by Robert Nye
So I shall go on writing this book which I said I could not write. I shall go on despite Wat, despite Keymis, despite myself even.
At the very least - supposing it never reaches your eyes or hands or heart, Carew - at that least it may serve to keep me sane, to hold me in my wits long enough to sail this infernal ship, my Destiny, either home to England or some other fatal harbour.
One good small detail here: Keymis did bring tobacco in large quantities from San Thomé. I light my long silver pipe with a coal plucked from the fire in a tongs. It is necessary to keep a little tobacco smoke between oneself and the world.
*
Gold fever? The viper thought so. I mean Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, Lord Chancellor of England. I consulted him - on Secretary Winwood’s advice - before sailing from London. Let me set down the record of our conversation here. I am reminded of it because of this matter of the gold, but I recite it for another reason which will become clear before long.
We were taking the air of an early March evening. It might have been a year ago today. The date escapes me. But every detail of what we had to say, each to each, remains as vivid as if it were yesterday.
The place was the gardens of Gray’s Inn, where I had dined with him in his chambers. Over dinner I had talked a great deal about the impending voyage, and Bacon had said little or nothing, busying himself with knife and fork to cut his meat into tiny portions before chewing each piece methodically, as is his usual fashion, or else leaning his long pale face on a long pale hand and staring at me with those eyes which are his most remarkable feature. Bacon’s eyes are hazel in colour, delicate, lively, and light. It was my friend William Harvey, discoverer of the circulation of the blood, who first likened those eyes to the eyes of a viper.
As we strolled in the Gray’s Inn gardens - two elderly gentlemen, one of them (me) with a limp, and the other (Bacon) like a walking scissors with a tall thin black chimneypot hat - he suddenly turned to confront me and said:
‘Sir, your Guiana is like Atlantis - a perfect Platonic idea.’
‘There is this difference,’ I replied. ‘Atlantis is only a perfect Platonic idea. Guiana is both an idea and a reality. A perfect piece of Plato and a large, rich, and beautiful empire of imperfections. A golden dream and a place on the map.’
He did not like this answer, I think, though it is always difficult to gauge Bacon’s true feelings - supposing he has anything so dangerous, which is not at all certain.
I rubbed in my point. ‘King James is never going to give anyone a Commission to sail to Atlantis in search of gold.’
‘I was referring,’ Bacon said, ‘to the quality of your thinking about it’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘But Guiana would still be there if I did not think about it at all.’
‘And the gold?’ Bacon asked, in a curiously detached and clinical voice.
‘What do you mean?’ I said.
‘You believe Guiana to be highly auriferous?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I said.
On what authority?’ he said. ‘My own,’ I said. ‘And others.’
Bacon’s lips are always dry. I have noticed that. He has this habit of running his tongue over them and making a face as though he does not like his own taste. He did that then. Then he said: ‘But no one has seen this El Dorado, this city of gold. Or is it a lake? Or a golden man?’ He dabbed at his long nose with his handkercHicf. ‘I confess that I have never quite been able to reconcile the different tales which have been told,’ he went on disdainfully. ‘The only thing they seem to me to have in common is that all of them are truly improbable and probably untrue.’
I suppose I felt like taunting him. After all, there are stranger things to be seen in the world than are between London and Staines.
For this reason or that, I said: ‘Experience may be improbable but it cannot be untrue, can it? Very well then. In the summer of ‘94 one of my captains, George Popham, captured a Spanish ship. Among the captured ship’s papers were reports of some twenty Spanish expeditions to find El Dorado.’
Bacon said: ‘Which means they did not find it twenty times.’
