The day preceding her departure passed away like a dream. Indiana was
afraid that it would be long and painful; it seemed to last but a
moment. The silence of the neighborhood, the peaceful tranquillity
within the house were in striking contrast to the internal agitation by
which Madame Delmare was consumed. She locked herself into her room to
prepare the few clothes she intended to carry; then she concealed them
under her dress and carried them one by one to the rocks at the _Anse
aux Lataniers_, where she placed them in a bark basket and buried them
in the sand. The sea was rough and the wind increased from hour to hour.
As a precautionary measure the _Eugène_ had left the roadstead, and
Madame Delmare could see in the distance her white sails bellied out by
the breeze, as she stood on and off, making short tacks, in order to
hold the land. Her heart went out eagerly toward the vessel, which
seemed to be pawing the air impatiently, like a race-horse, full of fire
and ardor, as the word is about to be given. But when she returned to
the interior of the island she found in the mountain gorges a calm, soft
atmosphere, bright sunlight, the song of birds and humming of insects,
and everything going on as on the day before, heedless of the intense
emotions by which she was tortured. Then she could not believe in the
reality of her situation, and wondered if her approaching departure were
not the illusion of a dream.
Toward night the wind fell. The _Eugène_ approached the shore, and at
sunset Madame Delmare on her rocky perch heard the report of a cannon
echoing among the cliffs. It was the signal of departure on the
following day, on the return of the orb then sinking below the horizon.
After dinner Monsieur Delmare complained of not feeling well. His wife
thought that her opportunity had gone, that he would keep the whole
house awake all night, and that her plan would be defeated; and then he
was suffering, he needed her; that was not the moment to leave him.
Thereupon remorse entered her soul and she wondered who would have pity
on that old man when she had abandoned him. She shuddered at the thought
that she was about to commit what was a crime in her own eyes, and that
the voice of conscience would rise even louder than the voice of
society, to condemn her. If Delmare, as usual, had harshly demanded her
services, if he had displayed an imperious and capricious spirit in his
sufferings, resistance would have seemed natural and lawful to the
down-trodden slave; but, for the first time in his life, he submitted to
the pain with gentleness, and seemed grateful and affectionate to his
wife. At ten o'clock he declared that he felt entirely well, insisted
that she should go to her own room, and that no one should pay any
further attention to him. Ralph, too, assured her that every symptom of
illness had disappeared and that a quiet night's sleep was the only
remedy that he needed.
When the clock struck eleven all was silent and peaceful in the house.
Madame Delmare fell on her knees and prayed, weeping bitterly; for she
was about to burden her heart with a grievous sin, and from God alone
could come such forgiveness as she could hope to receive. She stole
softly into her husband's room. He was sleeping soundly; his features
were composed, his breathing regular. As she was about to withdraw, she
noticed in the shadows another person asleep in a chair. It was Ralph,
who had risen noiselessly and come to watch over her husband in his
sleep, to guard against accident.
"Poor Ralph!" thought Indiana; "what an eloquent and cruel reproach to
me!"
She longed to wake him, to confess everything to him, to implore him to
save her from herself; and then she thought of Raymon.
"One more sacrifice," she said to herself, "and the most cruel of
all--the sacrifice of my duty."
Love is woman's virtue; it is for love that she glories in her sins, it
is from love that she acquires the heroism to defy her remorse. The more
dearly it costs her to commit the crime, the more she will have deserved
at the hands of the man she loves. It is like the fanaticism that places
the dagger in the hand of the religious enthusiast.
She took from her neck a gold chain which came to her from her mother
and which she had always worn; she gently placed it around Ralph's neck,
as the last pledge of an everlasting friendship, then lowered the lamp
so that she could see her old husband's face once more, and make sure
that he was no longer ill. He was dreaming at that moment and said in a
faint, sad voice:
"Beware of that man, he will ruin you."
