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1492

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Mary Johnston

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1492

by MARY JOHNSON

1492

CHAPTER I

THE morning was gray and I sat by the sea near Palos

in a gray mood. I was Jayme de Marchena, and that

was a good, _old Christian_ name. But my grandmother

was Jewess, and in corners they said that she never

truly recanted, and I had been much with her as a child.

She was dead, but still they talked of her. Jayme de Marchena,

looking back from the hillside of forty-six, saw some

service done for the Queen and the folk. This thing and

that thing. Not demanding trumpets, but serviceable. It

would be neither counted nor weighed beside and against

that which Don Pedro and the Dominican found to say.

What they found to say they made, not found. They took

clay of misrepresentation, and in the field of falsehood sat

them down, and consulting the parchment of malice, proceeded

to create. But false as was all they set up, the time

would cry it true.

It was reasonable that I should find the day gray.

Study and study and study, year on year, and at last

image a great thing, just under the rim of the mind's ocean,

sending up for those who will look streamers above horizon,

streamers of colored and wonderful light! Study and reason

and with awe and delight take light from above. Dream

of good news for one and all, of life given depth and brought

into music, dream of giving the given, never holding it back,

which would be avarice and betraying! Write, and give

men and women to read what you have written, and believe

--poor Deluded!--that they also feel inner warmth and

light and rejoice.

Oh, gray the sea and gray the shore!

But some did feel it.

The Dominican, when it fell into his hands, called it

perdition. A Jewess for grandmother, and Don Pedro for

enemy. And now the Dominican--the Dominicans!

The Queen and the King made edict against the Jews, and

there sat the Inquisition.

I was--I am--Christian. It is a wide and deep and

high word. When you ask, "What is it--Christian?"

then must each of us answer as it is given to him to answer.

I and thou--and the True, the Universal Christ give us

light!

To-day all Andalusia, all Castile and all Spain to me

seemed gray, and gray the utter Ocean that stretched no

man knew where. The gray was the gray of fetters and of

ashes.

The tide made, and as the waves came nearer, eating the

sand before me, they uttered a low crying. _In danger--

danger--in danger, Jayme de Marchena!_

I had been in danger before. Who is not often and always

in danger, in life? But this was a danger to daunt.

Mine were no powerful friends. I had only that which

was within me. I was only son of only son, and my parents

and grandparents were dead, and my distant kindred cold,

seeing naught of good in so much study and thinking of

that old, dark, beautiful, questionable one, my grandmother.

I had indeed a remote kinsman, head of a convent in this

neighborhood, and he was a wise man and a kindly. But

not he either could do aught here!

All the Jews to be banished, and Don Pedro with a steady

forefinger, "That man--take him, too! Who does not

know that his grandmother was Jewess, and that he lived

with her and drank poison?" But the Dominican, "No!

The Holy Office will take him. You have but to read--only

you must not read--what he has written to see why!"

Gray Ocean, stretching endlessly and now coming close,

were it not well if I drowned myself this gray morning

while I can choose the death I shall die? Now the great

murmur sang _Well_, and now it sang Not well.

Low cliff and heaped sand and a solitary bird wide-winging

toward the mountains of Portugal, and the Ocean gray-

blue and salt! The salt savor entered me, and an inner zest

came forward and said No, to being craven. In banishment

certainly, in the House of the Inquisition more doubtfully,

the immortal man might yet find market from which to buy!

If the mind could surmount, the eternal quest need not be

interrupted--even there!

Blue Ocean sang to me.

A vision--it came to me at times, vision--set itself in

air. I saw A People who persecuted neither Jew nor thinker.

It rose one Figure, formed of an infinite number of small

figures, but all their edges met in one glow. The figure

stood upon the sea and held apart the clouds, and was free

and fair and mighty, and was man and woman melted together,

and it took all colors and made of them a sun for its

brow. I did not know when it would live, but I knew that

it should live. Perhaps it was the whole world.

It vanished, leaving sky and ocean and Andalusia. But

great visions leave great peace. After it, for this day, it

seemed not worth while to grieve and miserably to forebode.

Through the hours that I lay there by the sea, airs from that

land or that earth blew about me and faint songs visited

my ears, and the gray day was only gray like a dove's

breast.

Jayme de Marchena stayed by the lonely sea because that

seemed the safest place to stay. At hand was the small

port of Palos that might not know what was breeding in

Seville, and going thither at nightfall I found lodging and

supper in a still corner where all night I heard the Tinto

flowing by.

I had wandered to Palos because of the Franciscan convent

of Santa Maria de la Rabida and my very distant kins-

man, Fray Juan Perez. The day after the gray day by the

shore I walked half a league of sandy road and came to

convent gate. The porter let me in, and I waited in a little

court with doves about me and a swinging bell above until

the brother whom he had called returned and took me to

Prior's room. At first Fray Juan Perez was stiff and cold,

but by littles this changed and he became a good man, large-

minded and with a sense for kindred. Clearly he thought

that I should not have had a Jewish grandmother, nor have

lived with her from my third to my tenth birthday, and most

clearly that I should not have written that which I had

written. But his God was an energetic, enterprising, kindly

Prince, rather bold himself and tolerant of heathen. Fray

Juan Perez even intimated a doubt if God wanted

the Inquisition. "But that's going rather far!" he said

hastily and sat drumming the table and pursing his lips.

Presently he brought out, "But you know I can't do anything!"

I did know it. What could he do? I suppose I had

had a half-hope of something. I knew not what. Without

a hope I would not have come to La Rabida. But it was

maimed from the first, and now it died. I made a gesture

of relinquishment. "No, I suppose you cannot--"

He said after a moment that he was glad to see that I

had let my beard grow and was very plainly dressed, though

I had never been elaborate there, and especially was he glad

that I was come to Palos not as Jayme de Marchena, but

under a plain and simple name, Juan Lepe, to wit. His advice

was to flee from the wrath to come. He would not say

flee from the Holy Office--that would be heinous!--but

he would say absent myself, abscond, be banished, Jayme

de Marchena by Jayme de Marchena. There were barques

in Palos and rude seamen who asked no question when

gold just enough, and never more than enough, was shown.

He hesitated a moment and then asked if I had funds. If

not--

I thanked him and said that I had made provision.

"Then," said he, "go to Barbary, Don Jayme! An intelligent

and prudent man may prosper at Ercilla or at Fez.

If you must study, study there."

"You also study," I said.

"In fair trodden highways--never in thick forest and

mere fog!" he answered. "Now if you were like one who

has been here and is now before Granada, at Santa Fe, sent

for thither by the Queen! That one hath indeed studied to

benefit Spain--Spain, Christendom, and the world!"

I asked who was that great one, but before he could tell

me came interruption. A visitor entered, a strong-lipped,

bold-eyed man named Martin Pinzon. I was to meet him

again and often, but at this time I did not know that. Fray

Juan Perez evidently desiring that I should go, I thought

it right to oblige him who would have done me kindness

had he known how. I went without intimate word of parting

and after only a casual stare from Martin Pinzon.

But without, my kinsman came after me. "I want to

say, Don Jayme, that if I am asked for testimony I shall

hold to it that you are as good Christian as any--"

It was kinsman's part and all that truly I could have

hoped for, and I told him so. About us was quiet, vacant

cloister, and we parted more warmly than we had done

within.

The white convent of La Rabida is set on a headland

among vineyards and pine trees. It regards the ocean and,

afar, the mountains of Portugal, and below it runs a small

river, going out to sea through sands with the Tinto and the

Odiel. Again the day was gray and the pine trees sighing.

The porter let me out at gate.

