Spice and the Devil's Cave

by Agnes Danforth Hewes

  “You in the ship-building business?” The eyes under the bushy, black hair narrowed. “And didn’t I hear you say you were a Venetian?”

  Nicolo admitted this was so.

  The man studied him with unconcealed curiosity. “Queer, you coming here, when you’ve about all the trade and ship-building in your own town. You must have heard some strong stories to make you shift to Lisbon.”

  “To my way of thinking,” Nicolo replied, “what Captain Diaz did is strong enough to make anyone shift.”

  The other shrugged, and laughed. “Come, now! How can you tell that what he says is true?”

  Immediately Nicolo was on the defensive. “If you knew Bartholomew Diaz as I do –”

  “Oh, you know him, do you?” The note of eagerness made Nicolo wonder.

  “Come in and have a drink, won’t you?” added the stranger, as, at that moment, they were passing a tavern.

  Nicolo suddenly remembered the tailor, but it was a hot morning, and he was thirsty! He followed the man into the tavern, and while they drank their wine, they talked about Portugal’s slave trade.

  “They say,” said the seaman, “there’s a fortune in it.”

  “Nothing like what there’ll be in spice, after Gama gets things going in the East!” Nicolo confidently returned. With the relaxation and glow that the wine spread through him, he felt aggressively optimistic about Portugal’s future.

  “I hear that your friend Diaz is outfitting this Expedition. I suppose he’s providing for a long cruise?”

  “You’d think so, if you could see what he has ready for those ships! He has everybody working day and night, from packing provisions to casting cannon and caulking hulls. And he’s bought up all kinds of merchandise to send, too: cloth and silks and jewellery and so on.”

  “Gh, reckoning on trading it?”

  “Yes, and to give as presents to the native kings. There’s nothing Diaz hasn’t thought of!”

  “You’ve been abroad, have you?” Again that note of eagerness!

  Yes, Nicolo acknowledged, he had.

  “Squat-built things, those boats, aren’t they?” commented the other. “That square rig, and top-heavy castles, too!”

  “How else could castles be,” Nicolo defended, “but big and substantial, with the fighting that’s to be done from them?”

  “Expect fighting, do they?” The black brows were raised a trifle.

  “Well, they’re going prepared!”

  The stranger s eyes appeared to explore the depths of his mug. “I suppose Gama figures on using gun powder?” he casually offered.

  “If he has to! There’s a trained squad for the powder pots and cannon,” boasted Nicolo, secretly pleased to exploit his friends. “And besides that,” he rambled on, “there are enough javelins and crossbows and pikes and –”

  He checked himself with a curious and unaccountable feeling that the eyes under the lowered lids were only pretending to look into the mug, and that they were really taking stealthy account of what he was saying. Were they, too, a trifle derisive? It rushed over him that the questions might have been bait to make him talk. He was uneasily conscious that, proud of the Expedition, and eager to defend his own position, he had been only too willing to tell – to a stranger, at that – all that he knew. As well as he could, he picked up his broken sentence, and ended, a little lamely, “here’s nothing that Diaz forgets or overlooks!”

  The man’s eyes, as he raised them to meet Nicolo’s, were indifferent. “No doubt,” he said, casually, “no doubt at all.” He turned as a snatch of talk floated in from the street. “Ah,” he said, pleasantly, turning back again, “I see the news has begun to get around.” Then, as Nicolo looked mystified, “About the Jews, you know,” he explained.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why, the Pope’s taken a hand, and made Manoel give them twenty years before they have to quit the country.”

  Nicolo’s heart leaped to his throat. “Twenty years! Who told you?”

  “Well, the proclamation hasn’t yet been read,” was the evasive answer, “but it’s going to be!”

  In a tumult of hope and fear, Nicolo made some excuse, and went out. He must go right up to Abel’s to find what he knew of this matter. How, he suddenly wondered, had this stranger got the information before it was made public? Yet, as he struck across to the hillside, he forgot everything but that he was keeping buoyant step to a measure his heart was beating: Nejmi – Nejmi!

  The moment he opened the gate, and saw her and Ruth in the court, he knew, from their faces, that they had learned the news. He ran to them, stammering he hardly knew what, and seized Ruth’s hands.

