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Title: The Love of Monsieur

Author: George Gibbs

Release Date: March 16, 2016 [EBook #51468]

Language: English

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                                 _The_
                           LOVE OF MONSIEUR




                                  THE
                           LOVE OF MONSIEUR

                                  BY

                             GEORGE GIBBS

                               AUTHOR OF

                           THE YELLOW DOVE,
                        SACKCLOTH AND SCARLET,
                         THE BOLTED DOOR, ETC.


                            [Illustration]


                               NEW YORK
                           GROSSET & DUNLAP
                              PUBLISHERS




                          COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY
                        D. APPLETON AND COMPANY


                 Copyright, 1903, by Harper & Brothers
             Copyright, 1903, by J. B. Lippincott Company
                PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




                            THIS VOLUME IS
                             INSCRIBED TO

                               M. H. G.

                          THE “NORSE GODDESS”

                with all my heart and best endeavors in
                tender appreciation of those sympathies
                and encouragements which make a pleasure
                of labor, and life a fruition of every
                hope and dream




CONTENTS


 CHAPTER                                            PAGE
      I. THE FLEECE TAVERN                             1
     II. MISTRESS BARBARA DANCES THE CORANTO          11
    III. MONSIEUR MORNAY BECOMES UNPOPULAR            31
     IV. MONSIEUR WAITS UPON A LADY                   47
      V. INDECISION                                   68
     VI. THE ESCAPE                                   87
    VII. BARBARA                                     113
   VIII. THE SAUCY SALLY                             134
     IX. “BRAS-DE-FER”                               146
      X. BRAS-DE-FER MAKES A CAPTURE                 165
     XI. THE ENEMY IN THE HOUSE                      184
    XII. PRISONER AND CAPTOR                         201
   XIII. MONSIEUR LEARNS SOMETHING                   213
    XIV. THE UNMASKING                               231
     XV. MUTINY                                      249
    XVI. MAROONED                                    268




 _The_
 LOVE OF MONSIEUR




CHAPTER I

THE FLEECE TAVERN


“Who is this Mornay?”

Captain Cornbury paused to kindle his tobago.

“Mornay is of the Embassy of France, at any game of chance the luckiest
blade in the world and a Damon for success with the petticoats, whether
they’re doxies or duchesses.”

“Soho! a pretty fellow.”

“A French chevalier--a fellow of the Marine; but a die juggler--a man
of no caste,” sneered Mr. Wynne.

“He has a wit with a point.”

“Ay, and a rapier, too,” said Lord Downey.

“The devil fly with these foreign lady-killers,” growled Wynne again.

“Oh, Mornay is a man-killer, too, never fear. He’s not named
Bras-de-Fer for nothing,” laughed Cornbury.

“Bah!” said a voice near the door. “A foundling--an outcast--a man of
no birth--I’ll have no more of him.”

Captain Ferrers tossed aside his coat and hat and came forward into the
glare of the candles. Behind him followed the tall figure of Sir Henry
Heywood, whose gray hair and more sober garb and lineaments made the
gay apparel of his companion the more splendid by comparison. Captain
Ferrers wore the rich accouterments of a captain in the Body-guard, and
his manner and address showed the bluster of a bully of the barracks.
The face, somewhat ruddy in color, was of a certain heavy regularity
of feature, but his eyes were small, like a pig’s, and as he came into
the light they flickered and guttered like a candle at a puff of the
breath. There were lines, too, at the corners of the mouth, and the
pursing of the thin lips gave him the air of a man older than his years.

“Come, Ferrers,” said Cornbury, good-naturedly, “give the devil his
due.”

Wynne laughed. “Gawd, man! he’s givin’ him his due. Aren’t you,
Ferrers?”

The captain scowled. “I’ faith I am. Two hundred guineas again last
night. May the plague take him! Such luck is not in nature.”

“He wins upon us all, by the Lord!” said Cornbury, stoutly.

Heywood sneered. “Bah! You Irish are too easy with your likes--”

“And dislikes, too,” returned Cornbury, with a swift glance.

“Faugh!” snapped Ferrers. “The man saved your life, but you can’t
thrust him down our throats, Captain Cornbury.”

“He’s cooked his goose well this time, thank God!” said Wynne. “We’ll
soon be rid of him.”

“Another duel?” asked Heywood, carelessly.

“What!” cried Downey. “Have you not heard of the struggle for
precedence this afternoon? Why, man, ’tis the talk of London.
To-day there was a fight between the coaches and retainers of the
Embassades of France and Spain. Thanks to Mornay, the French coach
was disastrously defeated by the Spaniards. There is a great to-do at
Whitehall, for the Grand Monarque thinks more of his prestige in London
even than in Paris. God help the man who thwarts him in this! It is
death or the Bastile, and our own King would rather offend God than
Louis.”

“And Mornay--”

“As for Mornay--” For an answer, Lord Downey significantly blew out
one of the candles upon the table. “Pf!--That is what will happen to
Mornay. The story is this: The coaches were drawn up on Tower Wharf,
waiting to follow the King. In the French coach were seated Mornay
and the son of the ambassador. In the Spanish coach were Baron de
Batteville and two ladies. After his Majesty had passed, both the
French and Spanish coaches endeavored to be first in the street, which
is here so narrow that but one may pass at a time. The Frenchman had
something of the advantage of position, and, cutting into the Spaniard
with a great crash, sent the coach whirling over half-way upon its
side, to the great hazard of the Spaniard and ladies within. Then
Mornay, who has a most ingenious art of getting into the very thick of
things, leaped upon the coachman’s seat and seized the reins of the
coach-horses. He was beset by the Spaniards and cut upon the head.”

“And he hung on?”

“What d’ye think the fellow did? Pulled the French horses back and
aside and let the Spanish coach down upon four wheels and out of
danger. Was it not a pretty pass? The rest was as simple as you please.
The Spaniard whipped, and though smashed and battered, won first
through the narrow passage.”

“And Mornay?”

“Does not deny it. He says it would have been impossible for a
gentleman to see such ladies thrown into a dirty ditchwater.”

“And the ladies, man? Who were the ladies?” said Ferrers.

“Aha! that is the best of it. The Spaniards relate that Mornay came
down from the coachman’s seat wiping the blood from his cheek. To
one of the ladies he said, ‘Madame, the kingdom of France yields
precedence only to a rank greater than Majesty. The honor France loses
belongs not to Spain, but to the beautiful Barbara Clerke.’”

Sir Henry Heywood caught at a quick breath.

“Mistress Clerke! My ward!”

Captain Ferrers looked from Downey to Cornbury, only to see verification
written upon their faces. He pushed back his bench from the table, his
countenance fairly blazing with anger, and cried, in a choking voice:

“Mornay again! To drag her name into every ordinary and gaming hell
in London! Coxcomb!--scoundrel!--upstart that he is! Mornay, always
Mornay--”

The candles flickered gayly as Monsieur Mornay entered. His figure
and costume were the perfection of studied elegance. The perruque was
admirably curled, and the laces and jewels were such that a king might
have envied him. A black patch extending along the forehead gave him an
odd appearance, and the white brow seemed the more pallid by contrast.
His features in repose bore the look of settled melancholy one
sometimes sees on the faces of men who live for pleasure alone. But as
his eyes turned towards the table a smile, full of careless good-humor,
came over his features. He advanced, pausing a moment as Wynne and
Heywood pushed Ferrers down by main force into his seat.

“Messieurs,” said Mornay, smiling quizzically, “your servitor.” He
stopped again. “I thought my name was spoken. No?” He looked from one
to the other. “My name I comprehend, but, messieurs, my titles--my new
titles! To whom am I indebted for my titles? Ah, Monsieur le Capitaine
Ferraire, _mon ami_, I am glad that you are here. I thought that I had
fallen among enemies.”

He laughed gayly. It was rippling and mellow, a laugh from the very
cockles of the heart, full of the joy of living, in which there lurked
no suspicion of doubt or insincerity--the situation was so vastly
amusing. Cornbury laughed, too. He was an Irishman with a galloping
humor; nor was Downey slow to follow his example.

For Heywood and Ferrers it was another matter. The elder man sat
rigidly, glaring at the Frenchman with eyes that glittered from lids
narrow with hate. Ferrers, disconcerted by the defenselessness of the
Frenchman, sat stupidly, his features swollen with rage, his lips
uncertain and trembling for a word to bring the quarrel to a head. But
before he could speak, Sir Henry Heywood, very pale, had thrust himself
forward over the table to Mornay in a way not to be mistaken, and said,
briefly:

“Gad, sirrah, your laugh is the sign of an empty mind!”

Mornay was truly taken by surprise. But as he looked up at this new
enemy he found no difficulty in understanding Heywood’s meaning. He
rose to his feet, still smiling, and said, coolly, with a sedulous
politeness:

“I am empty of brains? It takes a wit like that of monsieur to discover
something which does not exist.”

Captain Ferrers had floundered to his feet, blustering and maddened
at being cheated out of his quarrel. He burst violently upon the
colloquy, and, seizing Heywood by the arm, dragged him back to the
window-seat.

“’Tis not your quarrel, Heywood,” he began.

But Sir Henry shook himself free of Ferrers, and they both faced
Monsieur Mornay, who, somewhat languidly, but with a polite tolerance,
stood leaning against the table watching this unlooked for development
of the drama.

“Messieurs,” he smiled, “an _embarras de richesse_. Never have I been
so greatly honored. I pray that you do not come to blows on my account.
_One_ of you might kill the _other_, which would rob _me_ of the honor
of killing you _both_.”

Captain Cornbury until this time had been an interested and amused
onlooker. He dearly loved a fight, and the situation was enjoyable; but
here was the evening flying and his game of cards gone a-glimmering.

“Zounds, gentlemen!” he broke in. “A pretty business--to fight at the
Fleece Tavern. Pleasant reading for the _Courant_--a fitting end to a
comedy begun upon the street.”

“’Tis not your quarrel, Cornbury,” growled Ferrers.

“Nor yours, Ferrers,” said Heywood, coldly.

“You see, monsieur,” said Mornay to Downey, with mock helplessness,
“there is no help for it.”

Cornbury swore a round oath:

“I’ faith, I wash my hands of ye. If fight ye must, quarrel dacently
over the cards, man; but do not drag a lady’s name through the streets
of London.”

Mornay turned to Cornbury. “It is true, _mon ami_--it is true.” Then,
in a flash, gayly, aloud, almost like a child, he shouted: “_Allons_,
time is flying. To-morrow we shall fight, but to-night--to-night we
shall play at quinze. Monsieur Ferraire, you owe me three hundred
guineas. We shall play for these. If you win, you will die to-morrow
with a clear conscience. If you lose, monsieur, I’ll be your
undertaker. Come, _maître d’hôtel_!--wine!”




CHAPTER II

MISTRESS BARBARA DANCES THE CORANTO


Mistress Barbara’s deep-abiding dislike for Monsieur Mornay began even
before the struggle for precedence between the French and Spanish
coaches. Such an incident, grown to international importance, might
have turned the heads of ladies with greater reputations than hers.
Nor should it have been a small thing that a reckless young man had
risked his life to say nothing of his honor, in her service, and got
a very bad cut upon his head in the bargain. But Mistress Clerke
was not like some other ladies of the court. She had heard of the
gallantries of Monsieur Mornay, and had set him down as a woman-hunter
and libertine--a type especially elected for her abomination. His
recent attentions to the Countess of Shrewsbury and the engaging Mrs.
Middleton were already the common gossip of the court. She herself had
seen this man, perfumed and frilled, flaunting himself in Hyde Park or
the Mall with one or the other of his charmers, but the assurance which
made him successful elsewhere only filled her with disgust. What the
Englishwomen could see in such a fellow it was difficult for her to
determine. He was certainly not over-handsome. What strength the face
possessed she ascribed to boldness; what pride in the curve of the nose
and lips--to arrogance; what sensitiveness and delicacy of molding in
lip and chin--to puny aims and habits of fellows of his trade. She was
a person who divined rapidly and with more or less inaccuracy, and so
she had prepared herself thoroughly to dislike the man, even before
his own presumption had heightened her prejudice. Mistress Barbara
had first won and now held her position at court, not by a lavish
display of her talents and charms, but by a nimble wit and unassailable
character and sincerity, qualities of a particular value, because of
their rarity. This was the reason she could discover no compliment in
the gallantry of Monsieur Mornay on Tower Wharf. For beneath the mask
of his subservience she discovered a gleam of unbridled admiration,
which, compliment though it might have been from another, from him was
only an insult.

Several days of deliberation had brought no change in her spirit. She
resolved, as she put the last dainty touches to her toilet, that if
Monsieur Mornay again thrust his attentions upon her that night at the
ball of the Duchess of Dorset, she would give him a word or two in
public which should establish their personal relations for all time.
And as she stood before her dressing-table, her mirror gave her back a
reflection which justified her every jealous precaution. The candles
shimmered upon the loveliest neck and arms in the world. The forehead
was wide, white, and smooth, and her hair rippled back from her temples
in a shower of gold and fell in a natural order which made the arts of
fashion superfluous. Her cheeks glowed with a color which put to shame
the rouge-pot in her toilet-closet. She was more like some tall Norse
goddess, with the breath of the sea and the pines in her nostrils,
than a figure in a world of luxury and pampered ease. Her eyes, clear
and full, were strangers to qualms and apprehensions, and the thought
of a possible scene with this impertinent Frenchman gave them a sparkle
which added to their shadowed luster. In the thinking, she did Monsieur
Mornay the honor to add just one more patch to her chin. And then, of
course, if trouble arose and the worst came, there was Captain Ferrers,
whom she might marry some day, or her guardian, Sir Henry Heywood, who
could be called upon. Little did she know of the meeting between Mornay
and Sir Henry, arranged for that very morning, which had miscarried
because of an untimely intervention by the watch.

The Duke of Dorset danced well. When Mistress Clerke entered his
ballroom the tabors were sounding for a brawl. His grace espied her at
this moment, and, coming forward with an air of the _grand seigneur_
which many a younger man might have envied him, carried her off under
the very noses of Wynne, Howard, Russell, and Jermyn, to say nothing
of Captain Ferrers, who had brought her there in his coach.

It was a very merry dance, better suited to young legs than to old,
and Mistress Barbara, with a rare grace, put even his grace’s spryness
to the test. Monsieur Mornay, who had just come in, made to himself
the solemn promise that if it lay in his power she should favor him
upon that evening. If he suspected that she would receive him with an
ill grace, he did not show it, for he made no scruple to hide his open
admiration as she danced along the gallery. Twice she passed the spot
where he stood, and once she looked quite through him at the blank wall
behind. But, unabashed, when the dance was done he lost no time in
letting the Duke of Dorset know that he wished to be presented, in such
a manner that recognition would be unavoidable.

“With all the good-will in the world,” said his grace. “Another moth
to the flame,” he laughed. “Another star to the constellation. Be
careful, Sir Frenchman. ’Tis not a lady pleased with frivolity.”

“Monsieur, behold,” said Mornay, piously, “I am as solemn as a
judge--as virtuous as--_ma foi!_ as virtuous as the she-dragon duenna
of the Queen.”

“Nor will that please her better,” said Captain Cornbury, who had
come up at this moment. “I’ faith, Mornay, she’s most difficult--as
full of whims as the multiplication table. At present she spends both
her time and her fortune--where d’ye suppose, Monsieur Mornay? In the
fire region and the prisons. Strange tastes for the heiress of half a
province in France and the whole of the fortune of the Bresacs.”

“Ma foi! Une sérieuse!”

“Ochone! she’s saucy enough--with a bit of a temper, too, they say.”

“But the prisons?”

“Are but her trade to-day--perhaps to-morrow--that’s all. What do ye
think? She has but just promised the coranto and an hour alone in the
garden to the man who brings her Nick Rawlings’ pardon from the King.”

“The cutpurse?”

“The very same. She says ’tis an old man and ill fit to die upon the
scaffold.”

“_Pardieu!_” said Mornay, casting a swift glance at her train of
followers. “She’s more cruel to her lovers than to her poor.”

Cornbury laughed. “I’ faith, so far as she’s concerned, they’re one and
the same, I’m thinking. A stroke of janius, Mornay! Have yourself but
thrown into prison, and you may win her, after all.”

He moved away. Mornay looked around him for this scornful mistress, but
she had gone into the garden with Captain Ferrers.

“_Mordieu!_” he growled. “There’s truth in that jest. In prison I’ll
be, soon enough, unless the King--” He paused, with a curious smile.
“The King--aha! I’ve a better use for Charles than that,” and he made
his way to the retiring-room, where his lackey, Vigot, resplendent in a
yellow coat and black waistcoat, was awaiting his orders.

The night progressed. Came next the country dances--invented upon a
time by his grace of Buckingham’s grandmother to introduce to the court
some of her country cousins. Hoydenish they were, but the sibilance
of the silks and satins and the flaunt of laces robbed them of much
of their rustic simplicity. Mistress Clerke, her color heightened,
held her court up and down the gallery, until Mistress Stewart and my
lady Chesterfield, in turn, jealous of their prestige, called their
recalcitrant admirers to account. His grace of Dorset, somewhat red and
breathless, could contain himself no longer. “By my faith!” he said,
“Castlemaine and Hamilton had better look to their laurels. Nay, she
has a wit as pretty as that of my lord of Rochester.”

“But cleaner,” put in Jermyn, dryly.

In the meanwhile Monsieur Mornay had received a packet.

“In God’s name, what have you done?” (it ran). “You juggle too lightly
with the affairs of nations, Monsieur Mornay. ’Tis a serious offense
for you, and means death, or the Bastile at the very least. Here is
what you ask. I have no more favors to give. Leave London at once, for
when the post from France arrives, I cannot help you.--C.”

Mornay looked at it curiously, with pursed lips and loose fingers, and
then rather a bitter smile came over his features. “’Twas too strong a
test of his fellowship,” he muttered; “too strong for his friendship
even.”

He shoved the document among his laces and moved to the gallery, where
the gentlemen were choosing their partners for the coranto. He sought
the Duke at once. His grace was standing near Mistress Barbara’s chair,
watching with amusement a discussion of the rival claims of the Earl of
St. Albans and Captain Ferrers upon her clemency for the dance.

“Your grace,” said Mornay, “I claim your promise. I am for the coranto.”

“With _la belle_ Barbara? My word, Mornay, you are incurable.”

“A disease, monsieur; I think fatal.” Mistress Barbara beamed upon the
Duke. Ferrers made way; he did not see the figure at the heels of
Dorset.

“Madame,” said his grace, with a noble flourish of the arm, “I present
to you a gentleman of fine distinction in Germany and England, a
gallant captain in the Marine of France--René Bras-de-Fer--Monsieur le
Chevalier Mornay.”

During the prelude she had sat complaisantly, a queen in the center of
her court. But as Mornay came forward she arose and drew herself to her
splendid height, looking at the Frenchman coldly, her lips framed for
the words she would have uttered. But Monsieur Mornay spoke first.

“Madame,” he said, quietly, his hand upon his heart, “I am come for the
coranto.”

She looked at him in blank amazement, but for a moment no sound came
from her lips.

“Monsieur,” she stammered at last in breathless anger--“monsieur--”

Mornay affected not to hear her.

“The coranto, madame,” he said, amusedly; “madame has promised me the
coranto.”

“’Tis an intrusion, monsieur,” she began, her breast heaving. Mornay
had drawn from his laces the pardon of Nick Rawlings. Before she could
finish he had opened the paper and handed it towards her.

“It is the pardon, madame.”

That was all he said. But the crimson seal of the crown, dangling from
its cords, caught her eye, and, half bewildered, she glanced down over
the writing.

“Clemency--thief--murderer--Nick Rawlings--pardon?--a pardon for _me_,
monsieur?”

Monsieur Mornay showed his white teeth as he smiled.

“Madame forgets her promise of the coranto. _Voilà!_ Here is the
pardon. There is the _musique_. Will madame not dance?”

A silence had fallen upon those within earshot, and not a couple took
the floor for the dance. His grace of Dorset looked serious. Sir Henry
Heywood thrust himself into the circle. But the music tinkled bravely,
and Monsieur Mornay still stood there, awaiting her reply.

The struggle lasted for some moments. She turned white and red by turns
as she fought for her self-control and pressed her hand to her breast
to still the tumult which threatened to burst from her lips.

Captain Ferrers made a step as though to come between them, but
Monsieur Mornay did not notice him. Nor until then did Mistress Clerke
break her silence.

“Stop, Captain Ferrers,” she coldly said. “I will dance with this--this
Monsieur Mornay.” Her tone was frozen through and through with the
bitterness of utter contempt.

And then, giving Mornay her fingers, she went with him to the middle
of the gallery. While the company, too interested or amazed to follow
in the dance, stood along the walls of the ballroom, Mistress Barbara
Clerke and Monsieur Mornay ran through the mazes of the dance.

Mornay moved with an incomparable grace and skill. It was a dance
from Paris, and every turn of the wrist, neck, or heel proclaimed
him master. From his face one could only discover the signal joy he
felt at being honored by so gracious and beautiful a companion. The
countenance of Mistress Clerke betrayed a less fortunate disposition.
In the bitterness of her defeat by this man whom she had promised
herself publicly to demean, she maintained her outward composure with
difficulty. The physical action of dancing gave her some relief, but
as she faced him her eyes blazed with hatred and her fingers, fairly
spurning a contact, chilled him with the rigidness of their antipathy.

Twice they made the round of the room, when Ferrers, who had mounted
the steps into the loft, bade the musicians stop playing. A look of
relief chased the scorn for a moment from Mistress Barbara’s face, and,
as though half unconscious of Mornay’s presence, she said aloud, in a
kind of gasp:

“Thank God, ’tis done!”

They stood opposite an open window that led to the garden. Mornay
frowned at her.

“And the hour alone?” he asked. “Surely madame cannot so soon have
forgotten?”

Her gray eyes had turned as dark as the open window looking into
the night, and the lids which her scorn let down to hide her anger
concealed but in part the smoldering light of her passion.

“It is preposterous, monsieur!” she said, chokingly. “I cannot! I will
not!”

“And your promise, madame. Mistress Clerke will forget her promise?”

She looked about helplessly, as though seeking a way to escape. But
Mornay was merciless.

“Perhaps, madame, you fear!” he said, ironically.

He had judged her aright. With a look that might have killed had Mornay
been made of more tender stuff, she caught her gown upon her arm and
swept past him out into the darkness of the terrace beyond.

The air was warm and fragrant, full of the first sweet freshness of the
summer. The light of the moon sifted softly through the haze that had
fallen over the gardens and trembled upon each dewy blade and leaf. It
was so peaceful and quiet!--so far removed from rancor and hatred!--a
night for fondness, gentleness, and all the soft confidences of a
tenderness divine and all-excelling--a night for love!

This thought came to them both at the same moment--to Mistress Barbara
with a sense of humiliation and anger, followed by the burst of passion
she had struggled so long to control. She stopped in the middle of the
garden-walk and turned on him:

“You!” she cried, immoderately. “You again! Has a lady no rights which
a man, whatever he be, is bound to respect? Why do you pursue me?
Listen to me, Monsieur Mornay. I hate you!--I hate you!--I hate you!”
And then, overcome by the every excess of her emotion, she sank to the
bench beside her. Monsieur Mornay stood at a distance and occupied
himself with the laces at his sleeves.

To a Frenchman this was surely an ill-requiting of his delicate
attentions.

“Madame,” he began, calmly, then paused.

“No, madame does not mean that.” He made no attempt to go nearer, but
stood, his hand resting upon the hilt of his sword, his eyes, dark and
serious, looking quietly down at her.

She made no reply, but sat rigidly, her arm upon the back of the bench,
the seat of which her skirts had completely covered. There was no
indication of the turmoil that raged within her but the tapping of her
silken shoe upon the graveled walk.

“How have I offended, madame?” he continued. “Is it a fault to admire?
Is my tribute a sin? Is my service a crime? Have I not the right of any
other of your poor prisoners--to do you honor from afar?”

“From afar?” she asked, coldly satirical.

Mornay shrugged his shoulders with a pretty gesture.

“_Ma foi_, madame. My mind cannot imagine a greater distance between
us--”

“Monsieur’s imagination is not without limits,” she interrupted; and
then, after a pause, “In England a lady is allowed the privilege of
choosing her own following.”

“In France,” he replied, with an inclination of the head--“in France
the following confers an honor by choosing the lady.”

“Yes, _in France_, monsieur.”

There was a hidden meaning to her words.

He thought a moment before replying.

“But madame is of a house of France. The English Mistress Clerke is
also the French Vicomtesse de Bresac.”

She turned fully towards him and met his gaze steadily.

“But, thank God! the part of me that is English is the part of me which
scorns such attentions as yours. To be the object of such gallantries
is to be placed in a class”--she paused to measure out the depth of
her scorn--“in a class with your Shrewsburys and Middletons. It is an
insult to breathe the air with you alone. My cavaliers are gentlemen,
monsieur, and in England--”

She broke off abruptly, as if conveying too full an honor by conversing
with him; and then, woman-like, “Why did you save the Spanish coach?”
she cried, passionately.

Monsieur Mornay smiled blithely.

“Madame would not look half so handsome dead as she does alive.” He
took a step as though to go nearer, and she rose to her feet, turning
towards the house.

“Come nearer, monsieur, and I--I leave at once.”

Mornay’s brows contracted dangerously as he said:

“The hour is mine”; and then, with an angry irony, “You need not fear
me, madame. I am no viper or toad that you should loathe me so.”

She looked defiantly up at him.

“There are things even less agreeable than toads and vipers.” The words
dropped with cold and cruel meaning from her lips. In a moment she
would have given her fortune to withdraw them. Monsieur Mornay stepped
back a pace and put the back of his hand to his head where a patch
still hid the scar upon his temple. He stammered painfully, and lowered
his head as though bowing to some power over which he had no control.

“You--you mean the misfortune of my birth?”

Mistress Clerke had turned her face away again; she put her hand to
her brow, her look steadily averted. Deep down in the heart she so
carefully hid, she knew that what she had done was malignant, inhuman.
Whatever his sins of birth or education, was he not built in the
semblance of a gentleman? And had he not jeopardized his life and good
repute in her service? It was true. Whatever his origin, his frank
attachment deserved a better return than the shame she had put upon
it. If he had not stood there directly before her she would have said
something to have taken the bitter sting from her insult. But as she
felt his eyes burn into her, she could not frame her words, and her
pride made her dumb.

“Madame has heard that?” he stammered; and then, without waiting for a
reply, he said, with a quiet dignity, “It is true, I think. If madame
will permit, I will conduct her to the gallery.”

Mistress Clerke did not move. Her eyes were fixed upon the swinging
lanterns at the end of the terrace.

“Come, madame, I give you back your hour,” he said. “Nick Rawlings and
I will take our liberty together. If you will but allow me--”

There was a sound of rapid footsteps upon the walk, and three figures
came into the glare of the shifting lanterns. In the colored light
Mornay could dimly make out Ferrers, Heywood, and Wynne. Heywood peered
forward into their faces.

“Enough of this,” he said, sternly. “Mistress Clerke, be so kind as
to give your arm to Captain Ferrers. If you will but take her to the
Duchess, Ferrers--”

Mistress Clerke had arisen to her feet and looked from her guardian
to Monsieur Mornay, who stood at his ease, awaiting their pleasure.
She opened her lips as though to speak, but the Frenchman, with an air
of finality which could not be mistaken, bowed low, and then, turning
coldly away, stood facing the darkness of the garden.




