It cost him several wettings before he managed to slide into the canoe and begin a teetering progress toward the ship. He had frequently watched the Indians and now tried to imitate them by crouching low and balancing as much as possible. But the canoe, designed for two or three men, rode higb and tipped distressingly at every higher ripple of the quiet bay. Foot by foot, he crept on, like a man walking a plank over some chasm, aware of the growing distance from the shore, conscious of his own helpless smallness on the expanse of water.

But little by little, the ship came nearer, her stern light showing more brightly as the moon sank beyond the inland sierras. Though only a small caravel, she bulked huge above him when at last Pedro crept into her shadow and felt his way around to her anchor rope.

This was a ticklish point, as the tide eddied about the poop and set the canoe teetering more desperately than ever. Pedro landed with a bump against the small boat which had been moored to the stern, lost his balance, and found himself under the water. He came up sputtering. The overturned canoe was out of reach; but he grasped the side of the ship's boat.

"Who's there?" came a grunt from the Gallega's deck.

De Vargas lowered himself as far as possible and waited, torn between fear of discovery by the man above and of sharks below. After a tense moment, the sailor could be heard padding off along the after deck. Pedro clambered over the side of the small boat.

Here he allowed the water to drain off him. Then, removing his shoes and belting his sword closer to his body, he pulled himself hand over hand up the anchor rope, got a grip on the deck, and worked himself upward, fingers, knees and toes, to the rail. A glance above-it showed that the deck was empty. A moment later he had climbed on board.

A murmur of voices sounded not far off; someone laughed. The sound came up the companionway from the captain's cabin. Inching downward, Pedro at length had a glimpse of the end of the cabin table and of a man's back. Evidently the small space was crowded— he could see legs and knees and hands.

"So the upshot of it is," said a fierce, halting voice, "that we sail at dawn.''

XXXIV

Escudero was speaking. Though Pedro could not see him, he had no difficulty in recognizing his voice.

''Hombre!" he went on. "Won't we be a welcome sight in Cuba! Won't we be the pets of the Governor! When the whole armada has deserted him for a climbing double-dealer like Cortes, we show him that we're the only true men. Besides which, we put him in the way of scooping the whole pile. Ten to one, Montejo takes the treasure ship for Spain into El Marien for a last glimpse of his senora. If he does, the Governor has him like a mouse in the trap. If he doesn't, it'll be easy to overhaul him in the Bahama Channel. There's not a man jack of us but can look for an encomienda out of this, with broad gold pieces to boot. Let Cortes's five hundred fools have their empire if they can get it! Only a million armed Indians to conquer!" . . . Escudero laughed. "Cuba looks softer to me."

A murmur of agreement answered. Then a voice, which Pedro couldn't identify, put in: "That's all right, but what's the hurry? Cortes is at Cempoala. We could stand more water and supplies, and Ave can take some on tomorrow. Why not sail next day? It's a long 5tretch to Cape Anton."

Pedro heard the thud of a fist on the table. "Gentlemen," said Escudero, "believe me, A lame goat takes no siesta. If something's to be done, do it. We're safe tonight—not a suspicion. Tomorrow, who knows? And you can see yourselves taking on stores tomorrow with no questions asked, eh? Under the nose of every ship in the fleet? Very likely, isn't it? No, sirs, the cassava bread may not be very good, but we've eaten weevils before and can eat them again. We've got fish and oil. We'll run north and fill the casks at the Panuco. I'm telHng you. You'll regret it unless you sail with the dawn wind."

In Pedro's mind, the theft of the jewels was by now eclipsed by this vastly more important threat. He knew how much Cortes feared that word of the army's declaration of independence from Governor Velasquez should reach Cuba before its position had been legalized by the King in Spain. It was necessary, besides, to have greater . achievements to show than a few provinces along the coast. If Velas-

quez heard prematurely that the expedition sent out by him had shaken off his jurisdiction, it would mean armed interference from Cuba, probable bloodshed, and the wreck of everything that had been accomplished. Moreover, the sailing of the Gallega concerned not merely the loss of a few jewels, but of the treasure ship itself with the entire proceeds thus far of the venture. That in its turn entailed the loss of the King's recognition which the gold was being sent to buy.

Listening intently, however, it seemed to him that one thing in Escu-dero's speech rang hollow. Every ground for haste had been given except the theft of the jewels, the one compelling reason that made haste imperative. Was it that Escudero and Cermefio had taken the emeralds without the knowledge of the others? As it happened, almost the next words cleared up this point.

It was admitted that the casks could be replenished further along the coast and that prudence counseled flight. "But how did it happen," asked someone—Pedro guessed it was Umbria, a seaman who had been one of the arch mutineers from the beginning—"that you weren't able to bring a sample of the treasure with you? I thought you told us that one of the temple papas showed you a door. Didn't it work, or what?"

"For Dios'' returned the other, "we did our best, didn't we, Cermefio?"

"Aye, aye," answered.the latter. "But young Pedro de Vargas was on guard. We couldn't get him away from his post, though we tried hard enough."

"And it wouldn't have done to risk the whole project for a few pesos," Escudero added. "What difference does it make anyhow, as long as we get the whole cargo in the end?"

"It makes this difference," someone growled, "that it won't be us but the Governor who gets it. If you'd brought something along, at least we'd have had our share of that."

Escudero took it lightly. "Don't worry about your share, Bernardino. You'll have no cause to complain when we get to Cuba."

Pedro grinned. The two rogues were holding out on the others. Whatever happened in Cuba, they had lined their own pockets.

Cermefio changed the subject. "Well, if we're sailing in three hours, we've got that much sleep coming. I'm for bed."

Pedro at once started backing up the companionway.

He must somehow get to shore and warn the commander at the fort. It was Juan de Escalante, an able officer and one devoted to Cortes. Escalante would be able to take measures, provided only there

I was time and that Pedro could escape undetected. His plan was to regain the deck, drop below the rail and wait until the group below had dispersed, then try to get off in the small boat.

"Ho!" said a surprised voice behind him. "Who's this?"

Evidently a seaman, also eavesdropping, had mistaken Pedro in the darkness for one of his mates.

De Vargas turned and tried to shove upward, but found himself in a bear's grapple. The narrow companionway made fight impossible. The next instant both men lost their footing and catapulted down, emerging into the cabin with a crash, amid the stupefaction of the group there. They landed against the table and rolled to one side. Arching himself, Pedro threw off the other and sprang to his feet, only to face a circle of knives.

"Redhead de Vargas!" roared somebody. "By the Lord God!"

Arms pinioned him from behind. His sword was jerked out of its scabbard. His poniard disappeared at the same moment.

"Cortes's spaniel, eh?" growled Escudero. "Let me have the handling of him!" From the farther end of the cabin, he started shouldering his way toward the prisoner, his knife in hand and uptilted.

"Not so fast," said Bernardino de Coria. He was a wild blade of a man, reckless, but likable in a rakehell way. "No hurry. All in good time. Stand back, will you? How now! My word, we'll give him a hearing, won't we?"

"Cermefio!" snapped Escudero, trying in vain to get past Coria. But as Cermefio struck, his wrist was caught by the seaman, Umbria.

"Come, come," said the latter. "What's the haste? Why kill a man unheard? If it's necessary later—"

He pushed Cermefio back. Juan Diaz, a discontented priest who seconded Olmedo as chaplain, added his protest. "Calm yourselves, my sons."

Pedro thought fast. He knew perfectly well why Escudero and Cermefio were in a hurry, and he understood the advantage that this knowledge gave him.

"Thank you, sefiores," he said. "Before you let these gentlemen kill me, better ask what they did with the emeralds that they took from the treasure room tonight."

A tense hush fell in the cabin. The pairs of eyes which had been leveled at Pedro now shifted to the two ringleaders. A seaman, who had been holding de Vargas from behind, relaxed his grip. It would have been easy at that moment for Pedro to break loose and make a dash for the companiomvay, but he had sense enough to stay quiet.

Cermeno ran his tongue across his lips. Escudero laughed. "Trust one of Cortes's spies to lie! If you can find an emerald on either of us, I'll pay you for it."

His broad, blunt face looked so perfectly assured that Pedro's certainty wavered. His voice had the ring of truth. Perhaps they had already hidden the jewels. But where? Certainly not on shore, as they were about to sail. Perhaps on the ship, but they had hardly had time.

Pedro remembered a current thieves' dodge which he had heard at Sanlucar and took a long chance.

"The emeralds may not be on these gentlemen. The gentlemen may be on the emeralds. You might begin by having a look at their shoes. But on them or under them, by my faith, they know where the stones

are."

"How do you know they know?" growled Umbria. He had a crinkly brown beard, which he jutted out as if to point the question.

"Because they did get me away from my post; because the emeralds were taken while I was gone; and because the concealed door was open."

"Jesus Maria!" snarled Coria, showing his buckteeth. "And they talk about liars! 'Sdeath! You can understand why they wanted de Vargas out of the way quickly. By God, fellows, we'll have every stitch off them and purge them to boot."

Escudero gave in; but he laughed again, jerking his head back. The glance he shot at Pedro would have killed if possible.

"Curse you for a hothead, Bernardino! Ever hear of a joke? Cer-mefio and I were only fooling. Thought we'd surprise you later before getting to Santiago. What you don't expect is more of a treat, isn't it? Man, we've got five beauties with us that Master Fox Cortes intended for the King himself. Ten thousand pesos if they're worth a copper. How's that for a haul? A thousand pesos to each of us."

He did it well but met with glum silence.

"Hand 'em out," said Coria. Juan Diaz, the priest, studied the ceiling. Umbria and the four other seamen glowered. It took no mind reader to guess-the drift of their thoughts.

With as good grace as the action permitted, Escudero and Cermeiio removed their boots. Pedro's long shot seemed to have hit the mark. They tried to laugh it off and sneered about the thief he had been to school to.

"Set a thief to catch one," grunted Coria.

They pried off the boot heels with their knives and brought out the emeralds from the hollow spaces cut out within the heels themselves.

The glow of the stones, passing from hand to hand and held up in the dim light of the lanthom, lessened the tension and shifted scrutiny from the two culprits. Privately perhaps everyone admitted that he would have done as much in their place. The watchful attention with which the stones were handed around spoke volumes for the trust that each member of the group placed in the next. When the inspection was over, it became a problem where to safeguard them.

"Lock them in that chest," suggested Escudero, unabashed, "and give the key to Father Juan. The holy character of a priest, senores, puts him above suspicion."

"No, thank you," said Diaz. Furtively he fingered his throat. "I'd rather not."

"Well, then," proposed Coria, "lock them in that chest and throw the key overboard. The character of the sea, gentlemen, puts it above suspicion."

He raised the lid of a heavy, iron-bound box, provided with an intricate lock. "Put the emeralds inside there. . . . Good. . . » Ever)'body bears witness that in his presence the jewels have been placed in the chest? Look again, gentlemen. Good! I now lock the chest, as you see"—Coria suited the action to the words, opened a porthole—"and throw the key into the water." The splash sounded. Coria added: "\Ve'll open the chest together before reaching Santiago. It'll be a good man who can force that box without noise enough to put the rest of us onto it."

Pedro coughed. Momentarily forgotten, he became once more the focus of an uneasy, somewhat perplexed attention.

Escudero growled, "I suppose now there isn't any objection to dealing with Cortes's eavesdropper, is there?"

With folded arms, Pedro leaned against the wall of the cabin. He was playing a dangerous game and must make no false step, but he enjoyed the excitement of it.

"Deal with me?" he repeated. "Sirs, you'll have to admit that except for me, you wouldn't have ten thousand pesos in that chest."

An obscure mutter expressed agreement. He could sense that no one except Escudero and Cermeiio bore him a personal grievance; but that would not save his life unless he was careful.

Coria shook his head. "You see how it is, de Vargas. Our necks wouldn't be worth a tinker's curse if Cortes or Escalante knew what we're up to. We can't put you ashore—"

"I'd pay the hangman if you did," Pedro interrupted. "Without those emeralds, I'm a dead man if Cortes has the say of it. They were

taken when I should have been on guard. You know the General."

The obvious truth of this made an impression. Pedro followed it up.

"So I'm for you and Governor Velasquez. Frankly, if I could have had those stones, I'd have gone back. Now Cuba seems healthier, if you follow me."

Umbria grinned. "We follow you. How about it, friends?"

"Are you mad?" put in Escudero. "The fellow would be over the side like an eel, at the first blink. Can't you see what he's aiming at? He'd buy his pardon by informing on us. He's one of the General's wag-tails—like Sandoval."

Pedro's heart sank, for the other had read his intention well enough, but he looked unruffled.

"Senor," he said, "nothing is easier—or cheaper—than to insult a prisoner. You know perfectly well that if I had my arms and the leave of this company, I would cut off your ears. As to escape, a pair of chains will cure that until we are clear of the harbor."

"Fair enough," approved Coria. "And when we are clear, you can have your arms and my leave, brother Pedro. I'll bet my share of the emeralds on you. Anybody take me up?"

Silence followed, even on the part of Escudero. It was well-known that in fencing bouts Pedro de Vargas matched even Cristobal de Olid and Gonzalo de Sandoval.

By majority consent, Pedro's enlistment with the mutineers was now tentatively accepted, and a pair of shackles were produced to make it effective. As the handcuffs locked, Pedro tried vainly to catch Coria's eye; he felt that he had more to hope from this scapegrace than from the others. In the wrangle that followed as to where he should be kept, Escudero urged the hold; Coria, the cabin. But the former's authority had dwindled in the past hour. Coria won the debate by asserting that a chained man was the best guard of the jewels, and for his part he thought it safer if no one who wasn't chained slept in the cabin.

"Meanwhile," said Pedro, striving again to fix Coria's attention, "I hope you'll set a guard over the companionway. It would be a pity for me if certain gentry did not wait until I have my arms."

He got a poisonous glance from Escudero, but Coria only grinned. "I take your meaning. Redhead. You'll be safe enough. I'm for sleep— if you can call two hours sleep."

The party broke up, some leaving by the door to the quarter-deck, others climbing the companionway to the poop deck. Bolts were shoved home, and Pedro remained in the darkness.

Immediately he began working at his fetters, but uselessly. Even if he had stripped the flesh from his hands, his bones were still too large to be squeezed through the iron cuffs. And with every minute, the precious margin of time was shrinking. If he could only have had a word alone with Coria! That had been his last hope. He might perhaps have won the man over.

In the stuffy blackness of the cabin, he strained and sweated. The thought occurred that even if he succeeded in escaping at that moment, it would be too late. Even if somehow he got to shore, it would take time to reach Escalante and spread the alarm. Minute by minute, the brave dream of the army, of the men he loved, was crumbling, when so little would have sufficed to save it, when he had been so close to talking himself free!

An hour gone. Outside, he heard a gromet turn the glass, chanting his call, even though there was no change of watch. Then again silence.

No, a slight sound, as if the hatch above the companionway was being cautiously raised. Then a step, slow, furtive, descending.

Escudero?

He braced himself. Someone had entered the cabin.

The shade of a dark lantern slid back and he saw—Coria.

"I think," came a whisper, "you had something to tell me. I couldn't chance it before. We haven't much time. What do you want to say?"

XXXV

It was now or never. Coria had scented something to his advantage and was, in so far, open to suggestion. Everything depended on the next minute.

Pedro said, "I wanted to ask why you came on this expedition."

"Because I'm poor as a beggar's louse," returned Coria, "and the prospects looked good."

"Then why are you quitting it?"

"Because I'm tired of songs and promises. I got my hands on a bit of gold at San Juan de Ulua; but hasta la vista. I had to fork it over to give to the King. I'm fed-up."

