Cup of Gold

by John Steinbeck

  “You are changed,” she said. “Some light is gone out of you. What fear has fallen on you?”

  He stirred from his revery.

  “I do not know.”

  “I was told that you killed your friend. Is it that which burdens you?”

  “I killed him.”

  “And do you mourn for him?”

  “Perhaps. I do not know. I think I mourn for some other thing which is dead. He might have been a vital half of me, which, dying, leaves me half a man. To-day I have been like a bound slave on a white slab of marble with the gathered vivisectors about me. I was supposed to be a healthy slave, but the scalpels found me sick with a disease called mediocrity.”

  “I am sorry,” she said.

  “You are sorry? Why are you sorry?”

  “I think I am sorry because of your lost light; because the brave, brutal child in you is dead—the boastful child who mocked and thought his mockery shook the throne of God; the confident child who graciously permitted the world to accompany him through space. This child is dead, and I am sorry. I would go with you, now, if I thought it possible to warm the child to life again.”

  Henry said, “It is strange. Two days ago I planned to tear a continent out of the set order and crown it with a capital of gold for you. In my mind, I built up an empire for you, and planned the diadem you should wear. And now I dimly remember the person who thought these things. He is an enigmatic stranger on a staggering globe.

  “And you—I feel only a slight uneasiness with you. I am not afraid of you any more. I do not want you any more. I am filled with a nostalgia for my own black mountains and for the speech of my own people. I am drawn to sit in a deep veranda and to hear the talk of an old man I used to know. I find I am tired of all this bloodshed and struggle for things that will not lie still, for articles that will not retain their value in my hands. It is horrible, ” he cried. “I do not want anything any more. I have no lusts, and my desires are dry and rattling. I have only a vague wish for peace and the time to ponder imponderable matters.”

  “You will take no more cups of gold,” she said. “You will turn no more vain dreams into unsatisfactory conquests. I am sorry for you, Captain Morgan. And you were not right about the slave. Ill he was, indeed, but not with the illness you have mentioned. But I suppose your sins are great. All men who break the bars of mediocrity commit frightful sins. I shall pray for you to the Holy Virgin, and She will intercede for you at the throne of Heaven. But what am I to do?”

  “You will go back to your husband, I suppose.”

  “Yes, I will go back. You have made me old, Señor. You have pricked the dream on which my heavy spirit floated. And I wonder whether, in the years to come, you will blame me for the death of your friend.”

  Henry flushed quickly.

  “I am trying to do something of that sort now,” he said. “It does not seem worth the while to lie any more, and that is only one more proof of dead youth. But now, good-by, Ysobel. I wish I loved you now as I thought I did yesterday. Go back to your husband’s scented hands.”

  She smiled and raised her eyes to the holy picture on the wall. “Peace go with you, dear fool,” she murmured. “Ah, I too have lost my youth. I am old—old—for I cannot console myself with the thought of what you have missed.”

  VII

  Henry Morgan stood in the doorway of the Hall of Audience and watched a little troupe of Spaniards ride through the streets toward the Palace. The troupe was surrounded on all sides by a mob of buccaneers. First in the line came the messenger, but a changed messenger. Now he was dressed in scarlet silk. The plume of his hat and his sword’s scabbard were white in token of peace. Behind him rode six soldiers in silver breast-plates and the Spanish helmets which looked like half mustard seeds. The last soldier led a riderless white mare with crimson trappings and a line of golden bells on its brow band. The white saddle cloth nearly touched the ground. Following the mare were six mules bearing heavy leathern bags, and the group was rear-guarded by six more soldiers.

  The cavalcade drew up before the Palace. The messenger leaped from his horse and bowed to Henry Morgan.

  “I have here the ransom,” he said. He looked worried and tired. The weight of his mission was riding heavily on his spirit. At his command the soldiers carried the leather bags into the Hall of Audience, and only when they were all deposited with the rest of the treasure did the anxiety leave his face.