I walked back toward Palos through the sandy ways. I

did not wish to go to Africa.

It is my belief that that larger Self whom they will call

protecting Saint or heavenly Guardian takes hand in affairs

oftener than we think! Leaving the Palos road, I went to

the sea as I had done yesterday and again sat under heaped

sand with about me a sere grass through which the wind

whined. At first it whined and then it sang in a thin, outlandish

voice. Sitting thus, I might have looked toward

Africa, but I knew now that I was not going to Africa.

Often, perhaps, in the unremembered past I had been in

Africa; often, doubtless, in ages to come its soil would be

under my foot, but now I was not going there! To-day I

looked westward over River-Ocean, unknown to our fathers

and unknown to ourselves. It was unknown as the future

of the world.

Ocean piled before me. From where I lay it seemed to

run uphill to one pale line, nor blue nor white, set beneath

the solid gray. Over that hilltop, what? Only other hills

and plains, water, endlessly water, until the waves, so much

mightier than waves of that blue sea we knew best, should

beat at last against Asia shore! So high, so deep, so vast,

so real, yet so empty-seeming save for strange dangers! No

sails over the hilltop; no sails in all that Vast save close at

hand where mariners held to the skirts of Mother. Europe.

Ocean vast, Ocean black, Ocean unknown. Yet there, too,

life and the knowing of life ran somehow continuous.

It wiled me from my smaller self. How had we all

suffered, we the whole earth! But we were moving, we the

world with none left out, moving toward That which held

worlds, which was conscious above worlds. Long the

journey, long the adventure, but it was not worth while fearing,

it was not worth while whining! I was not alone

Jayme de Marchena, nor Juan Lepe, nor this name nor that

nor the other.

There was now a great space of quiet in my mind. Suddenly

formed there the face and figure of Don Enrique de

Cerda whose life I had had the good hap to save. He was

far away with the Queen and King who beleaguered Granada.

I had not seen him for ten years. A moment before

he had rested among the host of figures in the unevenly

lighted land of memory. Now he stood forth plainly and

seemed to smile.

I took the leading. With the inner eye I have seen lines

of light like subtle shining cords running between persons.

Such a thread stretched now between me and Enrique de

Cerda. I determined to make my way, as Juan Lepe, through

the mountains and over the plain of Granada to Santa Fe.

CHAPTER II

SET will to an end and promptly eyes open to means!

I did not start for Granada from Palos but from

Huelva, and I quitted Andalusia as a porter in a small

merchant train carrying goods of sorts to Zarafa that was a

mountain town taken from the Moors five years back. I

was to these folk Juan Lepe, a strong, middle-aged man

used to ships but now for some reason tired of them. My

merchants had only eyes for the safety of their persons and

their bales, plunged the third day into mountainous wild

country echoing and ghastly with long-lasting war. Their

servants and muleteers walked and rode, lamented or were

gay, raised faction, swore, laughed, traveled grimly or in

a dull melancholy or mirthfully; quarreled and made peace,

turn by turn, day by day, much alike. One who was a

bully fixed a quarrel upon me and another took my part.

All leaped to sides. I was forgotten in the midst of them;

they could hardly have told now what was the cause of battle.

A young merchant rode back to chide and settle matters.

At last some one remembered that Diego had struck

Juan Lepe who had flung him off. Then Tomaso had

sprung in and struck Diego. Then Miguel--"Let Juan

Lepe alone!" said my merchant. "Fie! a poor Palos seafaring

child, and you great Huelva men!" They laughed at

that, and the storm vanished as it had come.

I liked the young man.

How wild and without law, save "Hold if you can!"

were these mountains!' "Hold if you can to life--hold if

you can to knowledge--hold if you can to joy!" Black

cliff overhung black glen and we knew there were dens of

robbers. Far and near violence falls like black snow. This

merchant band gathered to sleep under oaks with a great

rock at our back. We had journeyers' supper and fire, for

it was cold, cold in these heights. A little wine was given

and men fell to sleep by the heaped bales; horses, asses and

mules being fastened close under the crag. Three men

watched, to be relieved in middle night by other three who

now slept. A muleteer named Rodrigo and Juan Lepe and

the young merchant took the first turn. The first two sat on

one side of the fire and the young merchant on the other.

The muleteer remained sunken in a great cloak, his chin

on his arms folded upon his knees, and what he saw in the

land within I cannot tell. But the young merchant was of a

quick disposition and presently must talk. For some distance

around us spread bare earth set only with shrubs and stones.

Also the rising moon gave light, and with that and our own

strength we did not truly look for any attack. We sat and

talked at ease, though with lowered voices, Rodrigo somewhere

away and the rest of the picture sleeping. The merchant

asked what had been my last voyage.

I answered, after a moment, to England.

"You do not seem to me," he said, "a seaman. But I

suppose there are all kinds of seamen."

I said yes, the sea was wide.

"England now, at the present moment?" he said, and

questioned me as to Bristol, of which port he had trader's

knowledge. I answered out of a book I had read. It was

true that, living once by the sea, I knew how to handle a

boat. I could find in memory sailors' terms. But still he

said, "You are not a seaman such as we see at Palos and

San Lucar."

It is often best not to halt denial. Let it pass by and

wander among the wild grasses!

"I myself," he said presently, "have gone by sea to Vigo

and to Bordeaux." He warmed his hands at the fire, then

clasped them about his knees and gazed into the night.

"What, Juan Lepe, is that Ocean we look upon when we

look west? I mean, where does it go? What does it

strike?"

"India, belike. And Cathay. To-day all men believe

the earth to be round."

"A long way!" he said. "O Sancta Maria! All that

water!"

"We do not have to drink it."

He laughed. "No! Nor sail it. But after I had been on

that voyage I could see us always like mice running close to

a wall, forever and forever! Juan Lepe, we are little and

timid!"

I liked his spirit. "One day we shall be lions and eagles

and bold prophets! Then our tongue shall taste much beside

India and Cathay!"

"Well, I hope it," he said. "Mice running under the

headlands."

He fell silent, cherishing his knees and staring into the

fire. It was not Juan Lepe's place to talk when master merchant

talked not. I, too, regarded the fire, and the herded

mountains robed in night, and the half-moon like a sail rising

from an invisible boat.

The night went peacefully by. It was followed by a

hard day's travel and the incident of the road. At evening

we saw the walls of Zarafa in a sunset glory. The merchants

and their train passed through the gate and found

their customary inn. With others, Juan Lepe worked hard,

unlading and storing. All done, he and the bully slept almost

in each other's arms, under the arches of the court,

dreamlessly.

The next day and the next were still days of labor. It

was not until the third that Juan Lepe considered that he

might now absent himself and there be raised no hue and

cry after strong shoulders. He had earned his quittance,

and in the nighttime, upon his hands and knees, he crept

from the sleepers in the court. Just before dawn the inn

gate swung open. He had been waiting close to it, and he

passed out noiselessly.

In the two days, carrying goods through streets to market

square and up to citadel and pausing at varying levels

for breath and the prospect, I had learned this town well

enough. I knew where went the ascending and descending

ways. Now almost all lay asleep, antique, shaded, Moorish,

still, under the stars. The soldiery and the hidalgos, their

officers, slept; only the sentinels waked before the citadel

entry and on the town walls and by the three gates. The

town folk slept, all but the sick and the sorrowful and the

careful and those who had work at dawn. Listen, and you

might hear sound like the first moving of birds, or breath

of dawn wind coming up at sea. The greater part now of

the town folk were Christian, brought in since the five-year-

gone siege that still resounded. Moors were here, but they

had turned Christian, or were slaves, or both slave and

Christian. I had seen monks of all habits and heard ring

above the inn the bells of a nunnery. Now again they

rang. The mosque was now a church. It rose at hand,--

white, square, domed. I went by a ladder-like lane down

toward Zarafa wall and the Gate of the Lion. At sunrise

in would pour peasants from the vale below, bringing vegetables

and poultry, and mountaineers with quails and conies,

and others with divers affairs. Outgoing would be those

who tilled a few steep gardens beyond the wall, messengers

and errand folk, soldiers and traders for the army before

Granada.

