Spice and the Devil's Cave

by Agnes Danforth Hewes

  “Have you faith in a sea route to India?” the other pressed him. “Fact is, my firm would buy up land for warehouses, if there were good prospects for the Oriental trade.”

  “Man,” Abel assured him, “the sea route to India is just as sure as the ground under your feet!”

  He went off inwardly amused. If they all, Manoel himself included, could know what was really behind this tremendous business: a girl and a sailor!

  At every corner he heard men eagerly discussing the new excitement. Little boys, importantly beating their drums, bumped into him. What was that they were shouting? –“Enlistments in the Expedition of the Spices!”

  So they, too, had caught the fever! From every tavern door, between drunken snatches, there floated out to him the name of Diaz. Yes, thought Abel, Diaz was the unani-mous favourite for the new command. No question about it. What a splendid piece of fortune for Portugal that she had the right man for the great crisis which was upon her. For once, at least, the times and the man fitted!

  Bartholomew, he mused, would soon be up to tell him the latest developments; perhaps even today; and, with that in mind, he hurried along.

  “Master Abel!” he heard someone call, and looked around to find Gama out of breath behind him.

  “Vasco! Where’d you come from?”

  “I’ve been trying to catch up with you, sir. I had to see you at once.”

  Abel looked closely at him. “Why, man, what is it? You look ill.”

  “I am, sir! I’m sick at heart, and you might as well know why, first as last: the King has named me to head the Expedition.”

  Like a man stunned, Abel stared at him.

  “I knew you’d feel that way about it,” Gama murmured. “I could hardly speak when he told me what he wanted me to do.”

  “Wasn’t there even mention of Bartholomew?” Abel managed to get out.

  “Not a word. ‘I want you to go, Vasco,’ Manoel told me – just like that. I protested that my brother Paulo would make a better leader than I, but the King wouldn’t hear of that, though he promised me Paulo should command one of the ships.”

  “But Bartholomew’s experience, what he’s actually dared and accomplished, does all that count for nothing?”

  “There’s every reason in the world why he should have this appointment, and not a single one why I should,” Gama said deprecatingly. He suddenly threw back his head and looked Abel gravely in the eye. “But now that the King has named me, I have sworn before God that I will see this thing through.”

  “Does Bartholomew know?”

  “I begged permission of His Majesty to tell him, myself. It was the hardest thing I ever did!”

  “Gama, you’re a man!” Abel’s hand shot out to him. “That was hard to do. But I’ll warrant that Bartholomew, too, took it like a man!”

  Tears stood in Gama’s eyes. “Nothing ever so wrung my heart, sir. He would have no apologies, no explanations; just held me together with those eyes of his. And when I asked him if he’d take charge of the whole thing – a good many, you know, sir, under such circumstances would have refused altogether – he stood like a soldier at attention, and merely said, ‘When shall I begin?’”

  “Magnificent!” Abel cried. “I’m going to find him and tell him so as soon as I can! Where is he, do you know?”

  “I believe, sir, he meant to see you at your house, perhaps is there, now.”

  There was a subtle note in Gama’s voice that made Abel look sharply at him. Was the man withholding something?

  A minute later, he forgot the incident, but as soon as he caught sight of Diaz’ face, at the workshop door, that hint of foreboding in Gama’s tone vaguely recurred to him.

  They stood a moment without speaking, hands on each other’s shoulders.

  “I’ve just come from Gama,” Abel at last said.

  Understandingly Diaz nodded. “Then you know that I’m to superintend preparations for the Expedition?”

  “That’s one way of putting it,” Abel sorrowfully answered. “Ah, Bartholomew – Bartholomew! Who’d have dreamed that things could have taken such a turn? Everyone talking of you, and no one even thinking of Gama!”

  “I’ve had my chance, man,” Diaz calmly told him. “Why shouldn’t he have his?”

  “But surely you’re to go with the Expedition?”

  “I doubt it. The King was hinting, yesterday, that I was needed at the fort at Mina.1 But,” he broke off, “that isn’t what I’ve come to speak about.”

