“And who said it?” asked Prasutacus; and with the question the mist was carried away like clouds on a high wind. It was Seneca who had said it, the man with the evil name in Britain and the great name in Rome. Daemonides had quoted another saying of Seneca’s: “Life is long, if it is fulfilled.” Attilius caught at that saying now. Another life and another for atonement? He passed beyond that creed now. Another life and another for fulfilment. That was the creed he had reached, and he was content. He saw his short life spread out before him — from his wild youth and banishment to these last moments in the hall of Prasutacus. There was a pattern in it, an order, therefore a purpose, and a purpose still to be fulfilled — and not fulfilled here nor in this age. The painted figure on the tiles was a promise.
Attilius broke in upon Prasutacus. He had done with him.
“Sergia,” he cried. “Look up! You and I! Don’t doubt! Don’t fear!”
And Sergia saw him, in spite of the blood caked upon his face and his pinioned arms, radiant as a young God, striding towards her out of the heart of the dawn.
“Attilius.
She shook off her attendant. She rose to her feet. She gazed at her lover with her lips parted, her eyes shining.
“What did I promise you, my dear?” he said. “I should hear your voice when I die. I promise you now much more. Another life in other days, with me.”
Sergia stood, her eyes upon him, hope glimmering in them. She had not listened to Daemonides at Lyons. There was no Orpheus with his lute painted at her feet. But she loved, and love preached as convincing a sermon as the Cynic and the God. There could be no such futility as that he should die and she should weep.
“Believe!” he cried, and his voice rang with certainty.
Surely he knew!
Gravely she bowed her head, binding herself to that distant tryst.
“I don’t doubt, my darling. I no longer fear.” She breathed the words in a full, low voice.
Prasutacus raged. Here was his vengeance made a mockery, he himself set aside.
“I’ll end this,” he cried, shaking his fist; and Attilius turned his eyes for a second upon him, as though only now he was aware of his presence.
“You, Prasutacus,” he said very gently. “You will end — nothing.”
He looked again at Sergia, taking to his heart her courage and her loveliness.
“Carry me with you, dearest, in your memories as I am now,” he said, and to her the ring of his voice was a pledge. “Now, look at me no more.”
For he had seen a quick movement of Prasutacus’ hand. Sergia obeyed him. She covered her face with her hands. In a polished pillar he saw Bran lift high behind him his great hammer.
“My Attilius—” he heard, and heard no more. For the hammer fell. Again Attilius’ armour rattled once, and then all the room was still.
PART TWO. ANTHONY SCARR
XII. ON DENNIS HEAD
Now called by one, now by another name,
The form is only changed, the wax is still the same
So death, so called, can but the form deface
The immortal soul flies out in empty space
To seek her fortune in some other place.
— Dryden
From the fifteenth to the nineteenth of the month a southwest gale thrashed the trees in the park and roared about the chimneys. Anthony Scarr, then fourteen years old, slept ill through the nights and found no solace in his books by day. On the nineteenth, indeed, he was so tormented that he rose from his bed before midnight and, wrapping himself in a cloak against the cold, sat down to prepare himself by the light of his candles for his matriculation at Oxford. He was studying the sixth book of the Aeneid and did at last lose his unhappiness in the story of Eurydice and Orpheus. He lost his sense of outward things altogether, and was wandering in the meadows with the souls waiting to be born again when he was suddenly recalled to earth. He had reached the line:
“Inclusas animas, superumque ad lumen ituras,”…
and was aware again, after these five days of boisterous storm, of gulls crying above the roof of the house. He lifted his head. The gale had blown itself out. He ran to his window and opened it. There were stars shining in an ebony sky and such a stillness in the air that he could count the seconds between each thunder-roll of the breakers on the rocks.
