Yule-Tide Yarns
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Title: Yule-Tide Yarns
Editor: G. A. Henty
Release date: June 18, 2015 [eBook #49229]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YULE-TIDE YARNS ***
Yule-Tide Yarns
[Illustration: "The quartermaster fired his two pistols, and the man
fell."
_Page 181._
]
Yule-Tide Yarns
Edited by
G. A. Henty
With Forty-five Illustrations
[Illustration]
Longmans, Green, and Co.
39 Paternoster Row, London
New York and Bombay
1899
_All rights reserved_
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHÂTEAU AND SHIP. By G. A. HENTY 1
_Illustrated by_ GORDON BROWNE.
ADVENTURES OF A NIGHT. By JOHN BLOUNDELLE-BURTON 54
_Illustrated by_ ENOCH WARD.
AN OUTLAW'S FORTUNES. By W. C. WHISTLER 90
_Illustrated by_ J. FINNEMORE.
"A FLIGHT FROM JUSTICE." By Lieut.-Col. PERCY GROVES 123
_Illustrated by_ J. B. GREENE.
LONGITUDE TEN DEGREES. By ROBERT LEIGHTON 160
_Illustrated by_ W. S. STACEY.
A SOLDIER'S VOW. By DAVID KER 193
_Illustrated by_ J. A. SYMINGTON.
IN LUCK'S WAY. By FRED. WHISHAW 228
_Illustrated by_ R. WHEELWRIGHT.
"SAMANA KAY." By HARRY COLLINGWOOD 268
_Illustrated by_ LANCELOT SPEED.
"HARI RAM," THE DACOIT. By E. F. POLLARD 296
_Illustrated by_ F. FEELER.
A JUNGLE DRAMA. By GEORGE MANVILLE FENN 332
_Illustrated by_ LANCELOT SPEED.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"The quartermaster fired his two pistols,
and the man fell" _Frontispiece_
PAGE
"The two valets had at night carried off his body" 4
"Lower your flag or I will sink you" 10
"It is I, Peter Vignerolles" 14
"Running forward, stepped into the water" 29
"Open the cover a little way to look at the compass" 36
"At them, lads" 39
"We buried them at the spot that we agreed on" 48
"Stab you under the shoulder in a dark alley" 61
"Kiss my hand--do something lover-like" 68
"I want your company" 74
"Fighting across the body of a third who lay prone and
prostrate with Giles' foot upon his body" 83
"This is the son of your king. I charge you with his care" 96
"Master Peel," she cried; "the house is empty and all in
disorder" 108
"I shouted, and tried to reach my dagger" 116
"I got a fair blow at him from aloft" 119
"Knocked him fairly off his legs" 131
"I shall try to stop them" 137
"Major Warrington?" he said 146
"You are our prisoner" 155
"The sight and sounds that met him were such as he had never
before encountered" 167
"The woman shrank from him" 174
"The quartermaster fired his two pistols, and the man fell" 180
"You have come back to your senses, eh?" 189
"That hand no good--cut thumb off" 198
"Jist tie my 'ands agin, will yer, Tom?" 203
"The two men met like conflicting whirlwinds" 215
"Is it a h'angel?" 222
"Kittie, who played a much stronger game" 230
"You may have a visit from the blackguards before the
night's out" 235
"The passing of a body of Mashona or Matabele warriors
on the warpath" 245
"Bruce felt impelled to look upon Uncle Ben's body once more
before leaving it" 255
"The lad picked up a stone to throw at the evil-looking
creature" 265
"Suddenly there arose a wild yell aloft of 'Man overboard!'" 272
"Ned seemed to stumble or throw himself backwards over the
gunwale of the boat" 285
"I met with nothing remarkable until I reached its farther
extremity" 291
"You'll know me when you next see me" 305
"Good sport! good sport!" 310
"In a second he would have torn Lindsay to pieces" 315
"He shall not be hanged" 323
"Hari Rām, if you make one step forward, I will shoot you
like a dog" 326
"They walked down to the bamboo landing-stage at the
riverside" 335
"Of course: we must go on" 343
"The butt of his double gun crashed against the side of the
tyrant's head" 361
"The girls dashed along the bank" 363
"Crack!" 365
CHÂTEAU AND SHIP
_A TALE OF THE TERROR_
BY G. A. HENTY
The _Alert_, a handsome schooner of some 200 tons burden, was in April
1793 cruising along the southern shore of France. She had been captured
a fortnight before by his Majesty's frigate _Tartar_, a week after the
declaration of war between France and England. As she was a very fast
vessel, the captain of the _Tartar_ had placed thirty men on board her,
under the command of his senior midshipman, Vignerolles, in order that
he might gather news of the movements of any hostile craft from Toulon
or Marseilles, and pick up any French merchantmen returning from abroad
and ignorant that war had begun. The young commander was standing on
the quarter-deck with his glass fixed upon a large château standing
some four miles back from the sea on a lofty eminence.
"The baron must be mad," he said, as he lowered the glass, "to remain
there with his wife and two daughters, when he might long ago have
managed to escape with them across the frontier into Italy. If he is
so pig-headed as to determine to stop there himself, and have his head
chopped off by the guillotine, he might at least have sent _them_ to a
place of safety. I have been brought up to admire the French nobles,
but upon my word, if they are all like him they well deserve the fate
that is falling upon them. Of course those who emigrate have their
estates forfeited, but it is a good deal better to lose your estate
than your estate and head also."
Vignerolles belonged to an old Huguenot family which had emigrated
to England upon the revocation of the edict of Nantes. They had sold
their property, and possessed considerable means when they arrived
in England. Chiefly for the sake of assisting the many exiles of
their religion, they had joined two or three others in erecting a
silk manufactory at Spitalfields. As time went on, the heirs of those
who had joined them in the enterprise had gone out of it, and the
de Vignerolles of the time had become sole proprietor of the silk
factory. It had gone down from father to son in unbroken succession.
The younger sons had gone out into the world and made their ways
in other directions, but it had become a tradition that the eldest
son should take the business, which was now a very flourishing one.
They had dropped the French prefix, and now simply called themselves
Vignerolles. Their branch of the family had been the younger one. The
Barons de Vignerolles had remained Catholics, and had possessed their
wide estates in peace, being among the largest landowners in Provence.
The connection between the two branches had been always maintained,
and from time to time members of the English branch went out for a
visit to the ancestral château, where they were always hospitably
entertained; the fact that they had gone into trade, which would have
been considered a terrible disgrace in France, being condoned on the
ground that being among a nation of traders it was only natural they
should do as their neighbours did.
Once or twice only had members of the senior branch paid a visit to
London, and then not from any desire for travel, but simply because
they were members of their embassy in London. These had brought back
news that the Vignerolles held a high place in the Huguenot colony,
that they lived in a fine old house at Hampstead, and were generally
liked and respected among the great families who lived near them.
The _Tartar_ had for the last three years been on the Mediterranean
station. Although the English people regarded with the utmost horror
the events that were taking place in France, there was no open breach
between the two nations, and it was only when the king was brought to
trial, and executed on 21st January 1793, that the popular feeling
reached a height that rendered war inevitable; the French ambassador
was ordered to leave England, and on 1st February the National
Convention declared war.
During the three previous years Vignerolles had twice been granted
a fortnight's leave of absence to visit the château of his distant
kinsman, and he had thoroughly enjoyed his stay there. The midshipman
was as strange to the baron and his family as they were to him. The
baron was a typical specimen of French noble: he was kindly by nature,
and an easy lord to his tenants; but he exercised all the seigneurial
rights of his ancestors, regarded the lower class with supreme
contempt, and was an uncompromising opponent of the changes that were
being instituted by the States-general.
"They are ruining France!" he exclaimed. "The idea of a parliament of
advocates and doctors, men of low birth, giving laws to France, and
treating the chambers of the lords and clergy as if they were of no
account, is monstrous. Were I the king I would send down a couple of
regiments, close the chamber, and hang a score of their leaders."
Still greater did his indignation become when he heard of the capture
of the Bastile, and that the king had been brought by the mob from
Versailles to Paris. He himself at once posted off to the capital,
and was one of the party of nobles who had implored the king to call
upon the army to restore order, or at least to bring in two or three
regiments to form a royal guard. He was one of those who had fought
to the last against the mob when they stormed the Tuileries, and had
been left for dead. The two valets he had taken with him had at night
carried off his body, which they were permitted to do by the mob, under
the belief that he was dead. He had, however, recovered, and finding
that the king had refused to countenance any attempt to rescue him
by force, had returned to his château. He was no longer violent, but
remained in a state of the most profound depression, seldom speaking,
and wandering about the house murmuring, "Poor France, poor France!"
[Illustration: "The two valets had at night carried off his body."]
In vain his friends represented to him that the nobles were everywhere
being seized, and that for the sake of his wife and girls he ought
to cross the frontier into Italy while there was yet time. He only
replied, "It shall never be said that a de Vignerolles fled before this
canaille. They can murder us, but they cannot make cowards of us." The
baroness was a bright and kindly woman, and her daughters charming
girls, though with some little of their father's pride of ancestry.
The formal service of the house, the strict etiquette, and what the
midshipman considered ridiculous pomposity, surprised and amused him as
much as did his utter disregard of ceremony, his lively ways, merry and
unrestrained laughter, amuse his far-away cousins. The baron, who might
have been offended by it, paid no attention to what was going on around
him, and his presence acted rather as a damper upon his visitor's high
spirits; but when alone with the girls and their mother, he was free to
say and do what he liked, and they felt their life, which was now an
anxious one, brightened by his visits.
When Peter Vignerolles was appointed to the command of the newly
captured schooner, the captain of the _Tartar_ said to him: "As senior
midshipman I should in any case have given you the command of the
_Alert_, but I know that you will be specially pleased to be in command
of her now. There can be no question that the position of your friends
at the château is a most precarious one, and the baron himself must
be mad to compel his family to run such a frightful risk. If he likes
to throw away his own life, well and good; but he has no right to
expose his family to such frightful dangers; and he has not the excuse
of ignorance, for scores of noble ladies have been murdered by this
bloodthirsty mob. It may be that at the last moment there will be a
chance for them to escape, and if you can in any way assist them to do
so without running too much risk, I think that you will be justified in
acting.
"I do not authorise you to take any action, because I know nothing of
the circumstances; but our general instructions always have been to
give shelter to French royalists, and to carry them to the nearest port
where they can be landed with safety to themselves, and I certainly
should not myself hesitate to send a boat ashore to take them off. You
know the first time that you paid them a visit after we came out here
you brought the baroness and her two daughters to see the frigate, and
I feel therefore personally interested in them, and shall be glad to
hear that they have made their escape; so that if you get a message
saying that they will come down to the shore you will be more than
justified in sending a boat for them, and even in running a certain
amount of risk. However, I must leave the matter to your discretion."
"Thank you, sir; but I am afraid that the baron will neither take any
step for his own safety, nor permit them to leave the château without
him; still I shall do anything that I possibly can to look after them."
"I shall send young Harding with you, and the boatswain's mate. If you
capture any prizes you had best turn the crews adrift in their own
boats with a couple of oars; we don't want to cumber ourselves with
prisoners. You had better keep the prizes with you until we come across
you again; in that case five men would be enough to man one of them,
while if you were to send them down to Gibraltar you would want a petty
officer and eight or ten men. Don't cumber yourself with worthless
prizes, burn or sink any small craft; but, of course, if you get hold
of a ship returning full of goods from one of their colonies, she would
be worth convoying there at once."
And so Peter Vignerolles had sailed away in the _Alert_, the crew being
as pleased as he was at the prospect of an expedition on their own
account away from the frigate.
"It is disgusting--isn't it, Peter?" Harding, who was two years junior
to Vignerolles, said, after he too had taken a look at the château
through the glass--"to think that your friends are there, and that the
'reds' from Marseilles may go up there any day and drag them off to
prison."
"The brutes!" Peter said savagely. "Look here, Harding; I mean to land
to-night and go up and see the ladies. I shall not see the baron. I
regard him as half-cracked, and he would be just as likely as not to
take it into his head that now the two countries are at war, it would
be his duty to hand me over to the authorities. Besides, it is just as
well to keep him in the dark about it altogether. I want to let them
know that I am in command of this schooner. Of course I am supposed to
cruise generally along the French coast; but I intend to keep pretty
close here, of course running out to sea and picking up any craft that
are making for Marseilles or Cette. The _Tartar_ will be watching
Toulon, and although my orders are for general cruising, I know by
what the captain said that he will not be put out if I keep a good
deal in this neighbourhood, where, indeed, I have a better chance of
picking up prizes than I should have if I went farther west. Anyhow,
I want to let them know that we are here, and shall be ready to take
them off if necessary. If they want to speak to us, I shall tell the
girls to hang out a red curtain from their window; if they want to come
off, they are to hang out a white one. We can make them out plainly
enough with a glass from here. Of course I cannot guarantee that we
shall be here when we are most needed, for no doubt the gunboats from
Cette and Marseilles will both be patrolling the coast; besides, we may
be a hundred miles away in pursuit of a prize. However, it will be a
satisfaction for me to know that I have done all that is possible, and
it may be some comfort to them to know that if they can find their way
down to the shore, and signal from there when they see us, they will
have a chance of escape."
"Will you go in disguise?"
"Yes. We took two or three suits of clothes from that fishing-boat that
we overhauled yesterday. I did so on purpose. You see, if one was going
on such a business among what you might call civilised people, I should
go in uniform, for then if I were caught I should not be shot as a spy;
but among these ruffians the uniform would be no protection for me, and
I shall therefore go in one of the fishermen's suits. You see I speak
French as well as English, and shall run very small risk. Of course I
shall take a brace of pistols and a good heavy stick, and if any one
interferes with me they must take the consequences."
After proceeding a mile farther along the coast the schooner's head
was turned seaward, and she ran twenty miles off the coast. Just
as Vignerolles was about to give the order to bring her head round
again, the look-out from the cross-trees shouted down, "A sail on the
weather-bow."
"What does she look like?" Peter asked.
"I can't make her out yet, sir, her upper sails are only just up, but I
should say that she was a large craft."
Peter gave the order to lower the top-sails. "We had better keep out
of her sight as long as we can, Harding; she may be a French frigate
or man-of-war making for Toulon, and as she has the wind pretty nearly
free, it would be as well to give her a wide berth. If she is a
merchantman, we will sail out to meet her. It is not likely that she
has got news yet of war being declared, and she won't suspect any harm
until too late."
It was some time before the man at the mast-head again hailed them.
"She is a three-masted ship, sir, but I don't fancy from the cut of her
sails that she is a ship of war."
"I will come up and have a look at her myself," Peter said, and
slinging his glass over his shoulder he made his way aloft.
"Yes, she is certainly a trader," he said, after a long look at her.
"Let her go two points more off the wind. Mr. Harding, we shall cross
her course a little ahead of her, and that will put Cette nearly dead
astern of us, and she will suppose that we have only just come out and
are making for Corsica."
The top-sails were hoisted again, and the schooner ran along fast, for
the breeze just suited her, being sufficiently strong to carry all sail
with comfort. They rose the other ship fast. There was no longer any
doubt whatever as to her being a trader. They could presently make out
that she carried twelve guns, six on each side. Peter went to the man
at the wheel--
"Keep her up a point," he said; "we will pass a couple of cable lengths
under his stern."
In the meantime the guns had been loaded, and all the crew save ten
ordered to sit down under the shelter of the bulwarks, so that those
watching her should not see that she carried more hands than the usual
company of a craft of her size. The manner in which the vessel kept on
her course without making any alteration in her sail spread, showed
that there was no suspicion whatever in the minds of her officers that
she was an enemy. The _Alert_ was flying the French flag.
"Get the ensign ready for hoisting," Peter said, when within a quarter
of a mile of the Frenchman. The course had been accurately laid, and
she crossed the trader's stern at a distance of some ten lengths; then
the helm was put up, the sheets eased off, and in half a minute she
was in the Frenchman's wake, laying her course north. "Bring her up
alongside of her to windward," Peter ordered, at the same moment the
tricolour was lowered and the white ensign run up. The instant this was
done loud shouts were raised on board the Frenchman; there was a tramp
of many feet, and it was evident that the wildest confusion reigned.
The _Alert_ went so fast through the water that in three or four
minutes she was alongside. Peter sprang on to the rail and shouted--
[Illustration: "Lower your flag or I will sink you."]
"Lower your flag or I will sink you." The order was not obeyed. "Take
her alongside," he said to the helmsman; and then to the crew, "Now,
men, prepare for boarding her." The sight of the thirty sailors
armed to the teeth completed the alarm on board the Frenchman, and
their flag came fluttering down just as the sailors sprang on the
deck. Numerically the French crew were considerably stronger than the
British, but they were taken hopelessly by surprise. A few had caught
up arms, and the tarpaulins had been hastily dragged from the guns, but
the ammunition had not yet been brought on deck.
"What is the meaning of this, sir?" the French captain exclaimed, as
Peter leapt down on to the deck.
"It means, sir, that there is a state of war between England and
France, and that you are my lawful prize." The captain uttered a string
of French oaths and dashed his cap down on the deck in comic despair.
"It is the fortune of war, monsieur," Peter said quietly. "I have no
doubt that if you had been prepared you would have offered a gallant
resistance, but you see it has been a complete surprise, and of course
a very unpleasant one. What ship is this?"
"The _Martinique_, 800 tons burden, laden with coffee and other
colonial produce."
"Thank you, captain. She is a prize worth taking; she looks a new
vessel."
"It is her first voyage," the captain said.
"How many hands do you carry?"
"Forty-five all told, and, as you see, twelve guns. Ah, monsieur, if we
had had time to load and arm ourselves you would have had a different
reception."
"No doubt, no doubt; but you see we sail three feet to your two, which
more than counterbalances the difference in strength, and it would have
been a pity indeed to have knocked such a fine ship about and to have
killed a good many of your men when it would have come to the same
thing at last. Now, I should like to have a look at your papers."
The prize was indeed a valuable one, for although she had filled up at
the French islands, she had previously traded along the South American
coast, and was laden to her utmost capacity. The crew had been ordered
into the forecastle, and a heavy cable had been coiled against the door.
"We will run in, Harding, to within ten or fifteen miles of the land,
then we will lay her to. It will be dark by that time. I will leave
you with twelve men in charge of her. You will, of course, bring up
ammunition and load the guns. I shall run in and anchor as close as
I can to the land--of course showing no lights--and then make my way
up to the château. It will take me an hour to go there and an hour to
return. I may have some little difficulty in getting speech with them,
but certainly in two hours I shall be on my way back. With this wind I
ought to get ashore by half-past eight, and by half-past twelve shall
be on board again. Show no lights till two o'clock, and then hoist one
above another. I shall know by looking at the list the captain gave me,
where the _Tartar_ is likely to be to-morrow, and shall make straight
for her, and cruise about until she comes up. The ship and her contents
are worth, I should say, from twenty to twenty-five thousand pounds. I
shall hand her over to the _Tartar_, and let them put a prize crew in
her. It would never do to weaken ourselves by sending ten or twelve men
in her to Gib. No doubt the _Tartar_ will convoy her till she is off
the coast of Spain."
Consulting the list that his captain had given him, he found that the
_Tartar_ was to put in for fresh provisions at Genoa, and intended
to be back on the following day and take up her station outside the
southernmost of the Isles of Hyères.
"It could not be better," he said to Harding. "I doubt with this wind
whether she will be there, but we shall only have to keep on east till
we meet her."
"Then you won't land the prisoners to-night?"
[Illustration: "It is I, Peter Vignerolles."]
"No; they would make their way to Marseilles, and it would soon be
known that this schooner is English, of which at present they must be
in doubt, as we have always kept the French flag flying. If we don't
fall in with the _Tartar_ to-morrow we will land them east of Toulon;
the authorities there are not so likely to worry themselves over a
merchantman being captured as they are at Marseilles."
This arrangement was carried out, and it was just half-past eight when
the _Alert_ dropped anchor half a mile off the shore, and repeating his
order that no lights should be shown, Peter was rowed ashore by eight
well-armed sailors.
"Lie off a couple of hundred yards till you hear my call. You had
better drop your grapnel, or you will drift along and have to keep on
rowing, and I might have a difficulty in finding you."
When within thirty yards of the shore they stopped and listened for a
minute or two. No sound was heard, and rowing ashore, Peter leapt out.
