"And yet," said Montoro, somewhat doubtfully, "and yet, although of course new worlds are foolishness to dream of, some islands might perchance fall to our share, if we adventured somewhat to find them, as such good and profitable prizes have been falling, during the past fifty years, pretty plentifully, to our clever neighbours, the Portuguese." "Ay, and even they won't listen to this Genoese, you may recollect. Besides, the Pope has given everything in the seas and on it, I have heard, to those lucky neighbours of ours, so of what use for Spaniards to jeopardize lives and treasure to benefit the Portuguese?" "Nay," answered Don Diego, "the Pope's grant to them is only for the countries from Cape Horn to India. Why should not we obtain a grant for lands in the other hemisphere?" And so the poor young nobleman tried to stifle grief and apprehension in dreams of other lands, of whose discovery he would not live to hear, although his son would one day help others to found new homes on their far-off soil. CHAPTER V. _DEATH FOR ARBUES DE EPILA._ The days went by; the days of that year, 1485: and still the hideous spectacles of the Auto da Fé continued to be witnessed with shame and anguish by the inhabitants of Saragossa. Still the cry of the tortured victims ascended up to heaven, and still Arbues de Epila lived in his case of mail. Those were busy, agitating days for Spain. The war with Granada was still in progress. King Ferdinand was much exercised in mind with various jealousies connected with French affairs, and, more than all important for future ages, the Queen's confessor, Ferdinand di Talavera, together with a council of self-sufficient pedants and philosophers, was taking into consideration that request of the Genoese, Christopher Colon, or, as we call him, Columbus, to be provided with such an equipment of ships, men, and necessary stores, as should enable him to find and found countries hitherto unheard of, and only thought of, most people declared, by crack-brained dreamers. "Besides," finally decided Talavera and his sage council, with pompous absurdity; "besides, if there were nothing else against this scheme, such as the convex figure of the globe, for instance, which, of course, would prevent vessels ever getting back again, up the side of the world, once they got down, there was the impudence of the suggestion. It was presumptuous in any person to pretend that he alone possessed knowledge superior to all the rest of the world united."