Discontent began to show itself among the Spaniards. The gentlemen wearied of inglorious hardship in the end; the common soldiers and sailors wearied of their exertions even sooner. There was death as well as disease. One Spaniard only died of his wounds-a deep stab by a sharpened cane in his thigh mortified and turned black-but two died of snake bite, several of fever. The survivors began to murmur a little. They even began to come to Rich with their grievances. The old colonists wanted to be allowed to return to their estates and their harems of Indian girls; the new arrivals wanted to be allowed the chance to set up similar establishments. For these latter three weeks of violent activity on land was quite long enough following their months at sea. They yearned for debauch and for ease. Bartholomew Columbus had led them when they had first arrived; now he had to drive, and he was a tactless taskmaster.
Rich was not present at the quarrel between the Adelantado and Bernardo de Tarpia, but he could picture it easily when it was described to him-the bitter words, the challenge given and insolently declined, the smouldering ill-temper badly hidden. And two days after he was gone, and his handgunmen with him, and Cristobal Garcia and half a dozen more gentlemen, half the sailors and a score of soldiers. It was the Adelantado himself who told Rich about the defection.
‘Gone? But where has he gone to?’
‘To join Roldan. God blast the souls of both of them!’ said the Adelantado. ‘And I know whose doing it is. You remember that crop-eared blackguard with a squint? Martinez, he called himself. He lost his ears when someone forebore to hang him in Spain. I ought to have hanged him myself. He came to San Domingo weeks back from Roldan. He said he wanted to resume his allegiance-he was a spy all the time for Roldan.’
‘Roldan?’ said Rich. ‘Always Roldan. Who is this Roldan, Excellency?’
The subject of Roldan had been dexterously side-stepped by everyone from whom Rich had attempted to find out anything; it had been (so he had said to himself) like trying to discuss rope with a man whose father had been hanged. It was only now that he was able to hear the truth, and that thanks to the Adelantado.
‘Roldan was once my brother’s valet,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He was given the position of Chief Magistrate. After my brother had left Spain he began to act as if he was not merely Chief Magistrate, but Adelantado as well. You lawyers are infernal nuisances enough, but a valet with a judge’s authority--!’
‘You could have deprived him.’
‘No, I could not, by God,’ said Bartholomew. He was lapsing into Italian in the excitement of the moment. ‘He held his post from the Admiral. The mere Adelantado could not revoke an appointment by the Viceroy!’
That was obvious enough; Rich ought to have seen it for himself. And with a flash of insight he could guess at more than the obvious. The Admiral returning to Spain would not trust even his own brother with the full powers he himself held. Fearful for his own authority, he had divided the power between his deputy and the chief magistrate.
‘And what happened?’
‘You can guess,’ said the Adelantado with a shrug. ‘I did not put him in gaol when I had the chance. All the shiftless men of the colony, all the lazy ones who grew tired of trying to screw gold out of the Indians, all the men who wanted to snore in the sun with fifty women to wait on them, they all joined him.’
All the men with whom the hot-tempered Adelantado happened to quarrel, in other words, thought Rich, but he did not say so. He remained tactfully silent and allowed the Adelantado to run on.
‘Most of them were out in the Vera--the open valley to the north of the island. There they have all settled; they have left off seeking gold, and live idly, with a hundred miles of mountains between us and them. Roldan is a little king among them. I was going to march on them, now that I have tamed the Llanos. With four hundred men I would have been too strong for them. Roldan would have hanged. But now Tarpia has joined him with sixty men at least, all able-bodied, and I have fifty sick and another hundred whom I can’t trust. Roldan has a new lease of life. But not for long.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘There are other ships still to come. Any day they may arrive-the ships under my cousin’s command. They sailed from Spain with you, and they ought to have arrived weeks ago, while you were exploring, but I suppose they have lost their way among the islands-my cousin was always a poor fool. But sooner or later they will come. Those ships bear a hundred horses. There will be two hundred men. Tarpia took no more than ten horses-Roldan has no more than five, thank God. In the Vera the horseman reigns supreme, the same as in these plains here. Once I get those horses landed, and the two hundred men, Roldan’s little hour is finished. I shall hang him on my gallows at San Domingo, and Tarpia and Garcia and half a dozen others beside him.’
That was the right way to treat rebellion, thought Rich, although it occurred to him that the axe would be more fitting than the gallows for men of such blue blood as Tarpia. He found his dislike for the Adelantado diminishing. Rich was heart and soul on the side of orderly government and decent respect for authority, even though it was a shock to him to find himself approving of the execution of Spaniards when he had spent days in silent protest against the killing of heathen Indians. A man who could speak lightly of hanging a terrible man like Tarpia won his admiration for such daring. Rich was a little ashamed of his pity for the Indians; this bold talk of suppressing rebellion was much more the sort of thing he felt he ought to like. All his life so far he had lived as a spectator, and there was something peculiarly gratifying in being at last behind the scenes, in being at least a potential actor. It was better than splitting legal hairs and wrapping up the result in pages of Latin.
