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Leadership Team Coaching in
Practice

2
Leadership Team Coaching in
Practice
Case studies on developing high-
performing teams

Edited by
Peter Hawkins

3
Publisher’s note
Every possible effort has been made to ensure that the information
contained in this book is accurate at the time of going to press, and
the publisher and authors cannot accept responsibility for any
errors or omissions, however caused. No responsibility for loss or
damage occasioned to any person acting, or refraining from action,
as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by the
editor, the publisher or any of the authors.

First published in Great Britain and the United States in 2014 by

Kogan Page Limited
Second edition 2018

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private
study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be
reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with
the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of
reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licences
issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these
terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned
addresses:

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www.koganpage.com

© Peter Hawkins and the individual contributors 2014, 2018

The right of Peter Hawkins and the individual contributors to be

identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

ISBN 978 0 7494 8238 1

E-ISBN 978 0 7494 8239 8

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5
 Nemo solus satus sapit.
(TITUS MACCIUS PLAUTUS, 254–184 BC)

No individual person can be wise enough on their own.

(QUOTED BY THE CADBURY REPORT ON BOARD
GOVERNANCE, 1992)

6
CONTENTS

Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Introduction to the Second Edition

01 Introduction: Highly effective teams – the latest research and

development
Peter Hawkins

02 What are leadership team coaching and systemic team

coaching?
Peter Hawkins

Introduction
The five disciplines of effective teams and the five
approaches to coaching them
Coaching the five disciplines
Defining systemic and leadership team coaching
Conclusion

03 Learning from case studies and an overview of published case

studies
Peter Hawkins, Catherine Carr and Jacqueline Peters

Introduction
The focus of the coach

7
 Learning from interacting with the case studies
New case studies since 2012
Discussion
Future directions
Conclusion

04 Coaching the commissioning and clarifying: A case study of a

professional services leadership team
Hilary Lines

Context for the work

Initial contracting, inquiry and diagnosis
Second contracting, inquiry and diagnosis

05 Coaching the co-creating within the team: Two case studies

from Canada
Catherine Carr and Jacqueline Peters

Introduction
Learning and recommendations
Conclusion
Reflections three years on

06 Coaching the connecting between a new CEO, her leadership

team and the wider middle management in a UK National
Health Service organization
Jacqui Scholes-Rhodes and Angela McNab

Introduction
Initial contracting – the client perspective
Initial contracting – the coach perspective
Review of impact and action – roll-out and after
Ongoing learning and reflection
Current reflections

07 Coaching the team working with its core learning

8
 Sue Coyne and Judith Nicol

Introduction
The Bruntwood case study
Key learnings
Conclusion: ‘We have had an incredible journey’
Reflections three years on

08 Team coaching as part of organizational transformation: A

case study of Finnair
David Jarrett

Introduction
The context
The strategic challenge
A deeper inquiry
Approach: developing the senior team
Approach: creating hub, spoke and wheel
Approach: developing the wider leadership group to help lead
the transformation
But then time for hard hats – the culture fights back!
Outcomes
Conclusions
Reflections four years on

09 Team coaching for organizational learning and innovation: A

case study of an Australian pharmaceutical subsidiary
Padraig O’Sullivan and Carole Field

Background
First insight that learning was being missed
Key questions that guided the team
Core learning actions at the leadership team level
Key initial changes at the organization level
The challenge of being successful in an Asian context

9
 Resetting the bar
Focus on innovation
Continued use of external coaching and other experts
Top 30 award for most innovative organizations in Australia
Engagement scores that reflect a strong culture
Reflections and conclusions

10 Inter-team coaching: From team coaching to organizational

transformation at Yeovil Hospital Foundation Trust
Peter Hawkins and Gavin Boyle

Introduction
The inter-team launch of the clinical divisional teams
The board development
Reflections and conclusions
Postscript 2014
Update: from inter-team coaching to ‘team of team coaching’
to ‘eco-systemic team coaching’

11 Developing an effective ‘team of teams’ approach in Comair

Barbara Walsh, Danny Tuckwood (Metaco), Erik Venter (CEO),
Geraldine Welby-Cooke (Head of Od), Tracey Mccreadie
(Manager of Service Delivery, Ops) and Justin Dell (Manager of
Ground Ops) (all in Comair), Peter Hawkins (Metaco, Supervisor)

Introduction
Background and context
Process framework overview
The activity
Progress made
Comair’s talent management strategy
Reflection and learning

12 Empowering the next generation of team leaders in fast-

moving startups

10
 Shannon Arvizu

Introduction
Case study
Cultivating the next generation of team leaders
Transformational team KPIs
The power of collaborative leadership
Conclusion

13 Evaluation and assessment of teams and team coaching

Peter Hawkins

Introduction
Team Connect 360
Other useful assessment approaches
Is this a team?
Assessing the functions of the team
Assessing team motivation and affective levels
Team relationship to Hawkins’ five disciplines of teams
Team maturity
Levels of team maturity and development
Conclusion

14 Coaching the board: How coaching boards is different from

coaching executive teams, with case examples from the private,
public and voluntary sectors
Peter Hawkins and Alison Hogan

Introduction
The global context in which boards operate
The role of the board and board effectiveness
From board evaluation to board coaching
The board as a leadership team
The five disciplines of a highly-effective board
Conclusion

11
 Reflections four years on

15 Embodied approaches to team coaching

Peter Hawkins and David Presswell

Introduction
The history and focus of three approaches
Key concepts
Conclusion

16 Developing the personal core capacities for systemic team

coaching
Peter Hawkins

Introduction
Systemic team coaching core capacities
Conclusion

17 Training systemic team coaches

Peter Hawkins and John Leary-Joyce

Introduction
Learning to be a systemic team coach
Designing a systemic team coach training programme
Conclusion

18 Systemic team coaching – where next?

Peter Hawkins and Krister Lowe

Introduction
The continuing growth of the demand for team coaching
Professionalization of team coaching
Accreditation of team coaches
Development of research on, and case studies of, team
coaching
Digitalization and team coaching

12
 Team development, organizational transformation and human
evolution
Systemic team coaching – Bridging the gap between leader
development and organizational development. Developing
team leadership in Deloitte UK
Creating future-fit organizations
Conclusion

Appendix
Biographies of the contributors
Glossary
References
Index
Backcover

13
List of Figures

FIGURE 2.1 The five disciplines of high-performing teamso

FIGURE 2.2 The five disciplines model of team coaching: key

questions

FIGURE 4.1 The five disciplines of effective teams

FIGURE 4.2 The five disciplines as applied in team away day

FIGURE 4.3 Learning within and between the five disciplines

FIGURE 5.1 Overview of the team coaching process

FIGURE 5.2 Team coaching summary for Catherine’s government

team

FIGURE 5.3 Team coaching summary for Jacqueline’s corporate team

FIGURE 7.1 Comfort zones

FIGURE 7.2 The Cycle of Learning model

FIGURE 8.1 The Triangle of Integrated Change

FIGURE 8.2 The five levels of culture

FIGURE 8.3 From ‘hub and spoke’ to team as an integrated wheel

FIGURE 8.4 Full-circle development in two years

FIGURE 10.1 The five disciplines of high-performing teams: exec

scores – October 2010 current scores out of 5 with target scores in
brackets

14
FIGURE 10.2 Foundation trust – 5 key teams – 6 critical relationships

FIGURE 10.3 Introducing the three gears

FIGURE 10.4 The five disciplines of high-performing teams:

executive scores and scores by four other teams (July 2011)

FIGURE 11.1 How do you ‘show up’ as a leader?

FIGURE 13.1 What is the state of energy in your business, unit or

team?

FIGURE 13.2 OEQ (Organizational Energy Questionnaire)

FIGURE 13.3 A team graph of maturational levels

FIGURE 15.1 The personality Myers–Briggs floor map

FIGURE 16.1 Conjunction

FIGURE 18.1 2013 Research by Henley Business School. Based on

responses from 359 executives from 38 countries; respondents
were made up of a 60/40 split between HR and non-HR roles

15
List of Tables

TABLE 3.1 The level of team coaching and the team coaching
disciplines

TABLE 3.2 Comparison of team coaching case studies

TABLE 3.3 Comparison of team coaching case studies since 2012

TABLE 5.1 Catherine’s government team coaching launch agenda and

outcomes (Carr and Peters, 2012)

TABLE 5.2 Middle and closure session goals and activities (Carr and
Peters, 2012)

TABLE 5.3

TABLE 5.4 Jacqueline’s corporate team coaching session agendas and

outcomes

TABLE 5.5 Comparison of TDS pre-assessment data for each case

study (Carr and Peters, 2012)

TABLE 5.6 Comparison of TDS pre- and post-assessment changes on

a five-point scale (Carr and Peters, 2012)

