was very miserable. He had slunk from his storm-battered caravel and
into his house without saying a word to any one. His wife, overjoyed at
seeing him, threw her arms around him.

"Oh, my good Martin!" she exclaimed, "we were mourning you as dead!
Cristobal Colon believed that you and your _Pinta_ had gone to the
bottom off the Azores!"

"I only wish I had!" groaned Martin, dejectedly. "I only wish I had!"

Perhaps you think he was repenting too deeply of that insubordination
off the coast of Cuba, 'way back in November. No, it was not that;
Martin had another matter to regret now, more's the pity; for he was a
good sailor and a brave, energetic man, ready to risk his life and his
money in the discovery. He knew that, next to Columbus, he had played
the most important part in the discovery, and he now realized that he
was not to share the honor in what he considered the right proportion.
He felt ill-used; moreover his health was shattered.

When the two vessels became separated in the storm off the Azores, he
concluded just what the Admiral concluded--that the other ship had gone
down. He considered it a miracle that even one of those mere scraps of
wood, lashed about in a furious sea, should have stayed afloat; but both
of them,--no! two miracles could never happen in one night!

And so when he scanned the horizon next morning and saw no _Nina_,
and when he kept peering all that day through the storm and the little
_Nina_ never came in sight, a mean idea made its way into Captain
Pinzon's brain; and it grew and grew until it became a definite, well-
arranged plan.