17
In San Domingo, when the Adelantado returned from his chastizing of the Llanos, there was nothing new. The fifty men of the garrison who had remained there with the Admiral had done nothing, heard nothing. Most of them were fever-ridden and asked nothing more than to stay tranquil. Apparently the Admiral had made some attempt to persuade them to heave up the three ships which lay in the harbour and make them ready for the sea again, but they had vehemently refused to do such heavy work, and the Admiral had abandoned his attempt. Those sailors who had not deserted to Roldan took more kindly to the suggestion when it was put to them on their return with the conquering army. The ships would sail for Spain when they were ready, with messages and treasure, and the sailors were sure of a passage home.
‘There are two hundredweights of gold,’ said Diego Alamo the assayer-Rich had had hardly a word with him since they had left Trinidad, and it was delightful to encounter him again and hear the results of his observations.
‘That sounds enormous to me,’ said Rich.
‘Large enough,’ said Alamo with a shrug. ‘Their Highnesses do not receive that amount of gold in a year’s revenue. And there are pearls beside, of more value still, I should fancy, if the market is not too hurriedly flooded with them.’
‘This one island, then, is worth more than all Spain?’ said Rich, eagerly. Solid facts of this sort were reassuring especially when retailed by someone as hard-headed and learned as Alamo. But Alamo shrugged again in dampening fashion.
‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘But part of that gold is what the Indians have saved for generations. And nowhere does the earth breed gold rapidly. A speck here, a grain there, in the sand. One gathers them, and it is years before another speck is formed. During the last few years most of the grains available have been gathered, and in my opinion the annual amount of gold found in the island will diminish rapidly.’
‘Oh,’ said Rich, disappointed. ‘Does everyone think that?’
‘No. They know nothing about the subject. Nor have they read the ancients. You, Doctor, you have read your Livy, your Polybius? Don’t you remember how our own Spain was conquered by the Romans and Carthaginians? They found gold there, quantities of gold. Spain was to Carthage what these islands are to Spain. But what gold is there now to be found in Spain? A vein or two in the Asturi
as. A vein or two in the South. No more.’
‘And how do you account for that?’
‘Spain was a new country. The simple Iberians had little use for the gold which had been breeding there since the creation. From the rivers and valleys all the gold was soon cleared out when the Carthaginians came. Even the seeds of the gold were taken away, so that the country became barren of the metal. I can predict the same of this island.’
‘The gold breeds from seeds, you think?’
Alamo shrugged yet once more.
‘If I knew how gold breeds I should be as rich as Midas,’ he said. ‘But every philosopher knows that, however it is, the process is slow.’
‘So that the value of this island will diminish, year by year?’
Alamo pulled at his beard and looked at Rich, considering deeply. He hesitated before he spoke, and when at last he allowed the words to come he glanced over his shoulder nervously lest anyone should overhear the appalling heresies he was about to utter.
‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘gold is not the most important merchandise this island can produce. I have often wondered whether a country is the richer for possessing gold. We may find the other products of this island far more valuable.’
‘The spices, you mean? But I thought--’
‘The spices are unimportant compared with those which reach Spain via the Levant. The cinnamon which the Admiral thought grew here so freely is poor stuff. There are no real spices here--no cloves, no nutmegs. The pepper is not true pepper, even though one can acquire a taste for it quickly enough.’
Rich found all this a little frightening. If the gold returns were to diminish, as Alamo predicted, and the spice trade were to prove valueless, as Rich had long ago suspected, the colony of Espanola could not be worth having discovered. The three thousand Spanish lives which had already been expended were quite wasted. But Alamo was ready to reassure him.
‘The island has treasures beside gold and spices,’ he said. ‘It has a soil fifty times more fruitful than Andalusia. The rain and the sun give it a fertility which it is hard to estimate. One man’s labour will grow food for ten--see how these wretched Indians have always contrived to live in abundance. Cattle multiply here amazingly. My calculations go to prove that by breeding cattle here a handsome profit would be shown merely by selling the hides in Spain-and I know well enough the cost of sailing a ship from here to there.’
‘Cattle? Hides?’ said Rich. There was a queer sense of disappointment. A prosaic trade in hides was not nearly as interesting as a deal in hundredweights of gold.
‘Oh, there are other possibilities,’ said Alamo, hastily. ‘Have you ever tasted sugar?’
‘Yes. It is a brown powder beneficent in cases of chills and colds. There is a white variety, too, in crystals. I have had packets sent me as presents occasionally. It has a sweet taste, like honey, or even sweeter. Why, is there sugar to be found in this island?’
‘Not as yet. But it could grow here-it is expressed from a cane exactly like the canes we see growing everywhere in this country. The sugar cane is grown in Malaga a little, and in Sicily. My friend Patino retails it at five hundred marvavedis an ounce. Once start the cultivation here and in a few years we might be exporting sugar not by the ounce, but by the ton.’
