Involuntarily Nicolo’s eyes sought Nejmi. That slender loveliness to pit herself, alone and defenceless, against the very cause of all her fear – fear worse to her than death! What if they had missed seeing her on the river? What if she were lying now where Abdul lay? A kind heaven be praised that the sea had forever settled with Abdul!
He looked up to find Scander watching him, and, as if he had guessed Nicolo’s thoughts, “She’ll never again need to be afraid,” he said, half smiling. His face hardened. “If only Master Abel and Mistress Ruth knew she was safe! I hate to think of them when they found her gone.”
“We’ll be with them soon,” Nicolo told him. “The tide has turned-doing its best for us this time!”
“Wind’s doing us a good turn, too! I’m more’n half dry. So are you.”
Presently they had sighted Belem, had come abreast of it, had passed. They were on the home stretch!
Marco, head sunk on breast, stared moodily at his feet. Scander’s burnt gimlet holes were fastened on the horizon except when they stole a glance at the sleeping figure in the cockpit.
Nicolo, coming about, noticed that the stars were dim in the eastern sky. The sun was on his way. A new day; a new world! For today would bring news of Gama – news of the Way, and of the world beyond the great Cape!
Somewhere outside on the tumbling seas, the steadfast spirit that had vowed never to turn back was coming home! With the Arab world against them, with the Western world on jealous watch, even ready to stab, Gama and his little fleet were coming home. He glanced at the delicate ivory face nestled against his coat-and something smarted in his eyes. But they would never know that, for their sake, a girl had laid down her all. A girl in whose blood met both East and West!
CHAPTER 23
Nejmi’s Dowry
IT was pale dawn when the skiff slipped into Lisbon harbour crowded with what might have passed for ghost ships, for any sign of activity they showed.
“’Twon’t take ’em long to come to life,” Scander chuckled, “when they know what we know!”
Nicolo was silent a moment before answering and then nodded. “Some time today, Rodriguez said.” His face suddenly lighted. “Scander! Ferdinand knows all about it by now!”
“I expect those big eyes of his haven’t had a wink of sleep since Rodriguez told his news! Wouldn’t wonder if Manoel came back to Lisbon pretty quick, would you?”
Absently Nicolo nodded, his eyes on the nearing docks. “We’ll tie up by the old ladder,” he said. “That’ll be easiest – for her.”
“What you going to do with me?” Marco uneasily demanded, as he put on his coat.
“I’ll tend to you later,” Scander told him. “But till then, just stick to me. Walk when I walk, stop when I stop. Understand?” And for all his casual tone, there was a glint in the burnt gimlet holes that was unmistakable.
As easily as he could Nicolo brought the skiff alongside of the ladder. “Make her fast,” he ordered Marco, as Scander seized the piling.
As the skiff bumped, Nejmi sat up, staring about her. Nicolo dropped the helm and leaned over her. She looked up at him with radiant eyes. Suddenly, she sobered.
“Nicolo! We must hurry as fast as we can!” She sprang up, while Nicolo handed Scander his coat, and then wrapped his own about her.
“All ashore!” called Scander, and the next minute he was half-way up the ladder, with Marco at his heels. Next came Nejmi with Nicolo close behind, while Scander, leaning over, warned her to hold firm to the slippery rungs.
As Nicolo stepped on the dock, Scander turned to him.
“You two’d best go up to Master Zakuto’s alone. I’ll be up after a while.” He returned to Marco. “We’ve some business to settle,” he told him shortly. “Come along, and mind what I said: don’t lose sight of me, see?”
The two walked off, and Nicolo, alone at last with Nejmi, caught her to him.
“Ah, Nejmi, when I thought I might lose you . . .”
“Nicolo-Nicolo! When I looked back at Lisbon, and thought I should never again see you . . .” Breathlessly she poured out to him the story of Abdul’s capturing her.
“It seemed the only way to save the maps and Master Abel and Mother Ruth – to go with him. But I meant, when we got out to sea . . .”
“Nejmi, if you had gone, my whole world would have gone, too!”
“It was only the thought of helping Gama that kept me steady,” she whispered. “And then, when I saw you – ah, Nicolo, I knew that you’d come to me. Even on that terrible bar, I was sure of it!”
