Page:Cup of Gold-1929.djvu/224

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

Cup of Gold

him. His eyes, those peering eyes which had looked out over a living horizon, were turned inward. He had been looking at himself, looking perplexedly at Henry Morgan. In the years of his life and of his adventuring, he had believed so completely in his purpose, whatever it may have been at the moment, that he had given the matter little thought. But to-day he had considered himself, and, in the gray twilight, he was bewildered at the sight of Henry Morgan. Henry Morgan did not seem worthy, or even important. Those desires and ambitions toward which he had bayed across the world like a scenting hound, were shabby things now he looked inward at himself. And wonderment like the twilight was about him in the Hall of Audience.

As he sat in the half dark, the wrinkled duenna crept in and stood before him. Her voice was like the crumpling of paper.

“My lady wishes to speak with you,” she said. Henry rose and walked heavily after her toward the cell.

A candle was burning before the holy picture on the wall. The madonna represented was a fat, Spanish peasant, holding a flabby child at which she looked with sad astonishment. The priest who painted it meant to put reverence on her face, but he had so little experience with reverence. He had been successful, however, in making it a good portrait of his dull mistress and his child. Four reales, the picture brought him.

[217]