Spice and the Devil's Cave

by Agnes Danforth Hewes

  “You’re both right,” laughed Abel. “Ferdinand hates to see adventure made into business – and Nicolo asks what good is it unless it is?”

  “Well, what is there to exploration,” Nicolo insisted, “if it’s not put to use? You heard what Scander said about the Red Sea when the Cape route gets started. Those who don’t follow the current are left in the backwash. If Venice doesn’t take care,” he added, “that’s what she’ll come to.”

  Ferdinand looked up, as if to reply, when Scander playfully nudged him. “The trouble with you, youngster, is that all you can think of is to go to sea and find something!”

  “And just as soon as I’m through my tour of duty,” Ferdinand retorted, “you’ll see me go!” His eyes returned to Nicolo. “Speaking of Venice,” he said, “Manoel and your ambassador are having a good deal to say to each other these days. It seems that Venice wants to know if we’re going to keep a rigid monopoly on the Oriental trade – just in case Gama finds the passage to India!”

  “What?” Nicolo exclaimed. “I thought Venice scouted the idea of the Cape route!”

  “Then some of them must have changed their minds. And that’s not all, either,” Ferdinand chuckled. “I even heard that if we don’t let Venice keep her monopolies in the East, she’ll get Egypt to make trouble for us!”

  A minute of dumbfounded silence followed this amazing announcement. “It may be just gossip,” Ferdinand added.

  “Gossip or truth,” Abel said at last, “it’s astounding. Does Manoel appear to be disturbed?”

  “Well, he isn’t in as high spirits as when Gama went away, especially since people have begun shaking their heads over Gama’s long absence. What with these rumours from Venice, and England’s having sent Cabot on two voyages, and Columbus back from his third voyage – and yet never a word from Gama . . .”

  “Bah!” snorted Scander. “What’d Cabot have to show for his two trips? A snare or two, and some fish-net needles that a civilized Arab’d laugh at. If ‘twas any part of the Orient that he struck, ‘twas the part next to nowhere! Anyway, John Cabot’s dead, this half year; out of the way for good. And Columbus … a few pearls! Why, talk about pearls, I’ll lay you those things he’s showing around Granada would look like pebbles ‘side of what I’ve seen in the bazaars.”

  “I suppose,” Ruth ventured, “that the Queen’s dying so soon after they were married has something to do with Manoel’s low spirits.”

  Ferdinand grinned. “Not so you’d notice it! Already he has his eye on her sister.” His face changed, and he thoughtfully observed, “But there’s no doubt that he misses talking to Gama and Master Diaz; and I’ve even heard him say –” he stole a look at Abel –“that he wishes Master Abraham were here to consult the stars about what’s happening to Gama.”

  “Humph!” A dull red spread over Abel’s face, and it was several moments before he said, “It’s precisely my opinion of Manoel that he’d be willing to use poor old Abraham after he’d done him all the harm he could.”

  “Is he-poor?” Nejmi asked, and Nicolo saw that her eyes were very tender.

  “Well, you know he could take nothing with him,” Abel reminded her, “not even money. But he’s happy enough, I dare say, there in Tunis, and at least he’s doing what he likes best: writing the history and genealogies of our people.”

  Ferdinand cleared his throat, and fidgeted in his chair, his eyes watching Abel. “Would you,” he at last blurted out, “would you, sir, come to Manoel, suppose he asked you?”

  Nicolo saw Ruth drop her sewing with an exclamation, and Nejmi glance wonderingly from Ferdinand to Abel. Even Scander was stirred to sit up with new interest.

  “I?” Abel’s brows were scornfully raised. “I go to Manoel?” Suddenly, he gave Ferdinand a shrewd look. “What made you ask?”

  Ferdinand laughed a little sheepishly. “Fact is, sir, I’ve heard Manoel hint that he meant to get you to read the stars for Gama’s fate!”

  “H’m!” was all that Abel had to offer to this confession, and then, as if indifferent to the incident, he asked Scander a question which brought their heads close together over the table.

  Ferdinand moved up to watch them, and Ruth went on with her sewing. Nejmi had left her place by Abel and, with her back to the room, was leaning out of a window.