“Nothing shall ever keep you from me,” he told her. “Nothing and no one in all the world!”
Her head sank on his breast, and he saw how pale she was, and exhausted. She was shivering, too. He drew his coat more closely around her, and they started on.
“But you’ll be cold,” she protested.
“No, the wind dried me off. Feel!” and he rubbed her hand across his sleeve.
Arm in arm through the silent, twisting streets they went, and up the hill. Once they stopped to gaze down at the harbour and river, calm enough now, like an angry child that has cried itself to sleep.
“And look-behind you!” Nicolo said. He turned her around to see, above them, the workshop windows rosy in the first sunlight. He heard her catch her breath, felt her press forward.
“Ah, Nicolo, quick! They’re waiting up there.”
He tried to hold her back, to save her strength for the stairway. A short lane, another corner – and the long flight lay before them. He felt Nejmi clutch his arm-glanced up. Slowly climbing the stairs, shoulders sagging, and head bent, was a beloved figure in conical hat and long, black cloak!
Together they started after him, when, all at once, he turned and looked back. An instant Nicolo saw a face seared with grief and weariness unutterable. The next, something flashed over it, as if a light had suddenly appeared in the dark – and Abel was coming toward them, his arms held out. With a little wordless sound Nejmi rushed into them, while Abel, head bent over hers, stroked her quivering shoulders.
It was characteristic of them that at first neither spoke, and that when Abel at last did speak it was about the thing then most essential. “My child, you must have dry clothes and food.”
The same kindly, even tone of every day, Nicolo said to himself – only that you could see his hands shaking.
“Come. Ruth is waiting for us.” Abel motioned to Nicolo, and they started slowly up the stairs with Nejmi between them.
Once she tried to speak. Nicolo caught the word “maps.” “Wait a little, child,” Abel said. “There’s plenty of time.”
“She’s been on the river all night,” Nicolo told him in a low aside, motioning toward the harbour.
Understandingly Abel nodded. “I was sure of that from the first.”
As they paused at the head of the flight, “Open the gate carefully, Nicolo,” he whispered. “Ruth may have dropped off to sleep. She’s been waiting all night.”
Softly Nicolo swung back the gate and stepped into the court. It was as if Morning, herself, gazed out at him from cool, deep shade and lilting sunlight and dewy, half-shut petals. Sweeter even than he had visioned it, out there on the tossing water. Sweeter by far!
A murmur behind him caught his ear. He turned, saw Nejmi and Abel looking at something behind him, followed their gaze. On the seat, under the old fig tree, just as she had flung herself, he saw Ruth, asleep. Every line of the drooping figure told of the night’s cruel vigil.
“I’m going to her,” he heard Nejmi breathe, and saw her steal across the court, while Abel and he followed.
For a moment she paused, tenderly gazing down on the worn face, and in that moment Ruth woke. There was a gasp, a look of incredulous joy. Then Nejmi had dropped beside her, fondling, caressing, begging her not to cry, while Ruth sobbed wildly that Abel and she should never have left her alone – oh, why had they?
“Everything is safe now,” Nejmi comforted her. “Everything is
safe and right, dear Mother Ruth!”
“But where did you go, my child?” Ruth managed at last to get out. “Oh, when we called you, and you didn’t answer . . .”
“Ruth,” Abel struck in, “Nejmi is wet and cold and faint! Can’t you give her some warm food? Let the rest wait.”
Ruth sprang up. “My blessed child!” she cried remorsefully. “You must be hungry, too, my poor Abel – and you, Nicolo. I’ll bring you both something hot. But first, Nejmi!”
She hurried her inside, and Abel sank down on the seat.
“I’ve walked the water-front all night,” he said, apologetically, as he made room for Nicolo, “for the minute we found the maps –”
“In the workshop lamp!” Nicolo broke in. “Nejmi told me.”
“I was instantly sure that seafaring fellow had been here – the one I’d heard asking Pedro about me – and had wreaked his vengeance on our poor child for not giving up the maps. I didn’t dare tell Ruth all I feared –”
“If you’d only known the truth of the matter, sir! That man was Abdul!”
