Seven Frozen Sailors

“So Marc is dead!” Cécile repeated, impassively. “Dead – as I always thought and said he was dead! Drowned! You saw it, Pierre?”

“The good God forgive me!” I said, “I saw it!”

As I said before, I held a levée that day in the parlour of my mother’s cottage. It gladdened my eyes, who would have worked my finger-nails below the quicks to save her from wanting anything – to see that the good soul was surrounded by the signs of plenty. She had wanted for nothing. Old Jean had tilled her piece of garden-ground to some purpose, and had never taken a sou as recompense for his work. Everybody had been kind to her. It brought tears into my eyes to hear of it. Her kitchen told a tale of plenty. From the smoke-blackened oak beams hung hams and flitches of bacon more than one would take the trouble to count. Bunches of garlic and strings of onions were there in plenty; and the great black kettle hanging always over the pine-wood fire, sent forth savoury steams, that made your heart leap into your mouth. The Widow Crépin’s was a pot-au-feu worth eating, I can tell you. Nor did we fail to wash down our food with draughts of good wine on every day of the week. I gave a supper that night to some of my friends. I had not quite forgotten the impression Cécile had made upon me in the morning. For Marc, the second officer, had been my friend ever since I could recollect sweetstuff. But we were merry together, talking of the old times, of my adventures in the desert island, of the good ship that had brought me safely back to Bénévent, and of other things.

Presently the name of Cécile was mentioned.

I shuddered involuntarily.

I knew bad news was coming from the tone of the speakers.

I guessed what it would be, and blew angry clouds from my long wooden pipe.

“Pierre – Pierre Crépin, has Cécile Debois been here to see you?”

“She has. She was here this morning.”

“She is well off!” said one.

“She has to want for nothing!” said another.

And they shook their heads wisely, as those do who know more than they say.

“What of Cécile?” I asked, with somewhat of anger in my tone.

“Do you not know?”

“Did she not tell you?”

“I know she is poor Marc’s widow. She told me nothing.”

“Ah, ah! She wanted the news of Marc’s death! She will be married to M. André, the merchant! There has this long while been a talk of them in Bénévent, and, for the matter of that, for miles round!”

“M. André!” I cried. “But he is elderly – old enough to be her father!”

“‘Old men – old fools,’ as the saying is!” put in Father Lancrac. He was old enough to know. I did not gainsay him. It is well to treat one’s elders with respect. And old M. Lancrac, my mother’s good friend and kinsman, was in his dotage. Besides, now others aimed their darts at her, I felt inclined to excuse Cécile.

“It is well,” I said. “Women many again in Bénévent, I suppose, as anywhere else in the world. Why not Cécile?”

Hearing me say this, and marking some sternness in my tone, they all said, “Ay, ay! Why not? She is a fine woman, and is to make a good match that we all ought to be proud of! Poor Marc is dead!” And so forth.

We puffed our pipes some time in silence, those of us who smoked. The others counted my mother’s hams and flitches of bacon, and the strings of onions throwing flickering shadows in the lamplight. But old age will not be silent.

Father Lancrac said, for his part, he wished he was Merchant André. He would marry again. Who would have him? He was better than most of the young ones now.

And the women folk laughed.

Lawyers are adroit. After this, the notary, Gaspard, who had honoured us with his company he had known my father – turned the conversation. He asked me questions about my adventures in the island, my mode of life, how I counted time, my subsistence, and such things. In this way our evening passed away, and we parted, as good friends should part – merry.

But it happened sooner than I had expected. Cécile and M. André were married a fortnight after. That was a scene, indeed, which will not soon be forgotten. The bride looked lovely, and M. André, worthy man, wore an appearance ten years younger than his real age, he was so happy.

Madame André! I thought of her as the wife of my old comrade, Marc. I recalled the humble nuptials of six years before. I seemed to see her as she stood before us then – girlish, beautiful, graceful, in her home-made bridal gown. Now her own friends were not grand enough to be bidden to the feast. But M. André’s well supplied their place. We, however, were permitted to look on – to cheer, huzza, and wish them both joy.

Her mother’s house was too small for her to be married from. She was taken to the Mairie by her second spouse from the house of one of his relatives; and, in her white dress and veil, she looked more dazzlingly lovely than any woman I had ever seen.

