Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

  They were lounging together on the cliffs at Capri one breathless, languid morning, when the Captain, by way of leading up to what he had in mind, fell to bewailing the passing of the need for the soldier of fortune in Europe. He deplored his own enforced idleness; states were at peace; employment for such as himself was not easily to be discovered; he had come hopefully to Italy, looking for turbulence in the peninsula to afford him his opportunity; but his hopes were proved vain; his purse was growing lighter and no prospect showed upon the horizon; he spoke gloomily of returning to the East, regretted almost having left it. Subtlest of all was the last touch he added, and for the glaring untruth of it the justification he offered to his conscience was the great cause he served, the ultimate good to be achieved, if necessary, by ignoble means.

  “There is the Pretender, now,” he said slowly, “and I have thought of him. Indeed, he’s all there’s left to think of here. But there is little to attract me in thought. I may be a follower of Fortune’s banner, a man who makes of fighting as much a trade as others make of tinkering or haberdashery, but, on my soul, Dick, there are limits even to that. The Pretender is the enemy of England” (he prayed heaven to pardon him that necessary blasphemy), “and Harry Gaynor’s sword although for hire shall never be hired to any disloyal cause.” He sighed and laughed his musical, self-mocking little laugh.

  “I dare swear you’ll count me foolish, Dick, to strain at a gnat who have swallowed camels.”

  But Sir Richard’s face was very grave; approval shone in his frank eyes.

  “On my soul I do not, Harry,” he cried heartily, like the thorough-paced Whig he was. “I honour you for your feelings. I would not have a friend of mine hold any other. But,” he continued, frowning thoughtfully, “since you feel thus, why not let profit and inclination jump together? Why not find employment for your sword in the service that enlists your heart?”

  The Captain’s pulses throbbed a little faster. For here from Sir Richard came the very proposal to which so warily he was leading. But since Sir Richard had proposed it, Sir Richard should persuade as well, and thus the thing would come to stand upon a still sounder basis than ever Gaynor had hoped.

  He laughed contemptuously.

  “Why, Dick!” he cried, “what is’t you suggest? What hire can England offer for my services? Pshaw, man, ’tis not a land in which the mercenary grows anything but lean.”

  “But there are the colonies,” Sir Richard insisted, “and good appointments are to be obtained there for her adventurous children.”

  “The colonies?” said the Captain, in a different voice, the voice of one who muses yieldingly. “True!” he murmured. And then, as if brushing the matter aside: “But even there,” he concluded, “to obtain such posts as are worth the adventurer’s attention, influence, much influence, is needed.”

  “Some, I agree,” answered Sir Richard. “And that I can supply.”

  Captain Gaynor stared at him.

  “You, Dick?” he cried, and laughed in mockery of his companion.

  “You forget that the Second Secretary is my cousin,” Sir Richard reminded him without resentment.

  “Why!” exclaimed the Captain, like one upon whom bursts a sudden revelation, one who discovers something hitherto entirely overlooked, “why that is true! And you think, then—”

  “I know,” Sir Richard cut in, “that what my cousin can he will do for my friend. He shall do. I will write to him this very day, and yourself shall bear the letter, Harry.”

  Thus it befell that the amiable Sir Richard penned his glowing panegyric of Captain Gaynor. He delivered it to the adventurer, urging him to start at once. But the Captain was not of those who quit the moment they have gained their object, and thereby leave behind them a suspicion of what their object may have been. He lingered on a full fortnight in Sir Richard’s company, as if reluctant to be gone, and this in spite of Sir Richard’s constant urgings. Indeed, they came near to quarrelling over the matter more than once, the baronet holding that the service he was rendering was being lightly treated, the Captain grumbling daily that his prospects, after all, were none so bright, that the English service was a poor one at the best, that heaven alone knew how long he might be left to cool his heels in British ante-chambers ere aught was found for him; that he detested the English climate and had a horror of ante-chambers, which were always draughty, and that he could not abide draughts, being subject to the rheum ever since a fever which had stricken him in Constantinople three years ago.