"So you think you'll get rich in Cuba?"

Coria grinned toothily. "Remains to be seen."

"I wouldn't count on it too much. Juan Escudero's the man who'll

get rich. He has the ear of the Governor, and that's not going to be of help to you. He'll be your enemy from tonight on. Even as a friend, he's shown how much you can depend on him."

The grin faded, but Coria said nothing.

"No market in Cuba for emeralds," Pedro added. "And suppose Escudero tips off the Governor to confiscate them?"

The teeth disappeared. Coria scowled. "What are you aiming at?"

"That you're no fool. There's nothing in Cuba for you. What do you owe to this pack of traitors on the ship, when I can show you the way to Cortes's favor and five hundred pesos?"

Coria fingered his chin. "For what?"

"For helping me stop the Gallega."

"I see. Cortes gets back the emeralds. That puts you right with him. And I get the reward. Who pays it?"

"The General." Pedro was taking a big risk and knew it.

Coria lifted a skeptical eyebrow.

"Homhre!" snapped de Vargas. "Can't you see what it means to Cortes to shut off news to Cuba? As to the money, it's a good deal more than you'd ever draw from Velasquez with Escudero coaching him. That's plain."

Coria still pinched his chin. His eyes in the dim light looked like a speculative cat's. It was maddening to think how much depended on the rascal's decision: the march across the mountains, perhaps an empire. He sat weighing the pros and cons. But Pedro sensed a wavering in him. The logic was unescapable. Escudero, the Governor's man, would never forgive what had happened tonight. Whereas, Cortes . . .

"How do I know he'll pay?"

"My word for it."

"Humph!"

In spite of the darkness, Pedro could feel the approach of morning. He made a supreme effort.

"If he doesn't pay, you can have my share in the horse, Soldan. That's worth more than five hundred pesos."

"Look you, de Vargas," Coria pondered, "I'm not in this for my health. It's sometimes convenient to forget promises. What security do I have—"

"Lord in heaven!" chafed Pedro. "We haven't a notary here. What can I give but my word? You've heard of my father. J swear by his honor."

Coria hesitated a moment, then nodded. "Done!" he said. Producing a key, he unlocked Pedro's shackles, then fetched him his arms, sword and poniard, from a rack in the corner. "Now what's the plan?"

"We'll take the rigging. Cut as much as we're able. Smash the compass. If we can delay the start by an hour, we have them. \Vhen they get on to us, head for the ship's boat. Are you ready?"

Coria delayed. "We'd better take the emeralds."

"\Ve've no time to break open the chest—not to speak of noise."

"Of course not. But, you see, we don't have to break it open."

To Pedro's amazement, he drew the vanished key from his pocket and unlocked the coffer.

"But I thought—"

Coria smiled. "As it happened," he murmured, "I threw away the wrong key."

"Vayaj, vaya!" grinned de Vargas. "That's a lucky mistake."

"Isn't it? Of course the honor of a cavalier would have kept me from taking advantage of it. I'm from Old Castile, senor."

One by one, he looked wistfully at the stones, then handed them over.

"Well, there you are. You're the proper guardian. They're pretty but useless to a poor man—at least this side of the Ocean Sea. That was a good point of yours. No market."

Pedro dropped the emeralds into his belt purse and made sure of the buckles. It seemed unreal that he had them at last in his possession. It remained now to restore them to Cortes. Before that, he realized, some grim work might lie ahead.

Shoeless and silent, the two men crept up the companionway to the poop deck. The stars had paled within a faintly spreading twilight. It was the hour between winds before the offshore breeze started. The water lay quiet and bodiless as the sky. As yet, possibly because of the late conference that night in the cabin, no one seemed awake on the ship except the dim figure of a seaman, who stood drowsily by the rail on the main deck. Pedro nodded toward him and tapped his dagger hilt. Within the next ten minutes, at the first breath of the wind, the ship would come to life, and no time could be lost.

Like shadows, he and Coria stole down to the main deck, careful to avoid the bodies of several sleepers. Crossing to a position behind the man at the rail, Pedro struck suddenly with the loaded pommel of his knife. The fellow crumpled without sound and was eased unconscious to the deck. A sleeper stirred and grunted, then fell silent again.

Pedro heard the gnawing sound of Coria's knife at the mainmast

halyards, then the jerking movement as he cut smaller cords. Hurrying forward to the foremast, de Vargas dealt with as much of the tackle as he could reach, and turned back along the deck, heading for the binnacle astern.

But now figures were sitting up or scrambling to their feet. A hoarse shout sounded. The forecastle doors swung open. A man loomed in Pedro's way as he sped toward the quarter-deck, gave an astonished challenge, was shouldered aside. Meanwhile Coria had found an ax and was raining blow after blow upon the compass when de Vargas reached him.

"That's enough," urged the latter. "Make for the boat. I'll hold them in check. Give a call when you're aboard."

Coria darted up the steps to the poop deck. Sword in hand, Pedro covered the retreat.

"Back there!" he shouted, as the first surge came at him, "I don't want to hurt any of you. . . . Well, then, take it: Santiago! Cortes!"

The cry rang out across the water. His sword leaped. A man fell back, cursing and clutching his shoulder.

In the surprise, the bewilderment and uncertain light, it took a minute for the crew of the Gallega to organize an attack; but Escu-dero's orders were prompt and to the point.

"Get to the deck above him," he yelled. "Cut him off. Chepito! Tobal! Fetch your crossbows. Look alive!"

Armed with a pike, he led the frontal attack himself. But de Vargas bent aside the thrust of the weapon and sent back a blow that tilted Escudero's badly adjusted helmet over one ear. Then, turning, he leaped up the steps to the poop deck, just as two men, climbing from the side, reached the same level. The bend of the rail above the stem offered a slight protection. Within it, Pedro stood at bay, while the circle of men thickened around him. From below, he could hear the thumping sounds of Coria settling himself in the boat. The latter's treason had not yet been discovered, and a shout went up for him.

"It's like the dog to let us do the fighting," Escudero raged. "Where in hell is he?"

"Here!" came an answer from the water. "Good-by, Juanito. Give the devil my compliments when you meet him. Santiago! Cortes! . . . Ready, de Vargas."

The confusion of this surprise gave Pedro his chance. Vaulting backwards, he dropped to the water, shot under, rose to the surface, and in a few strokes reached the boat. Helped by Coria, he floundered into it. In the next moment, Coria bent to his oars.

It was a heavy yawl boat and moved by inches. Awkwardly fumbling, Pedro managed to ship a pair of oars for himself.

"Pull," Coria panted. "Pull your arms out."

The pandemonium of cursing on the Gallega suddenly stopped. In the half-light, Pedro could see a couple of figures at the rail and the silhouette of the crossbows. Deadly weapons at close quarters, they now had a perfect target at only a few yards.

"Don't miss, Tobal," sounded a voice.

Something buried itself in the thwart at Pedro's side, pinning his breeches to the wood and searing his leg like a hot iron. The next moment he found himself in the bottom of the boat, writhing around a center of pain in his head. He heard faintly the shout that went up from the Gallega and Coria's fierce oath. Everything turned black, but he did not lose consciousness. He was still aware of the anguish in his head and of Coria tugging at the oars. He was even aware that at one moment Coria flattened himself. He heard the thud of another bolt. Then the faintness passed, but the pain throbbed and leaped, so that he ground his teeth together to keep from crying out.

But now another sound came from the Gallega, the creaking of blocks and tackle. Evidently a lighter spare boat was being launched.

Pedro forced himself up.

"By the Lord!" muttered Coria between breaths. "I thought you were sped. How is it with you?"

Mumbling an answer, de Vargas groped for the oars. He could not see because of the blood streaming from his forehead, but he could make shift to row after a fashion.

"No use," Coria grunted—"three yards to our one."

The jerky, professional oar beats of the pursuers creaked rapidly nearer. Pedro drew his sleeve across his eyes and in the now definitely clear light caught a glimpse of the boat less than a hundred yards off.

"Can you swim, Coria?"

"Yes, but swimming's no good. We've a better chance if we fight."

Pedro shipped his oars, struggled out of his doublet, and tearing off a portion of his shirt bound the strip around his head.

"I've got to see to fight," he muttered.

Coria kept on doggedly pulling at the oars. Both he and Pedro knew that they had no chance against the eight armed men. They were simply following instinct and training. The land wind now ruffled the water, cutting down their progress, though it hardly affected the pursuing boat. Pedro could see Escudero's gilded helmet in the bow,

and the hard, intent face. If he did nothing else—A wave of dizziness struck. He grasped the thwart.

"Bring her around, Coria, so that they won't ram us."

The Gallega boat leaped forward. But suddenly, to Pedro's bewilderment, its oars stopped, tangled, began to back water. Escudero was no longer staring at him, but to the right; was shouting an order. The boat started to turn. In almost the same moment another longboat full of men came into sight, bearing down from the left in a converging line.

Coria dropped his oars. "Gracias a Dios!" he said devoutly.

In the stern of the oncoming craft, Pedro recognized Anton de Alaminos, Cortes's chief pilot.

"What's going on?" roared the latter, as the boats converged.

Pedro gripped the thwart. "Stop the Gallega from sailing." He stared blankly at Alaminos through a growing mist. "Signal the ships—"

The bottom of the boat swung up at him, and he crumpled forward to meet it.

XXXVI

While the Gallega was being dismantled and her crew put under arrest; while Coria, mounted on Escalante's own horse, galloped through the dawn to carry the news and earn his reward from Cortes; while later the captains at Cempoala sat in council, debating whether similar attempts at desertion to Cuba might not be made and how to prevent them, Pedro de Vargas lay half-dead in the fort at Villa Rica. Luckily or not—for opinions might differ—Antonio Escobar, Bachelor of Arts, physician, surgeon, and apothecary to the army, being but newly recovered from a flux, had not attended the troops on their diplomatic march to Cempoala and neighboring Totonac towns. He was therefore available for professional aid to the General's equerry. It was not the policy of physicians at that time to take a cheerful view of their patients' condition. If the ailment was slight, the credit of curing it was greater; if the patient died, God's will had been done. Escobar frowned and sucked in his breath at the first glimpse of Pedro stretched on an Indian mat in a corner of the fort which had been thatched over with palm leaves. The camp followers, Isabel Rodrigo and Maria de Vera, fanned away at the cloud of flies settling on his

head or sopped at the flow of blood with dirty clouts. Escobar frowned and sucked more ominously still when he searched the wound with his long fingernails.

"Muy grave! Gravisimo!" he gloomed. "What a gash! Six inches at the least. Look, women, I can put my thumb in it. And down to the skull." He tapped with his nail. "Perhaps into the skull. Not much hope, women—very little."

Under the probing and scratching, Pedro, though only half-conscious, writhed and groaned.

"Color of death," said Escobar, "cold sweat. Bad signs. I wish Father Olmedo were here. Juan Diaz is in the bilboes. Still, a priest's a priest and can give absolution even if he's a scoundrel. I'm afraid the good youth is beyond human skill."

"At least. Master, stop his bleeding," put in Isabel, "and the Lord love you. It's a pity to see him drain out like a stuck pig. A fine body of a man too. Look," she added, pointing to the cut straps of Pedio's wallet, "someone has got his purse already."

"Captain Escalante himself, the more shame to him—and he a gentleman," said Maria de Vera acidly. "He cut the purse after talking with Coria. I saw him myself. You'd think he might have left us some pickings for our trouble."

Escobar chucked her under the chin with a still bloody forefinger. "Bodies and purses are what you girls think about, eh? Well, I'll have to do my best for him, though it's a poor chance, God pity him!"

"Bah!" interrupted a stern voice from the doorway. "God pity you, Master Surgeon, if you don't do your best and if anything happens to him!" Juan de Escalante, commander at Villa Rica, took a step inside and stood arms akimbo, his smoldering eyes on Escobar. "If a soldier handled his job like you do yours, with a long face and a Lord-a-mercy, where'd he get on the campaign? Hitch up your breeches, man, and do your office. The glancing shot of a crossbow quarry isn't the worst. Stop his bleeding. You should have done it at once without dawdling."

"Hold me excused then if he dies of the shock, Your Worship. He's weak from the labor of the night—"

"Hold you excused nothing!" retorted the Captain. "Let me tell you, the General sets high store by this gentleman—not to speak of others. You'll have Bull Garcia to reckon with if he dies. As for you wenches, I took the purse to keep your fingers out of it. Look alive now, all three, or you'll have the whip to your backs."

Thus activated, the medical staff" of Villa Rica prepared to operate. From the doorway, Escobar bawled for his aide, Chavez, a lumbering

giant of a man who could hold any patient on the table. He had been cleaning out the horse stalls and now appeared wiping his hands on his breech. Meanwhile, Isabel and Maria fetched a brazier and bellows, also a couple of irons and a pot of pitch. A rough plank table completed the equipment. Chavez then lifted the patient in his arms and dumped him onto it. Word had gone around, and several of the garrison, with a visiting Indian or two, sauntered in to look. The sun now blazed down; the cell-like space buzzed with flies and conversation.

"Strip off his doublet and shirt, muchachas/' the surgeon directed. "He'll be the cooler. Probably he won't be needing them again anyway." Escobar shot a sulky glance at Escalante.

"I'll dice you for the shirt," said Maria to Isabel. "It's of prime linen. A pity he tore it."

But a cuff from the Captain silenced her.

''Chiton, puta!'' he thundered. "Have you no shame? You'd cast lots on a dying man's belly for his shroud. I'd rather be nursed by buzzards."

In these circumstances, Pedro became deliriously conscious and looked wildly around. The heat, his half-naked condition, the Captain's cursing, the ring of faces, Chavez leaning over him, the glowing red iron, which Escobar at that moment held up and spat upon to test it, gave a scrambled impression of torture room, Indian sacrifice, and hell. He tried weakly to rise from the table, but Chavez shoved him back.

"Not so fast, sefior! We haven't finished with you yet. We're only going to singe your head."

''Misericordia!" said Pedro faintly.

Escalante took a hand without bettering matters. "Ha, de Vargas! Pluck up a heart, hi jo. It's this or bleeding to death, d'you see? What the devil! You're a lad of spirit." He tried a joke. "We're going to cure you if we have to bum your head off."

His words fitted in with the rest of the dream.

"Sefior Captain"—Pedro struggled, his mind reeling—"if you were in this case, I would take your part. Por piedad! What have I done to be burned?"

"He rambles," said Escobar. "A bad sign. Is the pitch boiling? Good." He looked critically at the white-hot poker and added, "Now"

Escalante seized one of Pedro's wrists and drew it back; a bystander gripped the other; Chavez shifted to the legs, spread-eagling him. As this was the position of Indian sacrifice, one of the Totonac guests uttered an alala in honor of the gods.

"Somebody take de Vargas by the throat," said Escobar, "and hold his head quiet. He'll jerk otherwise."

In a complete daze as to the meaning of his execution, Pedro commended his soul to God.

A soldier forced his head down. "Have a care, Sawbones. If you miss de Vargas and burn me, I'll cut your heart out."

The surgeon now lifted the glowing iron and jabbed at the open wound on Pedro's head; but, as it moved convulsively, he missed it by a half-inch. A cry and the smell of singed hair rose. The next attempt had no better luck.

"Oh, Santa Maria de los Dolores!" seethed Escalante, his face dripping. "If I did not have to hold the man's wrist, you besotted surgeon, I would bend that poker over your skull!"

With pursed lips, Escobar tried again and this time laid the white-hol; iron squarely between the gaping edges of the wound.

A scream shivered up, and the hiss of blood. Pedro's body went limp.

"He's finished, by God," said Chavez, loosing his hold and running a sleeve across his forehead. "Look at him."