“Abdul?” Abel appeared to search his memory, then, suddenly, he leaped to his feet. “That pirate captain? How did he know she was here?”
“He didn’t!” Nicolo told him, and then repeated Nejmi’s story.
“The monster!” cried Abel. “The black –”
“Don’t waste your breath on him, sir! He’s gone where he’ll never again make trouble. He was swept into the South Channel rollers from the boat in which he had Nejmi and his man Marco. It was only Marco’s lashing her to the rail that saved her until Scander and I could take her off.”
“Pedro told me you’d gone somewhere,” Abel exclaimed, “when I ran down there first thing to find you. How did you get wind of Abdul’s carrying off Nejmi?”
“We didn’t! It was pure accident that we met them on our way back from Cascaes.”
“Cascaes! What took you down there?”
For a second Nicolo hesitated. If he said “To warn Gama of danger,” Abel would, naturally enough, ask, “Then why did you come back?”
“We’d heard rumours of pirates,” he said casually, “and I was afraid Rodriguez might have run afoul of them. So we slipped down to Cascaes to find out what we could – you know they always get the first news there-and on our way back Scander recognized Abdul in the moonlight, and then we both saw Nejmi, and we –”
He broke off as Ruth appeared with two steaming bowls. “There’s the chicken broth I made yesterday,” she told them, “and there’s plenty more.” She waited while they ate. “Abel,” she said in a low, horrified voice, “has Nicolo told you that it was-was Abdul who took her away?”
He put his arm about her. “But you know that he’ll never come back?”
“Yes,” she shuddered. She stooped swiftly, and kissed Nicolo on the forehead. “Nejrni’s told me how you and Scander saved her.”
Abel looked up with the old twinkle in his eyes. “You deserve her now, my boy, if you never did before!” Then as Nicolo blushed and tried to stammer something, Abel gripped his arm. “I always wanted a son,” he said. “Haven’t you, Ruth?”
“Neither Nejmi nor I would be here,” Nicolo said gravely, “if it hadn’t been for Scander. You should have seen him work! Besides, if Marco hadn’t lashed her –”
A flash of colour in the workroom caught his eye: Nejmi in one of those dresses like a primrose sky! Nejmi, bending over the great table; lifting, one by one, long rolls from it and slipping them in turn inside brass tubes.
“I forgot to put the maps away after we’d taken them out of the ‘lighthouse,’” whispered Abel.
“Abel!” There was a catch in Ruth’s voice. “Abel, it seems as if, from first to last, that child’s life has been bound up with the Way!”
A click of the gate startled them, and brought Nejmi to the workshop door, as Scander stepped into the court. She ran to him, and they crossed the court together. Nicolo sprang up to meet them, and, as they all came toward Ruth and Abel, “Scander,” Abel said warmly, “there’s so much to say to you that I can’t say anything!” He reached out and pulled him down on the seat.
“It’s not in words to say what’s in our hearts for you,” Ruth seconded him. “We never can tell it to you.”
“Anyone’d have done as much,” Scander protested. “It was Master Conti who put the heart into me, when I thought we were done.”
“You were all that kept my heart up more than once!” Nicolo retorted. “And but for your knowing that South Channel, I’d have come to grief.”
Nejmi’s eyes rested affectionately on Scander. “It seems as if you’d always been ready when I was in danger!”
“That’s why I’ve stuck to Lisbon,” he exclaimed. “I’ve never forgotten that Abdul got off alive when the Sultana went down.”
“What!” cried Nicolo, “You suspected all the time he’d come here?”
Scander shrugged. “Well, I always kept this on me.” His fingers caressed the knife handle in his belt. “And I always saw to it that it was sharp! And then, after all, I wasn’t here when he did come!” He looked closely at Nejmi. “How are you, child? No worse for that terrible soaking?”
“And you, Scander?” She touched his sleeve with her delicate hands. “Have you had something to eat?” she inquired anxiously.
“I’ll get him some broth!” cried Ruth.
“Thank you, ma’am, I’ve eaten,” Scander protested. “Besides, I’ve more on my mind than vittles.” He paused and surveyed them all. “I’ve something to tell you,” he announced. “I got everything out of that Marco before I was done with him!”
