1492 Part 30

The fortress of San Domingo is a gloomy place. They prisoned him here, and they put irons upon him. I saw that done. One or two of his immediate following, and I his physician might enter with him.

He stood in the dismal place where one ray of light came down from a high, small, grated window, and he looked at the chains which they brought. He asked, "Who will put them on?"

He looked at the chains and at the soldier who brought them. "Put them on, man!" he said. "What! Once thou didst nail G.o.d's foot to a cross! As for me, I will remember that One who saved all, and be patient."

They chained him and left him there in the dark.

I saw him the next day, entering with his gaoler. Had he slept? "Yes."

"How did he find himself?"

"How does my body find itself? Why, no worse than usual, nowadays that I am getting old! My body has been unhappier a thousand times in storm and fight, and thirst and famine."

"Then mind and soul?" I asked.

"They are well. There is nothing left for them but to feel well. I am in the hand of G.o.d."

I did what service for him I could. He thanked me. "You've been ever as tender as a woman. A brave man besides! I hope you'll be by me, Juan Lepe, when I die."

"When you die, senor, there will die a great servant of the world."

I spoke so because I knew the cordial that he wanted.

His eyes brightened, strength came into his voice. "Do you know aught of my brother the Adelantado?"

"No. He may be on his way from Xaragua. What would you wish him to do, sir?"

"Come quietly to San Domingo as I came. This Governor is but a violent, petty shape! But I have sworn to obey the Queen and the King of the Spains. I and mine to obey."

I asked him if he believed that the Sovereigns knew this outrage. I could believe it hardly of King Ferdinand, not at all of the Queen.

Again I felt that this was cordial to him. I had spoken out of my conviction, and he knew it. "No," he said. "I do not believe it. I will never believe it of the Queen! Look you! I have thought it out in the night. The night is good for thinking out. You would not believe how many enemies I have in Spain. Margarite and Father Buil are but two of a crowd. Fonseca, who should give me all aid, gives me all hindrance. I have throngs of foes; men who envy me; men who thought I might give them the golden sun, and I could not; hidalgos who hold that G.o.d made them to enjoy, standing on other men's shoulders, eating the grapes and throwing down the empty skins, and I made them to labor like the others; and not in Heaven or h.e.l.l will they forgive me! And others--and others. They have turned the King a little their way. I knew that, ere I went to find that great new land where are pearls, that slopes upward by littles to the Height of the World and the Earthly Paradise. Turned the King, but not the Queen. But now I make it they have worked upon her. I make it that she does not know the character of Don Francisco de Bobadilla. I make it that, holding him to be far wiser than he is, she with the King gave him great power as commissioner. I make it that they gave him letters of authority, and a last letter, superseding the Viceroy, naming him Governor whom all must obey. I make it that he was only to use this if after long examination it was found by a wise, just man that I had done after my enemies' hopes. I make it that here across Ocean-Sea, far, far from Spain, he chose not to wait. He clucked to him all the disaffected and flew with a strong beak at the eyes of my friends." He moved his arms and his chains clanked. "I make it that this severity is Don Francisco de Bobadilla's, not King Ferdinand's, not--oh, more than not--the good Queen's!"

Juan Lepe thought that he had made out the probabilities, probably the certainties.

"If I may win to Spain!" he ended. "It all hinges on that! If I may see the Sovereigns--if I may see the good Queen! I hope to G.o.d he will soon chain me in a s.h.i.+p and send me!"

Had he seen Don Francisco de Bobadilla?

No, he had not seen Don Francisco de Bobadilla. He thought that on the whole that Hidalgo and Commander of Calatrava was afraid.

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 ma.s.s, 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 pa.s.sed, and Roldan sat with him at wine.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p 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!"

"I could force you, senor," said Villejo.

The other answered, "Try it, and G.o.d will make your hands like a babe's!"

Villejo and the smith did not try it. There was something around him like an invisible guard. I knew the feel of it, and that it was his will emerged at height.

"Remember then, senor, that I would have done it for you!" Villejo touched the door. The Admiral's voice came after. "My brother, Don Bartholomew, he who was responsible to me and only through me to the Sovereigns, free him, Villejo, and you have all my thanks!"

We went to take the gyves from Don Bartholomew. It would have been comfort to these brothers to be together in prison--but that the Governor of Hispaniola straitly forbade. When Villejo had explained what he would do, the Adelantado asked, "What of the Admiral?"

"I wish to take them from him also. But he is obstinate in his pride and will not!"

"He will go as he is to the Queen and Spain and the world," said Juan Lepe.

"That is enough for me," answered the Adelantado. "I do not go down to-night a freed body while he goes down a chained.--Farewell, senor! I think I hear your sailors calling."

Villejo hesitated. "Let them have their will, senor," said Juan Lepe.

"Their will is as good as ours."

Don Bartholomew turned to me. "How fares my brother, Doctor? Is he ill?"

"He is better. Because he was ill I was let to come with him. But now he is better."

"Give him my enduring love and constancy," said the Adelantado. "Good night, Villejo!" and turned upon his side with a rattling of his chain.

Returning to the Admiral, Juan Lepe sat beside him through the night.

The tempest continuing, there were moments when we thought, It may be the end of this life! We thought to hear the cry "She sinks!" and the rush of feet.

At times when there fell lulls we talked. He was calmly cheerful.

"It seems to me that the storm lessens. I have been penning in my mind, lying here, a letter to one who will show it to the Queen. Writing so, I can say with greater freedom that which should be said."

"What do you say?"