Abel’s head dropped to his hands. “The cargo was nothing,” they heard him groan, “but to lose the Way for Portugal! . . .”
“After going so far,” Ruth murmured, “then to die almost as they’re home!”
“I knew Abdul meant harm to Gama,” Nejmi said, “by what he told Marco.”
“But Nicolo! . . . Scander!” Abel was looking at them with horrified eyes, and they saw that great drops stood on his forehead. “The pirates don’t know that Abdul is dead, and they’re still waiting for Gama!”
“Set your heart at rest, sir!” Nicolo broke in, unconsciously using Rodriguez’ words. A glance shot between him and Scander: what to say without betraying Rodriguez? “I’ve learned, within a few hours,” he went on, carefully choosing his words, “that the pirates will do no harm to Gama.” Then, as Ruth stared, and Abel started up with a flood of incoherent questions, he quickly added, “I can’t tell you more now, sir. I’ve promised!”
For a moment Abel’s eyes bored into him. Slowly a look came into them as of happiness incredulous of itself. As if afraid of asking forbidden questions, he abruptly turned to Scander.
“It seems unbelievable that the Venetian government would make allies of pirates!”
“Well, of course it was done under cover, with the government shutting its eyes. You see, sir, Venice could depend on them for a thorough job, for the pirates themselves was in a bad fix: how was they to make any kind of a living off the Mediterranean, if the Indian trade got started ’round by the big Cape? Same fix as Venice. But –” Scander paused, impressively –“this pirate plot wasn’t half of what was really going on, so Marco told me. Look here!” He bent over the map and planted a stubby finger. “See this bit of land between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea? Now, suppose Venice was to open a passage through there . . .” He waited, while Abel and Nicolo looked incredulously from the map to him, and then at each other.
“Impossible!” Nicolo burst out at last.
But Abel’s face was rapt. “It’s the thought of a master mind!” he declared. He hung, fascinated, over the map. “Why Venice would have the Orient in her arms!”
“Most as smart as finding the Way, I call it!” Scander admiringly conceded. “Well, that’s Venice’s scheme, so Marco told me, to cut that passage and to build forts at each end and at the main seaports of the Orient. They even sent an agent to get the Soldan of Egypt to help them put the plan through.”
“That’s why the ambassador needed Master Abel’s maps,” Nicolo exclaimed. “You guessed that!” he smiled across to Nejmi.
Scander grinned broadly. “That was the job the ambassador meant for you, Master Conti: to take these maps to Venice, so they could see where to build forts! Then he found out you were a friend of Master Abel’s and couldn’t be bribed.”
“But Abdul kept telling Pedro that he was going to get me to bring him up here to see the maps!”
“That was a blind. He knew all the time that he himself was to steal them when Master Abel was hearing the King’s proclamation read. The ambassador had given him advance information.”
Disapprovingly Ruth shook her head. “And yet they say ambassadors are to keep nations from having trouble with each other!” she murmured.
“Poor old Pedro would be out of his mind if he knew the part he’d played in this affair,” smiled Nicolo, and he told of Abdul’s gold coin.
“It’s odd,” chuckled Scander, “that in the end ’twas the maps that did for Abdul. If he hadn’t waited for the proclamation, Marco wouldn’t have been idling round town, tippling and babbling, and we’d never have suspicioned what was hatching under our very noses!”
“How on earth,” Abel exploded, “came that loose-tongued Marco to be chosen for such a mission?”
“Just what I asked him!” rejoined Scander. “‘No more wits than a puppy’ says I. ‘Abdul had to have someone,’ he blubbers, ‘and no one else would stick with him – he’d such a name for knifing.’ Which, of course, was true enough!”
“I wonder,” Nicolo mused, “whether the ambassador will have anything to say about all this.”
Abel’s eyebrows lifted. “You’ll never have any trouble in that quarter. If you told what you knew, he would have to take a quick leave of absence!”
“He nor anyone else will ever hear a breath of it from me,” Nicolo declared. He looked around at the others. “Let’s bury this thing here-not tell even Ferdinand or Gama.”
