The sun descended, the sea grew violet, all we on
the Santa Maria gathered for vesper prayer
and song. Fray Ignatio’s robe and back-thrown
cowl burned brown against the sea and the sail.
One last broad gold shaft lighted the tall Admiral,
his thick white hair, his eagle nose, his strong mouth.
Diego de Arana was big, alert and soldierly; Roderigo
Sanchez had the look of alcalde through half a lifetime.
I had seen Roderigo de Escobedo’s like in dark
streets in France and Italy and Castile, and Pedro
Gutierrez wherever was a court. Juan de la Cosa,
the master, stood a keen man, thin as a string.
Out of the crowd of mariners I pick Sancho and Beltran
the cook, Ruiz the pilot, William the Irishman and
Arthur the Englishman, and two or three others.
And Luis Torres. The latter was a thinker, and
a Jew in blood. He carried it in his face, considerably
more markedly than I carried my grandmother Judith.
But his family had been Christian for a hundred years.
Before I left forecastle for poop I had discovered
that he was learned. Why he had turned sailor
I did not then know, but afterwards found that it
was for disappointed love. He knew Arabic and
Hebrew, Aristotle and Averroes, and he had a dry curiosity
and zest for life that made for him the wonder of
this voyage far outweigh the danger.
There was a hymn that Fray Ignatio taught us and that
we sang at times, beside the Latin chant. He said
that a brother of his convent had written it and set
it to music.
Thou that art above us,
Around us, beneath us,
Thou who art within us,
Save us on this sea!
Out of danger,
Teach us how we may
Serve thee acceptably!
Teach us how we may
Crown ourselves, crowning Thee!
Beltran the cook’s voice was the best, and after
him Sancho, and then a sailor with a great bass, William
the Irishman. Fray Ignatio sang like a good monk,
and Pedro Gutierrez like a troubadour of no great
weight. The Admiral sang with a powerful and
what had once been a sweet voice. Currents and
eddies of sweetness marked it still. All sang
and it made together a great and pleasurable sound,
rolling over the sea to the Pinta and the Nina,
and so their singing, somewhat less in volume, came
to us. All grew dusk, the ships were bat wings
sailing low; out sprang the star to which the needle
no longer pointed. The great star Venus hung
in the west like the lantern of some ghostly air ship,
very vast.
Thou that art above us,
Around us, beneath us,
Thou that art within us,
Save us on this sea!
CHAPTER XIV
WE were a long, long way from Spain. A flight
of birds went over us. They were flying too high
for distinguishing, but we did not hold them to be
sea birds. We sounded, but the lead touched no
bottom. West and west and west, pushed by that
wind! Late September, and we had left Palos the
third of August.