Anthony dressed himself in a panic lest he should be too late, slipped on a leather jacket, and carrying his shoes in one hand and his candle in the other, crept down the stairs. In all this big house no one but his tutor, the Reverend Doctor Morgan Evans of Oriel College, and himself inhabited the principal quarters, and the comfortable, loud snores of the good Doctor freed him from any fear that his adventure would be interrupted. Outside the main door, the cold of a November night caught his breath away, but the flame of the candle was as steady as a spearhead. It flickered only as he moved — between the shrubs, down the steps of the terraces, across the lawns which separated them. It disappeared in the boathouse, and a little later the keel of a boat grated on the shingle and the thud of oars in the rowlocks broke the night with a muffled rhythm. They made up a refrain as one spaced sound will: “You’ll miss them… You’ll miss them… You’ll miss them.”
But in the smooth water on the western side of the river a draught of wind from the north came to the boy’s help. He set up his mast and a sail and in half an hour felt the lop of the sea under him. It was still the very black of night, but he had the habit of these waters and his eyes could now make out the line of the high land against the sky. He ran out towards the Manacles and once past Dennis Head, put his tiller down and bore up behind its screen of rocks into Gillan Creek. He beached his boat in front of the little church of St Anthony-in-Meneage, and climbing through a stubble of dead ferns, ran out to the brow of the Head. He looked eastward across the Helford River and down into Falmouth Bay, his heart in his mouth. They were there still, all four of them, their lanterns tossing on the swell — Drake’s ships. They had lain weather-bound in the bay these five days, and even now the faint wind from the north had not reached them under Mawnan’s Chair.
Anthony Scarr was in time, then. He would see the last of them in English waters. He flung himself down upon the turf. The lanterns were moving now, away from the coast — surely — surely. He watched them in suspense. That winter’s morning breathed sharp and cold long before the darkness lifted. But the boy on Dennis Head never noticed it. It seemed to him that the whole world held its breath with him, waiting upon a miracle. Slowly the light came, slowly the four ships made their offing, and up over the great wedge of the Dodman rose the sun. Suddenly it was summer. Snow ranges of white clouds towered over Rame Head. Here under Dennis Head the sea was brown; and across the bay from east to west a line was drawn, straight as that line a foolish Pope had drawn from north to south, giving half the world to Portugal and half to Spain. Well, Drake was going to see about that line, and what better promise could he have than that on the morning of his departure this side of his line was brown and that beyond, the loveliest, sparkling blue. With a fair wind the four ships drew to the southwest, first the General’s own ship, the Pelican, next the Elizabeth, third the provision ship, the Swan, and last the tiny Marigold. Anthony watched until the last sail had dipped beyond the horizon. And then, since he was alone, and since he was very young, he buried his face in his arms and burst into tears. His heart was with those ships. He had so longed to sail on one of them; he was so desolate in that big house across the river. Almost he had sailed on one of them — down with Drake to the Straits of Magellan and out into that unknown sea of gold and spices and adventure into which only one had broken and from which he had not returned.
Anthony stumbled down the hill, his eyes still blinded with his tears, and coming to the small wicket gate which led into the churchyard, passed through it. The door of the church was open and the church was empty. He went into it and, kneeling down, prayed with his whole heart that, though he was not permitted to sail with it, the tiny
fleet might return, ballasted with gold and jewels and rare spices, to the glory of God and the ruin of Spain.
For this was November of the year 1577, and one of those four ships was to perambulate the world.
XIII. THE CABIN OF THE “PELICAN”
Call him on the deep sea, call him up the Sound,
Call him when ye sail to meet the foe;
Where the old trade’s plyin’ an’ the old flag flyin’
They shall find him ‘ware an’ wakin’ as they
found him long ago.
— Newbolt
He had almost sailed with Drake. Who had prevented him? The question so puzzled and distressed the boy that, after he had made his prayer upon his knees, he sat back on the bench and for the hundredth time harried his wits to solve it. The north wind blew steadily. The four ships were drawing on from circle to circle of the great sea. Anthony in the quiet of the tiny church repeated each detail of the heartbreaking, unforgettable day.
