"Have you anything to say in your defense?" the commander asked coldly.
For a moment, the accused looked nothing but hatred at the commander,
but there was fear behind that hatred. At last he found his voice. "It
was mine. You promised us all a share."
Lieutenant commander Hernan picked up a leather bag that lay on the
table behind which he and the commander were sitting. With a sudden
gesture, he upended it, dumping its contents on the flat, wooden surface
of the table.
"Do you deny that this was found among your personal possessions?" he
asked harshly.
"No," said the accused soldier. "Why should I? It's mine. Rightfully
mine. I fought for it. I found it. I kept it. It's mine." He glanced to
either side, towards the two guards who flanked him, then looked back at
the commander.
The commander ran an idle finger through the pound or so of golden
trinkets that Hernan had spilled from the bag. He knew what the trooper
was thinking. A man had a right to what he had earned, didn't he?
The commander picked up one of the heavier bits of primitive jewelry and
tossed it in his hand. Then he stood up and looked around the town
square.
The company had occupied the town for several weeks. The stored grains
in the community warehouse, plus the relaxation the men had had, plus
the relative security of the town, had put most of the men back into
condition. One had died from a skin infection, and another from wounds
sustained in the assault on the town, but the remainder were in good
health.
And all of them, with the exception of the sentries guarding the town's
perimeter, were standing in the square, watching the court-martial.
Their eyes didn't seem to blink, and their breathing was soft and
measured. They were waiting for the commander's decision.
The commander, still tossing the crude golden earring, stood tall and
straight, estimating the feeling of the men surrounding him.
"Gold," he said finally. "Gold. That's what we came here for, and that's
what we're going to get. Five hundred pounds of the stuff would make any
one of you wealthy for the rest of his life. Do you think I blame any
one of you for wanting it? Do you think I blame this man here? Of course
not." He laughed--a short, hard bark. "Do I blame myself?"
[Illustration]
He tossed the bauble again, caught it. "But wanting it is one thing;
getting it, holding it, and taking care of it wisely are something else
again.
"I gave orders. I have expected--and still expect--that they will be
obeyed. But I didn't give them just to hear myself give orders. There
was a reason, and a good one.
"Suppose we let each man take what gold he could find. What would
happen? The lucky ones would be wealthy, and the unlucky would still be
poor. And then some of the lucky ones would wake up some morning without
the gold they'd taken because someone else had relieved them of it while
they slept.
"And others wouldn't wake up at all, because they'd be found with their
throats cut.
"I told you to bring every bit of the metal to me. When this thing is
over, every one of you will get his share. If a man dies, his share will
be split among the rest, instead of being stolen by someone else or lost
because it was hidden too well."
He looked at the earring in his hand, then, with a convulsive sweep of
his arm, he tossed it out into the middle of the square.
"There! Seven ounces of gold! Which of you wants it?"
Some of the men eyed the circle of metal that gleamed brightly on the
sunlit ground, but none of them made any motion to pick it up.
"So." The commander's voice was almost gentle. He turned his eyes back
toward the accused. "You know the orders. You knew them when you hid
this." He gestured negligently toward the small heap of native-wrought
metal. "Suppose you'd gotten away with it. You'd have ended up with your
own share, _plus_ this, thereby cheating the others out of--" He glanced
at the pile. "Hm-m-m--say, twenty-five each. And that's only a little
compared with what we'll get from now on."
He looked back at the others. "Unless the shares are taken care of _my_
way, the largest shares will go to the dishonest, the most powerful, and
the luckiest. Unless the division is made as we originally agreed, we'll
end up trying to cut each other's heart out."
There was hardness in his voice when he spoke to the accused, but there
was compassion there, too.
"First: You have forfeited your share in this expedition. All that you
have now, and all that you might have expected will be divided among the
others according to our original agreement.
"Second: I do not expect any man to work for nothing. Since you will not
receive anything from this expedition, there is no point in your
assisting the rest of us or working with us in any way whatsoever.
"Third: We can't have anyone with us who does not carry his own weight."