Juan Sebastián Elcano

“ Yet it slumbered again, until his evil fate showed him his brother Juan, meditating a crime, which, if attempted, must bring him under the ban of the church, and into the dungeons of the Inquisition. Then he said, in his heart, 'If Sebastian die of grief, childless, and if Juan destroy himself by an act of impiety, where shall men look for the Count of Castillejo, except in the cell of Gregorio?' It was this thought of darkness that brought the thunderbolt upon his house, and upon thine. ”

“ Juan mused; "they may wreak their vengeance on the dust."
"And for the assurance that would give that nothing more was left them, I, a poor woman, would joyfully walk barefoot from this to Seville and back again."
Juan hesitated no longer. "I go," he said. "Dolores, seek Fray Sebastian, and send him to me at once. Bid Jorge be ready with the horses to start to-morrow at daybreak. Meanwhile, I will prepare Doña Beatriz for my sudden departure." ”

“ Such a vow, uttered by a creature as beautiful as the stars in heaven, was well calculated to inspire courage in the heart of a bold man. Juan said to himself: 'Well! yes; yes, I will get them, those two thousand douros! I don't see how I am to get them, but I will get them!'
"And how he cudgeled his brains with cogitating over different projects, and how he strove and toiled! He was near dashing his head against the wall of the tennis-ground at Saint Sebastian one day in his fury at having lost a game with the champion of Tolosa by a point. The betting was heavy. ”

“ Fray Sebastian drew near at the moment, and happening to overhear the last words, he asked, "Have you any plan, señor, as to whither you will go?"
"I have no plan," Don Juan answered. "But I think God will guide us. I have indeed a dream," he added, after a pause, "which may, or may not, come true eventually. My thoughts often turn to that great New World, where, at least, there should be room for truth and liberty. It was our childhood's dream, to go forth to the New World and to find our father. ”

“ Juan, if this man is really what you think, he will work magic to destroy those who oppose him. It will not be safe for any of my people to set themselves against him. I know a better way to attack him. I want to talk with Pablo and Sebastian. ”

“ Sebastián knew of his love affair with Doña Sol. He had seen it, although from afar, and she had often laughed on hearing Gallardo tell of the banderillero's eccentricities.
Nacional received the maestro's confidences with an expression of severity.
"The thing thou shouldst do, Juan, is to forget that lady. Remember that peace in the family is worth more than anything else for us who go about the world exposed to the danger of coming home useless forever. Remember that Carmen knows more than thou dost think. She knows everything. ”

“ They demand a leader; and it is upon me that they have fixed their eyes. Luisa, I am yours; I am doubly yours, for you have made me a father—it is you therefore that must answer for your Juan. Tell me, sweet{294}est! have you courage to let me share this glorious conflict.”
The eyes of Juan, as he now suffered them to rest solely upon her to whom he spoke, by turns softened and sparkled, as love and patriotism succeeded to displace each other in his mind: those of the hoary-headed Sebastian expressed an apprehensive anxiety. ”

“ The first is addressed to the licentiates Acuña, Pedro Manuel, and Barrientos "our deputies." The second is to Hernando Colon, Simon de Alacazaba, Doctor Salaya, Pero Ruiz de Villegas, Fray Tomás Duran, and Captain Juan Sebastian [del Cano] , "our astrologers and pilots." ”

“ Don Sebastian—The encomienda of Manacu, belonging to Don Sebastian Ruyz de Baeza, has two hundred tributes, or eight hundred friendly persons. It has justice. The two ministers of Manacu are without instruction. The ministers of Sinavanga might care for those of Manacu, and it would be instructed. ... CC.
Dumon: Sequera—The encomienda of Dumon, belonging to Juan de Sequera, has eight hundred Page 104tributes, which means three thousand two hundred persons. It is hostile. One religious might be stationed there when it is pacified. ... ”

“ Esteban explained, briefly, "He dared to raise his hand in anger against one of my guests."
Sebastian's face was working as he turned upon his master to say: "I would be lying if I told you that I am sorry for what I did. It is you have done wrong. Your soul is black with this crime. Where is my girl?"
"The devil! To hear you talk one would think you were a free man." The planter's eyes were bleared and he brandished his riding-whip threateningly. "I do as I please with my slaves. I tolerate no insolence. Your girl? Well, she's in the house of Salvador, Don Pablo's cochero, where she belongs. ”

