“I will go with you gladly, father. Seville has stifled me. But place no faith upon my changing whims. If we’re to go, then let us sail at once.”
CHAPTER VI
IN WHICH JUAN RODRIQUEZ UNDERGOES AN UNPLEASANT
HALF-HOUR
In the year 1681 the fickle Guadalquivir still pursued a liberal policy toward Seville and vouchsafed sufficient water to that port to enable sea-going vessels to begin or end their voyages within sight of the Alcazar. Later on, the Spanish sailors were forced, by the treachery of the famous river, to abandon Seville and betake themselves to Cadiz for an ocean harborage.
At the time, however, at which Don Rodrigo de Aquilar fitted out the Concepcion—a high-pooped vessel of ninety tons burden—for his voyage to the silver mines bestowed upon him by Charles II. of Spain, the harbor at Seville enabled the aged diplomat to equip his ship without leaving his library. By giving his orders to his secretary, Juan Rodriquez, who carried them to Gomez Hernandez, captain of the Concepcion, Don Rodrigo was relieved of the friction which in those days frequently soured an adventurer’s disposition even before he had put to sea.
The necessity for haste, lest the veering winds of Doña Julia’s fickle fancy should at the last moment balk her father’s enterprise, had been impressed upon Juan Rodriquez, who needed no hint from Don Rodrigo to make him a gadfly to the captain of the Concepcion. Long before he weighed anchor, Gomez Hernandez had sworn by his favorite saint that if the opportunity ever came to him to put the white-faced, soft-voiced secretary into irons, he would show him no pity. That the perilous voyage before them might furnish him with the means for punishing Juan’s insolence the captain well knew. Let the Concepcion toss the Canaries well astern, and for many weeks Gomez Hernandez would be autocrat in a little kingdom of his own.
Doña Julia’s cabin was, as it were, the hawser which held the clumsy little ship to her moorings. A stuffy room between decks, it seemed cruel to ask a maiden used to the luxury of Seville, Madrid and Paris to spend weeks within its irritating confines. Don Rodrigo had devoted great energy and ingenuity to the task of making his daughter’s quarters aboard ship less repulsive than they had at first seemed. Rugs from the Orient, a hammock made of padded silk, jars of sweetmeats from Turkey, a priceless oil-painting of the Virgin Mary, and other quaintly contrasted offshoots of a fond father’s anxious care combined to make Doña Julia’s cabin a compartment whose luxury was ludicrous and whose discomfort was pathetic.
Had Don Rodrigo de Aquilar better understood the peculiarities of his daughter’s disposition, he would have spent less time in making of her cabin a mediæval curiosity-shop, and would have weighed anchor a week sooner than he did—thus gaining a span of time which would have begotten across the sea a radical difference in the outcome of his expedition. Something of this found its way into the mind of the aged Spaniard after the Concepcion had cleared the mouth of the Guadalquivir and was standing out to sea. Beside him upon the poop-deck stood Julia, her dark eyes gleaming with excitement as they swept the tumbling sea or glanced upward at the bulging sails which drove the awkward craft haltingly across the deep. She had paid little or no attention to the cabin which had taxed Don Rodrigo’s ingenuity, Juan’s patience, and Captain Hernandez’s temper for a month; but the flush in her cheeks and the smile upon her lips, as she watched the waters sweeping the Old World away from her, gladdened her father’s heart as he scanned her changing face.
“The sea is kind to us. See yonder rainbow ’gainst the purple east! An omen such as that is worth a candle to St. Christopher.”
The soft, insistent voice of Juan Rodriquez broke in upon the musings of the grandee and his daughter.
“’Tis not so strange the saints should wish us well,” remarked Don Rodrigo, removing a black velvet cap from his head to let the sea-wind play with his white locks. “We go to serve the work of Mother Church. To tell the heathen of Mary and her Son, to raise the cross where blood-soaked idols stand, to fight the devil with the Book and prayer.”