CHAPTER XIII
THERE grew at times an excited feeling that he was a prophet, and thatthere were fabulously great things before us. As I doctored some smallill one day in the forecastle, a great fellow named Francisco fromHuelva would tell me his dream of the night before. He had alreadytold it, it seemed, to all who would listen, and now again he hadconsiderable audience, crowding at the door. He said that he dreamedhe was in Cipango. At first he thought it was heaven, but when he sawgolden roofs he knew it must be Cipango, for in heaven where itnever rained and there were no nights, we shouldn't need roofs. Oneinterrupted, "We'd need them to keep the flying angels from looking in!"
"It was Cipango," persisted Francisco, "for the Emperor himself cameand gave me a rope of pearls. There were five thousand of them, and eachwould buy a house or a fine horse or a suit of velvet. And the Emperortook me by the hand, and he said, 'Dear Brother--' You might havethought I was a king--and by the mass, I was a king! I felt it rightaway! And then he took me into a garden, and there were three beautifulwomen, and one of them would push me to the other, and that one to thethird, and that to the first again, as though they were playing ball,and they all laughed, and I laughed. Then there came a great person withfive crowns on his head, and all the light blazed up gold and blue, andsomebody said, 'It's Prester John'!"
His dream kept a two-days' serenity upon the ship. It came to the earof the Admiral, who said, "'In dreams will I instruct thee.'--I have haddreams far statelier than his."
Pedro Gutierrez too began to dream,--fantastic things which he told withan idle gusto. They were of wine and gold and women, though often thesewere to be guessed through strange, jumbled masks and phantasies. "Thoseare ill dreams," said the Admiral. "Dream straight and high!" FrayIgnatio, too, said wisely, "It is not always God who cometh in dreams!"
But the images of Gutierrez's dreams seemed to him to be seatedin Cathay and India. They bred in him belief that he was coming tohappiness by that sea road that glistered before us. He and Roderigo deEscobedo began to talk with assurance of what they should find. Havingsmall knowledge of travelers' tales they made application to the Admiralwho, nothing loth, answered them out of Marco Polo, Mandeville and Pedrode Aliaco.
But the ardor of his mind was such that he outwent his authors. Wherethe Venetian said "gold" the Genoese said "Much gold." Where the one sawpowerful peoples with their own customs, courts, armies, temples, shipsand trade, the other gave to these an unearthly tinge of splendor.Often as he sat in cabin or on deck, or rising paced to and fro, we wholistened to his account, listened to poet and enthusiast speakingof earths to come. Besides books like those of Marco Polo and JohnMandeville and the Bishop of Cambrai he had studied philosophers andthe ancients and Scripture and the Fathers. He spoke unwaveringly ofprophecies, explicit and many, of his voyage, and the rounding out ofearth by him, Christopherus Columbus. More than once or twice, inthe great cabin, beneath the swinging lantern, he repeated to ussuch passages, his voice making great poetry of old words. "Averroessaith--Albertus Magnus saith--Aristotle saith--Seneca saith--SaintAugustine saith--Esdras in his fourth book saith--" Salt air sweepingthrough seemed to fall into a deep, musical beat and rhythm. "Afterthe council at Salamanca when great churchmen cried Irreligion and evenHeresy upon me, I searched all Scripture and drew testimony together.In fifty, yea, in a hundred places it is plain! King David saith--jobsaith--Moses saith--Thus it reads in Genesis--"
Diego de Arana smote the table with his hand. "I am yours, senor, tofind for the Lord!" Fray Ignatio lifted dark eyes. "I well believe thatnothing happens but what is chosen! I will tell you that in my cell atLa Rabida I heard a cry, 'Come over, Ignatio the Franciscan!'"
And I, listening, thought, "Not perhaps that ancient spiritual singingof spiritual things! But in truth, yes, it is chosen. Did not the Wholeof Me that I can so dimly feel set my foot upon this ship?" And goingout on deck before I slept, I looked at the stars and thought that wewere like the infant in the womb that knows not how nor where it iscarried.
