“They seemed to have done pretty well on their own brand of religion, did they, Vasco?” laughed Abel.
“The gardens and fountains of the King’s palace, a little way out of Calicut, and his tapestries, and bronze furniture, made our palace here seem tame! And talk about carved ivory! There were whole panels of it. As for the jewels the King wore – well, I hadn’t really seen rubies and diamonds and pearls till I saw his! The presents I’d brought him from Manoel looked pretty puny by comparison, I can tell you! Oil, sugar, honey; a few hats or so.”
Abel burst out laughing. “Did you have hard work to save Manoel’s dignity?”
“Well-” Gama shrugged significantly –“I confess I had to cudgel my wits considerably! But on the whole, the King – Zamorin they call him – treated us very well. In fact, I don’t know how I’d managed if he hadn’t taken my part against the merchants in Calicut. They refused to trade with me, told the Zamorin I was a spy, even tried to capture me. You see the Arabs have their grip on all that Eastern trade, and they don’t propose to yield a finger’s hold.”
“But surely this King of Calicut isn’t an Arab?”
“No, a native of India, but the Arab traders in his kingdom have to do as he says. Finally, the Zamorin brought pressure on them, and they agreed to trade with us. But the tricks they tried! For instance, the natives cover their ginger with a little clay, to hold the flavour. What did those rascals do but plaster on three times as much again to the ginger they brought us, and then try to sell it to us for the solid stuff! They tried to pass off poor cinnamon on us, too, and half rotten nutmegs.”
“Persevering devils!” Abel commented. “How did you get around them?”
“Oh, I shut my eyes to a good deal. I thought I’d gain in the long run if the thing went off smoothly. And I did! I got –” Gama’s face lighted up –“what I wanted: all the spice I could load, cloves and nutmegs, cinnamon and pepper and camphor. We put up a pillar, too! And best of all, the Zamorin wrote a letter to Manoel, practically agreeing to trade with us!”
“I should say, Vasco, that you’re as expert a diplomat as you are trader – or sailor!”
“That letter, by the way,” Gama continued, “was written on a palm leaf! So, with the gold leaf one from the King of Melinde, I had two letters for Manoel. Then I got a third – gold leaf, too-from the King of Cananor – that was the last port we made before we turned ‘round for home. I’d have liked to go further, but the ships wouldn’t have stood it. Besides, so many of the men had died – fully two thirds of them, poor fellows.”
“Well, Vasco,” Abel spoke out impulsively, “you’ve done a splendid thing. Done it magnificently! You’ve given Portugal the Way of the Spices.”
“Ah, but now to keep it for Portugal! You know, sir, the Orient isn’t going to let us into its trade without a struggle. The Arabs are against us, and they’re the traders. As to that, our own European neighbours will probably have something to say to our spice cargoes!”
“Scander always said we’d pay for our spice in blood. Remember?”
“I’m afraid he’s right. By the way, I saw Scander, when the King was receiving me down at the House of Mines. I happened to look around, and there was the good old leather face grinning at me from the shrouds of a vessel! Yes,” Gama continued, “for every warehouse we put up in the Orient, we must have a garrison. Manoel is already talking about a huge campaign that includes everything from fighting, to building forts and factories. He says he’s going to recall Captain Diaz from Mina to outfit another expedition, and he hinted he might send him along with it.”
Bartholomew coming back! For a second Abel’s eyes lighted. Then he remembered. By the time a ship could sail from Mina to Lisbon . . . He put down something that rose in his breast, and said quietly, “If the King is planning another expedition, there’s evidently no doubt about the profits of this one!”
Gama smiled. “You can judge of that for yourself, sir, when I tell you that the freight of the spice on the San Gabriel and the Berrio is as sixty to one, compared with the cost of the voyage!”
Gama’s figures drew an amazed whistle from Abel. “There’s other merchandise, too, I suppose?”
“Bales of it! Silks and brocades and cottons and gold thread stuff, besides porcelains and gold and silver trinkets. In short –” Gama’s eyes twinkled –“the things Venice’s galleons used to bring us!”
Inwardly Abel smiled. Venice indeed! Aloud, he asked how Gama himself had come out.
“Manoel has been more than generous. Gave me exemption from duty on all the spice I wish to import!” Gama suddenly fell silent, evidently meditating something. “How do you think young Conti would like to distribute my spice to our colonies?” he presently asked. “I always had a fancy for his pluck in leaving Venice on what was then a pure venture. I want to see him prosper.”
