days from Hispaniola we met a hurricane that carried us out of all
reckoning. When stillness came again we were far south. No islands were
in sight; there was only the sea vast and blue. There seemed to breathe
from it a strangeness. We were away and away, said our pilots, from the
curve, like a bent bow, of the Indian islands. A day and a night we hung
in a dead calm. Dawn broke. "Sail, ho! Sail, ho!"

We thought that it might be the Portuguese and made preparation. Three
ships lifted over the blue rim. There was now a light wind; it brought
them nearer, they being better sailers than the _Santa Cruz_ and the
_Santa Clara_. We saw the banner. "Castile!" and a lesser one. "El
Almirante!"

Now we were close together. The masters hailed, "What ships?"--"From
Hispaniola!"--"From Cadiz. The Admiral with us! Come aboard, your
commander!"

That was Luis Mendez, and in the boat with him went Juan Lepe. The ships
were the _Esperanza_, the _San Sebastian_ and the _San Martin_, the
first fairly large and well decked, the others small. They who looked
overside and shouted welcome seemed a medley of gentle and simple,
mariners, husbandmen, fighting men and hidalgos.

The Admiral! His hair was milk-white, his tall, broad frame gaunt as
a January wolf. Two years had written in his face two years'
experience--fully written, for he was sensitive to every wind of
experience. "Excellency!"--"Juan Lepe, I am as glad of you as of a
brother!--And what do you do, senors, here?"

Luis Mendez related. "I think it false news about the Portuguese," said
the Admiral and gave reasons why. "Then shall we keep with you, sir?"

"No, since you are sent out by my brother and must give him account.
Have you water to spare? We will take that from you. I am bound still
south. I will find out what is there!"

Further talk disclosed that he had left Spain with six ships, but at
the Canaries had parted his fleet in two, sending three under Alonzo de
Caravajal upon the straight course to Hispaniola, and himself with three
sailing first to the Green Cape islands, and thence southwest into an
unknown sea.

So desolate, wide and blue it looked when the next day we parted,--two
ships northward, three southward! But Juan Lepe stayed with the
_Esperanza_ and the Admiral. As long since, between the _Santa Maria_
and the _Pinta_, there had been exchange of physicians, so now again was
exchange between the _Santa Cruz_ and the _Esperanza_.

Days of blue se