TABLE 7.1 How the team rated themselves on the three core learning
attributes

TABLE 8.1 Finnair leadership habits

TABLE 8.2 Two-day programme

TABLE 8.3 Finnair reported financial results

16
TABLE 12.1

TABLE 13.1

TABLE 13.2 Team function analysis

TABLE 13.3

TABLE 13.4

TABLE 13.5 Leadership maturity models

TABLE 13.6 Linking levels of team conscious to the five team

disciplines

TABLE 13.7 Possible coaching methods for the various levels

TABLE 13.8 The Brief Team Maturity Questionnaire

TABLE 13.9

TABLE 14.1 The four forms of board capital

TABLE 14.2 Board decision-making roles

TABLE 16.1 Levels of listening

TABLE 16.2 Levels of listening: Hawkins and Scharmer

17
FOREWORD

An organization isn’t a machine; it’s a living organism. Since the industrial

revolution, it’s been customary to think about the production of goods and
services as though they all still emerged from factories. Business (or
management) schools grew out of engineering schools, inheriting their
mechanistic model and language. But what Peter Hawkins and his
associates demonstrate is that this mental construct, if it ever were true, no
longer is. Companies don’t have ideas, only people do – and it is the
interactions between and among people from which innovation, insight
and value emerge. Leadership is about creating the conditions in which
those are most likely to proliferate.
This book in itself ably demonstrates its own proposition. The output of
a team of exceptionally gifted and experienced practitioners, their case
studies combine to produce a highly coherent, practical and holistic
approach to leadership team coaching. It grows from the shared experience
of exceptional collaborators, proving – if proof were needed – that teams
aren’t about dumbing down but braining up. Most CEOs today recognize
that they cannot achieve change alone, that they depend critically on the
contributions of executives who understand how to get the best from each
other. But recognition is the easy part: how to achieve such high-order
collaboration is the hardest part of leadership. As companies emerge from
the tight executional focus required to weather the economic crisis, leaders
now confront the harder problem, which is the transformation of heroic
soloists into fully functional and sustainable teams.
This takes time. Many leaders expect – or hope – that the smooth
interaction of capable people will develop naturally. That almost never
happens. Few executives, harried by key performance indicators, targets
and share price, have the time or the skills to develop the social capital on
which an organization’s resilience, productivity and creativity depend. The
single greatest motivator at work may be our connectedness to each other –
but this is easily stunted or eroded by the day-to-day demands of work.
That’s where leadership team coaching comes in: helping already

18
outstanding individuals to grow beyond their expertise by investing the
time and attention required for true social capital to compound.
In his research at MIT into collective intelligence, Thomas Malone
found that what makes groups particularly adept at problem solving is a
high level of social sensitivity (groups that are well attuned to one
another), equal levels of contribution (people are neither dominant nor
passive) and having more women. Those are, in essence, the building
blocks of great teams. The mortar, however, is more subtle: it is time spent
together, expertly facilitated, that turns conflict into thinking and
unfettered exploration into a shared sense of mission. Like so much in our
working lives, we know when we’ve found it but when it’s lacking, we
aren’t sure where to look.
Hawkins and his collaborators are expert guides. Reading these case
studies, you can feel in their interventions and observations the decades of
experience that they bring to their understanding of individuals and
groups. You recognize at once that theirs is not abstract or academic
inquiry but one driven by firsthand understanding of the urgency of
execution. Both practical and wise, these coaches make the often
bewildering and frustrating aspects of coaching leadership teams
structured, disciplined and human.
In all organizations, whether commercial or not, I have always sensed a
deep ambivalence around the very concept of team. Living in an age that
so easily venerates heroic soloists, many wonder whether or not
collaboration dilutes individuality, produces a lower common denominator
and somehow diminishes those who contribute generously to the whole.
Hawkins’ illustrations should eliminate such anxieties once and for all.
There is no doubt, reading these examples, that a great team both captures
and expands the capacity and ability of every individual that contributes to
it and that it is in working with and for each other that we find and grow
the best of ourselves.

Margaret Heffernan

19
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book would not have been written without the many readers who
responded so positively to the first, second and third editions of
Leadership Team Coaching, particularly the many executives and team
leaders who used the models and approaches and have been generous
enough to share their experience.
The book is a practical follow-up showing how systemic and leadership
team coaching works in practice with case studies from different countries
and business sectors. It is very much a product of a team, and although it is
my name on the cover I would like to thank all the other members of the
team who have made it possible, by writing up the stories of their work
and reflecting on what has worked and what they have learnt.
As well as those who have contributed chapters there have also been
important inputs from all those who have taught on, or been students on,
the seven diploma programmes in systemic team coaching as well as
numerous master classes and shorter workshops that I, and my colleagues,
have taught in many parts of the world. I would particularly like to thank
John Leary-Joyce, Hilary Lines and Marion Gillie who have been great co-
trainers and creative co-developers.
All the writers in this book would also like to salute and acknowledge
all the teams and organizations that have been committed and courageous
enough to open themselves and their work in team coaching in pursuit of
discovering how to become a more effective team and make more of a
difference not only to their organization but also their stakeholder world. A
particular thank you goes to the CEOs and senior leaders who have gone
further and been willing to write about their own experience in this
process.
In preparing the text we have had enormous support from Fiona Benton
and Julie Jeffery of Renewal Associates who have regularly turned mess
and confusion into order and readability and ensured that references were
hunted down and corrected. A big thank you to both of you for your
flexibility and support.

20
 Finally I would once more like to thank my wife and partner Judy Ryde
for her love, patience, colleagueship, support and her many important
contributions to the writing of this book and for accepting that our holiday
suitcases are always full of half-written manuscripts.

Peter Hawkins
Professor of Leadership, Henley Business School
Emeritus Chairman, Bath Consultancy Group
Chairman, Renewal Associates
Honorary President of the Academy of Executive Coaching
Chairman of Metaco South Africa

21
INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND
EDITION

It is four years since I decided that, to accompany the second edition of

Leadership Team Coaching, it would be helpful to have a book of example
applications of systemic team coaching in a variety of countries, across
different sectors and in organizations facing diverse challenges. I was keen
to have the perspectives, not just of the team coach, but also from the CEO
or team leader who was partnering the team coach in developing their
team.
Much has happened in those four years. The interest in, and need for,
systemic team coaching has grown exponentially, as more and more
companies realize the need to move from individualistic heroic leaders to
more collective leadership within the team, and greater collaboration and
engagement beyond the team. Both our own training in systemic team
coaching (see Chapter 17) and other parallel trainings (see Chapter 18),
has increased in number and spread to most parts of the world, from China
to South America, Scandinavia to South Africa, and Australia to
California. The research on coaching trends shows that team coaching is
predicted to be the fastest growing form of coaching in the next three years
(Ridler Report, 2016; see Chapter 18) and increasingly we are seeing the
development of eco-systemic team coaching (Hawkins, 2017) where team
coaching becomes part not just of an organization-wide development and
transformation process, but a development of the wider eco-system, with
coaching of networks and partnerships.
The new literature that has emerged in the last four years also reflects
this. The book Teams of Teams by General McChrystal and colleagues
(2015), describing the radical culture change in the allied forces in post-
war Iraq, dominated by regular and wide-spread violence, became a New
York Times bestseller. The approach they adopted has been applied to
many business organizations and described in both McChrystal’s book and
that of his colleague and sometime aide-de-camp, Chris Fussell (2017).

22
 Although coming from a very different sector and culture, my own
approach has developed along similar lines. In the first edition of this
book, I included a joint case study with a CEO showing ‘inter-team
coaching’ in a UK District Hospital (see Chapter 10). Since then, in the
third edition of Leadership Team Coaching (Hawkins, 2017), I have
developed approaches for expanding systemic team coaching into
organization-wide transformation, and developed eco-systemic team
coaching that coaches inter-organization relationships, partnerships and
networks.
Increasingly there is a need to combine team coaching with
organizational development, HR processes, leadership development and to
find ways of coaching whole businesses. Large companies are increasingly
employing fewer people and all the growth in employment is coming from
business start-ups, small growth companies as well as the not-for-profit (or
better termed ‘for-benefit’) sector. Yet we know that over half of all
business start-ups fail within their first two years. This means that the need
for coaching intact teams in large companies will plateau and even
decrease in the next ten years, but the urgent need to coach business start-
ups and growth companies will continue to grow sharply. So, in this new
edition I have invited two new case studies, one from a young millennial
team coach in California, describing the flexibility a team coach needs to
ride the rollercoaster of coaching a young, fast-growing and changing
business (Chapter 12) and the other from my colleagues at Metaco in
South Africa, where they and I have been using a ‘team of teams’
approach to help a well-established regional airline business go through a
period of rapid transformation (Chapter 11). This latter chapter is not only
about a ‘team of teams’ but also written by a ‘team of teams’, with four
authors from across the company and three external systemic team coaches
all writing together! All the original case study authors have contributed
their reflections four years down the line since they did the work,
including what new learning this has led onto for them in their work as
team coaches, team coach supervisors and business and team leaders.
This new edition also includes a major update in Chapter 3 detailing
new case studies that have been published elsewhere and also a new
Chapter 18, written jointly with Krister Lowe from the USA. This final

23
chapter also includes a short case study of training partners in a global
professional services firm (Deloitte) to become team coaches of their own
teams – and shows the links between systemic team coaching, leadership
development and organizational transformation.
Since the first edition we have also had new literature: from Christine
Thornton bringing out a second edition (2016), Jennifer Britton in Canada
bringing out a new book (Britton, 2013) and Anna Rod and Marita Fridjon
bringing out a book based on their ORSC approach (Rod and Fridjon,
2016), and John Leary-Joyce and Hilary-Lines, both contributors to this
book (see Chapters 4 and 17), writing Systemic Team Coaching (Leary-
Joyce and Lines, 2017) adding their perspectives on this approach and the
training necessary. Krister Lowe (see Chapter 18) has done a great job
interviewing both authors, researchers and practitioners on his podcast
(www.teamcoachingzone.com) and providing signposts to the best tools,
evaluation instruments and books in the field. In 2018 Krister Lowe and a
team of other editors are publishing The Team Coaching Handbook which
will also integrate the best thinking and practice from around the world.
There has also been a growing literature on the need to develop a more
systemic approach to all types of coaching (Einzig, 2017; Lawrence and
Moore, 2018; Turner and Hawkins, 2017, 2018; Hawkins, 2014c, 2011b;
Goldsmith, 2018). These authors argue that for too long leadership
coaching has been ‘expensive personal development for the already
highly-privileged’ (Hawkins, 2014c) and that coaching needs to deliver not
just for the coachee but their wider stakeholder eco-system.
In addition, his period has brought new research on the future of
leadership and leadership development (see Hawkins, 2017b). This new
edition has drawn on much of this research and in the new Chapter 18 we
show how systemic team coaching can play a key role in leadership
development. This new section also includes a new short case study on
systemic team coaching in developing senior partners in Deloitte, one of
the world’s ‘big four’ professional services firms.
The next five years will see even faster change than we have witnessed
in the last five years. The demand for team coaching, transforming
organizations, supporting business start-ups and growth companies and
developing partnerships, networks and business eco-systems will all grow

24
exponentially. Systemic team coaching will also need to undertake its own
transformation and incorporate its own digitalization to streamline its
offering, create better continuous evaluation and increase its reach and
impact (see new Chapter 18 and Hawkins, 2017: Chapter 9). My hope is
that this new updated and expanded second edition will assist team
coaches globally in this important challenge.

