"Ah, that, I
hardly doubt, was my fancy! But in the future I see them,
your cities!"
"Do you see them, from San Salvador onward and everywhere,
--Spanish cities?"
"Necessarily--seeing that the Holy Father hath given
the whole of the land to Spain." He looked at the moon
that was so huge and bright, and listened to the savage
music. "If we go far enough--walking afar--who
knoweth what we shall find?" He stood motionless. "_I_
do not know. It is in God's hands!"
"Do you see," I asked, "a great statue of yourself?"
"Yes, I see that."
The moon shone so brightly it was marvel. Land breeze
brought perfume from the enormous forest. "It is too fair
to sleep!" said the Admiral. "I will sit here and think."
He slept little at any time. His days were filled with action.
Never was any who had more business to attend to!
Yet he was of those to whom solitude is as air,--imperiously
a necessity. Into it he plunged through every crack and
cranny among events. He knew how to use the space in
which swim events. But beside this he must make for himself
wide holdings, and when he could not get them by day
he took from night.
We came again to a multitude of islets like to the Queen's
Gardens. And these were set in a strange churned and
curdled sea, as white as milk. Making through it as best
we might, we passed from that silverness and broken land
into a great bay or gulf, so deep that we might hardly find
bottom, and here we anchored close to a long point of Cuba
covered thick with palms.
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