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DISCOVERY
A FRAGMENT
ACT III
Scene.—Mid-Ocean, on board the Santa Maria. COLUMBUS, NINO, ROLDAN, MATHEOS, near the man at the wheel. About the deck and in the forecastle Sailors, among them GIACOMO, theCOLUMBUS.
Steersman, hold straight into the west.
NINO.
The birds
Fly southward, sir.
COLUMBUS.
They do.
NINO.
They seem land-birds, sir.
COLUMBUS.
And seek the land. I think it probable
Some island lies there, Nino.
NINO.
Your pardon, sir,
But why hold course to westward if the land
Be in the south?
COLUMBUS.
The land is in the west.
Haphazard islets in the middle sea
May rise leagues from the mainland. Not for such
Have we outsailed the Carthaginian dream
And pierced the sea of glooms. Steersman, I say,
Hold straight into the west.
MATHEOS.
What say you, Roldan?
Does he not carry it right hidalgo-like,
Our paper grandee, Admiral of the clouds,
And viceroy of the moon?
ROLDAN.
We whom he promised gold, this Genovese,
We shall go back to beg for copper sous
About the streets of Seville.
NINO.
Back, my masters!
Now, by St. James, I would that day were here,
For I am fearsome it will never dawn.
ROLDAN.
What mean you?
NINO.
Shall we evermore see Spain again?
I have served twenty captains in my life,
And but one madman. Have ye ne'er heard tales
Of phantom ships that seek to make a port
And fail forever?
MATHEOS.
We see Spain again;
The order's ta'en for that.
Be still! The Joker!
NINO.
Sirs, what's afoot?
MATHEOS.
Which do you set the higher,
Life and Castile or this Italian Boaster?
NINO.
I ne'er feared death in a fair fight, my mates,
But who will pour his life out for a whim
Or strive with the Devil knows what! Have you seen naught
O' nights upon your watch, strange and unnatural?
MATHEOS.
What, you have seen it, too?
NINO.
And you have seen it?
ROLDAN.
The needle?
NINO.
Ay, it points no longer north—
MATHEOS.
Or else the Pole-star wavers from its place;
NINO.
But if the eternal sky is still secure
That makes the iron veer toward the west
As if some magnet greater than the Pole
Lay yonder where we steer; that Mount Magnetic
That like the Kraken of the North devours
The ocean leagues like grass, and which men say
Sucks out the rivets of the stoutest ships
Letting them melt into their elements
Like frostwork in the sun.
ROLDAN.
Be still, I say;
Here comes the Genovese!
MATHEOS.
More words with you.
(They draw apart; COLUMBUS and DE ARANA on the port side.)
COLUMBUS.
And still holds fair, you see.
DE ARANA.
True, sir, and yet
Uneasily I shift my thought about
With something, I confess, of awe,—well, fear,
Fear, if you will!
COLUMBUS.
You say it, De Arana,
Not I.
How far the loneliness recedes!
The weight o' the stillness stifles!
COLUMBUS.
We are the first
Except the angels who have looked upon
The silence of this sea—and yet behold
How beautiful it is! Ocean and sky
Tremble with heat and color; each light vapour
Encrimsons with the sun, and the clear deeps
Let the light plunge down fathoms undersea,
Where the strange embryo life of Ocean moves
As on the first day when the spirit of God
Was brooding on the waters. Oh, it is good
To know the secrets of this world! And I
Believe, Arana, nay I know, the day
Nears when God's wisdom shall reveal to us
What no man yet has seen or dreamed on earth,
Scholar or seaman. I seem to feel already
The far-off power of equatorial suns
And dim foretokens of the austral sky.
(He retires, and seeks the lookout.)
DE ARANA.
He dreams, he dreams—even as he dreamed in Spain,
While the court mocked and whispered. Now almost
Believes himself. I am his kinsman—half—
Through Beatrix! If I break faith with Pinzon,
Who is but my countryman, and rip the mask
From this revolt that threats to make this night
An end of all his dreams!
I have good will to it. Break faith with Pinzon?
What's that but keep faith with the Genovese?
Bah, I dream, too! The crews are as one man
And will not venture farther. Who is he
That can compel them? Though the receding West
Held Edens for his Indies, Founts of youth
And trees of life for gems and mines of gold,
He stands alone. Well, well! When all is said,
I shall be glad, for one, to be in Spain.
