Spice and the Devil's Cave Read Online Free PDF Page B

dedicated to a certain enterprise – another of his secrets. By and by, he ran on to himself, when he had finished it and the astrolabe, then, then – he was going to make maps . . . Maps!
    He sawed on, till the severed block fell to the floor. Then he laid down his work, slid open the table drawer and began to lean over his copies of maps, inscribed with such signatures as Giovanni Leardo, Fra Mauro, Cadamosto. One of these days, he promised himself, he, too, would make maps – not, as these other chaps made them, as they fancied or hoped the earth was – but as it really was; but for that, of course, he would have to wait till Diaz put the final link in the sea route to India, and could give him facts.
    He closed the drawer and went on with his sawing. Then – as he had foreseen – Ruth stood in the doorway.
    â€œAbel –”
    When Ruth began that way, and then paused, it was a sign that her mind must be unloaded.
    â€œYes, Ruth?”
    She came into the workshop, and sat down, without so much as a glance at the litter of sawdust to which she usually objected. “Abel – I’m worried about that child. Why doesn’t she talk?”
    Abel took up a chisel and ran his thumb over its edge. Vaguely he was wondering at Ruth’s silence about the sawdust. He stole a look at her. Her face was anxious, softer than he remembered.
    â€œShouldn’t you think she’d talk,” she continued, “and tell us what frightened her?”
    â€œNo, I shouldn’t. Just think of the terror that was in her poor face; that still is. The child is simply beyond speech.”
    â€œBeyond speech, Abel? You don’t mean –”
    â€œOh, nothing but what’ll right itself,” he hastily assured her. “By and by, when she feels at home with us –” He was absorbed, as he applied the chisel to an uneven edge.
    Ruth watched him in silence. “I wonder,” he heard her say, as if she were talking to herself, “I wonder what her voice will sound like.” And not waiting for him to comment, she left the room.
    What would the Girl’s voice sound like? Abel pondered. If Ruth hadn’t suggested it, he would never have thought of such a thing, but now he began to feel a growing curiosity to hear it. Perhaps if he approached her, spoke to her very gently .. . But so far she had persistently clung to Ruth, and had shrunk from him.
    As he worked, his mind alternated between ways to persuade her to speak, and the mystery that so completely wrapped her. There was a last possibility that Ferdinand might have got hold of some clue.
    But when Ferdinand finally appeared, late that afternoon, Abel saw at a glance that he had been no more successful than himself.
    â€œThat girl must have got here on wings,” the boy declared, “for I was down at the docks first thing the morning after, and there wasn’t a sign of anything like a slave cargo. I made sure of that: I got the name of every craft that had tied up here, where she hailed from, what stops she’d made, and what she was carrying. After that I inquired at the inns to find out who’d come in to town in the last day or two.”
    Abel nodded. “Just what I did.”
    â€œI saw something odd while I was hunting a clue down on the quay,” Ferdinand continued. “Some merchant had just found a shortage in a consignment that a Venetian galleon had brought, and he was cursing Venice and Venetians for cheats and thieves, when, from behind him, up comes a young fellow with blood in his eye; says he’s a Venetian and wants to know what the man means.” Ferdinand stopped to laugh at the recollection. “In another minute I expected to see fists fly, when, all of a sudden, I noticed the young chap smile to himself, and pull out his wallet. ‘I’ll stand your loss, sir,’ says he, and then there was some more about his being a friend of the captain who was