STORIES FROM AFRICA.
IV.—A GREAT SEA CAPTAIN.
NCE more our tale begins in the city of Lisbon, but now it is on a summer day in the year 1497, when the banks of the Tagus were thronged with those who had come to give God-speed to the gallant captain Vasco da Gama, sailing to-morrow for 'the Indies.'
This was the age of great sailors and discoverers. Ten years before, Bartolomeo Diaz had rounded the southern point of Africa. 'The Stormy Cape' he called it; the 'Cape of Good Hope,' as his rejoicing countrymen would have it, when he came home with the news. A few years later, Columbus, sailing westward, set up the flag of Spain upon the shores of a new world. And now Manoel, the young King of Portugal, was all on fire to finish what Diaz had begun, and to earn for his country the glory of finding the way round the Cape to India, the mysterious land of which such wonderful tales were told. He could have found no fitter man for the work than the captain who knelt to-day in the little church above the river to pray for success in his perilous undertaking. Absolutely fearless, quick-witted, and prompt in action, delighting in danger and adventure, and indomitable in perseverance, Vasco da Gama was a brave leader of men, and he had himself chosen two companions after his own heart, who were to command the other two ships—his brother, Paolo da Gama, and his friend, Nicolo Coello. On his knees the captain received from King Manoel the cross-marked flag on which he swore fidelity to his sovereign, and then, followed by the cheers and good wishes of all Lisbon, the good ships set sail.
Near the Canary Isles they met with such heavy weather that, for a week, Vasco's ship, the San Raphael, was parted from the other two, and his friends had nearly given him up for lost. The ship reappeared, however, battered but safe, and the expedition waited for awhile to repair in the Bay of St. Helena.
It was November when they sailed southward again, and now the Cape of Storms began to prove worthy of its name. Such terrible tempests fell upon the three ships, as they struggled along, with much ado to keep within sight of each other, that the hearts of the crew failed them altogether. The question began to be asked among them whether the report of Diaz had after all been well founded, whether the sea passage really existed, or whether the land which bounded the eastern horizon did not go on for ever and ever until the very world's end. But when the crew of the San Raphael begged their captain to abandon the hopeless attempt, his reply was that of the captain in the song—
'"Now I've come so far,
I'm not going back," says he.'
By word and example he encouraged the whole crew, now laughing at their fears, now turning their thoughts to the triumphant return with glory for their country, himself sharing the hardest work, and, doubtless, making it quite clear that any man who failed him at the pinch would find scant mercy at his hands. And, at last, the wind dropped. The land was no longer on the eastward, the Cape of Storms had been doubled, and from the decks of the three vessels went up the sounds of praise and thanksgiving that the 'passage perilous' was accomplished.
But the crew of the San Raphael needed yet another lesson to make them into such a band as their captain needed for his great adventure. According to the strange custom of that age, Vasco had on board several convicts, who had been released from prison, where they lay under sentence of death, that he might employ them upon any service of danger for which he was unwilling to risk his better men. A band of criminals who had broken their country's laws and were not likely to be troubled with scruples, must have been a rather dangerous element among a somewhat disaffected crew; and, as the ship sailed northward and again met with rough weather, the convicts on board the San Raphael, seeing their opportunity, began to plot treason against the captain. One after another of the crew was won over to a plan which promised a speedy end to the weary, dangerous voyage, and the ringleaders found means to communicate with their friends on board the other two ships, so that all was arranged for a general mutiny.