own track."

By this time all Europe had heard of the brilliant discovery of the
Genoese mariner, and everywhere admiration at his achievement and interest
in its results were manifested. Europe had never been so excited by any
single event. The world was found to be larger than had been dreamed of,
and it was evident that hundreds of new things remained to be known. Word
came to Barcelona that King John of Portugal was equipping a large
armament to obtain a share of the new realms in the west, and all haste
was made to anticipate this dangerous rival by sending Columbus again to
the New World.

On the 25th of September, 1493, he set sail with a gallant armament, which
quite threw into the shade his three humble caravels of the year before.
It consisted of seventeen vessels, some of them of large size for that
day, and fifteen hundred souls, including several persons of rank, and
members of the royal household. Many of those that had taken part in the
Moorish war, stimulated by the love of adventure, were to win fame in the
coming years in the conquest of the alluring realms of the West, and the
earliest of these sailed now under the banner of the Great Admiral.

The story of Columbus is too familiar to readers for more to be said of it
here. It was one in which the boasted honor of the Spanish court was
replaced by injustice and lack of good faith. Envy and malice surrounded
the discoverer, and in 1500 he was sent home in chains by an infamous
governor. The king, roused by a strong display of public indignation,
disavowed the base act of his agent, and received Columbus again with a
show of favor, but failed to reinstate him in the office of which he had
been unjustly deprived. The discoverer of America died at Valladolid in
1506, giving directions that the fetters which he had once worn, and which
he had kept as evidence of Spanish ingratitude, should be buried with him.

PETER THE CRUEL AND THE FREE COMPANIES.

About the middle of the year 1365 a formidable expedition set out from
France for the invasion of Castile. It consisted of the celebrated Free
Companies, marauding bands of French and English knights and archers whose
allegiance was to the sword, and who, having laid waste France, now sought
fresh prey in Spain. Valiant and daring were these reckless freebooters,
bred to war, living on rapine, battle their delight, revel their
relaxation. For years the French and English Free Companies had been
e