Another day has dawned, another sun set upon Boulogne; and Major Mahon
is again in his dining-room, with Captain Ryecroft, his sole guest.
The cloth has been removed, the Major's favourite after-dinner beverage
brought upon the table, and, with punches "brewed" and cigars set
alight, they have commenced conversation upon the incidents of the day--
those especially relating to Ryecroft's business in Boulogne.
The Major has had another interview with his sister--a short one,
snatched while she was out with her school companions for afternoon
promenade. It has added some further particulars to those they had
already learnt, both about the English girl confined within the nunnery
and the priest who conveyed her thither. That the latter was Father
Rogier is placed beyond a doubt by a minute description of his person
given to Miss Mahon, well known to the individual who gave it. To the
nuns within that convent the man's name is familiar--even to his
baptismal appellation, Gregoire; for although the Major has pronounced
all the sacerdotal fraternity alike, in being black, this particular
member of it is of a shade deeper than common--a circumstance of itself
going a good way towards his identification. Even within that sacred
precinct where he is admitted, a taint attaches to him; though what its
nature the young lady has not yet been able to ascertain.
The information thus obtained tallies with the estimate of the priest's
character, already formed; in correspondence, too, with the theory that
he is capable of the crime Captain Ryecroft believes him to have
abetted, if not actually committed. Nor is it contradicted by the fact
of his being a frequent visitor to the nunnery, and a favourite with the
administration thereof; indeed an intimate friend of the Abbess herself.
Something more, in a way accounting for all: that the new novice is not
the first _agneau d'Angleterre_ he has brought over to Boulogne, and
guided into that same fold, more than one of them having ample means,
not only to provision themselves, but a surplus for the support of the
general sisterhood.
There is no word about any of these English lambs having been other than
voluntary additions to the French flock; but a whisper circulates within
the convent walls, that Father Rogier's latest contribution is a
recusant, and if she ever become a nun it will be a _forced_ one; that
the thing is _contre coeur_--in short, she protests against it.
Jack Wingate can well believe that; still under full conviction that
"Soeur Marie" is Mary Morgan; and, despite all its grotesque strangeness
and wild improbability, Captain Ryecroft has pretty nearly come to the
same conclusion; while the Major, with less knowledge of antecedent
circumstances, but more of nunneries, never much doubted it.
"About the best way to get the girl out. What's your idea, Mahon?"
Ryecroft asks the question in no careless or indifferent way; on the
contrary, with a feeling earnestness. For, although the daughter of the
Wyeside farmer is nought to him, the Wye waterman is; and he has
determined on seeing the latter through--to the end of the mysterious
affair. In difficulties Jack Wingate has stood by him, and he will
stand by Jack, _coute-qui-coute_. Besides, figuratively speaking, they
are still in the same boat. For if Wingate's dead sweetheart, so
strangely returned to life, can be also restored to liberty, the chances
are she may be the very one wanted to throw light on the other and alas!
surer death. Therefore, Captain Ryecroft is not all unselfish in
backing up his boatman; nor, as he puts the question, being anxious
about the answer.
"We'll have to use strategy," returns the Major; not immediately, but
after taking a grand gulp out of his tumbler, and a vigorous draw at his
_regalia_.
"But why should we?" impatiently demands the Captain. "If the girl have
been forced in there, and's kept against her will--which by all the
probabilities she is--surely she can be got out, on demand being made by
her friends?"
"That's just what isn't sure--though the demand were made by her own
mother, with the father to back it. You forget, old fellow, that you're
in France, not England."
"But there's a British Consul in Boulogne."
"Aye, and a British Foreign Minister, who gives that Consul his
instructions; with some queer ideas besides, neither creditable to
himself nor his country. I'm speaking of that jaunty diplomat--the
`judicious bottle-holder,' who is accustomed to cajole the British
public with his blarney about `Civis Romanus sum.'"
"True, but does that bear upon our affair?"
"It does--almost directly."
"In what way? I do not comprehend."
"Because you're not up to what's passing over here--I mean at
headquarters--the Tuilleries, or St. Cloud, if you prefer it. There the
man--if man he can be called--is ruled by the woman; she in her turn the
devoted partisan of Pio Nono and the unprincipled Antonelli."
"I can understand all that; still I don't quite see its application, or
how the English Foreign Minister can be interested in those you allude
to?"
