" I glanced at the log and he pushed it to me
so that I might see. "Every day from Palos out." His
strong fingers touched the other book. "My journal that
I keep for myself and the Queen and King Ferdinand and
indeed for the world." He turned the leaves. The bulk of
them were blank, but in the front showed closely covered
pages, the writing not large but clear and strong. "This
voyage, you see, changeth our world! Once in Venice I heard
a scholar learned in the Greek tell of an old voyage of a
ship called _Argo_, whence its captain and crew were named
Argonauts, and he said that it was of all voyages most
famous with the ancients. This is like that, but probably
greater." He turned the pages. "I shall do it in the manner
of Caesar his Commentaries."
He knew himself, I thought, for as great a man as Caesar.
All said, his book might be as prized in some unentered
future. He did not move where time is as a film, but where
time is deep, a thousand years as a day. He could not see
there in detail any more than we could see tree and house
in those Canaries upon which we were bearing down.
I said, "Now that printing is general, it may go into far
lands and into multitude of hands and heads. Many a voyager
to come may study it."
He drew deep breath. "It is the very truth! Prince
Henry the Navigator. Christopherus Columbus the Navigator,
and greater than the first--"
Sun shone, wind sang, blue sea danced beyond the door.
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