  But in the end he went, though reluctant even then, and leaving upon Sir Richard’s mind the unmistakable impression that he regretted having ever mentioned the matter and that he would not go at all were it not out of dread of offending his dear friend by failing to avail himself of that friend’s good offices.

  In his soul he was most excellently content. He knew this Second Secretary Templeton, whom he had never met, as he knew every member of the British Government and what each stood for. Templeton was the very man for him: a man of little personal influence, no more than the lackey and tool of my Lord Carteret, the Secretary of State; a pompous, self-sufficient fellow who would promise much and accomplish nothing, keeping the Captain hanging upon his promises and thus affording him an excellent pretext for his sojourn in England should it chance to he questioned. Thus, then, do we find him amid the various clients in Mr Templeton’s ante-chamber on that fair June morning. Of the seven hours that are sped since he departed from my Lord Pauncefort’s house he has devoted six to sleep, and he comes alert and fresh into the great man’s presence.

  If last night there were about him indications of the soldier, today his every line proclaims it. He wears a dark blue coat with narrow silver lace, very full in the skirt, white buckskins and jack-boots that are equipped with silver spurs. The hilt of his sword is of cut steel; under his arm he carries a black hat looped and plumed in military fashion, and the only jewel visible upon his person is the sapphire nestling in the fine lace of his Steinkirk.

  His heels together, Captain Gaynor bowed stiffly and formally to the Second Secretary. Mr Templeton did not consider it necessary to rise to receive this visitor. He nodded to him across the littered table at which he sat, nodded with the perfunctory nod of majesty, whilst with an imperious yet languid hand he waved away the usher who had introduced the soldier.

  “You bring me, sir, I understand — ah — letters from my cousin, Sir Richard — my cousin, Sir Richard.” His voice was full and sonorous, his utterance leisurely; his rhetorical tastes were polysyllabic, and he had a trick, common to third-rate orators, of repeating the closing words of a period.

  Captain Gaynor considered the long, sallow, aristocratic face under its imposing, full-bottomed wig. He found it cold, supercilious and somewhat forbidding; for it wore the expression that Mr Templeton reserved for those who had aught to solicit from him. All this, the Captain reflected, was as he would have it.

  He produced his letter. Mr Templeton received it languidly.

  “I think,” said he, “that I am already — ah — acquainted with its contents.”

  “Dick will no doubt have written to you direct, sir,” said Captain Gaynor easily.

  Mr Templeton nodded shortly and broke the seal. This he did elaborately, as he did all things, clothing himself like all insignificant folk in a vast importance.

  Thus — saving for certain orthographical eccentricities, whose reproduction were unprofitable — had Sir Richard written:

  MY DEAR NED, — I send you these by the hand of one of my oldest friends. Captain Harry Gaynor was my brother-in-arms aforetime under Marlborough, and is a soldier of very high and notorious merit. He has seen much service in many lands, and goes now to offer his sword to the King, who has no more loyal devoted subject than himself. His experience, whereupon he will himself entertain you, entitles him, if I may presume to judge, to some honourable post in his Majesty’s dominions overseas. If you can help him to his ambitions you will be serving me who matter littl
e, himself who matters more, and his most gracious Majesty who matters most. Further still, you will be serving yourself, for I will answer for it that to whatever post you may consider well to appoint him he will do credit upon you for the appointment. As it is for the most part in consequence of my representations to him that Captain Gaynor is journeying to England to seek you, I hope that you will find it in your power to accommodate him speedily and suitably, and thus earn the gratitude of him who is, while he is, your devoted and obedient cousin,

  RICHARD TOLLEMACHE TEMPLETON.

  The reading done, Mr Templeton levelled a quizzing-glass at the soldier, and looked him over. He cleared his throat ponderously.

  “My cousin, sir, gives me here a very good account of you — a very good account.”