  Again reminded of Gama’s tone of foreboding, Abel glanced apprehensively at him.

  “You must brace yourself, Abel!” Diaz said, very low, and he squared his own shoulders. “You knew, didn’t you, that the marriage contract between Manoel and the Infanta of Spain would be signed within the week?”

  “I supposed as much. Well?” Abel’s voice was as puzzled as his face.

  “The Infanta of Spain, Abel!”

  At the marked emphasis on that dreaded name, Abel’s face changed, and over it crept a slow fear.

  Diaz turned away his head. “The price of that contract,” he faltered, “is the exile of your people from Portugal.”

  For a moment Abel wavered, put out his hands as if to steady himself. “You mean we must – go?”

  “Would that I could have borne this blow for you!” Diaz cried out in an anguished voice. “I couldn’t bear to have it first reach you through the public announcement, so, with the King’s sanction I came to you myself.”

  Abel sat down heavily, and motioned to close the doors. “Ruth mustn’t hear this just yet-nor Nejmi. This edict – is to be pronounced-when?”

  “In a few days, after the signing of the royal contract.”

  “Does Abraham know?”

  “Oh, yes; Manoel told him first of all, and afterward Gama and I were called in. Abraham was too prostrated to come to you, so –”

  Abel’s hand groped toward the other’s. “I’m grateful to you, Bartholomew. It’s something to know there’s one I can look to in this world that’s fallen around me.”

  “All your friends feel as I do, Abel! There’s nothing we wouldn’t have foregone to prevent this. Nothing! And I doubt if there’s a soul in Lisbon or in Portugal who wouldn’t abolish this cursed edict. Manoel, himself, never would have consented to it, if the Spanish sovereigns hadn’t made it the condition to his marriage. But of course it’s no secret that the great thing with him is a Spanish alliance.”

  “Why couldn’t I have foreseen this, after what they did to us in Spain?” Abel groaned. “But I was so sure of Manoel – oh, God, so sure!”

  “To do him justice, I don’t believe he had an inkling of what they were going to demand of him as the Infanta’s price. He seemed really sorrowful when he talked with us about it; said, repeatedly, that Portugal owed her financial prosperity to her Jews.”

  “And it’s nothing to what we’ve planned: new branch houses and agencies abroad, and Lisbon the commercial center of Europe. . . . But what’s the use of talking; about it now?” Abel turned his head away and Diaz heard his stifled voice: “We must leave it all-all!”

  “It’s taken the heart out of everything for me. This Expedition that we’d all revolved around for so long is ashes in my mouth.”

  “Yet Lisbon will go on just the same,” Abel bitterly predicted. “The Expedition will sail, and who will ever remember the part the Jews have had in it? Who gives a thought as to how Columbus’ expeditions were financed?”

  “It’s cold comfort,” said Diaz, “but the King himself was speaking to Gama and me of what your people have done for exploration. He even reminded us that it was Rabbi Joseph who brought back Covilham’s great message from Cairo.”

  “Yes!” Abel passionately broke in. “He’s taken all we could give of brains and wealth, just as Spain did of the Moors and of us; and now, because we don’t worship as he does, he casts us out like chaff!” His face dropped between his hands, and Diaz, himself rent with grief, heard a sound of anguis
h: “My garden . . . this workshop . . . Ruth and I exiles! And my poor Abraham …”

  After some moments he raised his head. “How did the King take Abraham’s advice about the Way of the Spices?”

  “Just like a boy! Couldn’t wait to start preparations. He promised Abraham his reward should be a Court residence for life.”

  “What will his word ever mean more than that – now?” Contemptuously Abel snapped his fingers. He looked steadily at Diaz as if he were forcing himself to some dreaded issue. “When – must we go?”

  “In ten months,” was the almost inaudible reply.

  Neither spoke until Diaz rose, and then Abel faltered out, “With all you have on your mind, Bartholomew, it was good of you –”

  “Abel – Abel – don’t!” And as if unable to trust himself, Diaz rushed from the workshop and out of the gate.

  It was characteristic of Abel that, without delay, and briefly, he told Ruth the news that Diaz had brought. She listened to him with a blank look in her bright, inquisitive eyes.