The patient's face was dead white. Several soldiers crossed themselves. The Indians nodded at each other in appreciation of the white man's capacity for inventing strange and cruel deaths.

"As I thought," remarked Escobar sagely. "You would not be warned, Senor Captain. Even my science cannot defeat the will of God. However, we've stopped the bleeding. You'll admit that it's a well-seared wound."

With startled eyes, Escalante had clapped his palm over Pedro's heart and stood for some moments in suspense. Then his face quickened.

"No, by the saints, he's more alive than you are!"

Escobar rose to the occasion. "Why not? To the man of true science, God lends a hand. Senor Captain, you may think that anyone could lay a hot iron on an open wound. Far from it. The timing must be right to the half of a second. If I had removed the iron too soon, the wound would not have been seared; if I had applied it a moment longer, the patient must infallibly have died. Know, Senor Captain, that the volatile liquor of the brain boils easily, and once it is brought to the boiling point—"

"Ho!" interrupted the Captain. "Right! Chavez, fetch me some liquor here. That native rot-gut aguardiente would raise the dead. We'll revive him, Master Surgeon, and then you can pour in the pitch."

Escobar protested. "The wound is well seared, Your Worship. Pitch is unnecessary."

"Nevertheless we'll have it," Escalante declared. "It can't be too well seared, can it?"

"No, sir."

"Then we'll spare no pains. We'll have no twopenny jobs in this case. Revive the gentleman."

Somebody brought liquor in a cannikin, but Escobar dissented. "Sir, we can do it better while he is in a faint. No need to tax the strength of you gentlemen with holding him."

This opinion prevailed, though Escalante vowed that he thought no effort a trouble if it would benefit so gallant a cavalier. Pedro's wound was therefore plastered with boiling pitch, which had a vivifying result and brought him screaming out of his swoon to find himself once more facing the implacable Chavez.

"What cheer, sir?" roared Escalante, highly gratified. "Take heart. The thing's over. And I'll say this for Bachelor Escobar, that Galen himself could not have wrought a sweeter job on you. No leakage now. You're caulked as tight as a careened ship. . . . Here, drink."

He rattled the rim of the cup against Pedro's teeth and emptied its contents down his throat. Then, on fire inside and out, the patient, choking and purple, was again lowered to his mat; a clean bandage, donated from the tail of Escalante's shirt, was applied to his head; and the medical staff of Villa Rica took pride to itself.

"Unless," the surgeon concluded with professional reserve, "he should die from weakness and shock, which is in God's hands."

XXXV\l

Weakness, a touch of fever, and Escalante's cupful of raw spirits plunged de Vargas into a dreamy state disturbed only by the flies and Isabel Rodrigo's chatter. After a time the pain in his head grew more bearable. At midday he roused enough to partake of salt-pork stew and cassava bread, washed down by a dram of Spanish wine from the precious sacramental supply. He even felt restored to the point of chatting briefly with Escalante about the events of last night, and of reassuring himself that the emeralds were safe. Escalante reported that the mutineers were in irons and would doubtless hang upon Cortes's return. Pedro drifted back into sleep again.

He was awakened late in the afternoon by a breeze on his face which contrasted with Isabel's languid fanning, and looked up to see a huge, agitated fist, pumping air at him from a palm-leaf fan. Behind the fan, equally broad, loomed the sunburned face of Juan Garcia. It was startling to see the latter's heavy eyes full of tears, while the wide mouth suppressed evident emotion.

''Hola, Juan! What the deuce—"

"Silence!" whispered the other, laying a forefinger on his lips. The movement of the fan redoubled. "Silence! Do not speak. Save your strength, by God, and all \vill be well. I have come but now from Master Escobar. He says your life depends on quiet."

"Pooh! It depends on keeping away from him. I'm all right. But what ails you? The headache? How did you get here?"

Garcia's face expressed such urgent entreaty that Pedro fell silent.

"For my sake, not a word more. If you must talk, let me do it."

De Vargas smiled.

"You know what I mean," said Garcia huskily. He ran a thumb under his nose. . . . "Ails me? Lord! A broken heart. When I woke up this morning— Such a thirst, comrade! Such a head! The devils in hell could have no worse. I say, when I woke up to find what I had done— my insults to the good companions, calling them Indian dogs, drawing on Captain Velasquez de Leon, making a wild ass of myself, and how you left your post to bear me aid—it was a near thing that I did not take my cursed life. Then I find you gone and the camp in a dither and the General in a rage. Then comes Bernardino de Coria spurring with news for Cortes, who calls the captains to council. But the gist of it leaks out, and that you're for death. My fault, everything my fault! The grief of it unmanned me. I sat down on the lowest step of the p\Tamid and banged my head with my fists. I called down curses on myself to the admiration of the army. They gathered round but could give no comfort."

Garcia bowed his head at the recollection; his great chest heaved. Then, fiercely agitating the fan, he went on.

"Who should come up but the General himself. 'Senor Garcia,' he said, 'nothing cures grief but action. Take the horse, Soldan, and ride to Villa Rica. It may be you will find Pedro de Vargas alive. And you may carry a letter for me to Juan de Escalante. The army returns to Villa Rica tomorrow.' So I got up, and here I am. Praise to God! I don't deserve—I don't deserve to find you still—"

He pressed his lips together and turned his face. The fan drooped.

After a pause, he muttered, "Do you think you can forgive me? It

seems my luck always to be landing you in pickle. I'm not asking you to speak. If you forgive me, nod; if you don't, shake. Shake's what I deserve."

This time Pedro laughed.

"Forgive you? Not for a peso! Not for a thousand pesos! Never! Damned if I do!"

Garcia stared back uncertain. "You sound almost natural," he faltered.

"Almost. What I want to know is how much pulque you drank. It's thin stuff. I might forgive you if you drank a gallon."

Vastly relieved about his friend's condition, Garcia beamed. "Two gallons, on my honor."

"Liar."

"It may have been three—to judge by the weight in my head. So I'm forgiven?"

"Call it that."

Garcia put down the fan. "That skull-and-bones, Escobar, gave me the fright of my life," he growled. "Led me to think he was just keeping you breathing. Said he couldn't vouch for you. I'll kick his rump. / can vouch for you, praise God! But as for pulque, beer, wine, and liquor! Seiior! I hate and renounce them. God help the whoreson who tempts me even to smell 'em!"

"Amen!" said de Vargas.

"Moreover," added Garcia, free now to turn to his own ills, "I renounce the horse, Soldan, and curse the rascal who sold him to us. A more blistery, jag-paced beast never hopped on four feet. It's a mercy I can sit on this stool talking with you."

A swinging step sounded in the courtyard outside, and Escalante entered. He held a couple of papers in his hand.

"Coria must have given a sad report of you, Sefior de Vargas." Pedro was struck by a new ceremoniousness in his manner. "The General feared you might be dying. But Escobar and I took care of that, didn't we?"

He tapped the papers he was holding. "Here's news. A ship from Cuba, Francisco Salcedo commanding, just put in at San Juan de Ulua but, finding us gone, is making now for Villa Rica. A runner brought word to Cortes. She may come in tomorrow. She carries Luis Marin, a notable captain, with ten other soldiers and two horses. So far, good; the rest is bad. It seems that the Governor of Cuba has been appointed adelantado from Spain. Governor wasn't enough; he's now governor-in-cliief with the right to colonize these lands."

Pedro caught his breath; Garcia muttered an oath. The news meant that if Governor Velasquez had received this right, they, the conquerors of the country, had no right at all except under him; it meant that the new colony of Villa Rica did not legally exist; it meant, above all, that Velasquez must have the lion's share of the winnings.

"The General won't take it lying down," exclaimed Pedro.

Escalante agreed. "No, things will be humming from now on. The treasure ship has got to leave for Spain at once, and no other ship must leave at all until we hold the entire country for the King—for the King and not for a beggarly governor. As the General says, it's a royal domain."

As the General says had become the stock phrase in the army for settling disputes.

"You made a lucky stroke last night," Escalante added; "but we can't always depend on luck. The next ship may get away."

Pedro ruminated. "You know, as the General says—suppose there weren't any ships?"

"Yes," repeated the other, "suppose there weren't any ships?"

Garcia, whose wits moved slowly, burst out, "No ships? What a fool idea! No means of retreat or communication?" But he broke off. Gradually his eyes lighted up. "Hm-m. No ships? Yes, as the General says, who can't retreat must go forward. And there're plenty with us who would like to go back. The Gallega crowd aren't the only ones." He smacked his knee. "By the Lord, yes! No ships! Scuttle them! Have done with shillyshally! It's a great idea; it's the only idea!"

"Spread it around," said Escalante, exchanging a glance with Pedro. "See what the men think of it."

Because of his great popularity, Garcia was a force among the rank and file.

"Think of it?" he boomed. "They'll think well of it, as Spanish hearts should. We'll go to the General."

By this time, Garcia had forgotten—perhaps even Escalante and Pedro had forgotten—the origin of the idea. It was now Garcia's idea. It would be imposed on Cortes.

"Take it up with the captains," Garcia went on to Escalante. "I'll handle the men."

The other nodded. "I'll do that. . . . Which reminds me." He handed a sealed letter to Pedro. "From the General," he continued. "It was to be returned to him in the event of your death. ... By gad, I'll never forget you on that table, de Vargas, . . . From what he wrote me, I think I know what's in the letter."

Still weak from his ordeal, Pedro broke the seal with a trembling hand. What would the unpredictable General have to write him? Pardon or censure?

Son Pedro [It wasn't a bad beginning],

Bernardino de Coria has given me what I think is a reasonably true account of your conduct in last night's affair. What he said of himself J I do not wholly believe; but he has no reason for lying with regard to you. He tells me that you promised him five hundred pesos on my part if he would assist you in preventing the flight of the ship. He says that, ever loyal to me, he would have assisted you in any case, and I accepted this assurance with thanks — and complete understanding. He tells me also that you pledged your share in the horse, Solddn, for the payment of this money.

Son Pedro, in all this, you did well and showed great prudence and management. Have no fear for Solddn, as I gladly accept this debt. Indeed, I have increased it to a thousand pesos. Senor de Coria may have to wait awhile; but, alas, do we not all have to wait until the end of our venture?

De Vargas chuckled. If Cortes ever paid his promises, the Golden Age would begin again.

Now, as to the emeralds for His Majesty, I am informed that you recovered them and that Juan de Escalante has them in keeping, so that score is canceled.

Of your desertion from camp last night contrary to orders, I will say this. Disobey any order for the sake of the army, but let disobedience be justified by success. If you had failed last night, I would have hanged you. Since you succeeded in a way greatly to the profit of this company, I promote you.

Pedro's cheeks flushed; the writing swam in front of his eyes.

/ promote you for energy and initiative to the rank of captain in command of exploradores when we march inland. Ton will be the eyes of the army. And may your wound, Senor Captain, be speedily mended, for we march presently. May you long live to emulate the deeds of your father, whom God preserve!

Pedro looked up into the round eyes of Juan Garcia, fixed on him in suspense.

"Holy Virgin!" he breathed.

"Come, boy, what is it? Speak out. No great matter, I hope?"

"Congratulations!" bowed Escalante.

"Me, a captain!" gasped Pedro. "A captain!"

XXXVIll

Next morning Pedro awakened to the sound of thunder. Or was it thunder? Boom, boom, close at hand. Boom, boom, boom, from the harbor.

Cannon. An Indian assault.

He stood up dizzily. But there was no sound of haste in the fort, no shouting of orders—in fact, nothing; a peculiar silence between the salvos of artillery. Then, fully awake, he understood. The ship from Cuba.

The recent loss of blood had left him weaker than he could have believed possible. He tottered to the embrasure in his room, which opened on the harbor, and looked out.

Yes, there she came standing in, her painted sails billowing, a bone in her teeth as she cut the water, her gilded round-tops catching the morning light, the royal standard of Castile at her mainmast. Other pennants, doubtless those of Salcedo and Marin, fluttered from the fore- and mizzenmasts. Smoke puffs floated from her sides, and a moment later came the muffled report of her answering salute.

Pedro's eyes smarted. Here she came out of the sea, a token of the world beyond its vastness, the ever-remembered world in contrast to tliis remote country. Cuba might not be home; but it was closer to home, was settled and secure and Spanish.

Boom!

In the new responsibility of his rank, he questioned the waste of gunpowder. But who could blame anybody? Five months of silence, of wondering about this and that, as if the ocean stream were Lethe itself. And now a sail. News perhaps of friends and parents, perhaps even a few letters; news, however old, of Europe. Of course, residents of the Islands had most to expect; but—who could tell?—there might even be a scrap of news from Jaen.

He could see the whole garrison, men and women, streaming down to the beach; Garcia by the side of Escalante; the gunners, who had fired the salute, running to catch up. A small boat was being got out. Several Indian canoes raced toward the new vessel. She stood pointed

in as far as possible, no doubt for convenience in landing the horses. Then at last came the rumble of her anchors.

At that moment, Pedro would have given anything to be on the beach. But his head swam even from the effort of standing up; his knees turned to cotton; and he just managed to reach his mat before they gave way like springless jackknives.

After a while, unable to resist, he got up and dragged back again to the embrasure. He could see the horses, who had been swum ashore, shaking themselves and taking a few cautious steps after their long confinement. The garrison and the newcomers formed a milling group on the sand, the bright headpieces of the strangers and their new equipment contrasting with the makeshift rags and tags of the Villa Ricans. Even from that distance, the clatter of tongues drifted up. Pedro could make out the lean figure of Escalante, standing a little to one side with two other men, one of whom formed a vivid spot of yellow and crimson against the tawniness of the beach. That must be Salcedo, nicknamed "the Dude" on account of his elegance. Garcia, who had friends everywhere in the Islands, had evidently found acquaintances and was embracing and back-slapping.

De Vargas regained his mat. No fun for him in any of this. Nothing to do except languish and swat flies until Garcia remembered him enough to drop in with a few scraps of gossip. He wasn't presentable anyway. A bandage on his head; his torn shirt, carelessly washed, still looking pinkish from the bloodstains; his breeches, ripped by the crossbow bolt, gaping indecently; his boots lost in the Gallega adventure and not yet replaced; his toes sticking out through the undarned extremities of his stockings.

"A lazar," he reflected. "Nothing but a lazar! Dirty as a pig! Forgotten, while everybody else enjoys himself! Hell's blisters! I look like a captain now, don't I?"

The approaching sound of voices and footsteps announced the procession up to the fort. But in his self-pitying mood, the arrival no longer interested him. Then, to his surprise, embarrassment, and gratification, Escalante entered with the two officers from the ship.

He identified them at once: Francisco Salcedo, dark, splendid, and foppish, the typical overdressed adventurer with too elaborate manners; Luis Marin, squat, bowlegged from a lifetime in the saddle, red-bearded (as were many Spaniards of the time), pockmarked, and with strangely mild ways that concealed a lion's courage.

"Captain Pedro de Vargas, gentlemen," said Escalante, introducing them, and Pedro thrilled at his new title. "You will see that the gentle-

man is temporarily indisposed. A recent wound"—Escalante hesitated: it was not wise perhaps to mention the mutiny so soon—"has caused the Captain much loss of blood. No, sirs, not a duel. An affair of hotheads with whom Senor de Vargas had to deal almost single-handed."

Propped up on the mat, Pedro did his best to return the compliments and express thanks for sympathy in a way to do credit to Villa Rica de Vera Cruz. He noticed the surprise in Salcedo's expression at Captain de Vargas's rags and lamentable quarters. But civilities were exchanged with grace and decorum as if the palm-thatched cell had been a palace. Of course, when it transpired that this was the son of Francisco de Vargas, the surroundings hardly mattered.

