For the rest he was courteous—asked of the voyage—and of the Admiral’s notion of the Strait. “A great man!” he said. “A Thinker, a Seer.” He sent him messages of courtesy three-piled. And so we parted.
This was the Governor of whom one said long afterwards,
“He was a good governor for white men, but not for Indians.”
As life and destiny would have it, in the place without the Governor’s house I met him who was to say it. Terreros and I with the same escort were for the water side, the Consolacion’s long boat. The crowd kept with us, but His Excellency’s soldiers held it orderly. Yet there were shouts and messages for the Admiral, and for this one and that one aboard our ships. Then came a young man, said a word to the officer with us, and put out his hand to mine. It was that Bartolome de Las Casas with whom I had walked the white road, under moon, before the inn between Seville and Cordova.
CHAPTER XXXIX
THE Admiral took it with some Italian words under breath. Then he wheeled and left the cabin. A minute later I heard the master from the Consolacion hail the Margarita that lay close by. “Margarita, ahoy! Orders! Clap on sail and follow!” The trumpet cried to the Juana and the San Sebastian, “Make ready and follow!”
Our mariners ran to make sail. But the long boat waited for some final word that they said was going ashore. Terreros would take it. We were so close that we saw the yet watching crowd, wharf and water side, and the sun glinting upon Ovando’s order-keeping soldiery. The Admiral called me to him. I read the letter to the Governor, Terreros would deliver to our old officer, probably waiting on the wharf to see us quite away. The letter—there was naught in it but the sincerest, gravest warning that a hurricane was at hand. A great one; he knew the signs. It might strike this shore late to-morrow or the next day or the next. Wherefore he begged his Excellency the Governor to tarry the fleet’s sailing. Let it wait at least three days and see if his words came not true! Else there would be scattering of ships and destruction—and he rested his Excellency’s servant. El Almirante.
Terreros went, delivered that letter, and returned to the Juana. And our sails were made and our anchors lifted, and it was sunset and clear and smooth, and every palm frond of San Domingo showed. Eighteen ships in harbor, and fifteen, they said, going to Spain, and around and upon them all bustle of preparation. One saw in fancy Bobadilla and Roldan and Gwarionex and the much gold, including that piece of virgin ore weighing five thousand castellanos. Fifteen ships preparing for Spain, and San Domingo, of which the Adelantado had laid first stone, and a strange, green, sunset sky. And the Consolacion, the Margarita, the Juana and the San Sebastian away to the west, to the sound of music, for the Admiral cried to our musicians, “Play, play in God’s name!”
Night passed. Morning broke. So light was the wind that the shore went by slowly. There gathered an impatience. “If we must to Jamaica, what use in following every curve of Hispaniola that is forbid us?” At noon the wind almost wholly failed, then after three hours of this rose with a pouncing suddenness to a good breeze. We rounded a point thronged with palms. Before us a similar point, and between the two that bent gently each to the other, slept a deep and narrow bight. “Enter here,” said the Admiral.