At once the other looked interested. “You’ve been to sea, have you, sir?”
“I know the Mediterranean pretty well,” Nicolo admitted. He scrutinized the tanned face.… Where had he seen it before? “You’ve had considerable experience at sea, I take it.”
“All over!” grinned the other. “Up and down the Red Sea, and across to India, and over by Malacca.”
“So! Some sight-seeing! How do you come to be in a dockyard at this end of the world?”
“Oh—everybody likes a change,” the man evasively returned. “What trade are you reckoning on, sir?”
“Madeira lumber and sugar and wine till I can do better. Spices, eventually, I hope—if Portugal ever finds the sea route to them.”
“Humph!” There was frank defiance in the grunt.
“Why, there’s more in spice than in anything else,” Nicolo remonstrated.
“You’re right there is! You’d be surprised if you only knew how much of a ‘more’ it is!”
Nicolo studied the sailor with curiosity. Almost he appeared to bear a grudge against spice. “How do you come to know so much about it, then?” he demanded.
“Oh—worked for years on ships that carried it. What between hauling on board and heaving over rail I reckon I’ve handled more pounds of the stuff than you’re days old!”
“You haven’t by any chance been where the spices grow?” Nicolo ventured.
“Over Ceylon way, you mean? And Penang, and Banda?”
“Banda!” Nicolo seized on the name so familiar to him through the cherished Conti letters, “How’d you get over there?”
The brown parchment face wrinkled into a grin. “I took to the sea from pretty near the time I was born—and I suppose I just kept on!”
Nicolo laughed. “And where were you born?”
“Down river—at Belem.8 My father was a bar pilot and he taught me his calling. I cut my teeth, you might say, on the Cachopos!9”
Nicolo eyed him with fresh interest. “Belem and the Orient are some distance apart!” he suggested.
The other nodded. “After my father was lost at sea, and my mother died, I quit the land for good. I got to know every port in the Mediterranean. One day, in Alexandria, I saw a caravan starting out for the Red Sea, and I took a notion to go along. Everybody said there was plenty of work down that way, and they were right, too. The harbour at Aden’s just chock-a-block with craft coming and going!”
Nicolo felt his pulses leap—the very East seemed to drip off this fellow’s tongue! “Where does all that traffic come from?”
“Everywhere; mostly from India, Cathay, the mess of islands betwixt and beyond; in Arab bottoms of course. They do all the carrying, and I’ll tell you they keep the ocean churning!”
Nicolo impetuously started on more questions, but suddenly checked himself: this first hand experience belonged to the workshop! “Would you be willing to talk to some of my friends about these places where you’ve seen the spices growing?”
The man silently eyed him, and Nicolo again sensed his hostility toward this subject over which Europe was seething.
“Where are your friends?” he at last demanded.
“Up the hill a way—I’ll take you there myself,” Nicolo eagerly volunteered.
“Oh, I might go, some evening,” the other agreed, as he turned away. “Perhaps I can tell you a thing or two about this spice business,” he added over his shoulder, “seeing you’re so keen on it.”
Bursting with his news, Nicolo strode up the hill. Already he could see Abel’s shining eyes when he should hear it: someone who had handled spices and seen them growing to tell about them first hand! They must arrange, too, for Gama and Diaz and the others to be there. It would be tremendous, epoch-making—and Nicolo quickened his step.
He found Ruth in the court, splitting figs from a heaped basket, and spreading them to dry in the sun. Abel was out, she said, but he would be back any moment.
Nicolo went into the workshop, took the Marco Polo Travels from its shelf, and sat down to see what he could make of the translation. At last, as no Abel appeared, he decided to delay no longer. He laid down the book and had started toward the door, when a stealthy sound arrested him, a sound which he knew instantly was not meant to be heard.
He glanced at Ruth busily dipping in and out of the figs. She, certainly, had not made that sound. There!… There it was, again.
