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Updated: June 15, 2025
The curate saluted Doña Consolacion, who responded with a yawn and an "aah!" The friar took the big chair under the picture of His Majesty. "We can begin," said he. "Bring out the two who are in the stocks!" ordered the alferez in his most terrifying voice. And turning to the curate, he added, changing his tone: "They are fastened in the stocks with two holes vacant!"
"Take care of my sister," murmured the unhappy boy as he gazed beseechingly toward one of the cuadrilleros. The bamboo sweep again creaked, and the condemned boy once more disappeared. Doña Consolacion observed that the water remained quiet. The alferez counted a minute. When Tarsilo again came up his features were contracted and livid.
Through the day our anchors held in our Bay of Comfort, and we blessed our Admiral. But at eve the Margarita, the Juana and the San Sebastian lost bottom, feared breaking against the rocky shore and stood out for sea room. The Consolacion stayed fast, and at dawn was woe to see nothing at all of the three. In the howling tempest and the quarter light we knew not if they were sunk or saved.
They were dismayed at beholding no guide of the kind, and thought there must be some prominent swelling of the earth, which hid the pole from their view. Pinzon continued on, however, with great intrepidity. On the 26th of January, 1500, he saw, at a distance, a great headland, which he called Cape Santa Maria de la Consolacion, but which has since been named Cape St. Augustine.
Terreros was envoy, but with him the Admiral sent Juan Lepe, who through the years in Hispaniola had tried to heal the sick, no matter what their faction. The Admiral stayed upon the Consolacion, the Adelantado upon the Margarita. The harbor was filled with ships. We counted eighteen. We guessed that they were preparing for sailing, the little boats so came and went between.
They passed by the officer's house. Doña Consolacion was in the window, as usual, dressed in her flannel outfit and smoking her cigar. As the house was rather low, they could see each other as they passed, and Doña Victorina could distinguish her very well.
But these were only little pleasantries, and if the two chanced to meet they would shake hands and converse politely. When her husband was sleeping off the wine he had drunk, or was snoring through the siesta, and she could not quarrel with him, Doña Consolacion, in a blue flannel camisa, with a big cigar in her mouth, would take her stand at the window.
THE ships were the Consolacion, the Margarita, the Juana and the San Sebastian, all caravels and small ones, the Consolacion the largest and the flagship. The Margarita, that was the Adelantado's ship, sailed badly. There was something as wrong with her as had been with the Pinta when we started from Palos in '92. The men all told, crews and officers and adventurers, were less than two hundred.
They looked old, so old, with their whipped and darkened sails. And when we dropped anchor in some bight there was no gold, but all night we heard that harsh blowing of shells and beating of drums. Francisco and Diego de Porras, Alonso de Zamorra, Pedro de Villetoro, Bernardo the Apothecary and others, the most upon the Consolacion, others on the Margarita and the Juana, now began to brew mutiny.
"Bruno died at midnight, but his statement is on record." The curate saluted Doña Consolacion, who responded with a yawn, and took his seat in the big chair under his Majesty's portrait. "Let us begin," he announced. "Bring out those two who are in the stocks," ordered the alferez in a tone that he tried to make as terrible as possible.
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