The Love of Monsieur

Her face lighted.

“Ah. If you give them, perhaps – ”

He leaned forward. “Well?”

“Perhaps – perhaps – you may have an answer.”

When he took her hand again she gave it to him unresistingly. “If I give you these papers, will you promise me – to be my wife?”

She had attained her end and at the price she had expected to pay. And yet she hesitated. She dropped her head and her figure seemed to relax and grow smaller under his touch. He leaned over her, expectancy and delight written upon his features.

“Will you promise, Barbara?” he repeated.

She straightened her head, but did not draw away as she answered, at last:

“I will.”

He put his hands in his breast, and, drawing out the packet, laid it before her upon the table.

“There is my honor, Barbara. Take it. I give it to you willingly – as I give you my life.”

She took the packet of papers and looked at the blurred writing upon the outside. Captain Ferrers made a step towards her, and, taking her hand again, would have drawn her towards him. But as he approached and she felt his breath warm upon her cheek, a change came over her and she drew back and away from him to the other side of the table.

Captain Ferrers could not understand. His brows knit angrily.

“How now, Barbara – ” he began.

“Not to-day, Stephen. Not to-day, I pray you.” She was half smiling, half crying. “Can you not see I am overwrought with my grief and worries? Leave me for the day. I will requite you better another time.”

She fell upon the couch and buried her face in her hands. Captain Ferrers looked at her quizzically for a moment, but the smile at his lips was not a pleasant one. Then he tossed his chin and walked towards the door.

“Very well, then! Until to-morrow.” He took his hat and was gone.

For some moments Mistress Barbara lay there as one stricken and unable to move. But at last, with a struggle, she broke the seal of the packet which she had held tightly clutched in her hand. Then, while the sun gilded again the chimney-pots opposite her, one by one she read over the papers before her – the attestation of the nurse, Marie Graillot, and the witnesses, Anton Gratz and Pierre Dauvet; the last testament of Eloise de Bresac, and her confession; the statement of the priest who had confessed her, and the description of the child; all sworn and properly subscribed to before an official of the parish of Saint-Jacques. Then there were some letters from Juan d’Añasco, clear proof of Henry Heywood and Wilfred Clerke’s complicity in the plot. The tears came to her eyes and made even dimmer the blur of the ink in the faded documents. At last the letters became indistinct, and she could read no more.

Far into the night she lay there. Her duenna would have entered, but she sent her away. Servants came with food, but she refused to eat. At last, when the reflection from the passing links no longer flashed in fiery red across her ceiling, and the sounds of the street were no longer loud or frequent, she arose, and, putting her head out of the window, looked up at the quiet stars. The cool air bathed her brow, and the tranquillity and all-pervading equality of peace helped her to her resolution.

The next day, as Captain Stephen Ferrers presented himself at Mistress Clerke’s lodgings, he was given a letter.

This is the cry of a soul that suffers [it ran]. I have read one by one the papers you have given me, and from them an iron resolution has been forged – forged with the warmth of passion and tempered with the wet of tears. Yesterday I was your promised wife. Unless you wish to be released, I am the same to-day. But this morning every estate that I possess, every revenue – all my fortune, in fact, down to the last penny – has been placed under the Crown, where it will remain until the rightful heir of the estates of De Bresac is found. Believe me, this decision of mine is irrevocable. If you would claim me for yourself under these new conditions, I shall still be the same to you.

Barbara.

Captain Ferrers left the house in some haste. A week later he went to France upon a commission to purchase guns for the Royal Artillery. And Mistress Barbara Clerke sailed as duenna to Señorita de Batteville, the daughter of the Spanish Ambassador, to visit the señorita’s uncle, who was governor of a castle at Porto Bello, upon the Spanish Main.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SAUCY SALLY

Monsieur Mornay and his companions made but a sorry spectacle upon the decks of the vessel aboard of which the hand of destiny had so fortuitously tumbled them. The Frenchman had lost his doublet, hat, and periwig, the blood flowed freely from a wound in his head, and his bowed figure was slim and lean in his clinging and dripping garments. The Irishman stood near, with one hand upon the Frenchman’s shoulder, watching him narrowly, fearful that in another mad moment he might throw himself overboard after his lost heritage. But Monsieur Mornay made no move to struggle further. He stood supine and subordinate to his fate. The light of battle which had so recently illumined them shone in his eyes no more. And the head which by the grace of God had been raised last night so that he could look every man level in the eyes was now sunk into his shoulders – not in humiliation or abasement, but in a silent acquiescence to the whelming sense of defeat that was his.

