Chapter 6. Ethiopian
May 1499. Island of Boyuca, Bay of Honduras.
Cabot left the Varaguan natives and had set sail the next day for the island of Boyuca. Using the coordinates on the Veraguans’ map, after a half-day’s voyage, Cabot was able to find two huge stone promontories sticking up out of the ocean like statues. From there, he sailed on and was able to find the Island of Boyuca, the Evil Place. The scouting party, consisting of twelve men, had left the main ship in a small lancha, or Spanish longboat. Ten of the men, including Wilson Henry and the man the captain called “the Ethiopian,” would go ashore and search for the healing spring. The other two men would wait on the shore with the lancha. Cabot remained on the ship. After four hours, the men had not returned. That was not particularly unusual. It would take some time to search the entire island. Cabot was patient. He decided to go below deck and complete his captain’s log. By nighttime, the men still had not returned.
The Ethiopian rested his large back on the floor of the jungle, staring up through the densely packed palm trees into the starry sky, clenching every muscle tightly. He controlled his breathing so that it was slow and silent. He had to make sure he did not make the slightest sound. The cannibals were all around him, he was sure of that. He listened to the whining cries of the scarlet macaws and the rustling overhead of the spider monkeys darting from limb to limb in the darkness. He strained his ears for the slightest break of a twig or movement of vines that might signal the presence of a human. He heard nothing.
The Ethiopian was not really from Africa. He was an Amarak Indian from Cuba. However, his dark skin, muscled chest and shoulders, bald head, and fearsome expression earned him his nickname from John Cabot, who was waiting for him on board the Matthew in the bay several hundred feet off the shore of the island. The nine other men in his scouting mission had been killed on booby traps set throughout the jungle by the cannibals. The Ethiopian knew he was near his goal. According to the map which they had been given by the captain, he was almost right on top of it. But he had to be patient. If he was too rash in his movements, they would be on him immediately, like mosquitoes on a sweaty back.
The Ethiopian had been chosen by John Cabot for this mission for a reason. The Ethiopian was the best hunter of the Arawak tribe. It was said the Ethiopian could catch a jaguar with his bare hands before the animal was aware he was there. If anyone could find the treasure on the map it was he. John Cabot had met the Ethiopian as he came down the coast from Florida toward Hispaniola. Cabot had established good relations with the tribe and had traded tobacco, cloth, and dyes for tropical fruit and supplies for the voyage. Cabot was so impressed by the Ethiopian’s skill as a tracker and hunter that he had invited him to join the captain on the voyage. For his part, the Ethiopian was surprised at the captain’s friendliness, for he had heard from other tribe members that the white-skinned explorers were ruthless cutthroats. The Ethiopian, in the end, was a man of adventure, and nothing sounded more exciting to him than a sea voyage. He had been sea sick for the first few days of the trip, but after a while had gotten his sea legs.
The captain had advised the Ethiopian that the scouting party was to look for a pool of clear, cold spring water on the island and to fill the water in several wineskins. According to the hand-drawn map given to them by the captain, the pool was located in the densest part of the jungle, near the top of a mountain. Scaling up the mountain would be long and arduous. The captain did not explain why he needed this water. They had passed numerous pools along the way. Water is water, the Ethiopian thought. But Captain Cabot was a thinking man. The Ethiopian, on the other hand, was not a deep thinker. If the captain wanted this water, he was going to get it for him.
The Ethiopian waited for about a half hour and, hearing nothing further, crept like a panther along the ground, his night eyes searching the blackness for the slightest hint of trouble. He stopped several times, smelling the air. Just ahead was another small hill. Readjusting the wineskins, the bow and arrows, and his hunting knife, the Ethiopian crept hand over hand up the hill of matted banana leaves. As he made it over the top, he walked another ten feet through the palm trees, and there was a tiny clearing. In the middle of the clearing was what appeared to be a deep pool of black water which was about thirty feet across. Directly above the far end of the pool was a wall of stone which went up about sixty feet. The Ethiopian could not tell what lay above the top of the stone cliff. The Ethiopian smelled the air again. He thought at first he had caught a whiff of something. Human body odor maybe. If he had any hair on the back of his neck it would be sitting erect. He could not see, hear or smell anything, but his sixth sense was telling him people were nearby. Waiting another ten minutes and hearing nothing, the Ethiopian slowly crept across the clearing to the pool and lowered himself in.
His first thought was how cold the water was. It was invigorating after this itchy, sweltering trip through the island brush. He let the cold water silently pour over his bald head. He drank some of the water. It was fresh water, not salty. The Ethiopian, believing this body of water to be the water pool listed on the map, filled up the first of his leather wineskins. As he was just about to fill the second sack, he felt something slide and coil around his leg. Then, he felt something touch his other leg. Snakes!
He quickly dove out of the pool onto the ground, and let out a small sound of revulsion as one of the thick purple snakes from the pool slithered off his leg and back into the pool. The snakes had not hurt him but they had certainly given his heart a start. As he bent to stand up, he heard a rapid whistling sound. He looked down and saw a sharp piece of wood sticking out of his left pectoral muscle. Seconds later he heard two more whistles and felt sharp pains in his right shoulder. The cannibals were here! They would be on him in seconds! He could not run down the mountain the way he had come. There was only one other option. As frantic human shouts and the bristling sounds of running feet filled the air, the Ethiopian decided to make a run for it. Strapping the filled wineskin over his shoulder he sprinted directly ahead through the jungle, running as fast as he could away from the sounds of the men with the poisoned darts and arrows. The pain in his chest and shoulder were excruciating. Whistles of more bamboo shoots flew all around him as he dodged left and right through the trees so that he would not make an easy target. There were more whistles of wind, and three more sharp pains shot from his back. He feared he would not make it. But just then, up ahead, on the path which sloped upward, he saw blue sky! Like an Olympic sprinter off the blocks, the Ethiopian plunged ahead with a final burst of speed into the clearing.
