After Jack had related certain things to his partners, and after they'd allowed a day or two to pass, Moseh turned to Elizabeth one evening as they were dining, and remarked, "The situation of this Bay seems so fair that it will probably attract simpletons from all over the world…doubtless the Russians will throw up a fort on that promontory any year now."
Elizabeth looked politely amused at the reaction of Edmund de Ath, who turned red and began to chew his food very slowly. She turned to Moseh and said, "Pray tell, why wouldn't sophisticated men build here?"
"Ah, my lady, I would not bore you with the tedious speculations of the Cabbalists…"
"On the contrary, my family tree is full of conversos, and I love to steep myself in the wisdom of the rabbis."
"My lady, we are near the latitude of forty degrees. The golden rays of the sun, and silver rays of the moon, strike the surface of the globe at a glancing angle here, rather than shining down vertically onto the ground. Now it has been understood by Cabbalistickal sorcerers, ever since the days of the First Temple, that the diverse metals that grow in the earth, are created by certain rays that emanate from the various heavenly bodies, penetrate the Earth, and there combine with the Elements of Earth and Water to create gold, silver, copper, mercury, et cetera, depending on which Planet emanated the Ray. Videlicet, the rays of the Sun create Gold, those of the Moon Silver, et cetera, et cetera. And it follows naturally that Gold and Silver will be found most abundantly in sunny places near the Equator."
"The Alchemists of Christendom have either borrowed this insight from your Cabbalists, or discovered it on their own," said Elizabeth.
"As you know, Lady, the great metropolises of al-Andalus, Cordoba and Toledo, were crucibles in which the most learned men of Christendom, of dar al-Islam, and of the Diaspora commingled their knowledge…"
"I thought the function of a crucible was to purify and not to intermix," said Edmund de Ath, and then put on an angelic face.
"To fall into discussion of alchemichal arcana would be to do the lady a disservice," said Moseh. "She informs me that the sages of the King of Spain are well-acquainted with the nature and properties of the astrologickal emanations. Yet any half-wit who glances at a map could have inferred that that the Rey knows all about the rays, for it has ever been the wise policy of the Spanish Empire to follow the Line, and establish colonies in the auriferous belt where Sun and Moon beat straight down on the earth. Leave California and Alyeska to the wretched Russians, for gold will never be discovered in those places!"
"I confess I am somewhat taken a-back," said Edmund de Ath, "as I never dreamed until now that I was sharing a ship with a Cabbalistic sorcerer."
"Don't hang your head so, monsieur. The North Pacific is not generally considered a Jewish neighborhood…"
"What possessed you to venture out this way, sir?" asked Elizabeth de Obregon. The sight of land, and fresh food, had brought her back to life, and now this fencing-match between the Jansenist and the Jew was taking years off her age.
"My lady, you do me a favor to pretend interest in my obscure researches," said Moseh. "I'll return the kindness by being as brief as possible: there is an occult legend to the effect that King Solomon, after building the Temple on Mount Zion—"
"—journeyed far to the East and built a Kingdom on some island there," said Elizabeth de Obregon.
"Indeed. A kingdom of vast wealth to be sure, but—more importantly—an Olympian center for alchemical scholarship and Cabbalistic research. There the secrets of the Philosopher's Stone and the Philosophic Mercury were first brought to light—in fact, all the lucubrations of our modern-day Alchemists and Cabbalists are but a feeble attempt to pick over the scraps left behind by Solomon and his court magicians. After I had journeyed to the frontiers of learning during my youth, I reached the conclusion that I could only learn more by seeking out the Solomon Islands and going over them inch by inch."
Now it was Elizabeth's turn to become pink in the face. "Many have died trying to discover those islands, rabbi. If your tale is true, you are fortunate to be alive."
"No more fortunate than you, my lady."
Now Elizabeth de Obregon locked her gaze upon Moseh, and mystickal Rays passed back and forth between them for a while, until Edmund de Ath could not endure it any longer. He said, "Can you share your findings with us, sir, or must the results be locked up in some encyphered Torah somewhere?"
"The results are still resulting, sir, there is no definite report to be made."
"But you've left the Solomon Islands!"
"I have. That much is obvious. But did you really think I could have journeyed there alone? Of all those who went, monsieur, I am the least. A mere errand-boy, sent this way to fetch a few necessaries. The rest are still there, hard at work."
PLAYING WITH THE MINDS of Edmund de Ath and Elizabeth de Obregon made for excellent sport, and if done right, might even keep Jack, Moseh, and company alive when they reached Acapulco. But it was a sport Jack could only watch, since neither of those two would seriously entertain the idea of having a conversation with him. To Jack, the lady showed faint, perfunctory gratitude, and to all others she showed a sort of amused tolerance—all except Edmund de Ath, who was the only one she treated as an equal. This galled Jack far more than it should have. It was years since he'd been a king in Hindoostan and he should have been used to his reduced status. But being around this Spanish gentlewoman made him want to go back to Shahjahanabad and enlist in the service of the Great Mogul once more. And he was on his own ship!
"The only cure for it is to become a merchant prince," said Vrej Esphahnian, as they were sailing out of the Golden Gate on a cold, clear morning. "And that is what we are working toward. Learn from the Armenians, Jack. We do not care for titles and we do not have armies nor castles. Noble folk can sneer at us all they like—when their kingdoms have fallen into dust, we will buy their silks and jewels with a handful of beans."
"That is well, unless pirates or princes take what you have so tediously acquired," Jack said.
"No, you don't understand. Does a farmer measure his wealth in pails of milk? No, for pails spill, and milk spoils in a day. A farmer measures his wealth in cows. If he has cows, milk comes forth almost without effort."
"What is the cow, in this similitude?" asked Moseh, who had come over to listen.
"The cow is the web, or net-work of connexions, that Armenians have spun all the world round."
"It has never ceased to astonish me how you find Armenians everywhere we go," Jack admitted.
"In every place where we have tarried for more than a few days: Algiers, Cairo, Mocha, Bandar-Abbas, Surat, Shahjahanabad, Batavia, Macao, Manila—I have been able to invest some small fraction of my profits in the diverse enterprises of other Armenians," Vrej said. "In some cases the amounts were trivial. But it does not matter—those men know me now, they are knots in my net-work, and when I return to Paris, even if we lose Minerva and everything aboard her, I'll be a wealthy man—not in milk but in cows."
"Avast there, Vrej," Jack said, "I am not a superstitious man, but I do not love to hear this talk of losing Minerva."
Vrej shrugged. "Sometimes a man must accept a great loss."
An awkward stillness for a few moments, made more excruciatingly obvious by the shouting of the riggers as they trimmed the sails for a new course. Minerva was leaving the Golden Gate behind, and coming about into a new southeasterly course along the coast. She'd follow this general heading for some two thousand miles to Acapulco.
Finally Moseh said, "Well, I am a superstitious man, or at least a religious one, and I have been pondering this: When is my trading-voyage finished?"