25
01
Introduction
Highly effective teams – the latest
research and development

PETER HAWKINS

Companies know that they derive greater creativity and innovation from
teamwork – but what, they wonder, makes a great team?
(MARGARET HEFFERNAN, 2013: 228)

We must never forget that teams are living systems, not manufactured
products that can be built to prescribed proportions, built to order,
functionally correct. We need not a mechanistic science of teams but an
ecology that can constantly enrich and renew our craft of team building
and team coaching and a poiesis that can inspire our work and remind us
that the mystery of whatever emerges in each team we encounter is always
greater than what we think we know.
I have been in and around teams all my life, that is if we can see the
family as a team, for it too must pull together to survive and to thrive. The
family receives a commission from its wider tribe of grandparents, aunts,
uncles, ancestors, from those who have gone before. From these
expectations, the couple have to clarify their intentions, both privately
together and publicly at their wedding or through Facebook or other
means. They co-create first together and then awaken to the realization that
the relationship has a life of its own, becoming a third voice in their being
together. Then the children become part of the co-creation, each one
changing the shape, the rhythm and the flow of the family living. The
family is never an island; even the Swiss Family Robinson had to coexist

26
alongside the other creatures that shared their castaway terrain. The family
has to connect, with neighbours, relatives, friends, both ones they share
and those of individual family members, with schools and work, tradesmen
and visitors. Some families learn, develop and change with each play and
challenge that life presents for them to participate in. Other families get
stuck holding on to the familiarity of one particular time and way of being.
In some, the individuals learn separately and go their own ways.
At age 50, life presented me with a whole new opening and perspective
on understanding systems and the nature of teams. For in that year my wife
and I came to live on the borders of Bath in the countryside, to restore an
old Victorian walled garden and look after some fields and woodland
copses. Our home sat high on the hill, overlooking a deep valley bordered
by woods. At age 55 I worked with local schools, communities and the
Woodland Trust to plant a new woodland on our side of the valley and I
daily watch it grow and change from my desk in the upstairs study. There
is an old saying describing the common human predicament of ‘not being
able to see the wood for the trees’. I think my wife and I were drawn to
this location so we could daily see both the wood and the trees, and watch
how the wood changes. For a wood is much greater than a collection of
individual trees. Counting and labelling each tree in the wood tells you
very little. To really understand the wood, you need to know its geology,
the soil which feeds its roots, its topology, how it is nestled within the
landscape and protected from some winds and open to others, the time the
sun first alights upon its branches and when it leaves them, the streams that
feed it, the animals, insects and birds that have come to inhabit it and how
they fashion their occupation of different woodland locations and how they
interplay, live and die, dependent on each other. Also how each species,
including humans, have used the wood for their shelter and home building,
foraging for food and, in the case of humans, firewood. You need to watch
it through each of its seasons and in all weathers: the skeletal forms of the
trees in winter, the crisp silence when it is full of snow, the spring
awakening and the glory of the late April carpet of bluebells, celandine,
ramsons or wild garlic flowers and delicate wood anemones, the dappled
light of the full summer sun, the mushrooms and berries and multi-
coloured dancing, falling leaves of late autumn. Watching carefully to see

27
whether the ash or the oak is the last to come into leaf, to see when the first
swallows arrive and listen to catch the call of the cuckoo as it passes
through. There are rare moments too, like the time I watched two hares
standing on their hind legs in pugilistic combat or when, at dusk, an owl
swerved at speed in downward flight to catch a pipistrelle bat.
Woodlanders, those who live and work in the woods, know the woods
from living in their interstices. Their knowledge is embodied and diurnal
as they breathe differently each day in syncopation with the woods. As
visitors we can never know the wood fully, but we can open all our senses
and let it teach us how it lives.Woodlanders learn from their environment
that everything resides in relationship with everything else, and that every
organism is gifting itself to the great whole. That Death is an integral part
of life, for as Andreas Weber writes (2017), it is the dying of organisms
that feed the next cycle of living. He writes beautifully and poetically of
watching a wood in winter, and how the dead trees were providing shelter
and nourishment for woodpeckers, and other birds and insects, continuing
in death to be part of ‘the circle of giving’ and the food chain, because
modern man had not yet come along to remove them as ‘dead waste’
(Weber, 2017: 197). Roger Deakin (2007) tells us how woodlanders can
tell a tree by the noise it makes in the wind, and can identify fungi by their
smell. Most of us in so-called ‘developed economies’ have lost our
connections with earth and the Earth that supports us. Woodlands are a
diminishing resource. Every minute 41 hectares of trees are felled, the
equivalent of 50 football fields (Fiaramonti, 2017: 2). In our human-centric
ways of thinking we can easily forget that it is not large companies, banks
and governments that produce the true wealth in the world, but the natural
eco-systems that freely gift us warmth, light, air, and food. We have
become indigenous orphans (Hawkins, 2017c) and still have much to learn
from more indigenous people who live closer to the earth, such as Native
Americans. Luther Standing Bear, Chief of the Oglala in Lakota, said in
1905:
The old Lakota was wise. He knew that a man’s heart away from Nature becomes hard; he
knew that lack of respect for growing living things soon lead to a lack of respect for humans
too…. The old people came literally to love the soil and they sat or reclined on the ground with
a feeling of being close to a mothering power.

28
As ‘teamlanders’, those who live and work in teams, we too need to open
our senses to listen, watch and experience the team through our bodies, be
sensitive to how it changes, how it resides in its wider landscapes and
watch the changing weather blowing through its branches. We need an
ecology of teams and an ecological ethic of team working. This ethic is
one that embraces stewardship and humility; sees interconnection and how
every team is a system nested within other systems; is respectful of the
past and alive to the moment of the present and also ‘leans into the
emergent future’ (Scharmer and Kaufer, 2013), sensing what the world of
tomorrow needs us to learn and do today. It is a practice, not of problems
and solutions, but of constant challenges and co-created approaches and
experiments – co-created by collective groups and between them and their
wider systems.
Whether we lead teams, are team members, coach or study teams, we
need an ethic of collaboration. The American and north European 20th-
century zeitgeist that has come to dominate much of the thinking of
dominant global corporations has been built on competition. President
Roosevelt argued as long ago as 1912 that: ‘competition was useful up to a
certain point and no further’. But we have forgotten the limits to
competition, along with the limits to growth. In 2013 the Salz report into
Barclays Bank wrote: ‘Winning at all costs comes at a price; collateral
issues of rivalry, arrogance, selfishness and a lack of humility and
generosity.’
Royal Bank of Scotland was even more caught in the grip of
competition, where under Sir Fred Goodwin the purpose of the bank was
to be the largest bank in the world! The cult of the heroic leader that
dominated much business and leadership writing in the late 20th century
was dangerously mixed with the leader’s over-weaning ambition and the
competition for greater status than one’s peers. Heffernan (2013: 105)
quotes one senior executive saying how: ‘The desire for bigger and bigger
profits was driven entirely by senior executives’ desire for personal
prestige and social status.’
Outscoring your peers, in salary, recognition, awards and so on, is a
schismogenetic spiral (Bateson, 1972), where the accelerations in the
rewards for one CEO drive acceleration in the demands of the others. We

29
have seen an ever-accelerating gap between the earnings of senior
executives and board directors and that of their employees, and this has
continued unabated since the world economic crisis of 2008–09.
Team development can also get caught into this spiral, such as in the
drive to become a high-performing team, where high performance is a
destination, not a living process, and is measured by doing better than the
teams around you. Team coaches, inspired by what was achieved with
sports teams, became focused on helping teams run harder, win the race
and outperform their colleagues. Team performance has too often been
measured by the inputs (does the team have the right quality team players,
the right structures and processes, the requisite meetings and so on) or
outputs (‘hitting its targets’!).
Instead we need to understand that a team’s performance can only be
truly understood through its capacity to co-create value with and for all its
stakeholders. I address this issue more fully in Chapter 13 on the
evaluation and assessment of teams where I argue that:
A team’s performance can best be understood through its ongoing ability to facilitate the
creation of added value for the organization it is part of, the organization’s investors, the
team’s internal and external customers and suppliers, its team members, the communities the
team operates within and the more than human world in which we reside.

