Now there is something mournful in the solitude of the place; but in the days when the things happened which are set down here, there was a suppressed excitement pervading the atmosphere of the convent, which had communicated itself even to Fray Pedro, who had been given the post of porter because he had what the good prior called such a singular gift of slumber.
There had been days recently when Fray Pedro had not closed his eyes for as long as two consecutive hours; and if he felt the influence that was around him, what wonder if the boys, digging away desperately at their humanities, should be wrought up to the highest pitch of unrest and excitement?
Fray Bartolomeo was the pedagogue, who had been selected for the office because of his great learning; but he searched the stores of his knowledge in vain during those days for a device to turn the minds of the scholars from the one topic that absorbed them.
The fact of the matter was that at the seaport town of Palos, only half a league away from the convent, preparations were going on for an adventure of the most fearful nature—an adventure which some people did not hesitate to say was prompted by the evil one himself, and which others, more lenient, declared could have been conceived only by a madman.
At the convent they did not believe the first of these propositions at all, nor did any one give word openly to the second; though there were many there who harbored it in their secret thoughts, and who occasionally whispered it.
The prior, Juan Perez, had faith in the adventure, and, indeed, had done all that lay in his power to forward it, and was continuing to do so in the face of the most violent opposition. But then, as a brother one day whispered to another, the prior was given to the promulgation of new ideas.
It seems that a foreigner—an Italian of some sort, it was believed from his accent—had persuaded the queen to venture some money in this execrable enterprise, and had further induced her to designate the port of Palos as the place which should furnish a portion of the doomed fleet and crew.
There was very little doubt that they were doomed; though this man, Christoval Colon, pretended to demonstrate that there was no danger at all attached to his purposed expedition, and had persuaded the good Fray Juan Perez of the correctness of his demonstration.
It was true that so good a seaman as Martin Alonzo Pinzon had been beguiled by the specious representations of the pestilent foreigner, and that Martin had in turn induced his brothers and many of his kin to lend their countenance and aid to the adventure. A number of the Pinzons had, in fact, enlisted in the enterprise.