ring us
supplies. Sooner or later, each of these dark peoples found a Quibian or
Caonabo.

The most of us determined that Diego Mendez and Fiesco and their canoe
were lost. Hispaniola knew nothing of us--nothing, nothing! Suddenly the
two Porras brothers led a mad mutiny. "Leave these rotting ships--seize
the canoes we need--all of us row or swim to Hispaniola!"

There were fifty who thought thus. The Admiral withstood them with
strong words, with the reasoning of a master seaman, and the counsel
now--his white and long hair, and eld upon him--of Jacob or Isaac
or Abraham. But they would not, and they would not, and at last they
departed from us, taking--but the Admiral gave them freely--the dozen
canoes that we had purchased, crowding into these, rowing away with
cries from that sea fortress, melancholy indeed, in the blinding light.

They vanished. The next day fair, the next a mad storm. Two weeks, and
news came of them. They were not nigh to Hispaniola; wrecked, they lost
five men, but got, the rest of them, to land, where they now roved from
village to village. Another week, and the Indians who came to us and
whom we kept friendly, related with passionate and eloquent word and
gesture evils that that band was working. Pedro Margarite--Roldan--over
and over again!

After much of up and down those mutineers came back to us. They could
not do without us; they could not get to Hispaniola in Indian canoes.
The Admiral received them fatherly.

No sail--no sail. Long months and no sail. Surely Diego Mendez and
Bartholomew Fiesco were drowned! Hispaniola, if it thought of us at all,
might think us now by Ganges. Or as lost at sea.

Christopherus Columbus dreamed again, or had a vision again. "I was
hopeless. I wept alone on a desert shore. My name had faded, and all
that I had done was broken into sand and swept away. I repined, and
cried, 'Why is it thus?' Then came a ship not like ours, and One stepped
from it in light and thunder. 'O man of little faith, I will cover thy
eyes of to-day!' He covered them, and I _saw_.--And now, Juan Lepe, I
care not! We will all come Home, whether or no the wave covers us here."

To mariners and adventurers he said at no time any word of despair. He
said, "A ship will come! For if--which the saints forfend--Bartholomew
Fiesco and Diego Mendez have not reached San Domingo, yet come at last
will some craft to Jamaica! From our island or from Spain. How many
times since '92 has ther