Luis Marin said, "I had the pleasure once, sir, of watching your father at the jousts in Seville. A more accomplished man-at-arms I have never seen. It does not surprise me that his son should be promoted to a command at so early an age."

He spoke with the Andalusian lisp that reminded Pedro of home.

"It's a young army, sir. Captain Gonzalo de Sandoval and Captain Andres de Tapia, whom you perhaps know, are little older than I. . . . But, seiior, since you come from Seville, perhaps you have news. Jaen isn't far off."

Marin shook his head. "No, I've been a long time in the Islands."

The call ended, they left Pedro once more to his tedium and impatience. No news. At least it was a relief that the strangers had not learned of the disgrace of his family, which would not have improved matters here. But unreasonably he had hoped for some echo from Jaen, something to bridge the gap between here and there.

In his fretful mood, it irritated him that Garcia didn't come. He ought to realize that a fellow hated to be left out of things and was keen to hear the small talk. But the big man remained jabbering in the courtyard. Pedro could hear the distant rumble of his voice above the come-and-go outside. At last he could stand it no longer and struggled up from the mat to the door.

Garcia was standing at the opposite corner of what might be called the plaza in jocular conversation with two of the new arrivals—one of them a stocky, bearded man; and the other a youth, dressed in black, with a cap on his head, and a white feather.

"Popinjay!" grunted Pedro, conscious of his own damaged appearance. "I'll back the army to take some of that sleekness off of him. . . . Hey, Garcia!" he barked.

The conversation broke off. The three looked around.

"Ta voy! I'm coming," Garcia shouted.

Aware that he must be making a scarecrow impression and that it did not befit one of Cortes's officers to be clinging to a doorpost and bawling for attendance in full view of the fort, Pedro tottered back to his place with as much dignity as possible.

But even so, he did not hear Garcia's lumbering footsteps crossing the courtyard. It was a lighter tread. Apparently he had sent the page to ask what was wanted.

"Now, my word!" thought de Vargas. "I like that!"

The youth appeared in the doorway.

"The Captain desires?" he smiled.

"Nothing," Pedro snapped. His distaste for the figure in black, with the square-cut bang, deepened. "Tell Senor Garcia, if you please, not to hurry. When he's at leisure, if he can spare me a few moments of his attention, I should like to see him."

He broke off, staring at the boy's face. A sudden fear for his own sanity struck him. Perhaps that wound—

The youth took a step toward him and smiled again, a generous, unmistakable smile.

"God in heaven!" Pedro whispered. ''Am I dreaming? Catana! Ca-tana Perez!"

"Didn't you really know me, seiior?"

She sank down beside him. He continued to stare, open-mouthed.

"God in heaven!" he repeated. "Catana! Querida mia!"

He kissed her again and again on the mouth. His eyes devoured her.

She drew her hand gently across his face. "You've changed. All burn and bone. Even a beard. And wounded. I'll have to take care of you."

He caught her in his arms again.

"You aren't real, Catana!"

His strength gave way; but to cover up the weakness that crept back, he smiled.

"Talk about me changed! Look at you!"

Her tanned cheeks turned darker, and she raised her hands instinctively to her hair, which was now cut square like a boy's. She drew her legs under her.

"Yes, I'd forgotten. You get so used— You see, traveling on ships—"

"But how does it happen? When did you sail? Where's Hernan Soler?"

"Dead." She hesitated a moment. "He used me badly. I killed him."

Knowing Catana, Pedro was not too much surprised nor, indeed, greatly shocked. In her world and Soler's, knife blows did not call for much comment.

"Ah?" he said. "What then?"

"I came away with Manuel. We went to Sanlucar. It was there we heard about you and Senor Garcia sailing for the Islands."

She added that they had crossed with the spring fleet, had drifted to Cuba from Santo Domingo, and by chance had found Salcedo making ready the caravel to rejoin Cortes. What she did not mention were the eager questionings from port to port, the tactful management, which had induced her brother to sail from Sanlucar, follow on to Cuba, enlist with Salcedo. Perhaps, as a matter of fact, she was not too conscious of it herself. She had simply followed a current that had inevitably carried her to Villa Rica.

"Well," he said, "you've come to the right place. Catana, there's a world of gold beyond the mountains."

He told her of Montezuma's reported treasure, and she listened intently as a man would listen.

"It'll be cursed hard to leave you again," he broke off—"now that you're here. We'll be marching soon. But don't worry: I'll see that you get your share. I'll bring it back to you."

Her familiar drawl cut in. "What are you talking about, senor? You don't think I came here to sit in a flea-bitten fort, do you?"

"It's a long road, Catana; there'll be plenty of fighting. A woman—"

Met by her smile, he realized that the protest was silly. Of course other women would march: Dofia Marina, the Indian, whom Cortes would no doubt take as his mistress when Puertocarrero sailed; Catarina Marquez, who kept a sharp eye on her man, Hernan Martin; Beatriz Ordas, in love with the blacksmith, Alonso Hernando; a couple of others. They would cook and wash and fight. Only the pregnant or the dolls would remain at Villa Rica. He had been thinking conventionally.

"Well then, we'll make the campaign together."

Reaching out, he took her hand. It quickened his pulse to think of the bivouacs at night, some place apart, her head on his arm, his cloak covering them.

"You know what that means, querida mia?"

Only her eyes answered.

"God help the man who forgets that you belong to me!" he said.

Suddenly her eyes filled. "Belong to you?" She raised his hand and laid her cheek against it. "When I think of the days and the weeks and the months! Belong to you? What I never believed possible—"

She released his hand and stood up.

"By the way, I have good news. Before we sailed from Sanlucar, a

Genoese felucca put in. It happened to be the one which carried Don Francisco and Dona Maria to Italy. The shipmaster said that they reached Genoa safely, and that before he left there again he heard that they had been well received by the sefiora your mother's people, in some other town called Florence."

Pedro clenched his fist. "Viva!'' he exulted. "Maravilloso!" For a whole year he had been haunted by the dread that after all his father and mother might not have reached Italy. "We'll see now whether that infamous charge will stick! Our cousin, the Cardinal Strozzi, will attend to that. Catana, I wager that my father is even now in Jaen, reinstated, or prepares to return there—in triumph! When this venture is over—"

His thought was no longer in the New World; it swaggered through the narrow streets of Jaen; it was rich with the gold of Montezuma; it accepted the admiration of the townsfolk- it stopped by the wide-open doors of a certain palace. The miserable, half-finished fort, his rags and weakness, Catana herself, disappeared at the moment. When he remembered them, it was still with the background of Jaen in mind.

"Any other news," he asked with studied casualness—"I mean from Jaen?"

He thought he was being impenetrable, but she understood.

"It depends. If you mean about that fine lady you're in love with, you've never told me who she is. Who is she, sefior?"

Taken aback, Pedro hesitated. Why shouldn't she know? She was bound to find out in the long run. There was no possible connection between the sunburned camp follower and the daughter of grandees. They belonged to two utterly different planes.

"The Lady Luisa de Carvajal," he pronounced reverently.

Yes, she had guessed that; she remembered the episode in church. Her throat tightened, and she found it hard to keep her voice natural.

"No, I heard nothing. We left the mountains not long after you. But I did hear about the Senor de Silva. Or perhaps you have too."

"What?"

"That he didn't die from the thrust you gave him; he was getting well."

"Esplendor de Dios!" Pedro straightened up. "That devil living?"

But his first amazement was followed at once by a wave of relief. God, after all, had not permitted him to commit the unpardonable sin. It was an act of divine mercy. Now he would have the pleasure of meeting Diego de Silva again and of killing him in an orthodox manner; that is, if Don Francisco let him live. Holy Trinity how de Silva would writhe when the de Vargases returned to Jaen! Father Olmedo would be glad to hear of this.

"Well, well," he added carelessly, "I'll make sure the next time."

He returned to the more enthralling subject. Now that he had disclosed the name of his lady, it would be pleasant to talk about her.

"You have seen the Lady Luisa, Catana?"

"Yes."

"She is beautiful as a star. She accepted me as her cavalier and gave me a favor to wear. We are in a sense betrothed. When I think of the Blessed Virgin, I think of her, Catana."

But he got no answer, and the sense of oneness was gone. He sighed. Women were queer—as if Catana could be jealous of a star in heaven!

She let silence bury the topic, then remarked: "Cdspita, sir, I hardly know where to start upon you. I think the breeches should come first. Take them off, and I'll see what can be done with them."

The dream light vanished. He was back once more in his naked quarters at Villa Rica.

In good humor again, she opened her belt purse.

"See, I've brought two fine needles all the way from Sanlucar, and good woolen thread. In this country, I wouldn't part with them for fifty pesos. Now let me have the breeches."

But this intimate operation was postponed by a sudden fanfare of trumpets in the near distance and by the growing rattle of horses' hoofs. The fort sprang to life; footsteps hurried outside.

"The General," said Pedro. "Our men from Cempoala."

Getting to his feet, he stood with Catana in the doorway, so that they could watch the entrance gate.

The trumpets sounded nearer, then the beat of the marching drums; then through the gateway appeared the aljerez, Antonia de Villaroel, mounted on a tall dapple-gray and bearing the black standard of the expedition, then the General himself with Alvarado and Olid, followed by a group of lances. Behind them wound the long file of foot soldiers; pikemen, crossbowmen, arquebusiers, gentlemen rankers with sword and buckler; the cannon hauled by natives; the baggage; the rear guard. Pennons fluttered here and there; the sunlight glanced on helmets and breastplates. Upon entering the fort, the cavaliers showed the mettle of their horses, rearing and caracoling. For an instant it was Gothic Spain rather than Indian America.

''Viva!" Catana exclaimed. "What a brave sight!"

Cortes swung from his great horse, Molinero; embraced the two new captains, Salcedo and Marin, greeted Escalante. Then, his keen

eye glancing everywhere, he caught sight of Pedro de Vargas and strode over to him, his spurs clanking.

"Ha, son Pedro! It's a fine scare you gave us, but I rejoice to see that you're on the mend. You had my letter? Good! Don't thank me: thank your patron saints."

His gaze took in Catana, sharpened, twinkled.

"And who is this—gentleman?"

Pedro caught the gleam in his chief's eye and, knowing his amorousness, resolved to forestall it.

"My very good friend, Catana Perez from Jaen, Your Excellency. She arrived with her brother on Captain Salcedo's ship. Mi amiga carisima."

His arm slipped from the girl's shoulder to her waist.

Cortes understood. He pinched Catana's ear.

"Damiselaj we've been calling Captain de Vargas 'Pedro the Redhead.' He should now be called 'Pedro the Fortunate.' "

xxx/x

Every company has at least one buflfoon, professional or amateur, a show-off and rattlehead, who plays the clown in order to attract notice, and prefers rather to be kicked than forgotten. In Cortes's army, this post was filled by Cervantes the Mad, formerly jester to Governor Velasquez. And because a fool says anything that pops into his mind, Cervantes sometimes expressed thoughts that wise men kept secret. It was he who had warned the Governor against his choice of Cortes to head the expedition and had told him frankly: "Friend Diego, rather than to see you weep over this bad bargain you have made, I want to go along with Cortes myself to those rich lands." So, one eighth a soldier and seven eighths a clown, he became jester to the army, a perpetual chatterbox and cut-up, getting sometimes a laugh and sometimes a cuff for his efforts.

Cervantes, then, led the march on August sixteenth, the long-projected march inland, through the hot jungle lands of Cempoala, toward the mountain rampart of Cofre de Perote—toward distant Mexico. He grimaced and capered and played an imaginary flute, strutting and high-stepping, ahead even of Pedro de Vargas with his scouts, while far behind him stretched the snakelike winding of the army.

"What's itching you, man?" called de Vargas, making ready with a handful of horsemen to cover the country several miles in advance. "Save your breath for the climb. What are you dancing for?"

"A parade, valiant Captain," proclaimed the jester, who had been fishing for the question, "a parade of fools, led by Cervantes the Mad! For when all the wise men of the army turn loco, it behooves a madman to lead them."

Since he was waiting for de Laris, one of the scouts, who was tightening his saddlegirth down the line, Pedro continued to lead his troop at a foot pace and drew the joker out to fill in time.

"Get it off your chest, senoritingo/' he said, with a backward glance for the missing Laris. "What's the point?"

"Luckily something that you haven't the sense to grasp, friend Redhead."

"Why luckily?"

"Because Escudero and Cermeno got hanged for grasping it. Because Umbria's toes were chopped off and the stumps of them fried on Master Escobar's iron for the same reason. Because two hundred lashes apiece made mincemeat of the Gallega seamen's backs for the same reason. No, seiior, heaven preserve you from sense, which is the worst crime in this army."

Sandoval, who was riding with the scouts, broke in. "Look you, rascal, that pack of traitors was gently dealt with, as you well know. Many's the general who would have hanged the lot of them for a less cause. If you talk treason, your own back will scorch, let me tell you."

Cervantes cut a caper beyond the reach of Sandoval's lance point.

"Exactly. And therefore I do not talk sense, caballero. I wouldn't talk treason for the world. Tootle-oo! Tootle-oo! A parade of fools led by Cervantes the Mad!"

He drew a laugh at that. "What do you call sense?" demanded Sandoval.

"Why, sir," replied the other, walking backward to face the horsemen, "my grandmother told me that he who throws all his gold through the window is not apt to have any in his pocket. It is an example of sense, sir—or treason, as you would say—but the old lady is dead and can't be whipped for it."

This allusion to the sailing of the treasure ship, now headed for Spain, was not lost on the cavaliers, who exchanged glances.

"She used also to say/' continued Cervantes, "that he who climbs to the top of a wall should not kick over his ladder, as he might wish sometime to climb down again; or thai he who scuttles the ship he

arrives in may have to swim when he leaves. A bit of treason, sir, which in other parts of the world is called sense."

"By the Cross," swore Sandoval, who had been ardent in promoting the destruction of the ships, "if you lay your dirty tongue to matters above your judgment, I'll have it torn out for you. How, in God's name, were we to march forward, if the chicken livers like you were forever looking back to the ships—ha?"

Ortiz the Musician, who was riding next to Sandoval, shook his head. "No, I agree with El Sefior Loco. It was folly true enough. Magnificent folly, sirs, which will be to our honor. But magnificence and honor don't make sense—do they, fool? Nor does song or music."

"Not to the dead, Senor Musico," grimaced the jester. "They mean nothing to the dead."

A moment of hollow silence fell, broken only by the sucking of the horses' hoofs on the wet trail. Sandoval scowled but did not find his tongue. Cervantes, prancing backward between the jungle walls on either hand, made the most of his opening.

"When we're properly cooked and served up on Indian platters, magnificence and honor will have changed their tune. The magnificent chops of Ortiz the Musician! The honorable hams of Pedro de Vargas! Bless you, masters, what yearning and toiling over mountains toward the grave! What panting for death! Elsewhere people strive to eat; here they strive to be eaten. Viva topsy-turvy! Tootle-oo! I dance at the thought of the banquets in Mexico. Here comes the procession of fools led by Cervantes the Mad!"

The hoofbeats of a horse at the gallop sounded along the column. Laris arrived in a spatter of mud.

"Vaya! At last!" exclaimed Pedro. "Adelante, gentlemen!" And to Cervantes, "Go tell your jokes to Cortes and see what he gives you."

Clapping spurs to Soldan, he bounded forward, closely followed by Sandoval and Laris, with the other riders at their heels. Cervantes leaped to the side in time but missed his footing and sat down in a thorn bush to the amusement of the oncoming pikemen.

