CHAPTER IX

"LAND! LAND!"


On the fourth day out from Palos the _Pinta's_ rudder became loose,
and unless the damage could be speedily repaired the ship would soon be
a prey to current and wind. The _Pinta_ was the vessel whose owners
repented having sold her. No wonder then that Columbus suspected the
rascals of having bribed the crew to tamper with the rudder, in the hope
of forcing their ship to put back into Palos. But he would not put back,
he declared. Martin Pinzon was commanding the _Pinta_, and Martin
knew what to do with perverse rudders and perverse men. He immediately
set to work to have the damage repaired. The ship's carpenter must have
done his work very badly, however, for the following day the rudder was
again disabled. Still Columbus would not turn back and risk the chance
of all his crew deserting him. Instead, he continued sailing southwest
to the Canaries--the point from which the shipwrecked pilot was supposed
to have started on his unexpected trip across the Atlantic. These
beautiful islands, from which the imposing peak of Teneriffe rises, had
been known to the ancients as "The Fortunate Isles"; Spain now owned
them and had colonized them, and after the great discovery they became a
regular stopping-place for western-bound vessels.

When Columbus came to repair the rudder, he found the entire ship to be
in even worse order than he had supposed. She was full of leaks, and her