  From his seat, near the door, Nicolo studied her. Soft, dark braids against the pale gold of her dress. . . . Where did Ruth find those clinging, foreign-looking stuffs that she made into Nejmi’s dresses? Invariably of some shade of gold, and unmistakably chosen for the delicate, ivory face. By the droop of her head he knew the look in her eyes: the shadow of sadness that hinted the reality-the remnant of the old fear.

  He was debating joining her, there by the windows, when he saw her slip noiselessly into the next room and, presently, appear in the court. Apparently, no one but himself had noticed her go. He watched her as she wandered from flower-bed to flower-bed, gathered a spray of this or that, fastened a straggling runner, stripped off a faded bloom.

  It was characteristic of her, he reflected, that she never stayed long, even in their intimate group. Spoken to, she would answer smilingly, but, as it were, from afar. Sometimes she volunteered a comment, but, again, from afar. The same delicate aloofness, the same exquisite remoteness, symbolic of her name. Was it intentional, this elusiveness, or instinctive, inherited? Hadn’t Scander once said something about the reserve of Arab girls? Now and again, Nicolo recalled, she had let him come near, but the next time she was sure to offset the seeming intimacy. If he should go to her now, moving about in the flowery fragrance . . .

  Someone brushed past him into the court – Ferdinand! . . Now he was sitting beside Nejmi under the old fig tree. He, too, had seen her leave the room, but had acted while he, Nicolo, had deliberated! He felt his cheeks burn in fury at himself, at Ferdinand. He suddenly realized that he was staring at them, and turned his head. He mustn’t appear to watch them, but from where he sat in the doorway, he could plainly hear them.

  Abel’s and Scander’s talk resolved itself into monotone, occasionally broken by Ruth’s higher key. He became conscious that Abel was raising his voice, as if he were repeating something.

  “What’s that, sir?” Nicolo hastily asked.

  “Why, I was calling Venice pretty high-handed, demanding to know what Manoel proposed to do about the Indian trade. What do you think?”

  “Oh, she’s had her way in trade so long that she’s a good deal like a spoiled child. I fancy it won’t take Gama long to give her an answer. But that other business that Ferdinand mentioned, of threatening to get Egypt’s help against Portugal –”

  Abel nodded. “Ugly.”

  “Well,” Ruth comfortably contributed, “I expect those that live in palaces relish a bit of gossip the same as common folks. Probably that’s all it is: gossip.”

  “I don’t know, ma’am,” Scander objected. “’Twouldn’t be so out of the way for Egypt to send forces down the Red Sea, and waylay our fleets off India. And in that case –” he paused to rub his chin between thumb and finger –“you’d find I was right about the price I’ve always told you you’d pay for spice!”

  “I hadn’t thought of Egypt’s attacking us from that end,” Abel ruminated, “but I can see it’s feasible; far fetched, though. I should hardly worry. By the way, Nicolo, do these things that people are hinting about Gama’s long absence affect your business?”

  Nicolo pulled himself together and replied, “Not a bit, sir.”

  He had just overheard Ferdinand’s eager young voice –” Oh, Nejmi, why couldn’t I have gone with him?” Speaking of Gama, he had thought, and had been listening for more, when Abel had broken in.

  “Rodriguez was saying, a day or so ago,” Nicolo went on, “that The Golden Star never lacks for full hatches. But he agrees with me: no more new ships till we’re sure of the Devil’s Cave!”

  “I won’t be sorry when that time comes,” yawned Scander. “These maps are well enough”�
� with an apologetic glance at Abel –“but give me oakum and a mallet that I can bang all day!” He stripped a tattooed arm and vigorously flexed it.

  Abel rolled up the map, and carefully fitted it into a brass tube. “Arthur Rodriguez,” he said, as he stood it on a shelf of others like it, “always had the name of being dependable. How do you find he wears, Nicolo?”

  “Better all the time, sir! In the year we’ve been partners his judgment has always proved sound. So far, we’ve kept busy with colonial trade, but of course I’m hoping to spread out into spice. My funds, with the help of your investment, will more than finance building any extra ships we need.”