  “I’ve just heard!” he choked out. He looked full at Nejmi. “Nothing’s ever made me so happy!”

  Between smiling and crying, Ruth was saying, while she fondled his hand, “You’re a good boy, Nicolo! Yes, twenty years is a long time, a long blessed time.”

  Nicolo glanced about. “Master Abel. . . where is he?”

  “Come!” Nejmi whispered happily, and tiptoed toward the workshop, while he followed, with a delicious sense of new intimacy. At the threshold she stepped aside, finger on lips, and gave him an ecstatic little push, so that he might look within.

  Sunlight flooded the room; files and pincers strewed the bench; the floor was a litter of fresh shavings; and, in the heart of the happy riot, bent over the unfinished astrolabe, sat Abel. Rapt and absorbed, blind and deaf to all but his enchanted plaything-Abel, the Boy! Yet, not wholly the Boy, as Nicolo recalled him on that first visit to the hill-top house, for these last months had taken an irrevocable toll of his eager spirit.

  Nicolo turned to glance behind him. Ruth was crying softly. Strictly speaking, his own eyes weren’t dry! But in Nejmi’s was a light like sunshine at the bottom of a deep, deep pool.

  Her hand touched his arm to draw him back, and they tiptoed noiselessly away, behind Ruth, who was whispering, over her shoulder, that he must see the pear preserve she was making for Gama.

  He was made to look into the kettle of ruby syrup and translucent slices of fruit, and then to sample a spoonful dipped out especially for him.

  While he lingered, Nicolo wondered how he could manoeuvre a moment alone with Nejmi. At last, over Ruth’s head, he caught the dark eyes – and held them. In an ecstasy, he heard her say she would go with him to the gate!

  As they passed the workshop, they glanced through the doorway at Abel and Nicolo whispered, “If it hadn’t been for you, that night, with the compass frame –”

  She seized his arm. “Do you think he guessed? Ah, Nicolo,” she rushed on, “it broke my heart to see those idle instruments that used to be so busy . . . darkness, instead of light and voices! It was as if someone-” she caught her breath, sharply-” someone that we love had died!”

  “Nejmi – Nejmi!” he cried. “You’re thinking of your – of what happened there in Aden! Ah, Nejmi!”… How could he keep from pouring out his heart?

  “Why, Nicolo, I didn’t mean to distress you with my troubles.” Now she was the calmer of the two. “I don’t often let myself think about all that. I mean to keep it locked up in my heart, only, sometimes, it bursts the lock!”

  “Tell me, when those times come, Nejmi!” He drew close to her. “When you feel the lock bursting, promise you’ll tell me.”

  “If I tell anyone, Nicolo!”

  “Nejmi!” This, he decided, was the moment to speak of his caravel’s name. “Would you mind if – if I called my ship The Golden Star? ”

  She looked at him with shy, startled eyes that turned, even as he watched them, tender and radiant.

  “The best of luck, Nicolo,” she said, very low, “to The Golden Star!”

  Somehow he got out of the court, somehow reached the foot of the long flight. It was his instinct to keep by himself, jealous of letting any thought outside the incident with Nejmi invade its precious secrecy. Over and again he lived every detail of it: the word, the gesture with which it had b
egun, had progressed, had ended.

  Down the hill he wandered, past the Cathedral. In a vague sort of way he noticed how softly the evening light touched the massive walls. He looked back at the grim old Castle, aflame with the sunset’s fire! A sudden loneliness swept over him. Oh, that Nejmi were here to enjoy with him this beauty! He began to wonder what she would say to him the next time. And so, dreaming and hoping, he ran into Ferdinand as dusk was falling.

  “You’ve heard about the reprieve?” the boy hailed him. “Gama sent me up to Master Abel’s with the first news of it. Oh, Nicolo, his face, when I told him!”

  “I know! I saw him at work on the astrolabe, but he didn’t see me-wasn’t even conscious of anything but of what he was doing.”

  “Speaking of that astrolabe, the date for theExpedition’s sailing has just been set!” Then, to Nicolo’s demand for details, “Yes,” Ferdinand declared, “Master Diaz says everything is ready, and Gama’s just called the last conference with his captains and pilots. I saw them all coming out from it, and they looked solemn, I can tell you!” He was silent a moment. “Lord, but I wish I were going!”

