Читать «Cup of Gold (Золотая чаша)» онлайн - страница 93

No difference, indeed! This man was a thief. The rage changed to a fearful lust to hurt the little man, to outrage him, to hold him up to scorn as Henry Morgan had been scorned. The cruel desire made the captain's lips grow thin and white.

"What have you in your pocket?"

"Nothing-nothing, sir."

"Let me see what you have in your pocket." The captain was pointing a heavy pistol.

"It's nothing, sir-only a little crucifix! I found it." He drew out a golden cross studded with diamonds, and on it a Christ of ivory. "You see, it's for my wife," the Cockney explained.

"Ah! for your Spanish wife!"

"She's half Negro, sir."

"You know the penalty for concealing spoil?"

Jones looked at the pistol and his face grayed. "You would not-Oh, sir, you would not-" he began chokingly. Then he seemed to be clutched by invisible, huge fingers. His arms dropped stiffly to his sides, his lips sagged open, and a dull, imbecilic light came into his eyes. There was a little foam on his lips. His whole body twitched like a wooden dancing figure on a string.

Captain Morgan fired.

For a moment the Cockney seemed to grow smaller. His shoulders drew in until they nearly covered his chest, like short wings. His hands clenched, and then the whole contracted mass fell to the ground, convulsing like a thick, animate jelly. His lips drew back from his teeth in a last idiot snarl.

Henry Morgan stirred the body with his foot, and a change stirred in his mind. He had killed this man. It was his right to kill, to burn, to plunder-not because he was ethical nor even because he was clever, but because he was strong. Henry Morgan was the master of Panama and all its people. There was no will in Panama save Henry Morgan's will. He could slaughter every human in the country if he so chose. All this was true. No one would deny it. But in the Palace back there was a woman who held his power and his will in contempt, and her contempt was a stronger weapon than his will. She fenced at his embarrassment and touched him at her convenience.

But how could that be? he argued. No one was master in Panama but himself, and he had just killed a man to prove it. Under the battering of his arguments the power of Ysobel waned and slowly disappeared. He would go back to the Palace. He would force her as he had promised.

This woman had been treated with too much consideration.

She did not realize the significance of slavery, nor did she know the iron of Henry Morgan.

He turned about and walked back toward the Palace. In the Hall of Audience he threw off his pistols, but the gray rapier remained at his side.

Ysobel was kneeling before a holy picture in her little whitewashed cell when Henry Morgan burst upon her. The dried duenna shrank into a corner at the sight of him, but Ysobel regarded him intently, noted his flushed face, his half-closed, fierce eyes. She heard his heavy breathing, and with a smile of comprehension rose to her feet. Her laughter rang banteringly as she drew a pin from her bodice and assumed the position of a fencer, One foot forward, her left arm held behind her for balance, the pin pointed before her like a foil.