TOM MITCHELL AS REDRESSER OF WRONGS.
The ice once broken, through the instrumentality of the Burgundy,
Bordeaux, and Champagne, all went on swimmingly.
Major Ardenwood, who, perhaps, alone of all those present had nothing
to conceal, and who was naturally a bon vivant, did all in his power to
make himself the convivial leader of this improvised party, composed
of so many various elements. He was warmly supported by the captain,
who showed all the best qualities of a true amphitrion, and treated his
guests with a generosity and courtesy which quite charmed them.
Of course not a word was said of the object for which they had met. In
fact, the subject was carefully avoided.
The major was the first to rise.
"The best of friends," he said, "must part. I am wanted at the fort,
and with your permission will retire."
"I thought," observed the captain of the outlaws, "your intention was
to wait for these gentlemen here."
"No; on reflection," replied the major, laughing, "I should only be in
their way. I will wait at the fort."
"I will escort them myself," said Tom Mitchell.
"That will be the better plan," continued the major. "Thanks for your
hospitality. The wines were excellent."
"I will send you a few baskets, major."
"Many thanks," cried the American, shaking hands, and then departing
under the guidance of Camotte.
"We can now go to the island," said the captain.
"On foot, on horseback, or do we swim?" said the young Frenchman.
"You will see. Follow me, gentlemen," replied Tom.
They did so, and found a boat ready for their reception. On the
invitation of the captain they all seated themselves.
"Now, gentlemen," said Tom Mitchell, with a smile, "you must pardon
me, but I must blindfold you. Fear nothing," he added, as he saw them
start. "It is the custom. No stranger has ever entered the island in
any other way. Besides, you are not obliged; only if you refuse you
must return."
"Do as you like," cried the elder Frenchman.
Some men who held pocket handkerchiefs now approached, and deftly bound
their eyes. The boat then started. In a few minutes they felt the boat
strike against another shore, and received a slight shock as it did so.
"Don't touch your bands," cried the captain; "wait a while."
They were then lifted up with every precaution by several men, who soon
put them down, removing the bandages.
Looking round, they found themselves in a vast chamber, furnished with
every regard to comfort and elegance.
The captain was alone, the men having left.
"Welcome, gentlemen," he said. "I hope the frank and cordial
hospitality I shall offer you will make you excuse this precaution."
The strangers merely bowed.
"I need not remind you, gentlemen," continued Tom Mitchell, "that
you are at home; but, in order not to detain you any longer than is
absolutely necessary, let us to business. Will you follow me, sir,
first?"
This was said to the younger Frenchman. As he spoke he opened a door
and the two passed out together.
The two other strangers remained alone. The Frenchman, with a frown,
began to walk up and down whistling; the American sat down.
As soon as Tom Mitchell had the other alone, he cried--
"Sir, tell me at once if I am mistaken."
"I see you have a good memory," replied the other, "and yet it is a
very long time ago since we met."
"Then I am not mistaken?" cried Tom Mitchell.
"Monsieur Maillard, my name is Pierre Durand."
"Who saved the life of myself and father," said Tom, shaking him by the
hand, "even though you knew--"
"I knew that your father an hour before had sat as president of the
grim tribunal of the Abbaye," replied the young Frenchman. "I knew the
intense hatred which was felt towards you; still, I drew you more dead
than alive from the river."
"You did more--you hid us and helped us to escape."
"It was tit for tat; your father once saved my life."
"But you paid your debt with usury. When I parted from you at New
York--I was sixteen then--I said, 'Whatever happens, my life, my
fortune, my honour is at your disposal.' I am ready to fulfil my
promise, so speak."
"I knew you would do all in your power," said Pierre Durand; "therefore
I have come. How is your father?"
"He has become an Indian, and wholly broken with everything in the
shape of civilisation," said Tom.
"Is he happy?" asked Durand.
"Yes. He was a man of conviction. His faults--his crimes if you
like--during the Reign of Terror were caused by his extreme sincerity.
In that time of awful and terrible commotion," continued Tom, "he acted
wholly conscientiously."
"I believe it, and therefore do not presume to be his judge. I am but
a weak and ordinary man," cried Durand; "when the time comes God will
judge these Titans of the revolution according to their merits and
convictions."
"Doubtless. I shall let him know of your coming; but why?"
"A question of life and death in connection with my best friend, a man
I love as a brother," cried Durand.
