so intertwined with strength
that it was hard to divide parasite from oak.

"Did you see," he asked, "a boy with me? That was my son Diego whom I
have left with a friend in Santa Fe. Fernando, his half-brother, is but
a child. I shall see him in Cordova. I have two brothers, dear to me
both of them, Diego and Bartholomew. My old father, Dominico Colombo,
still lives in Genoa. He lives in poverty, as I have lived in poverty
these many years. And there is Pedro Correo, to whom I owe much, husband
of my wife's sister. My wife is dead. The mother of Fernando is not my
wife, but I love her, and she is poor though beautiful and good. I would
have her less poor; I would give her beautiful things. I have love for
my kindred,--love and yearning and care and desire to do them good,
alike those who trust me and those who think that I had failed them. I
do not fail them!"

We padded on upon the dusty road. I felt his inner warmth, divined his
life. But at last I said, "What the Queen and King promise would give
rich care--"

"I have friends too, for all that I ride out of Spain and seem so poor
and desolate! I would repay--ay, ten times over--their faith and their
help."

"Still--"

"There are moreover the poor, and those who study and need books
and maps that they cannot purchase. There are convents--one convent
especially--that befriended me when I was alone and nigh hopeless and
furthered my cause. I would give that convent great gifts." Turning in
the saddle he looked southwest. "Fray Juan Perez--"

Palos shore spread about me, and rose La Rabida, white among vineyards
and pines. Doves flew over cloister. But I did not say all I knew.

"There are other things that I would do. I do not speak of them to many!
They would say that I was mad. But great things that in this age none
else seems inclined to do!"

"As what?" I asked. "I have been called mad myself. I am not apt to
think you so."

He began to speak of a mighty crusade to recover the Holy Sepulchre.

The road to Cordova stretched sunny and dusty. Above the mountains of
Elvira the sky stood keen blue. Juan Lepe said slowly, "Admiral of
the Ocean-Sea and Viceroy and Governor of continents and islands in
perpetuity, sons and sons' sons after you, and gilded deep with a tenth
of all the wealth that flows forever from Asia over Ocean-Sea to
Spain, and you and all after you made nobles, grandees and wealthy from
generation to generation! Kings almost of the west, a