Astern of the tartane, the sun, about to set, kindled a streak of dull
crimson glow between the darkening sea and the overcast sky. The
peninsula of Giens and the islands of Hyères formed one mass of land
detaching itself very black against the fiery girdle of the horizon; but
to the north the long stretch of the Alpine coast continued beyond sight
its endless sinuosities under the stooping clouds.
The tartane seemed to be rushing together with the run of the waves into
the arms of the oncoming night. A little more than a mile away on her
lee quarter, the _Amelia_, under all plain sail, pressed to the end of
the chase. It had lasted now for a good many hours, for Peyrol, when
slipping away, had managed to get the advantage of the _Amelia_ from the
very start. While still within the large sheet of smooth water which is
called the Hyères Roadstead, the tartane, which was really a craft of
extraordinary speed, managed to gain positively on the sloop.
Afterwards, by suddenly darting down the eastern passage between the two
last islands of the group, Peyrol actually got out of sight of the
chasing ship, being hidden by the Ile du Levant for a time. The
_Amelia_, having to tack twice in order to follow, lost ground once
more. Emerging into the open sea, she had to tack again, and then the
position became that of a stern chase, which proverbially is known as a
long chase. Peyrol’s skilful seamanship had twice extracted from Captain
Vincent a low murmur accompanied by a significant compression of lips.
At one time the _Amelia_ had been near enough the tartane to send a shot
ahead of her. That one was followed by another, which whizzed
extraordinarily close to the mastheads, but then Captain Vincent ordered
the gun to be secured again. He said to his first lieutenant, who, his
speaking-trumpet in hand, kept at his elbow: “We must not sink that
craft on any account. If we could get only an hour’s calm, we would
carry her with the boats.”
The lieutenant remarked that there was no hope of a calm for the next
twenty-four hours at least.
“No,” said Captain Vincent, “and in about an hour it will be dark, and
then he may very well give us the slip. The coast is not very far off
and there are batteries on both sides of Fréjus, under any of which he
will be as safe from capture as though he were hove up on the beach. And
look,” he exclaimed after a moment’s pause, “this is what the fellow
means to do.”
“Yes, sir,” said the lieutenant, keeping his eyes on the white speck
ahead, dancing lightly on the short Mediterranean waves, “he is keeping
off the wind.”
“We will have him in less than an hour,” said Captain Vincent, and made
as if he meant to rub his hands, but suddenly leaned his elbow on the
rail. “After all,” he went on, “properly speaking, it is a race between
the _Amelia_ and the night.”
“And it will be dark early to-day,” said the first lieutenant, swinging
the speaking-trumpet by its lanyard. “Shall we take the yards off the
backstays, sir?”
“No,” said Captain Vincent. “There is a clever seaman aboard that
tartane. He is running off now, but at any time he may haul up again. We
must not follow him too closely, or we shall lose the advantage which we
have now. That man is determined on making his escape.”
If those words by some miracle could have been carried to the ears of
Peyrol, they would have brought to his lips a smile of malicious and
triumphant exultation. Ever since he had laid his hand on the tiller of
the tartane every faculty of his resourcefulness and seamanship had been
bent on deceiving the English captain, that enemy whom he had never
seen, the man whose mind he had constructed for himself from the
evolutions of his ship. Leaning against the heavy tiller he addressed
Michel, breaking the silence of the strenuous afternoon.
“This is the moment,” his deep voice uttered quietly. “Ease off the
mainsheet, Michel. A little now, only.”
When Michel returned to the place where he had been sitting to windward,
the rover noticed his eyes fixed on his face wonderingly. Some vague
thoughts had been forming themselves slowly, incompletely, in Michel’s
brain. Peyrol met the utter innocence of the unspoken inquiry with a
smile that, beginning sardonically on his manly and sensitive mouth,
ended in something resembling tenderness.
“That’s so, camarade,” he said with particular stress and intonation, as
if those words contained a full and sufficient answer. Most unexpectedly
Michel’s round and generally staring eyes blinked, as if dazzled. He too
produced from somewhere in the depths of his being a queer, misty smile
from which Peyrol averted his gaze.
“Where is the citizen?” he asked, bearing hard against the tiller and
staring straight ahead. “He isn’t gone overboard, is he? I don’t seem to
have seen him since we rounded the land near Porquerolles Castle.”
Michel, after craning his head forward to look over the edge of the
deck, announced that Scevola was sitting on the keelson.
“Go forward,” said Peyrol, “and ease off the foresheet now a little.
This tartane has wings,” he added to himself.
Alone on the after-deck Peyrol turned his head to look at the _Amelia_.