We might be four hundred leagues from Spain. Still the wind drove us,still we hardly shifted canvas, still the sky spread clear, of a vastblue depth, and the blue glass plain of the sea lay beneath. It was toosmooth, the wind in our rigging too changeless of tune. At last, allwould have had variety spring. There began a veritable hunger for somechange, and it was possible to feel a faint horror. _What if this is thehorror--to go on forever and ever like this_?
Then one morning when the sun rose, it lit a novel thing. Seaweed orgrass or herbage of some sort was afloat about us. Far as the eye mightreach it was like a drowned meadow, vari-colored, awash. All that day wewatched it. It came toward us from the west; we ran through it from theeast. Now it thinned away; now it thickened until it seemed that thesea was strewn with rushes like a castle floor. With oars we caught andbrought into ship wreaths of it. All night we sailed in this strangeplain. A yellow dawn showed it still on either side the _Santa Maria_,and thicker, with fewer blue sea straits and passes than on yesterday.The Pinta and the Nina stood out with a strange, enchanted look, asships crossing a plain more vast than the plain of Andalusia. Still thatfloating weed thickened. The crowned woman at our prow pushed swathes ofit to either side. Our mariners hung over rail, talking, talking. "Whatis it--and where will it end? Mayhap presently we can not plough it!"
I was again and again to admire how for forty years he had storedsea-knowledge. It was not only what those gray eyes had seen, or thoserather large, well molded ears had heard, or that powerful and nervoushand had touched. But he knew how to take, right and left, knowledgethat others gathered, as he knew that others took and would take whathe gathered. He knew that knowledge flows. Now he stood and told that noless a man than Aristotle had recorded such a happening as this. Certainships of Gades--that is our Cadiz--driven by a great wind far intoRiver-Ocean, met these weeds or others like them, distant parents ofthese. They were like floating islands forever changing shape, and thoseold ships sailed among them for a while. They thought they must havebroken from sea floor and risen to surface, and currents brought othermasses from land. Tunny fish were caught among them.
And that very moment, as the endless possibilities of things would haveit, one, leaning on the rail, cried out that there were tunnies. We alllooked and saw them in a clear canal between two floating masses. Itbrought the Admiral credence. "Look you all!" he said, "how most thingshave been seen before!"
"But Father Aristotle's ship--Was he 'Saint' or 'Father'?"
"He was a heathen--he believed in Mahound."
"No, he lived before Mahound. He was a wise man--"
"But his ships turned back to Cadiz. They were afraid of thisstuff--that's the point!"
"They turned back," said the Admiral. "And the splendor and the goldwere kept for us."
A thicker carpet of the stuff brushed ship side. One of the boys cried,"Ho, there is a crab!" It sat indeed on a criss-cross of broken reeds,and it seemed to stare at us solemnly. "Do not all see that it came fromland, and land to the west?"
"But it is caught here! What if we are caught here too? These weeds maystem us--turn great crab pincers and hold us till we rot!"
"If--and if--and if" cried the Admiral. "For Christ, His sake, laugh atyourselves!"
On, on, we went before that warm and potent wind, so steadfast thatthere must be controlling it some natural law. Ocean-Sea spread around,with that weed like a marsh at springtide. Then, suddenly, just as themurmuring faction was murmuring again, we cleared all that. Open sea,blue running ocean, endlessly endless!
The too-steady sunshine vanished. There broke a cloudy dawn followed bylight rain. It ceased and the sky cleared. But in the north held a mistand a kind of semblance of far-off mountains. Startled, a man cried"Land!" but the next moment showed that it was cloud. Yet all day themist hung in this quarter. The _Pinta_ approached and signaled, andpresently over to us put her boat, in it Martin Pinzon. The Admiral methim as he came up over side and would have taken him into great cabin.
But, no! Martin Pinzon always spoke out, before everybody! "Senor, thereis land yonder, under the north! Should not we change course and seewhat is there?"
"It is cloud," answered the Admiral. "Though I do not deny that such ahaze may be crying, 'Land behind!'"
"Let us sail then north, and see!"
