And new-found agate urns fresh as day . . .

. . . we do not know what his thoughts were, as the shadows grew
deeper about him, as the sounds of the world, the noises from the sunny
street, grew fainter, and the images and sounds of memory clearer and
louder. Perhaps as he lay there with closed eyes he remembered things
long forgotten, as dying people do; sounds and smells of the Vico Dritto
di Ponticelli, and the feel of the hot paving-stones down which his
childish feet used to run to the sea; noises of the sea also, the
drowning swish of waters and sudden roar of breakers sounding to
anxiously strained ears in the still night; bright sunlit pictures of
faraway tropical shores, with handsome olive figures glistening in the
sun; the sight of strange faces, the sound of strange speech, the smell
of a strange land; the glitter of gold; the sudden death-shriek breaking
the stillness of some sylvan glade; the sight of blood on the grass
. . . The Admiral's face undergoes a change; there is a stir in the
room; some one signs to the priest Gaspar, who brings forth his sacred
wafer and holy oils and administers the last sacraments. The wrinkled
eyelids flutter open, the sea-worn voice feebly frames the responses;
the dying eyes are fixed on the crucifix; and--"In manus tuas Domine
commendo spiritum meum." The Admiral is dead.

He was in his fifty-sixth year, already an old man in body and mind; and
his death went entirely unmarked except by his immediate circle of
friends. Even Peter Martyr, who was in Valladolid just before and just
after it, and who was writing a series of letters to various
correspondents giving all the news of his day, never thought it worth
while to mention that Christopher Columbus was dead. His life flickered
out in the completest obscurity. It is not even known where he was first
buried; but probably it was in the Franciscan convent at Valladolid.