That ship, in consequence of holding her wind, was now crossing
obliquely the wake of the tartane. At the same time she had diminished
the distance. Nevertheless, Peyrol considered that had he really meant
to escape, his chances were as eight to ten--practically an assured
success. For a long time he had been contemplating the lofty pyramid of
canvas towering against the fading red belt on the sky, when a
lamentable groan made him look round. It was Scevola. The citizen had
adopted the mode of progression on all fours, and while Peyrol looked at
him he rolled to leeward, saved himself rather cleverly from going
overboard, and holding on desperately to a cleat, shouted in a hollow
voice, pointing with the other hand as if he had made a tremendous
discovery: “La terre! La terre!”
“Certainly,” said Peyrol, steering with extreme nicety. “What of that?”
“I don’t want to be drowned!” cried the citizen in his new hollow
voice. Peyrol reflected a bit before he spoke in a serious tone:
“If you stay where you are, I assure you that you will ...” he glanced
rapidly over his shoulder at the _Amelia_ ... “not die by drowning.” He
jerked his head sideways. “I know that man’s mind.”
“What man? Whose mind?” yelled Scevola with intense eagerness and
bewilderment. “We are only three on board.”
But Peyrol’s mind was contemplating maliciously the figure of a man with
long teeth, in a wig and with large buckles to his shoes. Such was his
ideal conception of what the captain of the _Amelia_ ought to look like.
That officer, whose naturally good-humoured face wore then a look of
severe resolution, had beckoned his first lieutenant to his side again.
“We are gaining,” he said quietly. “I intend to close with him to
windward. We won’t risk any of his tricks. It is very difficult to
outmanœuvre a Frenchman, as you know. Send a few armed marines on the
forecastle ahead. I am afraid the only way to get hold of this tartane
is to disable the men on board of her. I wish to goodness I could think
of some other. When we close with her, let the marines fire a well-aimed
volley. You must get some marines to stand by aft as well. I hope we may
shoot away his halliards; once his sails are down on his deck he is ours
for the trouble of putting a boat over the side.”
For more than half an hour Captain Vincent stood silent, elbow on rail,
keeping his eye on the tartane, while on board the latter Peyrol steered
silent and watchful but intensely conscious of the enemy ship holding on
in her relentless pursuit. The narrow red band was dying out of the
sky. The French coast, black against the fading light, merged into the
shadows gathering in the eastern board. Citizen Scevola, somewhat
soothed by the assurance that he would not die by drowning, had elected
to remain quiet where he had fallen, not daring to trust himself to move
on the lively deck. Michel, squatting to windward, gazed intently at
Peyrol in expectation of some order at any minute. But Peyrol uttered no
word and made no sign. From time to time a burst of foam flew over the
tartane, or a splash of water would come aboard with a scurrying noise.
It was not till the corvette had got within a long gunshot from the
tartane that Peyrol opened his mouth.
“No!” he burst out, loud in the wind, as if giving vent to long anxious
thinking, “no! I could not have left you behind with not even a dog for
company. Devil take me if I don’t think you would not have thanked me
for it either. What do you say to that, Michel?”
A half-puzzled smile dwelt persistently on the guileless countenance of
the ex-fisherman. He stated what he had always thought in respect of
Peyrol’s every remark: “I think you are right, maître.”
“Listen then, Michel. That ship will be alongside of us in less than
half an hour. As she comes up they will open on us with musketry.”
“They will open on us ...” repeated Michel, looking quite interested.
“But how do you know they will do that, maître?”
“Because her captain has got to obey what is in my mind,” said Peyrol,
in a tone of positive and solemn conviction. “He will do it as sure as
if I were at his ear telling him what to do. He will do it because he is
a first-rate seaman, but I, Michel, I am just a little bit cleverer than
he.” He glanced over his shoulder at the _Amelia_ rushing after the
tartane with swelling sails, and raised his voice suddenly. “He will do
it because no more than half a mile ahead of us is the spot where Peyrol
will die!”
Michel did not start. He only shut his eyes for a time, and the rover
continued in a lower tone:
“I may be shot through the heart at once,” he said; “and in that case
you have my permission to let go the halliards if you are alive
yourself. But if I live I mean to put the helm down. When I do that you
will let go the foresheet to help the tartane to fly into the wind’s
eye. This is my last order to you. Now go forward and fear nothing.
Adieu.” Michel obeyed without a word.
Half a dozen of the _Amelia’s_ marines stood ranged on the
forecastle-head ready with their muskets. Captain Vincent walked into
the lee waist to watch his chase. When he thought that the jibboom of
the _Amelia_ had drawn level with the stern of the tartane he waved his
hat and the marines discharged their muskets. Apparently no gear was
cut. Captain Vincent observed the white-headed man, who was steering,
clap his hand to his left side, while he hove the tiller to leeward and
brought the tartane sharply into the wind. The marines on the poop fired
in their turn, all the reports merging into one. Voices were heard on
the decks crying that they “had hit the white-haired chap.” Captain
Vincent shouted to the master:
“Get the ship round on the other tack.”
The elderly seaman who was the master of the _Amelia_ took a critical
look before he gave the necessary orders; and the _Amelia_ closed on her
chase with her decks resounding to the piping of boatswain’s mates and
the hoarse shout: “Hands shorten sail. About ship.”
