Non-Stop Adventure

CAPTAIN FROM CASTILE -- Samuel Shellabarger --Little, Brown ($3).

June 28, 1518 was the name day of Pedro de Vargas in Jaen in Old Spain. It is also the opening date of one of the most torrid, non-stop adventure stories since Anthony Adverse. Captain from Castile begins with Pedro going to confession (he had slept through the Bishop's sermon, and kissed Catana Perez). The book ends, 633 pages later, with Pedro's bride being prepared by her mother-in-law for the nuptial bed ("And breasts so haughty! . . . Such a figure, too; skin like marble. ... I don't wonder he's mad about you").

Love and the Inquisition. Pedro was redhaired, blue-eyed, broad-shouldered, hot-tempered, chivalrous, brave, a good swordsman, a bad liar, and a miser when it came to hanging on to his illusions. When Pedro came upon two ruffians in the forest attacking Catana Perez (clad only in her shoes, stocking and a torn shift), he cut one with his whip and rode the other down with his horse, though Catana was only a tavern keeper's daughter. And without quite knowing what he was doing, he delivered himself and his family into the power of the Inquisition by trying to help a soldier whose mother had been arrested as a witch.

One of the Inquisition's hirelings, Diego de Silva, "a large black bat transformed into a man," wanted the de Vargas acres. He was also Pedro's rival for the hand of lovely, aristocratic Luisa de Carvajal ("the perfume of her clothes set Pedro's pulses throbbing"). Pedro was accused of trying to bribe the Inquisition. Outfighting his pursuers, Pedro fled to Mexico and the service of Cortes.

Death and Old Mexico. There Pedro and the soldier he befriended met their old Spanish enemies and friends--Diego de Silva, Catana, even the Inquisitor who condemned Pedro to death in Spain. The Aztecs, who welcome the Spaniards at first, turn on them at last like warrior ants. The retreat of the invaders over the broken causeways out of the city--la noche triste, the climax of Captain from Castile as it is of every book about Cortes' exploits--is the bloody nightmare of Spain in the New World.

"Weighed with their gold, men sank like stone or struggled vainly, for a moment, in a tangle of baggage and bodies. Horses rolled from the embankment on top of them; while on either side of the breach the relentless canoes plied spears and clubs and arrows. A long-drawn scream rose from the water. . . . The causeway had become a solid writhing of agonized life fighting for itself. . . ."

No philosophical pauses, such as clogged the pell-mell action of Anthony Adverse, slow down Captain from Castile. It has all the trappings of romantic fiction: moonlight trysts, carousals, desperate galloping, clashing swords, a gallows scene, the education of an innocent girl in the arts of love by her worldly-wise duenna.

But the characterizations in Captain from Castile are too sharp, the historical material too exact, to allow the book to be dismissed as merely a skillful costume thriller. Its language is sometimes too high flown, its plot too intricate and too neat, to satisfy the exacting requirements of serious literature. But, it is among the best popular fictional accounts of the conquistadores that has appeared (less burdened with history than Edward Stucken's The Great White Gods), less exotic than Salvador de Madariaga's The Heart of Jade. As good reading, certain to take the minds of thousands of readers off their troubles for tens of thousands of hours, Captain from Castile is first rate.

The Author. Dr. Samuel Shellabarger, 56, was born in Washington, D.C., educated at Munich and Harvard. He is now headmaster of the Columbus (Ohio) School for Girls. For 20 years, under his own and two pen names (John Esteven, Peter Loring), he has been writing mysteries, romances, biographies. Captain from Castile is his first big success. Chosen by the Literary Guild for January, it has also been snapped up by 20th Century-Fox for $100,000.

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