stagger every minute of the time, and the Admiral was too ill to take
command. Bartholomew was doing his best and little Fernando was helping;
running down to his father for orders, scurrying up to his uncle with
directions. What a struggle for life it was! And it was repeated every
single day till November 7, when the crippled little caravel put into
the harbor of San Lucar near Cadiz. Christopher Columbus's last voyage
was over. No bells pealed out to greet him; no flags were flung to the
breeze; but at least he had the glory of knowing in his heart that he
had conquered that grim, unknown, menacing Atlantic Ocean which man had
feared since the beginning of time.




CHAPTER XXI

"INTO PORT"


The merciless storm that had beaten Columbus across the ocean swept over
Spain after he landed. He had gone as far north as Sevilla, intending to
proceed from there to court, which was being held at Medina del Campo,
in Old Castile; but illness overcame him, and for three months he lay
bedridden in the Sevillan monastery called Las Cuevas.

Besides his rheumatism, and all the other ills that might arise from two
and a half years of exposure and bad food, an event happened, a few days
after his return to Spain, that crushed him utterly. This was the death
of his best friend, the only one to whom he could look for securing his
rights in "the Indies," where Ovando and other enemies had conspired to