While he picked himself up, grimacing and clowning, the ranks slogged by. Being a fool, he had expressed what others kept behind their beards or passed off in bravado. There was a ticklish feeling that morning in many bellies. Now and then, as the trail wound upward, men turned their heads to look back. At what? Nothingness. Beyond the woods and savannas lay a pale vacancy which marked the sea. But the sea no longer assured retreat; it denied retreat. It was an impassable gulf and dead limit. The familiar ships, that were a bit of

Spain, no longer rode in the harbor at Villa Rica. Gone. Destroyed because they were a temptation to weakness, a distraction from conquest. Destroyed by the very men who now could hardly realize that they had done so mad a thing. In front, thousands of feet high, the mountains. Beyond the mountains, what? The army had left itself no choice but to find out. One did not have to be a Cervantes that day to feel like a fool.

Returning several hours later from the reconnaissance, Pedro halted his troop on a spur of the foothills which overlooked the entire extent of the winding column, except where an occasional coil of it disappeared in the carpet of jungle. Some four hundred Spaniards, a throng of Totonac warriors in full feather panoply, and a thousand native bearers to haul the cannon and carry supplies, made up the line of march.

Pedro smiled at the thought of the impression it would have made on his father, used to the order and equipment of continental armies. Many of the soldiers wore native one-piece cotton armor, that looked like harlequin suits. Wear and tear and the tropical sun made sport of convention. Better to survive in a wadded suit thick enough to stop most of the Indian weapons than to stifle and grill in steel. The captains and a few swells clung to Christian armor and paid for prestige in sweat, but the rank and file chose convenience.

"Well," thought Pedro of the continental dandies, "they can have their finery. When it comes to fighting—"

He clenched his hand resting on the peak of the saddle. This was his army. He belonged to it, and it to him. Since last November, he and the army had matured together, on shipboard, in battle, on the march, and in camp, its varied elements kneaded into one by masterful leadership. He would not have exchanged his place in it, his stake in its adventure, for a captaincy in the King's guard. He was proud even of its shabbiness, that after a deed of foolhardy, breathtaking heroism in destroying the ships and thereby its only means of retreat, it did not look heroic. He was proud even of its fears.

"You know," he remarked to Sandoval, "I believe that there're a good many who think with Cervantes—but they're climbing the mountains."

"Aye," returned the other in his harsh, stammering voice, "they'll climb them. I've heard that there're other mountains beyond these before Mexico. They'll climb them too. They won't be stopped by the devil, if Hernan Cortes lives. Cowards? By God, I wouldn't give a louse for a man who isn't afraid. Fear's the spice that makes it interesting to go ahead."

"Philosopher!" bantered Pedro, rattling his knuckles against Sandoval's corslet. "Well, let's take our report to the General, though there's nothing to tell him."

They dropped down to the level of the column and headed toward the rear guard, which Cortes was overseeing at the moment. As they edged past the advancing file along the narrow trail, they rode among a shower of ha's and hola's because everybody knew everybody else in the company.

Pedro threw a kiss and a grin at Catana as he went by. She was holding Ochoa by the hand. He was one of Cortes's pages, a ten-year-old boy, whose young legs were already beginning to feel the strain of the climb. Gone were the relatively fine clothes of her arrival. Instead of the cap and feather, she now wore a battered steel cap, acquired from one of the older, less active foot soldiers who had remained at Villa Rica. A dirty tabard of Indian cotton armor hung to her knees and was drawn in at the waist by a belt supporting dagger and pouch on one side and a short, heavy sword on the other. She carried the usual foot soldier's buckler and cloak on her back. As it was the height of the rainy season, her broad-toed shoes, like everybody else's, were clogs of mud. Under the curving edges of the headpiece, her lean, sunburned features stood out sharply; but they softened and lightened at Pedro's greeting. She turned her head an instant to gaze after him.

Beyond the artillery and baggage, Cortes rode at the head of the pikemen and arquebusiers who formed the rear guard. He was in conversation with Olid, his second-in-command, and with Father Olmedo. At the General's stirrup walked Dona Marina, now his mistress and ever-ready interpreter, her handsome eyes fixed on him. A group of Totonac dignitaries, half-allies and half-hostages, wearing lofty aigret plumes and varicolored cotton garments, trooped along, remote as the stone age. Except for sign language, their one means of communication with the mysterious whites was Doiia Marina.

Cortes, was discussing the country, which began to spread out as the trail ascended. The tropical fragrance of the lowland rose like the perfume of an infinite garden.

"It lacks but the sugar cane and orange," he was saying. "We'll have them brought from the Canaries and Andalusia. Also draught animals." As usual his thought ranged statesmanlike far ahead of the present, creating, devising. "Then, with the maize, the maguey, cocoa, and other excellent new plants with which Our Lord has blessed this land, what wealth, sirs! On my honor, I often think the produce of the soil will outvalue the gold of Montezuma." He made a gesture with his arm. "Look you, is it not like Andalusia, only richer? And these mountains

in front recall the Sierra Morena and the Sierra de Granada, only they are higher. And I hear that beyond are mesas and barrancas Uke to those of the Castiles, only wider and deeper. We must call it New Spain, sefiores, the fairest name for the fairest country."

"Yes," nodded Olmedo, "Nueva Espana. And may it have all the good of the old with none of the ill!"

"Amen to that. Father! So it shall be, with the help of Nuestra Senora and Santiago" He broke off as Pedro and Sandoval reined up. "Well, de Vargas?"

"All clear, sir, to the distance of four leagues. We noted a good camping place, well-drained and with ample water, at about three and a half leagues."

"How easily defendable?" Cortes asked. It was characteristic that even in allied and friendly territory, he marched (as the phrase went) beard on shoulder.

"Sheltered from attack on three sides. Your Excellency."

"Doha Marina," Cortes smiled at his interpreter, "ask these caciques how far three and a half leagues from here would make it to the town they call Jalapa."

"About halfway from Cempoala, my lord," she answered in her faltering Spanish, after inquiring.

"Well then, Cristobal," Cortes directed Olid, "we'll pitch camp at the place de Vargas suggests. Give your orders. As for you, son Pedro, keep well in advance of the army. It is likely enough that the Indians this side of the sierra mean peace. But we'll not gamble on likelihoods."

With mock innocence, but loud enough to be heard by the men in front and behind, Ochoa piped to Catana when Pedro had disappeared, "Is Captain de Vargas your lover. Aunty?"

He was a precocious imp, a parentless waif, whose bright eyes and chubbiness had got him a place in Cortes's household. He handled the General's cup, carried his prayer book, and played a small role in the ceremony with which Cortes, who knew the value of display, liked to surround himself. Bullied by the half-dozen older pages and spoiled by the soldiers, he was in a fair way to perdition when Catana, who was fond of children, took him under her wing. She avenged him furiously on his persecutors, frowned the company into reticence when talk grew too broad for young ears, shielded him from such spectacles as the hangings and floggings that followed the Escudero mutiny, made him say his prayers, spanked or mothered him as the case demanded. On his side, Ochoa worshiped her; but, being a brat, he could not resist teasing.

"He is your amante, isn't he, Tia?"

Her cheeks flushed, and she pretended not to hear. Several of the men sniggered.

"Tut, tut, boy," grinned one of them, "what do you know of such matters? Why do you think he is?"

"I saw him kiss her," Ochoa announced, deHghted to be the center of attention. "I saw her on his knee."

"Is that all? Didn't you see anything else? Let's hear, nifio.''

The man, Alvaro Maldonado, nicknamed El Fieroj the Tough, was in the rank behind. Catana looked back.

"Nosing into my affairs, hocon?" she drawled.

There was a quality in the drawl that Maldonado did not miss and that no one missed. The grins vanished and eyes shifted in other directions. From the day of her arrival, every man in the army knew instinctively that Catana could take care of herself. The skill she displayed in knife-throwing at a target strengthened this conviction. Moreover, the respect that surrounded her did not lose in glamour by the report of Hernan Soler's killing, a deed which Manuel Perez was too proud of to conceal.

The tough one mumbled something about a joke between pals.

"That's all right, chico," she answered. "I'm camarada to any man in this company, but my personal concerns are nobody's shuttlecock. Do I make that plain? ... As for you," she blazed at Ochoa, "take yourself off. You're no boy of mine any more. Vete enhoramala!''

Shut into outer darkness, the little fellow trailed a pace or so behind, his face growing longer at each yard. In the end, he crept up and tugged at her sleeve.

"Aunty," he whispered, "Tia querida."

But she paid no attention except to brush away his hand. He fell back again, and after a minute his face crumpled suddenly. He burst into a thin wail, stumbling along, his fists in his eyes. Catana set her jaw and stared at the neck of Diego Ponce in the rank in front. El Fiero, who had a fellow feeling for Ochoa, gave him a nudge and a comforting wink, but the child flung away and at last disappeared.

During the next halt, Catana wandered off for a drink at a neighboring brook and was surprised upon getting up from her knees to find Ochoa at her side. He carried a stout switch in his hand and had just finished smoothing off the twigs with his knife.

''Tia querida," he said earnestly, "if you whip me, can't I be your boy again? Here's the strongest switch I could find—one that will hurt. Please—"

She stood a moment between tears and amusement.

"Please," he said anxiously, thrusting the switch on her and unbuckling his belt. "I'll be quiet as I can. You won't be mad with me afterwards, Aunty, will you?"

She caught him in her arms, and when he began to cry she kissed both his eyes.

''Muchacite!'' she smiled. "Little rogue! Tunantuelo!"

"I ought to be spanked, Tia querida. I'll never tell on you and Captain de Vargas again."

The trumpet sounded the march. They went back to the trail hand in hand.

XL

That evening on the mountain slope, within the radius of his company's campfire, Botello the Astrologer, who was said to know the future, sat deep in thought. Perhaps his mind was on nothing more remote than the evening meal which Catana and some other women were preparing, or perhaps he was absorbed by the cloudy outlines of things to come. In any case, the men, awe-struck by his rapt expression, left him alone.

He was a grave, dignified person, highly respected in the company not only for his arts but for his knowledge of Latin, and because he had been to Rome. He did quite a little business in horoscopes. Even Cortes, who had a strain of superstition mingled wdth his hard-headed qualities, now and then consulted him. Though technically an astrologer, Botello leaned somewhat toward necromancy. It was certain at least that he had a powerful talisman, an uncanny leather thing, half a span long and shaped like a man's genitals, which, according to rumor, the devil in person had given him. It contained flock wool—for what magic purposes no one kne\v.

As the steam of cooking rose, Botello's expression changed and his eyes brightened. It was an excellent smell, more savory than usual. Two caldrons, hanging on a crossarm between forked stakes, bubbled over the fire and were stirred by Isabel Rodrigo; while Catana had charge of turning the spits, which supported several game birds, since known as turkeys, and a haunch of venison.

At first, the Spaniards, scornful of heathen messes, had clung obstinately to their salt pork, cassava bread, oil, and fish. Now, educated by

hunger, they put up with Indian fare, though sighing for beef, pig and mutton, onions and cabbages. The country provided game; even dog and lizard were edible; and such vegetables as maize, squash, tomatoes, and peppers, with an assortment of outlandish fruits, did well enough, if the deliciousness of cheese, olive oil, garlic, and other products of home, was forgotten.

His mouth watering, the wizard got up at last and walked over to Catana.

"Aren't those birds done yet. Mistress? They seem broiled to a turn."

She smiled at him. "They are so. Master; and if you'll hand me your dish here quick before the others, I'll do my best for you. But you won't refuse me a small favor afterwards, eh?" She smiled again still more engagingly. "White meat. Gravy."

"What favor?"

"Oh, nothing much. I'll tell you later." She smacked her lips and prodded one of the birds with her dagger point. "Look you—a plump wing and breast. Also a crisp, juicy slice of the venison."

Botello melted. "I'll do anything I can for you, doncella" He produced a small trencher from his side pouch. "Be generous with the fowl, amiga mia, and don't hold back with the meat. I die of hunger."

Catana winked, "It's a bargain then?" And in justice to others, she called, ''Estd bien, Isabel. Sound off!"

Whereupon, Isabel beat the iron sides of a caldron with her iron ladle and roused a hornets' nest of men with trenchers who swarmed dowTi upon her and Catana. But already the promised wing and breast had dropped into Botello's dish, with a dripping slice of venison on top. Amid hoots of protest and shouts of "Oiga!" and "Diga!" the astrologer, like a lucky dog with a bone, carried off his prize to a quiet spot where he could enjoy it undisturbed.

Gradually the clamor and melee dwindled under the expert carving of Catana and ladling of Isabel. Silence closed in, while teeth and knives were busy. The fires grew brighter as darkness came on. A half hour later, Catana sank down by the side of Botello, finished the turkey leg she was eating, threw away the bone, and wiped her hands on the grass.

"Well, Master, did the meat taste good?"

He was in fine humor and belched contentedly.

"Excellent, Catana. I've had no better victuals in this country'— though, of course, fowl should be cooked in oil with sprigs of garlic."

"Of course," she assented.

"And top it off with a goblet of cool white wine. Eh, muchacha? I wonder if I'll ever drink malaga again." v

She was surprised. "Don't you know whether you will or not, sefior?"

"Yes," he replied, becoming professional. "Of course I know. When I said 'I wonder,' it was a fashion of speech. And now, Ivlistress, taz a taz; one good turn deserves the next. What did you want of me? Your fortune in the stars?"

She shook her head. "No. That wouldn't help. If it's a good fortune, I want to be surprised; if it's bad, I'd rather not hear about it."

"Sensible," he approved. "I can tell you that Hernan Cortes himself shares your opinion. He has forbidden the casting of horoscopes until we are established in Mexico. A wise decision," Botello added gravely, "for the stars are troubled and give but two-edged answers. I would have stretched a point to please you, Catana, but I am glad to obey the General's orders. . . . Well then, what is it, if not a horoscope?"

She was silent a moment, looking down and plucking nervously at the grass blades next to her.

"I'm in love," she said finally in a low voice.

"Is it possible!" exclaimed Botello, smothering a smile in his beard, for Catana's relations wdth Pedro were well-known in the army.

She clenched her hand against her breast. "Ah, Master, so much in love! I want the love of a certain gentleman. I want it more than anything in the world. Good fortune or bad, if he loves me, nothing else

matters."

The astrologer struggled with amusement, but his trade had taught him to keep a straight face.

"Deal plainly with me. Mistress," he said in his hollow, professional voice. "Does not Pedro de Vargas love you?"

"I don't know," she faltered. "He likes me—yes. I please him at times. But does he love me. Master; will he ever love me one tithe of my love for him? He thinks of battle, gold, fame— por supuesto, being a cavalier. I wouldn't have him different. He dreams of a fine lady in Spain. Let him dream of her. I don't ask—"

Her voice caught. Sentimentally Botello laid his broad hand on hers. "Que deseas? It is life, my dear. Captain de Vargas is of noble blood. You cannot expect too much."

"I expect nothing," she burst out. "I only long for him. That isn't forbidden, is it?"

"You're his querida, aren't you?"

"I pass for it in the army. He calls me so. But not yet—not once—" She broke off, confused, and stared down.

"Hm-m/' pondered the other, admiring her graceful figure and keen face in the half-light from the fire. "That's odd. But why do you come to me?"

She looked up eagerly. "Because I'm ignorant. You're learned and wise and have secret powers. If you could give me a charm, Master, something that would win him, that would make him care—"

With an eye to the proper effect, Botello drew himself up. ''Canastos! Do you come to Master Limpias Botello, the pupil of the great Novara himself, as if I were a witch-bawd, selling philters! Que impudencia! Have you no respect!"

