He was a friend of the Pinzons, and above the vanity of the greater ship.

The sick upon the Nina prospered under him.
But Juan Lepe was taken from the forecastle, and slept where Nunez had slept, and had his place at the table in the great cabin.

He turned from the sailor Juan Lepe to the physician Juan Lepe, becoming "Doctor" and "Senor." The wheel turns and a man's past makes his present.
A few days from Gomera, an hour after sunset, the night was torn by the hugest, flaming, falling star that any of us had ever seen.

The mass drove down the lower skirt of the sky, leaving behind it a wake of fire.
It plunged into the sea.

There is no sailor but knows shooting stars.
But this was a hugely great one, and Ocean-Sea very lonely, and to most there our errand a spectral and frightening one.