The Son of Columbus

by Molly Elliot Seawell

“No,” he said, “we cross the Vega and ride straight to the Queen’s pavilion, where her Majesty awaits you.” Then, having assumed the direction of the Admiral, the Daredevil Knight also gave orders to Diego. “Go you,” he said, “back to your lodgings. Your father will return sometime before midnight—perhaps.”

Diego leaned over and caught his father’s hand and kissed it. He had no words in which to express the tumult of joy and pride in his soul.

Ten minutes afterward he dismounted from his spent and dripping horse in front of the lodgings he had left only a few hours before. The next moment he was dashing up the long, dark, narrow stairs. He stopped for a moment outside the door of the little room in which he had lived and studied for many weeks with Don Felipe and softly opened the door. Don Felipe sat at the table, upon which a rushlight burned, making a little glow in the darkness. He was neither reading nor writing, but leaning his head upon his hands, looking the image of forlornness. Diego slipped in softly and threw himself upon Don Felipe.

“All is as we wished!” he shouted. “It is glorious, glorious, I tell you! When the Queen heard my father was indeed gone she sent Don Tomaso galloping after him, who brought him back. The Queen will do for my father all he asks. He is now on his way to the Queen, and you and I, Don Felipe, are here together once more!”

In one day the whole face of the world seemed to have changed for Diego. The Admiral, who, but a little while before, could count on only a few steady friends like Alonzo de Quintanilla and Luis de St. Angel, both accountants to the Queen, and Father de Deza, was now treated with the greatest outward respect by all. Fernando de Talavera, Archbishop of Granada, withdrew his opposition to the Admiral, which had been based solely upon what he considered too high honors to be demanded in the event of success. He believed in the Admiral as a great navigator and looked for the success of the expedition.

One of the points tenaciously upheld by the Admiral was that certain honors should be given his sons, especially Diego, as the elder. That the enterprise would result in immortal glory for himself the Admiral never doubted; but with the passionate love of his children was the natural desire that they should have a place and a degree of consideration. For this reason, after many long consultations with Father de Deza, tutor to Prince Juan, the Admiral had required that Diego should be ennobled by the title of Don and should be made a page-in-waiting to Prince Juan. It was by this steadfast maintenance of the dignity of his position that the Admiral, a foreigner and penniless but for the Queen’s pension, made it apparent that he understood in advance the enormous gift he was about to make to Spain. All he asked for Diego was conceded to him at once on his return to Santa Fé.

At any other time the thought of the singular change in his life from poverty and uncertainty into a footing of equality with the grandees of Spain would have impressed Diego more deeply; but the thought uppermost in his mind was the great voyage upon which his father was to set forth. Everything seemed small beside it.

It seemed to Diego and Don Felipe as if they had entered upon a new world since the pleasant autumn days at La Rabida.

They had witnessed one of the greatest and most splendid events of the age in the driving-out of the Moors from Spain, and they were brought close to the contemplation of an enterprise so vast that the imagination was bewildered. In the midst of it they lived the ordinary life of youths of their age under a strict master and stern discipline, but they saw and heard men and things that fall to the lot of few young souls.