“We are rich,” he said without enthusiasm.
“Where have you been, Cœur de Gris?”
“Been? Why, I have been drunk. It is good to be drunk after fighting.” He smiled wryly and licked his lips. “It is not so good to stop being drunk. That is like child-birth—necessary, but unpleasant and unornamental.”
“I wanted you by my side,” said Henry Morgan.
“You wanted me? I was informed that you wanted no one— that you were quite complete and happy in yourself—and so I got a little drunker. You see, sir, I did not want to remember your reason for being alone.” He paused. “It was told me, sir, that the Red Saint is here.” Cœur de Gris laughed at his own ill-concealed emotion. He changed his manner with an effort of will. His tone became jocular.
“Tell me the truth, sir. It is a small gift to a man to know what he has missed. Many people have no other gift during their whole lives. Tell me, sir, has the sweet enemy fallen? Has the castle of flesh capitulated? Does the standard of Morgan float over the pink tower?”
Henry’s face had flushed. The pistol in his hand rose quietly, steadied by an inexorable madness. There was a sharp crash and a white billow of smoke.
Cœur de Gris stood as he was. He seemed to be intently listening to some distant, throbbing sound. Then a grimace of terror spread on his face. His fingers frantically explored his breast and followed a trickle of blood to its source, a small hole in his lung. The little finger edged into the hole. Cœur de Gris smiled again. He was not afraid of certain things. Now that he knew, he was not frightened any more.
Captain Morgan stared stupidly at the pistol in his hand. He seemed surprised to discover it there, startled at its presence.
Cœur de Gris laughed hysterically.
“My mother will hate you,” he cried ruefully. “She will practice all her ancient curses upon you. My mother—” he choked over his breath. “Do not tell her. Make some gleaming lie. Build my poor life up to a golden minaret. Do not let it stop like a half-finished tower. But, no—you need build only a foundation. If you give her that, she will continue the structure of heroic memory. She will make for me a tomb of white, inaccurate thoughts.” His throat filled with blood. “Why did you do it, sir?”
The captain looked up from his pistol.
“Do it?” He saw the bloody lips, the torn breast; he started up from his chair and then fell back again. Misery was writing lines about his eyes. “I do not know,” he said. “I must have known, but I have forgotten.”
Cœur de Gris went slowly to his knees. He steadied himself with his knuckles on the floor. “It is my knees, sir; they will not bear me any more,” he apologized. He seemed to be listening for the throbbing sound again. Suddenly his voice rose in bitter complaint.
“It is a legend that dying men think of their deeds done. No— No— I think of what I have not done—of what I might have done in the years that are dying with me. I think of the lips of women I have never seen—of the wine that is sleeping in a grape seed—of the quick, warm caress of my mother in Goaves. But mostly I think that I shall never walk about again—never, never stroll in the sunshine nor smell the rich essences the full moon conjures up out of the earth— Sir, why did you do it?”
Henry Morgan was staring at the pistol again. “I do not know,” he muttered sullenly. “I must have known, but I have forgotten. I killed a dog once—and I have just killed Jones. I do not know why.”
“You are a great man, captain,” Cœur de Gris said bitterly. “Great men may leave their reasons for the creative hands of their apologists. But I—why, sir, I am nothing any more— nothing. A moment ago I was an excellent swordsman; but now, my being—that which fought, and cursed, and loved—it may never have been, for all I know.” His wrists weakened and he fell to his side and lay there coughing at the obstruction in his throat. Then, for a time, there was no sound in the room save his uneven gasping for breath. But suddenly he raised himself on one elbow and laughed; laughed at some cosmic joke, some jest of the great rolling spheres; laughed triumphantly, as though he had solved a puzzle and found how simple it was. A wave of blood rode to his lips on the laughter, and filled up his throat. The laugh became a gushing sigh, and Cœur de Gris sank slowly to his side and was still, because his lungs would no longer force breath.
