Their last hope of rescue was
gone; but no--Diego Mendez offered to start all over again, if only Don
Bartolome would march with an armed force along the shore till there
came a favorable moment in the weather for Diego to push across to
Haiti.
This precaution saved the intrepid Diego a second surprise from
cannibals; but the passage, after leaving Jamaica, was torture. So
intense was the heat, that he and his Indian rowers were forced to take
turns jumping overboard and swimming alongside the canoe in order to
cool off. The Indians, like children, wanted to drink all the water at
once. In spite of warning, they emptied the kegs the second night, and
then lay down on the bottom of the canoe, panting for more. Diego and
his Spanish companion did the rowing till the Indians were rested a bit.
Then Diego brought out two more kegs of water which he had artfully
hidden under his seat, gave them all a drink, and set them to work
again. Late that second night the moon came up, not out of the sea, but
behind the jagged rock that lies ten miles off the western end of Haiti.
Blessed sight! What new courage it put into the tired rowers; how eager
they were to make the rock by sunrise so as to lie in its shade all that
August day of 1503, instead of blistering under the torrid sun in an
open boat.
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