On impulse he tiptoed into the next room, and looked into the room beyond. Back to him, by an open window, stood a girl, holding a bird-cage. Its tiny door, he noticed, was swung back, and the bird inside was fluttering uneasily. She lifted the cage to the window, and gently shook it. Nicolo watched her in amazement. Did she want to get rid of the little creature? Again she shook the cage, and, this time, out flashed the bird—not through the window, but into the room.
The girl wheeled around, and for a moment Nicolo had a swift vision of dark, velvety eyes in a face that was delicately, duskily golden. She seemed not even to see him. Her eyes were on the bird that was now darting about, and Nicolo perceived that they were very frightened. She had changed her mind, he guessed instantly—wanted her pet back!
He sprang forward, closed the door behind him, and then the window. Carefully he watched his chance, and when the downy little body dashed itself against a wall, his waiting hands closed gently around it. He held it so, until he felt the frantic wings and the fierce, tiny heart gradually quiet under his fingers—aware all the time that close to him a girl’s breath came and went unevenly, that great, dark eyes wide with terror besought his.
He slipped the bird inside the cage and fastened the little door. Then, very gently, he turned to the girl, waited for her to speak, for he had the impression that something behind those terrified, beautiful eyes was waiting to be said. He could see the trembling of her clenched hands, and the pulsing of the soft, bare neck, and it came, curiously, to him that somehow she was the struggling bird that his hands had held and shielded; and suddenly he wanted, above everything he had ever wanted, to so hold and so shield her; to tell her that never again was she to be afraid—not of anything!
“You won’t tell?” she whispered at last. “I was so frightened after I’d done it! He’s Mother Ruth’s pet—”
“Of course I won’t tell! Not for worlds.” He had all he could do to keep back a rush of tender assurances. “But why…why…did you?” He nodded toward the cage.
“Because—because—” her hands clutched at her throat—“I was once like that bird—shut up in a cage. And I couldn’t—couldn’t—get out!”
“In—a—cage? You?”
Something seemed to burst within him. This tender body behind bars!… This soft, throbbing neck! His nails bit into his palms to keep back that furious, inward tumult. He saw a half-fearful expression come over her face—ah, he mustn’t frighten her, not even by his own feeling about her.
“Don’t be afraid,” he begged her, “not of anything—ever again!” Was it his fancy that she seemed to waver toward him? He came close to her: “Who are you?”
She caught her breath. Nicolo noted the quick colour that swept upward from the delicate neck. He waited for her answer, his eyes entreating hers.… A sound outside… Steps… Ruth crossing the court to come into the house, perhaps into this very room!
They sprang apart—somehow Nicolo reached the workshop, dropped into a chair, and snatched up the Travels he had dropped.
He heard Ruth enter the room he had left, listened until her casual tone assured him that she suspected nothing. He stepped into the court, and closed the door behind him with a little bang.
Exactly as he had intended, the sound brought Ruth hurrying to him. “You’re not going, already?”
“I’ll come again soon,” he smiled back at her. “I have some splendid news for Master Abel!”
“He’ll be sorry he missed you. Yes, come soon.”
“Come soon” indeed! How was he ever going to keep away? Nicolo asked himself as he went
down the long flight. “I was…shut up in a cage.” Great heavens! What did she mean? Why had Abel—or Ferdinand—never mentioned her? Something hotly-sweet surged through him: to hold her—even as his hands had held the bird—safe in the very hollow of his life!
CHAPTER 8
Scander
The next evening found Nicolo and the sailor at the workshop. Nicolo had seen Abel down town that morning and had told him about his new acquaintance, and Abel had agreed to get word to the others to come that night.
All day Nicolo thought of that coming visit. Would he see the precious secret that he had discovered, yesterday? Did Abel and Ruth mean to keep her hidden?… What did it all mean?
When he finally entered the court with the sailor, and saw Abel waiting for them in the workshop, he realized he’d forgotten to ask the man’s name.
“Call me Scander,” said he. “I got that name from hanging around so long in Scanderia—Arabic for Alexandria. I had a Portygee name once,” he explained, “but ’twould be like the coat I wore when I was a lad—wouldn’t fit now!”