There was no moon, but the stars were bright, and he had no difficulty
in keeping his course towards the château. He was anxious to be back
on board again, and on striking a road broke into a run, and in
three-quarters of an hour stood outside the house. There were lights in
the window of the room in which the girls slept, and taking a handful
of small stones he threw them up against the casement. He saw a figure
appear and then go away again. He threw up a second shower of pebbles,
and two figures now came to the window and opened it.
"It is I, Peter Vignerolles," he said; "I want urgently to speak to
you."
There were two exclamations of surprise; then the eldest of the girls
leaned out. "We will come down in ten minutes. Go to the window of
the dining-room. We cannot come until we are sure that every one has
retired to bed."
"All right," he said; "only don't be longer than you can help; I have a
boat waiting to take me off again."
In a few minutes the window, which extended down to the ground, opened,
and the two girls stepped out.
"Isn't it very dangerous your landing, Peter," the younger one said,
"now that your people are at war with us?"
"That is to say, at war with your enemies, Julie. No, I don't think
that there is any danger in it. Did you notice a schooner coming along
the coast at ten o'clock this morning?"
"Yes," the girls answered together, "a French schooner."
"Well, she was French, but just at present she is British, and is
tender to the _Tartar_, and I am in command of her. Now what I have
come ashore for is to arrange for you to make signals to us if you want
either to see me or to come on board with your mother. I know that it
is hopeless to expect your father to accompany you."
"There is no hope of that," she said. "Since the king's murder he has
been worse than ever. I do think that he is going out of his mind.
Nothing would induce him to fly. He has armed all the servants, and
declares that he will defend the château till the last."
"It is most unfortunate, Julie, for only one end can come of it; the
place is not defensible for a moment. I suppose that there is no hope
of persuading your mother and you to come at once."
"Not in the least, and we would not ask her," the elder girl replied.
"We are de Vignerolles too, and if our father thinks it right to remain
here, we shall certainly do so. We can die as hundreds of other noble
ladies have done."
"Well, as long as your father is here I suppose you cannot leave, but
if the 'reds' come there is no reason why you and your mother should
not fly; throwing away your lives will benefit neither France nor your
house. When this château is once taken, and your father a prisoner,
there would be no common-sense in your hesitating about making your
escape if there were an opportunity of doing so."
"No; then we would escape if we could; but once in the hands of the
'reds,' there will be little chance of that."
"Well, that would be my business. At any rate I want you to arrange
signals. We can see the window of your room from the sea. I shall be
cruising backwards and forwards; sometimes I may be away for two or
three days, because I have to attend to my duty. At any rate I want
you to hang out a red curtain when you see us come along, if you wish
to see me, and to hang out a white curtain as a signal that these
scoundrels are approaching the château or have taken it. If I see the
white curtain I shall be pretty sure that you will already be prisoners
in their hands. Then of course I shall be guided by circumstances. But
my advice and my earnest prayer is, that if the 'reds' are coming, and
your father still persists in his mad idea of defending the house, you
and your mother should have disguises ready, and, after having hung
out the signal, slip out and conceal yourselves until they have gone.
Another thing: I should advise your mother at once to pack up all the
family jewels, and the title-deeds, and other valuables, and that you
should bury them in the shrubbery without loss of time; then we could
dig them up later, and they will come in useful to you indeed should
you escape to England. It would be a good thing for you to fix upon the
spot where you will bury them now, so that I may be able to come for
them without its being necessary for one of you to act as a guide to
the place."
"I think that is a very good plan," Melanie said. "Even if we are
carried away and murdered, it would be a satisfaction to us to know
that our jewels--and you know that they are very valuable--have not
fallen into the hands of these wretches, but that they will still be
the property of one of our family."
"You didn't think, Melanie," Peter said, in a tone of pain, "that I
ever dreamt of such a thing when I made the suggestion."
"Of course not," the girl said indignantly. "How could you fancy such
a monstrous thing! Of course you were only thinking of us; but at the
same time what I say is true, that we should all be very glad to know
that these canaille have not got the de Vignerolles jewels. Now let us
choose a place."
They went out into the shrubbery at the side of the house, and fixed
upon a spot within forty or fifty paces of the trunk of a large tree.
"We will bury the things here."
"Do it at night, Melanie."
"Certainly; we will come down, as we have done now, when the house
is all asleep. We will get a shovel during the day, and hide it in
readiness. We won't forget the signals. Of course we shall not want to
see you unless, which is not likely, our father consents to leave the
country with us."
"I fear that is hopeless indeed, Melanie; still there is a possibility;
and if I see the signal you may be sure that I shall be up here the
same evening."
They had by this time returned to the window. "I must be off now," he
said; "we have captured a valuable prize to-day, and I shall be anxious
about her safety until we are alongside of her again. Keep a sharp
look-out for us. When I do come I shall try to pass along the coast
here between ten and eleven o'clock in the morning, so that you will
know when to look out for me. God bless you both. I wish that I could
get a month's leave and stay here; then I could make pretty sure of
saving you and your mother."
"Good-bye, Peter. If we never see you again we shall remember to the
last how kind you were and how you did your best to save us."
He kissed them both for the first time, and as he knew, perhaps for
the last. He then, as they closed the window, turned and ran hastily
away, with his cheeks wet with tears. He had been gone little over two
hours when he again reached the shore and hailed the boat. Two men
were on watch, and the rest, who were stretched in the bottom, at once
scrambled up. The grapnel was speedily hauled in and the boat rowed to
shore. Peter jumped in.
"Back all," he said; "now pull bow and three, then lay out, for I want
to be on board as soon as I can."
"We were not expecting you back so soon, sir," the man who was rowing
the stroke oar said apologetically, "or else we should all have been on
the look-out."
"No; I have been fortunate, and have not been more than half the time I
expected to be."
As soon as he was on board, the anchor was run up to the bow, the sails
hoisted, and the _Alert_ was under way again. Peter went to the wheel.
"Be very careful with your steering," he said; "the course is
south-east by south, a half south. They will not have shown her lights
by the time we get there, so we must mind that we don't miss her."
When he judged that they were within a couple of miles of the barque,
the same signal was hoisted that the latter was to have shown, and
a minute later two lights appeared straight ahead of them, and they
presently heard the clank of the windlass.
"Nothing happened, Mr. Harding?"
"No, sir, all has been quiet. The prisoners have tried the door once or
twice, and I had to threaten to fire through it; since then they have
been quiet. We made you out just before you showed your lights, and it
was a relief when you did so; for although you were coming from the
right direction it might have been an enemy, and I had just told the
men to stand to quarters."
"Quite right; and now is your anchor up?"
"Yes, it is at the cat-head, sir."
"Well, get sail on her as quickly as you can, and then steer east by
south. I will keep near you. You may as well show a light at your
stern."
Ten minutes later the vessels were both on the course given, and the
schooner under reduced sail following the prize. By twelve o'clock
the next day they were off Toulon, with the Isles of Hyères ahead of
them. When off the most southern of these they lay to. The wind was now
very light, and they had during the last half-hour made but little way
through the water.
"They are signalling on that island," Harding said.
"Yes, I see they are, Harding. If I had known that the wind was going
to drop so light I would have kept farther off. The worst of it is,
that what tide there is, has just turned against us, and the wind is
dropping every minute. In half-an-hour it will be a stark calm, and
I should not be surprised if they send gunboats out from Toulon when
they hear that a schooner and a barque, the latter probably a prize,
are lying here becalmed. If so, we shall have to fight for it. Johnson,
take my glass, and go up to the mast-head and see if you can make out
the _Tartar_."
"I can see the top-sails of a square-rigged craft some twenty miles
away, sir; I have no doubt that it is the _Tartar_."
"Is there any sign of wind?"
"No, sir, there does not seem to be a cat's-paw on the water anywheres."
"This is an awkward place to be becalmed, Harding," Peter said to the
midshipman, who had just rowed on board from the barque. "If it were
not for the prize we might get all the men in the boats and tow the
schooner. We could get two and a half knots out of her, I should
say, with the three boats ahead, but we can't tow her and the barque
too; and I don't suppose that all hands would take that craft through
the water more than a knot an hour, and divided between us the gain
would be so little that it would not be worth while fatiguing the men.
There is one thing, it is some thirty miles from where we are lying
to Toulon, and as likely as not the naval people there won't think it
worth while to send a gunboat out here when a breeze may spring up
before they are half-way out. It is not as if it were in summer, when
a calm will last for a week. Before an hour has passed we may have the
wind coming down from the north with strength enough to take our mast
out of us. No, I should say that the chances are that they will leave
us alone, unless there happens to be a gunboat or two lying somewhere
in shelter among these islands."
Half-an-hour later the look-out at the mast-head hailed again--
"It seems to me that there is a dark line coming across the water from
the north, sir, and some fishing-boats close in shore have just lowered
some of their sails."
"You had better go on board again at once, Harding; take five more men
with you; we can manage very well with fifteen here. Get her royals and
topgallant-sails furled, and it will be as well if you take a reef in
your top-sails too. These squalls come down desperately hard, though
they don't last long. We will keep together. If by any chance we get
separated, make for Genoa--that is, if you cannot join the _Tartar_.
However, I hope that it is not going to blow as hard as all that. I
want to hand her over as soon as I can."
Five men were ordered into the boat, and in a couple of minutes they
were on board the barque, which was lying only a few lengths away. Sail
was shortened on board both vessels, and in a quarter of an hour they
were under very reduced canvas. Peter ran up the ratlines for some
distance.
"It is coming along like a racehorse, Mr. Harding," he shouted. "You
had better put two or three men in a boat alongside, and get her head
round, so that it will take her aft."
The vessels were still becalmed, and although the white line of water
was still a mile away, the sound of the ripple was plainly perceptible.
The schooner's head was also taken round, and both craft were ready
for the squall when it struck them. It was well that they had been
got round in time, for lying motionless they might have been capsized
before they could get way on them, had they been caught broadside to
the wind. As it was, both were driven down until the water almost came
over the bows; then as they gathered way they sprang forward.
"I don't think that it is going to last long, Jamieson," Peter said to
the gunner's mate.
"No, I don't think so, sir; these squalls which begin so hard generally
blow themselves out in half-an-hour, or else settle down into a steady
breeze."
After running for half-an-hour the squall had so far abated that they
were put on their course again, and ran rapidly down to the frigate,
the wind dropping gradually, until when within a mile of the _Tartar_,
which was still lying becalmed, it left them altogether. Peter ordered
eight men into the cutter with the tow-rope, Harding did the same, and
after an hour's rowing the craft were within hailing distance of the
_Tartar_. Peter got into the boat and was rowed on board.
"So you have taken a prize I see, Mr. Vignerolles," the captain said.
"Yes, sir, and she is a valuable one; she is loaded with colonial
products, coffee, sugar, tobacco, and so on. I thought that I had
better bring her straight to you, for I should have weakened my crew
too much if I had sent her down to Gibraltar. I have brought her
manifest on board. She is a new vessel, and carries twelve guns. We
took her by surprise without a blow being struck. This is the report
of her capture," and he handed the document that he had written out,
together with the ship's papers, to the captain. The latter glanced
down both papers.
"Very smartly done, Mr. Vignerolles, the surprise was very well
managed; for had they had a suspicion that you were an enemy, it might
have cost you some hard fighting before you took her, as her guns are
heavier than yours are, and her crew stronger; besides, you might have
knocked her about, and as she is a new vessel that would have been a
pity. She is a very valuable prize. I suppose you want me to take her
in charge, and to let you have your crew again?"
"If you please, sir; we are not very strong-handed now, and if I had to
put men on board another prize I should be quite crippled--even now I
can hardly work all my guns."
The captain smiled. "That is to say that you would like ten more men,
Mr. Vignerolles?"
"I should indeed, sir, if you would be kind enough to give them to me."
"Well, as you have brought us in a prize worth, I should say at least,
twenty thousand pounds, I think that I must let you have them. How
about your prisoners?"
"They are shut up in the fo'castle, sir; we have a heavy coil of rope
against the door. Mr. Harding tells me that they have tried to break
out twice, and that he has had to threaten to fire upon them."
"We will take charge of them."
The master and mate with fifteen men were at once sent on board the
prize. Harding with his crew returned to the schooner, and ten more
men from the frigate were sent on board her. Then the _Alert_ dipped
her ensign and laid her course west; while the frigate, escorting the
prize, headed south-west, as the captain intended to see her well past
the French coast before he left her; for although no French men-of-war
had, so far as he had learned, put out from Toulon, it was certain that
French privateers would very soon be fitted out to prey upon British
commerce. The breeze had sprung up again, and the schooner, slipping
fast through the water, soon drew away from the others. A large ship
was seen coming out from Toulon, but the _Alert_, sailing much faster,
soon lost sight of her. Four days later, returning from the westward,
the _Alert_, rounding a headland, came in sight of the château. Peter
uttered an exclamation as his eye fell upon her, and he caught up the
glass.
"Good Heavens, Harding, the château is on fire, there is smoke pouring
out of two of the lower windows, and--Yes, I can make out a white sheet
or something outside the window where the signal was to be shown. I am
afraid the château is in the hands of those ruffians of Marseilles. No
doubt, directly they were seen coming the girls hung it out, though
they would know that we should not be along here until eleven o'clock.
Probably the place was taken some hours ago. You may be sure that the
scoundrels would not set it on fire until they had sacked it from top
to bottom. The only chance is that they may be hiding somewhere near
the shore."
He threw the schooner up into the wind, and for an hour she lay there
while the two midshipmen examined every stone and tree near the water
through their glasses, but without seeing the slightest sign of any one
hiding there.
"It is no use waiting any longer," Peter said at last. "If they had
escaped before the place was taken they would have been here long ago,
and would, of course, have signalled as soon as they saw us. We will
make straight out to sea for the present, we can do nothing until it
gets dark. I don't know, though. Put her head to the west again; I must
go and see what is going on up there, and must run the risk of being
caught. There is a battery in the next bay, and two or three villages
farther on, so I must go at once. Get a boat down with four hands in
it, while I run down and put on that fishing suit again. As soon as you
pick the boat up make out to sea, and be here again at seven. Don't
send the boat ashore unless you see me come down to the water's edge.
If I am not there, stand off again, and come back two hours later; I
may be detained. If I am not there then, come back at ten o'clock and
send a boat in. Unless I come off then, you will know that I have got
into some sort of mess. Cruise along as usual, and don't come back till
evening the day after to-morrow. Then if I am not there, you had better
find the _Tartar_, tell the captain that I went on shore to see if I
could get my friends out of the hands of these scoundrels, and that as
I have not returned I must certainly have been taken prisoner."
He ran down below and hastily put on his disguise, hid two brace of
pistols under the blouse, and went up again. The boat was already
alongside. Harding was examining the shore with his glass.
"I don't see a soul moving, sir."
"Throw her up into the wind at once; if you go any farther they will
make us out from the fort beyond the headland."
The sailors were armed with pistols and cutlasses. "Now, lads, take
me ashore as quickly as you can, so that I can get well into the wood
before any one who happens to see the boat come off can get there."
The sailors rowed at racing speed to the shore. All was still quiet.
Peter jumped on to the beach, bidding the men row back as fast as
they could; then he started at a quick run through the wood. When he
approached the château he saw a crowd of some four or five hundred men
in front of him. All were armed, some with muskets, others with pikes,
while some carried swords. Casks of wine had been brought up from the
cellars, and half-a-dozen of these had been broached, and the men were
gathered thickly round them.
"Drink away, you brutes," Peter muttered to himself. "I wish I could
drop a couple of handfuls of arsenic into each of those barrels--not
many of you would get back to Marseilles."
As Peter could speak French as well as English he had no fear of his
disguise being suspected, and he sauntered up boldly to the crowd. No
one paid any attention to him. It was natural enough that fishermen,
seeing the flames which were now pouring out from almost every window
in the house, should come up and see what was going on. Very many of
the crowd were already showing signs that their draughts had been deep
ones. They were shouting out scraps of the revolutionary songs; some
were howling, "Death to the aristocrats!" In front of the principal
entrance a pike was stuck up with a head upon it. Peter strolled
towards it, and, as he had feared, soon recognised the features of the
baron. Passing by, he came to the entrance; a dozen dead bodies were
lying there. It was evident that the baron had, as he said he would,
defended it with his servants, and that all had fallen, but not until
they had killed at least an equal number of their assailants. Looking
about he saw a small group of men standing apart from the house. He
directed his steps in that direction, and saw sitting on the ground in
their midst the baroness and her two daughters. One of the men who were
guarding them came up to him.
"Have you just come up from the sea, comrade?"
"Yes; we were in our boat and saw the flames, so I landed to see what
was the matter."
"You see the tyrant is dead. He has saved the guillotine trouble. As
for the women, justice will be done on them."
"No doubt, no doubt," Peter said; "but aristocrats though they are,
they were kind to tenants on their estate."
"Bah! when every sou had been wrung from them they flung a few back.
What goodness was there in that? The aristocrats must be stamped out
root and branch; they have fattened too long on the people."
"Yes, the de Vignerolles have been here a long time--hundreds of years
they say."
"Yes; think of that, draining the life-blood of France for hundreds of
years. However, it is our turn now. Well, by to-morrow morning they
will be lodged in the prison, to-morrow they will be tried, and the
next morning the guillotine will have the last word with them--we don't
waste time with these people. Go over there and get a drink--they have
got wine, the nobles have, while we who tend the vines are obliged to
drink water."
"When will you start, comrade?"
"Not for three or four hours yet. We left Marseilles at midnight, and
had well-nigh twenty miles to march, and the men must have a rest
before they go back."
Peter had now learned all that he wanted to know; but he felt that it
were better that he should linger for a while, so he sauntered across
to one of the groups. A cup of wine was held out to him by one of the
men who had installed himself as server.
"Drink death to all tyrants, my friend," he said.
"That will I heartily. 'Death to all tyrants,'" and he drank off the
wine.
"You will soon be on board a ship fighting the English," the Frenchman
said. "There was an order yesterday that all fishermen were to repair
at once to Toulon to man the ships there."
"We have not received it yet," Peter said; "but I for one shall not
be sorry to be on the deck of one of the ships of war now at Toulon.
Fishing is all very well, but that will soon be spoiled if the English
war vessels come cruising along the coast; besides, now all the
aristocrats are being killed, we shall get but poor prices for our
fish."
He remained for another half-hour watching what was going on. There was
scarce one of the crowd that had not some portion of the booty about
him; costly curtains, rich hangings, and even ladies' dresses were
wrapped round and round their bodies, or tied up so as to form scarves
over their shoulders. Some had made up bundles to be carried on their
muskets. One ruffian was swaggering along with the Baron's hat on his
head. Many had already lain down on the grass to sleep off the effects
of the wine and the fatigue of their night march. One party of men,
more drunk than others, had joined hand-in-hand, and were dancing round
the pike on which was the baron's head, singing a _Ça ira_. Peter's
fingers itched to grasp his pistols, but he restrained his fury until
he reached the farthest group, and then walked at a leisurely pace away
into the shrubbery.
As soon as he was out of sight he dashed off, and did not pause until
he reached the shore. The schooner was a mile away, heading straight
in. Glancing to the right, he saw a party of soldiers marching along
the beach. They evidently came from the fort beyond the headland, and
were about three or four hundred yards away from him. As he stopped
they halted, and were evidently watching the schooner. Without
hesitation he threw off his blouse and fisherman's boots, threw down
his pistols, and, running forward, stepped into the water. He went
easily for some twenty yards when he heard a shout and knew that he was
seen. He now swam his hardest, and by the time the soldiers came up,
was sixty or seventy yards from shore. They at once opened fire; but
he dived and swam straight on under water, coming up occasionally to
breathe, and then diving again until he was a couple of hundred yards
out, and beyond the reach of any chance ball. The schooner was now
thrown up into the wind, and a boat had been lowered, and was rowing
towards him. The schooner was, as usual, flying the French flag. In a
few minutes the boat came up and took him in.
[Illustration: "Running forward, stepped into the water."]
"That was a close shave," he said to the cockswain; "if I had not swam
out you would never have been able to take me off."
"We made them out, sir, and thinking, I suppose, that you could not get
off nohow while they were there, Mr. Harding had given the word to go
about, when we saw you run out and take to the water. We were not long
in getting the boat down and starting, you may be sure."
"What is the news, Peter?" Harding asked, as he stepped on to the deck.
