In Search of Mademoiselle

Mademoiselle had sailed with the expedition of Admiral Ribault, – and yet the Jesuit had said they would sail on the morrow. They had then been delayed, – or else – yes, it must be – the night of the robbery had not yet passed away. And with that I grew more collected. Perhaps there was yet time to see the Sieur de la Notte and the Admiral Ribault, and warn them of this plot of the Catholics, the secret of which had come into my possession. The Catholics of Spain would destroy the Huguenot colony and certain Catholics of France had connived at the villainy. That was a great secret of State and surely one to make the blood of any honest Frenchman, whether Catholic or Calvinist, boil with shame and anger.

Then, when I thought that it was through my loss of the treasure of Coligny that this thing had come to be possible, I was in great turmoil of spirit and clinched my jaws fiercely as I searched in mind for some plan to redeem myself. I tried to rise and at last got upon my feet with a great effort, and to the table, where I limply hung. And Captain Hooper! What would he say when I went to him? I had no heart to think of it – I knew him well. He would ask me why was I there to tell him of it? Yes, truly, I was out of employment. Fortune had smiled too favorably upon me to smile for long.

I sat swaying there, trying to gather strength to break out of this vile place, when I heard the sound of whispering close at hand; but whether it came from inside or out I could not tell. If it were De Baçan, I resolved to dash upon him with a chair and so, if I could stay upon my feet, perhaps gain the outer door. I listened for a moment and then heard plainly that it came from outside the window. I crouched down below the jamb listening intently. Then to my great joy there came a low whistle in exact counterfeit of a call upon the Great Griffin.

My friends had not forgotten me then!

My joy was so great I could scarce refrain from shouting. But I found I could not even if I would. I managed so to answer that they heard my whistle, for there came an exclamation and a bulky shape appeared at the bars of the window.

“Master Sydney, sir, are ye safe?” came in a half whisper, and there was a world of comfort in the voice. It was Smith! And I reassured him in a moment; then managing to get the table over under the window, mounted upon it and found my head and shoulders just abreast of the sill. There were heavy bars of iron before the window, but rough and rusty to the touch. So Smith brought a piece of timber, which he used as a pry, and with help managed to snap and then bend a bar so that I could let them haul me up and out through the narrow opening. But my strength had been sorely tried and so it was some moments before I could stand upright and look about me.

It was but a short time before the dawn. The Sieur de la Notte upheld me on one side and on the other was a tall man whom I knew not. He had a beard reaching to his waist and gave several brisk orders; I afterwards learned it was Admiral Jean Ribault. Several men went about the building, knocking and seeking to discover if there were any one within; but the Admiral called them back, bidding them be quiet. Withal, being very weak, by great effort I managed to tell them of the Catholic plot and that the Spaniards would doubtless soon return and it might be possible to recover the treasure.

This was as important for Ribault as it was for me, for it meant much to the Lutheran cause. But he would not have it so, saying Menendez was well upon his way and letting me know, in a sad way which I liked not in one of so fine a bearing, that it would be unwise to foment trouble. He believed in his strength and ability to hold the land of Florida against all nations; he wished only to depart without molestation or hindrance. Of a truth, I was so sick and weak that I knew not what they did. My effort of mind had been too great, for now that I was safe and had told my story, it grew weaker and I could not think. They half led, half carried me, to the Rue Etienne and there put me to bed.

CHAPTER VII.

IN WHICH I FIND NEW EMPLOYMENT

I awoke the next morning to find Mademoiselle standing by my bedside with a potion which she bade me take. In a short while there came a chirurgeon who looked at my head, bathing and bandaging it, to the end that in an hour or so I felt so much better that I could sit upright and listen to Mademoiselle as she told me of their plans. Surely no medicine were so good for mind or body as the sight of her as she moved here and there about the room; and when she brought me my draught and leaned over to give it me, I found myself holding the cup to my lips without swallowing, taking my cure not through my lips but through my eyes.

Then says she,

“Nay, Master Sydney, you must drink it down. It is not bitter.”

