duties to
which he hoped to be devoted it is not likely that he would continue at
his humble task of making maps and charts. The result was that he got
into debt, and it was absolutely necessary that something should be done.
But a darker trouble had also almost certainly come to him about this
time. Neither the day nor the year of Philippa's death is known;
but it is likely that it occurred soon after Columbus's failure at the
Portuguese Court, and immediately before his departure into Spain. That
anonymous life, fulfilling itself so obscurely in companionship and
motherhood, as softly as it floated upon the page of history, as softly
fades from it again. Those kind eyes, that encouraging voice, that
helping hand and friendly human soul are with him no longer; and after
the interval of peace and restful growth that they afforded Christopher
must strike his tent and go forth upon another stage of his pilgrimage
with a heavier and sterner heart.

Two things are left to him: his son Diego, now an articulate little
creature with character and personality of his own, and with strange,
heart-breaking reminiscences of his mother in voice and countenance and
manner--that is one possession; the other is his Idea. Two things alive
and satisfactory, amid the ruin and loss of other possessions; two
reasons for living and prevailing. And these two possessions Columbus
took with him when he set out for Spain in the year 1485.

His first care was to take little Diego to the town of Huelva, where
there lived a sister of Philippa's who had married a Spaniard named
Muliartes. This done, he was able to devote himself solely to the
furtherance of his Idea. For this purpose he went to Seville, where he
attached himself for a little while to a group of his countrymen who were
settled there, among them Antonio and Alessandro Geraldini, and made such
momentary living as was possible to him by his old trade. But the Idea
would not sleep. He talked of nothing else; and as men do who talk of an
idea that possesses them wholly, and springs from the inner light of
faith, he interested and impressed many of his hearers. Some of them
suggested one thing, some another; but every one was agreed that it would
be a good thing if he could enlist the services of the great Count
(afterwards Duke) of Medini Celi, who had a palace at Rota, near Cadiz.

This nobleman was one of the most famous of the grandees of Spain, and
lived in mighty state