"Just what I expected, Harding. The villains have murdered the baron
and taken the ladies prisoners, and they are going to march with them
to Marseilles this afternoon. The scoundrels were drinking heavily,
and I don't think they will move until five o'clock, then I expect
there will be a good many left behind. We will stand out to sea now.
We daren't land till dusk, for you may be sure those soldiers who were
firing at me will be watching us. I expect they don't know what to make
of it. No doubt they have had their eye on the schooner for the last
week, and I should think that they have put us down as a privateer from
Marseilles or Toulon. I hope they will think that I was one of the crew
who had been landed to see what was going on at the château, though it
will puzzle them, why in that case I risked being shot.
"Yes, that is certain to rouse their suspicions."
"Well, we will keep right out, and run in after it gets dark, seven
or eight miles along the coast land, and take post on the road from
the château to Marseilles. As I have ridden over it two or three times
I know it pretty well, and there is one point where it comes within
a mile of the sea. It is pretty well dark by seven o'clock, and even
if they start at five--and I don't think that there is much chance of
that--we shall be there before they come along, for they won't be able
to go more than two and a half, or at most three miles, an hour."
"I wish I could go with you, Peter!"
"I wish you could, but you see you must remain on board. It would never
do to leave the ship without an officer; besides, I may want your
guns to cover our retreat. I have no fear of being able to rescue the
ladies by a sudden attack, but the brutes will no doubt follow us up
closely. I shall leave the boats when a good mile off shore; but you
must come in as close as you can. Keep the lead going, and anchor with
only a foot or two of water under your keel; what tide there is will be
rising. When we get to the edge of the steep ground going down to the
beach I shall send half the men down with the ladies to get into the
boats, and to stand ready to push them off. I will take a blue light
with me, and will fire it, and drop it as soon as we make our rush
down. Then you will be able to make them out, and open with grape over
our heads. Perhaps the first shot or two had better be with ball, grape
are apt to scatter too much; but as soon as we are fairly away from the
shore you can give them grape."
"How many men will you take with you?"
"Thirty; it was for that that I got the extra ten hands from the
captain. There are three or four hundred of them, and about half
their number have got muskets. I don't expect that they will be in a
condition to shoot very straight; but half-drunk as most of them will
be, they may try to rush us, and thirty men won't be any too many."
The men were presently told off for the work, and as soon as they
learned that it was to be a landing party they set to cleaning muskets
and pistols, and getting a sharper edge put on their cutlasses. The
general idea was that they were going to storm a battery, and perhaps
cut out some craft of which the captain might have heard when he was
ashore. Every hand was required, and the cook and steward were both
to go with the landing party, and, with two seamen, were to act as
boat-keepers when the others landed, and in this way Harding would
have ten men all capable of working the guns left with him. When the
_Alert's_ head was again turned towards shore, Peter called the men aft.
"Now, lads," he said, "you are going on an expedition which as British
sailors you will, I know, like. The ruffians from Marseilles have
burned that château you saw in flames, they have murdered its owner,
and they are taking back with them his wife and two daughters, and of
a certainty these will share the fate that has befallen so many other
ladies of noble families. Now, my men, my object in going ashore is
to rescue these three ladies from the hands of these blood-stained
villains. There are something like three hundred of these fellows; but
as the best part of them will be more or less drunk, I don't think the
odds are too great for you, especially as we shall have the advantage
of a surprise, and shall be able to carry off the ladies before they
can rally; but we may expect some hard fighting on our way back.
"The spot where we shall attack them will be about a mile from the
shore, and no doubt they will try pretty hard to arrest our progress.
We must keep together without straggling, loading as we retire, and
turning and giving them a volley from time to time. If they make a rush
upon us, sling your muskets behind your backs, and go at them with
cutlass and pistol. The great thing will be to ensure that we do not
miss our way as we come back. We will take eight lanterns with us, and
put one down at each gate or opening as we go along, so that we shall
only have to follow the line of lights. On our return, Mr. Jamieson,
you with four men will act as a special guard to the ladies; you will
keep some twenty yards ahead of us as we fall back, halting when we
halt, and closing up to us if they get between us and the shore.
"I hope that they won't do this; they will be taken so much by surprise
that we shall get a considerable start before they can get under way
to pursue us, and as, of course, we shall go at the double, we may be
half-way before they will be near enough to make any serious attack on
us. We shall take six stretchers with us; the ladies will be utterly
worn out after the fatigues of such a terrible day, and possibly one
or all of them will need to be carried. At any rate, we shall want
stretchers in case any are wounded; we must not allow any one to fall
alive into the hands of these bloodthirsty scoundrels. Now, my lads,
you know what you have got to do, and how you have to do it. I know
that there is not one of you who will not be glad to have a chance at
once of saving the lives of these ladies, and of striking a blow at
the men who have been murdering their fellow-countrymen and women by
thousands. As to you who remain on board ship, you will have your share
in the affair: it will be your duty to cover us with the fire of the
guns as we come down to the boats, and it may possibly be that one of
the gunboats from Marseilles will come along while we are away, and in
that case you will have harder work than we shall."
A cheer broke from the whole of the men, for those who had before been
greatly disappointed that they were not to take part in the expedition,
were satisfied now that they learned that they would not be altogether
idle. Fortunately there was a haze on the water as the sun went down,
and they were therefore able to approach the shore earlier than Peter
had expected, and sounding carefully as they went, they dropped anchor
some two hundred yards from the shore an hour after sunset. The
greater part of the sails had already been lowered, but had not been
stowed, so that they could be hoisted at the shortest notice; the boats
had been lowered, in order not only to save time, but because the sound
of the tackle might be heard by any one on shore.
"Take your places quietly in the boats," Peter said. "Let the men told
off to carry the lanterns and stretchers get in first." Then when all
the men had taken their places in the boat, he turned to his comrade--
"Remember, Harding, if the gunboat should unfortunately come along, you
must fight at anchor. You have got a good stock of hand-grenades if
they should try and board you by boats; and as they won't know how weak
your crew is, it will be a case of big guns for some time. If the worst
comes to the worst, and should they lay her alongside and board you,
we shall do our best to recapture you. The wind is very light now, and
even if they tried to tow you off, we should be able to overtake you. I
hope it won't come to that, but it is just as well to arrange for all
contingencies. Don't show a light on any account unless you find that
you are getting the worst of it, then hang one over the stern in order
that we may be able to follow when they get up sail."
So saying, he stepped down the accommodation ladder, and took his place
in the stern-sheets of the largest boat.
"Row on," he said, "but be as quiet as you can." The oars had all been
muffled, and the men rowed so silently that scarce a sound was heard.
"Easy all," Peter ordered when they were within twenty yards of shore,
"the way will carry us in. Keep a sharp look-out in the bow, there may
be rocks sticking up anywhere; we don't know what the coast is like."
No obstacles were met with, and the boats ran quietly on to the sand.
"Keep them some fifty yards off," Peter said to the four men who were
to remain, two in each boat. "If you hear any one coming along the
shore, lie down, and don't make any answer if they hail you. Row
nearer in as soon as you hear us coming, but don't come in close till
we run down; they will know that we must have come from boats, and some
of them may run on ahead to capture them before we arrive."
[Illustration: "Open the cover a little way to look at the compass."]
The ground rose somewhat steeply for fifty yards. On reaching the level
a lantern was placed there, then the men formed fours and marched
along. Peter, who carried with him a compass, went ahead. The lanterns
were all in canvas covers to prevent their being seen until wanted,
and a man carrying one walked by the side of Peter, so that he could
occasionally open the cover a little way to look at the compass. From
time to time the cover was removed from a lantern, and it was left on
the ground. After twenty minutes' walking they arrived at the road.
There was no wall or hedge, and they kept along it until they came to
a small copse. It was an hour before any sound was heard, and Peter
began to get very anxious lest the "reds" should have gone past before
he arrived. At last far away along the road they saw a dull glow, and
in another ten minutes made out a number of lights.
"They have got torches and lanterns," he said to Jamieson, who was
standing next to him. "Now, my lads, all crouch or kneel down as you
like. You have got your muskets slung behind you?"
"Ay, ay, sir," ran along the line.
"Remember not a shot is to be fired until the ladies are in our
hands. I shall pass the word along quietly. Get through the bushes as
noiselessly as you can. When I say 'Now' make a rush at them, and use
your cutlasses as freely as you like. The moment Jamieson and his party
have surrounded the ladies I will fire a pistol; you might not hear my
voice in the din. The moment you hear it, cease your attack, run back
to the corner of this copse, and as soon as Jamieson with the ladies
has got ahead of you, make straight for the lantern. Luckily we put the
last one on a big stone, and we can just see it from here. Keep in good
order, and run in a double line."
Peter remained on his feet, a bush in front of him being sufficiently
high to conceal him altogether. There was a roar of voices as the
"reds" came along. They could hardly be said to be singing, but each
was howling or yelling the Carmagnole. They were not so drunk as Peter
had hoped they would be, the six-mile walk from the château having
enabled them to partially shake off the effects of the wine they had
imbibed; and indeed, their leaders had broken up the casks and spilled
all the liquor two hours before the start was made. Many of them
carried torches, while some had lanterns, for they had left Marseilles
at midnight. They were a strange, wild-looking lot: all wore either
red caps or cockades in their hats, their long hair hung down on to
their shoulders, and the plunder they bore added to the savagery of
their appearance. About a hundred passed along; then came some men with
pikes. At their head walked one holding aloft the head of the baron,
and six others followed him with those of the servants that had fallen.
Immediately behind these came twenty men with muskets marching in two
lines, and between them were the baroness and her daughters. Though
weak with grief and fatigue they walked along unaided, holding their
heads erect, and without casting a look to the right or left. As the
pikemen came along Peter passed the word, and the sailors crawled out
through the bushes, any noise they made being deadened by the roar
of the mob. Then Peter shouted "At them, lads," and in a moment the
sailors were among the men with the muskets, the whole of whom were
cut down before they had time to fire a shot. Then, according to the
orders they had received, half turned each way; one party fell upon the
pikemen with their ghastly burdens, the other on those following the
men with muskets. Peter, followed closely by Jamieson and his four men,
had sprung at once to the ladies' side.
"Thank God I have rescued you," he exclaimed. "But there is no time for
talk now--keep with these men--we will cover your retreat. If you are
unable to walk they have stretchers to carry you along."
They were clinging together bewildered by the sudden combat that had
broken out around them.
"Robbins," Peter called to a sailor close by him, "do you join
Jamieson's party, then there will be two to each stretcher. Directly
you get off the road, put the ladies on to them, go off at a trot; you
will take them along a great deal faster than they can walk."
He hurried the ladies off the road. The stretchers were laid down on
the ground.
[Illustration: "At them, lads."]
"Please lie down on them at once," he said, "there is not a moment to
be lost."
Almost mechanically they did as he told them, and the six men caught
up their burdens and went off at a swinging trot, the weight being
hardly felt by them. Peter ran back on to the road. At present it could
scarcely be said that there was any fighting; taken wholly by surprise,
astounded at finding themselves attacked by British sailors, those
near them thought at first only of flight, and the tars were chasing
and cutting them down ruthlessly, maddened by the sight of the heads
carried on the pikes.
Peter waited for a minute and then fired his pistol. In a moment the
pursuit ceased; the two parties of sailors came running back, fell
into two lines, and, headed by him, followed the direction taken by
the first party. For two or three minutes confusion reigned among the
mob. Those in front and those behind were alike ignorant of the nature
of the fray which had suddenly taken place in the centre; but some of
the more intelligent of their leaders shouted that it was but a handful
of sailors that had attacked them, and starting with those round them,
took up the pursuit, the others following them, though as yet without
any clear comprehension of what had taken place, many discharging their
muskets wildly in the direction in which the fugitives had made off.
When they reached the first lantern Peter dashed it to the ground. He
and his men had now come up with the first party, and moderated their
pace. They had gone fully half a mile before the crowd came up to
within fifty yards of them, then they began to fire.
"When I give the word the rear line will turn and fire a volley. Aim
low, lads; don't be in any hurry; take steady aim; never mind about
being all together. Slacken down your pace a bit now; we will let them
come up to within twenty yards."
Three minutes later he gave the word, "Rear line, halt, face round,
take steady aim, fire." Twelve muskets flashed out, and yells of pain
and fury rose from the mob.
"Second line, halt; first line, take place behind them, and load."
As soon as this was done, he gave the order, "Steady, aim, fire," and
twelve more bullets were sent into the thick of the mob. But though
almost every shot told, and those among whom the volleys had been
fired, first hesitated and then ran back, those on the flanks still
pressed on; but as soon as the sailors fired they continued their
retreat, running fast now to overtake Jamieson's party. When they did
so they completed their loading, and again their volleys kept the crowd
in check. Three times this was repeated, and then urged on by their
leaders the crowd rushed forward.
"Sling your muskets, out pistols and cutlass, charge," Peter shouted,
and with a cheer the men rushed at their pursuers. For a moment these
stood their ground, but the attack was too fierce for them. Keeping
well together, the sailors burst their way through them, cutlass and
pistol doing their work, till at last the crowd they had charged turned
and fled.
"Any one down?" Peter asked, as he halted the men.
"Bill Hopkins has got a ball in his leg, sir."
"Well, four of you catch him up and carry him. That is right; now, on
we go again."
They were now not far from the shore, and the leaders shouted to the
mob to run on and cut their enemies off from their boats. Fortunately
they were in ignorance that the ladies with their escorts had been
taken straight on, Peter having before he charged told them to make the
best of the way forward. The sailors were now running fast. A few of
the swiftest runners of the mob had got ahead of them, but these did
not venture to oppose the rush of the sailors, and the latter broke
into a loud cheer as they reached the edge of the level ground and
saw the sea before them. Peter called for a lantern, lighted a blue
light, threw it on to the ground, and then rushed down to the boat. On
each side of the party were a number of their foes, but these dared not
close with them until joined by the rest. The ladies had already been
placed in the largest of the two boats.
"Stand on the thwarts and fire over our heads," Peter shouted. "Take
your places quietly, men, two by two; the rest face round." But as a
mass of men appeared on the crest behind them there was a loud report,
a ball hummed over their heads and plumped into the crowd behind, and
another followed; the Marseillais recoiled, and the men rapidly took
their places in the boat. But the sight of their prey escaping them
was too much, and the infuriated crowd rushed down the slope; then
gun after gun was discharged from the schooner, and the grape-shot
swept through the mob. The volley from the boats completed their
discomfiture, and leaving numbers of their companions behind, they
rushed back for shelter; while, as the boats pushed off from shore, a
shout of triumph rose from the sailors, and stretching to the oars,
they were soon alongside the schooner, which was sending round after
round of grape in the direction which the fugitives had taken.
The ladies were helped up the ladder. The two girls had several times
asked their carriers to set them down, as they were able now to walk;
but the sailors replied, "We have orders to carry you down, miss, and
you are no weight at all. We would much rather go on as we are; it will
be time enough to set you down if there is any fighting to be done."
Peter at once led them into his cabin.
"Now, Madame la Baronne, this will be your cabin, and the two facing it
will be for the girls. I have no time to talk now," he said, as they
endeavoured to thank him; "I have to get the vessel under way, this
firing may bring the gunboats from Marseilles upon us. As soon as we
are off I will get some coffee made; I am sure that you must want it
terribly; the steward will bring it to you. As soon as you have drunk
it go to bed. You will have plenty of time to talk in the morning."
So saying, he left them at once and went up on deck, seeing they
were so shaken that they would break down altogether unless left to
themselves. The anchor was at once got up, the sails hoisted, and the
schooner made her way out to sea. The wind was very light, and Peter
said--
"You have had some hard work, lads, but you must do a little more; we
must get well off shore before morning. Even if they have not heard the
guns at Marseilles, some of those fellows will soon be there with the
news, and they will be sending a couple of gunboats after us, and in
so light a wind they will be more than a match for us, so you must tow
her out. The ten men who have been on board will man one of the boats,
and ten of you the other; after a couple of hours the other twenty will
take their places. Don't let any wounded man be among the first ten; we
must look to them, and see who is fit for service."
Ordering the course to be set south-west, he and Harding proceeded to
examine the wounds. With the exception of Bill Hopkins's broken leg,
none of these were serious. Two had flesh wounds from musket balls,
three or four had received cuts from swords, or thrusts with pikes, but
none of these required more than bandaging. As soon as day broke a man
was sent to the mast-head.
"There are two black specks behind, sir; they have both lug-sails, and
I fancy that they are rowing."
"Get two of the guns well aft," Peter ordered, "so as to fire over the
taffrail. I hope we shall have some wind soon; and at any rate they are
likely to find that they have caught a tartar."
In an hour and a half the gunboats were near enough to open fire, and
two balls struck the water at a short distance from the schooner. Peter
called the men in from the boats. "We have got to fight now, my lads,
and you may as well rest your arms for half-an-hour, for you will want
your strength if they get alongside."
"Shall we open fire, sir?" Jamieson, who was in charge of the two guns,
asked.
"No, I think their guns are heavier than ours; we had better wait till
we are sure that they are well within our range."
"There is a sail ahead, sir," the man at the mast-head shouted down. "I
think it is the frigate."
"Thank God for that, Harding! We might tackle one of those gunboats;
but I don't think that we should have much chance with two of them. I
expect they each carry double the number of men that we do."
"The frigate has changed her course, sir," Harding said; "she is
heading straight for us now. She must have heard the guns, and she
looks as if she was bringing down a breeze with her."
"I hope that the gunboats will not get sight of her until it is too
late for them to escape; but I fear that is too good to be even hoped
for. I feel sure we can manage to keep them at bay until she comes up,
unless indeed they knock away some important spar; and we are more
likely to hit them than they are to damage us, for you don't get so
quiet a platform in a boat that is being rowed as you do in one moving
with sails only. Now then, Jamieson, suppose we give them a taste of
your quality. I should lay both guns on the same craft, for if we can
but cripple one we can fight it out with the other."
The first shot passed through the gunboat's sails. The second was
received with loud cheers by the crew of the _Alert_, for striking the
water some twenty yards in front of the gunboat, it ricochetted along
the line of oars on one side, smashing the whole of them short off.
"Well done," Peter exclaimed. "That is almost as good as if you had
knocked one of her masts over."
Several more shots were fired, but with less success. At last one
struck the foremast just above the deck and brought it down.
"That puts them out of it, Harding. I don't say that if they cut the
gear away at once, and rowed with half their oars on each side they
would not go faster through the water than we are doing, but it must
cause a delay, and as, no doubt, they think the other fellow strong
enough to do the work alone, it is likely enough that they will set to
work to get up a jury-mast before they do anything else."
The other gunboat was now fast closing up. Jamieson had knocked two
or three holes in her bow, and they could see by the confusion caused
that two of the shot at least swept the whole length of the deck--one
of the guns having been dismounted, and several men killed. To Peter's
satisfaction he saw from the course that the gunboat was taking that
her commander intended to fight him broadside to broadside before
endeavouring to board. As she came nearly abreast, the oars were laid
in, and for half-an-hour the two craft lay to and hammered each other,
at a distance of fifty yards apart.
As soon as the gunboats had been seen, Peter had run below, and called
through the doors for the ladies to get up and dress at once, as two
gunboats had come out from Marseilles.
"They won't be within gunshot for another hour," he said, "and the
steward will have breakfast for you as soon as you are ready, and after
that we will take you down to a place in the hold where you will be
quite out of reach of shot."
As soon as the steward told him that the ladies had left their cabin he
ran down again.
"My dear Peter," the baroness began.
"You must really defer your thanks for the present, madame, especially
as you have by no means made your escape yet. We are going to have a
bout with two gunboats behind us. No doubt they were sent off from
Marseilles as soon as that mob of scoundrels returned there."
"But you will beat them off, will you not, Peter?" Melanie said
confidently.
"Well, I shall try my best," Peter replied. "I fancy that we have every
chance of doing so. My gunner is a capital shot, and it will be very
hard if he does not cripple one of them, and I think that we shall be
men enough to thrash the other. Besides, I think it very likely that
the _Tartar_ will be along this morning. She was going to convoy a
prize we took, and it is about time for her to be back again, and you
may be sure that the gunboats will make off as fast as they can if they
see her coming. I am going to breakfast with you," he went on--"in the
first place, because I want breakfast; and in the second place, because
very likely you would eat next to nothing if I were not here with you."
