The Admiral's long rest with the monks of Las Cuevas had apparently improved his health, for, as this royal permit proves, he applied for a mule and went to Segovia; from there, that same year, he followed the king to Salamanca and later to Valladolid. Segovia, Salamanca, Valladolid! All bleak, harsh places in winter, and fiery hot ones in summer. Our poor Admiral left pleasant Sevilla and exposed his worn old body to icy blasts and burning suns all for naught; for, as Las Casas writes:—
"The more he petitioned, the more the king was bland in avoiding any conclusion; he hoped, by wearing out the patience of the Admiral, to induce him to accept some estates in Castile instead of his powers in the Indies; but Columbus rejected these offers with indignation."
The Admiral could not be made to see that the Granada contract was impossible; that Ferdinand had signed it only because he never expected the voyage to be successful; and that now, when men were beginning to believe Americo's assertion that a whole continent lay off in the west, it was preposterous that one family should hope to be its governor and viceroy and to control its trade. No, Columbus could only go on reiterating that it was so written down in Granada, away back in April, 1492.
So King Ferdinand merely shrugged his shoulders and referred the matter to a learned council who talked about it a long, long time, hoping the sick old man might meanwhile die; and at last the sick, tired, troublesome old man obliged them, and left all the business of "shares" and "profits" for his son Diego to settle several years after by bringing suit against the Crown. Toward the end of 1505 and the beginning of 1506 the Admiral became very ill. He was in Valladolid, and he realized that he could travel no more; so he secured for himself, or perhaps Diego secured for him, as comfortable a lodging as possible in a street now called the Calle Colon, and determined not to move about any more. We, accustomed to heat and a dozen other comforts in our dwellings, would not consider the house in the Calle Colon, with its cold stone floors and walls, a suitable place for a rheumatic, broken- down old man; but it was the typical solid, substantial residence of its day; and the only pity is that the city of Valladolid permitted it to be torn down a few years ago to make room for a row of flats.
Even in icy Valladolid, winter with its discomfort comes to an end at last. One May day, when spring sunshine was warming up the stone chamber where the old Admiral lay, he called for a pen and put the last touches to his will. All the titles he still hoped to get back were for Diego; and should Diego die without a son, Fernando was to be Admiral; and if Fernando should have no son, the loyal brother Bartholomew, who had shared those horrible days of disappointment and disaster off in the Indies, was to be Admiral. (Brother Diego had no need of an inheritance, for he had become a monk.) Part of the moneys due Columbus, if ever collected, were to be spent on that long-dreamed-of Crusade to recover the Holy Sepulchre. His remains were to be taken out to San Domingo. These were a few of the instructions he left.
The next day, May 20, 1506, came another whisper of springtide, and the faithful Diego Mendez, who "navigated three hundred leagues in a canoe," came to see him; his sons, Diego and Fernando, too, and his brother Bartholomew; and as the dim old eyes saw these affectionate faces bending over him, he counseled Diego always to love his younger brother Fernando, as he had always loved Bartholomew; and Diego pressed his hand and promised. Then the old man rested quietly for a time. He was clad in the frock of a Franciscan monk, the same sort of frock that good Friar Juan Perez wore when he welcomed him to La Rabida.
They opened the window to let in the May warmth, and Christopher sniffed feebly. Did he recall the beautiful climate of Haiti which he said was "like May in Cordova"? Let us hope, at least, that it was peaceful recollections like this that flitted through his vanishing senses, and not recollections of the horrible hurricanes and insurrections and shipwrecks and prisons that made up part of his eventful life. He made no sound, not even a whisper, so we will never know what thoughts the May warmth brought to him. We only know that after a while he crossed his hands peacefully on his breast and murmured, "Into thy hands, O Lord, I commit my spirit." A moment later and the great Admiral passed forth on his last voyage into the unknown.
The event on May 20, 1506, passed unheeded. A life had ended whose results were more stupendous than those of any other human life ever lived. Yet Valladolid took no notice of Columbus's death; neither did Spain. The nation was too busy watching the men who had practical plans for colonizing the new lands, and turning them into profit, to concern itself with the death of the one brave soul who had found the path. Indeed, Cristobal Colon was really forgotten before his death; yet he was living on, as every great spirit lives on, in the ambitions of the men who were endeavoring to push his work still further. When, a few years after his death, Balboa first saw the Pacific stretching far, far off to Asia, and when in another few years the whole globe had been circumnavigated, from Spain back again to Spain, only then did the vastness of Columbus's discovery begin to be appreciated. Europe at last realized that, during all her centuries of civilization, when she had thought herself mistress of the world, she had in fact known but half of it. As this truth took shape in men's minds, the humble, forgotten Genoese began to come into his own. They saw that he had done more than risk his life on the western ocean; he had sent a thrill through every brave, adventurous heart, and this at a moment of the world's development when such seed was sure to take root. Christopher Columbus, one of the greatest products of the Renaissance, had carried that Renaissance to a glorious climax.