V. TWO MEETINGS

One of Napoleon’s orderly staff-officers, who shall be known in this

history only as the General or the Marquis, had come to spend the spring

at Versailles. He made a large fortune under the Restoration; and as

his place at Court would not allow him to go very far from Paris, he had

taken a country house between the church and the barrier of Montreuil,

on the road that leads to the Avenue de Saint-Cloud.

The house had been built originally as a retreat for the short-lived

loves of some _grand seigneur_. The grounds were very large; the gardens

on either side extending from the first houses of Montreuil to the

thatched cottages near the barrier, so that the owner could enjoy all

the pleasures of solitude with the city almost at his gates. By an odd

piece of contradiction, the whole front of the house itself, with the

principal entrance, gave directly upon the street. Perhaps in time past

it was a tolerably lonely road, and indeed this theory looks all the

more probable when one comes to think of it; for not so very far away,

on this same road, Louis Quinze built a delicious summer villa for Mlle.

de Romans, and the curious in such things will discover that the

wayside _casinos_ are adorned in a style that recalls traditions of the

ingenious taste displayed in debauchery by our ancestors who, with all

the license paid to their charge, sought to invest it with secrecy and

mystery.

One winter evening the family were by themselves in the lonely house.

The servants had received permission to go to Versailles to celebrate

the wedding of one of their number. It was Christmas time, and the

holiday makers, presuming upon the double festival, did not scruple to

outstay their leave of absence; yet, as the General was well known to be

a man of his word, the culprits felt some twinges of conscience as they

danced on after the hour of return. The clocks struck eleven, and still

there was no sign of the servants.

A deep silence prevailed over the country-side, broken only by the sound

of the northeast wind whistling through the black branches, wailing

about the house, dying in gusts along the corridors. The hard frost had

purified the air, and held the earth in its grip; the roads gave back

every sound with the hard metallic ring which always strikes us with

a new surprise; the heavy footsteps of some belated reveler, or a cab

returning to Paris, could be heard for a long distance with unwonted

distinctness. Out in the courtyard a few dead leaves set a-dancing

by some eddying gust found a voice for the night which fain had been

silent. It was, in fact, one of those sharp, frosty evenings that wring

barren expressions of pity from our selfish ease for wayfarers and

the poor, and fills us with a luxurious sense of the comfort of the

fireside.

But the family party in the salon at that hour gave not a thought to

absent servants nor houseless folk, nor to the gracious charm with which

a winter evening sparkles. No one played the philosopher out of season.

Secure in the protection of an old soldier, women and children gave

themselves up to the joys of home life, so delicious when there is no

restraint upon feeling; and talk and play and glances are bright with

frankness and affection.

The General sat, or more properly speaking, lay buried, in the depths

of a huge, high-back armchair by the hearth. The heaped-up fire burned

scorching clear with the excessive cold of the night. The good father

leaned his head slightly to one side against the back of the chair, in

the indolence of perfect serenity and a glow of happiness. The languid,

half-sleepy droop of his outstretched arms seemed to complete his

expression of placid content. He was watching his youngest, a boy of

five or thereabouts, who, half clad as he was, declined to allow his

mother to undress him. The little one fled from the night-gown and cap

with which he was threatened now and again, and stoutly declined to part

with his embroidered collar, laughing when his mother called to him,

for he saw that she too was laughing at this declaration of infant

independence. The next step was to go back to a game of romps with his

sister. She was as much a child as he, but more mischievous; and she

was older by two years, and could speak distinctly already, whereas his

inarticulate words and confused ideas were a puzzle even to his parents.

Little Moïna’s playfulness, somewhat coquettish already, provoked

inextinguishable laughter, explosions of merriment which went off like

fireworks for no apparent cause. As they tumbled about before the

fire, unconcernedly displaying little plump bodies and delicate white

contours, as the dark and golden curls mingled in a collision of rosy

cheeks dimpled with childish glee, a father surely, a mother most

certainly, must have understood those little souls, and seen the

character and power of passion already developed for their eyes. As the

cherubs frolicked about, struggling, rolling, and tumbling without fear

of hurt on the soft carpet, its flowers looked pale beside the glowing

white and red of their cheeks and the brilliant color of their shining

eyes.

