one!"

"That is God's truth!" said the Admiral. "You may
well say that, senor! Inside I have lived with all who have
lived, and discovered with all who have discovered!"

I remember as a dream this last day upon the _Santa Maria_.
Beltran the cook had scalded his arm. I dressed it each
day, and dressing it now, half a dozen idling by, watching
the operation, I heard again a kind of talk that I had heard
before. Partly because I had shipped as Juan Lepe an
Andalusian sailor and had had my forecastle days, and
partly because men rarely fear to speak to a physician, and
partly because in the great whole there existed liking between
them and me, they talked and discussed freely enough
what any other from the other end of ship could have
come at only by formal questioning. Now many of the
seamen wanted to know when we were returning to Palos,
and another number said that they would just as soon never
return, or at least not for a good while! But they did not
wish to spend that good while upon the ship. It was a
good land, and the heathen also good. The heathen might
all be going to burn in hell, unless Fray Ignatio could get
them baptized in time, and so numerous were they that
seemed hardly possible! Almost all might have to go to hell.
But in the meantime, here on earth, they had their uses, and
one could even grow fond of them--certainly fond of the
women. The heathen were eager to work for us, catch
us coneys, bring us gold, put hammocks for us between
trees and say "Sleep, senor, sleep!" Here even Tomaso