No, it was not bitter. I wished that I might be always ill. But she was not impatient. She looked upon me with the eyes of friendliness and interest. What there was of coldness had disappeared from her manner; for the fancies of such as she are engulfed always in the instincts of womanhood. She put her hand upon my wrist, with fine hardihood counting the beatings of my pulse, her eyes cast upon a minute-glass. Then she smiled as she found that the fever was less, though for my part, from the thumping of my heart, I could not see that I was in any better case than I should be.

I had murmured but a word of thanks – telling her that I was better. Thus far I was content to say nothing so long as she would only stay where I might look at her. She, herself, was balm to my wounds. But when she was about to leave the room to tell her father that I had awakened, I called to her.

“Mademoiselle, just a word. It is hard to say the words of gratitude I would. I am but a yeoman of Queen Bess, a sea-rover if you like. I am without friends save yourselves, and without either money or employment. In a few days or perhaps hours you too will be gone. I shall never see you again.” I paused. “Otherwise I should not speak.”

She looked at me curiously and then moved as though to go, but I made a gesture which held her. I knew not what had come over me. The words rushed upon my tongue and I could not restrain them. I was rough and brutal in my frankness. But then what mattered it? She was going to one end of the world, and I to another; and I wished only that she should know – that she should believe.

“Listen, Mademoiselle. I know that I am fit only to serve and obey you. You are noble and I – whatever claim I have – am but a loutish fellow. Why I have the audacity to speak to you I do not know, save that by kindness you have given me that right. Listen you must. I love you, Mademoiselle, I love you! That is all.”

She had stood facing the door, her hands before her and her eyes cast down, quietly listening. But as I went on her hands dropped to her sides, her head lifted and her eyes, first mildly curious and then indignant, flashed at me angrily.

“Stop, monsieur!” she said, and so haughtily that the blood went back upon my heart. She was no small woman, but to me, unworthy of her, she seemed in her pride and majesty to add to her stature half again. She turned red and white by turns, while her lips seemed to be seeking the words with which to deter me. Yet I could not have stopped any more than I could have gone to find Coligny’s treasure. When she spoke again, it was with a coolness and precision, that chilled me to the heart.

“Master Killigrew, however much we may have been in your debt, you need make no doubt, you are amply repaid. For shame, monsieur! To take advantage of our pity and our friendliness! It were not difficult to see you are better. Adieu, monsieur!” And with this she opens the door and walks through it, looking no more at me and bearing an expression which I knew not, one in which pride and pity seemed struggling for the mastery. When the door had closed, I heard the sound of her feet running up the stairs and then a door swung to with violence overhead.

I was a great hulking brute, deserving but scant consideration. I know not what it was that impelled me to speak as I had done, – a hand-pressure on the Cristobal, her sympathy in my affairs or something in the look she gave me when she stood over me with the physic. But unused to soft words, I could no more have restrained myself than I could the seas which plashed the bows of the Griffin.

As it was, when she left the room all the light went out from life. I only knew I could not stay longer in that house. If I had forfeited the right to her friendship, then I must go and at once. I could not bear it that she thought of me as she did. If she told the Sieur de la Notte, as she doubtless would, and I should lose his good opinion too, then surely I should be undone. I was unlucky, and what was worse, a fool into the bargain. Getting up slowly, leaning against the wall, I managed to put upon me my clothing and doublet. I did not know where I was to go. I could not go to England. Nor to Captain Hooper’s agent, – I was ruined, and could picture the face of that oily Frenchman as I told him the jewels were gone. It would be serious for me. It meant prison, at the worst; at the best, Captain Hooper’s disdain. Of the two, however, I think I feared the former least. I would go I cared not whither, back to the house where I had been confined perhaps, to see if Diego de Baçan might not return; – to Spain perhaps in pursuit of Menendez. I knew not. At last I stumbled to the door of the room and so out into the passage, and had but laid my hand upon the bolts of the outer door when there were footsteps in the hallway and I turned my head to see Mademoiselle coming toward me. Her eyes were cast down, but as she came near she lifted her head and extended her hand as one man might do to another, saying,

“Forgive me, my friend, – I did not mean it.”