Peyrol, lying on his back under the swinging tiller, heard the calls
shrilling and dying away; he heard the ominous rush of the _Amelia’s_
bow wave as the sloop foamed within ten yards of the tartane’s stern; he
even saw her upper yards coming down, and then everything vanished out
of the clouded sky. There was nothing in his ears but the sound of the
wind, the wash of the waves buffeting the little craft left without
guidance, and the continuous thrashing of its foresail the sheet of
which Michel had let go according to orders. The tartane began to roll
heavily, but Peyrol’s right arm was sound and he managed to put it round
a bollard to prevent himself from being flung about. A feeling of peace
sank into him, not unmingled with pride. Everything he had planned had
come to pass. He had meant to play that man a trick, and now the trick
had been played. Played by him better than by any other old man on whom
age had stolen, unnoticed, till the veil of peace was torn down by the
touch of a sentiment unexpected like an intruder and cruel like an
enemy.
Peyrol rolled his head to the left. All he could see were the legs of
Citizen Scevola sliding nervelessly to and fro to the rolling of the
vessel as if his body had been jammed somewhere. Dead, or only scared to
death? And Michel? Was he dead or dying, that man without friends whom
his pity had refused to leave behind marooned on the earth without even
a dog for company. As to that, Peyrol felt no compunction; but he
thought he would have liked to see Michel once more. He tried to utter
his name, but his throat refused him even a whisper. He felt himself
removed far away from that world of human sounds, in which Arlette had
screamed at him: “Peyrol, don’t you dare!” He would never hear anybody’s
voice again! Under that grey sky there was nothing for him but the swish
of breaking seas and the ceaseless furious beating of the tartane’s
foresail. His plaything was knocking about terribly under him, with her
tiller flying madly to and fro just clear of his head, and solid lumps
of water coming on board over his prostrate body. Suddenly, in a
desperate lurch which brought the whole Mediterranean with a ferocious
snarl level with the slope of the little deck, Peyrol saw the _Amelia_
bearing right down upon the tartane. The fear, not of death, but of
failure, gripped his slowing-down heart. Was this blind Englishman going
to run him down and sink the dispatches together with the craft? With a
mighty effort of his ebbing strength Peyrol sat up and flung his arm
round the shroud of the mainmast.
The _Amelia_, whose way had carried her past the tartane for a quarter
of a mile before sail could be shortened and her yards swung on the
other tack, was coming back to take possession of her chase. In the
deepening dusk and amongst the foaming seas it was a matter of
difficulty to make out the little craft. At the very moment when the
master of the man-of-war, looking out anxiously from the
forecastle-head, thought that she might perhaps have filled and gone
down, he caught sight of her rolling in the trough of the sea, and so
close that she seemed to be at the end of the _Amelia’s_ jibboom. His
heart flew in his mouth. “Hard a starboard!” he yelled, his order being
passed along the decks.
Peyrol, sinking back on the deck, in another heavy lurch of his craft,
saw for an instant the whole of the English corvette swing up into the
clouds as if she meant to fling herself upon his very breast. A blown
seatop flicked his face noisily, followed by a smooth interval, a
silence of the waters. He beheld in a flash the days of his manhood, of
strength and adventure. Suddenly an enormous voice like the roar of an
angry sea-lion seemed to fill the whole of the empty sky in a mighty and
commanding shout: “Steady!”... And with the sound of that familiar
English word ringing in his ears Peyrol smiled to his visions and died.
The _Amelia_, stripped down to her topsails and hove to, rose and fell
easily, while on her quarter about a cable’s length away Peyrol’s
tartane tumbled like a lifeless corpse amongst the seas. Captain
Vincent, in his favourite attitude of leaning over the rail, kept his
eyes fastened on his prize. Mr. Bolt, who had been sent for, waited
patiently till his commander turned round.
“Oh, here you are, Mr. Bolt. I have sent for you to go and take
possession. You speak French, and there may still be somebody alive in
her. If so, of course you will send him on board at once. I am sure
there can be nobody unwounded there. It will anyhow be too dark to see
much, but just have a good look round and secure everything in the way
of papers you can lay your hands on. Haul aft the foresheet and sail her
up to receive a tow-line. I intend to take her along and ransack her
thoroughly in the morning; tear down the cuddy linings and so on,
should you not find at once what I expect....” Captain Vincent, his
white teeth gleaming in the dusk, gave some further orders in a lower
tone, and Mr. Bolt departed in a hurry. Half an hour afterwards he was
back on board, and the _Amelia_, with the tartane in tow, made sail to
the eastward in search of the blockading fleet.
Mr. Bolt, introduced into a cabin strongly lighted by a swinging lamp,
tendered to his captain across the table a sail-cloth package corded and
sealed, and a piece of paper folded in four, which, he explained, seemed
to be a certificate of registry, strangely enough mentioning no name.
