GOOD!” Scander exclaimed, as they looked into one tavern after another. “He’s not there. Sober and alone is the only way he’ll be any use to us.”
At the harbour front they instantly saw that something was afoot. The very air was alive with excitement. Across the rails of vessels, deck hands leaned and talked, and on the quay a crowd was gathered.
Scander and Nicolo pushed up to its edge, and heard two men in the midst rapidly exchanging experiences which they were evidently willing to share with the bystanders.
“First I saw of the vermin was three days out of Fun-chal. I was keeping fair close to the Moroccan coast to where I could cut straight across to St. Vincent when out shot two brigantines –”
“Ha!” Scander exclaimed to Nicolo. “Pirates!”
“That’s my story to a word, Captain,” cried the other of the two men, “only that I was bound from the Canaries. Half-way up Morocco I should say ‘twas, too. I must have been just a day behind you. Goat hides and cheeses was my cargo. What was yours?”
“Honey, wine and Madeira beechwood. They never touched the lumber, but, saints above – the honey and the wine!”
“Good heavens, Scander!” whispered Nicolo. “This raid may have caught The Golden Star. Rodriguez expected to be down by the Madeiras and the Canaries at this very time!”
Scander, joining in the laughter of the bystanders, was evidently too engrossed to heed Nicolo. “Just listen to that!” he delightedly exhorted.
“They let my goat hides alone,” the captain from the Canaries was saying, “but blast them if they didn’t set to and fill their bellies with the cheeses, and then play ball with the rest of them till my deck was like a slime pit and stunk like a hog pen!”
Again the crowd laughed, and Scander’s feet began to jig in a sailor’s shuffle.
“Lord!” he whispered to Nicolo. “This talk makes me homesick for the feel of a deck.”
“Yes, but Rodriguez –”
“Well –” Scander was frankly impatient –“what can we do about him?”
The words died on his lips, and Nicolo saw his gaze suddenly fix on one of the two captains.
“They started in by asking if I had any pepper,” the man was saying. “Pepper! Now can you imagine that?”
“So they did me!” cried the other. “And ‘cloves, too,’ says they, in their heathenish jabber.”
“‘Must think I’m Gama,’ I told ’em,” rejoined the first speaker. His face suddenly sobered. “By the way,” he threw out to the crowd, “any news of Gama?”
A slight movement near them caught Nicolo’s eye. The drunken sailor! Only now he was quite sober, to judge from his alert, eager face.
“There’s our man,” he murmured in Scander’s ear.
They watched him as he edged nearer the speakers, evidently intent on not losing a word.
“I’ll take care of him,” Scander whispered back, “while you keep the other one busy when he calls for you. And don’t leave The Green Window,” he added, as Nicolo moved away, “without telling Pedro.”
Hour by hour, Nicolo, from the rear of The Green Window, kept his eye on the front entrance. Pedro’s regular customers came and went. Groups of sailors drank and bragged. More than once Nicolo’s ears caught from them an echo of the story of that morning, only by now the two brig-antines of pirates had swelled to a fleet, and the decks of the attacked vessels ran with blood instead of cheese. Mid-afternoon came, and still the bushy-haired, foreign-spoken stranger failed to appear.
“Are you sure he said he’d come in today?” Nicolo asked Pedro, and invariably the reply was “That was what he told me.”
What would Scander have to report? Nicolo wondered. Restlessly he reviewed the train of incidents of the last night and day, from the maudlin words dropped by the drunken sailor, to his own startling discovery of the Venetian ambassador, and Ferdinand’s confidences of the morning. Was it all a chain of intrigue or his own imaginings? He’d wait before he made up his mind. … By heaven, that lumber deal he’d meant to close this morning! He’d go now to the dealer, he hastily decided, and started to tell Pedro he would be back before sundown, when he saw Scander and the sailor enter the inn together.
He watched them sit down at a table while Pedro brought them hot dishes and red wine. Even from the rear of the room, Nicolo could see, under Scander’s usual manner, signs of excitement. He barely touched his food and only sipped his wine. Presently he left the sailor heartily gulping down his meal, and spoke to Pedro who nodded in Nicolo’s direction. Unhurriedly, Scander strolled over to him, but, instantly, he dropped his leisurely manner.
