“A half of it is yours by right,” said Diego.
“I shall not touch it, boy. But if you wish I will keep it safe.”
So they gave him their gold to keep. Then Juan spoke to him.
“I crave your pardon, Martin Alonzo, but I wish to speak in behalf of Miguel.”
“The knave!” said Martin Alonzo, frowning.
“He tried to save me, cousin. He did, indeed,” said Diego.
“Why, so he has always sworn, but I believed him not. Why, then, he must be freed; but he is a scurvy fellow at best. If he had been half in earnest he might have saved you, it seems to me,” said Martin Alonzo, who, as Diego and Juan afterwards discovered, had not grown less obstinate during their absence.
Being in some measure the cause of his imprisonment, Diego went with Juan to see the man unchained. Miguel was in a strange mood. At first he refused to speak to Juan at all; but afterwards thawed and was as friendly as ever, not only to him, but to Diego, acting as if he had forgotten that he had ever seemed to dislike the latter. And, indeed, it never was certain that he did remember; for, to make an end of his part in this story, he was never himself again, and, in fact, died before ever the _Pinta_ reached Spain, nobody rightly knowing what his ailment was.
[Illustration: “DIEGO WENT WITH JUAN TO SEE THE MAN UNCHAINED.”]
WHETHER or not the admiral ever learned of the loss and subsequent return of Diego and Juan cannot be known. Certain it is that he made no mention of their adventure in his account of the voyage, rendered to the queen upon his return to Spain.
At the time he was not told by any one in authority or with the knowledge to relate the facts as they were; for he did not go aboard the _Pinta_, but gave his orders from his deck, when the vessels were near enough for that, or had Martin Alonzo visit him when they had need to communicate.
The next day after the return of the boys the order was given to set sail, and the two vessels started to coast around the island. They did not go farther than the eastern end of the island, however, and then the admiral got the notion of wishing to visit one of the Carib islands, in order to see some of those fierce savages; and perhaps he would have gone on that voyage, as he did on a subsequent one, if a fair wind for home had not sprung up, and caused the sailors to be so home-sick that they begged him most piteously to turn towards the east.