The master spoke to the Admiral. "They've found
out about the needle, sir! Perhaps you'd better hear them
and answer them."
Almost every day he heard them and answered them.
To make his seamen, however they groaned and grumbled
and plotted, yet abide him and his purpose was a day-after-day arising task! Now he said equably, in the
tone almost
of a father, "What is it to-day, men?"
The throng worked and put forward a spokesman, who
looked from the Admiral to the clear north. "It is the star,
sir! The needle no longer points to it! We thought you
might explain to us unlearned--What we think is that distance
is going to widen and widen! What's to keep needle
from swinging right south? Then will we never get home
to Palos and our wives and children--never and never and
never!"
Said the Admiral, "It will not change further, or if it
does a very little further!" In his most decisive, most convincing
voice he explained why the needle no longer pointed
precisely to the star. The deviation marked and allowed
for, it was near enough for practical purposes, and the
reasons for the wandering--
I do not know if the wisdom of our descendants will confirm
his explanation. It is so often to explain the explanation!
But one as well as another might do here. What
the _Santa Maria_ wanted was reassurance, general and large,
stretching from the Canaries to India and Cathay and back
again.
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