ul and mind, and while these count age it
is not in the short, earthly way. He asked me about the Indians,
and again and again we came back to that, pacing up and down in the
moonlight before the Spanish inn.

The next morning parting. They were going to Cordova, I to the sea.

The doves flew over the cloister of La Rabida. The bells rang; in the
small white church sang the brothers, then paced to their cells or away
to their work among the vines. Prior had a garden, small, with a tree
in each corner, with a stone bench in the sun and a stone bench in the
shade, and the doves walked here all day long. And here I found the
Adelantado with Fray Juan Perez.

The Admiral was well?

Aye, well, and next month would come to Seville. A new Voyage.

We sat under the grape arbor and he told me much, the Prior listening
for the second time. The doves cooed and whirred and walked in the sun
and shadow. According to Don Bartholomew, half in his pack was dark and
half was light.

Ovando? We heard again of all that. He was going out, Don Nicholas de
Ovando, with a great fleet.

The Adelantado possessed a deal of plain, strong sense. "I do not think
that Cristoforo will ever rule again in Hispaniola! King Ferdinand has
his own measure and goes about to apply it. The Queen flinches now from
decisions.--Well, what of it? After all, we were bred to the sea, I have
a notion that his son Diego--an able youth--may yet be Viceroy. He has
established his family, if so be he does not bring down the structure by
obstinating overmuch! He sees that, the Admiral, and nods his head and
steps aside. As for native pride and its hurt he salves that with great
enterprises. It is his way. Drouth? Frost? Out of both he rises, green
and hopeful as grass in May!"

"What of the Voyage?" asked Juan Lepe.

"That's the enterprise that will go through. Now that Portugal and Vasco
da Gama are actually in at the door, it behooves us--more and more it
behooves us," said Bartolomeo Colombo, "to find India of All the Wealth!
Spain no less than Portugal wants the gold and diamonds, the drugs and
spices, the fine, thin, painted cloths, the carved ivory and silver and
amber. 'Land, land, so much land!' says King Ferdinand. 'But _wealth_?
It is all out-go! Even your Crusade were a beggarly Crusade!'"

"Ha! That hurt him!" quoth Fray Juan Perez.

"Says the King. 'Pedro Alonso Nino has made for us the most profitable
voyage of any who have sailed from Cadiz.'