"We saw you come along at eleven o'clock yesterday morning," Julie
said. "We were able to get a view of the sea between our guards. We saw
you sail away from the shore, and it cheered us very much, for we felt
sure that you would try to do something."
"I was close to you an hour later, Julie. I landed in disguise directly
I saw your signal and the smoke rising from the lower windows, and
stayed an hour talking with those wretches. Of course what one
wanted to learn was the time at which they would start with you for
Marseilles. As soon as I had learned that, I got on board again at
once. Everything worked well. We came back after dark, set an ambush
on the road, carried you off, and took you on board. How about the
jewels?"
"We buried them at the spot that we agreed on," Julie said; "ours and
mother's."
[Illustration: "We buried them at the spot that we agreed on."]
"That is good. I will make a trip and bring them off the next time we
come along here. Now I must run up again. You need not go down till the
first gun is fired."
"We would much rather--" Julie began.
"Excuse me, but I would much rather that you went down below. It would
make me very uncomfortable did I know that you were exposed to danger,
and we are now in the most dangerous part of the ship, for it is just
at those stern-windows that the enemy will be aiming."
At the end of the half-hour, during which a furious cannonade
continued, both vessels had suffered a good deal, the gunboat's
cannon being of heavier metal than those of the schooner; but at
close quarters this advantage was not very great, and was more than
counterbalanced by the much greater speed with which the English
sailors handled their guns. The sides of both vessels were torn and
splintered; there were yawning holes in the bulwarks; the sails,
dropping idly, for the wind had entirely failed them, were riddled
with holes; the gaff of the gunboat's mainsail had been shot asunder,
and the foremast had been so badly wounded that it would certainly be
carried away directly a breeze filled the sail. The schooner's bowsprit
had been carried away, and the gaff halliards of the mainsail cut
asunder. The execution among the French crew was very much heavier than
that among the British, as there were so many more of them on deck. It
became evident at last that the Frenchmen were getting the worst of the
duel, for their fire suddenly slackened and the sweeps were run out
again.
"Clap a charge of grape in over your shot," Peter shouted.
It was no easy matter for the Frenchmen to get alongside, owing to the
vessels being so close together. At first they rowed on both sides, but
the power of the helm was not sufficient to bring her suddenly round;
and instead of coming alongside, she crossed the schooner's bows. The
guns of the larboard side of the _Alert_ were trained as far forward
as possible, and poured their contents into the gunboat as she swept
across them; while as soon as, with the greatest difficulty, the lugger
brought her head round in order to board on the starboard side, the
guns here swept their decks, killing great numbers of the men at the
sweeps. At last, after suffering very heavy loss, the French captain
brought his craft alongside. The moment that he did so Peter and his
crew leapt on board her with a loud cheer. The French were already
greatly disheartened at the terrible loss that they had suffered, and
although greatly superior in numbers, they gave way foot by foot; and
when their captain, who had fought gallantly, got a bullet through
his head, they threw down their arms, and rushed below. Hatches were
clapped over them, and then Peter, for the first time, was able to
look round. The other gunboat was rowing away with all speed; but a
mile away the frigate, bringing down a fresh breeze with her, and with
the water foaming at her bow, was sweeping along at a rate which would
bring her alongside the gunboat long before the latter could reach
Marseilles. As she neared the schooner the _Tartar_ ran up the signal,
"Well done, _Alert_," and her crew gave a hearty cheer, which was
responded to by the crew of the schooner. The latter had lost eight men
killed, and no less than twenty-three wounded, chiefly by splinters. As
soon as the frigate had passed, Peter ran down below. The ladies had
just come up into the cabin.
"We heard your men cheering and knew that you had won," the baroness
said.
"Yes, we have captured one of them, and the frigate will have the
other. It is well that she came up when she did, for if the second
boat, instead of stopping to repair damages, had rowed up to aid her
consort, it would have gone hard with us."
"You are wounded, I see!" Julie exclaimed.
"Oh, it is only a flesh wound," he said; "a splinter struck me in the
shoulder; a bandage will set that all right in a day or two. I wish
that none of my men had worse wounds."
The frigate returned in an hour with the second gunboat, which, seeing
escape impossible and resistance useless, had lowered her ensign as
soon as the _Tartar_ opened fire upon her. When the _Tartar_ came
alongside, the captain hailed the schooner, and told Peter to come on
board.
"There is not a boat that can swim either on board us or the gunboat,
sir."
"Very well, then, I will come to you and bring the doctor with me. I am
afraid that you have a heavy list of casualties."
"I am sorry to say that we have, sir, and the Frenchmen have three
times as many."
The captain was at once rowed on board with the surgeon. The latter
immediately set to work to attend to the wounded, while the captain
learned from Peter the events that had taken place.
"I congratulate you heartily, Mr. Vignerolles," he said when he heard
the story, "and I am glad indeed that you succeeded in rescuing the
ladies. You say you had no one killed in doing so?"
"No, sir; there was only one man seriously hurt."
"Well, of course, you must report that affair as well as the fight, but
I should cut that part of the business as short as possible, and merely
say that you landed a party and rescued the Baroness de Vignerolles and
her daughters from the hands of a mob from Marseilles, and brought them
on board without any loss of life among your party, but with a very
heavy loss to the mob. Of course we have general orders to give shelter
to Royalists trying to make their escape from France, but the Admiralty
might not perhaps approve of quite such a dangerous expedition as
that you undertook. I will send a couple of boatloads of men on board
to help your fellows to repair the damages to the schooner and her
prize. It is clear that you must go down to Gibraltar for repairs. I
will man both the prizes and send them down with you; and even if you
come across a couple of French privateers, they will hardly venture to
attack you."
By evening the damage was sufficiently repaired. The more seriously
wounded of the _Alert's_ men were taken on board the frigate, and an
equal number of men sent to take their places. Twenty men were placed
on board each of the gunboats, and the _Tartar_ then sailed eastward,
while the other three craft started for Gibraltar.
"There is no getting your jewels now, madame," Peter said, as, after
sail was made, he went down into the cabin. "Next time I cruise along
here I will get them for you; but at present I am under orders for
Gibraltar, and must go straight there. I shall have no difficulty in
arranging passages for you to England, and you may be sure of a most
hospitable reception when you get to my father's. It is perhaps just as
well that you should not take the jewels with you, for it is possible
that the vessel you go home from Gib by may be captured by French
privateers. Indeed I should recommend your staying at Gibraltar until
a convoy is made up there, say under the protection of a frigate; and
in the meantime I shall, of course, be your banker. I shall hold your
jewels, you see, as security for the loan."
On arriving at Gibraltar they found quite a fleet of merchantmen there
waiting for a convoy, and before the repairs on board the _Alert_ were
executed he had the satisfaction of seeing the three ladies comfortably
settled on board a large ship which with the others sailed on the
following morning for England under the convoy of a frigate and two
gun-brigs. Peter had been highly complimented by the naval officer
commanding the station, and two days afterwards passed his examination,
and was at once promoted to the rank of lieutenant. Ten days later he
sailed again, and arriving after dark one evening at his old anchorage
off the château, again landed in disguise, and accompanied by a couple
of sailors, made his way up to the ruins, dug up the box, and brought
it on board, and the first time he saw the _Tartar_ he handed it to
the captain, asking him to send it to England by the first frigate or
man-of-war going home.
"I am afraid to keep it on board, sir, for the contents are valuable,
and it would be a heavy weight upon my mind if we got into action with
a superior force. It contains the family jewels of the de Vignerolles."
A month later the box reached its destination, and some time afterwards
a letter from his father informed him that he had disposed of the
greater portion of the jewels at the request of the baroness, and that
she and her daughters were now established at a house within a few
minutes' walk of his. Four years later Peter returned home with the
rank of commander; and two marriages took place while he was at home on
leave, his elder brother marrying Melanie de Vignerolles, while he and
Julie paired off together. Five years later Peter, now a post-captain,
retired from active service on half-pay, a cannon-ball having carried
his right leg off just below the knee. Julie, far from regretting the
event, declared openly that she considered the wound to be a most
fortunate one, for that the war might go on for any time, and it was
vastly better to have him at home, even with half a leg, than to be in
constant anxiety lest she should hear that he had fallen. The jewels
had fetched a large sum, and the greater portion of this the baroness
divided between her two daughters, she herself taking up her residence,
at Peter's earnest request, with him and Julie, until her death, which
took place ten years later.
THE ADVENTURES OF A NIGHT
BY JOHN BLOUNDELLE-BURTON
CHAPTER I
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
I, Adrian Trent, now known as Lord Trent, and a captain of _Les
Mousquetaires Gris_, sat in my little salon in the Lion d'Or, in the
Rue Louis le Grand in Paris, on Midsummer Day, in the year of our Lord
1726. And in my hand I held a little perfumed billet, which I had
turned over in my fingers a dozen times, and had, perhaps, read twice
as often. For it recalled to me a strange meeting, and some strange
scenes in which I had been concerned when I was but a _porte-drapeau_.
Also it recalled to me some other things far sweeter, which, to a
young man, must needs be pleasant recollections--to wit, things such
as a lovely face flushed now and again with the colour that adorns the
blushing rose of Provence; dark eyes, sometimes as soft as velvet, and
sometimes sparkling like ice beneath the winter sun; black hair that
once--in an awful moment of fear and extremity--I had seen adown the
owner's back, almost to her feet; a supple girlish form, and other
charms. A girl whom, although I had not seen her for five years, I had
never forgotten, but whom I always strove to forget, because she was
wealthy and I was poor; because, although I was a man of good rank in
my own country, she was almost of the very highest in hers; because
she was, in truth, as far above me as the sun is above the earth.
Yet once, for a little while, that girl and I had been the best of
friends; once, too, it seemed as if that friendship had been very near
to a softer and more tender emotion, and as if Adrian Trent and Ana,
Princesa de Carbajal, were falling in love with each other--if they had
not already done so.
Whereupon, thinking over all these things, I again turned the letter in
my hands, and again I read it.
"So you are back in Paris, I hear," it ran; "and would you not
like to see a girl called Damaris whom once you knew? I think you
would--perhaps in memory of having saved that girl's life on one
occasion;[1] of also having once called her by the prettiest epithet
a man can bestow on any woman, and of having been much teased and
pestered by that girl. If so, then come to the Marais, to the Rue des
Vraies Femmes, and to the house which bears the name of my family, and
if you come at the proper time I will give you some chocolate and a
bonbon. I wonder if you are much changed, and if you will find me so!
DAMARIS."
[1] See "Yule Logs," 1898 (Longmans & Co.), "The King of Spain's Will."
The prettiest epithet a man can bestow on any woman! So she remembered
it! remembered that I had called her "sweetheart" in all the impudence
of boyhood and the possession of my guidon in the _mousquetaires_, and
when I did not know that she was a princess of one of the most ancient
and powerful families in Catalonia, and in possession of enormous
estates and great wealth.
But did she remember another thing also--namely, that after being
highly indignant with me for my presumption, she had laughed and
whispered that pretty word to me in return? Did she remember that? If
not, I did. And now I would see for it.
An hour later I was outside the great door of the Hôtel de Carbajal,
and a lackey answering my summons, I learned that the Princess was
within. Whereon I bade him say that Lord Trent waited below to pay his
devoirs to her, if it might be that she would receive him.
"Her Highness expects milor," the man said. "Will milor give himself
the trouble to follow me?"
Whereon "milor," attired in his best black satin suit--for, alas!
he had but recently returned from England, and the funeral of his
father--and silver lace, did follow the man through the great gloomy
house, and along corridor after corridor, he thinking all the time
of what the fellow had said--that "her Highness expected him." "So,"
"milor" said to himself, "she knew I would come."
Then the door opened, and the footman announced "Milor Trent," and for
some reason the midsummer sun seemed to dazzle my eyes, and I saw a
figure spring--that is the word, "spring"--from a deep fauteuil, and I
felt two slim hands in mine, and I heard a well-remembered voice say,
"So you have come, my lord."
"Yes, I have come, your Highness. You knew very well that I should
come. Yet, yet," for, somehow, I at once began to grow bold, "there was
no word of 'Highness' nor of 'lord' in the old days. Then you were 'a
girl called Damaris,' and----"
"And," she interrupted, with a soft laugh, "you were an impudent young
soldier called Blue Eyes. But now we are old, staid people. I am
twenty-four."
"And I am twenty-five," I interrupted in my turn.
"Wherefore we have grown sober and steady. Still, notwithstanding that,
you may tell me if you choose whether you think I have aged very much."
Aged very much! Yes, she had aged, if being more beautiful than ever
meant having aged. For now the sun dazzled me no longer, and I could
see all her loveliness, I could observe that the tall, slim form had
grown a little, just a little, more womanly; that the soft dark eyes
had just a little more of calmness in their gaze; that the scarlet lips
were as full, and the small white teeth, which I had always admired so
much, as brilliant.
"But all the same," she said, while I surveyed her, "you need not hold
my hand so long. One does not look at another with their fingers."
Then, when I had released that hand, which, I protest, I did not know
I was holding, she bade me sit down by her side, she herself taking a
seat upon a great Segovian ottoman close by, and drawing up to her a
little ebony table upon which was a little gilt coach, with the doors
and windows of glass, and with four little silver horses to it, and a
coachman and footman in gold. And she opened one of the doors of this
little coach and popped her long slim fingers in and drew out a bonbon,
and, I thought, was going to pop it in my mouth too. But, if that had
been her intention, she considered better of it, perhaps because she
was now "sober and steady," and so, instead, laid it gravely down on
the ebony table, and pointed to it, and said, "Eat it;" which I did.
"Now," she said, "we will drink something, _à la bonne chance_. I drink
chocolate; but since you are a great big _mousquetaire_ you may have
some wine if you choose. Let me see; there is Florence wine, and Lunel
and Muscadine, and----"
"I shall drink the chocolate or nothing," I said firmly, since I was
not going to sit toping like a rude _mousquetaire_ before my Princess
while she drank the other. Whereon she told me to ring the bell and
order the chocolate, and in ten minutes we were discussing that
beverage, and the footman had left us alone.
"Oh!" she exclaimed volatilely, "do you remember, Blue Eyes--I mean, my
lord--when I sat on the table in the inn at Toulouse and drank wine out
of your cup, surrounded by you and your huge troopers, and when I was
supposed to be a wandering vagrant girl called Damaris?"
"You will always be Damaris to me. _I_ shan't call you 'Princess' nor
'Highness,' and I wish you would not call me by that silly title of
'lord.' And I've only been one a month, and have not grown used to it."
"But what am I to call you? I mustn't call you Blue Eyes any more,
because we are now grave and staid; and Adrian is too familiar. I
should poniard you if you were to call me Ana."
"There was another name exchanged between us once," I said--"one
alluded to in your letter received by me to-day."
"Ah!" she said, with a little shriek, "don't recall that. How dare you!
I only wrote it to bring myself back to your memory."
"Oh!" I said, "did you? Well, now, what did your high--I mean you,
Damaris--send for me for at all, if it was only to be so haughty and
distant? There are no more burning houses to save you from; and as
for--for--old Alberoni----"
"Monseigneur the Cardinal Alberoni, if you please."
"As for Monseigneur the Cardinal Alberoni--well! what has become of
him? He has finished his sch--politics--I suppose?"
"He lives the life of a saint at Piacenza. But--but I did not send for
you to talk about his Eminence."
"What then, Da--I mean--well!--you understand?"
"You remember," she said, "that you did save my life once? Of course
you do; you have but just referred to it."
"Is it in danger now? And am I to save it again?"
"My happiness is. I want you to save me from a man--a man who, though
perhaps it may surprise you, wants to marry me."
"Ah! bah!" I said, forgetting my manners and jumping out of my chair,
and beginning to walk about the room. "Bah! A man wants to marry you,
indeed!" and I felt quite angry at the very idea of such a thing.
"It is strange that he should desire to do so, is it not?" she said,
with a queer little, but very pretty, grimace. "All the same, it's the
truth. It is indeed, Blue--I mean, my lord."
"Who is the fellow?"
"Oh!" she said, with another of her little shrieks. "The fellow!
Why--er--Lord Trent--he is one of the scions of our royal house--of
Austria and Spain."
"Shall I run him through? I will if he wants to marry
you--and--and--you bid me do so."
"You might have to run more than one through, at that rate, Blue Eyes,"
and this time she forgot to correct herself, which, if I remember
rightly, seemed to please me; "I think you might, indeed. But, no! I
imagine you can do better than that."
"How? I'll do it."
"Will you, my lord?" ("Vengeance confound that title!" thought I.) "I
wonder if you will?"
"What shall I do? Tell me and it shall be done, Damaris," forgetting
myself also in my agitation.
"I suppose," she said, speaking slowly, and with a wondrous look in
those witching eyes, "you would not condescend to play at being my
lover, would you?--only for a little while--say for a week or so."
"Wouldn't I! Try me! But--but--am I to have all the privileges of a
lover during that week or so? Eh, Damaris?"
"Don't call me Damaris; it is not respectful. Yes, you may have all the
privileges of a lover--in public."
"Oh! in _public_. But--in private! Then----"
"Then I am the Princesa de Carbajal and you are Lord Trent."
"What are a lover's privileges in public--I mean with princesses and
scions of ancient houses? He has to be a kind of slave, a worshipper,
does he not?"
"He does as a rule; but then, you see, Blu--my lord," and while she
spoke she held a bonbon out tantalisingly before my eyes, "you have
got to play a different part from the ordinary one of a lover to a
princess. You will play it, won't you--Adrian?"
"I'll play anything," I said, much agitated by the last word she
uttered.
"_Bueno!_ Well, now, see. You must be a humble lover--one beneath me,
with whom I have fallen in love in a manner discreditable to my rank.
And, thereby, you will make my suitor jealous--oh! so jealous--because
we will play such tricks upon him that he will renounce me. Oh! I have
invented such schemes to make him do so. Neither Quevedo nor Vega ever
thought of such tricks."
"It will be a dangerous game," I said meditatively.
"Dangerous! Dangerous!" she exclaimed. "Why, Blue Eyes, you are not
afraid of a Spanish don although he is of the royal house, are you?
Fie! and you a soldier."
"That isn't the danger I meant," I replied quietly, so quietly that
she guessed my meaning in a moment, as I saw by the rich crimson which
mantled her cheek instantly, and the increased brilliancy of her
lovely, starlike eyes.
"Dangerous to whom, pray?" she demanded.
"To me!" I answered boldly; "because I shall lo----"
"Hsh! hsh! hsh!" she said, putting her hand up quickly. "None of that!
none of that! Yet, nevertheless, there will be danger--to----"
"Whom?" I asked now.
"To you, of course. Oh! not to me, Blue Eyes. Oh no! no!" she continued
somewhat nervously, I thought. "Not to me. Oh no. Think not that, my
lord."
"I can think what I like," I said. "Even a _slave's_ thoughts are his
own. But where's the danger, if you mean ordinary danger?"
"He is great," she almost whispered now, "and powerful, even in Paris.
He is, too, enormously rich, richer than I am, and can hire people
to do whatsoever he wishes. He _might_ hire vagabonds to assault
you--to--to--oh! Adrian!--throw you into the Seine with your throat
cut, or stab you under the shoulder in a dark alley, and--and--all
because you do this out of friendship for me, and with no hope of
reward."
[Illustration: "Stab you under the shoulder in a dark alley."]
"I shall get my reward," I said quietly.
For a moment she regarded me calmly; then she said, "You are very
confident, very masterful."
"Yes," I replied, "very confident, and--well! very masterful."
CHAPTER II
DANGER AHEAD
In looking back upon the events of those days--as I now do from the
calm autumn of my life--I am always struck by the extraordinary fact
that I am still alive. For, from the moment that it began to be
whispered about in the fashionable parts of Paris that the Princesa Ana
de Carbajal was tricking his Highness the Prince of Csaba (in Hungary)
and Miranda Vitoria (in Spain), who, although of the Royal House of
Austria, intended to espouse her morganatically if he possibly could,
my life began to be in danger. That is to say, it would begin to be
in danger directly the Prince of Csaba learned, as he very soon must
learn, that the Princess was being gallanted about by an Englishman,
who was considered to be so far her inferior as to cause it to be said
that she had contracted a love affair with a person beneath her.