  “Ah,” he said, “it is good. It is the treasure. Twenty thousand pieces of eight—not one lost by the wayside. I invite you to count them, Señor.” He whipped a little dust from his foot. “If my men could have refreshments, Señor; wine—” he suggested.

  “Yes. Yes.” Henry motioned to one of his followers. “See that these men have food and drink. Be courteous, as you love life.”

  Then he went to the bags to count the ransom. He made little towers of shining coins and moved the towers about on the floor. Money was bright, he thought. It could have been cut in no more charming shape, either. A square would not answer, nor an elipse. And money was really worth more than money. He tumbled a tower and built it up again. It was so extremely certain—money. One knew beforehand what it would do if set in motion; at least, he knew up to a certain point. Beyond that point it did not matter what it accomplished. One might buy wine with money. One had the wine. And if the merchant’s clerk should kill his master for the same coins, it was unfortunate; it was, perhaps, Fate or something like that, but one had his wine just the same.

  And all this pile of golden vessels, these crosses and candlesticks and pearl vestments, would be money like this. These bars of gold and silver would be cut into round flakes and each flake stamped with a picture. The picture would be more than a picture. Like the kiss of a saint, it would endow the flake with power; the picture would give it a character and a curious, compelling soul. He flung the coins into a heap and patiently set about to rebuild them. Enough towers for Jerusalem!

  Now Ysobel came from the patio and stood beside him.

  “What an amount of money,” she said. “Is that my ransom?”

  “Yes; it is the gold which purchases you.”

  “But what a very great deal! Am I worth that much, do you think?”

  “To your husband you are. He paid it for you.” He moved ten towers into a line.

  “And to you—how much? How many of these golden chips?”

  “You must have been worth that much to me. I stated the price.”

  “Wouldn’t they skip well on the water!” she said. “How they would skip! Do you know, I can throw like a boy, with my arm bent.”

  “It was said you were capable,” he announced.

  “But am I really worth that much?”

  “The money is here, and you are to go. It has bought you. A thing must be worth what is paid for it, or there could be no trade.”

  “It is good,” she said. “It is comforting to know one’s value to a real. Have you any idea of your worth, Captain?”

  Henry Morgan said, “If I were ever captured and a ransom demanded for me, I would not be worth a copper penny. These dogs of mine would laugh and shrug. A new captain would rise to lead them, and I—well, I would be subject to the pleasure of my captors, and I think I could foretell their pleasure. You see, I have been at revaluing myself in the last few days. I may have some value to historians because I have destroyed a few things. The builder of your Cathedral is forgotten even now, but I, who burned it, may be remembered for a hundred years or so. And that may mean something or other about mankind.”

  “But what is there about me that is worth all this gold?” she insisted. “Is it my arms, do you suppose? My hair? Or is it that I am the embodiment of my husband’s vanity?”

  “I do not know,” said Henry. “With the revaluation of myself, the whole economic system of emotions and persons has changed. To-day, were I to demand a ransom, perhaps you would not be flattered.”

  “Do you so hate me, Captain Morgan?”

&nb
sp; “No, I do not hate you; but you are one of the stars of my firmament which has proven to be a meteor.”

  “That is not gallant, sir. That is quite different from your speech of a few days past,” she observed spitefully.

  “No. It is not gallant. I think that hereafter I shall be gallant for two reasons only—money and advancement. I tried to be gallant for the pure, joyous looks of things. You see, I was honest with myself before and I am honest with myself now. These two honesties are antithetical.”

  “You are bitter.”

  “No; I am not even bitter. The food that bitterness feeds on is gone out of me.”

  “I am going now,” she said softly and wistfully. “Have you nothing more to say to me about myself? Nothing more to ask of me?”

  “Nothing,” he answered, and immediately went to piling the coins again.

  The messenger entered from the street. He had drunk deeply, for the removed burden of his mission had made him joyous. He bowed to Ysobel and to Henry Morgan; bowed warily, with an eye to his balance.

