To the Indies (4 page)

“Nazareth!” said the Admiral in a kind of ecstasy. His mind was evidently still running on the same subject, but presumably in a very different way from Rich’s. Yet his enthusiasm was infectious.

“It is a glorious project,” said Rich, in spite of himself.

“Yes,” replied the Admiral. “And we are approaching the country which will provide the means to realize it. The land of the Trinity!”

There was dismissal in the gesture he made. His mind was wrapped now in lofty schemes, like a mountain among the clouds. Rich bowed and withdrew. He was glad enough, too, to do so, for he was excited and impatient for his first sight of the Indies. He hoisted himself up on the bulwark, but the approaching land was still below the horizon from there, and he set himself to make the unaccustomed climb up the main shrouds — the whole rigging of the ship was still thick with clusters of men, like fruit in a tree. At the masthead there were a dozen of the soldiers whom Bernardo de Tarpia commanded, and they grudgingly made room for him. Rich clung wildly to the yard, breathless and giddy. He was unaccustomed both to exercise and to heights, and up here the motion of the ship was greatly exaggerated. The horizon swooped round him for a few wild seconds until he regained his breath and his self-control. He wiped off the sweat which was streaming into his eyes and looked forward. There was the land; bright green slopes illuminated by the morning sun. The Indies! The most westerly and the most easterly limit of man’s knowledge of the world he lived in . . . It was raining there to the northward — the sun behind him was lighting up a dazzling rainbow at that extremity of the island. From there southward, there stretched luxuriant green hills; when the Holy Name rose on a wave he could see a line of white foam as the waves broke against the beach at their feet.

The sun was beating on his back like a flail; he wiped the sweat from his face again and continued his observations. It looked a rich enough country — that vivid green spoke well for its fertility — but it seemed virgin. No axe had ever plied among those forests. His straining eyes could see no sign of human habitation. Trying to compel himself to think clearly, he came to admit that at that distance he could not expect to see individual houses. But a town would be visible enough, for all that, and there was not the slightest hint of the existence of a town. A busy and prosperous coast would be thick with shipping, and there was no shipping in sight at all, not even — what was the word the Indian islanders used? — not even a ‘canoe’ to make a speck on the flawless blue. Depression settled on him for a moment, which he told himself was unreasonable.

But God had vouchsafed a sign — the Admiral had announced to them the sight of the triple peak from which he had already named this new island. Rich swept his gaze along the sky-line to identify the mountain. It was odd that he did not see it at once. He had looked from north to south; now he looked from south to north, more carefully. There was still no triple peak to be seen, and yet it ought to be obvious. The Admiral had been very positive about it indeed. It occurred to Rich that the explanation probably lay in the long interval which had elapsed since the Admiral had first seen the land. During that time the three peaks must have moved round into line relative to the new position of the ship.

With this in mind, he looked again. It was puzzling, for the ship had been heading straight for the land ever since it had first come in sight, and the relative movement could not have been great. Nowhere was there any outstanding peak which might be resolved into three summits from another point of view. With a little sinking at heart he began to realize another possibility — that the Admiral had not seen any triple peak at all, and had merely imagined it, the wish being father to the thought. That at least was humanly possible, and as far as he could see was the only hypothesis which fitted the facts; in that case, his study of logic assured him, he should work on that hypothesis until either it was disproved or a better one presented itself.

Nevertheless, it was disquieting, not merely because he might be at sea under an admiral who saw mountains that did not exist, but because — this was quite as disturbing — it tended to shake his faith in miracles. He had just disproved one for himself, and it was tempting to imagine that all miracles had a similar foundation in wishful thinking. That cut at the base of all religion, and led to doubt and heresy, and from that to polygamy and unsound theories on the distribution of property, to the fires of the Inquisition and the flames of hell. He shuddered at the thought of the damnation of his soul, and clung to the yard in front of him, a little sick. The soldiers beside him were joking coarsely — their words came faintly to his ears as if from another room — about the naked women who were, they hoped, looking out at the ship from the island and awaiting their arrival. He tried to shake off his depression as he set himself to descend the shrouds.

