He
believes, and I confess my sins to him. But he thinks only
of penitents, and this matter needs mind, not heart alone.
Because of that sense of the stars, I tell you these things."
The next day it came to me that in that Journal which
he meant to make like Caesar's Commentaries, he might put
down the change in the _Santa Maria's_ physicians and set my
name there too often. I watched my chance and finding it,
asked that he name me not in that book. His gray eyes
rested upon me; he demanded the reason for that. I said that
in Spain I was in danger, and that Juan Lepe was not my
name. More than that I did not wish to say, and perchance
it were wiser for him not to know. But I would not that the
powerful should mark me in his Journal or elsewhere!
Usually his eyes were wide and filled with light as
though it were sent into them from the vast lands that he
continuously saw. But he could be immediate captain and
commander of things and of men, and when that was so,
the light drew into a point, and he became eagle that sees
through the wave the fish. Had he been the seer alone,
truly he might have been the seer of what was to be discovered
and might have set others upon the path. But he
would not have sailed on the _Santa Maria_!
In his many years at sea he must many times have met
men who had put to sea out of fear of land.
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