en they must have been prayers that the present
misery would come somehow or other to an end. Up on deck brother
Bartholomew, who has developed some grievous complaint of the jaws and
teeth--complaint not known to us more particularly, but dreadful enough
from that description--does his duty also, with that heroic manfulness
that has marked his whole career; and somewhere in the ship young
Ferdinand is sheltering from the sprays and breaking seas, finding his
world of adventure grown somewhat gloomy and sordid of late, and feeling
that he has now had his fill of the sea . . . . Shut your eyes and
let the illusions of time and place fade from you; be with them for a
moment on this last voyage; hear that eternal foaming and crashing of
great waves, the shrieking of wind in cordage, the cracking and slatting
of the sails, the mad lashing of loose ropes; the painful swinging, and
climbing up and diving down, and sinking and staggering and helpless
strivings of the small ship in the waste of water. The sea is as empty
as chaos, nothing for days and weeks but that infinite tumbling surface
and heaven of grey storm-clouds; a world of salt surges encircled by
horizons of dim foam. Time and place are nothing; the agony and pain of
such moments are eternal.

But the two brothers, grim and gigantic in their sea power, subtle as the
wind itself in their sea wit, win the battle. Over the thousands of
miles of angry surges they urge that small ship towards calm and safety;
until one day the sea begins to abate a little, and through the spray and
tumult of waters the dim loom of land is seen. The sea falls back
disappointed and finally conquered by Christopher Columbus, whose ship,
battered, crippled, and strained, comes back out of the wilderness of
waters and glides quietly into the smooth harbour of San Lucar, November
7, 1504. There were no guns or bells to greet the Admiral; his only
salute was in the thunder of the conquered seas; and he was carried
ashore to San Lucar, and thence to Seville, a sick and broken man.

CHAPTER IX

THE LAST DAYS

Columbus, for whom rest and quiet were the first essentials, remained in
Seville from November 1504 to May 1505, when he joined the Court at
Segovia and afterwards at Salamanca and Valladolid, where he remained
till his death in May 1506. During this last period, when all other
activities were practically impossible to him, he fell into a state of
letter-writing--for th