upon a fair point of
land in San Juan le Bautista. Next day we weighed anchor, and in picture
San Domingo rose before us.

He felt no doubt of decent welcome, of getting his ship. Fifteen sail
had gone out with Ovando. Turn the cases around, and he would have
given Ovando welcome, he would give him a good ship. How much more then
Christopherus Columbus! The enterprise was common in that all stood to
profit. It was royal errand, world service! So he thought and sailed in
some tranquillity of mind for San Domingo.

But the Adelantado said in my ear. "There will be a vast to-do! Maybe
I'll sail the _Margarita_ to the end." He was the prophet!

It was late June. Hispaniola rose, faint, faint, upon the horizon.
All crowded to look. There, there before us dwelled countrymen, fellow
mariners, fellow adventurers forth from the Old into the New! It was
haven; it was Spain in the West; it was Our Colony.

The Admiral gazed, and I saw the salt tears blind his eyes. His son was
beside him. He put his hand upon the youth's shoulder. "Fernando, there
it is--I found and named it Hispaniola!"

The weather hung perilously still, the sea glass. It was so clear above,
below, around, that we seemed to see by added light, and yet there was
no more sunlight. All the air had thinned, it seemed, away. Every sail
fell slack. Colors were slightly altered. The Admiral said, "There is
coming a great storm."

The boy Fernando laughed. "Why, father!"

"Stillness before the leap," said the Admiral. "Quiet at home because
the legions have gone to muster."

It was hard to think it, but too often had it been proved that he was
in the secret of water and air. Now Bartholomew Fiesco the Genoese said.
"Aye, aye! They say on the ships at Genoa that when it came to weather,
even when you were a youngster, you were fair necromancer!"

The sky rested blue, but the sea became green oil. That night there were
all around us fields of phosphorescence. About midnight these vanished;
it was very black for all the stars, and we seemed to hear a sighing as
from a giant leagues away. This passed, and the morning broke, silent
and tranquil, azure sky and azure sea, and not so sharply clear as
yesterday. The great calm wind again pushed us.

Hispaniola! Hispaniola! Her mountains and her palms before us.

We coasted to the river Hayna and the Spanish city of San Domingo. Three
hours from sunset down in harbor plunged our anchors, down rattled our
sails.

T