It was full early when I came to the wall. I could make

out the heavy and tall archway of the gate, but as yet was

no throng before it. I waited; the folk began to gather, the

sun came up. Zarafa grew rosy. Now was clatter enough,

voices of men and brutes, both sides the gate. The gate

opened. Juan Lepe won out with a knot of brawny folk

going to the mountain pastures. Well forth, he looked back

and saw Zarafa gleaming rose and pearl in the blink of the

sun, and sent young merchantward a wish for good. Then

he took the eastward way down the mountain, toward lower

mountains and at last the Vega of Granada.

CHAPTER III

THE day passed. I had adventures of the road, but

none of consequence. I slept well among the rocks,

waked, ate the bit of bread I had with me, and fell

again to walking.

Mountains were now withdrawing to the distant horizon

where they stood around, a mighty and beautiful wall. I

was coming down into the plain of Granada, that once had

been a garden. Now, north, south, east, west, it lay war-

trampled. Old owners were dead, men and women, or were

_mudexares_, vassals, or were fled, men and women, all who

could flee, to their kindred in Africa. Or they yet cowered,

men and women, in the broken garden, awaiting individual

disaster. The Kingdom of Granada had sins, and the Kingdom

of Castile, and the Kingdom of Leon. The Moor was

stained, and the Spaniard, the Moslem and the Christian

and the Jew. Who had stains the least or the most God

knew--and it was a poor inquiry. Seek the virtues and

bind them with love, each in each!

If the mountain road had been largely solitary, it was not

so of this road. There were folk enough in the wide Vega

of Granada. Clearly, as though the one party had been

dressed in black and the other in red, they divided into

vanquished and victor. Bit by bit, now through years, all

these towns and villages, all these fertile fields and bosky

places, rich and singing, had left the hand of the Moor for

the hand of the Spaniard.

In all this part of his old kingdom the Moor lay low in

defeat. In had swarmed the Christian and with the Christian

the Jew, though now the Jew must leave. The city

of Granada was not yet surrendered, and the Queen and

King held all soldiery that they might at Santa Fe, built as

it were in a night before Granada walls. Yet there seemed

at large bands enough, licentious and loud, the scum of

soldiery. Ere I reached the village that I now saw before

me I had met two such bands, I wondered, and then wondered

at my own wonder.

The chief house of the village was become an inn. Two

long tables stood in the patio where no fountain now flowed

nor orange trees grew nor birds sang in corners nor fine

awning kept away the glare. Twenty of these wild and

base fighting men crowded one table, eating and drinking,

clamorous and spouting oaths. At the other table sat together

at an end three men whom by a number of tokens

might be robbers of the mountains. They sat quiet, indifferent

to the noise, talking low among themselves in a

tongue of their own, kin enough to the soldiery not to

fear them. The opposite end of the long table was given to

a group to which I now joined myself. Here sat two Franciscan

friars, and a man who seemed a lawyer; and one who

had the air of the sea and turned out to be master of a

Levantine; and a brisk, talkative, important person, a Catalan,

and as it presently appeared alcalde once of a so-so

village; and a young, unhealthy-looking man in black with

an open book beside him; and a strange fellow whose

Spanish was imperfect.

I sat down near the friars, crossed myself, and cut a piece

of bread from the loaf before me. The innkeeper and his

wife, a gaunt, extraordinarily tall woman, served, running

from table to table. The place was all heat and noise.

Presently the soldiers, ending their meal, got up with clamor

and surged from the court to their waiting horses. After

them ran the innkeeper, appealing for pay. Denials, expostulation,

anger and beseeching reached the ears of the patio,

then the sound of horses going down stony ways. "O God

of the poor!" cried the gaunt woman. "How are we

robbed!"

"Why are they not before Granada?" demanded the

lawyer and alertly provided the answer to his own question.

"Take locusts and give them leave to eat, being careful to

say, `This fellow's fields only!' But the locusts have wings

and their nature is to eat!"

The mountain robbers, if robbers they were, dined quietly,

the gaunt woman promptly and painstakingly serving them.

They were going to pay, I was sure, though it might not be

this noon.

The two friars seemed, quiet, simple men, dining as

dumbly as if they sat in Saint Francis's refectory. The

sometime alcalde and the shipmaster were the talkers, the

student sitting as though he were in the desert, eating bread

and cheese and onions and looking on his book. The lawyer

watched all, talked to make them talk, then came in and settled

matters. The alcalde was the politician, knowing the

affairs of the world and speaking familiarly of the King

and the Queen and the Marquis of Cadiz.

The shipmaster said, "This time last year I was in London,

and I saw their King. His name is Henry. King

Henry the Seventh, and a good carrier of his kingship!"

"That for him!" said the alcalde. "Let him stay in his

foggy island! But Spain is too small for King Ferdinand."

"All kings find their lands too small," said the lawyer.

The shipmaster spoke again. "The King of Portugal's

ship sails ahead of ours in that matter. He's stuck his banner

in the new islands, Maderia and the Hawk Islands and

where not! I was talking in Cadiz with one who was with

Bartholomew Diaz when he turned Africa and named it

Good Hope. Which is to say, King John has Good Hope of

seeing Portugal swell. Portugal! Well, I say, `Why not

Spain'?"

The student looked up from his book. "It is a great

Age!" he said and returned to his reading.

When we had finished dinner, we paid the tall, gaunt

woman and leaving the robbers, if robbers they were, still

at table, went out into the street. Here the friars, the alcalde

and the lawyer moved in the direction of the small, staring

white and ruined mosque that was to be transformed into

the church of San Jago the Deliverer. That was the one

thing of which the friars had spoken. A long bench ran by

inn wall and here the shipmaster took his seat and began to

discourse with those already there. Book under arm, the

student moved dreamily down the opposite lane. Juan

Lepe walked away alone.

Through the remainder of this day he had now company

and adventure without, now solitude and adventure within.

That night he spent in a ruined tower where young

trees grew and an owl was his comrade and he read the face

of a glorious moon. Dawn. He bathed in a stream that

ran by the mound of the tower and ate a piece of bread from

his wallet and took the road.

The sun mounted above the trees. A man upon a mule

came up behind me and was passing. "There is a stone

wedged in his shoe," I said. The rider drew rein and I

lifted the creature's foreleg and took out the pebble. The

rider made search for a bit of money. I said that the deed

was short and easy and needed no payment, whereupon he

put up the coin and regarded me out of his fine blue eyes.

He was quite fair, a young man still, and dressed after a

manner of his own in garments not at all new but with

a beauty of fashioning and putting on. He and his mule

looked a corner out of a great painting. And I had no

sooner thought that than he said, "I see in you, friend, a

face and figure for my `Draught of Fishes.' And by Saint

Christopher, there is water over yonder and just the landscape!"

He leaned from the saddle and spoke persuasively,

"Come from the road a bit down to the water and let me

draw you! You are not dressed like the kin of Midas! I

will give you the price of dinner." As he talked he drew out

of a richly worked bag a book of paper and pencils.