“That’s the only way,” Abel agreed. “Nothing but harm could come of its being known.” His face suddenly lighted and he bent again to the map. “I can’t get that passage out of my mind,” he declared. “It’s so intelligent! Yet once it’s been pointed out, you see it’s the thing to do. Look how beautifully it works out!” He made Ruth and Nejmi watch, while he drew a quick line from the Mediterranean, down the Red Sea, to the far ports and coasts of Scander’s description. “Some day,” he declared, “that passage will go through, and everybody will be talking about it, just as, now, everybody is talking about the Way!”
“But won’t it,” Ruth asked doubtfully, “take the trade away from Portugal?”
He gave her an amused look. “By that time perhaps Portugal will have had her turn long enough! Besides, my dear-”
A rush of footsteps across the court cut him short, and before anyone could turn, Ferdinand burst in-Ferdinand in riding clothes, and hot and dusty. Instantly a glance flashed between Nicolo and Scander – At last!
For all his haste, there was an expression in Ferdinand’s flushed face that at once struck Nicolo. As always, when
he was stirred, the great eyes were on fire, but now there was in them a certain awe that was almost reverence.
Deaf to Ruth’s astonished “I thought you were in Cintra!” and Nejmi’s quiet “Why, Ferdinand!” and Abel’s “Well, young man, how is this?” he brushed past them all, and walked straight to Abel.
“Sir,” he said – and Nicolo saw that his face was working –“Gama has returned!”
There was dead silence, as if the world had stopped for this tremendous moment. Abel-his face working, too-was panting, “Where – where is he?”
“I’ll tell you everything I know, sir,” said Ferdinand, “but it must be quick, for I’ve promised to be back at the palace as soon as I’ve given you the news.”
He dropped on the table edge, and flicked the dust from his breeches. “I heard it almost as soon as the King did!” he jubilantly announced. “It happened I’d just brought him a cool drink, when someone came in to say there was a man with an important message that he refused to deliver except to the King himself. Well, it was midnight, and an odd time for anything of that sort, but, finally, they showed the chap in, and who d’you suppose it was?” Quite the old Ferdinand, he glanced around the table, enjoying the suspense of his audience. “Rodriguez! Arthur Rodriguez! Your man, you know, Nicolo.”
“What?” cried Nicolo, avoiding Scander’s eyes, and trying to look surprised. “You don’t mean it!” he added, aware that from under her lashes Nejmi was stealing a glance at him, and that a peculiar expression had come to Abel’s face.
“He was in his rough sea clothes,” Ferdinand continued, “but the minute I saw him, I knew something was afoot. He knelt down before Manoel and whispered to him for a few moments, and then, all of a sudden, the King looked up, and called right out, ‘Gama has returned!’” Ferdinand drew a long breath, and swallowed hard. “I – I felt queer, I can tell you. Shaky inside and out!”
“No wonder,” said Ruth. “I’d have cried!”
“There was a great to – do, of course,” Ferdinand ran on. “Everybody crowded around and talked at once. Then Manoel made them all listen, while Rodriguez told his story.
“He said that four days before, he was sailing away from Terceira to Portugal, and met a ship that appeared to be having hard work to navigate. He hailed her, and someone aboard called out that she was the San Gabriel from India where she’d been in command of Vasco da Gam
a! You could have heard a pin drop when he came out with that. Everyone went wild, and I saw Manoel pretend to smooth his hair – but actually he was wiping his eyes! Well, Rodriguez had sailed day and night, landed at Cascaes, and ridden at top speed to Cintra, so as to be first with the news!”
“Then Gama will soon be here,” cried Abel. “Perhaps today!”
In the same breath, Scander demanded, “Where’s the other two ships, the Berrio and the San Raphael?”
Ferdinand’s face fell. “Wait a minute,” he told Scander. “It’s not all good news. Paulo da Gama has just died at Terceira. So Vasco –”
“Paulo dead?” Nicolo broke in. Almost he had said: “Rodriguez didn’t tell us that!”
“Poor Paulo!” Ruth murmured, but Nejmi said, softly, “Poor Vasco!”
“Yes, ‘poor Vasco,’” Abel repeated. “He loved Paulo so.”
