Nicolo suddenly realized how well Scander knew his ground; how he had indeed “cut his teeth on the Cachopos!”
Scarcely an hour had passed since they had sighted Abdul. He glanced at the moon. If they could only hold their little boat for another hour!
Scander turned and pointed to the sail. For a second the canvas had spilled the wind! “Wind’s going down,” he shouted.
Incredible as it seemed, Nicolo sensed the truth, for when they again came about, it was easier. With amazing strength and skill Scander had managed to shorten sail, and, braced against the windward rail, was easing and tightening the sheet to meet the combers. Then again, and still again, they manoeuvred to hold their position.
In agony of suspense Nicolo watched the waves wash over the wrecked vessel. Would the tide never turn so they could approach her? Still, her condition was growing no worse. As Scander had said, she lay fast in soft sand.
A crash of surf made him shudder. Another wall of foam swept over the grounded ship. Could anyone live through that?
At times, when the skiff’s position was favourable, he could dimly distinguish figures clinging to the rail. Ah, what if Nejmi were not one of them! He braced himself against an overwhelming fear. He fixed his mind on the helm, realized that at last they were actually approaching the wreck.
Suddenly a faint call seemed to mingle with the wind and sea. A man’s voice! Nicolo strained his ears.
“A line! Stand—by—for—a line!” Scander began to let down the sail as Nicolo eased the skiff still nearer.
And then it came, whistling through the air—a rope flung with unmistakable skill. But to Nicolo’s horror the line fell short. Conflicting thoughts raced through his mind. Would those scoundrels save themselves—leave her alone out there?
Hark! That call again! Between the crash of the breakers came detached words: “Stand in closer—as close as you dare! You must take off a woman!”
A woman—a woman! Thank God, a woman! In ecstasy of relief Nicolo almost dropped the helm, but quickly recovered. Scander lowered the sail, and together they worked the tossing little boat through the now lessening rollers toward the wreck.
“That’s not Abdul’s voice,” he heard Scander exclaim. He finished stowing the sail.
Again came the whistling line. This time Nicolo caught the wet coils and took a turn through the forward chuck. Violently as the skiff still tossed, they had now worked her close under the stern of the wreck.
“That talk about taking off a woman may be to put us off guard,” Scander said briefly. “Better let me stand forward—you haven’t a knife!”
“What! Abdul would…when we’re saving him?”
“Humph! He’d slit our throats and then get away in our boat!”
They were now as near as they could be to the stranded vessel. Plainly two figures only were at the stern rail. Suddenly, to Nicolo’s incredulous joy, he heard Nejmi’s voice—“Nicolo!”
“Nejmi!” he called back, all but choking over the dear word.
Scander took position in the tossing bow. The still strong ebb stood off their boat, with the fastened line taut.
“Send the girl first!” cried Nicolo.
Words unintelligible to him floated back, but there was an astounded cry from Scander:
“There’s only Marco and Nejmi! Abdul’s gone—washed overboard!”
“Thank heaven!” cried Nicolo on first impulse.
“Best thing that could have happened,” agreed Scander. “There it comes,” he shouted as a second line whirled aboard. He caught it, bracing himself with feet wide apart. “I’ll haul in. You stand ready to take her.”
In spite of being soaked to the skin, Nicolo, as he fixed his eyes on the far end of the line, felt moisture break out on him. If at this last moment Marco should play them some treacherous trick…if the line should break… But at last, a slender figure swung off from the wreck. He saw that Scander was breathing hard, as length after length of line disappeared through his deft hands. Now she was half across. Now he could plainly see the delicate face, the wet, clinging clothes.
And, now, reaching, stretching out for her, he had drawn her, with tremendous effort, to the rail. For a moment she clung, dazed and breathless. In another moment he had raised her, drenched and limp, into his arms.
“Nicolo!” she gasped. Then her eyes closed. “Gama!” she murmured faintly. “They’re plotting to kill him!”
Something blinded Nicolo, took him by the throat. Herself at death’s very door, yet thinking of Gama—of the Way!
“Nejmi, darling!” He caught her to him, trying to think what he should tell without breaking his promise to Rodriguez. “Gama doesn’t need us, dear,” he whispered. “They can’t hurt him now! I mustn’t tell you any more yet—I’ve promised.”