I thought, "This beard and the clothes of Juan Lepe. He

can hardly make it so that any may recognize." It was resting

time and the man attracted. I agreed, if he would take

no more than an hour.

"The drawing, no!--Bent far over, gathering the net

strongly--Andrew or Mark perhaps, since, traditionally,

John must have youth."

He had continued to study me all this time, and now we

left the road and moved over the plain to the stream that

here widened into a pool fringed with rushes and a few

twisted trees. An ancient, half-sunken boat drowsing under

the bank he hailed again in the name of Saint Christopher.

Dismounting, he fastened his mule to a willow and proceeded

to place me, then himself found a root of a tree,

and taking out his knife fell to sharpening pencil. This done,

he rested book against knee and began to draw.

Having made his figure in one posture he rose and showed

me another and drew his fisherman so. Then he demonstrated

a third way and drew again. Now he was silent,

working hard, and now he dropped his hand, threw back

his head and talked. He himself made a picture, paly gold

of locks, subtle and quick of face, plastered against a blue

shield with a willow wreath going around.

I stood so or so, drawing hard upon the net with the

fishes. Then at his command I approached more nearly, and

he drew full face and three-quarter and profile. It was between

these accomplishings that he talked more intimately.

"Seamen go to Italy," he said. "Were you ever in

Milan? But that is inland."

I answered that I had been from Genoa to Milan.

"It is not likely that you saw a great painter there

Messer Leonardo?"

It happened that I had done this, and moreover had seen

him at work and heard him put right thought into most right

words. I was so tired of lying that after a moment I said

that I had seen and heard Messer Leonardo.

"Did you see the statue?"

"The first time I saw him he was at work upon it. The

next time he was painting in the church of Santa Maria.

The third time he sat in a garden, sipped wine and talked."

"I hold you," he said, "to be a fortunate fisherman!

Just as this fisher I am painting, and whether it is Andrew

or Mark, I do not yet know, was a most fortunate fisherman!"

He ended meditatively, "Though whoever it is,

probably he was crucified or beheaded or burned."

I felt a certain shiver of premonition. The day that had

been warm and bright turned in a flash ashy and chill. Then

it swung back to its first fair seeming, or not to its first, but

to a deeper, brighter yet. The Fisherman by Galilee was

fortunate. Whoever perceived truth and beauty was fortunate,

fortunate now and forever!

We came back to Messer Leonardo. "I spent six months

at the court in Milan," said the fair man. "I painted the

Duke and the Duchess and two great courtiers. Messer

Leonardo was away. He returned, and I visited him and

found a master. Since that time I study light and shadow

and small things and seek out inner action."

He worked in silence, then again began to speak of painters,

Italian and Spanish. He asked me if I had seen such

and such pictures in Seville.

"Yes. They are good."

"Do you know Monsalvat?"

I said that I had climbed there one day. "I dream a painting!"

he said, "The Quest of the Grail. Now I see it running

over the four walls of a church, and now I see it all

packed into one man who rides. Then again it has seemed

to me truer to have it in a man and woman who walk, or

perhaps even are seated. What do you think?"

I was thinking of Isabel who died in my arms twenty

years ago. "I would have it man and woman," I said.

Unless, like Messer Leonardo, you can put both in one."

He sat still, his mind working, while in a fair inner land

Isabel and I moved together; then in a meditative quiet he

finished his drawing. He himself was admirable, fine gold

and bronze, sapphire-eyed, with a face where streams of

visions moved the muscles, and all against the blue and the

willow tree.

At last he put away pencil, and at his gesture I came from

the boat and the reeds. I looked at what he had drawn, and

then he shut book and, the mule following us, we moved

back to the road.

"My dear fisherman," he said, "you are trudging afoot

and your dress exhibits poverty. Painters may paint Jove

descending in showers of golden pesos and yet have few

pesos in purse. I have at present ten. I should like to

share them with you who have done me various good turns

to-day."

I said that he was generous but that he had done me

good turns. Moreover I was not utterly without coin, and

certainly the hour had paid for itself. So he mounted his

mule and wished me good fortune, and I wished him good

fortune.

"Are you going to Santa Fe?"

"Yes. I have a friend in the camp."

"I go there to paint her Highness the Queen for his

Highness the King. Perhaps we shall meet again. I am

Manuel Rodriguez."

"I guessed that," I answered, "an hour ago! Be so

good, great painter, as not to remember me. It will serve me

better."

The light played again over his face. "_The Disguised

Hidalgo_. Excellent pictures come to me like that, in a great

warm light, and excellent names for pictures.--Very good.

In a way, so to speak, I shall completely forget you!"

Two on horseback, a churchman and a knight, with servants

following, came around a bend of the dusty road and

recognizing Manuel Rodriguez, called to him by name.

Away he rode upon his mule, keeping company with them.

The dozen in their train followed, raising as they went by

such a dust cloud that presently all became like figures upon

worn arras. They rode toward Santa Fe, and I followed on

foot.

CHAPTER IV

SANTA Fe rose before me, a camp in wood, plaster and

stone, a camp with a palace, a camp with churches.

Built of a piece where no town had stood, built that

Majesty and its Court and its Army might have roofs and

walls, not tents, for so long a siege, it covered the plain, a

city raised in a night. The siege had been long as the war

had been long. Hidalgo Spain and simple Spain were gathered

here in great squares and ribbons of valor, ambition,

emulation, desire of excitement and of livelihood, and likewise,

I say it, in pieces not small, herded and brought here

without any "I say yes" of their own, and to their misery.

There held full flavor of crusade, as all along the war had

been preached as a crusade. Holy Church had here her

own grandees, cavaliers and footmen. They wore cope and

they wore cowl, and on occasion many endued themselves

with armor and hacked and hewed with an earthly sword.

At times there seemed as many friars and priests as soldiers.

Out and in went a great Queen and King. Their court was

here. The churchmen pressed around the Queen. Famous

leaders put on or took off armor in Santa Fe,--the

Marquis of Cadiz and many others only less than he in

estimation, and one Don Gonsalvo de Cordova, whose greater

fame was yet to come. Military and shining youth came to

train and fight under these. Old captains-at-arms, gaunt and

scarred, made their way thither from afar. All were not

Spaniard; many a soldier out at fortune or wishful of fame

came from France and Italy, even from England and Germany.

Women were in Santa Fe. The Queen had her

ladies. Wives, sisters and daughters of hidalgos came to

visit, and the common soldiery had their mates. Nor did

there lack courtesans.

Petty merchants thronged the place. All manner of rich

goods were bought by the flushed soldiers, the high and the

low. And there dwelled here a host of those who sold

entertainment,--mummers and jugglers and singers, dwarfs

and giants. Dice rattled, now there were castanets and

dancing, and now church bells seemed to rock the place.

Wine flowed.

Out of the plain a league and more away sprang the two

hills of Granada, and pricked against the sky, her walls

and thousand towers and noble gates. Between them and

Santa Fe stretched open and ruined ground, and here for

many a day had shocked together the Spaniard and the

Moor. But now there was no longer battle. Granada had

asked and been granted seventy days in which to envisage

and accept her fate. These were nearing the end. Lost

and beaten, haggard with woe and hunger and pestilence,

the city stood over against us, above the naked plain, all

her outer gardens stripped away, bare light striking the red

Alhambra and the Citadel. When the wind swept over her

and on to Santa Fe it seemed to bring a sound of wailing

and the faint and terrible odor of a long besieged place.

I came at eve into Santa Fe, found at last an inn of the

poorer sort, ate scant supper and went to bed. Dawn came

with a great ringing of church bells.

