Swept by all the winds that blow,
Birds come reeling in their flight--
(_Ay de mi, Cristofero!_)
Petrels tossing on the gale,
Falcons daring sleet and hail,
Curlews whistling high and far,
Waifs that cross the harbor bar
Borne from isles we do not know--
(_Ay de mi, Cristofero!_)

Round our island haven blest
Waves like drifted mountain snow
Break from out the shoreless West--
(_Ay de mi, Cristofero!_)
Cast ashore a broken spar
Born beneath some alien star,
Broken, beaten by the wave--
In what far-off unknown grave
Lie the hands that shaped it so?
(_Ay de mi, Cristofero!_)

Sails upon the gray world's edge
Like mute phantoms come and go,--
Life and honor men will pledge--
(_Ay de mi, Cristofero!_)
For the pearls and gems and gold
That the burning Indies hold.
Or the Guinea coast they dare
With its fever-poisoned air
For the slaves they capture so
(_Ay de mi, Cristofero!_)

In our chamber small to-night,
Fair as love's immortal glow,
Shines our silver censer-light--
(_Ay de mi, Cristofero_!)
What is this that holds thee fast
In old histories of the past?
Put the time-stained parchments by,
Men have sought where dead men lie
For the secret thou wouldst know--
All too long, Cristofero!

IV

PEDRO AND HIS ADMIRAL

Juan de la Cosa, captain of the _Santa Maria_, was prowling about the
beach of Gomera in a thoroughly dissatisfied frame of mind. His own
ship, the _Gallego_ before the Admiral re-christened her and made her
his flagship, was riding trim as a mallard within sight of his eye. She
would never have kept the fleet waiting in the Canaries for a little
thing like a broken rudder.

It was the _Pinta_ that had done this, and it was the veteran pilot's
private opinion that she would behave much better if her owners, Gomez
Rascon and Christoval Quintero, had been left behind in Palos. But what
can you do when you have seized a ship for the service of the Crown, and
turned her over to a captain who is a rival ship-owner, and her owners
wish to serve in her crew and not elsewhere? They cannot be blamed for
liking to keep an eye on their property!

"Capitano!" piped a voice at his elbow. He looked around, and then he
looked down. An undersized urchin with not much on but a pair of ragged
breeches stared up at him bol