“ He turned to the harbor far below, with its fleet of sailing-ships resting like a flock of gulls upon a sea of quicksilver. Beyond the bay, twenty miles distant, a range of hazy mountains hid the horizon. Facing to the south, Esteban looked up the full length of the valley of the San Juan, clear to the majestic Pan de Matanzas, a wonderful sight indeed; then his eyes returned, as they always did, to the Yumuri, Valley of Delight. "Paradise indeed!" he muttered. "I gave her everything. She gained nothing by dying." ”

“ It is the first thing to be done. I am going to ask mamma to go when she is well. It is a wonder she has never gone there before to spend the summer instead of going to that ill-smelling, crowded San Sebastián. The moment I set foot in the old land I shall grow as strong as a young ox.”
“Ah, Señorito,” said Esclavita softly, “how ugly and arid all the country on the way coming here seemed to me! Not a solitary tree, not a streamlet, not a green bush. How can the farmers live here?”
“Better than there, foolish girl. This is the land that produces bread and wine.” ”

“ Adversity hardens some hearts, and melts others: Sebastian’s unfortunately did not soften from the grasp of calamity: his eyes, not yet opened to his own character, had not observed how inevitably some lines of conduct produce certain misery. Had he reflected dispassionately, he might have been convinced, that to his romantic wilfulness and contempt of counsel, all the disasters of Alcazar were attributable; that rash enterprize, together with his blameable attachment to the betrothed wife of De Castro, had prepared the hearts of [Pg 248] his subjects for future indifference about his fate. ”

“ At length the pope’s decision arrived;—Count Vimiosa returned triumphant; De Castro foiled.
Transported with joy, Sebastian flew to impart the tidings to Donna Gonsalva: how was she struck on finding that her father had obtained her lover’s suit, only by promising his holiness the performance of an imprudent vow once made by the King to Don Antonio!—that vow would leave her still without perfect security; it would take him into Africa, amidst danger and death! ”

“ Well, I'll tell Don Esteban how you tried to bribe his secret from me! What do you think he'll do then? Eh? You'll feel the lash on your white back—"
"You FOOL!" Dona Isabel looked murder. "I'll punish you for this; I'll make you speak if I have to rub your wounds with salt."
But Sebastian closed his eyes wearily. "You can't make me suffer more than I have suffered," he said. "And now—I curse you. May that treasure be the death of you. May you live in torture like mine the rest of your days; may your beauty turn to ugliness such that men will spit at you ”

“ Thou, Sebastián, art an unfortunate fellow that knowest not the best in life. Imagine all the women of Seville put together! Nothing! Imagine all those of all the towns where we have been! Nothing, either! There is only Doña Sol. When one knows a lady like that one has no mind for any other. If thou didst know her as I do, boy! The woman of our kind smell of clean flesh, of white clothing. But this one, Sebastián, this one! ”

“ He was a member of the Tule or San Blas tribe of Indians, which not many years ago lived on the Atlantic coast of Panama, peaceably pursuing an [37] honest, industrious life, occupied in fishing, hunting, farming, and sometimes trading.
Juan knew well what his ancestors had suffered from the Spaniards centuries ago, and how much it had cost to resist successfully their attacks. In consequence, he had no love for the white man. His hatred, however, did not include everybody, and he was on terms of close friendship with Enrique's father, who often marketed the fish Juan caught. ”

“ Nor is the fairness of the earth less than the brightness of the sky—intensely blue, not a cloud visible; and although the Alcazar{96} stands in the midst of a noisy city, the silence and solitude are complete.
Everything in this apartment is disposed for the king. He is greatly changed. A mortal illness has seized him, and he has barely escaped with his life. As he moves feebly along the marble floor, he is supported on either side by Don Juan de Mañara and Garcia de Padilla, then sinks exhausted upon a pile of eastern cushions prepared for him on an estrado. ”

