"Señor Don Almirante, it is I," answered Sancho. "I have been here since we sang the vesper hymn."
"Seest thou aught unusual, westward? Look vigilantly, for we touch on mighty things!"
"Naught, Señor, unless it be that the Pinta is lessening her canvas, and the Niña is already closing with our fleet consort—nay, I now see the latter shortening sail also!"
"For these great tidings, all honor and praise be to God! These are proofs that no false cry hath this time misled their judgments. We will join our consorts, good Bartolemeo, ere we take in a single inch of canvas."
Every thing was now in motion on board the Santa Maria, which went dashing ahead for another half hour, when she came up with the two other caravels, both of which had hauled by the wind, under short canvas, and were forging slowly through the water, on different tacks, like coursers cooling themselves after having terminated a severe struggle by reaching the goal.
"Come hither, Luis," said Columbus, "and feast thine eyes with a sight that doth not often meet the gaze of the best of Christians."
The night was far from dark, a tropical sky glittering with a thousand stars, and even the ocean itself appearing to emit a sombre, melancholy light. By the aid of such assistants it was possible to see several miles, and more especially to note objects on the margin of the ocean. When the young man cast his eyes to leeward, as directed by Columbus, he very plainly perceived a point where the blue of the sky ceased, and a dark mound rose from the water, stretching for a few leagues southward, and then terminated, as it had commenced, by a union between the watery margin of the ocean and the void of heaven. The intermediate space had the defined outline, the density, and the hue of land, as seen at midnight.
"Behold the Indies!" said Columbus; "the mighty problem is solved! This is doubtless an island, but a continent is near. Laud be to God!"