I could read the signs of deep depression in the face not only of my master but of the Admiral, Álava, who, in spite of his wounds, still kept on his feet and signalled to the frigate to make all possible speed; but, instead of responding to his very natural haste, the Themis prepared to shorten sail so as to be able to keep before the gale. I shared the general dismay and could not help reflecting on the irony with which Fate mocks at our surest calculations and best founded hopes, on the swiftness with which she flings us from happy security to the depth of misery. Here we were, on the wide ocean, that majestic emblem of human life. A gust of wind and it is completely transformed, the light ripple which gently caressed the vessel’s side swells into a mountain of water that lashes and beats it, the soft music of the wavelets in a calm turns to a loud, hoarse voice, threatening the frail barque which flings itself into the waters as though its keel were unable to balance it, to rise the next moment buffeted and tossed by the very wave that has lifted it from the abyss. A lovely day ends in a fearful night, or, on the other hand, a radiant moon that illumines an infinite sky and soothes the soul, pales before an angry sun at whose light all nature quakes with dismay.
We had experienced all these viscissitudes, and in addition, those which are the result of the will of man. We had suffered shipwreck in the midst of defeat; after escaping once we had been compelled to fight again, this time with success; and then, when we thought ourselves out of our troubles, when we hailed Cádiz with delight, we were once more at the mercy of the tempest which had treacherously deluded us only to destroy us outright. Such a succession of adverse fortune seemed monstrous—it was like the malignant aberrations of a divinity trying to do all the harm he could devise to us hapless mortals—but it was only the natural course of things at sea, combined with the fortune of war. Given a combination of these two fearful forces and none but an idiot can be astonished at the disasters that must ensue.
Another circumstance contributed to my master’s distress of mind, and to mine too, that evening. Since the rescue of the Santa Ana Malespina had disappeared. At last, after seeking him everywhere, I discovered him lying in a heap on a sofa in the cabin. I went up to him and saw that he was very pale; I spoke to him but he could not answer. He tried to move but fell back gasping.
“Are you wounded?” I asked. “I will fetch someone to attend to you.”
“It is nothing,” he said. “Can you get me some water?”
I went at once for my master.
“What is the matter—this wound in your hand?” said he, examining the young officer.
“It is more than that,” replied Don Rafael sadly, and he put his hand to his right side close by his sword-belt. And, then, as if the effort of pointing out his wound and speaking those few words had been too much for his weakened frame, he closed his eyes and neither spoke nor moved for some minutes.
“This is serious,” said my master anxiously.
“It is more than serious,” said a surgeon who had come to examine him. Malespina, deeply depressed by finding himself in so evil a plight, and believing himself past all hope, had not even reported himself as wounded, but had crept away to this corner where he had given himself up to his reflections and memories. He believed that he was killed and he would not have the wound touched. The surgeon assured him that though it was dangerous it need not prove mortal, though he owned that if he did not get into port that night so that he might be properly treated on shore, his life, like that of the rest of the wounded, was in the greatest danger. The Santa Ana had lost ninety-seven men killed on the 21st, and a hundred and forty wounded; all the resources of the surgery were exhausted and many indispensable articles were altogether wanting. Malespina’s catastrophe was not the only one during the rescue, and it had been the will of Heaven that another man very near and dear to me should share his fate. Marcial had been wounded; though at first his indomitable spirit had kept him up and he hardly felt the pain and depression, before long he submitted to be carried down into the cockpit, confessing that he was very badly hit. My master sent a surgeon to attend to him, but all he would say was that the wound would have been trifling in a man of five-and-twenty—but Marcial was past sixty.
Meanwhile the Rayo passed to leeward and we hailed her. Álava begged her to enquire of the Themis whether the captain thought he could get us into Cádiz, and when he roundly said, “No,” the Admiral asked whether the Rayo, which was almost unharmed, expected to get in safely. Her captain thought she might and it was agreed that Gardoqui, who was severely wounded, and several others, should be sent on board her, among them Don Rafael Malespina. Don Alonso obtained that Marcial should also be transferred to her in consideration for his age which greatly aggravated his case, and he sent me, too, in charge of