  “We must go, Señor,” he announced loudly. “The way is long.” He led Ysobel to the white mare and helped her into the saddle. Then, at his signal, the column moved off down the street. Ysobel looked back once as they started, and it seemed that she had taken a mood from Henry Morgan, for there was a puzzled smile on her lips. But then she bent her head over the mare’s neck; she was intently studying the mare’s white mane.

  The messenger had remained standing at Henry’s side in the doorway. Together they watched the fluid line of riders swing away while the sunlight glinted on the soldiers’ armor. In the center of the troupe, the white mare seemed a pearl in a setting of silver.

  The messenger put his hand on Henry’s shoulder.

  “We know how to understand each other, we men of responsibilities, ” he said drunkenly. “It is not as though we were children to have secrets. We are men, brave men and strong. We may confide in each other. You may tell me the thing nearest your heart if you wish, Señor.”

  Henry shook the hand from his shoulder. “I have nothing to tell you,” he said brusquely.

  “Ah; but then I will tell you something. Perhaps you wondered why the husband of this woman was willing to pay such a vast sum for her. She is only a woman, you say. There are many women to be had more cheaply—some for a real or two. Her husband is a fool, you say. But I would not have you think that of my master. He is no fool. I will tell you how it is. Her grandfather still lives, and he is the owner of ten silver mines and fifty leagues of fertile land in Peru. Doña Ysobel is the heiress. Now if she were killed or carried off— But you understand, Señor— Poof! The fortune into the King’s arms!” He laughed at the cleverness of his reasoning. “We understand each other, Señor. We have tough skulls—not the soft heads of chickens. Twenty thousand—it is nothing to be reckoned against ten silver mines. Ah, yes; we understand each other, we men of responsibilities.”

  He clambered into his saddle and rode away still laughing. Henry Morgan saw him join the undulating cavalcade and now there was a ruby with the pearl in the silver setting.

  Captain Morgan went back to the treasure. He sat on the floor and took the coins into his hands. “The most human of all human traits is inconsistency,” he thought. “It is a shock to learn this thing, almost as great a shock to a man as the realization of his humanity. And why must we learn that last? In all the mad incongruity, the turgid stultiloquy of life, I felt, at least, securely anchored to myself. Whatever the vacillations of other people, I thought myself terrifically constant. But now, here I am, dragging a frayed line, and my anchor gone. I do not know whether the rope was cut or merely worn away, but my anchor is gone. And I am sailing around and around an island in which there is no iron.” He let the gold pieces slip through his fingers. “But perhaps here is my iron for the making of a new anchor,” he thought. “This is hard and heavy. Its value may fluctuate somewhat in the economic currents, but at least it has a purpose, and only one purpose. It is an absolute assurance of security. Yes, perhaps this is the one true anchor; the one thing a man may be utterly sure of. Its claws hook tightly to comfort and security. Strangely, I have a craving for them both.”

  “But other men have a share in this gold,” part of his brain argued.

  “No, my dear conscience; we have an end of acting now. I have put on new glasses; rather they have been locked about my head, and I must order my life in accordance with the world I see through these new lenses. I see that honesty—public honesty—may be a ladder to a higher, more valuable crime; veracity a means to more subtle dissimulation. No; these men have no rights they can enforce. These men were too free with the rights of others to deserve consideration.” He stumbled happily on the thought. “They steal, and so shall their plunder be stolen.

  “But I said I was finished with evasions and conscience drugging. What have I to do with right, now—or reason, or logic, or conscience? I want this money. I want security and comfort, and I have the power between my hands to take both. It may not be the ideal of youth, but I think it has been the world’s practice from the beginning. Luckily, perhaps, the world is not operated by youth. And besides,” he said, “these fools of men do not deserve any of it. They would be throwing it away in the brothels when we came home again.”

