Spice and the Devil's Cave

by Agnes Danforth Hewes

  Through its open door a faint ray of light streamed into the dark court. Cautiously they avoided it, and then, from the shadow of a vine, they looked into the room, and saw-as the first sound of the sliding drawer had told Ruth she would see-the Girl.

  Crazed fear in every line of her face, of her trembling body, she stood at the table staring down at something on it: a map! As if she searched for something on its surface, they saw her lean over it, and then reel back with a stifled moan.

  Ruth grasped Abel’s arm. “Shall I go to her? She’s suffering so!”

  He held her back. “Wait a moment.”

  The Girl was now forcing herself to the table, as if to some ordeal. Shuddering, she bent over the map, and this time they saw a trembling finger creep to a definite spot. Slowly it began to trace along the surface. On and on it moved – faltered – stopped short. Suddenly her hands went to her eyes, as though to shut out some horror, and her shoulders were shaking with soundless sobs.

  “Oh, Abel, what can be the matter?” Ruth breathed in his ear.

  Then, in utter bewilderment they were staring at each other, while there smote on their ears a whispered wail: “Sofala – Sofala –”

  In terrified suspense Ruth watched the slender figure within sway back and forth as if abandoned to despair, when, again, came that stifled voice: “Sofala – The Devil’s Cave-”

  “What, in heaven’s name, does she mean?” Abel’s startled face was close to Ruth’s. “Is the child gone mad?”

  The Girl was standing quite still now, gazing before her with wide, blank eyes. Suddenly and unexpectedly, she reached out and snuffed the candle. The next moment Ruth felt her brush past into the court. Breathlessly they watched her pause, and scan the starlit sky, and then – steal toward the gate.

  In a flash Ruth had pushed Abel through the door of the workshop. “Quick – go back to bed!” she whispered, while from the threshold she called, “Trying to get some air, child? Too warm to sleep, is it?”

  She saw the distant figure start – turn back. In a minute her arm was around the trembling form. She was saying, gently, that she couldn’t sleep, either, that a turn around the court would make them drowsy.

  From her manner no one would ever have suspected that Ruth wasn’t in the habit of taking strolls at midnight. She rambled on about nothings; lingered, so they could both smell the dewy jessamine blossoms. Sometimes, in a dazed way, there were low murmured replies. At last Ruth declared she was sleepy, and that she’d spend the rest of the night on a couch near the door for the cooler air.

  On the pretext of laying back the heavier coverings, she delayed m the Girls room, and when she came out, she left the door ajar.

  It was just before dawn, when she had made sure of the Girl’s sound sleep, that she slipped back to Abel. He was dressed, and softly pacing back and forth, his head sunk on his breast-his habit when he was thinking out some problem.

  She came close to him, feeling like a guilty child. “Abel – I – I saw her listening yesterday, when you and Ferdinand were studying over that map! I saw her face change-”

  “You did?” Abel asked, in a startled voice. Anyone else would have added, “Why didn’t you say something about it? “But Abel only said, very gently, “It was wonderful, my dear, just wonderful, the way you managed her in the court. I don’t believe she suspected!”

  A hurt look came into her eyes. “She was running away from us-though we’ve never done anything but love her.”

  “It wasn’t from us,” he comforted, “but from the same fear that drove her when she came to us.”

  “And I’d begun to think she’d forgotten!”

  “That poor child must never know what we saw tonight.”

  “No; and another thing, we mustn’t leave her to herself. I’d better go now and see if she’s awake.”

  “Ruth,”– Abel came close to her, and she saw that his eyes had an awestruck look –“did you notice that she said those words, Sofala, Devil’s Cave, as if-as if, Ruth, they were familiar to her?”

  CHAPTER 7

  The Caged Bird

  NICOLO’S mood, as he watched his shipwrights at work, late one afternoon, matched the sunless day. Strips of sombre sky between the partly placed ribs of his caravel gave her an aspect of desolation that made him shiver. Would he have done better, he wondered, to have taken the advice of the Venezia’s captain, and gone back to Venice? Suppose Manoel should remain indifferent to the Way of the Spices, and Spain or England should find it!

