The Last Voyage - 6

The Last Voyage - 6

Columbus, left idle in the absence of Bartholomew, listening to the continuous drip and

patter of the rain on the leaves and the water, begins to dream again—to dream of gold

and geography. Remembers that David left three thousand quintals of gold from the

Indies to Solomon for the decoration of the Temple; remembers that Josephus said it

came from the Golden Chersonesus; decides that enough gold could never have been got

from the mines of Hayna in Espanola; and concludes that the Ophir of Solomon must be

here in Veragua and not there in Espanola. It was always here and now with Columbus;

and as he moved on his weary sea pilgrimages these mythical lands with their glittering

promise moved about with him, like a pillar of fire leading him through the dark night of

his quest.

The rain came to an end, however, the sun shone out again, and activity took the place of

dreams with Columbus and with his crew. He decided to found a settlement in this place,

and to make preparations for seizing and working the gold mines. It was decided to leave

a garrison of eighty men, and the business of unloading the necessary arms and

provisions and building houses ashore was immediately begun. Hawks' bells and other

trifles were widely distributed among the natives, with special toys and delicacies for the

Quibian, in order that friendly relations might be established from the beginning; and

special regulations were framed to prevent the possibility of any recurrence of the

disasters that overtook the settlers of Isabella.

Such are the orderly plans of Columbus; but the Quibian has his plans too, which are

found to be of quite a different nature. The Quibian does not like intruders, though he

likes their hawks' bells well enough; he is not quite so innocent as poor Guacanagari and

the rest of them were; he knows that gold is a thing coveted by people to whom it does

not belong, and that trouble follows in its train. Quibian therefore decides that Columbus

and his followers shall be exterminated—news of which intention fortunately came to the

ears of Columbus in time, Diego Mendez and Rodrigo de Escobar having boldly

advanced into the Quibian's village and seen the warlike preparations. Bartholomew,

returning from his visit to the gold mines, was informed of this state of affairs. Always

quick to strike, Bartholomew immediately started with an armed force, and advanced

upon the village so rapidly that the savages were taken by surprise, their headquarters

surrounded, and the Quibian and fifty of his warriors captured. Bartholomew

triumphantly marched the prisoners back, the Quibian being entrusted to the charge of

Juan Sanchez, who was rowing him in a little boat. The Quibian complained that his

bonds were hurting him, and foolish Sanchez eased them a little; Quibian, with a quick

movement, wriggled overboard and dived to the bottom; came up again somewhere and

reached home alive. No one saw him come up, however, and they thought had had been

drowned.

Columbus now made ready to depart, and the caravels having been got over the shallow

bar, their loading was completed and they were ready to sail. On April 6th Diego Tristan

was sent in charge of a boat with a message to Bartholomew, who was to be left in

command of the settlement; but when Tristan had rounded the point at the entrance to the

river and come in sight of the shore he had an unpleasant surprise; the settlement was

being savagely attacked by the resurrected Quibian and his followers. The fight had

lasted for three hours, and had been going badly against the Spaniards, when

Bartholomew and Diego Mendes rallied a little force round them and, calling to

Columbus's Irish dog which had been left with them, made a rush upon the savages and

so terrified them that they scattered. Bartholomew with eight of the other Spaniards was

wounded, and one was killed; and it was at this point that Tristan's boat arrived at the

settlement. Having seen the fight safely over, he went on up the river to get water,

although he was warned that it was not safe; and sure enough, at a point a little farther up

the river, beyond some low green arm of the shore, he met with a sudden and bloody

death. A cloud of yelling savages surrounded his boat hurling javelins and arrows, and

only one seaman, who managed to dive into the water and crawl ashore, escaped to bring

the evil tidings.

The Spaniards under Bartholomew's command broke into a panic, and taking advantage

of his wounded condition they tried to make sail on their caravel and join the ships of

Columbus outside; but since the time of the rains the river had so much gone down that

she was stuck fast in the sand. They could not even get a boat over the bar, for there was

a heavy cross sea breaking on it; and in the meantime here they were, trapped inside this

river, the air resounding with dismal blasts of the natives' conch-shells, and the natives

themselves dancing round and threatening to rush their position; while the bodies of

Tristan and his little crew were to be seen floating down the stream, feasted upon by a

screaming cloud of birds. The position of the shore party was desperate, and it was only

by the greatest efforts that the wounded Adelantado managed to rally his crew and get

them to remove their little camp to an open place on the shore, where a kind of stockade

was made of chests, casks, spars, and the caravel's boat. With this for cover, the Spanish

fire-arms, so long as there was ammunition for them, were enough to keep the natives at

bay.