  It was characteristic of Abel, Nicolo reflected, that he never referred to the capital he had entrusted to him when he had closed out his banking interests. Characteristic, too, that he had no comment whenever Nicolo reported its increase. Money never had meant much to Abel Zakuto. And as for active business, he, like those of his race here, was done with it. But at least, Nicolo thankfully reflected, Abel would never now leave Lisbon, rooted as he was, in this beloved house, with Ruth and Nejmi.

  Her voice! . . . The impulse to turn his head almost conquered him. But he must keep his eyes away from the court-listen, with the appearance of not listening.

  “Why do you want to go, Ferdinand?” she was saying. “To bring back gold . . . spice?”

  For a moment there was silence. Then, a low, rapid outburst: “I hate that, Nejmi! I know trade must be, but it just isn’t in me. To seek the unknown, for its sake only, seems so clean and sweet!”

  Something clutched at Nicolo’s heart. This talk against trade, his chosen calling! Did she, too, “hate” it?

  Ferdinand’s voice, low, passionate: “Can you keep a secret, Nejmi? Can you? . . . Some day I’m going to find where Sunset takes Dawn in his arms, and Day is born of their flaming kiss! I’m going to find where East and West meet . . . where there is no East and no West! Do you understand, Nejmi?”

  In spite of himself, Nicolo turned his head. Ferdinand’s eyes had the look of inward fire as on that first day, at The Green Window – glowing, smouldering. Ah, under this talk-this strange talk – of East and West, he was pouring out his heart to her! Yet, curiously, he seemed not to see her, but something beyond her: something hidden from physical sight, like a distant, beckoning vision – a radiant, solemn vision. And Nejmi was leaning toward him with the strangest smile of – of frightened happiness!

  He started guiltily – Ruth was speaking, looking up from her work. Had she seen him watching those two outside? But she was only saying that the brass map-containers would soon need polishing.

  Nicolo caught at the cue to cover his silence, and asked Abel where he got them.

  “Scander attends to that,” Abel replied. “He knows someone in the locksmith business.”

  Scander laughed, a little sheepishly. “Seems odd that one who’s followed the sea all his days can settle down to land jobs!”

  “Don’t you think you’ll ever change your mind,” Nicolo pressed him, “and go as pilot to one of our fleets?”

  “Not me!” The tanned face seemed to settle into its wrinkles. “I’m like a dog that’s come back to his old kennel, and I reckon –” he chuckled, as if amused with the figure, –” I reckon I’ll play watch dog the rest of my days!”

  For a moment Nicolo fancied that Scander’s gaze sought the court. Did he mean “play watch dog” to Nejmi? Yet why should she need to be guarded, surrounded as she was by the adoration of them all?

  His own gaze followed Scander’s. Ferdinand, he perceived, had gone, and Nejmi was kneeling by a bed of thyme, loosening the earth. On the impulse he got up, and went into the court. No more dallying, no more inward debate.

  “I sometimes think,” he said, going straight up to her, “that you’d rather not talk to me – alone.”

  Silent, startled, she looked at him. “What would you like to talk about?”

  He could have ground his teeth at her adroit but complete parry. “That isn’t my point, and –” plunging boldly –“yon know it!”… How would she meet that?

  But she only loosened more earth and heaped it around the roots, and at last it came over Nicolo that she was not going to answer him, that she was making a fool of him – or had he made one of himself? He angrily cast about for a pretext to argue with her.

  “Is it that – that money I paid for the sugar-debt, you called it – that makes you keep at a distance?”

  She raised her eyes to his. “It did make me feel uncomfortable, at first,” she admitted, “but not any longer. Besides –” she flushed brilliantly –“I’m going to pay back that debt!”

  “Don’t!” he managed to say. “Don’t talk that way, Nejmi!”

  She continued to look at him, then bent again to her work. “You want me to pay you!” she breathed, hardly above a whisper.

  He started back as at a blow – the more cruel that, for a fleeting instant, he could have sworn that laughter had lurked in her eyes.

  In a daze he heard Scander at his elbow: “Going along, now, sir? I’ll walk with you to the turn of the street below.”

  Mechanically, Nicolo murmured good-bye to Abel and Ruth standing together in the workshop door, and then he and Scander started down the long stairway. Through the chaos of his brain he became aware of Scander’s voice insistently dwelling on a word, a familiar word: Venice.

  “A bad business,” he was saying, “that Ferdinand was telling us about Venice.”

