deck the torch is burning to light the wanderer back
again, if only he will come; and there is "a nice little breeze" by which
to come if he wishes; but Martin Alonso has wishes quite other than that.

The Pinta was out of sight the next morning, and the little Nina was all
that the Admiral had to rely upon for convoy. They were now near the
east end of the north coast of Cuba, and they stood in to a harbour which
the Admiral called Santa Catalina, and which is now called Cayo de Moa.
As the importance of the Nina to the expedition had been greatly
increased by the defection of the Pinta, Columbus went on board and
examined her. He found that some of her spars were in danger of giving
way; and as there was a forest of pine trees rising from the shore he was
able to procure a new mizzen mast and latine yard in case it should be
necessary to replace those of the Nina. The next morning he weighed
anchor at sunrise and continued east along the coast. He had now arrived
at the extreme end of Cuba, and was puzzled as to what course he should
take. Believing Cuba, as he did, to be the mainland of Cathay, he would
have liked to follow the coast in its trend to the south-west, in the
hope of coming upon the rich city of Quinsay; but on the other hand there
was looming to the south-west some land which the natives with him
assured him was Bohio, the place where all the gold was. He therefore
held on his course; but when the Indians found that he was really going
to these islands they became very much alarmed, and made signs that the
people would eat them if they went there; and, in order further to
dissuade the Admiral, they added that the people there had only one eye,
and the faces, of dogs. As it did not suit Columbus to believe them he
said that they were lying, and that he "felt" that the island must belong
to the domain of the Great Khan. He therefore continued his course,
seeing many beautiful and enchanting bays opening before him, and longing
to go into them, but heroically stifling his curiosity, "because he was
detained more than he desired by the pleasure and delight he felt in
seeing and gazing on the beauty and freshness of those countries wherever
he entered, and because he did not wish to be delayed in prosecuting what
he was engaged upon; and for these reasons he remained that night beating
about and standing off and on until day." He could not trust himself,
that is to say, to anchor in these beautiful