great and rich and powerful.

CHAPTER XIII. THE END OF THE STORY.

Any one who is sick, as some of you may know, is apt to be anxious and
fretful and full of fears as to how he is going to get along, or who
will look out for his family. Very often there is no need for this
feeling; very often it is a part of the complaint from which the sick
person is suffering.

In the case of Columbus, however, there was good cause for this
depressed and anxious feeling. King Ferdinand, after Queen Isabella's
death, did nothing to help Columbus. He would not agree to give the
Admiral what he called his rights, and though Columbus kept writing
letters from his sick room asking for justice, the king would do nothing
for him. And when the king's smile is turned to a frown, the fashion of
the court is to frown, too.

So Columbus had no friends at the king's court. Diego, his eldest son,
was still one of the royal pages, but he could do nothing. Without
friends, without influence, without opportunity, Columbus began to
feel that he should never get his rights unless he could see the king
himself. And sick though he was he determined to try it.

It must have been sad enough to see this sick old man drag himself
feebly to the court to ask for justice from the king whom he had
enriched. You would think that when King Ferdinand really saw Columbus
at the foot of the throne, and when he remembered all that this man had
done for him and for Spain, and how brave and persistent and full of
determination to do great things the Admiral once had been, he would at
least have given the old man what was justly due him.

But he would not. He smiled on the old sailor, and said many pleasant
things and talked as if he were a friend, but he would not agree to
anything Columbus asked him; and the poor Admiral crawled back to his
sick bed again, and gave up the struggle. I have done all that I can do,
he said to the few friends who remained faithful to him; I must leave it
all to God. He has always helped me when things were at the worst.

And God helped him by taking him away from all the fret, and worry, and
pain, and struggle that made up so much of the Admiral's troubled life.
On the twentieth of May, 1506, the end came. In the house now known as
Number 7 Columbus Avenue, in the city of Valladolid; in Northern Spain,
with a few faithful friends at his side, he signed his will, lay back in
bed and saying trustfully these words: Into thy hands,