"I tell my fellows, your Excellency, that Mundo is my title, and not my name; but that I am greater than kings, even, who are content to take their titles from a part of that, of which I bear all."
"And were thy father and thy mother called Mundo, also? Or, is this name taken in order to give thee an occasion to show thy smartness, when questioned by thy officers?"
"As for the good people you deign to mention, Señor Don Almirante, I shall leave them to answer for themselves, and that for the simple reason that I do not know how they were called, or whether they had any names at all. They tell me I was found, when a few hours old, under a worn-out basket at the ship-yard gate of old"—
"Never mind the precise spot, friend Sancho—thou wert found with a basket for a cradle, and that maketh a volume in thy history, at once."
"Nay, Excellency, I would not leave the spot a place of dispute hereafter—but it shall be as you please. They say no one here knoweth exactly where we are going, and it will be more suitable that the like ignorance should rest over the places whence we came. But having the world before me, they that christened me gave me as much of it as was to be got by a name."
"Thou hast been long a mariner, Sancho Mundo—if Mundo thou wilt be."
"So long, Señor, that it sickeneth me, and taketh away the appetite to walk on solid ground. Being so near the gate, it was no great matter to put me into the ship-yard, and I was launched one day in a caravel, and got to sea in her, no one knows how. From that time I have submitted to fate, and go out again, as soon as possible, after I come into port."
"And by what lucky chance have I obtained thy services, good Sancho, in this great expedition?"
"The authorities of Moguer took me under the queen's order, your Excellency, thinking that this Voyage would be more to my mind than another, as it was likely never to have an end."
"Art thou a compelled adventurer, on this service?"