“No, he was not,” said Diego, laughing.
The last night they had spent together at the monastery Diego had slept scarcely at all, and the long night hours had passed in watching the moonlit sea upon which his father was to set forth at sunrise. This night, too, he spent huddled in his cloak on the parapet. Don Felipe, also wrapped in a long and heavy mantle—for the spring night was sharp—sat with him. The beautiful afternoon had been succeeded by a lowering night in which low-lying black clouds scurried across a pale night sky, veiling the moon and the stars. As the dawn approached, however, the sky cleared beautifully. Diego, going within the room, waked the little Fernando, and with his own hands, willing but awkward, washed and dressed the little boy, saying:
“Fernando, we must go to the seashore now and watch for our father’s vessel.”
Something within Diego seemed driving him to the seashore. As soon as the little boy was dressed Diego said to Don Felipe:
“Come with me, Felipe, and do not leave me during this day, for I feel that great glory for my father and great happiness for my brother and me are impending, and I want to have you near me.”
The two youths, Diego holding the little Fernando by the hand, passed out of the monastery gates just as the pearl and amethyst of the dawn was turning to rose and gold. They walked rapidly, too rapidly for the little boy, whom Diego took in his arms and carried. The town of Palos was awaking, and workmen and sailors were appearing upon the streets, and women were opening their houses. As Diego passed a house a woman recognized him and, pointing to him, cried out angrily:
“There goes the son of Colon, the Genoese who feared neither God nor the devil, and sailed away into the unknown seas taking with him my husband and my brother.”
As she spoke she burst into loud weeping. The passers-by, startled by her passionate sobbing, stopped and gathered about her. Not one consolatory or encouraging word was uttered, and lowering and menacing looks were cast on Diego. An old man cried out, fiercely:
“Yes! Colon the foreigner, Colon the Genoese adventurer, came to this town of Palos, and to Moguer and to Huelva, and by force took away more than a hundred men from us to be lost in an unknown ocean. My son—my only son—was taken. Never shall I see him again!”
Others joined in the imprecations upon the Admiral. Diego, putting down little Fernando on the ground, stood and with crossed arms boldly faced the excited and angry people in the street.