Then, seeing her duly abashed, he allowed his ruffled feathers to settle and added kindly, "But, vaya, I've been young myself. You're a good wench and mean no harm. Besides, I admit that the meat was plentiful and well-cooked. It is true that I know charms so powerful that they would draw Prester John himself to your bed. But these are trifles compared with the works of true magic. I make no account of them."

Catana refused to be put off. "Just one, Maestro mio/' she pleaded humbly. "One little charm."

He appeared to hesitate. "Well, then, in your ear, for these are secret matters."

Catana drew close.

". . . change of the moon," he whispered. ". . . put some in his meat or drink. It is infallible."

The age believed in strange nostrums, and Catana, who had been brought up to the facts of life, listened as if to a medical prescription. But for all that she turned hot.

"Yes, I've heard of it," she nodded. "A girl in Jaen told me about it after she married her lover. But, seiior, I could not do that, not for anything. He is too high-born a gentleman. It would put a taint upon him. It would shame him. He would never forgive me."

"He would never know, muchacha."

She straightened herself. "Senor, I shall never do anything that I would be ashamed to have him know. ... Is there nothing else?"

The magician, as if in deep thought, combed his beard. Half-honest, half-rogue, he believed in his arts, but knew that in this case no art was necessary. Therefore, why not make the most of a sure thing?

"Well," he admitted, "to tell the truth I have one charm unequaled in the world. Woman, it is mighty enough to win you the person of any man alive." Botello sucked in his breath. "It is a locket ring from Rome

given me by Seiior Incubo himself. But it is worth a fortune. I could not part with it."

Poor Catana sat hopelessly coveting this marvel, her eyes hungry.

"I have saved it these many years to sell to a queen," he went on. "It is singular of its kind. Ten thousand spells, I repeat ten thousand separate spells, each one potent enough to exact the obedience of ten demons, went into the making of it. I hope that the consort of the Great Montezuma will buy it of me for a ton of gold. It is worth no less."

"Could you not lend it to me, Master," ventured Catana—"only for a day?"

"No, I cannot part with it. But because of the good victuals and your kindness—" Botello hesitated. "Yes, by God, I will show it to you, though I keep it secret."

Fishing in his wallet, he brought out a small sack of cheap jewelry used in trade with the Indians, and fishing again in this he produced a ring.

It was a big gilt ring with a flashy glass ruby covering the top of it, and so contrived that the setting opened as a locket. But the reverent manner in which Botello handled it between thumb and forefinger, the way he tilted it to gleam in the firelight, robbed Catana of all judgment. She eyed the treasure with a famished longing.

"See," remarked the diabolic Botello, touching the ruby, "this is known as the Rose of Delight. I slip it on your thumb. Wait—in a moment you will feel the heat of it, such is the power it holds."

And such is the power of suggestion that Catana actually felt her thumb grow warm. She turned it here and there, unable to take her eyes from it.

"Wonderful," she murmured.

"Isn't it! A miracle. That's what I call magic!" said Botello. "To complete the effect and turn its energy upon the desired person, the locket must contain some element of his body, such as hair or nail parings, but he must not know of this."

Catana drew a tiny embroidered pouch of linen from beneath her doublet. It was hung around her neck with a cord.

"When I cut Sefior de Vargas's hair," she explained, "he didn't know that I saved a little to put next my breast. I said three Pater Nosters over it and three Aves, but the charm did not work."

Catana removed several strands of hair from the pouch and coiled them inside the open locket of the ring. "Just to try," she explained with deep guile. "You know, my thumb's warmer than ever."

Equally guileful, Botello nodded. "Of course. What do you expect?

. . . Well, take out the hair and give me back the ring, moza. I'll let you see it again sometime."

"No." She drew away, clenching her hand. "Seiior, let me keep it tonight. Do me that grace, caro Maestro. If you will, I'll mend and wash for you; I'll save the choicest bits in the pot. You know I have no gold, but do that much for me, and I'll be grateful to the end of my life."

A fine actor, Botello looked astounded, then touched, then wavering.

"By God, Mistress, you're a very robber. The ring is priceless. Washing and mending, say you! Pot scrapings, in return for the loan of a treasure! Well, go to, have it your way. Curse the fool I am! A kind heart will always be my undoing. Keep the ring for tonight but guard it preciously. If you lost it, the seven curses of Incubo would shrivel you up like an onion. Go to, you're a minx!"

She caught his hand to her lips. "Thank you, noble Master! Thank you from my whole heart! I'll guard the ring every moment . . ."

Absorbed in it, she got up and stood with her hand extended, then wandered ofT, still admiring the beautiful talisman.

Botello relieved himself with a chuckle. For the loan of a cheap ring, he would journey to Mexico in much greater comfort. The best of it was that for once he had no misgivings as to the outcome of his sorcery.

XL/

The first day's march had not been hard, and the rain fortunately held off, so that the men lingered awhile about the campfire before sleep. A good supper, the lighter air of the upland, the beginning fragrance of mountain pine instead of the cloying jungle perfume, had put the company into a happy, relaxed mood. It was one of those evenings remembered by old soldiers when the toil and anguish of war have been forgotten.

Perhaps a dozen fires were scattered among the trees, their light intercepted by random figures. Now and then snatches of song rose above the hum of voices. In Catana's platoon, one of the men had packed a fiddle on the march and now sat scraping a tune out of the strings. When she reappeared from her talk with Botello, a shout went up for a dance.

"Hey, Catana, give us a zarahanda. There's a bully girl! A right Castilian dance for the honor of Jaen! Shake your hips!"

"To hell with you," she protested, still absorbed by the magic ring. "After slogging all day and cooking supper for you lazy cantoneros to boot, do you think I'm going to kick up my heels to amuse you? By God, have another think, vagabonds."

"Oh, come, hermanitaf' urged Manuel Perez, who was proud of his sister's proficiency and liked to show her off. "You're not so jaded as that. Give the boys some fun. You used to work all day at the Rosario and dance all night. Are you getting old? Here's Magallanes the Portuguese, who swears we have no dancers in Spain to match the Lisbon bailarinas. You'll not swallow that, I hope."

"Sure she won't," someone agreed. "Viva la Cat ana!"

"Please, Tia mia!" yelled the boy Ochoa, eager for the glory of his patroness.

"You ought to be asleep, naughty," she answered. "Wait till I catch you!" But yielding to the general demand, she shrugged her shoulders. "All right then, if you've got to have it. Pest take you! You can't expect much from a dance in hose and breeches."

She had laid off her coat of padded armor which covered the suit she had worn on landing, now patched and stained. Her reference to breeches drew a fire of good-natured ribaldry, to which she replied in kind.

"But who's dancing against me?" she demanded. "It takes two for the zarahanda. Do I have to invite my own partner, gallants? I like that!"

Clowning as usual, Mad Cervantes pushed forward, cut an exaggerated bow, and kissed his fingers. "A su servicio, hermosa senorita!"

An arm swept him aside before she could answer.

"You're dancing with me, Catana. Que diablos! Do you wonder about partners when I'm on hand?"

Pedro de Vargas had come up in the half-light of the fire without her seeing him. For an instant, she could only stare openmouthed. The ring! Having momentarily forgotten, she now recalled it. The proof of its magic stood smiling in front of her, as if Pedro had dropped from the clouds. On any other evening, she would have thought nothing of this, because they often met after supper; but tonight—

"What's wrong?" he asked. "I'm not a ghost."

She forced a smile. "You startled me, senor. I hadn't seen you. Dance? Hombres, you'll see how we dance a zarabanda in the Sierra of Jaen. . . . Remember the steps, senor?"

Pedro nodded. "I think so. Three times forward, three times back, eh? Leap and circle to begin with. It'll come to me."

Catana called to the fiddler. "JuanitOj give us a tune."

The onlookers made space, some men sitting down, others standing. The firelight played on bearded faces, steel caps, and tattered clothes. Catana saw that Botello had joined the group. He smiled triumphantly at her, as if saying, "What did I tell you?" And she nodded solemnly. Juanito, the fiddler, sawed out an air, in correct time but wheezy melody.

The saraband of the period had little or nothing in common with the later slow and stately court dance of that name. It was a folk dance wild, violent, and none too proper. Bystanders clapped the beat with their hands or shouted a cadenced aha as the tempo quickened. Of course the theme of the dance was male pursuit and female flight, the latter being far from coy and never successful.

As Pedro advanced, broad of shoulder, light of foot, his eyes wide and intent on her, she swayed back, coquettish in retreat, then minced forward as he retired. Back, forward; then circling each other in the center, face to face. She pirouetted out of his arms. Again. Again. Aha! He swung her clear of the ground; she landed nimble as a cat, in perfect time. Aha! Aha! The dance burst into flame.

Flying sparks of thought crossed her mind. She recalled herself dancing at the Rosario, the ring of drab faces. A night's work. Lord in heaven! Compared with that, how wonderful this was! Here in this strange, wild land, one of the army, dancing before comrades, dancing with Pedro de Vargas! Life at the peak!

A dance may be swift or slow; but vibration, not movement, is the soul of it: vibration, an electric tension. Now at last she could feel his desire for her, no longer casual or partial, but concentrated and demanding. She could feel it in the gentleness of his arms even though they swung her high, in the burning of his hands on her hips, in the appeal of his eyes. She knew that she had never danced so well, with such abandon. The rhythmic clapping and shouts of the onlookers, the mad sawing of the fiddler, were an intoxicating accompaniment.

The dance grew wilder from stage to stage. "Bravo, Catana! Well done, de Vargas!"

Then suddenly, as it reached its crescendo, a numbing thought struck her. Mechanically she kept the beat, but her veins ran ice. Her pride turned to ashes.

The ring! It was not she who drew him to her; it was not her love. If she had been Isabel Rodrigo, the effect would have been the same. Pedro de Vargas was not free to choose; she had made him a puppet of the hundred thousand demons attached to the ring. They had

brought him here, infused him with blind desire, robbed him of his will. And that was her act—to unman and cheapen him! What she had done seemed to her all at once a blasphemy.

The dance whirled to an end; she sank back in surrender across his outstretched arm. But even as he kissed her, she prayed, "Blessed Virgin forgive me!" and her lips were numb.

"Are you tired, que rid a mia?''

"No."

A congratulating mob surrounded them with much back-slapping. Suddenly Botello felt something thrust into his hand.

"What's this, muchacha?"

"The ring," she whispered. "Take it back."

"But you can have it until tomorrow."

"I never want to see it again!" she breathed. "I hate it. . . . But don't worry, I'll keep my share of the bargain."

She turned away, leaving him baffled by the riddle—deeper than his science—of the female mind.

At once she knew that the charm was broken. The recent passionate current between her and Pedro had stopped. It did not surprise her that almost at once Luis Avila, one of Cortes's pages, summoned him to a conference of the captains; and he left her wdth his usual warm smile but nothing more. It had been the magic, not she, that had fired him. He did not really care . . .

Forlornly she took Ochoa's hand. "Time for you to go to bed, nirio.''

"I don't want to go to bed."

"Yes, you do. We'll put each other to bed. I'll tell you a story."

Ochoa hesitated. "About brujas —witches?"

"No," she snapped, "not about witches. I'll tell you about the little Jesus."

"Aunty, I'd rather hear about the Witch of Jaen."

"Shut up or I won't tell you anything. . . . Good night, all."

She hid her heartache at the fiasco of the evening, accepted the renewed compliments of the platoon, which was breaking up for the night, and walked off with Ochoa to the improvised lean-to of branches that served as a shelter. Crawling under it, they took off their shoes in token of undressing, and were ready to stretch out on their cloaks.

"Your prayers, little one," she reminded. "We'll say them together. Your aunty has great need to pray Nuestra Sehora for strength and forgiveness. I confess myself to you, chico. I'm a vile woman."

''Vive Dios!" hotly protested Ochoa in the idiom of the camp. "I'd plant my knife in any bastard that said so—"

"Hush! You mustn't talk that way."

"And if I'm not big enough," Ochoa went on, "there's plenty of others who are: Manuel, Captain de Vargas, the whole platoon." He threw his arms around her. "You aren't vile: you're good. Why are you sad, Tia mia, when you danced so elegantly?"

"Be still. We must pray." They kneeled, facing each other, wath bowed heads. She covered his clasped hands with hers.

They were not the only ones praying at that moment. Few in the camp were so abandoned that they did not commit their souls to God before sleeping, as men under the shadow of death. Hard Manuel Perez in his hut close by, Maldonado the Tough, Cervantes the Jester, Bull Garcia, became children again with folded hands.

"Pater noster," Catana and the little boy murmured, "Qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum . . /' And when they came to the end, "Ave, Maria, gratia plena. . . . Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death."

They crossed themselves and remained a moment with bowed heads. She would confess to Father Olmedo as soon as possible. She would scourge herself with knotted cords to pay for the wickedness of that love charm. Meanwhile, she felt a dawning peace.

They crossed themselves again, and she kissed Ochoa.

"I want a story," he insisted. "Please, a fairy tale."

"All right, then, I'll tell you about the Sprig of Rosemary."

He approved. "That's a nice story." But his eyes drooped.

"En otro tiempo/' she began, keeping her voice as monotonous as possible. By the time she got to the handsome cahallero, Ochoa was fast asleep.

With a smile, she drew his cloak around him, for the upland air had a chill in it, and then lay down at his side. The camp had grown quiet, except for random snores from various huts and the more remote tread of a sentinel.

She stared at the vague lightness that marked the opening of the shelter. Yes, she had done well in returning the ring to Botello. But why didn't Pedro care for her? What was wrong, when he had told her that first day that she would belong to him—yes, in front of the General himself? Was she less pleasing than a year ago? Or was he bound by a vow?

The moral scruples of a later age did not cross her mind. If they loved each other, if they could not marry, their union seemed natural to both conscience and society; even the Church looked the other way.

But he might be fulfilling a vow or a penance. Perhaps she could find out—

No! Dios! All at once she realized what the trouble was. Her man's clothes! The fact that she marched in the ranks. Who could love a marimacho? When he had known her in Jaen, she was suitably dressed and feminine. That must be the reason.

Yes, a tomboy, who could take care of herself too well, who could swear and ruffle it with Maldonado himself. Repulsive to a fine gentleman like Pedro de Vargas. How could he help comparing her with Dona Luisa de Carvajal, the fashionable and exquisite? Catana wilted. Tentatively she slipped her hands to her waist, gauging its size. No stays ever made could compress her muscles to Luisa's willowy perfection. If that was it . . .

Her eyes closed.

She found herself beautifully dressed in yellow damask walking on Pedro's arm between two lines of glittering people. The fact that every now and then they paused to do a few steps of the saraband seemed quite natural. She carried her head high, felt the weight of her hair, which had grown long again. She was magnificent, admired. She floated rather than walked. Pedro admired her; she read it in his eyes. Then suddenly the dream broke into fragments—pointing fingers, jeering faces. Looking down, she saw beneath her brocaded bodice that the skirt was gone. She was wearing her frayed black hose and muddy shoes. "Catana!" they hissed. "Marimacho!''

"Catana."

She was awake with a hand on her knife. Someone had touched her. A vague, dark form blacked the entrance of the lean-to.

"Catana."

She would have known that whisper among a thousand, and at once her heart began racing with an excitement that was almost fear.

"Yes, seiior."

"Come. Bring your cloak."

Moving quietly to keep from waking Ochoa, she crept out. To her still confused mind, it seemed part of the dream; but the arms around her felt real, and his lips were warm.

"You were sleeping hard," he whispered. "Forgive me."

She stood quivering, or perhaps his arms trembled a little.

"I've made a hut for us on the edge of the camp, where we'll be alone. I have to be off before dawn, but we have a few hours. Come, I'll show you where it is. Muchacha mia!" he added still more softly.