Out of the inn, in the throbbing street, I began my search

for Don Enrique de Cerda. One told me one thing and one

another, but at last I got true direction. At noon I found

him in a goodly room where he made recovery from wounds.

Now he walked and now he sat, his arm in a sling and a

bandage like a turban around his head. A page took him

the word I gave. "Juan Lepe. From the hermitage in the

oak wood." It sufficed. When I entered he gazed, then

coming to me, put his unbound hand over mine. "Why,"

he asked, " `Juan Lepe'?"

I glanced toward the page and he dismissed him, whereupon

I explained the circumstances.

We sat by the window, and again rose for us the hermitage

in the oak wood at foot of a mountain, and the small

tower that slew in ugly fashion. Again we were young

men, together in strange dangers, learning there each other's

mettle. He had not at all forgotten.

He offered to go to Seville, as soon as Granada should

fall, and find and fight Don Pedro. I shook my head. I

could have done that had I seen it as the way.

He agreed that Don Pedro was now the minor peril. It

is evil to chain thought! In our day we think boldly of a

number of things. But touch King or touch Church--the

cord is around your neck!

I said that I supposed I had been rash.

He nodded. "Yes. You were rash that day in the oak

wood. Less rash, and my bones would be lying there, under

tree." He rose and walked the room, then came to me and

put his unhurt arm about my shoulders. "Don Jayme, we

swore that day comrade love and service--and that day is

now; twilight has never come to it, the leaves of the oak

wood have never fallen! The Holy Office shall not have

thee!"

"Don Enrique--"

We sat down and drank each a little wine, and fell to

ways and means.

I rested Juan Lepe in the household of Don Enrique de

Cerda, one figure among many, involved in the swarm of

fighting and serving men. There was a squire who had

served him long. To this man, Diego Lopez, I was committed,

with enough told to enlist his intelligence. He managed

for me in the intricate life of the place with a skill to

make god Mercury applaud. Don Enrique and I were rarely

together, rarely were seen by men to speak one to the other.

But in the inner world we were together.

Days passed. We found nothing yet to do while all

listening and doing at Santa Fe were bound up in the crumbling of Granada into Spanish hands. It seemed

best to wait,

watching chances.

Meantime the show glittered, and man's strong stomach

cried "Life! More life!" It glittered at Santa Fe before

Granada, and it was a dying ember in Granada before Santa

Fe. The one glittered and triumphed because the other

glittered and triumphed not. And who above held the balances

even and neither sorrowed nor was feverishly elated

but went his own way could only be seen from the Vega

like a dream or a line from a poet.

For the most part the nobles and cavaliers in Santa Fe

spent as though hard gold were spiritual gold to be gathered

endlessly. One might say, "They go into a garden and

shake tree each morning, which tree puts forth again in the

night." None seemed to see as on a map laid down Spain

and the broken peasant and the digger of the gold. None

seemed to feel that toil which or soon or late they must

recognize for their own toil. Toil in Spain, toil in other

and far lands whence came their rich things, toil in Europe,

Arabia and India! Apparel at Santa Fe was a thing to

marvel at. The steed no less than his rider went gorgeous.

The King and Queen, it was said, did not like this peacocking,

but might not help it.

They themselves were pouring gold into the lap of the

Church. It was a capacious lap.

Wars were general enough, God knew! But not every

year could one find a camp where the friar was as common

as the archer or the pikeman, and the prelate as the plumed

chieftain.

Santa Fe was court no less than camp, court almost as

though it were Cordova. This Queen and King at least did

not live at ease in palaces while others fought their wars.

North, south, east and west, through the ten years, they

had been the moving springs. It was an able King and

Queen, a politic King and a sincere and godly Queen, even

a loving Queen. If only--if only--

I had been a week and more in Santa Fe when King Boabdil surrendered Granada. He left forever the

Alhambra.

Granada gates opened; he rode out with a few of his emirs

and servants to meet King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.

The day shone bright. Spain towered, a figure dressed in

gold and red.

Santa Fe poured out to view the spectacle, and with the

rest went Diego Lopez and Juan Lepe. So great festival,

so vivid the color, so echoing the sound, so stately and various

the movement! Looking at the great strength massing there

on the plain I said aloud, as I thought, to Diego Lopez,

"Now they might do some worthy great thing!"

The squire not answering, I became aware that a swirl in

the throng had pushed him from me. Still there came an

answer in a deep and peculiarly thrilling voice. "That is

a true saying and a good augury!"

I learn much by voices and before I turned I knew that

this was an enthusiast's voice, but not an enthusiast without

knowledge. Whoever spoke was strong enough, real enough.

I liked the voice and felt a certain inner movement of friendship.

Some shift among the great actors, some parting of

banners, kept us suspended and staring for a moment, then

the view closed against us who could only behold by snatches.

Freed, I turned to see who had spoken and found a tall,

strongly made, white-haired man. The silver hair was too

soon; he could hardly have been ten years my elder. He

had a long, fair face that might once have been tanned and

hardened by great exposure. His skin had that look, but

now the bronze was faded, and you could see that he had

been born very fair in tint. Across the high nose and

cheek bones went a powdering of freckles. His eyes were

bluish-gray and I saw at once that he habitually looked at

things afar off.

He was rather poorly dressed and pushed about as I was.

When the surge again gave him footing, he spoke beside me.

"'Now that this is over, they might do some great, worthy

thing!' Very true, friend, they might! I take your words

for good omen." The throng shot out an arm and we were

parted. The same action brought back to me Diego Lopez.

Speaking to him later of the tall man, he said that he had

noticed him, and that it was the Italian who would go to

India by way of Ocean-Sea.

King Boabdil gave up his city to King Ferdinand and

Queen Isabella. Over Granada, high against the bright sky,

rose and floated the banners. Cannon, the big lombards,

roared. Mars' music crashed out, then the trumpets ceased

their crying and instead spread a mighty chanting. _Te Deum

Laudamus!_

At last the massed brightness out in the plain quivered

and parted. The pageantry broke, wide curving and returning

with some freedom but with order too, into Santa Fe.

I saw the Queen and the King with their children, and the

Grand Cardinal, and prelates and prelates, and the Marquis

of Cadiz, and many a grandee and famous knight. Don

Enrique de Cerda and his troop came by.

Diego Lopez and I returned to the town. I saw again

the man who would find India by a way unpassed, as far as

one knew, since the world began! He was entering a house

with a friar beside him. Something came into my mind of

the convent of La Rabida.

CHAPTER V

SOME days went by. The King and the Queen with the

court and a great train of prelates and grandees and

knights rode in state through Granada. Don Enrique,

returning, told me of it in his room at night, of the Christian

service in the mosque and the throning in the Alhambra.

"Now," he said, "after great affairs, our affairs! I have

had speech with the Marchioness of Moya."

"That is the Queen's friend?"

"Yes. Dona Beatrix de Boabdilla. We stood together

by a fountain, and when she said, `What can I do for you?'

I answered, `There is something.' Then while all went in

pageantry before us, I told her of the hermitage in the oak

wood and of the unhappy small tower, and of you and me

and those others, and what was done that day. Don Jayme,

I told it like a minstrel who believes what he sings! And

then I spoke of to-day. She is no puny soul, nor is she

in priest's grip. She acts from her own vision, not from

that of another. The Queen is no weak soul either! She

also has vision, but too often she lets the churchmen take

her vision from her. But Dona Beatrix is stronger there.

Well, she promises help if we can show her how to help."

I said, "I have been thinking. It seems to me that it

was wrong to come here and put my weight upon you."

"No!" he answered. "Did we not swear then, when

we were young men? And we needed no oaths neither.

