I have been visited by an Englishman, who has learnt by the mouth of an
escaped slave somewhat concerning a prisoner, who, he affirms, is
chained to an oar in one of your galleys. The English are a stubborn
and stiff-necked race, and this man has their vices in full measure,
being the same that brought to nought the carefully-laid plans of the
lamented Monsieur de Lameray. In heat and waywardness he may seek to
pick locks and break fetters. Have a care therefore."
This letter, I say, put me in a fume. Some parts of it I comprehended
not, and the whole was composed with great cunning; but I saw clearly
enough that the Count de Sarney was well aware of his nephew's grievous
plight, and, furthermore, I suspected that he had had a hand in bringing
it about. For a brief space I was so mastered by my wrath as that I was
in a manner bereft of my wits; but running my eyes again over the lines,
I came on a sudden to a resolution, and none too soon, for Stubbs
returned swiftly into the room and told me that the young man in black
was at that moment making towards the inn. Thrusting the papers into my
doublet, I hastened to the door, and there awaited his coming.
As he was in the act of going past, the passage being dark, I stepped
forth and besought him to honour me with his company for a few minutes.
His solemn face bore witness to his surprise at seeing me in his own
inn, but I caught no trace either of alarm or embarrassment. He came
into my room, and, having closed the door upon him, I said--
"It has come to my knowledge, monsieur, that you are about to voyage
into Spain."
"It is true, monsieur, and I rejoice that I shall be able to inquire
myself for my poor cousin, though my father scouts your story."
I read honesty in the lad's countenance, and grieved that it behoved me
to play upon him.
"I have to tell you, monsieur," I said very gravely, "that you stand in
imminent peril. Your country is at war with Spain. 'Tis believed that
monsieur the Count is in treasonable correspondence with the Spanish
court. 'Tis known that you are conveying a subsidy to an officer of
their navy, and there are charges of even graver import, which in sum
bring your father within danger of the extreme penalty."
The hue of the lad's face altered to an ashen colour, and he caught his
breath.
"It is false, abominably false, monsieur," he gasped.
"Pray God it be so, monsieur!" said I, pitying him. "The unhappy fact
is that papers of suspicious tenor have been discovered among your
baggage, and 'tis only by good luck that I am able to warn you in time.
Examine your papers. You will find that search has been made during
your absence, and documents incriminating in character have been
abstracted."
Trembling with fear the lad hastened to his own room, and came back in
as great a panic as ever I saw.
"It is an error, monsieur," he cried; "my father is no traitor: he can
explain. Mon Dieu! what can I do?"
"I will tell you, monsieur," I said. "Be assured that I acquit you of
all guilty knowledge. The affair is known only to myself and one other
whose silence I can command, and do you but follow my counsel you will
be safe. Having fought in the army of Navarre, and being beholden to
King Henry, I cannot suffer you to quit France; you will not voyage to
Spain. But neither can I proceed over harshly against one so youthful.
You were best hasten directly to Paris, and resume your studies there.
You will pass me your word not to communicate with your father until I
give you leave. He will be in no anxiety concerning you, believing you
gone to Seville. But I warn you that if you, directly or indirectly,
communicate with him, or with any one whatsoever in Spain, I will not
answer for the sea of troubles whereinto both you and he will be
plunged. I trust that things are not wholly what they seem, and be sure
that none will more greatly rejoice than I if it be proved that the
escutcheon of your house is without stain."
"I thank you, monsieur," said the lad brokenly. "I will do your behest
in all points, sure, as I am, that time will bear me out."
"Stay," I said, as he made to quit the room; "are you known at the port,
monsieur?"
"Nay, I have never travelled by sea," he replied, wondering.
"You are skilled in medicine," I proceeded, "and without doubt can name
some authentic treatise wherein one ignorant of the art can gain some
inkling of its mysteries."
"Assuredly, monsieur," said he, "there is none to be compared with the
great work of Ambrose Parey, the renowned chirurgeon of King Henry III.
I have it in the original Latin, and shall esteem myself honoured if you
will accept it at my hand."
"Right willingly, monsieur," I said, "and though my Latin grows rusty
with disuse, yet I doubt not I can make a shift to understand at least
one phrase in two."