  He recalled that Abel Zakuto had admitted, in so many words, that something was needed to awake Manoel to the situation. As if, Nicolo gloomily mused, anything more splendidly convincing than what Diaz had done were needed! If that couldn’t spur the King into action, what could?

  At this point in his reflections, he saw the men put up their tools and prepare to leave. He nodded to one of them whom he remembered hiring a few weeks ago, a short, wiry chap with a deeply tanned face and small, black eyes that looked like burnt gimlet holes in brown parchment. A rolling gait and an air of cat-like agility made one immediately visualize him as thoroughly at home at all heights and angles. Nicolo had hired him because the fellow had looked so in need, and because there was a haunting familiarity about him.

  “Is she going ahead to suit you, sir? “he inquired, as he stopped at Nicolo’s side to survey the caravel.

  “I’m satisfied,” Nicolo told him, “though I’m not as used to the Portuguese type of craft as I am to the Venetian.”

  At once the other looked interested. “You’ve been to sea, have you, sir?”

  “I know the Mediterranean pretty well,” Nicolo admitted. He scrutinized the tanned face. . . . Where had he seen it before? “You’ve had considerable experience at sea,

  “All over!” grinned the other. “Up and down the Red Sea, and across to India, and over by Malacca.”

  “So! Some sight-seeing! How do you come to be in a dockyard at this end of the world?”

  “Oh – everybody likes a change,” the man evasively returned. “What trade are you reckoning on, sir?”

  “Madeira lumber and sugar and wine till I can do better. Spices, eventually, I hope-if Portugal ever finds the sea route to them.”

  “Humph!” There was frank defiance in the grunt.

  “Why, there’s more in spice than in anything else,” Nicolo remonstrated.

  “You’re right there is! You’d be surprised if you only knew how much of a ‘more’ it is!”

  Nicolo studied the sailor with curiosity. Almost he appeared to bear a grudge against spice. “How do you come to know so much about it, then?” he demanded.

  “Oh-worked for years on ships that carried it. What between hauling on board and heaving over rail I reckon I’ve handled more pounds of the stuff than you’re days old!”

  “You haven’t by any chance been where the spices grow?” Nicolo ventured.

  “Over Ceylon way, you mean? And Penang, and Banda?

  “Banda!” Nicolo seized on the name so familiar to him through the cherished Conti letters, “How’d you get over there?”

  The brown parchment face wrinkled into a grin. “I took to the sea from pretty near the time I was born-and I suppose I just kept on!”

  Nicolo laughed. “And where were you born?”

  “Down river – at Belem.1 My father was a bar pilot and he taught me his calling. I cut my teeth, you might say, on the Cachopos!2

  Nicolo eyed him with fresh interest. “Belem and the Orient are some distance apart!” he suggested.

  The other nodded. “After my father was lost at sea, and my mother died, I quit the land for good. I got to know every port in the Mediterranean. One day, in Alexandria, I saw a caravan starting but for the Red Sea, and I took a notion to go along. Everybody said there was plenty of work down that way, and they were right, too. The harbour at Aden’s just chock-a-block with craft coming and going!”

  Nicolo felt his pulses leap-the very East seemed to drip off this f
ellow’s tongue! “Where does all that traffic come from?”

  “Everywhere; mostly from India, Cathay, the mess of islands betwixt and beyond; in Arab bottoms of course. They do all the carrying, and I’ll tell you they keep the ocean churning!”

  Nicolo impetuously started on more questions, but suddenly checked himself: this first hand experience belonged to the workshop! “Would you be willing to talk to some of my friends about these places where you’ve seen the spices growing?”

  The man silently eyed him, and Nicolo again sensed his hostility toward this subject over which Europe was seething.

  “Where are your friends? “he at last demanded.

  “Up the hill a way-I’ll take you there myself,” Nicolo eagerly volunteered.

  “Oh, I might go, some evening,” the other agreed, as he turned away. “Perhaps I can tell you a thing or two about this spice business,” he added over his shoulder, “seeing you’re so keen on it.”