That was a more alluring prospect than chaffering in hides. A spark of enthusiasm lit in Rich’s breast, and then died away to nothing again as he began to consider details.
‘It means husbandry,’ he said, despondingly.
‘It means hard work,’ agreed Alamo, a smile flickering over his lips.
Each knew what the other was thinking about. Knight-errants and adventurers like Garcia, or like Avila, would never reconcile themselves to labouring in the cultivation of sugar, or even in the breeding of cattle. They had come to seek gold and spices, and for those they were willing to risk their lives or undergo hardship. It would be far below the dignity of a hidalgo to settle down to prosaic labour. Nor would the lower-class Spaniards who had reached Hayti--the gaol-birds-the bankrupts--take kindly to arduous work.
‘There is no labour to be got out of the Indians,’ said Rich, despairingly.
‘That is so,’ agreed Alamo. ‘They die rather than work. And pestilences sweep them away even when they are not killed for sport. There were two millions when the Admiral first landed. Now there is not more than half that number, after six years. Perhaps soon there will not be a single Indian left alive in Espanola.’
‘Impossible!’ said Rich.
‘Possible enough,’ said Alamo, gravely.
‘But what then?’ asked Rich, wildly. The thought of the blotting out of a population of two million left him a little dizzy. Their Highnesses of Spain had no more than ten million subjects in all their dominions. And he was appalled at the thought both of this green land of Espanola reduced to an unpeopled desert and of the extinction of a pleasant useless race of mankind. This discovery of the Indies was a Dead Sea fruit-alluring to the sight and yet turning to ashes in the mouth.
‘There is another possibility,’ said Alamo.
‘What?’
‘It was Joao de Setubal who put it in my mind,’ said Alamo.
It was a queer world in which a cultured man like Alamo could be indebted for ideas to a clumsy barbarian like the Portuguese knight; Rich must have looked his surprise, because Alamo hastened to explain.
‘He was complaining of the uselessness of the Indians, just as everyone else does,’ said Alamo. ‘And then he went on to say how in Lisbon they have negro slaves nowadays. Stout, dependable labourers, brought from the African coast. I had heard about that before, but it had slipped my memory until Don Joao reminded me of it. They breed freely, do the negroes. If Their Highnesses could arrange with the King of Portugal for a supply of negroes to be sent here--’
‘You are right, by God!’ said Rich.
‘This hot climate would be native to them,’ said Alamo. ‘They could do the heavy work and our Spanish gentlemen fresh out of the gaols would not think it beneath them to supervise.’
‘And the Indians could be spared,’ said Rich, with kindly enthusiasm. ‘Perhaps part of the island could be set aside for them to live without interference. Save for Christian teaching, of course.’
This last was a hurried addition.
‘The Church would give her blessing,’ went on Alamo. ‘The negroes would be brought out of heathen darkness in Africa to lead a Christian life here.’
They eyed each other a little flushed and excited.
‘Sir,’ said Rich, solemnly. ‘I think that today you have made a suggestion which may change the history of Spain. In my report to His Highness--’
‘I would rather, if possible, that His Highness was not reminded of my existence,’ said Alamo. ‘Torquemada--’
‘I understand,’ said Rich, sadly.
But this was the most cheerful thing which had been brought to his notice since his arrival in Espanola. Rich had been worrying about the report he had to write, and which would go to Spain as soon as the Holy Name was ready for sea again. It would have been a cheerless thing without this creative suggestion added to it-merely a sweeping condemnation of the Admiral’s administrative system, and of the methods of the colonists, combined with the gloomiest prophecies regarding the future of the island. Rich knew quite well what favour was given to those advisers of the Crown who brought nothing but unpalatable truths to the council board. If he could sketch out a future of plenteous cargoes of sugar at five hundred maravedis an ounce, and suggest a profitable trade in negro slaves, his state paper would be a great deal more acceptable and would not prejudice his own future-would not imperil his own life-nearly as much.
‘But,’ said Rich, half to himself, ‘there’s a lot to be done before that.’
He was thinking of the disorder in the island-of Roldan’s passive rebellion, the vague property laws, the muddled policies.
‘That is not my concern, thank God,’ said Alamo, guessing-as was not difficult-wha
t was in Rich’s mind. ‘You will have to settle all that with the Admiral. I am no more than assayer and naturalist. Politics are not my province.’
Rich thought how lucky Alamo was. There had been a time when he himself had been delighted at the thought of taking part in the administration of a new empire, but there was no pleasure in it now for him. Those endless conferences in the citadel of San Domingo only left him with an exasperated sense of frustration. It was hard for any decision to be reached-at least, it was hard for the Admiral to reach a decision. There was the pitiful difficulty that Roldan, thanks to his appointment as Alcalde Mayor, could claim a legal justification for his actions.
‘Why not revoke the appointment, Your Excellency?’ asked Rich. ‘Any disobedience then would be treason and could be punished as such.’
‘That would drive him to desperate measures,’ said the Admiral. ‘God knows what he would do then.’
The Earthly Paradise Page 17