CHAPTER III

MONSIEUR MORNAY BECOMES UNPOPULAR


The footsteps of Mistress Barbara and Captain Ferrers vanished into
the night. Sir Henry Heywood moved a step nearer Mornay, and the
Frenchman turned. His face shone with an unwonted pallor, and an air
of distraction had settled in the repose of his features which the dim
light of the swinging lanterns could not conceal. His eyes, dark and
lustrous, looked at Sir Henry from under half-closed lids, a little
_ennuyé_, but with a perfect composure and studied politeness.

“It is unfortunate that we cannot seem to meet,” said Sir Henry,
struggling to control himself.

“I am bereaved, Monsieur de Heywood. Perhaps to-morrow.”

“To-morrow?” broke in Heywood, violently. “There may be no to-morrow.
I will meet you to-night, monsieur, here--now--at this very spot!” He
nervously fingered the laces at his throat.

Mornay paused a moment. “Monsieur de Heywood would violate the
hospitality--”

“Yes,” interrupted Heywood, “we shall have no constables here--”

“But, monsieur--”

“Enough! Will you fight, or shall I--” He made a movement towards
Mornay. There came so dangerous a flash in the Frenchman’s eyes that
Heywood stopped. Mornay drew back a step and put his hand upon his
sword.

“At last,” sneered Heywood--“at last you understand.”

Mornay shrugged his shoulders as though absolving himself from all
responsibility.

“_Eh bien_,” he said. “It shall be as you wish.”

There had been so many duels with fatal results in London during the
last few months that it was as much as a man’s life was worth to engage
in one, either as principal or second. But this affair admitted of no
delay, and Ferrers and Wynne had so deep a dislike for Mornay that
they would have risked much to see him killed. Wynne found Captain
Cornbury, who hailed with joy the opportunity of returning Mornay a
service the Frenchman had twice rendered him. The gentlemen removed
their periwigs, coats, and laces, and when Captain Ferrers returned,
the game began.

It was soon discovered that Monsieur Mornay had a great superiority in
the reach, and he disarmed his elderly opponent immediately. It was
child’s play. Almost before the Baronet had taken his weapon in hand it
flew to the ground again. With this he lost his temper, and, throwing
his seconds aside, sprang upon the Frenchman furiously. A very myriad
of lunges and thrusts flashed about Monsieur Mornay, and before the
seconds knew what had happened the Baronet seemed to rush upon the
point of the Frenchman’s sword, which passed into his body.

Ferrers and Cornbury ran forward and caught the wounded man in their
arms, while Wynne, seeing that he still breathed, ran without further
ado to the house in search of aid. Monsieur Mornay alone stood erect.
As Cornbury rose to his feet the Frenchman asked:

“Well?”

“Clear through. There’s a hole on both sides. Ye must be off. They will
be here presently.”

“And you?”

“I’ll stay. I can serve ye better here”; and as Mornay paused, “Come,
there’s no time to be lost.” He caught up the Frenchman’s coat, hat,
and periwig, and hurried down the garden towards the gate. Mornay cast
a glance at the figure upon the ground and followed.

“I mistrust Ferrers,” whispered Cornbury. “If he will but tell a dacent
story, his grace may hush the matter. If not--”

“_Eh bien_--I care not--”

“If not, ’tis a case for the constables, perhaps of the prison; ’tis
difficult to say--a plea of chance-medley--a petition to the King--”

Mornay tossed his head impatiently as he replied:

“I have nothing to expect from the King, Cornbury.”

“Tush, man! All will be well. But do ye not go to yer lodgings. Meet me
in an hour at the Swan in Fenchurch Street, and I’ll tell ye the lay of
the land. Go, and waste no time where ye see the lantern of the watch,”
with which he pushed the Frenchman past the grilled door at the garden
entrance and out into the street.

Monsieur Mornay paused a moment while he slowly and carefully adjusted
his coat, cravat, and periwig. As he moved down the lane in the deep
shadow of the high wall in the darkness and alone with his thoughts,
his poise and assurance fell from him like a doffed cloak; his head
drooped upon his breast, as with shoulders bowed and laggard feet
he walked, in the throes of an overmastering misery. He passed from
the shadows of the walls of Dorset Gardens and out into the bright
moonlight of the sleeping street. Had he wished to hide himself, he
could not have done so more effectually, for in this guise he made
rather the figure of a grief-ridden beldam than the fiery, impulsive
devil-may-care of the Fleece Tavern. When he again reached the
protecting shadow he sank upon a neighboring doorstep and buried his
face in his knees, the very picture of despair. No sound escaped him.
It was the tumultuous, silent man-grief which burns and sears into the
soul like hot iron, but knows no saving relief in sob or tear. Once or
twice the shoulders tremulously rose and fell, and the arms strained
and writhed around the up-bent knees in an agony of self-restraint.
Ten, fifteen minutes he sat there, lost to all sense of time or
distance, until his struggle was over. Then he raised his head, and,
catching his breath sharply, arose.

“If there were but an end,” he sighed aloud, constrainedly--“an end to
it all!”

Then a bitter laugh broke from him.

“It is true--what she said was true. I am a loathsome creature--a
thing, a creeping thing, that lives because it must, because, like a
toad or a lizard, it is too mean to kill.” There was a long silence.
At last he brushed his hand across his forehead and rose to his feet
abruptly.

“Bah! a bit of womanish folly!” he laughed. “’Tis some humor or
sickness. The plague is still in the air. _Mordieu!_” he shouted.
“There is money to win and bright eyes to gleam for Monsieur Mornay. I
can laugh and jest still, _mes amis_--”

The closing of doors and the clatter of a coach upon the cobbles
surprised him into a sense of the present. A footstep here and there
and the sound of shouts close at hand recalled him to himself. He saw
from the garden gate of Dorset House the flashing of a lantern and
heard the shooting of the bolts and the rasp of a rough voice. The
spirit of self-preservation rose strong within him and put to rout
every thought but flight. He peered cautiously from his doorway, and,
finding that the gate was not yet opened, he went forth and hurried
down the street and around the corner until all the sounds of pursuit
were lost to hearing.

By the time Monsieur Mornay had reached the Swan in Fenchurch Street,
he was so far in possession of his senses that, with a manner all
his own, he roused the master of the house from his bed and bade him
set out a cold pâté and two bottles of wine in the back room upstairs
against the coming of the Irishman. Nor had he long to wait, for
Captain Cornbury, flushed and breathless, soon burst into the room.
When he saw Mornay his face relaxed in a look of relief.

“Egad! ye’re here,” he said. “’Twixt this and that I’ve had a thousand
doubts about ye. For the present, then, ye’re safe.”

Mornay pushed a bench towards him.

“Then Ferrers has--”

“Ferrers and Dorset--I’ faith, between them they’ve raised the divil.
And Captain Ferrers--by the ten holy fingers of the Pope! there was a
fine notary spoiled when Ferrers took service with the King. For all
the lyin’ scoundrels--”

“He accused me?”

“Egad! he swore _you_ were the head and foot of the whole business--”

“_Tonnerre de Dieu!_ And the Duke?”

“I raged and swore to no purpose. Dorset believes Ferrers. He says you
began it in the gallery.”

The Frenchman looked towards the ceiling with hands upraised. “The
unfortunate _politesse_ of Monsieur Mornay! The English I cannot
understand.”

“Ferrers swears it was a plot hatched in the Fleece Tavern, and that I
was a party to it.”

Mornay arose and grasped the Irishman’s shoulder.

“_You!_ My poor friend, YOU!” he exclaimed; “and I disarmed him twice.
It is too much--let us go at once and face them.”

Cornbury pushed him down. “Ye’ll do no such thing. ’Twould be arrant
suicide. The streets are full of men looking for you by this--and me,
too.”

“They cannot--you didn’t even know.”

“’Tis true, or I’m Dutch. Look ye, man, we’re safe here, and snug.
Four-and-twenty lances couldn’t get through Tom Boyle downstairs if
he’d set his mind to stop them. Rest awhile and compose yer mind.
Besides--” He broke off abruptly and reached for the bottle. “Give me
a drink--I can talk no more. The words are all--parchin’ in my throat.”

Mornay sank back upon his bench, while the Irishman filled and drained
his cup. At last he gave a great grunt of satisfaction, and with
smiling face set the vessel down upon the table with a clatter.

“Ochone! Talking is but a dry thrade.”

“_Allons_, Captain,” said Mornay, “tell me all.”

He drew the platter over and helped himself liberally from the pâté.

“Well, monsieur, when I went back, Heywood was making a kind of
statement to Ferrers--something in the nature of a dying confession.
It appears that this fellow Heywood is a thieving rascal, and if ye’ve
killed him ’tis good riddance, say I.” He paused a moment to pour his
wine. “As ye know,” he continued, his mouth full--“as ye know, the man
is the guardian of Mistress Barbara Clerke. He has the disposition in
the law of her fortune. Well, from what he confesses, ’tis not her
fortune, after all.”

Mornay’s eyes opened wide with astonishment and interest. He set down
upon the table, untasted, the cup he had raised to his lips, and leaned
intently forward.

“Is it true?” he exclaimed; “and Mistress Barbara has nothing--nothing
at all?” He broke into a hard, dry little laugh. “_Pardieu!_ ’twill
lower her chin, I’m thinking.” Then his face clouded again.

“Go on, monsieur,” he urged, impatiently--“go on.”

“If I can remember it, there’s a bit of family history ye have
not heard, perhaps. Well, ye must know that the Chevalier Bresac,
great-grandfather of this Mistress Clerke, bore a most intolerant
hatred of Spain and the Spanish. His son René inherited this antipathy.
So when he married an English girl and settled in London, he vowed that
if any one of his three daughters married a Spaniard he would cut her
off with a louis.”

He took a long draught of his wine. “Here is where the confession
begins. The eldest daughter disobeyed and married a Spaniard in Paris.
She kept the marriage from her father, and, going to Amiens, gave birth
to a boy. Before she could summon courage to tell old Bresac of her
disobedience, poor cratur, she died.”

“Leaving an heir to the estate.”

“Not so fast. Ye see, not a word of this was known in London; nor
is to-day. At her death the bulk of the fortune went to the second
daughter, who was the mother of this Mistress Barbara. The third
daughter married Heywood’s uncle. Of this there was no issue, but
that’s how the man came to be the guardian.” Cornbury pulled a pipe
from a rack and filled it.

“Now here’s the villainy of the thing. This Spaniard came of gentle
birth, but _au fond_ was a sodden beast. Heywood went to Paris as the
envoy of Wilfred Clerke--Barbara’s father--and, after a shrewd bargain,
bought all the secret papers in evidence of this Spanish marriage.”

“And the real heir?”

“As much alive as you are.”

Monsieur Mornay contemplated the bottom of his bowl.

“_Mille tonnerres!_” he growled. “’Tis the very refinement of perfidy.”

The Irishman drank deep. “A lucky stroke of yours, Mornay, I say. I
would it had been mine.”

“What became of the papers?”

“That’s why Heywood confessed, I suppose. Ye see, he loved his ward,
and wanted Ferrers to destroy them. This he will do, I’m thinking, for
he loves the lady himself.”

“And Mistress Clerke?”

“Hasn’t a notion of it.”

Mornay folded his arms and sat looking at the floor, a strange smile
upon his lips. “_Pardieu!_” he said; “’twould touch her pride--’twould
wring her proud heart to have the heir come back to his own.” The
bitterness of his tone caused Cornbury to look at him in surprise.

“Oh, there’s never a chance of it,” he said. “You see, this Spaniard,
D’Añasco, put the boy upon a ship. Why, what ails ye, man? What is it?
Are ye mad?”

Mornay had seized him by the arm with a grip of iron and leaned forward
with eyes that stared at him like one possessed.

“The name, monsieur?” he said, huskily--“the name--the Spanish name you
said--?”

“Gawd, man, don’t grip me so! You’ve spilled the tobago. ’Twas
D’Añasco, I think, or Damasco, or some such unspeakable thing.”

“Think, man--think!” cried Mornay, passionately. “’Tis a matter of life
and death. Was the name Luis d’Añasco, of Valencia?”

It was Cornbury’s turn to be surprised. He looked at Mornay in
amazement.

“I’ faith, now you mention it, I think it was. But how--”

“And the name of the boy became Ruiz? The ship was the _Castillano_?”

Cornbury’s eyes were wider than ever.

“It was--it was!”

Cornbury paused. Mornay had arisen to his feet and stumbled to the
dormer-window, where he fell rather than leaned against the sill. The
Irishman could see nothing but the upheave of the shoulders and the
twitching of the hands as the man straggled for his self-control.
Cornbury was devoured with curiosity, but with due respect for the
Frenchman’s silence sat smoking vigorously until Mornay chose to speak.
As the Frenchman looked out at the quiet stars across the roof-tops
of London he became calmer, and at last turned around towards the
flickering candles.

“Monsieur,” began Cornbury, with a touch of sympathy.

But Mornay raised his hand in quiet protest. “D’Añasco was my father,
_voilà tout_,” he said slowly. And as the Irishman arose, Mornay
continued:

“I can finish the story, Monsieur Cornbury,” he said, lightly, but with
a depth of meaning in his tone that did not escape the other. “When the
boy Ruiz grew old enough to know, the Spaniard told him that he had no
mother--nor ever had--that he was no-woman’s child. He put him on the
_Castillano_ and sent him out into the great world, without a thought,
without a blessing, without a name--the very shuttle and plaything of
fortune. That child, Cornbury, was myself.”

The Irishman put his arm upon Monsieur Mornay’s shoulder and clasped
him by the hand.

They stood thus a moment until Cornbury broke away and, with a shout
that made the rafters ring, again filled the drinking-bowls upon the
table.

“A health, monsieur!” he cried. “You’ll never drink a better. To the
better fortunes of René d’Añasco, Vicomte de Bresac!”




CHAPTER IV

MONSIEUR WAITS UPON A LADY


Captain Cornbury was no fledgling. He was the younger son, none too
highly esteemed by the elder branch, of a hard-drinking, quick-fighting
stock of ne’er-do-wells. He knew a trick with a sword, and for twenty
years had kept a certain position by his readiness to use it. His last
employment had been in the King’s service as captain in a regiment
of dragoons, but he lived, of a preference, upon his wits. There was
never a game of dice or cards at which he could not hold his own at
luck or skill. Skill at the Fleece Tavern, too, often meant dexterity
in manipulation; and where every man with whom he played took shrewd
advantage of his neighbor there was little to cavil at.

But of late fortune had turned a wry face upon the man. His regiment
was disbanded for lack of money, his pittance from the Earl, his
brother, ceased altogether; and, with a reckless manner of living,
a debtors’ prison stared him in the face. He sat upon the couch in
Mornay’s new room at the Swan Tavern, watching with a somewhat scornful
expression of countenance Vigot help his master to make his toilet. His
eyes blinked sleepily at the light, for it was high noon; and his wig
having been removed for comfort, the light shone brilliantly upon a
short crop of carroty-red hair which took all the colors of the rainbow.

Mornay wore a splendid silken night-gown, little in keeping with the
dinginess of the apartment. While Vigot dressed his master’s perruque,
Mornay told the Irishman of the note from the King and of the arrival
of the post from France, with the news of the anger of the Grand
Monarque and of his promise of death or imprisonment should Mornay be
brought to France.

Cornbury pursed his lips in a thin whistle.

“Viscount,” he said, frowning, “ye’re skatin’ on thin ice.”

Mornay had completely recovered his good spirits. He tossed his
night-robe to Vigot and snapped his fingers.

“_Mais, monsieur_,” he smiled. “’Tis an exercise so exhilarating.”

“D--n it, man, ’tis no time for jesting,” growled the Irishman, rising.
“The post from France to-day says ye are to be put in the Bastile or
have your head chopped off; in London ye’re a fugitive from justice
for killing; and, lastly, yer good friend Charles has turned a cold
shoulder on ye. And ye talk of exhilaration!” Cornbury’s disgust was
illimitable.

Mornay dusted a speck from his sleeve and smiled gayly. “It is
not every day, my good Cornbury, that a man may become possessed
of a family, a fortune, and, _ma foi_, such a beautiful, scornful
she-cousin--”

“Zoons, man! How can ye prove it without the papers? The mere word
‘D’Añasco’ will not open their ears or their hearts. I believe it, but
who else would?”

“I can prove that I am the boy Ruiz, I tell you.”

“And ye’re fleeing for your life?”

Mornay’s face grew stern. “Yes, I am fleeing for my life,” he cried,
“but they have not caught me yet. Last night I would not have cared
if they had sent me back to France. To-day it is different. They have
robbed me of my estates, of my name; they have made me a mere creeping
thing--a viper. _Morbleu!_ they shall feel the viper’s sting. Monsieur
de Heywood is dead. Mistress Barbara Clerke--”

Cornbury leaned forward in his chair. “Surely you don’t mean--”

“Oh, put your mind at rest, _mon ami_. I shall do my pretty cousin no
violence. I shall see her--that’s all. But first--first, about the
papers with this Capitaine Ferraire--”

Cornbury smiled dryly.

“Why, ye have but to poke a nose an inch beyond the door to be carted
to the Tower. How will ye see Captain Ferrers, then? ’Tis the height of
absurdity. Take my advice and keep close till ye find a ship. Then set
your course for the Plantations till yer matter is cooled. I’ve a debt
or two myself, and I’m inclined to accompany ye.”

Mornay looked at him in surprise. “Why, Cornbury, you have but a faint
heart!”

“It is this news from France--ye have no backing--”

“Come! have done!” cried Mornay. “You sap my will. If you cannot look
the situation gallantly in the face, why, then--” He stopped and
lowered his voice, casting a glance at the Irishman. “_Mon ami_, I
expect too much. More than I can claim.” Mornay walked towards the door
and took Cornbury’s cloak and hat. “_Allons!_ You shall leave me at
once. Your only danger is in my society. Go at once upon the street,
and they can prove nothing; stay with me, and you harbor an enemy of
the state and a fugitive from justice.”

Cornbury threw a look at him and rose to his feet with an oath. “D--n
ye, man, d’ye think I’d quit ye now? Ye give me credit for a smallish
sense of dacency.” He walked to the window and looked down upon the
street. Mornay followed him at once and took him by the hand.

“I have offended you? Forgive me. This matter is the turning of gall to
honey for me, Cornbury. I cannot leave it without a struggle. I pray
you, bear with me.”

Cornbury was smiling in a moment. “What do ye plan?” he said.

“Listen. Vigot is clever. He shall discover for me when Captain Ferrers
will wait upon madame, _ma cousine_. I, too, will call upon her.”

“And ye’ve just killed her guardian!” said Cornbury, dryly. “She’ll not
receive ye with kisses.”

Mornay smiled and slowly answered:

“You will think it strange that a gentleman should intrude upon a
woman. But to-morrow, perhaps to-day, I may go from this city and
country forever. Before that I shall make one effort to establish my
good name. I shall not succeed; but I shall have done my duty to myself
and the mother who bore me. As for the Capitaine Ferraire--” Mornay’s
eyes flashed ominously. “If I knew where he had put the papers--if I
could but get him to fight--”

“Fight! Ye couldn’t coax a fight from Ferrers with the flat of yer
hand. He’d rather see ye in the Bastile or the Tower. He’s too sure
to take any risks. Besides, if ye’d kill him the papers would be
lost forever. No, he’ll not fight. He owes ye money, and while the
constables can cancel the debt ye may be sure that _he_ will _not_.”

Mornay passed his hand over his brow. “’Tis true. But I must see them
together. That is the only chance. I will go to-day.”

“But how, Mornay?” asked Cornbury, dryly. “In a coach and four?”

Mornay sprang to his feet in delight. “_C’est ça!_” he cried, joyfully.
“Oh, monsieur, but you have the Irish wit. Vigot shall bring me a
coach. I shall ride in state.”

Cornbury rose to his feet angrily.

“What nonsense is this?” he cried. Mornay smiled on him benignly.

“Can you not see, Monsieur le Capitaine? While they are looking for me
at the Fleece, in Covent Garden, in the Heaven Inn, or in the Hell
Tavern, here will I be riding along the Mall to the very place they
would be least likely to look for me--in my lady’s boudoir!”

Cornbury at once saw the value of the plan, but he never looked more
sober.

“And after?” he asked.

“After?” replied Mornay, lightly. “After? Monsieur, you leave too
little to the imagination. I think but of the present. _Le bon Dieu_
will provide for the future.”

Vigot was given his orders to make shrewd inquiries of the servants of
the neighbors of Mistress Clerke as to the hour of Captain Ferrers’s
daily visits. He was also told to get a coach for monsieur. He stood
puzzled a moment.

“Monsieur wishes a haquenée?” he asked.

“A haquenée? No, sirrah!” said Mornay, brusquely.

“A pair, then?” he asked, scratching his head.

“A pair?” roared Mornay. “No, sirrah! _Foi de ma vie!_ I wish a coach
and four. Twenty guineas at the very least. If I wait upon madame at
night, a dozen links. Be off with you!”

Cornbury shook his head hopelessly.

“Ye’re going to your funeral in style,” he said.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mistress Barbara sat alone, looking out upon the quiet street.
While she looked she saw nothing, and every line of her figure, in
abandonment to her mood, spoke of sorrow and distraction. Her eyelids
were red, and the richly laced _mouchoir_ which fell from the hand
beneath her chin was moist with tears. Upon a tray were the dishes of
a luncheon, untouched, and a number of papers, some of them torn, fell
from her hand upon the floor. A dish of roses, a few French romances,
a _manteau_ girdle, a copy of the _Annus Mirabilis_ of Dryden, a pair
of scented gloves of Martial, and a cittern in the corner completed the
gently bred disorder of the room.

True, Sir Henry Heywood was no blood relation of hers, and had only
been her guardian. A man of the world in the worst rather than the
better sense, there had been little in his life to appeal to her. But
he loved her in his own way and had been good to her in all matters
that pertained to her estate, and so she mourned him as one would mourn
the loss of one whom nearness had made dear. There was some bond which
seemed to bind them more closely than their mere surface relations of
ward and guardian--an undercurrent of devotion and servitude which she
felt, though she could not understand the meaning. His death wrung her
mind, if it did not wring her heart.

And by this Frenchman! There had been a moment or two of regret the
other night that she should have used this Mornay so cruelly, a moment
when the bitterness, the grief, the utter loneliness and longing she
had seen in his face had filled her rebellious soul with compassion
for his misery. For she had a glimpse--the very first--of his pride
overborne and beaten to earth in spite of its mighty struggle to rise.
But now! Now, whatever regret had sprung into her heart, whatever
kindliness, had been engulfed again in a bitterness which cried out
for justice. While the woman in her had shrunk from the thought of him
and wished him well away from London, a sense of the fitness of things
called for retribution for the wrong that had been done her and hers.
They had not caught him yet. Oh, he was cunning and skillful; that
she knew. But Captain Ferrers had assured her that to oblige Louis of
France, the King had directed all the constables of London to be upon
the watch for him. It could not be long before they would have him fast
behind the walls of the Tower, with God knows what in store for him
there, or at the Bastile if he were taken back to France. The Bastile?
She shivered a little and put her kerchief over her face.

“God forgive me,” she murmured, “if I have misjudged him!”

There was a commotion below in the street--the sound of galloping
horses and the rumble of a fast-flying vehicle. A plum-colored calash
with red wheels and splendid equipments was coming at a round pace
up the street. There were four sorrel horses, a coachman, footman,
and two outriders. With a whirl of dust and the shouting of men the
horses were thrown upon their haunches and the coach came to a stop
directly before Mistress Barbara’s door. She peered out of the window,
curiously agape, to know the identity of her visitor. From the way in
which he traveled abroad it must be a person of condition--she felt
assured a minister or dignitary of the city, come perhaps to beseech
her influence. There was a glimmer of bright color in the sunlight. A
splendid figure, periwigged and bonneted in the latest mode, sprang out
and to her front door. She had barely time to withdraw her head before
there was a knock and her lackey opened in some trepidation.

“Madame, ’tis Monsieur the Vicomte de Bresac--”

“Did I not give orders--” she began, and then stopped. “De Bresac! De
Bresac! What can it mean?”

“Madame, ’tis a matter of importance and--er--”

She stood debating whether she should call her governess or deny
herself to her visitor, but before she could do the one or the other
footsteps came along the hallway and the lackey stepped aside as
Monsieur Mornay entered.

Mistress Clerke turned a pallid face towards him. She stepped back a
pace or two, her hands upon her breast, her eyes glowing with fear.
Monsieur Mornay turned to the lackey, who still stood doubtful upon the
threshold. The look he gave the man sent him through the doorway and
hall, where the sound of his footsteps mingled with those of others
without. Mistress Clerke cast a fleeting glance towards the boudoir,
but Monsieur Mornay had taken his stand where he could command both
entrances to the room. She scorned to cry aloud for assistance, nor
would she risk his interference by trying to pass him. He read her
easily. She made no motion to leave or speak to him, but stood against
the wall of the fireplace, her muscles rigid and tense with fear and
her eyes regarding him with all the calmness she could command.

“Madame,” he said, solemnly, looking out at her from under his dark
brows, “before God, I mean you no harm!” He said it as though it were
a sacrament. “In half an hour or less I shall be gone from this room,
from your life forever. But you must hear what I have to say.” He
paused. “No, no, madame. It is not that which you suppose--you need
have no fear of me. It is not that--I swear it!”

Mistress Barbara moved uneasily.

“I pray that you will be seated, madame. No? As you please. What I have
to say is not short. Shall I begin?”

“’Twere sooner over,” she said, hoarsely.

He bowed politely. “I will endeavor to be brief. Many years ago, your
great-grandfather went to Florida with the expedition of Jean Ribault.
Perhaps you have been told of the massacre by the Spanish and how the
Seigneur de Bresac escaped to France? _Merci!_ You also doubtless know
his and your grandfather’s great hatred of the Spanish people as the
result of this massacre? _Eh bien._ Your grandfather told his three
daughters--one of whom was your mother--that if one of them married a
Spaniard he would refuse her a part of his fortune and deny her as a
child of his--”

“I pray you, monsieur--”

“I crave your patience. Lorance, your mother, married Monsieur Clerke,
and Julie, the younger sister, married Sir George Maltby. That is well
known. The elder sister was Eloise.” His voice fell, and the name was
spoken with all the soft tenderness of the name itself. “Perhaps you do
not know, madame, that she, too, was married--”

“There was a mystery,” she muttered. “I heard--” Then she stopped.

“Madame heard?” he asked, politely. But she was silent again.

“Eloise was married,” he continued, “while visiting at the château
of the Duc de Nemours, near Paris, to Don Luis d’Añasco, who was
a Spaniard. Fearing her father’s wrath and disinheritance, this
unfortunate woman concealed the facts of this marriage, the record of
which was the acknowledgment of the priest who married them and the
statements of a nurse and another witness who had accompanied her to
Amiens, where in or about the year 1635 she gave birth to a son--”

If Mistress Clerke had allowed herself to relax a little before, her
interest now had dominated all feeling of fear and suspense. She leaned
a little forward, breathless, her hand upon the chair before her, her
eyes fixed upon the lips of the Frenchman, who spoke slowly, concisely,
and held her with an almost irresistible fascination.