On the sofa by the fire, opposite the great armchair, the children’s

mother sat among a heap of scattered garments, with a little scarlet

shoe in her hand. She seemed to have given herself up completely to the

enjoyment of the moment; wavering discipline had relaxed into a

sweet smile engraved upon her lips. At the age of six-and-thirty, or

thereabouts, she was a beautiful woman still, by reason of the rare

perfection of the outlines of her face, and at this moment light and

warmth and happiness filled it with preternatural brightness.

Again and again her eyes wandered from her children, and their tender

gaze was turned upon her husband’s grave face; and now and again the

eyes of husband and wife met with a silent exchange of happiness and

thoughts from some inner depth.

The General’s face was deeply bronzed, a stray lock of gray hair scored

shadows on his forehead. The reckless courage of the battlefield could

be read in the lines carved in his hollow cheeks, and gleams of rugged

strength in the blue eyes; clearly the bit of red ribbon flaunting at

his button-hole had been paid for by hardship and toil. An inexpressible

kindliness and frankness shone out of the strong, resolute face which

reflected his children’s merriment; the gray-haired captain found it not

so very hard to become a child again. Is there not always a little love

of children in the heart of a soldier who has seen enough of the seamy

side of life to know something of the piteous limitations of strength

and the privileges of weakness?

At a round table rather further away, in a circle of bright lamplight

that dimmed the feebler illumination of the wax candles on the

chimney-piece, sat a boy of thirteen, rapidly turning the pages of a

thick volume which he was reading, undisturbed by the shouts of the

children. There was a boy’s curiosity in his face. From his _lycéens_

uniform he was evidently a schoolboy, and the book he was reading was

the _Arabian Nights_. Small wonder that he was deeply absorbed. He sat

perfectly still in a meditative attitude, with his elbow on the table,

and his hand propping his head--the white fingers contrasting strongly

with the brown hair into which they were thrust. As he sat, with the

light turned full upon his face, and the rest of his body in shadow, he

looked like one of Raphael’s dark portraits of himself--a bent head and

intent eyes filled with visions of the future.

Between the table and the Marquise a tall, beautiful girl sat at her

tapestry frame; sometimes she drew back from her work, sometimes she

bent over it, and her hair, picturesque in its ebony smoothness and

darkness, caught the light of the lamp. Helene was a picture in herself.

In her beauty there was a rare distinctive character of power and

refinement. Though her hair was gathered up and drawn back from her

face, so as to trace a clearly marked line about her head, so thick and

abundant was it, so recalcitrant to the comb, that it sprang back in

curl-tendrils to the nape of her neck. The bountiful line of eyebrows

was evenly marked out in dark contrasting outline upon her pure

forehead. On her upper lip, beneath the Grecian nose with its

sensitively perfect curve of nostril, there lay a faint, swarthy shadow,

the sign-manual of courage; but the enchanting roundness of contour, the

frankly innocent expression of her other features, the transparence

of the delicate carnations, the voluptuous softness of the lips, the

flawless oval of the outline of the face, and with these, and more than

all these, the saintlike expression in the girlish eyes, gave to her

vigorous loveliness the distinctive touch of feminine grace, that

enchanting modesty which we look for in these angels of peace and love.

Yet there was no suggestion of fragility about her; and, surely, with

so grand a woman’s frame, so attractive a face, she must possess a

corresponding warmth of heart and strength of soul.

She was as silent as her schoolboy brother. Seemingly a prey to the

fateful maiden meditations which baffle a father’s penetration and even

a mother’s sagacity, it was impossible to be certain whether it was the

lamplight that cast those shadows that flitted over her face like thin

clouds over a bright sky, or whether they were passing shades of secret

and painful thoughts.

Husband and wife had quite forgotten the two older children at that

moment, though now and again the General’s questioning glance traveled

to that second mute picture; a larger growth, a gracious realization,

as it were, of the hopes embodied in the baby forms rioting in the

foreground. Their faces made up a kind of living poem, illustrating

life’s various phases. The luxurious background of the salon, the

different attitudes, the strong contrasts of coloring in the faces,

differing with the character of differing ages, the modeling of the

forms brought into high relief by the light--altogether it was a page of

human life, richly illuminated beyond the art of painter, sculptor, or

poet. Silence, solitude, night and winter lent a final touch of majesty

to complete the simplicity and sublimity of this exquisite effect of

nature’s contriving. Married life is full of these sacred hours, which

perhaps owe their indefinable charm to some vague memory of a better

world. A divine radiance surely shines upon them, the destined

compensation for some portion of earth’s sorrows, the solace which

enables man to accept life. We seem to behold a vision of an enchanted

universe, the great conception of its system widens out before our eyes,

and social life pleads for its laws by bidding us look to the future.

