Spice and the Devil's Cave (6 page)

Looking at Abel, he saw his eyes change, and knew instinctively that some new thought had suddenly entered his mind. When Abel spoke again Nicolo was conscious that his question disguised the real motive:

“Did you see any slave trade along the way?”

Nicolo shook his head.

Abel seemed to ponder. “No craft with a slave cargo?” he carefully asked.

Something in his expression and attitude made Nicolo think, vaguely, of young Magellan – Magellan as he had leaned out over the sea-wall, and peered at the names of the anchored ships.

“Were you expecting such a cargo,” Nicolo inquired, “or some particular craft?”

“No, oh no,” Abel hastily disclaimed, and-Nicolo fancied-almost guiltily. “I noticed,” he said, shifting the subject, “that you've the same name as the famous Venetian traveller-or rather, one of your famous travellers, for you have many.”

“We've a bent for out-of-the-way places,” Nicolo agreed, “though I didn't expect to find anyone as familiar with us and our doings as you are, sir.”

Abel laughed. “Lay that to the scamp I was telling you about, the chap who keeps the banker from getting rich! One forgets about such stupidities as making money when one hears of exploits such as Conti's or reads chronicles like these.” He reached for a book from a tiny library and handed it to Nicolo.

“Marco Polo!” Nicolo exclaimed at the title. “He's the master traveller of us all, isn't he!”

“And isn't it curious that, without any intention on his part, these
Travels
which he set down for people's entertainment should start-two hundred years later, mind you-the greatest sensation the world's ever known!”

“How do you mean, sir, greatest sensation'?”

“Why, it was Polo's account of the traffic of the East that started Christopher Columbus to thinking about a a water short-cut to it; he told me so himself, sitting in this room. And now all Europe is hot on the scent of a passage to India.”

“We hear at home that Cabot has stirred up the English to send him on an expedition to find it. Do you know of him – John Cabot?”

“Know of him?” Abel ejaculated. “We've talked for hours in this very spot!”

Pedro's description of Zakuto as “hobnobbing with anyone who'd been to sea or was going,” drifted across Nicolo's recollection.

“Yes,” Abel continued, “Cabot's caught the passage-to-india fever. He saw enough of the Oriental trade on that trip of his down the Red Sea to convince him that it was worth trying for. About Conti's travels I know very little, but I've heard it rumoured that his special object was to get

information about the source of spices, they being the richest item in the whole Oriental trade. Did he succeed, do you know?”

“Matter of fact, I hadn't meant to bring that subject up just yet, sir! But as long as you've put it to me-yes, I know a good deal about it, for I've read Conti's letters in which he tells how he discovered from where the different spices come. You see, sir, Nicolo Conti was my grandfather, and his letters are in the family.”

“So!” Abel ejaculated. “So!” He drew his chair close to Nicolo's. “This is real news! Tell me all you care to.”

“Well, sir, up to Conti's time, our merchants and explorers, even Marco Polo himself, had confused the ports where spices were shipped with the place where they grew. Whenever they asked an incoming caravan from where its spice cargo came, they were referred to the caravan's last starting point, and again, at that point, to one farther east; and so on. No one seemed to know where the spices grew and no one could find out, but it was always some place east of wherever the inquiry was made!”

“Looks to me,” Abel interrupted, “as if all that evasion were intentional.”

“Oh, Conti says it is, and charges the Arab merchants with it! So he made up his mind to keep on going east as long as there was an east. He finally reached Java and Sumatra, which was farther than any European had gone. And there he ran the scent down!”

Like an excited boy, Abel edged forward in his chair.

“He found out all about pepper and cinnamon,” Nicolo continued, “and that cloves came from the island of Banda, and nutmegs from neighbouring islands to the eastward of India.” He waited a moment, then, “Master Zakuto,” he said, deliberately, “it was this information, together with my belief that Diaz has all but found the sea route to these islands, that brought me to Lisbon.”

Abel's head went up proudly. “So you believe in Bartholomew Diaz?”

“If I didn't I wouldn't be here. I've come to Lisbon to follow up my convictions; and to you, in particular, Master Zakuto, because I've heard business men at home say they'd rather have your advice than each others'.”

Abel made no reply at once; then, he said, carefully, “You would like financial counsel, or perhaps you wish to make a banking connection?”

The boyish eyes, Nicolo noted, had become quite as-toundingly keen; unsuspected lines appeared around the mouth; chin and jaw, thrust ever so little forward, fitted the great forehead's testimony to a profound sagacity. This was Zakuto, the financier!

When Nicolo spoke he seemed to ignore Abel's question. “When Portugal reaches the Indies by sea she's going to take trade supremacy from Venice,” he stated with a finality that brought an exclamation from the other.

“Strange, that, from a Venetian!”

“But it's true. My love for Venice can't change the lay of land and water!”

For several moments Abel studied Nicolo; then, he asked, “What do they say in Venice about this talk of a sea route to India?”

“You see, Venice has had the monopoly of Oriental commerce so long that she can't believe anyone can take it away from her. So, most of them at home laugh at the reports of the Diaz expedition, and a few take it seriously. I'm one of those few. Then, why live my life out in a city that shuts its eyes to what I'm convinced is bound to be?”

“So you're thinking of going into trade here?”

“As I figure, Master Abel-” again Nicolo waived the other's question –” when you get the Oriental trade to your side of the world, you'll need ships, more ships than you now have.”

“Aha!” Swift comprehension broke over Abel's face, “So that's what you came to talk! Ship-building, eh?”

“That was my real business with you, sir-till we got started on Conti's letters, spice, and the rest of it!”

