Sunlight blazed, shouts shook the heavens, and over the heaving sea, bright gold and pale red wove together. In the instant the little boat rose and fell, two deep bowstrings sounded as one, and shot toward the ship's side several meters high!
"Whoosh!..."
"Holy Mother protect me! Lord protect me! Devil protect me!... Merda! You clumsy pack of fools! Hurry up and—uh?! What the—ah!!"
Beside the stern rudder of the Santa Maria, an ornate admiral's hat suddenly flew up. The booming curses broke off at once, then turned into a shrill, piercing scream!
"My ear! My ear!!..."
"Ah?! Arrows! The natives' hidden arrows, shot from the little boat behind us!!..."
"Damn it! Where are the guns? Quick, shoot them with the guns!..."
"Brother-in-law!!"
"Diamiiiii—chiaaaaa!!!..."
At the stern, under everyone's horrified gazes, Columbus howled, staggered, and fell sitting beside the gunwale. In that instant, his shrill scream was like a drawn-out aria in a theater. That soul-shaking high note could even have drowned out every leading actor in the new dramas currently fashionable in the Italian city-states! He clutched the left side of his face in agony, yet blood still ran down from his cheek. Between the fresh red before him and the sky-blue behind, the outline of his left ear had already vanished by more than half, fallen who knew where...
"Lord above! Brother-in-law, you! Your ear is gone!... Holy Mother! Brother-in-law, you... are you going to die?..."
"Vaffanculo! You could die and I still wouldn't!!..."
Columbus stretched out his trembling left hand, stared at the bright-red blood on his palm, felt the warm liquid still flowing from where his left ear had been, then glanced at the scrap of flesh that had fallen onto the deck. In an instant, both his eyes went bloodshot, like a beast gone mad