an Lucar.

My Catalans were not wholly depressed. Behind their wrecked ship stood
merchants who would furnish another bark. The master would have had me
wait at San Lucar until he went forth again. But I was bound for the
strand by Palos and the gray, piling Atlantic.

August was the month and the day warm. The first of August in the year
1492. Two leagues east of Palos I overtook three men trudging that
way, and talking now loudly and angrily and now in a sullen, dragging
fashion. I had seen between this road and ocean a fishing hamlet and I
made out that they were from this place. They were men of small
boats, men who fished, but who now and again were gathered in by some
shipmaster, when they became sailors.

In me they saw only a poorly clad, sea-going person. When I gave
greeting they greeted me in return. "For Palos?" I asked, and the one
who talked the most and the loudest gave groaning assent. "Aye, for
Palos. You too, brother, are flopping in the net?"

I did not understand and said as much. He gave an angry laugh and
explained his figure. "Why, the Queen and the King and the law and
Martin Pinzon, to whom we, are bound for a year, are pressing us! Which
is to say they've cast a net and here we are, good fish, beating against
the meshes and finding none big enough to slip through! Haven't you been
pressed too, scooped in without a 'By your leave, Palos fish!' A hundred
fish and more in this net and one by one the giant will take us out and
broil us!"

The second man spoke with a whine. "I had rather a Barbary pirate were
coming aboard! I had rather be took slave and row a galley!"

The third, a young man, had a whimsical, dark, fearless face. "But we be
going to see strange things and serve the Queen! That's something!"

"The Queen is just a lady. She don't know anything about deep and
fearful seas!"

"Where are you going," I asked, "and with whom?"

The angry man answered, "The last of that is the easiest, mate! With an
Italian sorcerer who has bewitched the great! He ought to be burned, say
I, with the Jews and heretics! We are going with him, and we are going
with Captain Martin Pinzon, whom he hath bewitched with the rest! And we
are going with three ships, the _Santa Maria_, the Pinta and the Nina."

The third said, "The Santa Maria's a good boat."

"There isn't any boat, good or bad," the first answered him, "that can
hold together when you come to heat that'll melt pitch and set wood
afire!