CHAPTER XIII
THERE grew at times an excited feeling that he was a
prophet, and that there were fabulously great things
before us. As I doctored some small ill one day in
the forecastle, a great fellow named Francisco from Huelva
would tell me his dream of the night before. He had already
told it, it seemed, to all who would listen, and now again he
had considerable audience, crowding at the door. He said
that he dreamed he was in Cipango. At first he thought it
was heaven, but when he saw golden roofs he knew it must
be Cipango, for in heaven where it never rained and there
were no nights, we shouldn't need roofs. One interrupted,
"We'd need them to keep the flying angels from looking
in!"
"It was Cipango," persisted Francisco, "for the Emperor
himself came and gave me a rope of pearls. There were
five thousand of them, and each would buy a house or a
fine horse or a suit of velvet. And the Emperor took me by
the hand, and he said, `Dear Brother--' You might have
thought I was a king--and by the mass, I was a king!
I felt it right away! And then he took me into a garden,
and there were three beautiful women, and one of them
would push me to the other, and that one to the third, and
that to the first again, as though they were playing ball,
and they all laughed, and I laughed. Then there came a
great person with five crowns on his head, and all the light
blazed up gold and blue, and somebody said, `It's Prester
John'!"
His dream kept a two-days' serenity upon the ship.
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