“When we rode down from Cintra this morning, expecting to find Gama already here, we didn’t know about Paulo,” Ferdinand went on. “Rodriguez didn’t, either. All he’d stopped to hear was just the word that Gama was back. But at the palace we found messages from the San Gabriel and the Berrio. They’ve –” he caught his breath –“they’ve both come in! They’re anchored off Belem.”
“Hurrah!” shouted Scander. “The Berrio down river, you say? I caulked the old girl’s seams! I’m going down to see her! But how about the San Raphael?”
“Stop your noise,” laughed Ferdinand, “and let me finish! Didn’t I say I was in a hurry?” He turned to Abel. “Do you know, sir, I took my courage in my hands and begged permission of Manoel himself to bring you the news!”
The corners of Abel’s mouth twitched, but all he said was, “At worst he could only have refused you! Go on, lad.”
“Well, here’s the message the San Gabriel sent to the palace. In the first place, the San Raphael’s gone!”
From the corner of his eye Nicolo caught a covert glance from Scander, while Ferdinand was hurriedly explaining:
“She was in bad shape and had lost most of her crew, so they burned her. Later on, the other two ships got separated in a storm, and the Berrio came on here alone. Paulo grew so much worse that Vasco put in at the Verde Islands, and sent the San Gabriel on, while he took Paulo in a small vessel to Terceira. Some ship has just now brought in news of his death at the monastery there, and that Vasco will stay on to mourn for him!”
For a while no one spoke, till Scander said, “Now I suppose everybody’s saying they knew all the time Gama would come back!”
“Oh, falling over each other to see who can shout it oftenest and loudest – especially when the King’s near to hear them!” rejoined Ferdinand. “And Manoel’s as bad as any of them, too!”
“I fancy he’d even take a good, stout oath that he’d never harboured any doubts on the subject,” Abel mildly suggested.
Ferdinand jubilantly swung his cap around. “He’s already planning another expedition, sir. And I’m going on it if I have to play stowaway!” He bent toward Abel, and lowered his voice. “That’s the first thing I’m going to ask Gama,” he confided. “To take me the next time.”
He uncrossed his knees, and stood up, stretching and yawning. “I didn’t even go to bed last night,” he exclaimed, “thinking about the new expedition!” He began to move toward the door. “I won’t be able to get off for a while, on account of all that’s going on, but I’ll send word as soon as Gama says when he’s coming.”
At the door he hurriedly turned. “Nicolo! I forgot to tell you what Rodriguez got for being first with the news: the King has made him a gentleman of the household and his sons, pages! And by the way,” he threw over his shoulder, “nothing come of – of what I told you in your room?”
“Nothing,” Nicolo carelessly answered. But as soon as the gate had closed after the boy, he gave a sigh of relief.
“It’s not so easy to pretend surprise when all the time you know what’s coming!”
“Marco was right after all, about their burning the ship, wasn’t he?” Nejmi exclaimed. She looked shyly at Nicolo. “It was Rodriguez, wasn’t it, who told you –”
“Yes – about Gama!” Abel struck in with an amused look at Nicolo. “I guessed it the minute Ferdinand spoke his name – while you were trying so hard to look innocent!”
“There’s one thing I’ll wager you don’t know about Master Conti’s going to Cascaes,” Scander volunteered, and before Nicolo could stop him, he was telling the real reason for the trip, and the plan to send The Golden Star in search of Gama.
“I wish everybody could know that!” Abel’s tone was quiet, but the look in his eyes – and in the eyes next to him – brought the blood to Nicolo’s face.
“Rodriguez said about the same thing, sir,” he stammered, “but I made him promise not to mention it.” He turned to Scander. “I suppose he’s made his last trip on The Golden Star. We’ll have to find someone to take his place.”
“I’ll wager you he’ll miss the smell of pitch, and the feel of a sheet in his palm!” Scander pensively observed.
“I wonder how his wife’ll like being a lady,” murmured Ruth.
“We’ll have to find someone to take Rodriguez’ place,” Nicolo repeated. “And I know a good man, too!” He looked hard at Scander. “How about it?”
For a moment the burnt gimlet holes stared back. Then, over the brown face, crept a deep red.
“I mean it,” laughed Nicolo, as he reached over and slapped Scander on the back.
