Читать «Cup of Gold (Золотая чаша)» онлайн - страница 6

"But they're a brave, strong people with the fear in them for only two things-dogs and slavery."

Dafydd was immersed in his tale. "Why, boy, can you think what they would be doing to a man that might get himself taken in a skirmish? They stick him full of long jungle thorns from his head to his toes, and on the thick end of every thorn a ball of fluff like wool. Then the poor captive man stands in a circle of naked savages while they set light to the fluff. And that Indian that does not be singing while he burns there like a torch, is cursed and called a coward. Now, can you imagine any white man doing that?

"But dogs they fear, because the Spaniards hunt them with huge mastiffs when they're at slave gathering for the mines; and slavery is horrible to them. To go chained body to body into the wet earth, year on the crown of year, until they die of the damp ague-rather would they be singing under the burning thorns, and dying in afla me."

He paused and stretched his thin hands into the fireplace until they were nearly touching the blaze. The light which had come into his eyes as he talked died out again.

"Oh, I'm tired, Robert-so very tired," he sighed, "but there's one thing I want to tell you before I sleep. Maybe the telling will ease me, and maybe I can speak it out and then forget about it for the one night. I must go back to the damned place. I can never stay away from the jungle any more, because its hot breath is on me. Here, where I was born, I shiver and freeze. A month would find me dead. This valley where I played and grew and worked has cast me out for a foul, hot thing. It cleans itself of me with the cold.

"Now will you be giving me a place to sleep, with thick covers to keep my poor blood moving; and in the morning I'll be off again." He stopped and his face flexed with pain. "I used to love the winter so."

Old Robert helped him from the room with a hand under his arm, then came and sat again by the fire. He looked at the boy who lay unmoving on the floor.

"What are you thinking about now, son?" he asked very softly after a time. And Henry drew his gaze back from the land beyond the blaze.

"I'm thinking I'll be wanting to go soon, father."

"I know, Henry. The whole of this long year I've seen it growing in you like a strong tree-Londonor Guinea or Jamaica. It comes of being fifteen and strong with the passion for new things on you. Once I saw the valley grow smaller and smaller, too, until finally it smothered me a little, I think.

But aren't you afraid of the knives, son, and the poisons, and the Indians? Do not these things put fear on you?"

"No-o-o," Henry said slowly.

"Of course not-and how could they? The words have no meaning to you at all. But the sadness of Dafydd, and the hurt of him, and his poor, sick body-aren't you afraid of those? Do you want to go about the world weighed down with such a heart?"

Young Henry considered long.

"I would not be like that," he said at last. "I would be coming back very often for my blood's sake."