Captain Vincent seized the grey canvas package eagerly.
“This looks like the very thing, Bolt,” he said, turning it over in his
hands. “What else did you find on board?”
Bolt said that he had found three dead men, two on the after-deck and
one lying at the bottom of the open hold with the bare end of the
foresheet in his hand--“shot down, I suppose, just as he had let it go,”
he commented. He described the appearance of the bodies and reported
that he had disposed of them according to orders. In the tartane’s cabin
there was half a demijohn of wine and a loaf of bread in a locker; also,
on the floor, a leather valise containing an officer’s uniform coat and
a change of clothing. He had lighted the lamp and saw that the linen was
marked “E. Réal.” An officer’s sword on a broad shoulder-belt was also
lying on the floor. These things could not have belonged to the old chap
with the white hair, who was a big man. “Looks as if somebody had
tumbled overboard,” commented Bolt. Two of the bodies looked
nondescript, but there was no doubt about that fine old fellow being a
seaman.
“By heavens!” said Captain Vincent, “he was that! Do you know, Bolt,
that he nearly managed to escape us. Another twenty minutes would have
done it. How many wounds had he?”
“Three I think, sir. I did not look closely,” said Bolt.
“I hated the necessity of shooting brave men like dogs,” said Captain
Vincent. “Still, it was the only way; and there may be something here,”
he went on, slapping the package with his open palm, “that will justify
me in my own eyes. You may go now.”
Captain Vincent did not turn in, but only lay down fully dressed on the
couch till the officer of the watch, appearing at the door, told him
that a ship of the fleet was in sight away to windward. Captain Vincent
ordered the private night signal to be made. When he came on deck the
towering shadow of a line-of-battle ship that seemed to reach to the
very clouds was well within hail and a voice bellowed from her through a
speaking-trumpet:
“What ship is that?”
“His Majesty’s sloop _Amelia_,” hailed back Captain Vincent. “What ship
is that, pray?”
Instead of the usual answer, there was a short pause, and another voice
spoke boisterously through the trumpet:
“Is that you, Vincent? Don’t you know the _Superb_ when you see her?”
“Not in the dark, Keats. How are you? I am in a hurry to speak the
Admiral.”
“The fleet is lying by,” came the voice, now with painstaking
distinctness, across the murmurs, whispers and splashes of the black
lane of water dividing the two ships. “The Admiral bears S.S.E. If you
stretch on till daylight as you are, you will fetch him on the other
tack in time for breakfast on board the _Victory_. Is anything up?”
At every slight roll the sails of the _Amelia_, becalmed by the bulk of
the seventy-four, flapped gently against the masts.
“Not much,” hailed Captain Vincent. “I made a prize.”
“Have you been in action?” came the swift inquiry.
“No, no. Piece of luck.”
“Where’s your prize?” roared the speaking-trumpet with interest.
“In my desk,” roared Captain Vincent in reply.... “Enemy dispatches....
I say, Keats, fill on your ship. Fill on her, I say, or you will be
falling on board of me.” He stamped his foot impatiently. “Clap some
hands at once on the tow-line and run that tartane close under our
stern,” he called to the officer of the watch, “or else the old _Superb_
will walk over her without ever knowing anything about it.”
When Captain Vincent presented himself on board the _Victory_ it was too
late for him to be invited to share the Admiral’s breakfast. He was told
that Lord Nelson had not been seen on deck yet that morning; and
presently word came that he wished to see Captain Vincent at once in his
cabin. Being introduced, the captain of the _Amelia_, in undress
uniform, with a sword by his side and his hat under his arm, was
received kindly, made his bow and with a few words of explanation laid
the packet on the big round table at which sat a silent secretary in
black clothes, who had been obviously writing a letter from his
Lordship’s dictation. The Admiral had been walking up and down, and
after he had greeted Captain Vincent he resumed his pacing of a nervous
man. His empty sleeve had not yet been pinned on his breast, and swung
slightly every time he turned in his walk. His thin locks fell lank
against the pale cheeks, and the whole face in repose had an expression
of suffering with which the fire of his one eye presented a startling
contrast. He stopped short and exclaimed while Captain Vincent towered
over him in a respectful attitude:
“A tartane! Captured on board a tartane! How on earth did you pitch upon
that one out of the hundreds you must see every month?”
“I must confess that I got hold accidentally of some curious
information,” said Captain Vincent. “It was all a piece of luck.”
While the secretary was ripping open with a penknife the cover of the
dispatches Lord Nelson took Captain Vincent out into the stern gallery.
The quiet and sunshiny morning had the added charm of a cool, light
breeze; and the _Victory_, under her three topsails and lower staysails,
was moving slowly to the southward in the midst of the scattered fleet
carrying for the most part the same sail as the Admiral. Only far away
two or three ships could be seen covered with canvas, trying to close
with the flag. Captain Vincent noted with satisfaction that the first
lieutenant of the _Amelia_ had been obliged to brace by his afteryards
in order not to overrun the Admiral’s quarter.
