But however amusing this might be, it did not convince us all that the two names might not apply to one place; so the geographical actor went further and told us that Africa had been known since the earliest ages, that it was not very far from Sicily and contained Tunis, a city which the company had visited on one of their tours, whereas America was a long way off, on the other side of the world, and had been discovered in comparatively recent times, and, strange to say, by an Italian. Giovanni at once showed great interest.
“Tell us about it,” he said, leaning forward.
“His name was Cristoforo Colombo,” said the actor. “He was poor and confided his difficulty to a priest who happened to be the queen’s confessor and a kind-hearted man.
This priest went to the queen and said, ‘May it please your Majesty, I have a friend, Cristoforo Colombo, who wishes to discover America but he has no money to buy ships.’ The queen thought it would be a good thing that America should be discovered and promised to give him as much money as he wanted for the purpose.”
“Oh, bel!” exclaimed Giovanni. “Let us drink the health of the good queen.”
“She died some years ago,” said the actor in a warning tone.
“Then,” said Giovanni, bowing his head reverently and crossing himself, “let us drink to the repose of her blessed soul.”
We did so and had all about the voyage and the tunnies, the flight of the birds, the alarm of the crew when the meteor appeared, their disappointment when the fancied land vanished in the morning, their wonder at the distant moving light, their impatience and their turbulence. All this he did, still sitting on his seat and gesticulating. When he came to the mutiny he rose. He was peculiarly well able to tell us about the mutiny because, in addition to the usual sources of information, he had recently taken part in a performance of the story got up for a charity in
Palermo and he had been the one chosen by lot to kill Colombo. He conspired apart with imaginary sailors, occasionally glancing and pointing furtively towards the other end of the piazza. When the murder had been sufficiently agreed upon, he snatched a knife off the supper-table and, hiding himself behind our chairs, crept cautiously towards that part of the deck where Colombo stood busily discovering America through a telescope, the invention of another Italian named Galileo (who was born some seventy years later). He took the knife from between his teeth where he had been carrying it, and was about to commit the dastardly act when Colombo turned round, seized him by the collar, flung him away and had him put into chains. He was brought up again when land was in sight and told to look ahead.
“But what do I see?” said the sailor, shading his eyes. “What strange vegetation is yonder and what unknown beasts? When I look upon these potatoes, this tobacco for the nose, all these elephants and cucumbers and trees full of monkeys, it appears to me that I am taking part in the discovery of America. O noble captain! Pietà, pietà!”