Sullen curses and deep anathemas were muttered all over the Pinta, and it was plain to Diego that a more unwilling crew had never set sail. He might have wondered that the men did not refuse to obey the orders of the commander, had he not gained such an opinion of Martin Alonzo as rendered such a wonder idle. Moreover, he knew that, despite their unwillingness to go, there were many who had nothing but imprisonment to hope for if they refused to go.
Still, it was strange and terrible to him to hear the men all about him cursing as they worked at getting the vessel under way. Cursing the voyage, cursing the captain, and, most of all, cursing Christoval Colon, the mad adventurer, who had prompted the voyage, as they declared, at the instigation of the Evil One.
In the first moments of despair at leaving their native land behind them, the men had made little concealment of their words; but later, Diego noticed them whispering together in knots, though always careful to give Martin Alonzo no cause for anger.
Diego noticed, too, that the convicts were not the only ones who whispered so suspiciously together; though of what was being said he could gain no notion, for at his near approach to any one of the whispering groups the whispering would instantly cease, and he would be regarded with scowling looks. Indeed, he was not long in discovering that he was in disfavor with the majority of the crew, and he very rightly attributed that fact to his cousin’s loud voice, which had betrayed his, Diego’s, feelings towards the convict crew.
His situation was so different from what he had always been accustomed to, that it threw him into a very unhappy frame of mind. His bold temper and gay spirits had always made him an unquestioned leader among the boys at the convent, and his quick wit and readiness to acquire knowledge had made him a favorite with the friars, even when he was fullest of mischief. Here he was a sort of outcast. His cousin was unreasonably harsh with him; the convicts, whom he had scorned, despised and disliked him, and the honest portion of the crew passed him by with scarce a civil word.
The result of it all was to make him very sullen and dejected. His gay spirits deserted him completely, and he went about his work without a word for anybody, but always with a black look ready for any one who might challenge it, and particularly for Juan Cacheco, who took a malicious pleasure in the misery of the lad who had taunted him in his time of misery.
Had circumstances been different, Diego would have gone to his cousin with his fear of some mischief brewing on board the Pinta; but, as it was, he felt that anything he might say would only be received with rough upbraiding, and so, in spite of hearing now and again an ominous and threatening word dropped by the whispering men, when they did not suspect his presence, he kept silence and let the talk go on.
Mutiny was what he suspected; but from the few words he had overheard he was quite certain that the only object of the mutiny was to force Martin Alonzo to return to land, and he was too little in love with the voyage to care to prevent the sailors having their will in that respect. His thought was that if he could only get back to Spain, he would make good speed to the convent, and so conduct himself that there would never again be any need for extreme measures against him. Ah, if he could but be in those quiet, peaceful cloisters again!
Yes, he was really of a mind to let the mutiny progress; not merely because he had no sympathy with Martin Alonzo, but quite as much because the terror of the sailors, which had been daily growing since leaving land behind them, had communicated itself to him.
They were on the third day out now, and the faces of the men wore that dull, stolid look of terror, despair, and threatening which seemed to have transformed them from human beings to brutes, a likeness that was further borne out by the constant, low mutterings that broke from their lips whenever two or three came together.