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

sensed his hostility toward this subject over which Europe was seething.
    â€œWhere are your friends? “he at last demanded.
    â€œUp the hill a way-I’ll take you there myself,” Nicolo eagerly volunteered.
    â€œOh, I might go, some evening,” the other agreed, as he turned away. “Perhaps I can tell you a thing or two about this spice business,” he added over his shoulder, “seeing you’re so keen on it.”
    Bursting with his news, Nicolo strode up the hill. Already he could see Abel’s shining eyes when he should hear it: someone who had handled spices and seen them growing to tell about them first hand! They must arrange, too, for Gama and Diaz and the others to be there. It would be tremendous, epoch-making – and Nicolo quickened his step.
    He found Ruth in the court, splitting figs from a heaped basket, and spreading them to dry in the sun. Abel was out, she said, but he would be back any moment.
    Nicolo went into the workshop, took the Marco Polo Travels from its shelf, and sat down to see what he could make of the translation. At last, as no Abel appeared, he decided to delay no longer. He laid down the book and had started toward the door, when a stealthy sound arrested him, a sound which he knew instantly was not meant to be heard.
    He glanced at Ruth busily dipping in and out of the figs. She, certainly, had not made that sound. There! . . . There it was, again.
    On impulse he tiptoed into the next room, and looked into the room beyond. Back to him, by an open window, stood a girl, holding a bird-cage. Its tiny door, he noticed, was swung back, and the bird inside was fluttering uneasily. She lifted the cage to the window, and gently shook it. Nicolo watched her in amazement. Did she want to get rid of the little creature? Again she shook the cage, and, this time, out flashed the bird-not through the window, but into the room.
    The girl wheeled around, and for a moment Nicolo had a swift vision of dark, velvety eyes in a face that was delicately, duskily golden. She seemed not even to see him. Her eyes were on the bird that was now darting about, and Nicolo perceived that they were very frightened. She had changed her mind, he guessed instantly-wanted her pet back!
    He sprang forward, closed the door behind him, and then the window. Carefully he watched his chance, and when the downy little body dashed itself against a wall, his waiting hands closed gently around it. He held it so, until he felt the frantic wings and the fierce, tiny heart gradually quiet under his fingers-aware all the time that close to him a girl’s breath came and went unevenly, that great, dark eyes wide with terror besought his.
    He slipped the bird inside the cage and fastened the little door. Then, very gently, he turned to the girl, waited for her to speak, for he had the impression that something behind those terrified, beautiful eyes was waiting to be said. He could see the trembling of her clenched hands, and the pulsing of the soft, bare neck, and it came, curiously, to him that somehow she was the struggling bird that his hands had held and shielded; and suddenly he wanted, above everything he had ever wanted, to so hold and so shield her; to tell her that never again was she to be afraid-not of anything!
    â€œYou won’t tell?” she whispered at last. “I was so frightened after I’d done it! He’s Mother Ruth’s pet –”
    â€œOf course I won’t tell! Not for worlds.” He had all he could do to keep back a rush of tender assurances, “But why . . . why . . . did you?” He nodded toward the cage.
    â€œBecause – because –” her hands clutched at her throat –” I was once like that bird-shut up in a cage. And I couldn’t-couldn’t-get out!”
    â€œIn-a-cage? You?”
    Something seemed to burst within him. This tender body behind bars! . . . This soft, throbbing neck! His nails bit into his palms