For these haughty, arrogant Spanish-Austrians living in Paris had the
impertinence to state that I, Adrian Trent, an English gentleman (to
say nothing of my being also an English nobleman and an officer of
French _mousquetaires_), was beneath the Princess, or--or Damaris, as
I always thought of her. It made my blood boil, I can tell you, when
I learned such was the case (and I hope it makes yours boil, too, who
read, if you are a countryman of mine), and if there had ever been on
my part any idea of drawing back from the part I had agreed to play
with Damaris--which, in solemn truth, there was not--it only confirmed
me all the more in the determination to play that part out to the very
end.
I would, I swore to myself, so enact the part of the girl's lover that
Csaba should have nothing left to do but to retire from his position of
_prétendu_ and _aspirant_ and resign all claims to her hand; and also,
which I hoped would be the case, I would so irritate his absurd hidalgo
pride as to draw him into an embroglio with me; and then--even though
he were forty times the hidalgo and don he was, and had forty times the
blood of _Charles qui triche_ and of that murderer, Philip II. in his
veins--I would so humiliate him and all his following that they would
never dare to be insolent to any English gentleman again.
Only--I forgot one thing. Or, perhaps, I did not know one thing which
I should have known. I should not have forgotten that no descendant of
Philip, nor any one who was related to him, was likely to meet me in
a fair and open way. Not they! Be sure of that. And it was from this
lack of knowledge, or this forgetfulness, that I nearly got caught in
a trap, that I was nearly done barbarously to death, and that I nearly
lost the great happiness of my life. However, this you shall read.
But Damaris knew, and, knowing, she did not mean to have me fall into
the trap. And all this you are to read as well.
"Now, my lord," she said to me one fine night, when I had waited on
her, "this is the very occasion when we are to begin to arouse the
demon of jealousy in Csaba's manly bosom. To-night we are going to sow
the poison seed. Therefore prepare yourself."
"I am prepared. What is to be done?"
"I am going to the ball at the Hôtel d'Aragon, his house. But you
are not--yet you will be there. See, here is his invitation to
Monsieur--blank. That blank is left because I forced him to give
me an invitation for a friend of mine, whose name I would fill up.
Observe, _mon ami_, I fill it up with yours." Whereon, stooping over a
scrutoire, she wrote in the name of Lord Trent.
"It will be pleasant to go to the ball," I said. "I presume I shall
have one dance with you?"
"You will not go to the ball, and you will not dance with me."
"What am I to do then? Go to bed, perhaps!"
"Nor that either. In a manner of speaking, indeed, you will go to
the ball, but only to pass through the great apartments, making your
obeisance to Csaba as you do so; then--well, then--you will go out into
the garden and wait until I come to you. Wait by a fountain in the
middle of the garden--within it, in the centre, a representation of
Hercules destroying the Hydra. Wait, and do exactly what I tell you."
"Shall you be alone?"
"Nay, nay," she replied, with one of her usual smiles. "Ah no, he
will be with me. But of that take no notice. Do exactly what I tell
you--when we meet--and when he _overhears_ what I say."
"When he overhears!"
"'Tis so. Now, for last instructions, take these. Come not to the Hôtel
d'Aragon till midnight strikes. I shall be there earlier, but come not
yourself till then."
"And----?"
"Take your cue from me."
At midnight I _was_ there, outside the great doors of the Hôtel
d'Aragon, descending from my _chaise-roulante_ and seeing a few late
arrivals like myself pass in, as well as perceiving through those wide
open doors a mighty great assembly within. Whereon I, too, went in,
the Prince's menials bawling out my name, though, as not one of them
pronounced it aright, simple though it was, they might as well not have
done so at all.
Through a vast crowd of ladies and of gentlemen in wigs and scarlet
coats, with, for the former, flowered dresses and hoops and panniers
and Heaven knows what, I passed, looking right and left for where the
Prince might be. Then, suddenly, on a little daïs I saw him seated
with, for companion by his side, Damaris, or rather Ana, Princess of
Carbajal; and he was bending over her, talking with what our beloved
friends call _empressement_, and it seemed to me as though he were
utterly oblivious of every other person there.
But, since I stood at the foot of the daïs waiting to attract his
attention and then pay my respects to him, I observed that she--my
confederate--or rather she whose confederate I was--gave a slight
start, and into her face there came a lovely, heavenly tinge of red,
while from between her parted lips I heard the whispered word "Adrian."
Also I saw her left hand, which lay along her dress, clutch a fold or
so of that dress as though in agitation extreme.
And the Prince heard the word too, since, after a momentary glance at
her, he cast his eyes in my direction and then again bent them on the
girl.
"Monseigneur," she said, "it is the gentleman for whom I demanded an
invitation."
"Ha!" he said, rising and bowing somewhat stiffly to me I thought. "Ha!
a gentleman named Adrian."
"Nay," she replied; "a gentleman, an English nobleman, called Lord
Trent."
"I ask a thousand pardons," he said, bending low before her. "I thought
you uttered the name Adrian." Then he turned to me, saying coldly, "My
lord, you are welcome," after which he turned away and began talking to
his companion again, whereon I sought the garden as she had bid me do.
"Was she acting?" I asked myself, as I passed through the windows to
the gardens beyond, to find and take up my station by the fountain
in which was the statue of Hercules killing the Hydra; "was she
acting when she whispered my name and when she made that slight
but perceptible clutch at her dress?" As for the tinge of red, I
doubted if she could act that, since, so far as I knew, it was not
to be accomplished--no! not even by La Gautier, whom I had seen
often enough in the past at the Odéon. Still, I remembered she was a
good actress--had she not impersonated a wandering singing-girl from
Provence when I first knew her; and had she not deceived even so astute
a beast as Marcieu, the spy who tried to arrest her! So I could not
answer the question, but went on down the _allées_, and past stone
fauns and satyrs, and gentlemen in togas and ladies in--well! not in
gowns made by court furnishers--and, at last, in the centre of a great
_rond_, covered with crushed shells and tiny pebbles that hurt the
feet, I came upon the fountain and the figure of Hercules. Then, being
there, I sat me down on the high stone rim of the basin, into which the
water was falling from the hydra heads with a vastly cool and pleasing
splash, and waited, beneath the moon, which sailed clear and cloudless
in the skies, for the dénouement. That, however, was a little while in
coming, and though more than one couple passed me, the vizard-masked
face of the cavalier being almost invariably bent down over the
upturned vizard-masked face of the accompanying dame (so that one might
well guess it was the eternal romance being whispered in willing ears),
she for whom I waited did not herself appear.
Not for a little while, as I have said--yet, at last.
Down one of the little pleached alleys I heard the rustle of a woman's
robe, and saw the long, lithe figure that I knew so well--that I had
never forgotten since I first saw it in the spangled dress of the
mountebank she pretended to be. I saw, too, the moonbeams glint upon
the lovely face, and recognised it instantly, though she, too, wore her
vizard-mask. Then she was close to me, close to where I had stepped out
on to the shell-strewn path, and calling "Adrian"--somewhat loudly, as
I thought--while she drew near.
"I am here," I said, joining her.
Then, speaking in a lower tone now, she said, "He is close
behind--behind a bosquet in the alley. He is watching us, I know. Kiss
my hand--do something lover-like--call me by some lover's name of
endearment. And speak in French; he knows no English."
[Illustration: "Kiss my hand--do something lover-like."]
"_A la fin! ma mie_," I said, falling in with her cue at once, and
going on in the tongue she bade me speak. "I thought you would never
come;" after which, remembering her injunction, I stooped and kissed
her hand, holding it to my lips for some seconds, while all the time
the great jewels on her fingers sparkled in the moonlight.
"Farewell," she said, "I may not stay. To-night--to-night," and now
she spoke loudly again, clearly, so that none within fifty paces of us
could fail to hear her words--"to-night at two o'clock come to supper
with me at my house. I await you. Till then, adieu. And come to the
side-door, that opening on to the Rue des Fleurs. Till then, adieu."
"Do you mean it?" I whispered now, wondering if this was play-acting
too. "Do you mean it, Damaris?"
"Ay, I mean it. We must play the comedy out. But," and now she spoke in
English, and her voice sunk to its deepest whisper, "forget not your
rapier. You may need it."
"I shall not forget." Then, while again she had given me her hand,
which, at this moment, she was making great pretence of withdrawing
from my grasp, I whispered, also in English, "But this has got to be
paid for, Damaris; and the reward I shall demand will be enormous."
But she only laughed, showing her little white teeth, and went swiftly
back up the alley she had come down, turning once and saying in a
fairly clear voice, "Remember."
Whereon, when she had gone and joined her companion, as I could tell
very well by overhearing them talking as they withdrew, I sat me down
on the stone edge of the fountain and fell a-musing.
"Bring my rapier, she said," I muttered to myself. "Ay, and so I
will. But not this plaything by my side, fit only to match a court
suit. Instead, my good Flamberg. 'Ware that, my illustrious rival,
if you come near me! Ay, I will in truth bring it. And so--so--so--I
shall win her. For though Damaris were forty thousand times a Spanish
and Austrian Princess, this thing has gone too far to stop here. She
has got to sink her title now in a lowlier one, namely, that of the
Viscountess Trent, or--or----"
I paused. Adown another path than that along which she had come to me
there was advancing a tall and stately gentleman, alone. A man with a
peaked beard, and dressed all in black satin--like myself; a man who
walked with gravity extreme. Then, as he drew close to me, he removed
the hat he wore, and standing stock-still before me, said in French--
"Have I the honour to address the Milord Trent?"
"That, sir, is my name," I said, rising from my seat and removing also
my hat, since I could not allow myself to be outdone in politeness by a
foreigner, by which I mean a man who was not an Englishman.
"I have a little message," he proceeded, "from my master, the Prince of
Csaba and Miranda Vitoria--from your host of the moment."
"I shall be honoured to receive it, sir."
"It is," the grave and courteous gentleman said, "a warning, a hint.
The Prince, my master, desires me to tell you that it will not be
for your good to go out to supper to-night--not for the good of your
health."
"The Prince, your master, being aware, sir," I demanded, "that it is to
an Englishman he sends this message?"
"I imagine his Highness may be aware that such is the case."
"Will you, sir, then, in your courtesy, constitute yourself the bearer
of my reply?"
"I am your servant, sir; I shall deem it an honour to do so."
"Sir, you place me in your debt. And, such being the case, will you
please to tell the Prince, your master, that I look forward with
eagerness to my supper to-night, to which I shall proceed without fail;
also that my health is most excellent, as are both my appetite and
digestion; and, likewise, that when I require a doctor's advice I shall
not insult so illustrious a person as the Prince by asking him to take
so humble a function as that on himself? Sir, I salute you."
Whereon, with the exchange of most polite bows between us, I strode
away, leaving him alone.
CHAPTER III
DANGER CLOSE AT HAND
By now it was half after one o'clock, and I, leaning out of my salon
window in the Lion d'Or, knew that it was time for me to be away; to
reach Damaris--"my Damaris" I called her now, since I had resolved that
mine she had got to be--and see what sort of a supper she proposed
to offer me. For my part, I thought the dishes were as like as not
to consist of some unwholesome cold steel, or a leaden bullet out of
a Spanish _trabuco_ or musquetoon--that is to say, offered but not
accepted, if I was to have any word in the matter.
Dallying idly over the window-sill, I thought, I say, of all this,
while at the same time there rose ever before me the beauteous features
and the laughing eyes of the Princess. And I wondered if she would
laugh if she heard the clash of arms outside her side-door in the Rue
des Fleurs. Likewise, I wondered if she would laugh, too, when she
learnt, after this pleasing little entertainment of the small hours was
over, of how masterful an individual I could be--it was her own term,
you will please to remember; her very own!--and how I was the sort of
man who would know how to turn this "playing" at being her lover into
being her lover in true and actual fact. Poor Damaris! Poor, stately,
yet roguish Damaris, what a come-down it would seem to her!--to give up
her great position to become my wife.
But would it? Would it? Well! I did not quite know. She was a
Spaniard, and the Spaniards had the reputation of being very firm in
their affections when once they were set in a certain direction. And
I thought, only thought--though, perhaps, I hoped too--that those
affections were set more or less in my direction. And now, to-night, I
was going to see.
I had brought back to Paris from England with me a servant: a rough,
queer creature, with an enormous appetite and a desire for sleep which
I had never seen equalled; yet one who had served my dear father for
many years, and had followed him about over Europe in those pilgrimages
which I once told you he had been in the habit of making, in the
footsteps of _our_ King, James III. At Rome this man had been, also in
Spain, and in these places he had picked up a smattering of tongues
other than his own, as well as having the French very well; while, as
he had earlier ridden trooper in the regiment of Blues, and, still
earlier, had been a sailor for a time, he was a brave and valiant
fellow. A rough kind of spaniel thing he was, which would cling close
to its master's heels, yet yap and snap and sniff at every one a-nigh
that master until sure that such person boded no ill to him. Now, I
went to wake him--for, as always, he slept when he had no work to
do--from his slumbers in a cupboard on the landing.
"Get up, Giles" (for Giles Bates was his name, and a good honest
English one, too, though it had no spot of Norman in it), I cried,
stamping on the floor at the same time to wake him. "Get up at once."
"Is the house afire?" he asked, yawning and rubbing his eyes all the
time. "I would not be surprised if 'twere so in this silly land. Or is
the breakfast ready? I am mortal hungry. Oh!" he exclaimed, seeing me,
his master, "it is you, my lord. What is to do now, my lord?"
"I am going to supper at a lady's house, or, at least, I am going to
a lady's house. Don't roll your eyes up like that, you fool! the lady
will be my wife ere long, I hope. Meanwhile, I have enemies, rivals,
and may be attacked, and I want your company."
In a minute he was up off his pallet and had seized his sword and
was buckling it on to him, his gooseberry-looking eyes gleaming with
delight; for Giles Bates loved a fight as well as any of our island
breed, and was ever ready for one.
For myself, I needed no buckling on of my blade. I had, since I
returned from the Hôtel d'Aragon, changed my clothes, putting off
my fashionable suit of black, and assuming a plainer one in which I
travelled. My Flamberg was also already on my thigh, wherefore I felt
equal to meeting any of the Prince of Csaba's Spanish _asesinos_ whom
he might see fit to send out to attack me in the neighbourhood of my
sweetheart's house. That they would be Spanish I felt sure, for more
reasons than one; the first of many such reasons being that the Prince
was surrounded by a train of Spaniards; and the second, that he would
have had no time to procure Frenchmen, even if Frenchmen would have
served him, which, since the French are not midnight cut-throats,
whatever their other failings may be, I did not think very likely.
[Illustration: "I want your company."]
A little later and we drew near to where the Paris mansion of the
Carbajals stood in the Marais, it being by this time hard on two
o'clock of the morning, and all the streets around very still beneath
the light of the moon as she sailed above. The revellers and wassailers
seemed to have gone to their beds, and we scarce passed any one as we
approached nearer and nearer to the spot we were making for, and all
was very calm except for the barking of a dog once and again. Yet,
notwithstanding the peacefulness of the night and the desolation of the
streets, I observed my mastiff keeping his eyes ever open warily, and
glinting first one and then the other into dark corners and up alleys
and _ruelles_.
"A sweet fine night," he muttered to himself, "for a fight. Oh! 'twould
make a shark sob" (he had been a sailor, amongst other things, as I
have said) "to think we should not come to loggerheads with some one on
such a night as this."
"Be still," I said; "we draw near to the house, to----"
"My lady's bower!" he murmured, regarding me with his fish-like eyes,
so that I knew not whether he meant to be impertinent--which I did not
think he did--or was quoting from some of the sheets of love-ballads I
had more than once caught him poring over. "Oh, love! love! love!"
"Peace, fool!" I said, "and hold your silly tongue. We are there."
And so we were; we being now outside a small oak door let into the
side of the Carbajal mansion, which stood up grey and solemn in the
moonlight.
"Now," I continued, "to get in."
"Ay, my lord," said Giles; "and to get out again afterwards. Do I enter
with you?"
"You shall know later. Meanwhile, stand back in the shadow. And take my
cloak; 'twill but encumber me if there should be any sword-play inside."
"And serve as guard for my arm if twisted round it," said Giles, as he
took the cloak, "if there should be any outside. 'Tis four years since
I fleshed a Spaniard. 'Twas by the Puerta del Sol, and he was attacking
a Northumbrian Jacobite gentleman, who, alas! was lurching about like
the _Royal Sovereign_ in a gale----"
"Silence," I said. "See, the wicket opens;" as in truth it did, and
through the bars I saw a moment or so later a pair of soft roguish eyes
glistening in the moonlight--eyes that I knew well and loved to see,
they making then, as always they have made, a summer in my heart by
their glances.
"Are you alone, Adrian?" a gentle voice, equally dear to me as the
eyes, whispered.
"Alone," I whispered back, "except for a fool mastiff creature, who is,
however, faithful, and can fight as well as be trusted."
"Ay, he can," I heard my follower mutter to himself, "and will not be
contented if he fight not to-night."
"Come in," Damaris said, opening now the door (in which the wicket was)
about half a foot, so that I might squeeze in, "and leave your watchdog
there. He may be attacked----"
"So much the better," growled Giles, he hearing all.
"You understand?" I said to him; "you understand? You may be attacked."
"Ay, my lord, I understand. I am not afeard. Yet I wish I had the
wherewithal for supper. I am parlous hungry----"
"Bah! Keep watch well." Whereon I entered by the half-open door, and
joined Damaris.
It was quite dark in the passage when I got there--except for the rays
of the moon, which glinted and glistened from windows on high--there
being no lights in the house so far as I could see. Then, while I was
noting this, my girl whispered to me, "There are two in the garden now.
I have seen them! have been close to them! Do you know what they are
here for, in their long cloaks and vizard-masks?"
"I can guess well enough. Who are they?"
"Menials, I take it. Menials come to--to--O Adrian!"
"I understand. Damaris, you have got to pay me for this service."
"I thought," she whispered, "that English gentlemen, English noblemen,
did not ask payment from ladies for services rendered."
"One payment it is always permissible to ask. I mean to have it too."
"It is impossible," she said--"impossible."
"I intend to make it possible. You told me I was very masterful, and I
shall be--if I live through this night."
Whereon she only whispered again, "O Adrian!" and then said, "Come and
see these men; and--and--loosen your sword in its sheath."
"Never fear," said I. "That's ready."
After which I followed her along the dark corridor or passage, and
through a hall, large and lofty--they had built good houses in the
old days in that portion of Paris known as the Marais--from out of
which there opened the reception saloons, as well as a great _salle_
or banqueting-room. Now, into that hall there shone, from two great
windows high up on either side of it, the full moon, so that I could
perceive the form of my young princess almost as clearly as I might
have done in daylight, and to my intense astonishment I observed that
she was very little like a princess now, if such personages are to be
judged by the garb they wear. For, now, she was arrayed in the dark
Nîmes serge of a waiting-maid; upon her head was the provincial cap
worn by so many of those women, hers being the head-dress of Brittany,
which, as all the travelled world knows, hides every hair upon a
woman's head and quite destroys any good looks that a serving-girl may
happen to possess. And I noticed, too, that her hands were no longer
adorned with flashing gems; nor were they either the little white
snowflakes I had always gazed upon with such rapture--since now they
were of a discoloured yellow-brown hue, and the nails discoloured also.
"More play-acting," I said to her, "more play-acting. 'Tis like the
night in Toulouse when you played a part."
"Ay, 'tis," she answered; "and, I protest, as necessary now as then
that I should play it well. And," she went on, "I am going to play one,
and you shall see me do it. Now," she continued, "I must leave you, as
I am about to go into the garden."
"Then I go too," I said. "Why! suppose one is Csaba--the Prince."
"Well! he would not hurt me. He pretends to love me--_does_ love me."
"He might carry you off."
"Might he! What! with my faithful Adrian looking at him out of the
darkness of this room, and ready to spring forth like a great fierce
English lion--that great lion that is so dominating and contemptuous
over all the other beasts and fowls of Europe. Might he? Not he. Nor
will he while I have this," and, in the moonbeams, I saw her draw a
little stiletto from out the pocket of her serving-woman's gown. "Now,"
she said, "you stay here till I come back. Be a good boy, Blue Eyes,
and do what I tell you."
"You do love me, don't you, Damaris? That's understood."
"It is understood that you do as I tell you. Now I go."
