Then I went
to Valladolid and the Queen and the King were there, and
they said, `He has just sailed, Don Bartholomew, from
Cadiz with sixteen ships--your great brother who hath
crossed Ocean-Sea and bound to us Asia!'--But, sweet
Jesu, what entertainment they gave me, all because I had
lain in our old wooden cradle at Genoa a couple of years or
so after you!--Genoa!--They say Genoa _aches_ because
she did not send you. Christopher, do you remember the
old rock by the sea--and you begged colors from Messer
Ludovico and painted upon it a ship and we called it the
Great Doge--"
The Admiral's eyes opened slowly like a gray dawn; he
moved ever so slightly in the bed, and his lips parted.
"Brother," he whispered.
We got him from the _Cordera_ to Hispaniola shore, and
so in a litter to his own house in Isabella. All our town
was gathered to see him carried there. He began to improve.
The second day he said to Don Bartholomew, "You
shall be my lieutenant and deputy. Adelantado--I name
you Adelantado."
Don Bartholomew said bluntly, "Is not that hard upon
Diego?"
"No, no, Bartholomew!" answered Don Diego, who was
present. "If it were question of a prior of Franciscans, now!
But Christopher knows and I know that I took this stormy
world but for lack of any other in blood to serve him. Our
Lady knows that I never held myself to be the man for the
place! Be Adelantado and never think of me!"
The Admiral upon his bed spoke.
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