“‘HE IS VERY YOUNG TO DIE,’ SAID A MOCKING VOICE.”
Perhaps you know how boys do in these days on such occasions. Four centuries have made no difference; boys did the same then. These two forgot their fellow-voyagers and seemed to think they were alone on the narrow ledge that skirted the rail. They glared rage and defiance at each other; they measured each other from head to foot. Then, like a flash, for he was a quick boy, Diego struck the other boy on the cheek.
The latter was knocked off the rail, but was on his feet and up again, and was rushing at Diego, when a strong hand caught him by the collar and lifted him off his feet, and another strong hand fell thwack, thwack, on first one side and then the other of his head; and then he was dropped.
The two hands belonged to Martin Alonzo Pinzon; and as he aimed at impartiality, he had no sooner released the convict boy than he caught up a rope’s end and laid it lustily over Diego’s shoulders, thus giving his cousin an opportunity to form an estimate of the difference between his method and Fray Bartolomeo’s. The advantage seemed to be with Martin Alonzo, for Diego had no need to pretend a distress he did not feel. His anguish was genuine.
“Now,” said Martin Alonzo, comprehending the scowling convict as well as the squirming Diego, “before this happens again take thought that I am the master of this vessel and can do all the fighting.” Then he looked over the crew that had gathered quickly around, and added, meaningly, “All the fighting, mind you!”
With that he roared out another order, and it was a marvel how the sailors jumped to his bidding. As for Diego, he saw in his cousin another sort of man from the gentle, long-suffering Fray Bartolomeo. Nevertheless, he and his antagonist exchanged looks of dislike.
However, they said nothing to each other, though each thought to himself that a more convenient time might come; forgetting, each, that they expected never to see land again.
Well, the little disturbance, odd as it may seem, did much towards raising Diego’s spirits. Besides, he was not much given to low spirits, and, with all his terror of the voyage, he was, like most of the other sailors, willing to forget the future since there was no way yet apparent of avoiding it.
He had come on board so soon before sailing that it had not been possible to assign him to any duty, and so there was nothing for him to do but watch the others work, or to look over the rail at the shore as it seemed to glide slowly by.