aging their vessel to
be left behind.

But Columbus had no thought of doing any such thing. He sailed to the
island of Gomera, where he knew some people, and had the Pinta mended.
And while lying here with his fleet the great mountain on the island of
Teneriffe, twelve thousand feet high, suddenly began to spit out flame
and smoke. It was, as of course you know, a volcano; but the poor
frightened sailors did not know what set this mountain on fire, and they
were scared almost out of their wits' and begged the Admiral to go back
home. But Columbus would not. And as they sailed away from Gomera some
sailors told them that the king of Portugal was angry with Columbus
because he had got his ships from the king and queen of Spain, and that
he had sent out some of his war-ships to worry or capture Columbus.

But these, too, Columbus escaped, although not before his crews had
grown terribly nervous for fear of capture. At last they got away from
the Canaries, and on Sunday, the ninth of September, 1492, with a fresh
breeze filling their sails, the three caravels sailed away into the
West. And as the shores of Ferro, the very last of the Canary Islands,
faded out of sight, the sailors burst into sighs and murmurings and
tears, saying that now indeed they were sailing off--off--off--upon the
awful Sea of Darkness and would never see land any more.

When Columbus thought that he was sailing too slowly--he had now been
away from Palos a month and was only about a hundred miles out at
sea--and when he saw what babies his sailors were, he did something that
was not just right (for it is never right to do anything that is not
true) but which he felt he really must do. He made two records (or
reckonings as they are called) of his sailing. One of these records was
a true one; this he kept for himself. The other was a false one; this he
kept to show his sailors. So while they thought they were sailing slowly
and that the ocean was not so very wide, Columbus knew from his own true
record that they were getting miles and miles away from home.

Soon another thing happened to worry the sailors. The pilots were
steering by the compass. You know what that is--a sort of big
magnet-needle perfectly balanced and pointing always to the north. At
the time of Columbus the compass was a new thing and was only understood
by a few. On the thirteenth of September they had really got into the
middle of the ocean, and the line of the north changed. Of