Outside of the fortress that afternoon Juan Lepe kept
company with one who had come with the fire-new Governor,
a grim, quiet fellow named Pedro Lopez. He and
Luis Torres had been neighbors in Spain; it was Luis
who brought us together. I gave him some wine
in Doctor Juan Lepe’s small room and he told
readily the charges against the Viceroy that Bobadilla,
seizing, made into a sheaf.
Already I knew what they were. I had heard them.
One or two had, I thought, faint justification, but
the mass, no! Personal avarice, personal greed,
paynim luxury, arrogance, cruelty, deceit—it
made one sorrowfully laugh who knew the man!
Here again clamored the old charge of upstartness.
A low-born Italian, son of a wool-comber, vindictive
toward the hidalgo, of Spain! But there were new
charges. Three men deposed that he neglected
Indian salvation. And I heard for the first time
that so soon as he found the Grand Khan he meant to
give over to that Oriental all the islands and the
main, and so betray the Sovereigns and Christ and
every Spaniard in these parts!
The Adelantado arrived in San Domingo. He came
with only a score or two of men, who could have raised
many more. Don Francisco de Bobadilla saw to
it that he had word from his great brother, and that
word was “Obedience.” The Adelantado
gave his sword to Don Francisco. The latter loaded
the first with chains and put him aboard a caravel
in the harbor. He asked to be prisoned with his
brother; but why ask any magnanimity from an unmagnanimous
soul?
Out in the open now were all the old insurgents.
Guevara and Requelme bowed to the earth when the Governor
passed, and Roldan sat with him at wine.
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE caravel tossed in a heavy storm. Some of
her mariners were old in these waters, but others,
coming out with Bobadilla, had little knowledge of
our breadths of Ocean-Sea. They had met naught
like this rain, this shaken air, these thunders and
lightnings. There rose a cry that the ship would
split. All was because they had chained the Admiral!
Don Alonso de Villejo, the Captain taking Christopherus
Columbus to Spain, called to him Juan Lepe. “Witness
you, Doctor, I would have taken away the irons so soon
as we were out of harbor! I would have done it
on my own responsibility. But he would not have
it!”
“Yes, I witness. In chains in Hispaniola,
he will come to Spain in chains.”
“If the ship goes down every man must save himself.
He must be free. I have sent for the smith.
Come you with me!”
We went to that dusky cabin in the ship where he was
prisoned. “It is a great storm, and we are
in danger, senor!” said Villejo. “I
will take away these irons so that if—”
The Admiral’s silver hair gleamed in the dusk.
He moved and his gyves struck together. “Villejo!”
he said, “if I lie to-night on the floor of
Ocean-Sea, I will lie there in these chains!
When the sea gives up its dead, I will rise in them!”