I ignored his sarcasm. I remember fixing my eyes on a bright-leaved tree at the end of the avenue down which we were walking, and going on patiently as if telling a story to an inattentive child:
‘In the spring of the year following Popham’s discovery, I sailed myself to Guiana with five ships. I took captive Antonio de Berrio, the Spanish Governor. He impressed me as an honest man, an old campaigner not given to fantasies. Berrio did not claim to have found the golden city - but he was convinced of its existence. He had in his keeping the sworn deposition of one Juan Martin de Albujar. This man, a Spanish Moor by birth, had been the only survivor of a previous expedition to find El Dorado. He had been captured by Carib Indians and turned native. He swore on oath that he had eventually been shown the way far into the hinter- land, where he was allowed to spend seven months in El Dorado, which he described as a vast city built beside a great landlocked lake surrounded by mountains. This city was ruled by an emperor the Indians called the Inga, and this emperor was covered with gold dust’
Bacon stopped me by holding up his right hand and wagging the index finger. ‘You believed such testimony?’ he demanded. ‘A story told by one man about another man’s story?’
I said: ‘My Lord, I read Albujar’s deposition with my own eyes. Then I compelled Berrio to assist me in drawing up a map, using everything to hand - the papers taken from the Spanish ship, his own personal expeditions, the Moor’s account.’
‘But of course you did not find El Dorado,’ Bacon said. ‘You did not even discover this lake.’
‘The lake, if it exists,’ I said carefully, ‘must be more like an inland sea than anything we English would call a lake. It is said to be more than 600 miles long and to consist of salt water. Something like the Caspian, I suppose.’
Bacon pushed at the brim of his tall hat, then passed his pale hand wearily across his forehead, which was lightly beaded with perspiration although the evening air was cold.
‘If it exists… It is said to be…’ he repeated scornfully. ‘Sir, I find it hard to believe that his Majesty has released you from the Tower to go in search of something so nebulous!’
I stopped in my tracks. I traced circles with my cane on the grass at my feet. Then I chuckled. ‘His Majesty hasn’t,’ I said. ‘And you know it.’
Two tiny spots of crimson appeared in Bacon’s cheeks. He tried without success to disguise his embarrassment by making his face a puzzled mask. ‘So why all this El Dorado nonsense?’ he blustered.
‘You brought up the subject,’ I pointed out mildly. ‘For my part, I explored the Orinoco pretty damned thoroughly in ‘95. Old Berrio evidently thought of that river as the road to El Dorado. I found nothing that would confirm his view. On the other hand, I found nothing that would utterly deny it. The next year I sent my man Laurence Keymis back to look again. And the year after that, Captain Leonard Berry. Neither of them could find the lake, although - for what it is worth - both of them reported that the Indians call the lake Parima and call El Dorado by the name of Manoa.’
‘I do not see that it matters what names are given to non-existent places,’ Bacon said irritably.
I shrugged. I said: ‘It was Sir Thomas Roe’s expedition six years ago which finally convinced me that even if Manoa does exist it is not worth looking for. Not by an old man, anyway. I subscribed £600 of the £2500 Roe’s voyage cost, so I got detailed reports of everything. His brief was to scour the entire Guiana littoral for some tangible evidence of the lake and the city. He went 300 miles up the Amazon, then worked his way north along the coast towards the Orinoco. He spent more than a fear penetrating the high country by means of canoe journeys up the various rivers. He followed the Wiapoco in particular, negotiating more than a score of rapids in the direction which the Indians assured him was the way to El Dorado. Roe came back down and home with the usual story. He had nearl
y found it all. But never quite.’
We had reached the end of the long avenue, and stood now in the shadow of the bright-leaved tree, a laurel. I picked a leaf from it and rolled the leaf to and fro between my thumb and forefinger. After a silence, Bacon at last said: ‘So?’
‘So El Dorado is not my destination,’ I replied. ‘I have no ambitions to see the Inga. I am going only to collect a little gold dust’
‘You still believe there is gold out there?’ Bacon asked.
‘I know so,’ I said.
‘Whereabouts?’ Bacon asked.
‘In the foothills,’ I said, ‘so to speak.’
‘The foothills?’ Bacon repeated. ‘The foothills of what?’
‘Of Manoa,’I said.
The Lord Chancellor took a deep breath. ‘Your mind seems disordered,’ he complained. ‘One might be forgiven for thinking that you must be suffering from some sort of gold fever. In the one sentence, you deny El Dorado. In the next, you speak of its approaches.’ He removed his hat and fanned his pallid face with it. When he went on, he was looking elsewhere. ‘As I understand it,’ he said, ‘you have in fact promised the King that you know the location of certain gold mines. Is that correct?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Where?’ he demanded.
