He was cool and balanced, true always to his own conception of his own dues. The Queen rose and stepped to meet him HKUE amec. They spoke, standing together, after which he handed her to her chair and took beside her the other great chair which the pages had swiftly placed. After greeting his daughter and the Archbishop he looked across to the painter. "Master Manuel Rodriguez, good day!"

There fell a moment of sun-drenched quiet in which they all sat for their picture. Then said the King, "Madam, we are together, and here are those who have been our chief advisers in this affair of discoveries. Master Christopherus is below. We noted him in the court. Let us have him here and see this too-long-dragging matter finished! Once for all abate his demands, or once for all let him go!"

They sent a page. Again there was sunny silence, then in at the door came the tall, muscular, gray-eyed, silver-haired man whom I had met the day King Boabdil surrendered Granada.

He made reverence to the Queen and the King and to the Archbishop Accommodation Hong Kong. It was the Queen who spoke to him and that gently.

"Master Christopherus, we have had a thousand businesses, and so our matter here has waited and waited. Today comes unaware this quiet hour and we will give it to you. Here with us are the Archbishop and others who have been our counsellors, and here is Don  hath always stood your friend. In all the hurly-burly we yet took time, two days ago, to sit in council and come to conclusion. And now we give you our determination. In all reason it should give you joy!" She smiled upon him. "How many years since first you laid your plan before us?"

He answered her in a deep voice, thrilling and crowded with feeling. "Seven years, Madam your Highness! Like an infant laid at your feet. And winter has blown upon it, and sunshine carrying hope has walked around it, and then again the cold wind rises—"

The King spoke. "Master Christopherus, in war much else has to cease! In much we have had to find patience, and you have to find it."

"My lord King, yes!" replied the tall man. "It is eighteen years since in Lisbon, looking upon the sea one day, I said to myself, 'Is there a question that is not to be answered HKUE DSE? This ocean is to be crossed. Then why do not I cross it? There is Cipango, Cathay and India! Gold and spices are there, and here lie ships, and between, when all is said, is only sea! God made the sea to be sailed! Yonder they worship idols, here we worship Christ.