A darkness had overtaken Gaspar, and for a long time he remained very still where he had sat down, unnoticed and oblivious. He quietly passed through fits of endless panic until dreams took him, and great walls of seawater hemmed in the ship on all sides just out of the lantern light. They covered the stars. The captain and the witch bore dragons on dark helmets that hid their eyes. 

The deck slid to and fro beneath him, and he lay on his side with his face inches from the damp wood. Figures lit like foxfire passed from the stern to the bow and melted into the gloom. Some peered at him strangely. Warm lights and voices came from overhead; the party was in full swing. Mother smiled at his sisters. Gaspar’s prone body floated through the crowd and he talked freely, and whenever the crew expressed concern he just laughed and replied “Don’t worry! It’s how I am.” Food bobbed back and forth; the taste of wine and bile was in his mouth. 

The man in black armor shouldered his way through the throng and placed a heavy hand on Gaspar’s head. With one motion he lifted the boy and threw him straight up into the air, away from the ship. Gaspar’s back hit water, and he floated for a moment looking down at the ship. Then he fell back, and the armored man threw him up again. Again he fell, and again he flew. He wanted to stay in the water. The fifth time he hit the water and then sunk, and he saw a coastline in the distance. It was Portugal appearing over the horizon. As he sank further into the sky he could see all of Spain, then Europe from England to Italy. Rome looked like the head of a dog bulging off the landscape. The shores of Asia and Africa gleamed in the distance. Then he broke through the surface of the water and turned to see the beach near Sintra. The sun was in his eyes.

Gaspar woke slowly, drifting in and out of dreams. When he finally reached full awareness he found himself laying in the darkness with his face on the cold deck, his hips and legs resting uncomfortably on a coil of rope. His clothing was soaked and his spine was twisted cruelly. Even so, it was a long time before he rose, as every minute shifting of his limbs summoned horrible complaints from every corner of his body. 

A tinge of pale red was leaking into the eastern sky when Gaspar finally lifted himself from the deck and stumbled, bent almost double, back to the captain's cabin. He threw himself down on his small mattress, heedless of the sorceress nearby, and passed into another fitful sleep.