Leonard Lindsay ;

by Angus B. Reach

I lost no time in communicating to Captain Garbo that I had now an opportunity of shortly getting a passage to one of the English islands. He was very desirous to know how I had managed it; but upon that head I would give him no satisfaction.

‘Well,’ quoth he at last, ‘so be it, Señor Lindsay; but I say, the first time you and your comrades take a Spanish bark, be lenient to my countrymen; be as merciful as you can to their goods and chattels for the sake of old Manuel Garbo, the pearl fisher.’

At ten o’clock exactly I took my way over the sandy beach to Peralta’s hut, which stood a little apart from the other buildings, towards the landward extremity of the ranchiera. As I plodded along, sometimes tripping over mounds of oysters; sometimes stopping to look to seaward, where all the lights of the pearl squadron glimmered as the fleet sailed towards the shore, I suddenly heard a loud outcry, in which I could distinguish the yells of an Indian, and the gruff voices of Spaniards high in oath, and who, I conjectured, from the clash of arms, were soldiers. In a minute or two I saw faintly a dusky group of people, whites and Indians, some of them carrying lanterns, which gleamed on drawn swords and bayonets. The men bearing them disappeared through the principal gate of the fort, and then the Indians, who were left outside, raised the most pitiable cries and howls, until they were threatened by the sentries, and told they would be fired upon if they did not disperse. As I was somewhat late, I did not stop to inquire into the cause of the tumult, but I judged that it was probably occasioned by the arrest of an Indian who had committed some crime; perhaps, as was very common, stolen or secreted a valuable pearl. However, I did not think much of the matter, and soon arrived at Peralta’s hut. It was a large house as compared with most of its neighbours, fenced all around with walls formed of double lines of strong tough stakes, the space between them being filled up with stones gathered apparently from the sea beach. On knocking, I was admitted by Peralta himself, who led the way into a small room, with walls roughly built of wood and stone, through which the starlight was shining at many cracks and crevices, and mingling with the smoky glimmer of a great brass lamp. The place contained but the most ordinary sort of furniture—a hammock hung in a corner, an oiled bag for holding clothes, a table, and two or three small chairs, or rather large stools. The table, however, was laid out for supper, and showed a capital repast of fish, flesh, and fowl, while a couple of flasks, with slim necks, and all cob-webbed and begrimed, as though they had long lain deep in a well-stocked cellar, made a curious contrast to the cracked crockery and wooden platters, and hacked and broken knives and forks which lay beside them.

‘You see,’ quoth Peralta, ‘that, though I may have dealings with kings, I don’t by any means live in a palace. There are idle vanities and substantial vanities, my friend. Diamonds and pearls, laces and gildings, brocades and velvets, are of the former class; but good meats to eat, and good wines to drink, are of the latter. Now you see I am an admirer of the substantial vanities. I love to feed upon the daintiest morsel, though it be picked up with a broken one-pronged fork, and I love to drink the choicest vintage of Rhine or Rhone, without at all caring whether I put my lips to a golden cup which Benvenuto hath wrought, or to a calabash which Quako hath scooped before supper.’

So saying, the pearl merchant started the cork from one of the flasks, and I tasted certainly the most delicious draught which ever tingled on my palate.

‘Ha!’ quoth my entertainer, as I held out the empty cup to be refilled, ‘you find that better than even the most skilful compound of rye brandy and bilge water. C’est bien alors—you have a palate, which I grieve to say many gentlemen of your kind and profession possess not, preferring the hot strong drinks of Jamaica, and Tortugas taverns, even, to such adorable nectar as this. Why, man, hold out thy glass again, the grand Louis himself cannot fish up a choicer flask from the most sacred crypt beneath the marble pavements of Versailles.’

Talking in this way—relating to me strange anecdotes touching great generals and statesmen, and even kings, with whom my host, to believe his words, had held familiar converse, and the moral of all these stories being, that the generals and statesmen and kings in question were as stupid, and as easily to be gulled and laughed at, as mere ordinary mortals—the supper and one of the wine flasks were soon despatched. Then, placing the fragments in a corner, Peralta produced a sort of purse or bag of filigree workmanship, in bright silver, and which seemed to be the only thing of price in his dwelling—always excepting the meats and wines—and taking from it some tobacco of most delicate savour, we began to smoke and discuss the second bottle, which was of a different kind from the first, the wine being of a deep rich red tinge, and coming, as he told me, from Dijon, in Burgundy.

While we sat thus, my entertainer took almost all the conversation to himself. He spoke of things new and strange to me: of the crown jewels of mighty potentates pledged to rich Hebrews dwelling in the filthy back lanes of the cities of Europe—in the Jewry of London, the Judenstrasse of Frankfort, and the Ghetto of Rome.

‘And your brave Christian goes past, stopping his nose for the savours of fish fried in oil, and elbowing and jostling the hook-nosed, shabby old men who make way, with many a ‘Give you good e’en, my lord;’ and ‘Faugh!’ says he, ‘these stinking unbelievers; why be they not packed bodily off to their holy city again’—and so passes he by, to kneel, and cringe, and kiss the king’s hand; while all the time—ha! ha! ha!—that very king is thinking and pondering in his small mind how best he can squeeze the next subsidy out of his faithful cities and towns, and so release the brightest jewel in the regalia, now held in pawn by old Isaac, or old Jacob, or old Abraham, the very dirtiest, raggedest, yellowest-skinned and hookedest-nosed of the whole brotherhood—ha! ha! ha!’

The pearl merchant said this with so much gusto, and laughed with so much glee, that I began to think he must be one of the fraternity himself. He seemed to divine my thoughts, for, as if I had spoken them, he, as it were, replied—