I meant to find there a ship, maybe for Africa,
maybe for Italy, though in Italy, too, sits the Inquisition.
But who knows what it is that turns a man, unless we call
it his Genius, unless we call it God? I let the muleteers
pass me on the road to Cordova, let them dwindle in the
distance. And still I walked and did not turn back and
find the Malaga road. It was as though I were on the sea,
and my bark was hanging in a calm, waiting for a wind to
blow. A man mounted on a horse was coming toward me
from Santa Fe. Watching the small figure grow larger, I
said, "When he is even with me and has passed and is a
little figure again in the distance, I will turn south."
He came nearer. Suddenly I knew him to be that Master
Christopherus who had entered the wedge of shadow yesterday
in the palace court. He was out of it now, in the broad
light, on the white road--on the way to France. He approached.
The ocean before Palos came and stood again
before me, salt and powerful. The keen, far, sky line of it
awoke and drew!
Christopherus Columbus came up with me. I said, "A
Palos sailor gives you good morning!"
Checking the horse, he sat looking at me out of blue-gray
eyes. I saw him recollecting. "Dress is different and
poorer, but you are the squire in the crowd! `Sailor
Palos sailor'--There's some meaning there too!"
He seemed to ponder it, then asked if I was for Cordova.
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