She leaned back from him, staring at him with startled eyes. “Nicolo! Where were you going?” she asked him breathlessly.
“I was coming back from Cascaes. I’d just heard there what I’ve told you.”
An instant he felt her arms go around him. Then Scander was saying, gently, “My child, I must take off this line.”
She looked up at him, and for the first time seemed to realize his presence. “Scander! Dear Scander—” Wildly weeping she dropped her head on his shoulder. “You’ve always saved me!”
His rough hands soothed her. “I’d give ten years of my life not to have had this happen to you, my child!”
“It’s my fault! I took him off to Cascaes,” cried Nicolo. “Did you know us when we passed, Nejmi?”
“Yes! And I was so afraid Abdul would—know!” she panted. “I was sure you’d come. And I watched you following all the way—” She broke off with a sound of anguish. “Master Abel, Mother Ruth! What are they thinking? Oh, Scander, hurry, hurry back to them.” She seized his hands, her face convulsed. “We must get back to them!”
“Are they alive—safe?” Nicolo and Scander cried in the same breath.
“Abdul never saw them,” she said, reading their thoughts. “When he came to the house I—I—” She closed her eyes, shuddering uncontrollably.
“Spread your coat out for her, Scander,” cried Nicolo as he untied the line about Nejmi’s waist. “And hand me mine—under the seat there. She mustn’t talk any more now. We know Master Abel and Mistress Ruth are safe.”
“Heaven be praised for that!” Scander fervently exclaimed. He snatched the coats they had flung off, laid one in the cockpit, and tossed the other to Nicolo, who stripped off Nejmi’s wet cloak, and wrapped his coat around her.
As they lifted her into the cockpit, she opened her eyes. “Abdul didn’t find the maps,” she whispered. “They’re safe!”
“Maps!” cried the two men in the same breath.
“They’d gone clean out of my mind!” Nicolo declared.
“So that’s how that blackguard found her!” Scander said between his teeth. “I’ve a mind to leave that scoundrel of a Marco out there for his part of it!” he wrathfully burst out.
“Why, Scander—” Nejmi’s hand reached out for his sleeve—“it was Marco who saved me! If he hadn’t lashed me to the rail, I’d have—have gone—the way Abdul did. Do save him, Scander,” she shuddered. “You—you don’t know how dreadful it is out there!”
Scander’s only reply was an uncompromising “Humph!” but he nevertheless hurled the line, and presently they saw a bulky figure drop over the stern of the foundered ship.
Both Scander and Nicolo took a hand with the line, for Marco’s weight was a different matter from Nejmi’s.
“Wind’s going down fast,” observed Nicolo, as they hauled. “See the difference in the waves just since Nejmi crossed. We won’t have any trouble getting home.” Home! Blessed thought! Nejmi, Abel, Ruth—safe. Sunshine flooding court and workshop. He could have put his arms around all Lisbon!
“Good enough for you if we’d left you out there,” Scander greeted the bedraggled Marco. “Helping that partner of yours to steal this poor child!
”
“But he didn’t! Abdul came alone!” cried Nejmi.
“I swear I never laid eyes on her till I saw her with Abdul at the dock,” Marco declared.
“That makes it a little better,’” Nicolo told him shortly. “We’ll settle with you later. Sit down now and dry your precious self in what’s left of this breeze,” he directed the abject sailor, who blankly took off his coat.
With a stroke of his knife Scander cut the line. For one moment Nicolo stopped to draw his coat still closer around Nejmi, and to feel her hand in his. Then he had grasped the helm, while Scander was once more raising the sail. Within minutes—though it seemed hours—they had picked up headway against the remnant of tide, and were making slowly toward the lights of Belem.
“What happened to Abdul?” Nicolo inquired, when steering had become a matter of merely guiding the helm.
“Last I saw of him,” replied Marco, “he was cutting down the fores’l. A breaker took us broadside, and when it cleared, he was gone!”
Nejmi raised her head a moment above her coverings. “And if Marco hadn’t lashed me to the rail,” she added, “I’d have gone with the next breaker.” Wearily she lay back, and when Nicolo looked at her again, he saw she was fast asleep.