“He said the same thing over that he told you, last night – said it while he was sober, too!” he exploded, under his breath.
Nicolo stared at him. Incredible! “How’d you get it out of him?” he finally asked.
“I’ll tell you,” said Scander, “but we must be quick. We can’t lose sight of him, so if he starts to go out…”
He sat down beside Nicolo where he could watch his charge.
“I began by trying to hire him to help unload when Rodriguez comes in –”
“If there’s anything to unload after those pirates are done!” growled Nicolo.
“I asked him what he was doing here,” Scander continued, “and he said he and another chap were fishing; had a small craft anchored out a-ways. ‘When are you going out?’ I asked him. ‘Depends,’ he says. That was all I could get out of him: ‘Depends.’”
Nicolo recalled that the ambassador had said to the man in the boat, “You’ll be off as soon as you’ve got those things.” It was clear enough that “those things,” whatever they were, were what the departure “depended” on.
“The chap’s name, by the way, is Marco,” Scander was saying. “Wait,” he broke off, “while I tell Pedro to keep him supplied so he won’t go.”
“Well,” he continued, when he returned, “I told him I’d pay him extra high wages to help unload when our ship got in, and he finally agreed to hire with us provided he wasn’t gone by that time. I noticed he kept talking about the captains who’d been raided, down Morocco way – seemed quite worked up and excited. So I asked him if he knew that coast. No, he didn’t; but he’d wager his last coin there was nothing ‘round the Mediterranean he didn’t know! I let him talk, and then I let slip indifferent-like, that I’d sailed the Red Sea. So had he! I dropped a name or two-Aden, Melinde, Mombassa. He knew them – ‘d seen them!”
“How in the world,” Nicolo broke in admiringly, “did you know how to get him started?”
“Why a sailor’d rather brag about the places he’s been than eat. It’d be a pity if I didn’t know their ways by now. Well, after that you couldn’t have pried him loose from me. All he wanted was to talk about the places he’d been – and I gave him plenty of rope! But all the time, I was saying to myself,’ Slow, now, Scander, easy – don’t ground on a reef!’ Finally, when he was going top speed, I said,’ That’s nothing to what happened when I was with Captain Diaz!’”
“What? You didn’t say you’d been with Diaz?”
“Well, in my own mind I have,” grinned Scander brazenly. “Plenty of times! Anyway he swallowed the bait. ‘And that’s nothing,’ he comes back, ‘to the time I saw Gama coming down all loaded up – ‘But right there he bit his words off as if they was twine, and I vow the sweat started on his face, so scared he was at what he’d let out.”
“It doesn’t seem possible,” Nicolo ejaculated, half fearfully. “Gama!”
“I could feel his eyes on me,” Scander went on, “watching to see if I’d noticed. The only way to do was to play the simpleton, and I said, cool and laughing, ‘Ever hear the singing sharks around Goa?’”
“‘Singing sharks!’” laughed Nicolo. “More of your inventions?”
“Oh, it’s one of the yarns they always tell land-lubbers. Well, I saw right away by his questions that he’d never set eye on Goa, nor on Calicut nor Cochin. I tried him on all those Indian
ports, and I found out what I wanted to – that he’d never been near those coasts to the north’ard. Every once in a while he’d get harping on the pirates they were telling about this morning, and finally I twitted him with being afraid he’d be chased by them. I saw him give me a queer look out of the corner of his eye, and he changed the subject – but not back to Gama! Wouldn’t say another word about Gama.”
“But what’s it all about?” Nicolo queried. “Suppose he did see Gama … suppose he’s let Venice know it…”
“That’s what I can’t figure. What I’m working on is what this Marco fellow let slip: ‘The time I saw Gama coming down all loaded up.’ ‘Coming down,’” Scander repeated.
“Well, what of that?” Nicolo’s face was completely puzzled.
“I’ve turned it inside out and hind part foremost, and here’s what I make of it: this Marco must have been somewhere off the coast south of Aden when he saw Gama’s sails. That’s sure, because he knew all about Melinde and Mom-bassa, but nothing about the Indian coasts. Remember I tried him on them?
