CHAPTER 4
The Two Abels
By keeping in sight its row of windows, Nicolo found the hillside house that Pedro had pointed out. Though the person who answered his knock acknowledged himself to be Abel Zakuto, Nicolo looked doubtfully at him. This spare, youngish-looking man with sawdust clinging to his breeches and to the turned-back sleeves of his plain round jacket, was like no banker Nicolo had ever known; nor was the whimsical smile lurking in the boyish eyes that were so oddly at variance with the high forehead. This was no banker, said Nicolo to himself—never in the world; more like a skilled artisan, or possibly a scholar, he looked, with that black silk skull cap.
“I’ve often heard, sir, at home, in Venice, of Abel Zakuto, the Lisbon financier,” Nicolo began, “but here I was given to understand that it was not banks you were interested in, but navigation—exploration—something of the kind. Are there two Abel Zakutos? And have I come to the wrong one?”
“There are two Abel Zakutos,” laughed Abel, “but they both live”—he tapped his forehead—“under the same roof. One of them is a banker—you’re right about him. The other is a conscienceless fellow who steals most of the banker’s time to do things that don’t bring in money! But come in!” He pulled down his sleeves, seized Nicolo’s arm and guided him toward the workshop. “You say you’re from Venice? I wonder if you aren’t the Nicolo Conti of whom Ferdinand was telling me?”
“Ferdinand Magellan, you mean? You know him?”
“Oh, for years; he’s always running in and out.”
Nicolo took the chair that Abel pushed toward him, while he glanced about. Tools…compasses…gay little ship models…a work bench littered with fine shavings. Yes, it fitted Pedro’s comments about Abel: “A kind of a sailor-fellow on land; always pottering with navigation instruments.”
“I understand from Ferdinand,” Abel bantered, “that your first taste of Lisbon wasn’t too pleasant!”
“Oh—that little matter of the sugar barrel? Well, it did seem foolish of that merchant to get heated about a few pounds of sugar, when we’d successfully brought him some thousands of pounds.”
“Did you make any stops on your way?” Abel asked.
“No; that is—” Nicolo smiled at the recollection of the pirates—“no official ones!”
Looking at Abel, he saw his eyes change, and knew instinctively that some new thought had suddenly entered his mind. When Abel spoke again Nicolo was conscious that his question disguised the real motive:
“Did you see any slave trade along the way?”
Nicolo shook his head.
Abel seemed to ponder. “No craft with a slave cargo?” he carefully asked.
Something in his expression and attitude made Nicolo think, vaguely, of young Magellan—Magellan as he had leaned out over the sea-wall, and peered at the names of the anchored ships.
“Were you expecting such a cargo,” Nicolo inquired, “or some particular craft?”
“No, oh no,” Abel hastily disclaimed, and—Nicolo fancied—almost guiltily. “I noticed,” he said, shifting the subject, “that you’ve the same name as the famous Venetian traveller—or rather, one of your famous travellers, for you have many.”
“We’ve a bent for out-of-the-way places,” Nicolo agreed, “though I didn’t expect to find anyone as familiar with us and our doings as you are, sir.”
Abel laughed. “Lay that to the scamp I was telling you about, the chap who keeps the banker from getting rich! One forgets about such stupidities as making money when one hears of exploits such as Conti’s or reads chronicles like these.” He reached for a book from a tiny library and handed it to Nicolo.
“Marco Polo!” Nicolo exclaimed at the title. “He’s the master traveller of us all, isn’t he!”
“And isn’t it curious that, without any intention on his part, these Travels which he set down for people’s entertainment should start—two hundred years later, mind you—the greatest sensation the world’s ever known!”
“How do you mean, sir, ‘greatest sensation’?”
“Why, it was Polo’s account of the traffic of the East that started Christopher Columbus to thinking about a a water short-cut to it; he told me so himself, sitting in this room. And now all Europe is hot on the scent of a passage to India.”
“We hear at home that Cabot has stirred up the English to send him on an expedition to find it. Do you know of him—John Cabot?”
“Know of him?” Abel ejaculated. “We’ve talked for hours in this very spot!”
