CHAPTER III

UPS AND DOWNS

While Columbus was toiling under the tropical sun to make good his
promises to the Crown, Margarite and Buil, having safely come home to
Spain from across the seas, were busy setting forth their view of the
value of his discoveries. It was a view entirely different from any that
Ferdinand and Isabella had heard before, and coming as it did from two
men of position and importance who had actually been in Espanola, and
were loyal and religious subjects of the Crown, it could not fail to
receive, if not immediate and complete credence, at any rate grave
attention. Hitherto the Sovereigns had only heard one side of the
matter; an occasional jealous voice may have been raised from the
neighbourhood of the Pinzons or some one else not entirely satisfied with
his own position in the affair; but such small cries of dissent had
naturally had little chance against the dignified eloquence of the
Admiral.

Now, however, the matter was different. People who were at least the
equals of Columbus in intelligence, and his superiors by birth and
education, had seen with their own eyes the things of which he had
spoken, and their account differed widely from his. They represented
things in Espanola as being in a very bad way indeed, which was true
enough; drew a dismal picture of an overcrowded colony ravaged with
disease and suffering from lack of provisions; and held forth at length
upon the very doubtful quality of the gold with which the New World was
supposed to abound. More than this, they brought grave charges against
Columbus himself, representing him as unfit to govern a colony, given to