[1492 by Mary Johnston]@TWC D-Link book1492 CHAPTER XXXIV 26/29
He had our time's learning, gained through God knows how many nights of book by candle! And he had a mind that took eagle flights with spread of eagle wings, and in many ways he had the eagle's eye. It was not Cipango and Cathay that now he talked of, but of this great land-mass before us which he would have rise to Equator and all Wonder. And he talked also of some water passage, some strait lying to the westward, by which we might sail between lands and islands to the further Indian Ocean, and so across to the Sea of Araby, and then around Africa by Good Hope and then northward, northward, to Spain, coming into Cadiz with banners, having sailed around the world! He talked, and all the time his pain ate him, and he must cover eyes to keep the sword-light out. In middle August we turned northward from our New Land, and a fortnight later we came to San Domingo, that Christopherus Columbus had never seen, though to us in Hispaniola it was an old town, having been builded above two years. The Viceroy and the Adelantado clasped hands, embraced; tears ran down their bronzed cheeks. Not later than a day after our anchoring, the ships being unladed, all San Domingo coming and going, trumpets blew and gathered all to our open place before the Viceroy's house.
Proclamation--Viceregal Proclamation! First, thanks to God for safe return, and second, hearty approval of the Adelantado, all his Acts and Measures. There were two parties in San Domingo, and one now echoed in a shout approval of the Adelantado, and the other made here a dead silence, and here a counter-murmur.
I heard a man say, "Fool praises fool! Villain brother upholding villain brother!" Now I do not think the Adelantado's every act was wise, nor the Viceroy's either, for that matter.
But they were far, far, those brothers, from fool and villain! The Proclamation arrived at long thunders against Francisco Roldan his sedition.
Here again the place divided as before.
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