Cord and Creese

by James De Mille

Brandon was soon on the best of terms with the officers of the ship. As to Cigole it was different. The fact of their being the only passengers on board might of itself have been a sufficient cause to draw them together; but Brandon found it difficult to pass beyond the extremest limits of formal intercourse. Brandon himself considered that his purposes would be best served by close association with this man; he hoped that in the course of such association he might draw something from Cigole. But Cigole baffled him constantly. He was as polite and courteous as all Italians are; he had an abundance of remarks all ready about the state of the weather, the prospects of the voyage, or the health of the seamen; but beyond these topics it was difficult to induce him to go. Brandon stifled the resentment which he felt toward this man, in his efforts to break down the barriers of formality which he kept up, and sought to draw him out on the subject of the wool trade. Yet here he was baffled. Cigole always took up the air of a man who was speaking to a rival in business, and pretended to be very cautious and guarded in his remarks about wool, as though he feared that Brandon would interfere with his prospects. This sort of thing was kept up with such great delicacy of management on Cigole’s part that Brandon himself would have been completely deceived, and would have come to consider him as nothing more than a speculator in wool, had it not been for a certain deep instinct within him, which made him regard this man as one who was actuated by something far deeper than mere regards for a successful speculation.

Cigole managed to baffle the most dextrous efforts and the most delicate contrivances of Brandon. He would acknowledge that he was an Italian, and had been in all parts of Italy, but carefully refrained from telling where he was born. He asserted that this was the first time that he had been in the Eastern seas. He remarked once, casually, that Cigole was a very common name among Italians. He said that he had no acquaintances at all in England, and was only going there now because he heard that there was a good market for wool. At another time he spoke as though much of his life had been passed in Marseilles, and hinted that he was a partner of a commercial house there.

Cigole never made any advances, and never even met half-way those which Brandon made. He was never off his guard for one instant. Polite, smiling, furtive, never looking Brandon fairly in the face, he usually spoke with a profusion of bows, gestures, and commonplaces, adopting, in fact, that part which is always at once both the easiest and the safest to play—the non-committal, pure and perfect.

It was cunning, but low cunning after all, and Brandon perceived that, for one who had some purpose to accomplish, with but a common soul to sustain him, this was the most ordinary way to do it. A villain of profounder cunning or of larger spirit would have pursued a different path. He would have conversed freely and with apparent unreserve; he would have yielded to all friendly advances, and made them himself; he would have shown the highest art by concealing art, in accordance with the hackneyed proverb, “Ars est celare artem.”

Brandon despised him as an ordinary villain, and hardly thought it worth his while to take any particular notice of him, except to watch him in a general way. But Cigole, on the contrary, was very different. His eyes, which never met those of Brandon fairly, were constantly watching him. When moving about the quarter-deck or when sitting in the cabin he usually had the air of a man who was pretending to be intent on something else, but in reality watching Brandon’s acts or listening to his words. To any other man the knowledge of this would have been in the highest degree irksome. But to Brandon it was gratifying, since it confirmed his suspicions. He saw this man, whose constant efforts were directed toward not committing himself by word, doing that very thing by his attitude, his gesture, and the furtive glance of his eye. Brandon, too, had his part, but it was infinitely greater than that of Cigole, and the purpose that now animated his life was unintelligible to this man who watched him. But Cigole’s whole soul was apparent to Brandon; and by his small arts, his low cunning, his sly observation, and many other peculiarities, he exhibited that which is seen in its perfection in the ordinary spy of despotic countries, such as used to abound most in Rome and Naples in the good old days.

For the common spy of Europe may deceive the English or American traveler; but the Frenchman, the German, the Spaniard, or the Italian, always recognizes him.

So Brandon’s superior penetration discovered the true character of Cigole.

He believed that this man was the same Cigole who had figured in the affair of the Vishnu; that he had been sent out by Potts to do some injury to himself, and that he was capable of any crime. Yet he could not see how he could do any thing. He certainly could not incite the simple-minded captain and the honest mate to conspiracy. He was too great a coward to attempt any violence. So Brandon concluded that he had simply come to watch him so as to learn his character, and carry back to Potts all the knowledge that he might gain.

This was his conclusion after a close association of one month with Cigole. Yet he made up his mind not to lose sight of this man. To him he appeared only an agent in villainy, and therefore unworthy of vengeance; yet he might be made use of as an aid in that vengeance. He therefore wished to have a clew by which he might afterward find him.

“You and I,” said he one day, in conversation, “are both in the same trade. If I ever get to England I may wish some time to see you. Where can I find you?”