if she were free! Better drown than live with the utterly un-understandable—only that they ate and drank and laid hold of women whether these would or would not, and were understandable that far! Gods! At first she thought them gods; now she doubted. They were magicians. If she were free—if she were free—if she were free! Home—Boriquen! If not that, at least her own color and the understandable!”

Guacanagari stood and listened. She spoke so fast—the Admiral never became quite perfect in Indian tongues, and few upon the Marigalante were so at this time. Juan Lepe understood. But just as he was thinking that in duty bound he must say to the Admiral, “She is undermining reputation. Best move away!” Guacanagari made a violent gesture as though he would break a spell. “Where could they come from with all that they have except from heaven? Who can plan against gods? It is sin to think of it! El Almirante will make you happy, Boriquen woman!”

We left the women. But Guacanagari himself was not happy, as he had been that Christmas-tide when first the gods came, when the Santa Maria was wrecked and he gave us hospitality.

The Admiral did not see that he was unhappy. The Admiral saw always a vast main good, and he thought it pearl and gold in every fiber. As yet, he saw no rotted string, no snarl to be untangled. It was his weakness, and maybe, too, his strength.

The sunset hung over this roadstead and the shore. The mountains glowed in it, the nearer wood fell dark, the beach showed milky white, a knot of palms upon a horn of land caught full gold and shone as though they were in heaven. Over upon the Cordera they were singing. The long cacique-canoe shot out from the shadow of the Marigalante.

Sun dipped, night cupped hands over the world. The long day of excitement was over. Mariners slept, adventurers gentle and simple, the twelve friars and Father Buil. Seventeen ships, nigh fifteen hundred men of Europe, swinging with the tide before the land we were to make Spanish.

The watch raised a cry. Springing from his bed Juan Lepe came on deck to find there confusion, and under the moon in the clear water, swimming forms, swimming from us in a kind of desperate haste and strength. There was shouting to man the boat. One jostling against me cried that they were the captive Indians. They had broken bonds, lifted hatch, knocked down the watch, leaped over side. Another shouted. No, the Caribs were safe. These were the women—

The women—seven forms might be made out—were not far from land. I felt tingling across to me their hope and fear. Out of ship shadow shot after them our boat. Strongly rowed, it seemed to gain, but they made speed strongly, strongly. The boat got into trouble with the shallows. The swimmers now stood and ran, now were racers; in a moment they would touch the dry, the shining beach. Out of boat sprang men running after them, running across low white lines of foam. The women, that strong woman cacique ahead, left water, raced across sand toward forest. Two men were gaining, they caught at the least swift woman. The dark, naked form broke from them, leaped like a hurt deer and running at speed passed with all into the ebony band that was forest.

Alonso de Ojeda burst into a great laugh. “Well done, Catalina!”

The Admiral’s place could ever be told by his head over all. Moreover his warm, lifted, powerfully pulsing nature was capable of making around him a sphere that tingled and drew. One not so much saw him as felt him, here, there. Now I stood beside him where he leaned over rail. “Gone,” he said. “They are gone!” He drew a deep breath. I can swear that he, too, felt an inner joy that they had escaped clutching.

But in the morning he sent ashore a large party under his brother, Don Diego. We received another surprise. No Indians on the beach, none in the forest, and when they came to the village, only houses, a few parrots and the gardens, dewy fresh under the sun’s first streaming. No Indians there, nor man nor woman nor child, not Guacanagari, not Guarin, not Catalina and her crew—none! They were gone, and we knew not where, Quisquaya being a huge country, and the paths yet hidden from us or of doubtful treading. But the heaped mountains rose before us, and Juan Lepe at least could feel assured that they were gone there. They vanished and for long we heard nothing of them, not of Guacanagari, nor of Guarin who had saved Juan Lepe, not of Catalina, nor any.

This neighborhood, La Navidad and the shipwreck of the Santa Maria, burned Guarico and now this empty village, perpetual reminder that in some part our Indian subjects liked us not so well as formerly and could not be made Christian with a breath, grew no longer to our choice. Something of melancholy overhung for the Admiral this part of Hispaniola. He was seeking a site for a city, but now he liked it not here. The seventeen ships put on sail and, a stately flight of birds greater than herons, pursued their way, easterly now, along the coast of Hispaniola.

Between thirty and forty leagues from the ruin of La Navidad opened to us a fair, large harbor where two rivers entered the sea. There was a great forest and bright protruding rock, and across the south the mountains. When we landed and explored we found a small Indian village that had only vaguely heard that gods had descended. Forty leagues across these forests is a long way. They had heard a