  Captain Gaynor bowed in silence. “A fuller account is contained in the other letter which I received from him,” the statesman added. Then after a slight pause, in an altered tone — a tone that appeared to veil something— “I understand that you met my cousin in Rome — in Rome,” he said.

  “That is so,” replied the Captain.

  “May I presume, sir, to inquire what you did there?”

  “I perceive no presumption in the question.” And Captain Gaynor smiled affably. “I was idling there for some days being newly come overseas from Turkey and still undetermined as to whither I should turn my steps, where seek fresh service.”

  “You did not — ah — peradventure, consider offering your sword to the Pretender?” And ere the Captain could answer him he had added:

  “You are a mercenary, Captain Gaynor — so I construe my cousin’s letter — and to a mercenary all services are — ah — one.”

  “Not quite, sir. The mercenary who accepts service against his loyal sovereign is indeed a thing of scorn. A man may be a mercenary, sir, and yet devoted to his king and country. Leastways, such is the code I have ever followed. And that were cause enough why I should not take my sword to the Pretender. But there was yet another.” A wry smile appeared upon his clean-cut face. “A mercenary’s aim is the trader’s aim — profit, sir; and heaven knows that in the Pretender’s service there is no immediate and still less future profit to be made. That, sir, should answer you.”

  It was the right note: the note of confidence in the present Government; the note of contempt as to the prospects of the Stuart cause, and the Captain was glad the opportunity had been given him of striking it.

  But the frigid, pompous mask before him did not relax, for all that the great head nodded its solemn acceptance of the statement.

  “During your sojourn in the — ah — immortal city,” said the Secretary, “you would, I conceive, have gathered something of the Court which the Pretender keeps?” He paused at that. But there was a question in the phrase, a question which Captain Gaynor did not for a moment misunderstand. He was being invited to produce what information he might have gleaned. He was, I have said, a man of swift decisions, and in the twinkling of an eye he weighed the matter, and set his course. A man of nice sensibilities might have affected to misunderstand the question, unwilling to play a part that might savour, though remotely, of the spy’s. But it would suit him better to display no such niceness.

  Therefore, he waxed voluble. He poured forth scraps of information which he affected to have gathered here and there about Rome: He plunged into a list of the Englishmen who were about the person of the Stuart with all the air of one who is eager to betray, that by betrayal he may curry favour. As he proceeded, the mask of Mr Templeton’s countenance warmed a little into life, reflecting his expectancy; but when the Captain came to an end of his disclosures that sombre countenance was cold once more. For Captain Gaynor had betrayed no man that was not betrayed already, had conveyed no single piece of information that was not already the common property of the British Government and of every lounger in town.

  Mr Templeton told him so in blunt terms, whereupon his face fell and he looked the picture of dejection for a moment. Then the Second Secretary, considering him with a level eye, put a question that turned the Captain’s stout heart to ice: “Have you ever heard, sir, of Captain Jenkyn?”

  Taken unawares, his eyes dilated slightly. But the next instant he was frowning thoughtfully. “Why — yes,” said he. “An agent of the Jacobites, is he not?”

  “Ay, ay,” rapped the other one impatiently. “What did you hear? What did you hear?”

  Captain Gaynor’s fears were dispelled. Yet he wondered was there some purpose more than general in the question, and he made an answer that should test that point.

  “Why, sir, I heard it said — I cannot call to mind by whom or in what circumstances — but I heard it said that Captain Jenkyn was in Rome preparing for a journey into England.”

  And then Mr Templeton betrayed the Government to Captain Gaynor, unable, after the fashion of pompous men, to conceal any particle of knowledge that was his own.

  “Pshaw!” he snapped. “Stale news, like the rest of your fine information. We have known it for a week.”

  Not a ripple crossed the Captain’s face to betray the shock of his surprise. But he frowned, and drew himself very stiffly erect.

  “Information, sir?” said he. “Mr Templeton, it occurs to me that you have been using me unworthily.” And for the first time in the course of that interview he allowed the force of his personality to envelop the Second Secretary, his blue eyes withering the man with their sudden anger.

