But the people in Santo Domingo put no faith in the Admiral’s “probabilities.”  There will be no storm, the captains and the officers said.  If there should be our ships are strong enough to stand it.  The Admiral Columbus is getting to be timid as he grows older.  And in spite of the old sailor’s warning, the big gold fleet sailed out of the harbor of Santo Domingo and headed for Spain.

But almost before they had reached the eastern end of the island of Hayti, the storm that Columbus had prophesied burst upon them.

It was a terrible tempest.  Twenty of the ships went to the bottom.  The great gold fleet was destroyed.  The enemies of Columbus—­Bobadilla, Roldan and the rest were drowned.  Only a few of the ships managed to get back into Santo Domingo Harbor, broken and shattered.  And the only ship of all the great fleet that got safely through the storm and reached Spain all right was the one that carried on board the gold that belonged to Columbus.  Was not that singular?

Then all the friends of Columbus cried:  How wonderful!  Truly the Lord is on the side of the great Admiral!

But his enemies said:  This Genoese is a wizard.  He was mad because the governor would not let him come into the harbor, and he raised this storm in revenge.  It is a dangerous thing to interfere with the Admiral’s wishes.

For you see in those days people believed in witches and spells and all kinds of fairy-book things like those, when they could not explain why things happened.  And when they could not give a good reason for some great disaster or for some stroke of bad luck, they just said:  It is witchcraft; and left it so.

CHAPTER XII.  HOW THE ADMIRAL PLAYED ROBINSON CRUSOE.

While the terrible storm that wrecked the great gold fleet of the governor was raging so furiously, Columbus with his four ships was lying as near shore as he dared in a little bay farther down the coast of Hayti.  Here he escaped the full fury of the gale, but still his ships suffered greatly, and came very near being shipwrecked.  They became separated in the storm, but the caravels met at last after the storm was over and steered away for the island of Jamaica.

For several days they sailed about among the West India Islands; then they took a westerly course, and on the thirtieth of July, Columbus saw before him the misty outlines of certain high mountains which he supposed to be somewhere in Asia, but which we now know were the Coast Range Mountains of Honduras.  And Honduras, you remember, is a part of Central America.

Just turn to the map of Central America in your geography and find Honduras.  The mountains, you see, are marked there; and on the northern coast, at the head of a fine bay, you will notice the seaport town of Truxillo.  And that is about the spot where, for the first time, Columbus saw the mainland of North America.