Chapter XII: Surgeon to the Redskins

Colonists for the proposed new settlement having proved so easily forthcoming, the next step in the business was to provide them habitations, and shelter of some sort for the needful stores. Accordingly the next morning, almost as soon as it was light, a number of men were sent on shore, as builders of the first European town to be founded on the mainland of America. Bartholomew Columbus went with them to choose a site for the place of which he was to be the Governor; and amongst the number of his companions were Diego Mendez, Diego's special comrade Rodrigo de Escobar, and of course Montoro.

"I cannot get on at all without my sharp-eyed namesake," said the notary good-naturedly, when he pleaded with the Admiral for Montoro's company. And thus, some little it must be confessed to Ferdinand's vexation, Montoro was once more of the land-going party, proving of as much service on this occasion as on the last, although the results were not so immediately apparent.

Cutting timber, clearing ground of a troublesomely-luxuriant vegetation, and driving stakes, had progressed for some time merrily enough, to the evident wonder and interest of an ever-increasing crowd of natives, men, women, and children, when Diego Mendez, looking about him for a help in a hard piece of work, discovered Montoro some couple of hundred yards or so distant from the building-ground, and apparently engaged in a very private and earnest conversation with a couple of native women, and three or four children.

"What, in the name of St. Jago, is the lad after now?" he exclaimed rather irritably, for he had got his fingers pinched in a split bamboo he had wanted his _protégé_ to help him in sundering, and small annoyances were more trying to these brave Spaniards than great disasters. "Montoro," he shouted, "Montoro, you come here, can't you!"

Montoro was back like an arrow.

"Ay, Señor Mendez; what would you with me?"

"What would I?" was the hasty answer. "Why everything; all manner of things. But thou'rt such a fellow! Thou'rt never at hand when needed. At least,"--still growling, but with a grim dawning accent of compunction for injustice,--"at least not always. Here thou'st left me to well-nigh lose the half of my hand, while thou'st been trying to wheedle gold mine secrets out of those poor fools yonder, with that soft tongue of thine."

"No such thing," exclaimed Rodrigo de Escobar with his usual volubility, before Montoro could answer for himself. "You are mistaken, Mendez. Had the lad been using a soft tongue so usefully his absence might be the more readily forgiven him. But it is a stupid soft heart that deserves the blame this time. Because gold-seeker, discoverer, navigator, builder, and half-a-dozen other things are not trades enough for the young jackanapes to take to at once, he must needs be taking a turn now at surgery."

"Nay then, Rodrigo," said his friend incredulously, and looking alternately from the laughing accuser to the half-troubled accused. The face of neither tended in any way to relieve the notary's curiosity. "Speak out, man," he said at last. "With what is it that you charge the lad?"

"With what I say," replied de Escobar with another laugh. "With playing the surgeon unauthorized, Children and monkeys are all alike--they must needs imitate what they see others doing; and consequently, one of those monkey-children yonder got hold of my hammer awhile since, and of course contrived to hammer its own fingers pretty sharply."

"Terribly!" broke in Montoro impulsively, forgetting his temporary shyness in the recollection of his pity. "The poor little creature, my señor, has hammered his fingers perfectly black, and the poor ignorant mother could only cry over it, and do nothing; and so--and so--"

And so, and so Montoro Diego once more grew shy as his own part in the business drew to the fore, and came to a stammering conclusion, and Diego Mendez with a smile took up the tale.

"And so, and so then, my friend, I suppose you do really confess that Don Rodrigo de Escobar has laid only true things to your charge, and that you have thought, by adding your ignorance to the woman's ignorance, to make one wisdom. Hey, my modest young friend, then is it so?"

Montoro looked up now, with flushed cheeks it is true, but with some returning boldness also, as he replied sturdily--

"My ignorance, at any rate, my señor, has had this good result--that the child no longer cries. But if you would spare me yet another five minutes, I would fain return to him, just to make my bandages more secure than I left them in my haste upon your call."

"Come then, have your way," said his new patron good-humouredly. "I confess I am not a little curious to see what sort of surgery you have evolved from that daring head of yours, and whether it be not a gag in the squaller's mouth that has produced this peacefulness."

But there was no gag in the small redskin's smiling mouth, neither, assuredly, was there one in the mouth of the small redskin's mother, who poured forth a perfect torrent of incomprehensible words as she alternately kissed Montoro's feet and her child's injured hand, or rather the great bundle of wet leaf-poultice in which it was most scientifically enveloped.

"Umph!" muttered Diego Mendez, as he looked at the bound-up limb and the grateful mother. "And pray how hast thou come by thy skill, my friend? Is St. Luke thy patron saint, and has he instructed thee?"

"My mother has been my teacher," was the quiet answer. "And she had much learning of many various uses to mankind, from her father."

The notary cast a keen glance of sudden intelligence at his companion, and then said slowly--

"Ah, now thou hast let me into a secret as to thy birth that I had partly guessed at before. Now I know from what race thou hast drawn much of thine intelligence, and the bookishness that hath ofttimes surprised me. But hark ye, lad, for I have a kindness for thee. Tell to none others of our companions what thou hast thus told to me; for remember, Spain has decreed just now that she will have no dealings, save those of the fire and the rack, with the great race that is too wise for bigotry to let it live. And the favour thou art sure to win, and the good fortune, will make men but too ready to use ill tales against thee. But now--leave thy patient, and let us back to our building again, for the day wears fast."

So saying, he turned his steps back towards the rising settlement; and when Montoro had managed with some difficulty to disengage himself from the thankful woman, he followed his patron, the native child clinging to him with his sound hand, and contriving to make his short legs keep up with his companion's long ones.

A general laugh greeted the truant when he returned thus accompanied; but Montoro tossed up his handsome young head very independently as he shouted--

"Laugh as you may please, my señors; but when you desire a guide and an interpreter, do not then think to borrow mine."

"Ah! ha!" exclaimed Diego Mendez, not at all displeased at his _protégé's_ readiness. "My friends, methinks the lad hath had the best of it; and we were wise not to provoke him to register a vow to keep his useful new acquaintances to himself."

"If he did," muttered Rodrigo, "there would but need to draw a long and doleful face to make him break it. For no oath's sake would he ever be got to cut off a John Baptist's head."

"I'll cut off thine, though," grumbled Juan de Alba, "if thou keepest not those bamboo points to thyself, instead of using them to pierce mine eyes. Thou art a clumsy carpenter, in very deed, as ever I saw."

"And I rejoice that thou shouldst have to say so," retorted the other. "The fingers of Rodrigo de Escobar scorn this servile work."

"Do they also scorn to peel bananas?" asked the Adelantado, coming up with a great ripe bunch at an opportune moment to stop a squabble from growing into a quarrel. He had enough to do to keep the peace among his gang of noble workmen.