Westward Ho [119]
Don Guzman replied with one of those smiles of his, which (as Amyas said afterwards) was so abominably like a sneer, that he had often hard work to keep his hands off the man--
"Ah! You have been eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, senor? Well; if you have any ambition to follow many another brave captain to the pit, I know no shorter or easier path than is contained in that little book."
"I have never opened your book," said Amyas; "your private manuscripts are no concern of mine: but my man who recovered your baggage read part of it, knowing no better; and now you are at liberty to tell me as little as you like."
The "man," it should be said, was none other than Salvation Yeo, who had attached himself by this time inseparably to Amyas, in quality of body-guard: and, as was common enough in those days, had turned soldier for the nonce, and taken under his patronage two or three rusty bases (swivels) and falconets (four-pounders), which grinned harmlessly enough from the tower top across the cheerful expanse of bog.
Amyas once asked him, how he reconciled this Irish sojourn with his vow to find his little maid? Yeo shook his head.
"I can't tell, sir, but there's something that makes me always to think of you when I think of her; and that's often enough, the Lord knows. Whether it is that I ben't to find the dear without your help; or whether it is your pleasant face puts me in mind of hers; or what, I can't tell; but don't you part me from you, sir, for I'm like Ruth, and where you lodge I lodge; and where you go I go; and where you die--though I shall die many a year first--there I'll die, I hope and trust; for I can't abear you out of my sight; and that's the truth thereof."
So Yeo remained with Amyas, while Cary went elsewhere with Sir Warham St. Leger, and the two friends met seldom for many months; so that Amyas's only companion was Don Guzman, who, as he grew more familiar, and more careless about what he said and did in his captor's presence, often puzzled and scandalized him by his waywardness. Fits of deep melancholy alternated with bursts of Spanish boastfulness, utterly astonishing to the modest and sober- minded Englishman, who would often have fancied him inspired by usquebaugh, had he not had ocular proof of his extreme abstemiousness.
"Miserable?" said he, one night in one of these fits. "And have I not a right to be miserable? Why should I not curse the virgin and all the saints, and die? I have not a friend, not a ducat on earth; not even a sword--hell and the furies! It was my all: the only bequest I ever had from my father, and I lived by it and earned by it. Two years ago I had as pretty a sum of gold as cavalier could wish--and now!"--
"What is become of it, then? I cannot hear that our men plundered you of any."
"Your men? No, senor! What fifty men dared not have done, one woman did! a painted, patched, fucused, periwigged, bolstered, Charybdis, cannibal, Megaera, Lamia! Why did I ever go near that cursed Naples, the common sewer of Europe? whose women, I believe, would be swallowed up by Vesuvius to-morrow, if it were not that Belphegor is afraid of their making the pit itself too hot to hold him. Well, sir, she had all of mine and more; and when all was gone in wine and dice, woodcocks' brains and ortolans' tongues, I met the witch walking with another man. I had a sword and a dagger; I gave him the first (though the dog fought well enough, to give him his due), and her the second; left them lying across each other, and fled for my life,--and here I am! after twenty years of fighting, from the Levant to the Orellana--for I began ere I had a hair on my chin--and this is the end!--No, it is not! I'll have that El Dorado yet! the Adelantado made Berreo, when he gave him his daughter, swear that he would hunt for it, through life and death.--We'll see who finds it first, he or I. He's a bungler; Orsua was a bungler--Pooh! Cortes and Pizarro? we'll see whether there are not as good Castilians as they left still. I can do it, senor. I know a track,
"Ah! You have been eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, senor? Well; if you have any ambition to follow many another brave captain to the pit, I know no shorter or easier path than is contained in that little book."
"I have never opened your book," said Amyas; "your private manuscripts are no concern of mine: but my man who recovered your baggage read part of it, knowing no better; and now you are at liberty to tell me as little as you like."
The "man," it should be said, was none other than Salvation Yeo, who had attached himself by this time inseparably to Amyas, in quality of body-guard: and, as was common enough in those days, had turned soldier for the nonce, and taken under his patronage two or three rusty bases (swivels) and falconets (four-pounders), which grinned harmlessly enough from the tower top across the cheerful expanse of bog.
Amyas once asked him, how he reconciled this Irish sojourn with his vow to find his little maid? Yeo shook his head.
"I can't tell, sir, but there's something that makes me always to think of you when I think of her; and that's often enough, the Lord knows. Whether it is that I ben't to find the dear without your help; or whether it is your pleasant face puts me in mind of hers; or what, I can't tell; but don't you part me from you, sir, for I'm like Ruth, and where you lodge I lodge; and where you go I go; and where you die--though I shall die many a year first--there I'll die, I hope and trust; for I can't abear you out of my sight; and that's the truth thereof."
So Yeo remained with Amyas, while Cary went elsewhere with Sir Warham St. Leger, and the two friends met seldom for many months; so that Amyas's only companion was Don Guzman, who, as he grew more familiar, and more careless about what he said and did in his captor's presence, often puzzled and scandalized him by his waywardness. Fits of deep melancholy alternated with bursts of Spanish boastfulness, utterly astonishing to the modest and sober- minded Englishman, who would often have fancied him inspired by usquebaugh, had he not had ocular proof of his extreme abstemiousness.
"Miserable?" said he, one night in one of these fits. "And have I not a right to be miserable? Why should I not curse the virgin and all the saints, and die? I have not a friend, not a ducat on earth; not even a sword--hell and the furies! It was my all: the only bequest I ever had from my father, and I lived by it and earned by it. Two years ago I had as pretty a sum of gold as cavalier could wish--and now!"--
"What is become of it, then? I cannot hear that our men plundered you of any."
"Your men? No, senor! What fifty men dared not have done, one woman did! a painted, patched, fucused, periwigged, bolstered, Charybdis, cannibal, Megaera, Lamia! Why did I ever go near that cursed Naples, the common sewer of Europe? whose women, I believe, would be swallowed up by Vesuvius to-morrow, if it were not that Belphegor is afraid of their making the pit itself too hot to hold him. Well, sir, she had all of mine and more; and when all was gone in wine and dice, woodcocks' brains and ortolans' tongues, I met the witch walking with another man. I had a sword and a dagger; I gave him the first (though the dog fought well enough, to give him his due), and her the second; left them lying across each other, and fled for my life,--and here I am! after twenty years of fighting, from the Levant to the Orellana--for I began ere I had a hair on my chin--and this is the end!--No, it is not! I'll have that El Dorado yet! the Adelantado made Berreo, when he gave him his daughter, swear that he would hunt for it, through life and death.--We'll see who finds it first, he or I. He's a bungler; Orsua was a bungler--Pooh! Cortes and Pizarro? we'll see whether there are not as good Castilians as they left still. I can do it, senor. I know a track,