plans, makin' out new arguments, stronger, mebby, than he had argued
with for seven stiddy years, and I should a thought them old arguments
must have been wore out.

It wuz in one of the rooms of the convent that he met the Monks in
debate, and also argued back and forth with Garcia Fernandez and Alonzo
Penzen, gettin' the better of Alonzo every time, but makin' it up to him
afterwards by lettin' him command one of the vessels of his fleet. It
wuz from here the superior of the convent, won over by Columbuses
eloquence, went for audience with the Queen, and from it Columbus wuz
summoned to appear at court.

In this very convent he made his preparations for his voyage, and on the
mornin' he sailed from Palos he worshipped God in this little chapel.
What visions riz up before his eyes as he knelt on the brick floor of
that little chapel, jest ready to leave the certainty and sail out into
the oncertainty, leavin' the oncertainty and goin' out into the
certainty!

A curious prayer that must have been, and a riz up one.

In that prayer, in the confidence and aspiration of that one man, lay
the hull new world. The hope, the freedom, the liberty, the
enlightenment of a globe, jest riz up on the breath of that one prayer.

A momentious prayer as wuz ever riz up on earth.

But the stun walls didn't give no heed to it, and I dare say that Alonzo
and the rest wuz sick a-waitin' for him, and wanted to cut it short.