“The saddest part of the story is to come, madame. The mother was
grievously ill--she suffered besides all the pangs of solitude at a
time when a woman needs consolation and sympathy the most. Her mother
had died, her husband was worse than useless, and she feared to let her
father know the truth, lest his stern and pitiless nature would wreak
some terrible vengeance upon the Spanish husband, whom she still loved,
in spite of the fact that he had married her for her fortune and not
for herself. She had almost made up her mind to tell her father all
when--she died.” He paused a moment to give her the full import of his
words. And then, looking at her steadily and somewhat sternly, “Her
son, René d’Añasco, Vicomte de Bresac, is still alive.”

Mistress Barbara stood looking at him. He met the look unflinchingly.
At last her eyes fell. When she lifted them she did so suddenly and
drew herself up at the same time, all instinct with doubt and suspicion
of this man, who had first insulted, then injured her, and was now
seeking to rob her of her birthright.

“And you?” she asked, bitterly, her scorn giving wings to her fear.
“And _you_? Can I believe _you_?”

It was as though she had expressed her thought in words. Monsieur
Mornay felt the thrust. But where the other night it could wound him
mortally, to-day it glanced harmlessly aside. He still looked calmly at
her, and the least perceptible touch of irony played at the corners of
his lips.

She mistook the smile for effrontery--for the mere impudence of a man
without caste who recks nothing for God or man. She flung her back
towards him with a sudden gesture and turned towards the window.

“You lie,” she said, contemptuously.

Monsieur Mornay knit his brows, and his eyes followed her angrily, but
he did not even take a step towards her. His voice was as low as before
when he spoke.

“Madame has a certain skill at hatred,” he said. “Insults fall as
readily from her lips as the petals from a flower.” He paused. “But
they do not smell so sweet. I do not lie, madame,” he said, with a
gesture as though to brush the insult aside. When he raised his voice
it was with a tone and inflection of command which surprised and
affrighted her. She turned in alarm, but he had not moved from his
position near the door.

“Hear me you shall, madame. Listen.” And rapidly, forcefully,
masterfully even, he told the story of the fate of the young D’Añasco,
called Ruiz, the perfidy of the drunken father in sending him away upon
the ship _Castillano_, and the bargain by which his inheritance had
been sold. She heard him through, because she could not help it, but
as he proceeded, and the names of her father, Sir Wilfred Clerke, and
Sir Henry Heywood were mentioned, she arose to her full height, and
with magnificent disdain threw fear to the winds and said, coldly:

“Stop! I have heard enough.” And with reckless mockery, “You, monsieur,
I presume, are René d’Añasco, Vicomte de Bresac?”

Monsieur Mornay bowed.

The door of the room opened suddenly and Captain Ferrers entered. A
look of bewilderment was on his features as he glanced at Mistress
Clerke.

“Why, Barbara--these men without-- What--?” Monsieur Mornay had turned
his head, and the flowing curls no longer hid his countenance.

“I was expecting you, Capitaine Ferraire,” said the Frenchman.

Ferrers stepped back a pace or two, astonishment and consternation
written upon his features. Had Sir Henry Heywood come back to life,
the Captain could not have been put into a greater quandary. He looked
at the Frenchman and then at Mistress Clerke for the solution of the
enigma. But Mistress Barbara had sunk upon the couch in an agony of
fear. A moment before she had prayed for this interruption. Now that it
had come she was in a terror as to its consequences. She made no reply,
but looked at the two men who stood a few feet apart with lowering
looks--the Englishman flushed red with anger, the Frenchman cool,
impassive, dangerous.

Ferrers spoke first. He stepped a pace or two towards the Frenchman,
his brow gathered, his shoulders forward, menace in every line of his
figure.

“You have dared to force your way into this house?”

The elbow was bent and the fist was clinched, and an exclamation burst
from Mistress Barbara, who was gazing horror-struck at the impending
brutality. But the Frenchman did not move. The only sign of anything
unusual in his appearance was the look in his eyes, which met those
of the Englishman with an angry glitter of defiance. If Ferrers had
meant personal violence to the Frenchman, he did not carry out his
intentions. He cast his eyes for a moment in the direction of Mistress
Barbara, and then, drawing back again with a muttered exclamation, made
straight for the door. Before he could place his hand upon the knob
Mornay interposed.

“One moment, Ferraire. My men were told to let you in--_not_ to let
you out.” And as Ferrers paused a moment, “Have patience, Monsieur le
Capitaine. Presently I will leave madame and you; but first you must
listen.” Ferrers had grown white with rage, and his hand had flown to
his sword hilt. He looked at the quiet figure of the Frenchman and at
Mistress Barbara, whose eyes were staring at him widely. He bit his lip
in chagrin, and then struggled to control his voice.

“Your reckoning is not far distant, Monsieur Mornay,” he said,
hoarsely. “If there is justice in England, you shall hang this day
week.”




CHAPTER V

INDECISION


Mornay waited while the Englishman smothered his rage. Then, with a
sudden motion, he brushed his kerchief across his temples, as though to
wipe the clouds from his forehead.

“If madame will but bear with my brutality a little longer”--he
smiled--“a little longer--then she will have done with me forever.”
The gesture and the air of contrition were rather racial than personal
characteristics. But, as one sometimes will in times of great stress,
Mistress Barbara could not but compare Mornay’s ease and sang-froid
with the heavy and somewhat brutal bearing of Captain Ferrers. She
hated herself for the thought, and, as Monsieur Mornay spoke, turned
her face resolutely to the window and away from him.

“If madame will remember what I have had the honor to tell her, she
will now discover how Monsieur Ferraire becomes concerned.” He glanced
at Ferrers, who stood to one side, his arms folded, his features sullen
and heavy with the impotence of his wrath. The Frenchman was playing a
desperate game, with every chance against him. To unmask the secret,
he must take the somewhat heavier Englishman off his guard. Of one
thing he felt sure, Ferrers knew little more as to the papers than did
Cornbury and himself. He began abruptly, without further preface:

“Madame has just learned from my lips of certain matters, Monsieur
le Capitaine, which bear strongly upon her interests in the estate
of Bresac. She has yet to learn how much a part of it all you have
become. She has been told of the fortunes of Eloise d’Añasco and of
the rightful heir to the estates. What she wishes most to learn is the
contents and purport of the papers in your possession.”

Mornay had spoken slowly, to give force to his words, and the effect
of his information upon Ferrers was remarkable. The lowering crook
came out of his brows, and his hand made an involuntary movement to his
breast, the fingers trembling a moment in the air. His face relaxed
like heated wax, and he stared at the Frenchman, his mouth open, the
picture of wonderment and uncertainty.

Mistress Clerke, who had been about to speak, paused bewildered.
Ferrers stammered awkwardly, as though gathering his wits for a reply.

“The papers!” he gasped at last. “The papers!” And then with a futile
attempt at sang-froid, “What papers, monsieur?”

If the Englishman had not been so completely off his guard he would
have seen a flash of triumph in the Frenchman’s eyes. Mornay narrowly
watched his discomfiture; then continued, quietly:

“Monsieur le Capitaine Ferraire, René d’Añasco has been found. The
son of Eloise de Bresac has come to life and is to-day in London. He
knows of the sale of his birthright. He has discovered the proofs of
his mother’s marriage and of his birth at Amiens. He but awaits a
favorable opportunity to bring the matter before a court.” By this time
Captain Ferrers had recovered a certain poise. He swaggered over to the
mantel, where he turned to Mistress Clerke.

“A fine tale!” he sneered. “A pretty heir, Mistress Barbara, to send
a hunted man as his ambassador.” Then the presence of Cornbury at the
dying confession came to his memory, and the situation dawned upon him
for the first time. He laughed aloud with real blatant merriment.

“I see!” he cried. “It is you--_you_, Mornay, the outcast--Mornay, the
broken gambler, the man without a creed or country, who is now become
the Vicomte de Bresac. It is a necromancy worthy of Dr. Bendo.”

He was firm upon his feet again. The very absurdity of the claim had
restored his heavy balance--somewhat disturbed by the announcement of
his possession of the papers. He turned to Mistress Clerke and found
her eyes, full of wonder and inquiry, still turned upon him. She was
sensible of an influence which the Frenchman’s words had wrought,
and felt rather than saw the surprise and alarm which underlay the
somewhat blustery demeanor of Captain Ferrers. During the dénouement
not a word had passed her lips. When she had tried to speak it seemed
as though she had been deprived of the power. She had sat looking from
the one to the other, fear and doubt alternating in her mind as to the
intentions of the Frenchman. What did it all mean? Captain Ferrers,
at the best of times, was not a man who could conceal his feelings;
but why had he lost countenance so at the mention of papers? Why had
he not done something at the first that would prove the Frenchman the
cheat and impostor that he was? Why did the irony of his words fall
so lightly upon the ears of Monsieur Mornay that he seemed not even
to hear them? Why were the Frenchman’s eyes so serious, so steady, so
clear to return her gaze? With an effort she slowly arose, struggling
against she knew not what--something which seemed to oppress her and
threaten the freedom of her speech and will. A feeling that she had
allowed herself, if even only for a moment, to be influenced against
her better judgment, filled her with resentment against this man who
had broken past her barriers again and again, and now offended not only
the laws of society but the laws of decency by brutally pushing past
her servants and holding her against her will a prisoner in her own
apartments. As she stood upon her feet she regained her composure, and
when she spoke her voice rang with a fearlessness that surprised even
herself. It was the exuberance and immoderation of fear--the sending of
the pendulum to the other end of its swing.

“For shame, sir, to make war upon a woman! Is there not left a spark
of the gallantry of your race that you should break into a woman’s
house like a cutpurse, a common pirate and outlaw? Have you no pride
of manhood left--no honor? No respect for the sanctity of the sex that
bore you? Would you oppress and hold a helpless woman in restraint?
Monsieur, you are a coward!--a coward! I repeat for the last time, I
do not believe you. I would not believe you if you gave me your oath.”

Ferrers said nothing, but the curl of his lips told the volume of his
pleasure.

They were dreadful words to Mornay, but he looked at her with a
calmness that gave no sign of hidden discomfiture. His eyes did
not drop under her lashing sneers. Instead, as she paused he began
speaking, with a quiet insistence in which there was the least touch of
patronage.

“Madame, hear me out, I pray you. I have come brutally into your house.
I have been the bully with you and yours. I have held you prisoner.
To ask your pardon would be still further to insult you. But I leave
London to-night and--” As Ferrers interposed, he raised his hand.
“Pardon, monsieur, a moment and I have done. I leave London to-night,
and I shall not trouble you more.”

“Thank God for that!” she said, bitterly.

Mornay continued as though he did not hear her: “I have broken in
upon you because it was the only way that I could see you--the only
way that I could tell you what I had to say. That I have sinned is
because--well, because I had hoped that, after all, madame, perhaps the
blood could flow warmly from your heart.” He tossed his chin defiantly.
“You have scorned me for one who bears false witness, though you have
seen your English captain go pale at the mention of those papers. You
will believe what he says and scorn me, in whom runs the blood of the
same grandparents as yourself. You have looked upon me as an impostor.
_Eh bien._ Think what you will. Impostor I am not.” He drew himself up
and said, clearly, in a full measure of pride and dignity, “I am René
de Añasco, Vicomte de Bresac.”

He moved to the door, looking not at her or even noticing the
contemptuous laugh of Captain Ferrers; then, slowly, “I leave you,
madame. To-morrow I will be but a memory--an evil dream, which soon
passes away. You have chosen to be my enemy and to send me away from
you in scorn, hatred, and disbelief. Let it be so. But remember,
madame, when I am gone every pretty sweetmeat you put in your mouth,
every dainty frock you put upon your back, every slipper, every glove,
every ring and spangle that you wear, is mine--all mine.”

She shrank back with horror at the thought, and Ferrers broke in with
an illy suppressed oath:

“One moment, sirrah!” he cried. “If the play-acting’s done, I’d have a
word with you. Will you permit Mistress Clerke to withdraw?”

Mornay took his hand from the knob of the door and turned, while a
gleam of satisfaction crossed his features. In that look Mistress
Barbara read a sinister intention. She thrust herself before Captain
Ferrers.

“No! No!” she cried. “You shall not! There shall be no more--no more
blood-shedding, Captain Ferrers! Let the man go. Let him go, I tell
you! Let him go! As you love me, let him go!”

Captain Ferrers disengaged her arms from about his shoulders, while
Mornay watched them, half amused, half satirical.

“Fear nothing for him, madame,” he interrupted, dryly. “There will be
no fight with Capitaine Ferraire. ’Tis only a touch of irritation and
will speedily pass when I am gone.” He opened the door and called into
the hall, “Vigot!--the coach!”

But Captain Ferrers had put Mistress Clerke aside.

“You must go!” he cried, furiously, almost jostling the shoulder of the
Frenchman.

“Tush, monsieur!” said Mornay, sternly. “You forget yourself. I will
be at the Fleece Tavern to-night at eleven. If you would see me before
I leave England, you will find me there. Madame, your servitor.” In a
moment he had closed the door and was walking down the hallway.

Monsieur Mornay knew that Ferrers would lose but little time in
arousing the servants of Mistress Clerke, and that before he should
have gone very far upon his way there would be a hue and cry after him.
But he had great confidence in Vigot, and the coachman and outriders
were rogues with comfortable consciences, who, if they were well paid,
could be depended on. He entered the coach and waved his hand. The
coachman snapped his lash over the heads of the leaders. The fire flew
from the cobbles as the animals clattered into a stride.

The vehicle had not moved its own length before Ferrers and two lackeys
came running out of the house, shouting at the top of their bent. But
Vigot had his instructions. The lash came down again and the horses
broke into a brisk trot. One of the lackeys sprang for the bridle of
the nearest outrider, but the horseman gave the man a cut across the
face with his whip, and he fell back with a scream of pain. Ferrers was
absolutely helpless. There were not half a dozen people in the street.
Monsieur Mornay thrust his head out of the window of the coach and took
off his hat.

“The Fleece Tavern at eleven,” he said.

Ferrers hurled a curse at him and renewed his shouting, to the end
that men by this time came running from the houses and shops farther
up the street, through which the coach must pass. But the horses were
moving at a full gallop. It would have been easier to stop a charge of
cavalry. Most people simply looked back at Ferrers and stared. One or
two venturesome fellows rushed out, but a sight of the resolute faces
of the outriders, who guarded the leaders’ heads, was enough to make
them pause, and the coach clattered on to safety. There were twenty
plum-colored calashes in the city, and Mornay knew that detection would
be difficult if not impossible at this time of the evening, when the
streets were cleared and the coach could wind deviously to the distant
purlieus of Fenchurch Street. Soon the clamor they had made was lost
in the turns of the winding streets, and the coach was brought by a
distant route to the spot at which Monsieur Mornay had entered it--not
a stone’s-throw from the Swan.

Cornbury was awaiting him upstairs. He had puffed the room full of
smoke, and a look of relief passed over his face as Mornay entered.
“Well, monsieur?” he asked.

Mornay did not answer. He tossed his hat down and threw himself into a
chair.

“I’ve lost,” he muttered at last. He said no more, and Cornbury did not
press him for information. But presently, when the supper was brought,
and his eye alighted upon the face of his servant, he broke into a
smile.

“Ah, Vigot!” he cried. “Did my honest rogues get back to their stable?”

“In perfect safety, monsieur. ‘Scaldy’ Quinn and Tom Trice are not
the ones to be caught napping. They only wish another venture in your
service.” Mornay sadly shook his head. “Vigot, I shall need no further
service in England. You, too, shall go back to France--and I--” He
paused as a sudden thought came to him. He brought his fist down upon
the table. “_Parbleu!_ Wait, Vigot! Perhaps we may yet have need for
these fellows. Tell them to come here quietly by ten of the clock.”

Cornbury had been watching him narrowly. Now he broke out angrily.

“Can ye not be satisfied? Why must ye go forever risking yer neck
in the noose? Ye’ve escaped this time. How, God knows, save by that
presumption which ye wear as a garment. Come, now, I’ve made up my mind
to go to the Plantations. Take ship with me, man. I know of a venture
there that is worth the pains of the trouble twenty times over. Come
at least for the present, until yer peril is grown less.”

Mornay was holding his chin in his hand, lost in thought.

“_Mon ami_,” he said at last, “I’ve shot my bolt and lost. There was
never so heartless a maid since the world began.”

“Tush, dear man! Must ye be forever thinking of the girl? A wench is a
wench in England or Ameriky.”

Mornay arose and put his hands frankly upon the other’s shoulders.

“I’ll go with you, my good friend, where you please--after to-night.”

“Ay, and to-night--ye may go to the devil--”

“’Tis so. I have an appointment with Captain Ferrers at the Fleece for
eleven.”

Cornbury’s face fell.

“Egad, man, ye’re incorrigible! And d’ye think he’ll meet ye?”

“I don’t know. He may not, alone. But I think that he will, in company.
If he does, I’ll not fail him.”

“Don’t ye go. It will be a trap. The man will not fight, I tell you,
while the law of England can do his vengeance for him. Ye’ll run afoul
of an army of constables.”

“I know it, but I’ll risk it.”

“And if ye kill him ye destroy the last proof of yer birth,” sneered
the Irishman.

“I don’t know,” replied Mornay, coolly. Cornbury stormed up and down
the room in a rage.

“Ye’ll have your will,” he cried, “for the sake of a little fight.
Go to your death, rash man that ye are, but don’t say that I haven’t
warned ye.”

“Cornbury, listen. I’ve a desire to look into the pockets of this
Capitaine Ferraire.”

“And what do ye think ye’ll find there--the blessing of the Pope?”

Mornay laughed outright. “Perhaps, but not for me. An idea has grown
upon me, and now possesses me body and soul. It is that these papers
are in the coat of Monsieur Ferraire.”

Cornbury sent out a sudden volume of smoke to signify his disgust.

“P’sh! Do ye think the man has but one suit? Ye’ll lose your labor,
sir. He has hidden yer proofs most secretly by this.”

“None the less, _mon ami_, I’m going to pick his pocket!”

There was a thin skim of storm over the face of the moon as Mornay and
Cornbury left the Swan Tavern. The wind was fitful in the streets,
and, though the season was June, as they passed a corner now and then
a heavy gust, full of the dampness and rigor of October, flew full in
their faces and caused them to pull their summer cloaks more closely
about them. Following in their footsteps were three men, one of whom
was Vigot. The other two were the rascals who had served as outriders
to Monsieur Mornay in the afternoon: Tom Trice, a tall and slender,
stoop-shouldered man, who peered uneasily to left and right, and
“Scaldy” Quinn, who was short, with a most generous breadth of leg and
shoulder. The Frenchman had paid them liberally before leaving the
Swan, and the understanding was that they should follow instructions
without question, and if necessary be prepared to strike a sturdy
blow or two for monsieur, who was going into the camp of his enemies.
The Fleece Tavern had lately gained a bad name by reason of the many
brawls and homicides that had occurred within its walls. The place was
not inaptly named, for its master, Papworth, took money when and how he
might, and bore the name of one who would not stop at a sinister deed
if it would avail him to achieve his end. But in spite of its disrepute
among the more careful of its gamesters at the court, the Fleece was
still frequented by a larger following than any other gaming-house in
London. There was more money to be seen there. Most of its rooms were
filled at all hours with a motley crowd of men of the town, noblemen,
and soldiers of fortune, who would play at dice, basset, and quinze for
days and nights at a time, dropping out only when the lack of food and
sleep made it necessary.

Cornbury strode along, muttering in his cloak.

“Why go on this d----d fool’s errand?” he said, at last. “Why will
ye not take ship comfortably, like a gentleman? Like ye the look of
a prison that ye must be prying and poking yer head inside the bars?
Ye’re a fool, man.”

Mornay paused to look at him curiously for a moment, and then he
laughed.

“I am. And you’re another, _mon ami_, for going with me.” They walked
along for a moment in silence before the Frenchman spoke again. “Here
is what we shall do, Cornbury: Vigot shall go into the house next to
the Fleece, which is upon the corner. It is a mercer’s shop, with
lodgings above, to let. He will choose a room, and so gain his way to
the roof. He will then steal over the leads to the dormer of the Fleece
and down into the hall, making all clear for our escape. The other two
rascals will enter by the cook-room, and, gaining their way upstairs,
await our signal there. We will then meet Capitaine Ferraire and his
friend with an eye in the back of our heads for any signs of his
followers.” As Mornay proceeded he could see the eyes of the Irishman
flash with delight in the moonlight.

“’Tis a good plan,” he returned, “and but for one thing--”

“What?”

“They may be too many for you. Ferrers will have half of the watch with
him, for by this there’s a pretty premium upon your head.”

“The more credit, then, in outwitting them”; and then, sinking his
voice, “Silence, monsieur, we are already in the shadow of St. Paul’s.”




CHAPTER VI

THE ESCAPE


They walked quickly along under a wall, keeping in the shadow. Vigot
received his orders and went forward alone. When last they saw him he
was swaggering and staggering by turns up to the mercer’s, where he
began pounding lustily upon the door for admittance. Trice and Quinn
Mornay despatched by a side street to approach the tavern from another
direction.

At the Fleece there was no unusual sign. From an open window came the
rattle of dice, the clink of the counters, and the laughter of men.
The night being still young, many people were passing to and fro upon
the streets, and Mornay and Cornbury, wrapped in their cloaks, looking
neither to the right nor left, pushed open the door at the front
and walked boldly into the room. Several drinkers lounged upon the
benches, and there was a game of basset in the corner, but the players
were so intent that they had no eyes for the new arrivals. Cornbury
drummed loudly upon the floor with his foot, and one of the fellows, a
pigeon-breasted ensign in a dragoon regiment, cast a loser’s curse over
his shoulder, but failed to recognize them. They ordered a drink and
the room on the second floor at the head of the stairway.

Mornay’s reasons for this were obvious. He wanted a narrow passage,
where more than two men would be at a disadvantage, and where all
opportunity for outside interference would be obviated. The host
himself brought their lights and bottles. When he saw that it was
Monsieur Mornay who was his guest, he started back in amazement.

“Monsieur!” he cried. “You? I thought--”

“Sh-- Yes, it is I. But keep your tongue, Papworth. Is Captain Ferrers
here?”

“No, sir. Two notes have arrived for him, but--”

Mornay glanced significantly at the Irishman.

“You think he will come?”

“I should be sure of it, sir.”

“Very good. When he comes tell him Captain Cornbury and I are awaiting
him.”

“But, sir, if you’ll pardon me, the Fleece Tavern is no place for you,
sir. There’s been constables watching for you all yesterday and to-day.”

Mornay laughed a little to himself.

“’Tis plain I’m too popular. Listen, Papworth. I did you a good turn
with the King when Captain Lyall was killed in your garden. Now you can
return me the compliment.”

“Yes, monsieur, but--”

“I’ll have no refusal.”

The man rubbed his chin dubiously while Cornbury told him their plans.
When the Irishman had finished, Mornay slipped a handful of coins into
his palm, which worked a transformation in his point of view.

“I’ll do what I can, monsieur,” he said, jingling the money. “But if
there’s to be fighting, the Fleece will lose its good repute forever.”
Mornay and Cornbury both laughed at the long face and hollow note of
virtuous regretfulness and resignation in his voice.

“Ochone! If there has been a duel in yer garden once in forty years,
I’d never be the man to suspect it,” said the Irishman. The landlord
raised a deprecating hand and disappeared.

“The garden?” growled Mornay. “I hope it may not be necessary to carry
this matter there.”

“But have ye thought? He may not come up to yer room?”

“He must--”

There was a cautious knock at the door, and Vigot entered, despair and
distress written upon his features.

“Monsieur! Ill news! There was no room to let at the mercer’s.
To-morrow is market-day, and the house is full to the garret. He would
not let me even inside the door.”

“_Tonnerre de Dieu!_”

“And worse yet, monsieur--this place is watched. A number of black,
silent figures are regarding it from the shadows--”

“Ye have read the man aright, Mornay,” said Cornbury.

“_Mille diables!_ We _must_ go by the roof. It is our only chance.
Listen, Vigot. Do you go up those stairs and out upon the leads. Curse
the fellow! if you cannot get into his house at the bottom you must get
in at the top.”

Vigot was off again as the landlord entered.

“Monsieur Mornay, Captain Ferrers awaits you below.”

A quick glance passed between the two men. Mornay paused a moment
before replying.

“Tell him, Papworth,” he said, coolly, “that Monsieur Mornay has a
quiet room upstairs where matters can be privately discussed. I will
await him here.”

The man departed.

Cornbury drained his bowl.

“The man’s an arrant coward. Ten guineas that he doesn’t come. Why,
monsieur, he couldn’t have entrapped us better himself. Ye’ve made the
bait too tempting. He’ll smell a rat.”

“Pouf! Cornbury, he has it all his own way. Twenty guineas that he
comes.”

Cornbury did not answer; he was bending towards the door, his mouth and
eyes agape, as though to make his hearing better. But only the clatter
of the game and the sound of the coarsened voices of the players
came up the dimly lighted stairway. Upon the coming of this man hung
Mornay’s only chance for success.

Five minutes they waited in silence, but at last there was a sound of
footsteps upon the stairs, and in a moment Captain Ferrers and Mr.
Wynne stood before them. The exuberance and confidence of Captain
Ferrers’s smile found no echo in the face of Wynne, who looked sullenly
and suspiciously at Cornbury and the Frenchman, as though the adventure
were little to his liking. Mornay arose from his bench with great
politeness, the perfection of courtesy and good-will, and waved Captain
Ferrers to a seat. Cornbury sat puffing volumes of smoke, with an
appearance of great contentment and unconcern.

Captain Ferrers was clearly taken off his guard, and his smile became
the broader. He had at first thought Monsieur Mornay’s promise to come
to the Fleece a mere French flippancy. Surely, after what had happened
he could expect no clemency from Ferrers. Monsieur Mornay would have
been flattered had he known how much of Captain Ferrers’s thoughts he
had occupied during the last few hours. The Frenchman’s demeanor in
the house of Mistress Clerke, his earnestness, his self-confidence,
his assurance and poise, outdid anything that Ferrers remembered of
that presumptuous person. A man with one leg in the grave or a lifetime
of imprisonment staring him in the face would only play such a part
because of one or two circumstances: he was using a desperate resort to
gain some great end--perhaps to influence Mistress Barbara for clemency
in the case of the death of Sir Henry Heywood; or else he was the real
heir of the estate which Mistress Barbara was enjoying. To tell the
truth, Ferrers did not care what he was. If the Frenchman came to the
Fleece Tavern, he would be in the Tower by midnight. The prison would
know no distinctions. He hated this man as one hates another to whom he
is under obligations and who has done him a great injury. And if he was
the real heir, come to dispossess Mistress Barbara and balk him in a
marriage that meant a fortune beyond the wildest dreams, the worse for
him. He should suffer for it!

All of these things passed again somewhat heavily through his mind.
The air of unconcern and assurance which he met in the faces of both
Mornay and the Irishman disarmed him. He thought how easy it had been
to gain his ends, and comfortably fingered the whistle in his pocket
with which he should presently call in his hounds upon his enemy. Nor
would his pistols be required. If he had wished he could have sent his
constables up from below to take these men in the trap they had made
for themselves. But he enjoyed the situation. It was as easy as a game
of quinze with the mirror behind your opponent’s back.

