The next day, May 20, 1506, came another whisper of springtide, and the faithful Diego Mendez, who "navigated three hundred leagues in a canoe," came to see him; his sons, Diego and Fernando, too, and his brother Bartholomew; and as the dim old eyes saw these affectionate faces bending over him, he counseled Diego always to love his younger brother Fernando, as he had always loved Bartholomew; and Diego pressed his hand and promised. Then the old man rested quietly for a time. He was clad in the frock of a Franciscan monk, the same sort of frock that good Friar Juan Perez wore when he welcomed him to La Rabida. They opened the window to let in the May warmth, and Christopher sniffed feebly. Did he recall the beautiful climate of Haiti which he said was "like May in Cordova"? Let us hope, at least, that it was peaceful recollections like this that flitted through his vanishing senses, and not recollections of the horrible hurricanes and insurrections and shipwrecks and prisons that made up part of his eventful life. He made no sound, not even a whisper, so we will never know what thoughts the May warmth brought to him. We only know that after a while he crossed his hands peacefully on his breast and murmured, "Into thy hands, O Lord, I commit my spirit." A moment later and the great Admiral passed forth on his last voyage into the unknown. The event on May 20, 1506, passed unheeded. A life had ended whose results were more stupendous than those of any other human life ever lived. Yet Valladolid took no notice of Columbus's death; neither did Spain. The nation was too busy watching the men who had practical plans for colonizing the new lands, and turning them into profit, to concern itself with the death of the one brave soul who had found the path. Indeed, Cristobal Colon was really forgotten before his death; yet he was living on, as every great spirit lives on, in the ambitions of the men who were endeavoring to push his work still further. When, a few years after his death, Balboa first saw the Pacific stretching far, far off to Asia, and when in another few years the whole globe had been circumnavigated, from Spain back again to Spain, only then did the vastness of Columbus's discovery begin to be appreciated. Europe at last realized that, during all her centuries of civilization, when she had thought herself mistress of the world, she had in fact known but half of it. As this truth took shape in men's minds, the humble, forgotten Genoese began to come into his own. They saw that he had done more than risk his life on the western ocean; he had sent a thrill through every brave, adventurous heart, and this at a moment of the world's development when such seed was sure to take root. Christopher Columbus, one of the greatest products of the Renaissance, had carried that Renaissance to a glorious climax.