e had no less than thirty personal servants and retainers. Hidalgos
here at Isabella had also servants, but no one more than two or three.
It was among these folk that first arose our amazing jealousies and
envies. Now and again the masters must take part. Not the Viceroy who in
such matters went very stately, but certain of our gentlemen. Loud and
angry voices rose under the palms, under a sky of pale gold.

Sent for, I found the Admiral lying on his bed, not yet in his stone
house but in a rich and large pavilion brought out especially for the
Viceroy and now pitched upon the river bank, under palms. I came to him
past numbers out of that thirty. Idle here; they certainly were idle
here! With him I found a secretary, but when he could he preferred
always to write his own letters, in his small, clear, strong hand, and
now he was doing this, propped in bed, in his brow a knot of pain. He
wrote many letters. Long afterwards I heard that it had become a saying
in Spain, "Write of your matters as often as Christopherus Columbus!"

I sat waiting for him to finish and he saw my eyes upon yet unfolded
pages strewing the table taken from the _Marigalante_ and set here
beside him. "Read if you like," he said. "The ships set sail day after
to-morrow."

I took and read in part his letter to a learned man with whom, once or
twice, Jayme de Marchena had talked. It was a long letter in which the
Admiral, thinker to thinker, set forth his second voyage and now his
city building, and at last certain things for the mind not only of Spain
but of France and Italy and England and Germany. "All lands and all
men whom so far we have come to," wrote the Admiral, "are heathen and
idolaters. In the providence of God all such are given unto Christendom.
Christendom must take possession through the acts of Christian princes,
under the sanction of Holy Church, allowed by the Pope who is Christ our
King's Viceroy. Seeming hardship bringeth great gain! Millions of souls
converted, are baptized. Every infant feeleth the saving water. Souls
that were lost now are found. Christ beameth on them! To that, what is
it that the earthly King of a country be changed?"

His quill traveled on over paper. Another sheet came into my hand. I
read it, then sat pondering. He sighed with pain, pushed all aside and
presently bade the secretary forth. When the man was gone he told me
of an agony behind his eyes that now stabbed and now laid him in a
drowsiness. I d