nodded. "I am here on the quest of maps, for these
Venetians are the princes of mapmaking. Then I sail again."

"To Cathay?"

A sudden longing had taken Philip. It was as if a bright strange world
had been spread before him compared with which the old was tarnished and
dingy.

Battista shook his head. "Not Cathay. To go there would be only to make
assurance of that which we already know. I have shown the road: let
others plan its details and build hostelries. For myself I am for a
bolder venture."

The balcony was filling up. A noisy group of young men were chattering
at one table, and at others some of the merchants from the Merceria were
at wine. But where the two sat it was quiet and dusky, though without on
the canal the sky made a golden mirror. Philip could see his companion's
face in the reflected light, and it reminded him of the friars who had
filled the chamber of his dying grandmother. It was strained with a
steadfast ardour.

Battista leaned his elbows on the board and his eyes searched the
other's.

"I am minded to open my heart to you," he said. "You are young and of
a noble stock. Likewise you are a scholar. I am on a mission, Sir
Philip--the loftiest, I think, since Moses led Israel over the deserts.
I am seeking a promised land. Not Cathay, but a greater. I sail
presently, not the African seas, but the Sea of Darkness, the Mare
Atlanticum." He nodded towards Bianco's map. "I am going beyond the
Ultimate Islands."

"Listen," he went on, and his voice fell very low and deep. "I take it
we live in these latter days of which the prophets spoke. I remember a
monk in Genoa who said that the Blessed Trinity ruled in turn, and that
the reign of the Father was accomplished and that of the Son nearing
its close; and that now the reign of the Spirit was at hand. It may have
been heresy--I am no scholar--but he pointed a good moral. For, said he,
the old things pass away and the boundaries of the world are shifting.
Here in Europe we have come to knowledge of salvation, and brought the
soul and mind of man to an edge and brightness like a sword. Having
perfected the weapon, it is now God's will that we enter into possession
of the new earth which He has kept hidden against this day, and He has
sent His Spirit like a wind to blow us into those happy spaces....
Now, mark you, sir, this earth is not a flat plain surrounded by outer
darkness, but a sphere hung in the heavens and sustained by God's hand.
Ther