When those Spanish mutineers leaped upon their Admiral's deck and
advanced upon him sword in hand, every man of them was aware that
according to all ordinary rules the safety of his own head depended on
their going clean through and finishing their work. No compromise that
should leave Columbus alive could possibly have suited them then.
Nevertheless, at the bottom of it all, the moving impulse of those men
was terror. They were banded for that work by a common fear and a
common superstition, and it was only when they looked in the clear face
of one wholly free from the influences which enslaved themselves, when
they felt in their marrow that supreme expression of Columbus at the
point of a miserable death--only then the revulsion of confidence in him
suddenly relieved their own terrors. It was instinctive. This man knows!
He does not deceive us! We fools are compromising the safety of all by
quenching this light. He alone can get us through this business--that
was the human instinct which responded to the look and bearing of
Columbus at the moment when he was wholly lost, and when his life's
work, his great voyage almost accomplished, was also to all appearance
lost. The instinct was sure, the response was certain, from the instinct
that its motive was also there sure and certain; but no other man in
that age could have provoked it, no other but Columbus could be sure of
what he was then doing.

The mutineers went back to their work, and the ships went on. For three
days previous, the Admiral, following some indications he had noted from
the flight of birds, had steered southwest. Through that night of the
10th and through the day of the 11th he still kept that course; but just
at evening of the 11th he ordered the helm again to be put due west. The
squadron had made eighty-two miles that day, and his practiced senses
now taught him that land was indeed near. Without any hesitation he
called together his chief officers, and announced to them that the end
of their voyage was at hand; and he ordered the ships to sail well
together, and to keep a sharp lookout through the night, as he expected
land before the morning. Also, they had strict orders to shorten sail at
midnight, and not to advance beyond half speed. Then he promised a
velvet doublet of his own as a present to the man who should first make
out the land. These details are well known, and they are authentic; and
it is true also that these dispositions of the Admi