The King's Fifth Read Online Free Page A

sun."
    "What is your guess?"
    "Ten leagues."
    "How far away is the coast?"

    "Perhaps five leagues."
    "Then we should see it."
    "Not from our height, unless there were mountains on the coast," I said, explaining to him that since the world was proven round the horizon lowered five
varas
every half league.
    He did not wait to hear me out. "We head for the coast," he said, and gave orders for the stitching of a sail.
    The sail was a makeshift, two blankets sewed together, yet it served to catch what wind there was. With it and the aid of our one oar, we set a course to eastward.
    At noon we took our first water that day, drinking little from the goatskin Mendoza passed around. Our throats soon were parched again, for the sun shone fiercely upon us. It fell upon us like fiery rain. It struck the sea and shattered into a thousand barbs of light that blinded our eyes and seared our flesh.
    At dusk we sighted land low on the horizon.
    About the same time, sitting at the oar, I noted that the boat left no wake and that we were moving north-by-east in a crablike motion. It was as if the whole sea were flowing away from the land.
    "I remember that Ulloa's chart speaks of strong currents in this part of the sea," I told Mendoza, "caused by the difference between high and low tide, often as much as twenty feet. We must be caught in such a current. Furthermore, the chart warns that a boat cannot move against these tides, but must go with them until they run their course."
    Mendoza glanced at the coast, less than a league away. His face hardened and I could see that he meant to reach it. Jumping to his feet, he reset the sail to catch more wind and shouted for Zuñiga to help me at the oar.

    "Pull, you sons of Spain!" he shouted.
    And pull we did until our eyes started from their sockets. The heavy longboat did not change direction. Mendoza pushed me aside and took my place at the oar. Yet the boat sped onward with the powerful tide, farther and farther from the coast.
    Until midnight the tide held fast. Then, as you open your hand and free a bird, it released us.
    At this time, using the Pole Star, I found its elevation above the sea and thus our position, south and north. (Someday a man wise in these matters will think of a trustworthy way to tell distance east and west. Even now, I have heard, there is a navigator in Portugal who claims to have invented such a method. Would that he had been with us on the Sea of Cortés!)
    "We have been carried back," I told Mendoza, "almost to the place I fixed at noon."
    "But how far is the coast?" he demanded.
    "That I do not know."
    "A cartographer and you cannot tell right from left?"
    I tried to explain to him why this was difficult, but turning his back, he raised the sail and again we set toward the east.
    We were too tired to row, so we ate a few biscuits, took sips of water, and lay down to sleep, all of us except Captain Mendoza. He sat at the tiller, holding the goatskin
of water, which was now half-empty, between his knees.

    The sun seemed to grow hotter. We dug small caves among the baggage to lie in when we were not rowing. We drank no water until midday and then only one mouthful apiece.
    Low yellow cliffs marched along beside us and a heavy surf beat against them. Through the afternoon we watched for a soft place to land, but saw none.
    Night came and we sailed slowly on into the north. In the morning the yellow cliffs were still there. Fog hung over the sea but the sun quickly bore through it and sought us out.
    We now were too exhausted to row, so we lay in our caves and came out only to take turns at the tiller.
    We passed close to a small island covered with birds. They stood motionless as the longboat sailed by, their red beaks hanging open in the heat.
    From the south white clouds rolled up and the wind died to a whisper.
    "Tell us, scanner of the heavens, reader of charts," Mendoza said. "Tell us what Ulloa has about clouds."
    The words were thick for his mouth was swollen