Cornbury, his red poll glowing a dull ember in the moonlight, stood by the side of his friend, erect, smiling – his usual inscrutable self. Presently, when a lantern had been brought, the man with the black beard came forward again and placed himself, arms akimbo, before the bedraggled figures of the fugitives. His voice was coarse and thick, like his face and body. As he leaned sideways to accommodate the squint of one eye and looked at them in high humor, an odor of garlic and brandy proclaimed itself so generously that even the rising breeze could not whip it away.

“Soho!” he said again. “Soho! soho!” while he swayed drunkenly from one foot to the other. “Queer fishin’ even for the Thames, mateys. Soho! If there be luck in hodd numbers, then ’ere’s the very luck o’ Danny McGraw, for of all the hoddities – Ho, Redhead, whither was ye bound? Newgate or Tyburn or the Tower? The Tower? Ye aren’t got much o’ the hair o’ prisoners o’ state.”

Cornbury looked him over coolly, and then, with a laugh, “Bedad, my dear man, we’d had a smell of all three, I’m thinking.”

By this time half the crew of the vessel were gathered in a leering and grinning circle.

“Pst!” said one; “’tis the Duke o’ York in dishguise.”

“The Duke o’ York,” said another. “Ai! yi! an’ the little one’s the Prince o’ Wales.”

Blackbeard thrust his nose under that of the Irishman. “Well, Redhead,” he cried, “wot’s the crime? Murder or thieving or harson?” To lend force to his query he clapped his hand down upon Cornbury’s shoulder. The Irishman’s eyes gleamed and his hand went to his side, but he forgot that his weapon was no longer there. He shrugged a careless shoulder and drew away a pace.

“Whist!” he said, good-humoredly; “’tis the King I’ve just killed.”

“Yaw! ’Tis the red of the blood-royal upon his head,” said the drunkard, amid a wild chorus of laughter.

Here a tall figure thrust through the grinning crowd, which gave back a step at the sound of his voice.

“Nom d’un nom!” he cried. “They shiver with the cold. A drink and a dip in the slop-chest is more to the point – eh, captain?” Blackbeard swayed stupidly again, and, with a growl that might have meant anything, rolled aft and down below. The tall man took the lantern and led the way into the forecastle, whither the fugitives followed him. But it was not until they got within the glare of the forecastle lantern that they discovered what manner of man it was to whom they owed this benefaction. He was tall and thin, and his long, bony arms hung heavily from narrow shoulders, which seemed hardly stout enough to sustain their weight. From a thick thatch of tangled beard and hair, a long, scrawny neck thrust forward peeringly, like that of a plucked fowl; and at the end of it a smallish head, with a hooked nose, black, beady eyes, and great, projecting ears was bonneted in a tight-fitting woolen cap which made more prominent these eccentricities of nature. This astonishing figure would have seemed emaciated but for a certain deceptive largeness of bone and sinew. His nether half ended in a pair of long shanks attired in baggy trousers and boots, between which two bony knees, very much bowed, were visible. By his manner he might have been English, by his language French, by his ugliness anything from a pirate to an evil dream of the Devil.

Monsieur Mornay had reached the forecastle in a kind of stupefaction, and it was not until the ugly man returned from below with some dry clothing and a bottle of brandy that he came broadly awake. Then, wet and shivering, he threw aside his shirt and drank a generous tinful of grateful liquor, which sent a glow of warmth to the very marrow of his chilled bones. For the first time he glanced at his benefactor.

“Mille Dieux!” he cried, in joyful surprise. “Jacquard!” The tall man bent forward till his neck seemed to start from its fastenings.

“By the Devil’s Pot! why, what – wh – ? It cannot be – Monsieur le Chevalier! Is it you?”

In his surprise he dropped the bottle from his hand, and the liquor ran a dark stream upon the deck; but, regardless, he made two strides to Mornay’s side, and, taking him by the shoulders, looked him eagerly in the face. “It is! It is! Holy Virgin, Monsieur le Capitaine, how came you here?”

Cornbury had never looked upon so ill-assorted a pair, but watched them stand, hand clasped in hand, each looking into the face of the other.

“A small world, Jacquard! How came you to leave Rochelle?”

