Within the Capitular Library are his books of reference, neatly annotated in his own clear hand, and a chart drawn by himself on parchment--a rude sketch of the American seaboard and the surrounding ocean, with soundings for sunken rocks; the course of winds, tides, and currents specially noted, the parchment partly blurred, as if by marks of sea-water. Gazing at these relics, so neatly precise, and finished with the care of a man who knows how to wait with the patience of genius, a tall form rises before the eye, fair-complexioned, thin-faced, blue-eyed, and grey at thirty, such as Queen Isabel saw him, sitting at the poop of his little vessel, his eyes fixed on the chart, issuing orders to his helmsman to steer into unknown seas, while around him a mutinous crew gathers, calling on him to turn the rudder and sail home. Time after time this happened. The sailors mutinied and threatened to throw him overboard. Time after time his dignity and eloquence mastered them, until that wild cry of “_Tierra! Tierra!_” broke from the masthead, as the advancing waves gathered on the shore of San Salvador. On his return from his fourth voyage, his constant friend and protectress, Isabel, was dead! This was the last drop in the cup of suffering to a broken-hearted man. His robust constitution broke down, and he sank into a premature old age. At Segovia, where the court was, he presented himself to Ferdinand, but obtained nothing but empty words. He actually lived on borrowed money until his death. His son and heir commuted his claims, which were enormous and unreasonable, into a large grant of land and the title of Grandee of Spain. CHAPTER XXVII Death of Isabel The country between Salamanca and Valladolid is very flat, the finest corn-growing region in all Spain. Now a railway passes through it, and when the summer sun blazes on the thick shocks of wheat, they glisten as with living flames, while the crisp, hot wind passes fluttering by. As the sun sinks, a dazzling ball of fire, into banks of intense crimson, the shadows of the after-glow fall long and dark. Nothing but the horizon between earth and sky; a land, boundless, monotonous, reflecting the stubborn will of the nation. The only kingdom in Europe which has retained its mediæval character for good and bad, simple, grand, immutable as its great plains! Passing the small station of Vento de Baños, the ruins of an ancient castle rise to the sight. It is built of small red bricks, tempered to a pale hue by time and sunshine, and the lofty walls broken by solid towers and bastions. From its low position the height seems great, and for this same reason the walls are of enormous strength. This is the Castello de la Mota, built for Juan II. in 1444, and here his daughter, the great Isabel, has come to die. It is not age which is killing her, for she is only fifty-four, but sorrow has done its work upon her tender heart.