--
Look you, this world is rude and worketh rudely! But it
climbs in the teeth of its imperfections!"
"I do not doubt that," I said. "When it wills to climb."
"I do but lay it before the Sovereigns," he answered.
"I do not know what they will think of it there. But truly
I know not what else to do with these Asiatics when they
withstand us! And even in slavery they must gain from
Christians! What matters masters when they find the True
Master?"
Juan Lepe brooded still while the pen scratched and
scratched across the page. The noise ceased. I looked up
to see if he were in pain again, and met gray-blue eyes as
longing as a child's. "What I would," he said, "is that
the Lord would give to me forever to sail a great ship, and
to find, forever to find! The sea is wider than the land,
and it sends its waves upon all lands. Not Viceroy, but
the Navigator, the Finder--"
Juan Lepe also thought that there streamed his Genius.
Here he was able, but there played the Fire. But he, like
many another, had bound himself. Don Cristoval Colon--
Viceroy--and eighths and tenths!
CHAPTER XXX
TWELVE of our ships went home to Spain.
February wheeled by. March was here, and every
day the sun sent us more heat.
The Indians around us still were friendly--women and
all. From the first there was straying in the woods with
Indian women.
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