Whereon she went through the door from the hall and into the great
_salle_, and then down the huge steps leading from the verandah on
to the broad walk, on which there stood large tubs, having in them
oleanders and orange and lemon trees. And be sure that, creeping after
her, I followed as far as I might without exposing myself to the view
of any who might be in the garden; and then, from behind the heavy
window-hangings, I gazed out, while listening with all my ears.
Now, no sooner had my girl gotten down some yards upon the broad
walk--she having, as she went, thrown a common kind of hood, such as
Spanish peasant women wear in the streets over her head--than she
commenced, gently, but still audibly, to say, "Hst! hst! Isidore. I am
here. Isidore, where are you? Have you kept tryst? Isidore, I say!" and
then gave a little kind of muffled shriek as a figure, enshrouded in a
cloak and wearing a mask (and followed by another attired in a similar
manner), stepped out from behind a lemon-tree tub and seized her by the
arm.
CHAPTER IV
A FINALE
That figure stepped forth and seized her by the arm while saying, in
tones quite loud enough for me to hear, "What are you making that noise
for here? and who are you? and who, in the fiend's name, is Isidore?"
"O kind sir! O monsieur!" I heard the girl answer. "Oh! please, sir,
don't kill me, and don't wake the Princess. Oh! what are you doing in
her garden at this hour?"
"Who is Isidore?" the masked one asked sternly.
"O kind sir, he is the coachman. We are to be married soon, and we make
a little tryst at night when it is fine above. O sir, if the Princess
should wake?"
"Wake! How should she be asleep? Is she not entertaining some
Englishman to supper to-night?"
"Ah, monsieur! Ah, _mon Dieu_! You believe that! 'Tis a cold supper
then! Look, monsieur, at the _salle-a-manger_."
"Bah! She has a boudoir, I suppose?"
"Ah! monsieur, would you believe that of the Princess! And all because
she played a little jest upon a foolish Englishman who pesters her
with his attentions, a poor half-witted thing, who even now, at this
moment, is dilly-dallying at the side-door, thinking he will be let in.
_Peste!_ he will wait a long while," and she began to sing a song out
of Regnard's new comedy about a man waiting for a lady under an elm,
and waiting a mighty long time too--
"Attendez-moi sous l'orme," she sang, "vous m'attendrez longtemps."
"A little jest," the cloaked and masked man said, turning round to his
companion; "a little jest. And the animal is by the side-door. Is this
the truth?" re-turning his face towards the girl.
"Ah! monsieur. The truth! How can it be aught else--when--when the
Prince of Csaba and Miranda Vitoria honours her with his admiration."
"Come," the man said to his companion now. "Come. We, too, will go
round to the side-door and see this ardent lover--and, perhaps, punish
his insolence. These English are insupportable. As for you--go to your
Isidore, your coachman."
"Oh! _non, monsieur, non!_ He will not come now. There will be no
Isidore to-night. He is timorous. If he has seen monsieur, he will have
shrunk away."
"Go then to your bed, and stay in it; and, above all, say nothing to
the Princess of our being in this garden to-night."
"For certain, monsieur, otherwise I should have to say I was here
too. Good-night, monsieur." Then, as the man turned to move away, she
suddenly stopped him by catching the end of his cloak, and, thereby,
forcing him to turn; he saying somewhat haughtily, "What is it, good
woman? What?"
"Only that monsieur will not laugh at the poor Englishman, will not
deride him. They cannot bear that!"
"No," the other said, "I will not laugh at him. Rely on me. There will
be no laughing," and again he turned and went upon his way, accompanied
by the other.
* * * * *
"You have done a fine thing for poor Giles," I said to the Princess,
as now she rejoined me in the great _salle_. "A fine thing. I must get
back to him at once and lend a hand if I would not find him hacked to
pieces by those two cut-throats sent out by your precious Prince."
"Why," she said calmly, "I thought you said he was a fighter. Is he not
so?" she went on, while all the time she was unwrapping the hood from
her head and--next--taking off the horrible Brittany cap which hid her
beautiful hair that, now it was no longer obscured, gleamed a superb
dark chestnut in the rays of the moon.
"He is that," I replied, "and a good one, as most men who have been
soldier and sailor both, to say nothing of wandering about Europe as
an adherent of an unhappy cause, are like to be. But the man is a good
tilter who can hold his own against two."
"Perhaps he will not have to fight two of them," she said, still very
calmly. "One has, I imagine, no fighting in him."
"What makes you think that?"
"Oh! Oh! Well, let us wait and see. Perhaps--well! I can't say."
"You observed that fellow well, anyhow. And heard his voice."
"Yes, yes!" she said; "yes, but it was no---- Come," she said, "let us
go and look after the watchdog."
Whereon we now retraced our steps, passing out of the great hall and
down the corridor towards where the side-door with the little wicket in
it was.
And then, as we drew near that door, we heard (and more especially we
did so because Damaris had forgotten to close the little wicket after
she had looked through it at me, so that noises outside, if any, might
plainly be distinguished) the clash of arms, a sound sweet enough to a
soldier's ears.
"Hark!" I said, redoubling my pace as I did so, and catching hold of
the girl's hand, whereby she was compelled also to move more swiftly,
though, in sober truth, I think she was as anxious to reach the door
and get it open as I was myself. "Hark! they have set upon him. And
there _were_ two. Oh! this is cowardly, murderous! I must take my
share."
"Pray Heaven he, your man, kills not two of them. That would cause a
terrible stir, and--and--and would part us for ever, Adrian."
"Nothing shall do that," I muttered determinately, perhaps grimly,
through my lips. "Nothing!"
Then, we being by this time close to the door, I seized the latch and
opened it, running out into the little open _place_ in front of it,
which was flooded by the glorious splendour of the full moon.
What a strange scene it was upon which my eyes lit, even as I heard my
sweetheart murmur, "God be praised! he, at least, is not slain--yet."
A strange scene indeed, though with a ludicrous side to it; one that
might have made me laugh, maybe, at any other time, and if I had not
myself been concerned deeply in all that was a-doing. For there was my
brave, courageous servitor, this man who had been a wandering sailor as
well as soldier, and also a faithful follower of a hardly-treated race,
standing up manfully against another swordsman who was making swift
passes at him, they fighting across the body of a third who lay prone
and prostrate with Giles's foot upon his body.
And that last was the fact which would have made me laugh in any other
circumstance, for, swiftly, I recalled how in the days of my childhood
this very Giles had taken me to see Barton Booth in one of Mr.
Sotherne's beautiful tragedies at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields,
and how, when the actor struck the villain down--exactly in the middle
of the stage!--he had placed his foot upon his chest, and waved his
triumphant sword over the fallen one. I recalled, too, how Giles had
applauded, and had said, "O Master Adrian, Master Adrian, that is the
way to conquer, to subdue a villain!"
[Illustration: "Fighting across the body of a third who lay prone and
prostrate with Giles's foot upon his body."]
And now the poor faithful, honest fool had himself struck a villain
down, and with his foot upon that villain's chest--in a splendid,
tragic, and theatrical manner--was as like to strike another one down
ere long; for, even as I tore open the little door, and rushed out
followed by Damaris, he disarmed the other fighter, lunged at him, and,
missing his heart, yet brought him to his knee, while he drew back his
sword once more to plunge it through the other's body.
"Stop!" rang out the Princess's voice, clear and imperious; "stop, man,
I command you. Adrian, forbid him. It is the Prince," she whispered in
my ear; "I recognised his voice easily in the garden."
"Why?" I asked, hot and excited myself now, "why stop? Why should he,
this midnight assassin, be spared?"
"'Tis Csaba, I tell you," she said. "'Tis the Prince. If he is slain
there can never be," and she lowered her voice more deeply still, "any
union betwixt _England_ and _Spain_."
"Hold your weapon, Giles," I cried, understanding in a moment what
she would convey, and, in honest truth, not deeming this contemptible
Prince's life worth the cost of a broken union 'twixt an Englishman and
a Spanish girl who loved each other. "Hold up. Be still, I say."
And, obedient to my command, perhaps obedient also to those earlier,
haughtier commands uttered in the girl's clear tones, Giles did hold,
yet muttering while doing so that he would have been through the
other's lungs in a moment.
"So, monseigneur," my sweetheart said, addressing the masked Prince,
who now rose from off the knee on to which he had been beaten, "you are
content to play the part of murderer, are you? And on a serving-man!
For shame!"
"He wore his master's cloak," a deep, muffled voice said. "Until that
master appeared just now at your side I thought I was fighting with
him."
"Therefore you and your confederate," and I glanced at the dead man at
our feet, "sought to murder me. Wherefore?"
"Ay, wherefore?" repeated Damaris.
"Because you loved him, and--and I loved you."
"Nay," she said softly, "I did not love him then; I--I do not think I
did, though, in honesty, I will say I deemed him the brightest, most
worthy, pleasant man I have ever known. But now----"
"Now!" came from both our pairs of lips, from Csaba's and from mine.
"Now I love him, and no other man shall ever have my heart."
For a moment there was silence amongst us all, though I stole my hand
towards that of Damaris, and, finding it, held it fast; yet but a
little later Csaba muttered--
"It is impossible. He is beneath you."
Now, though I had heard those sweet words of the girl's only a moment
before, these latter ones angered me, drove me beside myself, for I
was weary of hearing so often that I, an Englishman, was unworthy to
be the mate of any one, no matter how high that one might be placed.
Wherefore, furious, and stepping up to this man, this prince who
skulked about in the night with secret murder in his heart, I said,
bending my face forward so that it was very near to his, and doing so
with a desire to give weight to my words--
"Hark you, I have heard these words before. But now, unless you are an
arrant cur--such as assassins always are--you shall retract them, or I
will cram them down your throat. For if you say that not only I, but
also any Englishman, high or low, gentle or simple, is not the equal of
any foreigner, even though he be a prince of Austria or of Spain, then
you lie. I say, you lie. Do you hear--you lie."
While, even as he started and staggered back, clutching his cloak
convulsively with the hand that held its folds together, I continued--
"Now, if there is any fight left in you after the defeat you have
received at the hands of this simple, honest English peasant, take your
sword in hand and let us see whether you will justify your words or
swallow mine." Then, turning to Giles, I said, "Pick up this fellow's
weapon and give it to him."
"No," exclaimed Damaris; while, looking round as Giles did as I bade
him, I saw her standing by me, pale, and like a statue, yet with her
beautiful eyes ablaze. "No, you shall not fight with him, Adrian.
Prince as he is, and, alas! of my land, he is unworthy to cross swords
with you.--As for you," she said, addressing Csaba, "begone. Begone
from off this _place_, which belongs to my hotel and is mine, and let
me never see your face again. Go," she said, stamping her foot on the
rough cobblestones; "go, I say."
Yet still he did not move, but, instead, stood there looking like some
great black statue in his long cloak and mask, and with his head bent
towards the ground, so that I concluded he knew not what to do, but, in
his pride and rage, was determined not to quit the ground at her orders.
And she, seeing this, and, as she told me afterwards, understanding
very well the tempest that must be raging in his heart, said, "Come,
Adrian. Since he will not go, we must."
Wherefore we went back to her house followed by Giles, and leaving the
Prince of Csaba and Miranda Vitoria still standing in the open space
before the little door.
* * * * *
Now the story is done--done, that is, unless you would desire me to
tell you what you doubtless can very well imagine; namely, that it
was not long before the Princess and I became man and wife. Yet hard
enough that marriage was in making, I can assure you, and one which I
thought would never be completed. For, although my girl, having once
acknowledged that she loved me, was as willing to be my wife as I was
eager to have her, the forms and ceremonies we had to go through to get
what Giles called "triced up" were enough to irritate one of Damaris's
own saints; for there was the Consul of Spain--the Consul of the, by
her, hated Philip V.--to be invoked, and the English ambassador to be
consulted, who, since he represented King George, was not agreeable to
me; and the permission of the Archbishop of Lyons, Primate of France,
to be obtained, and a permission sent over from England from the
Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of my church. And we went through
all kinds of ceremonies, and were half-married a week before we were
finally allowed to consider ourselves man and wife, while I became very
irritable through it all, and Damaris muttered all kinds of strange
little expletives in Spanish through her pretty teeth and scarlet lips,
which, she told me afterwards, would not have sounded so nicely in
English. Also, I should not forget to say that Giles signed countless
papers and parchments as a witness, and looked very important over it
all, and whispered lines of love-ballads to me at intervals to cheer me
up, and ate enormously at every opportunity which offered.
However, done it was at last, and we were wedded. And, although my
wife could not take me to any of her great possessions because she
would not set foot in Spain while Philip ruled, and I could not take
her to my home in Staffordshire (where the Trent rises) because of my
political principles, we were very well content--since we were both
young and hopeful!--and so we settled down in the old Paris house of
the Carbajals in the Marais, and have, up to now, lived happy ever
after, as the chapbooks say; a happiness which, you may be very sure,
was not ruffled when we heard that the Prince of Csaba and Miranda
Vitoria had married a princess of the ancient house of Ponte-Casoria
(which is allied to the greater house of Bourbon), who was extremely
rich, but as wizened as a monkey (as my wife told me), and who, report
declared, led Csaba a terrible life.
AN OUTLAW'S FORTUNES
BY W. C. WHISTLER
"Forest-dweller and outlaw I may be, Master Cork," I said; "but I would
have you remember that I was an honest man before I was driven here,
and an honest man I am still, though I must needs be in hiding for
speaking up for the weaker side."
"Honest men don't slay the king's deer," sneered Cork. "It seems to me
that you have run into a fair noose by this time, for all your fine
talk, seeing that deer-slaying is a hanging matter--for the king is the
king, whether you choose to own him or not."
"Hungry men cannot stay to think of that," I answered shortly. But I
knew that he was right, and that I must needs, with every honest door
closed to me, go on sinking in the mire, as it were.
"Hungry forsooth!" he said. "And gold to be had to-night for the
picking up! Come with me, I say, and the forest will know you no
longer. Listen! yonder fall more bedizened nobles, with good gold
nobles in their purses moreover to prove their nobility!"
I had heard plainly enough. The cold wind of Maytime set from far-off
Hexham level to where we were standing under the shadow of Blockhill,
and not for the first time that day the heavy sound of cannon came
down it, like and yet unlike thunder. There was another battle on hand
between the white rose and the red. Margaret of Anjou was making one
more struggle, for herself and her son and husband, against Edward of
York.
"Outlaw and fallen as I am," I said bitterly, "I will have no share in
robbing the dead."
And then the thought of what this ruffian had proposed to me came over
me in all its horror--that he and I should prowl over the field of
battle when night fell, and seek for riches among the quiet slain--and
I shrank from him. Whereat he grinned evilly, and that turned my
contempt to wrath, so that my hand went to the hilt of the broad
forester's hanger that I wore.
"Away with you," I said, "I will have no more of you."
"Well, well; be not so hasty, I pray you. I did but jest," he
stammered, giving back a pace or two.
But I knew better. No true man jests with such things, and I told him
so, once more bidding him begone.
"Well, I will go," he growled; "but, mind you, there is a reward for
him who brings a deer-slayer to justice."
"You can do as you like about earning that," I answered. "It seems all
one to you how you get wealth, so that it comes easily."
So he went, looking back now and then to see, I suppose, if I was in
earnest. I took my bow from the tree where I had set it, and plucked
the arrow from the slain deer at my feet, at which he hastened to put
as many tree trunks between me and himself as possible, and I lost
sight of him.
I fell to brittling the deer quickly when he was gone, for I was by
no means so sure that he would not set the sheriff on me, as he had
hinted. I did not think it likely that that quiet old worthy would
trouble himself about me, with a battle raging at his very doors, as
one might say; but so far he had heard nothing of me, and I could come
and go into the town pretty freely when I would, though the chance of
some Yorkist from my own country seeing me was an ever-present danger
that kept me out of sight as much as possible if I did go. Still there
were things that I needed that must be bought there now and then, and
it would be hard to have the place closed to me. Now, I thought it just
as well to get the deer I had killed to my cave, in case I had to go
into hiding; and I was glad that some old distrust of this man Cork had
kept me from telling him of it when I first knew him.
That was about two years ago, when I had to fly from Yorkshire with a
price on my head as a Lancastrian, while those who had come to take me
lighted my way north across the moors by burning my own stronghold, the
little Peel tower of which I had been as proud as of the old name of
Barvill that I dared own no longer, behind me.
I had taken no part in the strife of the Roses, having enough fighting
from time to time with the Scots raiders who had slain my father six
years ago. But I had always been brought up to reverence King Henry,
and made no secret thereof, which was quite enough to ruin me in the
days when York first had the upper hand and meant to keep it.
So at last I had wandered to these Hexham moorlands, where none knew
me, and where game was in plenty on hillside and in forest, and whence
the rangers and their lords had gone by reason of the wars. Here,
too, I had found by chance the cave of which I had spoken, under the
slope of Blockhill, and close to the brook that runs in the valley.
It was so warm and dry, and so easily hidden, that I bided in it the
first winter of my outlawry, and taking kindly to the forest life, as
a strong man of twenty-two who loves the open, and has none to think
for but himself, will. Here I had bided for a second winter, ranging
the country widely in the summer, even as far as the Scottish border,
gathering thereby knowledge of the by-paths that was to be useful to
others besides myself in time. Maybe I should have joined the company
of some Border knight at last, for a good spear is always welcome
without question; but there was to be another service for me, as will
be seen.
There were other men, outlaws also, whom I would meet in the forest;
but being a Barvill, and proud, I had nought much to do with them. Some
were men ruined by the wars, like myself, but more were robbers at the
best, and outlawed for their misdeeds. These kept away from the town,
laying wait for harmless travellers and packmen in the wild passes; but
there were other ways of making what money one needed wherewith to buy
bread and arrowheads, wine, or clothing, than by robbery, and herein
Master Cork saw his chance of profit, if not in any very honest way.
He was a small householder on the outskirts of the town, and would buy
our stolen deerskins or game at his own prices, and sell them at some
distant market, doubtless to his great advantage. Therefore he was
useful to me, and I saw him often enough, though, as I say, I always
distrusted him.
To-day the woods were full of deer, and I had killed nearer home than
usual, for I suppose that the great battle of Hedgley, of which I had
heard, had driven them hither in terror. Now, with this fresh battle on
hand, our woods would be deserted by them, and therefore I had taken
the first chance that came. Thus Cork had stumbled across me first on
his way to find some associate for his night's work. He had told me
that it was not myself whom he was seeking specially, and made a great
show of friendship in telling me his plan. After he had gone, I got
my venison to my cave, and cooked some for my supper. Then I sat on
the stream bank and watched the birds and beasts for a while before I
slept. The sounds of battle had long ceased, and I mind that I heard
the cuckoo that evening for the first time that year. It was late, even
for the North. Then I went into my cave, built up its mouth in the way
I had found the best, and troubled no more about anything.
I suppose that it was an hour after I had gone to sleep, with darkness,
when my dog growled and woke me, and I roused at once and quieted him.
Then I went to the little opening that I left for fresh air in the
stones with which I closed the cave, and listened. At first I heard
nothing, though the night was clear and still. There was wind coming,
however, for the clouds were racing across the sky under the bright
moon. But the dog was not wont to rouse me for nothing, and I was sure
that there must be somewhat to find out.
Then as I waited there came a far-off shout, and then, clear through
the air, a woman's scream. Then more shouting, and silence.
If it had been shouting only, I should have thought little of it,
for I knew that the pursuit of the flying might pass this way. But
the woman's voice roused me, and without staying to think, I armed
myself, and hurried away towards the place whence the noise seemed to
come. An ancient trackway, worn by ages of timber hauling, lay in that
direction, and it was likely that some fugitives who had taken it as
a road away from the pursuers, might have fallen in with some of the
robber outlaws. At least I might be able to help the side that had a
woman to protect if things went badly for them.
I went very quickly, knowing the woods so well, but I heard nothing
more until I reached a little rise that overlooked the hollow in which
the old lane ran. Then the voices, as of men quarrelling, were plain
enough now and then to my left as I stood still to listen. The woman's
voice was not to be heard among them, however, and I began to think
that there was no need for me to trouble about the business. Still, I
waited for a few minutes, and then my dog warned me that some one was
at hand, and I turned.