  “I suppose everything at the palace is upside down with excitement!”

  “Oh, yes. No one can talk of anything but the Expedition. Even Manoel’s wedding comes second to that!”

  “How does Gama take it all?”

  Ferdinand’s face softened. “I used to think, Nicolo, that he was overbearing. I don’t think so any longer. He stands as straight as ever, holds his head thrown back just the same, but – I don’t know just how to say it-somehow there’s a new look in his face: proud and humble at the same time! And you know, he says if anything should prevent his finding the Way, that he’s not coming back!”

  “I like him for that. But he’ll find it – barring death!”

  Ferdinand’s eyes danced. “He used to play the gallant with the women,” he ran on, “but now, when they hang around him, and gush over him, he sort of backs off, says he’s something to attend to, and vanishes! I told him the only trouble he’d have in picking a wife was to know which one to pick!”

  “Just about like your impudence!”

  Ferdinand assumed an injured air. “That’s what he said! And then, into the bargain, one of the old cats, who’d give her eye teeth to marry him, overheard me and reached out to slap me-only I dodged. And me going on eighteen!”

  “Women have a way of slapping truths they don’t like!” laughed Nicolo.

  The boy’s eyes sobered. “All except Nejmi,” he qualified, in a tone that made Nicolo glance at him with a sudden pang. Was it possible that Ferdinand, too, had set his heart on her?

  But already he was rattling on: “By the way, I heard something about you, today.”

  “About me?” Nicolo’s voice was incredulous.

  “Yes. Manoel was talking about a street row that someone had reported, and then he turned around to the Venetian ambassador, and began to twit him with a Venetian’s making all the trouble.”

  “What did the ambassador say to that?” chuckled Nicolo.

  “Why, that was the curious part of it. ‘Yes, sir,’ says he as cool as you please, ‘but, also, another Venetian put a stop to it!’ and he mentioned you. He seemed to know all about the row. He spoke of your business, too-threw out something about Venetians knowing how to build ships!”

  Who could it be, Nicolo puzzled, when he had left Ferdinand, that had told the Venetian ambassador of his part in the brawl and the other particulars about him? Carefully he reviewed the incident. To be sure, there was that seaman with the thick accent, who’d asked him about his ship-building, but certainly a fellow of that class wouldn’t be on familiar terms with anyone at Manoel’s court. Wait, though! Hadn’t he, according to his own account, given evidence that he knew of the Jewish reprieve, before it was made public? Where else could he have got that first information except from the palace?

  Well, granting that it was he who had mentioned him to the ambassador, what harm? Still, Nicolo reflected, it was just as well not to be too free with a stranger, and uneasily he recalled the eyes that had seemed to watch him through their dropped lids while he talked of the Expedition.

  And by San Marco! It was because of drinking with that chap that he’d forgotten about Pedro’s tailor friend, and the cloak that was to have been, ostensibly, for Gama’s honour – but really for Nejmi. … Ah, Ferdinand’s eyes, his softened tone, when he had spoken of her!

  CHAPTER 14

  Vasco da Gama

  LATE on the night before he was to sail, Gama slipped away from insistent visitors and climbed the hill to Abel. He found him and Diaz in the court.

  “I’ve been telling Abel,” said Diaz. “of my orders to leave the Expedition at the Verde Islands and proceed in my own caravel to Mina”

  “You don’t know when you’ll be back?” Abel asked.

  “No. But I know the spot that will see me first when that time comes.” Diaz’ eyes clung to the square of light from the workshop. Abruptly he turned toward the gate. “Well, Abel! …”

  “I’ll go a step with you, Bartholomew.”

  Gama saw the two figures linger at the head of the stairs. Then one of them disappeared. When Abel returned, alone, the desolation in his voice didn’t escape Gama.

  “Bartholomew gone, you gone – what will the workshop do without you? Nevertheless –” he laughed forlornly –“let’s go in there, Vasco!”

  “Master Abel,” Gama said, when they had sat down at the big table, “I want to tell you something that no one knows; no one, that is, except Diaz and my captains. From the Verde Islands I’m going to put straight out to sea, fetch a wide compass to the southeast, and then head about toward the Cape.”

  “So! You aren’t going to follow the coast, as Diaz did?”

