"Sailors must not be scared, little one. Or if they are, they must
never let their arms and legs be scared. We knew that we had to obey
orders or be dead, so we obeyed. I have been glad many a time since that
I sailed with Gonsales and old Morales to the discovery of Madeira."
"What are sea-wolves?" asked Fernao.
"Like no beast that ever you saw, my son. They have the fore part of the
body like a dog or bear, the hind part ending in a tail like a fish, but
with hair, not scales, on the body; the head has a thick mane, and the
jaws are large and strong. They are no more seen on that island, for
they went there only because it was never visited by men."
"Did they try to drive the people away?"
"No; they do not fight men unless men attack them. But the settlers were
once driven off Puerto Santo by animals, and not very fierce animals at
that." The old pilot grinned. "They were driven away by rabbits.
Somebody brought rabbits there and let them loose, and in a few years
there were so many that everything that was planted was eaten green. The
people who live on that island now have made a strict rule about
rabbits."
The children's laughter echoed the dry chuckle of the old man. Then
Fernao, unwilling to abandon his authorities,--
"But if the Sea of Darkness and the great abyss are not in the western
ocean, why haven't they found out what really is there?"
"That, my son, is more than I can tell you," said Sancho Serrao, getting
up. "I sailed where I was told, and I never was told to sail due west
from Lisbon. But here is a man who can answer your question, if any one
can. Welcome to my humble dwelling, Senhor Colombo! Shall we go into
the house, or will you find it pleasanter in the garden?"
The new-comer was a tall man of middle age, although at first sight he
looked older, because of his white hair. The fresh complexion, alert
walk, and keen thoughtful blue eyes were those of a man not old in
either mind or body. He smiled in answer to the greeting, and replied
with a quick wave of the hand. "Do not disturb yourself, I beg of you,
my friend. The garden is very pleasant. I have come on an errand of my
own this time. Did you ever see, in your voyages to Africa or elsewhere,
any such carving as this?"
He held out a curious worm-eaten bit of reddish brown wood, rudely
ornamented with carved figures in relief. Old Sancho took it and turned
it about, examining it with narrowed attentive eyes.
"Where did it come from?" he asked, finally.
"From the beach at Puerto Santo. My little son Diego picked it up, the
day before I came away from the island."
"Now that is curious. I was just telling the young ones about an
adventure of my youth, when Gonsales Zarco touched there on his way to
Madeira. With your good permission I will leave you for a few minutes
and rummage in an old sea-chest, and see whether there is any flotsam in
it to compare with this."
Left alone with the stranger, Fernao and Beatriz looked at him with shy
curiosity. They had seen him before, and knew him to be a mapmaker in
the King's service, but he had never before been within speaking
distance. He seemed to like children, for he smiled at them very kindly
and spoke to them almost at once.
"And you were hearing about the discovery of Madeira?"
"Ay, Senhor," Beatriz answered with demure dignity.
"I live not very far from that island. It seems like living on the
western edge of the world."
"Senhor," asked Fernao with sudden daring, "what is beyond the edge of
the world?"
"There is no edge, my boy. The world is round--like an orange."[2]
In all their fancies they had never thought of such a thing as that.
Beatriz looked at the tall man with silent amazement, and Fernao looked
as if he would like to ask who could prove the statement. The stranger's
smile was amused but quite comprehending, as if he was not at all
surprised that they should doubt him.
"See," he went on, taking an orange from the basket that stood by,
"suppose this little depression where the stem lost its hold to be
Jerusalem, the center of our world; then this is Portugal--" he traced
with the point of a penknife the outline of the great western peninsula.
"Here you see are the capes--Saint Vincent, Finisterre, the great rock
the Arabs call Geber-al-Tarif--the Mediterranean--the northern coast of
Africa--so. Beyond are Arabia and India, and the Spice Islands which we
do not know all about--then Cathay, where Marco Polo visited the Great
Khan--you have heard of that? Yes? On the eastern and southern shore of
Cathay is a great sea in which are many islands--Cipangu here, and to
the south Java Major and Java Minor. We are told in the Book of Esdras
that six parts of the earth are land and one part water, so here we cut
away the skin where there is any sea,--"
The miniature globe took form, like fairy mapmaking, under the
cosmographer's skilful fingers, and the children watched, fascinated.