He departed to his room, returning ere long with a weighty tome with
which, I could see, he was loth to part. Having bid each other adieu,
he went from me, and since the hour was too late to permit of his riding
forth that same night, he dismissed the man that had accompanied him
from Torcy, and sought his bed. He rose betimes in the morning, and
from my window I saw him ride eastward, leaving his baggage to be
dispatched after him by the carrier.
When I had seen him well upon his way I skipped into my clothes, having
as yet stood unclad at the window, and made haste to find old Toutain
the tailor, whom I knew very well, and who had his shop on one of the
quays abutting on what they call the avant port. He broke out into
ecstasies of delight on seeing me, but I cut him short, and told him in
one brief minute what I required of him, which was that within five
hours he should rig me in the full apparel of a student of medicine. He
protested with great volubility and play of hands that it could not be
done, whereupon I told him brutally of our English saying, that "a
tailor is but the ninth part of a man," and so stung him into a better
mind. In a trice I had chosen the stuff, and Toutain took my
measurements, the while he put me through a stiff interrogatory as to my
new profession, where I purposed to study, and what not. I leave you to
guess what a rack I put my invention upon to satisfy him. Within a bare
quarter of an hour afterwards I was back at the _Belle Etoile_, breaking
my fast upon a savoury omelet and other comestibles that suit with the
French palate better than with ours.
Toutain himself brought me my new raiment half-an-hour before the term,
by the which time I had made Stubbs shave off my infant beard and the
mustachio that graced my lip. The stout little tailor preened himself
like a cock robin when he beheld how becomingly his handiwork sat upon
me, and departed gaily clinking the sound English nobles wherewith I
paid him.
I had kept close all day, so as the metamorphosis the razor had wrought
upon my lineaments should not excite an idle curiosity. At the proper
time I sallied forth with Stubbs, he carrying my baggage and the great
tome of Ambrose Parey, and made towards the harbour, composing my
countenance to that grave solemnity which the disciples of AEsculapius
commonly affect. I was taken aback for a moment when I saw Jean Prevost
standing in wait at the quay, having come to bid me God-speed. I
checked his cry of amazement, and bade him, as he loved me, say nought
to a soul of my affairs, whereof I told him no more than that I was
sailing to Antwerp, as he had himself advised. Then I went on board,
announcing myself as Monsieur Armand de Sarney, and was taken with
obsequious respect to the place allotted to me. Stubbs went forward
among the crew, and I had no fear of any mischance through him, for a
seaman amongst seamen, whatever their nation, is a bird of their own
feather.
I observed after a little that the skipper was in a fret, continually
pacing the deck and casting troubled glances at the tide. Presently I
made bold to accost him, and asked why he tarried. His answer was an
unwitting stab to the proper pride of an Englishman, but yet a
comfortable testimony to the perfectness of my disguise.
[Illustration: I MADE BOLD TO ACCOST HIM]
"We wait for a pestilent Englishman, monsieur," he said raspingly, "a
sluggard eater of beef, that will come up when the tide fails and expect
us to sail against wind and weather to please his almightiness. And he
must needs fill the boat with meat enough for a regiment: our provision
is not good enough for him."
"I would delay for no Englishman alive," I said, "and as for his
creature comforts, divide them among your mariners: I will see to it
that you suffer nought."
Very soon thereafter he did indeed cast off. I responded with a grave
salutation to Jean's wafture of his bonnet, and sat me down on a coil of
rope to digest as well as I might Ambrose Parey his Latin.
We made good passage to Antwerp, where I did not delay to visit the
goldsmith upon whom the Count de Sarney's bill of exchange was drawn.
He held me in no suspicion, and was vastly serviceable in negotiating
with the skipper of a vessel bound for Cadiz, as well as in conducting
the other necessary parts of my business. I was some little troubled in
my mind what course to pursue with my mariner. I proposed to him that,
seeing the risks of my adventure, he should take ship for London,
carrying a letter from me to Sir Walter Raleigh, who I made no doubt
would find him employment. But he begged me so earnestly to permit him
to accompany me that I yielded, though not without misgiving. I showed
him that for a runagate slave to venture himself in Cadiz would be a
mere running into the lion's jaws, to which he answered that, whereas on
the galley his head and face were shaved, he was now as shaggy as a
bear, and so would not easily be known of any man, slave or free.