First of all he had had to persuade his tutor to a jaunt to Plymouth fifty miles away. He had turned that trick without much difficulty. Dr Evans was a learned pussycat, but he had a corner of his mind where imagination played. He loved old roads, and though he only travelled them by the fireside of Drove House behind Mawnan’s Chair, he travelled them insatiably. The publication of two new books written upon this topic was Anthony’s lure. And once he had got the Reverend Doctor inside the door of Mr Hopton, the Plymouth bookseller, the pussycat was no more than a mouse in a trap. The trap was richly and variously baited. So Dr Evans nibbled and nibbled contentedly whilst Anthony lay in wait upon the Barbican and watched the Pelican preparing for the sea, and Captain Drake going forth and coming back in his rough working suit of frieze.
Anthony had made up his mind to speak to him, and each day he was daunted. He saw a short, square man with an enormous breadth of chest.
“The very build for a sailor,” he said to himself, “He’ll never look at me,” and he glanced ruefully down at his own slender and gracious figure. “He could break me in his hands”; and indeed the General’s strong brown beard and his crop of hair upstanding like wire were daunting to any lad who had nothing to offer and everything to ask.
There was just one feature which encouraged Anthony: Drake’s high arched brows which made him look as if, with every step he took, a new world surprised and ravished him. But Anthony could not stake his dreams upon a couple of eyebrows, however promising. So he still advanced and receded. “If I speak to him now he will only take me for a dancing master,” Anthony moaned, and he got himself back to his lodging, belabouring himself for a coward.
He was bold enough then, and quite unable to understand his poltroonery.
“After all, he could only pull my ears,” he said stoutly, “and what are ears for?”
“To be tickled,” said the Reverend Dr Evans surprisingly. It is his excuse that he was half asleep after a busy day and a copious supper. “To be tickled by cool fingers and exquisite melodies. There was once a time when a maiden at Bablock Hythe — But eheu fugaces labuntur anni…” Very likely the enormity of uttering a quotation so trite woke him up, but wake he did. He saw his dear pupil staring at him with intense astonishment, and he was a little astonished himself. “To be sure,” he said soothingly, and so fell away into silence. The story of the maiden at Bablock Hythe was never told. Indeed, next day Anthony Scarr forgot it. For next day was the memorable one. There was not enough red in the whole world to colour its letters worthily.
For while Anthony chassé-ed and croisé-ed, that morning the great man stopped and fetched about as nimbly as one of his own pinnaces.
“And what has this young falcon been trying to say to me?” he cried in a big, good-humoured voice. He did not, after all, take him for a dancing master. His eyes had a friendly look; they were brown with steel behind. Anthony blurted out, taking off his hat: “Captain Drake, I want to go to sea with you.”
It seemed that nothing so comic had happened to the great man for many a day. Here was a pair of ears properly tickled. They were standing on the Barbican by the water-steps, and Drake leaned back against the parapet and let out his delight in a roar of laughter. To Anthony it was a wave of shame, drowning him — worse, a scourge which bit into his soul and left him alive.
“Nay, never flinch, lad, because I laugh,” the Captain said quickly. “I laugh not at you. I laugh because every honest boy wants to sail with me, and there aren’t the ships in England to house them all.”
Anthony looked at him steadily.
“If you would take me, Sir, I’d be content to wash your shirts.” And Drake’s laughter stopped.
“Would you, now?” he asked softly.
Most of the boys wanted to steer the ship and lead the boarding parties with pike and cutlass, whilst Drake stood by, his sword drawn, certainly, but only of use to knight them afterwards — boy heroes before discipline and knowledge had knit them into heroism, Jack the Giant-killer, every one of them, before he had learned to climb the beanstalk.
“Wash my shirts? Would you now?” he repeated, and he looked Anthony over rather carefully from head to foot.
Now Anthony was of his age, early a man and late a boy. He had used his wits and he had listened. He knew that this bluff sailor had a shrewd liking for magnificence, that he claimed not merely authority but the decorations which set it off. So he had dressed himself in his very bravest, a velvet doublet and breeches of the rich Venetian brown with a collar of lace and red roses in his shoes. He was very spruce and smart. So Drake looked him over. This slim stripling had the voice and manner of a gentleman. It would be pleasant to have him in his fine clothes, with his face fresh as a girl’s standing behind the Captain’s chair whilst the Captain dined. He might have a gold chain, too, with an emerald ornament, about his shoulders, taken from the first galleon they fell in with. Drake stroked his beard and thought about it. Then he shook his head.
