Scarcely had the ship left harbor when she was dismasted in a squall.  He was obliged to cross to another ship, under command of his brother, the Adelantado.  She also was unfortunate.  Her mainmast was sprung in a storm, and she could not go on until the mast was shortened.

In another gale the foremast was sprung, and it was only on the seventh of November that the shattered and storm-pursued vessel arrived at San Lucar.  Columbus himself had been suffering, through the voyage, from gout and his other maladies.  The voyage was, indeed, a harsh experience for a sick man, almost seventy years old.

He went at once to Seville, to find such rest as he might, for body and mind.

CHAPTER XIII. —­ TWO SAD YEARS

—­Isabella’s death—­Columbus at Seville—­his illness—­letters to
the king—­journeys to Segovia, Salamanca, and Valladolid—­his suit
there—­Philip and Juana—­Columbus executes his will—­Dies—­his burial
and the removal of his body—­his portraits—­his character.

Columbus had been absent from Spain two years and six months.  He returned broken in health, and the remaining two years of his life are only the sad history of his effort to relieve his name from dishonor and to leave to his sons a fair opportunity to carry forward his work in the world.

Isabella, alas, died on the twenty-sixth day of November, only a short time after his arrival.  Ferdinand, at the least, was cold and hard toward him, and Ferdinand was now engaged in many affairs other than those of discovery.  He was satisfied that Columbus did not know how to bring gold home from the colonies, and the promises of the last voyage, that they should strike the East, had not been fulfilled.

Isabella had testified her kindly memory of Columbus, even while he was in exile at Jamaica, by making him one of the body-guard of her oldest son, an honorary appointment which carried with it a handsome annual salary.  After the return to Spain of Diego Mendez, the loyal friend who had cared for his interests so well in San Domingo, she had raised him to noble rank.

It is clear, therefore, that among her last thoughts came in the wish to do justice to him whom she had served so well.  She had well done her duty which had been given her to do.  She had never forgotten the new world to which it was her good fortune to send the discoverer, and in her death that discoverer lost his best friend.

On his arrival in Seville, where one might say he had a right to rest himself and do nothing else, Columbus engaged at once in efforts to see that the seamen who had accompanied him in this last adventure should be properly paid.  Many of these men had been disloyal to him and unfaithful to their sovereign, but Columbus, with his own magnanimity, represented eagerly at court that they had endured great peril, that they brought great news, and that the king ought to repay them all that they had earned.