He would
have sailed with many whose names, he knew, were not
those given them at birth. He must have learned to take reasons
for granted and to go on--where he wished to go on.
So we gazed at each other.
"I had written down," he said, "that you greatly helped
the sick, and upon Bernardo Nunez's going to the _Nina_, became
our physician. But I will write no more of you, and
that written will pass in the flood of things to come." After
a moment, he ended with deliberation, "I know my star to
be a great star, burning long and now with a mounting
flame. If yours is in any wise its kin, then there needs must
be histories."
CHAPTER XII
IT was a strange thing how utterly favoring now was the
wind! It blew with a great steady push always from
the east, and always we ran before it into the west.
Day after day we experienced this warm and steadfast driving;
day after day we never shifted sail. The rigging sang
a steady song, day and night. The crowned woman, our
figurehead, ran, light-footed, over a green and blue plain,
and where the plain ended no man might know! "Perhaps
it does not end!" said the mariners.
Of the hidalgos aboard I like best Diego de Arana who
had cast off his melancholy. He was a man of sense, candid
and brave. Roderigo Sanchez sat and moved a dull, good
man. Roderigo de Escobedo had courage, but he was factious,
would take sides against his shadow if none other
were there.
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