Furthermore I showed him how in Spain he could not hope to pass either
for a Spaniard or a Frenchman, whereupon, with a readiness that raised
him in my estimation, he said that he would pass very well for a
Muscovite, and invented a fable of his having escaped fifteen years
before from the clutches of Ivan the Terrible, and conveyed himself
aboard a vessel of Sweden. To this he gave countenance by venting a
torrent of outlandish phrases, assuring me 'twas a mingle-mangle of sea
terms employed by the Muscovites and the Swedes; whereat I laughed very
heartily, and declared that he at least would have been at no loss among
the builders of Babel. The matter being thus settled to our mutual
contentment, we tarried a few days in Antwerp until the time of our
vessel's sailing, and then embarked together on an adventure whereof
neither of us foresaw the end.
*III*
'Twas a fair bright day when we put into the harbour of Cadiz, and I set
foot in that comely town. We took up our lodging in an inn (called
_venta_ in the Castilian tongue) built all of stone, as indeed are all
the buildings, whether large or small. I spent a day in learning my way
about the town, or, as Stubbs worded it, taking my bearings, and could
not but admire its goodly cathedral and abbey, and its exceeding fine
college of the Jesuits. The streets were for the most part so narrow,
none being commonly broader than Watling Street in London, as but two
men or three at the most together could in any reasonable sort march
through them, and I was somewhat astonied to see that the town was
altogether without glass, save only the churches. Yet the windows were
fair and comely, having grates of iron to them, and large folding leaves
of wainscot or the like.
Having attained a reasonable knowledge of the place, I made my way on
the second day to the large flat-topped house (as are they all) which I
had learnt to be the mansion of Don Ygnacio de Acosta. Before I left
Antwerp I had taken pains to seal up the Count de Sarney's epistle (God
pardon my duplicity!), and this I presented to a servant of exceeding
magnificence at the door; the Spaniards call such majordomo: by whom I
was after a tedious waiting conducted to the presence of the Captain of
the Galleys. The Spaniards, as all the world knows, have the name for
the nicest punctilio and courtliness, but I own that the Captain
received me none too graciously. Indeed, his first words, after a
briefer greeting than was seemly, were a complaint of the Count's delay
in dispatching the draft, the which had occasioned Don Ygnacio to take a
loan from a Jew of his town at a usurious rate of interest. I made
humble excuses on my father's behalf: you are to remember that I
personated Armand de Sarney: and it needed no wondrous shrewdness to
discern, by the manner of the Spaniard's putting up the papers in his
cabinet, that he was of a right avaricious nature. When he read the
postscriptum wherein the Count de Sarney warned him against a meddlesome
Englishman, he seemed to me to resemble a cock ruffling his feathers.
He poured scorn upon the Count's fears and alarms, asking me whether
Cadiz was Calais or even Cartagena that it lay open to any English
adventurer. I might have reminded him how Sir Francis Drake burnt the
King's galleys in this very harbour, but I forbore; nor would he have
taken any profit of it, for the unquenchable pride and self-sufficiency
of the Spaniards after so many buffets and calamities is one of the
wonders of the age.
With great condescension Don Ygnacio offered me a lodging in his house
until such time as I should pursue my way to Seville, and I guessed that
his manner was nicely proportioned to the remote degree of his
relationship to my supposed father. Moreover it bespoke no great relish
for the company of a mere student. None the less I thanked him in terms
whose warmth would have befitted one that had done me unimaginable
honour, but declined his proffered hospitality, saying that even on my
travels I diligently pursued my studies, so that I was in no wise suited
to the thronging life of the world wherein so high a magnifico moved.
His countenance confirmed the justness of my surmise. Then, summoning
my gravest look, I said--
"I devote the greater part of my time, senor, to the investigation of
the ills that affect the _Ramus stomachichus_, wherewith I have
perceived, even in the so little time I have sojourned in your town,
that many of its inhabitants are afflicted. My father bade me inquire
very particularly after your health, the which by your last advice was
not all that could be wished. I fear that the _Ramus stomachichus_ is
the seat of your disorder, and I trust that the treatment of your
physician is meeting with the desired success."
I threw this out as a bait, and to my exceeding joy I saw that it was
swallowed as greedily as a gudgeon snaps up a worm. Don Ygnacio was a
mountainous man, as Stubbs had told me on the voyage, with the girth but
not the hardness of an oak, his face like dough with two raisins for
eyes, his whole frame betokening a consuming love of the flesh-pots and
strong liquors. During my speech, delivered with a measured gravity,
his face put on a look of great dolefulness, and broke out into a sweat.
