Spice and the Devil's Cave by Agnes Danforth Hewes Page B

understand!”
    Scander paused, then, visibly bracing himself, he plunged on. “Next thing I knew, Captain flung open the door. ‘At them! ‘he yelled. ‘Every one of them-in the name of Allah!‘
    â€œRuth cried out in the horrified stillness, and “You mean-in cold blood?” stammered Ferdinand.
    â€œDid you . . . too?” someone gasped.
    â€œHow’d you suppose I know what I did in that hell’s shambles?” he burst out. “Only thing I can remember is watching swords and knives, all red and dripping to their hilts, slipping in and out among those shiny, brown bodies just as their hands had been slipping in and out of the spices!”
    A shudder ran through his listeners, but, apparently unmoved, Scander went on as if he were reciting by rote. “They killed, and they killed, and they killed,” he deliberately pronounced. “Then I felt my head swim. I tried to get to the door-slipped-went down-” His voice broke, and he put his hand hastily over his mouth. “It was all warm and slimy down there-blood and spice mixed up together-”
    â€œGo on,” Abel hastily interposed. “Get to the rest of it.”
    â€œI promised myself,” the sailor said slowly, “I’d never go over this, but seeing you all so keen on this spice business-these young chaps in particular-I thought you ought to hear the other side.” He clutched his throat and swallowed hard. “That smell of warm blood and spice makes my stomach heave yet!”
    â€œHow about the spice merchant? Ever see him?” Nicolo inquired.
    Scander ran his tongue around his lips before he answered. “T’ll cnmp to him in a minute. TCv the time we’d got through witn me sorting snea, we coma near a terrmie commotion all over the place and we could see the warehouse afire. ‘Here’s my chance to warn the Franji’ thinks I, and I made a rush for the house, when-down jumps Captain from a wall behind me! ‘Come on/says he, ‘you’re the man I want/and he drove me in front of him with that red, dripping blade of his at my back. I knew, then, he suspected what I had in mind.
    â€œThe moment we reached the house, we saw that others had been there before us. The place looked like the tail end of a typhoon; everything upside down, cupboards open, clothes scattered around. ‘Where is he?’ Captain kept asking. ‘Where’s the Franji?’ We looked around for a while, and then, as we went into the court, we saw something on the stairs that led to the roof – something all huddled together. ‘Go on up,’ Captain orders me, ‘till we make sure,’ and he made me stand by whilst he jabbed at it with his foot-curse him. ‘Twas a man with his arms around a woman, and a sword right through the two of them-the spice merchant and his wife. You could tell from his features that he was a Franji. She was an Arab; a real queen, poor creature, with long, black braids and big, dark eyes and slender hands.
    â€œWell – that’s about all,” he ended, sombrely. “I stayed right by Captain, took his orders, and went back to the ship with him, quiet as a lamb. But I’d had enough. A night or two after, when we were to leave Aden first thing in the morning, I slipped over the side, got ashore, and shipped with a big slave vessel bound for Egypt.”
    There was a brevity in this winding up of the story that struck everyone with a feeling of something omitted.
    Diaz drew a long breath. “You never heard any more of the Franj ship, I suppose?”
    â€œNever a word, sir.”
    â€œDid your captain try to follow you?” asked Nicolo.
    â€œIf he did, I never got wind of it. From the minute I quit him I was right on my way, and I never stopped till I saw Alexandria and knew I was in western waters. I wanted to get as far as I could from spice! And here I’ve stuck my nose right into the