Chapter 29 Columbus by Rafael Sabatini
THE ORDEAL
Colon’s first active emotion when his soul had recovered from the shock of that disillusion was one of anger at having been misled into changing course. Acting upon it he hastened below to the helmsman, thrust him aside, seized the tiller, and brought the head of the caravel to bear westward once more.
“Keep her there,” was the short harsh command with which he left the startled seaman.
Coming up again to the quarter-deck, he became for the first time aware of the sharp pitching of the ship under his feet. The wind, he observed, had almost dropped, and the sails were slatting, alternately swelling and sagging.
Swaying to the heave of the deck he scanned the sky aft, the weather quarter, to find on the eastern horizon a bank of sullen cloud, black with a hint of copper, coming up as a screen to the rising sun.
His sudden shout, loud and clear as a clarion call, made a stir among the sleepers below. To the several who were instantly afoot his orders were sharp.
“Aloft, there, and shorten sail. Stir yourselves. Take in every sheet on the mainyards. Some of you to the mizzen, and clew it up. There’s dirty weather coming!”
The heave of the ship was increasing with every moment, and a passing sidelong glance showed him the sea lifting in long, oily rollers. Then his attention was drawn to what was happening in the waist, where all were by now awake and astir. A clamour of anger and dismay was rising amongst the men. Ires had leapt upon a hatch-coaming, and thence, as from a rostrum, was screaming blasphemy and incitement.
“Fools! Poor deluded fools! The land has vanished. It was never there. It was a mirage. We’ve been the dupes again of Fata Morgana. Of Fata Morgana and this Don Cristobal who is sailing us all to perdition. Up, you poor dupes! There is no land. I tell you there never will be land on this crazy course. We must make an end. We must put the ship about.”
It needed only this to bring to overflow for Colon the cup of that bitter awakening.
Men gathered themselves up to stare in dismay at that empty horizon. Others came aft from the forecastle to join them, and in a moment, where all had been peaceful slumber, there was now a press of men raging and ranting in this extinction of the glad hopes in which they had sunk to rest.
Led by Ires, a dozen or so of the hardier rogues came surging aft, with the proclaimed intention of taking charge of the helm.
Colon stood alone to stem the rush, armed with an iron belaying-pin which he had plucked from the rack. “Back, you rats!” he thundered. “Back!”
But Ires, intoxicated with fury and the pride of leadership, advanced undaunted, a dozen paces ahead of the rebels.
Colon swung the belaying-pin, and the Irishman went down with a broken head, his long body offering a momentary obstacle to those who followed. A moment later, Aranda, with Cosa, Brito the barber-surgeon, the steward and a couple more who joined them as they came, fell with fists and cudgels upon the rear of the mutineers.
“Avast, you dogs! Give way!” Aranda barked at them, as he smote and smote again. “Give way!”
In a moment the waist of the caravel was a scene of raging battle. Colon’s belaying-pin smashed the arm of Gomez as that broken hidalgo was brandishing a knife, and it sent another of his assailants rolling in the scuppers. From the forecastle and from the quarters astern others came pouring into the fray, and soon there were few hands aboard that were not committed to it, on one side or the other. Numbers, however, were heavily with the mutineers, and to Colon it seemed only a question of time before he and those who remained loyal would be overpowered. He fought on, nevertheless, with the strength and ferocity of a lion, using his improvised battle-axe at once to ward and to strike.
Aranda, too, was wreaking savage havoc, with his own lads, who had been prompt to rally to him. Gradually, however, they were being forced back to the forecastle, and for some instants, Colon, with his back to a bulkhead, stood alone. Then Ximenes, with one Sanchez, a sometime gentleman of the King’s bedchamber, whose fortunes had fallen into disrepair, and some four other gentlemen adventurers, brought their swords to the fray. They were men with sense enough to perceive that whatever might happen to them with Colon, the odds were that without him all would perish. By the intimidation of their blades they now clove a way through the press to the Admiral’s support. They reached him, turned and formed a screen to cover him, easily holding off the unarmed rabble that assailed him. One of these swordsmen was felled almost at once by the blow of an oar. But the seaman welding it paid instantly, for even as the oar descended, another of the adventurers, lunging on his flank, ran him neatly through the body.
