e looked into the
kind eyes of Isabella and saw them suffused with tears at the thought of
his sorrows all his dignity broke down; the tears came to his own eyes,
and he wept there naturally like a child. Ferdinand looking on kind but
uncomfortable; Isabella unaffectedly touched and weeping; the Admiral, in
spite of his scarlet cloak and golden collar and jewelled sword, in spite
of equerries, squires, pages and attendants, sobbing on his knees like a
child or an old man-these were the scenes and kindly emotions of this
historic moment.

The tears were staunched by kindly royal words and handkerchiefs supplied
by attendant pages; sobbings breaking out again, but on the whole soon
quieted; King and Queen raising the gouty Christopher from his knees,
filling the air with kind words of sympathy, praise, and encouragement;
the lonely worn heart, somewhat arid of late, and parched from want of
human sympathy, much refreshed by this dew of kindness. The Admiral was
soon himself again, and he would not have been himself if upon recovering
he had not launched out into what some historians call a "lofty and
dignified vindication of his loyalty and zeal." No one, indeed, is
better than the Admiral at such lofty and dignified vindications. He
goes into the whole matter and sets forth an account of affairs at
Espanola from his own point of view; and can even (so high is the
thermometer of favour) safely indulge in a little judicious
self-depreciation, saying that if he has erred it has not been from want
of zeal but from want of experience in dealing with the kind of material
he has been set to govern. All this is very human, natural, and
understandable; product of that warm emotional atmosphere, bedewed with
tears, in which the Admiral finds himself; and it is not long before the
King and Queen, also moved to it by the emotional temperature, are
expressing their unbroken and unbounded confidence in him and
repudiating the acts of Bobadilla, which they declare to have been
contrary to their instructions; undertaking also that he shall be
immediately dismissed from his post. Poor Bobadilla is not here in the
warm emotional atmosphere; he had his turn of it six months ago, when no
powers were too high or too delicate to be entrusted to him; he is out
in the cold at the other end of the see-saw, which has let him down to
the ground with a somewhat sudden thump.

Columbus, relying on the influence of these emotions, made bol