  “But Abel,” she gasped, “you said – you said – we were too useful to Manoel to have him treat us as they did our people in Spain.”

  “I thought we were! I thought we were, my poor, poor Ruth. But it seems he needs Spain more than he does jus, and so he must take Spain’s orders.”

  She staggered back against the wall. “It can’t be-can’t be true! He wouldn’t be so cruel!”

  He put his arms around her with a feeling that but for them she would fall. Ah, that out of his own misery he could find some barest shred of comfort for her!

  “Where does he want us to go?” she shuddered out at last.

  Even in his despair the pathetic irony of her question struck him. As if the least qualm about the future of his Jewish subjects would ever cross Manoel’s mind!

  He saw her turn a stricken face to the court; watched her eyes travel its sunny length; watched them come back to the workshop to linger, with tragic scrutiny, on the shelves, the bench, the table. He felt her suddenly quiver, felt her arms flung around him, and her cheek pressed to his.

  “Abel, my poor Abel!”

  He could only say her name, with a vague sense that somehow she was the comforter, he the comforted. They stood so, clinging to each other.

  “We’ll go together, Abel!”

  “Together, Ruth.”

  “And Nejmi will go with us.”

  “Heaven be praised!”

  “She’s like balm to a hurt,” Ruth sobbed, under her breath.

  “A light in the dark – like her name!”

  Ruth’s arms tightened around Abel. “We must – must begin to plan – where to go,” she got out in a voice that tried to be steady.

  Instantly he understood what she meant. “For Nej-mi’s sake?”

  She nodded. “After all she’s gone through we can’t let her think she’s to be again a-wanderer.”

  “Wanderer!” The word seared itself into Abel’s misery. He had thought he understood, when Abraham had tried to tell him of that terrible exodus from Spain. He knew now he had not. His gaze turned achingly to the massive walls of the court and the house. How impregnably they had seemed to shield him from all that was without, and now –“Wanderer!”

  “No, Ruth, we won’t let her be that,” he said as calmly as he could. “I’ll begin right away to plan.”

  “I wish we needn’t tell her just yet, poor lamb!”

  But, as it happened, at that moment, Nejmi came into the workshop, and clinging to her in a passion of gratefulness at her physical nearness, they poured out their misery to her.

  Half-way through Abel’s explanation she broke in: “You must go because your God is different from your King’s?”

  Almost he could have smiled at the innocent directness. “That’s it, my child. That’s the whole case in a nutshell.”

  He saw the old fear creep into her eyes, and knew that she was looking at their impending disaster in the light of her own tragic exile.

  “Ah, the trouble that it makes to call Him by different names,” she cried under her breath, “when, after all, he’s the same Allah!”

  “We didn’t want to tell you, my child,” Ruth sobbed, “until we knew where we were going.”

  “As if that made a difference!” She knelt between them, fondled their hands. “We have each other, where-ever we go!”

  * * *

  WHEN NICOLO came, that evening, he found Abel sitting on the bench under the grey old fig tree.

  “I didn’t know whether you’d care to see me so soon, sir. If you’d rather be alone –”

  Silently, Abel drew him down beside him.

  “Isn’t it chilly out here for you, sir?” Nicolo ventured. “Shall we go into the workshop?”

  He felt Abel wince as if he had been struck.

  “We’ll stay here – if you don’t mind?”

  Nicolo glanced toward the workshop. It was unlighted. There were lights in the other rooms. Had the great “lighthouse” lamp perhaps been forgotten? He shivered as his gaze lingered on the dim outlines of the room that had been the glowing heart of Abel’s house.

  For a while neither spoke, and then Nicolo choked out, “I can’t tell you the first word of my grief, sir. To stand by and not be able to lift a finger for you –”

  “If it were my trouble alone!” Abel groaned. “But the thousands of us, that, tonight, are asking ourselves the same question: ‘Where to go?’ The business that we’ve built up here, our homes, all to be –” there was a sound of stifled agony as when a wound is probed –“to be as if they had not been!”