“You’ve actually sailed in Arab vessels—been in the Indies?” Abel eagerly began. He broke off to hail Diaz and Abraham, who just then came in, with Gama a little behind them. “Spice at first hand, gentlemen!”
“Hold fast there, Master Abel!” cried the sailor, “I’m not giving a show performance! I came here only to please Master Conti—said he had some friends who’d like to hear what I know of the spice trade.”
“Exactly what we want,” someone replied. “Can’t get enough of that.”
Young Magellan arrived in time to catch the last words. “Can’t get enough of what?” he demanded.
“Of spice!” laughed Abel.
“He’s seen cloves and nutmegs growing,” Nicolo added. “Fancy that!”
“Lord!” Scander stared, open mouthed, at Ferdinand. “Where’d you get those eyes?” Then, as the boy flushed, “So you’ve gone crazy over spice, too?” he asked. “Maybe”—a moody note in his voice—“maybe, I can tell you a thing or two about the stuff that’ll calm you down!”
They all drew up to the table and Nicolo noticed that Ruth had conceded enough to the current excitement to bring her chair to the doorway that opened into the next room. The door beyond, which, yesterday, had stood ajar, was now, he saw, fast shut. Was the Girl behind it?… Or where? Why this mystery and secrecy about her?
Old Abraham’s voice broke in on him. “Did you say you’d seen the spices growing?” he was eagerly asking Scander.
The sailor nodded. “Seen ’em and traded in ’em, both.”
“In India, I take it?” Gama inquired.
“Well, sometimes. But oftener, the Arab captain I shipped with regular, got his spice first hand from the growers: cinnamon from Ceylon, and pepper where it’s plenty, ’round Penang, and cloves and nutmegs from Amboyna and the Bandas.”
No one spoke. The very air was charged with profound suspense. Abel and Nicolo exchanged elated glances and Nicolo said, in a low tone, “That checks my Conti letters!”
Ferdinand’s eyes, fixed on Scander, seemed more than ever like smouldering fires. “Is the spice trade the big thing in that part of the world, as it is with us?” he asked.
“Yes and no, lad. It’s this way: all east of Aden it’s about the same, gold, pearls, ivory, silk.” He reeled the list off as casually as one would say flour, eggs, milk. “But at Aden there’s a change and spice jumps into the lead.”
“Why there?”
“Well, you see it’s near enough to the Mediterranean to feel the European premium on spices.”
“Then why couldn’t a European,” Nicolo quickly took him up, “who understood both ends of the business, make a good thing of it in Aden?”
“Humph! I was just waiting for someone to say that.” Again that hostile note.
At once everyone was on the defensive: “Why not?” “What’s the matter with that?”
“What’s there against my Aden scheme?” Nicolo insisted.
“A European wouldn’t be what you’d call exactly welcome at Aden. That’s what there is against it!” Scander said shortly. He looked deliberately around the table. “You gentlemen thinking of going into spice?”
“Not so much for personal profit,” Abel replied slowly, “as for the nation; for Portugal.”
“Know anything about the other end of the spice trade, the Arab end? Well, before you break into it, I can tell you a thing or two that might save you some trouble.”
In the words there was foreboding that riveted every eye on the tanned face.
“It was one time, some years back, when we’d just made Aden from Calicut,” he abruptly began, “that we got wind of some gossip that had come up the African coast, about a Franj ship—their word for European—that had been seen away to the south.”
There was a stir around the table. Everyone’s eyes sought Diaz, and those near him saw his hands clench. But Scander, intent on his story, went on:
“It didn’t sound sensible to me, but when we started south to Melinde, for ivory, up popped the story again; kept on popping, too. Seemed as if every place we went, we heard about this Franj ship.”
“Didn’t they know you were a European?” Gama asked.
“Funny part of that was that I’d been there so long and got into their ways so, that I didn’t think of it myself—at least, not at first.”
“Where did you say that place Melinde was?” Abel interrupted, and jotted hasty notes as the sailor directed.
“The next time we were at Aden,” Scander pursued, “talk about the Franj was running high, and in particular about—about—” he nervously wet his lips—“a Franj spice dealer there.”