"I do. But for him, not one of the four worthies spoken of would be
figuring as they are. In all probability France would still be a
republic instead of an empire, wicked as the world ever saw; and Rome
another republic--it maybe all Italy--with either Mazzini or Garibaldi
at its head. For, certain as you sit there, old boy, it was the
judicious bottle-holder who hoisted Nap into an imperial throne, over
that Presidential chair, so ungratefully spurned--scurvily kicked behind
after it had served his purpose. A fact of which the English people
appear to be yet in purblind ignorance! As they are of another, equally
notable, and alike misunderstood: that it was this same _civis Romanus
sum_ who restored old Pio to his apostolic chair; those red-breeched
ruffians, the Zouaves, being but so much dust thrown into people's
eyes--a bone to keep the British bull-dog quiet. He would have growled
then, and will yet, when he comes to understand all these transactions;
when the cloak of that scoundrelly diplomacy which screens them has
rotted into shreds, letting the light of true history shine upon them."
"Why, Mahon! I never knew you were such a politician! Much less such a
Radical!"
"Nothing much of either, old fellow. Only a man who hates tyranny in
every shape and form--whether religious or political. Above all, that
which owes its existence to the cheapest--the very shabbiest chicanery
the world was ever bamboozled with. I like open dealing in all things."
"But you are not recommending it, now--in this little convent matter?"
"All! that's quite a different affair! There are certain ends that
justify certain means--when the Devil must be fought with his own
weapons. Ours is of that kind, and we must either use strategy, or give
the thing up altogether. By open measures there wouldn't be the
slightest chance of our getting this girl out of the convent's clutches.
Even then we may fail; but, if successful, it will only be by great
craft, some luck, and possibly a good deal of time spent before we
accomplish our purpose."
"Poor fellow!" rejoins Ryecroft, speaking of the Wye waterman, "he won't
like the idea of long waiting. He's madly, terribly impatient. This
afternoon as we were passing the Convent I had a difficulty to restrain
him from rushing up to its door, ringing the bell, and demanding an
interview with the `Soeur Marie'--having his Mary, as he calls her,
restored to him on the instant."
"It's well you succeeded in hindering that little bit of rashness. Had
he done so, 'twould have ended not only in the door being slammed in his
face, but another door shut behind his back--that of a gaol; from which
he would never have issued till embarking on a voyage to New Caledonia
or Cayenne. Aye, both of you might have been so served. For would you
believe it Ryecroft, that you, an officer of the boasted H.B.R.A.; rich,
and with powerful friends--even you could be not only here imprisoned,
but _deporte_, without any one who has interest in you being the wiser;
or, if so, having no power to prevent it. France, under the regime of
Napoleon le Petit, is not so very different from what it was under the
rule of Louis le Grand, and _lettres de cachet_ are now rife as then.
Nay, more of them now written, consigning men to a hundred Bastilles
instead of one. Never was a people so enslaved as these Johnny Crapauds
are at this present time; not only their speech fettered, but their very
thoughts held in bondage, or so constrained, they may not impart them to
one another. Even intimate friends forbear exchanging confidences, lest
one prove false to the other! Nothing free but insincerity and sin;
both fostered and encouraged from that knowledge intuitive among
tyrants; that wickedness weakens a people, making them easier to rule
and ride over. So, my boy, you perceive the necessity of our acting
with caution in this business, whatever trouble or time it may take--
don't you?"
"I do."
"After all," pursues the Major, "it seems to me that time isn't of so
much consequence. As regards the girl, they're not going to eat her up.
And for the other matters concerning yourself, they'll keep, too. As
you say, the scent's become cold; and a few days more or less can't make
any difference. Beside, the trails we intend following may in the end
all run into one. I shouldn't be at all surprised if this captive
damsel has come to the knowledge of something connected with the other
affair. Faith, that may be the very reason for their having her
conveyed over here, to be cooped up for the rest of her life. In any
case, the fact of her abduction, in such an odd outrageous way, would of
itself be damning collateral evidence against whoever has done it,
showing him or them good for anything. So, the first work on our hands,
as the surest, is to get the waterman's sweetheart out of the convent,
and safe back to her home in Herefordshire.
"That's our course, clearly. But have you any thoughts as to how we
should proceed?"
"I have; more than thoughts--hopes of success--and sanguine ones."
"Good! I'm glad to hear it. Upon what do you base them?"
"On that very near relative of mine--Sister Kate. As I've told you,
she's a pet of the Lady Superior; admitted into the very _arcana_ of the
establishment. And with such privilege, if she can't find a way to
communicate with any one therein closeted, she must have lost the mother
wit born to her, and brought thither from the `brightest gem of the
say.' I don't think she has, or that it's been a bit blunted in
Boulogne. Instead, somewhat sharpened by communion with these Holy
Sisters; and I've no fear but that 'twill be sharp enough to serve us in
the little scheme I've in part sketched out."
