Page:Romance of History, Mexico.djvu/35

THE OPEN GATE belong to Jesus Christ, and therefore to his Holiness the Pope, Christ's Vicar and representative? To the Pope Alexander VI. he therefore turned to sue for the right of dominion over the wide alluring West. A man of scheming brain and evil life, the Pope was guided in all his deeds by self-interest alone. To secure the protection of Spain he graciously consented, "out of his pure liberality, infallible knowledge, and plenitude of apostolic power," to grant in full right to Ferdinand and Isabella all the countries inhabited by infidels, which they had discovered or should hereafter discover.

To prevent this princely grant from interfering with one formerly made to the king of Portugal, his Holiness decreed that an imaginary line drawn from pole to pole, a hundred leagues to the westward of the Azores, should serve as the limit between the dominions of the rival kingdoms. All lands to the east of this line he bestowed on Portugal, to the west, on Spain, with the pious wish that the Christian faith might thus spread far and wide to perishing heather peoples.

The ardent soul of Isabella had ever in view the service of God, and her missionary zeal needed no prompting from the Pope. Several hooded friars were sent with Columbus and his motley band of "fishermen for gold." Alas for the glittering hopes of the eager adventurers! Little gold did they find in those islands which Columbus, still firm in his mistaken belief, had named the Indies. The soil, it is true, was fertile, the natives gentle, timid, and easily subdued, but "Gold! Gold!" was the cry of