The King's Fifth Read Online Free

pellets of water, hard as stone, whipped our faces.
    From my memory of Ulloa's instructions, a thought raced through my mind. June was the month of the
Chubasco,
wind with rain. Spring and Fall were the seasons of the dry
Santana.
The most dreaded wind born in all the wilderness of Cortés' Sea blew in January. This
was summer but still, somehow, that wind was blowing now and we were in its path.

    "
Cordonazo!
" I shouted.
    The word was driven back into my throat. It made no difference. None in the longboat would have heard or understood. Wrestled to their knees by the wind, our men were trying to claw through the mound of provisions to a safer place in the bilge. Alarcón's sailor gallantly clung to the rudder.
    The
Cordonazo's
first breath had parted a rope. The sail now streamed over our heads like a banner. The sailor rose to save it, but when he reached out the wind lifted him into the air. He fell upon the sea and as a man slides on the deck of a ship, so hard was the surface of the water, he slid past us and out of view.
    There was no hope of saving him. Indeed, in our hearts all of us felt that we would never save ourselves. Either one by one we would be plucked from the boat by the steel fingers of the
Cordonazo,
or we would founder at once, together.
    The myriad, snakelike voices of the wind became one, a scream that rose and fell and rose again. An oar, a helmet, a cask of flour, a scabbard were caught by the wind and flung into the sea.
    The shore disappeared. I saw by the pale sun that we were being driven into the northwest. From what I remembered of the chart the sea was open there, free of islands and reefs upon which we could be wrecked.
    We raced out of the shallows where the wind had bitten off the waves. A hill of gray water now came up
behind us. Our stern lifted high and we sank downward, downward until it seemed that we must founder on the bare rocks beneath the sea.

    At this moment Captain Mendoza crawled the length of the boat and wrapped his arms around the tiller. But for this we would have drowned. As it was, the longboat listed and began to fill with water.
    We bailed, using our helmets, until our hands bled. We bailed through the afternoon, never stopping. The sun went down and still we bailed, except Roa the drummer who lay as if dead.
    A star showed in the east. It was small and wan, yet it proved an omen of good fortune. The wind lessened and began to blow in gusts. The moon rose in a sky swept clean of mist, turning the gray waves to silver.
    For a time it was quiet, yet we waited. We looked at the sky, the sea, at each other, not believing that the
Cordonazo
had blown itself out and that we were still alive.
    With the toe of his boot Captain Mendoza aroused Roa. "Drummer," he said, "a tune. Something of a lively nature."
    Roa stirred himself and rose from the bilge. "The drum has grown soggy," he said.
    "Play," the captain said.
    While three of us bailed and Mendoza held the rudder, Roa beat his drum. The sound was hollow, but as we drifted into the north it served to enliven us.

4
    T HE WAVES GREW SMALLER in the night. Taking turns, two men bailing while the others slept, we kept the longboat dry. At dawn the sea was calm. By the early light we surveyed the storm's damage.

    My first thought was for the maps and instruments, which I had carefully wrapped when we left the
San Pedro
and placed between two bags of flour. The flour was wet, but to my great relief the roll was safe, uninjured by the sea water.
    Our swords and daggers, we found, were already beginning to rust. One of Mendoza's cloaks was gone, besides a small sack of trinkets we had brought for barter with the Indians. The oar and sail, however, blown away in the first blast of the wind, were our most grievous loss.
    "We have been driven afar," Mendoza said, looking at the instruments I held in my lap. "How far, Maker of Maps?"
    "It is impossible to tell until noon," I said. "Then I shall take a reading on the