I held out my hand stupidly, looking at her and replying,

“Ah, Mademoiselle, I have no further mission in this house.”

She clasped my hand strongly, leading me back again into the room where I had lain. And there was not strength to resist.

In a little while there came the Sieur de la Notte to inquire for my health. He sat down beside me and entered straightway upon the business he had in mind.

“I have been thinking much of you, good Sydney,” he began, “and have come to ask your plans.”

“You are very kind, monsieur,” I replied as I grasped his hand, “but I have no plans. If I cannot replace or set finger upon the treasure which was entrusted to me, I have no further hope of employment from my sovereign; for she likes not men who do not succeed. I shall wait here a few days, when I will get upon the track of De Avilés, striving to do by secrecy what I might not accomplish by strength.”

La Notte shook his head.

“It will not do, mon ami, – it will not do. I know it, – for the Admiral has just told me the state of these affairs. The Catholics at the Court will countenance this expedition and will hold Menendez as safe in France as though he were in his own Asturias. You may as well whistle for the jewels, Sydney, for you will see them no more.”

I sighed deeply, for I felt that what he said was true.

“You yourself have heard enough to convince you that all matters at the French court are not as they seem. You will not succeed in any private undertaking against Spain, – sure of that you may be. And, monsieur, you had better be bled by leeches than by pike-heads for awhile. Listen to the Admiral’s offer. We sail on the morrow for the land of promise, good Sydney, three hundred strong, to build up a great Christian nation across the ocean. Ribault has bid me offer you a commission as lieutenant aboard his flagship, for he is short-handed in officers and needs those who have a knowledge of ships; also he can employ any of your men who have a taste for this venture in New France.”

I saw that he was trying to conceal what he had done for me, under plea of his own advantage. I could say nothing, but extended my hand and he pressed it warmly. Mademoiselle had been sitting by listening until then. Now as I looked at her for half a sign she got up and busied herself preparing some medicine for Madame.

“Will you go, mon ami? If you like it not perhaps you may return upon the vessels when they come again to France.”

I was silent, looking still at Mademoiselle. This time she turned and said quietly,

“It is a fine venture for a man of ingenuity and daring.”

What could I do? Everything else vanished before the thought that I was still in her favor and that too in spite of what I had said to her. I would voyage of a verity to the ends of the earth with no further wish than to be near her.

I said that I would go, and saw no more of Mademoiselle on that morning. When I got a glimpse of her in the afternoon she but nodded her head, speaking not at all and taking so little notice of me, indeed, that I might have been but a serving man.

I wrote a long letter to Captain Hooper, giving a correct report of all that had happened upon the Cristobal and in Dieppe. I told him of the condition of affairs in France and how it was impossible to recover what had been lost. I told him I doubted not that these Spanish vessels would soon set out for Florida, and that my chances for winning back his esteem and any treasure or prize money was better in Florida than in France. I wrote of Fort Caroline, where the French would be found, and saying that should he desire such a venture in the Griffin, there would be honor and prizes in plenty where the Spaniards put in. This I entrusted through the Sieur de la Notte to the captain of a vessel sailing for Portsmouth, who might be relied upon to deliver it safely to the care of Martin Cockrem at the Pelican.

That much done, I felt relieved in mind, and when Admiral Ribault came late that night, could discuss with him many details of the expedition. I had then a chance to learn what manner of man I was to serve.

He was tall and of a commanding presence. His face was swarthy and marked by the crossing white wrinkles of a man of the sea. His rather thin lips were hid under a long moustache and his beard reached quite down to his waist. His nose was big and not ill formed, but it was in his eyes that one noted the character of the man. These were gray-blue and kindly. As he talked on, they flashed keenly and one saw his power. It was not a strong face, – nor a weak one, but it showed him as he was, an able and gallant seaman and gentleman, loving above all else his life, his Country and his God.