“Good!” Abel hitched his chair nearer to Nicolo. “You know, Conti, all they can think of, here in Lisbon, is getting their hands on that Eastern trade-but you never hear a word of how they expect to distribute it, after they have it. Of course they'll have to have more ships! Just as they'll have to arrange for more foreign credit. And the Jewish financiers have foreseen that. Why –“confidentially he lowered his voice –“my firm is already negotiating for branch houses abroad, even as far east as the Levant. But to come back to ship-building . . .”

They plunged into details of locations and sites and leases. Abel knew the right men for each connection.

“But above all, my boy,” he warned, “lay in a stock of patience. Don't expect Manoel to send an expedition to India next week!”

“What! Isn't he interested?”

“When he can spare time from home politics!”

“But how does he dare risk delay, with rivalry so keen about reaching the Orient? Why, we've heard at home that His Holiness even had to make an imaginary ‘Line' somewhere out in the ocean to keep Spain and Portugal from quarrelling over each other's discoveries.”

Abel's eyes twinkled. “That ‘Line' makes a fine talking point! But it doesn't prevent Spain's galleons from skulking around to see what we're doing on our side of it, down by the Guinea coast, any more than it prevents them from lifting one of our cargoes, now and then. Not that we neglect a good chance on their side of the Line, either! Oh, we're a fine, civilized lot, Conti! But you were asking about Ma-noel-”

“He's indifferent, you say, to reaching India? Doesn't he believe in Diaz?”

“Oh, in a way; but I suppose Diaz is an old story to him by now.”

“You mean, that Manoel will have to be waked up before he'll send an expedition?”

“Something like that, yes.”

Absently Nicolo drummed on the table. He hadn't counted on this sort of a situation-waiting for a royal imagination to be tickled.

From under his great forehead Abel watched him: “Push right on with your plans,” he said, at last. “Diaz hasn't yet given up hope of completing what he began! As for myself –” He drew Nicolo to the windows. “See here a minute, my boy.”

Below them, in the late sunlight, the roofs of the city stood up sharp and bright, with the streets, already in shadow, like black gashes between.

“I never look down on this city, Conti,”– Abel's voice took on a new, deep note –“without saying to myself: ‘Not Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, but Lisbon, the emporium of Europe!‘. . . I'm sure of it, Conti, sure!”

There was a rush of colour to Nicolo's face, and his eyes looked unseeingly before him; for, in fancy, he was gazing on the Inland Sea that had nursed him, that had mothered the childhood of man. Ah, sea of measureless blues and crests of gold! Supreme through the marching centuries, it was now to yield its supremacy. Those to whom it had been highway and warpath would look henceforth to other waters; already, in fact, were so looking, so seeking, faring forth with the zest of the child who has outgrown the hand to which it clung.

He was roused by Abel's suddenly hurrying to his carpenter's bench. From it he picked up an object which he blew clear of litter, and then, almost reverently, held in his palm for Nicolo's inspection: the frame of a compass. Just that, and only that, it appeared to his layman's eye till Abel enthusiastically pointed out the fine grain of the best Madeira mahogany. A long search it had been for this particular piece; sample after sample tested and discarded. But at last, this! And when it was rubbed down, polished! A swift vision of gleaming surfaces smote Nicolo's eye of fancy, And then he must see just how Abel would set the pivot on which the needle would rest.

“Makes the ‘Genoese Needle' look pretty lame!” Nicolo admiringly commented.

All at once his arm was seized, Abel's face was thrust close to his. This, Nicolo perceived, was the Zakuto of the boyish eyes, and of the lovably incongruous features: the pilferer of Banker Zakuto's time!

“Conti . . . Conti …” he was stammering like an eager child –“do you know for what I'm making this compass? . . . For the first crew that sails out of Lisbon for India!”

CHAPTER 5

The Locked Door

A
BEL
Z
AKUTO
came thoughtfully up the long, stone stairway. Inwardly, he was a good deal perturbed. This thing that was to happen-for which, in fact, he had deliberately set the stage-must be so managed as to appear not managed. It must be, he said to himself, like the unfolding of a flower-as delicate as all that.

Perhaps it was this particular thought that made him, when he crossed the court, stop to gather a cluster of late-blooming roses. With them in his hand he went into the room where Ruth sat sewing with the Girl.

“Ruth, see! Aren't they fine blooms?” He held them up for her to smell, and then pressed them to the Girl's cheek. Under his off-hand manner his keen, kind eyes noted the rise of colour in the still face, and the flutter of the listless eyelids.

“Come along into the court, Ruth!” He tossed the sewing from her hands and caught her round the waist, while his other arm swept the Girl up. If he saw Ruth's startled eyes, or felt the Girl's slender body stiffen and hang back, he paid no heed as, laughing and talking, he steered for the court.

As they stepped outside, he was aware that the Girl started violently, and, behind him, he heard Ruth's low “What are you thinking of-taking her out so suddenly?”

“Fresh air and sunlight never hurt anyone,” he comfortably returned, while he guided them toward the lilies that had always reminded him of the Girl.

He picked one and put it into her hands, while he meditated aloud: “The narcissus bed must be thinned before long, and these gilly flowers. There'll be enough for a new plantation; or would a border be prettier, Ruth?”

His arm always around the Girl, he strolled on, stopping every few steps, to inspect a vine or a shrub; to notice that the mint bed was a bit dry; to rub a bit of sage between thumb and finger and hold it to his nostrils. Over her head he could see Ruth doubtfully eyeing him.

They had made tour of the court, and had halted under the old fig tree, when Abel heard a deep, tremulous sigh, and felt the Girl's arm drop from his. Quickly he glanced at her. As if she had forgotten his presence and Ruth's, she was gazing up into the sun-flecked shade while she stretched her arms like a drowsy child.