Tom went on with Columbus’s story at this point, but he spoke from the floor because tableaux were being arranged behind the curtains. He told how the interview with the king and queen that the prior had arranged, all went wrong and how Columbus started again for France but was called back by the queen whose imagination had been excited by what he told her, and who promised to pledge her jewels to raise money for his expedition.
Here the curtains swung open and showed a brilliant scene, Della representing the queen, James the king, and all the other Club members, courtiers. Columbus was arguing his case before the court and he was shown in the act of knocking off the end of an egg to convince the men who had said that they would believe the world was round when they saw the impossible happen—when an egg should stand upright.
“I hope Roger’s hand won’t slip,” murmured Roger’s mother; “that’s a real egg!”
It was while she was standing beside the queen as one of her ladies in waiting that Ethel Blue’s eyes happened to fall on her father out in the audience. The light from the stage illuminated his face and she thought that she never had seen him so happy as he looked at that moment.
“He’s so dear and he’s going away from me,” she groaned inwardly. “Now if it were only dear Miss Daisy he’s going to marry,” she wished with all her heart as she noticed that Miss Graham sat in the next chair; “but it isn’t; it’s some old Fort Myer woman.”
The curtain fell on her misery and Tom again took up his tale. He told about the three tiny ships that Columbus managed to secure, and their setting sail and how frightened the sailors became when day after day passed and they saw no chance of ever reaching new land or ever returning home, and how they threatened to mutiny if he did not turn back.
Then came another pantomime with Roger as Columbus and James as the mate of the Santa Maria, while Ethel Brown recited Joaquin Miller’s poem:
COLUMBUS
“Behind him lay the gray Azores,
Behind the Gates of Hercules;