The next morning I awoke much refreshed, and with the help of two lieutenants of Ribault, managed in some sort to make my way down to the docks and go to the Trinity, Ribault’s flagship, upon which I had been given my commission. I was still very weak and could expect to do no duty for awhile, but the breath of the sea as it swept up into the dip of land, sent fresh blood pulsing through my veins and gave me a new interest in the people about me with whose lives mine was to be mingled for many months. The most of that day I spent upon the vessel’s deck watching the final loading of stores and learning the lead of the tackling. I could see the six other vessels lying near us in the Arques, and I marked that but four of them were of any considerable size; the others were small vessels of less than half the tonnage of the Griffin, being sprung high up in the stern, lacking her grace in run of line and length and rake of mast. All of the ships were well out of the water like the Cristobal and had a great slant of after-castle, the topmost deck of which sloped uncomfortably forward. But they were staunch vessels for the country and time, and with their armaments, which seemed very complete, might be expected to make a good argument against ships of the same metal.

But I liked little the temper of the company, which to me seemed scarce suited to the kind of work before us. The cavaliers came aboard in twos and threes, many of them of somber mien and habit, but mostly poor gentlemen who had but this resource left to them. Some were gaily attired and I marked a curled moustache here, an ear jewel there, or a ruff in the latest twist of fashion.

Nor were the seamen the honest yeomen of England. They worked willingly enough, but they danced and jested among themselves, laughing and singing foolish songs like lads of ten years or thereabouts.

“Body o’ me, sir,” said Goddard gruffly, “they’re ladies, every scut of ’em! Blast me, – ye can’t make a fightin’ crew out of men as won’t swear!”

I smiled and mentioned Salvation Smith.

“Oh well, he’s different, sir,” he answered. “’Tis his principles, Master Sydney. That’s all’s the matter with him. When he fights he’s a-cursin’ all the time in his heart, I know, – he couldn’t fight, else.”

With regard to the company of adventurers it made me feel no better to learn that there was another to share my opinion. It was no child’s play, this voyage, on which we were going. It was work for staunch-bodied men with big limbs and stiff hands, and not the slender, pink-fingered gentlemen I had seen thus far. When I thought that the safety of Mademoiselle lay with the disposition of these people I was more troubled than ever.

She came aboard late in the afternoon, and with Madame and the Sieur de la Notte went at once to the cabin. Soon Admiral Ribault came alongside in his pinnace and signaled the fleet to get under way. Amid the firing of cannon upon the shore we passed out of the river on the ebb of the tide and with a fair wind set the broad bows of the Trinity squarely into the red path of light that shimmered towards the sun, the color of blood. I shuddered a little; then laughed aloud at my womanish thought. Surely, my illness had made me weak indeed.

In a few days Mademoiselle came upon the deck with Madame. I had grown so strong that I was taking my day watches now. My pulses tingled anew and my lungs drank their fill of the salt air. The old love of the life was in me again. But I could not make out the manner of Mademoiselle de la Notte. Twice in the first week did I go up to her and address her, but I was so ill at ease and her manner so distant that I turned away and sought another part of the vessel. Then when she saw that she had hurt me and that perhaps the difference of our positions – she thinking me not to be of gentle birth – had gone more deeply than she had wished, she called me to her and bade me place a stool for her and one for Madame and wrap them in their cloaks, talking cheerfully the while. This I did silently, going then forward to my place of duty. I had no wish to force my presence upon her and so kept at a distance, speaking only when it was not to be avoided. And yet my heart was sore that she should treat me so.

Then there would come two or three of those bejeweled gentlemen; who, recovered from their sickness, stood by her side talking to her gaily after the manner of the sparks at a levee, flaunting their fine scented handkerchiefs. This she seemed to enjoy, and made my cup of bitterness full to overflowing.

But by and by there came a change. One day, the third week from Dieppe, while I was talking between my watches with the sister of Lieutenant Bachasse, Mademoiselle motioned that she would speak with me. She dismissed those fine hangers-on and asked me what she had done that I had treated her in so ill a fashion. I said nothing; for it did not become me to cavil. She knew well why I had not waited upon her, and why I would not speak. I seemed to see it in the way she spoke; and I learned from that time what discernment a woman has upon all matters which concern the heart of a man. Things after that were better between us. By and bye, no day passed that we did not talk together; sometimes in presence of Madame or Monsieur the Vicomte, and sometimes alone.