“Monsieur Ferraire,” began Mornay, pleasantly, “I am meeting you
to-night at great risk of my life. I thank you that you have kept my
plans and this rendezvous a secret.”

Ferrers’s small eyes blinked as though they had been liberally
peppered, but the smile did not disappear.

“What I have to say is to your great advantage. If after I am through
you still wish to meet me, I shall be at your service below in the
garden, or elsewhere. Will you sit down?”

The Captain’s lip twitched a little and his fingers left the whistle
and moved to a chair-back.

It was apparent that Mornay’s mind was a thousand miles from all
thought of distrust or suspicion. He was as guileless as a child.
Cornbury had filled another pipe and crossed his legs.

“It will be useless to sit or talk, monsieur,” said Ferrers, coldly.
“I have brought Mr. Wynne with an object which cannot be mistaken. If
you are agreeable, Mr. Wynne will talk with Captain Cornbury as to the
arrangements.” He folded his arms and walked to the window with an air
of rounding off a conversation.

Mornay arose from his seat and walked around the table to the side
nearest the door.

“You must hear me, monsieur,” he said, calmly. “I offer you friendship
and a proposition which cannot but be to your advantage.” Ferrers had
turned, but his head shook in refusal.

“There can be but one proposition between us, Mornay.”

Mornay shrugged his shoulders.

“Captain Cornbury,” he said, “will you have the kindness to arrange
with Monsieur de Wynne?”

He stopped, bit his lip a moment, then turned to Ferrers once more. “I
entreat you to listen to me. I have told you that I was the Vicomte de
Bresac. No, it is no jest. I am René d’Añasco. _Eh bien._ One day I
shall prove it. What I ask is only to save a little time.”

He moved nearer to the Englishman, until he could have touched him with
his outstretched arm.

“Listen, monsieur. If you will but give me the papers--”

There was a motion--if ever so slight--of the fingers of Ferrers’s
right hand. Only Mornay saw it. But it was enough. He sprang forward
upon the man, and Ferrers’s whistle never reached his lips. In his
wish to give the alarm he did not attempt to draw his fire-arm until
Mornay’s hands and arms had pinioned him like a vise. All the fury of
a life of longing was in that grasp. It seemed as though the years
of sweat and privation had wrought upon his will and energy for this
particular moment. He bore the Englishman back until his head struck
the wall, and they came to the floor together. At the first sign of
trouble, Wynne had started for the door, but Cornbury was there ahead
of him. Not until then had there been a word spoken, a cry uttered; but
now, almost at the same instant that Mornay and Ferrers crashed to the
floor, Wynne set up a loud cry, which resounded down the corridor and
stairs. In a moment there was a sound of tumbling furniture, and the
cries of men seemed to come from every part of the building. But Vigot
and his two fellows from above were first upon the landing, and set
so vigorously upon the men mounting the stairs that their ascent was
halted and they were thrown back in confusion.

In the meanwhile the struggle between Mornay and Ferrers continued. The
Englishman had found his voice, and between his cries and curses and
the clashing of the steel of Cornbury and Wynne the room was now a very
bedlam of sound. Either the blow of his head at the wall or the sudden
fury of Mornay’s assault had given the Frenchman the advantage, for
Ferrers lay prone upon the floor, and, though he shouted and struggled,
both of his wrists were held helpless in one of Mornay’s sinewy hands.

Suddenly Monsieur Mornay sprang away from the Englishman and to his
feet, waving in his hands a packet of papers. He rushed past Cornbury
and Wynne to the table, his eyes gleaming with excitement. With
a fascination which made him oblivious to everything but his one
overmastering passion, he tore the cover from the packet and examined
the papers in the glare of the candles. In one of them he saw the name
D’Añasco. It was enough.

None but a desperate man would have done so foolhardy a thing at
such a time. Captain Ferrers was not slow to take advantage of his
opportunity. He struggled painfully to his knee, and, drawing his
pistol, took a careful aim and fired at the Frenchman. Mornay’s wig
twitched and fell off among the candles. He staggered forward and
dropped like a drunken man, his elbows on the table. Ferrers reached
his feet, and, drawing his sword, made for the door. But Mornay was
only stunned.

“Vigot! Vigot!” he shouted, rising. “Prenez garde, Vigot!”

But before Vigot could turn, Captain Ferrers had rushed out and thrust
the unfortunate servant through the back. As Mornay saw Vigot go down
he sprang after the Englishman into the corridor. Ferrers had set upon
one of the fellows in the passageway at the same time that another and
more determined attack was made from below. For a moment it seemed as
though the constables had gained the landing. They would have done so
had not Mornay, with an incomparable swiftness, engaged Ferrers and
driven him step by step to the stairs, where at last he fell back and
down into the arms of the men below. At this moment Cornbury, having
disabled Wynne, came running to Mornay’s assistance with two heavy
benches, which were thrown down the stairs into the thick of the men
below, so that they fell back, groaning and bruised, to the foot of the
stairway. Then, without the pause of a moment, Mornay dashed out the
lights, and, carrying Vigot, ordered a retreat up the second flight of
steps.

Vigot had a mortal wound and was even then at the point of death.

“Monsieur,” he said, faintly, “c’est fini! Laissez-moi!”

There were some heavy chests of drawers in the corridor above, and
Mornay directed that these be piled for a barricade. The stairway was
here very narrow and but one man could come up at a time. So two chests
were balanced on the incline of the stairs and two more were ready at
the top to replace the others. When this was done, Mornay sent Quinn
and Trice up to the next floor to gain the roof and find a way to the
street.

When they were gone, Mornay leaned over the dying man upon the floor.

“My poor Vigot,” he said.

“Laissez-moi, monsieur,” whispered Vigot. “C’est fini. They cannot hurt
me. Over the roof a window is open into the garret of the mercer’s. Go,
but quickly, monsieur--quickly.”

Mornay tried to lift him, but a deep groan broke from his breast.

“Non, monsieur, non.”

Mornay and Cornbury lifted him, and, placing him on a bed in one of the
rooms, quietly closed the door.

By this time the men below had reached the landing. Mornay had one
advantage. While the movements of the figures below were plainly to
be seen, there was no light above, and the Frenchman knew that the
constables could not tell whether his party were one or six. It was
plain that they did not relish an attack on the dark stairway. If they
had not been able to gain the landing below, how could they expect
to fare better here? They caught a glimpse of the dim outline of the
chests of the barricade, but beyond that all was black and forbidding.

Mornay and Cornbury only waited long enough to give the fellows above a
chance to get over the roof, when they, too, quickly followed. As they
crawled out of the window they heard the voice of Ferrers cursing the
men for laggards, and at last a clatter of feet and the fall of one of
the chests down the stairs.

They made their way stealthily but quickly across the leads to the
dormer-window of the mercer’s shop, where they saw Trice beckoning.
With a last backward glance they stole into the room. Its inmate was
sitting upright in bed. Quinn was binding and gagging him with a
kerchief and a sheet. They shut the window and took the key from the
door, and passing into the hallway, locked their man in his room. It
was none too soon, for a sound of shouts above announced that their
escape was discovered. Upon this Cornbury threw discretion to the
winds, and with drawn sword went down the stairs three steps at a
time. The rickety stairs swayed and groaned under this noisy invasion,
doors opened, and nightcapped heads with frightened faces peered from
narrow doorways. There was a lantern burning in a sconce upon the wall.
This Mornay seized as he passed. At the head of the first flight the
mercer came out. But Cornbury stuck him in the leg with the point of
his sword, and, seizing him by the back of the neck, pushed and dragged
him down the stairs.

“The way out, ye vermin!” he said. “Quick! No. Not the front--the back
door.”

The man was sallow with terror.

“The b-back door?” he chattered. “There is no back door.”

“A window, then,” jerked out Cornbury. “Quick!” There was a warning
prod of the sword. The man cried out, but staggered through the
mercer’s shop into a passage. Mornay and Cornbury thrust ahead of him.

“Which way?” they cried, in unison.

He indicated a window. When it was opened they saw it was not six feet
from the ground.

By this time the whole neighborhood was aroused, and cries and shouts
resounded in all quarters. Mornay had put the light out, and, pausing
not a moment, stepped over the sill and let himself down into a kind
of roofed alley or court which ran between the rear portions of the
buildings. While Mornay covered the landlord to keep him silent,
Cornbury and the others quickly followed. Without waiting a moment, the
four men gathered themselves into a compact body and dashed down the
alley as fast as they could run. It was a case now for speed and stout
blows. There was a turn in the alley before it reached the street. It
was on rounding this that they came full into the midst of a party of
men who were running in to meet them. The surprise was mutual. All the
commotion had been on the roof and in the main street, and there was
so much noise that the constables had not even heard the footfalls
around the corner. But Mornay’s men had the advantage of being on the
offensive. There was a hurried discharge of firearms, and a shout broke
from Bill Quinn, but he kept on running. Cornbury fired his pistol at
one man and then threw the weapon full at another who cut at him with a
pike. In a moment they were through and in the street. A scattering of
shots sent the dust and stones flying from a wall beside them, but the
moon was gone and aim was uncertain. The shouting had increased and the
sound of footfalls was just behind.

“Which way?” said Mornay.

“Straight ahead,” replied Cornbury. “To the river afterwards. Our
chances with a boat are best.”

They turned into a dark street, and Trice, who was slender and
nimble-footed, led the way into the darkness with the speed of a deer.
He wound in and out of alleys and narrow streets where the shadows
were deeper, closely followed by Mornay and Cornbury. The pace was so
rapid that Quinn was nearly spent. Seeing that if he were not heartened
he would be taken, Mornay slackened and came back beside him. As he
glanced around he saw that two men were approaching rapidly not a
hundred yards away.

“There’s nothing for it,” panted Cornbury. “If I had a pistol I could
wing the man in front.” Mornay drew his own from his pocket and handed
it to him. Cornbury leaned against a wall and carefully fired. With a
shout the man clapped his hand to his leg. He hobbled a few paces, and
then fell head over heels into the gutter. With singular discretion the
other man slackened his speed and stopped to await his fellows, who
were coming up in a body not far behind.

Tom Trice had disappeared, but the river was not far distant. Cornbury
saw the shimmer of it and said so to poor Quinn. This plucked up his
courage, and with a hand at either arm he managed to make so good a
progress that they had crossed the wide docks and tumbled into a boat
before the first of their pursuers had emerged from the darkness. Quinn
fell like a gasping fish under the thwarts, but Cornbury and Mornay
pulled at the oars with such vigor that before a single black figure
appeared upon the coping of the dock they had put fifty feet of water
between themselves and the shore. There was a splash of light--and
another--and the bullets spat viciously around them. But they kept on
pulling, and made the lee of a barge not far away in safety. When they
heard the constables clatter down into one of the boats, they took
off their doublets and pulled for their lives. The tide was running
out, and they shot the bridge like an arrow, but they could see the
black mass of the boat of their pursuers as it stole, like some huge
black bug, from the inky reflection into the gray of the open water.
There was a patch of light under the bows, and the frequent glimmer
of the wind-swept sky upon the oars was far too rapid and steady for
their comfort. A fellow stood up in the stern, giving the word for the
oarsmen, and, hard as the fugitives pulled, the boat gained steadily
upon them. Bill Quinn was useless, and, even had he been able to row,
there were only two pairs of oars. So they set him to loading the
pistols, while they cast their eyes over their shoulders in search of a
place of refuge. They knew if they made immediately for the shore they
would fall too probably into the hands of the watch, for the streets
here were wider and there were fewer places for concealment than in the
thickly settled part of the city which they had left. Their course was
set directly across the bows of a large vessel getting under way. The
anchor had clanked up to the bows, and there was a creak of halyard
and sheet-block as her canvases took the wind, a clamor of hoarse
orders mingled with oaths and the sound of maudlin singing. But the
boat of the constables was every moment splashing nearer and nearer,
and Mornay, seeing escape by this means impossible, determined to lay
aboard the ship and take his chances. Accordingly they stopped rowing
and waited until the vessel should gather way enough to come up with
them. When the black boat-load of men saw this they gave a cheer, for
they thought themselves certain of their game. For answer there was a
volley from three pistols, which sent one man into the bottom of the
boat, so that the oars upon one side caught so badly in the water that
the boat slewed around from her course and lost her way in the water.

At the sound of the shots a dozen heads appeared in the bows of the
ship, which was coming up rapidly.

“What ho, there!” yelled a heavy voice. “Out o’ the way, or I’ll run ye
down!”

Cornbury and Quinn arose to their feet, but Mornay sat at his oars,
keeping the boat broadside to the approaching vessel.

“Jump before she strikes, man--the fore-chains and spritsail-rigging.”

The huge fabric loomed like a pall upon the sky, and they could see two
long lines of foam springing away from the forefoot, which was coming
nearer--nearer.

“Look alive there!” shouted the gruff voice again.

There was a grinding crash as Cornbury and Quinn sprang for the
rigging. Quinn struck his head upon a steel stay, and had not the
strength to haul himself clear of the water. With a cry he fell back
into the submerged boat. Mornay waited a moment too long, and the
vessel struck him fairly in the body. He, too, fell back into the
water, but as he was tossed aside he fell as by a miracle into the
friendly arms of the anchor, which, not having been hauled clear,
dragged just at the surface of the water. With an effort he pulled
himself up, and at last climbed upon the stock, and so to the deck
unharmed.

A cluster of dark faces surrounded him, and a short, broad man, with a
black beard and rings in his ears, thrust his way through. He looked at
the shivering and dripping figures before him with a laugh.

“Soho! Soho! Just in the very nick of the hoccasion, my bullies. ’Ere
be three beauties. Ha! ha! Jail-birds at a guinea a ’ead!”

There was a sound of cries and the clatter of oars; but the vessel was
moving rapidly through the water, and the constables were rapidly left
astern.

“In the King’s name,” shouted the voice of Captain Ferrers, “let me
aboard!”

The man with the black beard ran aft and leaned over the rail towards
the boat which was struggling in the water.

“An’ who might _you_ be!” he roared.

“I represent the law,” cried Ferrers, and his voice seemed dimmer in
the distance. “These men are officers of the King, to arrest--” The
remainder of the sentence was caught in the winds and blown away.

The black-bearded man slapped his leg. “The law! The law!” he shouted.
Then he made a trumpet of his hands to make his meaning clear, and
roared, “Go to ’ell!” He clapped his hand to his thigh and laughed
immoderately.

Monsieur Mornay, who had been looking aft over the bulwarks, saw the
figure of Ferrers stand up in the stern-sheets and shake his fist at
the vessel. Then the boat pulled around to the half-sunken craft which
the fugitives had abandoned. All in dark shadow they saw Quinn pulled
out of the water by the constables, and then the figures leaned over
again and lifted something out of the water and passed it to the figure
in the stern.

The Frenchman took Cornbury wildly by the arm.

“God, God!” he cried. “My doublet! The papers were in my doublet!”
He put a hand upon the rail and would have jumped into the water if
Cornbury had not seized him and held him until the fit was past.




CHAPTER VII

BARBARA


After Monsieur Mornay’s coach had rumbled away, Mistress Barbara
excused herself to Captain Ferrers and threw herself upon her couch
in poignant distress and indecision. Why she had hated this Monsieur
Mornay so she could not for her life have told herself. Perhaps it
was that she had begun by hating him. But now, when he had killed
her friend and counsellor and had used violent means to approach
and coerce her--now when she had every right and reason for hating
him, she made the sudden discovery that she did not. The shock of it
came over her like the sight of her disordered countenance in the
mirror. The instinct and habit of defense, amplified by a nameless
apprehension in the presence of the man, had excited her imagination
so that she had been willing to believe anything of him in order to
justify her conscience for her cruelty. But now that he was gone--in
all probability to the gallows--and she was no longer harassed by
the thought of his presence, she underwent a strange revulsion of
feeling. She knew it was not pity she felt for him. It would be hard,
she thought, to speak of pity and Monsieur Mornay in the same breath.
It was something else--something that put her pride at odds with her
conscience, her mind at odds with her heart. She lay upon the couch
dry-eyed, clasping and unclasping her hands. What was he to her that
she should give him the high dignity of a thought? Why should the
coming or the going of such a man as he--scapegrace, gambler, duelist,
and now fugitive from justice--make the difference of a jot to a woman
who had the proudest in England at her feet? Fugitive from justice!
Ah, God! Why were men such fools? Here was a brave man, scapegrace
and gambler if you like, but gallant sailor, soldier, and chevalier
of France, a favorite of fortune, who, through that law of nature by
which men rise or sink to their own level, had achieved a position
in which he consorted with kings, dukes, and princes of the realm,
and boasted of a king for an intimate. In a moment he had rendered at
naught the struggles of years--had tossed aside, as one would discard a
worn-out hat or glove, all chances of future preferment in France and
England--all for a foolish whim, for a pair of silly gray eyes. She hid
her face in her arms. Fools! all fools!

She hated herself that she did not hate Monsieur Mornay. Struggle as
she would, now that he was gone she knew that the impulsive words
that she had used when she had spurned him had sprung from no origin
of thought or reflection, but were the rebellious utterings of anger
at his intrusion--of resentment and uncharity at the tale he told.
But what if it were true? She sat upright, and with a struggle tried
dispassionately and calmly to go over, one by one, each word of his
speech, each incident of his bearing, as he told his portentous story
of the secrets of her family. How had Monsieur Mornay come into
possession of all this information? She knew that Eloise de Bresac
had died in France and that the Duke of Nemours had sent the body
to be buried on the estates in Normandy, where it lay in the family
tomb. She knew that Sir Henry Heywood’s intimacy with the Duke was of
long standing, and that there was a mystery in regard to the death of
this daughter of the house which had never been explained to her. Her
grandfather had been ill at the time, she remembered, and had died
before Sir Henry Heywood and her father--who had gone to France--had
returned. The story of the Frenchman tallied strangely with the facts
as she knew them. How did Mornay know of the unfortunate woman’s death
at Amiens? Was the story of the Spaniard D’Añasco invented to comport
with the family’s traditionary hatred of the Spanish? Were the names
_Castillano_, of the ship, and Ruiz, of the boy, mere fabrications,
to achieve an end? How did he know these things? The family history
of the Bresacs was not an open book to all the world. No one but Sir
Henry Heywood and herself had known of the visits to Paris and the
death-place of Eloise.

And Captain Ferrers! How could she explain his loss of countenance
when the tale was told? What papers were these the very mention of
which could deprive him of his self-possession? And what reason had he
for keeping papers referring to her estate from her knowledge? They
were matters which put her mind upon a rack of indecision. She should
know, and at once. The Frenchman had planned well. He had proved that
Captain Ferrers was concealing something from her--of this she was
confident; although in her discovery she had scorned to show Mornay
that she believed him in anything. If Sir Henry Heywood had intrusted
matters pertaining to the estate to Captain Ferrers, she was resolved
that she should know what they were. She judged from his actions that
Captain Ferrers had reasons for wishing these papers kept from her;
she therefore resolved to learn what they contained. If he would not
give them to her--and this she thought possible--she would meet him in
a different spirit and try with art and diplomacy what she might not
accomplish by straightforward methods.

“What if Mornay’s tale were true?” she asked herself again. “What if
these papers _were_ the secret proofs of the marriage of Eloise de
Bresac and of the birth of a son and heir to the estates in accordance
with her grandfather’s will? What if Monsieur Mornay could prove that
he was Ruiz, son of D’Añasco, and had sailed from Valencia upon the
_Castillano_?” In the cool light of her reasoning it did not seem
impossible. She recalled the face of Monsieur Mornay and read him again
to herself. It seemed as though every expression and modulation of his
voice had been burned upon her memory. Had he flinched--had he quivered
an eyelash? Had he not borne the face and figure of an honest man?
Argue with herself as she might, she had only to compare the bearing
of the Frenchman with that of Stephen Ferrers for an answer to her
questions.

She arose and walked to the table by the window. The sun was setting in
an effusion of red, picking out the chimney-pots and gables opposite
in crimson splendor, glorifying the somber things it touched in
magnificent detail.

She looked long--until the top of the very highest chimney-pots became
again a somber blur against the greenish glow of the east.

“I shall know,” she murmured at last. “At whatever cost, Captain
Ferrers shall tell me.”

And before the captain arrived the next day she had resolved upon a
plan of action. In justice to Monsieur Mornay, she would give his tale
the most exhaustive test. For the sake of the experiment she would
assume that it was true. But if it were, and she believed it, the
difficulty lay in getting Captain Ferrers to acknowledge anything.
She must deceive him. If her deception did not avail, she would try
something else; but of one thing she was resolved--that tell he should,
or all the friendship she bore him should cease forever.

Captain Ferrers wore a jubilant look as he came in the door.

“My service, Barbara. You are better, I hope.”

She smiled. “Well?”

“He’s gone. Escaped us last night and got to ship in the river. By
this time he is well into the Channel.”

Mistress Barbara frowned perceptibly.

“You have allowed him to get away?” she asked, her eyebrows upraised.

“Yes,” he muttered; “a very demon possesses the man. If I had my way
the fellow should never have left this room.”

She motioned to a seat beside her.

“Tell me about it,” she said.

He sat and told her such of the happenings at the Fleece Tavern as he
thought well for her to hear, but he omitted to mention the rape of the
papers from his pockets. Of this attack he said:

“After all, the fellow is but a common blusterer and bully. He waited
for his chance and then set upon me like a fish-monger.”

Her eyes sparkled. “And you?” she asked.

“He had me off my guard, but as he broke away from me I shot at
him”--he paused for a word--“as I would at a common thief.”

“And you did not kill him?” The words fell cold and impassive from her
lips.

He looked at her in some surprise. She had set her teeth, and her hands
were tightly clasped upon her knees, but her eyes were looking straight
before her and gave no sign of any emotion.

“Why, Barbara,” he said, “’tis truly a mighty hatred you have for the
fellow! I thought if you were rid of him--”

“I despise him!” she cried, vehemently. “I hate him!”

Captain Ferrers paused a moment, and the smile that crossed his lips
told her how sweet her words sounded in his ears.

“Ever since he has been in London,” she went on, coolly, “he has
crossed my path at every rout and levee. Wherever I’d turn I’d see his
eyes fixed upon me. From such a man it was an insult. His attentions
were odious.” She gave a hard, dry little laugh. “Why could he not have
been killed then--before he told me this fine tale of his right to my
fortunes and estates--”

“But surely you don’t believe--” Ferrers broke in.

“I do and I do not,” she said, carefully considering her reply. “It is
a plain tale, and he tells it well, whether it be likely or unlikely.”

“Why, Barbara, ’tis a palpable lie! Can you not see--”

“I can and I cannot,” she said, evenly. Then she turned around, so that
she looked full in his eyes. “I care not whether he be the heir or
no--I would not listen to his pleadings were he my cousin thrice over.”

Captain Ferrers laughed.

“’Tis plain he has not endeared himself, mistress mine”; and then, with
lowered voice and glance full of meaning, “Do you really mean that you
hate him so?”

It was the first time that his manner had given a hint of a secret. She
turned her head away and looked at the opposite wall.

“I do,” she replied, firmly. “I do hate him with all my heart.”

Ferrers leaned towards her and laid his hand upon one of hers. She did
not withdraw it--her fingers even moved a little as though in response
to his touch.

“Barbara, this man”--he paused to look down while he fingered one
of her rings--“is an impostor. But if he were not, would you--would
you--still wish him dead?”

She looked around at him in surprise.

“Why, what--’tis a strange question. Is there a chance that it is
true--that he is what he says?”

He halted at this abrupt questioning and did not meet her eye. “No,
Barbara, I have not said so. But suppose he were the real Vicomte de
Bresac, would you still wish him dead?”

It was her turn to be discomfited. She averted her head, and her eyes
moved restlessly from one object upon the table to another.

“Have I not told you that I hate him?” she said; the voice was almost
a whisper. Ferrers looked at her as though he would read the inmost
depths of her heart. She met his eyes a moment and then smiled with a
little bitter irony that had a touch of melancholy in it.

“Can I find it pleasant thinking,” she went on, “that the houses, the
lands, the people who owe me allegiance, my goods, my habits, my very
life, are not mine, but another’s?”

A look of satisfaction crossed Captain Ferrers’s face. He relinquished
her hand and arose.

“What nonsense is this, Barbara, to be bothering your pretty head about
such a matter! Zounds, dear lady, it is the silliest thing imaginable!”

“Nay,” she said, with a gesture of annoyance and a woful look that
was only half assumed--“nay, it is no nonsense or silliness. Should
Monsieur Mornay come back, my quandary becomes as grievous as ever.”

Ferrers had been pacing up and down, his hands behind his back. “He
will not come back. Besides, what could he prove?” He stopped before
her.

She did not answer, but, trembling, waited for him to continue.

“Listen, Barbara. There has been something I have had in my mind to
tell you. The Frenchman’s story has made some impression upon you.”

She looked up almost plaintively. “How could it fail?” Then she went
on, for his encouragement: “It would make no difference to me whether
he is the heir or no. So why should it make a difference to you?”

“That decides me. The fellow is gone forever. He will never cross your
path again. You think your quandary is grievous. Even if the fellow
came back, what could he prove? Nothing. I will tell you why. Because
the only proofs of another heir to the estate are in my possession.”

It was out at last. The thing she half hoped yet most dreaded to hear
rang in her ears. She got up, making no effort to conceal her emotion,
and, walking to a window, leaned heavily upon the back of a chair.

“The proof--the papers--are in your possession?” And then, with an
attempt at gayety which rang somewhat discordantly, “’Tis fortunate
that they still remain in the hands of my friends.”

“I have been through fire and water for them, dear Barbara, and will go
again if need be. Last Wednesday night these papers were given me in
sacred trust to safely keep or destroy. It were better had I destroyed
them. As you know, my regiment is about to take the field. I have but
just changed my lodgings, and had no place of security for them. So
since then I have carried them upon my person, until I could place
them safely.” And then he told her how they had been taken from him by
Mornay, and how he had recovered them, to his surprise and delight,
somewhat moist but perfectly legible, from the doublet in the boat
which was sunk by the vessel in the river. She listened to him with
eyes that spoke volumes of her interest and wonder. When that was done
she asked him more of the secret. And he told her how her guardian had
so long kept it from her, and how Captain Cornbury had carried the
story to Mornay. He broke off suddenly and went over to where she stood.

“Barbara, can you not put this matter from your mind? Will you ruin
our day with this silly business? Have you no word for me? Have you no
thought for me--no answer to the question that is forever on my lips,
in my eyes and heart?”

She looked around at him, her clear eyes smiling up with an expression
he could not fathom. The level brows were calm and judicial--the eyes,
though smiling, were cognizant and searching.

“The lips--yes, Stephen,” said she, in a tantalizing way; “the eyes--a
little, perhaps; but the heart”--she dropped her eyes and turned her
head away--“the heart of man is a mystery.”

But Captain Ferrers was undaunted. He took in his the hand that hung at
her side.

“Why, Barbara,” he said, “have I not given you all my devotion? Can you
not learn--”

She drew a little away from him.

“I am but a dumb scholar.”

“Then do not add deafness to your failings. Listen to me. I have asked
you again and again the same question. Answer me now, Barbara. Promise
me that you will--”

She had turned around and faced him, looking him full in the eyes.

