Читать «Cup of Gold (Золотая чаша)» онлайн - страница 115

Henry lifted his eyes. The King was smiling ironically. John Evelyn drummed the table with his fingers.

"Yes?" said the King. "Yes?" He chuckled.

"Ah, I am old-old," Henry moaned. "It is a lie. She was a pleasant child, the daughter of a cottager."

He staggered to his feet and moved toward the door. Shame was burning in his face.

"Captain Morgan, you forget yourself. "

"I-forget-myself? "

"There are certain little courtesies. Custom demands that you render them to our person. "

"I plead pardon, Sire. I plead your permission to leave. I–I am ill." He bowed himself from the room.

The King was smiling through his wine.

"How is it, John, that such a great soldier can be such a great fool? "

Said John Evelyn, "How could it be otherwise? If great men were not fools, the world would have been destroyed long ago. How could it be otherwise? Folly and distorted vision are the foundations of greatness. "

"You mean that my vision is distorted? "

"No, I do not mean that. "

"Then you imply-"

"I wish to go on with Henry Morgan. He has a knack for piracy which makes him great. Immediately you imagine him as a great ruler. You make him Lieutenant-Governor. In this you are like the multitude.

You believe that if a man do one thing magnificently, he should be able to do all things equally well. If a man be eminently successful in creating an endless line of mechanical doodads of some excellence, you conceive him capable of leading armies or maintaining governments. You think that because you are a good king you should be as good a lover-or vice-versa."

"Vice-versa? "

"That is a humorous alternative, Sire. It is a conversational trick to gain a smile-no more. "

"I see. But Morgan and his folly- "

"Of course he is a fool, Sire, else he would be turning soil in Wales or burrowing in the mines. He wanted something, and he was idiot enough to think he could get it. Because of his idiocy he did get it-part of it. You remember the princess. "

The King was smiling again.

"I have never known any man to tell the truth to or about a woman. Why is that, John? "

"Perhaps, Sire, if you would explain the tiny scratch I see under your right eye, you could understand.

Now the scratch was not there last night, and it has the distinct look of- "

"Yes-yes-a clumsy servant. Let us speak of Morgan. You have a way, John, of being secretly insulting. Sometimes you are not even conscious of your insults. It is a thing to put down if you are to be around courts for any length of time."

Sir Henry Morgan sat on the Judge's Bench at Port Royal. Before him, on the floor, lay a slab of white sunlight like a blinding tomb. Throughout the room an orchestra of flies sang their symphony of boredom. The droning voices of counsel were only louder instruments against the humming obbligato.

Court officials went about sleepily, and the cases moved on.

"It was the fifteenth of the month, my lord. Williamson went to the Cartwright property for the purpose of determining- determining to his own satisfaction, my lord, whether the tree stood as described. It was while he was there-"