The Voyage Home - 7

The Voyage Home - 7

"Since, then, our Redeemer has given this victory to our illustrious King and Queen and

celebrated their reigns by such a great thing, all Christendom should rejoice and make

great festivals, and give solemn thanks to the Blessed Trinity, with solemn praises for the

exaltation of so much people to our holy faith; and next for the temporal blessings which

not only Spain but they will enjoy in becoming Christians, and which last may shortly be

accomplished.

"Written in the caravel off Santa Maria; on the eighteenth of February, ninety-three."

The following postscript was added to the letter before it was despatched:

"After writing the above, being in the Castilian Sea (off the coast of Castile), I

experienced so severe a wind from south and south-east that I have been obliged to run

to-day into this port of Lisbon, and only by a miracle got safely in, from whence I

intended to write to Your Highnesses. In all parts of the Indies I have found the weather

like that of May, where I went in ninety-three days, and returned in seventy-eight, saving

these thirteen days of bad weather that I have been detained beating about in this sea.

Every seaman here says that never was so severe a winter, nor such loss of ships."

On the Friday a messenger came from the King in the person of Don Martin de Noronha,

a relative of Columbus by marriage, and one who had perhaps looked down upon him in

the days when he attended the convent chapel at Lisbon, but who was now the bearer of a

royal invitation and in the position of a mere envoy. Columbus repaired to Paraiso where

the King was, and where he was received with great honour.

King John might well have been excused if he had felt some mortification at this glorious

and successful termination of a project which had been offered to him and which he had

rejected; but he evidently behaved with dignity and a good grace, and did everything that

he could to help Columbus. It was extremely unlikely that he had anything to do with the

insult offered to Columbus at the Azores, for though he was bitterly disappointed that the

glory of this discovery belonged to Spain and not to Portugal, he was too much of a man

to show it in this petty and revengeful manner. He offered to convey Columbus by land

into Spain; but the Admiral, with a fine dramatic sense, preferred to arrive by sea on

board of all that was left of the fleet with which he had sailed. He sailed for Seville on

Wednesday, March 13th, but during the next day, when he was off Cape Saint Vincent,

he evidently changed his mind and decided to make for Palos. Sunrise on Friday saw him

off the bar of Saltes, with the white walls of La Rabida shining on the promontory among

the dark fir-trees. During the hours in which he stood off and on waiting for the tide he

was able to recognise again all the old landmarks and the scenes which had been so

familiar to him in those busy days of preparation nine months before; and at midday he

sailed in with the flood tide and dropped his anchor again in the mud of the river by

Palos.

The caravel had been sighted some time before, probably when she was standing off, the

bar waiting for the tide; she was flying the Admiral's flag and there was no mistaking her

identity; and we can imagine the news spreading throughout the town of Palos, and

reaching Huelva, and one by one the bells beginning to ring, and the places of business to

be closed, and the people to come pouring out into the streets to be ready to greet their

friends. Some more impatient than the others would sail out in fishing-boats to get the

first news; and I should be surprised to know that a boat did not put off from the little pier

beneath La Rabida, to row round the point and out to where the Nina was lying—to

beyond the Manto Bank. When the flood began to make over the bar and to cover the

long sandbank that stretches from the island of Saltes, the Nina came gliding in, greeted

by every joyful sound and signal that the inhabitants of the two seaports could make.

Every one hurried down to Palos as the caravel rounded the Convent Point. Hernando,

Marchena, and good old Juan Perez were all there, we may be sure. Such excitements,

such triumphs as the bronzed, white-bearded Admiral steps ashore at last, and is seized

by dozens of eager hands! Such excitements as all the wives and inamoratas of the

Rodrigos and Juans and Franciscos rush to meet the swarthy voyagers and cover them

with embraces; such disappointments also, when it is realised that some two score of the

company are still on a sunbaked island infinitely far over the western horizon.

Tears of joy and grief, shouts and feastings, firing of guns and flying of flags, processions

and receptions with these the deathless day is filled; and the little Nina, her purpose

staunchly fulfilled, swings deserted on the turning tide, the ripples of her native Tinto

making a familiar music under her bowsprit.

And in the evening, with the last of the flood, another ship comes gliding round the point

and up the estuary. The inhabitants of Palos have all left the shore and are absorbed in the

business of welcoming the great man; and there is no one left to notice or welcome the

Pinta. For it is she that, by a strange coincidence, and after many dangers and distresses

endured since she had parted company from the Nina in the storm, now has made her

native port on the very same day as the Nina. Our old friend Martin Alonso Pinzon is on

board, all the fight and treachery gone out of him, and anxious only to get home

unobserved. For (according to the story) he had made the port of Bayona on the northwest

coast of Spain, and had written a letter from there to the Sovereigns announcing his

arrival and the discoveries that he had made; and it is said that he had received an

unpleasant letter in return, reproaching him for not waiting for his commander and

forbidding him to come to Court. This story is possible if his letter reached the

Sovereigns after the letter from the Admiral; for it is probable that Columbus may have

reported some of Martin's doings to them.

Be that as it may, there are no flags and guns for him as he comes creeping in up the

river; his one anxiety is to avoid the Admiral and to get home as quickly and quietly as he

can. For he is ill, poor Martin Alonso; whether from a broken heart, as the early

historians say, or from pure chagrin and disappointment, or, as is more likely, from some

illness contracted on the voyage, it is impossible to say. He has endured his troubles and

hardships like all the rest of them; no less skilfully than Columbus has he won through

that terrible tempest of February; and his foolish and dishonest conduct has deprived him

not only of the rewards that he tried to steal, but of those which would otherwise have

been his by right. He creeps quietly ashore and to his home, where at any rate we may

hope that there is some welcome for him; takes to his bed, turns his face to the wall; and

dies in a few days. So farewell to Martin Alonso, who has borne us company thus far. He

did not fail in the great matters of pluck and endurance and nautical judgment, but only in

the small matters of honesty and decent manly conduct. We will not weep for Martin

Alonso; we will make our farewells in silence, and leave his deathbed undisturbed by any

more accusations or reproaches.