The sun’s heat was falling from the heavens like a burning rain. It struck the ground and then slowly rose again, burdened with dampness and the nauseous odor of rotting leaves and roots. Once Coeur de Gris was driven to his knees by the heat, but immediately he rose to trudge onward. Henry Morgan saw his staggering walk, and glanced at the trail ahead with indecision.
“Perhaps we should be resting here,” he said. “The men are exhausted.”
“But no. We must go on and go on,” Coeur de Gris replied. “If we stop here, the men will only be weaker when we start again.”
Henry Morgan mused: “I wonder why you are so avid in my mission. You move forward when even I begin to doubt myself. What is it that you expect to find in Panama, Coeur de Gris?”
“I expect to find nothing,” the young man said. “Are you trying to trap me into a statement of disloyalty? I know the prize is yours before we arrive. I admit it, sir. But, you see, I am like a great, round stone set in motion down a hill, so much reason have I for going to Panama. You, sir, set me in motion.”
“It is strange that I should so want Panama,” Henry said.
The flushed face of the lieutenant turned on him in anger.
“You do not want Panama. It is the woman you want, not Panama.” His voice was as bitter as his words, and now he was pressing his palms against his temples.
“It is true,” the captain murmured. “It is true that I want the woman; but that is still more strange.”
“Strange?” Wild resentment broke out in Coeur de Gris. He shouted, “Strange? Why is it strange to be lusting after a woman who is known to be beautiful? Would you call each one of these men strange, or every male thing on earth strange? Or are you endowed with a godlike lust? Do you bear the body of a Titan? Strange! Yes, surely, my Captain; copulation and its contemplation are things completely unique among men!”
Henry Morgan was bewildered, but there was a little terror in him also. He seemed to have witnessed the walking of a loathsome, unbelievable ghost. Could it be that these men felt as he did?
“But I think there is more than lust,” he said. “You cannot understand my yearning. It is as though I strove for some undreamed peace. This woman is the harbor of all my questing. I do not think of her as a female thing with arms and breasts, but as a moment of peace after turmoil, a perfume after rancid filth. Yes, it is strange to me. When I consider the years that are gone away, I am bewildered at my activity. I went to mighty trouble for silly, golden things. I did not know the secret which makes the earth a huge chameleon. My little wars seem the scrambling of a person strange to me, a person who did not know the ways of making the world change color. I mourned, in the old time, when each satisfaction died in my arms. Is it any wonder they all died? I did not know the secret. No, you cannot understand my yearning.”
Coeur de Gris was grasping his aching temples between his hands. “I do not understand!” he cried scornfully. “Do you think I do not understand? I know; to your mind your feelings are new things, discoveries of fresh importance. Your failures are unprecedented. This gigantic conceit will not allow you to believe that this Cockney behind you—yes, he who sometimes rolls on the ground in fits—might have the same hopes and despairs as yourself. You cannot believe that these men feel as deeply as you do. I suppose it would surpass your wildest thought if I should say I want the woman as much as you do, or that I could be telling sweet sentences to La Santa Roja, perhaps, better than you could.”
Captain Morgan had flushed under the lash of words. He did not believe it. It was monstrous to think that these men could feel as he did. Such a comparison made him, somehow, unworthy.
“You wonder why I say these things?” Coeur de Gris continued. “I will tell you. The pain has made me mad, and I am going to die.” He walked on silently for a little distance, then suddenly he screamed and fell heavily to the ground.
For a full minute Captain Morgan looked at him. Then a great, harsh wave seemed to break forth in his chest. He knew that minute how much he had come to love the young lieutenant, knew that he could not bear to lose young Coeur de Gris. Now he had dropped to his knees beside the silent figure.
“Water!” he cried to the nearest buccaneer, and when the fellow only stared at him: “Water! bring water—water!” His hand was hysterically jerking at a pistol in his belt. They brought him water in a hat. All the pirates saw their cold captain kneeling on the ground, stroking the damp, shining hair of Coeur de Gris.
The young man’s eyes opened slowly and he tried to rise.
“I am sorry, sir. The pain in my head, you know—The sun sucked out my wits. But you must get up, sir! The men will lose respect for you if they see you kneeling here.”
“Lie still, boy! Lie quietly! You must not move yet. I am afraid. In a moment I thought you were dead, and all the world shriveled. Lie quietly! Now I am glad. You must not move. Now we will take the Cup of Gold together, and it shall be a chalice of two handles.”