Colon turned his belaying-pin into a projectile, and hurled it into the mass of the assailants, then stooped to pick up the fallen man’s sword. Thus armed, and astride of the stunned adventurer, so as to shield him, he plied his blade with the rest. But although their backs were protected by a bulkhead of the poop, these swordsmen without body armour offered a barrier too frail long to resist the weight of the onslaught. And meanwhile the pitching of the ship was increasing at every moment, although in their frenzy it was scarcely noticed by the men who swayed and reeled to it as they fought.
Suddenly the stern of the Santa Maria lifted so steeply that the bowsprit was under water, and the entire throng in the waist, assailed and assailants alike, went hurtling forward in a confused heap of writhing, cursing, battling men. Those who did not tumble over the hatchways were brought up sharply against the bulkheads of the forecastle, to be drenched by a cataract that poured over the bows. Colon, who had instinctively clutched a rung of the companion, found himself suddenly alone at the summit of a steep, empty deck. Thus a moment. In the next the bows rose as sharply, and the human avalanche came rolling back. The stunned and the conscious, the wounded and the whole poured torrentially down that precipitous declivity, to bring up with a bruising crash against the break of the poop.
By a leap up the companion at the last moment, Colon was no more than in time to avoid being crushed by that helpless, hurtling human mass.
A sudden short-lived gust of wind, bellying the mainsail, served to steady the caravel’s recovery, and in that moment Colon, his seaman’s experience supplying an understanding virtually instinctive, had grasped the situation.
The long oily rollers had grown longer and steeper. Astern of them the western sky was now all black with that sullen hint of copper, and the sun was completely obscured. Clutching the rail with one hand, whilst he still brandished the sword in the other, he let his voice ring out.
“Attention! On your lives!”
It needed no more to hold those men, who were gathering themselves up, already filled by the caravel’s behaviour with a sense of imminent peril that stilled all thought of turbulence. Every eye was turned for direction to the man at the poop-rail whom a moment ago they had been bent upon destroying. The very sight of his tall presence there imposed a check upon their fears, brought hope of wise direction, and eagerness for very life’s sake to obey as he might command.
His orders came sharp and clear, repeating those which he had issued earlier, but which had been disregarded. “Aloft, and shorten sail!”
A dozen hands, ignoring bruises and spurred by panic, sprang for the ratlines on either quarter. His voice whipped them on. “Take in every sheet on the mainyards.” Seeing this in train, he shouted for the boatswain. “Jacinto! Four hands here to the mizzen. Clew it up. You others, there, see that the hatches are tight battened. Cosa! Get the foresail reefed. Leave no more than a trysail for steering-way; not another rag.”
Again he cast a glance over his shoulder at the metallic horizon. “Hasten! Hasten, on your lives!”
There was no need to speed them. Those who were real seamen, all mutinous thought abandoned in this urgency, went feverishly to work. They had outridden storms before; and given a commander they could trust they would face the ordeal as a normal incident of their trade. Aloft in the shrouds, clinging precariously, their hold shaken by the horrible pitching of the ship, they went resolutely about the reefing until the Santa Maria’s poles were bare. The adventurers and the mere riff-raff, to whom every storm must be the harbinger of potential shipwreck, were huddled white-faced about the forecastle, looking on in helplessness at this arming for a battle very different from that which they had lately waged and which at least had been within their understanding.
Colon’s next order concerned them. It was to Aranda, bidding him herd them into their cramped quarters, where they would be out of the way and under cover.
Astern an irregular white line of foam, sweeping swiftly to overtake them, marked the coming of the gale, and scarcely had the last of the sailors dropped from the rigging to the deck than it struck them with an impact as of a solid mass. The Santa Maria reeled under the blow, dipping her bows to receive a flood of water and as she righted again, rolled like a dog that shakes itself.
From his station at the rail the Admiral conned her, whilst Cosa, his head bleeding from a gash he had taken in the fight, came staggering aft.
The storm was closing rapidly about them, the sky, now a solid black pall overhead, intermittently shot with the jagged fire of lightnings. A torrential rain descended to add to the waters that were breaking over the caravel and pouring in fountains from the scuppers. Under this and the rolling boom of thunders the Santa Maria staggered on with groan of timbers, rattle of blocks and creak of straining cordage.
