Outside the street was thronged. "The
Admiral! The Admiral! Who gave to Spain the Indies!"
Don Bartholomew was by him, freed like him. And there
too moved a slender young man who had come from Granada
with the Queen's letter, Don Fernando, his eldest son.
A light seemed around them. Juan Lepe thought, "Surely
they who serve large purposes are cared for. Even though
they should die in prison, yet are they cared for!"
CHAPTER XXXVII
JUAN LEPE lay upon the sand beyond Palos. The Admiral
was with the court in Granada, but his physician,
craving holiday, had borne a letter to Juan Perez, the
Prior of _Santa Maria_ de la Rabida.
I thought the Admiral would go again seafaring, and that
I would go with him. Up at La Rabida, Fray Juan Perez
was kind. I had a cell, I could come and go; he did
not tell Palos that here was the Admiral's physician, who
knew the Indies from the first taking and could relate
wonders. I lived obscure, but in Prior's room, by a light
fire, for it was November, he himself endlessly questioned
and listened.
Ocean before me, ocean, ocean! Lying here, those years
ago, I had seen ocean only. Now, far, far, I saw land, saw
San Salvador, Cuba that might be the main, Hayti, Jamaica,
San Juan, Guadaloupe, Trinidad, Paria that again seemed
main. Vast islands and a world of small islands, vast mainlands.
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