  Bursting with his news, Nicolo strode up the hill. Already he could see Abel’s shining eyes when he should hear it: someone who had handled spices and seen them growing to tell about them first hand! They must arrange, too, for Gama and Diaz and the others to be there. It would be tremendous, epoch-making – and Nicolo quickened his step.

  He found Ruth in the court, splitting figs from a heaped basket, and spreading them to dry in the sun. Abel was out, she said, but he would be back any moment.

  Nicolo went into the workshop, took the Marco Polo Travels from its shelf, and sat down to see what he could make of the translation. At last, as no Abel appeared, he decided to delay no longer. He laid down the book and had started toward the door, when a stealthy sound arrested him, a sound which he knew instantly was not meant to be heard.

  He glanced at Ruth busily dipping in and out of the figs. She, certainly, had not made that sound. There! . . . There it was, again.

  On impulse he tiptoed into the next room, and looked into the room beyond. Back to him, by an open window, stood a girl, holding a bird-cage. Its tiny door, he noticed, was swung back, and the bird inside was fluttering uneasily. She lifted the cage to the window, and gently shook it. Nicolo watched her in amazement. Did she want to get rid of the little creature? Again she shook the cage, and, this time, out flashed the bird-not through the window, but into the room.

  The girl wheeled around, and for a moment Nicolo had a swift vision of dark, velvety eyes in a face that was delicately, duskily golden. She seemed not even to see him. Her eyes were on the bird that was now darting about, and Nicolo perceived that they were very frightened. She had changed her mind, he guessed instantly-wanted her pet back!

  He sprang forward, closed the door behind him, and then the window. Carefully he watched his chance, and when the downy little body dashed itself against a wall, his waiting hands closed gently around it. He held it so, until he felt the frantic wings and the fierce, tiny heart gradually quiet under his fingers-aware all the time that close to him a girl’s breath came and went unevenly, that great, dark eyes wide with terror besought his.

  He slipped the bird inside the cage and fastened the little door. Then, very gently, he turned to the girl, waited for her to speak, for he had the impression that something behind those terrified, beautiful eyes was waiting to be said. He could see the trembling of her clenched hands, and the pulsing of the soft, bare neck, and it came, curiously, to him that somehow she was the struggling bird that his hands had held and shielded; and suddenly he wanted, above everything he had ever wanted, to so hold and so shield her; to tell her that never again was she to be afraid-not of anything!

  “You won’t tell?” she whispered at last. “I was so frightened after I’d done it! He’s Mother Ruth’s pet –”

  “Of course I won’t tell! Not for worlds.” He had all he could do to keep back a rush of tender assurances, “But why . . . why . . . did you?” He nodded toward the cage.

  “Because – because –” her hands clutched at her throat –” I was once like that bird-shut up in a cage. And I couldn’t-couldn’t-get out!”

  “In-a-cage? You?”

  Something seemed to burst within him. This tender body behind bars! . . . This soft, throbbing neck! His nails bit into his palms to keep back that furious, inward tumult. He saw a half-fearful expression come over her face – ah, he mustn’t frighten her, not even by his own feeling about her.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he begged her, “not of anything – ever again!” Was it his fancy that she seemed to waver toward him? He came close to her: “Who are you?”

  She caught her breath. Nicolo noted the quick colour that swept upward from the delicate neck. He waited for her answer, his eyes entreating hers. … A sound outside . . . Steps . . . Ruth crossing the court to come into the house, perhaps into this very room!

  They sprang apart-somehow Nicolo reached the workshop, dropped into a chair, and snatched up the Travels he had dropped.

  He heard Ruth enter the room he had left, listened until her casual tone assured him that she suspected nothing. He stepped into the court, and closed the door behind him with a little bang.

  Exactly as he had intended, the sound brought Ruth hurrying to him. “You’re not going, already?”

  “I’ll come again soon” he smiled back at her. “I have some splendid news for Master Abel!”

  “He’ll be sorry he missed you. Yes, come soon.”