As his feet touched the deck he found himself face to face with Rodrigo Acevedo, the elder of the two brothers.

“Well, Doctor?” said Rodrigo. He was a tall wiry man, of a bitter humor; his high arched nose and his flashing black eyes hinted at his Moorish blood, and he bore himself with an easy athleticism which made Rich conscious of his own ungainly plumpness, and this despite the fact that Rich had been at some pains to acquire that plumpness as increasing the dignity of a young doctor of law.

“Well?” said Rich, defensively.

“What do you think of the promised land?”

“It looks green and fertile enough,” answered Rich, still defensive.

“Did you see the great city of Cambaluc?”

“No. That must lie more to the north and west.”

“Yes. More to the north and west. How far? A hundred leagues? A thousand?”

Rich was silent.

“Five thousand, then?” sneered Acevedo.

“Not so far,” said Rich, hotly.

“And did you see the Great Khan putting off to welcome us in his gilded galleon?”

“No,” said Rich. “We have come this far south so as to avoid the Great Khan’s dominions.”

“We have avoided them in all conscience,” said Acevedo. “Did you see any mountains of gold?”

“No,” replied Rich.

“None? You are quite sure? Did you see any mountain with a triple peak?”

“I went up the mast a long time after land was sighted,” said Rich, uneasily. “The appearances had changed by then.”

“Yes,” sneered Acevedo again. “Doubtless they had.”

“What do you think, then?” asked Rich, his dignity reasserting itself. He was tired of being teased.

“I? I think nothing.”

Acevedo’s mouth was distorted in a lopsided smile. Rich remembered what he had heard about Acevedo’s past — of the Inquisition’s descent upon the family of his betrothed; his prospective father-in-law had been burned at the stake in Toledo, and his prospective bride had been paraded in a fool’s coat to make a solemn act of contrition before disappearing for life into a dungeon where the bread and water of affliction awaited her. The Holy Office must have questioned Acevedo closely enough. He was wise not to think; he was wise to come here to the Indies where the Holy Office would not have its attention called to him again so easily.

“That is sensible of you,” said Rich.

Their eyes met, with a gleam of understanding, before Acevedo was called away by a group clustered forward.

The backgammon boards were out, and the dice were already rattling there. Half the ship’s company had already recovered from the excitement of sighting land and had plunged again into the diversions which had become habitual during the long voyage. These people were indifferent to their fates, careless as to where they were going; and that was only to be expected, seeing that three quarters of them at least were on board either against their will or, like Acevedo, because Spain had grown too hot to hold them.

It was like the first voyage over again, when the ships had to be manned by criminals and ne’er-do-wells. For the second voyage there had been no lack of money or of volunteers. Seventeen tall ships had sailed, with full complements, and a score of stowaways had been found on board after sailing, so great had been the eagerness to join, as a result of the marvelous stories the Admiral had brought back of the wealth and the marvels of the newly discovered lands. But during the years that followed bad news had drifted back across the ocean. The original garrison left in Española were all dead by the time the second expedition arrived, and death had followed death in terrifying succession. Death by disease, death by poisonous serpents, death even from the pointed canes which were all the weapons the Indians possessed. Then death by famine, death by the gallows after mutiny. The stories told by the broken men who were lucky enough to make their way back to Spain had discouraged the nation. The adventurous spirits now followed Gonsalvo de Cordoba to the conquest of Italy. King Ferdinand, struggling in the whirlpool of European affairs, had naturally been dubious about expending further strength on chimerical conquests. Twenty ships from the Basque ports had been necessary to convey the Princess Katharine and a suitable train to her wedding with the Prince of Wales. It was not surprising that compulsion was necessary to man the ships for this present third expedition.

Rich remembered the sullen evidence given by the wretched survivors whom he had examined. Every man had cherished a grievance, mainly against the Admiral. It was Rich’s digest of the evidence which had influenced His Highness to dispatch a lawyer to the Indies to investigate. Rich told himself that, like the eagle in the fable, it was he himself who had winged the arrow of his fate.