"I shall need none."
"Ah, but you will! It belikes me much, fair maid, to disport me at
ease this very eve, here on the deck, under the moon, and to hear you
yourself and none other, fairest of all my captives, touch the lute,
or whatever you may call it, to that same air you and I, fair maid,
heard long ago together at a lattice under the Spanish moon. A swain
touched then his lute, or whatever you may call it, to his Dulcinea.
Here 'tis in the reverse. The fair maid, having no option, shall touch
the lute, or whatever you call it, to John Doe, Black Bart, or
whatever you may call him; who is her captor, who feels himself about
to love her beyond all reason; and who, if he find no relief,
presently, in music--which is better than drink--will go mad, go mad,
and be what he should not be, a cruel master; whereas all he asks of
fate is that he shall be only a kind captor and a gentle friend."
Her head held very high, she passed me without a word and threw open
the door of her suite.
... And that night, that very night, that very wondrous, silent,
throbbing night of the Sabbath and the South, when all the air was as
it seemed to me in saturation, in a suspense of ecstasy, to be broken,
to be precipitated by a word, a motion, a caress, a note ... that
night, I say, as I sat on the forward deck alone, I heard, far off and
faint as though indeed it were the lute of Andalusia, the low, slow,
deep throb of a guitar!... My whole heart stopped. I was no more
than a focused demand of life. Reason was gone from me, not intellect
but emotion--that is its basic thing after all, emotion born on earth
but reaching to the stars.... I listened, not hearing.... It was the
air we had heard long ago, a love song of old Spain, written, perhaps,
before DeSoto and his men perished in these very bayous and forests
that now shielded us against all tumult, all turmoil, all things
unhappy or unpleasant. The full tide of life and love swept through my
veins as I listened.
I rose, I hastened. At her door I paused. "Helena!" I called
raucously. "Helena." And she made no reply. "Helena," I called again.
"It was the same old air. This is Spain again! Ah, I thank you for
that same old air. Helena, forgive me. May I come in--will you come
out?"
I halted. A cold voice came from the companionway door. "You have a
poor ear for music, John Doe. It is not the same. Do you think I would
take orders from you, or any other man?"