‘Oh, up the Orinoco,’ I said.
‘But the Spaniards are there,’ he protested. ‘They have made settlements.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Yet you have given your word to the King—’ Bacon began.
‘That I shall not kill or cross swords with any Spaniards,’ I said, finishing his sentence for him.
‘It will prove impossible!’ Bacon exclaimed. ‘We shall see,’ I said.
I sprinkled the dust of the broken leaf from my fingers, I was enjoying the Lord Chancellor’s bafflement. ‘Brightness falls from the air? I said. ‘You recall those verses Nashe wrote in the time of the plague?’
Bacon shook his head, then put his hat back on it.
‘I am sick, I must die? I droned. ‘Lord, have mercy on us!’ I smiled at his confusion. ‘I quote, my Lord. A bad habit’ Bacon would not look at me.
I said: ‘But now it is my turn to question you. I would value your advice as Lord Chancellor. Unofficially, of course—’
‘Of course,’ Bacon said, still avoiding my eye. ‘Very well then,’ I said. ‘A simple question. What is my legal position?’
‘Legal position?’ Bacon shivered with false laughter. ‘Why, sir, to be master of the sea is an abridgement of a monarchy!’
I flicked at the grass with my cane. I said: ‘Don’t turn an old friend aside with new aphorisms. As I pointed out to you over dinner, my Commission from King James omits the usual words “trusty and well-beloved” in referring to me as his servant. That can only mean that his Majesty is still displeased with me. My Lord, I shall be frank with you. You know I am forbidden to show my face at Court. Should I not try and purchase a formal pardon from the King before sailing?’
Bacon blinked. ‘Not at all,’ he said smoothly. ‘Money is the knee timber of your voyage, as you have told me. So keep every precious penny you have raised for your ships and their victualling. A pardon is a mere formality.’
I pressed him: ‘But would I not be the stronger for having it?’
Bacon said: ‘You seem to me to have a full and sufficiënt pardon already for all that is past - the King having made you his Admiral, and given you his Commission of command. That Commission grants you both freedom to sail and judicial authority over others who sail with you. In doing so, it cancels out your former offences.’
I said: ‘But why has the King not added a pardon in so many words?’
Bacon licked his thin lips. ‘I cannot speak for the King,’ he said. ‘However, I say again that it seems to me that the issue of the Commission - which vests in you the power of life and death - is equivalent to a pardon.’
I was still not content. ‘Specifically, then, does it cancel out my conviction and sentence for high treason?’
Bacon shut his eyes. Then he said: ‘Your Commission as Admiral seems to me as good a pardon for all former offences as the Law of England can afford you.’
‘My Lord, I count you as my friend, and no fool,’ I said. ‘Are you telling me I need not purchase a pardon?’
Bacon sighed. ‘Sir, I am sufficiently your friend and no fool as to answer that I never heard that question.’
‘Not even when I have asked it of you twice?’I said.
‘Have you?’ Bacon opened his eyes and frowned, tasting his lips. ‘Well, there you are,’ he said. ‘A proof of my friendship and unfoolishness. I had already forgotten the first time.’
‘Shall we go back?’ I said. ‘My lame leg pains me.’
We retraced our steps through the gardens, moving more brisky now for the air was chill and we walked most of the way in silence. Bacon stopped once to sniff an early blossoming white rose. As he did so he said: ‘I shall remember that you took the trouble to consult me. There is little friendship in the world, and least of all between equals.’ He let the rose fall back in place in the bush, but carelessly, so that petals flaked from it onto the darkening ground. ‘What will you do,’ he asked casually, ‘if after all this effort and expenditure you fail to find your gold mines in Guiana?’
I laughed. ‘Oh, we’ll go after the Spanish treasure fleet,’ I said. ‘You know that it sails every year from Havana to Cadiz with about eight millions in silver.’
‘You will do what?* Bacon said.
