"They do pretty well with ships, Sir Godwine, and with guns." I couldn't have kept from saying it short of a broken jaw, but I said it as quietly as I could.
"Damned if you don't speak truth, and you're a man of spirit!" He turned to the others. " 'Twas the answer I deserved, and he gave it to me. They do well with ships and with guns, says he, and who can gainsay that? Not me, by God! Homer-I'll call you that, by right of my years-I found it out myself. The hardest fight in my life was with a Yank. 'Twas my first ship and my first fight—" "And your first victory," Harvey broke in.
"Never mind about that. It cost me dear enough. And 'tis no wonder the Yankee people have got ahead, with good shipping and good shooting, and with their noses in history books as well as account books, and in that respect, we should be proud that they're English stock."
He turned and looked at Harvey. "Isn't that so?" he asked. "You never said a truer word, Sir Godwine!" Harvey answered crisply.
His eyes moved to the hot black eyes of his son. "How about it, Dick?" "Aye, aye, sir."
"I needn't put it to you, Sophia, my love. You've already made it plain how you admire Americans."
"Yes, and I wish you'd change the subject." To my surprise, she had Little color and her eyes looked haunted.
"Why, 'tis one of the leading subjects of the world, or you can sink me. Homer, I'd like to meet your Captain Phillips, and for the time being let it go at that. And there's that blasted Millen."
The burly butler stood in a different door than before, announcing dinner. No one moved or spoke until Sir Godwine got gravely to his feet, and I could not help but marvel how all eyes, including mine, were fixed on him. All of us waited on his words by some unknown compulsion.
"I'll lead the way with my blasted stick," he pronounced. "Homer, if you'll follow with Sophia, Harvey and Dick will fetch up the rear."
The stick was a fine Malacca that he sometimes toyed with or whipped about, but never leaned on. I noticed now that he walked like an Indian, his feet in a straight line, and at a slow pace; still, that could not explain the effect of regalness that everyone felt. I could imagine him on the quarter-deck of a great English man-of-war. The wintry rattle in his voice would terrify every man aboard. The officers reporting to him would turn pale.
Why? I wished to heaven I knew. I could pick him up and heave him to his death against the stone wall—if I would. No one ever would, no matter what he did.
Sophia slipped her hand under my arm. Her ear was close; the others were out of easy hearing.
"Sophia, I'm going to ask his consent to marry you."
"You'd better get mine first." She giggled at that, a childish giggle that comforted my heart.
"Then I'll ask his consent to pay court to you."
"He won't grant it. He'll give you the nicest refusal you ever heard. So why expose yourself—"
"He doesn't think I'll do it. He's invited me here to give me the chance, but he's sure I won't take it. Tell me you're with me in it. Say you love me."
"I love you, Homer—and want you to pay court to me—but it's not any use."
We were walking through a dimly lighted hall. It led to an immense dining room with another wall-high fireplace, walls of plaster marvelously worked, and a frescoed ceiling whose central figures were a goddess of some sort with a pitcher in her hand, a bearded Greek with a short sword, and a crouching leopard. The table in the candlelight surpassed all my imaginings. I had not known that even kings and queens sat down to such boards—the covers of lace showing the rosewood and satinwood beneath, the shimmering crystal of glasses of many shapes and kinds, the white antique silver, and the ivory-colored china.
"I've never seen anything Like this before," I remarked to Sir Godwine.
Watching his face so closely—as we all must—it seemed that he did not like my saying that, that it was not on his program. I could not even guess why it was not. In the brief silence, Harvey spoke.
"Not even in Boston?"
The words were addressed to me, but his eyes moved instantly to Sir Godwine's.
"He hasn't mentioned Boston, Harvey," Sophia said clearly. "Why do you?"
"By God, you're right, Sophia! If he has, you can stove me. Homer, to tell you the truth, it's a rare Yankee who doesn't mention Boston with his first glass, and 'tis come to be a bit of jest. You see, we've a Boston of our own. The name came from Botulph—Saint Botulph in Saxon times; six hundred years ago 'twas a great port next to London, while only two hundred years ago Massachusetts was a wilderness. So we've got to stop and think what Boston the Yankees mean."
"Sir, I wouldn't think it would take much thought, with our Boston three times as big already."
"You can lay to that, by heaven!"
"Anyway, there's nothing like this there. What does the picture on the ceiling represent?"
Not that I doubted that the figures were of Ulysses and the witch Calypso. That would be fitting decoration for a Maltese palace. I had been about to say so, with the idea of scoring again, when a kind of prudence taught in New England warned me not to go too fast.
"Answer him, Harvey."
"I dare say it's Oenone of Mount Ida, Paris's wife, trying to stop him from skipping off with Helen."
"Right!" And Sir Godwine looked at me more pleasantly than before.
"How did that palace come to be named Lepanto, if you'll kindly tell me?"
"I will, with pleasure. There was an ancient edifice here under Sicilian rule—the room we just left is part of it. That goes back to the late eleven hundreds, and maybe longer. The Knights of Saint John acquired the island in 1530—by 1565 they were fighting for their lives against the Turk. They turned him back, and six years later Don John, with the Knights' help, destroyed his fleet. An English Knight of Saint John, Sir Oliver Starkey, took a lively part, and shortly after, he rebuilt and enlarged the old structure, naming it for the sea fight. So I felt happy to be-quartered here, in the home of a countryman of no short spell ago."
As he talked, something giving the effect of beauty came into his face. I heard Sophia, beside me, catch her breath. I noticed, too, that the bluff salty speech he usually employed quite disappeared, as did the wintry rattle from his voice.
He had glanced at Millen as he began. This seadog butler and the footmen, too, froze in their places. As he finished, he gave him a slight nod; and at once the work of serving the dinner went forward. There were at least a dozen dishes of fish, meat, and game—prawns, scallops, eels, roast, quail, and venison pastry—and, it seemed to me, a different wine to go with every one. Before long I took thought of the parade of glasses before me, each kept brimming full. The beverages had delicate taste and fragrance; sailors would swear they were weak as water, but I was not in a mughouse now surrounded by my friends—I had more to lose than a thin wallet slipped out of my pocket by a kittling barmaid—so I had best take care. Thereafter I drank only one pouring of any one wine, by one means or another foiling the diligent footman at my elbow. Thus I fell far behind Sir Godwine and his sallow-skinned son, but ran about even with Harvey, whom I reckoned no more than my match in hardness of head.
Instead of easier, I figured the trial would be harder when all the glasses were whisked away except tall narrow ones for champagne and short barrel-shaped ones for brandy. When the pale-gold sparkling wine glimmered in the candlelight, Sir Godwine rose.
"Homer, you're not called upon to drink the toast I'm about to propose—unless you care to. It's to an old man not popular in your native land." He lifted his glass and his tone changed. "To the king!"
I stood and drained my glass with the rest. We had hardly sat down, the goblets brimming once more, when I rose again.