Past Masafuera--then began his flight
Across the great uncharted shining sea.
And surely there was never stranger voyage.
The winds were gentle toward him, and no more
The dreadful laughter of the tempest shrilled,
Or down upon them pounced the hurricane.
Therefore Magalhaens, giving thanks to God,
Named it Pacific, and the lonely sea.
Still bore him westward where his heart would be.

Alone with all the stars of Christendom
He set his course,--if he had known his fate
Would he have stayed his hand? Before the end
Fate the old witch, who often loves to turn
A man's words on him, kept the ships becalmed
Even to thirst and famine; when instead
They fed on leather, gnawed wood, and ate mice
As did the Patagonian giants, when
They begged such vermin for a savage feast.
Then Fate, her jest outworn, blew them to shore
On the green islands called the Isles of Thieves,
And brought them to more islands--and still more,
A kingdom of bright lands in sunny seas.
Here did the Admiral land, and raise the Cross
Above that heathen realm,--and here went down
In battle for strange allies in strange lands.

So ended his adventure. Yet not so,
For the Victoria, faithful to his hand
That laid her charge upon her, southward sailed
Around the Cape and westward to Seville.
El Cano brought her in, and her strange tale
Told to the Emperor. "And the Admiral said,"
He ended, "that indeed these heathen lands
God meant should all be Christian, for He set
A cross of stars above the southern sea,
A passion-flower upon the southern shore,
To be a sign to great adventurers.
These be two marvels,--and upon the way
We gained a kingdom, but we lost a day!"

IX

WAMPUM TOWN

"Elephants' teeth?"

"A fair lot, but I am sick of the Guinea coast. The Lisbon slavers get
more of black ivory than we do of the white."

The good Jean Parmentier, who asked the question, and the youth called
Jean Florin, who answered it, were looking at a stanch weather-beaten
little cargo-ship anchored in the harbor of Dieppe. She had been to the
Gold Coast, where wild African chiefs conjured elephants' tusks out of
the mysterious back country and traded them for beads, trinkets and gay
cloth. In Dieppe this ivory was carved by deft artistic fingers into
crucifixes, rosaries, little caskets, and other exqu