l one found that he had an injured leg
and could not climb mast nor manage sail. "'If' is a seaman without a
ship!--He's a famous navigator."

"Martin Pinzon?"

"Him too. But I meant our Admiral."

"He hasn't had a ship for years!"

"He was of the best when he had one! I've heard old Captain Ruy tell--"

"Maybe he wasn't crazy in those days, but he's crazy now!"

That was Fernando. I think it was from him that certain of the crew
took the word "crazy." They used it until one would think that for pure
variety's sake they would find another!

The sixth day from Palos there lifted from sea the peak of Teneriffe.

This day, passing on some errand the open door of the great cabin, I
saw the Admiral seated at the table. Looking up, he saw me, gazed an
instant, then lifted his voice. "Come in here!"

He sat with a great chart spread upon the table before him. Beside
it the log lay open, and he had under his hand a book in which he was
writing. Door framed blue sky and sea, a pleasant wind was singing in
a pleasant warmth, the great cabin which, with the rest of the ship, he
made to be kept very clean, was awash with light and fineness of air.
"Would you like to look at the chart?" he asked, and I came and looked
over his shoulder.

"I made it," he said. "There is nothing in the world more useful than
knowing how to make maps and charts! While I waited for Kings to make up
their minds I earned my living so." I glanced at the log and he pushed
it to me so that I might see. "Every day from Palos out." His strong
fingers touched the other book. "My journal that I keep for myself and
the Queen and King Ferdinand and indeed for the world." He turned the
leaves. The bulk of them were blank, but in the front showed closely
covered pages, the writing not large but clear and strong. "This voyage,
you see, changeth our world! Once in Venice I heard a scholar learned
in the Greek tell of an old voyage of a ship called _Argo_, whence its
captain and crew were named Argonauts, and he said that it was of all
voyages most famous with the ancients. This is like that, but probably
greater." He turned the pages. "I shall do it in the manner of Caesar
his Commentaries."

He knew himself, I thought, for as great a man as Caesar. All said, his
book might be as prized in some unentered future. He did not move where
time is as a film, but where time is deep, a thousand years as a day. He
could not see there in detail any more than we cou