AT A MALLORQUIN FONDA.
Our preparations for that short sea trip were few and simple. Taltavull
exchanged three small diamonds for cash, which enabled us to settle
outstanding accounts; Haigh procured a basket of bread, hard-boiled
eggs, and vermouth bottles; I made two or three chandlery purchases,
and gave the rigging a bit of an overhaul. It was in the gloaming when
we got the anchor, and night when we stood out between the dismantled
old fort and the obsolete new one at the harbour's mouth, and got into
open water.
Wind was fresh at first, and the ugly cutter's stem hissed through the
water like red-hot iron; but as the moon rose into a steel-blue sky
amongst bright white stars, the breeze dropped till it scarcely gave us
steerage-way. Haigh sat smoking at the tiller throughout the night;
Taltavull and I patrolled the narrow decks, chatting. We none of us
felt inclined for sleep.
Dawn came with a flash of vivid green, the sulphur-coloured disc hard
upon its heels. We were then off the south-western corner of Minorca,
with the high ground on the northern parts of the sister island
standing up clearly against the horizon. Even from that distance we
could make out with the glasses a watch-tower on the peninsula which
divides Pollensa Bay from Alcudia. Up there the sentinels of those
naked slingers who loved wine and women when the world was young had
peered over the blue sea for a first sight of Roman or Carthaginian
pirate galley.
"Happy times when those men lived," said the anarchist; "there were few
laws to trouble them."
"Happy indeed," echoed Haigh, "for a boy with a taste for liquor and
ladies, and who thought unlimited head-breaking a pleasing diversion."
In the middle of the channel a steamer passed us on her way to Algiers.
She was the _Eugene Perrier_, the very Transatlantique Company's
boat that had put us on our course again during that wild, tearing race
from Genoa.
The fact was pointed out, and we looked her over again as one looks at
an old friend who has rendered a big service.
"Bit of a change this day from that, isn't it?" said Haigh.
"About as big as they make 'em," I admitted.
"I'm not so sure that I care for it, though," said he. "It had its
strong points that trip."
"Especially when it was over," I agreed. "Yes, it's fine to look back
at."
"It has one or two memories that will stick. You trying to catch up the
slits in the mainsail as fast as the wind slitted them, with the
knowledge that we'd probably go to glory if you got behind; I shan't
forget that. And I think the face of that man we laughed at on the brig
will stick. Also one or two other items. But as you say, old chappie,
it's nicest to look at from beyond."
The day flushed hotly as it wore on, and still the breeze kept light.
We slid through the water slowly, leaving scarce a trace of wake behind
us. Haigh smoked and drank vermouth; Taltavull busied himself below
with dealing, on paper, with tremendous sums of money; I bathed at
intervals, diving from the bowsprit end, and climbing aboard again by
the lee runner.
It was a lazy, dreamy passage that of ours across the channel, and most
enjoyable withal; but there was a strong lure dragging us on, and I
think all of the ugly cutter's complement were unfeignedly glad when
she opened up abeam both of the high headlands which bound Alcudia Bay.
There is one lighthouse, on the northernmost cape, and we passed
another on an island about half-way in, both in mocking contrast to the
old round sandstone tower which rears itself amongst the palmetto scrub
about a mile outside the _puerto_. What that old crumbling castle
was for it is difficult to see, for in the days when it was built there
was no known artillery which would throw a ball half-way across the
shallow bay.
"The lazaretto," said Taltavull, pointing to a grim, gray fortress
farther along the shore, with high limestone walls, and lookout towers
at the corners. "Heaven help the poor cholera-stricken wretches whose
fate it is to be boxed up in that prison! It helps to show, however,
what a rabid hatred the Mallorcans have of all manner of disease. Read
George Sand's book about the island if you want to understand that. She
brought Chopin here long ago, and wintered with him at the Valledemosa
Convent, hoping to save him from consumption. The people in the village
there are as hospitable as any in the world as a general thing, but
they ostracized these two because of their dread and loathing for
sickness, and deliberately tried to starve them out."
"Brutes," said Haigh.
"I think," commented the anarchist, "that they'd a perfect right to act
as they did. They chose to, and that was sufficient. That's my creed."
"Poor creed," said Haigh. "Cospatric, stand by with that mud-hook, and
we'll bring to by the schooner here. It's getting very shallow."