After the ceremonial at the church, there was a dejeuner, to which all the best people of Bénévent were invited. The newly married pair were to spend their honeymoon at a château of M. André’s, some three leagues from Bénévent, in the hills, overlooking the sea. A carriage and pair of horses, with a postilion in a gay jacket, waited to take them there. Bound the carriage, on the footway and in the road, was a crowd of people, curious to see all that there was to be seen, and desirous of giving bride and bridegroom “God-speed!” when they drove off.

I passed the place by accident, for I had not intended to be there. I had taken my stout stick in my hand, meaning to try a walk up the hills, by the coach road.

By chance I had passed the house where the bride and bridegroom were breakfasting. By chance I had found myself one of the crowd. A crowd impresses upon one its sympathies. I loitered among them – not long; – long enough to see a man, with a beard and tanned face, hurriedly asking some questions. I could not get near him for the people. Then, as hurriedly, he strode away, with great, heavy strides.

The face I did not know – I had caught but a hurried glance of it; but the broad shoulders, the strong limbs, the walk of the man, I did know.

A terrible feeling came over me.

My knees trembled under me.

My face was white as paper.

I could have fallen to the ground.

For I knew the walk was the walk of Marc!

And these three years he had been dead!

With the emotions called forth by this untimely apparition, do you suppose that I remained in the crowd in the narrow street? – that I desired to “huzza!” as M. André and Cécile drove away? I was stifled. I wanted air – to breathe – to breathe! I sought it, by turning my steps to the hills as fast as my trembling limbs would carry me.

It was the road he had taken.

Should I see him again?

I gathered strength. I walked fast – faster. I ran till I was out of breath. I stopped and sat down on a great moss-grown stone.

A lovely landscape spread out below me. It was years since I had seen it. The rivers flowing through a champagne country to the sea. The white houses and thatched roofs of the villages: the red-brick streets of Bénévent. How well I knew it all! It recalled memories of the past. The thought flashed upon me in an instant.

The last time I was here was with Marc. We desired again to take our walk – to see our old haunts of bird’s-nesting and berry-gathering. It was the day before he married Cécile.

I rose, wiped the perspiration from my brow, and continued my ascent. I reached the highest level of the coach road, where, for half a league, it takes its course through a narrow defile between two precipitous hills, whose rocky sides no time can change. I looked back.

The open carriage containing Cécile and her husband I could see on the road, far in the distance. They were driving at a good pace. “They will pass me in the defile,” I said, and hurried on. Why, I knew not. Presently the sound of wheels on the soft, sandy road was plain enough to the ear.

Nearer and nearer came the rumble. There were some juniper bushes of giant growth a little further on the road. It was a question which would reach them first, the chaise or I.

I had the start; but horses are quicker on their legs than men.

As it turned out, we reached them almost, together. I was slightly in advance, however.

The road here was very narrow. Two vehicles could hardly pass. I took to the rough grass. Pushing aside the boughs of a bush that was directly in my path, and intending to take my stand before it, and wave my hat as the carriage passed, I came suddenly upon – Marc!

It was he!

He stood with a wild fire of jealousy in his eyes, his hat on the grass beside him; his arm raised, a pistol in his hand, his finger on the trigger!

It was a supreme moment.

My courage did not desert me. I was calm.

The carriage was passing.

I made a dash at his arm, to strike the weapon from his hand. I stumbled and fell at his feet. Instantly I looked up. I wished to shout, but my tongue refused its office. It was glued, parched, to the roof of my mouth. There would be murder! Cécile would be killed – and by Marc! My eyes were riveted on the trigger of his pistol! He pulled it! There was a tiny flash – a tiny puff! No more! The weapon had missed fire. We were concealed by the bushes. The carriage drove by at a rapid pace. Cécile was saved for the time!

I gave a sigh of relief. Then came upon me the feeling of wonder that Marc was back. Marc, whom I had seen three years before to meet with his end – whom I had mourned as dead.

All this flashed across my mind in an instant. I rose to my knees, to my feet. I placed my hand on his arm. I looked into his eyes. His face was changed; there was terrible emotion in it.