A woman was coming straight towards me across a little glade, leading
with her a boy, whose feet seemed to fail for weariness, and I surely
thought for a moment, as the moonlight glinted on her rich dress
and showed her, tall and stately, and seeming unafraid, that I saw
a vision of Our Lady, so wondrous looked this one as she neared me
unfaltering. For indeed had they but now escaped from the hands of the
men I had heard, to meet with myself, armed and wild-looking as I was,
with the unkempt locks and beard of forest life, might well have been
fresh cause for fear to two such helpless ones. Yet the woman never
stayed, though she must have seen me plainly as I saw her. A cloud
passed over the moon for a moment, and when the light came again, she
was close on me. Then I saw that her dress was torn and disordered,
and that she had indeed been in no gentle hands. But for all that, I
could do naught but doff my steel cap before her, for she was the most
queenly woman that I had ever seen.
[Illustration: "This is the son of your king. I charge you with his
care."]
Then she spoke to me, low and quickly, drawing the slender, handsome
boy before her and towards me.
"Friend, I am Margaret the Queen. This is the son of your king. I
charge you with his care--see that you are worthy of such an honour."
And then, as I stared at her in amazement, stepping back a pace, she
added, "Hide him in your forest till danger is past, and hereafter
his palace shall be free to you--baron of England shall you be if you
will. See! Is it fitting that a Prince of Wales should wander with no
attendants?"
But I was on one knee before her by this time, needing and thinking of
no promise of reward or honour. It was enough that I was asked for help
by her who had been, and to me yet was, the highest in the land. And my
heart ached that she should have to seek for succour from such as I.
"On my life be it, Queen Margaret," I stammered, "I will give life for
you willingly."
But then as the dog growled fiercely at some fresh burst of noise that
came from the road, making the young prince shrink from him, I leapt
up, rousing to the danger close at hand, for the Queen would be sought
for directly.
"Follow me, I pray you, Madam," I said, "it is not far to a safe place.
Come, my prince, you are weary; fear not the good hound, but let me
carry you."
"Aye, friend, I am aweary," he said, with a little smile, "but I am
sorely heavy for you, and you are armed moreover."
But the weight of a slight boy of twelve is nothing, and I took him up,
laughing to reassure him. The Queen followed me without a word, and
we went back to my place by the way I had come--surely the strangest,
saddest little company in all England.
I marvel how our Queen kept up in that rough walk until the cave was
reached, but she never faltered. Once I pressed on her the boar spear
that I carried, that she might use it as a staff, but she would not
have it, and she never so much as put out her hand to my arm when she
stumbled over root or jutting rock. It was a rough road for her, but I
dared take no path lest we should be more easily followed. And all the
way I listened for the voices of men who hunted us, but I heard none.
So we came to my cave without mischance and were safe. I set the
half-sleeping prince on a heather-covered bank while I pulled away the
stones of its entrance, and the Queen stood by him watching him, and
I thought how any other woman had surely sunk down to rest after that
weary flight. But she seemed tireless in this as in all else that she
took in hand.
When the way was clear, I prayed her to enter, and she took the hand
of the prince and led him in without a word, while I followed, hanging
the great wild bull's skin that I used as a curtain across the as yet
unblocked doorway, that no light might betray the place.
The fire still smouldered in its far corner, where some fathomless
cleft in the rock took its smoke far into the heart of the hill and
lost it there, and I stirred it to a blaze. I had long ago so screened
it with a stone wall from the doorway that I might use it safely, for I
had a mind to be in comfort when I spent the winter here. And indeed,
to me at least, the cave seemed homelike enough. There was my couch of
springy heather, skin-covered and warmly-blanketed, and the flat-topped
stones that were my seats and table were set in order, and deerskins
were on them also. My bows and quiver and spare arms were on the walls,
with an antlered skull or two, and I was used to bare stone walls in my
old tower in the bygone days. Yet, as I watched the weary face of the
Queen, I knew how wretched all would seem to her.
"It is no fit place for you, Madam," I said, "but it is safe. When
daylight comes again your people will be searching for you, and I will
meet them and bring them to you, and all will be well."
"They fled from me even now," she said in a cold voice, "and here I do
not even know the name of the friend who has come by chance to me."
"My name is Richard Barvill, Madam," I said--and it was good to own the
honest old name once more--"I will say, even before my Queen, that I
have no cause to be ashamed of it, being a forest dweller only because
of the troubles."
This I added, lest the thought of being in the hands of some wrong-doer
might cause her trouble presently when I left her and passed beyond her
sight. One could not tell what fears of treachery might come into her
mind.
"Because of the troubles," she repeated softly, "and they say that I am
the main cause of them all. Yet I have my share in bearing them for his
sake," and she looked towards the young prince, who was now asleep in
earnest on my couch, where he had thrown himself at once when we came
in.
I made no answer, for all this was beyond me, though I did think that
now perhaps for the first time the Queen understood rightly the plight
of many whom the wars had ruined. Instead of replying I busied myself
in bringing out and setting on my table the best food that I had in
the place, and then stood to wait her pleasure. There was cold venison
and good wheaten bread and one flask of red wine, if the platters were
wooden and the cups of pewter, and it was no bad meal for one who was
hungry with a forest hunger.
When the Queen saw that all was ready she rose up from the seat she had
taken beside the fire and thanked me as she roused the prince. Then I
served them both as best I knew how, and presently the Queen spoke to
me of what we might do next.
"Now I am outlaw and forester even as yourself, friend," she said with
a wan smile. "For once I have no plans in my mind, for I am helpless
here. Tell me what we can do."
Now I had been thinking of that even as we crossed the forest, and
there were one or two things that I must know. So I begged leave to ask
her somewhat, and she gave it.
Then I learnt how she had fled from the battle with but few attendants,
and those of no rank, carrying with her some of the crown jewels and
other treasure, and meaning to make for the Scotch border. In the old
lane her servants had fled at the first attack, and both she and the
prince had been dragged from their horses and roughly handled for
the sake of their jewels. Then their captors had forgotten them in a
quarrel over the treasure in the waggon, and she had been able to slip
away with the prince.
"Then, friend, we met with you. I thought you another of the robbers,
but a Queen learns to read faces, and there was that in yours which
told me that I could trust you. So I am here in safety--and some day
you shall know that Margaret of Anjou does not forget her friends."
"Queen Margaret," I said, "there are many things to be seen before I
deserve such a name from you, but I will try to earn it."
And then, because I did not rightly know what else to say, I asked if
these plunderers were Yorkists.
"Outlaws rather," she answered decidedly. "York's men had not let me
escape, for to take me had been worth more than treasure to them. Nor
was there one who wore the badge of the white rose. I heard the name of
their leader--they called him Cork--and I shall not forget him."
So this man must have followed the treasure, if not the Queen, from the
field, and if he knew her there might be trouble in store. But I saw
that if ever the red rose bloomed again Cork's case would be a hard one.
But at least the Yorkists were not scouring the woods in search of
the Queen, and that was good hearing. Probably I was the only man who
knew that she was in them, unless Cork guessed that the woman who had
slipped through his hands were she. If he did so, however, he would
be likely to keep the knowledge to himself, in order to have all the
credit of what he would expect to be an easy capture presently.
"Madam," I said, "I think that there will be no great search for you as
yet. The Yorkists will believe you to have escaped, and your servants
will take word that you are a prisoner. It will be a long day before
those mistakes are found out. The army of York will pass on, and your
people will scatter, and go north in little parties, and I shall meet
with them. Here you are safe, and you may sleep in peace, even were
you to hear voices of men searching for you close at hand, for the
secret of this cave is mine only. Now I must go, and I pray you to be
content until I return with news in the morning. I must close the cave
carefully, and thereafter answer no call save that of my name, Barvill,
for that is known here to none save yourself."
Then I knelt and kissed her hand, and was going, but she asked me, very
kindly--
"Friend Barvill, what of yourself? We have taken your place, and for
our sakes again you are homeless."
"I have other hiding-places, if I need them," I answered, "but now I
have work to do, for your sake and the prince's."
I went out of the cave and built up the doorway, as I was wont when
I left it for some long time, with the Queen's words of thanks in my
ears. More than all else that might bind me to her was this, that not
so much as by a look did she show one sign of distrust of me or of my
word.
When my work was done, so that even from a yard or two away one might
not tell that any cave was there, I went away and left my dog in a
hollow tree that was one of my hiding-places to which he was used, and
then took my way to Hexham, to learn what I might.
It was close on midnight when I came there, and yet the town was alive
with men, as if it were fair-time. Every house was lighted up, and
great fires, round which were gathered groups of noisy men, burned in
the market-place and in the wider streets. One would have thought that
all the army was gathered there to drink after victory, but these were
only stragglers, for the camp was on the battlefield, some miles to the
southward. All of these men wore the badge of the white rose, however,
in some form or other, and to mix with them I must do likewise.
When I found that out, I had not far to seek for what I needed. A man
lay in a dark doorway sleeping after overmuch ale, and I borrowed from
him. He did not so much as stir when I took the twisted scrap of rag
that stood for the proud rose of York from his arm and pinned it to my
own.
So marked, I went boldly to the market-place, and followed a press of
men into the chief inn of the place in order to get a can of ale, that
I might be welcome at one of the fires, where I should best hear what
was to be told. Inside the tavern all was confusion, the good old host
and his tapster being hard put to with a noisy crowd thronging them for
ale that could not be drawn fast enough. I knew the old man by repute,
but well I knew his orphan niece, fair Mistress Annot, whose face, when
she stayed at a mill, where I was welcome, made me feel my loneliness
overmuch at times, for she did not scorn a forest man with whom her
cousin, the miller, had friendly dealings. So as the throng shouted and
pushed round me, the thought of the girl's terror with this wild mob in
the house came over me. But I could do nothing for her, and presently
I got a can of ale and went out and across to a big fire, and sat down
in a place left vacant when a man rose. None heeded me, for there was
constant coming and going.
There were many things that were not all of revelry after victory that
I saw as I sat and listened. One or two houses had been wrecked--those
of known Lancastrians, as one would think--and one was burning out,
fired early in the day. Many times I saw parties bringing in wounded
men, and more than once a hush fell on those who drank and wrangled, as
the sound of a little silver bell came down the street, and a priest
and his servers passed, bearing the last sacrament to some man who had
been brought here to die. There were more things to be seen also, and
it was a heavy tale that I must take back with morning. The Lancastrian
forces had been utterly scattered, and some said that the King had been
taken. The great Duke of Somerset had been taken and beheaded here that
evening, and it would seem that most of the Queen's best followers
had been slain or were prisoners. The only good hearing was that the
Queen was thought to have escaped altogether, and that the army was to
march on Bamborough Castle at once, for it was her best stronghold, and
a likely rallying place. The way for her flight would soon be clear,
therefore.
Then, all in a moment, I forgot even the Queen, for from the tavern
came the noise of a riot, and some leapt up and ran thither, I with the
fear for Annot again. Men came tumbling out of the doorway, and I asked
a grey-haired and well-armed man, who almost upset me in his haste,
what was amiss.
"The butts are all empty," he said, "and the sorry knaves have struck
down the host for telling them so--have slain him, I think. Then some
struck his slayer, and now there is fighting enough."
The man was plainly an honest soldier, and sober, and I told him,
therefore, that there was a lone girl in the house, who would be
frightened, adding, "Maybe they will wreck the house yet."
"Likely enough, for they are camp followers, with none over them. Do
you know the house?"
"Not well, but the yard is down yon lane, and the back-door opens into
it. I know the girl's friends, if you will help me to get her away."
He nodded, and we went into the lane, which was empty now, by reason of
the noise in the market-place, which had drawn all thither. We reached
and tried the back-door, but it was locked, and now there was a sound
as of wild wrecking in the house that made it useless to knock, and
told us to hurry. So I put my shoulder to the door and it flew open,
letting us into a long passage, from which opened larders and the like,
and at the end of which was a great inner door, which plainly led to
the guest room, where the riot was going on. And as the moonlight
streamed in I saw a white figure at this door. It was Annot herself;
and she was putting up the heavy bar that was used to keep house and
tavern apart, as one might say, if the great room were full of wild
drovers and the like at fair-time.
She turned in terror when the door burst open, but my companion spoke
quickly to reassure her.
"Eh, my lass, that is well done, and bravely thought of! But the place
is over-noisy for you now, and we have come to take you into a safer.
See, here is a friend of yours, if I make no mistake."
He had almost to shout, so wild was the clamour on the other side of
the door, and though she answered, we could not hear what she said; but
I saw that she knew me at least.
"Get her away," my comrade howled in my ear; "they will be round to the
back directly."
Then blows fell on the door that had just been barred, and Annot
started away from it towards us. And at that my comrade, not in the
least knowing who this girl was, and most likely thinking her but a
servant, went close to her.
"Come away, lass, I tell thee. The master is slain, and the knaves will
likely burn the house."
She turned to me with a blanched face, as if to ask if this could be
true, and I could only nod in assent, and I thought that she was about
to faint; so did my comrade, and we took her arms and led her out into
the yard, where the noise was less.
"Come, Mistress Annot," I said, "it may not be so bad as that, but it
is true that you must leave here. Let us take you to the miller, and I
will come back for your uncle."
"I am frightened," she said, "and cannot rightly understand. Were you
sent for me?"
"Ay--sent--both of us," answered the soldier promptly. "Miller could
not come himself, in times like these. Quickly, mistress, or they will
catch us."
"I will go with you," she said, "but it is cold, and I would find a
cloak."
But there was no time for that now. The barred door was splintering as
men swung a bench against it, and that sight decided her. She bade us
lead her, and we hurried out into the lane, and away down it in the
direction opposite to that in which the market-place lay. Across that
end of the lane the crowd that the scuffle had attracted was gathering
thickly, and for that reason, perhaps, the lane was empty. But I knew
that it would not be long before outsiders would take part in wrecking
a tavern, and then a rush would be made to the back, of course.
Outside the gate the soldier halted.
"Any more lasses in the house?" he asked.
"They have all gone," Annot answered. "I and uncle, and the man, were
all who stayed when the cannons began this morning. The rest left us."
"Thy uncle? eh! poor lass, poor lass! come away," he said on that.
"Where do we take her, comrade?"
"Out of the town, to a mill a mile or more eastward down the river. It
will be safe going enough, for we can get away by by-lanes."
So we went on hastily, meeting few people at that hour in the dark
alleys of the town, and were soon across a breach in the old useless
walls, and in the quiet meadows along the Tyne side. Annot walked
quickly and firmly enough, though she was hard put to it not to weep
now and then.
We had hardly gone the breadth of two meadows beyond the last cottages,
when a trumpet call rang sharply through the night, and the soldier
pricked up his ears.
"Ho, comrade, I am wanted, and must get back. That call is for guard
changing, and my name is never missing on roll-call," he said. "Good
luck go with you, you are safe now. Forgive me, pretty lass, if I told
you bad news over-roughly just now--but you can but ken the worst once."
With that he nodded to me, and was off, but he turned to call once
more, "Name of John Sykes of Birkbeck's company. Bring me word how you
fare."
There were more half-lost words about ale-drinking over the adventure,
but he was running fast, and I hardly listened, for Annot was speaking
to me, calling me by the name I had taken when my own was not to be
used any longer. They were wont to call me "Barvill of the Peel" in the
old days, and so I kept some remembrance of the name, as it were.
"Master Peel," she said, "is all true that the soldier said?"
"True it is, Mistress Annot, I fear. But presently I will go back and
find that out for certain."
She sobbed a little, and hurried on, and it was not long before we saw
the mill, and heard the rush of the water through its sluices.
As one might have expected, there were no lights to be seen about the
house, but when we came to the door, we found that open, which seemed
strange, and, to me at least, of ill omen at such a time of trouble.
But Annot, who knew the ways of the place, went into the dark entry and
called softly. There was no answer, and she came out to me again.
"I suppose that miller has gone to see to the sluices, leaving the
door open, as he often will. He will be back anon. I will go up to the
wife's room and wake her, that she may not be frightened." And then she
added, "I think that I have much to thank you for, Master Peel, but I
must not stay now."
I tried to say that no thanks were needed, but she was gone into
the darkness of the stairway, and I would not call after her. But I
lingered, for I did not like the silence and open door at all. And I
was right in doing so, for in a few minutes she was back, calling to me
with fear in her voice.
She had found a lantern in some accustomed place, and had lighted it,
and in its dim light I saw that she was more terrified than even in the
town.
"Master Peel," she cried breathlessly; "the house is empty and all in
disorder. What can be wrong, and what shall I do?"
[Illustration: "Master Peel," she cried; "the house is empty and all in
disorder."]
It was plain to me then that the poor folk had fled from some raid of
the Yorkist troops. Possibly the house had been searched for fugitives,
and the miller arrested, with some unfortunate found on the place, as a
sympathiser. But I would not say so at once.
"Let us make certain," I said; "maybe all are in the mill."
We went round the buildings and called, but there was no answer
anywhere. And all the while I was thinking what I could do now for this
poor girl who was thus dependent on me. Perhaps she had other friends
in the town, but, if they lived in the broad streets, I dared not take
her back through a mob whose ways would not grow quieter as night went
on. If she had any other refuge outside the town it were well.
But she had not; nor was there any house to which she dared go in
Hexham now. I had to ask her this directly, for it was plain that the
mill was deserted. And I will say that she met the trouble bravely.
"I will bide here," she said. "Mayhap they will come back now that all
is quiet."
At first that plan seemed good, but then I remembered that the first
place where the purveyors for the army would seek for forage of all
sorts would be in a miller's stores. There would be no real refuge
here for more than the few hours of darkness left. Then, of course, as
I thought of keeping guard here, the remembrance of what my cave held
came back to me plainly. I cannot say that it had ever been forgotten,
but this trouble had seemed but a passing one. Now that I found it more
than that, the other duty came forward again.
Even as I realised that I owed all to the Queen first, I saw what I
might do both for her and Annot. The girl had trusted me, and I would
trust her entirely, for with her as an attendant our Queen would at
least feel her captivity less.
"Annot," I said, "there is one place to which I can take you where you
will be safe till all is quiet again, and there you will be with a lady
who is a fugitive like yourself from these people."
She looked at me eagerly, and answered at once--
"Take me there, I pray you, Master Peel. I trust myself to you in all
things."
"Ay, and now the trust must be altogether on my side, for, if I take
you to this lady, I am putting the greatest of secrets in your charge."
"If some poor lady is hiding alone, let me go to her," she answered;
"then I may feel that my own trouble has brought help to another. Truly
I have trusted you, good friend, for, from the moment we came here, I
knew that you could not have been sent for me, as the soldier said."
"I will answer with trust for trust," I said. "Come, we will borrow
some cloak or blanket from the mill, that you may go warmly."
Then we went in. The place had not been plundered, and I gathered
things that would be of use to the Queen also. I was glad of the chance
of thus getting food and other comforts without having to ask for them,
and so, perhaps, drawing suspicion on me. At last I asked Annot if the
miller had any wine by some chance.
"Plenty," she said, wondering; "but we must not take that."
"You may need it," I said, "but the lady will need it more. And she is
one to whom nothing must be refused."
"Almost do you speak as if she were the Queen herself."
"I am speaking of the Queen," I said plainly.
"And she is alone!" the girl said, with wide sad eyes. "Oh, had you
asked me to go to her, even from my uncle's house, I would have gone."
Then she too gathered things and hurried me, and at last we were on our
way to my cave. And as we went I told her how I had met with the Queen,
and gave her many instructions as to the care of the hiding and the
like, that I might have the less to say in the Queen's presence. It was
a long way, and the day was breaking when we came there, and the Queen
answered from within to the call of my own name.
Now how those two met I can hardly say, for I told the Queen whom I
had brought as I opened the cave mouth, and when I saw the look of
thanks she gave me, and saw Annot fall on her knees and kiss her hand,
I turned away with a sort of lump in my throat, for even that night
alone in the place that was home to me had brought a look to the face
of Margaret of Anjou that was terrible.
So I went aside a little way and sat down until Annot called me, and
then went back and spoke long with her and the Queen. All that we said
need not be set down, nor how the Queen mourned over the news that I
must needs give her. But the end of it all was that I was to seek out
the Sire de Brezè, the leader of her Angevin levies, and bring him
here. She could be patient now with Annot to cheer her.
Therefore I went all day among our outlaws, hearing what they knew of
the flight, and at last heard of De Brezè, as the foreigner who had
passed through the forest. Then I saw the march of the Yorkist army
from Hexham towards the coast, and my heart grew lighter for their
going. None had seen Cork that day, and so he had not been scouring
the wood, but presently I went to the place where the Queen had been
robbed, and the waggon was yet in the lane, empty. Cork and his men
must have gone away with the plunder.
