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there Roberto told himself on theDaphne now I would not be here, afraid of an Intruder whose
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footprint I saw in the hold.
Later there were contrary winds, the captain said, and the ship, against all reason, turned northwards.
Roberto had felt no contrary winds, quite the opposite: when the change of course was announced, the
ship had been proceeding under full sail, and thus it had to come hard about. Probably Dr. Byrd and his
men needed to proceed along the same meridian to perform their experiments. The fact is that they
reached the Galopegos Islands, where they amused themselves turning huge turtles on their backs, then
cooking them in their shells. The Maltese consulted certain maps of his at length and de-cided that this
was not Escondida.
Resuming their westward course, descending below the twenty-fifth-degree latitude south, they
replenished their water at an island of which the maps gave no indication. It offered no attractive features
beyond its solitude, but the Knight who could not bear the food on board and harbored a strong
aversion to the captain said to Roberto how beautiful it would be if a small band of good men, brave
and reckless, would take possession of the ship, put the captain and any who wanted to stay with him in
the longboat, burn theAm-aryllis, and settle on that land, far from every known world, to build a new
society. Roberto asked him if this was Escondida; the man shook his head sadly.
Proceeding again northwest, abetted by the favoring Trades, they came upon a group of islands
inhabited by savages with amber-colored skin, with whom they exchanged gifts, taking part in their merry
festivities, animated by maidens who danced with the movements of the grasses that swayed on the
beach almost at the water s edge. The Knight, who had taken no vow of chastity, on the pretext of
drawing portraits of some of those creatures (and he was an artist of some skill), certainly had occasion
to have carnal congress with them. The crew wanted to do the same, so the captain moved forward the
ship s departure. The Knight hesitated about staying behind; spending his days sketching here seemed to
him a splendid way to conclude his life. But then he decided this was not Escondida.
Afterwards they again headed northwest and found an is-land with quite docile indigenes. In the two
days and two nights they stayed there, the Knight of Malta took to telling stories: he told them in a dialect
not even Roberto could un-derstand, still less the natives, but the speaker assisted himself by drawing in
the sand, and he gesticulated like an actor, stirring the enthusiasm of his audience, who hailed him with
cries of Tusitala, Tusitala! To Roberto the Knight said how fine he thought it would be to end his days
among those people, telling them all the myths of the universe. But is this Escondida? Roberto asked.
The Knight shook his head.
He died in the wreck, Roberto reflected on theDaphne, and perhaps I have found his Escondida, but I
will never be able to narrate it to him, or to anyone else. Perhaps this is why Roberto wrote to his Lady.
To survive, you must tell stories.
The Knight s last fantasy was heard one evening, only a few days and no great distance from what
would be the scene of the wreck. They were skirting an archipelago, which the captain had decided not
to approach, inasmuch as Dr. Byrd seemed anxious to continue once again towards the Equator. In the
course of the voyage it had been evident to Roberto that the captain s behavior was not that of the
navigators he had heard of, who took careful note of all new lands, per-fecting their maps, drawing
cloud-shapes, tracing the line of shores, gathering native artifacts.... TheAmaryllis proceeded as if she
were the traveling lair of an alchemist bent only on his Opus Nigrum, indifferent to the great world
opening before her.
It was sunset, the play between clouds and sky against the shadow of the island drew on one side what
looked like emerald fishes drifting over the peak. On the other there were crumpled balls of fire. Above,
gray clouds. Immediately after-wards, as a fiery sun disappeared behind the island, a broad pink stripe
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was reflected on the clouds, bloodied along the lower fringe. After a few seconds the fire behind the
island spread, looming over the ship. The sky was all a brazier with only a few cerulean threads. And
then blood everywhere, as if some impenitents had been devoured by a school of sharks.
Perhaps it would be right to die now, the Knight of Malta said. Are you not seized by the desire to
hang from the mouth of a cannon and slide into the sea? It would be quick, and at that moment we would
know everything....
Yes, but at the instant we knew it, we would cease to know, Roberto said.
And the ship continued its voyage, moving through sepia seas.
The days flowed by, incommutable. As Mazarin had fore-seen, Roberto could establish relations only
with the gentle-men. The sailors were a gang of jailbirds: it was frightening to encounter one on deck at
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