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Ovando had a great body-guard such as Columbus had never had; and he also carried with him a great number of picked married men with their families, all with knowledge of some trade or craft, whose presence in the colony would be a guarantee of permanence and steadiness. He perhaps remembered his own crowd of ruffians and gaol-birds, and realised the bitterness of his own mistakes.
"And yet he did not appear to avoid you yesterday?" said the girl thoughtfully. "A momentary impulse, I suppose," replied her companion easily. "I daresay he thought I might fraternise and forget the past." "And you couldn't?" "Well, scarcely. One does not fraternise with gaol-birds even for old time's sake."
Early in the morning of May 15th, 1917, we twelve gaol-birds, after being carefully searched, left for the station escorted by eight guards. During the march I began softly humming a tune, but was at once silenced by an angry sentry, who told me that no noise of any sort was allowed.
Columbus therefore despatches his ships, with such rabble of colonists, gaol-birds, and mariners as have already had their fill both of pain and pleasure, and writes his usual letter to the Sovereigns half full of the glories of the new discoveries he has made, the other half setting forth the evil doings of Roldan, and begging that he may be summoned to Spain for trial there.
"Thank you," laughed Barry. "I've no doubt I can find use for it." Then he added, "My name is Barry." "And mine is Rawlings. I hope we shall pull together, Mr. Barry," this with a pleasant smile as he buttoned up his overcoat. "Ha, there is my boat, and I must take my gaol-birds on board. Good-afternoon. I shall look for you about twelve o'clock."
They will get at the drink, and then stop at nothing. I'm afraid I cannot lift, but I can fire a pistol or a gun." "And I cannot lift," said Mr Denning, with his eyes flashing, "but I can fire with this and take good aim. I brought it to shoot birds on the voyage. It will be gaol-birds now!"
Who would not despise the city whose guards are such miserable creatures? Who would not suppose, seeing these pallid, hairy manikins scattered on the ground, that it had none to fight for it, and so had turned out its gaol-birds to fill the ranks? That is how the spongers differ from the rhetoricians and philosophers in war.
A Pinzon could have navigated the fleet from Palos to Guanahani; but only a Columbus, only a man burning with belief is himself and in his quest, could have kept that superstitious crowd of loafers and malefactors and gaol-birds to their duties, and bent them to his will.
Others lay in the middle of the harbour ready for sea, but waiting for their crews to be collected by the press-gangs on shore, and to be made up with captured smugglers, liberated gaol-birds, and broken-down persons from every grade of society.
BESIDES misdeeds, robberies, the division of spoils after an ambuscade, and the twilight exploitation of the barriers of Paris, footpads, burglars, and gaol-birds generally have another industry: they have ideal loves. This requires explanation. The trade in negro slaves moves us, and with good reason; we examine this social sore, and we do well.
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