I
LOOKING SEAWARD
ON a bright October noon in 1491 two lads sat in a small tower room in the monastery of La Rabida, talking together with that profound interest which two human beings feel, who have recently met and whose lives will be closely united for some time to come. One of them was Don Felipe de Langara y Gama, already, at sixteen, the head of one of the greatest ducal families in Castile. The other was Diego, the eldest son of the Genoese navigator and map-maker, by name, Christopher Columbus, or, as the Spaniards called him, Christobal Colon.
The lads were fine types of two extremes of station. Diego was a model of sturdy strength for his age. He inherited the piercing blue eyes of the Genoese navigator—those commanding eyes, once seen, were unforgettable. His fair skin was freckled by living much in the open, and his wide, frank mouth expressed resolution as well as a charming gaiety of heart. Diego, however, could be serious enough when occasion required. He had known more in his short life of the rubs of fortune, of hope deferred, of splendid dreams and heartbreaking disappointments, of courts, of camps, of penury, of luxury, than many men know in the course of a long span of years.
Don Felipe, born in a palace and knowing that at sixteen he would inherit the wealth and splendid honors of his dead father, the Duke de Langara y Gama, was yet all simplicity and good sense. His slight figure was more muscular than it appeared, and the softness of his black eyes belied the firmness of his character.
Both lads alike were dressed with extreme plainness, the grandee of Spain wearing no better clothes than the son of the Genoese captain. They were so absorbed in each other that they had no eyes for the glowing scene visible through the iron-studded door, open wide upon the parapet. Below them lay the green gardens and orchards of the monastery. Beyond, stretched the town and the port of Palos, where the masts and hulls of the caravels and other vessels of the time were outlined against the deep sea and blue sky. Some of these vessels were unloading, and others were taking on their cargoes, the sailors singing cheerfully as they worked. Farther off still, the “white horses” of the blue Atlantic dashed wildly over the bar of Saltes, the sun glittering upon the crested waves. Over the whole of the Andalusian coast and the rolling hills beyond was that atmosphere of peace and plenty which made Andalusia to be called the Granary, the Wine Cellar, the Gold Purse, and the Garden of Spain.
The two lads were quite oblivious of all this, and even of the nearness of their instructor, Fray Piña, the young ecclesiastic who had charge of them, and who was at that moment leaning over the parapet outside the open door. Fray Piña glanced within the room; he could not hear what Diego and Don Felipe were saying, but it was evident from their attitudes—both leaning eagerly across the rough table, strewn with writing implements and the manuscript books of the period—that they were deeply interested in each other.
“They are making acquaintance very fast,” thought Fray Piña to himself. “It is best to leave them alone. Don Felipe needs the companionship of just such a boy as Diego, and Diego needs the companionship of just such a boy as Don Felipe.”
It was this very point which the boys were discussing.
“And so,” Don Felipe was saying, “my mother, Doña Christina, who is obliged to be much at court, because she is a lady-in-waiting to Queen Isabella, said the court was not a good place in which a youth should be wholly brought up, especially a faithless youth like me. Nor does my mother think it well to have my sister, Doña Luisita, at court yet, as she is but fourteen; so Luisita remains with her governess at the castle of Langara when my mother attends the Queen. And my mother asked Fray Piña to take charge of me for a year, with another youth of my age, and without rank; and we should be schooled together, and dress plainly, and be disciplined.”
