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"You're hurt, sir," he said, worry in his tone.
"A thrown dagger," Cavendish said, looking at his blood-stained shirt. "I was in a brawl last night."
Pretty opened the shirt to look at the crude bandages on the upper left arm.
"Cosmos will change the linen," Cavendish said, sinking down in a chair. "Tell me, Pretty, how are things with you? Sit down, man. Cosmos will bring you some wine. Javanese wine, do you remember?"
Pretty kept his smile. "Aye, aye, sir!"
Cavendish settled back comfortably. "Well, Pretty?"
"I'm splendid, sir. I was hoping to see you come to Trimley. Before I reached London. And I'm married, sir!"
"Married? Jesu, man, my congratulations! The wench is lucky to have you."
"Thank you, sir," Pretty said. "She waited for me. For more than two years."
"Some women will," Cavendish said. "Here's Cosmos."
Cosmos came in, carrying a tray with powerful white wine and glasses.
Cosmos poured the wine.
"Drink hearty," Cavendish said. "You'll stay for dinner?"
Pretty lifted the strong wine to his lips. "I wish I could, sir," he said, "but Lucinda, my bride, is waiting for me. We're staying with her uncle, on Villiers Street."
"How do you like the room?" Cavendish asked.
"It's beautiful," Pretty said. "I remember when we cut down those leather paintings. I remember that kris over the fireplace."
"Java," said Cavendish.
Under the leather painting, at each side of the fireplace, ran bookshelves, and on one of them stood a rack of pipes. Pretty said, "I see Captain Havers' pipes, too, sir."
Cavendish said, "I kept them, Pretty."
Pretty looked straight into the blue eyes of his Captain. "You think Master David dead, sir?" he asked, steadily.
"There is no news," Cavendish said. "None. I was hoping for news."
Pretty said, "Oh, sir, I—"
Cavendish filled his glass. "Have you seen Moon?" he asked.
"Aye," said Pretty. "He's wed too, sir."
There were voices in the hallway, and Pretty got to his feet.
"I have to leave, sir," he said, reluctantly. He picked up the book
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he had been reading. It was bound in leather and had "To Captain Cavendish" printed in gold letters. "May I have this to read tonight, sir?"
"Certainly," said Cavendish.
"Have you read it, sir? It is good. Good poetry. I wish I could write as well. My account is factual. It's being printed, though, sir," he ended proudly. "Richard Hakluyt is printing it."
Cavendish looked pleased and surprised. He regarded Pretty with affection. He walked to the door. "I'll read yours. I remember the first day you came aboard; you were carrying a leather journal."
"Just like now," said Pretty, lifting the book in his hand; "only, this time, the words have been written and the voyage is over."
"Aye," said Cavendish. "The voyage is over." He opened the door. "Good-bye," he said.
He went upstairs to dress and bathe and shave. Cosmos put a plaster on the knife wound in his upper arm and fixed a black velvet sling to match his master's doublet. By ten that night Cavendish was royally drunk.
He had served all kinds of wonderful food and wines. There had been musicians hired and dancers and entertainers. His guests were masked and the long gallery was full of men and women. Fires blazed at either end of the room in marble fireplaces.
At exactly ten, a man and a woman, unmasked, entered the big room. Cosmos saw the gentleman and he let out a startled gasp. The woman brushed by Cosmos and stood looking at the room and the scene it presented. Her eyes searched the room quickly; she found the man she wanted and she started toward him, walking fast.
She approached him from behind. Cavendish was leaning against the table watching his feminine companion throw the dice for him. She made a good throw; he scraped up the coins and dropped them down the front of her dress. He looked up to meet black eyes that rested on him with smouldering anger.
"You drunken beast!" said their owner, coming to stand right before him.
His startled expression turned to one of amusement.
The woman raised her fan and struck at Cavendish's companion. "Leave us!" she commanded.
"Wait a moment, mistress!" Cavendish said.
"Make these whores leave!" She was breathless with anger.
Her dark hair was arranged on top of her head. She wore a white gown, and from her ears swung long pearl earrings. Just as the
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memory of her face came to his mind, one of the men near by put a familiar hand on her shoulder, seizing her roughly. Startled, she cried out. And then Cavendish did remember. Lola again faced him, as she had done that day in the pine forests of San Lucas. And Cavendish said, "Take your hands off her!"
"I'll do it this time, Tom," said a voice behind him. David reached out leisurely and took Lola's admirer by the front of his jacket. He shook him slowly and ended the brief encounter by sending him backwards onto the floor, into the dancers and the men and women who were watching.
"The next time you lay a hand on Madam Cavendish, I'll kill you," David said pleasantly. He held out his hand to Cavendish.
Cavendish gripped it hard. "David," he said, low. "David." He could say nothing else.
"Aye, Tom. Hadn't you expected me, sometime?"
"I hoped," Cavendish said. They must be waiting for him to do something. Gently he put Lola's hand in his arm across the sling. "My congratulations, Madam Cavendish," he said. "Come." Again he looked incredulously at both of them. "We cannot keep her here, David."
Lola's hand, still brown, rested on the black velvet uncompromisingly.
"I am glad that you at least realize this company is not fit," she said, lapsing into quick Spanish that reminded him of Catherine.
David smiled unperturbably. "Oh, I don't know, Lola. A man must play.".
Lola drew a deep breath; they were going downstairs. In the study, Cavendish shut the door. David looked about the room appreciatively.
"Beautiful, Tom," he said.
Cavendish blurted. "You knew all the time you were alive, but I didn't, David!" He suddenly smiled, the brilliant wonderful smile, and Lola's expression softened.
"Now you look like your portrait!" she said.
Cavendish didn't hear her. Lola walked over by the fire. She thought England was frighteningly cold. She heard David's and Cavendish's voices, and quick tears filled her eyes. She thought of Kate and the baby. She and David had come late tonight because the baby had cried. She sank down into the chair by the fire and listened.
"We saved the Santa Anna," David was saying.
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"You saved her?" came Cavendish's incredulous tones.
"The fire freed the starboard stern anchor, Tom. I cut the larboard cable. We payed out the fore cables and beached her. The wind changed. I had started the men at the bilge pumps to protect the hull." He looked at his brother's face. He smiled. "Do not worry, Tom. They'll never use her again. They dismantled her in Acapulco."
"Then," said Cavendish, "then, what happened?"
"I used the little bark you built. She was sunk by enemy action." David grinned. "At the mouth of the Verde River. One of the men with me was killed, and I tied him aboard so they would find one body, and we went underwater until the Spaniards left. Lola almost drowned. After that, it was easier. They thought us dead. I brought a man named Sebastian home with me. We came home from America as seamen, together. It was another easy matter to leave Spain for France, and then England."
"Very easy," said Cavendish.
Lola said, "David is a wonderful man."
"She's mad about me," David said.
Questions trembled on Cavendish's tongue. But he couldn't voice them. David was saying, "I am told Brule must have foundered."