This is echoed in Chapter 14 on boards, where we quote Van den Berghe

and Levrau (2013: 156, 179) on what makes an effective board: ‘a board is
effective if it facilitates the creation of value added for the company, its
management, its shareholders and all its relevant stakeholders’.
This is part of the ethic of moving from the focus on creating
‘shareholder value’ to ‘shared value’ (Porter and Kramer, 2011).
Shareholder value has dominated organizational attention for most of the
last hundred years, reinforced by the writings of economist Milton
Friedman who argued that the only social responsibility of a company was
to increase the returns to its shareholders. Increasingly, both business
leaders and academics are recognizing a broader imperative, that of
creating ‘shared value’ (Porter and Kramer, 2011), and that a sustainable
business needs to create short-term and long-term value for all its key
stakeholders. Even Jack Welch, one of the iconic heroic leaders famed for
turning around the fortunes of General Electric, has converted to this new

30
paradigm, declaring that: ‘strictly speaking, shareholder value is one of the
dumbest ideas in the world’ (quoted in Erdal, 2011).
As ‘teamlanders’ we can flourish only if we have a systemic
perspective, an attitude of careful responsiveness and an ethic of
collaboration. Heffernan (2013: 373) summarizes this beautifully:
Innovative institutions and organizations thrive not because they pick and breed superstars but
because they cherish, nurture and support the vast range of talents, personalities and skills that
true creativity requires. Collaboration is a habit of mind, solidified by routine and predicated
on openness, generosity, rigour and patience. It requires precise and fearless communication,
without status, awe or intimidation. It’s hard because it allows no passengers.

The woodland too is a team that allows no passengers; all species and eco-
inhabitants have to play their part and contribute to the overall ecology.
The woodland never stands still. Its living ecology is always learning and
evolving in dynamic relationship to the systems in which it abides. Fungi
turn old waste into new nutrients and mycelium transfers nutrients from
one part of the wood to another. The woodland flourishes through every
part responding to every other part, through every member attuning to the
greater whole and participating in the constantly emerging future.
This book is a guidebook for ‘teamlanders’, that is, all of us who spend
so much of our working life living in teams, dependent on teams to get our
work done, connecting with and through other teams, developing and
evolving the teams we lead and coach. It addresses important questions
such as:

How to create teams that function at more than the sum of their parts?
How do we enable teams to learn and evolve?
How can each team member be enabled by the team to achieve much
more than they could by just working in parallel with others?
How can we develop team meetings that we look forward to, are a
joy to attend and leave us more focused, energized and connected
than before we turned up?
How do teams generate new thinking together, rather than just
exchange the thoughts that the team members already know?
How do teams align, so that the team members can connect with the

31
 team’s stakeholders in a way that represents the whole team?

Much has been written about the study of, and research on, high-
performing teams, and I have summarized much of this in my previous
books (Hawkins, 2011, 2014, 2017). Less has been written about the craft
of coaching and developing those teams, either as the team leader or as a
specialist team coach, although this field is now beginning to grow rapidly.
Much of this writing, including my own books, focuses on the models and
techniques of coaching and developing teams. There is even less on case
studies of how team leaders and team coaches have set about this process,
what took place, what difference it made and what the team leaders and
team coaches learnt in the process. This book sets out to address that
imbalance.
The core of this book is a series of case studies of systemic team
coaching from different countries (Australia, Finland, Canada, USA, South
Africa, continental Europe and the UK, and shorter accounts from many
others); different sectors (professional services, pharmaceutical, health
service, airlines, building development, finance, local government); and
focusing on different team challenges and contexts. A number of these
case studies are written jointly by the CEO or team leader and an external
team coach, emphasizing that this partnership is at the heart of effective
team coaching.
Before we start the team case studies there are two chapters to help you
approach and get the most value from reading the case studies. Chapter 2
describes the foundations of leadership team coaching and systemic team
coaching, including defining these terms and presenting the five
disciplines model of teams and team coaching which is referred to by
many of the writers throughout the book. Chapter 3 gives guidance on how
to read and engage with case studies and reviews all the limited number of
major case studies that are already published.
Chapters 4 to 7 offer four very different case studies, but all find very
different ways of utilizing Hawkins’ five disciplines model of team
coaching (Hawkins, 2011, 2014, 2017). The first (Chapter 4), by Hilary
Lines and a team leader who has chosen to remain anonymous, focuses on
the disciplines of commissioning and clarifying in a new leadership team

32
in a professional services organization. Then in Chapter 5, two Canadian
team coaches, Catherine Carr and Jacqueline Peters, share how they
coached two very different teams (one in local government and one in
finance) to work more effectively in co-creating their collective work. In
Chapter 6, Angela McNab, a new CEO in a UK National Health Service
hospital, and Jacqui Scholes-Rhodes, her coach, show how they worked
together to connect the hospital senior team with the wider leadership from
across the hospital. Finally, in Chapter 7, Sue Coyne and Judith Nicol
describe their joint coaching of a building development company, focusing
on maximizing the core learning of the team.
Chapters 8 to 12 provide case studies of team coaching in very different
contexts. David Jarrett describes coaching the Finnair leadership team in
the context of the company needing to undertake a major organizational
transformation and restructuring. Padraig O’Sullivan and Carole Field
show the coaching of a pharmaceutical leadership team in Australia that is
focused on the need to drive greater innovation. Chapter 10 is written
jointly by Gavin Boyle (a hospital CEO) and me, with a focus on inter-
team coaching involving a hospital executive team, the hospital board and
the three new clinical directorate teams. Chapter 11 describes the ‘Team of
Teams’ coaching in an African airline and Chapter 13 the coaching of an
American high-tech growth company.
The book then turns to consider specific aspects of team coaching.
Chapter 13 looks at ways of evaluating team development and team
coaching, with new material about assessing team maturity and how this
can inform the type of team coaching intervention that is needed. Chapter
14 looks at the critical area of board evaluation and coaching boards on
their development, for although an increasing number of company and
government organizations’ boards are carrying out board evaluations,
hardly any are following through and getting help to address the
development issues that arise from the evaluation. From the growing
volume of research it is clear that the majority of boards are failing the
organizations that they should be stewarding as well as the wider system of
the company’s stakeholders (Kakabadse and Kakabadse, 2009; Kakabadse
and Van den Berghe, 2013).
Chapter 15 looks at the use of embodied techniques in team coaching,

33
recognizing that for teams to develop they need to move beyond the
exchange of what they already know and access the deeper levels of ‘the
unthought known’, what they sense but currently do not have a language to
think about or express. Our bodies know far more than our left brain neo-
cortex rational minds and we need to use these other forms of knowing in
being aware ‘teamlanders’.
Chapter 16 explores the key ways of looking, listening, thinking and
being necessary for ‘systemic team coaching’ and shows how we need a
fundamentally different attitude of being to work systemically with the
team as a whole in creating greater value in relation to its wider
stakeholder eco-system.
Chapter 17 discusses the challenges of training effective systemic team
coaches using the format of a letter to someone who is considering doing a
team coaching training and a letter to the same person several years later
who is now thinking of setting up a team coaching training themselves.
This chapter is written by me, with John Leary-Joyce, based on our joint
experience of training systemic team coaches in and from over 30 different
countries.
The final chapter brings the book together, taking stock of the current
state of team coaching, its place in the wider panoply of leadership and
organizational development approaches and the evolution of human
consciousness, and looks at the challenges ahead.
There are many routes through this book, depending on your interests
and needs, but whichever order you read it in, I suggest that you read it
dialogically, that is, as if you are in conversation with the various authors,
exploring with them the challenges that their and your team face, and how
they and you can go about addressing these and in the process growing the
capacity and collective maturity of the team.
The need for leadership and systemic team coaching is enormous.
Coaching teams is a new and young craft, although its roots go back
through the whole of human history. There are no easy answers or
foolproof methods. We are all in this together and need to collaborate and
learn together, always in service of the wider eco-system.
I hope you enjoy your journey through the book.

34
02
What are leadership team
coaching and systemic team
coaching?

PETER HAWKINS

35
Introduction
It is now eight years since I wrote the first edition of Leadership Team
Coaching and four years since I wrote the first edition of this book and
much has happened since that time. The theories, models and methods
have been further tested, experimented with and developed, not only in my
own work, but also in the work of my many colleagues, supervisees and by
the students on the many systemic team coaching programmes we have
been teaching, both in the UK and internationally. I have also supervised
many different team coaches and had the privilege of working with a
number of students doing research and dissertations in the area of team
coaching who have further developed the thinking – most notably the
excellent doctoral work of Catherine Carr and Jacqueline Peters in Canada.
This book is therefore a culmination of many discussions, supervisions and
dialogues, and, reflecting this wider involvement, I am pleased that a
number of students, supervisees, colleagues and trainees have written
chapters for this book.
While my first book’s models, theories and methods have helped refine
the theoretical foundations and practical teaching of team coaching, it has
proved much harder for trainees to shift their thinking and move their
practice from team coaching to systemic team coaching. Increasingly I
have realized that this requires a metanoia, a fundamental shift in
perspective and thinking, as well as shift in one’s own being. It has
become clear to me that to fully understand the ‘systemic’ in systemic
team coaching requires personal change at several levels, each level deeper
and more fundamental than the ones above it. The four levels, I have
realized, are similar to, and build upon, the four levels of engagement that
Nick Smith and I developed in our work on individual transformational
coaching (Hawkins and Smith, 2014, 2018), where we described the levels
as: data/definition; behaviours; emotional ground; and underlying
assumptions, beliefs and motivations:

1. Data/definition: it is important to understand conceptually the

differences between team coaching, leadership team coaching and

36
 systemic team coaching.
2. Behaviours: then to develop the different ways of attending, looking
and hearing that are required to perceive systemically.
3. Emotional ground: the systemic team coach then has to develop how
to be and engage systemically.
4. Assumptions, beliefs and motivations: while carrying out the learning
and development in all of the first three levels, one needs to confront,
confound and unlearn many assumptions and core beliefs that are so
much part of our ways of seeing, thinking and language, particularly
in Western cultures.

