The next morning parting. They were going to Cordova, I to the sea.
The doves flew over the cloister of La Rabida. The bells rang; in the small white church sang the brothers, then paced to their cells or away to their work among the vines. Prior had a garden, small, with a tree in each corner, with a stone bench in the sun and a stone bench in the shade, and the doves walked here all day long. And here I found the Adelantado with Fray Juan Perez.
The Admiral was well?
Aye, well, and next month would come to Seville. A new Voyage.
We sat under the grape arbor and he told me much, the Prior listening for the second time. The doves cooed and whirred and walked in the sun and shadow. According to Don Bartholomew, half in his pack was dark and half was light.
Ovando? We heard again of all that. He was going out, Don Nicholas de Ovando, with a great fleet.
The Adelantado possessed a deal of plain, strong sense. “I do not think that Cristoforo will ever rule again in Hispaniola! King Ferdinand has his own measure and goes about to apply it. The Queen flinches now from decisions.—Well, what of it? After all, we were bred to the sea, I have a notion that his son Diego—an able youth—may yet be Viceroy. He has established his family, if so be he does not bring down the structure by obstinating overmuch! He sees that, the Admiral, and nods his head and steps aside. As for native pride and its hurt he salves that with great enterprises. It is his way. Drouth? Frost? Out of both he rises, green and hopeful as grass in May!”
“What of the Voyage?” asked Juan Lepe.
“That’s the enterprise that will go through. Now that Portugal and Vasco da Gama are actually in at the door, it behooves us—more and more it behooves us,” said Bartolomeo Colombo, “to find India of All the Wealth! Spain no less than Portugal wants the gold and diamonds, the drugs and spices, the fine, thin, painted cloths, the carved ivory and silver and amber. ‘Land, land, so much land!’ says King Ferdinand. ‘But wealth? It is all out-go! Even your Crusade were a beggarly Crusade!’”
“Ha! That hurt him!” quoth Fray Juan Perez.