"Good gracious, my boy, you grieve over nothing! Granted you filched
twenty-five napoleons from a big Dutchman, you show as much remorse as
though you had taken more than a million. Now, tell me, when you loved
the wife of the Prefect of ... did you mind at all? Nevertheless, she
was worth more than twenty-five napoleons."
He turned over on his mattress without a word.
"After all," I continued, "your crime, since you persist in calling it
so, had an honourable motive and arose from a lofty mind."
He turned his head and looked at me furiously.
"Yes, for if you had lost what would have become of Gabrielle? She--poor
girl!---would have sold her last garment for you.... If you had lost she
would have been reduced to misery.... It was for her, out of love to
her, you cheated. There are people who die for love ... will kill
themselves for it.... You, my dear Roger, did more. For a man of our
order it takes more courage to ... steal, to put it baldly, than to
commit suicide."
("Now, perhaps," the captain interrupted his story to say, "I appear
ridiculous to you. I assure you that my friendship for Roger endowed me
with a timely eloquence that I am not equal to nowadays; and, devil take
it, in saying what I did I spoke in good earnest, and I believe all I
said. Ah, I was young then!")
Roger did not make any answer for a long time; then he held out his hand
to me.
"My friend," he said, making a great effort over himself, "you think too
well of me. I am a cowardly wretch. When I cheated the Dutchman my only
thought was to win the twenty-five napoleons, that was all. I never
thought of Gabrielle, and that is why I despise myself.... I, to hold my
honour in less esteem than twenty-five napoleons!... What baseness! Yes,
I could be happy if I could tell myself I stole to keep Gabrielle from
wretchedness.... No!... no! I did not think of her.... I was not in love
at that moment.... I was a player.... I was a thief.... I stole money to
possess it myself,... and the deed has so degraded me, and debased me,
that I now have no more courage left nor love.... I can see it; I do not
think any longer of Gabrielle.... I am a broken-down man."
He was so wretched, that if he had asked me to hand him his pistols to
kill himself I believe I should have given them to him.
One Friday, that day of ill omen, he discovered that a big English
frigate, the _Alcestis_, was chasing us. She carried fifty-eight guns,
and we but thirty-eight. He put on all sail to escape from her, but her
pace was faster than ours, and she gained on us every minute. It was
very evident that before night we should be obliged to engage in an
unequal battle. Our captain called Roger to his cabin, where they
consulted together for more than a quarter of an hour. Roger came up on
the deck again, took me by the arm, and drew me aside.
"In two hours' time," he said, "we shall be engaged. That rash man who
struts the quarter-deck has lost his wits. He has two courses to choose
from: the first, and the most honourable, would be to let the enemy come
up to us, then to board the ship determinedly with a hundred or so of
our best men; the other course, which is not bad, but rather cowardly,
is to lighten ourselves by throwing some of our guns overboard. Then we
could make for the near coast of Africa, which we shall soon find to
larboard. The English captain would soon be obliged to give up the
chase, for fear of grounding; but our ... captain is neither coward nor
hero. He will let himself be destroyed by gunshots a good distance off,
and after some hours' fight he will honourably lower his flag. So much
the worse for you. The Portsmouth pontoons will be your fate. I have no
desire to see them."
"Possibly," I said, "our first shots will damage the enemy suiliciently
to compel her to abandon the chase."
"Listen, I do not mean to be taken prisoner; I shall kill myself. It is
time I ended it all. If by ill luck I am only wounded, give me your word
of honour that you will throw me overboard. It is the proper death-bed
for a good sailor."
"What nonsense!" I exclaimed. "What a charge to make me undertake!"
"You will be fulfilling the duty of a true friend. You know I shall have
to die. I have only consented not to take my own life in the hope of
being killed; you must remember that. Come, promise me this; if you
refuse, I shall go and ask this service from the boatswain's mate, who
will not refuse me."