‘The Plate Fleet,’ I said. ‘We’ll capture the Plate Fleet’
‘But then you will be pirates,’ Bacon said.
‘Hardly pirates,’ I said, still laughing. ‘Who ever heard of men being pirates for millions?’
We had come back to Gray’s Inn Court and I was moving to take my leave of the Lord Chancellor, thanking him for the dinner and the advice, when Bacon said suddenly and (so it seemed) on impulse: ‘You know, I never knew the late Queen very well. Certainly not as well as I would have wanted to.’
It was an awkward statement, and he stood there awkwardly in the twilight, having made it.
I said: ‘Perhaps none of us knew her very well. Perhaps none of us knew her as well as we would have wanted to. I have often wondered. Good night, my Lord.’
*
Gold and blood. Pardons and piracy. I lied, Elizabeth. I knew you as well as I wanted to. Better. Or should it be worse?
Having written the above, I took a turn around the deck to clear my head.
The mainland seems to smoulder in the sun.
I asked Captain Parker, as Keymis asked me to. Captain Parker said Wat was spoiling for a fight. He said my son was very like me when young. He said Wat was envious and ashamed of my reputation and needed to prove himself to himself. He said a lot of other stuff which I forget.
3
4 March
‘Guattaral,’ the Indian says.
I have to keep telling him that is the way the Spaniards say my name. That he must do better. That I am Sir Walter Ralegh.
A lesson he did not learn this afternoon.
‘Don Guattaral,’ he persisted. ‘You are a pirate. You are a very great pirate.’
‘I am no pirate,’ I said. ‘Your Spanish masters may have called me a pirate, but I am not.’
‘What are you then?’ he demanded. ‘If you are not a pirate, what are you?’
A question I found difficult to answer. He asked it in all seriousness, you see. He is a curious mixture of intelligence and simplicity, this Christoval Guayacunda.
We were standing on deck. The Indian seems to take pleasure in examining the fittings of my ship. Yet it is not so much a matter of their novelty to him. He touches everything confidently, without surprise.
‘Do I look like a pirate?’ I said.
He shrugged. ‘What do pirates look like?’ he said. ‘I have never seen one before.’
‘What do I look like?’ I said. ‘An old man
,’ he said. ‘Go on,’ I said.
‘An old tired man who has to walk with a stick,’ he said.
It’s true. And how strange my face must look to him. I know that these Indians have ancient legends which speak of gods with bearded white faces coming to them from the east. But the face which looks back at me from my cracked shavingmirror can hardly so intimidate or impress. It is more like the face of a ghost than the face of a man. It is assuredly not like the face of any imaginable god. My face is pale and pinched and drawn, the skin so tight across my cheek-bones that you can see them clearly, my eyes like burnt-out pits. My beard is silver and badly cut because my hands shake when I take the scissors to it.
‘Let us say that this old man with the stick is some kind of a gentleman,’ I suggested.
‘What is that?’
‘Wholly gentleman, wholly soldier,’ I said. I was quoting my own ambitious but evasive description of myself at my trial for treason in 1603.
We had been conversing in Spanish, of course, since that is the language we have in common. But I said those particular words wholly gentleman, wholly soldier in English, and now the Indian tried to imitate their sounds.
‘What is that wholly?’ he said.
He made it sound like woolly. Or holy. Or some bastard cross-between the two. Which no doubt, in this context, it may be.
I let it go.
‘You then,’ I said. ‘What are you?’
He had been trying his strength against one of the capstan bars. Now he stopped this game and drew himself up to his full height, which is not very high - about an inch or so above five feet, I’d say, and stout in proportion.
‘Christoval Guayacunda,’ he said. I man. What you would call an Indian. A native of what the Spaniards call their New Kingdom, or Granada. Born in the Valley of Sogamoso. Of the Chibcha tribe.’
The sun made his skin shine like copper.
‘That is what I am,’ he said.
‘Not so,’ I said. ‘That is who you are. I could as easily say that I am Walter Ralegh, a man, what you would call a paleface, a native of England, born in Devonshire, of the Saxon tribe. Those answers would not match the question either.’