Pedro’s description of Zakuto as “hobnobbing with anyone who’d been to sea or was going,” drifted across Nicolo’s recollection.
“Yes,” Abel continued, “Cabot’s caught the passage-to-India fever. He saw enough of the Oriental trade on that trip of his down the Red Sea to convince him that it was worth trying for. About Conti’s travels I know very little, but I’ve heard it rumoured that his special object was to get information about the source of spices, they being the richest item in the whole Oriental trade. Did he succeed, do you know?”
“Matter of fact, I hadn’t meant to bring that subject up just yet, sir! But as long as you’ve put it to me—yes, I know a good deal about it, for I’ve read Conti’s letters in which he tells how he discovered from where the different spices come. You see, sir, Nicolo Conti was my grandfather, and his letters are in the family.”
“So!” Abel ejaculated. “So!” He drew his chair close to Nicolo’s. “This is real news! Tell me all you care to.”
“Well, sir, up to Conti’s time, our merchants and explorers, even Marco Polo himself, had confused the ports where spices were shipped with the place where they grew. Whenever they asked an incoming caravan from where its spice cargo came, they were referred to the caravan’s last starting point, and again, at that point, to one farther east; and so on. No one seemed to know where the spices grew and no one could find out, but it was always some place east of wherever the inquiry was made!”
“Looks to me,” Abel interrupted, “as if all that evasion were intentional.”
“Oh, Conti says it is, and charges the Arab merchants with it! So he made up his mind to keep on going east as long as there was an east. He finally reached Java and Sumatra, which was farther than any European had gone. And there he ran the scent down!”
Like an excited boy, Abel edged forward in his chair.
“He found out all about pepper and cinnamon,” Nicolo continued, “and that cloves came from the island of Banda, and nutmegs from neighbouring islands to the eastward of India.” He waited a moment, then, “Master Zakuto,” he said, deliberately, “it was this information, together with my belief that Diaz has all but found the sea route to these islands, that brought me to Lisbon.”
Abel’s head went up proudly. “So you believe in Bartholomew Diaz?”
“If I didn’t I wouldn’t be here. I’ve come to Lisbon to follow up my convictions; and to you, in particular, Master Zakuto, because I’ve heard business men at home say they’d rather have your advice than each others’.”
Abel made no reply at once; then, he said, carefully, “You would like financial counsel, or perhaps you wish to make a banking connection?”
The boyish eyes, Nicolo noted, had become quite astoundingly keen; unsuspected lines appeared around the mouth; chin and jaw, thrust ever so little forward, fitted the great forehead’s testimony to a profound sagacity. This was Zakuto, the financier!
When Nicolo spoke he seemed to ignore Abel’s question. “When Portugal reaches the Indies by sea she’s going to take trade supremacy from Venice,” he stated with a finality that brought an exclamation from the other.
“Strange, that, from a Venetian!”
“But it’s true. My love for Venice can’t change the lay of land and water!”
For several moments Abel studied Nicolo; then, he asked, “What do they say in Venice about this talk of a sea route to India?”
“You see, Venice has had the monopoly of Oriental com
merce so long that she can’t believe anyone can take it away from her. So, most of them at home laugh at the reports of the Diaz expedition, and a few take it seriously. I’m one of those few. Then, why live my life out in a city that shuts its eyes to what I’m convinced is bound to be?”
“So you’re thinking of going into trade here?”
“As I figure, Master Abel—” again Nicolo waived the other’s question—“when you get the Oriental trade to your side of the world, you’ll need ships, more ships than you now have.”
“Aha!” Swift comprehension broke over Abel’s face. “So that’s what you came to talk! Ship-building, eh?”
“That was my real business with you, sir—till we got started on Conti’s letters, spice, and the rest of it!”
“Good!” Abel hitched his chair nearer to Nicolo. “You know, Conti, all they can think of, here in Lisbon, is getting their hands on that Eastern trade—but you never hear a word of how they expect to distribute it, after they have it. Of course they’ll have to have more ships! Just as they’ll have to arrange for more foreign credit. And the Jewish financiers have foreseen that. Why—” confidentially he lowered his voice—“my firm is already negotiating for branch houses abroad, even as far east as the Levant. But to come back to ship-building…”
They plunged into details of locations and sites and leases. Abel knew the right men for each connection.
