Henry Morgan was staring at the pistol again. “I do not know,” he muttered sullenly. “I must have known, but I have forgotten. I killed a dog once—and I have just killed Jones. I do not know why.”
“You are a great man, Captain,” Coeur de Gris said bitterly. “Great men may leave their reasons for the creative bands of their apologists. But I—why, sir, I am nothing any more—nothing. A moment ago I was an excellent swordsman; but now, my being—that which fought, and cursed, and loved—it may never have been, for all I know.” His wrists weakened and he fell to his side and lay there coughing at the obstruction in his throat. Then, for a time, there was no sound in the room save his uneven gasping for breath. But suddenly he raised himself on one elbow and laughed; laughed at some cosmic joke, some jest of the great rolling spheres; laughed triumphantly, as though he had solved a puzzle and found how simple it was. A wave of blood rode to his lips on the laughter, and filled up his throat. The laugh became a gushing sigh, and Coeur de Gris sank slowly to his side and was still, because his lungs would no longer force breath.
Henry still stared at the pistol in his hand. Slowly he raised his eyes to the open window. The streaming rays of the sun made the treasure on the floor glow like a mass of hot metal. His eyes wandered to the body in front of him. He shuddered. And then he went to Coeur de Gris, picked him up, and sat him in a chair. The limp body fell over to one side. Henry straightened it and braced it in an upright position. Then he went back to his serpent chair.
“I raised my hand like this—” he said, pointing the pistol at Coeur de Gris. “I raised my hand like this. I must have. Coeur de Gris is dead. Like this, I raised it—like this—and pointed—How did I do it?” He bowed his head, then raised it with a chuckle.
“Coeur de Gris!” he said; “Coeur de Otis! I wanted to tell you about La Santa Roja. She rides horses, you know. She has no womanly modesty at all—none at all—and her looks are only moderate.” He peered at the propped figure before him. The eyes of Coeur de Gris had been only half closed, but now the lids slipped down and the eyes began to sink back in his head. On his face was the frozen distortion of his last bitter laughter.
“Coeur de Gris!” the captain shouted. He went quickly to the body and laid his hand on its forehead.
“This is a dead thing,” he said musingly. “This is only a dead thing. It will bring flies and sickness. I must have it taken away at once. It will bring the flies into this room. Coeur de Gris! we have been fooled. The woman fences like a man, and she rides horses astride. So much labor lost for us! That’s what we get for believing everything we hear—eh, Coeur de Gris?—But this is only a dead thing, and the flies will come to it.”
He was interrupted by a tramp of feet on the stairs. A band of his men entered, driving in their midst a poor frightened Spaniard—a mud-draggled, terrified Spaniard. The lace had been torn from his neck, and a little stream of blood ran from one sleeve.
“Here is a Spaniard, sir,” the leader said. “He came to the city bearing a white flag. Shall we respect the white flag, sir? He has silver on his saddle. Shall we kill him, sir? Perhaps he is a spy.”
Henry Morgan ignored the speech. Instead he pointed to the body in the chair.
“That is only a dead thing,” he announced. “That is not Coeur de Gris. I sent Coeur de Gris away. He will be back soon. But that is—I raised my hand like this—do you see?—like this. I know exactly how I did it; I have tried it again and again. But that is a dead thing. It will bring the flies to us.” He cried, “Oh, take it away and bury it in the earth!”
A buccaneer moved to lift the body.
“Don’t touch him! Don’t dare to touch him! Leave him where he is. He is smiling. Do you see him smile? But the flies—No, leave him. I will care for him myself.”
“This Spaniard, sir; what shall we do with him? Shall we kill him?”
“What Spaniard?”
“Why, this one before you, sir.” He shoved the man forward. Henry seemed to awaken from a deep dream.
“What do you want?” he asked harshly.
The Spaniard struggled with his fright.
“It—it is my wish and the wish of my padrone to have speech with one Captain Morgan if he will have the goodness. I am a messenger, Señor—not a spy, as these—these gentlemen suggest.”
“What is your message?” Henry’s voice had become weary.
The messenger took reassurance from his changed tone. “I come from one man very rich, Señor. You have his wife.”
“I have his wife?”
“She was taken in the city, Señor.”
“Her name?”
“She is the Doña Ysobel Espinoza, Valdez y los Gabilanes, Señor. The simple people of the city have called her La Santa Roja.”
Henry Morgan regarded him for a long time. “Yes, I have her,” he said finally. “She is in a cell. What does her husband wish?”
“He offers ransom, Señor. He has reason to wish his wife with him again.”
“What ransom does he offer?”
“What would Your Excellency suggest?”
“Twenty thousand pieces of eight,” Henry said quickly. The messenger was staggered. “Twenty thous—viente mil—” He translated fully to comprehend the enormity of the amount. “I perceive that Your Excellency also wants the woman.”
Henry Morgan looked at the body of Coeur de Gris. “No,” he said; “I want the money.”
Now the messenger was relieved. He had been prepared to think this great man a great idiot. “I will do what may be done, Señor. I will come back to you in four days.”
“In three!”
“But if I do not arrive, Señor?”
“If you do not arrive, I shall take the Red Saint away with me and sell her in the slave docks.”
“I shall strive, Señor.”
“Give him courtesy!” the captain commanded. “Do not mistreat him in any way. He is to bring us gold.”
As they were leaving, one man turned back and let his eyes lovingly caress the treasure.
“When is the division to be, sir?”
“In Chagres, fool! Do you think I would divide it now?”
“But, sir, we would like to be having a bit of it in our hands—for the feel of it, sir. We have fought hard, sir.”
“Get out! You’ll have none of it in your hands until we come to the ships again. Do you think I want to have you throwing it to the women here? Let the Goaves women get it from you.”
The men went out of the Hall of Audience grumbling a little.
VI
The buccaneers were rioting in Panama. Barrels of wine had been rolled to a large warehouse. The floor had been cleared of its clutter of merchandise, and now a wild dance was in progress. Numbers of women were there, women who had gone over to the pirates. They danced and flung about to the shrieking of flutes as though their feet did not sound on the grave of Panama at all. They, dear economists, were gaining back some of the lost treasure, using a weapon more slow, but no less sure, than the sword.
In a corner of the warehouse sat The Burgundian and his one-armed protector.
“See, Emil! That one there—Consider to yourself her hips now!”
“I see her, ’Toine, and it is good of you. Do not think I do not appreciate your trouble for my pleasure. But I am silly enough to have an ideal, even in copulation. This proves to me that I am still an artist, if not a gentleman.”
“But see, Emil. Notice for a moment the fullness of her bosom.”
“No, ’Toine; I see nothing that endangers my rose pearl. I will keep it by me a while yet.”
“But really, my friend, I think you lose your sense of beauty. Where is that careful eye we used to fear so on our canvases?”
“The eye is here, ’Toine. It is still here. It is your own little eye which makes nymphs of brown mares.”
“Then—Then, Emil, since you persist in your blindness, perhaps you would condescend to loan me your rose pearl. There—I thank you. I shall return it presently.”
Grippo was seated in the middle of the floor, sullenly counting the buttons on his sleeve.
“—eight, nine—There were ten. Some bastard has stolen my button. Ah, this world of thieves! It is too much. I would kill for that button. It was my favorite button. One, two, three—Why there are ten. One, two, three, four—” About him the dancers rocked and the air was reeking with the shrill cries of the flutes.