Sir Mortimer: A Novel

by Mary Johnston

Seeing that the Sea Wraith obeyed him still, her crew believed yet more devoutly that a secret voice spoke in his ear and a dark hand gave him aid. It was later, when he began to feed them gold, that they who owned caps threw them up for him, and they whose brains had only nature's thatching shouted for him as for a demigod. A Spanish squadron bound for The Havannah was met by a hurricane, several of its ships lost, and the remainder widely separated. The hurricane past, forth from an island harbor stole the Sea Wraith that so many storms had beleaguered. Gray as with eld, lonely as the ark, a haggard ship manned by outcasts, she spread her vampire wings and flitted from her enshadowed anchorage. An hour later, like a vampire still, she hooked herself to a gay galleon and sucked from it life that was cheap and gold that was dear; then descrying other sails, she left that ruined hulk for a long and fierce struggle with a Portuguese carrack. The battle waxed so fell that the carrack also might have been worked by men who had all to win and naught to lose, and captained by one who bared his brow to the thunder-stone.

Like harpies they fought, but when night came there was only the Sea Wraith scudding to the south, and that pied crew of hers knocking at the stars with the knowledge that ever and always their judgment (even though he asked it not) jumped with the Captain's, and that before them lay the gilded cities and the chances of Pizarro. It was of his subtlety that the Captain never used to them fair promises, spake not once a sennight of gold, never bragged to them of what must be. Oh! a subtle captain, whose very strangeness was his best lieutenant upon that eldritch, nine-lived ship, through days and days of monstrous luck. "Baldry's luck," quoth the mariner who had sailed with the Star, then held his breath and looked askance at his present Captain, who, however, could never have heard him up there on the poop-deck! Natheless that night the man was ordered forward, and finding Sir Mortimer Ferne sitting alone, save for the boy, in the great cabin, was bidden to talk of Robert Baldry. "Speak freely, Carpenter,--freely! Why, thou art one of his friends, and I another, and we go, somewhat at our peril, to hale him from perdition! Why, thou thyself saw him beckoning to us to hasten and do our friendly part! So praise thy old Captain to me with all thy might. We'll fill an empty hour with stories of his valor!" He put forth his hand and turned the hour-glass, and the carpenter began to stammer and make excuses, which no whit availed him.

At last, one afternoon, they came to Margarita, and, the ship needing water, they entered a placid bight, where a strip of dazzling sand lay between the rippling surf and a heavy wood, but found beforehand with them a small bark from the mainland, her crew ashore filling barrels from a limpid spring, and her master and a Franciscan friar eating fruit upon her tiny poop. The dozen on land showed their heels; the worthless bark was taken, a party with calivers landed to complete the filling of the abandoned casks, and the master and the friar brought before the Captain of the Sea Wraith where he sat beneath a great tree, tasting the air of the land. An insatiable gatherer of Spanish news, it was his custom to search for what crumbs of knowledge his captives might possess, but hitherto the yield, pressed together, had not made even a small cake of enlightenment. He was prepared to have shortly done with the two who now stood before him. The seaman cringed, expecting torture, furtively watching for some indication of what the Englishman wished him to say. A fellow new to these parts and ignorant, he would have sworn a highway to El Dorado itself if that was the point towards which his inquisitor's quiet, unemphatic questions tended; but he knew not, and his lies fell dead before the grave eyes of the man beneath the tree. At last he was tossed aside like a squeezed sponge and the Franciscan beckoned forward, who, being of sturdier make, twisted his thumbs in his rope girdle and prepared to present a blank countenance to those queries of armaments and treasure which an enemy to Spain would naturally make. But the Englishman asked strange questions; so general that they seemed to encompass the mainland from Tres Puntas to Nombre de Dios, and so particular that it was even as if he were interested in the friar himself, his order, and his wanderings from town to town, the sights that he had seen and the people whom he had known. The questions seemed harmless as mother's milk, but the friar was shrewd; moreover, in his youth had been driven to New Spain by flaming zeal for the conversion of countless souls. That fire had burned low, but by its dying light he knew that this man, who was young and yet so still, whose lowered voice was but as sheathed steel, whose eyes it was not comfortable to meet, had set his hand to a plough that should drive a straight furrow, was sending his will like an arrow to no uncertain mark. But what was the mark the Franciscan could not discover, therefore he gave the truth or a lie where seemed him best, increasingly the truth, as it increasingly appeared that lies would not serve. He also, seeing that with gathering years he had begun to set value upon flesh and bone, wished to please his captor. He glanced stealthily at the scarred and ancient craft in the windless harborage, idly flapping her mended sails, before he said aught of the great English ships that in pomp and the fulness of pride had entered these waters now months agone. The Englishman had heard of this adventure--so much was evident--but details would seem to have escaped him. He knew, however, that there had been first victory and then defeat, and he too looked at his ship and at the guns she carried.

"The town was sacked, but the castle not taken," he said. "What, good brother, if I should break a lance in these same lists?"

"It would be broken indeed," said the friar, grimly. "An it please you, I will bear your challenge to Don Juan de Mendez."

"To Don Luiz de Guardiola," said the man beneath the tree.

"Pardon, señor, but Juan de Mendez is at present Governor of Nueva Cordoba. Don Luiz de Guardiola has been transferred to Panama."

The Englishman arose and looked out to sea, his hand above his eyes because of the flash and sparkle of the sun upon the water. The Franciscan, having told the truth, wondered forthwith if falsehood had better served his turn. Face and form of his interlocutor were turned from him, but he saw upon the hot, white sand the shadow of a twitching hand. Moments passed before the shadow was still; then said the Englishman, in a changed voice: