dim magnificence and a sense of trumpets in the
air, acclaiming us! I remember that day that we all felt this mystic
power and wealth, the Admiral and all of us. For a short time, there by
Saint Catherine's River, we were brought into harmony. Then it broke and
each little self went its way again. But for that while eighty men had
felt as though we were a country and more than a country. The gold in
the Admiral's hand might have been gold of consciousness.

After this day for days we sailed along Cuba strand, seeing many a fair
haven and entering two or three. There were villages, and those dusk,
naked folk to whom by now we were well used, running to beach or cliff
brow, making signs, seeming to cry, "Heaven come down, heaven, heaven
and the gods!" The notion of a sail had never come to them, though with
their cotton they might have made them. They were slow to learn that
the wind pushed us, acting like a thousand tireless rowers. We were
thrillingly new to them and altogether magical. To any seeing eye a ship
under full sail is a beautiful, stately, thrilling thing! To these red
men there was a perilous joy in the vision. If to us in the ships there
hung in this voyage something mystic, hidden, full of possibility,
inch by inch to unroll, throbbing all with the future which is the
supernatural, be sure these, too, who were found and discovered, moved
in a cloud of mystery torn by strange lightnings!

Sometimes we came into haven, dropped anchor and lowered sails,
whereupon those on the shore again cried out. When we took our boats
and went to land we met always the same reception, found much the same
village, carried on much the same conversations. Little by little we
collected gold. By now, within the Admiral's chest, in canvas bags,
rested not a little treasure for Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. And
though it was forbidden, I knew that many of our seamen hid gold. All
told we found enough to whet appetite. But still the Indians said south,
and Babeque and Bohio!

At last we had sailed to the very eastern end of Cuba and turned it as
we might turn the heel of Italy. A great spur that ran into the ocean
the Admiral dubbed Alpha and Omega, and we planted a cross.

It fell to me here to save the Admiral's life.

We had upon the _Santa Maria_ a man named Felipe who seemed a simple,
God-fearing soul, very attentive to Fray Ignatio and all the offices of
religion. He was rather a silent fellow and a slow, poor wor