[Illustration: "THE MINIATURE GLOBE TOOK FORM AS THE CHILDREN WATCHED,
FASCINATED."--_Page_ 44]
"But," cried Beatriz wonderingly, "a ship could sail around the world!"
Colombo nodded and smiled. "So it was written in the 'Travels of Sir
John Maundeville' more than a hundred years ago. But no ship has done
so."
"Why not?" asked Fernao.
"Chiefly, perhaps, because of tales like that of the Sea of Darkness and
Satan's hand. And it is true that a ship venturing very far westward is
drawn out of its course, as if the earth were not a perfect round, but
sloped upward to the south. My own belief is,"--he seemed for a moment
to forget that he was talking to children, "that it is not perfectly
round, but somewhat like this pear,--" he selected a short chubby pear
from the basket, "and that on this mountain may be a cool and lovely
region which was once Paradise."
"Oh!" cried Beatriz, her face alight with the glory of the thought. The
geographer smiled at her and went on.
"Also you see that the ocean is on this side of the earth very much
greater than the Mediterranean. We do not know how long it would take to
cross it. I have lately received a map from the famous Florentine
Toscanelli which--ah!" he interrupted himself, "here comes our good
friend Master Serrao."
It had taken the pilot longer than he expected to hunt over his relics
of old voyages, and there was nothing, after all, like the piece of wood
cast ashore by the Atlantic waves. Old Sancho turned it over, examined
the edges of the carving, and shook his head.
"No; that is not African work; at least it is not like any work of
the black men that I have ever seen. They can all work iron, and this
was made without the use of iron tools; that I am sure of. Some of our
men were shipwrecked once where they had to make stone and shells serve
their turn, and I know the look of wood that has been worked with such
tools. And the wood itself is not like anything I have from Africa. It
is more like the timber of the East."
Now the stranger's eyes lighted with keener interest.
"You think it may be Indian, do you?"
"It may. But how in the name of Sao Cristobal did it come here? Besides,
the people of India understand the use of metal as well as we do, or
better."
"May there not be wild men in remote islands of the Indian seas?"
"That might be. Gil Andrade has been in those parts, and he says there
are more islands than he could count. I have sometimes had occasion to
take his stories with a pinch of salt, but if there are islands where
wild people live they would make such things as this. And now I think of
it, I once picked up a paddle myself, floating off the Azores, that was
some such wood as this, but not carved. But the queerest thing I ever
found was this nut. Look at it."
It was part of a nutshell as big as a man's head and as hard as wood.
"The inside was quite spoiled," went on the old seaman, "but so far as I
could judge it was no kin to the palm nuts we get. I kept the shell, and
I have never found any merchant who could match it. Now the current sets
toward our coast from the west at a certain point, and that is where all
these odd things come ashore."
The guest nodded. "My brother-in-law and I have talked much of these
matters. One of his captains saw some time ago the floating bodies of
two men, brown-skinned, with straight black hair, not like the natives
of any part of Europe or Africa. Another thing which is strange, though
I hold it not as important as they do, is that the people of Madeira
persistently declare that they see a great island appear and disappear
to the westward. According to their description it has lofty mountains
and wooded valleys, and some say it is Atlantis and some Saint Brandan's
Isle. No ship sailing that way has ever landed there, however."
Sancho's eyes turned seaward. "It is marvelous," he said after a pause,
"what things men think they see. And you think, senhor, that the world
is not yet all known to us?'"
"I do not know." Colombo stood up to take his departure. "If God hath
reserved any great work to be done, He hath also chosen the man who is
to do it. His tasks are not done by accident, or left to the blind or
the selfish. Toscanelli thinks that since the world is round, we should
reach the Indies by sailing due west from this coast, but in that case
India would seem to be far greater than we have believed. If I had the
ships and the men I would venture it. But at this time the King is
altogether taken up with the eastward route to the Indies. It was said
of old time, 'He that believeth shall not make haste.'"
"But you will sail to Paradise some day, will you not, senhor?" asked
Beatriz, treasuring the tiny globe in one careful hand while the other
shaded her eyes from the level rays of the evening sun.
"There is only one way to Paradise, little maid. That is by the will of
our Lord. And if you, my lad, are the first to sail round the world,
remember that the sea is His, and He made it. Man makes his own Sea of
Darkness by ignorance, and hate, and fear."