In 2015, I wrote an article for Coaching at Work called ‘Cracking the

Shell’ showing the seven coaching assumptions we have to unlearn in
order to work systemically (Hawkins, 2015) and much of the development
to be a systemic team coach involves unlearning our previous assumptions
and beliefs. When working with colleagues teaching a diploma course on
systemic team coaching we were worried about feedback from the
students. One large subgroup loved the teachings of the models and theory,
but found the experiential work, which involved them reflecting on
themselves, ‘confusing’ and ‘a waste of time’. Another large subgroup
hated ‘being taught’ and wanted to discover things for themselves and
have more personal development. ‘How do we meet both sets of needs?’
asked one of my colleagues. ‘The real challenge is that both groups need
both forms of learning, probably especially the one they find difficult.’
Responded another colleague: ‘How do we make the importance of both
types of learning clear to the students and also how they connect?’ This is
also my challenge in writing this chapter. I believe it is important to
communicate clearly the differences between systemic team coaching and
other forms of team facilitation and team coaching with a degree of
academic rigour. I also firmly believe that ‘the map is not the territory’ and
that learning to become a team coach cannot happen just by learning the
theory, models and approaches. So in this chapter I will outline the
definitions of systemic and leadership team coaching and in Chapter 16 I
will address the deeper personal and spiritual development necessary to be
an effective systemic team coach.

37
 I will first set out the five disciplines model that is core to systemic and
leadership team coaching and used directly or indirectly in all the case
studies, and then explore the conceptual differences between team
coaching, leadership team coaching and systemic team coaching and eco-
systemic team coaching.

38
The five disciplines of effective teams and
the five approaches to coaching them
The five disciplines model of effective teams was developed over many
years of working with teams, to help teams recognize the need both (a) to
focus on the task and the process and (b) to focus internally within the
team and externally on their commissioners and all their key stakeholders.
At the centre of the resulting five disciplines is the discipline of Core
Learning, the team’s capacity both to ‘helicopter up’ and see the wider
systemic picture that connects all four of the other disciplines and to
constantly learn and develop ever-increasing levels of both functioning
and performance (see Figure 2.1). This model has been used to help many
leadership teams in many different countries and many different sectors. It
has been used in large global companies, professional services
organizations, government departments and not-for-profit organizations,
both small and local and large and international. It has been applied to
company boards, executive leadership teams and divisional teams, as well
as project and account teams. Across all these settings we have found
many teams that were strong in one or even two of the disciplines, but
were unaware of, or were undeveloped in, the other disciplines. So far, out
of hundreds of teams we have never found a team that excelled in all five
disciplines.

39
FIGURE 2.1 The five disciplines of high-performing teamso

We have also discovered that the model strongly assists teams in being
more aware of their own ‘team profile’ and areas they need to develop
more. It also provides a framework for team coaches to think about where
they can add the most value and the different team coaching approaches
needed for each of the five disciplines.

40
1 Commissioning: WHY we are a team
For a team to be successful it needs a clear commission from those who
bring it into being. This includes a clear purpose and defined success
criteria by which the performance of the team will be assessed. Once there
is a clear commission, the role of the board (in the case of a leadership
team, or more senior management in the case of other teams) is to appoint
the right team leader whom they believe can deliver this mission. The team
leader then has to select the right team members, who will have the right
chemistry and diversity to work well together so the team will perform at
more than the sum of their parts. Jim Collins (2001) describes this process
as ‘getting the right people on the bus’, and in Hawkins (2017) there is a
whole chapter (11) on selecting the right team players.
Richard Hackman (1990) emphasizes that the commission needs to
include the support that the commissioners will give to the team. He
argues that a good commission should include:

targets;
resources – eg people, financial, administrative, technical,
accommodation;
information;
education – learning and development;
regular, timely and appropriate feedback;
technical and process assistance.

The team’s commission is necessarily constantly changing. The team’s

commission does not just come from those above them in the
organizational hierarchy, but also from the team’s many stakeholders – its
customers, suppliers, other parts of the organization, as well as the wider
communities and natural environment of which it is a part.

41
2 Clarifying: WHAT we need to focus on as a team
Having ascertained its commission from outside itself and assembled the
team, one of the first tasks for the new team is to jointly clarify its
collective endeavour. The collective endeavour is a challenge the whole
team find compelling and which they realize they can only achieve by
working together. The team also needs to develop its own mission and
team charter. The process of creating this mission together leads to higher
levels of ownership and clarity for the whole team. This mission includes
the team’s:

purpose;
strategic narrative, goals and objectives;
core values;
vision for success;
protocols and agreed ways of working;
roles and expectations;
team key performance objectives and indicators.

The team needs to ensure there is alignment between the team’s mission
and that of the wider organization as well as with the values and
motivations of the individual team members.
The work of Richard Barrett (2006, 2010) shows that improving the
alignment of individual, team and organizational values will greatly
enhance team engagement and improve team performance.

42
3 Co-creating: HOW we work together as a team
Having a compelling collective endeavour, clear purpose, strategy, process
and vision that everyone has signed up to is one thing; living it is a
completely different challenge. If the mission is not going to stay just as a
well-constructed group of words, but have a beneficial influence on
performance, the team needs to constantly attend to how they creatively
and generatively work together. This involves the team appreciatively
noticing when they are functioning well, that is, at more than the sum of
their parts, and also noticing and interrupting their own negative patterns,
self-limiting beliefs and assumptions. A high-performing team also needs
effective processes and agreed behaviours, both for their formal meetings
and for engagement outside of meetings. This includes growing its
collective capacity to handle conflict and contention in service of the
greater system.

43
4 Connecting: WHO we need to engage with as a
team to be create value
Being well commissioned, clear about what you are doing and co-creative
in how you work together is necessary but not sufficient. The team only
makes a difference and creates value through how they collectively and
individually connect and engage with all their critical stakeholders.
Critical stakeholders can be defined as both those individuals and
groupings who are essential for the team to achieve its mission and those
whom the team is in service of – both those from whom it receives value
and those for whom it needs to create added value. It is through how the
team engages in new ways to transform stakeholder relationships that they
drive improvement in their own and the organization’s performance.
Building on the research of Ancona and Caldwell (1992), Hawkins
(2017: 50–51) identified three main strategies that teams use in connecting
to their wider system:

a. Ambassadorial – communicating about what the team is doing and

raising its profile and reputation.
b. Scouting and Inquiry – discovering what is happening and changing
in and for customers, competitors, partners, investors, regulators, the
wider environment and how these will create opportunities and
threats for the team.
c. Partnering – developing and managing partnerships with other teams
inside the organization and beyond that can deliver greater value to
the team’s stakeholders than the team can do by themselves.

A high-performing team will have an effective and constantly updated

stakeholder map, with role clarity on who has lead responsibility for each
critical stakeholder. This relationship owner needs to ensure that all three
processes are being handled well on behalf of the whole team.
Quality of stakeholder engagement is at the heart of team performance:
‘research shows… it is not the amount of external communication that a
team engages in which predicts successful team performance. Rather it is

44
the type of external communication’ (West, 1996: 110).

