1492, Page 2

  CHAPTER II

  SET will to an end and promptly eyes open to means! I did not start forGranada from Palos but from Huelva, and I quitted Andalusia as a porterin a small merchant train carrying goods of sorts to Zarafa that was amountain town taken from the Moors five years back. I was to these folkJuan Lepe, a strong, middle-aged man used to ships but now for somereason tired of them. My merchants had only eyes for the safety of theirpersons and their bales, plunged the third day into mountainous wildcountry echoing and ghastly with long-lasting war. Their servants andmuleteers walked and rode, lamented or were gay, raised faction,swore, laughed, traveled grimly or in a dull melancholy or mirthfully;quarreled and made peace, turn by turn, day by day, much alike. One whowas a bully fixed a quarrel upon me and another took my part. All leapedto sides. I was forgotten in the midst of them; they could hardly havetold now what was the cause of battle. A young merchant rode back tochide and settle matters. At last some one remembered that Diego hadstruck Juan Lepe who had flung him off. Then Tomaso had sprung in andstruck Diego. Then Miguel--"Let Juan Lepe alone!" said my merchant."Fie! a poor Palos seafaring child, and you great Huelva men!" Theylaughed at that, and the storm vanished as it had come.

  I liked the young man.

  How wild and without law, save "Hold if you can!" were these mountains!"Hold if you can to life--hold if you can to knowledge--hold if you canto joy!" Black cliff overhung black glen and we knew there were dens ofrobbers. Far and near violence falls like black snow. This merchantband gathered to sleep under oaks with a great rock at our back. We hadjourneyers' supper and fire, for it was cold, cold in these heights. Alittle wine was given and men fell to sleep by the heaped bales; horses,asses and mules being fastened close under the crag. Three men watched,to be relieved in middle night by other three who now slept. A muleteernamed Rodrigo and Juan Lepe and the young merchant took the first turn.The first two sat on one side of the fire and the young merchant on theother.

  The muleteer remained sunken in a great cloak, his chin on his armsfolded upon his knees, and what he saw in the land within I cannot tell.But the young merchant was of a quick disposition and presently musttalk. For some distance around us spread bare earth set only with shrubsand stones. Also the rising moon gave light, and with that and our ownstrength we did not truly look for any attack. We sat and talked atease, though with lowered voices, Rodrigo somewhere away and the rest ofthe picture sleeping. The merchant asked what had been my last voyage.

  I answered, after a moment, to England.

  "You do not seem to me," he said, "a seaman. But I suppose there are allkinds of seamen."

  I said yes, the sea was wide.

  "England now, at the present moment?" he said, and questioned me as toBristol, of which port he had trader's knowledge. I answered out of abook I had read. It was true that, living once by the sea, I knew how tohandle a boat. I could find in memory sailors' terms. But still he said,"You are not a seaman such as we see at Palos and San Lucar."

  It is often best not to halt denial. Let it pass by and wander among thewild grasses!

  "I myself," he said presently, "have gone by sea to Vigo and toBordeaux." He warmed his hands at the fire, then clasped them about hisknees and gazed into the night. "What, Juan Lepe, is that Ocean we lookupon when we look west? I mean, where does it go? What does it strike?"

  "India, belike. And Cathay. To-day all men believe the earth to beround."

  "A long way!" he said. "O Sancta Maria! All that water!"

  "We do not have to drink it."

  He laughed. "No! Nor sail it. But after I had been on that voyage Icould see us always like mice running close to a wall, forever andforever! Juan Lepe, we are little and timid!"

  I liked his spirit. "One day we shall be lions and eagles and boldprophets! Then our tongue shall taste much beside India and Cathay!"

  "Well, I hope it," he said. "Mice running under the headlands."

  He fell silent, cherishing his knees and staring into the fire. It wasnot Juan Lepe's place to talk when master merchant talked not. I, too,regarded the fire, and the herded mountains robed in night, and thehalf-moon like a sail rising from an invisible boat.

  The night went peacefully by. It was followed by a hard day's traveland the incident of the road. At evening we saw the walls of Zarafa in asunset glory. The merchants and their train passed through the gate andfound their customary inn. With others, Juan Lepe worked hard, unladingand storing. All done, he and the bully slept almost in each other'sarms, under the arches of the court, dreamlessly.

  The next day and the next were still days of labor. It was not untilthe third that Juan Lepe considered that he might now absent himself andthere be raised no hue and cry after strong shoulders. He had earned hisquittance, and in the nighttime, upon his hands and knees, he crept fromthe sleepers in the court. Just before dawn the inn gate swung open. Hehad been waiting close to it, and he passed out noiselessly.

  In the two days, carrying goods through streets to market square and upto citadel and pausing at varying levels for breath and the prospect, Ihad learned this town well enough. I knew where went the ascending anddescending ways. Now almost all lay asleep, antique, shaded, Moorish,still, under the stars. The soldiery and the hidalgos, their officers,slept; only the sentinels waked before the citadel entry and on the townwalls and by the three gates. The town folk slept, all but the sick andthe sorrowful and the careful and those who had work at dawn. Listen,and you might hear sound like the first moving of birds, or breath ofdawn wind coming up at sea. The greater part now of the town folkwere Christian, brought in since the five-year-gone siege that stillresounded. Moors were here, but they had turned Christian, or wereslaves, or both slave and Christian. I had seen monks of all habits andheard ring above the inn the bells of a nunnery. Now again they rang.The mosque was now a church. It rose at hand,--white, square, domed. Iwent by a ladder-like lane down toward Zarafa wall and the Gate of theLion. At sunrise in would pour peasants from the vale below, bringingvegetables and poultry, and mountaineers with quails and conies, andothers with divers affairs. Outgoing would be those who tilled a fewsteep gardens beyond the wall, messengers and errand folk, soldiers andtraders for the army before Granada.

  It was full early when I came to the wall. I could make out the heavyand tall archway of the gate, but as yet was no throng before it. Iwaited; the folk began to gather, the sun came up. Zarafa grew rosy. Nowwas clatter enough, voices of men and brutes, both sides the gate. Thegate opened. Juan Lepe won out with a knot of brawny folk going to themountain pastures. Well forth, he looked back and saw Zarafa gleamingrose and pearl in the blink of the sun, and sent young merchantward awish for good. Then he took the eastward way down the mountain, towardlower mountains and at last the Vega of Granada.