As they went, his arm was around her waist, drawing her close. She leaned her head sidewards on his shoulder.

"And I used no magic," she thought. "And he cares for me. And he loves me. Dear God! He loves me."

He was saying, "It was hard to wait. The nights have been a fever of wanting you. But not there—I knew you understood—not down there in that crowded fort, in the heat and swelter. I kept thinking of the mountains, of you and me alone—the cool night. By God, it's been worth the waiting, querida mia!"

He stopped to kiss her, bending back her head. And loosening her doublet, he kissed her throat.

"For our first time, it had to be in the mountains. Is it not heaven, the smell of the pines, Catana? Doesn't it recall our own sierra? It's been worth waiting for. But after tonight, always, always—"

And she had been imagining foolish things, when for her sake, for the sake of their first night, he had bridled himself, and had withheld, as if she had been high-born, to be treated with the reverence of a cavalier for a hidalga. She flushed when she thought of the magic ring.

"I wondered," she said, "whether these clothes—Senor, if it would please you that I made myself a dress—"

"Why do you call me senor?" he protested. "Am I not your homhre? Are we not comrades in this venture? Why don't you call me by my name? Senor!"

She faltered, "I've always thought of you that way. Since you used CO come out to the Rosario. It was a brave day for me, I can tell you, when you rode up on Campeador. I can't help thinking of you as lord. But if you want, I'll try to call you"—she hesitated— ''Pedro, senor."

He stopped again to kiss her. "Queridaj whatever you call me will sound sweet."

"I was asking about my dress."

"Your dress?" he repeated, smoothing back the square-cut bang from her forehead. "What dress?"

"Whether you would rather have me in shift and gown than in hose and doublet."

"Why should I?"

"Because I'm so rough—You're not listening."

"Yes, I am." He slipped his arm around her again, and they walked on. "Yes, what was it you said?"

"That I wished for some pretty clothes to please you in—a clean gown—not these slubbered tights. I would not have you too ashamed of me before the captains."

"Ashamed!" His arm tightened. "Show me a cavalier in the army who doesn't envy me. When the gallantest high-mettled wench in the two Castiles takes me for lover, when my blood sings with pride of you, sweeting, to talk about shame? Before anyone! Por Dios, you ought to be whipped! Skirts and shifts on the march? Let me catch you in them! Why not face cream and perfume? You're no doll and I'm no smell-smock. You're dressed to a soldier's taste. I love you as you are." He pointed his earnestness by drawing her closer. "Which doesn't mean that I won't gown you in silks and damask when the time comes, muchacha mia/'

So she had been wrong again. Her mannish costume, frayed and patched, the labor and stains of the camp, made her, it seemed, even more desirable to him. He loved her for her very self. She walked beside him dizzy with happiness, proud of his masterfulness.

It had come at last, the long hoped for, the often despaired of. It had come, like a lightning flash, when she least expected it. She ached with joy and a delicious apprehension.

They followed a ledge of the hill at some distance from the main camp toward a spot where the land fell abruptly in a kind of miniature precipice. Beneath them, far and wide, the tropical lowlands spread out in the diffused moonlight, exhaling on a faint breeze the spice of their endless fruits and flowers. To the south, like a giant phantom, rose the snow-covered mass of Orizaba, and to the north the heights of the Cofre de Perote.

"Here," said Pedro, showing a hut of pine branches which had been lopped from an overhanging tree near the edge of the precipice. They were supported by a head-high ridgepole, and the entrance between them overlooked the pale distance. "Does it please you, amada?"

"Please me!" she echoed. "What a beautiful place, senor! It is like a fairy tale." She tilted her head back, filling her lungs with the sweet air. "What a country! I love it more than Spain."

"Hardly that!" he smiled.

"Yes, really. It seems as if it belonged to us more, to you and me. I can't find the words—"

He led her through the opening of the lean-to. "I made a deep bed, Catana." He pointed to the mattress of pine twigs. "It smells sweeter than lavender. We'll lay our cloaks over it this way."

He pressed her to him, and she could feel, without seeing it, the flame in his eyes.

"Please," she murmured—"if you'll go out a moment, I'll call you—"

In the moon dusk of the shelter, her face, transformed by the me-

ment, looked like a much younger girl's. The protective hardness which eighteen years had given her seemed dissolved. Her lips were half-parted, and the shadows around her eyes were deep and soft.

"You're beautiful, Catana," he said. "I didn't know you were so beautiful."

Raising her hand to his lips, he lingered a moment absorbed in her; then, leaving the hut, he stood to one side where she could barely see him outlined against the sky on the edge of the ravdne.

She undressed and, stretching out upon the cloaks, drew a part of them over her.

"Yes," she called.

Her heart echoed his ans\vering footsteps.

When at last he slept, with her head still in the circle of his bare arm, she lay wrapt in a content so perfect that she feared to disturb it by the least movement. She could not waste any of the wonder of tonight in sleep, the new, ineffable happiness of lying in his arms, the feel of his body against hers, the sense of her life lost in his. A content too deep to be troubled even by desire. In the full tide of youth and passion, they had given them.selves to each other fully, until desire itself had become a serene languor. If he wakened and once more possessed her, she would be content; if not, it was equal happiness to be quiet, feeling the pulse of his arm against her cheek.

Outside, paler than the moonlight, she could see the snow-clad shoulder of the great volcano sloping beyond the doorway of the hut. Now and then a stirring of the night breeze entered like a soft caress.

If it could only last, she thought, if morning didn't have to come! The sense of passing time, which gives happiness its sharpest poignancy, alone haunted her—time who takes back all his gifts. She was enough versed in life to know that nothing lasts, that nothing is ever repeated. Morning would come, then other mornings, drifting her farther away from the pine-branch hut and from these hours.

The moonlight faded into darkness. Stars appeared, but they were late stars that gave a hint of dawn. It seemed to her that time quickened like a down-flowing stream. She must waken him at the first light, as he had to ride ahead of the army, and she stared fearfully toward the east; but the star-lit sky was still unbroken.

Then suddenly a couple of bird notes sounded in the woods, and after a time others answered. She closed her ears to them. They grew louder, more insistent. A streak of gray showed along the horizon. Finally, a horse neighed.

In her fear that he should come to blame because of her, she lifted her head at last and kissed him. He awoke slowly, felt her in his arms and drew her closer.

"It is time, seiior/' she whispered.

"Surely not."

"Yes."

"Well then, I'll steal a half hour," he answered. "I'm hungry for you, Catana—mad for you! I can never have enough."

"Nor I—But, seiior, you should go—"

"Bella adorada mia!"

She yielded, felt once more the wave that canceled time sweep over them.

Then, still languid from his embrace, she saw him in the dimness of the hut, drawing on his clothes, buckling his sword.

"Until tonight," he said. "I shall think only of you; I shall feel your kiss on my lips. Until tonight!"

He disappeared into the faint gray outside. Some minutes later, she heard the distant sound of hoofbeats.

Then near and far the trumpets of reveille put an end to dreams.

XL/I

Don Francisco de Vargas had never been submerged nor, indeed, too much impressed by the grandeur of his wife's Italian relatives. Even when, a fugitive and exile from Spain, he reached Florence with Dona Maria, to be warmly received at the magnificent Strozzi Palace in the Via Tomabuoni, he accepted the welcome as an honored guest and not as a poor relation. The Strozzis themselves had been exiles some years before and knew the ups and downs of fortune. They knew also that a renowned soldier, the friend of the Great Captain's, and a kinsman of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, was inferior to no one. Indeed, it was a matter not only of charity but of pride to shelter so illustrious a refugee.

After kissing Clarice de' Medici, the wife of Filippo Strozzi, and after embracing Filippo himself, Don Francisco and Doiia Maria received the condolences of their hosts with simple dignity.

"Aye, Cousins," said the old cavalier, "it was a base affront upon your name and mine. You must help me avenge it. The death of our daughter—" But it was unfitting that this supreme grief should be

exposed to the liveried torch-bearers in the courtyard. "No more of that tonight/' he added in his rusty Italian. And tweaking the ear of a small boy who clung to Madonna Strozzi's skirts, "Who's this for a brave young colt? Piero, eh? The name of our own son. Let's have a look at you, figliuolo. Lord bless me! A fine lad! Big bones and keen eyes! Here's one who will do you honor. Cousins." A prediction borne out by the later fame of Piero Strozzi.

Don Francisco tossed a handful of small coins—the last in his purse —to the flunkeys in the courtyard and, offering an arm to his hostess, limped up the steps into the palace.

There, installed in a suite of high-ceilinged, frescoed rooms, he and Dofia Maria spent most of the year that followed the flight from Spain. Through the deep-set windows, they could look out on the Duomo, which dominated Florence even more then than now; and in the other direction they could see a part of the church of Santa Trinita, where Dofia Maria's Strozzi ancestors lay buried. On pleasant days, they could stroll between palaces down to the Arno or ride for a change to the beautiful Strozzi villa, Le Selve, near Signa. At Cousin Filippo's princely table gathered the beauties and wits, the financiers, scholars, and soldiers of Tuscany. After the jog-trot life of a Spanish provincial town, like Jaen, the return to Florence was more than a little bewildering until, in Don Francisco's phrase, one got back the hang of it.

But yet, overshadowing the Strozzi hospitality, Florentine magnificence, and even the suit for redress which was being pushed in Rome and in Spain, anxiety about Pedro haunted the elder de Vargases day and night.

During August, they waited confidently for his arrival and of an evening liked to make plans for his career. Should he continue on to France and to the place awaiting him in Bayard's household? Should he be trained in the brilliant court that surrounded Lorenzo de' Medici and his young French bride? Don Francisco argued for the former, Doila Maria for the latter. She had her eye on a daughter of the Valori family, with a good dowry and good looks, who was just the match for Pedro if the proper finesse and influence were used to catch her. With this in view, she cunningly urged that if Pedro was to become a soldier he could do no better than attach himself to Giovanni de' Medici of the Black Bands, a young man who was already the foremost captain in Italy.

But August passed, and after it September. The expected arrival did not come. Plan-making languished or sounded forced. In October the unspoken questions could no longer be kept back. Had Pedro fallen in

the mountains of Jaen? Had he perished in some other way? Had he been recaptured by the Inquisition?

At night, in their square, canopied bed, Don Francisco would gently say, "Take heart, wife. No weeping. Now, now! All will be well." But often a tear would steal down his own lean face.

Once when he tried to distract her by talking of their petition to the Pope, she burst out, "Why should we care, who have lost our children? I'd rather die and be with them. What does vindication matter to us now?" And he could find nothing to reply.

It was noticed at this time that, when he considered himself alone, Don Francisco stooped and he leaned hard on his cane, though he was quick to draw himself up, underlip out and chin defiant, if he found that he was watched.

Four months had passed since the escape from Jaen. Late autumn, cold and damp in the poorly heated, cavernous rooms of the palace, shut in, and with it despair. Excusing themselves to the com.pany below, conscious of the pity which confirmed their own fears, Sefior de Vargas and his v;ife retired early these days, and would sit for a while on either side of an ineffective olive-wood fire keeping vigil over memories.

On one of these evenings, casually (as such things happen), a servant knocked at the door, entered, and bowed.

"A letter for Your Excellency. His lordship has paid the messenger."

Used to letters regarding his suit in Rome, Don Francisco received this one without much interest and, when the servant had gone out, laid it on the table. "I'll read it in the morning," he said. "Candlelight strains my eyes." But noticing the weathered look of the paper and the half-washed-out handwriting, he brought it a moment closer to the flame.

"What is it, sir?" asked Dona Maria, struck by the sudden intentness of his face.

Without waiting to break the wax that held the edges of the paper together, Don Francisco ripped them apart and spread out the letter with trembling hands.

"What is it, sir? Can't you answer? Have you lost your tongue? What's wrong?"

"From Pedro," he said in a half-voice. "From our son."

She was out of her chair and at his side in one movement, as if her plump little person had taken wings. She snatched at the letter.

"Nay, wife, nay—we'll read it together. Nay—"

Heads close, they followed the labored, schoolboy writing, their lips forming the words as they read.

"Honored Sefior, my Father—Honored Sehora, my Mother—"

It was the letter which Pedro had written at Sanlucar and had entrusted to the master of the Genoese ship. Delayed by storm, forgotten in inns, sold by one carrier to another in speculation on the reward which the Strozzi address guaranteed, it had at last found its way from Andalusia to Tuscany.

When she had finished reading, Dofia Maria dropped to her knees and lifted her clasped hands. "I thank Thee, O God! Sweet Lord, I thank Thee! Blessed Madonna, I thank Thee!"

Don Francisco reread the letter. To hide his emotion, he uttered a loud "Humph!"—but could not conceal the ring in his voice. "So that's it! The cursed Islands after all! And with that ne'er-do-well son of Martin Cortes too! A profitable venture they'll have of it no doubt! If I could get my hands on the young rascal, I'd paint his back."

Maria de Vargas broke off her thanksgiving. "Out upon you!" she scolded. "Shame on you for an unnatural father! When we thought him dead! When he's alive and on honorable service—that is, if he is still alive! Nero, Sefior husband, was a lamb compared to you. Attila—"

"Aye," the other interrupted, in such high spirits that he could not keep from teasing her, "I knew we would come to that. If you had not so bullied and be-Neroed me when I was laboring upon Pedrito's education he would have learned obedience; he would be with us now instead of gallivanting with scapegraces beyond the Ocean Sea. Where is Bianca Valori now, not to speak of our other plans?"

"It doesn't matter." Doila Maria resumed her pious ejaculations. "Saint Christopher, patron of wayfarers—"

"I'm so downhearted," continued the old gentleman, his lips twitching, "that I've a great mind to give over our suit to His Holiness."

Dona Maria's virtues did not include a sense of humor. She rounded on him again. "Are you mad, sir? Now more than ever we must press it, so that our son may return home in honor." But noting the gap-toothed smile which her husband could no longer restrain, she said reproachfully, "You're a rogue, my lord."

He burst out laughing. "Yes, wife, to be honest, the news makes me young again. I thank God for it humbly with all my heart."

And next day his restored bearing proclaimed good news even before he boasted that his son, Pedro, had joined a renowned captain, one Hernan Cortes, in a venture of conquest overseas, from which he could expect to return with great honor and profit.

The suit for rehabilitation against the charges made by the Inquisitorial Court of Jaen proved long rather than difficult, and long only because of the distance involved between various points in Spain and

Italy. Clarice Strozzi's uncle was none other than Pope Leo himself; another kinsman was the Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, the man of action behind the pontifical throne; Cardinal Strozzi and Maria de Vargas were cousins. As for Don Francisco, he was distantly related to the Duke of Medina Sidonia, and the charges against him reflected on the purity of that grandee's descent. It was manifestly absurd that the kindred of such Christian princes and potentates should be accused of heresy. Apart from ties of blood, which were stronger then than now, these charges became a personal affront to pope, cardinal, and duke, so that they had a selfish interest in quashing them at once.

In addition, a political event of the first importance incidentally favored Francisco de Vargas's cause. During the first six months of 1519, the rivalry between Charles of Spain and Francis of France for the then vacant elective office of Holy Roman Emperor absorbed the statesmen of western Europe. In this election, the Pope had an important voice, and a letter from His Holiness complaining of sundry wrongs and injustices done to his well-beloved son, Francisco de Vargas, a subject and pensioner of the Catholic King, would receive more immediate attention at the Spanish court than might otherwise have happened.

