"Alas, Señor Almirante! your Excellency hath judged rightly in believing that my heart is in Spain, where it ought to be, moreover, as I have left behind me at Moguer seven motherless children."
"Dost thou not know, fellow, that I, too, am a father, and that the dearest objects of a father's hopes are left behind me, also? In what, then, dost thou differ from me, my son being also without a mother's care?"
"Excellency, he hath an admiral for a father, while my boys have only a helmsman!"
"And what will it matter to Don Diego"—Columbus was fond of dwelling on the honors he had received from the sovereigns, even though it were a little irregularly—"what will it matter to Don Diego, my son, that his parent perished an admiral, if he perish at all; and in what will he profit more than your children, when he findeth himself altogether without a parent?"
"Señor, it will profit him to be cherished by the king and queen, to be honored as your child, and to be fostered and fed as the offspring of a viceroy, instead of being cast aside as the issue of a nameless mariner."
"Friend, thou hast some reason in this, and in-so-much I respect thy feelings," answered Columbus, who, like our own Washington, appears to have always submitted to a lofty and pure sense of justice; "but thou wouldst do well to remember the influence that thy manly and successful perseverance in this voyage may produce on the welfare of thy children, instead of thus dwelling on weak forebodings of ills that are little likely to come to pass. Neither of us hath much to expect, should we fail of our discoveries, while both may hope every thing should we succeed. Can I trust thee now, to keep the ship on her course, or must I send for another mariner to relieve the helm?"
"It may be better, noble admiral, to do the last. I will bethink me of thy counsel, and strive with my longings for home; but it would be safer to seek another for this day, while we are so near to Spain."
"Dost thou know one Sancho Mundo, a common seaman of this crew?"
"Señor, we all know him; he hath the name of the most skilful of our craft, of all in Moguer."
"Is he of thy watch, or sleepeth he with his fellows of the relief below?"