“Why!” exclaimed Lord Nelson suddenly, after looking at the sloop for a
moment, “you have that tartane in tow!”
“I thought that your Lordship would perhaps like to see a 40-ton lateen
craft which has led such a chase to, I dare say, the fastest sloop in
His Majesty’s service.”
“How did it all begin?” asked the Admiral, continuing to look at the
_Amelia_.
“As I have already hinted to your Lordship, certain information came in
my way,” began Captain Vincent, who did not think it necessary to
enlarge upon that part of the story. “This tartane, which is not very
different to look at from the other tartanes along the coast between
Cette and Genoa, had started from a cove on the Giens peninsula. An old
man with a white head of hair was entrusted with the service, and really
they could have found nobody better. He came round Cape Esterel
intending to pass through the Hyères Roadstead. Apparently he did not
expect to find the _Amelia_ in his way. And it was there that he made
his only mistake. If he had kept on his course, I would probably have
taken no more notice of him than of two other craft that were in sight
then. But he acted suspiciously by hauling up for the battery on
Porquerolles. This manœuvre in connection with the information of which
I spoke decided me to overhaul him and see what he had on board.”
Captain Vincent then related concisely the episodes of the chase. “I
assure your Lordship that I never gave an order with greater reluctance
than to open musketry fire on that craft; but the old man had given such
proofs of his seamanship and determination that there was nothing else
for it. Why! at the very moment he had the _Amelia_ alongside of him he
still made a most clever attempt to prolong the chase. There were only
a few minutes of daylight left, and in the darkness we might very well
have lost him. Considering that they all could have saved their lives
simply by striking their sails on deck, I cannot refuse them my
admiration, and especially to the white-haired man.”
The Admiral, who had been all the time looking absently at the _Amelia_
keeping her station with the tartane in tow, said:
“You have a very smart little ship, Vincent. Very fit for the work I
have given you to do. French built, isn’t she?”
“Yes, my Lord. They are great shipbuilders.”
“You don’t seem to hate the French, Vincent,” said the Admiral, smiling
faintly.
“Not that kind, my Lord,” said Captain Vincent, with a bow. “I detest
their political principles and the characters of their public men, but
your Lordship will admit that for courage and determination we could not
have found worthier adversaries anywhere on this globe.”
“I never said that they were to be despised,” said Lord Nelson.
“Resource, courage, yes.... If that Toulon fleet gives me the slip, all
our squadrons from Gibraltar to Brest will be in jeopardy. Why don’t
they come out and be done with it? Don’t I keep far enough out of their
way?” he cried.
Vincent remarked the nervous agitation of the frail figure with a
concern augmented by a fit of coughing which came on the Admiral. He was
quite alarmed by its violence. He watched the Commander-in-Chief in the
Mediterranean choking and gasping so helplessly that he felt compelled
to turn his eyes away from the painful spectacle; but he noticed also
how quickly Lord Nelson recovered from the subsequent exhaustion.
“This is anxious work, Vincent,” he said. “It is killing me. I aspire to
repose somewhere in the country, in the midst of fields, out of reach of
the sea and the Admiralty and dispatches and orders, and responsibility
too. I have been just finishing a letter to tell them at home I have
hardly enough breath in my body to carry me on from day to day.... But I
am like that white-headed man you admire so much, Vincent,” he pursued,
with a weary smile, “I will stick to my task till perhaps some shot from
the enemy puts an end to everything.... Let us see what there may be in
those papers you have brought on board.”
The secretary in the cabin had arranged them in separate piles.
“What is it all about?” asked the Admiral, beginning again to pace
restlessly up and down the cabin.
“At the first glance, the most important, my Lord, are the orders for
marine authorities in Corsica and Naples to make certain dispositions in
view of an expedition to Egypt.”
“I always thought so,” said the Admiral, his eye gleaming at the
attentive countenance of Captain Vincent. “This is a smart piece of work
on your part, Vincent. I can do no better than send you back to your
station. Yes ... Egypt ... the East.... Everything points that way,” he
soliloquised under Vincent’s eyes, while the secretary, picking up the
papers with care, rose quietly and went out to have them translated and
to make an abstract for the Admiral.
“And yet who knows!” exclaimed Lord Nelson, standing still for a
moment. “But the blame or the glory must be mine alone. I will seek
counsel from no man.” Captain Vincent felt himself forgotten, invisible,
less than a shadow in the presence of a nature capable of such vehement
feelings. “How long can he last?” he asked himself with sincere concern.