We brought up to an anchor, snugged down, and then hailed a boat and
got put ashore where the fishing craft were riding to their bowfasts,
and discharging scaly rainbows on to the stone quay. The inevitable
Carabinero gave us an examination, and then we made our way up from the
little port village through beanfields and vineyards and oliveyards,
past an old Roman amphitheatre on to the double-walled town.
Very Asiatic in appearance is Alcudia as one approaches it, with its
yellow and white houses, its domes, its crumbling amber walls, with
ragged date-palms scattered here and there, and dusty green clumps of
prickly pear scrawming about everywhere. But as a walled city its days
are done. The massive gateway with its pitting of Saracen round-shot
has no guard. The two fosses are planted thickly with grotesquely
gnarled olive-trees. The streets are clean and the houses are in good
repair, but there is a lazy old-time air about the place that would
clog the hurrying feet of even a sight-seeing American.
We fetched up at the _casa_ and had dinner, which commenced with a
dry soup of ochre-coloured rice. It was a curious meal all through, and
across the little well-yard we could watch the cooking done in earthen
pipkins of various sizes, each over its own charcoal fire. Then we went
into the _cafe_--an irregular room, with the roof partly supported
on arches, concrete floor, and heavy odour of rancid oil and Government
tobacco--and sat on rush-bottomed chairs round a little deal table to
sip our cognac and discuss on the next move.
"Now that we are coming to close quarters," said I, "it's beginning to
be borne in upon me that our proceedings are very lawless."
"Anarchistic, to say the least of it," observed Haigh.
"We are simply acting on the principle of the 'greatest good for the
greatest number,'" said Taltavull. "Pether is one; you are two, and I
flatter myself that I and my Cause make an important third; the
interests of the one must go under in favour of the interests of the
three."
"Which being interpreted," said I, "is, that if A has a watch, and B,
C, and D are poor men with pistols, the watch of necessity changes
hands. It may be natural enough from your point of view, but it's
devilish like highway robbery from mine."
Taltavull shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. "I shall never convert
you, _amigo_," said he.
"I tell you what it is," said Haigh. "Senor Taltavul's conscience is
satisfied, and so much the better for him. You and I, Cospatric, are
too poor to afford the luxury of consciences. Pether, it seems, has
this Recipe in the form of an undeveloped photographic negative.
Perhaps he had no particular title to it in the first instance; but
then, on the other hand, nor had we. Correctly speaking, I suppose the
thing either belonged to the owner of the Talayot, or else, as
treasure-trove, should revert to the crown. But on the glorious
principle of 'no catchee no havee,' I think we may leave these two last
out of consideration. Under ordinary circumstances, I should have
barred jumping on the chest of a man who is afflicted with blindness;
but as this particular individual has seen fit to humbug me to the top
of his bent, I shall waive that scruple. Senor Taltavull, I'm with you
in this to anything short of justifiable manslaughter. And
Cospatric----"
"Won't pin himself, in spite of that scrawled insult of
_Hereingefallen_," I cut in. "So that's how we all stand. And now
easy with the debate, for if I'm not a lot out in my reckoning, there's
a pair of cars coming in through the glass door yonder that understand
English."
We stood up and bowed, foreign fashion, as the newcomer seated herself
at a table near us, and she had soon drawn Haigh and the anarchist into
conversation. She had just purchased a Majolica bowl, under repeated
assurance that it was a piece of the genuine old lustre-ware. My two
companions (as I learnt with surprise) were enthusiasts and experts on
the subject, and they both assured her that the specimen she had
procured was undoubtedly spurious. It seems there is a factory at
Valencia where the bogus stuff is made, and a large trade is done in it
with the curio-collectors. And, moreover, every house on the island has
been searched by local pottery-fanatics, and every scrap of the
authentic lustre-ware stored in their salons or museums. Afterwards,
they went on to the vexed topic as to whether the ware had ever been
manufactured in the island at all. Haigh was of opinion that it had
been made in Valencia, and carted over to Italy in Mallorcan craft,
which were in the Middle Ages great carriers in the Mediterranean. This
would easily account for the name Majolica. Taltavull held that it was
a genuine product of the island, though he was bound to admit that no
remains of manufacturing potteries had as yet been discovered. And so
they went at it hammer and tongs, deduction and counter-deduction,
proof and counter-proof; and the owner of that glittering mauve-marked
bowl which had started the discussion threw in a well-considered word
here and there to keep the argument well alive.
