Spain would be glad to reward them. And then he said good-by and sailed
away for Spain.

It was on the fourth of January, 1493, that Columbus turned the little
Nina homeward. He had not sailed very far when what should he come
across but the lost Pinta. Captain Alonso Pinzon seemed very much
ashamed when he saw the Admiral, and tried to explain his absence.
Columbus knew well enough that Captain Pinzon had gone off gold hunting
and had not found any gold. But he did not scold him, and both the
vessels sailed toward Spain.

The homeward voyage was a stormy and seasick one. Once it was so rough
that Columbus thought surely the Nina would be wrecked. So he copied
off the story of what he had seen and done, addressed it to the king and
queen of Spain, put it into a barrel and threw the barrel overboard.

But the Nina was not shipwrecked, and on the eighteenth of February
Columbus reached the Azores. The Portuguese governor was so surprised
when he heard this crazy Italian really had returned, and was so angry
to think it was Spain and not Portugal that was to profit by his voyage
that he tried to make Columbus a prisoner. But the Admiral gave this
inhospitable welcomer the slip and was soon off the coast of Portugal.

Here he was obliged to land and meet the king of Portugal--that same
King John who had once acted so meanly toward him. King John would
have done so again had he dared. But things were quite different now.
Columbus was a great man. He had made a successful voyage, and the king
and queen of Spain would have made it go hard with the king of Portugal
if he dared trouble their admiral. So King John had to give a royal
reception to Columbus, and permit him to send a messenger to the king