“What would you do for me if I promised you what you wish?”

“By my love! anything--anything in my power to win, anything in my gift
to bestow.”

She smiled gayly. “Very well,” she said, “I shall begin at once. First,
I shall want the papers in your possession.”

His face clouded; he dropped her hand and fell back a pace or two.

“The proofs--”

“The very same,” she said, coolly.

“My trust!” he exclaimed. “I have sworn to keep them secret or destroy
them!”

She turned away pettishly.

“So much for your love, Captain Ferrers. You swear to give me anything.
The first favor I ask, you refuse.”

“But my honor, Barbara. You would not have me break oath with the dead?”

“Will you give me the papers?” she asked again, imperturbably. He
looked at her uncertainly.

“And if I do not give them to you?”

“Then you may go.” She pointed imperiously to the door.

“You are cruel. And if I _do_ give them?”

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!”

Immediately a ring was formed, into which the combatants were speedily
pushed. Gratz laughed in his shrillest choked falsetto, while he threw
off his coat and leered at the Frenchman. The huge bulk of the man
was the more apparent when his coat had been removed, for in spite of
his girth and fat his limbs were set most sturdily in his body, and
though the muscles of his arms moved slothfully beneath the skin, it
was easily to be seen that this was a most formidable antagonist. That
he himself considered his task a rare sport, which would still further
enhance his reputation among the crew, was easily to be perceived in
the way he looked at Monsieur Mornay. And in this opinion he was not
alone, for even Cornbury, who had pressed closely to the Frenchman’s
side, wore a look which showed how deep was his concern over his
friend’s predicament. Only Jacquard, of all those who stood about, felt
no fear for Mornay. Upon the _Dieu Merci_ he had seen the chevalier
do a prodigy of strength and skill which had settled a mutiny once
and for all, and had earned him a title which had given him a greater
reputation in the Marine of France than all the distinctions which the
King had seen fit to bestow. And as Jacquard looked at him, slim and
not over-tall, but cool and deliberate, as upon his own deck three
years ago, the Frenchman became again “René Bras-de-Fer,” “René the
Iron Arm,” who fought for the love of fighting only, and who knew
nothing of fear on sea or land.

That superiority in men which in spite of every adverse circumstance
will not be denied shone so conspicuously in the face and figure of
the Frenchman that the row of hairy faces about him looked in wonder.
There was a rough jest or two, for Yan Gratz had won his way from the
bowsprit aft by buffets and blows, and had waxed fat in the operation.
To them he was the very living embodiment of a fighting devil of the
sea. But many of them saw something in the cool, impassive expression
of the Frenchman--a something which had won him friends (and enemies)
before this, and were silent.

The Frenchman, with a quiet deliberation, rolled the sleeves of his
shirt above his elbows and took the half-pike that was thrust into
his hands. It has been said that the Chevalier Mornay was not above
the medium height, nor, with the exception of an arm which might have
seemed a little too long to be in perfect proportion, gave in his
appearance any striking evidence of especial physical prowess. He
had been known in London for a graceful and ready sword, and in his
few encounters he had never received so much as a scratch. But even
Gratz was stricken with wonderment at the appearance of the forearm,
which his wide sleeves had so effectually concealed. The arm of the
chevalier, as he brought his pike into a posture of defense, showed a
more remarkable degree of development than he had ever seen before in
any man--Frenchman or Englishman--of his stature. The legs, strong and
straight as they were, with a generous bulge at the calf, betrayed
nothing of this wonderful arm, which, swelling from a strong though
not unslender wrist, rose in fine layers of steel-like ligament,
tangled and knotted like the limbs of an oak. And up above the elbow
the falling cotton shirt scarcely hid the sturdy bulk of muscle which
swelled and trembled as the fingers moved the weapon down upon guard
to resist the furious attack of the Hollander. Gratz prided himself no
less upon his use of the pike than upon his use of his fists and boots,
and, thinking to end the matter in a summary fashion, which might
atone for his somewhat awkward fall upon the deck, he began thrusting
hotly and with a skill which had hitherto availed his purposes. But
he soon discovered that with this Frenchman, whom he had so hardily
challenged, he was to have no advantage either in the reach or in
the knowledge of the game. Mornay’s play, he quickly learned, was to
allow him completely to exhaust himself. This, instead of teaching him
caution, only increased his fury, so that at the end of a few moments
of fruitless exertion he found himself puffing like a great grampus,
the perspiration pouring blindingly into his eyes and down his arms,
until his fat hands grew moist and slipped uncertainly upon the handle
of his weapon.

The cloud that had hung upon Cornbury’s face at the beginning of the
combat had disappeared, and with a childish delight in the clash of
arms he watched his friend slowly but surely steal away the offensive
power of the Dutchman, whose look of confidence had been replaced by a
lightness of eye and a quivering of the forehead and lips which denoted
the gravest quandary of uncertainty. Monsieur Mornay was breathing
rapidly, but his brows were as level, his eye as clear, his hand as
steady as when he had begun.

In a few moments the struggle which had promised such dire results
became a farce. The Frenchman had suddenly assumed the offensive, and,
beating down the guard of the other, began pricking him gently, with
rare skill and discrimination, in different conspicuous parts of his
anatomy. The chevalier’s weapon was sharp, and the skin of Yan Gratz
was tender, but so nicely were the thrusts of the Frenchman tempered
to the occasion that they did no more than draw a small quantity of
blood at each place, which oozed forth in patches upon his moist and
clinging shirt, so that he presently resembled some huge, spotted
animal of an unknown species which disaster might have driven from his
fastnesses in the deep. It would have been a remarkable exhibition of
skill with a cut-and-thrust sword or a rapier, but with a half-pike it
was little less than marvelous.

Yan Gratz struggled on, his tired arms vainly striving against the
Frenchman’s assaults. Once, when the Dutchman had been disarmed,
Monsieur Mornay generously allowed him to regain his weapon, choosing
the advantage of Yan Gratz’s posture, however, to complete the circle
of his punctures by a prick in the seat of his honor, which quickly
straightened him again.

When the game had gone far enough, and the pallid pasty face of Yan
Gratz was so suffused that it looked little less red than his nose or
the blood upon his shirt, and his gasps for breath were become so
short that they threatened to come no more at all, Monsieur Mornay
threw his weapon down upon the deck and, breathing deeply, folded his
arms and stood at rest.

“Mynheer,” he said, “it was a mistake to have begun. I am the best
half-pikeman in France.”

The Dutchman blinked at him with his small pig-eyes, out of which
the bitterness of his humiliation flashed and sparkled in a wild and
vengeful light. The Frenchman turned his back to pass beyond the
circle of grinning men who had not scrupled to hide their delight and
admiration at his prowess in vanquishing their bully. But Gratz, whose
exhaustion even could not avail to curb his fury, put all the small
store of his remaining energy into a savage rush, which he directed
full at the back of the retiring Frenchman. A cry arose, and Mornay
would have been transfixed had not Cornbury intercepted the cowardly
thrust by a nimble foot, over which the Dutchman stumbled and fell
sprawling into the scuppers. The point of his weapon grazed the arm
of Mornay and stuck quivering in the deck, a yard beyond where he
had stood. Jacquard rushed to the prostrate figure in a fury at his
treachery, but the man made no sign or effort to arise.

“By the ’Oly Rood! A craven stroke!” cried the captain, fetching the
Dutchman a resounding kick, which brought forth a feeble groan. “Get
up!” he roared. “Get up an’ go forward. Hods-niggars! we want none but
honest blows among shipmates.”

Yan Gratz struggled to his feet and stumbled heavily down into the
deck-house. Jacquard was grinning from ear to ear. If he had planned
the combat himself, the result could not have been more to his liking.
The favor of Billy Winch was no small thing to win, and Monsieur Mornay
had chosen the nearest road to his heart. The captain, after hurling a
parting curse at the Dutchman’s figure, slouched over to Mornay.

“Zounds! but ye ’ave a ’and for the pike, my bully. ’Ave ye aught o’
seamanship? If ye know your hangles, ye’re the very figure of a mate
for _Saucy Sally_, for we want no more o’ ’IM,” and he jerked his
finger in the direction taken by Yan Gratz.

Mornay laughed. “I’ve had the deck of a taller ship than _Saucy
Sally_.” Billy Winch grasped Mornay by the hand right heartily.

“Come, what d’ye say? Me an’ Jacky Jacquard an’ you. We three aft.
We’ve need o’ ye. Zounds! but ye’ve the useful thrust an’ parry.” Then
he roared with laughter. “An’ I’m mistaken if ye’re not as ’andy a liar
as a pikeman. I’ve seen the play of the best in the French Marine, and
Captain René Mornay would have a word to say with ye as to who’s the
best half-pikeman in France.”

Jacquard held his sides to better contain himself; his mouth opened
widely and his little eyes were quite closed with the excess of his
delight. Mornay and Cornbury smiled a little, and the Frenchman said,
with composure:

“Perhaps. Monsieur le Capitaine Mornay and I are not strangers. But he
holds his reputation so low and I mine so high, that I cannot bring
myself to fight him.”

Here Jacquard could no longer contain himself.

“Can you not see farther than the end of your bowsprit, Billee Winch?”
he cried; and while the captain wondered, “Can you not see, stupid
fish?--’tis Bras-de-Fer himself!”

Blackbeard fell back a step or two in his amazement, while a murmur
swept over the crew, who, loath to leave the scene, had remained
interested listeners to the colloquy.

“What! René the Iron Arm aboard the _Sally_?” said the captain,
approaching the Frenchman again. “Soho! Though, by St. Paul’s--ye’re
not unlike-- An’ with a wig an’ doublet-- ’Pon my soul, Jacky Jacquard,
but I believe ’tis the truth. Say, is it so, master?”

“I am René Mornay,” said the Frenchman.

“Soho!” he roared in delight. “Then _Sally_ shall give ye meat and
drink and make a bed to ye. An’ when ye will she’ll set ye ashore in
France. Or, if ye care for the clashin’ of arms, she’ll show ye the
path of the galleons o’ Spain. Come, let’s below and drink to a better
understanding.”

It was thus that Monsieur Mornay sailed forth for the Spanish Main.




CHAPTER X

BRAS-DE-FER MAKES A CAPTURE


The feat at arms of Monsieur Mornay at the expense of the luckless
Gratz had set the ship by the ears, and with little opposition
Bras-de-Fer became the third in command. Before many weeks were gone it
was discovered that he had his seamanship at as ready a convenience as
his pike-play, for in a troublesome squall in a windy watch on deck,
while Jacquard was below, he had not scrupled to take the command from
Captain Billy Winch, who was so deep in liquor that he didn’t know the
main-brace from a spritsail sheet, and who had had the _Sally_ upon her
beam-ends, with all his ports and hatches open. Mornay sprang to the
helm and gave the orders necessary to bring her to rights. Indeed, the
command had clearly devolved upon Jacquard; for the lucid intervals of
Captain Billy Winch were becoming less and less, until from that state
of continued jubilation which marked his departure from the port of
London he had passed into one of beatific unconsciousness, from which
he only aroused himself to assuage his thirst the more copiously. One
black morning in the wilds of the Atlantic he reached the deck, his
eyes wide with fever and his mouth full of oaths, swearing that he
would no longer stay below, but his legs were so completely at a loss
that, what with the wild plunges of the vessel and the assaults of the
seas which made clean breaches over her, he was thrown down into the
scuppers again and again, and all but drowned in the wash of the deck.
But the bruising and sousing in the saltwater, instead of rebuffing him
or abating a whit of his ardor, but served to sober him and make him
the more ambitious to take his proper place aboard the vessel. Jacquard
would have restrained him, but he threw the Frenchman aside, and,
while trying to descend the ladder at the angle of the poop, lost his
balance, and, catching wildly at the lee bulwark, disappeared in the
dirty smother under the quarter and was seen no more.

After this mishap, Jacquard went below to the cabin with Mornay to
make his plans for the future of the _Saucy Sally_. There, among the
rum-reeking effects of the captain, he discovered the royal charter
and warrant under which the vessel sailed, together with the lists of
Spanish vessels which should have left port, their destinations and
probable values. Jacquard outlined the plans he had made for their
operations when they should have reached the waters he had chosen.
Cornbury, who had been reading abstractedly in the warrant, gave a
sudden cry.

“Bresac,” he said, pointing a long forefinger upon the parchment.
“Faith, my dear man, your fortune is a silly, whimsical jade, after
all. Cast your eye hither for a moment of time.”

Mornay took the document in amazement.

    Whereas it hath come to Our Notice [it began] that certain
    Enemies of the State sailing in the Vessels of the Kingdom of
    Spain have prepared, ordered, and levied war against Us, and
    have molested and harassed Our lawful Commerce upon the Sea,
    to the oppression of Our loyal Subjects carrying on the same,
    by the advice of Our Privy Council we hereby grant to our good
    and loyal subject Henry Heywood, Knt., that his vessel or
    vessels--

“’Tis as plain as a pike-handle,” said Cornbury. And as Mornay still
scanned the document: “Faith, can ye not see?--ye’re a guest upon a
vessel of your own. The vessel and all she owns is yours, man--yours!”

“_Parbleu!_” said Mornay, when the edge of his wonderment was dulled.
“I believe you. A rare investment, indeed, for the millions of the
Bresacs.”

“A thousand per centum at the very least, with a modicum for the King.
Ye cannot wonder how Charles bewailed the man’s demise. Ye touched his
purse, René. And friendship has little to expect from the conscience of
an empty pocket.”

“By my life, it is so!” said the wide-eyed Mornay. “Jacquard shall
know. Listen, my friend.” And, with a particular reticence with
regard to the name of Mistress Clerke, he told Jacquard of the great
secret, the rape of the papers, and the other things pertaining to
his discovery. It was learned that in the matter Jacquard knew only
one Captain Brail, a ship-chandler and owner, who had the finding
of all the sea appurtenances, the making of the contracts, and the
furnishing of the stores. The sympathetic Jacquard followed Monsieur
Mornay through a description of the duel, his face wreathed in smiles,
his eyes shining with delight. He wept at the tale of the mother,
commiserated the orphan, and, when he learned how Sir Henry Heywood had
taken possession of the proofs of the boy’s birth and lineage and had
kept him from his rightful inheritance, Jacquard rose upon his long
legs and swore aloud at the man’s perfidy. When Mornay had finished, he
sat silent a moment, clasping and unclasping his knotted, bony fingers.

“It is a strange story, monsieur--the strangest I have ever heard. It
means, monsieur, that upon the _Saucy Sally_, at least, you have come
into your own. Besides, once my captain, always my captain. _Allons!_
It shall be as before. Bras-de-Fer shall lead. Jacquard shall
obey. That is all.” He arose and took Monsieur Mornay by the hand.
“Henceforth,” he said, “it shall be Captain René Bras-de-Fer. Now we
will go upon deck, and I shall tell them.”

Although the death of Billy Winch had caused much commotion aboard the
vessel, the crew in the main were tractable and compliant. Upon his
own great popularity, upon the reputation of Bras-de-Fer, and upon the
large portion of the crew who were Frenchmen like himself, Jacquard
relied to effect the necessary changes in the management of the vessel.
The Frenchman’s bearing since he had come aboard had been such as to
enhance rather than to remove the early impression that he had made,
and but a spark was needed to amalgamate him with the ship’s company.
That spark Jacquard dexterously applied. He called all hands aft, and
with a stirring appeal to their imagination, one by one, recalled the
feats of the chevalier--the fight in the open boat with the Austrian
pirate, the defiance of the Spanish Admiral under the very guns of the
_Bona Ventura_, the six duels upon the landing-place at Cronenburg,
the wreck of the _Sainte Barbe_, and the mutiny and ignominious defeat
of Jean Goujon upon the _Dieu Merci_. All of these things he painted
with glowing colors, so that as he stepped forth on deck they hailed
Bras-de-Fer with a glad acclaim. Then Bras-de-Fer told them what he
hoped to do, and read them (amid huzzahs) the list of Spanish shipping.

When the matter of the captaincy had been duly settled beyond a doubt,
with a grace which could not fail to gain approval, he unhesitatingly
appointed Yan Gratz again the third in command, and this magnanimity
did much to unite him to the small faction which stood aloof. The frank
confidence he placed in the Hollander put them upon the terms of an
understanding which Gratz accepted with as good a grace as he could
bring to the occasion. A cask of rum was brought up on the deck and
the incident ended in jubilation and health-giving, which in point of
good-fellowship and favorable augury left nothing to be desired. At the
end of a week Bras-de-Fer had given still more adequate proofs of his
ability. With a shrewd eye he had discovered the natural leaders among
the crew. These he placed in positions of authority. Then, appointing
Cornbury master-at-arms, put the men upon their mettle at pike-play
and the broadsword with such admirable results that the carousing and
laxity engendered by the habits of Captain Billy Winch became less
and less, until the rum-casks were no more brought up on deck, except
upon rare and exceptional occasions. Of growls there were a few, and
here and there a muttering apprised him of dissatisfaction among the
free-drinkers. But he offered prizes from the first Spanish vessel
captured for those most proficient in the manly arts, to appease
their distaste for the sport, himself entering upon the games with a
spirit and a poise which were irresistible. The unrestrained life had
caught the fancy of Cornbury, too, and with nimble tongue and nimbler
weapon he won his way with the rough blades as though he had entered
upon this service by the same hawse-pipe as themselves. Once, when a
not too complimentary remark had been passed upon his beard, which
was grown long and of an ingenuous crimson, he took the offender by
the nose and at the point of his sword forced him upon his knees to
swear by all the saints that his life-long prayer had been that some
exclusive dispensation of nature should one day turn his beard the
very self-same color as the Irish captain’s; who then, in satisfaction
of the cravings of that reluctant delinquent, forced him below to the
paint closet, where he caused him to bedaub himself very liberally with
a pigment of the same uncompromising hue--so liberally that not storm
nor stress could avail for many weeks to wash clean the stigma. Indeed,
so strikingly did the combative characteristics of his race manifest
themselves in the performance of his new duties that but for Jacquard
the aggressive Irishman had been almost continually embroiled. But as
it was, Cornbury served his captain a useful purpose; and, though the
ready tact of Bras-de-Fer averted serious difficulties, there were
adventures aplenty for the master-at-arms--enough, at least, to satisfy
the peculiar needs of his temperament.

In this fashion, learning a discipline of gunnery, arms, and
seamanship, and a little of discontent at the restraint besides, they
crept south and across the broad Atlantic. Gales buffeted them and blew
them from their course, but after many weeks they made northing enough
to cross the path of the Spanish silver ships from South America. The
first vessel they took was a galleon from Caracas. She was heavy with
spices and silks, but had lost her convoy in the night, and was making
for Porto Bello. A shot across her bows hove her to, and her guard of
soldiers gave her up without a struggle. The _Sally_ hove alongside,
and here came the first test of the discipline of Bras-de-Fer. The
fellows rushed aboard with drawn weapons, and, finding no resistance,
were so enraged at the lack of opportunity to display their new prowess
that they fell to striking lustily right and left, and driving the
frightened Spaniards forward shrieking down into the hold. ’Twas rare
sport for Cornbury, who went dancing forward, aiding the progress of
the flying foe with the darting end of his backsword. Only the best
efforts of Bras-de-Fer prevented the men from following the victims
below, where darker deeds might have been done. Yan Gratz, who had
made one voyage with an old _pirato_ named Mansfelt, made so bold
as to propose that the Spaniards be dropped overboard, that being
the simplest solution of the difficulty. But Bras-de-Fer clapped the
hatches over the prisoners with a decision which left little doubt in
the minds of the crew as to his intentions. There was a flare of anger
at this high-handed discipline, for they were free men of the sea, they
said, and owed nothing to any one. Captain Billy Winch had been none
too particular in this matter of detail. But, in spite of their curses,
Bras-de-Fer brought the prisoners and the prize to port in safety.

It was the beginning of a series of small successes which filled the
_Sally’s_ store-rooms and brought three prizes for her into the harbor
of Port Royal, Jamaica. There, quarrelsome, bedizened, and swaggering
through the streets of the town, Bras-de-Fer and Cornbury saw many of
these gentlemen of the sea, who owed allegiance to no man, company, or
government. In the same trade as themselves, it might be, save only
that with a less nice discrimination these gentry robbed broadly, while
the _Sally_, in despite of her very crew, fought and took only from
the enemies of the English King. It was there, too, that the Frenchman
met the new English governor, and explained the freak of fortune by
which he had come to command the _Sally_. The governor became most
friendly, and (with a sly look of cupidity, which had but one meaning)
gave information of the sailing of the _San Isidro_ from Spain, bearing
the new governor of Chagres, several bishops and priests, and gold and
silver coin of inestimable value for the priests of the Church in the
Spanish colonies of America.

Learning that the _San Isidro_ would stop at the Havana, Bras-de-Fer
filled his water-tanks and sailed boldly forth to intercept her.
It was untried water to the Frenchman, and charted with so little
adequacy that the booming of the surf upon the reefs sounded with a
too portentous frequency upon the ears. But Jacquard had eyes and ears
for everything, and they won their way to the Florida coast without
mishap. There a herikano buffeted them out to sea, and it was with many
misgivings that they won their way back to the channels of the Bahamas.

The storm had blown itself out, and the ocean shone translucent as an
emerald. Low-hanging overhead, great patches of fleecy white, torn
from a heaped-up cloud-bank over the low-lying islands of the eastern
horizon, took their wild flight across the deep vault of sky in mad
pursuit of their fellows who had gone before and were lost in a shimmer
of purple, where the sea met the palm-grown spits of the western main.
The cool, pink glow upon the _Sally’s_ starboard beam filled the swell
of the top-sails with a soft effulgence which partook of some of the
coolness and freshness of the air that drove them. Far down upon the
weather bow, first a blur, then a shadow which grew from gray to silver
and gold, came the _San Isidro_. Jacquard sighted her, but it was
Bras-de-Fer who proclaimed her identity. She was a fine new galleon,
spick and span from the Tagus, with three tiers of guns, and masts of
the tallest. Her bright new fore-topsail bore the arms of Spain, and
the long pennons floating from her trucks and poles proclaimed the high
condition of her passengers.

Bras-de-Fer cleared his ship for action and called his men aft.

“There, my fine fellows,” he cried, “is steel worthy of your metal.
Let it not be said that _Saucy Sally_ takes her sustenance from the
weak and cowardly and flirts her helm to the powerful. Yonder is your
prize. She has thrice your bulk and complement--three gun tiers and
twenty score of men. So much the more honor! For in her hold are gold
and silver bright and new minted from the Spanish treasury, and wines
for fat priests, which shall run no less smoothly down your own proper
throats. Yonder she is. Take her. Follow where I shall lead and she is
yours for the asking.”

A roar of approval greeted him, and the manner in which the rascals
sprang to their places showed that, if they growled at his discipline,
they were ready enough for this opportunity.

If the Spanish vessel had aught of fear of the English brig, she did
not show it. The sound of trumpets had proclaimed that she had called
her gun-crews, but she shifted her helm not a quarter-point of the
compass and came steadily on.

Bras-de-Fer lost no time sending the English colors aloft and firing
a shot from his forward guns, as a test of distance. This brought
the Spaniard speedily to himself, for he shortened sail and came
upon the wind to keep the weather-gauge. When he had reached easy
gunshot distance, the _Sally_ began firing a gun at a time with great
deliberation, and so excellent was her aim that few of these failed
to strike her huge adversary. Cornbury, who had taken a particular
fancy for great-gun exercise, practised upon the rigging to such
advantage that he brought the mizzen topsail and cross-jack yard in a
clatter about the ears of the fellows upon the poop. As the Frenchman
suspected, the Spaniards’ gun-play was of the poorest, and the
glittering hordes of harnessed men upon his decks availed him nothing.
Then the _San Isidro_, with true concern, and thinking to end the
matter, eased her sheets in the effort to close with her troublesome
antagonist. Bras-de-Fer kept all fast, and, braving a merciless
broadside which churned the ocean in a hundred gusts of water all about
him, went jauntily up to windward with no other loss than that of the
main top-gallant yard, the wreck of which was quickly cut away.

For two hours the roar of the battle echoed down the distances. The
_Sally_ presented a forlorn appearance with her main topsail torn to
shreds. Two guns of her broadside had been dismounted and ten of her
men had been killed and injured; but upon the Spaniard the wreck of
yards and spars hung festooned with the useless gear upon her wounded
masts, like tangled mosses or creepers upon a dying oak.

At last a lucky shot of the unremitting Cornbury carried away her
pintle, rudder, and steering-gear, so that she lay a heavy and lifeless
thing upon the water. Bras-de-Fer called for boarders, and, firing a
broadside pointblank, lay the _Sally_ aboard, and with a wild cry for
those who dared follow, himself sprang for the mizzen chains of his
adversary. In the light of the dying day, like a hundred wriggling,
dusky cats, they swarmed over the sides of the luckless _San Isidro_,
springing through the ports and over the bulwarks upon the deck with
cries that struck terror to the hearts of their adversaries, many
of whom threw down their weapons and sprang below. A few men in
breast-pieces, who gave back, firing a desultory volley, made a brief
stand upon the forecastle, from which they were speedily swept down
into the head and so forward upon the prow and into the sea.

Bras-de-Fer and Cornbury sprang into the after-passage. Two blanched
priests fell upon the deck, raining their jewels like hailstones before
them and chattering out a plea for mercy from the _pirato_. Indeed,
Bras-de-Fer looked not unlike the pictures of the most desperate of
those bloody villains. A splinter-cut upon the head had bathed him
liberally with blood, and the wild light of exultation glowed from eyes
deep-set and dark with the fumes of dust and gunpowder. His coat was
torn, and his naked sword, dimmed and lusterless, moved in reckless
circles with a careless abandon which spoke a meaning not to be
misconstrued.

The priests he pushed aside, and burst through the door into the cabin.
It was almost dark, but the glow in the west which shone in the wide
stern ports shed a warm light upon the backs of a dozen persons who
had taken refuge there, and were now gazing wide-eyed upon him. By
the table in the center two or three figures were standing, and an
old man with streaming gray hair drew a sword most pitifully and put
himself in posture of defense. Several women thereupon fell jibbering
prone upon the deck, and two figures in uniform crouched back in the
shadow of the bulkhead. But the shedding of blood was done. Cornbury
took the weapon from the patriarch, and Bras-de-Fer, seeing no further
resistance, bowed in his best manner and begged that the ladies be
put to no further inquietude. It was then for the first time that
he noticed the figure of one of them, tall, fair, and of a strange
familiarity, standing firm and impassive, her hand upon a small
petronel, or pistolet, which lay upon the port sill. The splendid
lines of the neck, the imperious turn of the head, the determination
in the firm lines of the mouth, which, in spite of the ill-concealed
terror which lurked in the eyes and brows, betrayed a purpose to defend
herself to the last. Bras-de-Fer stepped back a pace in his surprise
to look again; but there was no mistake. He had seen that same figure,
that same poise of the head, almost that same look out of the eyes,
and, deep as he had steeped his mind in the things which brought
forgetfulness, every line of it was written upon his memory. The lady
was Mistress Barbara Clerke.




