e latter caused it to pass from hand to
hand among the seamen. I had it in my hands and truly saw no reason why
it might not have been cut by some native of the West, and, carried away
by the tide or dropped perchance from a boat, have at last, after long
time, come into hands not Indian. Asia tossing unthinkingly a ball which
Europe caught.

The _Pinta_ proved in worse plight than was at first thought. The Nina
also found this or that to do besides squaring her Levant sails. We
stayed in Gomera almost three weeks. The place was novel, the day's task
not hard, the Admiral and his captains complaisant. We had leisure and
island company. To many it was happiness enough. While we stopped at
Gornera we were at least not drifting upon lodestone, equator fire and
chaos!

Here on Gomera might be studied the three Pinzon brothers. Vicente was
a good, courageous captain, Francisco a good pilot, and a courageous,
seldom-speaking man. But Martin Alonso, the eldest, was the prime mover
in all their affairs. He was skillful navigator like his brothers and
courageous like them, but not silent like Francisco, and ambitious far
above either. He would have said perhaps that had he not been so, been
both ambitious and shrewd, the Pinzons would never have become principal
ship-owning, trading and maritime family of Palos and three leagues
around. He, too, had family fortunes and aggrandizement at heart, though
hardly on the grand, imperial scale of the Admiral. He had much manly
beauty, daring and strength. His two brothers worshipped him, and in
most places and moments his crew would follow him with a cheer. The
Admiral was bound to him, not only in that he had volunteered and made
others to go willingly, but that he had put in his ship, the _Nina_, and
had furnished Master Christopherus with monies. That eighth of the cost
of the expedition, whence else could it come? If it tied Martin Pinzon
to the Admiral, seeing that only through success could those monies be
repaid, it likewise made him feel that he, too, had authority, was at
liberty to advise, and at need to become critical.

But the Admiral had the great man's mark. He could acknowledge service
and be quite simply and deeply grateful for it. He was grateful to
Martin Pinzon who had aided him from his first coming to Palos, and also
I think he loved the younger man's great blond strength and beauty. He
had all of Italy's quickness to beauty, be it of land or sea, forest,
flower