Thus, the Suprema of the Inquisition at Madrid, powerful as it was, found itself under far more pressure than such a trifling affair was worth. If the de Vargases, cut off from help, had perished in the prison or auto-da-fe at Jaen, there would have been no trouble. But since they had been allowed to escape and to bring into play such capital artillery as the Head of the Christian Church and the King of Spain, not to mention cardinals and grandees, the Suprema, inflexible as a rule in supporting the authority of its provincial tribunals, was prepared for once to admit a mistake. The holy Ignacio de Lora had been guilty of no injustice, but he had apparently been deceived. Though the de Vargases themselves were not without blame in violently resisting the representatives of the Inquisition, which would have established their innocence in due time, the Suprema graciously consented to overlook this fault, to nullify the charges, and to restore all property which had been confiscated. It did more. Glad of a scapegoat, it expressed official censure of de Silva's "ill-considered and intemperate zeal." And the censure of the Holy OflBce cast a shadow which a man's friends were apt to avoid.

But exoneration was not enough: the case demanded vengeance and damages. For this, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, Don Juan Alonso de Guzman, whose pride of blood was involved, made himself responsible.

Since unhappily de Silva had by now sailed for the Islands to rejoin de Lora, personal satisfaction must wait; but a suit at law was brought against him, and the small remnant of his property which he had not invested in his overseas speculation was sequestered. It was well for de Silva's peace of mind that, while adventuring in the New World, he did not know of the disaster which had befallen him at home.

All this activity took well over a year, so that Pedro and Cortes's mad army had scaled the mountains and were engaged in the desperate battles of Tlascala before Don Francisco, restored in honor and fortune, made ready his return to Jaen. He met success as he had met misfortune, too proud to wear emotion on his sleeve. To his simplicity, the outcome of his suit was owing to its justice, exactly as the election of Charles V to the Empire illustrated the triumph of right over wrong. Of course the Pope would sorrow over crimes committed in the holy name of the Church. Of course Don Juan Alonso would leap to the defense of a kinsman. Of course His Caesarean Majesty, the seal of whose letter Don Francisco kissed before opening it, remembered his services to Spain and was graciously pleased to extend protection. The selfish motives—family pride and political expediency—which helped Senor de Vargas more than the justice of his cause, did not occur to him. He pictured the world in the whites and blacks of his own forthright mind.

The pleasant year of exile passed. Don Francisco gave the benefit of his military advice to the Signoria of Florence, and he held an honored place among the grave and reverend elders of the city. He lamented the death of the Chief of State, Lorenzo de' Medici, and marched in his funeral procession. He rejoiced at the election of the Emperor. But since peace hung on, and no war arose to distract him, his heart was in Spain, and he planned to sail from Leghorn in September, when a final event gave a memorable close to the sojourn in Italy.

The Strozzi family, together with Dofia Maria, were spending the hot days of late summer at Le Selve near the Mount Alban hills; but Don Francisco remained behind in the city. He had numerous letters of thanks connected with the suit to finish before sailing, and he also enjoyed the company of other elderly gentlemen remaining in Florence, rather than the restless come-and-go of young people at the villa.

One morning in Filippo Strozzi's cabinet, he was dictating to his amanuensis when a page boy knocked at the door and, in reply to an impatient ''Adelante!" came in. The boy looked excited.

"A gentleman to see Your Excellency," he stammered.

"What's his name?"

"He forbade me to tell his name, Your Excellency."

"Ha, did he so?" Don Francisco's eyes kindled; his lower lip crept out. "Well then, tell him from me that I am at this moment engaged and have no time for nameless callers."

"He's a high and mighty lord," the servant faltered.

"All the more reason for him not to be ashamed of his name and to show good manners. Does he think that I am at the beck and call of any lord on earth? Let him give his name or be gone."

The page lingered. "I'll be sworn he intends no disrespect, sir. It is but his whim. He bade me say, if you refused to see him, that he has been your ancient and mortal enemy and that he had yet to learn that Don Francisco de Vargas declines to meet his enemies on foot or horse."

"Now, by God!" exclaimed the other, forgetting his stiff knee and springing up. "That's a different matter. On those terms I'll see him and welcome. Is he armed?"

"Yes, Your Excellency."

"Good!" The old cavalier shook with delight. "Hand me my sword and belt there. Seiior Nameless must be a right bold and gallant fellow to come defying me under the very roof of my kinsman. Is he alone?"

"Yes, sir.''

"Then, look you, boy, if he gives trouble, I want no help. Let everyone stand back. Thank God, I have had many noble enemies in my time: but if one of them comes alone to meet me, I would not have him outnumbered or put to disadvantage. I do not care to know his name now, since that is his wish—but you say he's a gentleman and of good blood?"

"Aye, sir, I can vouch for him."

Don Francisco belted on his sword and loosened it in the scabbard. Then, walking over to a mirror, he smoothed down his sparse hair; righted his gold chain, so that it lay evenly on his shoulders and showed the pendant medallion to the best advantage; arranged the folds of his doublet.

"Who would have ever hoped for such a thing!" he exulted. "Here, on a dull morning! It's like the old days. Yes, a gallant fellow. My mortal enemy, eh? Well, well."

Beyond the cabinet lay a vast reception room, tapestried and with a riot of gods in fresco on the ceiling. Having advanced to the exact center of it, Don Francisco stopped.

"Tell the gentleman that I await his pleasure."

In the entrance hall at the far end of the room, he was aware of a

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flutter and crowding of servants. Then the throng divided; he heard the clink of a sword, and the caller entered.

He was a tall, slender man with wide shoulders and long arms. His hair, slightly grizzled, was straight-cropped on forehead and neck. He was clean-shaven, long-nosed, and had wide-set prominent eyes, with deep wrinkles at their comers. A bold chin, a big mouth, haunted by the shadow of a smile and framed by lines slanting down from the nostrils, gave a forceful, yet pleasant look to his face. Except for a heavy gold chain of the Order of St. Michael, he was dressed simply and somberly. Walking with the careless, long stride of a horseman, he rested one big hand on the hilt of his sword, and carried his velvet hat in the other.

At the first glimpse of the stranger, Don Francisco started, then stared; his lower jaw drooped. Then uttering a loud ''Vive Dids" he left his post in the center of the room and limped toward the newcomer with both hands outstretched, his sallow cheeks glowing, incredulous joy on every feature.

"Monseigneur de Bayard!"

"Ha, Monseigneur de Vargas!"

Whereupon the two enemies embraced, while the servant who had first announced the caller relaxed in the luxury of a grin.

"I should have known it was you!" exclaimed Don Francisco, when he had caught his breath. "No other man on earth would so have presented himself. You always loved your joke."

"Joke, nothing!" laughed the Frenchman. "Aren't we old and mortal enemies, my dear friend? Didn't I knock out your front teeth by good luck at Gaeta? Didn't you lift me from the saddle at Bisceglie a lance's length on my rump? Was I able to sit in comfort for the next two weeks? And haven't we thirsted for each other's blood in a dozen skirmishes, sieges, and pitched battles? If you don't call that mortal, what is it? But, faith, Monseigneur," he added more gravely, "it warms my heart to see you again. The brave days—ha? Friends and enemies, few of us are left."

"My lord," de Vargas answered, "I could now gladly say the Nunc Dimittis for the pleasure this gives me. That the cavalier sans peur et sans reproche should visit my poor self overflows the cup. I have followed your fame for years but never expected to see you again in the flesh. I thought you were in Grenoble. I never dreamed—"

"Merely a chance," put in Bayard, glad to escape from compliments. "The King's business took me to Genoa and then to Florence. When I heard you were here, I lost no time."

Don Francisco emerged momentarily from his rapture. "Wine and refreshment for the Lord Bayard!" he called. "At once! . . . This way, sir, by your leave. We can talk more at our ease in the cabinet yonder."

Bravely he tried to keep step with the other, but fell to limping; at which the French captain stopped to admire the tapestries and covered up his host's embarrassment. But when they were seated in the smaller room, doors closed, wine, cake, and fruit at hand, what talk!

Of course, they spoke French, because Frenchmen are rarely at home in another language; but it was plentifully mixed with Spanish and Italian. Bayard's hearty, ringing voice alternated with de Vargas's lisp.

"And this fine son of yours, sefior?" demanded Bayard after several minutes. "Fve been expecting him for the past six months. Is he here? Perhaps he'll ride back with me." But struck by the other's expression, he hesitated. "I ask pardon. Is it that— Surely he accompanied you from Spain?"

"No." De Vargas cleared his throat. He was torn between loyalty to Pedro and a kind of professional shame. "No."

"You mean—I hope no misfortune—"

"No—yes. Monseigneur, in view of your generous offer to my son, I hardly know what to say. The truth is"—Don Francisco gulped—"he has been guilty of flagrant disobedience. We were separated in a trifling skirmish which attended our escape. He led the rear guard and, I confess, quitted himself well. He was under orders to rejoin me here. But, sir, when he could have begun the career of arms under your guidance, when he had such an opening, what does he do but cross the Ocean Sea and enlist with a crowd of irregulars on an expedition against the Indians! Monseigneur, this is the sad truth. I am ashamed." But loyalty got the upper hand at the expense of honesty, and he added: "I believe his commander, Heman Cortes by name, is a most accomplished captain. The boy too shows promise in the management of his horse and his weapons. But alas—"

The alas did not need to be explained. It covered all that Pedro would miss: the tactics and niceties of traditional war; the ordering of vanguard, "battle," and rear guard; the developing science of artillery and musketry; siege operations against fortified places; the use of horse and foot; the etiquette and discipline of a regular army. Bayard understood. He and de Vargas were professionals discussing a youth who had turned his back on their code.

For a moment the Frenchman said nothing, but took a sip of wine, his eyes absently fixed on the cornice above Don Francisco's head. In some suspense, the latter awaited his comment.

"Mort de ma vie!" exclaimed the Great Cavalier at last. "Except for his disobedience to you, I think the young gaillard did well. Faith, yes! The more I reflect on it, very well—though I should have liked having him among my lances."

Don Francisco's eyes brightened. "How do you mean well, my lord?"

"Why, he sounds like a boy of enterprise and spirit. In truth, I envy him. . . . You say against Indians? What kind of men are they? Like Moors?"

"It may be," said the other dubiously. "I've heard that some, notably the Caribs, are brave and hardy."

"Well, then, what more would you have? Nom de dieu! Are we not at peace? Is it not better for a gentleman to fight than not to fight? Is it not better to fight something than nothing?"

"There's truth in that," de Vargas agreed.

"Is it not the first duty of a gentleman," Bayard continued, "to acquire honor? And will your son not gain more honor in war against enemies of our Faith than in riding at the quintain in my tilt yard or chasing beggarly outlaws in the mountains of Dauphine? Of course he will. He may even learn new tricks of war from the Indians to use when he returns. Time enough then to polish him off. He'll be far ahead of whippersnappers who know all the rules, but have never practised them, for the trade of arms is only learned by fighting. You must forgive him, sir, for my sake."

De Vargas beamed. With this endorsement, Pedro's adventure took on a new aspect.

"You are kind."

"Kind, no; envious, yes. I am bored, my friend. I'm a dull governor in a dull palace—little better than a bourgeois man of affairs. I attend weddings and baptisms. I hold court. Pah! Indians, eh?" He sighed. "I'd like right well to show my pennon beyond the Ocean Sea."

After dwelling on the tasteless present, conversation turned to speculation on the next war. The growing friction between Charles of Spain and King Francis promised well. But even this topic could not keep the two old soldiers very long from the past. A roll call of names: Louis d'Ars, Pedro de Peralta, Pierre de Bellabre, Alonso de Sotomayor, Berault d'Aubigny, Pedro de Paz, a score of others—names once vivid but now already faded by the passing of years, names chiefly of dead men. Bayard and de Vargas smiled fondly over one or the other; rehearsed their deeds, discussed battles, forays, and retreats; laughed often, but with a solemn undertone, as those who speak of vanished faces and days. Killed at Ravenna, killed in Navarre, killed in the

Abruzzi, killed at Marignano. The friends of their youth, the very age into which they had been born—dead and gone.

In Filippo Strozzi's luxurious study, with its books and paintings and carved cherubs, the two clean-shaven, hawk-faced, medieval gentlemen sat like discordant relics. They were old-fashioned and proud of it. They glanced with scorn at these newer fashions: this fiddle-faddle about art and poetry and useless learning; these mental subtleties that questioned even religion itself; this non-military, pretty way of building houses that could not be held against attack; this wearing of beards, which were stuffy and impractical under armor. They belonged to a simpler, more childlike age, and because of it they loved each other like brothers.

Meanwhile, Francisco de Vargas worked up to a proposal. He viewed with approval Bayard's sinewy neck, rising pillar-like from the round opening of his doublet and looking almost too big for the head it supported. He admired the Chevalier's muscular hands and thin, whipcord legs spreading out comfortably from the chair. A fighting man, por Dios!

"Monseigneur," he ventured at last, "in other days we have never had leisure completely to finish any of our passages of arms. Unfortunately we were always prevented or separated in the heat of battle. I have never been able, therefore, fully to enjoy your prowess. You are here for a few days. No doubt I shall never again have the opportunity. Would it be asking too much if I begged you for a meeting with lance and sword on horseback? Suitable weapons and horses can be found. I should always be grateful for the chance to observe your skill."

Bayard's eyes danced. "Three courses, eh? A few strokes of the sword if lances are broken?"

"If you would be so good. It would greatly honor me, even if I can give you but poor sport—"

"Nonsense!" interrupted the other. "My dear friend, it's the other way round. I'm too old a fox to be fooled by modesty. You know that you overmatch me. But faith, I'm tempted! It seems an age since I've had a breathing."

Then suddenly he stopped. De Vargas would never know that his crippled knee and the twelve years' difference between them crossed Bayard's mind. The Frenchman's face clouded.

"No, ma foi. I remember. It's impossible. Maitre Champier, my physician, forbids all violent effort because of a quartan fever I had in June. I gave him my word." He added gallantly, "And, between you

and me, it's God's providence that I did. I could not stand another jolt to my rear such as you gave me at Bisceglie."

So the morning passed too quickly. Due at the Medici Palace for dinner, Bayard took his leave; but Don Francisco accompanied him a part of the way.

They walked arm in arm, their servants behind them, an equerry leading the Chevalier's hackney. And people made way for the two famous cavaliers with their grave, battle-lined faces, erect bearing, and fearless eyes. Even court dandies, curled and perfumed, were impressed and gazed after them. For both were distinguished men, remarkable in this, that while growing old they remained young and gallant and undefeated.

XL/;/

Singe the evening when Pedro de Vargas had told her about the miraculous ray in church which appointed her his Lady of Destiny, Luisa de Carvajal had succeeded in renewing the miracle at other times. She was quite aware of her spiritual, waxlike beauty, that brought a look of adoration to men's eyes; and the ray, slanting down from the narrow window, lent her an aureole, which lighted up her face and toilet to the best advantage. Not even marriage interfered with this casual pastime. Alonso Ponce, who had now become her galdn after de Silva's departure, was deeply impressed by the halo and called her "Lady of the Sunbeam," which she considered a charming and distinctive title.

On an October Sunday, nearly a year after her marriage and ten months since de Silva had sailed for the New World, she drove to church as usual in the Carvajal coach with her father and Senora Hernandez. Settling down to prayer, rosary in hand, she wondered whether the beam of light would descend on her that morning and, if it did, whether Alonso Ponce was there to watch. Between Aves, she gave a touch to her mantilla so that it revealed more fully the rapt and exalted expression of her face as she gazed at the altar.

Outwardly the past year had changed her only as an opening rosebud changes toward maturer perfection; but it had taught her much. It had taught her physical love at the hands of a passionate and not too delicate lord and master. It had taught her the value of cynicism as a salve for bruised illusions. It had shown her the slipperiness of Fortune and that Seiiora de Silva, with her dowry gone, had a much less promising