Читать книгу Needle-Watcher - Richard Blaker - Страница 16

CHAPTER VII

THERE was more leisure in the atmosphere of his next meeting with Ieyasu. The attitude of the Emperor was more whimsical; his smile had less of meditation and more of geniality than it had had before. Information from his agents and from his own examinings of men and of facts had recently led him to believe that a Southern army opposed to himself would be weak on its right flank, where opinion was stronger for himself. He had seen his genial old friend Matsura Ho-in who could, and assuredly would, strike at the possible enemy's rear with a dauntless company led by other Korean veterans grizzled and scarred as Ho-in himself. . . .

The Pilot, fidgeting and anxious about an armful of books and instruments, amused him. He asked the interpreter why he so urgently wanted them; what was the use of instruments of navigation to a pilot who had no ship?

Adams explained that the charts were wrong; that he wanted to fix upon them the true position of Japan by determining the position of the castle. How, the Emperor asked, could he do that? Adams told the interpreter to mention the instrument he was making out of wood, since the ship's cross-staff was still missing from the collection held by the Emperor. He turned up a page of bearings in the almanac and took the dividers. He tried to make it clear that by using the notches on the disc of the astrolabe he could draw degree-rays that would enable him to graduate his cross-staff; and it was clear that Ieyasu cared not a plum for astrolabes and dividers and globes and compasses; but he cared, peculiarly, for the way Adams conducted himself towards these things and towards himself. He let him talk and gesticulate. He let him draw a circle and divide it into quadrants, showing how an angle of ninety degrees could be accurately arrived at; and in the manner of an elder humouring a child, he pushed the complete heap of things towards Adams.

"Let him climb upon his wall and do his deeds," he said to the interpreter.

Thus they were dismissed again in friendly sort: for the interpreter told him, after more words from his Lord leyasu, that it was well with the ship and his friends, except that two more had died of their sickness. He did not know which two.

For five or six weeks they stayed where they were. The time did not hang unduly heavily upon them, for they were still in need of food and sleep.

Santvoort was the best of companions in convalescence; for he ate as well as he rested, nodding and smiling the slow smile with which he assumed that the morrow should be no worse than yesterday or to-day.

It took the best part of that five or six weeks for them to become fully conscious of their safety. It was not until this consciousness had become established—based, as it was, on nothing but the whimsical smile of a strange, nimble little man— that their minds moved out of their lethargy to speculate upon the future.

Adams could speculate only on the means of adapting the new circumstances to the old plan; for his mind was not of the sort that is easily shaken into a vision of new ideas.

He saw a ship; it was dismasted, battered and sprung—but it remained a ship and the only problem was masts and canvas, pitch and resin and carpenters.

They had brought a cargo of merchandise; and here again the problem was clearly defined—to sell what had not been pilfered and to recover what had; for the Emperor, he kept on telling Santvoort, was fair. Santvoort, however, divined the future more accurately, or else had less interest in it.

The fellow, Adams reflected, had no wife; no children of whom he knew, to place upon him the obligation of proving any bond. It was well enough for him to shuffle about in the sun or snooze in the shade with a heart content. Chance, through no fault of his own, had bereft him of the only responsibility he had ever known—the handful of men he had undertaken to control; and the bereavement made of him a man of leisure and complete ease. Just as responsibility always seemed to slide from the round wide shoulders of Santvoort, so upon the square ones of Adams it always seemed to settle. Weighted by the wife in Gillingham and the small daughters, he had set out upon this adventure. Now the ship itself and her cargo had become entirely his concern; and upon him also had fallen the onus of all relationship to the Emperor. Santvoort was oblivious of the significance of the stars in their courses and cared nought for the sun's declivity, while Adams cared for both.

He worked at the figures in the Liefde's log, at his observations and at the chart he was making; and he brooded upon the condition of the ship and her cargo and upon the house on the hill at Gillingham where he had left a woman and the children with a promise of better days.

They could make a few meanings clear to the serving-boy now as he busied himself about them with food. The soldier-interpreter was generally available to them when they wanted him, but the Emperor was not. He was away, Adams gathered, for an indefinite time. When at last he did have access again to leyasu Santvoort stayed at their lodging, contentedly nursing a mild pain in his stomach.

Led into the chamber by the interpreter, Adams was met by the same whimsical smile. leyasu spoke directly to him this time, slowly, so that Adams was able to recognize the phrases as greeting. In reply he aired his knowledge of a phrase of thanks, and leyasu laughed to the interpreter, who said to Adams, "You will soon have opportunity for learning more."

Adams showed the chart he had made, comparing it with the false one from Lintschoten's book by which he had sailed, leyasu, for all that he studied the chart carefully enough, seemed to find a greater interest outside it.

The explanations of Adams drifted from halting Portuguese to Dutch less halting. From Dutch they became English, but it was all one; for the interpreter, at a sign from his Lord, had ceased trying to interpret. Adams was thus undisturbed and uninterrupted in his sketch of the homeward course.

He stopped and asked directly when steps might be taken for the selling of the cargo and for the trimming of the ship.

"Presently," was the answer. "Presently. In good time."

It was now the end of June. War was brewing for leyasu and leyasu was brewing the last of it for Ishida Mitsunari. He had disposed his men and had taken their pledges in his enemy's rear.

He spoke again and the interpreter said: "His Lordship now gives you your leave. You will return with the Dutchman to your friends, and to your ship. Let your way be the way of peace."

Even if he had had the tongue, Adams would not have had the words for all his thoughts. Of returning to his friends he could have spoken, for he saw now that they had all come from death to life again. Of the ship also he could have spoken; and of the business before him of unlading her and of trimming her again for the sea. But of the friendship that was already in his heart for the man with whom he had actually exchanged no syllable, there was the realisation which was as yet too dim for any thought that could become a word. He rolled up his charts and shuffled a salute, and went back to Santvoort with the news.