' `From Cadiz, but not from Palos,' answers the
Admiral."
"Ha! Easy 'tis when he has shown the way!" said
Fray Juan Perez.
Don Bartholomew drew with the Prior's stick in the
sand at our feet. "He conceives it thus. Here to the north
is Cuba, stretching westward how far no man knoweth.
Here to the south is Paria that he found--no matter what
Ojeda and Nino and Cabral have done since!--stretching
westward how far no man knoweth, and between is a great
sea holding Jamaica and we do not know what other islands.
Cuba and Paria curving south and north and between them
where they shall come closest surely a strait into the sea
of Rich India!" He drew Cuba and Paria approaching
each the other until there was space between like the space
from the horn of Spain to the horn of Africa. "Rich
India--now, now, now--gold on the wharves, canoes of
pearls, not cotton and cassava, is what we want in Spain!
So the King says, `Very good, you shall have the ships,'
and the Queen, `Christ have you in his keeping, Master
Christopherus!' So we go. All his future hangs, he knows,
on finding Rich India."
"How soon do we go?"
"As soon as he can get the ships and the men and the supplies.
He wants only three or four and not great ones.
Great ships for warships and storeships, but little ships for
discovery!"
"Aye, I hear him!" said Fray Juan Perez.
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