“What made you try the South Channel in ebb tide and an inshore wind?” Nicolo inquired after a while.
“It wasn’t my doing,” Marco sullenly replied. “I looked everywhere for Scander to take us out, and when I couldn’t find him, Abdul swore we’d make it alone.”
Scander shrugged. “What could you expect? All he knew was the Mediterranean, that never saw a tide! Still,” he mused, “it’s hard to believe. Abdul, who laughed at Allah and the devil, and stuck his knife into anybody that crossed him, carried off like the greenest lubber! Kind of spoiled your plans, didn’t it?” he asked pointedly.
Marco’s eyes shifted, and he fidgeted in his seat.
“Yes!” Nicolo put in sarcastically. “You were expecting to accomplish quite a stroke with Gama, weren’t you?”
Marco’s heavy face puckered up like an aggrieved baby’s. “How’d you know so much?” he whimpered. “I don’t care, though, if you do know,” he quickly added. “It’s all up now.”
“What made Abdul change his mind so sudden about leaving?” Scander demanded.
“He heard that Zakuto was to be at the proclamation about sundown. He figured he could steal the maps while the old chap was away from home, and get off before he came back.”
“So that was his hellish game!” Nicolo exclaimed, as he suddenly recalled the coin Pedro had held up to him. “He made a cat’s paw out of old Pedro, you see, Scander, to point out Master Abel, so as to be sure no one was at home.”
Scander’s palms came together in sudden enlightenment. “That’s how he found Nejmi alone!” He glanced at the sleeping figure. “We mustn’t speak so loud!”
“But he never got the maps,” Marco said, in a low tone. “I knew the minute I saw him at the dock that something’d gone wrong.”
Involuntarily Nicolo’s eyes sought Nejmi. That slender loveliness to pit herself, alone and defenceless, against the very cause of all her fear—fear worse to her than death! What if they had missed seeing her on the river? What if she were lying now where Abdul lay? A kind heaven be praised that the sea had forever settled with Abdul!
He looked up to find Scander watching him, and, as if he had guessed Nicolo’s thoughts, “She’ll never again need to be afraid,” he said, half smiling. His face hardened. “If only Master Abel and Mistress Ruth knew she was safe! I hate to think of them when they found her gone.”
“We’ll be with them soon,” Nicolo told him. “The tide has turned—doing its best for us this time!”
“Wind’s doing us a good turn, too! I’m more’n half dry. So are you.”
Presently they had sighted Belem, had come abreast of it, had passed. They were on the home stretch!
Marco, head sunk on breast, stared moodily at his feet. Scander’s burnt gimlet holes were fastened on the horizon except when they stole a glance at the sleeping figure in the cockpit.
Nicolo, coming about, noticed that the stars were dim in the eastern sky. The sun was on his way. A new day; a new world! For today would bring news of Gama—news of the Way, and of the world beyond the great Cape!
Somewhere outside on the tumbling seas, the steadfast spirit that had vowed never to turn back was coming home! With the Arab world against them, with the Western world on jealous watch, even ready to stab, Gama and his little fleet were coming home. He glanced at the delicate ivory face nestled against his coat—and something smarted in his eyes. But they would never know that, for their sake, a girl had laid down her all. A girl in whose blood met both East and West!
CHAPTER 23
Nejmi’s Dowry
It was pale dawn when the skiff slipped into Lisbon harbour crowded with what might have passed for ghost ships, for any sign of activity they showed.
“’Twon’t take ’em long to come to life,” Scander chuckled, “when they know what we know!”
Nicolo was silent a moment before answering and then nodded. “Some time today, Rodriguez said.” His face suddenly lighted. “Scander! Ferdinand knows all about it by now!”
“I expect those big eyes of his haven’t had a wink of sleep since Rodriguez told his news! Wouldn’t wonder if Manoel came back to Lisbon pretty quick, would you?”
Absently Nicolo nodded, his eyes on the nearing docks. “We’ll tie up by the old ladder,” he said. “That’ll be easiest—for her.”
“What you going to do with me?” Marco uneasily demanded, as he put on his coat.
