But not until the carpenter had made all his preparations and disappeared over the rail did the captain utter a word. And when he did, it was sternly and harshly enough, but without that roar which had theretofore characterized his voice. He stepped to the ladder and sent a searching glance over the faces turned expectantly upward to his. Then after a moment of silence, during which more than one of the sailors caught a painful breath, he spoke.
“A foul deed has been wrought here.” He stopped and waited as if to give time for his words to be fully understood. “Some scoundrel, for whom hanging is too good, has wrecked the rudder. The gear has been cut with a knife, and the rudder is separated and unhung.” Again he stopped, and Diego stole a frightened look at Miguel and Juan. “Every life on board has been put in jeopardy. It is only by a mercy of God that we live now. It will be only by a further mercy that we shall continue to live. When I know the man who did it, I will hang him there,” and he pointed with flashing eyes to the yard. “What! because ye like not the voyage will ye seek to drown us all? What! do ye think Martin Alonzo Pinzon is to be frightened from his purpose?” He stopped short and looked over the faces as if he would find one that expressed such a belief.
It is unlikely that he saw such a face; for of all there, those who were innocent of participation and those who were guilty, there was not one that did not answer his glance with one of fear or of respect. Once again before he spoke he swept the crowd with his eyes, but this time slowly.
“Diego Pinzon, come hither!”
He spoke sharply, shortly, distinctly, and Diego heard; but it was not until he spoke again that the boy found strength to move. It was then with a stagger rather than with a walk that he went to the foot of the ladder and turned his pallid face up to his cousin.
“Up, by my side!” said Martin Alonzo, sternly.
Diego climbed up with difficulty, and stood with pale face and beating heart by the side of the captain of the Pinta. Martin Alonzo eyed him in silence for a few moments, and the crew waited breathlessly for what was to follow. In that brief space Diego understood that the whole crew looked upon him as a sort of spy, and that his cousin regarded him as a coward who could be frightened into telling aught he might know.
“Now, boy,” said Martin Alonzo, “you know something of this; tell me what it is. Speak!”
Diego raised his eyes imploringly to his cousin’s face, as if beseeching him not to force such a thing upon him; but Martin Alonzo held the safety of his vessel above the feelings of a boy, whose chief merit was his over-readiness of speech when it was least desired of him, and so he repeated, threateningly:
“Speak, or I shall know how to make you!”