"Let me hear it, Mahon?"
"Kate must obtain an interview with the English girl; or, enough if she
can slip a note into her hand. That would go some way towards getting
her out--by giving her intimation that friends are near."
"I see what you mean," rejoins the Captain, pulling away at his cigar,
the other left to finish giving details of the plan he has been mentally
projecting.
"We'll have to do a little bit of burglary, combined with abduction.
Serve them out in their own coin; as it were hoisting the priest on his
own petard!"
"It will be difficult, I fear."
"Of course it will; and dangerous. Likely more the last than the first.
But it'll have to be done; else we may drop the thing entirely."
"Never, Mahon! No matter what the danger, I for one am willing to risk
it. And we can reckon on Jack Wingate. He'll be only too ready to rush
into it."
"Ah! there might be more danger through his rashness. But it must be
held in check. After all, I don't apprehend so much difficulty if
things be dexterously managed. Fortunately there's a circumstance in
our favour."
"What is it?"
"A window."
"Ah! Where?"
"In the Convent of course. That which gives light--not much of it
either--to the cloister where the girl is confined. By a lucky chance
my sister has learnt the particular one, and seen the window from the
outside. It looks over the grounds where the nuns take recreation, now
and then allowed intercourse with the school girls. She says it's high
up, but not higher than the top of the garden wall; so a ladder that
will enable us to scale the one should be long enough to reach the
other. I'm more dubious about the dimensions of the window itself.
Kate describes it as only a small affair, with an upright bar in the
middle--iron, she believes. Wood or iron, we may manage to remove that;
but if the Herefordshire bacon has made your farmer's daughter too big
to screw herself through the aperture, then it'll be all up a tree with
us. However, we must find out before making the attempt to extract her.
From what sister has told me, I fancy we can see the window from the
Ramparts above. If so, we may make a distant measurement of it by guess
work. Now," continues the Major, coming to his programme of action,
"what's got to be done first is that your Wye boatman write a billet
doux to his old sweetheart--in the terms I shall dictate to him. Then
my sister must contrive, in some way, to put it in the girl's hands, or
see that she gets it."
"And what after?"
"Well, nothing much after; only that we must make preparations for the
appointment the waterman will make in his epistle."
"It may as well be written now--may it not?"
"Certainly; I was just thinking of that. The sooner the better. Shall
I call him in?"
"Do as you think proper, Mahon. I trust everything to you."
The Major, rising, rings a bell; which brings Murtagh to the dining-room
door.
"Murt, tell your guest in the kitchen, we wish a word with him."
The face of the Irish soldier vanishes from view, soon after replaced by
that of the Welsh waterman.
"Step inside, Wingate!" says the Captain; which the other does, and
remains standing to hear what the word was wanted.
"You can write, Jack--can't you?"
It is Ryecroft who puts the inquiry.
"Well, Captain; I ain't much o' a penman; but I can scribble a sort o'
rough hand after a fashion."
"A fair enough hand for Mary Morgan to read it, I dare say."
"Oh, sir, I only weesh there wor a chance o' her gettin' a letter from
me!"
"There is a chance. I think we can promise that. If you'll take this
pen and put down what my friend Major Mahon dictates to you, it will in
all probability be in her hands ere long."
Never was pen more eagerly laid hold of than that offered to Jack
Wingate. Then, sitting down to the table as directed, he waits to be
told what he is to write.
The Major, bent over him, seems cogitating what it should be. Not so,
however. Instead, he is occupied with an astronomical problem which is
puzzling him. For its solution he appeals to Ryecroft, asking:--
"How about the moon?"
"The moon?"
"Yes. Which quarter is she in? For the life of me, I can't tell."
"Nor I," rejoins the Captain. "I never think of such a thing."
"She's in her last," puts in the boatman, accustomed to take note of
lunar changes.
"It be an old moon now shining all the night, when the sky an't
clouded."
"You're right, Jack!" says Ryecroft. "Now I remember; it is the old
moon."
"In which case," adds the Major, "we must wait for the new one. We want
darkness after midnight--must have it--else we cannot act. Let me see;
when will that be?"
"The day week," promptly responds the waterman. "Then she'll be goin'
down, most as soon as the sun's self."
"That'll do," says the Major. "Now to the pen!"
Squaring himself to the table, and the sheet of paper spread before him,
Wingate writes to dictation. No words of love, but what inspires him
with a hope he may once more speak such in the ears of his beloved Mary!
Volume Three, Chapter XXI.