Part 13 (2/2)

”Magellan is not mad. He executed those who had planned to murder him.

He had to put to death these men for the sake of the expedition. He will return again!”

Few believed his story, and fewer his prophecy.

Still there were some who hoped that the prisoner's prophecy might prove true. Columbus was deemed mad, and quelled a mutiny, but he returned again. Vasco da Gama faced doubt and destruction, but he returned again.

There were not wanting some who asked, ”Will Magellan ever return again?” Such usually received the answer, ”The Admiral was mad!”

The poor wife of Magellan, who had hoped much from him for the sake of her child, as well as for Spain, heard these reports in an agony of grief. But she still hoped. She must have believed in her husband's destiny.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE PACIFIC.--THE DEATH OF THE GIANTS.

The four s.h.i.+ps glided along the wonderful straits which Magellan named the ”Virgins,” but which will always bear his own name. The scenery continued wild and fierce, and in some places overawing and sublime; they sailed amid domes of crystal and almost under the roofs of a broken world. They still moved slowly--the scenery growing more and more wonderful.

The air grew bright again. The s.h.i.+ps were in the sea. They had entered a sea broad and glorious, but which Magellan could have hardly dreamed to be nearly ten thousand miles long, and more than that wide! Its waters were placid--an ocean plain. Columbus had heard of this vast sea, and Balboa had seen it from the peak of Darien.

All the joy that Magellan had antic.i.p.ated in his visions of years now burst upon him.

”The Pacific!”

This was the name that came to him as he surveyed the new ocean world.

He was the discoverer of the South Pacific, which was continuous with the ocean discovered by Balboa. What did it contain? Whither might he sail over the new serenity of waters?

His soul had stood against his own country; his name had been cast out by his countrymen. But in the splendors of the sunset sea he had found his faith to be reality. It is said that the sailors wept when they beheld the Pacific.

We may fancy the joy of Del Cano.

We may imagine how the heart of Pigafetta, the young Italian, which had always been true to the Admiral, must have overflowed with delight when the Pacific opened before his eyes! There is a strong heart beat in the happiness of one who has been true to a successful man in the hour of his need.

He may have sung the song that cheered Columbus and his men--the mariners' hymn to the Virgin:

”Gentle Star of Ocean!

Portal of the sky!

Ever Virgin Mother Of the Lord most high!”

”Wednesday, the 20th of November, 1520,” says the original narrative, ”we came forth out of the same strait, and entered the Pacific Sea.”

The s.h.i.+ps sailed on into the calm mystery of the ocean, the soul of Magellan glowing. But though the Admiral had risen superior to so many obstacles, there were others to be met. The sea was indeed placid and full of promise, but starvation now stared him in the face, and after the spectre of Treason had departed that of Famine appeared.

Day after day the sun arose on the same serenity of sea. One month pa.s.sed, and still there spread before the s.h.i.+ps the same infinite ocean.

Another month pa.s.sed, and another, and twenty days more.

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