“Oh, Monsieur,” said the other, wagging his head, “times are not what they have been. The sea has called me again. My flesh dried upon my bones. I could not stay longer ashore. And a profitable venture – a profitable venture – ”

“Honest, Jacquard! Where do ye go?”

“Monsieur, the Saucy Sally is no proper ship for you.” He moved his head with a curious solemnity from side to side. “No place for you – we go a long voyage, monsieur,” and he broke off abruptly. “But tell me how came you in such straits as these?” Then Monsieur Mornay told Jacquard briefly of the fight in the Fleece Tavern and of their escape, and after this Cornbury learned how Jacquard had been the Chevalier Mornay’s cockswain upon the Dieu Merci in the Marine of France. But through it all Jacquard preserved a solemn and puzzled expression, which struggled curiously with his look of delight at the sight of Mornay. At last, unable longer to contain himself, he glanced stealthily around to where the men were swinging their hammocks, and said, in a kind of shouting whisper:

“Monsieur, you cannot stay upon the Saucy Sally. To-morrow, before we leave the Channel, you must get ashore.”

Mornay looked curiously at the man. “Why, Jacquard! You, too? Your Sally is none so hospitable a lass, after all. Upon my faith, ’tis too bad in an old shipmate. I had but just coaxed myself into a desire to stay, and – here – ”

Jacquard’s face was a study in perplexities. He drew the fugitives to a small room, or closet. When the door was shut he sat down, his mouth and face writhing with the import of the information he could not bring himself to convey.

“Ods-life, man,” growled Cornbury, “have ye the twitches? Speak out!”

“Monsieur le Chevalier,” said Jacquard, “’tis no cruise for you. We go to the Havana and Maracaibo and – ” He hesitated again.

“Out with it before ye get in irons. Ye hang in the wind like a fluttering maid.”

“Well, monsieur, we are a flibustier– no more, no less,” he growled. “Voilà, you have it. I had hoped – ”

To his surprise, Monsieur Mornay broke into a wild laugh. “You, Jacquard – honest Jacquard – a farbon, a pirato?”

“Well, not just that, monsieur – a flibustier,” he said, sulkily. “There is a difference. Besides, the times were bad. I went to the Spanish Main – ”

“And became a boucanier– ”

“Monsieur, listen. We are not a common pirato. No, monsieur. This ship is owned by a person high in authority, and Captain Billee Winch bears a warrant from the King. Under this we make a judicious war upon the ships of Spain and none other. We have taken their ships in honest warfare, with much mercy and compassion.”

“A very prodigy of virtue. Your Sally is too trim a maiden to be altogether honest, eh?” Mornay paused a moment, looking at his old shipmate, then burst into a loud laugh.

“Bah, Jacquard! sail with you I will, whether or no. I am at odds with the world. From to-night, I, too, am a flibustier. If I cannot go in the cabin, aft, I will go in the forecastle; if not as master, as man. Pardieu, as the very lowest and blackest devil of you all – ”

“You, monsieur – you!”

“Yes, I. I have squeezed life dry, Jacquard. I have given my best in the service of honor and pride. They have given me rank and empty honors, and all the while have kept me from my dearest desire. From to-night virtue and I are things apart. I throw her from me as I would throw a sour lemon.”

“A pirato!” Cornbury came around and placed a hand upon each of the Frenchman’s shoulders, while he looked him straight in the eyes. “Monsieur le Chevalier,” he said, soberly – “Monsieur de Bresac– ”

At the sound of that name he had staked so much to win, the Frenchman dropped his eyes before the steady gaze of the Irishman. But if his poor heart trembled, his body did not. Slowly but firmly he grasped the wrists of his friend and brought his hands down between them.

“No, no, Cornbury,” he said; “it must not be. That sacred name – even that– will not deter me. It is done. May she who bears it find less emptiness in honor and life than I. I wish her no evil, but I pray that we may never meet, or the fate which makes men forget their manhood, as I forget mine to-night, may awake the sleeping God in me to living devil, and demand that I make of her a very living sacrifice upon its very altar – ”

“René, I pray you!” cried Cornbury. Mornay did not even hear him.

“I yield at last. From the time I came into the world I have been the very creature of fate. I have struck my colors, Cornbury. I have hauled down my gay pennons. I have left my ship.” He leaned for a moment brokenly upon the bulkhead. But before Cornbury could speak he started up. “No, no. Vice shall command here if she will. She will be but a poor mistress can she not serve me better than Ambition and Honor. Come, Cornbury. Come to the Spanish Main. There’ll be the crash of fight once more and a dip into the wild life that brings forgetfulness. Come, Cornbury.”