Oh, the wonder of those days and nights upon the ocean! When the afternoon sun shimmered fair upon the amber seas to the southward, and the sails about us were picked out in silver against the purple of the horizon, turning as the sun dropped down, to ruddy gold and bronze and then fading away into the gray softness of dusk! And then, when the gulls and dolphins ceased to play and the moon came out, we would sometimes lean upon the bulwarks, just she and I, looking down along the sides to the bow-wave where the fire of the southern waters turned the gray of the foam to soft glowing flames which warmly kissed the ship and then danced away like sprites into the darkness beyond.

“It is an ocean of velvet, – a fair ocean,” she would say softly.

“It is Heaven, Mademoiselle,” I would answer.

We talked much of the things which had been and of those to come, and I told her the stories of faraway lands that I had seen. She wondered greatly at some of the things I knew; and yet for all that I felt at times as though I were but a child beside her in every other thing save the mere buffets of life. She was haughty no more; for it seemed in that gray immensity of murmuring sea and starlit sky that all was equal between us, and that we two were alone, close to our Maker.

CHAPTER VIII.

WE REACH THE NEW LAND

After many days there came, one afternoon, loud and cheery from the fore-mast head, the cry of “Land! Land!” Only one who has been three months upon an ocean, unfathomable and limitless, can know the magic of the word. The signals passed it to the other vessels of the fleet, trumpets blared and cheer upon cheer and song upon song echoed and re-echoed across the water. Crew and passengers upon the Trinity came tumbling up from below, jostling and crowding one another in their madness to be among the first to get a glimpse of their home that was to be. Even those sick with the scurvy and fever turned out of their hammocks and, climbing to the deck, fell upon their knees to thank God that the voyage was near ended. All thought of savage Carib or more savage Spaniard was banished, for there to their gaze, shimmering purple under the western sun, was their haven of refuge. They stretched their limbs like people awaking from a long sleep; and, as the ship glided onward, leaned forward upon the bulwarks as though they would leap into the water. They strained to catch the first aromatic breath of the pines in their nostrils and their tongues clove to their parched and fevered mouths as they sighed for the fruits which hung there beyond, luscious and ripe for their plucking.

By sundown we had sailed into a little river. Here was a fine sandy bottom, and we cast anchor for the night. So impatient were the seamen and passengers that some of them, not to be withheld, took one of the pinnaces and went upon the shore. Ribault, after warning them against the savages, consented to this, and soon the beach was aglow with fires which they lighted to keep off wild beasts; and parties well armed went searching among the uplands for fruit and game. Throughout the night we upon ship-board could hear the seamen and cavaliers as they laughed and shouted. At daybreak they came aboard again, torn and bleeding from the thorns and brambles, but happy as urchins. They bore several large panniers of luscious wild pomegranates of a small variety, and grapes of great size and sweetness.

But the Admiral would not tarry here long. He did not know how soon the Spaniards might be coming, and he wished to learn what had happened in his absence to Laudonnière, the Commander at Fort Caroline. Many things had been charged against that officer and Ribault desired to establish the French Protestants firmly in their colony, and secure them speedily from attack or molestation. Accordingly the ships weighed anchor again and we sailed up the coast to the River of Dolphins. This had been so called by Ribault because of the great number of fish of that name which disported themselves in its waters.

Seeing no sign of living persons we sailed still further northward to the River of May, which we reached on the 29th of August, 1565. The channel of the river being narrow and the draught of the large ships being great, we cast anchor at about half a league from shore.

Ribault, anxious to communicate at once with Laudonnière, immediately fitted out all the large barges from the fleet and crowded crews into them, fully armed and equipped. He knew not what might have happened. I, being an officer upon the flagship, went with him in the pinnace, and so we made our way up the river.