MESQUITA IN PRISON.
While the little ship Victoria, which had sought for Mesquita in vain, was sailing around the world, and was returning laden with spice, Mesquita himself remained shut out from the sun by the shadows of prison walls. His lite became more and more silent and neglected.
We know not by what authority he was held in a dungeon for advising the supposed crimes of his cousin Magellan. It could not have been that of Juana, who was still watching over the tomb from which she expected her husband to rise, nor by good Cardinal Ximenes, and possibly not by Charles V himself, but perhaps by one of his ministers. It may have been by the direction of Charles, for his imprisonment implies doubt; otherwise with such an array of testimony against him, we might expect he would have been executed.
Two years had passed over beautiful Seville, and the India House there must have began to doubt the story of Gormez as not one of the other ships returned. These ships might have been cast away in the wintry seas that Gormez and his crew described, or the flag of Spain that the daring Portuguese had set toward the Spice Islands of the East by the way of the South might be seen again some day, rising over the Guadalquivir.
Mesquita believed in his cousin Magellan; not only in him as a true man, but as one who had a divine calling to fulfill; as one whom destiny had allotted to lead the decisive events of mankind. He still felt that he would prove another Columbus or Vasco da Gama.
The two priests whom Magellan had marooned had honestly thought Magellan mad. But Mesquita had his own confessor, and we can easily fancy how the prisoner must have opened his heart to him.
"Padre, I am misunderstood," we can hear him say. "Time tells the truth about all men. Time vindicates all.
"Padre, some messenger from Magellan will come back again. Time weighs all events, and life is self revealing. The heralds will blow their trumpets then, and the bells will ring.
"Padre, they do well to prolong my life. Some day my prison doors will open wide, and I shall ride through the streets of Seville, and those who doubt me now will hail me as a heart that, was always true to a Knight whose heart will be found true to the Emperor!"
The lamp of his faith burned clear and odorous oil. He had a quiet conscience. But how must the conspirators have felt during these uncertain months? The ships did not return. That seemed to favor one view of the madness of Magellan, and yet it did not leave them at ease. There were some who reasoned: If Magellan were indeed mad on his own ship, why might not one or more of the other ships have returned? If the other ships had been loyal to the lantern of Magellan, and had kept together, might the fleet not return again? Should it return what a stigma would be cast on the characters of the cowardly mutineers! In such a case Mesquita would become a hero, and the latter would have to flee from their own names.