CHAPTER VII.

A YOUNG HUMANITARIAN.

A FEW days after the departure of the fleet of Cortez, the governor of Cuba, with his lieutenant, Narvaez, drew rein in front of Estevan's house and called to his wife, who was on the veranda. Christopher, who heard the governor, came from the arbor to learn what he wanted.

"Señora Estevan, is your husband with the fleet of Cortez?" asked the governor.

"He is," she answered.

"Then more is the pity for you."

"Why?" asked Christina, her heart giving great bounds, for she discovered that the governor was in a rage, and she had a dread of him.

"Because you will soon be a widow. I will hang every man aboard the fleet.”

"They have done nothing worthy of death, governor."

"Desertion and treason are punishable with death?"

"They are surely guilty of neither charge. They sailed with your consent and the king's commission."

"My consent, indeed!

Did I not recall them?

But Cortez defied me; yes, defied me. I will hang every one of them."

"But, remember, the good Father Olmedo is with them!" put in the lad, who had early been taught that the priest was sacred.

"I will hang him, also. Señora, I warn you, if you do not keep that impudent son of yours quiet I will pull your house down about your ears, cried the governor. Dismounting from his horse, he went to the gate, where he stood shaking his fist at the señora, whose husband he hated. Christopher's blue eyes flashed with deadly fire, and, turning, he entered the house. There was an arbor at the side of the house with a door opening to it from within.

The señora, who was trembling for her own safety, was doing all she could to pacify the angry governor, when she was suddenly startled by the odor of burning wood. Leaving the governor to fume and rage alone, she hurried into the arbor from whence the odor came.

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Christopher, what are you doing!" shrieked the astounded mother. Her son was balancing an old arquebus on a cross-beam and aiming it through the

trellised vines at the governor, while he held in his right hand a firebrand to touch it off.

"Keep quiet, mother, I will kill him.”

Christina snatched the firebrand from his hand, and taking away the weapon put it in the house just as the governor, suspecting some mischief, entered the arbor.

"What are you about?" he demanded.

"Trying to shoot a tyrant, who would hang my father," boldly answered the lad, his eyes flashing fire.

Velasquez was not without his good qualities, and there was something so noble about the lad, that he could not but admire him. He turned to his lieutenant.

"What think you of such a youth, Narvaez?" he asked.

"He will make a dangerous rebel," was the reply. "To tyrants I will be dangerous,” cried the lad. "To men who beat Indian slaves until they fall dead, I am dangerous. Beware, Narvaez, for when I grow to be a man, your cruelty will end."

"By the mass, governor!" cried the impulsive lieutenant, "I do admire the lad's pluck."

"So do I, yet I would advise his mother to keep fire-arms out of his hands, until years may add discretion to his valor, or he may end his days on the scaffold.”

"Many good men have," defiantly answered Christopher. "Balboa lost his life for refusing to wed the governor's daughter."

"Come, come, lad, make yourself a useful man, and for your sake I may spare your father; but Cortez shall hang."

"How will you get him?"

"I will send for him."

"Send your lieutenant, Narvaez, and he will return the worse for his mission."

"Hear you the young rogue, Narvaez?”

"I do, and trust I may some day prove he is no prophet."

"Come to my mansion, lad, and play with Antonio when you wish," said Velasquez, remounting his horse. "You are a brave lad, and will make a useful man, despite the fact that your father is a rebel." Velasquez and his lieutenant took their leave, and Christopher was alone with his mother.

She took occasion to reprove him, assuring him that he would increase his father's danger by open hostility to the governor.

"He won't dare harm my father," Christopher answered. "Father and Cortez are brave, and the governor fears them."

A child sometimes reads the heart more accurately than an adult. He is guided more by impressions and never-erring intuitions than false

logic. He went straight at the truth and guessed the cause of the governor's antipathy. But childhood is forgetful and forgiving. In a few days Antonio and Christopher were again roaming the fields and forests about St. Jago with their small bows and arrows.

"The governor doesn't like your father," said Antonio.

"I know it. Look at that bird with a great red tail."

"Yes I see it. I believe I can hit it."

"Try. There, you missed and it flew away." "Come, help me find my arrow!" As they wandered deeper into the wood, Antonio continued. “He don't like your father, because he was a friend of Christopher Columbus. You were named for Columbus?”

"I was.

"So much more the pity.

either."

I don't like you,

"Then why did you come for me to go bird

nesting with you?"

"Because one doesn't want to go alone."

"There are other lads."

"But they don't like me.

sticking in a tree.”

Here is my arrow

"See those great vultures soaring over the wood,

Antonio?"