CHAPTER XI.
REACTION AT COURT.
The career of Columbus had already been marked by strong contrasts.

First, a "pauper pilot," then the viceroy of a new world; alternately hoping, and fearing, despondent, and triumphant, he had passed through strange vicissitudes of good and evil fortune.

But no two events in his life stand out in stronger contrast to each other than his return to Spain after his first voyage, and his return now.

He was then a conqueror; he was now a prisoner.

He was then the idol of popular favour; he was now the unpopular victim of insidious maligners.