Part 20 (1/2)

”The silly mariners have toiled in their own behalf, without knowing it,” observed Columbus. ”It is the duty of the ignorant to submit to be led by the more enlightened, and to be grateful for the advantages they derive from a borrowed knowledge, albeit it is obtained contrary to their own wishes.”

”That is it, truly,” added the prior; ”else would the office of us churchmen be reduced to very narrow limits. Faith--faith in the church--is the Christian's earliest and latest duty.”

”This seemeth reasonable, excellent sirs,” returned Master Alonzo, ”though the ignorant find it difficult to comprehend matters that they do not understand. When a man fancieth himself condemned to an unheard-of death, he is little apt to see the benefit that lieth beyond the grave. Nevertheless, the Pinta is more nearly ready for the voyage, than any other of our craft, and hath her crew engaged to a man, and that under contracts that will not permit much dispute before a notary.”

”There remaineth only the Nina, then,” added Columbus; ”with her prepared, and our religious duties observed, we may hope finally to commence the enterprise!”

”Senor, you may. My brother, Vicente Yanez, hath finally consented to take charge of this little craft; and that which a Pinzon promiseth, a Pinzon performeth. She will be ready to depart with the Santa Maria and the Pinta, and Cathay must be distant, indeed, if we do not reach it with one or the other of our vessels.”

”This is right encouraging, neighbor Martin Alonzo,” returned the friar, rubbing his hands with delight; ”and I make no question all will come round in the end. What say the crones and loose talkers of Moguer, and of the other ports, touching the shape of the earth, and the chances of the admiral's reaching the Indies, now-a-days?”

”They discourse much as they did, Fray Juan Perez, idly and without knowledge. Although there is not a mariner in any of the havens who doth not admit that the upper sails, though so much the smallest, are the first seen on the ocean, yet do they deny that this cometh of the shape of the earth, but, as they affirm, of the movements of the waters.”

”Have none of them ever observed the shadows cast by the earth, in the eclipses of the moon?” asked Columbus, in his calm manner, though he smiled, even in putting the question, as one smiles who, having dipped deeply into a natural problem himself, carelessly lays one of its more popular proofs before those who are less disposed to go beneath the surface. ”Do they not see that these shadows are round, and do they not know that a shadow which is round can only be cast by a body that is round?”

”This is conclusive, good Martin Alonzo,” put in the prior, ”and it ought to remove the doubts of the silliest gossip on the coast. Tell them to encircle their dwellings, beginning to the right, and see if, by following the walls, they do not return to the spot from which they started, coming in from the left.”

”Ay, reverend prior, if we could bring our distant voyage down to these familiar examples, there is not a crone in Moguer, or a courtier at Seville, that might not be made to comprehend the mystery. But it is one thing to state a problem fairly, and another to find those who can understand it. Now, I did give some such reasoning to the Alguiazil, in Palos here, and the worthy Senor asked me if I expected to return from this voyage by the way of the lately captured town of Granada. I fancy that the easiest method of persuading these good people to believe that Cathay can be reached by the western voyage, will be by going there and returning.”

”Which we will shortly do, Master Martin Alonzo,” observed Columbus, cheerfully--”But the time of our departure draweth near, and it is meet that none of us neglect the duties of religion. I commend thee to thy confessor, Senor Pinzon, and expect that all who sail with me, in this great enterprise, will receive the holy communion in my company, before we quit the haven. This excellent prior will shrive Pedro de Munos and myself, and let each man seek such other holy counsellor and monitor as hath been his practice.”

With this intimation of his intention to pay a due regard to the rites of the church before he departed--rites that were seldom neglected in that day--the conversation turned, for the moment, on the details of the preparations. After this the parties separated, and a few more days pa.s.sed away in active exertions.

On the morning of Thursday, August the second, 1492, Columbus entered the private apartment of Fray Juan Perez, habited like a penitent, and with an air so devout, and yet so calm, that it was evident his thoughts were altogether bent on his own transgressions and on the goodness of G.o.d. The zealous priest was in waiting, and the great navigator knelt at the feet of him, before whom Isabella had often knelt, in the fulfilment of the same solemnity. The religion of this extraordinary man was colored by the habits and opinions of his age, as, indeed, in a greater or less degree, must be the religion of every man; his confession, consequently, had that admixture of deep piety with inconsistent error, that so often meets the moralist in his investigations into the philosophy of the human mind. The truth of this peculiarity will be seen, by adverting to one or two of the admissions of the great navigator, as he laid before his ghostly counsellor the catalogue of his sins.

”Then, I fear, holy father,” Columbus continued, after having made most of the usual confessions touching the more familiar weaknesses of the human race, ”that my mind hath become too much exalted in this matter of the voyage, and that I may have thought myself more directly set apart by G.o.d, for some good end, than it might please his infinite knowledge and wisdom to grant.”

”That would be a dangerous error, my son, and I carefully admonish thee against the evils of self-righteousness. That G.o.d selecteth his agents, is beyond dispute; but it is a fearful error to mistake the impulses of self-love, for the movements of his Divine Spirit! It is hardly safe for any who have not received the church's ordination, to deem themselves chosen vessels.”

”I endeavor so to consider it, holy friar,” answered Columbus, meekly; ”and, yet, there is that within, which constantly urgeth to this belief, be it a delusion, or come it directly from heaven. I strive, father, to keep the feeling in subjection, and most of all do I endeavor to see that it taketh a direction that may glorify the name of G.o.d and serve the interests of his visible church.”

”This is well, and yet do I feel it a duty to admonish thee against too much credence in these inward impulses. So long as they tend, solely, to increase thy love for the Supreme Father of all, to magnify his holiness, and glorify his nature, thou may'st be certain it is the offspring of good; but when self-exaltation seemeth to be its aim, beware the impulse, as thou wouldst eschew the dictation of the great father of evil!”

”I so consider it; and now having truly and sincerely disburdened my conscience, father, so far as in me lieth, may I hope for the church's consolation, with its absolution?”

”Canst thou think of naught else, son, that should not lie hid from before the keeper of all consciences?”

”My sins are many, holy prior, and cannot be too often or too keenly rebuked; but I do think that they may be fairly included in the general heads that I have endeavored to recall.”

”Hast thou nothing to charge thyself with, in connection with that s.e.x that the devil as often useth as his tempters to evil, as the angels would fain employ them as the ministers of grace?”

”I have erred as a man, father; but do not my confessions already meet those sins?”

”Hast thou bethought thee of Dona Beatriz Enriquez? of thy son Fernando, who tarrieth, at this moment, in our convent of la Rabida?”

Columbus bowed his head in submission, and the heavy sigh, amounting almost to a groan, that broke out of his bosom, betrayed the weight of his momentary contrition.

”Thou say'st true, father; that is an offence which should never be forgotten, though so often shrived since its commission. Heap on me the penance that I feel is due, and thou shalt see how a Christian can bend and kiss the rod that he is conscious of having merited.”