“Marc,” I said, as quietly and with as much self-command as I could summon.

He suffered my hand to remain on his shoulder, and continued to look in the direction the chaise had taken; toward M. André’s château. We stood thus a second or so. Then, turning upon me, he gasped, in low, choked, guttural accents of reproach and of the deepest despair, “Cécile! Cécile!”

What could I say? My conscience smote me heavily. I had told my best friend’s wife that her husband was dead! That I knew it – had seen him meet his death! And upon my testimony she had acted. Marc and M. André – she was the wife of both! It was terrible to witness the agony of the wretched man. It was not for me to break in upon that sacred passion of grief.

“Cécile!” he murmured, as the pistol dropped from his hand, and he sank fainting in my arms.

I placed him gently on the rough grass by the roadside, raising his head, and loosening the collar of his shirt.

For an hour he remained in a swoon, broken only by incoherent cries, that at rare intervals fashioned themselves into language. Then it was always “Cécile!”

I had a flask of brandy in my pocket. I got water from a little mountain spring close by. I bathed my poor comrade’s temples, and gave him a reviving draught of the spirit and water. I rubbed his cold hands, and beat them, to restore him to consciousness.

At last he came to. How can I describe my joy when I found that he was, to all appearance, sane. For the attempt to shoot the unfortunate woman was the act of a madman. That attempt had happily been frustrated. What was now to be done? You will see, from my coolness and presence of mind in this danger, that I am able to act in an emergency. While Marc lay swooning on the grass by my side, I had had time to think. My course, my duty, were alike clear to me. I had been innocently – though I can never forgive myself – the cause of Cécile’s second marriage. I must not conceal this from Marc. My shoulders are broad. The truth must be told. I must tell it.

“Just now, Marc,” I said, shaking him gently by the hand, “you were not Marc Debois. You were a madman intent on murder – the murder of her whom he loved best in the world!”

“Name her not!” he burst out, throwing up his head and pressing his hands to his eyes; “faithless – false wretch!”

“Through me.”

“Through you?”

“Listen. A fortnight ago I was put ashore at Bénévent, after three years’ existence, for I will not call it life, in that island, on whose shores I thought I saw you swallowed up by the sharks. Cécile – ”

He started back a few paces from me at the mention of her name.

I continued, however.

“Cécile came to me; questioned me. I told her you were dead. It is my fault. You see, Marc, all the fault is mine. She had been faithful to her marriage vow, till certain news of your death reached her. Then she was free to marry. Alas! that mine was the tongue that gave her the freedom!”

“Curse you, Pierre Crépin!”

He was becoming terribly excited. I begged him to be calm.

“I am a man, Marc. I can die like one. If you were reasonable, you would know that I have always been your good friend. You are unreasonable – ”

“I am unreasonable? I shall live only for vengeance! First, I will kill you; then greybeard André; then – then her!”

“And then, Marc?”

“Myself!”

“You have your pistol. I have no weapon. You will not shoot me in cold blood? That is not Marc Debois, even now!”

“Fetch one!” he shouted, imperatively. “No! Stay! I cannot trust you! We will draw lots for this!”

It was useless to reason, to expostulate, to advise. He was mad. It remained to fight. I commended the issue to Providence, and prayed that neither of us, unfit for death, miraculously saved and brought back to the sound of human voices, might fall.

He pulled two bents from a tuft of the mountain grass growing on a hillock near us – one shorter, one longer, – and presented them to me for choice.

“You can trust me!” he said, with a wildly ironical smile.

To hesitate was to be shot in cold blood. I felt this, and acted with resolution.

“I can trust you, Marc.”

“Short fires first!”

I pulled, and drew the short bent.

He took a cap from a small cylindrical metal case he carried in his pocket, and fixed it on the nipple of his pistol. Then he handed the weapon to me.

I took it from him, examined it with the greatest care – I see it now; it was an old-fashioned firearm of Spanish make, – stood a pace only back from him, fixed my eye on his, with a sudden jerk flung the pistol fifty paces behind me, and throwing myself upon Marc, bore him to the ground, and held him there in a vice!

Then began our struggle for life!

