Yet not so,
For the Victoria, faithful to his hand
That laid her charge upon her, southward sailed
Around the Cape and westward to Seville.
El Cano brought her in, and her strange tale
Told to the Emperor. "And the Admiral said,"
He ended, "that indeed these heathen lands
God meant should all be Christian, for He set
A cross of stars above the southern sea,
A passion-flower upon the southern shore,
To be a sign to great adventurers.
These be two marvels,--and upon the way
We gained a kingdom, but we lost a day!"
IX
WAMPUM TOWN
"Elephants' teeth?"
"A fair lot, but I am sick of the Guinea coast. The Lisbon slavers get
more of black ivory than we do of the white."
The good Jean Parmentier, who asked the question, and the youth called
Jean Florin, who answered it, were looking at a stanch weather-beaten
little cargo-ship anchored in the harbor of Dieppe. She had been to the
Gold Coast, where wild African chiefs conjured elephants' tusks out of
the mysterious back country and traded them for beads, trinkets and gay
cloth. In Dieppe this ivory was carved by deft artistic fingers into
crucifixes, rosaries, little caskets, and other exquisite bibelots.
African ivory was finer, whiter and firmer than that of India, and when
thus used was almost as valuable as gold.
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