“Now,” Scander carefully continued, “if a vessel sailing north was to pass you, and another sailing south, which one would you say was going up?”
“The one sailing north, of course.”
Scander’s eyes glittered, and he ran his tongue around his lips. “Then the one sailing south …”
“Would be coming down,” Nicolo glibly completed. Then – he was staring at Scander. He seemed to have lost sight of the room. “He meant that Gama was ‘coming down’ from India? . . . ‘Coming down’ – on his way home?” he whispered unsteadily.
“Now you got it!” But in spite of his bantering air, Scander’s hands shook. “So, of course,” he went on, “if they saw him down Melinde way or off Mombassa, which isn’t so far from the Devil’s Cave, and the Devil’s Cave not but six months’ run to Lisbon –”
“Great heaven! Gama might – might almost be here!” gasped Nicolo. His head was bursting. Manoel must be told. All Portugal must know that Gama wasn’t lost as they’d feared, but alive, coming home! But Venice – the Venetian ambassador! Suppose Marco and his mate were their spies. Could he tell Manoel without exposing them? And yet . . .
“Scander,” he choked out, “we must take this to the King.”
“Can’t,” Scander briefly stated. “He’s gone. They were all leaving the palace two hours ago. Besides, we aren’t sure enough yet of anything to talk. First thing you know, you’ll get into trouble.”
“Then I’m going to Master Abel! This is getting too thick for me.”
“Wait till I get that chap out of here – he mustn’t see you,” Scander whispered, stepping ahead. “He’s finished eating – getting ready to go. And he’s not going out of my sight till I see where he stows away for the night.” He glanced back at Nicolo. “Did the tall chap call? No? Then all the more reason to keep an eye on Marco. Neither’ll leave Lisbon without the other.”
“I don’t blame him for being uneasy about Marco’s talking!” said Nicolo. “Come back here tonight,” he whispered, as Scander was going, “so you can hear what Master Abel has to say about this.”
All the way up the hill he was tortured with the self-questioning that had started with Scander’s tremendous news. Gama probably on the way home! But how, in common decency and honour, could he keep that from Manoel? Yet, if Venice were involved in a plot, had instigated it, even paid a price for it, then, what? Could he bring himself to expose Venice? Still, hadn’t he cast his fortunes with Portugal? Again, if this thing should ever come to light, how could he hold up his head in Lisbon – Lisbon, where he’d built so carefully, so solidly, for his future?
He tried to put from him the thought of meeting Nejmi. He hadn’t wanted to see her; in fact, he had deliberately planned not to see her, and he half hoped she wouldn’t appear.
But the first person he saw, when he stepped inside the court, was Nejmi, sitting on the threshold of the workshop; Nejmi in palest, filmy yellow, her head against the door frame. Did he imagine it, or were the dark eyes wistful, even sad? And then, as they perceived him, did they change – quicken?
He steeled himself to speak casually, and then to pass by her into the workshop where Abel looked up from a map to exclaim, “Well, young man, it’s been too long since you were here!”
“It’s good to see you again, Nicolo,” said Ruth, bustling in from the next room. She scrutinized him a moment, then, “Sit down here by the windows,” she told him kindly. “You look warm – throw back your cloak.”
“I mustn’t stay,” he murmured.
“Not stay! Of course you’ll stay. I’m going to keep you for supper. There’s a brace of young pigeons in the pot that’ll tempt you, if – if nothing else will!”
Nicolo felt his ears tingle. Was there just the ghost of a knowing twinkle in Ruth’s round, bright eyes as she added that last clause?
“I’d like nothing better than to stay,” he declared, “but I’ve agreed to meet Scander as soon – as soon as I’ve told you something, Master Abel, that’s beyond my solving.”
At the troubled voice, Abel looked up quickly. “Come over here, boy, by me.” He pushed away his work, and turned his attention to Nicolo. “What is it?”
Nicolo made no answer at once. Again, everything was a whirl. Where should he begin? How weave together the tangled happenings of the past day and night? He seized on the one name, the one fact, that stood out from the confusion:
“Master Abel, Gama has been seen in Indian waters!”
