on weather, bright winds of praise. The last health of
the present body was his upon this journey. Health and strength harked
back. All noted it. Jayme de Marchena held it for the leap of the flame
before sinking, before leaving the frame of this world. But his sons and
Don Bartholomew cried, "Why, father, why, brother, you will outlive us
yet!"

He rode firmly; he looked about with bright, blue-gray eyes; his voice
had the old, powerful thrill. It was happiness to him when the simple
came crowding, or when in some halt he talked with two or three or with
a solitary. The New Lands and the Vast Change, and it would affect all
our life, this way, that way and the other way.

But when we came to Segovia, the King was dead, not alive, to
Christopherus Columbus. Not dead to the Indies, no! But dead to their
old discoverer. We had chilly weather, miserable, and all the buds of
promise went back. Or rather there were promises, cold smiles, but even
he, the Genoese, saw at last that these buds were _simulacra_, never
meant to bloom.

The Queen was gone. The Court wore the King's color. Then the King went
to Laredo to meet his daughter Juana, who was now Queen of Castile. With
him went all of importance. Segovia became a dull and somewhat hostile
water where rode at last anchor the ship of the Admiral.

CHAPTER XLV

DON FERNANDO met me at the door. "He is wandering--he thinks he is in
Cordova with my mother." He came from that and said he would get up and
go to mass. Persuaded to lie quiet, he talked of his will, drawn before
his third voyage, and said that he would have it read to him, and make a
codicil.

This will. It ran at length through preamble and body.

"In the name of the most Holy Trinity who revealed it
to me that I could sail westward across Ocean-Sea--

"As it pleased God, in the year one thousand, four hundred
and ninety-two, I discovered the Continent of the Indies
and many islands. I returned to Cadiz to their Majesties
who allowed my going a second voyage, and in this God gave
me victory over the island of Hispaniola, which covers six
hundred leagues, and I conquered it and made it tributary;
and I discovered many islands dwelled in by Caribals or
eaters of men's flesh, and also Jamaica which I named
Santiago, and three hundred and thirty leagues of Continent
from south to west--"

He recited his rights, dignities, tithes, emoluments,--