Giacomo!
GIACOMO.
(Approaching.)
Ay, sir.
DE ARANA.
Yet no land?
GIACOMO.
Nor would be
If we sailed on for ever.
DE ARANA.
Is 't to-night?
Ay, sir.
DE ARANA.
The signal?
GIACOMO.
The boatswain's whistle, sir. The Pinta and the Nina run along side at nightfall, as soon as the commander goes below for his devotion.
SANCHEZ.
(Who has drawn near from behind.)
Ay, his
Angelus—or his Diabolus, for I am sure the devil
is in this wind that blows always with his desires.
GIACOMO.
You say well, sir. We are all agreed there is sorcery in 't.
SANCHEZ.
Or else there blow no winds for Spain in these waters.
DE ARANA.
Well, well!—But when he is saying his prayers, be they to angel or devil, what then?
GIACOMO.
Why, sir, then I pipe all hands on deck, and before Windbags knows what's up, the Captains Pinzon and their crews have boarded us.
It is near nightfall now.
GIACOMO.
Ay, sir, and the dark comes on here like the blowing out of a light in a cellar.
DE ARANA.
Or a tomb. The sun sets, and Night stalks over the sea in seven league boots.
GIACOMO.
We come too near her dwelling place.
WILLIAM IRES.
(In a group of sailors on the starboard side.)
Eh, mates, but I'm of another mind. Faith, I think
there's land ahead, but we've passed it. Didn't the
blessed St. Brandon sail into the west and discover
a land so beautiful that he never came back again?
And by the same token he was an Irishman.
TALLARTE.
He must have been. That is a very Irish story.
IRES.
That's your Saxon envy, Tallarte de Lajes. It takes more than a Spanish name to hide an English dunderhead.
TALLARTE.
If your old bog-trotting saint discovered something, why don't anybody know it?
Faith he kept it to himself, and that's the chief pleasure of a discovery.
TALLARTE.
Then I suppose you're for going ahead.
IRES.
I am, with the ship turned around—
GIACOMO.
(Who has joined them.)
Who talks of going
ahead?
TALLARTE.
William Ires.
IRES.
Who told you so? I said the old man was right in looking for land, for an Irishman and a saint found it before him. And that I will maintain. But I am in favour of going back, and listen you all, it is not because I am afraid—but because I am tired of sailing in one direction.
GIACOMO.
Corpo di Baccho, there may be land ahead worse than the sea—Listen, I have just overheard the mates saying that by a sure computation we should come in eight days more to a mountain made all of loadstone.
SEBASTIAN.
Mother of God!
And as soon as we come in sight of this mountain, the bolts will all fly out of their places and the ships sink into the sea.
SAILORS.
Oh, Oh!
SEBASTIAN.
And hark ye, Master Giacomo, I have been told by Moors, to whom the Devil has taught much forbidden knowledge, that in these parts dwelleth the great bird, Roc, whose wings darken the sky, and who grasps the largest frigate with his mighty talons as easily as an owl clutches a field-mouse. Then soaring up higher than the topmost clouds, tears it to atoms and drops them in the sea.
SAILORS.
Oh, oh!
GIACOMO.
Masters, this is a voyage of ill-fortune.
SAILORS.
Ay, that it is.
GIACOMO.
First, we set sail on a Friday.
A SAILOR.
No good ever came of beginning aught o' Friday.
GIACOMO.
Then there was the burning mountain.
Teneriffe!
GIACOMO.
Ay, Teneriffe, terrific, set in the sea
To warn the impious back that dare to press
Beyond the bounds of things! All night it flared,
Blazoning on the clouds tremendous dooms,
While from the dark we watched and trembled, Yet
This portent braved, and the long cutting through
The interminable net of magic herbs,
That strove to wind us in a woven charm,
Still lured by signs of land from league to league
Which still proved lying, till the very stars
Began to shift in heaven— (Four bells.)
COLUMBUS.
Steersman, hold straight into the West! The Angelus.
(Silence, during which COLUMBUS disappears into the cabin. Here and there a sailor drops on his knees, crosses himself and prays. GIACOMO blows his whistle. Sailors silently come on deck from below—It darkens—The Pinta and Nina have come alongside.)
Enter over the taffrail, PINZON, and sailors.
PINZON.
Seamen.
[OMITTED]
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