He heard a sharp intake of breath as Abel started up. “Gama – Gama has been seen?” he gasped.
Nejmi came in from the threshold, and sat down at the table. She said nothing, but Nicolo saw the golden light that always came to her eyes when she was stirred.
“How do you know?” Ruth asked in an awe-struck whisper. “Who told you?”
“Was he alive?” Abel was demanding, his face close to Nicolo’s. “Is Gama – alive?”
“When he was seen-yes.”
Then, as well as he could, Nicolo told of seeing the Venetian ambassador the night before, of Marco’s drunken outburst, and the boasts into which Scander had later trapped him.
“Think of it! Seeing Gama!” Abel murmured rapturously. “Why it’s like looking into the future and knowing what’s going to happen, before it does happen. The Way of the Spices is a certainty!”
“But suppose, sir,” Nicolo said carefully, “Venice had got that information before we did-say some months ago …”
Abel’s expression became intent. “I see!” he said. “I see now. You mean Venice’s recent demand to know Portugal’s intentions in the Orient?”
“How else could you account for such a demand? You see, sir, this Marco and his mate were here when the Expedition was outfitting. I fell into talk with the mate, and I’m sure now, from the questions he asked, that he was here to spy.” Nicolo suddenly recalled that he had not mentioned Ferdinand’s account of the ambassador’s eagerness for his “friend” to see Abel’s maps, for the effect of Scander’s passing the maps over as unimportant had been to blur the incident in his own mind. “The fellow even went to The Green Window to get me to take him to you.”
“When was that?” Abel shot back.
“Yesterday, about noon, according to Pedro.”
“Then I saw him! I was passing, and stopped a moment to look in. I heard my name and something or other about maps. I heard Pedro speak of you, too. Said you were looking at some lumber. So that’s the man who was here two years ago, and asked you about the fleet?”
“The same. Ferdinand was sure – and at first I agreed with him – that the ambassador’s wanting this ‘friend’ to see your maps, was suspicious because he was altogether too eager about it, and too willing to pay.”
A slight movement from Nejmi made Nicolo turn his head. He noticed, then, that Ruth was watching her. Elbows on table, and chin dropped on her clasped hands, she was following his account so intently that
he had the impression of breathlessness. He waited a moment-did she wish to say something? Then, as she continued silently to gaze at him, he went on:
“But Scander declares there is nothing to that – says everybody’s interested in maps just now.”
Abel assented. “Likely as not the ambassador and this friend of his are collecting them, just as I’ve collected them. No, I hardly think there’s anything in that.”
“But there is! Ferdinand is right.” In the pause that followed Abel’s words, Nejmi’s low voice had the effect of a stone thrown into a still pool.
“Of course they want our maps,” she added, almost as if she were talking to herself.
In utter and frank amazement Abel and Nicolo stared at her. But Ruth, in her matter of fact way, asked, “Who is it, child, that want the maps?”
At first Nejmi made no reply, but continued to regard Nicolo with that peculiar intensity – only, now, was it sorrowful? “How can you help but see?” she asked almost in-audibly.
And then he knew what she meant! Sharp across his memory struck his own first misgivings when Ferdinand had told him of the ambassador’s eager curiosity about Abel’s maps. Scander – and Abel, too – had too quickly brushed aside this item as insignificant, and afterward Marco’s startling disclosures had taken his own attention from it. But now, as clear as day, the ambassador’s parting word to the oarsman came back to him: “You’ll be off as soon as you’ve got those things.” As soon as you’ve got those maps, Nicolo silently translated – just as he had first suspected, until Scan-der had laughed at him. And of course it was easy enough now to complete Marco’s repeated “Depends,” when asked by Scander when he would leave Lisbon. “Depends on when we get the maps” was what he really meant.
“You mean – Venice wants Master Abel’s maps,” he said, as steadily as he could.
“Don’t you remember that day,” she asked him, “when Ferdinand first told us about the Venetians wanting to know what Portugal meant to do in the Orient, and you all wondered why they’d changed their minds – because at first they’d said there couldn’t be a sea passage to India?”
Spice and the Devil's Cave Page 17