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It was deep in October, that day at dawn when I came quietly, evenly, to myself again, and lay most weak, but with seeing eyes. At first I thought I was alone in the cavern, but then I saw Guarin where he lay asleep. That day I strengthened, and the next day and the next. But I had lain long at the very feet of death, and full strength was a tortoise in returning. So good to Juan Lepe was Guarin!
Out of all which comes the fact that Guarin knew this mountain. We were not far, as flies the bird, from the burned town of Guarico, from the sea without sail, from the ruined La Navidad. When the dawn broke we saw ocean. He took me straight to a cavern, such another as that in which Jerez and Luis Torres and I had harbored in Cuba.
Now were these Indians false or fair?" I could tell how fair they had been could praise Guarico and Guacanagari and Guarin. He listened with great satisfaction. "I would lay my head for that Indian!" Talk with him could not be prolonged, for we were in a scene of the greatest business and commotion. When I sought for Guarin he was gone. Nor was Guacanagari yet at hand.
No sail, and were he returning, surely it should have been before this! He might never return. When Guarin was away I sat or lay or moved about a small demesne and still prospered. There were clean rock, the water, the marvelous forest. He brought cassava cake, fruit, fish from the sea.
No Indians on the beach, none in the forest, and when they came to the village, only houses, a few parrots and the gardens, dewy fresh under the sun's first streaming. No Indians there, nor man nor woman nor child, not Guacanagari, not Guarin, not Catalina and her crew none!
I found Guarin and presently we came to be standing without the entrance they had no doors; sometimes they had curtains of cotton looking upon that strange gathering in the little middle square of the town. So many Spaniards in the palm shadows, and the women feeding them, and Alonso de Ojeda's hand upon the arm of a slender brown girl with a wreath of flowers around her head.
Guarin explained and Juan Lepe explained, but still this miraculous day dyed also for them my presence here. I had been slain, and had come to life to greet the Great Cacique! It grew to a legend. I met it so, long afterwards in Hispaniola. ONE by one were incoming, were folding wings, were anchoring, Spanish ships.
Now I was strong and wandered in the forest, though never far from that cliff and cavern. It was settled between us that in five days I should go down with Guarin to Guacanagari. He proposed that I should be taken formally into the tribe. They had a ceremony of adoption, and after that Juan Lepe would be Guarico.
But I feel, O Guarin, that the inner and true Man will not and cannot take hurt!" He said, "Do they come for good?" I answered, "There is much good in their coming. Seen from the mountain brow, enormous good, I think. In the long run I am fain to think that all have their market here, you no less than I, Guacanagari no less than the Admiral." "I do not know that," he said.
But this had fine sand for floor, and a row of calabashes, and wood laid for fire. Here Juan Lepe dropped, for all his head was swimming with weariness. The sun was up, the place glistered. Guarin showed how it was hidden. "I found it when I was a boy, and none but Guarin hath ever come here until you come, Juan Lepe!" He had no fear, it was evident, of Caonabo's coming.