Fernando drew back
of hand across eyes.
I came in. "You wouldn't do that any more than the
ant falls off the orange! Men have come back who have been
almost underfoot, so far to the east had they traveled. They
found there men and kingdoms and ways not so mightily
unlike ours."
"They went that way," answered Pedro, jerking his hand
eastward, "over good land! And maybe, whatever they
said, they were lying to us! I'm thinking most of the learned
do that all the time!"
"Well," said Sancho, "if we do come back, we'll have
some rare good tales to tell!"
There fell a pause at that, a pause of dissent and exasperation,
but also one of caught fancy. It would undoubtedly
be a glory to tell those tales to a listening, fascinated Fishertown!
Juan Lepe said, "For months I've been with a trader
running from San Lucar to Marseilles. I've had no news
this long while! What's doing at Palos?"
They were ready for an audience, any audience, and
forthwith I had the story of the Admiral fairly straight--
or I could make it straight--from that day when we parted
on the Cordova road. These men did not know what had
happened in March or in April, but they knew something
of May. In May he came to Palos and settled down with
Fray Juan Perez in La Rabida, and to see him went Captain
Martin Pinzon who knew him already, and the physician
Garcia Fernandez and others, and they all talked together
for a day and a night.
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