“Capital!” cried Abel. “The spice trade was always his object. You know he saw the need of building ships for carrying Oriental merchandise when Portugal was only thinking about laying hands on it. By the way, did you know that it was his man, Arthur Rodriguez, who brought the first news of your arrival? And now that Manoel’s rewarded Rodriguez, Scander is going to captain The Golden Star.” Abel paused to laugh softly. “This idea of yours, Vasco, will please Nicolo hugely. In fact, it’s quite by way of being a wedding present! For Nejmi and he –”
“Oh, so?” beamed Gama. “I saw that coming the night those two met – couldn’t keep their eyes off each other! That strange, wonderful night!” he mused aloud. “Sailing past Sofala and the Devil’s Cave, I often thought of that child as she stood before us – so frightened, so lovely!” Impulsively he leaned toward Abel, “I’m going to pick out a piece of embroidered silk for her, and send it over by Ferdinand!”
A curious look came into Abel’s eyes. “Could you manage it, say, tomorrow? I myself want to see Ferdinand then, if he can get off. Tell him to come about – about mid – afternoon.
Gama, rummaging in his pockets, nodded. He finally produced a sealed tin.
“That,” he said, “is for Mistress Ruth: nutmegs to flavour her syrups and mutton stews! When you give it to her, tell her I saved her pear preserves – barring the few I gave the King of Melinde – until provisions ran low. Then, when I opened them, I was seized with paniclest I’d let them go too long and they were spoiled.”
“You don’t know Ruth!” laughed Abel. “She boiled that fruit in its own weight of sugar, so it would keep.”
“Well,” continued Gama, “she’ll never know in what stead it stood me. It was the end of a hard day, and the crew was on edge. There’d been one mutiny, and I could feel another brewing. I suddenly thought of that preserve. I got it out of my box, and had it handed around at supper. Why –” Gama’s eyes were smiling –“after that, the men would have done anything for me! All evening I could hear them talking and laughing, as good – natured as boys.”
“You say you had one mutiny?” Abel asked. “Was it serious?”
“It would have been, if we hadn’t caught it in time. It was the old story: homesick, discouraged men who wanted to turn back. But – well . . .”
“Ah!” cried Abel warmly, “I can guess what you said to that! I’ve not forgotten what you told me about’ turning back’ – here, in this very room.”
Gama’s fist came down on his knee. “I’d have scuttled every ship first! All I actually did do was to put the ring leaders in irons. I brought them back in irons, too, for the King to pass judgment on them. Then, to show the crew who was who, I threw overboard the navigation instruments. All except your compass. No one knew about it. I kept it always in my cabin.”
Abel leaned eagerly toward Gama. “It proved exact, Vasco?”
Gama now was leaning toward Abel. “You told me it had steered your soul out of hell. Do you recall, sir?”
Silently Abel assented. Ah, didn’t he!
“I used to think of that,” the other continued, “when things looked dark, and fail
ure seemed surer than success. And in my sorest need, when I could see Paulo slipping away from me, and I myself seemed adrift, then, Master Abel, your compass did more than steer my ship exactly. I came to need it to steer myself by!”
“Ah, Vasco!” Abel’s voice was hardly a whisper. “Who of us doesn’t need something by which to steer himself?”
CHAPTER 25
A Letter
OUT of a side chapel of the great Sé Patriarchal, Nejmiand Nicolo stepped into the late afternoon sunshine. Behind them came Abel and Ruth, and then Scander and Ferdinand.
Ruth had been first to kiss Nejmi when the old priest had given his final blessing, and Abel first to call her “Mistress Conti.” Rapturously Nicolo watched her as, a little shy, but smiling, she stood with them all around her wishing her joy. Her dress was one of every day. She had refused to have anything new. But it was one of those golden, clinging things that Ruth had made for her, that put one in mind of soft sunset skies. Banded across her forehead, and braided into her hair, were the pearls Nicolo had given her. More than ever, he told himself, she looked her name: a star, radiant and tender.
“I always knew this would happen some day,” sighed Scander. The burnt gimlet holes rested lovingly on Nejmi. “But now that’ t has happened, I don’t deny it makes me feel odd in the pit of the stomach!”
“And me!” declared Ferdinand. He turned to Ruth. “Aunt Ruth, did anyone cry at your wedding?”
She laughed tremulously. “They say it’s good luck to have some tears at a wedding!”
“I can’t ask anything better for you children than that you’ll be as happy as Ruth and I have been,” Abel quickly added.
Nicolo’s arm went suddenly around Nejmi. “If I make her half as happy as she’s made me –”
An exclamation from Ferdinand stopped him. “Look! I’d almost forgotten.” From under his coat he produced a package wrapped in bright cotton cloth, and handed it to Nejmi. “From Gama-I mean Dom Gama! He said not to open it till you get home.”
“There’s another present waiting for you there,” said Abel, “from Ruth and me. Go along, you two, and find it!”
“Yes, go and find it,” Ruth repeated. “We – we’ve an errand. Those bulbs and things for someone who’s going to start a garden.”
