The Love of Monsieur

By midnight the wind fell, and with the flapping of the idle sail Barbara awoke.

She lay for some moments, her eyes winking at the swinging stars, then pushed the cloak aside, lifted her head, and looked wide-eyed around and into the face of Bras-de-Fer.

“I have slept?” she asked, bewildered – “I have slept in this boat?” He bent forward over her eager delight.

“The clock around, Barbara, dear. You were so weary, so weary, I have let you rest.”

“Ah, yes, I remember. The Saucy Sally– ”

“An evil dream, a nightmare. See; we are borne upon a fairy sea. All the world is at peace. This infinity of beauty is ours – it is for us alone.”

She shuddered a little and drew closer to him. “Oh, it is so vast, so inscrutable, this treacherous, pitiless water! Have we come nearer to the land?”

“Fifteen leagues at least. The wind has failed us but this half-hour. After you have eaten and drunk you shall sleep again, and when you awake I promise you land under the very lid of the eye.”

“And you – have you not slept?”

“Madame, I am a very owl of birds. But I have the hunger of a lynx.”

Then while she took the helm he set before her the food which Jacquard had provided. There were sea-biscuit, boucan, preserved fruits from the store of the San Isidro, and a pannikin of rum-and-water.

It was not until she ate that she discovered how hungry she was; Bras-de-Fer had eaten nothing for eight-and-forty hours. And so like two children they sat and supped hungrily. When the meal was done, Bras-de-Fer arranged the bread-bags and the pillow so that she might sleep in greater comfort, but she would not have it so.

“No, no,” she insisted, “I am well again and strong. If you do not sleep I shall not.” And so resolute was her tone that he forbore to press her further.

But sleep was the furthest from his own eyes. He felt not even the faintest touch of weariness. She leaned back upon his arm again, and so, hand in hand, they sat in their little vessel, mute and spellbound at the completeness of their happiness, which even the presence of grim danger was powerless to steal away from them. The air was sweet and balmy and brushed their cheeks like the breath from an angel’s wing. The first pungent aromatic odor of the land reached their nostrils, mingled delicately with the salt of the sea. In silence they watched the planets burn and glow red like molten iron against the star-bepowdered sky, across which the placid moon sailed down upon its promised course. Flying stars vied with each other in the brightness of their illuminations in their honor. And presently, shaming them into darkness, a giant meteor shot like a flaming brand across the spacious sky, spurning and burying in its splendid pathway a myriad of the lesser embers; which, when it was done, peeped forth again timidly upon the velvet night, ashamed of their small share in its glory. All of this they saw reflected doubly on an ocean of gray satin, which sent the bright reflections in wriggling rays like so many snakes of fire to mingle and play amid the glow of the caressing surges, which gushed languidly at their very feet.

To have spoken would have been to break the spell which bound them to the infinite. And so they sat enthroned in these wonderful dominions of which for the nonce they were prince and princess.

“Thou art content?” he asked at last.

She did not answer him at once. When she did, it was softly and with eyes which sought the distant horizon away from him.

“If to be content means to breathe freely, deeply, the pure air of heaven, to thank God for the present, to care not what evil has been or what evil may be, to be engulfed in quiet delight, to be swathed in peace, then, monsieur, I am content.”

He flushed warmly, and the arm about her tightened. He sought her lips with his own. She did not resist him. And so before the high, effulgent altar of God’s heaven, with the surges for choristers, the stars for candles, and the voices of the sentient night for company, he plighted her his troth.

It was then that she swept away the only shadow that remained upon their love. With head bowed, in deep contrition he told her of his madness that first night upon the Saucy Sally, when he had wildly railed at fate, at all things, and promised to wreak upon her he knew not what dire vengeance.

“Our accounts are balanced, then,” she smiled. “We shall begin anew. For I, too, have many times denied you in my heart and on my lips. And I know that I have loved you always.”

“Adorée!” he whispered.

It was Barbara, as if to belie her own happiness, who first broke the spell of witchery that had fallen upon them. Her eyes, which had aimlessly sought the horizon, stopped and dilated as she fixed her gaze upon one spot which trembled and swam in the light. Bras-de-Fer started up, straining his eyes to where she pointed.

“Look!” she cried. “Is it – ”

There, her rigging and sails clearly drawn in lines of ice, a phantom of the thing that she was, hung a vessel. She had crept up on some flaw of wind, her sail in the shadow, and now upon another tack had thrown her white canvases to the reflection of the sky.

“It is no phantom,” cried monsieur, in delight. “A ship, Barbara, chérie! By her build a man-of-war, not two leagues distant.”

“Will she have seen us, do you think?”

“If she has not, it will be but a matter of moments.”

He ran forward to where the provisions and weapons had been put under a piece of pitched canvas. He drew forth a musket, and loaded it with an extra charge of powder. Barbara put her fingers to her ears as the gun roared forth its salute.

The silent night was split and riven asunder by the mighty echoes; the robe of enchantment fell, the prince and princess were prince and princess no longer. Barbara sighed. Their throne was but a rugged boat and themselves but castaways wildly seeking a refuge. The dream of an hour was over. But none the less she helped monsieur load the muskets, and cried gladly when a flash and a puff of smoke came from the side of the stranger, and the low reverberation of the echoes of the shot told her that they were rescued.

The ship came slowly down. ’Twas evident she brought the wind with her, for about the pinnace all was a dead calm. Barbara’s qualms that she, too, might be a boucanier were speedily set at rest; for as she came nearer they discovered that she sat tall upon the water, and the glint of her ordnance along her larboard streaks proclaimed her trade. No sign of her nationality she gave until she had come within long earshot. Then a round, honest English voice rang heartily:

“Ahoy the boat! Who are ye? Whence d’ye come?”

To this Bras-de-Fer replied that they were castaways, marooned, and in sore need of help. The ship, they learned, was his Majesty’s Royal Maid, war brig of his excellency the governor of Jamaica.

“See, madame,” he murmured as the ship drew near. “’Tis manifest you are my destiny. While you have frowned, Dame Fortune would have none of me. And now she is benignity itself.” He paused, sighing. “And yet I could almost wish she had not smiled so soon.”

Her hand under cover of the cloak sought his. “Insatiable man, can you not be content?”

“It was too, too sweet an enchantment to be so soon ended.”

“Nay,” she whispered. “It is but just begun.”

THE END