Outside the bar, in his anchorage beyond the green wooded point, the Admiral meanwhile

was having an anxious time. One supposes the entrance to the river to have been

complicated by shoals and patches of broken water extending some considerable

distance, so that the Admiral's anchorage would be ten or twelve miles away from the

camp ashore, and of course entirely hidden from it. As day after day passed and Diego

Tristan did not return, the Admiral's anxiety increased. Among the three caravels that

now formed his little squadron there was only one boat remaining, the others, not

counting one taken by Tristan and one left with Bartholomew, having all been smashed in

the late hurricanes. In the heavy sea that was running on the bar the Admiral dared not

risk his last remaining boat; but in the mean time he was cut off from all news of the

shore party and deprived of any means of finding out what had happened to Tristan. And

presently to these anxieties was added a further disaster. It will be remembered that when

the Quibian had been captured fifty natives had been taken with him; and these were

confined in the forecastle of the Capitana and covered by a large hatch, on which most of

the crew slept at night. But one night the natives collected a heap of big stones from the

ballast of the ship, and piled them up to a kind of platform beneath the hatch; some of the

strongest of them got upon the platform and set their backs horizontally against the hatch,

gave a great heave and, lifted it off. In the confusion that followed, a great many of the

prisoners escaped into the sea, and swam ashore; the rest were captured and thrust back

under the hatch, which was chained down; but when on the following morning the

Spaniards went to attend to this remnant it was found that they had all hanged

themselves.

This was a great disaster, since it increased the danger of the garrison ashore, and

destroyed all hope of friendship with the natives. There was something terrible and

powerful, too, in the spirit of people who could thus to a man make up their minds either

to escape or die; and the Admiral must have felt that he was in the presence of strange,

powerful elements that were far beyond his control. At any moment, moreover, the wind

might change and put him on a lee shore, or force him to seek safety in sea-room; in

which case the position of Bartholomew would be a very critical one. It was while things

were at this apparent deadlock that a brave fellow, Pedro Ledesma, offered to attempt to

swim through the surf if the boat would take him to the edge of it. Brave Pedro, his offer

accepted, makes the attempt; plunges into the boiling surf, and with mighty efforts

succeeds in reaching the shore; and after an interval is seen by his comrades, who are

waiting with their boat swinging on the edge of the surf, to be returning to them; plunges

into the sea, comes safely through the surf again, and is safely hauled on board, having

accomplished a very real and satisfactory bit of service.

The story he had to tell the Admiral was as we know not a pleasant one—Tristan and his

men dead, several of Bartholomew's force, including the Adelantado himself, wounded,

and all in a state of panic and fear at the hostile natives. The Spaniards would do nothing

to make the little fortress safer, and were bent only on escaping from the place of horror.

Some of them were preparing canoes in which to come out to the ships when the sea

should go down, as their one small boat was insufficient; and they swore that if the

Admiral would not take them they would seize their own caravel and sail out themselves

into the unknown sea as soon as they could get her floated over the bar, rather than

remain in such a dreadful situation. Columbus was in a very bad way. He could not desert

Bartholomew, as that would expose him to the treachery of his own men and the hostility

of the savages. He could not reinforce him, except by remaining himself with the whole

of his company; and in that case there would be no means of sending the news of his rich

discovery to Spain. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to break up the settlement and

return some other time with a stronger force sufficient to occupy the country. And even

this course had its difficulties; for the weather continued bad, the wind was blowing on to

the shore, the sea was—so rough as to make the passage of the bar impossible, and any

change for the worse in the weather would probably drive his own crazy ships ashore and

cut off all hope of escape.

The Admiral, whose health was now permanently broken, and who only had respite from

his sufferings in fine weather and when he was relieved from a burden of anxieties such

as had been continually pressing on him now for three months, fell into his old state of

sleeplessness, feverishness, and consequent depression; and it, these circumstances it is

not wonderful that the firm ground of fact began to give a little beneath him and that his

feet began to sink again into the mire or quag of stupor. Of these further flounderings in

the quag he himself wrote an account to the King and Queen, so we may as well have it

in his own words.