Let such thoughts be.--I am going to the palace to-morrow,

and you with me. The King and the Queen ride with a

great train into Granada. But Dona Beatrix will excuse

herself from going. The palace will be almost empty, and

we shall find her in the little gallery above the Queen's

garden."

The next morning we went there, Don Enrique de Cerda

and his squire, Juan Lepe. The palace rose great and goodly

enough, with the church at hand. All had been built as

by magic, silken pavilions flying away and stout houses

settling themselves down. Sunk among the walls had been

managed a small garden for the Queen and her ladies. A

narrow, latticed and roofed gallery built without the Queen's

rooms looked down upon orange and myrtle trees and a

fountain. Here we found the Marchioness de Moya, with

her two waiting damsels whom she set by the gallery door.

Don Enrique kissed her hand and then motioned to me.

Don Jayme de Marchena made his reverence.

She was a strong woman who would go directly to the

heart of things. Always she would learn from the man

himself. She asked me this and I answered; that and the

other and I answered. "Don Pedro--?" I told the

enmity there and the reason for it. "The Jewish rabbi,

my great-grand father?" I avowed it, but by three Castilian

and Christian great-grandfathers could not be counted as

Jew! Practise Judaism? No. My grandmother Judith

had been Christian.

She drove to the heart of it. "You yourself are Christian.

What do you mean by that? What the Queen means?

What the Grand Cardinal and the Archbishop of Granada

means? What the Holy Office means?"

I kept silence for a moment, then I told her as well as I

might, without fever and without melancholy, what I had

written and of the Dominican.

"You have been," she said, "an imprudent cavalier."

The fountain flashed below us, a gray dove flew over

garden. I said, "There is a text, `With all thy getting,

get understanding.' There is another, `For God so loved

the world'--that He wished to impart understanding."

She sat quiet, seeming to listen to the fountain. Then

she said, "Are you ready to avow when they ask you that

in every particular to which the Grand Inquisitor may point

you are wrong, and that all that Holy Church through mouth

of Holy Office says is right?"

I said, "No, Madam! Present Church is not as large as

Truth, nor as fair as Beauty."

"You may think that, but will you say the other?"

"Say that church or kingdom exactly matches Truth and

Beauty?"

"That is what I am sure you will have to say."

"Then, no!"

"I do not see," she said, "that I can do anything for

you."

There was a chair beside her. She sat down, her chin on

her hand and her eyes lowered. Silence held save for the

fountain plashing. Don Enrique stood by the railing, and

Jayme de Marchena felt his concern. But he himself walked

just then--Don Jayme or Juan Lepe--into long patience,

into greater steadfastness. Into the inner fields came translucence,

gold light; came and faded, but left strength.

Dona Beatrix raised her eyes and let them dwell upon

me. "Spain breeds bold knights," she said, "but not so

many after all who are bold within! Not so many, I think,

as are found in Italy or in France." She paused a moment,

looking at the sky above the roofs, then came back to me.

"It is hopeless, and you must see it, to talk in those terms

to the only powers that can lead the Holy Office to forget

that you live! It is hopeless to talk to the Queen, telling

her that. She would hold that she had entertained heresy,

and her imagination would not let her alone. I see naught

in this world for you to do but to go out of it into another!

There are other lands--"

A damsel hurried to her from the door. "There's a stir

below, Madam! Something has brought the Queen home

earlier than we thought--"

The Marchioness de Moya rose. Don Enrique kissed her

hand, and Jayme de Marchena kissed it and thanked her. "I

would help if I could!" she said. "But in Spain to-day

it is deadly dangerous to talk or write as though there were

freedom!"

She passed from the gallery, Don Enrique and I following.

We came upon a landing with a great stair before us.

Quick as had been her maidens, they were not quick enough.

Many folk were coming up the broad steps. Dona Beatrix

glanced, then opened a door giving into a great room,

apparently empty. She pointed to an opposite door. "The

little stair! Go that way!" Don Enrique nodded comprehension.

We were in the room; the door closed.

At first it seemed an empty great chamber. Then from

behind a square of stretched cloth came a man's head, followed

by the figure pertaining to it. The full man was clad

after a rich fancy and he held in his hand a brush and

looked at us at first dreamily and then with keenness.

He knew me, differently arrayed though I was, and looked

from me to Don Enrique. "Master Manuel Rodriguez,"

said the latter, "I would stop for good talk and to admire

the Queen's likeness, but duty calls me out of palace!

Adios!" He made toward the door across from that by

which we had entered. The painter spoke after us. "That

door is bolted, Don Enrique, on the other side. I do not

know why! It is not usually so."

Don Enrique, turning, hurried to the first door and very

slightly opened it. A humming entered the large, quiet room.

He closed the door. "The Queen is coming up the great

stair. The Archbishop of Granada is with her and a whole

train beside!" He spoke to the painter. "I have no

audience, and for reasons would not choose this moment as

one in which to encounter the least disfavor! I will stay here

before your picture and admire until landing and stairways

are bare."

"If to be invisible is your desire," answered Manuel

Rodriguez, "you have walked into trouble! The Queen is

coming here."

Don Enrique exclaimed. Juan Lepe turned eyes to the

painter. The blue eyes met mine--there rose the rushy

pool, there dozed the broken boat. Manuel Rodriguez spoke

in his voice that was at once cool and fine and dry and

warm. "It is best to dare thoroughly! Perhaps I may

help you--as thus! Wishing to speak with Don Enrique

of an altar painting for the Church of Saint Dominic, I

asked him here and he came. We talked, and he will give

the picture. Then, hearing the Queen's approach, he would

instantly have been gone, but alack, the small door is barred!

--As for fisherman yonder, few look at squire when knight

is in presence!"

No time to debate his offer, which indeed was both wise

and kind! Chamberlains flung open the door. In came the

Queen, with her the Princess Juana and several of her

ladies. Beside her walked Fernando de Talavera, Her Highness's

confessor, yesterday Bishop of Avila but now Archbishop

of Granada. Behind him moved two lesser ecclesiastics,

and with these Don Alonzo de Quintanella, Comptroller-

General of Castile. Others followed, nobles and

cavaliers, two soberly clad men who looked like secretaries,

a Franciscan friar, three or four pages. The room was

large and had a table covered with a rich cloth, two great

chairs and a few lesser ones.

The painter and Don Enrique bent low to the Majesty

of Castile. In the background Juan Lepe made squire's

obeisance. I was bearded and my face stained with a

Moorish stain, and I was in shadow; it was idle to fear

recognition that might never come. The Queen seated herself,

and her daughter beside her, and with her good smile

motioned the Archbishop to a chair. The two ecclesiastics,

both venerable men, were given seats. The rest of the company

stood. The Queen's blue eyes rested on Don Enrique.

She spoke in a clear, mild voice, threaded with dignity.

"Were you summoned thither, Don Enrique de Cerda?"

He answered, "No, Highness! I came to the palace to

seek Master Manuel Rodriguez who is to paint for me an

altarpiece for the Church of Saint Dominic. You and the

King, Madam, I thought were in Granada. Not finding him

in his own lodging, I made bold to come here. Then at

once, before I could hasten away, you returned!"

The true nature of this Queen was to think no evil. Her

countenance remained mild. He had done valiant service,

and she was sisterly-minded toward the greater part of the

world. Now she said with serenity, "There is no fault,

Don Enrique. Stay with us now that you are here."

Bowing deeply, he joined a brother-in-arms, Don Miguel

de Silva. His squire stood in the shadow behind him, but

found a chance-left lane of vision down which much might

be seen.