Henry still stared at the pistol in his hand. Slowly he raised his eyes to the open window. The streaming rays of the sun made the treasure on the floor glow like a mass of hot metal. His eyes wandered to the body in front of him. He shuddered. And then he went to Cœur de Gris, picked him up, and sat him in a chair. The limp body fell over to one side. Henry straightened it and braced it in an upright position. Then he went back to his serpent chair.
“I raised my hand like this—” he said, pointing the pistol at Cœur de Gris. “I raised my hand like this. I must have. Cœur de Gris is dead. Like this, I raised it—like this—and pointed— How did I do it?” He bowed his head, then raised it with a chuckle.
“Cœur de Gris!” he said; “Cœur de Gris! I wanted to tell you about La Santa Roja. She rides horses, you know. She has no womanly modesty at all—none at all—and her looks are only moderate.” He peered at the propped figure before him. The eyes of Cœur de Gris had been only half closed, but now the lids slipped down and the eyes began to sink back in his head. On his face was the frozen distortion of his last bitter laughter.
“Cœur de Gris!” the captain shouted. He went quickly to the body and laid his hand on its forehead.
“This is a dead thing,” he said musingly. “This is only a dead thing. It will bring flies and sickness. I must have it taken away at once. It will bring the flies into this room. Cœur de Gris! we have been fooled. The woman fences like a man, and she rides horses astride. So much labor lost for us! That’s what we get for believing everything we hear—eh, Cœur de Gris?—But this is only a dead thing, and the flies will come to it.”
He was interrupted by a tramp of feet on the stair. A band of his men entered, driving in their midst a poor frightened Spaniard—a mud-draggled, terrified Spaniard. The lace had been torn from his neck, and a little stream of blood ran from one sleeve.
“Here is a Spaniard, sir,” the leader said. “He came to the city bearing a white flag. Shall we respect the white flag, sir? He has silver on his saddle. Shall we kill him, sir? Perhaps he is a spy.”
Henry Morgan ignored the speech. Instead he pointed to the body in the chair.
“That is only a dead thing,” he announced. “That is not Cœur de Gris. I sent Cœur de Gris away. He will be back soon. But that is— I raised my hand like this—do you see?—like this. I know exactly how I did it; I have tried it again and again. But that is a dead thing. It will bring the flies to us.” He cried, “Oh, take it away and bury it in the earth!”
A buccaneer moved to lift the body.
“Don’t touch him! Don’t dare to touch him! Leave him where he is. He is smiling. Do you see him smile? But the flies— No, leave him. I will care for him myself.”
“This Spaniard, sir; what shall we do with him? Shall we kill him?”
“What Spaniard?”
“Why, this one before you, sir.” He shoved the man forward. Henry seemed to awaken from a deep dream.
“What do you want?” he asked harshly.
The Spaniard struggled with his fright.
“It—it is my wish and the wish of my padrone to have speech with one Captain Morgan if he will have the goodness. I am a messenger, Señor—not a spy, as these—these gentlemen suggest.”
“What is your message?” Henry’s voice had become weary.
The messenger took reassurance from his changed tone.
“I come from one man very rich, Señor. You have his wife.”
“I have his wife?”
“She was taken in the city, Señor.”
“Her name?”
“She is the Doña Ysobel Espinoza, Valdez y los Gabilanes, Señor. The simple people of the city have called her La Santa
Roja.”
Henry Morgan regarded him for a long time. “Yes, I have her,” he said finally. “She is in a cell. What does her husband wish?”
“He offers ransom, Señor. He has reason to wish his wife with him again.”
“What ransom does he offer?”
“What would Your Excellency suggest?”
“Twenty thousand pieces of eight,” Henry said quickly.
The messenger was staggered. “Twenty thous—viente mil—” He translated fully to comprehend the enormity of the amount. “I perceive that Your Excellency also wants the woman.”
Henry Morgan looked at the body of Cœur de Gris. “No,” he said; “I want the money.”