I went into Hexham at nightfall, and the place was in confusion and
wretchedness. There were many who had been plundered of all, and I
learnt without going to the market-place that Annot's uncle was indeed
slain. The tavern had been wrecked, but no worse, though they told me
that several men had lost their lives in the riot before the provost
marshal had ended it too late.
Now as I passed down a lane on my way back to the forest, I came
suddenly on two men who sat under a hedge, and I heard a word or two of
their talk before they saw me. They were not speaking English, and at
once I hoped that I had found some of De Brezè's men. So I gave them
good-night, using passwords that the Queen had taught me--words that
spoke of hope to the cause of the red rose if a man knew them--made in
troubles like these two years ago.
"Good-even, friends. One had wished for a brighter sunset."
"Ay, but the morn may be redder," one answered in good English enough.
"A red morning is a sign of storm," I said, passing on.
"A storm is needed to clear the air," he replied; "then the rose may
bloom once more."
With that the two leapt up and followed me, and when they caught me up
they passed another word or two for certainty, and then spoke freely
enough. Then I learnt that I had met with none other than De Brezè
himself and his squire Varennes, who had come back to seek their lost
Queen, leaving their few followers in some nook of the hills to wait
their return.
What their joy was when they heard all that I had to tell them, and how
they met the Queen, is beyond my writing; but I had heavy news for poor
Annot, which filled my thoughts now that the care of the Queen seemed
to be shifted from my shoulders for a little.
She bore them very bravely, having made up her mind for the worst, and
she told me that now she would bide with the Queen as long as she had
need of her. I had promised the same to De Brezè, for I could guide the
flight across the moors well, and so I was content, for I should be at
hand to help Annot if need was, while doubtless the Queen would find
her some place in a great house in Scotland, were she asked.
Now Varennes went to his men presently and all was planned well, so
that in the grey of the next morning we rode safely northwards, joining
presently the Duke of Exeter, and some other nobles with their men,
thus making a strong party against any attack. And even as I thought
that all was well, there rose one shadow to dim my content, though I
hardly knew why.
Across the moor rode toward us one man, who hastened to put a stretch
of boggy land between us and him before he met us, and that was natural
enough in that place and time, so that we paid no heed to him. But, as
we passed nearer, I knew him, and it was Cork himself; and I thought,
as he reined up and stared after us, that he recognised the Queen as
his captive, and that what he had found in the waggon had told him whom
he had lost. I said nothing, however, for we had no time to waste in
chasing him, and I could not see what harm he could do, since, ride as
hard as he might, he could not bring any force on us in time to stay
our passing the border. Yet, as I say, he brought me a feeling as of
ill omen, and I was uneasy until we could see him no longer. I thought
that he lingered as if watching us, though indeed one might have
wondered if any man did not do so.
Now our journey was safe and unhindered, and well was I thanked for
my guidance. I thought that I should be dismissed when we reached
Scotland, but the Queen herself asked me if I would not remain
in her service, taking my place as a Barvill should among her
gentlemen-at-arms, for she would prove that she was not ungrateful for
what I had done for her and the prince. And one may suppose that I
gladly did so, the more willingly that I should be near Annot, if the
truth is told.
Thus, for good or ill, my fortunes were cast in with Margaret of Anjou,
and I thought that my troubles were over.
Maybe one may say that they were, for the trouble to come yet was the
Queen's, and though I had part in it, that is a different matter to
being an outlaw on one's own account. Outlaw, as it were, in truth our
poor mistress was yet, but in sharing her distress was truest honour.
For no sooner were we over the border than we learnt that all that the
Queen could hope for was to be unnoticed at the most. The surrender of
Berwick, that should have made Scotland her lasting friend, had been
forgotten in new treaties made with York, and she was warned that she
might even be given up to him. So we rode westward along the border
until we came to Kirkcudbright, where the Queen had been in hiding
before, and there bided in poor lodgings enough as nothing more than
a noble Lancastrian lady with her household. None knew her to be the
Queen, but even were she to be recognised, we supposed that the Scots
king would hear no more than he knew already of her whereabouts.
So resting there we passed a quiet week, and then one day as I wandered
on the town quay, watching the vessels alongside, the remembrance of
Cork was brought back to me by the walk and bearing of a man who was
boarding a small trading buss. His back was towards me, and he seemed
to be a seaman altogether, but, I suppose because the thought of Cork
was always unpleasant to me, I asked who yon man might be, and was
told that he was master of the buss, and given his name also. So I was
somewhat angry with myself for letting such a ruffian as my former
acquaintance trouble my mind at all, and thought no more of him.
That evening I went in attendance on De Brezè beyond the town to the
house of a friend of the cause, in order to learn whether there were
any better tidings for the Queen from Edinburgh. There were none, and
we walked back to the town by the same roads we had passed in going,
which is a thing that an outlaw learns not to do, for plain reasons
enough. It was not very dark, and the road was not lonely as we came
near the town, for two men struck it from a by-path, and remained some
fifty yards behind us, talking and laughing freely, so that we thought
them lively company.
Just where the street down which we passed comes to the quay it grows
narrow, and at the corner house three men were quarrelling in a
half-drunken sort of way. However, they stumbled aside as we came near
them, and lest I should oblige my leader to pass too close to them, I
dropped back a pace or two, and we went quickly. Then one of the men
seemed to push another, and sent him falling right across de Brezè's
feet, causing him to stumble heavily. I sprang forward to save him from
the fall, and in a moment was down also, with the weight of several
men on me. The two men had run up from behind us and had thrown me. I
shouted, and tried to reach my dagger, but I was pinioned and gagged
quickly, and De Brezè was being treated in the same way.
Then the men set us on our feet, and the first man my eyes lit on was
Cork himself. He did not know me because half my face was covered with
a thick cloth, and besides that I no longer wore the wild hair and
beard of the forest. Then I knew that it was indeed he whom I had seen
this morning, and now we were in his hands and helpless, as his men
dragged us across the quay and to his vessel. The place was deserted,
for the townsfolk did not love late hours.
They took us on board the buss, and half threw us into a small
ill-smelling fore-peak under the high forecastle, through a low door
under the break of the deck and down three steps. Bound as I was, I
stumbled and could not save myself, and so fell headlong, with De Brezè
on me. My head came heavily against a timber, and that was all I knew
for a time.
When I came round I was free so far as bonds were concerned, but I was
in the same place, and De Brezè was beside me, in the dark. The vessel
was certainly at sea, and making her way against a light head-wind, for
though she was steady she went about and rolled me against my comrade.
Whereat I asked pardon.
"Why, that is well," he answered in a low voice, "for your senses have
suffered no hurt. I thought your neck might be broken, for when I had
managed to wrench my own bonds off and free you, you never stirred.
Now, what may all this mean? We put to sea directly after we were
taken, and have been out of harbour for two hours or so."
[Illustration: "I shouted, and tried to reach my dagger."]
I told him what I knew of Cork, and then it seemed plain to us that
he had trapped us for the sake of the price that was on our heads,
that for De Brezè's taking being very great, as one might suppose.
We should therefore be on our way to England, which was no pleasant
thought, considering the fate of so many of the Queen's best followers.
I think it likely that I was taken for Varennes, who was far more
valuable, as one might say, than myself.
"Why, then," said De Brezè, "they will come presently and offer us our
freedom if we will promise to behave ourselves. Then we may see if
anything can be done to make the bargain not all on one side, as we
have the use of our hands already."
I saw what he meant, and we began to plan many ways of surprising
our captors. It seemed as well to be slain in making a bold try for
liberty as to be given up to York to be beheaded. But we must wait for
daylight, and so we tried to sleep in turns, though I do not know if
either of us did so.
Presently the sun rose, and the light streamed through the chinks of
the bulkhead that closed the break of the deck, and I crept to one of
them and looked aft. There were but three men to be seen, one of whom
was Cork, and another the helmsman on the high poop. Cork and the third
man were on the main deck, leaning against the rail that was all the
bulwark that went round the waist, and both were armed. How many more
men there might be I could not tell, but the vessel was small, and I
thought that the five who had taken us might be the whole crew. De
Brezè came and peered out also.
"So far there are only two to one," he said, "for the helmsman cannot
leave his place. If we can settle with these two with a rush the rest
comes easily enough. But where shall we find weapons?"
All that I could see were the sweeps of the vessel, twenty-foot oars
that rested on chocks amidships and were not lashed. I pointed these
out, saying that one might handle them well as one uses a border spear,
and at that De Brezè made up his mind.
"They thought us so well bound that the door is only latched," he said
with a chuckle. "Are you ready?"
"At your word," I answered.
"Well, then, I go first and take an oar from the right side of the mast
and make for the right-hand man. Do you take the left, and then we
shall clear one another."
He turned up his long sleeves, shook hands with me, and was out through
the low door in a moment with myself at his heels, and we had the long
oars in our hands and were charging the two men before they knew that
we were not some of their own crew. Then Cork shouted and drew his
sword, making for me just as my comrade's levelled weapon struck his
man fairly in the chest, so that he doubled up with a howl and was
hurled under the rail into the sea. Perhaps the sudden shifting of the
deck as the helmsman threw the vessel's head into the wind put me out,
for I missed Cork, and in a moment he was inside my guard, and I had
hard work for a time to keep away from his sword, using the oar as a
quarter-staff.
Then I got a fair blow at him from aloft, and that ended all scores
between me and him in good time, for De Brezè was fighting two more
men who had come on deck from a forward hatch. He had the sword of the
first man he had set on, and one might see that he was a master of the
weapon.
Two to one was unfair, however, and I thought that the helmsman might
take part, so I swept one of these two overboard with a lucky swing of
the oar, and de Brezè ended the matter with the other at once. Whereon
the helmsman cried for quarter, and it was plain that there were no
more men on board. Then as De Brezè and I looked at one another, the
door of the cabin under the high poop opened, and in it, frightened and
pale, stood Annot herself. She gave a little cry of relief when she saw
me, and I sprang towards her.
[Illustration: "I got a fair blow at him from aloft."]
"What is it all, Richard?" she said, using my name for the first time
thus.
"How are you here?" I answered.
But before either of us had replied, a stately figure crossed the rough
threshold of the cabin, and the Queen herself was before me, looking on
the bodies of the slain with disdainful eyes, in which was no fear, for
the field of battle was not new to her.
"There is ever hope for the Red Rose while I have such arms to strike
for me," she said, as De Brezè and I knelt before her in wonder.
Then we learnt that almost as soon as we were taken both Queen
and prince had been decoyed from the house by some crafty message
purporting to come from a dying Lancastrian who would fain see them
before he passed. Varennes had gone to Edinburgh to seek for tidings of
the king, and so taking only Annot with her, the Queen had gone out,
only to be seized and hurried on board the buss, which had at once put
to sea. Doubtless Cork had meant to take his captives to England for
the sake of the great reward that would be his, but if my forebodings
concerning him were justified, he had met his deserts at my hand.
Then we made the helmsman put about, and were soon back in harbour
with the light breeze that had kept the vessel in sight of land in our
favour.
Now in a few days Varennes returned, and it was plain that no help
could be looked for from Scotland, nor was it known where the king was
for many a long day. Then we must wander from place to place in hiding
always, until at last, on a short sea passage on the east coast, stress
of storm took us to Flanders, and then came the end of troubles, for
though the Duke Of Burgundy was a foe, he was a noble one, and sent our
Queen home to her own people in Angers in all honour, at last.
Here I and Annot my wife serve her yet, looking back with content to
the troubled days when we first learnt to love one another. For if it
must be that we shall not see England again, our home is where the
Queen is, and that is enough, and has been so since we served her for
the first time in the cave under the shadow of the Hexham moors.
"A FLIGHT FROM JUSTICE;"
_OR, HOW I BECAME A LIGHT DRAGOON_
BY LIEUT.-COL. PERCY GROVES, ROYAL GUERNSEY ARTILLERY
(LATE 27TH INNISKILLINGS)
CHAPTER I
I was born in 1795, at the Kentish village of Charfield, of which
my father, the Rev. James Wilmot, was patron and rector. My mother
died before I was a week old, commending me with her latest breath
to the care of a trusted servant, the wife of our factotum John
Fowles--"Corporal Jack," as the villagers commonly called him. Nancy
Fowles had also charge of my sister Kate, who was six years my senior.
In his youth my father had held a cornet's commission in the 17th Light
Dragoons, but being severely wounded at Bunker's Hill, he was invalided
home. He then retired from the service, went to Oxford, took his
degree, was ordained, got married, and on the death of his father, in
1788, succeeded to our family living.
When my father returned from America he was accompanied by Corporal
John Fowles (who had also received a wound while rescuing his disabled
cornet from the enemy), and on quitting the army he purchased the
corporal's discharge, and took him as his body-servant. Three years
before I was born, Fowles married my mother's maid, Nancy Buck; they
never had children, so continued in their respective situations.
A strong, healthy child, I grew into a strong, healthy boy, with more
than a fair share of animal spirits, and a most impetuous temper.
I loved to "roam the fields for health unbought," to box and play
single-stick with John Fowles, ride about the country with my sister,
and take an occasional cruise in a Deal lugger--for Deal was barely an
hour's walk from Charfield Rectory, and I knew nearly every fisherman
on that part of the coast. Meanwhile my education was not neglected,
as I studied daily with our curate, and with Mademoiselle Hettier,
Kate's governess, an _emigrée_ whose relatives had all perished during
the "Terror." Thus passed my life until I attained my fourteenth year,
by which time I was well instructed in the "three Rs," history and
geography, could speak French fluently and with a tolerable accent,
knew a very little Latin, and was able to stammer through the Greek
alphabet.
"I wish to speak about your future," said my father one evening when I
bade him good-night. "You are now fourteen, and it is quite time that I
expressed my views on that subject. My great desire is, that you should
take orders and eventually succeed to the living. Do you like the
prospect?"
"Ye--es, sir," I hesitatingly replied; "yes, I think so--that is, if it
wasn't for Latin and Greek. I am very poor at them, you know."
"That's not altogether your fault, my boy," was his rejoinder. "Mr.
Scott owns he does not possess the gift of teaching, but he is leaving
us, on preferment, next week, and the new curate I have engaged is a
very competent tutor. You have heard me mention my nephew Septimus
Blagg?"
"Yes, father."
"Well Septimus is a sound classical scholar, and has coached men at
Oxford. He has just been ordained, and is coming here as curate and
your tutor. He will soon bring you on, and when you're sufficiently
prepared you shall go up for matriculation. Good-night, Dick."
"Good-night, sir." And I retired, not quite sure whether I felt pleased
or the contrary.
Septimus Blagg arrived at Charfield in due course. He was a lanky,
sallow-faced, red-haired young man, with a fawning manner and a low
purring voice. From the very first, Kate and I disliked and mistrusted
him. The new tutor was, no doubt, a fine scholar, and apparently took
considerable pains to instruct me; but somehow or other, I did not
seem to make much progress with my classical studies; we were always
doing the same work over and over again; never going ahead. At the end
of twelve months, Septimus informed my father that I had no talent
whatever for Latin or Greek, and recommended him to choose for me some
profession in which a knowledge of classics was not indispensable.
"No, nephew, no! Dick must stick to the Church," was the decided reply.
"He's still but a boy, and I'll wager he will easily matriculate when
the time comes. With you for his tutor he is certain to succeed," my
father added; for he had a high opinion of his curate, who made himself
useful in many ways, and had completely hoodwinked his easy-going
rector.
"As you please, sir," responded Septimus. "It was my duty to warn you
of the possibility, nay, I must say the _probability_ of failure; but
of course I will continue to do my utmost for dear Richard." And the
subject dropped.
Now Kate chanced to overhear this conversation, and asked me whether I
really tried to profit by our cousin's teaching.
"Honestly I do, Kate," I answered. "With other work I get on well
enough, as you know; but, though I try hard to pick up Latin and Greek,
I never seem to make any progress. It's always the same work over and
over again, until I'm fairly sick of it! If Cousin Septimus would only
let me go ahead I'm sure I'd do better, but really I sometimes fancy
he----"
"Keeps you back on purpose," interposed Kate, taking the words out of
my mouth. "That is exactly what I think, Dick. I believe the wretch
will do all he can to prevent you taking orders, in the hope of getting
Charfield for himself. _That_ is the reason you do not get on with your
classics!"
"Egad! you're right," I exclaimed. "What shall we do--speak to father?"
"No, dear boy; we have no proof, and may be wrong in our suspicions,"
my sister replied. "We must try to outwit the man. Do your utmost,
Dick, to master Latin and Greek in spite of his endeavours to hinder
you; pick up all you can from him, but trust chiefly to your own
efforts. Ma'moiselle could, I am sure, help you with Latin, for she is
so clever at languages. I will speak to her."
I followed Kate's advice to the letter, and never hinted to my father
that I doubted Mr. Blagg's good faith; but setting to work with a
determination to succeed, by dint of hard study and the assistance of
Mademoiselle Hettier--who still lived with us as Kate's companion--I
made such progress that in a year's time all doubt of my being
able to matriculate and subsequently take a respectable degree was
removed. My father was delighted; my tutor unmistakably puzzled and
discomfited--though he received with complaisance the compliments of
his unsuspecting uncle, for Kate and I kept our secret.
Foiled in his attempt to retard my classical studies, Septimus Blagg
tried other means to attain his end: he sought to blacken my character,
knowing well that my father had too much respect for his cloth to
permit a reputed ne'er-do-well to enter the Church. Septimus was far
too wary to speak against me himself, so he bribed his landlord,
Joseph Dobbs, the parish constable, to do his dirty work. Dobbs was a
cowardly, bullying jack-in-office, quite unscrupulous; in fact the very
man for the job. This rascal now began to play the spy upon me, and to
report, with gross exaggerations, every boyish escapade. My father,
however, knew Mr. Dobbs of old, and paid little heed to his reports.
Indeed, on one occasion, when the fellow brought a palpably false
charge against me, my indignant sire rated him soundly, threatened to
deprive him of his office, and ordered John Fowles to turn him off the
premises--an order which the ex-corporal cheerfully obeyed, and even
exceeded by giving the slanderer a sound thrashing, on the plea that he
"resisted the escort."
At this time I had no suspicion that Septimus Blagg was the instigator
of these malicious charges, or I should certainly have shown him up.
For a few months after his warm reception at the rectory, Dobbs let me
alone, but he was only biding his opportunity, and ere long he and his
scoundrelly employer succeeded in landing me in a rare scrape.
In the month of March 1812, my father, Kate, and Mademoiselle Hettier
went on a visit to Bingley Manor, twenty odd miles from Charfield. On
Tuesday, March the 11th--I have good reason to remember the day!--I
rode over to Bingley with an important letter, and did not reach home
until after dark. As I entered the village Septimus Blagg stopped me.
"I am glad you have returned, Richard; in fact, I have been watching
for you," he said. "There is painful news to tell you."
"Painful news, cousin!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, Richard," he rejoined. "Your young servant Harry Symes has been
arrested on a very grave charge."
Now Harry Symes was a particular favourite of mine. He had been in our
service some three years, but I had known him since childhood. His
father was one of the most skilful and daring boatmen on the coast;
he was also, unhappily, a notorious smuggler--a man who would stick
at nothing when his blood was up. But though a determined law-breaker
himself, William Symes had no wish that his only son should follow
in his footsteps, so he had begged my father to take Harry into his
service, and accordingly the lad was taken on as under-groom and to
make himself generally useful indoors and out.
"What is Harry accused of?" I anxiously inquired. "Nothing disgraceful,
I'll swear!"
"His father and other smugglers attempted to run a cargo before
daybreak this morning, and were surprised by the Preventive Service
officers. They made a desperate resistance, lives being lost on both
sides. William Symes managed to escape, and came here to borrow some
money from his son. He was seen by Joseph Dobbs, who very properly
arrested him, but Harry interfered, assaulted Dobbs and his assistant
with a hay-fork, and enabled his father to get clear away."
"And Harry was arrested?"
"Certainly he was, Richard, but not before he had dealt Dobbs a severe
blow on the head, rendering him nearly insensible," answered Septimus.
"He is now in the village cage, and I am uneasy lest any of his friends
should attempt to rescue him. I shall advise Dobbs to keep watch over
the cage all night, and remove the prisoner to Deal in the morning."
"Better mind your own business,
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