45
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The trader with Venice well enough understood the merits and
beauties of crystal-clear lustres, coloured vases, and golden goblets,
and he had a fair taste in the velvets from Genoa and the fine straws
from Tuscany, but of what use or value all those Moorish tags and
rags could be, which the curiosity-dealer was turning over, save to
patch the holes in the cloaks of the beggars who lay around the
doors of the neighbouring church of San Salvador, he could not
imagine.
"Nay, friend Pedro," he exclaimed at last, with an effort to show no
temper, and to still speak pleasantly; "nay, friend Pedro, if thou hast
brought me here to get a bid from me for yon small rubbish-heap, I
tell thee frankly I value it at nought, seeing it will not even serve to
feed a fire with. Nevertheless, I will even take it, to pleasure thee and
to save mine own time, and at what price you list."
"Wilt thou then that?" said the other, with a grim smile, as he slowly
lifted himself up from stooping over the pile of lumber, of all hues and
textures, rich and sombre-coloured, thick and fragile. "Another time,
neighbour Sancho, I would warn thee to be more chary of passing
thy word to a blind bargain, lest one more cunning than thyself
should hold thee to the promise. To purchase the rare wares of this
small rubbish-heap would take many more than all the maravedis
paid thee yester morn for thy lustres, by the fathers of San Jacomb.
This veil alone hath been purchased of me for a fair round sum."
Master Sancho stared at the filmy texture, disfigured here and there
with rents, and shrugged his shoulders.
"Thy wife, Doña Carlina, would not wear it."
"She will not have the chance. That veil, now many years since,
shrouded the form of a Sultana—the ill-used queen of Aba-Abdalla,
the last king of the Moors in Granada, thanks to the Virgin, our good
knights, and Queen Isabella. And now Señor Antonio del Rincon
hath hired it, and various others of these draperies, for the finishing
of his great picture of the Life of the Blessed Virgin."
"And when he hath done with it?" inquired the good merchant, with
something of growing reverence.
"Then it hath been purchased by a party of the ricos hombres,[1] who
have vowed it to St. Jago, in memory of that grand day ten years
ago, when our valiant Spanish knights adventured themselves, in the
disguise of Turks, within the walls of Granada, as champions of their
enemy's helpless queen. But come, friend, time passes, and Señor
Antonio will be waiting for his stuffs."
As it was not good Sancho, but Master Pedro himself who had been
delaying the expedition, the friends were soon enough on the road
now that he was ready; and a hope began to dawn again in the mind
of Montoro's new patron, that made amends to him for the loss of
minutes from his daily toils.
"Señor Antonio del Rincon stands high in favour at the Court,
neighbour," he observed at last, meditatively, as they walked along,
side by side, to their destination; and Master Pedro answered
shortly:
"Ay, neighbour; even so. He doth."
The reply was given in a tone not exactly inviting to further converse,
but that zealous Sancho nevertheless continued, still thoughtfully:
"Ay, ay. And doubtless being a favourite he hath influence to obtain a
favour if so be he could be influenced to ask one."
A shrewd, quick glance from his companion's eyes rewarded this
conjecture; but they and the bundle of "properties" had now arrived
at the temporary abiding-place of del Rincon, known to after-times as
the father of the Spanish School. And Master Pedro's face assumed
its usual solemn business aspect.
"Mind ye," he muttered hastily, as he paused outside the door of the
studio for a moment, to pull and pat his great package into an
orderliness somewhat destroyed by its carriage from his house
—"mind ye, neighbour, I have brought thee hither, and the rest of the
business ye must manage for yourself; for never another step in so
craze-pate an affair, and one so near akin to rack and faggot, will
you get me to stir, though you should promise me the free gift of your
next freight of Venice glass entire."
"Nay then, friend Pedro, I'll do more," was the laughing whisper; "if
my hopes succeed, I'll even 'you' thee in gratitude, as thou dost me
for repression."
A little further compression of the wrinkled lips, a little further
wrinkling of the furrowed forehead, gave the only sign of that
mocking speech having been heard; and an instant later jovial
Master Sancho appeared as sedately ceremonious as his
companion, for they had entered the studio, and stood in the great
man's presence, from whom both hoped great things; the spice-
dealer for himself, the trader with Italy for another.
A man between fifty and sixty was the Señor Antonio del Rincon, the
gravity of genius somewhat tempered in his countenance by the
suavity learned from contact with that sweet woman, as she was
noble Queen, Isabella of Castile.
At the artist's elbow stood the handsome young Montoro, who raised
his great earnest eyes with a swift smile of recognition as Master
Sancho entered, and then bent them once more over the colours he
was grinding with most diligent care, for his employer. Never once
again did he cease work during the animated discussion that ensued
between the painter and the owner of the curiosities, although his
friendly well-wisher marked the eager flush that crimsoned his whole
face when a few words were spoken over the veil, of the splendid
daring of Don Juan Chacon, Ponce de Leon, and their two
companions, when they stood victors over the four false-hearted
Zegries within the walls of Granada.
"Humph! He is worth better things than such a task as that,"
ejaculated the burgess, unconsciously uttering his thought aloud.
The painter turned to him surprised.
"Hey, master merchant, what is it thou sayest? That the veil is too
honourable to take a subordinate place on my canvas, thou thinkest?
Well, maybe thou art right," beginning to relapse into abstracted
contemplation of his work; but with eager deference Master Sancho
stepped forward, putting into words the first thoughts that occurred to
him. Pointing a trembling finger towards a somewhat coarse dish
holding gifts presented to the infant in the manger, he said hastily:
"It was not of the veil I was thinking. But if Señor Antonio would be
pleased to accept of a dish of crystal, curiously chased, and worked
with gold and gems, for use instead of yon, I would gladly bestow it
for the grand picture's sake, and for the Virgin's honour."
And thus cleverly did Master Sancho, and with true unselfishness,
slip his dexterous finger into the pie; and in the course of
conferences that day, and a few succeeding days, over the costly
dish and similar articles, he pulled out a goodly plum for Montoro
Diego. The last use the dying Antonio del Rincon was ever to make
of his Court influence was in the service of his young colour-grinder;
and soon after the opening of the new year 1502, good Sancho
treated himself to a holiday, and set out on a journey across Spain to
the port of Cadiz accompanied by Montoro, and bearing a written
recommendation of his protégé from the benevolent Queen to the
great Admiral himself.
"I thought the Virgin had decreed, my son, that I should have to
smuggle thee out of Spain in a cask of the Madeira wine, or in a
Venice flask," said the generous-hearted burgess laughing, and
rubbing his hands, as they proceeded on their first day's journey in
fearlessness, and such comfort as even in those days a well-lined
purse commanded.
The lad answered him with sparkling eyes. His emotions were as yet
too strong for many words. Sorrow at parting with his beloved mother
for the first time was somewhat soothed by having left her in the kind
care and friendship of Doña Carlina; but wonder at his suddenly
changed fortunes, and dazzling hopes of the future, filled his heart
almost to suffocation.
 CHAPTER IX.
FROM THE NEW PRINTING PRESS.
"And I am surety for you, my son; so if you owe me any thanks for
my pains, be honest."
Such was the parting injunction of Master Sancho, as he bade his
protégé farewell in the harbour of Cadiz on the morning of the 8th of
May, 1502. And with a hot flush in his cheeks, and sparkling eyes,
the youth replied quickly:
"Honest! Am I not noble? How should a noble of Aragon ever sully
his name with dishonour?"
"How indeed?" replied Master Sancho as he laid his hand on the
lad's shoulder and continued gravely: "One may well wonder that
any bearing the name of man should sully his manhood by aught
that is base; but you will henceforth be surrounded by many a
companion who knows nought of honour but the honour of grasping
more than his neighbour, who cares for no shame but the shame of
being thought capable of virtue. See that you become not one of
them."
"You have said that the great Admiral is far from being one of such
blots on Spain," said the lad more humbly. "And as I am to be on his
own ship, so I will trust to show myself deserving of the honour.
And"—he added after a moment with a sudden burst of gratitude
—"deserving of all your noble generosity towards me, and your most
helpful trust. The memory of that will be a strong guard to me from
temptation."
"May St. Jago grant it!" ejaculated the good-hearted man with
affectionate fervour.
And then patron and protégé had to exchange hasty farewells, for
Ferdinand Columbus, a boy a year or two younger than Montoro,
came to summon him on board. Kind-hearted Queen Isabella, in her
good-will towards the old and trouble-worn navigator, had given up
the services of her young page that on this occasion he might
accompany his father, and comfort him with his mingled love and
enthusiasm.
To Montoro also it was some secret relief to see that there was one
even younger than himself about to brave the very many known, and
many unknown, perils of those far-sought adventures and
discoveries; for more than his timid, grieving mother in El Cuevo had
sought to persuade him that, in leaving that humdrum, safe little town
for untried paths, he was foolishly relinquishing all chances of
growing up to man's estate. That the Admiral was about to take one
of his own two sons seemed a tolerable proof that matters could not
be so altogether desperate as that.
Meantime, while these thoughts were flashing through Diego's brain,
the merchant's eyes had been attracted by a great iron-bound, iron-
clasped book under the boy Ferdinand's arm, and he at once
remembered his friend Pedro.
 Meantime, the merchant's eyes had been attracted by a great iron-
bound, iron-clasped book under the boy Ferdinand's arm.