For a moment he seemed to have forgotten his audience, and his eyes, staring over their heads, had a curious, dazed expression. Someone moved uneasily, and at once he recovered himself.
“Odd, how talking about it brings it all back,” he said, apologetically. “They were telling it around that this Franj had the finest spice concern on the coast, and the story went that he’d married an Arab girl to keep in with the native merchants—who are all Arabs, you understand. I’d seen the place, sorting sheds and warehouse, and his own house, too, a big palace of a place. Well, instead of putting to sea, the way we usually did, we hung around. I noticed several merchants come on board, and they appeared to be having some sort of conference with Captain. He had something on his mind, too. The way I noticed it first, he was so in earnest over his prayers; seemed almost like he was having a real talk with Allah!”
“How would you have happened to hear him at his prayers?” Abel inquired.
“That’s so!” Scander exclaimed. “I’ve been among the Arabs so long, I forget you don’t know their customs. You see, sir, every good Mohammedan prays three times a day: drops on his knees wherever he is, faces toward Mecca, and starts right in, loud and free. No whispering in dark corners or behind curtains the way you do here—nothing like that.
“Well, I began to suspect something was afoot, and sure enough, one morning, Captain told me that all up and down the African Coast and the Red Sea, across to Malabar and Cochin and Calicut, word had been passed to stand together against the Franj, to do no business with them, and to make way with them when it came handy.”
“I’d like to take my chances with a good stout caravel and a Portuguese crew!” Gama quietly commented.
“All the time he was talking,” the sailor went on, “I could feel something coming. Finally, he said Aden was going to start in by cleaning out the Franj merchant, and ‘Will you help?’ says he, looking me in the eye. It went through my head like lightning that he was trying me, which side was I on, for I knew he’d not forgotten I was a Franj. ‘What you going to do, Captain?’ said I, playing for time. He didn’t mince words: ‘Burn,’ said he, ‘burn and—kill. Are you with us?’”
“‘When?’ said I, still playing for time, and thinking that, if I couldn’t warn this Franji, I’d at least f
ind a way to get out rather than take up against one of my own kind, as you might say. But he was too sharp for me. ‘At once, when evening calls the Faithful to prayer. Are you with us?’ he asks again. But not a word did he say of my Franj blood! ‘Certain, Captain,’ I said, ‘I’ll go with you.’ I reckoned that was the only way to save my skin. Later, I figured, I’d find some way to get back to the Mediterranean.”
“Why folks want to kill each other,” Ruth exploded from the doorway, “for stuff that makes your tongue smart and your eyes water, is more than I can see!”
“Maybe you could, ma’am,” grinned Scander, “if you could sell it for half its weight in gold, as the Arab traders do!”
“But the call to prayer?” Nicolo reminded him.
“Yes…yes.” Again there was that nervous wetting of the lips. “Well, just as soon as we heard it, Captain gave the word, and we all started for the Franj outfit. Some carried long, two-handed native swords, and some had knives. The warehouse was right on the water front, and I figured that as soon as we got there I’d make a break for the house and warn the Franj merchant.
“But no sooner had we reached the place, than Captain herded us around to the big sorting shed. Through the cracks we could see the pepper and cloves and cinnamon piled up, and the sweaty, half-naked natives with their brown arms and hands gliding in and out as they sorted. It was half-dark in there and hot—hot as hell’s cockpit. And all the time we could see those shiny, brown bodies and their black eyes that sort of slipped around in their heads—instead of their heads turning, as yours and mine would, you understand!”
Scander paused, then, visibly bracing himself, he plunged on. “Next thing I knew, Captain flung open the door. ‘At them!’ he yelled. ‘Every one of them—in the name of Allah!”
Ruth cried out in the horrified stillness, and “You mean—in cold blood?” stammered Ferdinand.
“Did you…too?” someone gasped.
“How’d you suppose I know what I did in that hell’s shambles?” he burst out. “Only thing I can remember is watching swords and knives, all red and dripping to their hilts, slipping in and out among those shiny, brown bodies just as their hands had been slipping in and out of the spices!”
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