  Thus a moment. Then he relapsed into the sycophant, the humble suitor who pockets an offence and fawns upon the offender. His wry, almost deprecatory smile reappeared.

  “I should have been wary,” he said. “I am but a blunt soldier; stout enough at blows, sir, I assure you, but dull enough — egad! — when it comes to a battle of wits with one of your mettle. You should have spared me, sir. Fore gad, you should have spared me!” he lamented.

  Mr Templeton smiled at last, consented at last to put off some measure of his frigid importance, melting as it were in this warm flattery.

  “Nay, now,” said he, “’twas in your own interest that I questioned you — in your own interest. Had you been furnished with any piece of information that we could account of value, it must have been deemed that his Majesty’s Government had received a favour at your hands. You would have placed the Government in your debt, as it were, and it would have smoothed my path with my Lord Carteret in obtaining the — ah — gratification of your ambitions. You understand, I am assured — you understand.”

  “Sir,” cried Captain Gaynor, “I have again betrayed my dullness. But—” And his shrug was eloquent. It said as plainly as if the words were spoken: “How can so ordinary a man as I attempt to fathom the methods of one so extraordinary as you.”

  “Say no more, sir; say no more!” Mr Templeton thrust back his chair, and rose — a tall figure that carried itself superbly, with head thrown back and rather to one side. “We will do what we can for you. You will leave me your — ah — credentials?”

  Captain Gaynor had them ready — a bulky parcel which he now drew from an inner pocket of his coat and laid upon the Secretary’s table. Of these credentials some few were genuine; but the greater part were forgeries; in the aggregate they accounted for almost every day of his time during the past ten years.

  Adventurous as had been the life of which some of these documents proclaimed the genuine record, these adventures were as naught to that which lay before him ere he should come again to claim that package.

  Mr Templeton balanced the bundle of papers in his hands. “If these speak as well for you as speaks my cousin, you may depend upon employment being found for you — employment worthy of your — ah — attainments. You will wait upon me again, I hope, sir, in a little while. Should I need to communicate with you in the meantime, where shall I find you lodged?”

  “I go to Chertsey tomorrow,” answered the Captain, “to Priory Close.”

  “To Sir John Kynaston’s?” quoth the minister.

  The sol
dier bowed. “He was my father’s friend many years ago, sir, and he has offered me the hospitality of his roof for some little time during my sojourn here.”

  “Why, that, sir,” cried Mr Templeton, whose geniality seemed to increase in a measure as the interview drew to its conclusion, “that is a further recommendation in your favour — a further recommendation. Sir John stands well with the Government. He has the ear of Lord Carteret. Now a word from him—”

  The Captain bowed, his hand on his heart.

  “Like all great men, sir, that I have ever met — and I have travelled more than most — you account mighty the little power of any other and little the mighty power that is your own. Mr Templeton, I am content to leave my petition in your hands. I could desire no better advocate, even as I could not find a greater.” He bowed again before the smiling Secretary; for the Secretary was smiling broadly now, the dissolution of his iciness complete. “I have the honour, sir, to take my leave of you. I shall keep you informed of my every movement. Sir,” (yet another bow) “your very obedient, grateful servant.”

  He was in the antechamber at last, coughing into his handkerchief as he went. And behind him he left a beaming Mr Templeton, who rubbed his hands and chuckled and told the Cupids on the ceiling what an infernally astute fellow he was. For had he not turned this soldier inside out? Had he not wrung him dry, as it were; sucked him like an orange, ere the fellow had apprehended his aims and become duly ferocious? But even that ferocity had been overwhelmed by admiration of Mr Templeton’s superb penetration.

  The Second Secretary resumed his seat at the littered table, and his smile faded. After all, he reflected, this adventurer had told him nothing that was not known already Still, that was because he possessed no further knowledge, else most assuredly it would have been drawn out of him with the rest.