  “I’ve been wondering, sir, if – if – I could help you find – a place –” He felt Abel’s hand close convulsively on his, but no word was spoken.

  “I’ve friends in Venice, you know, sir,” Nicolo went on, “who’d do all they could if you wished to settle there. And Amsterdam – had you thought of it? They’re progressive up there, I’ve heard, and they’d appreciate brains like yours. Some day,” he broke out passionately, “Manoel will wake up to what he’s lost!”

  “If he would at least let us take our possessions with us!” Abel’s gaze, as it travelled the length of the court, was a mute caress for each object that it touched. “But it will be as it was in Spain. We shall have to leave everything behind. Even our money – they will contrive to take that, too.”

  “That’s something I wanted to speak of, sir. I was wondering if you’d care to invest your capital in my business. In that way no one could get hold of it, and it should grow with the business.”

  “My boy, I – I didn’t look for anything like this!”

  “Why, Master Abel, you’re the heart of all this great future that is bound to come to Portugal/Why, in heaven’s name, shouldn’t you share in it?”

  He started to mention Nejmi. But what was there to say? Should he ask if they would take her when they went? As if he didn’t know without asking! The very thought was like a cold hand on his heart.

  At last he got up, and gently asked if Abel would go in, for the night air was sharp.

  No, Abel said, he would sit here a while longer. Chilly, was it? No matter. Almost it seemed as if he wished to be alone.

  So Nicolo tiptoed away, shivering as he passed the silent workshop, and let himself out of the gate.

  1 A Portuguese military Dost on the Guinea coast.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Lighted Workshop

  IT was Abel’s last day at his bank. The final meeting had been held, the investors refunded, and inevitable losses divided between the bank officials.

  The bank was now, in Abel’s own words, as if it had not been. He had come to the building this morning only to take away his private papers, and now, with them in his hand, he sought, for the last time, the little side door which he had liked for its privacy.

  As he opened it, someone on the threshold turned.

  “Ferdinand – you?”

  It was their first meeting since the pronoun
cement of the edict.

  “I knew I’d find you here, sir. I came to give you a message from – from –” He bit his lips to hide their quivering, and Abel saw his shoulders heave.

  “Come inside.” Abel drew him within, and closed the door. “We can be alone here.”

  “It’s a message from Master Abraham,” the boy said in a voice thick, Abel knew, with suppressed weeping. “He’s – he’s gone.”

  “Gone?” Abel repeated. “Does Manoel know?”

  “Manoel!” Ferdinand burst out. “I hate him! I never did like him, but now I’ll never forgive him.”

  Abel put his arm around the heaving shoulders. “‘Never’ is a long word, lad.”

  “Not long enough for me! Look at what your people have done for Portugal, and now how does he repay you?” He broke off to draw his hand across his eyes. “I must give you Master Abraham’s message,” he said, with an effort. “He sailed, early this morning, in a packet bound for Tunis. There was no time to see you.”

  Abel received the news without surprise. “Did he take leave of the King?”

  “Yes. Manoel assured him again he might stay on at the palace, but he wouldn’t listen. Afterward I saw him for a minute and he whispered to me, ‘See Abel as soon as possible, and tell him to go at the first chance. Manoel is sure to follow up this edict with forcing baptism on us.’”

  “Baptism!” Abel cried, and his voice was full of horror. “That, too? Doesn’t Manoel know what that means? “he groaned. Then, as Ferdinand stared, uncomprehendingly, at him, “You must go back to your duties, my boy,” he said in a shaken voice, “and I-I must give Ruth that message at once.”

  All the way home the terrible word rang through his brain: Baptism! In letters of blood it seemed to play before his eyes, to mock and to threaten him.

  As soon as he entered the court he called to Ruth.

  She hurried out to him. “Oh, Abel-what?”

  “Nejmi mustn’t hear us,” he warned her.

  “Then come in here.” She drew him into the workshop and closed the doors.

  Sick at heart, he looked about it. The first time he had entered it, since Bartholomew had told him the worst. There, on the floor, were the shavings he had last made; the compass frame just as he had left it on the bench; the various tools on their shelves.