Yet in spite of the tender glances that Helene gave Abel and Moïna after

a fresh outburst of merriment; in spite of the look of gladness in

her transparent face whenever she stole a glance at her father, a deep

melancholy pervaded her gestures, her attitude, and more than all, her

eyes veiled by their long lashes. Those white, strong hands, through

which the light passed, tinting them with a diaphanous, almost fluid

red--those hands were trembling. Once only did the eyes of the mother

and daughter clash without shrinking, and the two women read each

other’s thoughts in a look, cold, wan, and respectful on Helene’s part,

sombre and threatening on her mother’s. At once Helene’s eyes were

lowered to her work, she plied her needle swiftly, and it was long

before she raised her head, bowed as it seemed by a weight of thought

too heavy to bear. Was the Marquise over harsh with this one of her

children? Did she think this harshness needful? Was she jealous of

Helene’s beauty?--She might still hope to rival Helene, but only by the

magic arts of the toilette. Or again, had her daughter, like many a girl

who reaches the clairvoyant age, read the secrets which this wife (to

all appearance so religiously faithful in the fulfilment of her duties)

believed to be buried in her own heart as deeply as in a grave?

Helene had reached an age when purity of soul inclines to pass

over-rigid judgments. A certain order of mind is apt to exaggerate

transgression into crime; imagination reacts upon conscience, and a

young girl is a hard judge because she magnifies the seriousness of the

offence. Helene seemed to think herself worthy of no one. Perhaps

there was a secret in her past life, perhaps something had happened,

unintelligible to her at the time, but with gradually developing

significance for a mind grown susceptible to religious influences;

something which lately seemed to have degraded her, as it were, in her

own eyes, and according to her own romantic standard. This change in

her demeanor dated from the day of reading Schiller’s noble tragedy of

_Wilhelm Tell_ in a new series of translations. Her mother scolded her

for letting the book fall, and then remarked to herself that the passage

which had so worked on Helene’s feelings was the scene in which Wilhelm

Tell, who spilt the blood of a tyrant to save a nation, fraternizes in

some sort with John the Parricide. Helene had grown humble, dutiful, and

self-contained; she no longer cared for gaiety. Never had she made so

much of her father, especially when the Marquise was not by to watch

her girlish caresses. And yet, if Helene’s affection for her mother had

cooled at all, the change in her manner was so slight as to be almost

imperceptible; so slight that the General could not have noticed it,

jealous though he might be of the harmony of home. No masculine insight

could have sounded the depths of those two feminine natures; the one

was young and generous, the other sensitive and proud; the first had

a wealth of indulgence in her nature, the second was full of craft and

love. If the Marquise made her daughter’s life a burden to her by

a woman’s subtle tyranny, it was a tyranny invisible to all but the

victim; and for the rest, these conjectures only called forth after the

event must remain conjectures. Until this night no accusing flash of

light had escaped either of them, but an ominous mystery was too surely

growing up between them, a mystery known only to themselves and God.

“Come, Abel,” called the Marquise, seizing on her opportunity when the

children were tired of play and still for a moment. “Come, come, child;

you must be put to bed--”

And with a glance that must be obeyed, she caught him up and took him on

her knee.

“What!” exclaimed the General. “Half-past ten o’clock, and not one of

the servants has come back! The rascals!--Gustave,” he added, turning to

his son, “I allowed you to read that book only on the condition that you

should put it away at ten o’clock. You ought to have shut up the book

at the proper time and gone to bed, as you promised. If you mean to

make your mark in the world, you must keep your word; let it be a second

religion to you, and a point of honor. Fox, one of the greatest English

orators, was remarkable, above all things, for the beauty of his

character, and the very first of his qualities was the scrupulous

faithfulness with which he kept his engagements. When he was a child,

his father (an Englishman of the old school) gave him a pretty strong

lesson which he never forgot. Like most rich Englishmen, Fox’s father

had a country house and a considerable park about it. Now, in the park

there was an old summer-house, and orders had been given that this

summer-house was to be pulled down and put up somewhere else where there

was a finer view. Fox was just about your age, and had come home for the

holidays. Boys are fond of seeing things pulled to pieces, so young

Fox asked to stay on at home for a few days longer to see the old

summer-house taken down; but his father said that he must go back to

school on the proper day, so there was anger between father and son.

