crack, I have so cudgeled it!"

That he cudgeled it was true, and though his brain never cracked and
to the end was the best brain in a hundred, yet from this time forth I
began to mark in him an unearthliness.

These islands we named the Queen's Gardens, and escaping from them came
again to clean coast. On we went for two days, and this part of Cuba had
many villages, at sea edge or a little from the water, and all men and
women were friendly and brought us gifts.

I remember a moonlight night. All were aboard the _Cordera_, the _Santa
Clara_ and the _San Juan_, for we meant to sail at dawn. We had left
a village yet dancing and feasting. The night was a miracle of silver.
Again I stood beside Christopherus Columbus; from land streamed their
singing and their thin, drumming and clashing music. At hand it is
rather harsh than sweet, but distance sweetened it.

"What will be here in the future--if there are not already here, after
your notion, great cities and bridges and shipping, and only our eyes
holden and our hands and steps made harmless? Or nearly harmless, for we
have slain some Indians!"

He had made a gesture of deprecation. "Ah, that, I hardly doubt, was my
fancy! But in the future I see them, your cities!"

"Do you see them, from San Salvador onward and everywhere,--Spanish
cities?"

"Necessarily--seeing that the Holy Father hath given the whole of the
land to Spain." He looked at the moon that was so huge and bright, and
listened to the savage music. "If we go far enough--walking afar--who
knoweth what we shall find?" He stood motionless. "_I_ do not know. It
is in God's hands!"

"Do you see," I asked, "a great statue of yourself?"

"Yes, I see that."

The moon shone so brightly it was marvel. Land breeze brought perfume
from the enormous forest. "It is too fair to sleep!" said the Admiral.
"I will sit here and think."

He slept little at any time. His days were filled with action. Never
was any who had more business to attend to! Yet he was of those to whom
solitude is as air,--imperiously a necessity. Into it he plunged through
every crack and cranny among events. He knew how to use the space
in which swim events. But beside this he must make for himself wide
holdings, and when he could not get them by day he took from night.

We came again to a multitude of islets like to the Queen's Gardens. And
these were set in a strange churned and curdled sea, as white as milk.
Making through it as bes