“Would you please to come this way, sir?” he said. He led the way on to the foredeck, and there, chained by the waist to a ring bolt, with irons on his wrist and ankles, was el Supremo.
He was in rags — half naked in fact, and his beard and hair were matted and tangled, and his own filth lay on the deck about him.
“I think,” said the Spanish captain, “that you have already had the pleasure, sir, of meeting His Excellency Don Julian Maria de Jesus de Alvarado y Moctezuma, who calls himself the Almighty?”
El Supremo showed no signs of being disconcerted by the gibe.
“Captain Hornblower has indeed been presented to me already,” he said loftily. “He has worked for me long and devotedly. I trust you are enjoying the best of health, Captain?”
“Thank you, sir,” said Hornblower.
Despite his rags, and his filth, and his chains, el Supremo bore himself with the same elaborate dignity as Hornblower remembered so well those many weeks ago.
“I too,” he said, “am as well as the world could desire. It is a source of continual satisfaction to me to see my affairs progressing so well.”
A negro servant appeared on the deck at that moment with a tray of chocolate; another followed him with a couple of chairs. Hornblower, at the invitation of his host, sat down. He was glad to do so, as his knees seemed suddenly weak under him, but he had no desire at all for his chocolate. The Spanish captain drank noisily, and el Supremo eyed him as he did so. There came a gleam of appetite in his face. His lips moistened and smacked softly together, his eyes brightened, his hand came out, and then next moment he was calm and indifferent again.
“I trust that the chocolate is to your liking, sirs,” he said. “I ordered it specially for you. My own appetite for chocolate has long since disappeared.”
“That is just as well,” said the Spanish captain. He laughed loudly and drank again, smacking his lips.
El Supremo ignored him, and turned to Hornblower.
“You see I wear these chains,” he said. “It is a strange whim on the part of myself and my servants that I should do so. I hope you agree with me that they set off my figure quite admirably?”
“Y-yes, sir,” stammered Hornblower.
“We are on our way to Panama, where I shall mount the throne of the world. They talk of hanging; these fellows here say that there is a gallows awaiting us on the bastion of the Citadel. That will be the framework of my golden throne. Golden, it will be, with diamond stars and a great turquoise moon. It will be from there that I shall issue my next decrees to the world.”
The Spanish captain guffawed again, but el Supremo still stood in quiet dignity, hugging his chains, with the sun blazing down on his tangled head.
“He will not last long in this mood,” said the Spanish captain to Hornblower behind his hand. “I can see signs of the change coming. It gives me great felicity that you have had the opportunity of seeing him in both his moods.”
“The sun grows in his splendour every day,” said el Supremo. “He is magnificent and terrible, as I am. He can kill — kill — kill, as he killed the men I exposed to him — when was it? And Moctezuma is dead, and all his line save me, in the hundreds of years ago. I alone remain. And Hernandez is dead, but it was not the sun that killed him. They hanged Hernandez even while the blood dripped from his wounds. They hanged him in my city of San Salvador, and as they hanged him he still called upon the name of el Supremo. They hanged the men and they hanged the women, in long rows at San Salvador. Only el Supremo is left, to govern from his golden throne. His throne! His throne!”
El Supremo was staring about him now. There was a hint of bewildered realisation in his face as he jangled his chains. He peered at them stupidly.