“Where is he?” Nejmi and Nicolo exclaimed together, and, “The fellow who babbled about Gama?” Abel asked.
“He saved me!” Nejmi said in a gentle aside.
“He’s where he won’t get into mischief for one while,” replied Scander. “I found him a berth on a packet that’s bound for Southampton in a day or so, and from there he can pick up a galleon for Venice. But first, I bought him a good breakfast, and then I got him to tell me everything. Whew!” he cried. “What we’d pieced together from his babble was bad enough, but not half of the whole scheme. Why, it seems it began in Venice over two years ago! What’s more, the Venetian ambassador had his eye on you, Master Conti, even then!”
“So, after all, Venice was involved!” Abel exclaimed.
“Started it, so Marco says. If I had a map now –” Scander’s eyes questioned Abel’s –“I could make it all as plain as day to you.”
“Yes,” Ruth chimed in, as by common consent they all made for the workshop. “It’s getting warm out here, too.”
They settled themselves around the table, Nejmi between Abel and Scander, and Ruth and Nicolo opposite them.
“In a nutshell, here’s what’s been going on.” Scander spread a map out, and thoughtfully inspected it.
“According to Marco, there was some merchants in Venice who thought there might be something in a sea route to India. Somehow they got hold of this Abdul, who, it turns out, was half Venetian and half Moor. They bargained with him to spy on Gama, and he picked Marco up to go along with him.”
“There!” Nicolo struck in. “Didn’t I tell you I suspected that was what brought them here when the Expedition was outfitting-to find out all they could?”
“You mean that Abdul was here then?” cried Nejmi.
“Don’t you remember my telling Master Abel about seeing Marco and another stranger at that time, and having one of them ask me about Gama’s preparations? That was Abdul!”
“Come to think of it,” Abel exclaimed, “I must have seen him myself! The man I heard asking Pedro about my maps, you know, Nicolo.”
“Seems as though everybody’d seen him,” Scander observed, “except the two people most concerned: me and Nejmi! I can’t figure how I missed him the first time he was here.”
“You were working on night shift for Captain Diaz,” Nicolo reminded him. “Don’t you
remember?”
“So I was. And this time, when the reports about the pirates started, it seems he got instructions from the Venetian ambassador to keep out of sight.”
“Then he was mixed up with that pirate business,” said Nicolo, “just as we thought!”
“He was on his way to harm Gama,” Nejmi confirmed him. “I heard him say so to Marco.”
Scander nodded. “That was the chief scheme. You see, as soon as Gama left Lisbon, Abdul and Marco put out for Egypt, and then followed the mainland south. Along the way they picked up news of him from the natives, and found he’d sailed for India. Well, they waited around for months, and finally, off Mombassa –” the stubbed forefinger that had traced south stopped at a spot labeled “Ivory”–“they had the luck to sight Gama’s fleet coming back from India. Marco told a wild story about one of the ships being burned at Mombassa. I can hardly believe it, but he stuck to it.”
“That’s not impossible,” said Abel. “The vessel might have been unseaworthy and beyond repair.”
“Well, as soon as they saw the other two ships sail on, back comes Abdul and Marco to Venice and tells their employers what they’d seen.”
“So Venice really knew there was a Way of the Spices before we did!” cried Ruth.
“Or before anyone else, ma’am. She had cause to worry about what King Manoel meant to do in the Orient!”
“And we wondering why she’d so suddenly changed front!” mused Abel.
“Well, then Venice went to work in earnest,” Scander continued. “She put out her claws in every direction. First, the government started this question of what was we going to do about trade in case Gama found a sea route. Meanwhile, this group of merchants I was telling about, was working hand in hand with the government, but secret-like, too. They paid Abdul a big fee to get together a pirate fleet to patrol the waters off Morocco and St. Vincent’s, where they figured Gama would pass. Abdul was to keep in touch with the Venetian ambassador and pass the signal to the pirates according as Manoel’s answer to Venice was favourable or unfavourable. Favourable, and they was to let Gama alone. Unfavourable, and they was to split the cargo amongst ’em and sink the fleet clean, so’s no one’d be left to tell whether or not they’d found the Way.”
Spice and the Devil's Cave Page 23