The Admiral, however, soon remembered his presence, and at the end of
another ten minutes Captain Vincent left the _Victory_, feeling, like
all officers who approached Lord Nelson, that he had been speaking with
a personal friend; and with a renewed devotion for the great
sea-officer’s soul dwelling in the frail body of the Commander-in-Chief
of His Majesty’s ships in the Mediterranean. While he was being pulled
back to his ship a general signal went up in the _Victory_ for the fleet
to form line, as convenient, ahead and astern of the Admiral; followed
by another to the _Amelia_ to part company. Vincent accordingly gave his
orders to make sail, and, directing the master to shape a course for
Cape Cicié, went down into his cabin. He had been up nearly the whole of
the last three nights, and he wanted to get a little sleep. His
slumbers, however, were short and disturbed. Early in the afternoon he
found himself broad awake and reviewing in his mind the events of the
day before. The order to shoot three brave men in cold blood, terribly
distasteful at the time, was lying heavily on him. Perhaps he had been
impressed by Peyrol’s white head, his obstinacy to escape him, the
determination shown to the very last minute; by something in the whole
episode that suggested a more than common devotion to duty and a spirit
of daring defiance. With his robust health, simple good nature, and
sanguine temperament touched with a little irony, Captain Vincent was a
man of generous feelings and of easily moved sympathies.
“Yet,” he reflected, “they have been asking for it. There could be only
one end to that affair. But the fact remains that they were defenceless
and unarmed and particularly harmless-looking, and at the same time as
brave as any. That old chap now....” He wondered how much of exact truth
there was in Symons’ tale of adventure. He concluded that the facts must
have been true but that Symons’ interpretation of them made it
extraordinarily difficult to discover what really there was under all
that. That craft certainly was fit for blockade running. Lord Nelson had
been pleased. Captain Vincent went on deck with the kindliest feelings
towards all men, alive and dead.
The afternoon had turned out very fine. The British fleet was just out
of sight with the exception of one or two stragglers, under a press of
canvas. A light breeze, in which only the _Amelia_ could travel at five
knots, hardly ruffled the profundity of the blue waters basking in the
warm tenderness of the cloudless sky. To south and west the horizon was
empty except for two specks very far apart, of which one shone white
like a bit of silver and the other appeared black like a drop of ink.
Captain Vincent, with his purpose firm in his mind, felt at peace with
himself. As he was easily accessible to his officers, his first
lieutenant ventured a question to which Captain Vincent replied:
“He looks very thin and worn out, but I don’t think he is as ill as he
thinks he is. I am sure you all would like to know that his Lordship is
pleased with our yesterday’s work--those papers were of some importance
you know--and generally with the _Amelia_. It was a queer chase, wasn’t
it?” he went on. “That tartane was clearly and unmistakably running away
from us. But she never had a chance against the _Amelia_.”
During the latter part of that speech the first lieutenant glanced
astern as if asking himself how long Captain Vincent proposed to drag
that tartane behind the _Amelia_. The two keepers in her wondered also
as to when they would be permitted to get back on board their ship.
Symons, who was one of them, declared that he was sick and tired of
steering the blamed thing. Moreover, the company on board made him
uncomfortable; for Symons was aware that in pursuance of Captain
Vincent’s orders, Mr. Bolt had had the three dead Frenchmen carried into
the cuddy, which he afterwards secured with an enormous padlock that,
apparently, belonged to it, and had taken the key on board the _Amelia_.
As to one of them, Symons’ unforgiving verdict was that it would have
served him right to be thrown ashore for crows to peck his eyes out. And
anyhow, he could not understand why he should have been turned into the
coxswain of a floating hearse, and be damned to it.... He grumbled
interminably.
Just about sunset, which is the time of burials at sea, the _Amelia_ was
hove to and, the rope being manned, the tartane was brought alongside
and her two keepers ordered on board their ship. Captain Vincent,
leaning over with his elbows on the rail, seemed lost in thought. At
last the first lieutenant spoke.
“What are we going to do with that tartane, sir? Our men are on board.”
“We are going to sink her by gunfire,” declared Captain Vincent
suddenly. “His ship makes a very good coffin for a seaman, and those men
deserve better than to be thrown overboard to roll on the waves. Let
them rest quietly at the bottom of the sea in the craft to which they
had stuck so well.”
The lieutenant, making no reply, waited for some more positive order.
Every eye on the ship was turned on the captain. But Captain Vincent
said nothing and seemed unable or unwilling to give it yet. He was
feeling vaguely that in all his good intentions there was something
wanting.
“Ah! Mr. Bolt,” he said, catching sight of the master’s mate in the
waist. “Did they have a flag on board that craft?”
“I think she had a tiny bit of ensign when the chase began, sir, but it
must have blown away. It is not at the end of her mainyard now.” He
looked over the side. “The halliards are rove, though,” he added.
“We must have a French ensign somewhere on board,” said Captain Vincent.
“Certainly, sir,” struck in the master, who was listening.
“Well, Mr. Bolt,” said Captain Vincent, “you have had most to do with
all this. Take a few men with you, bend the French ensign on the
halliards and sway his mainyard to the masthead.” He smiled at all the
faces turned towards him. “After all, they never surrendered and, by
heavens, gentlemen, we will let them go down with their colours flying.”
