irates and mutinies, with food and water lacking,
with only God and my purpose for friend! I have touched at the court of
Portugal and at the court of Spain, and, roundabout way, at the court of
England, and at the houses of the Doges of Venice and of Genoa. They
all kept me swinging long at anchor, but they have never given me
a furthering wind. Eighteen years going to India! But why do I say
eighteen? The Lord put me forth from landside the day I was born. Before
I was fourteen, at the school in Pavia, He said, 'Go to sea. Sail under
thy cousin Colombo and learn through long years all the inches of salt
water.' Later He said, one day when we were swinging off Alexandria,
'Study! Teach thyself! Buy books, not wine nor fine clothes nor favor
of women. Study on land and study at sea. Look at every map that comes
before you. Learn to make maps. When a world map comes before you, look
at the western side of it and think how to fill it out knowingly. Listen
to seamen's tales. Learn to view the invisible and to feel under foot
the roundness of my earth!'

"And He said that same year off Aleppo, 'Learn to command ships. Learn
in King Reinier's war and in what other war Genoa makes. Learn to direct
men and patiently to hear them, winding in and out of their counsels,
keeping thyself always wiser than they.' Well, I studied, and learned,
and can command a ship or ships, and know navigation, and can make maps
and charts with the best, and can rule seamen, loving them the while.
Long ago, I went to that school which He set, and came forth _magister!_
Long after His first speaking, I was at Porto Santo, well named, and
there He said, 'Seek India, going westward.'" He turned his face to the
sun. "I have been going to India fifty-six years."

Juan Lepe asked, "Why, on yesterday, were you not content with the King
and Queen's terms? They granted honor and competence. It was the estate
of a prince that you asked."

Some moments passed before he answered. The sun was shining, the road
white and dusty, the mountains of Elvira purple to the tops and there
splashed with silver. When he spoke, his voice was changed. Neither now
nor hereafter did he discourse of money-gold and nobility flowing from
earthly kings with that impersonal exaltation with which he talked of
his errand from God to link together east and west. But he drew them
somehow in train from the last, hiding here I thought, an earthly
weakness from himself, and the weakness