"Say no more. An express shall start at once."
"Have you received any letters signed '_An old friend_'?"
"Many! I presume, then, that you are that friend; but why not avow
yourself?"
"I could not."
"If all you tell me in those letters be true, it is an odious and
infamous action," cried Tom Mitchell.
"I know it is, and I have counted on you and your father to see that
justice be done," continued Durand.
"Count on me," said Tom. "I have seen your friend, and though he does
not like me, he won my heart at once."
"He will change his mind."
"But what can my father do in the matter?"
"Everything. You must now understand, my friend, that if I have
abandoned my ship in New York to the care of my mate, if I, who hate
dry land, have started on a journey through the desert, it must be for
powerful reasons."
"Doubtless. May I ask what they are?"
"Because, my friend, here in there is his most implacable, most
ruthless foe," cried Durand.
"Here!" exclaimed Tom.
"Yes--here, in this island, in that room," replied Pierre Durand,
pointing to the one they had left.
"Are you sure of his identity?" asked Mitchell.
"I have watched him for five years, followed in his track, known every
movement he has made," said Durand.
"And he does not know you?" cried Tom.
"He knows me very well. He came over in my ship; we are the best of
friends; he tried to buy me over."
"This is incredible," observed the outlaw.
"Yet true. I am his confidante, his devoted servant; I enter into all
his views, and he counts on me as a slave."
Both young men burst out laughing.
"Then you have come from New York together?"
"Not at all. We met at the fort two days ago, and as I am no longer
disguised," said Pierre Durand, "despite all his cunning, he knew me
not."
"Well, the matter is settled," said Tom Mitchell, in a whisper; "we
have our man here; he shall never leave."
"My friend," said Pierre Durand, gravely, "that is not the game we have
to play. He is as slippery as an eel."
"I don't think, if I made up my mind," said the outlaw chief, with a
sinister smile, "he would ever escape me."
"Well, there is a time for everything. In the first place, learn his
projects, so that we may unmask him. This will be all the more easy,"
said the sea captain, "in that we know who he is, while he is ignorant
of our designs."
"There is one thing worth mentioning," said the outlaw; "I, too, know
him well. He will be rather surprised presently."
"Be careful. One word might put him on his guard."
"Is not my whole life passed," continued the outlaw, sadly, "in
outdoing others in cunning and diplomacy?"
"True. I leave, then, everything to you."
"And now learn, my friend, that you are free as air, and absolute
master of my domains," he added, laughing. Then he picked three
flowers, and placing them in his buttonhole, said, "This will give
you free passage everywhere you like. Now for your two travelling
companions. But follow me."
He opened a door opposite that by which they had entered, and, crossing
several apartments, at last came to a room which overlooked a charming
and elegant garden.
"Here you are at home," he said; "come, go, do just as you like. At the
end of the garden you will find a door opening on the woods. We shall
dine at six. Be back by that time, and you will find the table laid
here. We can then explain all."
With these words the outlaw left his friend.
As soon as he had returned to his private room, Tom Mitchell, or
Maillard, son of the terrible judge of the Reign of Terror, sat down
before a table, wrote a few lines, sealed the letter carefully, and
then struck a gong.
At once Camotte appeared and took the letter.
"Send this letter to my father by express," he said; "let him kill his
horse, but let me have the answer."
"He shall be gone in five minutes."
"And now," continued Tom Mitchell, with a sarcastic smile, "send that
fat American in here."
Camotte bowed and retired. Next moment the great American shipowner
came in puffing and blowing.
"Sit down, sir," said Tom Mitchell.
The fat man obeyed with a grunt.
"I think it rather hard that a man like me--"
"Pardon me," said the captain, coldly; "allow me to remark, before you
go any further, that I have no need of you, and did not send for you.
You it is who, in the company of several other gentlemen, have come
to me. All of you have, I dare say, serious reasons for taking this
extraordinary step. I have in no way solicited the honour. All I can do
is to listen to each in his turn. I have seen one and settled with him;
if you have anything to say to me, speak."
This speech, pronounced in a clear, bold tone, not unmixed with
sarcasm, at once, as if by enchantment, calmed the irritation of the
fat man. At all events, it compelled him to dissimulate it. After,
therefore, mopping his head and face several times with a pocket
handkerchief, and coughing once or twice behind his hand, he spoke--
"I was angry, sir," he said, "and own it freely."