  Gama smiled. “That’s all everyone thinks I have to do: repeat Diaz! But that’s not the reason for my own plan, just to do something different. The reason is that by going well out and then making for the Cape, I avoid foul weather off the Guinea coast. You see, Master Abel, I’ve been studying our navigation charts and talking with my pilots. You knew, by the way, that I’d been lucky enough to get hold of Diaz’ old pilot, d’Alemquer?”

  “Good! What better could you ask than one of Bartholomew’s veterans?”

  “I wish I could have got Scander, too; knowing the Indian coasts as he does, he’d have been invaluable to me. Strange, how stubborn he is about sticking to Lisbon.”

  “Well, after that Aden experience, can you blame him? But I’m going to keep him busy here, helping me on maps. Between us we should be able to get out something that will be really useful.”

  Absently, Gama assented. Suddenly, he leaned forward. “Master Abel, there’s something I want you to know: once I’ve set sail to find the Way, no mortal shall turn me back; but if I fail to find it and the world beyond, I shall not return.”

  “I should expect that of you, Vasco,” Abel gently replied. “Just that.”

  “I want you to know it from my own lips in casein case of the unforeseen.”

  “I, too, have something to tell you, Vasco.” From a cupboard Abel took the completed astrolabe and compass, and placed them on the table. “That’s the first metal astrolabe this side of the Orient,” he said, a little proudly. “And this compass is the best I can make-though my next will be better! But if-” his voice sank to a whisper –“if it ever helps you a fraction as much as it did me . . . Vasco, it steered my soul out of hell!”

  Silently Gama took up the instrument, turned it this way and that, ran his finger tips along the clean, true lines and the satiny surfaces.

  “Master Abel,” he said, very low, “if ever, on the long ways ahead of me, my courage slips, I shall look at this compass until I stand firm!”

  Next morning it was very early, when Vasco da Gama waked; much too early for anyone to be about. He was glad, so that he might meet, alone and quiet, this sovereign day. There had been so much to think of, to work ou
t; details, questions, decisions, people in endless procession always waiting for him, always besieging him.

  An arrow of flame shot across his bed. He sat up, to see the sun coming in at the window. His Day! Would that his father and mother were here! Ah, well, who knew but from some far, golden window a kind God would let them look forth? The thought filled him with a quick humility, for, after all, it was only a freakish accident that this day’s choice was himself. Diaz should have been the man. Instead, Diaz had sweated under the gruelling of the past months, so that another should reap full honours.

  How unflinchingly the old veteran had stood by, handled the practical end of the preparations with a resource that experience had made superlative. How patiently he had hunted up his own men of the famous Cape Expedition-those of them that were still living. How rigorously he had weeded out the new enlistments, until he had assembled a crew to his liking. And who but Bartholomew Diaz would have insisted that, in addition to his own craft, every man of them must learn how to handle carpenters’ tools, do his turn at the forge, and caulk a hull!

  The sun was now blazing full into the room, a midsummer sun that climbed strongly, since it must do a long day’s work. Gama flung back the bed covers, and stood on the floor. As the morning air struck his warm body, a boyish tingling ran through him: to go-now! Now, while the day and he were keen and young, to slip away from the final ceremonies, the crowds and streets and noise and heat, and run with the tide. But there! Already someone at the door.

  Time to dress for Mass, for the procession. For convention’s sake he must wear this gorgeous velvet cloak, but a sailor’s coat and breeches were more fit! This one and that one at his elbow, while he snatched a mouthful of breakfast. … “If you see a good buy, when you get out there, Gama, don’t forget me! “Messages from so and so to save a moment for a last, private word. Lord! As if every moment weren’t already full to bursting!”

  Now the Cathedral. Every flagstone of the floor crowded. Every niche jammed. Armour and head dresses and perfume and spurs and velvet. Paulo, Nicolau Coelho and himself, in the place of honour, next to a curtain behind which sat Manoel. He must listen to the service – the Bishop of Lisbon, himself, was officiating – but somehow it was impossible to fix one’s thoughts on anything, in this air thick with flaring tapers, and one’s eyes dizzy with so much gold and scarlet. . . . How white Paulo looked in the shifting lights! He wasn’t over strong, and if anything should happen to him, this favourite brother . . .