k whose butio he was. They knew his ways and
did not try to keep him when he would return to the mountain, to "make
medicine." So none knew of the cavern or that there was one Spaniard
left alive in all Hayti.

I strengthened. At last I could draw myself out of cave and lie, in the
now so pleasant weather, upon the ledge before it. All the vast heat and
moisture was gone by; now again was weather of last year when we found
San Salvador.

I could see ocean. No sail, and were he returning, surely it should have
been before this! He might never return.

When Guarin was away I sat or lay or moved about a small demesne and
still prospered. There were clean rock, the water, the marvelous forest.
He brought cassava cake, fruit, fish from the sea. He brought me for
entertainment a talking parrot, and there lived in a seam of the rock
a beautiful lizard with whom I made friends. The air was balm, balm!
A steady soft wind made cataract sound in the forest. Sunrise, noon,
sunset, midnight, were great glories.

It was November; it was mid-November and after.

Now I was strong and wandered in the forest, though never far from that
cliff and cavern. It was settled between us that in five days I should
go down with Guarin to Guacanagari. He proposed that I should be taken
formally into the tribe. They had a ceremony of adoption, and after that
Juan Lepe would be Guarico. He would live with and teach the Guaricos,
becoming butio--he and Guarin butios together. I pondered it. If the
Admiral came not again it was the one thing to do.

I remember the very odor and exquisite touch of the morning. Guarin
was away. I had to myself cave and ledge and little waterfall and great
trees that now I was telling one from another. I had parrot and
lizard and spoke now to the one and now to the other. I remember the
butterflies and the humming birds.

I looked out to sea and saw a sail!

It was afar, a white point. I leaned against the rock for I was suddenly
weak who the moment before had felt strong. The white point swelled.
It would be a goodly large ship. Over blue rim slipped another flake.
A little off I saw a third, then a fourth. Juan Lepe rubbed his eyes.
Before there came no more he had counted seventeen sail. They grew; they
were so beauteous. Toward the harbor sailed a fleet. Now I made out the
flagship.

O Life, thou wondrous goddess of happenings!

An hour I sat on cliff edge and watched. They were making in, the
lovely whit