of geese, hens, and pullets.  He complains that he is judged as a man would be judged who had been sent out to govern a ready-made colony, and represents instead that he went out to conquer a numerous and warlike people “whose custom and religion are very contrary to ours, and who lived in rocks and mountains”; forgetting that when it suited him for different purposes he described the natives as so peaceable and unwarlike that a thousand of them would not stand against one Christian, and that in any case he was sent out to create a constitution and not merely to administer one.  Very sore indeed is Christopher as he reveals himself in this letter, appealing now to his correspondent, now to the King and Queen, now to that God who is always on the side of the complainant.  “God our Lord is present with His strength and wisdom, as of old, and always punishes in the end, especially ingratitude and injuries.”  Not boastfulness and weakness, let us hope, or our poor Admiral will come off badly.

CHAPTER II

CRISIS IN THE ADMIRAL’S LIFE

Columbus was not far wrong in his estimate of the effect likely to be produced by his manacles, and when the ships of Villegio arrived at Cadiz in October, the spectacle of an Admiral in chains produced a degree of commiseration which must have exceeded his highest hopes.  He was now in his fiftieth year and of an extremely venerable appearance, his kindling eye looking forth from under brows of white, his hair and beard snow-white, his face lined and spiritualised with suffering and sorrow.  It must be remembered that before the Spanish people he had always appeared in more or less state.  They had not that intimacy with him, an intimacy which perhaps brought contempt, which the people in Espanola enjoyed; and in Spain, therefore, the contrast between his former grandeur and this condition of shame and degradation was the more striking.  It was a fact that the people of Spain could not neglect.  It touched their sense of the dramatic and picturesque, touched their hearts also perhaps—­hearts quick to burn, quick to forget.  They had forgotten him before, now they burned with indignation at the picture of this venerable and much-suffering man arriving in disgrace.

His letter to Dofia Juana, hastily despatched by him, probably through the office of some friendly soul on board, immediately on his arrival at Cadiz, was the first news from the ship received by the King and Queen, and naturally it caused them a shock of surprise.  It was followed by the despatches from Bobadilla and by a letter from the Alcalde of Cadiz announcing that Columbus and his brothers were in his custody awaiting the royal orders.  Perhaps Ferdinand and Isabella had already repented their drastic action and had entertained some misgivings as to its results; but it is more probable that they had put it out of their heads altogether, and that their hasty action