Perhaps just here the senor shook his head sadly and said, "No, no; it is not worth the trouble. The queen is interested only in the Moorish war. Not even the great Diego de Deza, nor the Marchioness of Moya, nor the Duke of Medina Celi, have been able to prevail on her." And perhaps just here the good prior smiled knowingly and replied modestly, "I once had the honor of being Queen Isabella's confessor, and had great influence with her. If"--and here he leaned close to Christopher and whispered something--"I think I might persuade her." We did not catch that whispered sentence quite clearly, but we believe it to have been, "If I tell her the story of the shipwrecked pilot." Up to this time Christopher had not referred to it in his pleadings, for fear, perhaps, that it would sound too improbable; but down in this corner of Spain, where all men followed the sea, the story had got about (whether through the monk Marchena, or through sailors who had been to Madeira, is uncertain) and nearly everybody believed it. So now Juan Perez appears to have persuaded Christopher to use it as a last argument. This we may reasonably conclude, since the Rabida monk's intercession with the queen succeeded where all previous efforts had failed. Martin Alonzo Pinzon, it turns out, is in Rome; so Christopher has to wait until his return. Another delay, but he is well used to that. Meanwhile he turns it to profit by making trips to Palos, Huelva, Moguer, and other ports where he can question sailors newly returned from the west. For half a dozen years he has been out of touch with mariners and their doings, and these trips must have given him deep pleasure. For this is his true place,--among men who have known the rough hardships of seafaring life, and not among grandees and courtiers. He breathes in the salt air and chats with every man he meets. A pilot of Palos, Pedro de Velasco by name, tells him that he too once thought of going into the west, but after sailing one hundred and fifty leagues southwest of Fayal (one of the Azores), and seeing nothing but banks of seaweed, he turned north and then northwest, only to again turn back; but he is sure, he adds, that _if only he had kept on_ he would have found land. Christopher, also, as we know, is quite sure of it, and says so. Another day, in a seaport near Cadiz, he meets another pilot who tells him that he sailed far west from the Irish coast and saw the shores of Tartary! Christopher probably has some doubts of this, so he merely shrugs his shoulders and walks off. He is impatient for Martin Alonzo Pinzon to return. It is disturbing to learn that other men have been getting nearer and nearer to _his_ land.