A profound but not disapproving silence reigned over the decks of the
ship while Mr. Bolt with three or four hands was busy executing the
order. Then suddenly above the top-gallant rail of the _Amelia_
appeared the upper curve of a lateen yard with the tricolour drooping
from the point. A subdued murmur from all hands greeted this apparition.
At the same time Captain Vincent ordered the line holding the tartane
alongside to be cast off and the mainyard of the _Amelia_ to be swung
round. The sloop, shooting ahead of her prize, left her stationary on
the sea, then putting the helm up, ran back abreast of her on the other
side. The port bow-gun was ordered to fire a round, aiming well forward.
That shot, however, went just over, taking the foremast out of the
tartane. The next was more successful, striking the little hull between
wind and water, and going out well under water on the other side. A
third was fired, as the men said, just for luck, and that too took
effect, a splintered hole appearing at the bow. After that the guns were
secured and the _Amelia_, with no brace being touched, was brought to
her course towards Cape Cicié. All hands on board of her with their
backs to the sunset sky, clear like a pale topaz above the hard blue gem
of the sea, watched the tartane give a sudden dip, followed by a slow,
unchecked dive. At last the tricolour flag alone remained visible for a
tense and interminable moment, pathetic and lonely, in the centre of a
brimful horizon. All at once it vanished, like a flame blown upon,
bringing to the beholders the sense of having been left face to face
with an immense, suddenly created solitude. On the decks of the _Amelia_
a low murmur died out.
* * * * *
When Lieutenant Réal sailed away with the Toulon fleet on the great
strategical cruise which was to end in the Battle of Trafalgar, Madame
Réal returned with her aunt to her hereditary house at Escampobar. She
had only spent a few weeks in town, where she was not much seen in
public. The lieutenant and his wife lived in a little house near the
western gate, and the lieutenant’s official position, though he was
employed on the staff to the last, was not sufficiently prominent to
make her absence from official ceremonies at all remarkable. But this
marriage was an object of mild interest in naval circles. Those--mostly
men--who had seen Madame Réal at home, told stories of her dazzling
complexion, of her magnificent black eyes, of her personal and
attractive strangeness, and of the Arlesian costume she insisted on
wearing, even after her marriage to an officer of the navy, being
herself sprung from farmer stock. It was also said that her father and
mother had fallen victims in the massacres of Toulon after the
evacuation of the town; but all those stories varied in detail and were
on the whole very vague. Whenever she went abroad Mrs. Réal was attended
by her aunt, who aroused almost as much curiosity as herself: a
magnificent old woman with upright carriage and an austere, brown,
wrinkled face showing signs of past beauty. Catherine was also seen
alone in the streets, where, as a matter of fact, people turned round to
look after the thin and dignified figure, remarkable amongst the
passers-by, whom she herself did not seem to see. About her escape from
the massacres most wonderful tales were told, and she acquired the
reputation of a heroine. Arlette’s aunt was known to frequent the
churches, which were all open to the faithful now, carrying even into
the house of God her sibylline aspect of a prophetess and her austere
manner. It was not at the services that she was seen most. People would
see her oftener in an empty nave, standing slim and as straight as an
arrow in the shade of a mighty pillar as if making a call on the Creator
of all things, with whom she had made her peace generously, and now
would petition only for pardon and reconciliation with her niece
Arlette. For Catherine for a long time remained uncertain of the future.
She did not get rid of her involuntary awe of her niece as a selected
object of God’s wrath until towards the end of her life. There was also
another soul for which she was concerned. The pursuit of the tartane by
the _Amelia_ had been observed from various points of the islands that
close the roadstead of Hyères, and the English ship had been seen from
the Fort de la Vigie opening fire on her chase. The result, though the
two vessels soon ran out of sight, could not be a matter of doubt. There
was also the story told by a coaster, that got into Fréjus, of a tartane
being fired on by a square-rigged man-of-war; but that apparently was
the next day. All these rumours pointed one way and were the foundation
of the report made by Lieutenant Réal to the Toulon Admiralty. That
Peyrol went out to sea in his tartane and was never seen again was, of
course, an incontrovertible fact.
The day before the two women were to go back to Escampobar Catherine
approached a priest in the church of Ste Marie Majeure, a little
unshaven fat man with a watery eye, in order to arrange for some masses
to be said for the dead.
“But for whose soul are we to pray?” mumbled the priest in a wheezy low
tone.
“Pray for the soul of Jean,” said Catherine. “Yes, Jean. There is no
other name.”
Lieutenant Réal, wounded at Trafalgar, but escaping capture, retired
with the rank of Capitaine de Frégate and vanished from the eyes of the
naval world in Toulon, and indeed from the world altogether. Whatever
sign brought him back to Escampobar on that momentous night was not
meant to call him to his death but to a quiet and retired life, obscure
in a sense but not devoid of dignity. In the course of years he became
the Mayor of the Commune in that very same little village which had
looked on Escampobar as the abode of iniquity, the sojourn of
blood-drinkers and of wicked women.