Away on the starboard beam the outlines of the Pinta, and the Niña, with bare poles, were dimly visible through the shroud of rain. Though but half the size of the flagship, yet it remained that they were steadier and handier, and under the experienced handling of the Pinzons they should outride the hurricane more easily than the Santa Maria. However that might be, in the Santa Maria, the seventy lives aboard her, and the jeopardy of his great enterprise, there was for Colon responsibility enough.
He came down the companion, holding fast, and meeting Cosa at the foot of it, he dispatched him to the surgeon to get his head bandaged, bidding him have a life-line run the length of the waist, to enjoin upon Aranda that order be maintained in the forecastle, and then to see that the watches were strictly kept and that in each there should be at least two reliable helmsmen. But because in such a sea as by now was running, there was no helmsman he could trust implicitly, when a momentary negligence through lassitude or stupidity might result in the caravel’s being swamped and pounded to destruction, he went himself, to stand on guard over the man at the tiller, so as to ensure that the Santa Maria’s head be held steadily in the wind, and shifted promptly as the wind might shift.
It was only now, when all was done that at the moment could be done, that he perceived in this storm which had overtaken them and was tossing the little ship mercilessly from crest to mountainous crest, not indeed the dread visitation that it was to every other soul aboard, but a divine intervention to rescue him from a deadlier peril. Had the storm delayed longer in breaking over them, it must have come too late to save him. The mutineers, vastly outnumbering those who were sane enough for their own sakes to be loyal, must ultimately have overwhelmed him, and even had Colon not forfeited his life in the struggle, his enterprise would have been wrecked beyond repair.
Never so much as in this hour—perhaps never in reality until this hour—did he see himself, indeed, the instrument in the hand of God that he had not hesitated to boast himself to the Salamanca doctors. This dreadful tempest so timely sent for his salvation was a sign to him of the Divine favour; this raging turbulence of the elements that reminded scoundrels of their immortal souls and set them whimpering prayers for mercy, inspired him to devout thanksgiving.
So whilst the lightnings crackled in the blackened sky, the thunder boomed, the fierce blasts of the hurricane screamed through the shrouds, and the green combers broke in roaring torrents over the bows and swept through the waist of the groaning, tortured ship, Colon, beside the scared helmsman, swaying to the ceaseless heaving and sinking of the deck, returned thanks from a full heart to his protectress the Virgin for this succour sent in the form of torment.
His calm had the effect of subduing the terrors of the seaman at the tiller, just as his vigilant presence and his timely hand, ever ready if the vessel’s head fell away never so slightly, was of reassurance and comfort.
At the end of some two hours, another seaman, sent by Cosa, came reeling aft, clinging to the life-line so as to save himself from being swept away. It was a timely relief, for the man at the helm was in danger of succumbing to the strain, and in the last half-hour the Admiral’s hand had gone with ever-increasing frequency to his aid.
As the newcomer reached them, a heave steeper than any that had gone before flung him into the Admiral’s arms, and the two of them almost went over together. At the summit of the perilous lift, when half the ship was riding upon empty air, the caravel yawed away from her course and heeled over, so that for an instant her starboard gunwale was all but awash, and it needed not only Colon’s promptitude, but all his weight upon the tiller to bring up her head.
“Jesus Maria!” the helmsman had wailed in the dreadful moment when he felt the rudder resisting him.
“You’re tired, Juan,” was all that Colon said to him. “It is time you were relieved. Go now, but tell Master Cosa to send me the carpenter and two likely lads at once.”
The helm was surrendered to the newcomer, with an admonition from Colon to keep her steady, and when presently those he had summoned had battled their way aft, he ordered them to make a yoke for the helm by seizing a block to either side, and reeving two falls through each. With this tackle the control became an easier matter, and the yawing which lately had placed them in such peril would not easily recur.
There was not aboard a single man acquainted with the sea who had not in that dread moment bethought him of his prayers, conceiving that a little more and the caravel must founder. It presently brought Cosa, his head now bandaged, aft once more. Standing at Colon’s elbow he had to shout so as to make himself heard above the crash and roar through which they reeled.