Jacquard, who had been listening to this mad speech with his mouth as wide agape as his eyes and ears, rose to his feet.

“Monsieur,” he asked, joyfully, “you will go with us to the Spanish Main?”

“Yes, yes!”

“And be a common boucanier, a cutthroat?” said Cornbury the ironical.

“Ay!”

“But, man, you have no position here; ye’ll be cuffed and beaten – maybe shot by yon drunken captain – ”

“I’ve been beaten before – ”

“Monsieur,” gladly broke in Jacquard, upon whom the light had dawned at last – “monsieur, I am second in command here, and half the crew are French. I’m not without authority upon them. Set your mind at rest. With these men you shall have fair play.” He paused, scratching his head. “With the captain it is another matter – ”

“Bah, Jacquard! I’ve weathered worse storms. Your captain is a stubborn dog, but I’ve a fancy he barks the loudest when in drink. Come, Cornbury, I’m resolved to start from the bottom rung of the ladder once more. Will you not play at pirate for a while?”

“Unless I mistake,” said Cornbury, coolly, “I have no choice in the matter. The walking is but poor, and I’ve no humor for a swim. My dear man, ye may rest your mind on that – ye’re a madman – of that I’m assured. But I’ll stay with ye awhile.”

CHAPTER IX

“BRAS-DE-FER”

And so for the present it was settled. Monsieur Mornay sought rest vainly, and crept upon deck at the first flashing of the sun upon the horizon. The Sally, dressed in a full suit of cloths upon both her masts, went courtesying upon her course with a fine show of white about her bows and under her counter. The brig was not inaptly named, for there was an impudence in the rake of her masts and in the way she wore her canvas which belied her reputation for a sober and honest-dealing merchantman. There was a suggestion of archness, too, in the way her slender stem curved away from the caresses of the leaping foam which danced rosy and warm with the dawn to give her greeting, and a touch of gallantry in the tosses and swayings of her prow and head as they nodded up and down, the very soul of careless coquetry. But now and then an opalescent sea, more venturesome and intrepid than his fellows, would catch her full in the bluff of the bows and go a-flying over her forecastle in a shower of spume and water-drops, which in the golden light turned into jewels of many hues and went flying across the deck to be carried down to the cool, translucent deeps under her lee. But she shook herself free with a disdainful, sweeping toss and set her broad bows out towards the open, where the colors were ever growing deeper and the winds more rude and boisterous, as though she recked not how impetuous the buffets of the storm, how turbulent the caresses of the sea.

Something of the exhilaration of the old life came upon Monsieur Mornay as he sent a seaman-like eye aloft at the straining canvases. The Sally was leaving the narrows and making for the broad reaches where the Channel grew into the wide ocean. Far away over his larboard quarter, growing ever dimmer in the eastern mist of the morning, was the coast of France, the land where he was born, where he had suffered and struggled to win the good name he thought his birth had denied him. On his right, slipping rapidly astern, was England, where he had come to crown his labors with a new renown, and where he had only squandered that favor he had passed so many years of stress in winning – squandered it for a fancy that now was like some half-forgotten dream. It seemed only yesterday that he had been standing there upon a vessel of his own, looking out to sea. A year had passed since he had given up the command of the Dieu Merci and gone to Paris – a year of reckless abandon to pleasure at the gay court of Charles, a year in which he had lived and forgotten what had gone before, a year in which he had been born into the life that was his by every right. A dream? Yes, a dream. It was a rough awakening. He looked down at his rough clothing – his baggy, red trousers, with the tawdry brass buttons, his loose, coarse shirt and rough boots, the rudest slops that the brig provided; he felt of his short hair under the woolen cap, and he wondered if this could be himself, the Chevalier Mornay; the cock of the bird-cage walk, friend of princes and the intimate of a king! Astern, across the swirling wake, lay the city of pleasure, but the bitter smile that came into his face had none of the rancor of hatred. It spoke rather of failure, of disappointment, of things forsaken and unachieved.

From these reflections he was surprised by the sound of a voice at his elbow. There, beside him, stood a fat man munching at a sea-biscuit. His face, in consonance with the body, was round and flabby, but there the consistency ended, for in color it was gray, like a piece of mildewed sail-cloth. The distinguishing feature of his person was his nose, which, round and inflamed, shone like a beacon in the middle of his pallid physiognomy. His voice was lost in the immensity of his frame, for when he spoke it seemed to come from a long distance, as though choked in the utterance by the layers of flesh which hung from his chin and throat. The pucker which did duty for a frown upon his brow became a fat knot.

