“Then,” said Diego, after a pause, and forcing himself to speak, “the first day Don Felipe came I found the Prior’s mule at large, and Don Felipe and I got Fray Piña’s mule out of the stable and ran races until we were caught and stopped.”
“And punished,” added the Prior, quietly. “But there has been no lying or deceit or anything base in the conduct of your son, Christobal Colon.”
“Then,” answered the Admiral, “the rest is easily forgiven. Return now to your studies, and when I have finished my conversation with the Prior, and when Fray Piña will give you leave, then will I speak with you at length.”
The Admiral was more indulgent to the little Fernando, who remained, clinging to his father’s hand.
Diego returned to the tower room quickly. He might have lagged, but he knew that the Admiral’s silent watchfulness followed him. When he sat down again at the table he made an honest effort to concentrate his mind on what Fray Piña was saying, and managed to do so until the mathematical lesson was over. Then was it time to go to the refectory for dinner. The refectory was a large, bare room except for a long table at which the monks dined. At the farther end sat the Prior with the Admiral, as the guest of honor, on his right. No conversation was allowed, and after grace was said one of the monks at a reading-desk read aloud from the Scriptures while the simple meal went on. Diego heard not one word of what was being read. He could only fix his eyes upon his father, across whose gray head a beam of sunlight shone like an aureole. The Admiral, however, put strict attention to the reading. It was as if his extraordinary mind, like everything about him, were under the control of his will and, as a revolving light, could be turned at pleasure upon any subject.
When dinner was over, the two youths expected, as usual, to be given an hour’s recreation in the sunny orchard in which was a fish-pond, that was Diego’s delight. But he was bitterly disappointed when Fray Piña said to him:
“It was this day a week ago that you and Don Felipe raced the mules. Let us go up to the study now and spend that wasted hour in mathematics.”
Diego and Don Felipe exchanged rueful glances, but said nothing. Fray Piña had a deadly ingenuity in paying off for all their pranks, and had no doubt waited for this day when the orchard and the fish-pond and the blue sky called to the lads, “Come and be happy.” Instead, however, of talking and fishing and frolicking, as they usually did at that hour, the two lads spent the time being put through their paces by Fray Piña. By the time they had answered one question another was propounded, and the blackboard in the tower room was covered with figures. It was a sort of mental exercise for Fray Piña himself, and when the hour was over Diego and Don Felipe were thoroughly tired out with hard work and incessant figuring.
Fray Piña himself looked weary, and his black hair lay damp upon his forehead under his skull-cap.
“You have both done well,” he said, “and showed more proficiency than I expected. You may now have two hours’ recreation instead of one. The Prior’s mule and mine are both in the stable, but I apprehend they are both safe.”