01 Serpent by Clive Cussler & Paul Kemprecos

Author:Clive Cussler & Paul Kemprecos [Cussler, Clive & Kemprecos, Paul]
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

23

THE FAX MACHINE HUMMED, AND THE FIRST PAGES OF NEATLY typewritten paper began to come through. As promised, Ortega sent along copies of the original written in neat Castilian Spanish. Perlmutter cleared a space on his desk to accommodate the paperwork. Fortifying himself with a cup of cappuccino, he began to read the words that may or may not have been written by Christopher Columbus and transcribed by Las Casas.

23 May, in the year of our Lord 1506

Most exalted, excellent and powerful prince, King of the Spains and of the islands of the Ocean Sea, our Sovereign. High Noble Lord.

I sail to the Indies once again, perhaps never to return, for I am mortal, old and weakened by illness, and the way is hard and fraught with dangers. I make this voyage without the permission and blessing of Your Highness, but at my own expense, having used my meager fortune to fit out a single vessel, the Niña, which I know to be suitable to the undertaking for it has served me well on many occasions since my first voyage.

I go not in my capacity as High Admiral of all the Ocean Sea, but as on my first expedition, as a humble sailor, a Captain who sailed from Spain to the Indies, to find new lands, and gold for Castile, by which the Sovereign may undertake the conquest of the Holy Land, which has always been my intention.

But my story must begin four years before this. My Sovereign is well acquainted with the trials of my last voyage, in the year 1502, when, having freed me from chains, and forgiven me for my errors, by your clemency and consolation you and my Queen again granted great favors and ennobled me, sending me forward with four ships. How on this High Voyage our fleet survived a terrible storm and found new lands which I claimed, with the help of God, in the name of the Sovereigns, even though I had fallen ill, often seeming at death’s door, commanding the ship from a small cabin I had built on deck.

This was the most unhappy and disappointing of all my voyages. We did not find the strait to the west that we were looking for, the natives greeted us, not with friendliness as before, but with arrows and spears. All was against us, the biscuits maggoty, the weather and wind fearsome, until at last our sinking ships came upon a safe harbor where we were marooned for a year and five days in a place I never expected to leave alive, until that joyful day we were rescued. Then the worst ocean crossing of my life.

But more than any storms, or disease, or the depredations of the natives, was my knowledge that for all my attempt to serve Their Majesties with as much love and diligence as I might have used to win the Gates of Paradise and more, I have failed in matters that were beyond my knowledge and strength. While I charted new lands, I lost four ships and found little gold or other treasure.

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