Now the messenger was relieved. He had been prepared to think this great man a great idiot. “I will do what may be done, Señor. I will come back to you in four days.”
“In three!”
“But if I do not arrive, Señor?”
“If you do not arrive, I shall take the Red Saint away with me and sell her in the slave docks.”
“I shall strive, Señor.”
“Give him courtesy!” the captain commanded. “Do not mistreat him in any way. He is to bring us gold.”
As they were leaving, one man turned back and let his eyes lovingly caress the treasure.
“When is the division to be, sir?”
“In Chagres, fool! Do you think I would divide it now?”
“But, sir, we would like to be having a bit of it in our hands— for the feel of it, sir. We have fought hard, sir.”
“Get out! You’ll have none of it in your hands until we come to the ships again. Do you think I want to have you throwing it to the women here? Let the Goaves women get it from you.”
The men went out of the Hall of Audience grumbling a little.
VI
The buccaneers were rioting in Panama. Barrels of wine had been rolled to a large warehouse. The floor had been cleared of its clutter of merchandise, and now a wild dance was in progress. Numbers of women were there, women who had gone over to the pirates. They danced and flung about to the shrieking of flutes as though their feet did not sound on the grave of Panama at all. They, dear economists, were gaining back some of the lost treasure, using a weapon more slow, but no less sure, than the sword.
In a corner of the warehouse sat The Burgundian and his one-armed protector.
“See, Emil! That one there— Consider to yourself her hips now!”
“I see her, ’Toine, and it is good of you. Do not think I do not appreciate your trouble for my pleasure. But I am silly enough to have an ideal, even in copulation. This proves to me that I am still an artist, if not a gentleman.”
“But see, Emil. Notice for a moment the fullness of her bosom.”
“No, ’Toine; I see nothing that endangers my rose pearl. I will keep it by me a while yet.”
“But, really, my friend, I think you lose your sense of beauty. Where is that careful eye we used to fear so on our canvases?”
“The eye is here, ’Toine. It is still here. It is your own little eye which makes nymphs of brown mares.”
“Then— Then, Emil, since you persist in your blindness, perhaps you would condescend to loan me your rose pearl. There— I thank you. I shall return it presently.”
Grippo was seated in the middle of the floor, sullenly counting the buttons on his sleeve.
“—eight, nine— There were ten. Some bastard has stolen my button. Ah, this world of thieves! It is too much. I would kill for that button. It was my favorite button. One, two, three— Why there are ten. One, two, three, four—” About him the dancers rocked and the air was reeking with the shrill cries of the flutes.
Captain Sawkins glowered at the dancers. He firmly believed that to dance was to go to hell by a short route. Beside him, Captain Zeigler sadly watched the flow of liquor. This Ziegler was called the Tavern Keeper of the Sea. It was his practice, after a raid, to keep the men at sea until they had spent their plunder buying the rum which he supplied. Once he had a mutiny, it is said, because for three months he sailed around and around one island. He could not help it. The men still had money and he still had rum. This night he was saddened by these barrels of liquor which were being drunk without any obbligato of coins ringing on the counter. It was unnatural to him and mischievous.
Henry Morgan was sitting alone in the Hall of Audience. He could barely hear the crying music of the dance. Throughout the day little bands of men had come in, bearing bits of belated treasure dug from the earth or drawn with iron hooks from the cisterns. One old woman had swallowed a diamond to save it, but the searchers dug for that, too, and found it.
Now a gray twilight was in the Hall of Audience. All through the day Henry Morgan had been sitting in his tall chair, and the day had changed him. His eyes, those peering eyes which had looked out over a living horizon, were turned inward. He had been looking at himself, looking perplexedly at Henry Morgan. In the years of his life and of his adventuring, he had believed so completely in his purpose, whatever it may have been at the moment, that he had given the matter little thought. But to-day he had considered himself, and, in the gray twilight, he was bewildered at the sight of Henry Morgan. Henry Morgan did not seem worthy, or even important. Those desires and ambitions toward which he had bayed across the world like a scenting hound, were shabby things now he looked inward at himself. And wonderment like the twilight was about him in the Hall of Audience.