CHAPTER XI

THE ENEMY IN THE HOUSE


In the first flood of his astonishment the Frenchman lost countenance
and fell back upon the entrance of the cabin. He forgot the efficiency
of his disguise. In London he had worn the mustachio, smooth chin, and
perruque; and the deft touches of poor Vigot had given him a name for a
beau which no art of the tailor alone could have bestowed. All of these
were lacking in the rough garments that he wore. When last my lady had
seen him it had been in the laces, orders, and all the accouterments
of a man of fashion, as befitted his station. Now the deep shadows
which the fog of battle had painted under his brows and eyes served a
purpose as effectual as the growth of his hair and beard. For no sign
passed the lady’s features, though she looked fair at him. A momentary
wonder there was, as the Frenchman paused; then a mute and pallid
supplication. Two Spanish women fell heavily upon their knees before
him, demeaning themselves in every conceivable manner for a look or a
word that would lull their apprehension and alarm.

It was not until then that Cornbury saw Mistress Clerke. She looked at
him blankly; but he, swearing audibly, fled past Bras-de-Fer to the
door.

“Bedad!” he muttered--“the lady in the play!” and vanished into the
passage.

Cast upon himself, Bras-de-Fer halted and stammered again. He was
daunted by that cold, gray eye, and discovered an inquietude and
trepidation greater than he had felt in the presence of a company
of pikemen. He wiped his sword and thrust it into its scabbard with
something of an air of the blusterer, fumbled at the collar at his
throat, and with a gesture tossed back the curls from his brow, finally
taking refuge in the women at his knees from that chill glance which
seemed to read and reproach him. Then, learning that his identity was
still unrevealed, he plucked up courage, and, releasing himself,
coldly but with a certain gallantry bowed to the gray-haired Spanish
lady who had been the most timorous in her embraces.

“Your fear, señora, pays neither me nor my ship a compliment,” he said,
coolly. “Your _San Isidro_ is of a nation that of late has proved
itself the enemy of my King upon the sea. I have taken her in honorable
battle, and--”

Here Jacquard, leering wickedly, the personification of the very thing
the women most feared, with Yan Gratz and a dozen pikes, came rushing
in at the door, rendering at naught his amiable intentions, for the
women fell to screaming again, and Mistress Clerke raised her pistolet
to her breast, it seemed, in the very act of firing. With a hoarse cry
Bras-de-Fer quelled the turmoil and sent Jacquard and the men growling
back upon the deck; but it was some moments before the qualms of the
women were relieved and quiet and order brought out of the tumult.

“Señor, what you say may be true,” said the patriarch who had sought
to defend himself, “but not all who bear the warrant of the King of
England have so honest a notion of warfare in these waters. What proof
have we of your integrity?”

Bras-de-Fer tossed his head with a touch of the old hauteur. He looked
past the gray-beard to the casement window, where the last glimmer of
the western light was burnishing her hair to gold. He saw only the fair
head of the woman who had discredited him, scorned and spurned him as
though he had been as low as the very thing he now appeared. The lips
grew together in a hard line that had in it a touch of cruelty.

“It is not the custom of officers of the King,” he said, “to give
proofs of integrity to prisoners of war. I offer no proof but my word.
I shall do with you as I see fit to do.” And stationing two pikemen at
the door of the cabin, he went upon the deck, filled with the thought
which almost drove from his mind the serious business of bringing the
wreck to rights and mending his own affairs.

There was much to be done before the _Sally_ and her huge captive
could be brought out into the safety of the broad ocean, away from
this dangerous proximity to the Havana. But Bras-de-Fer set himself
resolutely to the task, and, putting beside him all but the matter in
hand, with a fine, seaman-like sense brought order out of the tangle
and wreck of rigging both upon his own vessel and the Spaniard.

The night had come on apace, and with it a rising wind which ground the
vessels together in a manner which threatened to make them the more
vulnerable to the assaults of the sea. The business of shifting the
valuable part of the cargo was going swiftly forward under great flares
and ship’s lanterns, which were stuck in the bulwarks and hung from the
chains and rigging. Bras-de-Fer, a black shade against the lurid glow,
stood with folded arms and downcast eyes at a commanding eminence upon
the poop, watching the struggling, dusky, gnomelike figures below him.
A hoarse order rang from his lips now and then, which was echoed down
into the bowels of his own vessel and mingled with the cries and oaths
of the fellows below. Blocks creaked above, and the swaying bales
and chests, growing for a moment into fiery patches against the sooty
darkness behind them, swept over the bulwarks and into gray shadow
again, when they were speedily borne down into the gaping black maws of
the brig.

A pale and sibilant presence rustled from the shadows of the
mizzen-mast behind Bras-de-Fer. Trembling in limb and more pallid even
than the white frock that enfolded her, Mistress Barbara, in a ferment
of uncertainty, unattended and unguarded, had crept resolutely and with
indomitable courage past the guard at the cabin door to the side of
the conqueror of _San Isidro_. So frail and slender a thing she was,
emerging pale and spectral into the glare of the torches, that at the
touch of her halting hand upon his arm he started with a quick intaking
of the breath and sought his weapon. But when the light glowed upon the
brow and hair, and he saw, his hand dropped to his side and he bowed
his head to hide his features. With a gesture of annoyance designed to
serve the same end, he turned away towards the bulwarks.

“No, no,” she began, pleadingly; “you must hear me. I am English, like
the King you serve. At your hands I have every right to consideration.”

“You sail in parlous times, madame,” he replied, coldly, striving to
disguise his voice.

“Listen, sir. I have braved danger of insult, and worse, to come hither
to-night. But there is something--I cannot tell what--which says that
you will deal fairly.”

“Your confidence, I trust, is not ill-placed,” with averted head.

“Your manner of speaking betrays that you are French. Nay, do not turn
away, monsieur. If you are not English, you serve an English master,
and that should be the guarantee of all honesty.”

“Honesty is as honesty does,” he replied, turning with more assurance
to address her. And then, “You come a cool dove of peace in time of hot
war, madame. You have no place in such a scene as this.”

“Give me a word, sir, and I will go.”

His gaze was fixed blankly upon the starless vacancy. “I can promise
nothing, madame. It is the fortune of war ... or fate.” The last he
murmured half below his breath.

“You will take us to Jamaica, monsieur--not the Tortugas--say it will
not be the Tortugas!”

“The Tortugas are the lair of the _piratos_. If I am such, it were
useless further to converse. A pirate has small stomach for mercy--much
for requital.”

Puzzled somewhat, she grasped her wrap more closely and drew back in
dismay. “What do you mean? That you will have no pity, that--” She
paused as she saw his bitter smile, stepping a pace back from him in
horror.

But the cruel pleasure he had in torturing her, at the sight of her
dread and fear was pleasure no longer.

“Madame, forgive me,” he said, with a carefully studied frankness.
“I have only said I can make no promises. There are two vessels, and
I cannot be upon both. The wind even now is rising, and soon we must
be parting company. But I will do for you and for the Spanish lady,
your friend, what I may; and now”--bending over her with all his old
grace--“now, if madame will permit me, I will conduct her to the cabin.”

The speech, the very words, the very gesture, the very modulations
of the voice--where had she heard them before? A hurried winging of
thought brought the swaying of colored lanterns--a garden--a graveled
walk--a perfumed night; and while she still looked in wonder, a
boisterous puff of wind flared up the torch on the mast and tossed his
wide-brimmed hat back upon his head so that she saw a scar upon his
temple.

She peered straight forward and he turned his head in vain.

“Good God!” she cried. “This! Is it this?”

It was too late to continue the concealment, had he wished to do so.
Then, while he in turn was peering at her, startled at the lively
expression of horror in her eyes--a horror at his condition and plainly
not at himself--she covered her face with her fingers and bowed her
head into them, not shrinkingly in loathing as he might have expected
from the woman he had left in London, but in an anguish as of
penitence, the impotence of a child at the reproof of an angry parent,
in contrition, remorse, or humiliation. He could not understand. But,
straightening himself with a stern dignity, which sat well upon him, he
replied in a tone so low that its vibrant note barely reached her ears.

“This, madame, ... even this.”

When she looked up at him again it was with clear, level, unflinching
eyes.

“Monsieur--” she began, haltingly.

But he held up his hand. “I had hoped to have withdrawn ere this upon
my own ship and to have left you.”

“Thank God that you did not. I would atone to you for many things.
Could you have deserted us? You owe me a greater debt of humiliation
and abasement than you can ever hope to pay. But would you abandon us
to that crew of demons below! Ah,” she shuddered; “it is a vengeance
worthy of the name.”

“Madame, the sparks of such hatred as that you bear for me are best
unfed to flame. You shall be adequately guarded upon the _San Isidro_.
But before dawn I and my ship will have sailed--”

“No, no,” she broke in. “You must not. You cannot leave--”

The woman in her rebelled at the thought that he could find it possible
to do what he promised.

“_Must_ and _can_ are strong words.” He smiled coldly. “There is no
_must_ or _can_ upon the _San Isidro_ but mine. The _convenances_ of
St. James’s Square are not those of the Spanish Main, madame.”

But the evil she had wrought in this man’s life, though she had wrought
it unconsciously, gave her a new humility. She had done and dared much
already. She would not go back.

“I pray you, monsieur, in the name of that mother you once swore by--in
the name of all the things you hold most holy--I pray that you will
heed my prayer. Take, at least, the Señorita de Batteville upon your
vessel. Take us from the faces of the men at the cabin door who leer
and grin at us with a too horrid import.”

A frown crossed the Frenchman’s features.

“These men will be upon the _Saucy Sally_.”

“But you, monsieur, will be there--you will not permit--”

“Madame has a too generous confidence in my competency.”

“Ah, it is for you to be generous. A man who can win so great a victory
can afford to be kind.” She put her hands forward in the act of
supplication, and in doing so the wrap slipped from the shoulder and
arm it had so scrupulously hidden. A cloth, dull and blurred with red,
was wrapped half-way between the elbow and the shoulder. When he saw
that dark patch, his cool composure fell from him like a mantle and he
bent forward eagerly, all his perceptions aquiver with sensibility.

“Sainte Vierge!” he whispered. “How came you by that?”

“It is nothing,” she said, drawing back at his ardor. “A scratch of
broken glass. That is all.”

He bent to the deck for the erring silk. “I did not know,” he
stammered, his voice mellow with sympathy. “I did not know. Forgive me,
madame.”

“There is nothing to forgive. It is the fortune of war.”

“Is it painful? I am something of a chirurgeon. Let me--” He looked her
in the face, and then drew back in a mingling of confusion and pride.

“It is nothing, I tell you,” she broke in, with a stamp of the foot.
“Nothing. I do not even feel it.” And when she had enwrapped it again
she lowered her voice until it trembled with the earnestness of her
entreaty. “Have pity, monsieur--pity!”

The Frenchman had turned away and was looking out into the moonless
night. The slender white hand stole faltering forward until it rested
upon the coarse sleeve of his coat.

“Take me with you, monsieur. Take me aboard the _Saucy Sally_.”

And still looking out to sea, he replied, in a voice gruff and rugged,
which did not avail to hide a generous courtesy beneath:

“It shall be as you wish, madame. Bid the señorita prepare at once.”

And in a moment, when he looked again, she was gone.

How was it that the thread of this woman’s life had become entangled
again with his? Could it be that the hand which controlled his destiny
had wrought these miracles in his strange career in a mere sport or
purposeless plan? Could it be that, two grains of sand afloat on the
winds of life’s desert, they had met, parted, and come together again?
In the infinity of wide ocean he had gone adrift upon the tide of
another life with nothing but his memories to bind him to the old. But
sure as metal to its loadstone his vessel had been driven, in spite of
wind and the raging of the sea, with an unerring certainty into the
very path of the _San Isidro_. How was she, the toast of London, the
bright particular planet in that bright firmament, divested of all
the bright luster of her constellation, alone and all but friendless,
adrift in these wild waters? How came this gay paradise bird, despoiled
of its plumage, in so foreign a clime? Why had she left London? Had
some convulsion of her starry sky cast her down from her high seat?
Where was Captain Ferrers? Were they become estranged? What had come of
the papers? The enigma grew in complexity. Her speech had puzzled him.
Why had she been thankful to have found him? Was it the joy of learning
that her captor was one who had not sunk so low that he could do the
vile deeds she had feared of him? What atonement was it she offered?
And for what? His heart leaped wildly, only to shrink again to a dull,
drowsy beat. What did it mean? Nothing, or anything; conciliation,
mock humility--a sop to Cerberus. Bah! He was done with hope. There,
a shadow of disconsolation, he stood, fixed and nerveless, struggling
against the soft, cajoling hand-maidens of Virtue--Gentleness, Beauty,
Reverence, Love--personified in this woman, whom, try as he might, he
could not pluck from his life.

The pale light of dawn found him where he watched until the transshipping
was done, and the cases of coin, the silks and plate, were stowed safely
below. The fitful wind, which had tossed up a restless sea, was now
become so boisterous that the grappling irons were cast off and the
_Saucy Sally_ drifted away from the Spaniard and hung with a backed
mainsail a half-cable’s length under her lee. The prisoners of the
_San Isidro_ had been carefully secured below and a prize crew of
Jacquard, Cornbury, and thirty men had been placed upon her to bring the
wreck into port. She was sound enough below. But the rigging, in spite
of all their endeavors, was still a mere tangle of useless gearing. The
sails drew on the jury-masts, and together, with gathering impetus, the
two vessels moved slowly out into the growing light of the East.

The wisdom of the efforts of Bras-de-Fer in removing to the handier
vessel the most movable of the priceless freight was soon apparent.
For there, dull patches upon the southern sky, were the sails of two
large vessels bearing smartly up under the stress of the fine westerly
wind. Hoarse curses rang forth, and fists were wildly brandished
towards the approaching ships, which, as it was plainly to be seen,
were Spanish men-of-war, aroused to alertness by the cannonading at
sunset and the night-long flares. It would have been hopeless for
Bras-de-Fer to try and bring both vessels clear away, for the unwieldly
prize rolled heavily in the rising swell and made scarce a bubble
under the forefoot. And in her damaged condition, with crippled spars
and many guns out of service, the _Sally_ could hardly hope to repeat
her success over the _San Isidro_ with two war vessels fresh from the
Havana. The weight of argument lay upon the side of his defeat with the
loss of all that he had gained. There were two alternatives--to remain
with the _San Isidro_ and fight it out to the last, or take his prize
crew aboard the _Sally_ and abandon the _San Isidro_ and her prisoners
to her compatriots.

Bras-de-Fer chose the latter. There was only time to effect the change.
He called Jacquard and his master-at-arms and the prize crew aboard
their own vessel, and, clapping all sail upon the _Saucy Sally_ that
she could carry in safety, sailed clear away and abandoned the huge
hulk to the approaching enemy.




CHAPTER XII

PRISONER AND CAPTOR


When the heels of the _Sally_ had put so great a distance between
herself and her pursuers that there was nothing to fear of their
overhauling her, Bras-de-Fer went below to the cabin. Exhausted by
the events of the night, leaning listlessly against the sill of the
stern-port, was Mistress Clerke, her lids drooping with weariness as
she struggled against tired nature to keep her lone vigil. Her eyes
started wide at the sound of his footsteps. She struggled to her feet
and stood, her face pallid and drawn, in the cold, garish light of the
morning. She scanned him eagerly, peering fearfully into his face for
any portentous sign. The dust of battle was still streaked upon it, and
the shadows under the brows which had made his countenance forbidding
in the mad flush of war upon the _San Isidro_ now only gave the
shadows a darker depth of settled melancholy. There was a fierceness
and wildness, too, but it was distant, hidden, and self-contained; at
bay, only with nothing of aggressiveness for immediate apprehension or
alarm. Instead, there was a reserved dignity and aloofness which spoke
of a nice sense of a delicate situation. He made no move to draw near
her, but stood in the narrow cabin door, hat in hand.

“Madame is weary?” he said. “If you will permit--” And then he searched
the cabin, a question in his eyes.

“The señorita, madame?” he asked.

Mistress Clerke sighed wearily. “I am alone, monsieur. She came frozen
with terror--and fled again--”

“You alone!”

“I can only crave your pity.”

He peered around at the dingy surroundings. “I am bereaved, madame.
This cabin is not the _San Isidro_. ’Twere better, more cleanly. I am
sorry. I had come to order it to your comfort. See. I have brought your
bedding and belongings from the _San Isidro_. In a moment, if you will
permit, I can do very much to better your condition.”

A spark of gratitude at this evidence of his kindly disposition gleamed
in her eyes a moment and she signed an acquiescence. The Frenchman
conducted her to the half-deck, while two negroes set busily about the
place, removing his and Cornbury’s effects and making it sweet and
clean for its gentle tenant.

The Frenchman would have left her, but Mistress Barbara stopped him at
the cabin door.

“I cannot thank you, monsieur. To do so pays no jot of my great
obligation, which every moment becomes greater.”

He bowed and would have passed out. “You owe me nothing but silence,
madame,” he said, coldly.

“And that I cannot pay,” she cried. “Oh, why will you not listen to me,
monsieur? Have you no kindness?”

“I have done what small service I could, madame. If I owe you more--”

She clenched her small hands together, as though in pain. “Ah, you do
not understand. Why will you not see? It is not that. I wish you to do
me justice.”

“Madame, justice and I are many miles asunder. I have no indulgent
memory. It is best that there should be no talk of what has been. Only
what _is_ and what is _to be_ has any power to open my ears or my lips.
And so, if you will permit me,” and once more he made the motion to
withdraw.

“It _is_ the present and the future, Monsieur le Chevalier,” she began.
But at the sound of that name he turned abruptly towards her, frowning
darkly.

“It cannot be, madame,” he cried, with a brusqueness which frightened
her. “I have no name but Bras-de-Fer aboard this ship. Please address
your needs to him.”

She recoiled in dismay in the corner of the bulkhead to listen to
the tramp of his heavy sea-boots down the passage. For the first
time she feared him. She could not know that it was the sight of her
face and of something new he saw there which raised a doubt that had
entered, a canker, into his mind. She could not know what a struggle
it was costing him and at what pains he took refuge in the silence
he demanded. His brutality was but the sudden outward manifestation
of this battle, which, should it not take one side, must assuredly
take the other. He had decided. Nothing should turn the iron helm of
his will. But as he sought the deck, hot memory poured over him in
a flood. He recalled the times she had tossed her head at him, even
before the incident of the coach. That, too, he remembered, even with
a sense of amusement. The coranto! and how he had sought to patch
and mend his wounded pride by fruitlessly assailing hers, battering
abortively at the citadel of the heart he could never hope to win.
Ferrers! The precious papers he had had for a sweet half-hour in his
bosom and had thrown away! Where had Ferrers hidden them from her? The
priceless heritage with which he could have daunted this woman-enemy of
his whom he had loved and hated at the same time and from whom he had
received only scorn and misprision. Could he refuse her now that she
was a helpless captive, weak, frail, and unfriended among a crew of
rascals who stood at nothing and from whom only himself could preserve
her? Had he not secretly welcomed her wish last night to be carried
aboard the _Saucy Sally_, and the contingency which made it impossible
for her to be returned to the _San Isidro_? Was he not conscious of a
sense of guilt that he had not found an opportunity to send her back
to safety? She was completely in his power. His heart sang high; but
the cord was frayed, and the note rang false. It was impossible; no
matter how deeply he had seared his soul, no man born as he had been
born could refuse the mute appeal of a woman in distress. He thought of
his dishonor the night he had come upon the _Saucy Sally_, when in a
fury against the fortune which still denied him he had railed, madly,
impotently, against all virtue, and in a passion of vengefulness sunk
so low that he had loudly threatened, like a common street ruffian and
card-room bully, this woman, whom--God help him!--he loved and would
love throughout all time. The depth of his degradation cumbered him
about, remorse fell upon him, and anguish wrung his heart from his
body as nothing--not even the loss of the papers--had done.

The old life in London, with its gaming, its carousing and gallantry--he
could see it all through new eyes, washed clean and clear by the purging
winds and storms of heaven. Himself he marked from a great moral
distance, almost as though from another planet--the silly, spoiled child
of folly that he had been. And it was this impotent creature who had
cried out against his fate, which, with a rare honesty, had only lowered
him from the high estate to which he had won, in accordance with the
same inexorable regulations of the human law which had raised him there.
The figures in that London life passed before him like a row of tawdry
puppets, serving the same martyrdom to folly as himself, at the
expense of love, charity, and all true virtue. Soft thinking for a
powder-blackened, bearded _flibustier_, with hands even yet red from his
last depredation! He smiled supinely to himself, that he could think
thus of the things that so recently had been his very existence. In that
London life, amid that throng of tinsel goddesses, one figure stood
eminent and conspicuous. It was that of the woman who in all companies
of men and women held her fame so fair that, whatever their reputations
for high deeds or ignoble vices, none was so great as she. In that great
court where virtue was a gem of so little worth that it was kept hid and
secret, Mistress Barbara had worn it openly, broadly, high upon her
brow, with a rare pride, as the most priceless of her inestimable
jewels.

He loved her. Flaunted, scorned, despised, he loved her the more. The
past was engulfed and vanquished. He only saw her an actuality of the
flesh here aboard his very ship--the dove in the eagle’s nest, whom
every law and impulse, human and divine, impelled him to succor and
protect. The vibrant voice, the gentle touch, the soft perfume of her
presence provoked the covetous senses and stole away his will. It was
with mingled feelings of apprehension and alarm that he discovered to
himself the persistency of his attachment. He acknowledged it only
when he learned that nothing else was possible. And when that was done
he planned and resolved again, with a new fervency of determination.
The future should atone. She had thought him a wild, reckless gallant,
who had won his way and continued to win--by his wits--a worthless
creature who consorted with the worst men of the court and presented in
the world the characteristics she most despised. How he hated the thing
that he had been, the mask that he had worn! If she had cared, she
could have seen, she would have learned that he was not all that she
had thought him. The reckless gallant was become a rough _boucanier_
and _pirato_. She had seen him in the red fever of battle. _Eh bien._
He would not undeceive her. Red-handed _pirato_ he would remain. No
glimpse should she have of the struggle beneath. He would set her safe
ashore at Port Royal. He would sail away from her forever, and she
should enjoy her fortune. That was the price that he would pay.

None the less, he found the occasion to wash away the stains of battle,
and in fresh linen and hose became less offensive to the sight.
When he sought the deck there was no sign of a vessel upon any side.
Cornbury he found at the after-hatch, puffing upon a pipe.

“Ochone, dear Iron Arm,” the Irishman began, “ye’re the anomalous
figure of a _pirato_, to be sure. One minute your form is painted broad
upon the horizon with a cutlass in your teeth, an’ glistenin’ pikes in
both your fists. I’ the next ye’re playin’ the hero part of ‘Vartue in
Distress.’”

Bras-de-Fer smiled.

“Oh, ye may laugh. But in truth ’tis all most irregular. Ye violate
every tradition of the thrade. By the laws, ye’re no dacent figure of a
swashbuckler at all at all.”

“What would ye have then, _mon ami_?”

“Ah, he’s clean daffy! What would I have? Bah! ye know my misliking for
the sex, and ye ask me what would I have? Egad! a walk on the plank,
and a little dance on nothing would not be amiss for _her_. ’Tis the
simplest thing in the world. The least bit of a rope, three ten-pound
shot, a shove of the arm, and _spsh!_ your troubles are sunk in a
mile of sea. To England, a treaty of peace with Captain Ferrers, and,
_voilà!_ ye’re a French viscount, with a fortune beyond the dreams of
avarice, and an out-at-the-knees-and-elbows of an Irishman to help ye
spend it. Man, ’tis a squanderin’ waste of opportunity.” He growled,
and puffed upon his pipe, sending crabbed, sour glances at his captain.

“Oh, ye may laugh. Instead of this, what do ye do? Ye have my lady
aboard the ship to the pervarsion of all dacent piratical society, give
her _my_ bed and board, and _my_ particular niggar for waiting-man.
Ye’re sowin’ the seeds of ripe mutiny, me handsome picaroon, an’ a
red-headed Irishman will be there to aid in the blossomin’.”

“Nay, Cornbury,” said Bras-de-Fer. “We do but go a short cruise to Port
Royal. I’ve set my mind on seeing my lady safe in English hands.”

“There ye are,” fumed the Irishman. “_There ye are!_ Ye’ll kill the
golden goose. Ye’ll jeopardize your callin’ again, all for that same
finical bundle of superficialities. Slapped once in the face, ye turn
your cheek with new avidity for more. Zoons! I’ve no patience with such
shilly-shallyin’.” And, as Bras-de-Fer was silent, he sent forth a
quick succession of smoke puffs which chased madly down the wind.

“Ask Jacquard,” he growled again; “he likes it no more than I. There’s
a mutterin’ forward. ’Tis discipline--the lack of drink and an unequal
partitionin’ of the spoils--”

“_Pardieu!_” interrupted the Frenchman at last, his eyes flashing in a
fury. “Do they growl? Let them do it in the forecastle. No man, no, not
even you, shall beard me on my quarter-deck!”

Cornbury did not arise or show the least sign of a changed countenance.
“Ask Jacquard,” he repeated again.

Bras-de-Fer swung hotly on his heel and went below.




CHAPTER XIII

MONSIEUR LEARNS SOMETHING


When the night had fallen again, Mistress Barbara Clerke went
timorously upon the deck in search of Bras-de-Fer. His insensibility
and brutality in turning away from her when she would have spoken to
him in the cabin had tried her to the last extremity. But the thought
of the duty she owed herself and him stifled the impulses of her
spirit. And her pride, rebellious and insensate that the man who had
so frankly sacrificed himself in London should care so little here,
impelled her inevitably. Her fear of him was short-lived. In spite of
all she knew to his discredit and the bloody guise in which she had
found him, that look of humiliation and distress which she had brought
into his face a night so long ago remained ineffaceably written upon
her memory. It spoke better than all the proofs she had discovered of
the wrong that had been done him.

She found him, by the light of a lantern, directing the repair of a
gun-carriage upon the poop. She addressed him timidly.

“Monsieur--er--Bras-de-Fer--” she began.

He raised his head and turned abruptly towards her, and the sense of
security from rebuke she had counted upon, in the presence of the men,
fled away at the sight of his frowning countenance.

“What are you doing here, madame?” he said, harshly. “The deck is no
place for you. Go below at once or--”

But with never a glance at the grinning fellows at her elbow, she
looked him steadily in the eyes as she replied, with a will and spirit
which surprised even herself:

“I shall not, monsieur.” The voice was low and even. But the small
hands were clenched, her head was tossed a little upon one side, and
every line of her lithe body, which swung rhythmically to the motion
of the sliding deck, spoke of invincible courage and determination.
Bras-de-Fer scowled darkly a moment, and even took a step in her
direction, but she stood undaunted. With an assumption of carelessness
he waved his hands, and presently they were alone.

“I thank you for that condescension,” she said at last.

“Speak your will quickly, madame. I am in a press of business.”

“You must hear me to the end, monsieur. No matter what--”

“_Ma foi_, madame,” he sneered. “Is it you who command the ship or I?
If there is aught you require, say on. If not, you will go below at
once.”

“You must hear me, monsieur.”

“Madame”--he scowled and spoke with a studied brutality--“is it not
enough that I have done your will once? I am taking you to safety. Try
me not too far or--you may find reason to regret your presumption.” And
as she shrank a little away from him: “What have you to expect from me?
By what right do you seek me or ask me any favor?”

