CHAPTER XLIII
WE left one of our ships in the Bethlehem and we lost another upon this disastrous coast ere we got clear for Jamaica.
We were sea specters. We had saved our men from the San Sebastian as from the Margarita. Now all were upon the Consolacion and the Juana. Fifty fewer were we than when we had sailed from Cadiz, yet the two ships crept over-full. And they were like creatures overcome with eld. Beaten, crazed, falling apart.
On the Eve of Saint John we came to Jamaica.
The ships were riddled by the teredo. We could not keep afloat to go to Hispaniola. At Santa Gloria we ran them in quiet water side by side upon the sand. They partly filled, they settled down, only forecastle and poop above the blue mirror. We built shelters upon them and bridged the space between. The ocean wanderers were turned into a fort.
Jamaica, we thanked all the saints, was a friendly land. They brought us cassava and fruit, these Indians; they swarmed about us in their canoes. The gods in trouble, yet still the gods!
We were forty leagues from Hispaniola, and we had no ship!
Again there volunteered Diego Mendez. We ourselves had now but one Christian boat. But there existed canoes a-plenty. Chose one, with six Indians to row! Leave Diego Mendez with one other Spaniard of his choice to cross the sea between us and Hispaniola, get to San Domingo, rouse all Christian men, even Don Nicholas de Ovanda, procure a large ship or two smaller ones, return with rescue!
We sent off Diego Mendez with strong farewells and blessings. The vast blue sea and air withdrew and covered from sight the canoe.
A week—two weeks. Grew out of the azure a single canoe, and approached. “Diego Mendez—Diego Mendez!”