第46章 THE HIDDEN CITY(2)

"But why--why?" Raleigh demanded."I have the commission of the King of France.What hindered me to use my remnant like hounds to cut off the stragglers of the Plate Fleet? That way lies much gold, and gold will buy pardon for all offences.What hindered me, I say?""Yourself, Sir Walter."

Raleigh let his head fall back on the couch and smiled bitterly.

"You say truly--myself.'Tis not a question of morals, mark ye.A better man than I might turn pirate with a clear conscience.But for Walter Raleigh it would be black sin.He has walked too brazenly in all weathers to seek common ports in a storm....It becomes not the fortune in which he once lived to go journeys of picory....And there is another reason.

I have suddenly grown desperate old.I think I can still endure, but Icannot institute.My action is by and over and my passion has come.""You are a sick man," said the captain with pity in his voice.

"Sick! Why, yes.But the disease goes very deep.The virtue has gone out of me, old comrade.I no longer hate or love, and once I loved and hated extremely.I am become like a frail woman for tolerance.Spain has worsted me, but I bear her no ill will, though she has slain my son.Yet once Iheld all Spaniards the devil's spawn."

"You spoke kindly of them in your History," said the other, "when you praised their patient virtue.""Did I? I have forgot.Nay, I remember.When I wrote that sentence I was thinking of Berreo.I loved him, though I took his city.He was a valiant and liberal gentleman, and of a great heart.I mind how I combated his melancholy, for he was most melancholic.But now I have grown like him.

Perhaps Sir Edward Coke was right and I have a Spanish heat.I think a man cannot strive whole-heartedly with an enemy unless he have much in common with him, and as the strife goes on he gets liker....Ah, Jasper, once I had such ambitions that they made a fire all around me.Once I was like Kit Marlowe's Tamburlaine:

"'Threatening the world with high astounding terms, And scourging kingdoms with his conquering sword.'

But now the flame has died and the ashes are cold.And I would not revive them if I could.There is nothing under heaven that I desire."The seaman's face was grave and kindly.

"I think you have flown too high, Sir Walter.You have aimed at the moon and forgotten the merits of our earthly hills.""True, true!" Raleigh's mien was for a moment more lively."That is a shrewd comment.After three-score years I know my own heart.I have been cursed with a devil of pride, Jasper....Man, I have never had a friend.Followers and allies and companions, if you please, but no friend.Others-- simple folk--would be set singing by a May morning, or a warm tavern fire, or a woman's face.Ihave known fellows to whom the earth was so full of little pleasures that after the worst clouts they rose like larks from a furrow.A wise philosophy--but I had none of it.I saw always the little pageant of man's life like a child's peep-show beside the dark wastes of eternity.Ah, Iknow well I struggled like the rest for gauds and honours, but they were only tools for my ambition.For themselves I never valued them.I aimed at a master-fabric, and since I have failed I have now no terrestrial cover."The night had fallen black, but the cabin windows were marvellously patined by stars.Raleigh's voice had sunk to the hoarse whisper of a man still fevered.He let his head recline again on the skins and closed his eyelids.

Instantly it became the face of an old and very weary man.

The sailor Jasper Lauval--for so he now spelled his name on the rare occasions when he wrote it-- thought he was about to sleep and was rising to withdraw, when Raleigh's eyes opened.

"Stay with me," he commanded."Your silence cheers me.If you leave me Ihave thoughts that might set me following Tom Keymis.Kit Marlowe again! Icannot get rid of his accursed jingles.How do they go?

"'Hell hath no limite, nor is circumscribed In one self-place, for where we are is hell And where hell is there must we ever be.'"Lauval stretched out a cool hand and laid it on the Admiral's hot forehead.

He had a curiously steadfast gaze for all his drooping left eye.Raleigh caught sight of the withered arm.

"Tell me of your life, Jasper.How came you by such a mauling? Let the tale of it be like David's harping and scatter my demons."The seaman sat himself in a chair."That was my purpose, Sir Walter.For the tale is in some manner a commentary on your late words.""Nay, I want no moral.Let me do the moralising.The tale's the thing.See, fill a glass of this Irish cordial.Twill keep off the chill from the night air.When and where did you get so woefully battered?""'Twas six years back when I was with Bovill."Raleigh whistled."You were with Robert Bovill' What in Heaven's name did one of Coffyn blood with Robert? If ever man had a devil, 'twas he.I mind his sullen black face and his beard in two prongs.I have heard he is dead--on a Panama gibbet?""He is dead; but not as he lived.I was present when he died.He went to God a good Christian, praying and praising.Next day I was to follow him, but I broke prison in the night with the help of an Indian, and went down the coast in a stolen patache to a place where thick forests lined the sea.

There I lay hid till my wounds healed, and by and by I was picked up by a Bristol ship that had put in to water.""But your wounds--how got you them?"

"At the hands of the priests.They would have made a martyr of me, and used their engines to bend my mind.Being obstinate by nature I mocked them till they wearied of the play.But they left their marks on this arm and leg.

The scar I had got some months before in a clean battle.""Tell me all.What did Robert Bovill seek? And where?""We sought the Mountain of God," said the seaman reverently.

"I never heard o't.My own Manoa, maybe, where gold is quarried like stone.""Nay, not Manoa.The road to it is from the shore of the Mexican gulf.

There was much gold."

"You found it?"