"My lad," he said, with one of his most winning smiles, "I have left a
neighbour behind me in my own town who loves curiosities, and
things from past times, not only for their value as articles of
merchandise, but for their own sakes, and I would gladly pleasure
him with some worthy gift, on my return, after his own heart. Thinkest
thou that I could purchase yon great old tome of thee? Missal or
Moorish prayers, songs or quaint sayings, I care not, so it be but rare
and of a far-gone date."
He put out his hand as he spoke to examine his wished-for bargain;
and as Ferdinand Columbus courteously yielded it for inspection he
accompanied the civil act with a smiling:
"See for yourself, Señor, if it be old enough to suit an antiquary. Rare
it is, certainly; but for the age—it cannot boast as many years as I. It
is one of the Bibles printed, by the king's permission, in our own
tongue, by Theodoric the German, at his printing presses in
Valencia. This copy my father took with him on his first voyage, ten
years ago, across the Atlantic, and he would not think of undertaking
any great expedition without it."
"And doth he greatly study it, and do you?" inquired Master Sancho,
as with mingled awe and wonder he turned the leaves of a book
upon which his eyes had never before rested.
But its bearer appeared to think that it was being treated with too
much freedom, and rather anxiously held out his hands to receive it
back as he murmured in a shocked voice:
"I study it, Señor! The holy saints forbid. That is for the priests. It is
taken with us that by its blessed power may be exorcised such spirits
of evil, and baneful influences, as we may meet with in those
unblessed regions of the West."
So saying, with a formal bow to the merchant, and a sign to Montoro
to follow him, the son of the great discoverer of a new world, but not
of a more enlightened faith, returned to the small boat that was to
carry them on shipboard.
Master Sancho stood on the busy strand watching with many
another, until they were drawn up the vessel's side, and then, with a
tolerably deep sigh for the loss of his young companion, he
wandered away into the streets of the bustling city, and soon
became the owner of many curious treasures brought from all parts
of the known world, and far safer possessions in that land of the
Inquisition than the one he had made an attempt, in ignorance, to
buy for his timidly cautious neighbour.
Indeed, with all his own honest courage shown on behalf of the
orphaned and beggared young noble, the worthy merchant himself
would not have cared to risk travelling with a copy of the Scriptures
in his bales, unauthorized.
In those days the Bible was for the priests, as Ferdinand Columbus
had said; and the priests took good care not to let the fountain of
light out of their hidden keeping. They loved darkness to reign in the
land rather than light, because their deeds were evil. But when the
boy passed the book for a few minutes into Montoro's charge, as
soon as they got on board, that he might the more readily go in
search of his father, he was not again giving it into the hands of one
so ignorant of its contents, nor to whom it was an affair of so much
mystery.
One small, unsuspected portion of her inheritance had Rachel Philip
saved from the rapacious grasp of the vile informer, Jerome Tivoli,
the Italian. It consisted of three rolls of vellum closely written over in
Hebrew characters, and when Don Philip's father became a
Christian he did not declare his possession of these rolls; but, on the
contrary, closely concealed them, lest he should be deprived of the
pearl without price—the Word of God.
In a secresy that the more fully impressed the lessons upon his mind
had Don Philip's father taught his son to read these rolls, and to write
"in his mind and in his heart" God's law. In like manner had Don
Philip, in his turn, taught his daughter; and in like manner had Rachel
Diego taught her son to read those three rolls—the Pentateuch, the
Psalms of David, and the book of the prophet Isaiah.
Through all her troubles of widowhood, wanderings, and poverty she
had kept those books, and she still kept them, for she dared not risk
her child's life with their transfer to him. But it mattered not, for their
truths were imprinted in his soul, and his faith was a living faith, pure
and free from superstition, being built upon the knowledge of God's
own Word.
Many of those Jew converts who fell at the mandate of the Spanish
Inquisition were the truest Christians, the most upright men, and the
best citizens of their age, for they knew what they believed.
From his mother's secret teaching, and his own reading, the young
Montoro had become wise unto salvation before the new career
began that had been opened up for him by the merchant's
benevolence; and when he stepped on board the world-renowned
Admiral's ship it may be safely said that the young sweet-voiced,
earnest-eyed lad was the mental superior of most of those with
whom he was surrounded. He had now a great curiosity to see what
might be the contents of the Christian parts of the Bible; and while he
awaited his young companion's return, and was pushed with scant
ceremony out of the way of the rough sailors, only to be hustled yet
more imperiously aside by the penniless but haughty hidalgos who
were setting out, as they fondly believed, on a royal road to fortune,
he had the opportunity to gratify his desire.
Partly by others' driving, partly by his own good management, he at
length got comfortably stowed away into a quiet corner, and there,
dropping himself down on to a bale of goods, he carefully unclasped
the great book, and turned towards the latter half.
He began to read at once the first words of the first page that opened
beneath his eyes, for the disputes he had witnessed during the past
few minutes between several of his self-asserting companions made
them appear startlingly appropriate.
"And there was also a strife amongst them, which of them should be
accounted the greatest."
Many a time did those words recur to his memory during the coming
years, but just then, as he sat in his obscure corner in enforced
quietude and inactivity, he read on and on with forgetfulness even of
his novel position and commencing adventures, in his absorbing
interest in a history then read and fully understood for the first time.
We know the account of our Lord's agony, base betrayal, and awfully
cruel death so well that we have not the faintest idea of how
intensely it moved intelligent minds, who first quietly perused it for
themselves in its own pathetic simplicity, unspoilt in its solemn
appeal by any priestly shows or pageants.
Montoro Diego clenched his fists and his eyes flashed as he read of
Peter's denial of his Lord and friend.
"Mean coward!" he muttered. And then his own eyes grew dim as he
read how the slandered, insulted Son of man, the denied of his own
chosen companion, "turned, and looked upon Peter." He seemed to
feel his own being thrilled with the sad reproach, the tender
compassion, and the full forgiveness of that look, and a smothered
choking sob parted his own lips, as "Peter went out, and wept
bitterly."
He read on undisturbed, until he suddenly, as it seemed to him,
received an answer to many long-standing, half-formed questions in
his mind, with the words:
"And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto
them in all the Scriptures, the things concerning Himself."
That was the last of his reading for that day, and for many days to
come.
Montoro's eyes were resting on the words—"And beginning at
Moses," his lips were repeating a phrase that seemed for him to form
the close connecting link between the religion given by God to his
forefathers, and the crown of that religion as sealed by Jesus Christ,
when energetic young Fernando found him out in his hiding-place.
The younger boy pounced upon the volume instantly, with a half-
indignant cry.
"Nay then, Diego, if that be thy name, I gave thee this volume of my
father's to hold; there was no commission attached that thou
shouldst read it, or even so much as venture to unclose the clasps. It
is more than I have done, myself."
Montoro rose from his rough couch, and for all apology said with a
long-drawn breath:
"I have found wonderful things therein."
Half-an-hour later it would have appeared that all memory of those
wonderful things was lost. The anchors of the somewhat shabby little
fleet of four vessels were being raised, and with flushed cheeks and
eyes blazing with excitement Montoro Diego was making amends for
ignorance by the most determined vigour and good-will. Such a little
while ago he had been hustled on one side as a useless bit of
goods, whose room was worth more than his company; but already
his keen-sightedness and ready hands had reversed the judgments
of those in his immediate neighbourhood in his favour.
The afternoon was wearing on, when a grave, kind voice addressed
him:
"My son, I have been observing you. You have done well."
It was the Admiral himself who spoke, the grand old man who had
attained to ever great heights of humility as he attained to greater
fame, and who never held himself too high to see the worthy efforts
of his humblest follower.
Montoro's handsome face grew brilliant with delight, and as he bent
it gratefully in acknowledgment of the commendation, his heart
seemed to rise to the possible achievement of deeds of hitherto
unheard-of heroism. At that moment he little knew what those deeds
would be; deeds not indeed wholly unmatched in the previous history
of the world, but yet so rare that, not infidels, but, on the contrary, the
most earnest believers in Christianity, are tempted sometimes to
believe that their faith must be a fable, and those who proclaim its
teachings must do so to tickle their hearers' ears, and as a pastime
of the moment.
Having uttered his few words of encouraging praise, Columbus
passed on, and Montoro, for whom there was no further employment
for the moment, turned to lean over the side of the vessel, and watch
the receding shores of his native land, the fast-diminishing lines of
the harbour of Cadiz, and its throngs of traders from all nations. His
mother was very present with him at that minute, and his mother's
parting words:
"You, the unknown and disinherited noble of Aragon, son of a foully-
slandered and slain father, are, in the world's eyes, nought. You, the
boy Montoro de Diego, may be a hero, the winner of fresh glory for
your name, the gainer of the highest honour from your fellow-men.
The past is not your fault, the future may be your praise. Keep firm to
God and the truth, and fear none."
That last injunction "to fear none" was indeed little needed in the
sense in which the boy took it.
"I am not wont to fear," he said, with a touch of impatient pride,
adding the next instant, as his eyes rested on his mother's gentle
face, and with a mischievous smile, "I rather thought, my mother, that
your counsels to me generally were against being overbold."
"That is true," was the reply, with a fleet answering smile. "But that is
in matters concerning thyself, my son. Be ever backward in self-
assertion, and ever fearless in the cause of justice, truth, and mercy.
As thy father was, so I pray that his son may be."