The Queen composed herself , in her chair. "This is the

position, Master Manuel?" The fair man, so fine and quick

that I loved to look at him, bowed and stepped back to his

canvas, where he took up his brush and fell to work. The

Queen and the Archbishop began to speak earnestly together.

Words and sentences floated to Juan Lepe standing by the

arras. The Queen made thoughtful pauses, looking before

her with steady blue eyes and a somewhat lifted face. I

noted that when she did this Manuel Rodriguez painted

fast.

There fell a pause in their talk. Something differing from

the subject of discourse, whatever in its fullness that might

be, seemed to come into her mind. She sent her glance across

the room.

"Don Enrique de Cerda--"

The tone summoned. When he was before her, "It was

in my mind," said the Queen, "to send for you within a

day or two. But now you are here, and this moment while

we await the King is as good as another. We have had

letters from the Bishop of Seville whom we reverence, and

from Don Pedro Enriquez to whom we owe much. They

have to do with Jayme de Marchena who has long been

suspect by the Holy Office. He has fled Seville, gone none

know where! Don Pedro informs us, Don Enrique, that

years ago this man stood among your friends. He does not

think it probable that this is yet so--nor do I, Don Enrique,

knowing that you must hold in abhorrence the heretic!"

She looked mildly upon him. "In youth we make chance

friendships thick as May, but manhood weeds the garden!

And yet we think it possible that this man may in his heart

trade on old things and make his way to you or send you

appeal." She paused, then said in a quiet voice, "Should

that happen, Don Enrique, on your allegiance, and as a

good Christian, you will do all that you can to put him in

the hands of the Holy Office."

She waited with her blue eyes upon him. He said, and

said quietly, "It was long ago, Madam, when I was a young

man and careless. I will do all that lies in me to do. But

Spain is wide and there are ships to Africa and other shores."

She said, "Yes, I do not see such an one daring to come

to Santa Fe! But they say that ten demons possess a

heretic, and that he crosses streams upon a hair or walks

edges of high walls."

With her ringed hand she made gesture of dismissal. He

bowed low and stepped back to his former place.

The sun flooded in at window. Manuel Rodriguez painted

steadily. The Queen sat still, with lifted face and eyes

strained into distance. She sighed and came back from

wastes where she would be Christian, oh, where she would

be Christian! and began with a tender, maternal look to talk

with her daughter.

CHAPTER VI

THE door giving upon the great corridor opened. One

said, "The King, Madam!" King Ferdinand entered

quietly, in the sober fashion of a sober and able man.

He was cool and balanced, true always to his own conception

of his own dues. The Queen rose and stepped to meet

him. They spoke, standing together, after which he handed

her to her chair and took beside her the other great chair

which the pages had swiftly placed. After greeting his

daughter and the Archbishop he looked across to the painter.

"Master Manuel Rodriguez, good day!"

There fell a moment of sun-drenched quiet in which they

all sat for their picture. Then said the King, "Madam, we

are together, and here are those who have been our chief

advisers in this affair of discoveries. Master Christopherus

is below. We noted him in the court. Let us have him

here and see this too-long-dragging matter finished! Once

for all abate his demands, or once for all let him go!"

They sent a page. Again there was sunny silence, then

in at the door came the tall, muscular, gray-eyed, silver-

haired man whom I had met the day King Boabdil surrendered

Granada.

He made reverence to the Queen and the King and to the

Archbishop. It was the Queen who spoke to him and that

gently.

"Master Christopherus, we have had a thousand businesses,

and so our matter here has waited and waited. Today comes unaware this quiet hour and we will give it to

you. Here with us are the Archbishop and others who

have been our counsellors, and here is Don Alonzo de Quintantella who hath always stood your friend. In

all the hurly-burly we yet took time, two days ago, to sit in council and

come to conclusion. And now we give you our determination.

In all reason it should give you joy!" She smiled

upon him. "How many years since first you laid your

plan before us?"

He answered her in a deep voice, thrilling and crowded

with feeling. "Seven years, Madam your Highness! Like

an infant laid at your feet. And winter has blown upon it,

and sunshine carrying hope has walked around it, and then

again the cold wind rises--"

The King spoke. "Master Christopherus, in war much

else has to cease! In much we have had to find patience,

and you have to find it."

"My lord King, yes!" replied the tall man. "It is

eighteen years since in Lisbon, looking upon the sea one day,

I said to myself, `Is there a question that is not to be

answered? This ocean is to be crossed. Then why do not I

cross it? There is Cipango, Cathay and India! Gold and

spices are there, and here lie ships, and between, when all

is said, is only sea! God made the sea to be sailed! Yonder

they worship idols, here we worship Christ. There are

idols, here is Christ. Once a Christopherus carried Christ

across water!' Eighteen years ago. I said, `I can do it!'

I say it to-day, my lord and my lady. I can do it!"

Of the seated great ones only the Queen's spirit appeared

to answer his. He seemed to enchant her, to take her with

him. But the King's cool face regarded him with something

like dislike. He spoke in an edged voice. "Saint Christopher

asked no great wage. That is the point, Master

Christopherus, so let us to it! At last the Queen and I

say `We agree' to this enterprise, which may bring forth

fruit or may not, or may mean mere empty loss of ships

and men and of our monies! Yet we say `yea.' But we

do not say `yea ', Master Christopherus, to the too great

ferry fee which you ask! I say `ask', but verily the tone

is of command!"

The man whom they called Master Christopherus made a

slow, wide gesture of deprecation. The Archbishop took

the word. "Too much! You ask a hundred times too

much! I must say to you that it is unchristianly arrogance.

You talk like a soldan!" An assenting murmur came from

the other ecclesiastics.

The Queen spoke. "Master Christopherus, if it be a great

thing to do, is not the doing it and thereby blessing yourself

no less than others--is not that reward? Not that

Castile shall deny you reward, no! Trust me that if you

bring us the key of India you shall not find us niggardly!

But we and they who advise us stumble at your prescribing

wealth, honors and gifts that they say truly are better fitting

a great prince! Trust us for enrichment and for honor do

you come back with the great thing done! Leave it all now

to Time that brings to pass. So you will be clearer to go

forth to the blessed carrying of Christ!"

She spoke earnestly, a Queen, but with much about her

of womanly, motherly sweetness. I saw that she greatly

liked the man and somewhere met his spirit. But the King

was gathering hardness. He spoke to a secretary standing

behind him. "Have you it there written down, the Italian's

demand?"

The man produced a paper. "Read!" But before it

could be unfolded, Master Christopherus spoke.

" `Italian!' Seven years in Spain and ten in Portugal,

and a good while in Porto Santo that belongs to Portugal,

a little in England and in Ultima Thule or Iceland, and long,

long years upon ships decked and undecked in all the seas

that are known--fourteen years, childhood and boyhood, in

Genoa and at Pavia where I went to school, and all my

years of hope in Christ's Kingdom, and in the uplands of

great doers-and your Highness says to me for a slighting

word, `Italian!' I was born in Italy, but to-day, for this

turn, King Ferdinand, you should call me `Spaniard'! As,

if King John sends me forth be will call me Portuguese!

Or King Henry will say, `Christopher the Englishman'

or King Charles, to whom verily I see that I may go, shall

say, `Frenchman, to whom all owe the marriage of East and

West, but France owes Empire!"'

The King said, "It may be so, or it may not be so,

Master Christopherus.--Read!"

