t, but in three hours' time met furious weather. The sea rose, clouds
like night closed us in. Night came on without a star and a contrary
wind blew always. When the dawn broke sullenly we were beaten back to
Cuba, and a great promontory against which truly we might have been
dashed stood to our north and shut out coast of yesterday. Here we hung
a day and night, and then the wind lulling and the sea running not
so high, we made again for that island which might be Babeque. We had
Indians aboard, but the sea and the whipping and groaning of our masts
and rigging and sails and the pitching of the ship terrified them, and
terror made them dull. They sat with knees drawn up and head buried in
arms and shivered, and knew not Babeque from anything else.

Christopherus Columbus could be very obstinate. Wishing strongly to gain
that island, through all this day he had us strive toward it. But the
wind was directly ahead and strong as ten giants. The master and others
made representations, and at last he nodded his gray head and ordered
the _Santa Maria_ put about and the Pinta and the Nina signaled. The
Nina harkened and turned, but the Pinta at some distance seemed deaf
and blind. Night fell while still we signaled. We were now for Cuba, and
the wind directly behind us, but yet as long as we could see, the Pinta
chose not to turn. We set lights for signals, but her light fell farther
and farther astern. She was a swifter sailer than we; there was no
reason for that increasing distance. We lay to, the _Nina_ beside us.
Ere long we wholly lost the Pinta's light. Night passed. When morning
broke Captain Martin Alonso Pinzon and the Pinta were gone.

The sea, though rough, was not too perilous, and never a signal of
distress had been seen nor heard.

"Lost? Is the Pinta lost?"

"Lost! No!--But, yes. Willfully lost!"

It was Roderigo Sanchez who knew not much of the sea who asked, and the
Admiral answered. But having spoken it that once, he closed his strong
lips and coming down from deck said he would have breakfast. All that
day was guessing and talk enough upon the _Santa Maria_; silent or
slurred talk at last, for toward noon the Admiral gave sharp order that
the Pinta should be left out of conversation. Captain Martin Pinzon was
an able seaman. Perhaps something (he reminded us of the rudder before
the Canaries) had gone wrong. Captain Pinzon may have thought the island
was the nearer land, or he may have returned to Cuba