So you will be clearer to go
forth to the blessed carrying of Christ!"
She spoke earnestly, a Queen, but with much about her
of womanly, motherly sweetness. I saw that she greatly
liked the man and somewhere met his spirit. But the King
was gathering hardness. He spoke to a secretary standing
behind him. "Have you it there written down, the Italian's
demand?"
The man produced a paper. "Read!" But before it
could be unfolded, Master Christopherus spoke.
" `Italian!' Seven years in Spain and ten in Portugal,
and a good while in Porto Santo that belongs to Portugal,
a little in England and in Ultima Thule or Iceland, and long,
long years upon ships decked and undecked in all the seas
that are known--fourteen years, childhood and boyhood, in
Genoa and at Pavia where I went to school, and all my
years of hope in Christ's Kingdom, and in the uplands of
great doers-and your Highness says to me for a slighting
word, `Italian!' I was born in Italy, but to-day, for this
turn, King Ferdinand, you should call me `Spaniard'! As,
if King John sends me forth be will call me Portuguese!
Or King Henry will say, `Christopher the Englishman'
or King Charles, to whom verily I see that I may go, shall
say, `Frenchman, to whom all owe the marriage of East and
West, but France owes Empire!"'
The King said, "It may be so, or it may not be so,
Master Christopherus.
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