"I cannot sleep," said he, in most dolorous accents.
"A certain sign," said I, nodding my head gravely.
"I dream of horrors," said he.
"Devils, and serpents, dark dens and caves, sepulchres, and dead
corpses," said I, quoting the words of Ambrose Parey, which I had
diligently conned on board ship, "all arising from the putrefaction and
inflammation of the _Ramus stomachichus_, together with the afflux of
noisome humours to the brain. The diaphragm hath a close community with
that organ, by the nerves of the sixth conjugation which are carried in
the stomach."
"I reel in the street," said he, with lamentable groans, "and when I lay
my head on the pillow, I hear noises like the sound of many waters."
I shook my head solemnly, having at the moment no more of Ambrose
Parey's sentences at my command. Taking him delicately by the wrist, I
put my finger on his pulse, which in truth fluttered unsteadily.
"Show me your tongue," I said, and could barely avoid laughing at the
grimace he made when he displayed that monstrous organ.
Then, presuming on his manifest discomposure, I dealt him a lusty buffet
above the fifth rib, so that he catched at his breath, and at his outcry
I inquired solicitously whether he felt any pain.
"The pains of Gehenna," he said, groaning.
I was mute, bending on him a mournful look, whereat his excitation of
mind did but increase.
"I pray you, cousin, be open with me," he said. "I will steel my heart
to bear it."
"Your case is not utterly hopeless," I replied with deliberation, having
first hemmed and hawed in the style approved of the faculty, "but it
demands careful treatment. Methinks from the symptoms that it has
hitherto been treated somewhat negligently. I will return to my lodging
and ponder upon it, consulting Fernelius, his _Pathologia_" (a work I
had seen named in the pages of Ambrose Parey). "To-morrow, by your good
leave, I will see you again. The true course is not to be lightly
determined, but I trust that my art has resources wherewith to counter
the worst symptoms of your distemper and perchance to work a cure."
"Do so, good cousin," he said. "Come early, I pray you, and by St.
Iago, I shall know how to recompense you becomingly."
I took my leave, and when the door was between us, gave a loose to my
merriment, hastily composing my features when the majordomo approached
to conduct me to the street.
I returned to my inn, and buried my nose for some while in the folio;
then betook myself to an apothecary's, where I purchased a quantity of
barley creams, poppy seeds, and seeds of lettuce, purslain, and sorrel,
commanding him to make a decoction of them and have it ready against I
came on the morrow. This was a prescription of Ambrose Parey. I bade
him also compound an admixture of the infusion of sundry simples,
exceeding nauseous, yet like to do no great hurt, to wit, valerian,
quassia, a trifling quantity of colocynthis (which grows very
plentifully in Spain), and _pix atra_, by the which you shall understand
common tar. This also, a bolus of my own devising, I commanded the man
to have in readiness, and then found that I had a good relish for my
dinner.
[Illustration: I BETOOK MYSELF TO AN APOTHECARY'S]
Stubbs had already shown me where the king's galleys lay; 'twas off the
east side of the town, betwixt the island and the mainland. They were
four in number: these were the principal galleys, there being sixteen of
an inferior sort that rode nigh to the bulwark of _St. Philip_, at the
north-east extremity of the town. A strong fortification of stone-work
ran from this bulwark towards the water-side, having its southern end
beside the king's storehouse of provision and munition for his ships of
war. Here, moreover, was the barrack in which certain of the
galley-slaves were cabined at night, for when the galleys lay idle the
greater number of the oarsmen was employed on shore in sundry laborious
exercises--repairing the fortifications and the like. A little way
southward of this barrack was a rampire of earth built close against the
sea-wall, and furnished with three great pieces of ordnance. This kind
of bulwark is called in military parlance a _terrapleno_. There was in
the inner harbour also a fleet of near forty merchant vessels, making
ready for the American voyage, and a goodly number of galleons and
galliasses for the intended invasion of Ireland.