But the Admiral shook his head. "No, Captain! West--west--arrowstraight!"
Pinzon appeared about to say, "You are very wrong, and we should seewhat's behind that arras!" But he checked himself, standing beforeAdmiral and Don and Viceroy, and all those listening faces around. "Istill think," he began.
The other took him up, but kept considerate, almost deferring manner."Yes, if we had time or ships to spare! But now it is, do not stray fromthe path. Sail straight west!"
"We are five hundred leagues from Palos."
"Less than that, by our reckoning. The further from Palos, the nearerIndia!"
"We may be passing by our salvation!"
"Our salvation lies in going as we set forth to go." He made his gestureof dismissal of that, and asked after the health of the _Pinta_. Thehealth held, but the stores were growing low. Biscuit enough, but baconalmost out, and not so many measures of beans left. Oil, too, approachedbottom of jars. The Nina was in the same case.
"Food and water will last," said the Admiral. "We have not come so farwithout safely going farther."
Martin Alonso Pinzon was the younger man and but captain of the Pinta_,while the other stood Don and Admiral, appointed by Majesty, responsibleonly to the Crown. But he had been Master Christopherus the dreamer, whowas shabbily dressed, owed money, almost begged. He owed large money nowto Martin Pinzon. But for the Pinzons, he could hardly have sailed. Heshould listen now, take good advice, that was clearly what the captainof the _Pinta thought! Undoubtedly Master Christopherus dreamed true toa certain point, but after that was not so followable! As for CristoforoColombo, Italian shipmaster, he had, it was true, old sea wisdom. ButMartin Pinzon thought Martin Pinzon was as good there!--Captain MartinAlonso said good-by with some haughtiness and went stiffly back overblue sea to the Pinta.
The sun descended, the sea grew violet, all we on the _Santa Maria_gathered for vesper prayer and song. Fray Ignatio's robe and back-throwncowl burned brown against the sea and the sail. One last broad goldshaft lighted the tall Admiral, his thick white hair, his eagle nose,his strong mouth. Diego de Arana was big, alert and soldierly; RoderigoSanchez had the look of alcalde through half a lifetime. I had seenRoderigo de Escobedo's like in dark streets in France and Italy andCastile, and Pedro Gutierrez wherever was a court. Juan de la Cosa, themaster, stood a keen man, thin as a string. Out of the crowd of marinersI pick Sancho and Beltran the cook, Ruiz the pilot, William the Irishmanand Arthur the Englishman, and two or three others. And Luis Torres.The latter was a thinker, and a Jew in blood. He carried it in his face,considerably more markedly than I carried my grandmother Judith. But hisfamily had been Christian for a hundred years. Before I left forecastlefor poop I had discovered that he was learned. Why he had turned sailorI did not then know, but afterwards found that it was for disappointedlove. He knew Arabic and Hebrew, Aristotle and Averroes, and he had adry curiosity and zest for life that made for him the wonder of thisvoyage far outweigh the danger.
There was a hymn that Fray Ignatio taught us and that we sang at times,beside the Latin chant. He said that a brother of his convent hadwritten it and set it to music.
Thou that art above us, Around us, beneath us, Thou who art within us, Save us on this sea! Out of danger, Teach us how we may Serve thee acceptably! Teach us how we may Crown ourselves, crowning Thee!
Beltran the cook's voice was the best, and after him Sancho, and then asailor with a great bass, William the Irishman. Fray Ignatio sang like agood monk, and Pedro Gutierrez like a troubadour of no great weight.The Admiral sang with a powerful and what had once been a sweet voice.Currents and eddies of sweetness marked it still. All sang and it madetogether a great and pleasurable sound, rolling over the sea to the_Pinta_ and the Nina, and so their singing, somewhat less in volume,came to us. All grew dusk, the ships were bat wings sailing low; outsprang the star to which the needle no longer pointed. The great starVenus hung in the west like the lantern of some ghostly air ship, veryvast.
Thou that art above us, Around us, beneath us, Thou that art within us, Save us on this sea!