Fox’s mother (like all mammas) took the boy’s part. Then the father

solemnly promised that the summer-house should stay where it was till

the next holidays.

“So Fox went back to school; and his father, thinking that lessons would

soon drive the whole thing out of the boy’s mind, had the summer-house

pulled down and put up in the new position. But as it happened, the

persistent youngster thought of nothing but that summer-house; and as

soon as he came home again, his first care was to go out to look at the

old building, and he came in to breakfast looking quite doleful, and

said to his father, ‘You have broken your promise.’ The old English

gentleman said with confusion full of dignity, ‘That is true, my boy;

but I will make amends. A man ought to think of keeping his word before

he thinks of his fortune; for by keeping his word he will gain fortune,

while all the fortunes in the world will not efface the stain left on

your conscience by a breach of faith.’ Then he gave orders that the

summer-house should be put up again in the old place, and when it had

been rebuilt he had it taken down again for his son to see. Let this be

a lesson to _you_, Gustave.”

Gustave had been listening with interest, and now he closed the book at

once. There was a moment’s silence, while the General took possession of

Moïna, who could scarcely keep her eyes open. The little one’s languid

head fell back on her father’s breast, and in a moment she was fast

asleep, wrapped round about in her golden curls.

Just then a sound of hurrying footsteps rang on the pavement out in the

street, immediately followed by three knocks on the street door, waking

the echoes of the house. The reverberating blows told, as plainly as

a cry for help that here was a man flying for his life. The house dog

barked furiously. A thrill of excitement ran through Helene and Gustave

and the General and his wife; but neither Abel, with the night-cap

strings just tied under his chin, nor Moïna awoke.

“The fellow is in a hurry!” exclaimed the General. He put the little

girl down on the chair, and hastened out of the room, heedless of his

wife’s entreating cry, “Dear, do not go down--”

He stepped into his own room for a pair of pistols, lighted a dark

lantern, sprang at lightning speed down the staircase, and in another

minute reached the house door, his oldest boy fearlessly following.

“Who is there?” demanded he.

“Let me in,” panted a breathless voice.

“Are you a friend?”

“Yes, friend.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes! But let me in; _they_ are after me!”

The General had scarcely set the door ajar before a man slipped into the

porch with the uncanny swiftness of a shadow. Before the master of

the house could prevent him, the intruder had closed the door with a

well-directed kick, and set his back against it resolutely, as if he

were determined that it should not be opened again. In a moment the

General had his lantern and pistol at a level with the stranger’s

breast, and beheld a man of medium height in a fur-lined pelisse. It

was an old man’s garment, both too large and too long for its present

wearer. Chance or caution had slouched the man’s hat over his eyes.

“You can lower your pistol, sir,” said this person. “I do not claim

to stay in your house against your will; but if I leave it, death is

waiting for me at the barrier. And what a death! You would be answerable

to God for it! I ask for your hospitality for two hours. And bear this

in mind, sir, that, suppliant as I am, I have a right to command with

the despotism of necessity. I want the Arab’s hospitality. Either I

and my secret must be inviolable, or open the door and I will go to my

death. I want secrecy, a safe hiding-place, and water. Oh! water!” he

cried again, with a rattle in his throat.

“Who are you?” demanded the General, taken aback by the stranger’s

feverish volubility.

“Ah! who am I? Good, open the door, and I will put a distance between

us,” retorted the other, and there was a diabolical irony in his tone.

Dexterously as the Marquis passed the light of the lantern over the

man’s face, he could only see the lower half of it, and that in nowise

prepossessed him in favor of this singular claimant of hospitality.

The cheeks were livid and quivering, the features dreadfully contorted.

Under the shadow of the hat-brim a pair of eyes gleamed out like flames;

the feeble candle-light looked almost dim in comparison. Some sort of

answer must be made however.

“Your language, sir, is so extraordinary that in my place you

yourself--”

“My life is in your hands!” the intruder broke in. The sound of his

voice was dreadful to hear.

“Two hours?” said the Marquis, wavering.

“Two hours,” echoed the other.

