"I, too, am 'dove.'" And he
opened a window and sent forth a "dove" to find if there were land!

Almost the whole ship from Jason down took these two birds for portents.
Fray Ignatio lifted hands. "The Blessed Francis who knew that birds have
souls to save hath sent them!" We passed the drifting branch of a tree.
It had green leaves. The sea ran extremely blue and clear, and half the
ship thought they smelled frankincense, brought on the winds which now
were changeable. At evening rose a great cry of "Land!" and indeed to
one side the sinking sun seemed veritable cliffs with a single mountain
peak. The Admiral, who knew more of sea and air than any two men upon
those ships, cried "Cloud--cloud!" but for a time none believed him.
There sprang great commotion, the _Pinta_ too signaling. Then before our
eyes came a rift in the mountain and the cliffs slipped into the sea.

But now all believed in land ahead. It was as though some one had with
laughter tossed them that assurance over the horizon straight before us.
Every mariner now was emulous to be the lookout, every man kept eyes
on the west. Now sprang clear and real to them the royal promise of ten
thousand maravedies pension to him who first sighted Cipango, Cathay or
India. The Admiral added a prize of a green velvet doublet.

We had come nigh eight hundred leagues.

In the cabin, upon the table he spread Toscanelli's map, and beside it a
great one like it, of his own making, signed in the corner _Columbus de
Terra Rubra_. The depiction was of a circle, and in the right or
eastern side showed the coasts of Ireland and England, France, Spain and
Portugal, and of Africa that portion of which anything was known. Out in
Ocean appeared the islands gained in and since Prince Henry's day. Their
names were written,--Madeira, Canaria, Cape de Verde and Azores. West of
these and filling the middle map came Ocean-Sea, an open parchment
field save for here a picture of a great fish, and here a siren and here
Triton, and here the Island of the Seven Cities and here Saint Brandon's
Isle, and these none knew if they be real or magical! Wide middle map
and River-Ocean! The eye quitting that great void approached the left or
western side of the circle. And now again began islands great and
small with legends written across and around them. The great island was
Cipango, and across the extent of it ran in fine lettering. "Marco Polo
was here. It is the richest of the eastern lands. T