eaming of the Holy Land--but
do you know, Juan Lepe, it was seated here in the lands we found!"

"Seated here and everywhere," I said. "As soon as we see it so and make
it so."

"Aye, I know that the sea is holy, and so should be all the land! The
prophet sees it so--"

The dawn came faintly in upon us. All was quieter, the footing overhead
steady, not hasting, frightened. Light strengthened. A boy brought
him breakfast. He ate with appetite. "You are better," I said, "and
younger."

"It is a strange thing," he answered, "but so it had been from my
boyhood. Is the danger close and drear, is the ship upon the reef, then
some one pours for me wine! Some one, do I say? I know Whom!"

I began to speak of the Adelantado. "Aye, there he is the same!
'Peril--darkness? Well, let's meet it!' We are alike, we three brothers,
alike and different. Diego serves God best in a monastery, and I serve
best in a ship with a book and a map to be followed and bettered.
Bartholomew serves best where he has been, Adelantado and Alcayde. He
is powerful there, with judgment and action. But he is a sea master too,
and he makes a good map.--I thank God who gave us good parents, and to
us all three mind and a firm will! The inheritance passes to my sons.
You have not seen them? They are youths of great promise! A family that
is able and at one, loving and aiding each the other, honoring its past
and providing for its future, becomes, I tell you, an Oak that cannot be
felled--an Ark that rides the waters!"

As he moved, his chains made again their dull noise. "Do they greatly
gall you?"

"Yes, they gall! Flesh and spirit. But I shall wear them until the Queen
saith, 'Away with them!' But ever after I shall keep them by me! They
shall hang in my house where forever men shall see them! In my son's
house after me, and in his son's!"

Alonso de Villejo visited him. "The tempest is over, senor. I take it
for good augury in your affair!"

Juan Lepe upon the deck found beside him a man whom he knew. "What d'ye
think? At the worst, in the middle night, there came to Don Alonso and
the master the old seamen and would have him freed so that he might save
us! They said that they had seen his double upon the poop, looking at
the sea and waving his arm. Then it vanished! They wanted the whole man,
they wanted the Admiral! The master roared at them and sent them back,
but if it had come to the worst--I don't know!"

Cadiz--the _Santa Marta_ came