All morning, Nicolo recalled, she and Abel had been busy at something or other in the court. He’d been too blissful to notice what!
“I’ll walk a ways with you, sir,” Scander proposed to Abel, and so would he, too, said Ferdinand.
As they turned away Ruth ran back to Nejmi. “I must kiss you once more, child – you look so lovely!” Her eyes were misty, Nicolo noticed, but she was smiling. Then she was again with Abel, her arm through his.
“You’ll come home soon, Mother Ruth, Master Abel?” Nejmi called after them.
As if they had not heard her question, they smiled back at her, and then hurried on.
Afterward Nicolo remembered that they had made no reply. Always would he remember Abel’s face in that short moment. The eager eyes were those of Abel the Boy! But neither to Abel the Boy nor to Abel the Banker belonged that look of shining peace, of sweet majesty. A seldom used word stirred Nicolo’s memory – Abel the Seer!
The next moment, putting Nejmi’s cloak around her, he forgot everything but her. “Let’s go home, darling!” he whispered, only half believing that this wasn’t all a dream.
She slipped her hand into his, and they started off.
“I’m so glad ‘home’ is that dear house, aren’t you?” she asked him.
“But you’ll love, just as much, the one I’ll build, won’t you?”
As they reached the top of the long flight she said in a low tone, “I love these stairs! They’ve always meant warmth and light and safety after the dark and the cold.”
He flung open the gate. “I love them because they’ve always meant you at the end!”
Together they stood looking about them. All so familiar, yet so rapturously unfamiliar! Into the western windows, and out into the shadowed court, flooded the sunset’s gold.
“Let’s open Master Gama’s present in the workshop.” Nejmi nodded toward the doorway.
“You must say Dom Gama now,” Nicolo laughingly reminded her.
“Then, afterward, we’ll look for our present from Master Abel and Mistress Ruth! Where do you suppose it is?” she said, as they entered the workshop.
Almost as she spoke, a folded paper on the table caught their eyes.
Nicolo bent over it. “It’s addressed to us both.”
“It’s about the present!” exclaimed Nejmi. “See if it isn’t.” Hastily she laid Gama’s package aside, and looked over Nicolo’s shoulder.
He opened the paper and ran his eye over the first lines. “Why – why what does this mean? Listen!”
He began to read:
“THE WORKSHOP,
The morning of Nejmi’s wedding day.
“You two children are in the workshop, and you’re wondering where the present is that we told you to find. You’ve already found it! Yes, when you opened the gate and looked within: the court, the house-your present from Ruth and me. (No need, Nicolo, to build another home!)”
A quick cry stopped him. “Ah, Nicolo – Nicolo!” Nejmi’s hands were suddenly gripping his.
He stared at her in startled alarm. She was trembling, and very pale; and in her eyes was a look of tenderness and grief that wrung his heart.
“I – I know now what the letter means,” she said, very low. “Read on, Nicolo.”
So, with his arm around her, her face against his, Nicolo “read on”:
“We thought you might guess, when we were cutting those slips this morning, and taking up those bulbs! They are for our new garden – child of the one we planted together. So shall we take with us a little of the homeland. (Ruth say she can coax yellow lilies to grow anywhere.)
“How could we tell you before? No, this was the better way: for you not to know till we are gone. But through Rabbi Joseph you will hear of us in our new home – when it is safe for us to send him word. Go and see him sometimes. Perhaps he’ll whisper to you how, one late afternoon, Ruth and Abel Zakuto went in at his front door. How, a little later, a middle-aged carpenter, carrying his tools, walked out of the back door. How, still later, a woman with a basket of vegetables on her head, also walked out of that back door. (They were not to be seen together, you’ll understand.) That is all that Rabbi Joseph actually saw! But, for yourselves, imagine, now, the middle – aged carpenter and the vegetable woman on a trading vessel speeding down river – into the sunset!
“Nicolo, your business will grow with Lisbon’s great, new traffic. You may want more capital. Use mine freely. I meant it that way when I deposited funds with you, my boy. What I need of it you may send me through Rabbi Joseph.
“There will be another workshop! (Ruth says that even if, at first, we have to live in two rooms, one of those rooms shall be a workshop.) Other Ways are waiting for their Covilham, for their Diaz, for their Gama! The rims of new worlds already peer above the western horizon. Columbus has shown us them. So, there must be better compasses, better astrolabes. One of these days Ferdinand will be starting off to discover something. He knows who will make his navigation instruments for him! Bartholomew, too. Who can tell but he’ll be needing a compass for the next expedition to India? (When he comes home to build the new fleet, show him and Vasco the maps Scander helped me to make.)
“Our undying love, Ruth’s and mine, to you both: to you, Nicolo; to you, Nejmi – Star of the Way!
ABEL ZAKUTO.”
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Spice and the Devil's Cave Page 26