came to Toledo, how they praised you! When I came to Seville, how they
praised you! But at Seville I learned that I was too late, and you were
gone upon your second voyage. Then I went to Valladolid and the Queen
and the King were there, and they said, 'He has just sailed, Don
Bartholomew, from Cadiz with sixteen ships--your great brother who
hath crossed Ocean-Sea and bound to us Asia!'--But, sweet Jesu, what
entertainment they gave me, all because I had lain in our old wooden
cradle at Genoa a couple of years or so after you!--Genoa!--They say
Genoa _aches_ because she did not send you. Christopher, do you remember
the old rock by the sea--and you begged colors from Messer Ludovico and
painted upon it a ship and we called it the Great Doge--"

The Admiral's eyes opened slowly like a gray dawn; he moved ever so
slightly in the bed, and his lips parted. "Brother," he whispered.

We got him from the _Cordera_ to Hispaniola shore, and so in a litter to
his own house in Isabella. All our town was gathered to see him carried
there. He began to improve. The second day he said to Don Bartholomew,
"You shall be my lieutenant and deputy. Adelantado--I name you
Adelantado."

Don Bartholomew said bluntly, "Is not that hard upon Diego?"

"No, no, Bartholomew!" answered Don Diego, who was present. "If it were
question of a prior of Franciscans, now! But Christopher knows and I
know that I took this stormy world but for lack of any other in blood to
serve him. Our Lady knows that I never held myself to be the man for the
place! Be Adelantado and never think of me!"

The Admiral upon his bed spoke. "We have always worked together, we
Colombos. When it is done for the whole there is no jealousy among the
parts. I love Diego, and I think he did well, constraining his nature to
it, here among the selfish, the dangerous and factious! And others know
that he did well. I love him and praise him. But Bartholomew, thou art
the man for this!"

Accordingly, the next noontide, trumpets, and a proclamation made
before the great cross in the middle of our town. The Viceroy's new-come
brother had every lieutenant power.

I do not know if he ever disappointed or abused it. He became great
helper to his great brother.

These three! They were a lesson in what brothers might be, one to the
other, making as it were a threefold being. Power was in this family,
power of frame and constitution, with vital spirit in abundance; power
of will, powe