Indiana shuddered from head to foot and fled to her room. She wrung her
hands in pitiable uncertainty; then suddenly seized upon the thought
that she was no longer acting in her own interest but in Raymon's; that
she was going to him, not in search of happiness, but to make him happy,
and that, even though she were to be accursed for all eternity, she
would be sufficiently recompensed if she embellished her lover's life.
She rushed from the house and walked swiftly to the _Anse aux
Lataniers_, not daring to turn and look at what she left behind her.
She at once set about disinterring her bark basket and sat upon it,
trembling and silent, listening to the whistling of the wind, to the
plashing of the waves as they died at her feet, and to the shrill
groaning of the _satanite_ among the great bunches of seaweed that clung
to the steep sides of the cliffs; but all these noises were drowned by
the throbbing of her heart, which rang in her ears like a funeral knell.
She waited a long while; she looked at her watch and found that the
appointed time had passed. The sea was so high, and navigation about the
shores of the island is so difficult in the best of weather, that she
was beginning, to despair of the courage of the men who were to take her
aboard, when she spied on the gleaming waves the black shadow of a
_pirogue_, trying to make the land. But the swell was so strong and the
sea so rough that the frail craft constantly disappeared, burying itself
as it were in the dark folds of a shroud studded with silver stars. She
rose and answered their signal several times with cries which the wind
whisked away before carrying them to the ears of the oarsmen. At last,
when they were near enough to hear her, they pulled toward her with much
difficulty; then paused to wait for a wave. As soon as they felt it
raise the skiff they redoubled their efforts, and the wave broke and
threw them up on the beach.
The ground on which Saint-Paul is built is composed of sea sand and
gravel from the mountains, which the Des Galets river brings from a long
distance from its mouth by the strength of its current. These heaps of
rounded pebbles form submarine mountains near the shore which the waves
overthrow and rebuild at their pleasure. Their constant shifting makes
it impossible to avoid them, and the skill of the pilot is useless among
these constantly appearing and disappearing obstacles. Large vessels
lying in the harbor of Saint-Denis often drag their anchors and are cast
on shore by the force of the currents; they have no other resource when
this off-shore wind begins to blow, and to make the turbulent receding
waves perilous, than to put to sea as quickly as possible, and that is
what the _Eugène_ had done.
The skiff bore Indiana and her fortunes amid the wild waves, the howling
of the storm and the oaths of the two rowers, who had no hesitation in
cursing loudly the danger to which they exposed themselves for her sake.
Two hours ago, they said, the ship should have been under way, and on
her account the captain had obstinately refused to give the order. They
added divers insulting and cruel reflections, but the unhappy fugitive
consumed her shame in silence; and when one of them suggested to the
other that they might be punished if they were lacking in the respect
they had been ordered to pay the _captain's mistress_:
"Never you fear!" was the reply; "the sharks are the lads we've got to
settle accounts with this night. If we ever see the captain again, I
don't believe he'll be any uglier than them."
"Talking of sharks," said the first, "I don't know whether one of 'em
has got scent of us already, but I can see a face in our wake that don't
belong to a Christian."
"You fool! to take a dog's face for a sea-wolf's! Hold! my four-legged
passenger, we forgot you and left you on shore; but, blast my eyes, if
you shall eat up the ship's biscuit! Our orders only mentioned a young
woman, nothing was said about a cur----"
As he spoke he raised his oar to hit the beast on the head; but Madame
Delmare, casting her tearful, distraught eyes upon the sea, recognized
her beautiful Ophelia, who had found her scent on the rocks and was
swimming after her. As the sailor was about to strike her, the waves,
against which she was struggling painfully, carried her away from the
skiff, and her mistress heard her moaning with impatience and
exhaustion. She begged the oarsmen to take her into the boat and they
pretended to comply; but, as the faithful beast approached, they dashed
out her brains with loud shouts of laughter, and Indiana saw before her
the dead body of the creature who had loved her better than Raymon. At
the same time a huge wave drew the skiff down as it were into the depths
of an abyss, and the laughter of the sailors changed to imprecations and
yells of terror. However, thanks to its buoyancy and lightness the
_pirogue_ righted itself like a duck and climbed to the summit of the
wave, to plunge into another ravine and mount again to another foaming
crest. As they left the shore behind, the sea became less rough, and
soon the skiff flew along swiftly and without danger toward the ship.
