“Drunkenness has never been a pleasure to me,” the captain said. “It makes me very sad. But I have a new venture turning in my brain. Coeur de Gris, what is the richest city of the western world? What place has been immune from the slightest gesture of the Brotherhood? Where might we all make millions?”
“But, sir, you do not think—Surely you cannot consider it possible to take—”
“I will take Panama—even the Cup of Gold.”
“How may you do this thing? The city is strongly guarded with walls and troops, and the way across the isthmus is nigh impassable but for the burro trail. How will you do this thing?”
“I must take Panama. I must capture the Cup of Gold.” The captain’s jaw set fiercely.
Now Coeur de Gris was smiling quietly.
“Why do you grin at me?” demanded Captain Morgan. “I was thinking of a chance remark I made a little time ago, that Panama was like to go the way of Troy town.”
“Ah! this nameless woman is in your mind. Dismiss her! It may be there exists no such woman.”
“But then, sir, we are rich enough of this last spoil.”
“It would be no evil thing to grow richer. I am tired of plundering. I would rest securely.”
Coeur de Gris hesitated a time, while his eyes were covered with a soft veil.
“I am thinking, sir, that when we come to Panama every man will be at his friend’s throat over the Red Saint.”
“Oh, you may trust me to keep order among my men— strict order—though I hang half of them to do it. A while ago I sent word to Panama that I would go there, but I did it as a joke. And I wonder, now, whether they have been fortifying themselves. Perhaps they, too, thought it a joke. Go, now, Coeur de Gris, and speak to no man of this. I make you my ambassador. Let the men throw their gold away. Encourage gambling—here—now—on the ship. Give them an example at the taverns—an expensive example. Then they will be driven to go out with me. I must have an army this time, my friend, and even then we may all die. Perhaps that is the chief joy of life—to risk it. Do my work well, Coeur de Gris, and it may be one day you will be richer than you can think.”
Young Coeur de Gris stood musing by the mast.
“Our captain, our cold captain, has been bitten by this great, nebulous rumoring. How strange this pattern is! It is as though the Red Saint had been stolen from my arms. My dream is violated. I wonder, when they know, if every man will carry this feeling of a bitter loss—will hate the captain for stealing his desire.”
V
Sir Edward Morgan led forces against St. Eustatius, and, while the battle raged, a slim, brown Indian slipped up and drove a long knife into his stomach. The Lieutenant-Governor set his lips in a straight, hard line, and crumpled to the ground.
“My white breeches will be ruined,” he thought. “Why did the devil have to do it, just when we were getting on so nicely. I should have got special thanks from his Majesty, and now I shall not be here to receive them. Heaven! he chose a painful place!” And then the full tragedy struck him.
“An ordinary knife,” he muttered; “and in the stomach. I should have preferred a sword in the hand of an equal—but a knife—in the stomach! I must look disreputable with all this blood and dirt on me. And I cannot straighten up! Christ! the wretch struck a sensitive spot.”
His men sadly bore him to Port Royal.
“It was unavoidable,” he told the Governor; “slipped up on me with a knife and stabbed me in the stomach. Such a little devil he couldn’t reach any higher, I suppose. Report the affair to the Crown, will you, Sir? And please do not mention the knife—or the stomach. And now will you leave me with my daughter? I shall be dying soon.”
Elizabeth stood over him in a darkened room.
“Are you hurt badly, father?”
“Yes, quite badly. I shall die presently.”
“Nonsense, papa; you are only joking to excite me.”
“Elizabeth, does it sound like nonsense—and have you ever heard me joke? I have several things to speak of, and the time is very short. What will you do? There is little money left. We have been living on my salary ever since the King made his last general suggestion for a loan.”
“But what are you talking about, papa! You cannot die and leave me here alone and lost in the colonies. You cannot, cannot do it!”
“Whether I can or not, I shall die presently. Now let us discuss this matter while we can. Perhaps your cousin who has come to such fame through robbery will care for you, Elizabeth. I am pained at the thought, but—but—it is necessary to live—very necessary. And after all, he is your cousin.”
“I will not believe it. I simply will not believe it. You cannot die!”
“You must stay with the Governor until you can meet your cousin. Tell him the exact standing of the matter; no fawning—but do not be too proud. Remember he is your own blood cousin, even though he is a robber.” His heavy breathing filled the room. Elizabeth had begun to cry softly, like a child who cannot quite tell whether or not it is hurt. Finally words were forced from Sir Edward’s lips.
“I have heard that you can tell a gentleman by the way he dies—but I should like to groan. Robert would have groaned if he had wished. Of course, Robert was queer—but then—he was my own brother—he would have shrieked if he had felt like it. Elizabeth, will you—please—leave the room. I am sorry—but I must groan. Never speak of it—Elizabeth—you promise—never—never to speak of it?”
And when she came again, Sir Edward Morgan was dead.
VI
Spring had come to Cambria, welling up out of the Indies and out of the hot, dry heart of Africa, and this the fifteenth Spring since Henry went away. Old Robert liked to think, and then came curiously to believe, that his son sent the Spring to Cambria out of the tropic places. There was a green fur climbing up the hills, and the trees were testing new, fragile leaves in the winds.
Old Robert’s face had grown more set. Around his mouth lived less a smile and more a grimace, as though some ancient, anguished smile had frozen there. Ah! the years had been lonely, barren things, with nothing left in their arms for him. He knew the meaning, now, of Gwenliana’s words—that age brought nothing with it save a cold, restless waiting; a dull expectancy of a state that might not be imagined with any assurance. Perhaps he waited for the time when Henry would come to him again. But that could scarcely be so. He was not at all sure that he wanted to see Henry any more. It would be disturbing. When one is old, one hates disturbing things.
For a long time he had wondered, “What is Henry doing now? what seeing now?” And then the boy had faded slightly, had come to be like people in old books—not quite real, yet real enough to be remembered. But Robert thought often of this abstract person, his son, of whom he heard wavering rumors now and again.
With waking on the fine morning of the Spring, Robert had said, “I will climb up to see Merlin today. Strange how that old man lives under the growing pressure of his years. There must be more than a hundred of them now. His body is a thin wisp—nothing more than a suggestion that here was once a body. But William says, if you can be picking thought out of William’s speaking, that his voice is golden and strong as always, and that he still talks tremendous nonsense that would not be tolerated at London. It is amazing how this road-mender has his whole life curled like a kitten around four days in London. But I must be going to Merlin. It is not likely that I shall go again.”
The steep, rocky path was a thing of torture to him; more a cruel thing because of his memory of lithe, powerful legs, and lungs as tireless as bellows. Once he had led all comers in the mountain race, but now he climbed a bit, then rested on a stone, and climbed again—up and up into the cleft and over the rock shoulder. It was noon when he came at last to Crag-top.
Merlin met him at the door before he had time to knock, and Merlin had no more changed than the harps and spear-heads hanging to his walls. He seemed to have discarded time like a garment. Merlin came to Robert with no surprise. It was as though he had known of this slow pilgrimage a thousand years before the day had happened.