And then he began falling. He had literally run off a cliff. As the screaming, frustrated cannibals yelled from the precipice, the Ethiopian fell in an arc downward a hundred feet to the water and rocks below.
That night, back on the Matthew, Captain John Cabot was growing impatient. It had been several days. The wind did not feel right to him. It felt like a storm was coming in from the east. They had to move south soon. Down below decks, his black stallion Marietta apparently felt the same way, for she was neighing loudly and moving around, clomping her hooves and kicking the walls. He had brought the horse so that when he landed in new territories, he could ride into the villages on horseback in a parade, waving like a god, demanding their respect. It had seemed like a good idea at the time he had loaded her on the ship, but at times like this, he wished that he had left the animal at home. Plus, that animal could certainly eat a lot. Cabot bit into a lime and spit out the skin. A distant yellow lightning bolt crackled at the edge of the eastern horizon. Where were his men?
As Cabot looked out across the water toward the shore, he could barely make out a small light. He called Father Giovanni to join him on deck. The two men watched as the small light flickered this way and that and slowly got closer. After a few minutes they realized they were looking at a torch floating toward them. Giovanni pointed toward the approaching light.
“Captain, it looks like the lancha is returning, and they have lit a torch for us to see them.”
Cabot wasn’t so sure and grunted back to the priest. “We’ll see.”
A few minutes later they saw the lancha coming closer. There was a pole sticking up in the middle of the boat, but it did not appear that anyone was piloting the small longboat. As the boat approached the Matthew, Cabot and the priest strained their eyes. There was definitely something in the boat.
Giovanni, using the Captain’s spyglass, saw it first. “My God! That is Wilson Henry and Sebastian. Their bodies have been butchered!” The priest crossed himself and put his hand over his mouth. In the boat were two men’s bodies, which appeared to have been sliced up with machetes. There was red blood all over the boat. Just then Giovanni saw several heads bob to the surface of the water on either side of the boat. Before his brain could register what was happening, six bamboo shoots hit the wooden post inches away from his face and neck. Giovanni screamed and dove onto the deck. The Captain had quicker reflexes and dove back just in time, the shoots flying over his head.
“Men! We are under attack by savages! All hands! All hands!” Cabot’s men came pouring onto the ship deck, armed with “arquebuses,” the long, muzzle-loaded firearms manufactured by the Spanish. The men fired volley after volley into the water at the cannibals. Spooked by the strange weapons, the cannibals ducked under the water and swam back for the shore. Within ten minutes, the cannibals were gone. However, a half hour later, some of his crew noticed dozens of long canoes disembarking from the shore. The cannibals had brought reinforcements and they were heading toward the ship. Cabot had seen enough. He ordered the anchor pulled and the sails lifted. He knew it was risky around these reefs to sail at night, but he was not taking any more chances on cannibal attacks. He felt a slight bit of guilt over leaving the Ethiopian and the other men from the scouting party, but judging from the remains of Henry and Sebastian, he was sure they were all dead. Within a short time, the Matthew sailed away from the island of Boyuca.
The captain turned over the wheel to one of the members of the crew and retired to his quarters below deck. In his personal chamber, the Captain worked in the dark with a quill over a small table, with a small white candle as his only source of illumination. Navigational maps were spread out across the table. The Captain made additional entries in the ship's log. Cabot folded the Veraguan native's map until it was a quarter of its original size and tucked it inside the pages of his ship's log. Cabot then made a note on their navigational maps as to the location of the island. He finished the evening's work with a diary entry, briefly noting the terrible encounter with the cannibals of Boyuca. Truly this was an evil place, he thought.
Back on the island, on the bank of a small stream, the Ethiopian was sprawled on the rocks. Fortunately, his back had landed in water. His shins were not so lucky. One of his legs was broken. He was in excruciating pain. He knew it was a matter of time before the natives found him. He just hoped that maybe Henry and Sebastian could find him. He reached over to the wineskin and drank its entire contents. Then he passed out, delirious from the pain, with six curare-dipped arrows sticking out of his chest, shoulder, and back.
An hour later, he woke up again. He did not understand how he was still alive. He felt the light wood of the arrows sticking out of his body. They were still there. He reached for one of the arrows with his hand, intending to pull the arrow out. But as he did so, he looked at his hand. The skin was smooth. There were no calluses. Come to think of it, even though he was in pain, the pain was not as bad as before. He felt strong as an ox. He looked down to his leg. His shin bone was still hurting, but he felt better, much better. He tried to stand, and, incredibly, was able to stand on the other leg, albeit with some pain. If he could just get to the beach, maybe the men could save him. He looked around, trying to orient himself. As he came around a wall of rock, he looked out into the bay. With dismay, in the distance, he saw that Cabot’s ship was gone. They had left him. He limped about twenty more yards and then turned around to look behind him. There, coming out of the jungle trees, were over two dozen natives walking toward him, armed with barbed spears.