Keep speaking."
"But King Henry said at last, `Go bring us that brother
of yours, and we think it may be done!' And he gave me
gold. So I would come back to Spain for you, and I reached
Paris, and it was the summer of 1493. Christopher, my
great brother, don't you hear me? For it was at Paris that
I heard, and it came like a flood of glory, fallen in one
moment from Heaven! I heard, `Christopherus Columbus!
He has found the Indies for King Ferdinand and Queen
Isabella!'--Don't you hear, Christopher? All the world
admiring--all the world saying, `Nothing will ever go just
the same way again!' You have done the greatest thing,
my great brother! Doctor, is he dying?"
"He will not die," I said. "You are cordial to him,
though he hears you yet from leagues and leagues away.
Go on!"
"Christopher, from Paris I got slowly, slowly, so
slowly I thought it!--to Seville. But I was not poor.
They gave me gold, the French King gave it, their nobles,
their bishops. I walked in that glory; it flooded me from
you! All your people, Christopher, your sons and your
brothers and our old father. You build us again, you are
our castle and great ship and Admiral! When I came to
Barcelona, how they praised you! When I came to Toledo,
how they praised you! When I came to Seville, how they
praised you! But at Seville I learned that I was too late,
and you were gone upon your second voyage.
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