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FRAY PIÑA GLANCED WITHIN THE ROOM AND THOUGHT

THEY WERE MAKING ACQUAINTANCE VERY FAST

“I think Fray Piña is the man for discipline,” replied Diego, laughing. “And I suppose your lady mother knew that Fray Piña would treat us exactly alike—you, a grandee of Spain, and I, the son of the Genoese navigator, Christobal Colon, as the Spaniards call my father. But look you, Don Felipe, I am the son of the greatest man who ever trod Spanish earth, and some day the world will know my father to be that man.”

As Diego said this he straightened up and looked Don Felipe in the eye; he expected his statement to be questioned. Don Felipe, however, surprised him by saying, quietly:

“So Fray Piña told Doña Christina, my mother.”

A flush of gratified pride shone in Diego’s frank face.

“My father will still be the bravest navigator that ever lived, even if he never returns from his voyage,” continued Diego, proudly. “All the other navigators in the world have been satisfied to creep along the shores, never going out of sight of land. My father means to steer straight into the uncharted seas, sailing due west. He will have but two nautical instruments, a compass and an astrolabe, but he will have the stars by night and the sun by day, and God’s hand to help him—for my father is a man who fears God and nothing else. He will steer due west, and will come to a great continent with vast ranges of mountains, superb rivers, larger and longer than any we know, huge bodies of water, mines of gold and silver and minerals of all sorts, strange birds, animals, and peoples—everything far more splendid than this old Europe. All the seafaring men believe in my father—far more than the learned men do—because the sailors know that my father understands more about the seas than any living man. Already, although my father is not an admiral, the captains and the pilots and the sailors at Palos call him the Admiral. Every mariner in the port of Palos bows low to my father.”