As he sat in the half dark, the wrinkled duenna crept in and stood before him. Her voice was like the crumpling of paper.
“My lady wishes to speak with you,” she said.
Henry rose and walked heavily after her toward the cell.
A candle was burning before the holy picture on the wall. The madonna represented was a fat, Spanish peasant, holding a flabby child at which she looked with sad astonishment. The priest who painted it meant to put reverence on her face, but he had so little experience with reverence. He had been successful, however, in making it a good portrait of his dull mistress and his child. Four reales, the picture brought him.
Ysobel sat under the picture. When Henry entered she went quickly to him.
“It is said I am to be ransomed.”
“Your husband sent a messenger.”
“My husband! I am to go back to him? to his scented hands?”
“Yes.”
She pointed to a chair and forced Henry to seat himself.
“You did not understand me,” she said. “You could not understand me. You must know something of the life I have traveled. I must tell you this thing, and then you will understand me, and then—”
She awaited his interest. Henry was silent.
“Don’t you wish to hear this thing?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, it is short. My life has been short. But I want you to understand me, and then—”
She looked sharply into his face. Henry’s mouth was pinched as though in pain. His eyes contemplated bewilderment. He made no reply to her pause.
“It was this way, you see,” she began. “I was born here in Panama, but my parents sent me to Spain when I was a small child. I lived in a convent in Cordova. I wore gray dresses and lay in watch before the Virgin on my nights given to adoration. Sometimes I went to sleep when I should have been praying. I have suffered for that laxness. When I had been there a number of years, the bravos raided my father’s plantation here in Panama and killed all of my family. I was left with no relative save one old grandfather. I was alone, and I was sad. I did not sleep on the floor before the Virgin for a time.
“I had grown handsome, that I knew, for once a Cardinal who was visiting the school looked at me, and his lips trembled, and the great veins stood out on his hands when I kissed his ring. He said, ‘Peace be with you, my daughter. Have you anything you would like to confess to me privately?’
“I heard the cry of the water sellers over the wall, and I heard the scuffle of a quarrel. Once two men fought
with swords in sight of me, where I stood on a stick and looked over the wall. And one night a young man brought a girl to the shadow of the gate and lay with her there within two paces of me. I heard them whisper together, she protesting her fears, and he reassuring her. I fingered my gray gown and wondered whether this boy would plead with me if he knew me. When I spoke to one of the sisters about this night she said, ‘It is wicked to hear such things, and more wicked to think of them. You must do penance for your curious ears. What gate did you say?’
“The fishmonger would cry, ‘Come, little gray angels, and look on my basket of catch. Come out of your holy prison, little gray angels.’
“One night I climbed over the wall and went away from the city. I do not mean to tell you of my journeying, but only of the day when I came to Paris. The King was riding through the streets, and his equipage was glittering and gold. I stood high on my toes in the crowd of people and watched the courtiers go riding by. Then, suddenly, a dark face was thrust before me, and a strong hand took my arm. I was led to a doorway apart from the people.
“See, Captain; he whipped me with a thong of hard leather he had only for that purpose. His face had something of a beast’s snarl hiding very near the surface. But he was free—a bold, free, thief. He killed before he stole—always he killed. And we lived in entryways, and on the floors of churches, and under the land arch of a bridge, and we were free—free from thoughts and free from fears and worries. But once he went away from me, and I found him hanging by the neck on a gallows—oh, a great gallows festooned with men hanging by their necks.
“Can you understand that, Captain? Do you see that as I saw it? And does it mean anything at all to you?” Her eyes were on fire.
“I walked back to Cordova, and my feet were torn. I did penance until my body was torn, but I could not drive out all the evil. I was exorcised, but the devil was deep in me. Can you understand that, Captain?” She looked into Henry’s face and saw that he had not been listening. She stood beside him and moved her fingers in his graying hair.
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