“Oh, I’m so glad!” cried Nejmi. “Scander should have our –” she caught herself up on the telltale word –“our very best. Yours and mine, Nicolo!” she ended, flushed and radiant.
Scander beamed as he looked round the table. “There’s nothing on earth I’d exchange for the captain’s job on The Golden Star! I wouldn’t have taken it a minute sooner, though,” he added. “But now that I know Abdul’ll never come –”
He broke off, fumbling at his belt, and brought out a dingy leather bag wound around with a thong. “Here’s something else, besides my knife, that I’ve kept on me,” he said, without raising his eyes. “You remember I once told you how – how I got hold of the price my old captain took for Nejmi, in the market at Aden?”
“Scander! . . . That?” As if she doubted her eyes, Nejmi reached out and timidly touched what lay between the brown hands.
Silently Scander passed the bag to Abel who weighted it for a moment, gave a surprised whistle, and then handed it across the table.
“Good Lord, man!” Nicolo exclaimed, when Ruth and he had had their turn, and the dingy packet was again in Scander’s hands. “You told me you starved when you first landed in Lisbon, and with all that coin in your belt . . .”
“Think I’d touch that for vittles and drink?” Scander scornfully demanded. His eyes softened as they fell on Nejmi. “I always figured that sometime she’d be needing a dowry, and I reckon –” he laid the bag in her lap –“I reckon that time is right now!”
CHAPTER 24
Dom Vasco da Gama
A GLITTERING day of summer, with Lisbon’s hills cut sharp into deep blue sky. A breeze – crinkled harbour of crowded craft and fluttering pennants.
Everywhere, throngs. They jammed the steep streets and streamed out on water – front and river shore; fought for foothold on the quay edge; clung to pile heads.
Gusts of cheering, of shouting, of laughter; breathless intervals of waiting, watching; then, pent – up hearts bursting forth again. A town gone mad with joy. That was Lisbon on the day that Gama came home!
On the edge of the quay overhung by the House of Mines, stood Abel Zakuto. Not an inch, in any direction, could he have turned, for the mass of humans behind him. But, at least, no one was in front of him! This was precisely why he had come down here at sunrise – to make undisputed claim to this particular spot with its stout pile to hold to. Nothing must be between him and Gama’s ships! There was no doubt that Gama would anchor off this quay, in line with the House of
Mines; for he wouldn’t have forgotten, even in this long absence, that the King always sat in the balcony to see any action in the harbour. Of course, too, that was where Manoel would first receive Gama.
Any moment now he could be expected. Already there was a rumour that he had left Belem. A long time it had seemed to Abel since Ferdinand had burst in with the first news – these weeks, while the San Gabriel and the Berrio waited down river for Gama to mourn, first at Terceira, where he had buried Paulo, and then at Belem. Of course, Abel reflected, he might have gone down and visited the ships. Scores had; so had Scander – and had returned with excited accounts of foreign pilots that Gama had brought back. But not that for him! He would see those caravels come in as they had gone out – led by their Captain – Major!
Oh, for Bartholomew – that together they might have stood here! And for Covilham, no less. Hail to your valiant soul, Pedro de Covilham! Of all the workshop group that young rascal, Ferdinand, would be the first to take Gama’s hand! It would probably be days before Gama could come to the familiar old meeting place, besieged as he would be by visitors and fetes and one thing and another. Hard, too, this noise and to – do for him, still wrapped in his grief for Paulo.
A stir on the balcony caught Abel’s eye: Manoel arriving, with his suite, and decked out in his royal best. Well, it was an occasion worth the finest ermine ever trapped! Now he’d sat down, as excited as a boy! You could tell it by the way he rested those long arms of his on the railing and leaned far over them to gaze where everybody else was gazing – at that bend Gama must now soon round.
Abel tightened his hold and looked back over the sea of heads. Somewhere, at an overhanging window, safe above the jostle and press, Nicolo had found standing space for Ruth and Nejmi. That child, Nejmi! What would they all say if they knew her part, first and last, in this tremendous affair?
A sound like low thunder! Cannon! A tense moment, as if all Lisbon held its breath. And then, from every throat in that vast throng, a wild clamour: “Gama! Gama!” Another instant, and cannon from harbour and from shore were booming their answer to that distant salute.
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