“And you—I feel only a slight uneasiness with you. I am not afraid of you any more. I do not want you any more. I am filled with a nostalgia for my own black mountains and for the speech of my own people. I am drawn to sit in a deep veranda and to hear the talk of an old man I used to know. I find I am tired of all this bloodshed and struggle for things that will not lie still, for articles that will not retain their value in my hands. it is horrible,” he cried. “I do not want anything any more. I have no lusts, and my desires are dry and rattling. I have only a vague wish for peace and the time to ponder imponderable matters.”
“You will take no more cups of gold,” she said. “You will turn no more vain dreams into unsatisfactory conquests. I am sorry for you, Captain Morgan. And you were not right about the slave. Ill he was, indeed, but not with the illness you have mentioned. But I suppose your sins are great. All men who break the bars of mediocrity commit frightful sins. I shall pray for you to the Holy Virgin, and She will intercede for you at the throne of Heaven. But what am I to do?”
“You will go back to your husband, I suppose.”
“Yes, I will go back. You have made me old, Señor. You have pricked the dream on which my heavy spirit floated. And I wonder whether, in the years to come, you will blame me for the death of your friend.”
Henry flushed quickly.
“I am trying to do something of that sort now,” he said. “It does not seem worth the while to lie any more, and that is only one more proof of dead youth. But now, good-by, Ysobel. I wish I loved you now as I thought I did yesterday. Go back to your husband’s scented hands.”
She smiled and raised her eyes to the holy picture on the wall. “Peace go with you, dear fool,” she murmured. “Ah, I too have lost my youth. I am old—old—for I cannot console myself with the thought of what you have missed.”
VII
Henry Morgan stood in the doorway of the Hall of Audience and watched a little troupe of Spaniards ride through the streets toward the Palace. The troupe was surrounded on all sides by a mob of buccaneers. First in the line came the messenger, but a changed messenger. Now he was dressed in scarlet silk. The plume of his hat and his sword’s scabbard were white in token of peace. Behind him rode six soldiers in silver breast-plates and the Spanish helmets which looked like half mustard seeds. The last soldier led a riderless white mare with crimson trappings and a line of golden bells on its brow band. The white saddle cloth nearly touched the ground. Following the mare were six mules bearing heavy leathern bags, and the group was rear-guarded by six more soldiers.
The cavalcade drew up before the Palace. The messenger leaped from his horse and bowed to Henry Morgan.
“I have here the ransom,” he said. He looked worried and tired. The weight of his mission was riding heavily on his spirit. At his command the soldiers carried the leather bags into the Hall of Audience, and only when they were all deposited with the rest of the treasure did the anxiety leave his face.
“Ah,” he said, “it is good. It is the treasure. Twenty thousand pieces of eight—not one lost by the wayside. I invite you to count them, Señor.” He whipped a little dust from his foot. “If my men could have refreshments, Señor; wine—” he suggested.
“Yes. Yes.” Henry motioned to one of his followers. “See that these men have food and drink. Be courteous, as you love life.”
Then he went to the bags to count the ransom. He made little towers of shining coins and moved the towers about on the floor. Money was bright, he thought. It could have been cut in no more charming shape, either. A square would not answer, nor an ellipse. And money was really worth more than money. He tumbled a tower and built it up again. It was so extremely certain—money. One knew beforehand what it would do if set in motion; at least, he knew up to a certain point. Beyond that point it did not matter what it accomplished. One might buy wine with money. One had the wine. And if the merchant’s clerk should kill his master for the same coins, it was unfortunate; it was, perhaps, Fate or something like that, but one had his wine just the same.
And all this pile of golden vessels, these crosses and candlesticks and pearl vestments, would be money like this. These bars of gold and silver would be cut into round flakes and each flake stamped with a picture. The picture would be more than a picture. Like the kiss of a saint, it would endow the flake with power; the picture would give it a character and a curious, compelling soul. He flung the coins into a heap and patiently set about to rebuild them. Enough towers for Jerusalem!
Now Ysobel came from the patio and stood beside him.
“What an amount of money,” she said. “Is that my ransom?”
“Yes; it is the gold which purchases you.”
“But what a very great deal! Am I worth that much, do you think?”
“To your husband you are. He paid it for you.” He moved ten towers into a line.
“And to you—how much? How many of these golden chips?”
“You must have been worth that much to me. I stated the price.”
“Wouldn’t they skip well on the water!” she said. “How they would skip! Do you know, I can throw like a boy, with my arm bent.”
“It was said you were capable,” he announced.
“But am I really worth that much?”
“The money is here, and you are to go. It has bought you. A thing must be worth what is paid for it, or there could be no trade.”
“It is good,” she said. “It is comforting to know one’s value to a real. Have you any idea of your worth, Captain?”
Henry Morgan said, “If I were ever captured and a ransom demanded for me, I would not be worth a copper penny. These dogs of mine would laugh and shrug. A new captain would raise to lead them, and I—well, I would be subject to the pleasure of my captors, and I think I could foretell their pleasure. You see, I have been at revaluing myself in the last few days. I may have some value to historians because I have destroyed a few things. The builder of your Cathedral is forgotten even now, but I, who burned it, may be remembered for a hundred years or so. And that may mean something or other about mankind.”
“But what is there about me that is worth all this gold?” she insisted. “Is it my arms, do you suppose? My hair? Or is it that I am the embodiment of my husband’s vanity?”
“I do not know,” said Henry. “With the revaluation of myself, the whole economic system of emotions and persons has changed. Today, were I to demand a ransom, perhaps you would not be flattered.”
“Do you so hate me, Captain Morgan?”
“No, I do not hate you; but you are one of the stars of my firmament which has proven to be a meteor.”
“That is not gallant, sir. That is quite different from your speech of a few days past,” she observed spitefully.
“No. It is not gallant. I think that hereafter I shall be gallant for two reasons only—money and advancement. I tried to be gallant for the pure, joyous looks of things. You see, I was honest with myself before and I am honest with myself now. These two honesties are antithetical.”
“You are bitter.”
“No; I am not even bitter. The food that bitterness feeds on is gone out of me.”
“I am going now,” she said softly and wistfully. “Have you nothing more to say to me about myself? Nothing more to ask of me?”
“Nothing,” he answered, and immediately went to piling the coins again.
The messenger entered from the street. He had drunk deeply, for the removed burden of his mission had made him joyous. He bowed to Ysobel and to Henry Morgan; bowed warily, with an eye to his balance.
“We must go, Señor,” he announced loudly. “The way is long.” He led Ysobel to the white mare and helped her into the saddle. Then, at his signal, the column moved off down the street. Ysobel looked back once as they started, and it seemed that she had taken a mood from Henry Morgan, for there was a puzzled smile on her lips. But then she bent her head over the mare’s neck; she was intently studying the mare’s white mane.