I marvelled greatly at the bravado of my companion as we passed through
the marketplace, thronged with folk of all conditions--orange-sellers,
horse-dealers, chapmen and hucksters innumerable--and came near to the
barrack wherein he had spent many hours in anguish both of body and
mind. He showed me the two portions of the building, and the window of
the very room where he had lain. He showed me also a mighty fine galley
lying in a manner of dock near to the king's storehouse, and on my
asking a wayfarer what the vessel did there, he told me 'twas the galley
of Don Ygnacio de Acosta being new furbished and fitted for sea. A great
way off I saw some of the slaves, with shaven polls, and naked save for
a strip of cloth about their loins, moving hither and thither about
their labour, under guard of soldiers armed with halberds and
arquebuses. A hot fire of wrath raged within me when I thought that my
bosom friend perchance toiled among them, but I gave great heed so as
that I should not approach them too nearly, lest he might spy me and by
some gesture ruin the plan I had conceived for his salvation.
As we were returning to our inn from this inquisition, by way of the
market-place, I observed that many curious glances were cast upon us,
and being in some dubience how to account for this, I was at first ready
to fear that some suspicion was entertained of me and my purposes, or
else that some person had recognized my companion despite his shaggy
locks and beard. But on a sudden the true explication smote upon my
slumbering wits, and I took myself to task for my heedlessness. Stubbs
was attired in the common garb of sailor men, and I perceived that it
must indeed seem passing strange to the Spaniards, of all people the
stiffest on decorum and punctilio, to see a grave student of medicine in
familiar converse with a man so meanly habited. No sooner did this
illumination flash upon my mind than I bid Stubbs leave me, giving him
at the same time money wherewith to buy him a Spanish gaberdine, which
would in some sort cloak his quality. I went on to my inn alone,
pondering upon how prone men are, when devising machinations of great
poise and moment, to omit some small trifling matter, which lacking, all
their cunning is like to turn to futility.
Sallying forth of the inn about three of the clock, I went to my
apothecary's, and took from him the vials containing the preparations he
had compounded for me, together with a small Turkey sponge and a new
medicine glass nicely graduated. These I gave into the hands of Stubbs,
now clad in a capacious gaberdine that suited with his quality as my
henchman, and bade him follow me at a reasonable interval. At the door
of Don Ygnacio's house I received them from him again, and being
admitted as before by the don's gentleman-usher, I found my grandee
awaiting me in a quivering expectancy. His heavy countenance lightened
at sight of me, and he told me with plentiful groaning that he had not
shut an eye all the night through, but tossed wakeful and tormented upon
his bed. I felt of his pulse and scanned his furred and sickly tongue,
and then, mustering all my new-gotten lore, I discoursed very learnedly
for the space of five minutes upon the distempers of the _Ramus
stomachichus_, ending my allocution somewhat as follows--
"Having now full assurance, senor, as well by the observation of my
senses as also by your own description, that this is in good sooth the
distemper whereof you suffer, I must tell you in all sobriety that 'tis
high time 'twere taken in hand ere it grow beyond remedy. My counsel is
that you instantly command the attendance of a skilful surgeon."
"Ods my soul!" he cried (for so I render his words in our homely
English), "I have employed surgeons without number, and they bleed me,
both of blood and money. Do you undertake me, good cousin; but do not
let my blood, I pray you, for I am not a whit better for all the gallons
they have drawn from my exhausted veins."
I affected to shrink from the conduct of so serious a case, on the score
of my youth and pupillary condition, and of the high nobility of his
captainship; but the more backward I showed myself, so much the more
instancy did he employ; in brief, he would take no denial. Whereupon I
insisted that he must follow my directions without reck or hesitation,
the which he avowed himself ready to do in all points. Accordingly I
stripped the wrappings from my vials, and poured from the larger of them
into the medicine glass, with the nicest measurement, a good dram of the
villainous admixture, and called for water to allay it, and this I added
with deliberate care, he keeping a wary watch on all my movements. I
then bade him drink it at a draught, the which he did, afterwards
spluttering and wrying his countenance to such a picture of abhorrence
as came nigh to overset my studied gravity.
"Ay de mi! ay de mi!" he groaned; "'tis a very vile draught, cousin, a
very villainous concoction. Must I discomfit my inwards with the whole
bottle?"
"Thrice a day, senor, you must take your dose," I said.
"Permit me at least to qualify the savour of it: it is so exceeding
nasty and rough upon the tongue," he said pleadingly.
"One sole glass of sherris," said I, with a great show of reluctancy;
"no more, or the merits of this most potent medicine will be utterly
quelled."