r long and sorrowful absence. So did thought and passion
and vision charge his frame and his countenance, that for a moment truly
there was effulgence. It startled. Don Luis held his speech suspended,
in his eyes wonder. Master Christopherus let fall his arm. He sighed.
The out-pushing light faltered, vanished. One might say, if one chose,
"A Genoese sea captain, willing to do an adventurous thing and make a
purse thereby!"

CHAPTER VIII

JUAN LEPE, quitting the Vega of Granada, recrossed the mountains. I was
at wander. I did not go to Malaga. I did not then go to Palos. I went to
San Lucar. I had adventures, but I will not draw them here. The ocean by
Palos continued with me in sight and sound and movement. But I did not
go to Palos. I went to the strand of San Lucar, and there I found a
small bark trading not to Genoa but to Marseilles. Seamen lacked, and
the master took me gladly. I freshened knowledge upon this voyage.

The master was a dour, quiet Catalan; his three sons favored him and
their six sailors more or less took the note. The sea ran quiet and blue
under a quiet blue heaven. At night all the stars shone, or only light
clouds went overhead. It was a restful boat and Jayme de Marchena
rested. Even while his body labored he rested. The sense of Danger in
every room, walking on every road, took leave. Yet was there throughout
that insistent sight of Palos beach and the gray and wild Atlantic. All
the birds cried from the west; the salt, stinging wind flung itself upon
me from the west. Once a voice, faint and silvery, made itself heard.
"Were it not well to know those other, those mightier waters, and find
the strange lands, the new lands?" I answered myself, "They are the old
lands taken a new way." But still the voice said, "The new lands!"

We made Marseilles and unladed, and were held there a fortnight. I might
have left the bark and found work and maybe safety in France, or I might
have taken another ship for Italy. I did neither. I clung to this bark
and my Cata-lans. We took our lading and quitted Marseilles, and came
after a tranquil voyage to San Lucar. Again we unladed and laded, and
again voyaged to Marseilles. Spring became summer; young summer, summer
in prime. We left Marseilles and voyaged once more San Lucar-ward.
There rushed up a fearful storm and we were wrecked off Almeria. One lad
drowned. The rest of us somehow made shore. A boat took us to Algeciras,
and thence we trudged it to S