Thereupon, the oarsmen recovered their good humor and with it the power
of reflection. They strove to atone for their brutal treatment of
Indiana; but their cajolery was more insulting than their anger.
"Come, come, my young lady," said one of them, "take courage, you're
safe now; of course the captain will give us a glass of the best wine in
the locker for the pretty parcel we've fished up for him."
The other affected to sympathize with the young lady because her clothes
were wet; but, he said, the captain was waiting for her and would take
good care of her. Indiana listened to their remarks in deadly terror,
without speaking or moving; she realized the horror of her situation,
and could see no other way of escaping the outrages which awaited her
than to throw herself into the sea. Two or three times she was on the
point of jumping out of the boat; but she recovered courage, a sublime
courage, with the thought:
"It is for him, Raymon, that I suffer all these indignities. I must live
though I were crushed with shame!"
She put her hand to her oppressed heart and touched the hilt of a dagger
which she had concealed there in the morning, with a sort of instinctive
prevision of danger. The possession of that weapon restored all her
confidence; it was a short, pointed stiletto, which her father used to
carry; an old Spanish weapon which had belonged to a Medina-Sidonia,
whose name was cut on the blade, with the date 1300. Doubtless it had
rusted in noble blood, had washed out more than one affront, punished
more than one insolent knave. With it in her possession, Indiana felt
that she became a Spaniard once more, and she went aboard the ship with
a resolute heart, saying to herself that a woman incurred no risk so
long as she had a sure means of taking her own life before submitting to
dishonor. She avenged herself for the harsh treatment of her guides only
by rewarding them handsomely for their fatigue; then she went to her
cabin and anxiously awaited the hour of departure.
At last the day broke, and the sea was covered with small boats bringing
the passengers aboard. Indiana looked with terror through the port-hole
at the faces of those who came aboard the _Eugène_; she dreaded lest
she should see her husband, coming to claim her. At last the echoes of
the last gun died away on the island which had been her prison. The ship
began to cut her way through the waves, and the sun, rising from the
ocean, cast its cheerful, rosy light on the white peaks of the Salazes
as they sank lower and lower on the horizon.
[Illustration 05: _MADAME DELMARE'S FLIGHT_
_She waited a long while; she looked at her watch
and found that the appointed time had passed. The
sea was so high, and navigation about the shores of
the island is so difficult in the best of weather, that
she was beginning, to despair of the courage of the
men who were to take her aboard, when she spied on
the gleaming waves the black shadow of a_ pirogue,
_trying to make the land._]
When they were a few leagues from port, a sort of comedy was played on
board to avoid a confession of trickery. Captain Random pretended to
discover Madame Delmare on his vessel; he feigned surprise, questioned
the sailors, went through the form of losing his temper and of quieting
down again, and ended by drawing up a report of the finding of a
_stowaway_ on board; that is the technical term used on such occasions.
Allow me to go no farther with the story of this voyage. It will be
enough for me to tell you, for Captain Random's justification, that,
despite his rough training, he had enough natural good sense to
understand Madame Delmare's character very quickly; he ventured upon
very few attempts to abuse her unprotected condition and eventually was
touched by it and acted as her friend and protector. But that worthy
man's loyal behavior and Indiana's dignity did not restrain the comments
of the crew, the mocking glances, the insulting suspicions and the broad
and stinging jests. These were the real torments of the unhappy woman
during that journey, for I say nothing of the fatigue, the discomforts,
the dangers, the tedium and the sea-sickness; she paid no heed to them.