Colўn allowed himself a hint of a smile. "If you were such a fine sailor, you'd know that to the north of us the prevailing wind blows from the west."

"And how would you know that?" The scorn in Pinzўn's voice was outrageous.

"You're speaking to the commander of Their Majesties' fleet," said Segovia.

Pinzўn fell silent for the moment; perhaps he had spoken more openly than he intended, for now at least.

"When you were a pirate," said Colўn quietly, "I sailed the coast of Africa with the Portuguese."

From the growling of the men, Pedro knew that the Captain-General had just committed a serious mistake. The rivalry between the men of Palos and the sailors of the Portuguese coast was intensely felt, all the more so because the Portuguese were so clearly the better, farther-reaching sailors. And to throw in Pinzўn's face his days of piracy -- well, that was a crime that all of Palos was guilty of, during the hardest days of the war against the Moors, when normal trade was impossible. Colўn might have buttressed his credentials as a sailor, but he did it at the immediate cost of losing what vestiges of loyalty he might have commanded among the men.

"Dispose of the body," said the Captain-General. Then he turned his back on them and returned to the camp.

The runner from Guacanagari couldn't stop laughing as he told the story of the death of the Silent Man. "The white men are so stupid that they killed him first and tortured him afterward!"

Diko heard this with relief. Kemal had died quickly. And the Pinta had been destroyed.

"We must watch the white men's village," said Diko. "The white men will turn against their cacique soon, and we must make sure he comes to Ankuash, and not to any other village."

Chapter 12 -- Refuge

The woman up in the mountain had cursed him, but Cristoforo knew that it was not by any sort of witchery. The curse was that he couldn't think of anything but her, anything but what she had said. Every subject kept leading back to the challenges she had issued.

Could God have possibly sent her? Was she, at last, the first reaffirmation he had received since that vision on the beach? She knew so much: The words that the Savior had spoken to him. The language of his youth in Genova. His sense of guilt about his son, left to be raised by the monks of La Rdbida.

Yet she was nothing like what he looked for. Angels were dazzling white, weren't they? That's how all the artists showed them. So perhaps she wasn't an angel. But why would God send her a woman -- an African woman? Weren't black people devils? Everyone said so, and in Spain it was well known that black Moors fought like demons. And among the Portuguese it was well known that the black savages of the Guinea coast engaged in devil worship and magic, and cursed with diseases that quickly killed any white man who dared set foot on African shores.

On the other hand, his purpose was to baptize the people he found at the end of his voyage, wasn't it? If they could be baptized, it meant they could be saved. If they could be saved, then perhaps she was right, and once they were converted these people would be Christian and have the same rights as any European.

But they were savages. They went about naked. They couldn't read or write.

They could learn.

If only he could see the world through his page's eyes. Young Pedro was obviously smitten with Chipa. Dark as she was, squat and ugly, she did have a good smile, and no one could deny that she was as smart as any Spanish girl. She was learning about Christ. She insisted on being baptized at once. When that happened, shouldn't she have the same protection as any other Christian?

"Captain-General," said Segovia, "you must pay attention. Things are getting out of hand with the men. Pinzўn is impossible -- he obeys only those orders he happens to agree with, and the men obey only those orders that he consents to."

"And what would you have me do?" asked Cristoforo. "Clap him in irons?"

"That's what the King would have done."

"The King had irons. Ours are at the bottom of the sea. And the King also had thousands of soldiers to see to it his words were obeyed. Where are my soldiers, Segovia?"

"You have not acted with sufficient authority."

"I'm sure you would have done better in my place."

"That is not impossible, Captain-General."

"I see that the spirit of insubordination is contagious," said Cristoforo. "But rest easy. As the black woman in the mountain said, it will be one calamity after another. Perhaps after the next calamity, you'll find yourself in command of this expedition as the King's inspector."

"I could not do a worse job of it than you."

"Yes, I'm sure that's right," said Cristoforo. "That Turk would not have blown up the Pinta, and you would have peed on the Nina and put the fire out."

"I see that you forget in whose name I speak."

"Only because you have forgotten whose charter I bear. If you have authority from the King, kindly remember that I have a greater authority from the same source. If Pinzўn chooses to blow over the last remnants of that authority, I am not the only one who will fall in that wind."

Yet no sooner was Segovia gone than Cristoforo was once again trying to puzzle out what God expected of him. Was there anything he could do now to bring the men back under his command? Pinzўn had them building a ship, but these weren't the shipbuilders of Palos here, these were common sailors. Domingo was a good cooper, but making a barrel wasn't the same as laying a keel. Lopez was a caulker, not a carpenter. And most of the other men were clever enough with their hands, but what none of them had in his head was the knowledge, the practice of building a ship.

They had to try, though. Had to try, and if they failed the first time, try again. So there was no quarrel between Cristoforo and Pinzўn over the effort to build a ship. The quarrel came over the way the men were treating the Indians that they needed to help them. The generous spirit of cooperation that Guacanagari's people had shown in helping unload the Santa Maria had long since faded. The more the Spaniards ordered them around, the less the Indians did. Fewer and fewer of them showed up each day, which meant that those who did got treated even worse. They seemed to think that every Spaniard, no matter how low in rank or station, was entitled to give commands -- and punishments -- to any Indian, no matter how young or old, no matter ...

These thoughts come from her, Cristoforo realized again. Until I spoke with her, I didn't question the right of white men to give commands to brown ones. Only since she poisoned my mind with her strange interpretation of Christianity did I start seeing the way the Indians quietly resist being treated like slaves. I would have thought of them the way Pinzўn does, as worthless, lazy savages. But now I see that they are quiet, gentle, unwilling to provoke a quarrel. They endure a beating quietly -- but then don't return to be beaten again. Except that even some who have been beaten still return to help, of their own free will, avoiding the cruelest of the Spaniards but still helping the others as much as they can. Isn't this what Christ meant when he said to turn the other cheek? If a man compels you to walk a mile with him, then walk the second mile by your own choice -- wasn't that Christianity? So who were the Christians? The baptized Spaniards, or the unbaptized Indians?

She has turned the world upside down. These Indians know nothing of Jesus, and yet they live by the Savior's word, while the Spanish, who have fought for centuries in the name of Christ, have become a bloodthirsty, brutal people. And yet no worse than any other people in Europe. No worse than the bloody-handed Genovese, with their feuds and murders. Was it possible that God had brought him here, not to bring enlightenment to the heathen, but to learn it from them?