  VIII

  The buccaneers went out of ruined Panama. They carried all of the treasure with them across the isthmus on the backs of mules. When at last Chagres was reached, they were exhausted; nevertheless, the following day was set for the division of spoils. In order that this might be facilitated, the whole of the treasure was stored in one ship, the great galleon which had been commanded by a Duke before the pirates captured it. From this center the plunder was to be divided. Captain Morgan was in good spirits. The journey was over, he told the men, and it was time for pleasure. He rolled out forty kegs of rum onto the beach.

  Early in the morning, a sleepy pirate opened his red eyes and looked toward the sea. He saw the water where the galleon had been. He called his comrades, and in a moment the shore was lined with disappointed men who wistfully searched the horizon. The galleon had put to sea during the night, and all the wealth of Panama had gone with her.

  There was rage among the buccaneers. They would give chase; they would run down the fugitive and torture Captain Morgan. But they could not pursue. The other ships were worthless. Some lay on the sandy bottom with great holes punched in their sides; of others, the masts were sawed nearly through.

  Then there was cursing and violence on the beach. They swore brotherhood in the name of revenge. They planned the horror of the retribution. And they scattered. Some starved; some were tortured by the Indians. The Spaniards caught and strangled some of them, and England virtuously hanged a few.

  CHAPTER 5

  I

  A multifarious population was crowded on the beach at Port Royal. They had come to see the Captain Morgan who had plundered Panama. Great ladies, dressed in the silken stuffs of China, were there because, after all, Henry Morgan came of a good family—the nephew of the poor dear Lieutenant-Governor who was killed. Sailors were there because he was a sailor; little boys because he was a pirate; young girls because he was a hero; business men because he was rich; gangs of slaves because they had a holiday. There were prostitutes with berry juice squeezed on their lips, and with restless eyes searching the faces of unaccompanied men; and there were girl children whose hearts mothered the scared little hope that the great man might just possibly look in their direction and find the understanding he must crave.

  In the crowd were sailors whose pride lay in the fact that they had heard Captain Morgan curse; tailors who had fitted breeches to his legs. Each man who had seen Henry Morgan and had heard him speak, collected a group of admirers. These lucky ones had taken a bit of greatness from the contact.

  The negro slaves, freed from their field work on this day of interest and rejoicing, gazed with huge, vacuous eyes at the galleon riding in the harbor. P
lantation owners strode about among the people, talking loudly of what they would say to Henry Morgan when they had him out to dinner, and what they would advise him. They spoke lightly and carelessly of him, as though it were their constant practice to entertain plunderers of Panama. Certain tavern keepers had broached casks of wine on the beach from which they gave freely to all who asked. Their gain would come later, with the thirst they only whetted.

  On a small pier waited the party of the Governor; handsome young men in laces and silver buckles, with a squad of pikemen to give them an official appearance. The sea fanned delicate, unbreaking waves on the beach. It was late morning, and the sun a glaring crucible in the sky, but no one felt the heat; the people had eyes and feelings for nothing but the tall galleon riding in the harbor.

  Noon had come when Henry Morgan, who had been watching the beach through a glass, decided to enter the city. His stagecraft was not merely vanity. In the night a small boat had come alongside with the news that he might be arrested for fighting the enemies of the King. Henry thought the approval of the people would weigh in his favor. All morning he had watched the approval grow as the crowd became more and more excited.

  But now his long boat was lowered and the sailors took their places. As it approached the shore, the gathered mob broke into yells, and then a concerted roaring cheer. The people threw their hats, leaped, danced, grimaced, tried to shriek conversation at one another. At the pier, hands were extended to grasp Henry’s before he was out of the boat. And immediately he had stepped up, the pikemen formed about the official party and with weapons lowered forced a rough passage among the fighting, craning spectators.

  Henry glanced with apprehension at the soldiers who surrounded him. “Am I under arrest?” he asked of the cavalier who walked beside him.