ameter fixed to their ships' sides
which the water turned in its passing, and which flung for each
revolution a pebble into a tally-box.

The other's eyes widened. "A master device! I would hear more of it.
What a thing it is to have learning. We had only the hour-glass and
guesswork."

Then he told how on a certain day the crews would go no farther, being
worn out by storms, for in those seas the tides were like cataracts and
the waves were mountains. The admiral, Bartholomew Diaz, was forced to
put about with a heavy heart, for he believed that a little way to the
east he should find the southern cape of Africa. He steered west by
north, looking for no land till Guinea was sighted. "But on the second
morning we saw land to the northward, and following it westward came to
a mighty cape so high that the top was in the clouds. There was such
a gale from the east that we could do no more than gaze on it as we
scudded past. Presently, still keeping land in sight, we were able to
bend north again, and when we came into calm waters we captains went
aboard the admiral's ship and knelt and gave thanks to God for His
mercies. For we, the first of mortals, had rounded the butt of Africa
and prepared the sea-road to the Indies."

"A vision maybe."

"Nay, it was no vision. I returned there under mild skies, when it was
no longer a misty rock, but a green mountain. We landed, and set up a
cross and ate the fruits and drank the water of the land. Likewise we
changed its name from the Cape of Storms, as Diaz had dubbed it, to the
Bona Esperanza, for indeed it seemed to us the hope of the world."

"And beyond it?"

"Beyond it we found a pleasant country, and would doubtless have made
the Indies, if our ships had not grown foul and our crews mutinous from
fear of the unknown. It is clear to me that we must establish a port of
victualling in that southern Africa before we can sail the last stage to
Cathay."

The man spoke modestly and simply as if he were talking of a little
journey from one village to another. Something in his serious calm
powerfully caught Philip's fancy. In all his days he had never met such
a one.

"I have not your name, Signor," he said.

"They call me Battista de Cosca, a citizen of Genoa, but these many
years a wanderer. And yours?"

Philip gave it and the stranger bowed. The de Lavals were known as a
great house far beyond the confines of France.

"You contemplate another voyage?"

The brown man