my spirit quiet. Rising, I entered great cabin on my way
to bed and sleep. I felt that the cabin was not empty, and
then, there being moonlight enough, I saw the figure by the
Admiral's door. "Who is it?" I demanded, but the unbolted
door gave to the man's push, and he disappeared. I
knew it was not the Admiral and I followed at a bound. The
cabin had a window and the moonbeams came in. They
showed Felipe and his knife and the great Genoese asleep.
The madman laughed and crooned, then lifted that Toledo
dagger and lunged downward with a sinewy arm. But I
was upon him. The blow fell, but a foot wide of mark.
There was a struggle, a shout. The Admiral, opening eyes,
sprang from bed.

He was a powerful man, and I, too, had strength, but
Felipe fought and struggled like a desert lion. He kept
crying, "I am the King! I will send him to discover Heaven!
I will send him to join the prophets!" At last we had him
down and bound him. By now the noise had brought the
watch and others. A dozen men came crowding in, in the
moonlight. We took the madman away and kept him fast,
and Juan Lepe tried to cure him but could not. In three
days he died and we buried him at sea. And Fernando,
creeping to me, asked, "senor, don't you feel at times that
there is madness over all this ship and this voyage and _him_
--the Admiral, I mean?"

I answered him that it was a pity there were so few
madmen, and that Felipe must have been quite sane.