"But why do you call him crack-brained?"
"Because he is crack-brained. Crazy as he can be about what he calls the wrongs of the black rascals out here. His father took one over for him to have as his own in Spain, five or six years ago, and comfortable enough the fellow was with such a soft-hearted master. Then comes the royal order that there are to be no more of these Indian slaves in Spain; that they are not cruelly to be kept from their own country, and they are forthwith all packed back again, to be grabbed at as fast as they arrive, and worked to quick deaths in the mines. Meantime, our young Señor Las Casas has been taught to think a whole host of nonsense about their miseries, and his duties of relieving them. If he uses his arms as their covers in his fashion just now he'll pretty soon need some one to relieve him.”
"Ay, verily," murmured Montoro musingly as he turned away from his informant and rejoined his companions. The history of his own family's wrongs had made him more keenly alive to the wrongs of others. He had a generous feeling of envy that it had been the arm of the young Las Casas, and not his own, that had taken the blow for the Indian. But, as the great American poet says,
"A boy's will is the wind's will."
Before half-an-hour had passed Montoro's will had veered round once more—from a desire to relieve injuries to a desire to inflict them. For humanity's sake Columbus had sent urgent warnings and entreaties that the departure of the fleet might be delayed a few days, to avoid the coming storm. And for his charity he received contempt. The Governor and his counsellors looked at the quiet sky, the calm sea, they felt the soft breeze on their cheeks, and the contemptuous answer was sent back:
"In this year of grace dreamers of dreams are out of fashion."
"When I see the Admiral's letters patent as the authorized reader of the heavens, and the interpreter of its signs," said the Governor haughtily, "doubtless he will find me an obedient pupil. Meantime I prefer instruction when I ask for it."
"He and all the rest of them deserve to be drowned if they are not," said Diego Mendez indignantly, as he returned with his party to the boat, and put back to the ship.
Montoro's thoughts flew back to the cannon on board. He felt just then as if nothing on earth would so well satisfy him as to see them pointed at the Governor's house, to see their flash, to hear their roar, and to witness the wholesale destruction they could cause.
"Why was there no young Las Casas to avenge this insult to the Admiral?"