“But above all, my boy,” he warned, “lay in a stock of patience. Don’t expect Manoel to send an expedition to India next week!”
“What! Isn’t he interested?”
“When he can spare time from home politics!”
“But how does he dare risk delay, with rivalry so keen about reaching the Orient? Why, we’ve heard at home that His Holiness even had to make an imaginary ‘Line’ somewhere out in the ocean to keep Spain and Portugal from quarrelling over each other’s discoveries.”
Abel’s eyes twinkled. “That ‘Line’ makes a fine talking point! But it doesn’t prevent Spain’s galleons from skulking around to see what we’re doing on our side of it, down by the Guinea coast, any more than it prevents them from lifting one of our cargoes, now and then. Not that we neglect a good chance on their side of the Line, either! Oh, we’re a fine, civilized lot, Conti! But you were asking about Manoel—”
“He’s indifferent, you say, to reaching India? Doesn’t he believe in Diaz?”
“Oh, in a way; but I suppose Diaz is an old story to him by now.”
“You mean, that Manoel will have to be waked up before he’ll send an expedition?”
“Something like that, yes.”
Absently Nicolo drummed on the table. He hadn’t counted on this sort of a situation—waiting for a royal imagination to be tickled.
From under his great forehead Abel watched him: “Push right on with your plans,” he said, at last. “Diaz hasn’t yet given up hope of completing what he began! As for myself—” He drew Nicolo to the windows. “See here a minute, my boy.”
Below them, in the late sunlight, the roofs of the city stood up sharp and bright, with the streets, already in shadow, like black gashes between.
“I never look down on this city, Conti,”—Abel’s voice took on a new, deep note—“without saying to myself: ‘Not Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, but Lisbon, the emporium of Europe!’… I’m sure of it, Conti, sure!”
There was a rush of colour to Nicolo’s face, and his eyes looked unseeingly before him; for, in fancy, he was gazing on the Inland Sea that had nursed him, that had mothered the childhood of man. Ah, sea of measureless blues and crests of gold! Supreme through the marching centuries, it was now to yield its supremacy. Those to whom it had been highway and warpath would look henceforth to other waters; already, in fact, were so looking, so seeking, faring forth with the zest of the child who has outgrown the hand to which it clung.
He was roused by Abel’s suddenly hurrying to his carpenter’s bench. From it he picked up an object which he blew clear of litter, and then, almost reverently, held in his palm for Nicolo’s inspection: the frame of a compass. Just that, and only that, it appeared to his layman’s eye till Abel enthusiastically pointed out the fine grain of the best Madeira mahogany. A long search it had been for this particular piece; sample after sample tested and discarded. But at last, this! And when it was rubbed down, polished! A swift vision of gleaming surfaces smote Nicolo’s eye of fancy. And then he must see just how Abel would set the pivot on which the needle would rest.
“Makes the ‘Genoese Needle’ look pretty lame!” Nicolo admiringly commented.
All at once his arm was seized, Abel’s face was thrust close to his. This, Nicolo perceived, was the Zakuto of the boyish eyes, and of the lovably incongruous features: the pilferer of Banker Zakuto’s time!
“Conti…Conti…” he was stammering like an eager child—“do you know for what I’m making this compass?… For the first crew that sails out of Lisbon for India!”
CHAPTER 5
The Locked Door
Abel Zakuto came thoughtfully up the long, stone stairway. Inwardly, he was a good deal perturbed. This thing that was to happen—for which, in fact, he had deliberately set the stage—must be so managed as to appear not managed. It must be, he said to himself, like the unfolding of a flower—as delicate as all that.
Perhaps it was this particular thought that made him, when he crossed the court, stop to gather a cluster of late-blooming roses. With them in his hand he went into the room where Ruth sat sewing with the Girl.
“Ruth, see! Aren’t they fine blooms?” He held them up for her to smell, and then pressed them to the Girl’s cheek. Under his off-hand manner his keen, kind eyes noted the rise of colour in the still face, and the flutter of the listless eyelids.
