little wind, from Santo Tome to Punta Santa,
and being a league from it, at about eleven o'clock at night the Admiral
went down to get some sleep, for he had not had any rest for two days and
a night. As it was calm, the sailor who steered the ship thought he would
go to sleep, leaving the tiller in charge of a boy.[199-2] The Admiral
had forbidden this throughout the voyage, whether it was blowing or
whether it was calm. The boys were never to be entrusted with the helm.
The Admiral had no anxiety respecting sand-banks and rocks, because, when
he sent the boats to that king on Sunday, they had passed to the east of
Punta Santa at least three leagues and a half, and the sailors had seen
all the coast, and the rocks there are from Punta Santa, for a distance
of three leagues to the E.S.E. They saw the course that should be taken,
which had not been the case before, during this voyage. It pleased our
Lord that, at twelve o'clock at night, when the Admiral had retired to
rest, and when all had fallen asleep, seeing that it was a dead calm and
the sea like glass, the tiller being in the hands of a boy, the current
carried the ship on one of the sand-banks. If it had not been night the
bank could have been seen, and the surf on it could be heard for a good
league. But the ship ran upon it so gently that it could scarcely be
felt. The boy, who felt the helm and heard the rush of the sea, cried
out. The Admiral at once came up, and so quickly that no one had felt
that the ship was aground. Presently the master of the ship,[200-1] whose
watch it was, came on deck. The Admiral ordered him and others to launch
the boat, which was on the poop, and lay out an anchor astern. The
master, with several others, got into the boat, and the Admiral thought
that they did so with the object of obeying his orders. But they did so
in order to take refuge with the caravel, which was half a league to
leeward. The caravel would not allow them to come on board acting
judiciously, and they therefore returned to the ship; but the caravel's
boat arrived first. When the Admiral saw that his own people fled in this
way, the water rising and the ship being across the sea, seeing no other
course, he ordered the masts to be cut away and the ship to be lightened
as much as possible, to see if she would come off. But, as the water
continued to rise, nothing more could be done. Her side fell over across
the sea, but it was nearly calm. Then the timbers opened,