"My father saith that he likes the look of thy face, and wills that we
may be friends."
Such was the abrupt announcement of that courtly page and intrepid
young adventurer, Fernando Columbus, breaking in upon Montoro's
reverie, and joining him at his post by the vessel's side.
A third person stood there also for a minute,—a man with grey hair,
and a form shrunken with old age,—and a tear rolled slowly down his
furrowed cheek as he gazed for the last time at his country's strand.
Montoro's great eyes widened with questioning wonder at sight of
the bowed old man, and when he withdrew he asked his companion,
in low tones, what could have possibly induced one so infirm to set
out upon such toilsome journeyings.
Ferdinand turned his head to look after the retreating figure, and
shrugged his shoulders. "Well, I suppose his inducement would be
thought by many people a more sensible one than those of the rest
of us, although, if we have anything of a rough voyage, I doubt he
will be proved to have set out too tardily."
"Still, I hope for my part we shall not always have these smooth
waters," impulsively exclaimed the inexperienced young sailor. "I
want to see what a storm on the ocean is like. But that by the by.
Just now I wish to know what is the inducement of that old hidalgo
for leaving his own home, and the comforts he seems to need. Why
do you think it is a sensible one?"
"Because," answered the younger boy more gravely, "gold without
life is useless, and even glory without it is not much worth. And
various of our nobles at the Court have come to the belief that the
fountain of youth wastes its precious waters in some hitherto
undiscovered region of this New World. The brave knight, Ponce de
Leon, hath determined on an expedition to go in search of it;
meantime yon wealthy Señor hopes to bribe the Indians to bestow
upon him a draught of the precious water before it be too late. And
my father though something doubtful of this thing, hath consented
that Don Aguilar should have passage with us for the chance. He,
himself, would far rather find the Holy Garden of Eden, which he tells
me most surely is out yonder."
"At any rate," said one of the knightly adventurers who had now
stepped up beside the two lads; "at any rate, Ferdinand, whether thy
father finds the Garden or no, I trust that no flaming firebrands of the
Indians will hinder him from finding, and traversing, that strait leading
from this ocean into the Indian Sea, of which he seems to be so well
assured. The finding of that passage will be wealth for all of us."
Unfortunately for the hopes of those days, that expected passage
proved to be a land one, and is now called the Isthmus of Darien,
which art, not nature, promises soon to convert into the realization of
Columbus's belief.
 CHAPTER X.
A JACK IN OFFICE.
It was the 29th of June. There was a hush on board the Admiral's
ship. Yonder were visible the white low houses of San Domingo on
the island of Hispaniola. Around the ship the sea lay still and grey,
and the sails hung limp in the hot, heavy air.
A knot of men gathered close around a cabin, listening with lowering
brows and compressed lips to bitter groaning, and sobbing cries, that
were being wrung from one within, by his wounded soul. Well might
the old and way-worn discoverer of mighty continents feel tempted at
that moment to cry: "Hath God forgotten to be gracious?"
A storm was coming on; one of his four poor, shabby vessels—that
on which his beloved brother Bartholomew held command—was in a
shattered condition, and he had asked leave to take shelter in the
harbour of the small island he had himself given to Spain, and
Spaniards had refused him! What wonder that the noble and
generous heart of the old Admiral was wrung to its very depths!
What wonder that, as Montoro leant with Fernando against the
cabin-door, the lad clenched his fists until the nails almost cut his
palms, and muttered fiercely to his boy friend:
"Fernando, ask thy father's leave. There is not a man on board will
refuse to turn our guns against those miscreants, though they were
twenty times our countrymen. Only let him give the word, and he
shall be speedily avenged."
"Ay, speedily," echoed two or three hoarse voices in the group, from
those who had caught the tenor of Montoro's passionate request,
and the Admiral's young son raised his eyes gratefully. His steadfast
face was pale with emotion, his lips trembled. Even this weak
testimony to his father was some comfort.
"I only wish," he exclaimed, struggling to speak with manly calm; "I
only wish that, as you say, the Admiral would give the word that we
should let our guns loose against the dastard hounds. We would
soon teach them a lesson they should not easily forget."
"Nay then, young Señor, how about yon fleet?" asked one of the
sailors significantly, pointing to a number of gay and gallant-looking
ships at a short distance within the harbour. "Think you, Señor
Ferdinand, that yon fleet would leave us alone if we took to avenging
our insults by bombarding the town? And they are close upon twenty
to one!"
"What of that?" hastily ejaculated Montoro, his cheeks still crimson
with excitement. "God fights on the side of right and just—"
He stopped abruptly. The sounds of grief within the cabin had
ceased during this short discussion, and at this instant the door
opened, and a hand was laid on Montoro's shoulder, while the well-
known slow, distinct voice said with grave earnestness:
"That is true, my son. The great Father fights on the side of right and
justice. But He still better loves to espouse the cause of the merciful.
Instead of seeking to destroy life let us rather try to save it, that with
the measure we mete it may be measured to us again."
"That comes out of the great book I gave thee to hold the day we
started," whispered Fernando to his companion, who nodded. It had
been a favourite quotation of the benevolent old priest, Bartolo.
Meantime Christopher Columbus proceeded to give proof that he
spoke not with his lips only but from his heart.
The great fleet in the harbour of San Domingo was that which had
brought out his superseder, Ovando, a few weeks since, and it was
now in all the bustle of preparation for a speedy return to Spain with
crowds of home-going adventurers, many ill-wishers to the just and
virtuous discoverer, numbers of prisoners Spanish and native, and
an immense amount of gold, pearls, and other treasures, well-nigh
every ounce of which had cost a life.
On board this fleet were the Admiral's most bitter enemies; on board
its grandest vessel was the narrow-minded, mean-spirited upstart,
Bobadilla, who, to the ever-enduring disgrace of his own name and
of his country, had dared to send the great seaman, the great
thinker, the man of unbounded hopes, enthusiasm, courage,
endurance, and magnanimity—the man who to Bobadilla was as a
lion to a rat—had dared to send this giant hero home in chains like a
vile malefactor but two years before, and had covetously grasped at
his possessions, impudently installing himself in the house of his
patient victim, and laying greedy hands upon his arms, gold, plate,
jewels, horses, books, and even his letters and precious
manuscripts.
Against that fleet, with all its proud sumptuousness contrasted with
the miserable little squadron granted to Columbus, and against his
base enemies on board, the company on board his own ship
considered that he had a full right to feel the most vengeful wrath. It
was not Montoro only who could scarcely believe his ears when,
after the pause of a few moments following his sacred quotation—
moments devoted to further keen, close scrutiny of those weather
signs in which he was so deeply skilled—the Admiral summoned
forward the crew of the boat that had just returned, and despatched
them with a second message to the new governor Ovando, to
entreat him to save the fleet from the certainly approaching storm, by
a few days' delay of their departure.
"Better to leave them to meet their fate as they leave us," muttered
Montoro, with the yet unconquered passion of his nature. But once
again that firm touch came upon his shoulder. The Admiral's quick
ears had caught the growl, low as it was.
"My son," he said quietly, "you shall go with my messengers. That
will be a fitting rebuke for you, will it not," he added with a grave
smile, "for uttering opinions contrary to those of your commander,
and contrary to those of the Divine Ruler of the universe?"
Obeying a sudden impulse of veneration, Diego snatched the aged
hand in his own, and pressed it to his lips. "I can never attain to your
generosity, Señor," he murmured, "nor be thus forgiving to those
wrongfully my enemies."
Just as the boat was starting, Ferdinand Columbus bent over the
ship's side, and called mischievously:
"Diego, there, hark ye!"
"Ay, what is it then?" asked Montoro, as he lifted his head, resting on
his oar the while. "What news hast thou since I left thee and the
caravel?"
"Great news," was the mischievous answer. "My father gives me
leave to tell thee that, since thou art doubtless feared by reason of
the coming storm, he will obtain permission at least for such a
whipper-snap as thou to abide on shore."
That quick, unmanageable spirit of Montoro's was set all ablaze for a
moment at the supposed imputation of cowardice; and he was about
to shout back an answer little in accordance with his late act of
reverence, but Diego Mendez, the officer in command of the little
embassy, hastily clapped his hand over the lad's mouth, as he said
with a short laugh:
"Nay now, art thou not a very fool to be so taken in? Dost thou not
see by thy tormentor's face that the brain of no Columbus but himself
made up that message for thee?"
The friendly intervention was timely. When Fernando called down
again—"Say then, dost accept the offer?"—his companion's face
was brimming over with merriment like his own, as the retort was
shouted up:
"Ha, Fernando, my good Señor, thou art but a sorry messenger. My
absent ears have caught the purport of thy father's words better than
thy present ones. The Admiral's message to me is, that since thou
art feared, I must obtain a leave to land for thee. I bid thee, then,
calm thy quaking heart, since I will not fail. Adios."
"And a slap o' the ear for thee when thou returnest," was the
answering shout; and then the boat cast off, and was rowed with
vigorous strokes to that once fertile, but already so dismal and
desolated island of Hispaniola, the head-quarters of cruelty,
lawlessness, suffering, and rapacity.
Montoro was very quickly to have a specimen of the deeds that had
brought the island to its present wretched condition.
As the boat approached the strand, crowds of idlers gathered about,
some to give the new-comers welcome, more to express their
contemptuous dislike of the Admiral by covert sneers or openly-
expressed scorn bestowed upon his followers.
There, flaunting in silks and brocades, which not even the proudest
hidalgos dared any longer wear in Spain, stood half-a-dozen men,
who had been loosed from richly-deserved felons' dungeons at
home, to serve as colonists for the New World. Near them, reclining
in a sumptuous litter, borne upon the bleeding shoulders of four of
the meek-spirited and unhappy natives, was an ignorant, cunning
rascal, whom Montoro had himself seen carried off to prison for theft
in El Cuevo. Now he lay there in all the insolent dignity of riches, with
a palm-leaf umbrella borne over his head by one slave, whilst
another sickly-looking creature fanned him.
Closer to the edge of the soft-lapping waters was a real Spanish
Don, whose poverty-stricken estate had driven him to hide his
thread-bare pride in exile. To indemnify himself for leaving his
beloved Castile, he spent his whole time and thoughts on the island
in squeezing wealth, almost, as it seemed, even out of its very
stones. His slaves died off day by day, very nearly as soon as they
were allotted to him; but that was nought to their owner, so long as
with the remnants of their dying strength they reaped his harvests,
and brought up gold for him from the mines. They were to him as
machines for making riches; and when one of the machines wore
out, it must be tossed aside to make room for another.
But with all Don Alfonzo's heartless barbarities to his miserable
victims, he had a warm corner in his callous heart for his own
countrymen, whoever they might be. All Spaniards were friends to
Don Alfonzo, while the ocean lay between him and his home. He
watched the progress of the incoming boat with eyes almost as
eager as those with which, week by week, he counted his golden
gains; and when, from the shallowness of the water, the rowers had
to stop some way short of dry ground, he looked round hastily for
some one whom he could order off for their assistance. None of his
own people were in sight, but a weak, wan-faced Indian lay beside
him, and him the nobleman immediately commanded to rise, and go
into the water to help drag up the boat.
With a moan the poor creature began to obey, but too slowly to suit
the despotic impatience of the Spaniard.
"Hurry thy lazy carcase, then, thou black-skinned dog," he exclaimed
imperiously; and to enforce his words he raised a bamboo cane he
held, and brought it down with a fierce swish through the air, which
told its own tale of what its effect should be if it came in contact with
the native's tender flesh. As the cane rose the Indian crouched with
a low, pitiful cry, which was echoed with an added note of indignation
by Montoro from the boat.
The next moment Montoro sprang to his feet with a second cry of
impulsive admiration. The stinging slash of that bamboo cane had
come down upon the arm of a young Spaniard, who had stretched it
out as a cover for the helpless Indian; and then, when the arm had
performed its allotted task, it was quietly withdrawn, terribly cut as it
must have been, and folded over its owner's chest, who as quietly
turned and confronted Don Alfonzo.
"It is the command of our Sovereign, Queen Isabella," he said firmly,
"that the Indians be treated with humanity, and according to law."
"Who is that?" asked Montoro, as he sprang on to the sandy shore,
and pointed out the young man who had made his arm serve so
readily for another man's shield.
Shyness was never one of Montoro Diego's failings; and now
curiosity and a generous admiration made him put his question
eagerly to the first person he came up to. All he got at first was a
return question to match his own, a good-humoured:
"And pray, then, who are you? If you're come to work you are
welcome; if you have come to make others work, you may as well be
off again, for there are more than enough of that sort here already."
"I am going off again," replied Diego laughing. "I have not come to
stay; not just yet, at least. But do tell me who that young Señor is."