“Come along into the court, Ruth!” He tossed the sewing from her hands and caught her round the waist, while his other arm swept the Girl up. If he saw Ruth’s startled eyes, or felt the Girl’s slender body stiffen and hang back, he paid no heed as, laughing and talking, he steered for the court.
As they stepped outside, he was aware that the Girl started violently, and, behind him, he heard Ruth’s low “What are you thinking of—taking her out so suddenly?”
“Fresh air and sunlight never hurt anyone,” he comfortably returned, while he guided them toward the lilies that had always reminded him of the Girl.
He picked one and put it into her hands, while he meditated aloud: “The narcissus bed must be thinned before long, and these gilly flowers. There’ll be enough for a new plantation; or would a border be prettier, Ruth?”
His arm always around the Girl, he strolled on, stopping every few steps, to inspect a vine or a shrub; to notice that the mint bed was a bit dry; to rub a bit of sage between thumb and finger and hold it to his nostrils. Over her head he could see Ruth doubtfully eyeing him.
They had made tour of the court, and had halted under the old fig tree, when Abel heard a deep, tremulous sigh, and felt the Girl’s arm drop from his. Quickly he glanced at her. As if she had forgotten his presence and Ruth’s, she was gazing up into the sun-flecked shade while she stretched her arms like a drowsy child.
Almost holding his breath, Abel watched the pale cheeks warm with faint colour; then, as her eyes came back to him, he saw that they held something besides fear. She stood there, very still, between him and Ruth, and then, slowly, as if groping her way, she reached out to a jessamine vine, and picked a spray of its white stars. A look of triumph shot from Abel to Ruth as they covertly watched her smell the flowers, and Ruth found a chance to murmur in his ear, “I’d never have believed it!”
From time to time Abel furtively eyed the gate. At last, feet sounded on the stairs; the door swung back, and Ferdinand stepped inside. Abel saw him look hastily about the court, then draw back as he perceived the Girl.
Abel stole a glance at her. Thank heaven, she was not frightened! Soft, wondering eyes fixed on the figure at the gate, lips parted, head lifted as if listening, wa
iting—what was it that she looked like? Some young creature of the wild—ah, a fawn!
“I thought Master Abraham said—” Ferdinand broke off, then made another start: “Did you mean me to come now,” he stammered, “or—or—”
“You’re always welcome,” said Abel serenely, “day or night.” He waved a hand at the flower beds. “Garden looks well, doesn’t it?”
From behind the Girl, he caught Ruth suspiciously eyeing him. “Abel Zakuto,” he heard her whisper, “I believe you sent for the boy on purpose!”
Without appearing to hear her, he strolled over to a fruit tree and made a pretext of examining it. From under his eyelids he observed Ferdinand slowly advance. He was trying hard, Abel noted with a chuckle, to appear at ease, and so was Ruth.—If she only knew how near the truth she’d come with her dark suspicions!
The Girl, he exulted, seemed less concerned than either. Stealthily he watched her. Never once did she take her gaze from Ferdinand, and, as he came nearer, she bent toward him, and held up the jessamine spray for him to smell—the ingenuous gesture of a child with a playmate! If Abel’s blood quickened a little, he gave no sign, while he continued to potter about his tree, but he observed that Ferdinand had accepted the bloom, and was affably smelling it. He was making, on the whole, a fair show of manners—the young cub!
A new sound suddenly fell on his ears. Ferdinand’s startled face, Ruth’s eyes bulging with amazement, flashed before him. His gaze followed theirs—to the Girl. That sound…why, great heaven, it was coming from her! It was her voice. A voice, he noted, even in that first, incredible moment, that had the sweet vibrancy of metal struck on metal.
“Ruth,” she was saying in that silver voice. “Ruth!” Then, “A-bel,” she slowly pronounced, with a caressing little accent that brought a lump to Abel’s throat. Her eyes now eagerly fixed on Ferdinand—eyes, Abel noted, that, for at least this moment, had almost forgotten their fright.
For a perplexed moment the boy’s gaze questioned hers. All at once he seemed to understand what she wished, and, “Ferdinand,” he said, distinctly.
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