One of the earliest excitements breaking the monotony of the Escampobar
life was the discovery at the bottom of the well, one dry year when the
water got very low, of some considerable obstruction. After a lot of
trouble in getting it up, this obstruction turned out to be a garment
made of sail-cloth, which had armholes and three horn buttons in front,
and looked like a waistcoat; but it was lined, positively quilted, with
a surprising quantity of gold pieces of various ages, coinages and
nationalities. Nobody but Peyrol could have put it there. Catherine was
able to give the exact date; because she remembered seeing him doing
something at the well on the very morning before he went out to sea with
Michel, carrying off Scevola. Captain Réal could guess easily the origin
of that treasure, and he decided with his wife’s approval to give it up
to the Government as the hoard of a man who had died intestate with no
discoverable relations, and whose very name had been a matter of
uncertainty, even to himself. After that event the uncertain name of
Peyrol found itself oftener and oftener on Monsieur and Madame Réal’s
lips, on which before it was but seldom heard; though the recollection
of his white-headed, quiet, irresistible personality haunted every
corner of the Escampobar fields. From that time they talked of him
openly, as though he had come back to live again amongst them.
Many years afterwards, one fine evening Monsieur and Madame Réal,
sitting on the bench outside the salle (the house had not been altered
at all outside except that it was now kept whitewashed), began to talk
of that episode and of the man who, coming from the seas, had crossed
their lives to disappear at sea again.
“How did he get all that lot of gold?” wondered Madame Réal innocently.
“He could not possibly want it; and, Eugène, why should he have put it
down there?”
“That, ma chère amie,” said Réal, “is not an easy question to answer.
Men and women are not so simple as they seem. Even you, fermière (he
used to give his wife that name jocularly sometimes), are not so simple
as some people would take you to be. I think that if Peyrol were here he
could not perhaps answer your question himself.”
And they went on, reminding each other in short phrases separated by
long silences, of his peculiarities of person and behaviour, when, above
the slope leading down to Madrague, there appeared, first the pointed
ears and then the whole body of a very diminutive donkey of a light grey
colour with dark points. Two pieces of wood, strangely shaped, projected
on each side of his body as far as his head, like very long shafts of a
cart. But the donkey dragged no cart after him. He was carrying on his
back on a small pack-saddle the torso of a man who did not seem to have
any legs. The little animal, beautifully groomed and with an intelligent
and even impudent physiognomy, stopped in front of Monsieur and Madame
Réal. The man, balancing himself cleverly on the pack-saddle with his
withered legs crossed in front of him, slipped off, disengaged his
crutches from each side of the donkey smartly, propped himself on them,
and with his open palm gave the animal a resounding thwack which sent it
trotting into the yard. The cripple of the Madrague in his quality of
Peyrol’s friend (for the rover had often talked of him both to the women
and to Lieutenant Réal with great appreciation--“C’est un homme ça”) had
become a member of the Escampobar community. His employment was to run
about the country on errands, most unfit, one would think, for a man
without legs. But the donkey did all the walking while the cripple
supplied the sharp wits and an unfailing memory. The poor fellow,
snatching off his hat and holding it with one hand alongside his right
crutch, approached to render his account of the day in the simple words:
“Everything has been done as you ordered, Madame”; then lingered, a
privileged servant, familiar but respectful, attractive with his soft
eyes, long face and his pained smile.
“We were just talking of Peyrol,” remarked Captain Réal.
“Ah, one could talk a long time of him,” said the cripple. “He told me
once that if I had been complete--with legs like everybody else, I
suppose he meant--I would have made a good comrade away there in the
distant seas. He had a great heart.”
“Yes,” murmured Madame Réal thoughtfully. Then, turning to her husband,
she asked: “What sort of man was he really, Eugène?” Captain Réal
remained silent. “Did you ever ask yourself that question?” she
insisted.
“Yes,” said Réal. “But the only certain thing we can say of him is that
he was not a bad Frenchman.”
“Everything’s in that,” murmured the cripple, with fervent conviction,
in the silence that fell upon Réal’s words and Arlette’s faint sigh of
memory.
The blue level of the Mediterranean, the charmer and the deceiver of
audacious men, kept the secret of its fascination--hugged to its calm
breast the victims of all the wars, calamities and tempests of its
history, under the marvellous purity of the sunset sky. A few rosy
clouds floated high up over the Esterel range. The breath of the evening
breeze came to cool the heated rocks of Escampobar; and the
mulberry-tree, the only big tree on the head of the peninsula, standing
like a sentinel at the gate of the yard, sighed faintly in a shudder of
all its leaves as if regretting the Brother of the Coast, the man of
dark deeds, but of large heart, who often at noonday would lie down to
sleep under its shade.
_Printed in Great Britain by_
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED
LONDON AND WOKING