Chapter XXI.
Nothing less than the strong desire to escape from the domination of the admiral would ever have kept Martin Alonzo beating to windward in that storm, when he could have run before it to shelter on the Cuban coast.
As it was, he had to give up all idea of making the island of Bohio; and all the night long the little vessel plunged through the towering waves, carrying almost no canvas at all, but being hurried along at a rapid rate towards the north.
During all the next day, and the next, the storm raged, and the sailors, with the faint-heartedness that seemed characteristic of them, began to murmur that they had only exchanged one evil for a worse, when land hove in sight and closed their lips.
The Indians could tell Diego nothing of this new land, and so Martin Alonzo determined to make it and explore it, in the hope of finding there the much-desired gold. Besides, it was advisable to go into shelter; and as he drew nearer to the land he saw that it was a collection of islands, none of a very great size, giving him the assurance of a harbor in some one of the channels between the islands.
He was fortunate in finding a safe harbor before night came on, and there he dropped anchor and remained until morning. At the first streak of dawn the deck was alive with the sailors, eagerly scanning the land to gain some notion of its promise. It was sadly disappointing, being neither so attractive nor so populous as the country they had just left, and, what was far worse, gave every augury of containing no metal of any sort.
As the bad weather continued, however, Martin Alonzo spent several days in the comparative security of the inland sea formed by the far-stretching cluster of islands, going ashore every day only to confirm the first dismal impression of the barrenness of the land, and at last emerging into the open sea again, determined to sail to the south and come upon the famed Bohio, which they all had come to regard as their promised land.
The weather was not propitious for the voyage, but all hands were agreed that they would rather take their chances of a storm than to remain among the profitless islands where they were; so Martin Alonzo set his course to the southeast, and took leave of the islands that had done no more than shelter him.
For several days they beat about in an unusually tempestuous sea, and the only consolation Martin Alonzo drew out of the long voyage was the belief that the admiral would be unlikely to make the attempt to cross over from Cuba in such weather.
However, the voyage bade fair to come to an end at last; for one afternoon the men on the lookout gave the welcome cry of land. By the time it was near enough to be seen distinctly, it was too late to enable them to make out anything but that it was a rocky coast, with high mountains rising up in the background.