"I also have heard of you, and of the two captains in whose company
you discovered these islands."
I nodded again. "Their names," said I, "are John Gonsalvez Zarco
and Tristram Vaz. You may visit them, if you please, on the greater
island, which they govern between them."
He bent his head. "The fame of your discovery, Sir, reached England
some years ago. I heard at the time, and paid it just so much heed as
one does pay to the like news--just so much and no more. The _manner_
of your discovery of the greater island came to my ears less than a
twelvemonth ago, and then but in rumours and broken hints. Yet here
am I, close on my eightieth year, voyaging more than half across the
world to put those broken hints together and resolve my doubts.
Tell me"--he leaned forward over the table, peering eagerly into my
eyes--"there was a tale concerning the island--concerning a former
discovery--"
"Yes," said I, as he broke off, his eyes still searching mine, "there
was a tale concerning the island."
"Brought to you by a Spanish pilot, who had picked it up on the
Barbary coast?"
"You have heard correctly," said I. "The pilot's name was Morales."
"Well, it is to hear that tale that I have travelled across the world
to visit you."
"Ah, but forgive me, Sir!" I poured out another glassful of wine, drew
up my chair, rested both elbows on the table, and looked at him over
my folded hands. "You must first satisfy me what reason you have for
asking."
"My name is Thomas d'Arfet," he said.
"I do not forget it: but maybe I should rather have said--What aim you
have in asking. I ought first to know that, methinks."
In his impatience he would have leapt from his chair had his old limbs
allowed. Pressing the table with white finger-tips, he sputtered some
angry words of English, and then fell back on the interpreter Martin,
who from first to last wore a countenance fixed like a mask.
"Mother of Heaven, Sir! You see me here, a man of eighty, broken of
wind and limb, palsied, with one foot in the grave: you know what it
costs to fit out and victual a ship for a voyage: you know as well as
any man, and far better than I, the perils of these infernal seas. I
brave those perils, undergo those charges, drag my old limbs these
thousands of miles from the vault where they are due to rest--and you
ask me if I have any reason for coming!"
"Not at all," I answered. "I perceive rather that you must have an
extraordinarily strong reason--a reason or a purpose clean beyond my
power of guessing. And that is just why I wish to hear it."
"Men of my age--" he began, but I stopped Martin's translation midway.
"Men of your age, Sir, do not threaten the peace of such islands as
these. Men of your age do not commonly nurse dangerous schemes. All
that I can well believe. Men of your age, as you say, do not chase a
wild goose so far from their chimney-side. But men of your age are
also wise enough to know that governors of colonies--ay," for my words
were being interpreted to him a dozen at a time and I saw the sneer
grow on his face, "even of so poor a colony as this--do not give up
even a small secret to the very first questioner."
"But the secret is one no longer. Even in England I had word of it."
"And your presence here," said I, "is proof enough that you learned
less than you wanted."
He drew his brows together over his narrow eyes. I think what first
set me against the man was the look of those eyes, at once malevolent
and petty. You may see the like in any man completely ungenerous. Also
the bald skin upon his skull was drawn extremely tight, while the
flesh dropped in folds about his neck and under his lean chaps, and
the longer I pondered this the more distasteful I found him.
"You forget, Sir," said he--and while Martin translated he still
seemed to chew the words--"the story is not known to you only. I can
yet seek out the pilot himself."
"Morales? He is dead these three years."
"Your friends, then, upon the greater island. Failing them, I can yet
put back to Lagos and appeal to the Infante himself--for doubtless he
knows. Time is nothing to me now." He sat his chin obstinately, and
then, not without nobility, pushed his glass from him and stood up.
"Sir," said he, "I began by asking if you were a happy man. I am a
most unhappy one, and (I will confess) the unhappier since you have
made it clear that you cannot or will not understand me. In my youth
a great wrong was done me. You know my name, and you guess what
that wrong was: but you ask yourself, 'Is it possible this old man
remembers, after sixty years?' Sir, it is possible, nay, certain;
because I have never for an hour forgotten. You tell yourself, 'It
cannot be this only: there must be something behind.' There is nothing
behind; nothing. I am the Thomas d'Arfet whose wife betrayed him just
sixty years ago; that, and no more. I come on no State errand, I!
I have no son, no daughter; I never, to my knowledge, possessed a
friend. I trusted a woman, and she poisoned the world for me. I
acknowledge in return a duty to no man but myself; I have voyaged thus
far out of that duty. You, Sir, have thought it fitter to baffle than
to aid me--well and good. But by the Christ above us I will follow
that duty out; and, at the worst, death, when it comes, shall find me
pursuing it!"
He spoke this with a passion of voice which I admired before his
man began to interpret: and even when I heard it repeated in level
Portuguese, and had time to digest it and extract its monstrous
selfishness, I could look at him with compassion, almost with respect.
His cheeks had lost their flush almost as rapidly as they had taken it
on, and he stood awkwardly pulling at his long bony fingers until the
joints cracked.
"Be seated, Sir," said I. "It is clear to me that I must be a far
happier man than I considered myself only this morning, since I find
nothing in myself which, under any usage of God, could drive me on
such a pursuit as yours would seem to be. I may perhaps, without
hypocrisy, thank God that I cannot understand you. But this, at
any rate, is clear--that you seek only a private satisfaction: and
although I cannot tell you the story here and now, something I will
promise. As soon as you please I will sail with you to the greater
island, and we will call together on Count Zarco. In his keeping lies
one of the two copies of Morales' story as we took it down from his
lips at Sagres, or, rather, compiled it after much questioning. It
shall be for the Count to produce or withhold it, as he may decide.
He is a just man, and neither one way nor the other will I attempt to
sway him."
Master d'Arfet considered for a while. Then said he, "I thank you: but
will you sail with me in my pinnace or in your own?"
"In my own," said I, "as I suspect you will choose to go in yours.
I promise we shall outsail you; but I promise also to await your
arriving, and give the Count his free choice. If you knew him," I
added, "you would know such a promise to be superfluous."