“By the right of a gentle birth. If not by that, by the right of a
decent humanity.”

He laughed with an assumption of coarseness which sat strangely upon
him.

“And have you no fear, Mistress Clerke? Does your instinct teach you no
tremor?” He moved a pace nearer and glanced down upon her. “Do you not
see, proud woman? Have you no trembling, no terror at the sight of me?
Am I so gentle, so tractable, so ingenuous that you can defy me with
impunity? You are in my power. There is no one to say me nay. What is
there to prevent me doing with you as I will?”

She had not moved back from him the distance of a pace. And it was his
eye that first fell before hers.

“You will doubtless do your will,” she said, evenly. “But I cannot find
it in my heart to fear you, monsieur.” And the quietude of her reliance
paled his mock brutality into a mere silly effusiveness.

“At the sight of you, monsieur,” she continued, “there is little room
for fear in my breast. No, even if you should strike me down here upon
this foreign, friendless deck, I believe that I could raise no hand or
voice in protest.”

“Madame!” he said.

“It is true. You are powerless to offend. Why, your threats are mere
empty vaunts, monsieur! Even in this dusky light I can see it in your
eyes. You are clean of evil intent as a babe unborn.”

Bras-de-Fer bowed his head.

“Oh, let me right the great wrong that has been done--”

“It is impossible--”

“When you learn-- Listen, oh, listen, monsieur!” she cried, passionately,
as he moved away. “When you learn that I have left London for you; that
I have given up all I possessed that a great wrong might be righted, a
great martyrdom ended, you will no longer refuse me.” The words came
tumbling forth any way from her lips in the mad haste that he might hear
before he was gone out of earshot.

And as he paused to listen, fearfully: “Yes, yes, monsieur, I have
learned,” she cried again. “I know. It is yours--it is all yours.”

Bras-de-Fer turned his body towards her again, but as he faced her
his head was still bowed in his shoulders and she could see no other
sign of any emotion. The revelation that he had longed for, and feared
because he longed for it so much, was made. The secret was out. However
he planned and whatever guise of unfriendliness he took, the relations
between himself and this woman were changed thenceforward. The struggle
for the mastery was fierce as it was brief. And in that moment, no
matter how changed his duty to himself and her, he resolved that
she should have no sign of it. When he raised his head again to the
lantern-light all trace of the storm that had passed over his spirit
was gone.

“It is too late, madame,” he muttered. “Too late. I stand by the cast
of the die.”

“You cannot know what you say, monsieur. If the estates do not go to
you, they will go to no one. It is the end of the house of De Bresac.
Your fortune, your titles, your honors--”

“And my good name?” he asked, coldly. “Who will restore to me my good
name? No. I shall not return to London, madame.”

“You _must_ return,” she broke in, wildly. “It is a sacred duty. If not
for yourself, for the blood that runs in our veins.”

The phrase sang sweet in his ears. But he gave no sign.

“Blood is thicker than water, but it seeks its level as surely. I have
made my bed; I shall sleep no less soundly because it is a rough one.”

She struggled to contain the violence of her emotion. “No, no, it
cannot be, it must not be. You will learn how I have striven for you.
You cannot refuse. It would be cruel, inhuman, monstrous!”

“Mistress Clerke has much to learn of the inhumanities,” he said. And
then, with cool composure, “What power availed to convince her, where
Monsieur Mornay was so unfortunate?”

“You are cruel, cruel. What had you to expect of me? What had you done
in London to merit my favor? Why should I have believed in one of whom
I knew nothing--nothing but presumption and indignity? How should I
have known?”

“Madame’s advisers--”

“Do not speak of them,” she interrupted. “It is past. The proofs were
brought me. That is all. Why need you know more?”

“Captain Ferrers?” he said, insinuatingly.

“Yes, he!” She drew herself to her full height, and he could not fail
to mark the lofty look of scorn that curved her lips and brow. “All
London learned of the story of your escape. My agents were told that
the vessel upon which you had fled was in the American trade. And so I
sought service where I might best reach you. Thank God, my quest has
not been in vain!”

“Madame sought service?” he said, in a wonder which vied with his cold
assumption of apathy.

“I sought service with the Señorita de Batteville, monsieur,” she
continued, with a proud lift of the chin, “in the capacity of
waiting-woman and duenna.”

The words fell with cruel import upon his ears. He could hardly
believe that he had heard aright.

“You serve--?” he stammered.

“Have I not said that every livre of my fortune--”

“Yes. But, madame--to serve!--you!--”

“Is it so strange? Would you have me take that which is not mine? No,
monsieur, I am no thief.”

Bras-de-Fer had turned resolutely towards the bulwarks with a mind more
turbulent even than the seething waters below him. In the turmoil of
his emotions he knew not which way to turn, what to say or what to do.
The plan that he had marked for himself was becoming every moment less
and less distinct.

It was with an effort that he turned towards her, his resolution giving
him an implacability he was far from feeling.

“Madame, your probity does you credit. Were your judgment as unerring
as your honesty, I had not left London. As it is, I’ve no mind to
return.”

“Monsieur,” she faltered--“monsieur--”

“If you please, madame. I would have you below. ’Tis a rough crew, and
I’ll not answer for them--”

“But you will tell me--”

“Madame, you’ve purged your conscience. There your duty ends. At Port
Royal it shall be arranged that you are sent to Porto Bello. As for me,
my will is made.”

“Ah, you are malignant,” she cried, with a flash of spirit, his cold,
sinister eye sinking and piercing deep into her heart like cold steel.
“You are not he whom I have sought. He was frank, generous, kind. A
strange, bitter, monstrous creature has grown in his guise.” Her voice
trembled and broke as she moved to the hatchway.

“May God help you,” she said, in a kind of sobbing whisper, “who have
so little kindness and pity for others.” And in a moment she had faded,
a slender, shrinking shade of sorrow, from his vision.

When she was gone he fell upon the bulwarks and buried his face in his
hands.

“Ah, _bon Dieu_!” he murmured; “how could I do it! She who has been
so kind--so kind.” The new delight that swept over him at the thought
of all that this rare, sweet woman had done for him came over him in
a delicious flush, which drove away the pallor of his distemper like
the warm glow of the tropics upon the frozen north. The heavy burden
of his melancholy was lifted. If he crept about with bowed head now,
it was because of some failing of the spirit or some craven dishonor
of his own. He and his were forever raised to high estate, and no
careless proscription of his inconsequent Mistress Fate could cast him
down again. The freedom of his soul from the blight which his birth
had put upon it lent it wings to soar gladly into the wide empyrean of
his imagination. And he gave himself up without stint to the new joy
in their motion. Did he wish, he could go at once to London and take a
place among the men of his kind, a place which no mere art could win
for him.

To London! There was a time when that word was magic for him--when,
in careless bravado, he was challenging his fortune to deny him what
he wished. Now he wondered at the singular distaste which grew at the
very thought of the life that had been. With such a fortune and such
a name there were no favors or honors he could not buy. He would know
how to win his way again. But his spirit was listless at the thought.
With the joy at his freedom from the cloud of his birth his pleasure
ended. The estates, his titles and honors, dwelt so little in his mind
that he marveled again at his change of disposition. He _could_ go
to London. But at what cost! Summon the goddesses of his past as he
might, their essenced wiles and specious blandishing, distance gave
them no added charm. He could only see this pale, proud woman, with a
rare and imperturbable honesty which showed how justly she had worn
the honors she relinquished, in a pure nobility which brought a flush
to his cheek, giving up without a qualm or faltering the life and
habits, the high condition, to which she had been born and in which she
had been so carefully nurtured. Could he go back to London to leave
this woman a wanderer, a servant, whose only hope even for a bare
existence lay in the bounty of a Spaniard? The thought grew upon him
and oppressed him and drove all the joy from his heart. All this she
had done for him--_for him_. He rolled the thought over and over in
his mind, like a sweetmeat in the mouth, with a new taste of delicacy
and delight at every turn. She had given it all for _him_--that _he_,
the man she had affected so profoundly to despise, might be exalted.
It was not a triumph, but a quiet joy, the joy that the sick feel at
the touch of a ministering angel. It did not matter what the cause,
whether she had made this sacrifice for the principle or whether she
had made it for the individual. He was the cause of this great outflow
of human kindness and self-sacrifice from the deep, warm well-springs
of this wonderful woman’s heart, which he had so often sought to reach
and sought in vain. The glimmer of a single tear which had trembled a
moment upon her cheek in the lantern-light reached to the very quick of
the unrevealed secret depths of his nature, where no plummet had ever
before sounded. It had glistened a jewel more inestimable than all the
wealth she had brought him. Could he leave this woman upon the world,
at the mercy of every bitter occasion? He had chosen wisely. Red-handed
_boucanier_ he would remain. He would not undeceive her. The light in
which she held him removed all chance of an understanding. He would
set her safely ashore at Porto Bello; then, with the aid of Cornbury
and the English government, so dispose his affairs that the fortune
would revert to her in case of his death whether she willed it or no.
Then he would set to sea and take the precaution to die as speedily and
publicly as might be. So far as she was concerned that would be the
end. He would see England no more. It was here that his talents found
their readiest employment. Of all his fortune, he would take only the
ship upon which he sailed, and under another name, which would serve
his purposes as adequately as the one he now bore, he would continue as
he had begun, with a wider license only, a free-trader, a picaroon, a
_pirato_, if you will.

It was Jacquard who broke, without ceremony, upon his meditations.

“Monsieur le Capitaine,” he began, with an air of some brusqueness.

“Oh, Jacquard,” he replied, abstractedly, “are we well repaired?”

“Monsieur, it is not that. For some days I have wished to see you.
There is a muttering in the forecastle. Yan Gratz--”

“Ah! Well--”

“Monsieur, there is nothing upon the surface; from outward view ’tis
placid as a pond. But I know. I have ears upon all sides of my head.
’Tis Yan Gratz. You’ve set his value too low. Gratz will not forget
the leopard spots upon him. Like the leopard, he will bite, and as
stealthily he will crawl.”

“_Pardieu_, Jacquard, is it so?” Bras-de-Fer lifted his brows. “And
what is the grievance now?”

Jacquard scratched his great nose in perplexity before he replied.

“It is the discipline,” he began, slowly--“the discipline which has
wearied them; they have little rum to drink: two tins yesterday, one
tin to-day, and, lastly--monsieur will pardon me--lastly, monsieur,
this matter of the lady prisoner. Monsieur, they say--”

“Jacquard, it is enough,” he interrupted. “You need say no more. You
may tell them that upon the _Saucy Sally_ I command. If there is
grumbling, let them come to me openly at the mast and not skulk like
cats in the dark.”

“If monsieur will permit, I would think it better--”

“What! You, too, Jacquard? Why, ’tis a very honeycomb of faithlessness.”

“Monsieur, monsieur!” cried Jacquard in an agony of awkward anguish.
“You know that it is not so, monsieur. It is not so; I am but giving my
opinion. It would be wise to notice them. There is yet time to set the
lady upon a vessel.”

“It shall not be, Jacquard. We sail straight forth into the broad
ocean, and then by way of the wide passage of Porto Rico, west to Port
Royal, in Jamaica. That is my plan. It is unalterable. If we happen
upon Spanish prizes, so much the better. We shall take them. But we
shall seek none. And as for the lady, she shall be set ashore upon
Jamaica, and not upon any passing ship.”

Jacquard, whose jaw had dropped, and whose face had been growing longer
and longer during this recital, burst forth at last.

“_Mais_, monsieur,” he cried, “it is unwise to taunt them so. The
Spanish ships are thick about us. In another month the carrying will be
less. It is the time of times. Their blood is hot with victory.”

Bras-de-Fer broke in with an oath. “It will be cold with death if they
balk me. If Yan Gratz has aught to say, let him come forth like a man,”
and then, with a smile, “Perhaps he has the stomach for a little play
upon the pike.”

“Monsieur, he will not come. He fears you like the plague. He will do
his work the more effectively in quiet.”

Bras-de-Fer paused a moment and then came to Jacquard and put both
hands upon his shoulders.

“_Mon ami_,” he said, “what you ask is impossible. It is impossible. I
give you my word. If I could do what you advise I should do so; for
what you urge is wise. But I must try to do what I have planned to do.
If I cannot do it with you, I must do it without you.”

“Oh, monsieur,” interrupted Jacquard, almost at the edge of tears,
“I would do for you always--speak for you, work for you, fight for
you--and now, do not doubt me, monsieur!” The appeal shone forth with
so true a light from his small, glittering eyes that Bras-de-Fer was
truly affected by the demonstration.

“I believe you, _mon ami_. Go. Tell me all that happens. I will follow
your advice as I can.”




CHAPTER XIV

THE UNMASKING


Mistress Barbara reached her cabin door, free, save for that
rebellious tear which the Frenchman had seen, of any outward mark of
the turbulence of her emotions. But once within, and the key turned
in the lock, she buried her face in her hands, her frame racked by
hard, dry sobs which filled her throat and overwhelmed her. Fearful
that the sounds might reach the ears of him who had caused them, she
clenched her teeth upon her kerchief, wrapped her cloak closely about
her neck and face, and threw herself upon the bench in an agony of
mortification. God help her! Had it all been in vain? She had sought
the man, she had found him, and he had repulsed her unkindly, even
cruelly, as though she had been a foolish child or a dotard--a person
unworthy of consideration. Was this the one she had known in London,
the gallant Chevalier Mornay, who, however bold or daring, carried
forward his presumptions with a grace and courtesy which robbed them of
their offensiveness? She might acknowledge this now that he was grown
so different. What had come over him? Was he mad? He had repulsed her
as though she sought to do him an injury; had spoken to her as she
had heard him speak to the vile creatures about him, in a tone which
lowered her to their own low level. He had spurned her, scorned her
lightly, carelessly, coolly, as though even his scorn were too valuable
an emotion to squander upon one he held in such a low estimation. Never
had she been treated thus by man or woman, and her gorge rose at the
thought of it. The sobbing ceased, and in place of her distress came an
unreasoning, quiet fury--fury at herself, at him, at the world which
had brought her to such a pass. She rose and, angrily brushing the wet,
straggling hair from her eyes, threw wide the stern casement to look
out on the gray turmoil of waters which vanished into the unseen. Was
this the man for whom she had left London and sacrificed everything?
Was this fool who threw her favors aside like a tarnished ribbon, was
this the man who had followed her about from place to place in London,
seeking to win her by the same bold methods he had used with other
women, fawning--yes, fawning--for a look or a glance which he might
read to his advantage? She laughed aloud. Ah! he had found none. No
sign, not the faintest quiver of an eyelid had she ever given him;
nor even dignified him by her righteous anger until that night in the
garden at Dorset House, when by a trick he had taken her unawares, to
the end that her lofty disdain had given way to an active, breathing
hatred. Then, when she had learned that the man was no impostor, but
her own kinsman, of whose martyrdom she had been unwittingly the
cause, pity had taken the place of scorn, contrition the place of
vengefulness, compassion the place of hate.

The damp night wind touched her cheek and brow, the luster died out
of her eyes, her lips parted, and the deep intaking of breath and
trembling sigh bespoke the passing of the emotion--a surrender. Was he
not moving strictly within the letter of his rights? Could she expect
him to come flying on wings of ardency at the mere crooking of her
finger? Search her heart as she might, she could find no anger there.
Of that she was sure, no matter how great the rebellion of her spirit
against his cool impenetrability. She knew better than any words could
tell that had he been precipitate in response to her news and her
petitions, she must have been as stone to his advances. But he wore his
armor so well that her woman’s weapons needed all their burnishing. She
was conscious even of a sense of guilt. The noble sentiments which had
sent her forth upon this wild chase across half the world were suborned
to the feminine appetite for tribute withheld. The woman in her saw
only her natural enemy, man, rebellious and declaring war, who must at
all hazards be brought into subjection.

It might be possible. And yet she doubted. She could not understand.
One moment he was masterful in a way which thrilled her. In another the
eyes would reveal that which no tangling or knitting of the brows or
thinning of the lips could belie. Had she rightly read him? She could
not forget that she had surprised him in his subterfuges, that, in
spite of herself and him, she could not fear him. What if--? She dared
not think. Was the love which this man’s eyes had spoken to her so
great as this? Could it be that her fate was ever cruelly to misjudge
him? Was there something finer in his life than she had ever known in
another’s--something that she could not learn of or understand?

She trembled a little and drew the casement in. The lantern was
flickering dimly, casting strange patches of shadow, which danced upon
the beams and bulkhead. If monsieur loved her she would learn it from
his own lips. If this were so, and she had not read him amiss, ’twas
but a paltry excuse for a man of his birth and attainments to throw
away his life at this wild calling, to the end that a silly person (who
merited nothing) might continue to enjoy the benefits he could thus
relinquish. He should not leave her again. At whatever cost he must
return to London. The estates were his, and nothing save his death
could give her any right to them.

She was warm and cold by turns. She must gain time to win him
over, dissimulate, deceive him if necessary. It might, perhaps, be
accomplished; a look or a gesture, a speech with a hidden meaning
(however at variance with the fact) which might give him hope that she
was no longer indifferent to him. Then, perhaps, she might draw aside
the mask. He would be tractable and perhaps even pliant. Ah, she must
act well her part, with all her subtle woman’s weapons of offense;
conceal her feelings (however at variance with the actual performance),
that he might not question her integrity. He was clever and keen. It
would call for all the refinements of her arts. Were she not to throw a
depth of meaning into her play of the rôle he would learn of the fraud
and all her labors would be at naught. Despicable as the task would
be (what _could_ be more despicable than mock coquetry?), she must go
through it in the same spirit with which she had entered upon this
quest. There would be no need, of course, to promise anything (what
would there be to promise?), and, when the time was come, she could go
out of his life as speedily as she had come into it. Far into the night
she thought and planned, while she watched the guttering lamps and the
wavering shadows, until at last weariness fell heavily upon her eyelids
and she slept.

The cabin was aflood with light when she awoke. There was a sound of
rushing feet overhead, the clatter of heavy boots, and the rattle of
blocks and spars. Hoarse orders rang forward and aft, and the very air
seemed aquiver with import. Deep down in the bowels of the vessel below
her she heard the jangling of arms and the jarring of heavy objects.
She started up, half in wonder, half in fear, and rushed to the port by
the bulkhead.

There the reason for this ominous activity was apparent. Not a league
distant under the lee was a large vessel under full press of canvas,
fleeing for her life. ’Twas evident that the _Saucy Sally_ had crept
near her during the night; and the laggard Spaniard, unaware of the
nationality or dangerous character of his neighbor, had permitted her
to come close, until the full light of day had convinced him of his
error. That he was making a valiant effort to repair it was evident
in the way the vessel was heeling to the wind and the lashing of the
amber foam into which she frantically swam in her mad struggle to win
clear away. But even Mistress Barbara’s untutored eye could see that
the effort was a vain one. For the slipping seas went hurrying past the
_Sally’s_ quarter with a rush which sent them speedily astern to mingle
with the dancing blue line which marked the meeting of the sky and sea.

The intention of the _Sally_ was soon apparent. A crash split Mistress
Barbara’s ears and set her quivering with fear. Flight was impossible,
and so, in a ferment of terror, yet fascinated, she watched the shot go
flying towards the luckless fugitive. It was not until then that the
real danger of her situation became apparent. A cloud of white floated
away from the Spaniard’s stern. She saw no shot nor heard any sound
of its striking, but she knew that monsieur had willfully gone into
action, and heedlessly exposed her to the shocks of war. Had he no
kindness, no clemency or compassion? Was it, after all, a mistake that
she should have given this man her solicitude and confidence?

A knock at the door fell almost as loudly upon her ears as the crash
of ordnance had done. When a second and sharper knock resounded, she
summoned her voice to answer.

“Madame, it is I,” came in low tones from without. “If you can find it
convenient to open--”

At the sound of the voice she gained courage. Monsieur had come to her.
Trembling, yet still undismayed, she crept to the door and opened it.

The face of the Frenchman was dark and impassive. If the night had
brought a new resolution to her, it was plain that monsieur was in no
wise different from yesterday. All this she noted while her hand still
clung falteringly to the knob of the door.

“Madame,” he began, “the matter is most urgent. If it will please you
to follow me--”

Mistress Barbara with difficulty found her tongue.

“Where, monsieur. What--”

“Madame, I pray that you will make haste. There is little time to lose.
I should be at this moment upon the deck.”

“Monsieur would take me--?”

“Below the water-line, madame. There will be a fight. Shots may be
fired. I would have you in safety.”

Alas for Mistress Barbara’s crafty plans and gentle resolutions. In
a moment they were dissipated by the imperturbability, the tepid
indifference of his manner, which should have been so different in the
face of a situation which promised so much that was ominous to her. His
coolness fell about her like a bucket of water, and sent a righteous
anger to her rescue, so that her chill terror was driven forth for the
nonce by a flush of hot blood. When she spoke, her voice rang clear
with a certain bitter courage.

“Safety!” she cried. “Monsieur is too kind. I shall prefer to be killed
here--here in the decent privacy of the cabin.”

“Madame,” said he, in impatience, “it is no time for delay. There must
be no obstacle to your obedience.”

She looked at him in an angry wonder. If this were mock insult, it had
too undisguised a taste to be quite palatable.

“Monsieur,” she said, stamping her foot in a rage, “I go nowhere for
you. Nowhere. I will die before I follow you. Battle or no battle, here
I shall remain. Am I a lackey or a woman-of-all-work that you order me
thus! Safety! If you value my safety, why do you permit them to make
war over my very head? No, no. You are transparent--a very tissue of
falsities. I read you as an open book, monsieur.”

She paused a moment for the lack of breath.

“I do not believe in you. How do you repay me for what I have done?
Refuse me, deny me, and order me about like a willful child with your
insolent glare and your cool, puckered brow. What is my safety to you?
I do not believe--”

“Madame, you must come at once.”

“Never!” she cried. “Never! No power shall move me from the spot.
Nothing--” At this moment a crash ten times more dreadful than the
first shook the vessel like a hundred thunderbolts. Cornbury, in
blissful ignorance of the battle raging below, had opened the battle
above with the entire starboard broadside.

Mistress Barbara stammered, faltered, and fell back towards the table,
trembling with fear. She put her hands to her ears as though to blot
out the sounds. And then, in a supplicating dependence which set at
naught all the hot words that had poured from her lips, she leaned
forward listlessly upon the table.

“Take me,” she said, brokenly. “Take me. I am all humility. I will go,
monsieur.”

A soft light she had seen there before crept into the eyes of
Bras-de-Fer. As though unconscious, she saw his extended arms thrust
forward to her support and heard as from a distance the resonant voice,
the notes of which, with a strange, sweet insistence, sang among her
emotions until, like lute strings, they sang and trembled in return.
And the chord which they awoke to melody rang through every fiber
of her being with a new-pulsing joy, a splendid delight, like the
full-throated song of praise of a bird at early morn.

She felt his hand seek hers. She made no move to resist him. She could
not. Something in the break of his voice, the reverence in his touch,
sought and subdued her. In a moment she learned that the love of a life
had come and that all else was as nothing.

“Barbara! Barbara!” he was saying. “Look at me, _chérie_. Tell me that
you are not angry. I have tried so hard to leave you--so hard. I have
spoken to you bitterly and coldly, that your mind might be poisoned
and frozen against me, that you might hate and despise me for the
unworthy thing that I am. Alas! it is my own heart that I have pierced
and broken. Look up at me, Barbara. I cannot bear to see you thus.
Ah, if you had only opposed me in anger, I could have continued the
deception. Your anger was my refuge. It was the only thing that made my
cruelty possible. It cried aloud like a naked sword. I welcomed it, and
set steel upon steel that I might shield my heart. But now, listless,
yielding, submissive, you disarm me, you rob me of my only weapon. I
am yours. Do with me what you will.”

His voice trembled, and he bent his head upon her hand to hide the
excess of his emotion. As she felt the touch of his lips, she started
and moved ever so slightly, but with no effort to withdraw. When he
lifted his head it was to meet eyes that wavered and looked away.

“Do not turn from me, Barbara. Do not add to the deep measure of
my contrition. The cup is full. Add to it but one drop and it will
overflow. Requite me with tenderness, madame, if you can find it in
your heart, for mine is very near to breaking. Look in my eyes, where
my love glows like a beacon. Listen, and you will hear it speak in my
voice like a young god. Can you not feel my very finger-tips singing
into your palms the cadences of my heart’s chorus? Is it not thus that
women wish to be loved? Search my heart as you will, you’ll find an
answer there to every wish and every prayer.”

She trembled and swayed in his arms like a slender shrub in a storm.
It seemed as though, in his fervor, he were running the gamut of her
every vulnerable sensibility. But as she felt his breath warm upon her
hair and cheek she raised her eyes until they looked into his; then
drew away from him with a gentle firmness. She was perturbed and shaken
with the compounding of new emotions. She could not see all things
clearly. She only knew that what she had expected least had come to
pass. She had burnished her woman’s weapons in vain. She had sought
to delude and beguile, and had only deluded and beguiled herself. As
she had promised herself, she had drawn aside the mask, but she had
unmasked herself at the same time. She had sought and she had found so
many things that she knew not which way to turn. She must do something
to gain time to think and plan. It was all so different to London. In
spite of herself, she knew that he had conquered, and a suffusion of
shame that she had been so easily won mounted to her neck and forehead,
and she turned her head away. And then, in a last obedience to that
instinct of self-preservation which sets a woman upon the defensive
when she knows not what she would defend (nor would defend it if she
could), she broke away from him and stood alone, pulsing with the
effort, but triumphant.

“Monsieur,” she breathed with difficulty, “it is unfair--to--to--press
me so.”

But he was relentless. “Ah, madame, am I then despised, as on that
night in Dorset Gardens? Nay, I am as God made me--not the thing you
would have supposed--”

“Monsieur, have pity.”

“Ah, then look at me again, Barbara. Look in my face and deny. Look in
my eyes, _chérie_--deny me if you can.”

She felt his arms encircle her, and she struggled faintly.

“No, no. It is not so.”

“Look me in the eyes, Barbara; I will not believe it else. If I am
nothing to you, look me in the eyes and tell me so.”

“No! No! No!”

She raised her face until her closed eyes were on a level with his own.
Then she opened them with an effort to look at him, as though to speak.

A deafening crash again shook the _Sally_, so that the ship’s dry
bones rattled and quivered under their feet like a being with the ague,
and she seemed about to shake her timbers asunder. Mistress Barbara’s
answer was not spoken, for at this rude sound a fit of trembling seized
her again and she sank listlessly into the protecting shelter of his
arms, and hid her face upon his bosom in a commingling of terror and
wonderment that were only half real.

“No, no,” she sobbed at last, “it is not true. It is not true.”

Bras-de-Fer bent over her in a blind adoration and gently touched his
lips to her hair. She made no further effort to resist him. Then, when
the tear-stained face was raised to his own, in her eyes he read a
different answer to his pleading.

“_Bien adorée!_” he whispered, kissing her tenderly--“Barbara!”

The hand within his own tightened and the lissome figure came closer to
his own. “Take me away, monsieur,” she murmured. “Take me away. Oh, I
am so weary--so weary.”

“Struggle no more,” he whispered. “Courage; all will yet be well. Come
with me below to safety, and it will soon be over.”