“You vhos a passenger upon dis schip, hey?” he said, with well-considered sarcasm. “You vhos a passenger? You t’ink you make dis voyage to America und do noding, eh? By Cott! we’ll see about dot.” And all the while he kept munching at the sea-biscuit, and Monsieur Mornay stood leaning against the rail watching him. “You vhos a French duke or someding, ain’t it? Vell, ve vant none of de royal family aboardt de Saucy Sally. Und vhen I, or de capdain, or Shacky Shackart gif de orders, you joomp, or, py Cott! I’ll know vy not!”

But still Mornay looked at him, smiling. He was in a reckless mood, and welcomed any opportunity that took him out of himself.

“Vell,” the Dutchman asked, his little, thin voice grown shrill with rising temper, “vy don’t you moofe? Vy you standt looking at me?” And, rushing suddenly forward, he aimed a blow of his heavy boot at Mornay, which, had it reached its destination, must have wrought a grave injury to the Frenchman. So great an impetus had it that, not finding the expected resistance, the foot flew high in the air. But the Frenchman was not there. He had stepped quickly aside, and, deftly catching the heel of the boot in his hand, threw the surprised Dutchman completely off his balance, so that he fell, a sprawling mass of squirming fat, upon the deck. The commotion had drawn a number of the crew aft, and the captain, reeling uncertainly to the roll of the vessel, came blinking and puffing up the after-ladder. By this time the Dutchman had struggled to an upright posture and came rushing upon Mornay again, all arms and legs, sputtering and furious.

But the captain, no matter how deep in drink, was a person with the shrewdest sense of his importance upon a ship of his own. He was jealous of all blows not aimed by his own sturdy fist, and it was his fancy that none should strike any but himself. It was therefore with a sense of his outraged office that he rushed between the two men, and with his bulky body and long arms averted the windmill attack of the burly Dutchman.

“Mutiny, by – , and not hout of soundings! Stand fast, Gratz! Stand fast, I say! Hi’ll do the billy-coddling on this ship. Stand, I say! Now, what is it?”

Gratz stepped forward a pace and spat. “Yaw! I gif her orders. And she stumpled me packwards upon de deck.”

“What!” roared the captain. “Soho! we’ll see!” and he seized a pin from the rail. The situation was threatening. Winch was already striding forward, and his upraised pin seemed about to descend upon the luckless Mornay when Jacquard interposed a long, bony arm.

“Fair play, Billee Winch! You’ll slaughter the man!”

“Out of the way!”

“Fair play, I say, Billee Winch!” Jacquard stood his ground and only gripped the captain the tighter. “Fair play, Billee Winch, I tell you! Gratz fell over his own feet. I saw it. Listen to me.”

The captain paused a moment. The lie had distracted him, and in that pause Jacquard saw safety. The captain looked blearily at Mornay, who had made no move to defend himself, but stood with little sign of discomposure, awaiting the outcome of the difficulty.

“If Monsieur le Capitaine will but allow me – ”

“By Cott,” broke in Gratz, “you shall not!” and made a wild effort to strike Mornay again. But this time Jacquard caught him and twisted him safely out of the way.

“By the Devil’s Pot!” roared Winch, “am I in command, or am I not?” He raised his weapon this time towards Gratz, who cowered away as though he feared the blow would fall.

“If Monsieur le Capitaine will allow me,” began Mornay again, politely, “I would take it as a pleasure – ”

“You!” sneered the captain, with a kind of laugh. “You! Why, Frenchman, Yan Gratz will make three of ye. He’ll eat ye skin an’ bones.”

Jacquard smiled a little. “Voilà! Billee Winch,” he cried, “the way out of your difficulty: a little circle upon the deck, a falchion or a half-pike – fair play for all, and – ”

“Yaw! yaw! Fair play! fair play!” yelled the crew, rejoicing at the prospect of the sport.

Billy Winch blinked a bleared and bloodshot eye at Jacquard and Mornay, and then a wide smile broke the sluggish surface of the skin into numberless wrinkles.

“If ye’ll have it that way,” he grinned, “ye’ll be stuck like a sheep. But ’twill save me trouble. So fight away, my bully, an’ be dammed to ye!”