At first, the advantage was mine. I was a-top. In strength we had always been pretty equally matched. Sometimes I had been able to throw Marc, sometimes he had thrown me. Now the contest was unequal. It is true I had the advantage of fighting for life, but the struggle was with the supernatural strength of a madman. I had dropped my stick before taking the pistol from the hand of Marc. In this tussle it would have been of no service to me. This was man to man.

I pinned mad Marc to the ground, my hands on his arms, my knees on his chest. He writhed, and tore, and struggled under me. No word was spoken between us. The advantage was with me. Thus we continued for what seemed an immense length of time – for what was, perhaps, a quarter of an hour. It was an incessant struggle with us both; with me to keep Marc Debois down – with Marc to master me.

I felt my strength giving way. My joints were stiffening, my fingers becoming numb with the pressure. Besides this, I was in a profuse sweat, caused by the violent exertion, and partly by the alarm at what would happen if I should, in turn, be under the giant frame of Marc. It was to the accident of throwing him first, by my sudden and unexpected attack, that I owed the last fifteen minutes of my life. If I spoke, I found it made him more violent in his efforts to master me. I thought the sound of my voice maddened him the more.

My brain seemed clogged. At first, thought had followed thought with painful rapidity. My life had passed before me in panoramic procession. Now I had a novel feeling, such as I had never experienced before. Was I – the thought was terrible! – was I, under the horrible fascination of Marc’s eye – losing my reason? I made an effort to think. To rouse myself I multiplied fifteen by sixty. Nine hundred – nine hundred seconds of my life had passed in this fearful struggle with a madman! How many more seconds had I to live? How much longer could I hold my own? Not long! I was rapidly becoming exhausted. I commended myself to the Almighty.

Hark! wheels – coming.

Marc hears the sound, too. I am weak now. He makes one gigantic effort. I am overcome. His great fingers fasten with a desperate clutch upon my throat. He will tear out my gullet.

I become insensible.

When I come to myself I am seated on the box of the carriage which had conveyed Cécile and M. André to the château. It had passed us on its way back.

We are near Bénévent.

It is three strong men’s work inside the chaise to restrain Marc and keep him from murdering them.

We drive to the office of police. A little crowd follows us. I am able to give some formal evidence. Then I am taken home. The unfortunate man is placed under proper restraint. There is a great buzz of excitement in Bénévent.

Nobody recognises Marc; he is so changed. I do not disclose his name. It is better to wait the course of events.

After the fearful peril of the last hour, I am astonished to find myself alive. I am alive, and thankful.

After the struggle in the defile I was unable to leave my bed for some days. I had been much tried both in mind and body; but I received the kindest attention from the good friends around me.

In these little places every trifle creates a mighty stir. All Bénévent came to inquire after my health. I had been killed. No; well, then, nearly done to death by a murderous assassin escaped from the galleys. The police knew him. It was the same man who five years before had attempted the life of the Emperor. He had a homicidal mania. There were a hundred different reports – none of them true.

I was examined and re-examined; examined again, and cross-examined. You have formed the conclusion that I am a witness, if I choose, out of whom not much can be got. I battled the Maire, the prefect, the police. I had been attacked by a man who carried a pistol, and I was rescued by some persons returning from M. André’s château in a chaise. What could be more simple? And these are the facts duly entered – wrapped in plenty of official verbiage – in police record.

I had everybody’s sympathy. I had something better. Sympathy one can’t spend; francs one can. A subscription was raised for my benefit. I was compelled to accept the money – a thousand francs of it. The rest – some odd hundreds of francs and a bundle of warm clothing, intended for me by some Bénévent valetudinarian, together with thirteen copies of religious books and two rosaries – I presented to the cure for distribution among the poor of his parish.

But I had a weight on my mind even francs could not remove – Marc and Cécile.

She, poor woman, was happy in being rich; in having fine dresses and gaiety; in being an old man’s idol. It is so with women. She was, I found, the donor of some of the religious books and of one of the two rosaries. Perhaps, then, at the château all was not happiness for the mistress. At times she still mourned for Marc.

And Marc?

After months of the greatest anxiety on my part, lest in his ravings he should betray himself, he was happily restored to reason.

The doctor said it happened through his seeing me.

He knew me as I sat in the room with him. His keepers said he had raved always of “Cécile, Cécile!” What of it? It led to no suspicion of his identity with Marc Debois. Are there not hundreds of Céciles?

