Cup of Gold (20 page)

“And did you never go back for her, after your imprisonment was done?”

Henry Morgan looked down at the floor.

“No, my friend—I never did.”

The legend of the Red Saint grew in his brain like a powerful vine, and a voice came out of the west to coax and mock, to jeer and cozen Henry Morgan. He forgot the sea and his idling ships. The buccaneers were penniless from their long inactivity. They lay about the decks and cursed their captain for a dreaming fool. He struggled madly against the folding meshes of his dream and argued with the voice.

“May God damn La Santa Roja for sowing the world with an insanity. She has made cut-throats bay the moon like love-sick dogs. She is making me crazy with this vain desire. I must do something—anything—to lay the insistent haunting of this woman I have never seen. I must destroy the ghost. Ah, it is a foolish thing to dream of capturing the Cup of Gold. It would seem that my desire is death.”

And he remembered the hunger which had drawn him from Cambria, for it was duplicated and strengthened now. His thoughts were driving sleep away. When drowsiness crept in on the heels of exhaustion, La Santa Roja came in, too.

“I will take Maracaibo,” he cried in desperation. “I will drown this lusting in a bowl of horror. I will pillage Maracaibo, tear it to pieces, and leave it bleeding in the sand.”

(There is a woman in the Cup of Gold, and they worship her for unnamable beauties.)

“Make the gathering at the Isle de la Vaca! Call in true hearts from the corners of the sea! We go to riches!”

His ships flew out to the bay of Maracaibo and the town was frantic in defense.

“Run into this bottle harbor! Yes, under the guns!”

Cannon balls cried through the air and struck up clouds of dirt from the walls, but the defense held ground.

“It will not fall? Then take it in assault!”

Powder pots flew over the walls, tearing and maiming the defenders in their burst.

“Who are these wolves?” they cried. “Ah, brothers! we must fight until we die! We must ask no clemency, brothers. If we fall, our dear city—”

Ladders rose against the fort, and a wave of roaring men swarmed over the walls.

“Ah, San Lorenzo! hide us! bear us away! These are no men, but devils. Hear me! Hear me! Quarter! Ah, Jesus! where art thou now?”

“Throw down the walls! Let no two stones stand together!”

(There is a woman in the Cup of Gold, and she is lovely as the sun.)

“Grant no quarter! Kill the Spanish rats! Kill all of them!” And Maracaibo lay pleading at his feet. Doors were torn from the houses, and the rooms gutted of every movable thing. They herded the women to a church and locked them in. Then the prisoners were brought to Henry Morgan.

“Here is an old man, sir. We are sure he has riches, but he has hidden them away and we can never find any.”

“Then put his feet in the fire!—why, he is a brazen fool! Break his arms!— He will not tell? Put the whip-cord about his temples!— Oh, kill him! kill him and stop his screaming— Perhaps he had no money—”

(There is a woman in Panama—)

“Have you scratched out every grain of gold? Place the city at ransom! We must have riches after pain.”

A fleet of Spanish ships came sailing to the rescue.

“A Spanish squadron coming? We will fight them! No, no; we shall run from them if we can get away. Our hulls lag in the water with their weight of gold. Kill the prisoners!”

(—she is lovely as the sun.)

And Captain Morgan sailed from broken Maracaibo. Two hundred and fifty thousand pieces of eight were in his ships, and rolls of silken stuffs and plates of silver and sacks of spices. There were golden images from the Cathedral, and vestments crusted with embroidery of pearls. And the city was a fire-swept wreck.

“We are richer than we could have hoped. There will be joy in Tortuga when we come. Every man a hero! We shall have a mad riot of a time.”

(La Santa Roja is in Panama.)

“Ah, God! then if I must, I must. But I fear I go to my death. It is a dreadful thing to be attempting. If this is my desire, I must, though I die.” He called young Cœur de Gris to him.

“You have distinguished yourself in this fight, my friend.”

“I have done what was necessary, sir.”

“But you fought finely. I saw you when we engaged. Now I have made you my lieutenant in the field, my second in command. You are brave, you are sagacious, and you are my friend. I can trust you, and who among my men will bear this trust if it be worth his while to fail?”

“It is a great honor, sir. I will pay you, surely, with my fidelity. My mother will be very pleased.”

“Yes,” said Captain Morgan; “you are a young fool, and that is a virtue in this business as long as one has a leader. Now the men are straining to get back that they may spend their money. If it were possible they would be pushing the ships to hurry them. What will you do with your money, Cœur de Gris?”

“Why, I shall send half to my mother. The remaining sum I shall divide in two. Part I shall put away, and on the other I expect to be drunk for a few days, or perhaps a week. It is good to be drunk after fighting.”

“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. Cœur 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 Cœur 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.”

Cœur 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, Cœur 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, Cœur de Gris, and it may be one day you will be richer than you can think.”

Young Cœur 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.”

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.

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 to-day. 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.

“It is very long, Robert, since you climbed the path to me, and long since I went down it.” And “down, down” sang the harps. He spoke the language of the strings, and they responded like a distant choir in high mass of the mountains.

“But it’s an old man who climbs to you now, Merlin. The trail is a beast enemy to wrestle with. You seem no older. I wonder when you will come to die. Do not your years sometimes argue that question with you?”

“Why, to speak truthfully, Robert, I have taken it in my mind several times—but always there were too many things to think about. I could not take the time to die. If I did, I might not be able to think ever again.