The secretary read: The Genoese, Cristoforo Colombo,

called in Spain Cristobal Colon, and in the Latin Christopherus

Columbus, states and demands in substance as follows:

Sailing westward he will discover for the King and

Queen of the Spains the Indies and Cathay and Cipango,

to the great glory and enrichment of these Sovereigns and

the passing thereby of Spain ahead of Portugal, and likewise

and above all to the great glory of Christ and of Holy

Church. He will do this, having seen it clear for many

years that it is to be done, and he the instrument. And for

the finding by going westward of the said India and all

the gain of the world and the Kingdom of God and of our

Sovereigns the King Don Ferdinand and the Queen Dona

Isabella, he bargaineth thus:

"He shall be named Admiral of the Ocean-Sea, whereby

he means the whole water west of the line drawn by the

Holy Father for the King of Portugal. He shall be made

Viceroy and Governor of all continents and islands that he

may discover, claim and occupy for the Sovereigns. And

the said Christopherus Columbus's eldest son shall hold these

offices after him, and the heir of his son, and his heir, down

time. He shall be granted one tenth of all gold, pearls,

precious stones, spices, or other merchandise found or bought

or exchanged within his admiralty and viceroyship, and this

tithe is likewise to be taken by his heirs from generation to

generation. He or one that he shall name shall be judge in

all disputes that arise in these continents and islands, so be it

that the honor of the Sovereigns of Spain is not touched.

He shall have the salary that hath the High Admiral of

Castile. He and his family shall be ennobled and henceforth

be called Don and Dona. And for the immediate sailing

of ships he may, if he so desire, be at an eighth of the

expense of outfitting, for which he shall be returned an

eighth of all the profit of this the first voyage."

The secretary did not make the terms less sounding by

his reading. Wind in leaves, went a stir through the room.

I heard a page near me whispering, "O Sancta Maria!

The hanger-on, the needy one! Since the beginning of time

I've seen him at doors, sunny and cloudy days, the big,

droning bee!" Manuel Rodriguez painted on. I felt his

thought. "I should like to paint _you_, Admiral of the

Ocean-Sea!"

The room recomposed itself. Out of silence came the

King's voice, chill and dry. "We abate so vast a claim for

so vast reward! But we would be naught else but just,

and in our ability lavish. Read now what we will do!"

The secretary read. It had a certain largeness and goodliness,

as go rewards for adventure, even for great adventure,

what the sovereigns would do. The room thought it should

answer. The King spoke, "We can promise no more nor

other than this. It contents you, Master Christopherus?"

The long-faced, high-nosed, gray-eyed man answered,

"No, my lord King."

"Your own terms or none?"

"Mine or none, your Highness."

The King's voice grew a cutting wind. "To that the

Queen and I answer, `Ours or none!' " Pushing back

his chair, he glanced at sun out of window. "It is over. I

incline to think that it was at best but an empty vision. You

are dismissed, Master Christopherus!"

The Genoese, bowing, stepped backward from the table.

In his face and carriage was nothing broken. He kept

color. The Queen's glance went after him, "What will you

do now, Master Christopherus?"

He answered, "My lady, your Highness, I shall take

horse to-morrow for France."

The King said, "France?--King Charles buys ever low,

not high!"

The Sovereigns and the great churchmen and the less

great went away together. After them flowed the high attendance.

All went, Don Enrique among the last. Following

him, I turned head, for I wished to observe again two

persons, the painter Manuel Rodriguez and the Admiral of

the Ocean-Sea. The former painted on. The latter walked

forth quite alone, coming behind the grinning pages.

In the court below I saw him again. The archway to

street sent toward us a deep wedge of shadow. He had a

cloak which he wrapped around him and a large round hat

which he drew low over his gray-blue eyes. With a firm

step he crossed to the archway where the purple shadow

took him.

Juan Lepe must turn to his own part which now must be

decided. I walked behind Don Enrique de Cerda through

Santa Fe. With him kept Don Miguel de Silva, who loved

Don Enrique's sister and would still talk of _devoir_ and of

plans, now that the war was ended. When the house was

reached he would enter with us and still adhere to Don

Enrique. But at the stair foot the latter spoke to the squire.

"Find me in an hour, Juan Lepe. I have something to say

to thee!" His tone carried, "Do you think the place there

makes any difference? No, by the god of friends!"

I let him go thinking that I would come to him presently.

But I, too, had to act under the god of friends. In Diego

Lopez's room I found quill and ink and paper, and there I

wrote a letter to Don Enrique, and finding Diego gave it to

him to be given in two hours into Don Enrique's hand.

Then Juan Lepe the squire changed in his own room, narrow

and bare as a cell, to the clothing of Juan Lepe the sailor.

CHAPTER VII

DUSK was drawing down as I stole with little trouble

out of the house into the street and thence into the

maze of Santa Fe. That night I slept with minstrels

and jugglers, and at sunrise slipped out of Cordova gate

with muleteers. They were for Cordova and I meant to go to

Malaga. I meant to find there a ship, maybe for Africa,

maybe for Italy, though in Italy, too, sits the Inquisition.

But who knows what it is that turns a man, unless we call

it his Genius, unless we call it God? I let the muleteers

pass me on the road to Cordova, let them dwindle in the

distance. And still I walked and did not turn back and

find the Malaga road. It was as though I were on the sea,

and my bark was hanging in a calm, waiting for a wind to

blow. A man mounted on a horse was coming toward me

from Santa Fe. Watching the small figure grow larger, I

said, "When he is even with me and has passed and is a

little figure again in the distance, I will turn south."

He came nearer. Suddenly I knew him to be that Master

Christopherus who had entered the wedge of shadow yesterday

in the palace court. He was out of it now, in the broad

light, on the white road--on the way to France. He approached.

The ocean before Palos came and stood again

before me, salt and powerful. The keen, far, sky line of it

awoke and drew!

Christopherus Columbus came up with me. I said, "A

Palos sailor gives you good morning!"

Checking the horse, he sat looking at me out of blue-gray

eyes. I saw him recollecting. "Dress is different and

poorer, but you are the squire in the crowd! `Sailor

Palos sailor'--There's some meaning there too!"

He seemed to ponder it, then asked if I was for Cordova.

"No. I am going to Malaga where I take ship."

"This is not the Malaga road."

"No. But I am in no hurry! I should like to walk a mile

with you."

"Then do it," he answered. "Something tells me that

we shall not be ill travelers together."

I felt that also and no more than he could explain it.

But the reason, I know, stands in the forest behind the

seedling.

He walked his horse, and I strode beside. He asked my

name and I gave it. Juan Lepe. We traveled Cordova

road together. Presently he said, "I leave Spain for France,

and do you know why?"

Said Juan Lepe, "I have been told something, and I have

gathered something with my own eyes and ears. You would

reach Asia by going west."

He spoke in the measured tone of a recital often made

alike to himself and to others. "I hold that the voyage from

Palos, say, first south to the Canaries and then due west

would not exceed three months. Yet I began to go west

to India full eighteen years ago! I have voyaged eighteen

years, with dead calms and head winds, with storms and

back-puttings, with pirates and mutinies, with food and

water lacking, with only God and my purpose for friend! I

have touched at the court of Portugal and at the court of

Spain, and, roundabout way, at the court of England, and at

the houses of the Doges of Venice and of Genoa. They all

kept me swinging long at anchor, but they have never given

me a furthering wind. Eighteen years going to India! But

why do I say eighteen? The Lord put me forth from landside

the day I was born. Before I was fourteen, at the

school in Pavia, He said, `Go to sea. Sail under thy cousin

Colombo and learn through long years all the inches of salt

water.' Later He said, one day when we were swinging

off Alexandria, `Study! Teach thyself! Buy books, not

wine nor fine clothes nor favor of women. Study on land

and study at sea. Look at every map that comes before you.

Learn to make maps. When a world map comes before you,