The wretched man’s memory was a blank. As I had done him a most terrible injury, I tried to repair – in some slight degree – to atone.

He was lodged with me in my dear mother’s cottage. I used to lead him about like a child. I took him every day to the sea to see the shipping. This by degrees brought back his memory of his profession.

At last all came back, save the scene in the defile. He told me he had also been on a desolate island. Whether the same as mine, or an adjacent desert, I shall never know. A ship took him off, too, and landed him at Marseilles. He tramped it to Bénévent, and arrived there in time to see Cécile just married to M. André.

No wonder that his mind gave way.

He implored my forgiveness.

I implored his.

He was silent, sullen. No one knew his name. I explained that he was an old shipmate. This hardly satisfied the people. At Bénévent they love a mystery.

Marc solved it for them. He disappeared, without saying good-by. I guessed that he had gone to sea again.

He had said, the night before he left us, “Pierre, I will not wreck her life as she has wrecked mine. I will not seek her; but God save her if she crosses my path in this life.”

I was right; he had gone to sea. I got a letter a week after, with the Marseilles postmark on it.

“I am mate of the Lépante,” Marc said.

Months had passed since their marriage – about a year. Cécile was a mother. She called upon me in her carriage one day. A nurse was in attendance upon her, carrying in her arms a little child. It was a girl, two months old. Cécile was proud; but M. André chuckled incessantly, as old cocks will. I, with my terrible secret, could hardly bear to look at her.

“You are not friendly with me now, M. Crépin,” she said; “not as you used to be. I desire to keep all my old friends, and to make as many new ones as I can.”

I replied as well as I could; for I was thinking of Madame Debois, and not of Madame André, as she was now called.

“I have come to ask a favour. Say you will grant it me?”

Like a Frenchman, I bowed complaisantly.

Cécile went on, like a Frenchwoman, flatteringly, “Pierre – for I will call you by the old name; I like it best – I cannot be so stiff with an old friend as to keep calling you Monsieur Crépin; but, if you will let me, I will call you Captain Crépin.”

Again I bowed, slightly mystified.

“Captain Crépin, you are – you are brave. All Bénévent knows it. You are an able and experienced seaman.”

“Madame is too good.”

“Not a bit,” put in my mother, who would have heard me called angel with pleasure.

“I love the sea. M. André does not; but he humours me in everything. I have made him buy a fine yacht – large, strong, swift, of English build. You have seen her. I have called her the Zéphire. She lies in the harbour there, and wants a captain and a crew. You must be the captain, P-i-e-r-r-e!”

You know how women wheedle – handsome, especially?

“This summer,” continued Cécile, “we intend to cruise north. I long to see new countries. I am tired of life here. I long to skim over the waves and feel the cool breezes of northern seas.”

“Madame, I will consider. I must have time. You must give me time.”

“You will not refuse me – nobody would. I shall feel safe only with you in command of our yacht. What answer shall I give M. André, who is all impatience to know?”

“I will answer myself to M. André to-morrow.”

When she was gone, my good mother pressed me to go – though she would a thousand times rather have kept me at home. But she knew that it is necessary for a man to be doing something. Ah, she is a woman, indeed!

“This will be an easy berth, Pierre,” she said. “You will be at home with me here all the winters, with the Zéphire safely laid up in dock.”

The next day I called upon M. André at his office.

“I accept the command of your yacht, monsieur,” I said. “I shall always do my best for you, I hope.”

The wages were liberal. I was to choose a crew of picked men – all old sailors.

“We wish to sail in a week,” said M. André. “Can you be ready by then?”

“I can,” was my answer.

It was not the wheedling of Cécile; it was not my mother’s urging me; it was not the beautiful yacht of M. André’s, nor his good wages, that made me decide to become captain of the Zéphire.

It was because the Lépante had gone north.

The Zéphire was as fine a craft as ever seaman handled. She was perfect, from keel to mast, from bow to stern.

Those English know how to build ships.

I had under me a crew of six picked men. We had, besides, a cook, a real chef, for M. André was something of a gourmet, and would have the hand of an artist in his dishes, not the bungling of a scullion.