"Be pleased, sir, to come at once to business," continued Tom Mitchell;
"another person waits."
"You are, I believe, well acquainted with me?"
"I have known you a long time," remarked Tom.
"Sir, I have a nephew; he is the son of my wife's brother," began the
other, "a very near relative."
"Well, sir?"
"This nephew, though a charming youth," cried Stoneweld, "is mad,
utterly, hopelessly mad, sir."
"Really, sir," said the captain, "and have you come all this way to
tell me this piece of news?"
"Pardon me, sir. When I say that he is mad, I believe I exaggerate.
I should rather say that his intense folly has taken the form of
monomania. This charming young man, as I have the honour to tell you,
is in love, sir."
"A very natural matter at his age."
"But, sir," cried the shipowner, "he is in love with a young person in
no way suited to his station."
"Perhaps he does not think so."
"Of course, sir, it is not his opinion. But it is mine. I am a serious
man; I feel a great interest in him. Now that his father is dead I
am his legal guardian--though he repudiates me. Now, sir, would you
believe it," cried the fat man, "I had arranged with his aunt, my wife,
the most delicious marriage for him with a young girl--I may as well be
frank, a niece of my own?"
"And he wouldn't have her," said Tom.
"No, sir, he actually would not have her. Do you understand such folly
on his part?" cried the other.
"Well, it is strange. But what have I to do with it?"
"I will explain if you will allow me."
"I really should feel much obliged," urged Tom.
"After refusing contemptuously this eligible alliance, which united
every condition of age and fortune and position, what did the fool do?
Excuse me if in my anger I speak thus of a nephew I love. One fine
morning, without saying a word to anybody, he left his business to a
partner, and started off, sir--what for?"
"Well, how can I say?" asked Tom.
"In pursuit of this wretched girl without family or fortune, whose
parents had emigrated to the Indian frontier."
"Oh, oh!" said the captain, who began to feel interested, and who
listened with a gloomy frown.
"Yes, sir," said the fat man, too wrapped up in his narrative to notice
the other's looks, "so that my nephew must be somewhere here about this
neighbourhood, looking after his beauty, neglecting his affairs and
fortune Tor a girl he will certainly never marry."
"How do you know, sir?"
"At all events I will do everything in my power to prevent it," cried
the irate citizen of Boston.
"How will you set about it?"
"Sir, I have been told that you were the only man in these parts
capable of arresting a fugitive."
"You do me too much honour."
"I have a number of unclosed accounts, needless to explain, with his
father. Arrest the young man, sir!" cried the Bostonian; "Arrest him
and place him safely in my hands, and the sum of one thousand guineas
is yours."
As he spoke, the worthy shipowner pulled out an enormous pocketbook
from his coat and opened it.
"Excuse me, sir," said the captain, "do not let us be in quite such a
hurry. You have not quite finished."
"How so?" cried the American.
"You have forgotten," said the captain with simple frankness, "to tell
me the name of your foolish nephew."
"George Clinton, sir, a very fine lad, though I say it."
"I know him," retorted the captain, coldly.
"You know him!" exclaimed the shipowner, "Then the affair is settled.
You will have him arrested."
"Perhaps," said Tom Mitchell; "I will reflect on the affair, which is
not so easy as you may suppose."
"To you, the chief of the outlaws?"
"George Clinton is not alone. He has many and powerful friends on the
frontier."
"But I have plenty of money."
"I tell you, I will reflect. You will now return to the fort under
escort. In two days you shall have my answer."
"But allow me to pay you a deposit," cried the other.
"Keep your money for the present," said Tom, and striking a gong,
Camotte appeared as if by magic.
"But--" blustered the rich merchant.
"Not another word, sir. Wait patiently for my reply. I am your most
obedient servant."
And led away by Camotte, the rich shipowner of Boston went out
spluttering and perspiring as before.
"Now," said the captain to himself, with a sarcastic smile, "let us see
what the other fellow is made of."
He went to the door, and, entering the cavern, bowed to the Frenchman,
who was still walking up and down.
"Will you be good enough to come this way, Monsieur Hebrard," he said,
with an engaging smile.
The Frenchman looked at him with astonishment, but on a repetition of
the invitation went in.
The captain chuckled to himself at this evidence of the other's utter
surprise and bewilderment.
It was as if he had scored one.