  A vague recollection stirred Nicolo’s memory. What was it Ferdinand had said? In a flash it came to him:

  Venice … the Oriental trade . . . and that gossip about Egypt.

  Ah, but those other things that Ferdinand had said: “Where Sunset takes Dawn in his arms . . . their flaming kiss …”

  There was no forgetting those things!

  CHAPTER l6

  Abel Visits the Palace

  IN his long, black cloak and his conical, narrow-brimmed hat, Abel stood in a corner of the small room that Manoel used for informal audiences. He had expected to see Ferdinand, but Ferdinand was nowhere about, and another page had shown him where to wait until the King should be ready to see him.

  He had been a little startled to find himself at once in Manoe’s presence, though Manoel hadn’t appeared to pay any heed when he entered. In fact, all that did seem to concern Manoel was keeping cool, and getting rid, as fast as he could, of the courtiers and pages who came and went around him. Half-dressed in a thin, silk lounging robe, he sat by an open window and spasmodically fanned himself with his handkerchief, for these days it was hot even by mid-morning.

  Abel watched with amusement the dextrous way he managed to greet each visitor and, almost in the same breath, to wave him on. No one was encouraged to linger. Once, a good-looking young fellow in uniform, perhaps one of the aides, hurried in and whispered something. Abel saw Manoel frown, and, for a minute or two, one hand nervously clenched and unclenched. Then, he suddenly glanced up and, as it seemed to Abel, directly at him – or had he only imagined it? Manoel then turned to the young man, merely nodded, and went on fanning himself, while his visitors continued to file past.

  Abel wondered when his own turn would come. As a matter of fact, his standing here so patiently, indeed his being here at all, struck him as grimly humorous, for when Ferdinand had hinted at Manoe’s sending for him, he’d virtually said he wouldn’t go. Then, as he had pondered the matter, something decided him to go-something that had troubled him for a long time: why did his people delay their going, postpone the exodus that finally they must face? How could they be roused from the apathy into which they’d sunk to see that anything was better than staying on, dishonoured and outcasts, where once they’d been free citizens? For Nejmi, and Nejmi only, he and Ruth had stayed, but now . . . Suppose, Abel had meditated, suppose, all unconsciously, Manoel could be manoeuvred into some measure that would so rouse the Jewish spirit, that. . . Yes! if he were summoned to the palace, he’d go!


  He studied the figure by the window. It was hardly material to be “manoeuvred” into anything! Under the thin robe the lean, sinewy body was easily visible. Well, there was nothing in the way of physical toughening it hadn’t gone through, and if the man within were as hard and unyielding as the man without . . . Almost ludicrous, the lanky arms were, in those flowing, feminine sleeves; the lanky arms whose fingers, it was Manoel’s boast, could more than touch his knees when he stood upright – and that people said were a sign of his grasping nature! His face was as young as his less than thirty years, if one judged by the texture of the smooth, dark skin and the carefully parted hair and the crisp, short beard. But the expression in the odd, greenish eyes was that of a man far older. A man who was used to winning his game, and expected no opposition while he won it. One who expected to move his pawns without interference.

  The procession of visitors was now dwindling. Abel saw the greenish eyes fix on a page, and a hardly perceptible lift of the brows. At once the boy came and whispered, “The King will see you now.”

  Deliberately Manoel turned from the last lingerers, who seemed to understand their dismissal, and forthwith left the room.

  “Close the door after you,” he said to the page. “When I wish you, I’ll rap.”

  He surveyed Abel attentively, then he motioned toward a chair. “Make yourself comfortable, Master Zakuto,” he graciously told him. “I’m right, am I?” he added. “You’re Abel Zakuto, kinsman of Abraham?”

  Without changing his position, Abel nodded. “I’ve stood since I came in,” he said, pointedly. “I’ll remain standing. Yes, I’m Abel Zakuto.”

  For a moment this answer seemed to disconcert Manoel, then, “Well – please yourself!” he laughed.

  He turned toward the open window, and absently gazed into the gardens beyond, and again Abel observed that nervous clenching and unclenching of one hand, while the other, holding the handkerchief, lay idle. A bumble bee flew in and buzzed about Manoel’s head, but he took no notice of it.