I protested my willingness to serve him, and we had a long discourse together. He told me that he was an Englishman by birth, but that his father was a Spaniard and his mother a Frenchwoman. Thus, he said, he had learned from his earliest youth, a smattering of all the three languages, and having lived long in London, Paris and Cadiz, in after years, pursuing his craft of a jeweller and goldsmith, he had very little difficulty, when need was, in passing himself off for a native either of England, France, or Spain. For some years back he had been, he told me, sailing about the West Indies, trafficking in precious stones and gold. He had no fixed place of abode.
‘Sometimes,’ quoth he, ‘I kneel very piously at mass, and make the sign of the cross, in the great cathedral at Havannah—and then I am as grave a Spaniard as the Cid. Again, I shall sing and dance at a merry-making in Tortuga—and, there, credit me, I bear a heart as light and as French as ever did the good king of Yvetot. Anon, I shall drink and shout with our good friends, Archemboe, Davis, and the rest at Port Royal, and not a bully of them all but shall swear I am as bluff a Briton as jolly King Hal!’
I then intimated my hopes, that his trade so venturously conducted was a profitable one.
‘As for that,’ quoth he, ‘what with my poor efforts in the New World, and the exertions of my good correspondents at divers courts in Europe, I thank the stars that there is more than one imperial regalia the wearer of which oweth me more, perchance, than he will ever pay. But I am not exacting. When a sensible man deals with kings, if he does not get money, he can always have money’s worth.’
This speech the pearl merchant, or jeweller, delivered with abundance of nods and winks and shrugs, as though there were many meanings in it, out of which I was welcome to take my own. Then he whispered—
‘If you would have gold cheap, know the miners. If you would have pearls cheap, make much of the divers. Deal at the fountain—go to the well-head—the well-head, my son!’
At this he laughed very complacently, and I thought it best to laugh too, although for my life I could not fathom the meaning of the riddling words which the man spoke, and which he accompanied with so many expressive shrugs of the shoulders and grotesque leers, that I was as much puzzled by what I saw, as by what I heard. All at once, however, he broke off, and said, plainly enough—
‘Now we know each other sufficiently for the present. My time for remaining in this oystery part of the world will be over in two or three days, and I presume that you will have no objections to ship in my piragua, and take the chances of the sea to Port Royal?’
Of course I engaged to be ready at a moment’s warning, and we were about to part, when he said suddenly—
‘I have little to do this evening, and I suppose you have less. Come and sup with me. Any one will show you the hut of Peralta, the poor pearl merchant. Come at ten.’ These words he spoke with one of his habitual leers and shrugs. I promised very readily, and then Señor Peralta walked away demurely, counting his beads.