Seven days in this house. Then word from the
Sovereigns, and it was here indignant, and here comforting.
The best was the Queen’s word; I do not know
if it was so wholly King Ferdinand’s. There
were letters to the alcalde and corregidor. Release
the Admiral of the Ocean-Sea! Don Francisco de
Bobadilla had grossly misunderstood! Soothe the
Admiral’s hurt. Show him trust and gratitude
in Cadiz that was become through him a greater city!
Fulfill his needs and further him upon the way to
Granada. Put in his purse two thousand ducats.
But the letter that counted most to Christopherus
Columbus was one to himself from the Queen.
Juan Lepe found him with it in his hand. From
the wrist yet hung the chain. Tears were running
down his cheeks. “You see—you
see!” he said. “I thank thee, Christ,
who taketh care of us all!”
They came and took away his chains. But he claimed
them from the corregidor and kept them to his death.
Came hidalgos of Cadiz and entreated him away from
this house to a better one. Outside the street
was thronged. “The Admiral! The Admiral!
Who gave to Spain the Indies!”
Don Bartholomew was by him, freed like him. And
there too moved a slender young man who had come from
Granada with the Queen’s letter, Don Fernando,
his eldest son. A light seemed around them.
Juan Lepe thought, “Surely they who serve large
purposes are cared for. Even though they should
die in prison, yet are they cared for!”
JUAN LEPE lay upon the sand beyond Palos. The
Admiral was with the court in Granada, but his physician,
craving holiday, had borne a letter to Juan Perez,
the Prior of Santa Maria de la Rabida.
I thought the Admiral would go again seafaring, and
that I would go with him. Up at La Rabida, Fray
Juan Perez was kind. I had a cell, I could come
and go; he did not tell Palos that here was the Admiral’s
physician, who knew the Indies from the first taking
and could relate wonders. I lived obscure, but
in Prior’s room, by a light fire, for it was
November, he himself endlessly questioned and listened.
Ocean before me, ocean, ocean! Lying here, those
years ago, I had seen ocean only. Now, far, far,
I saw land, saw San Salvador, Cuba that might be the
main, Hayti, Jamaica, San Juan, Guadaloupe, Trinidad,
Paria that again seemed main. Vast islands and
a world of small islands, vast mainlands. Then
no sail was seen on far Ocean-Sea; now out there might
be ships going from Cadiz, coming, returning from
San Domingo. Eight years, and so the world was
changed!
I thought, “In fifty years—in a hundred
years—in two hundred? What is coming
up the long road?”
Ocean murmured, the tide was coming in. Juan
Lepe waited till the sands had narrowed, till the
gray wave foamed under his hand. Then he rose
and walked slowly to La Rabida.
After compline, talk; Fray Juan Perez, the good man,
comfortable in his great chair before the fire.
He had hungered always, I thought, for adventure and
marvel. Here it happened—? And here
it happened—?
