“Thank you, sir,” he said. “It will give me great pleasure to accompany you.”
The Spaniard bowed again, and Hornblower turned to his first lieutenant.
“I am going to visit the lugger, Mr Bush,” he said. “I shall only be gone a short time. Call away the cutter and send her after me to bring me back.”
Hornblower was delighted to see how Bush struggled to conceal his consternation at the news.
“Aye aye, sir,” he said. He opened his mouth and shut it again; he wanted to expostulate and yet did not dare, and finally repeated feebly “Aye aye, sir.”
In the small boat rowing back to the lugger the Spaniard was the mirror of courtesy. He chatted politely about weather conditions. He mentioned the latest news of the war in Spain — it was quite undoubted that a French army had surrendered to the Spaniards in Andalusia, and that Spanish and British armies were assembling for a march into France. He described the ravages of yellow fever on the mainland. He contrived, all the same, to allow no single hint to drop as to the nature of the surprise which he was going to show Hornblower in the lugger.
The two captains were received with Spanish ceremony as they swung themselves up into the lugger’s waist. There was a great deal of bustle and parade, and two bugles and two drums sounded a resounding march horribly out of tune.
“All in this ship is yours, sir,” said the Spaniard with Castilian courtesy, and seeing no incongruity in his next sentence. “Your Excellency will take some refreshment? A cup of chocolate?”
“Thank you,” said Hornblower. He was not going to imperil his dignity by asking what was the nature of the surprise in store for him. He could wait — especially as he could see the launch already halfway towards the lugger.
The Spaniard was in no hurry to make the revelation. He was evidently savouring in anticipation the Englishman’s certain astonishment. He pointed out certain peculiarities in the lugger’s rig; he called up his officers to present to Hornblower; he discussed the merits of his crew — nearly all native Indians as on board the Natividad. In the end Hornblower won; the Spaniard could wait no longer to be asked.
“Would you please to come this way, sir?” he said. He led the way on to the foredeck, and there, chained by the waist to a ring bolt, with irons on his wrist and ankles, was el Supremo.
He was in rags — half naked in fact, and his beard and hair were matted and tangled, and his own filth lay on the deck about him.
“I think,” said the Spanish captain, “that you have already had the pleasure, sir, of meeting His Excellency Don Julian Maria de Jesus de Alvarado y Moctezuma, who calls himself the Almighty?”
El Supremo showed no signs of being disconcerted by the gibe.
“Captain Hornblower has indeed been presented to me already,” he said loftily. “He has worked for me long and devotedly. I trust you are enjoying the best of health, Captain?”
“Thank you, sir,” said Hornblower.
Despite his rags, and his filth, and his chains, el Supremo bore himself with the same elaborate dignity as Hornblower remembered so well those many weeks ago.
“I too,” he said, “am as well as the world could desire. It is a source of continual satisfaction to me to see my affairs progressing so well.”
A negro servant appeared on the deck at that moment with a tray of chocolate; another followed him with a couple of chairs. Hornblower, at the invitation of his host, sat down. He was glad to do so, as his knees seemed suddenly weak under him, but he had no desire at all for his chocolate. The Spanish captain drank noisily, and el Supremo eyed him as he did so. There came a gleam of appetite in his face. His lips moistened and smacked softly together, his eyes brightened, his hand came out, and then next moment he was calm and indifferent again.
“I trust that the chocolate is to your liking, sirs,” he said. “I ordered it specially for you. My own appetite for chocolate has long since disappeared.”
“That is just as well,” said the Spanish captain. He laughed loudly and drank again, smacking his lips.
El Supremo ignored him, and turned to Hornblower.
“You see I wear these chains,” he said. “It is a strange whim on the part of myself and my servants that I should do so. I hope you agree with me that they set off my figure quite admirably?”
“Y-yes, sir,” stammered Hornblower.
“We are on our way to Panama, where I shall mount the throne of the world. They talk of hanging; these fellows here say that there is a gallows awaiting us on the bastion of the Citadel. That will be the framework of my golden throne. Golden, it will be, with diamond stars and a great turquoise moon. It will be from there that I shall issue my next decrees to the world.”
The Spanish captain guffawed again, but el Supremo still stood in quiet dignity, hugging his chains, with the sun blazing down on his tangled head.
“He will not last long in this mood,” said the Spanish captain to Hornblower behind his hand. “I can see signs of the change coming. It gives me great felicity that you have had the opportunity of seeing him in both his moods.”
“The sun grows in his splendour every day,” said el Supremo. “He is magnificent and terrible, as I am. He can kill — kill — kill, as he killed the men I exposed to him — when was it? And Moctezuma is dead, and all his line save me, in the hundreds of years ago. I alone remain. And Hernandez is dead, but it was not the sun that killed him. They hanged Hernandez even while the blood dripped from his wounds. They hanged him in my city of San Salvador, and as they hanged him he still called upon the name of el Supremo. They hanged the men and they hanged the women, in long rows at San Salvador. Only el Supremo is left, to govern from his golden throne. His throne! His throne!”
El Supremo was staring about him now. There was a hint of bewildered realisation in his face as he jangled his chains. He peered at them stupidly.
“Chains! These are chains!”
He was bawling and shouting. He laughed madly, and then he wept and he cursed, flinging himself about on the deck, biting at his chains. His words were no longer articulate as he slobbered and writhed.
“It is interesting, is it not?” said the Spanish captain. “He will struggle and shout sometimes for twenty-four hours without a stop.”
“Bah!” said Hornblower, and his chair fell with a clatter to the deck as he got to his feet. He was on the verge of vomiting. The Spaniard saw his white face and trembling lips, and was faintly amused, and made no attempt to conceal it.
But Hornblower could give no vent to the flood of protest which was welling up within him. His cautious mind told him that a madman in a ship as small as the lugger must of necessity be chained to the deck, and his conscience reminded him uneasily of the torments he had seen el Supremo inflict without expostulation. This Spanish way of making a show out of insanity and greatness was repulsive enough, but could be paralleled often enough in English history. One of the greatest writers of the English language, and a dignitary of the Church to boot, had once been shown in his dotage for a fee. There was only one line of argument which he could adopt.
“You are going to hang him, mad as he is?” he asked. “With no chance of making his peace with God?”
The Spaniard shrugged.
“Mad or sane, rebels must hang. Your Excellency must know that as well as I do.”
Hornblower did know it. He was left without any argument at all, and was reduced to stammering inarticulation, even while he boiled with contempt for himself on that account. All that was left for him to do, having lost all his dignity in his own eyes, was to try and retain some few shreds of it in the eyes of his audience. He braced himself up, conscious of the hollowness of the fraud.
“I must thank you very much, sir,” he said, “for having given me the opportunity of witnessing a most interesting spectacle. And now, repeating my thanks, I fear that I must regretfully take my departure. There seems to be a breath of wind blowing.”