  “Come soon” indeed! How was he ever going to keep away? Nicolo asked himself as he went down the long flight. “was … shut up in a cage” Great heavens! What did she mean? Why had Abel-or Ferdinand»-never mentioned her? Something hotly-sweet surged through him: to hold her-even as his hands had held the bird-safe in the very hollow of his life I

  1 Belem. At the mouth of the Tagus River. The site of the chapel built by Henry the Navigator.

  2 Shoals formed by the bar at the mouth of the Tagus.

  CHAPTER 8

  Scander

  THE next evening found Nicolo and the sailor at the workshop. Nicolo had seen Abel down town that morning and had told him about his new acquaintance, and Abel had agreed to get word to the others to come that night.

  All day Nicolo thought of that coming visit. Would he see the precious secret that he had discovered, yesterday? Did Abel and Ruth mean to keep her hidden? . . . What did it all mean?

  When he finally entered the court with the sailor, and saw Abel waiting for them in the workshop, he realized he’d forgotten to ask the man’s name.

  “Call me Scander,” said he. “I got that name from hanging around so long in Scanderia – Arabic for Alexandria. I had a Portygee name once,” he explained, “but ‘twould be like the coat I wore when I was a lad-wouldn’t fit now!”

  “You’ve actually sailed in Arab vessels-been in the Indies? “Abel eagerly began. He broke off to hail Diaz and Abraham, who just then came in, with Gama a little behind them. “Spice at first hand, gentlemen!”

  “Hold fast there, Master Abel!” cried the sailor, “I’m not giving a show performance! I came here only to please Master Conti-said he had some friends who’d like to hear what I know of the spice trade.”

  “Exactly what we want,” someone replied. “Can’t get enough of that.”

  Young Magellan arrived in time to catch the last words. “Can’t get enough of what? “he demanded.

  “Of spice!” laughed Abel.

  “He’s seen cloves and nutmegs growing,” Nicolo added. “Fancy that!”

  “Lord!” Scander stared, open mouthed, at Ferdinand. “Where’d you get those eyes?” Then, as the boy flushed, “So you’ve gone crazy over spice, too?” he asked. “Maybe”– a moody note in his voice –“maybe, I can tell ou a thing or two about the stuff that’ll calm you down!”

  They all drew up to the table and Nicolo noticed that Ruth had conceded enough to the current excitement to bring her chair to the doorway that opened into the next room. The door beyond, which, yesterday, had stood ajar, was now, he saw, fast shut. Was the
Girl behind it? … Or where? Why this mystery and secrecy about her?

  Old Abraham’s voice broke in on him. “Did you say you’d seen the spices growing?” he was eagerly asking Scander.

  The sailor nodded. “Seen ’em and traded in ’em, both.”

  “In India, I take it?” Gama inquired.

  “Well, sometimes. But oftener, the Arab captain I shipped with regular, got his spice first hand from the growers: cinnamon from Ceylon, and pepper where it’s plenty, ‘round Penang, and cloves and nutmegs from Am-boyna and the Bandas.”

  No one spoke. The very air was charged with profound suspense. Abel and Nicolo exchanged elated glances and Nicolo said, in a low tone, “That checks my Conti letters!”

  Ferdinand’s eyes, fixed on Scander, seemed more than ever like smouldering fires. “Is the spice trade the big thing in that part of the world, as it is with us? “he asked.

  “Yes and no, lad. It’s this way: all east of Aden it’s about the same, gold, pearls, ivory, silk.” He reeled the list off as casually as one would say flour, eggs, milk. “But at Aden there’s a change and spice jumps into the lead.”

  “Why there?”

  “Well, you see it’s near enough to the Mediterranean to feel the European premium on spices.”

  “Then why couldn’t a European,” Nicolo quickly took him up, “who understood both ends of the business, make a good thing of it in Aden?”

  “Humph! I was just waiting for someone to say that.” Again that hostile note.

  At once everyone was on the defensive: “Why not?” “What’s the matter with that?”

  “What’s there against my Aden scheme?” Nicolo insisted.

  “A European wouldn’t be what you’d call exactly welcome at Aden. That’s what there is against it!” Scander said shortly. He looked deliberately around the table. “You gentlemen thinking of going into spice?”

  “Not so much for personal profit,” Abel replied slowly, “as for the nation; for Portugal.”

  “Know anything about the other end of the spice trade, the Arab end? Well, before you break into it, I can tell you a thing or two that might save you some trouble.”