The Seven Serpents Trilogy by Scott O’Dell Page A

things.”
    â€œI see,” said Juan Pacheco, barber, surgeon, astrolo ger, and soothsayer, “a long voyage for the
Santa Margarita
into uncharted waters, past many island empires, where gold abundantly exists, a voyage under fair skies and foul.”
    â€œGod’s body!” exploded Don Luis. “Tell me what I have not already seen.”
    Pacheco apparently did not hear him. He closed the book, glanced at his writings, and with bowed head spoke softly to himself in muffled words that sounded like an incantation. Don Luis stood over him, listening, his face colored by the strange light cast down from the skies.
    I had never seen the devil before, in all my sixteen years, but for a moment I saw him then. He was standing there in place of Don Luis, bending over one of his infernal servants, listening to words that should not be spoken in the light of day.
    â€œWhat do you want?” I cried. “Why am I here?”
    Don Luis straightened up and looked at me as if he had forgotten that I was there in the cabin. He thought for a while. “You are here to intercede with God, to whom we shall commend our souls.”
    The vision did not fade. The devil himself stood there. Pacheco’s incantations went on. Then Don Luis told him to cease and turned to me with clasped hands and a pious gaze.
    I backed away from him. “Pray for yourself!” I cried out. As I opened the door and slammed it shut, muffled sounds mocked me.
    On deck Captain Roa gave orders to place all the ani mals in heavy rope slings lest the coming storm pound them to death. He called aloft and asked the lookout how far the islands’ shelter lay. They were near, but in the black night that now descended upon us we some how passed them.

 
CHAPTER 18
    S TEALTHILY, LIKE A HIGHWAYMAN IN THE DARK, THE HURRICANE FELL upon us.
    In midmorning, as I stood beside the after hatch, with a crash that seemed to come from all directions at once, I was enveloped in a torrent of air. Sails, large and small, blew out with the roar of cannon shot. They in stantly became streaming ribbons that pointed in the direction we now were driven, which was headlong into the west.
    On hands and knees I clawed my way across the deck, certain that the next moment I would be swept away.
    I reached the railing at the head of the companionway, hung there until I got my breath and my bearings, then, with a lurch of the ship, fell sprawling into the hold. I landed in the midst of the crew and Don Luis’s servants, who were huddled at the foot of the ladder. In the dim light, silent with fear, they looked like statues.
    Captain Roa, who had called them down from mast and deck moments before the hurricane struck, helped me to my feet.
    â€œThe ship is helpless,” he said calmly. “And we are helpless. Only God, if He mercifully chooses, can save us all.”
    His words brought us to life.
    Pedro Esquivel, the caulker, tore open his shirt and, placing his hand upon his bare chest, swore that if God did save him he would crawl like a worm to the nearest shrine. Bustamente, a soldier, cried out that he would go naked as the day he was born through the crowded streets of Seville to the great cathedral.
    I prayed for all our company. At Captain Roa’s bid ding I quoted the passage in the Bible about the tempest of Capernaum, which ends with “It is I; be not afraid.” I prayed especially for the Indians hidden away in the stalls.
    Captain Roa put three men on the pump, since water now sloshed around us, ankle-deep. The animals, held in slings, were pawing their stalls, so he sent men to give them fodder that had been taken from the island. Those at the rudder he relieved and had the oaken tiller lashed down, for it could not be handled. To Señor Guzmán and five of the crew he gave the task of transporting the gold from the deck to the hold, which was done by dropping it down the companionway.
    Two of the men were drowned at