"I have been called mad myself.
I am not apt to think you so."
He began to speak of a mighty crusade to recover the
Holy Sepulchre.
The road to Cordova stretched sunny and dusty. Above
the mountains of Elvira the sky stood keen blue. Juan Lepe
said slowly, "Admiral of the Ocean-Sea and Viceroy and
Governor of continents and islands in perpetuity, sons
and sons' sons after you, and gilded deep with a tenth of all
the wealth that flows forever from Asia over Ocean-Sea to
Spain, and you and all after you made nobles, grandees and
wealthy from generation to generation! Kings almost of
the west, and donors to the east, arousers of crusades and
freers of the Sepulchre! You build a high tower!"
Carters and carts going by pushed us to the edge of road
and covered all with dust. He waited until the cloud sank,
then he said, "Do you know--but you cannot know what
it is to be sent from pillar to post and wait in antechambers
where the air stifles, and doff cap--who have
been captain of ships!--to chamberlain, page and lackey?
To be called dreamer, adventurer, dicer! To hear the laugh
and catch the sneer! To be the persuader, the beggar of
good and bad, high and low--to beg year in and year out,
cold and warmth, summer and winter, sunrise, noon and
sunset, calm and storm, beg of galleon and beg of carrack,
yea, beg of cockboat! To see your family go needy, to be
doubted by wife and child and brethren and friends and
acquaintance! To have them say, `While you dream we
go hungry!' and `What good will it do us if there is India,
while we famish in Spain?' and `You love us not, or you
would become a prosperous sea captain!'--Not one year
but eighteen, eighteen, since I saw in vision the sun set not
behind water but behind vale and hill and mountain and
cities rich beyond counting, and smelled the spice draught
from the land!"
I saw that he must count upon huge indemnity.
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