ts--Roldan wrote and received permission, and came to
San Domingo, and was reconciled.

Suddenly, after long time of turmoil, wild adventure and uncertainty,
peace descended. Over all Hispaniola the Indians submitted. Henceforth
they were our subjects; let us say our victims and our slaves! Quarrels
between Castilians died over night. Miraculously the sky cleared.
Miraculously, or perhaps because of long, patient steering through
storm. For three months we lived with an appearance of blossoming and
prospering. It seemed that it might become a peaceful, even a happy
island.

The Viceroy grew younger, the Adelantado grew younger, and Don Diego,
and with them those who held by them through thick and thin. The Admiral
began to talk Discovery. It was two years since there, far to the south,
we had passed in by the Mouth of the Serpent, and out by the Mouth of
the Dragon.

The Viceroy, inspecting the now quiet Vega, rode to an Indian village,
near Concepcion. He had twenty behind him, well-armed, but arms were not
needed. The people came about him with an eagerness, a docility. They
told their stories. He sat his horse and listened with a benignant face.
Certain harshnesses in times and amounts of their tribute he redressed.
Forever, when personal appeal came to him, he proved magnanimous, often
tender, fatherly and brotherly. At a distance he could be severe. But
when I think of the cruelties and high-handedness of others here, the
Adelantado and the Viceroy shine mildly.

We rode back to Concepcion. I remember the jewel-like air that day, the
flowers, the trees, the sky. Palms rustled above us, the brilliant
small lizards darted around silver trunks. "The fairest day!" quoth the
Admiral. "Ease at heart! I feel ease at heart."

This night, as I sat beside him, wiling him to sleep, for he always had
trouble sleeping--a most wakeful man!--he talked to me about the Queen.
Toward this great woman he ever showed veneration, piety, and knightly
regard. Of all in Spain she it was who best understood and shared
that religious part in him that breathed upward, inspired, longed and
strained toward worlds truly not on the earthly map. She, like him--or
so took leave to think Juan Lepe--received at times too docilely word of
authority, or that which they reckoned to be authority. Princes of the
Church could bring her to go against her purer thought. The world as
it is, dinging ever, "So important is wealth--so important is
heral