"If Alonso de Ojeda hears of your calling him a cockroach on a mast, he
will grind your ribs to a paste with a cudgel (os moliesen las costillas
a puros palos)!" observed a pale, sharp-faced lad in a shabby doublet.
The sailor who had made the comparison glanced at him and chuckled.

"Your pardon--hidalgo. I have been at sea so much of late that the
comparison jumped into my mind. Is he a caballero then?"

"One of the household of the Duke of Medina Coeli. He is always doing
such things. If he happened to think of flying, he would fly. Every one
must be good at something."

The performance which they had just been watching would fix the name of
Ojeda very firmly in the minds of those who saw. Queen Ysabel, happening
to ascend the tower of the cathedral at Seville with her courtiers and
ladies, remarked upon the daring and skill of the Moorish builders.
Everywhere in the newly conquered cities of Granada were their
magnificent domes and lofty muezzin towers, often seeming like the airy
minarets of a mirage. The next instant Alonso de Ojeda had walked out
upon a twenty-foot timber projecting into space two hundred feet above
the pavement, and at the very end he stood on one leg and waved the
other in the air. Returning, he rested one foot against the wall and
flung an orange clean over the top of the tower. He was small, though
handsome and well-made, and he had now shown a muscular strength of
which few had suspected him.

It was natural that the sailor should be interested in the people of the
court, for he had business there. The Admiral of the Indies was making
his arrangements for his second voyage, and he had desired Juan de la