“I look to God the Lord to fill my sails. Will He if the maledictions of the mothers blow on t’other side?”
“I have no mother,” said Anthony. “I never knew my mother.”
“And has grown so straight and delicate in spite of it! And knows that good will gives the meanest duties rank! Must have had a father in a thousand!”
“For a while,” Anthony answered.
“He followed your mother?”
“Spain helped him, for his soul’s sake.”
Drake nodded his head gravely.
“The Inquisition?”
“The Plaza of Valladolid.”
A famous place. A wide place, where a fine crowd could gather to see the tortured prisoners limp from their dungeons in their grotesque masquerade and burn like so many candles at the altar of God. Anthony’s was a common case. A rash word, perhaps no word at all but an informer seeking favour or a man of business ridding himself of a rival — and the iron hand closed and only opened to consign quite paternally another heretic to the flames. There were hundreds in England, mothers and wives and sons and daughters and lovers of men who had ventured into Spanish ports and paid the penalty. Who should know it if not Drake? But none the less there was something new to him in this commonplace narrative, something which melted him. The reticence and quietude with which it was suggested rather than told. The great leader, who would never have led but for his understanding of other men, saw suddenly a young soul sunk in depth upon depth of loneliness and longing. He must hate Spain, too, all the more because he said nothing about it. Drake had got beyond the fine stripling and his gold chain.
“But you have guardians,” he objected.
“Yes.”
“They have plans for you.”
“Oxford. The Inns of Court to follow. I do not see them often,” and now a smile of amusement turned him into a boy again. “They are very busy. I think they might be very pleased to be able to say that their ward had sailed with Captain Drake.”
Captain Drake could read between the lines. A question or
two more about those guardians and he knew that they were merchants of Bishopsgate, cocoons of the new gentry then spreading its golden wings. No doubt they were very busy, pushing through the newly opened doors which led from the City to Whitehall.
“To be sure,” said Drake. “To say that you sailed with me—”
“Would be another plume in Mrs. Sawle’s hair and a few more slashes in Mr Sawle’s doublet.”
At which Drake’s great laugh rang out again. He clapped the boy on the shoulder.
“Come with me and see my ship,” he cried, and was moved out of all expectation as he saw the light leap into the boy’s eyes and heard the breath he drew in through his parted lips. “Nay,” he said. “I’m not inviting you to Paradise.”
But there Drake was wrong. He was. His long boat, manned by sailors holding their oars aloft, waited at the steps. Into it Drake stepped and took the tiller. Anthony — there was no one prouder in the world that morning, not the Pope in the Vatican nor Philip in the Escurial — followed and sat on the cushion by his side.
“Give way,” and the oars flashed. Surely everyone from the Barbican and the Hoe to the far Tamar must be asking: “In God’s name, who’s that young upstart sitting on a cushion beside the General?” He stood on the deck of the Pelican. He saw the stores being handed in, the crew setting up the rigging and polishing the eighteen carronades, Drake’s dreadful jewellery, and Drake himself everywhere, a curse for one and a cheer for another, and his own big, deft hands all the while doing the work of four.
“I’m in a hurry, lad,” he said, with an anxious glance towards the shore.
He never knew when Sir John Hawkins might be pushing out from his office in a boat with an order that his Gracious Lady, the Queen, had changed her mind for what we should now call the umpteenth time, and had determined to play at pat-ball with Philip and, in a word, he must not go. And even more, he feared the sudden apparition of the latest darling from the Court, either in a frenzy to do some unparalleled thing for the glory of Gloriana or in a rage because she had boxed his ears. In any case a pinnace would follow him with a messenger breathing fire and threats and all manner of smarts if he did not at once put back and send the darling back to London. Oh, he was in a hurry to get away from Plymouth Sound and out of the reach of pinnaces, with his powder and his shot and his stores all safely bestowed.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 621