The Lost Voyage of John Cabot [Paperback]

1498. Sebastian Cabot age fifteen, can only wait and wonder. His famous father has abandoned him at home in Bristol, England, but has taken the boy's older and younger brothers, Ludovico and Sancio, on his second voyage in search of the Asian mainland. On his first journey, sailing north across the Western Ocean in 1497, John Cabot had discovered the New Found Land. He returned to England a hero.

Five years earlier, Spain had given Christopher Columbus a similar welcome. He had found Asia, he claimed. And by a southern route.

Cabot was skeptical and set out to the north again to prove his old friend a fraud.

But silence followed.

Now, Sebastian and history are confronted with a tantalizing mystery. What has become of Cabot's second endeavor? Letters to the boy from fourteen-year-old Sancio tell of a fearsome storm and its aftermath. They, and the surprising climax to Sebastian's and Sancio's shared story, make for unforgettable voyaging.Henry Garfieldlives in Belfast, Maine, where he keeps a small sailboat for explorations of the coastal waters. He is the author of three mystery-
suspense novels:Moondog, Room 13,andTartabull's Throw,and writes a regular column for villagesoup.com, an Internet newspaper in Maine. He is the great-great-grandson of President James A. Garfield, the last U.S. president born in a log cabin.Chapter One

31 May 1498

Dear Sebastian,

Thank God I am still alive to write these words. I have never seen such a storm, and I hope to never see its like again.

I wonder if Ludovico still lives. I fear for him, and for all those on the other ships. There is no sign of any of them on this rolling sea.

The sky is only now beginning to clear, after five days of hell, during which the only difference between night and day was that in the day you could see the angry gray-green waves a moment before they pounded the ship. Father has ordered sail rigged on our two lc_