“Martin Lopez! Martin Lopez!”
The man came to him.
“Martin, look out on this lake. Beareth it resemblance to the blue bays on the southern shore of old Spain? As thou art a crafty sailor, comrade mine, look carefully.”
Lopez raised his morion, and, leaning on his pike, glanced over the expanse.
“Señor, the water is fair enough, and, for that, looks like bayous I have seen without coming so far; but I doubt if a two-decker could float on it long enough for Father Olmedo to say mass for our souls in peril.”
“Peril! Plague take thee, man! Before the hour of vespers, by the Blessed Lady, whose image thou wearest, this lake, yon city, its master, and all thou seest here, not excepting the common spawn of idolatry at our feet, shall be the property of our sovereign lord. But, Martin Lopez, thou hast hauled sail and tacked ship in less room than this. What say’st thou to sailing a brigantine here?”
The sailor’s spirit rose; he looked over the lake again.
“It might be done, it might be done!”
“Then, by my conscience, it shall be! Confess thyself an Admiral to-night.”
And Cortes rode to the front. Conquest might not be, he saw, without vessels; and true to his promise, it came to pass that Lopez sailed, not one, but a fleet of brigantines on the gentle waters.