Emperor of Gondwanaland Read Online Free Page B

pleasant to look upon. Her unreadable face bore down on Merino continuously. I noticed he could not meet her eyes.
    I asked to send half my meal to Belgrano. Tess passed the plate out the door to another Fanzoy, waiting instantly there.
    Eventually the wine began to tell on Merino. He had drunk an enormous quantity, opening another bottle brought from under the bunk. I was barely on my second glass.
    I thought that now was perhaps the best time to mention the name that had seemed so important to Sanctus Monteagle. Perhaps Merino’s unimprisoned lips would let slip something.
    “Did you have,” I inquired offhandedly, “a crewman by the name of Sadler?”
    Merino shot to his feet, his face livid. “Goddamn you for a sneaking spy! How came you by the name of Sadler?”
    I had expected nothing so fierce. Luckily, I had had the foresight to prepare a story to shield the Sanctus.
    “I glimpsed it on a strewn page from your own miskept log. Why take it so meanly?”
    Merino sat again, passing a trembling hand across his sweaty brow. Tess had never stirred. “Forgive me. It is only that—I thought—No matter. Yes, there was one Sadler aboard. Sadler Merino, my cousin and first mate, whom I mentioned before. A bold and worthy man, better by far than I. But he is no more. Would he had gone overboard with the rest, instead of dying as he did!”
    Merino refilled his glass, which had tipped when he jumped up, adding its yellow river to the mess. I thought he had to forcibly stop his eyes from going to the veiled statue in the corner. Maybe some old touch of religious feeling he sought to deny was upon him.
    Now all meanness, Merino barked an order at the Fanzoy.
    “Tess, you bloody snake! Clear these dishes away!”
    What happened next was uncanny.
    Tess arose and approached Merino. When she was less than half a meter away, the captain began to stand, unwillingly, like an automaton, as if his muscles were under another’s control. When he was upright, his arm swung in a similar fashion. At the end of its arc, it touched the Fanzoy’s cheek.
    He stroked Tess’s face once or twice in a horrible mechanical parody of affection.
    Tess broke the tableau. She gathered the plates and walked away. Merino collapsed sobbing into his seat.
    I averted my face.
    After a time, he ceased weeping. All his hostility had turned now to solicitude. Which emotion was the real one? Or were both?
    “You must return to your ship, to begin ferrying us supplies. Let me escort you to the rail.”
    He stood. Apparently on impulse, he buckled the short scabbard and dagger lying before him onto his belt.
    Tess emerged inescapably to accompany us.
    We left the tenebrous cabin for the brilliant sunlight.
     
    V. Return to the Melville , and the Unexpected
     
    To step outdoors was to be reborn.
    Never had I so appreciated the tropic breezes, the balmy light, the spumy air. The dark cabin seemed now like a grave, and I marveled that I had escaped.
    How much more keenly must Merino have felt it, after inhabiting the cabin for a year.
    I could see that in the hours I had been with Merino, our two ships had drifted closer together. Now only seventy meters or so separated the two vessels, one so clean and wholesomely gay, the other unkempt and exhaling an almost visible miasma of doom.
    Merino, Tess, and I walked toward the rail where sturdy old Belgrano kept his post, a bluff watchdog if ever there was one.
    A light pattering behind me caused me to turn.
    Eighty Fanzoii or more—what I took to be the full number aboard—now followed us at a discreet distance. Their buff robes and peachy flesh made them seem like a pale wall mottled with skyrr-lichen which was toppling endlessly toward us. Their inexpressive faces were more alarming at the time than the ugliest masks of human hatred.
    In their midst, through a gap, I thought to glimpse poor Purslen Monteagle, herded like a lone sheep among wolves. His face exhibited an agonized alarm; his mouth worked, yet no