“ If he give me but a capable force—Twenty foot and six horse?—'tis but a weak array for a field where eighty men have perished. Yet I care not: if I have but Xicotencal to back me, with some two or three xiquipils [9] of his Tlascalans, it will be enough. If I fall,—perhaps that will be better: I am too faint-hearted for these wars. Villafana says, that he brands the prisoners too, and sells them for slaves. This is surely unjust—He was another man at Cuba."
At this moment, the dog raised his head and growled, and Juan heard steps approaching through the long passage, that ran by his door. ”

“ The destruction of Spanish shipping by Drake and other English seamen who followed his example, had caused great anxiety to the Spaniards and was partly the reason for this order.
“Send for Don Sebastian,” said the viceroy. “He is a brave gentleman and good sailor. He shall carry out the order of the king.” But it took time to fit out such an expedition, and it was not until an afternoon in May, 1602, that Don Sebastian Vizcaino, on his flagship, the San Diego, sailed out of the harbor of Acapulco into the broad Pacific. ”

“ San Sebastian is a conglomeration of parvenus and upstarts from Pamplona, Saragossa, Valladolid, Chile and Chuquisaca, who are anxious to show themselves off. Some do this by walking alongside of the King, or by taking coffee with a famous bull-fighter, or by bowing to some aristocrat. The young men of San Sebastian are among the most worthless in Spain. ”

“ The most famous Sebastián would have been the martyr, Saint Sebastian, who was to be executed by being riddled with arrows, and survived. The most relevant Don Sebastían may be Sebastián de Belalcázar, the early conquistador who conquered Quito and searched for El Dorado, before being executed for crimes during his later governorship. ”

“ To whom God sends no children, the devil sends nephews and nieces.”
The carnival Candalaria had timed her visit for, was well worth seeing. It was a famous year in Spain for pageants of all sorts. The King’s engagement and approaching marriage put everybody in a good-natured, money-spending mood. Great enthusiasm was expressed for what was always spoken of as “the English alliance.” Whenever the King gave his ministers the slip, and ran off in{308} his automobile to see the Princess Ena at San Sebastián, everybody was delighted. ”

“ Sebastian, who had no time in which to recover himself, made but a weak resistance when Pancho Cueto locked his wrists into a pair of clumsy, old-fashioned manacles, first passing the chain around one of the bars of the iron window-grating which Esteban had indicated. Sebastian felt that his whole world was tumbling about his ears. He thought he must be dreaming.
Cueto swung a heavy lash; the sound of his blows echoed through the quinta, and they summoned, among others, Dona Isabel, who watched the scene from behind her shutter with much satisfaction. The guests looked on approvingly. ”

“ In the land of Guiana there is a golden city named Manoa, but El Dorado in the Spanish language, which stands on the shores of a vast inland lake whose waters are salt, which is called Parima, and which is two hundred leagues in length. Juan Martinez was the first white man to visit it, and he did so through no fault of his own! ”

“ Sebastian nodded gloomily. "He is like a cat with its nine lives. We have beaten and starved him, but he laughs—this Gringo devil—and tells us he will live to see us wearing stripes in prison."
"Muy bien." Manuel talked on briskly, so as to give the slower-witted Mexican no time to get set in obstinacy. "I should be able to arrange matters then. We must free the man after I have his word to tell nothing."
"But he will run straight to the sheriff," protested Sebastian. ”

“ In the night, some of them sallied out, burned the towns of Quiapo and Tondo, and killed many Indians. They were opposed by one [223] hundred and thirty Spaniards, almost all of whom perished: among them were Don Luis Dasmariñas, Don Thomas Brabo, and Don Juan de Alcega, whose heads the Chinese sent to Parian, as an incitement for their countrymen to follow their example. Upon examination, it being discovered that Engcan was the principal abettor of these men, he was imprisoned, which had such an effect upon many of his countrymen, that they hanged themselves in despair. ”

“ Esteban's guests fought as much for their lives as for vengeance upon the slayer, for Sebastian was like a gorilla; he seemed intent upon killing them all. He vented his fury upon whatever came within his reach; he struck at men and animals alike, and the shrieks of wounded horses added to the din.
It was a frightful combat. It seemed incredible that one man could work such dreadful havoc in so short a time. Varona and two of his friends were dead ”