, and I knew that the
stranger was that brother, Bartholomew, for whom the Admiral longed.

These three brothers! One lay like a figure upon a tomb save for the
breathing that stirred his silver hair. One, Don Diego, tall, too, and
strong, but all of a gentle, quiet mien sank on his knees and seemed to
pray. One, Don Bartholomew, stood like rock or pine, but he slowly made
the sign of the cross, and I saw his gray eyes fill. It seemed to me
that the Admiral's eyelids flickered. "Speak to him again," I said.
"Take his hand."

Bartholomew Columbus, kneeling in the _Cordera's_ cabin, put his arm
about his great brother. That is what he called him,--"Christopher, my
great brother, it is Bartholomew! Don't you know me? Don't you remember?
I must go to England, you said, to see King Henry. To tell him what you
could do--what you have done, my great brother! Don't you remember? I
went, but I was poor like you who are now Viceroy of the Indies--and I
was shipwrecked besides and lost the little that we had scraped--do you
remember?--and must live like you by making maps and charts, and it was
long before I saw King Henry!--Christopher, my great brother! He lies
like death!"

I said, "He is returning, but he is yet a long way off. Keep speaking."

"But King Henry said at last, 'Go bring us that brother of yours, and
we think it may be done!' And he gave me gold. So I would come back
to Spain for you, and I reached Paris, and it was the summer of 1493.
Christopher, my great brother, don't you hear me? For it was at Paris
that I heard, and it came like a flood of glory, fallen in one moment
from Heaven! I heard, 'Christopherus Columbus! He has found the Indies
for King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella!'--Don't you hear, Christopher?
All the world admiring--all the world saying, 'Nothing will ever go just
the same way again!' You have done the greatest thing, my great brother!
Doctor, is he dying?"

"He will not die," I said. "You are cordial to him, though he hears you
yet from leagues and leagues away. Go on!"

"Christopher, from Paris I got slowly, slowly, so slowly I thought
it!--to Seville. But I was not poor. They gave me gold, the French King
gave it, their nobles, their bishops. I walked in that glory; it flooded
me from you! All your people, Christopher, your sons and your brothers
and our old father. You build us again, you are our castle and great
ship and Admiral! When I came to Barcelona, how they praised you! When
I