manner in which he described both good and bad fortune, and
the impressive way in which he spoke of the wealth of the gold of Ophir
and of the far-reaching importance of his supposed discovery of the
Golden Chersonesus and the mainland of Asia, had their due effect on his
hearers.

It was always his way, plausible Christopher, to pass lightly over the
premises and to dwell with elaborate detail on the deductions. It was by
no means proved that he had discovered the mines of King Solomon; he had
never even seen the place which he identified with them; it was in fact
nothing more than an idea in his own head; but we may be sure that he
took it as an established fact that he had actually discovered the mines
of Ophir, and confined his discussion to estimates of the wealth which
they were likely to yield, and of what was to be done with the wealth
when the mere details of conveying it from the mines to the ships had
been disposed of. So also with the Golden Chersonesus. The very name
was enough to stop the mouths of doubters; and here was the man himself
who had actually been there, and here was a sworn affidavit from every
member of his crew to say that they had been there too. This kind of
logic is irresistible if you only grant the first little step; and
Columbus had the art of making it seem an act of imbecility in any of his
hearers to doubt the strength of the little link by which his great
golden chains of argument were fastened to fact and truth.

For Columbus everything depended upon his reception by the Sovereigns at
this time. Unless he could re-establish his hold upon them and move to a
still more secure position in their confidence he was a ruined man and
his career was finished; and one cannot but sympathise with him as he
sits there searching his mind for tempting and convincing arguments, and
speaking so calmly and gravely and confidently in spite of all the doubts
and flutterings in his heart. Like a tradesman setting out his wares,
he brought forth every inducement he could think of to convince the
Sovereigns that the only way to make a success of what they had already
done was to do more; that the only way to make profitable the money that
had already been spent was to spend more; that the only way to prove the
wisdom of their trust in him was to trust him more. One of his
transcendent merits in a situation of this kind was that he always had
something new and interesting to propose. He did not s