s hardly felt. Close on the heels of,
Columbus came the master of the ship and the delinquent watch; and the
Admiral immediately ordered them to launch the ship's boat--and lay out
an anchor astern so that they could warp her off. The wretches lowered
the boat, but instead of getting the anchor on board rowed off in the
direction of the Nina, which was lying a mile and a half to windward.
As soon as Columbus saw what they were doing he ran to the side and,
seeing that the tide was failing and that the ship had swung round across
the bank, ordered the remainder of the crew to cut away the mainmast and
throw the deck hamper overboard, in order to lighten the ship. This took
some time; the tide was falling, and the ship beginning to heel over on
her beam; and by the time it was done the Admiral saw that it would be of
no use, for the ship's seams had opened and she was filling.

At this point the miserable crew in the ship's boat came back, the loyal
people on the Nina having refused to receive them and sent them back to
the assistance of the Admiral. But it was now too late to do anything to
save the ship; and as he did not know but that she might break up,
Columbus decided to tranship the people to the Nina, who had by this time
sent her own boat. The whole company boarded the Nina, on which the
Admiral beat about miserably till morning in the vicinity of his doomed
ship. Then he sent Diego de Arana, the brother of Beatriz and a trusty
friend, ashore in a boat to beg the help of the King; and Guacanagari
immediately sent his people with large canoes to unload the wrecked ship,
which was done with great efficiency and despatch, and the whole of her
cargo and fittings stored on shore under a guard. And so farewell to the
Santa Maria, whose bones were thenceforward to bleach upon the shores of
Hayti, or incongruously adorn the dwellings of the natives. She may have
been "a bad sailer and unfit for discovery"; but no seaman looks without
emotion upon the wreck of a ship whose stem has cut the waters of home,
which has carried him safely over thousands of uncharted miles, and which
has for so long been his shelter and sanctuary.

At sunrise the kind-hearted cacique came down to the Nina, where Columbus
had taken up his quarters, and with tears in his eyes begged the Admiral
not to grieve at his losses, for that he, the cacique, would give him
everything that he possessed; that he had already given two large houses
t