Women are not in my way to talk to, but I sat in the background
watching this clever stirrer-up of conversation for want of anything
better to do. She was a woman with dark hair, just tinged with gray,
with features that would have been pleasant enough if they had not been
a trifle over-hard. She was neatly but not showily dressed, and wore a
little jewellery of a ten-years-back fashion. She retained her hat and
jacket, and one got the idea that she habitually wore them, except in
bed.
In fact, she was one of that cohort of masterless women who are so
copiously spread over the Continent. You find them from Trondjhem to
Athens, from Nishni to Cadiz, seldom far from the beaten track, never
under breeched escort. They speak three popular languages fluently, and
usually know some out-of-the-way tongue such as Gaelic or Albanian or a
Czech patois. This one seemed quite at home with Mallorquin. They
generally display the bare left third finger of the maiden; but even
when that critical digit is gold-fettered, you are not always satisfied
that they have ever called man husband. They always carry guide-books,
note tablets, patent medicines, and hand-satchel. They are very
reticent about their own affairs, and correspondingly curious about
yours. And finally, if one may hazard a generalizing guess, they mostly
seem to hail either from the New England States or the south of
Scotland.
Probably because I showed no desire to cultivate her acquaintance, she
began to throw out stray questions for my answering, not about the
cream and mauve lustre-ware--about which I knew nothing--but on other
points.
"It's a strange thing," said she, "how nations like the Spanish which
have beautiful languages are always cursed with harsh voices to speak
them with. I wonder if the converse holds true?" So I had to mention
Norsk and Norwegians.
And, again: "All the peasantry in Mallorca seem to know one tune and
one only, in a minor key, with a compass of three whole tones. It is
not unmusical, but, like the _sereno's_ chant, it is hard to
catch." As I happened to know the air, the least I could do was to dot
it down in her note-book when she asked me to. The book flew open as
she passed it across the deal table-top, and showed the name "Hortensia
Mary Cromwell" written on the flyleaf.
And then she found out that we had come across from Port Mahon in a
yacht, and discovered besides that I was a sailor and vagabond by
trade, and fairly drew me. To an appreciative listener I can always
talk about the sea, and the sights of the sea, and the smells of the
sea, and what those men do who make their livelihood by journeying
across the big waters. And as this Cromwell woman spoke back
intelligently about these matters, I liked her, and sat there talking
when the others went out to make a call. Nor did the experience weary
me, for when they returned after midnight, we were sitting
_vis-a-vis_, with our feet on the edge of the _brazero_,
talking still.
There was no nonsense about her. She was a salted traveller, and had
seen and done many things, and we had a score of tastes and sympathies
in common. It isn't often I'd give two sous to speak to any woman a
second time; but I liked her, and said, when she went upstairs, that I
hoped we'd meet again, meaning what I said.
Taltavull's lean face was gloomy and threatening that evening. He told
me that his correspondent in Palma had been arrested.
"The poor man's only crime was that of spreading our propaganda," said
he, "and his only real enemies were the swarming priests. He naturally
spurned their warnings with contempt, as every true anarchist must do,
and continued sowing the good seed amongst his Roman Catholic
neighbours. And so the Bishop went to the Captain-General, and our
Cause was given another martyr."
"Sad," said Haigh, "isn't it?"
"I shall write them a fair warning," continued Taltavull, with a frown,
"and if the poor fellow is not instantly released I shall give orders
to blow up the Cathedral, the _Lonja_, and the Moorish palace
where the Captain-General resides. I do not think that they will press
matters to extremes after that. The Cathedral is one of the finest
specimens of Gothic ecclesiastical architecture extant in the Spanish
dominions; the Exchange is certainly the finest piece of Gothic secular
work in the world; and the old Saracen palace is a thing these
miserable _bourgeois_ set immense store upon. It would be a
tremendous blow to take them away, but if they press me I shall not
spare the lesson. I've already wired our head office in Barcelona for a
consignment of dynamite."
"I wish you hadn't such confoundedly destructive notions, old chappie,"
said Haigh. "It's the one drawback to you as a companion. Good-night,
and give me a day's warning when you're going to blow anything
up!--Good-night, Cospatric--or, rather, good-morning."