d saw that it was a copy of Andrea Bianco's chart, drawn
nearly half a century before, showing the Atlantic Sea with a maze of
islands stretching westwards.

The other shook his head. "A poor thing and out of date. Here," and he
plucked a sheet from below the rest, "here is a better, which Fra Mauro
of this city drew for the great prince, Henry of Portugal."

Philip looked at the map, which showed a misshapen sprawling Africa, but
with a clear ocean way round the south of it. His interest quickened. He
peered at the queer shapes in the dimming light.

"Then there is a way to the Indies by sea?"

"Beyond doubt. I myself have turned the butt of Africa.... If these
matters interest you? But the thought of that dry land has given me an
African thirst. He, drawer!"

He filled his glass from a fresh bottle. "'Twas in June four years back.
I was in command of a caravel in the expedition of Diaz. The court
of Lisbon had a fit of cold ague and we sailed with little goodwill;
therefore it was our business to confound the doubters or perish.
Already our seamen had reached the mouth of that mighty river they
called the Congo, and clearly the butt of Africa could not be distant.
We had the course of Cam and Behaim to guide us thus far, but after that
was the darkness."

The man's face had the intent look of one who remembers with passion.
He told of the struggle to cross the Guinea Deep instead of hugging
the shore; of blue idle days of calm when magic fish flew aboard and
Leviathan wallowed so near that the caravels were all but overwhelmed
by the wave of him; of a storm which swept the decks and washed away the
Virgin on the bows of the Admiral's ship; of landfall at last in a place
where the forests were knee deep in a muddy sea, strange forests where
the branches twined like snakes; of a going ashore at a river mouth full
of toothed serpents and giant apes, and of a fight with Behemoth among
the reeds. Then a second storm blowing from the east had flung them
seaward, and for weeks they were out of sight of land, steering by
strange stars. They had their magnets and astrolabes, but it was a new
world they had entered, and they trusted God rather than their wits. At
last they turned eastward.

"What distance before the turn?" Philip asked.

"I know not. We were far from land and no man can measure a course on
water."

"Nay, but the ancients could," Philip cried, and he explained how the
Romans had wheels of a certain di