He had moved away from her towards the door, and would have withdrawn
his hand, but she held it with both of her own while her eyes looked
into his with an anxious query.

“Oh, _I_,” he said, with a smile--“I shall be in no danger, madame.
That I promise you. ’Tis but a Spanish merchantman, with little skill
in war. Why, _Sally_ will run her aboard in the skipping of a shot. And
now”--as they moved towards the door--“but a little while and I shall
be with you again, to keep guard over your door, to keep guard upon you
always--always.”




CHAPTER XV

MUTINY


She summoned all her courage, and Bras-de-Fer led her forward along the
passage upon the deck to the other hatch. Yan Gratz, Jacquard, and the
crew were crowded at the broadside guns, and at the sight of monsieur
the Dutchman’s face broke into a pasty smile as he sneered to his
neighbor.

“Vos dis a schip or Vitehall Palace? _Pots blitz!_” And he spat
demonstratively.

But Bras-de-Fer was handing my lady down the hatch into the after-hold,
with a gesture into which he put even more of a manner than the
occasion demanded. Jacquard had gone down before with a lighted
lantern, and had unfastened the hatch of the lazaretto, the opening of
which made a murky patch in the obscurity. Mistress Barbara shuddered
a little and drew back, but the strong arm of monsieur encircled her
waist, his firm hand reassured her own, and his low voice spoke in even
accents.

“These are chests of gold and silver, jewels and silks, madame”; and
then, “It is here that we keep our priceless captures,” he whispered,
smiling. “Sit in comfort. The water-line is above, where you see the
beams o’erhead. In a little while I will come again, and all will be
well.” He pressed the trembling hand in both his own, and she saw him
follow the long figure of Jacquard, who with sympathy and discretion,
of which his glum demeanor gave no indication, had left the light
hanging to a timber and gone growling above.

Alone with the swaying lantern, the beams and bulkheads, the boxes
and chests, she gave herself over to her own turbulent reflections.
There was a swish and hollow gurgle at her very ear as the seas
alongside washed astern, a creaking and a groaning of the timbers,
which made her tremble for the stanchness of the vessel. The boxes and
chests resolved themselves into great square patches of light which
thrust their staring presence forward obtrusively; and the vagrant
diagonal shadow took a new direction and meaning in the misty darkness
beyond the sphere of light at each new posture of the vessel. Strange
odors--musty, dry, and evil-smelling--afflicted her nostrils; and the
air, hot and fetid, hung about her and upon her offensively. Breathing
became a muscular exertion and an effort of the will. She bit her lip
and clenched her hands upon the chest where she was seated, to keep
from crying aloud her misery and terror. Suddenly there was a sound of
rending and tearing among the complaining timbers, and the guns above
renewed their angry threats. One, two, three, four single discharges
she heard, a scattering broadside, and then silence. Again that chorus
of unfamiliar sounds, each one of which spoke to her in a different way
of danger in some new and dreadful form. Presently the clamorous sea
sang a louder, wilder note, the timbers cried aloud in their distress,
the lantern swung sharply in abrupt and shortening circles, and the
shadows, like arms, thrust out at her from the unseen and filled
her with a new and nameless terror. The motion of the vessel was
sickening. And the black, noisome air, from which there was no escape,
seemed to fill her very brain and poison her faculties.

With a blind effort she arose, and in affright at she knew not what
crept up the ladder to the hatch. It were better to die the death at
once than to be poisoned by inches. She drank gratefully of the purer
air above her and listened to the sounds of shouting from the deck.
There was a shock and a crash as the ships came together, and then all
sounds, save at intervals, were lost in the grinding of the vessels and
the roar of the sea between. She heard several shots as though at a
great distance, but these were as nothing after the noise of the great
guns, and she almost smiled as she thought how easily the victory was
accomplished.

And he--had monsieur come off free of harm? She trembled a little at
the thought of it, and yet even the trembling had in it something of a
new and singular delight. With her eyes free to roam in the gray of the
half-deck, where there was air, if ever so faint, and the sweet smell
of the sea, she thought no more of herself. The silence above boded no
ill. She heard nothing but the wash of the sea alongside, the creaking
and clatter of blocks on the deck, and the craunch of the ships to the
roll of the sea. At last the sound of voices was nearer and louder,
whether in anger, fear, or pleasure she could not discover; then the
tramping of heavy boots and the rushing of men forward and aft; but
no sound of shot or clash of steel, to remind her of her continued
jeopardy. Five, ten minutes she listened, all her faculties alert for
the sound of his voice. The grinding of the vessels ceased, and when
the main-deck hatch was removed she could hear quite plainly the sounds
upon the deck. The voices of men in fierce disputation fell hollowly
down through a crack in the narrow aperture. One was thin and small,
like that of a child. Another was heavy and gruff, and cursed volubly
in French. Sharper tones rang between and through it all, the roar or
continuous murmur of a crowd. Something had fallen amiss, she was sure.
Suddenly, as though a spell had fallen upon their tongues, the clamor
was hushed, and in the brief second of desperation the sea noises about
her sang loudly in her ears, which strained to catch every sound.

At last a single voice, slow, calm, dispassionate, began to speak; it
was his. She emerged upon the half-deck in order that nothing of what
was passing might escape her, and leaned upon the ladder, looking to
where the daylight flickered down.

“Your humor is changed wondrously, _mes amis_. You ask many things,
not the least of which is this Spaniard’s death. You, Yan Gratz, and
you, Barthier, Troc, and Duquesnoy, you, Craik and Goetz, stand aside.
I grant nothing--nothing--where I see the gleam of a weapon naked.
Sheathe your cutlasses and stand aside. Then, maybe, we shall see.”

There was an ominous movement of scraping feet, a clatter of weapons,
and then a hoarse turmoil, a very bedlam of sounds, a wild scratching
and scuffling upon the deck, and hoarse, dreadful cries, savage
and fierce, like the bark of hungry dogs, yet, with its ringing
accompaniment of clanging steel, infinitely more terrible. Half mad
with the terror at this struggle, of which she could see nothing, faint
and weak with the accumulation of her distresses, she hung more dead
than alive to the companion-ladder, in one moment shutting her ears
to the mad din above her, in another listening eagerly for the broken
fragments of sound, fearful that the end of all things might come in
one of those merciful moments in which she heard nothing. She thrust
her hand into her breast and pulled forth the slender petronel which
she had brought from the _San Isidro_. She looked at the shining barrel
and saw to the flint and charge. There should be no hesitation. If
monsieur--

But no! no! He was there yet. She heard his voice, strong, valiant,
ringing like a clarion above the medley: “Aha, Cornbury!” it cried.
“Point and edge, _mon ami_!... Your pupils are too apt, _Monsieur
le Maître d’Armes_.... Ah, Craik, would you?... _Voilà ... touché,
Duquesnoy ... touché, mais ... ce n’est rien!_... Well struck,
Cornbury!... Jacquard, help us, _coquin_!... To the rail ... back to
back ... we will drive them ... into the sea!”

The rushing feet clattered over her head and she heard the sound of
his voice no more. She wondered whether it was because it rang no more
that she did not hear it, or whether her terror and her weakness had
deprived her of her senses. The seconds grew into hours. Broken cries
and curses in strange, harsh voices came to her again, and she knew
that she heard aright; the sound of blows, the hard breathing of men,
all swallowed in the many noises of the combat, and at the last the
fall of something muffled, heavy, and resistless upon the deck came
with a new and dreadful portent to her ears. She stifled the shriek
which rose to her lips and pressed her hands to her bosom to still its
tremors. That dull, echoless sound could have but one meaning.

She stood inert, her mind and body things apart. She could not bring
herself into accord with the too obtrusive fact, and wondered aimlessly
that her ear caught at the cries of the complaining timbers and rush
of water alongside, rather than at the vortex of her life’s tragedy
which whirled just at her elbow. And thus, in a merciful tempering of
her spirit to the occasion she hung swaying to the ladder, her mind
gaining a cool and purposeful self-possession which was to nerve her
frail body to further efforts. If monsieur were dead, then she had
but to die also. She knew that she must keep her strength, for if she
lost consciousness they would come below and find her; and when she
awoke--alive and alone upon this horrible ship-- The thought gave a new
life to her energies, and she determined to put an end at once to the
uncertainty. Anything were better than the suspense which each moment
made the danger of weakness more imminent. Step by step she crept up
the staggering ladder until her head had reached the level of the hatch
above. Then she pushed aside the covering, and, the pistolet in her
nerveless fingers, peered forth upon deck.

Joy gave her new strength and energy. There against the bulwarks, pale
and breathless, but erect and strong, with the light of battle still
undiminished in his eyes, was Bras-de-Fer; while around him in a wide,
snarling circle were a dozen of the wolves of the _Saucy Sally_, ready
to spring in upon him, and yet each fearful to be the first to bite.
There was a smell of rum in the air, and a broken cask told a part of
the cause of the difficulty. Upon the deck curious loose distortions
made a ghastly parody of the flesh which they had been. All these
things she noted in a glance, but her eyes fell instinctively upon
the figure of a tall man, the one who had lighted her below, who was
brandishing his arms, not at monsieur, but towards a stout man in
baggy breeches, who stood defiantly blinking at him, raising first
a pistol and then a sword towards Bras-de-Fer in a manner not to be
misinterpreted. Here was the key to the situation. He was not then
quite alone. But as she looked a thrill of horror came over her. Two
men fell upon the tall man from behind and seized his arms. Then the
fat man leaned forward towards monsieur, with an oily, vicious smile.
He said nothing at all, but, keeping his sword in front of him, with
his left hand, slowly and with a grim deliberation, raised his pistol
into a line.

Barbara’s wild cry rang from one end of the deck to the other.
Regardless of her own danger and scarce responsible, she was flying
across the intervening space towards Yan Gratz. The startled Dutchman,
disconcerted for a moment by this unfamiliar sound, turned, his mouth
agape, his pistol pointing purposeless at the empty air. “_Stop!_” she
cried, supremely imperious, yet affrighted at the sound of her own
voice. “_Stop! You must not! I command you!_”

Yan Gratz paused, uncertain for a moment. He looked at this gentle
adversary as though he did not know whether to scowl or laugh. Then
his lumpy face broke into a smile and his lifted brows puckered his
forehead into innumerable wrinkles. The pistol dropped to his side.

“Aw--yaw--you _commandt_ me?”--he began wagging his head--“but who in
de name o’ Cott vhas _you_?”

Then for the first time his eye fell upon the pistolet which Mistress
Barbara still held tightly clutched in her extended hand. In her
solicitude for monsieur she had forgotten herself and the weapon,
which now, still unconsciously, she pointed directly at the portly
person of Yan Gratz. He stammered and fell back a pace in amazement.
The diversion was sufficient. For by this time Jacquard had struggled
to his feet, and, throwing aside the fellows who were holding him, had
rushed in and seized the pistol from the hand of the Dutchman before he
could use it. At the same moment Bras-de-Fer, with a fierce cry, had
sprung forward among the amazed mutineers and had taken Barbara under
the cover of his weapon.

“Listen, _mes camarades_!” roared Jacquard above the confusion, waving
the pistol in wide, commanding circles. “Listen, _mes braves_, and
you will not regret. Listen, I say. It is I, Jacquard, who speaks.
Wait but a moment and hear me. Listen. And when I am done you will say
old Jacquard is wise.” His ungainly figure towered before them--the
swinging arms like great wings, the hooked brows and curved beak
making him look not unlike some gigantic bird of prey ready at a moment
to fall upon any who denied him. At last, such was his influence
that they were brought to a measure of calmness. Then with crafty
deliberation he began to speak.

“Ah, _mes galants_, we have hunted together long, you and I, and we
have hunted well. Last year you drank or spent or gamed a thousand
pounds away. To-day the hold and lazaretto of old _Sally_ are full of
Spanish silks and laces and plate for the selling. In Port Royal are
other ships which will yield ye more. And you will sacrifice these
ships and these cargoes and all the money they’ll bring to you.”

Many cries arose, the loudest of which was that of Yan Gratz.
“Sacrifice de schips, Shacky Shackart! Py Cott! It is a lie, verdomd!”

“It is so, mateys, I will swear it. Kill monsieur, yonder, and not
one shilling from the ships do you get. Why? In Port Royal monsieur
showed his warrant to the governor. The governor has a certain share
in the takings from the _Isidro_. ’Twill be a strange tale ye’ll tell
if Bras-de-Fer comes not back with the ship. The master-at-arms ye’ve
killed, if I mistake not. He’s captain in his Majesty’s Guards. Perhaps
ye can explain that.”

Anxious glances passed among the rascals as they looked first at
monsieur and then at Jacquard. But Yan Gratz was not to be deceived or
robbed of his vengeance.

“Donner vetter!” he cried. “Ay, yai. Vhat tifference it makes? De
varrant is de varrant of Pilly Vinch; no odder--I am as goot a man as
him. Tunder of der Teufel! I vill make a call mineself upon de covernor
of Chamaica.”

In answer to this sally, Jacquard burst into a loud laugh. “Ha, ha!
Ye’re swelled out of all proper dimensions, Yan Gratz. Ye forget that
Monsieur the Governor and Monsieur Bras-de-Fer are friends. Listen,
then, to what I propose. Bras-de-Fer will write us a letter saying that
you or I may receive the ships for our owners. In return we will give
monsieur and madame the pinnace and let them go whither they will.”

“No, py Cott!” roared Gratz, furious at being balked of his vengeance.
“He shall not get avay from me!”

There was a mingling of opinions, loudly and profanely expressed, and
it looked for the moment as though the strife would be renewed. Yan
Gratz’s Dutchmen stood by him to a man. And while the gleaming sword
and pistolet of monsieur held them at a safe distance, they sought by
their shouting of wild threats to make up for their other deficiencies.
Barbara, hid behind Bras-de-Fer, sought valiantly to match her courage
to his, but with pale face and quaking limbs she awaited the decision
upon which rested his life or death, and hers. It mattered little which
it was to be. She had suffered so much that anything--anything which
brought rest--would be welcome. But monsieur had lost no whit of his
aggressiveness. If he was silent, it was because silence was best. With
a keen eye he noted the effect of the speech of Jacquard. He saw that
his compatriot had chosen wisely in leaving his sword undrawn. Thus
Jacquard retained his influence with the crew, whose sympathy and arms
he could not have swayed alone against Yan Gratz. Had Jacquard drawn
his weapon, all would have been lost. As it was, Bras-de-Fer noted that
the larger number of the crew were wagging and nodding their heads in a
propitious deliberation. Frenchmen, many of them, they were willing to
forget the discipline and restriction of their liberties. Only one of
them, Duquesnoy, had joined in the conflict against their compatriot.
Duquesnoy was dead. They would be satisfied now if the cause of
their grievances was removed. There was a way which offered complete
compensation. With Bras-de-Fer marooned with his lady and his imperious
notions, they would be free to lead the life which Billy Winch had not
scrupled to deny them.

Barthier, gray-haired, pock-marked, earringed, shoved his huge frame
before Yan Gratz.

“We have deliberated, Yan Gratz,” said he. “Jacquard has spoken the
truth. Monsieur has fought well. He has bought his life, and that of
his lady. San Salvador is distant but twenty leagues to the south. We
will give them provisions for a week, weapons, and the pinnace, and
set them free.”

Gratz glared around at him and past Barthier at the row of grim, hairy
faces; and he knew that he was defeated. With an ill grace he sheathed
his sword, thrust his pistol in his belt, and, muttering, waddled
forward into the forecastle with his following.

When they were gone, Bras-de-Fer fell upon his knees beside a figure
upon the deck at his feet. He lifted Cornbury’s head upon his knee,
and, calling for a pannikin of rum, forced a small quantity of the
fluid between the lips of the Irishman. Jacquard felt for his heart,
and Barbara tore a bit of her skirt to stanch the flow of blood. They
bathed his forehead with water, and in a moment were rewarded by a
flicker of the eyelid and a painful intaking of the breath. Presently,
resting upon Jacquard’s knee, he opened his eyes and heaved a deep sigh.

“I am near spent,” he muttered. And then, as his eye caught those of
Bras-de-Fer, a smile with the faintest glimmer of professional pride
twitched at his lip.

“Ah, monsieur,” he said, “did I not teach them well their thrust and
parry?”

“Too well, indeed; Destouches himself could not have done better. I
would you had given them less skill, _mon ami_.”

“’Twas Craik--my favorite stroke--in tierce,” he gasped, and then his
head fell back against Jacquard. Presently he revived and looked at
Barbara and Bras-de-Fer, while another smile played at the corner of
his blue eye.

“Madame,” he whispered to Barbara--“madame, he has loved ye long
and well. Take him to London and there serve him as a _boucanier_
and _renegado_ should be served. Take him prisoner to yer house and
yer heart, and keep him there for as long as ye both shall live.” A
spasm of pain shot across his features, and he clutched at his wound.
“Bedad,” he said, “but the plaguy thing burns at me like an ember.
It’s nearly over, I’m thinking. René,” he cried, “my dear man, if ye
tell them at the barracks that I was brought to my death by the low
thrust in tierce in the hands of such a lout, I’ll come from my grave
and smite ye. An’ if ye see my brother, the Earl, ye may tell him for
me--to send my pittance to--”

The effort had been too much for his waning strength. His eyes closed
again. And this time they did not open.




CHAPTER XVI

MAROONED


Jacquard conducted Mistress Barbara aft to the cabin until the boat
could be prepared. And Monsieur silently followed, his eyes dim with
tears at the loss of this friend to whose helpful skill both he and
Mistress Barbara owed their lives. When they were safe within, Jacquard
blurted forth:

“It was the best I could do, monsieur, the very best I could do. The
danger is not yet past. There is no safety for you or madame upon the
same ship with Yan Gratz.”

Bras-de-Fer silently wrung his hands.

“It is a desperate journey for a lady tried already to the point of
breaking, Jacquard. If they would but land us--”

“Ah, monsieur. It were madness to try them again. Have you not seen
their temper?”

“No, no, monsieur, I am strong!” cried Barbara. “See! I am strong. Let
us leave this dreadful charnel-ship. If I must die, let it be alone
upon the broad ocean. That at least is clean of evil intent.”

“Nay, madame,” continued the Frenchman. “If they would but sail us--”

“No, no. Let us go at once. I can meet death bravely if need be, but
not here.”

“Monsieur, it will not be so bad,” broke in Jacquard. “The sea has gone
down, and, although a long swell is running, it is low and smooth. A
fair breeze draws from the west. The pinnace is stanch. The day is
young. By the morrow you should raise the palms of Guanahani above the
sea. I shall see you well provided with food, water, and weapons. Upon
San Salvador are friendly Caribs, and in due course--”

“_Mon ami_,” said Bras-de-Fer at last, “you are right. Were it not
for madame, perhaps, I should yet make some small effort to establish
myself upon the _Sally_. They have beaten me, but I am grieving little.
I have no stomach for this life, my friend. The letting of blood in
any but honest warfare sickens me and turns me to water. I leave the
dogs without regret. But you, you and my gallant Cornbury.” He paused a
moment, his hand to his brow, then raised his head with a glad smile.

“Jacquard, will you not come with us? If we get safe ashore I can
perhaps give you a service which will requite you.”

But Jacquard was wagging his head.

“No, no, monsieur. It is too late. I am too old a bird. Would ye clip
the eagle’s wings? Would ye pen the old falcon in a gilded humming-bird
cage? I’ve chosen to fly broadly, and broadly I’ll fly till some stray
bullet ends my flapping. And now make ready, madame. A warm cloak
against the night air, a pillow--for boat-thwarts are none too soft;
and when ye are ready I shall be at the door.” And he vanished, his
bullet head, with its round wool cap, scraping at the door-jamb as he
passed.

When he had gone, Barbara sank upon the bench at the table. Had it not
been for the strong arms of Bras-de-Fer she must have fallen to the
deck. Tired nature, overwrought nerves, rebellious, refused to obey.

“But a little while, Barbara, dear, and we will be alone. Courage, brave
one! Courage! We will soon gain the shore. Then, a ship--and--life!”

“Ah, monsieur, I am weary. So weary that I fear for this journey in the
open boat. God grant we may reach its ending.” Her head fell forward
upon his breast and she breathed heavily as one in a deep sleep.

He laid her gently so that her arms rested upon the table. Then he
quickly prepared a package of articles which would be most necessary
for her. Jewels there were and a packet of his own money. He found a
flask of _eau-de-vie_, and when he had aroused her he gently forced her
to drink a half-tumbler of it mixed with water.

Presently Jacquard and Barthier came with the papers for him to sign.
When this was done they all went upon the deck. The Spanish prize
lay at a distance of several cables’ lengths, and, from a movement
among the spars, was getting under way in charge of the prize crew.
Alongside, at the starboard gangway, rode the pinnace. It looked so
small, so masterless and helpless, by the side of the larger vessels in
that infinity of ocean, that Mistress Barbara shivered as she looked
down into it. But one glance around the decks to where the prostrate
figures had lain reconciled her to her lot.

Between Bras-de-Fer and Jacquard there was but one hearty hand-shake.
The very lack of more effusive demonstration between them meant more
than many words could have done. And as monsieur passed over the
gangway and down into the vessel there was little in his demeanor
to show the sting of his defeat at the hands of these devils of the
sea, whom he had sought, and unsuccessfully, to bring into the domain
of a proper humanity. A scornful laugh broke from among the men as
he disappeared over the side, and Yan Gratz, waving a pistol, piped
obscene threats and criticism from the quarter-deck. But presently,
when Mistress Barbara had been slung over the side in a whip from the
main-yard, Jacquard disappeared from the rail, and the falsetto of the
Dutchman was no longer heard.

The mast in the pinnace had been stepped, and the sail, strong and
serviceable, but none too large, flapped impatiently in the breeze.
And so when Barbara was seated, white and dark-eyed, showing with a
painful effort a last haughty disdain to the rascals at the portholes
and bulwarks, Bras-de-Fer shipped his tiller and hauled his sheet aft
to the wind. The little vessel bounced in a sprightly, joyous fashion,
the brown sail bulged stanchly, and in a moment a patch of green water,
ever growing wider, flashed and trembled between the pinnace and the
_Saucy Sally_. Among the row of dark heads along the rail Bras-de-Fer
looked for only one, and to him he presently turned and raised his hat
in salute. Jacquard replied; and then his long arms went flying and his
hoarse voice cried aloud the orders to set the vessel upon her course.
Presently the yards flew around, the vessel squared away, and the
_Saucy Sally_ was but a memory. A vessel nameless, without identity,
was sailing away from them upon the sea, and they were alone.

Barbara looked no more. She had seated herself upon the gratings at the
bottom of the craft, her arms resting upon the stern thwart. But now
that all immediate danger had passed and she sat safe and at peace,
the wonderful spirit and courage to which she had nerved herself in a
moment failed her. Her head fell forward upon her arms and she sank
inert and prone at the feet of the Frenchman. Scarce realizing what had
happened, yet fearful that some dreadful fate had intervened to take
his love from him, he dropped the tiller and fell upon his knees by
her side, his mind shaken by the agony of the moment; for her face had
taken a kind of waxen, leaden color more terrifying than mere pallor,
and the lips, save for a faint-blue tinge, became under his very
eyes of the same deathly hue. He dashed handful after handful of the
sea-water into her face and rubbed her chill arms and hands. He poured
a draught of the rum between her cold lips. But she moved not. Beseech
her as he might, there was no response to his petitions. He sought the
pulse; he could feel nothing. The breath had ceased. Oh, God! Had the
cup of happiness been placed at their lips only to sip? Was it to be
poured out before his very eyes? He cried aloud in his agony and raised
the face to his own, kissing it again and again, as if by the warmth of
his own passion he could awaken it to life.

“My love! my love!” he cried. “Come back to me! Come back to me again!
Open thine eyes! Breathe but my name! Come back to me, my love!”

He had waited an eternity. At last, as he put his ear to her breast, a
sound, ever so faint, but still a sound, told him that the heart was
pulsing anew. He forced a generous draught of the rum through her lips
and madly renewed his efforts to arouse the blood. Several moments
more he struggled in pitiful suspense, and then a gentle color flowed
under the marble skin, a touch of pink rose to the blue lips, the
eyelids quivered a moment and then opened. He hauled the sail to shield
her from the glare of the sun, and held a cup of fresh water to her
lips. She looked at him, but no words came from her lips. Instead, she
breathed a sigh and with a faint smile relinquished herself and fell
back peacefully into his arms. Once or twice she opened her eyes in
an effort to speak, but each time he soothed her and bade her rest.
He was but a man, and it needed a gentler hand to cope with such an
emergency; but now that the danger was past he felt instinctively that
nature would seek in her own ways to restore, and he let her lie quiet,
pillowed in the curve of his arm against his breast. And so, presently,
her breathing was regular, and she slept.

He could not know how long it had been since they left the _Sally_,
but by the sun he saw that there was yet an hour or two of the day.
The ships were become mere dull blotches upon the sky, and from his
position the lower tier of guns seemed just at the line of the sea.
Time was precious, for the land lay a full day’s sail, even should
the breeze continue to favor them, and he could not tell how long it
would blow thus steadily. Fearful of awakening Barbara and yet anxious
to take advantage of every favorable opportunity, he reached for the
sheet and tiller and set the little vessel upon her course. She heeled
gladly to the wind, and the coursing of the water beneath her long
keel made a sound grateful to his ears. He had taken the _Sally’s_
position upon the charts before leaving, and steered a course which
should surely fetch a sight of the land upon the morrow. If the breeze
held and the night were clear, he could steer by the stars. He blessed
the habits of his training, in which he had studied the heavens in
his night watches, wherever he might be. There was no sign of any
disturbance of the elements. The heavy swell now and then shook the
wind out of his tiny sail, but not a cloud flecked the sky above him,
and the sea which glittered and sprang playfully at the sides of the
pinnace seemed to beckon to him gladly in hopeful augury for the hours
to come.

The apprehensions that he had felt were dissipated in the mellow glow
of the southern sun. Had he been alone, this voyage in an open boat
over an unknown sea would have filled him with delight. But the slender
figure at his side, which lay pale and silent in the shadow of the
gunwale, filled him with vague alarms.

On, on into the void, the tiny vessel crept. The sun sank low in the
sky and dropped, a red ball, behind the disk of sea. The dusk swept up
over the ocean like the shadow of a storm, and night drew a purplish
curtain across the smiling heaven. The stars twinkled into sudden
life, and night fell, clear, warm, spangled, while the soft, stealthy
seas crept alongside and leaped and fawned at the shearing prow of
the pinnace. An arching moon arose and sailed, a silver boat, high
into the heavens. But Bras-de-Fer moved not and Barbara still slept.
Continually his keen eyes swept the dark rim of the horizon for a blur
of sail or the sign of any portentous movement of the elements. He
knew the horrors of this southern ocean, and the catlike purring of
the silken seas did not deceive him; for in the swaying deep he could
feel the great rhythmical pulse of the heart of the sea, which spoke a
continuous, sullen, ominous threat of resistless might, ready at the
turn of a mood to rise, engulf, and devour.

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




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 Transcriber’s Notes:

 --Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

 --Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.

 --Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.

 --Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.

 --The Author’s em-dash style has been retained.

 --Two slightly different advertisement book lists for author Grace
   Livingston Hill were both retained.






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