“I feared that the ballast would shift when she all but rolled over. If it had we should all be with our Maker now. And it’s a miracle that it didn’t.”
“A miracle. As you say. It’s all a miracle.” Colon’s lips were close to the pilot’s ear. “The ballast is our danger still. The lack of it. We’ve consumed most of it: the wine, the water and the victuals. But we still have the casks. We’re riding too light.”
He turned to the carpenter who had been fixing the tackles. “Fetch me the boatswain and a dozen hands of the watch.”
When they came he sent half of them down to the hold by a scuttle hatch alongside of the helm, to pass up all empty casks and barrels. In a measure as these reached the deck, he dispatched the others two by two to the waist, to fill them with sea-water, and then, when sealed, to roll them back. By a sling from the yard-arm they were lowered back into the hold, there to be stowed by Cosa’s directions, and made secure with coigns by the carpenter and his mate.
It consumed much time, and it was not accomplished without some bruises and the loss of three casks that were swept overboard whilst they were being filled. But it was done at last, and to some extent this addition to the ballast served to steady the furious pitching of the caravel.
Throughout the operation, and whilst directing it, the Admiral had remained at the helmsman’s side ever vigilant, and there, after he had dismissed the boatswain and his crew, he continued all that day without nourishment beyond a draught of mulled wine brought to him by a solicitous steward. Nor at nightfall did he leave his post, and the following daybreak still found him there. Through every change of watch during that dreadful night he had been ready to repair or correct any fault in the steering, and to direct the helmsman in every one of the frequent if slight shifts of the gale.
Twice in the course of the night, Cosa had come aft, offering to relieve him, accompanied once by Aranda to add his own exhortations to the pilot’s. But the Admiral remained inflexible. He could trust himself, he said, with the help of God to bring this ship through the ordeal, but he could trust none other.
Throughout the second day, again, it was the same. There by the helmsman he kept his vigilant place, and more than once in those sudden shifts of the wind it was his vigilance alone that averted disaster. He seemed to possess some sense that warned him of the coming of those shifts so that he was always ready for them when they actually occurred.
Not until the late afternoon of that second day did the tempest begin to ease. The rain ceased, the wind abated, and green seas no longer surged up to meet and engulf the Santa Maria’s bows and break in deluge over her. If her timbers had creaked ominously, at least no seam had parted, and not a spar had gone. Gradually the wind continued to diminish, until by nightfall, although the seas were still running high, it had become no more than a steady breeze from the east. Only then, when in a clearing heaven the stars were becoming visible, did Colon, grey-faced and blear-eyed from lack of sleep, relinquish the ship to the care of Cosa, and wearily mount the companion to his cabin on the poop. Before entering it, he took a last look at the sky and the sea. Less than a quarter of a mile ahead he could just make out the other two vessels of his squadron, each already with a spread of foresail, rising and falling on the long rollers. They, too, had come safely through, well handled as he knew they would be.
He glanced down into the waist. It was filling with the men who thirty-six hours ago had been seeking his life. They came creeping from shelter, thankful to be alive, weary themselves from their awed vigil, and with all thought of mutiny battered out of them, realizing that they owed their survival to the man they had set out to destroy. Thus the more devout amongst them may have perceived in the storm as much a divine intervention for their salvation as Colon had considered it for his.
Within his cabin, the Admiral’s first act was to go down once more upon his knees before his little picture of the Virgin, to return thanks for the protection which had brought the ship named in her honour safely through the perils of the storm. Then peeling off his sodden doublet and kicking off his shoes, the exhausted man flung himself, dressed as he was, upon his red-draped bed, and was instantly asleep.
He was visited, he tells us, by a vision, which we, however, need regard as no more than a dream. The image to which he had prayed became extended to full length and grew under his eyes to the proportions of life. Quitting the brass panel hanging on the bulkhead, it floated to the foot of his bed, with hands outheld.
“Sleep in peace, Cristobal,” it said, “for I am with you, watching over you.” But the clear pitiful eyes, and the dark lips that smiled divinely, were become the eyes and lips of Beatriz.