“I’ll tend to you later,” Scander told him. “But till then, just stick to me. Walk when I walk, stop when I stop. Understand?” And for all his casual tone, there was a glint in the burnt gimlet holes that was unmistakable.
As easily as he could Nicolo brought the skiff alongside of the ladder. “Make her fast,” he ordered Marco, as Scander seized the piling.
As the skiff bumped, Nejmi sat up, staring about her. Nicolo dropped the helm and leaned over her. She looked up at him with radiant eyes. Suddenly, she sobered.
“Nicolo! We must hurry as fast as we can!” She sprang up, while Nicolo handed Scander his coat, and then wrapped his own about her.
“All ashore!” called Scander, and the next minute he was half-way up the ladder, with Marco at his heels. Next came Nejmi with Nicolo close behind, while Scander, leaning over, warned her to hold firm to the slippery rungs.
As Nicolo stepped on the dock, Scander turned to him. “You two’d best go up to Master Zakuto’s alone. I’ll be up after a while.” He returned to Marco. “We’ve some business to settle,” he told him shortly. “Come along, and mind what I said: don’t lose sight of me, see?”
The two walked off, and Nicolo, alone at last with Nejmi, caught her to him.
“Ah, Nejmi, when I thought I might lose you…”
“Nicolo—Nicolo! When I looked back at Lisbon, and thought I should never again see you…” Breathlessly she poured out to him the story of Abdul’s capturing her.
“It seemed the only way to save the maps and Master Abel and Mother Ruth—to go with him. But I meant, when we got out to sea…”
“Nejmi, if you had gone, my whole world would have gone, too!”
“It was only the thought of helping Gama that kept me steady,” she whispered. “And then, when I saw you—ah, Nicolo, I knew that you’d come to me. Even on that terrible bar, I was sure of it!”
“Nothing shall ever keep you from me,” he told her. “Nothing and no one in all the world!”
Her head sank on his breast, and he saw how pale she was, and exhausted. She was shivering, too. He drew his coat more closely around her, and they started on.
“But you’ll be cold,” she protested.
“No, the wind dried me off. Feel!” and he rubbed her hand across his sleeve.
Arm in arm through the silent,
twisting streets they went, and up the hill. Once they stopped to gaze down at the harbour and river, calm enough now, like an angry child that has cried itself to sleep.
“And look—behind you!” Nicolo said. He turned her around to see, above them, the workshop windows rosy in the first sunlight. He heard her catch her breath, felt her press forward.
“Ah, Nicolo, quick! They’re waiting up there.”
He tried to hold her back, to save her strength for the stairway. A short lane, another corner—and the long flight lay before them. He felt Nejmi clutch his arm—glanced up. Slowly climbing the stairs, shoulders sagging, and head bent, was a beloved figure in conical hat and long, black cloak!
Together they started after him, when, all at once, he turned and looked back. An instant Nicolo saw a face seared with grief and weariness unutterable. The next, something flashed over it, as if a light had suddenly appeared in the dark—and Abel was coming toward them, his arms held out. With a little wordless sound Nejmi rushed into them, while Abel, head bent over hers, stroked her quivering shoulders.
It was characteristic of them that at first neither spoke, and that when Abel at last did speak it was about the thing then most essential. “My child, you must have dry clothes and food.”
The same kindly, even tone of every day, Nicolo said to himself—only that you could see his hands shaking.
“Come. Ruth is waiting for us.” Abel motioned to Nicolo, and they started slowly up the stairs with Nejmi between them.
Once she tried to speak. Nicolo caught the word “maps.”
“Wait a little, child,” Abel said. “There’s plenty of time.”
“She’s been on the river all night,” Nicolo told him in a low aside, motioning toward the harbour.
Understandingly Abel nodded. “I was sure of that from the first.”
As they paused at the head of the flight, “Open the gate carefully, Nicolo,” he whispered. “Ruth may have dropped off to sleep. She’s been waiting all night.”
Softly Nicolo swung back the gate and stepped into the court. It was as if Morning, herself, gazed out at him from cool, deep shade and lilting sunlight and dewy, half-shut petals. Sweeter even than he had visioned it, out there on the tossing water. Sweeter by far!
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