Then quite suddenly, with a desperate gesture, he pushed back his

hat and left his forehead bare, and, as if he meant to try a final

expedient, he gave the General a glance that seemed to plunge like

a vivid flash into his very soul. That electrical discharge of

intelligence and will was swift as lightning and crushing as a

thunderbolt; for there are moments when a human being is invested for a

brief space with inexplicable power.

“Come, whoever you may be, you shall be in safety under my roof,” the

master of the house said gravely at last, acting, as he imagined, upon

one of those intuitions which a man cannot always explain to himself.

“God will repay you!” said the stranger, with a deep, involuntary sigh.

“Have you weapons?” asked the General.

For all answer the stranger flung open his fur pelisse, and scarcely

gave the other time for a glance before he wrapped it about him again.

To all appearance he was unarmed and in evening dress. Swift as the

soldier’s scrutiny had been, he saw something, however, which made him

exclaim:

“Where the devil have you been to get yourself in such a mess in such

dry weather?”

“More questions!” said the stranger haughtily.

At the words the Marquis caught sight of his son, and his own late

homily on the strict fulfilment of a given word came up to his mind. In

lively vexation, he exclaimed, not without a touch of anger:

“What! little rogue, you here when you ought to be in bed?”

“Because I thought I might be of some good in danger,” answered Gustave.

“There, go up to your room,” said his father, mollified by the

reply.--“And you” (addressing the stranger), “come with me.”

The two men grew as silent as a pair of gamblers who watch each other’s

play with mutual suspicions. The General himself began to be troubled

with ugly presentiments. The strange visit weighed upon his mind already

like a nightmare; but he had passed his word, there was no help for

it now, and he led the way along the passages and stairways till they

reached a large room on the second floor immediately above the salon.

This was an empty room where linen was dried in the winter. It had

but the one door, and for all decoration boasted one solitary shabby

looking-glass above the chimney-piece, left by the previous owner, and a

great pier glass, placed provisionally opposite the fireplace until

such time as a use should be found for it in the rooms below. The four

yellowish walls were bare. The floor had never been swept. The huge

attic was icy-cold, and the furniture consisted of a couple of rickety

straw-bottomed chairs, or rather frames of chairs. The General set the

lantern down upon the chimney-piece. Then he spoke:

“It is necessary for your own safety to hide you in this comfortless

attic. And, as you have my promise to keep your secret, you will permit

me to lock you in.”

The other bent his head in acquiescence.

“I asked for nothing but a hiding-place, secrecy, and water,” returned

he.

“I will bring you some directly,” said the Marquis, shutting the door

cautiously. He groped his way down into the salon for a lamp before

going to the kitchen to look for a carafe.

“Well, what is it?” the Marquise asked quickly.

“Nothing, dear,” he returned coolly.

“But we listened, and we certainly heard you go upstairs with somebody.”

“Helene,” said the General, and he looked at his daughter, who raised

her face, “bear in mind that your father’s honor depends upon your

discretion. You must have heard nothing.”

The girl bent her head in answer. The Marquise was confused and smarting

inwardly at the way in which her husband had thought fit to silence her.

Meanwhile the General went for the bottle and a tumbler, and returned to

the room above. His prisoner was leaning against the chimney-piece,

his head was bare, he had flung down his hat on one of the two chairs.

Evidently he had not expected to have so bright a light turned upon him,

and he frowned and looked anxious as he met the General’s keen eyes;

but his face softened and wore a gracious expression as he thanked

his protector. When the latter placed the bottle and glass on the

mantel-shelf, the stranger’s eyes flashed out on him again; and when

he spoke, it was in musical tones with no sign of the previous guttural

convulsion, though his voice was still unsteady with repressed emotion.

“I shall seem to you to be a strange being, sir, but you must pardon the

caprices of necessity. If you propose to remain in the room, I beg that

you will not look at me while I am drinking.”

Vexed at this continual obedience to a man whom he disliked, the General

sharply turned his back upon him. The stranger thereupon drew a white

handkerchief from his pocket and wound it about his right hand. Then

he seized the carafe and emptied it at a draught. The Marquis, staring

vacantly into the tall mirror across the room, without a thought of

breaking his implicit promise, saw the stranger’s figure distinctly

reflected by the opposite looking-glass, and saw, too, a red stain

suddenly appear through the folds of the white bandage. The man’s hands

were steeped in blood.

“Ah! you saw me!” cried the other. He had drunk off the water and

wrapped himself again in his cloak, and now scrutinized the General

suspiciously. “It is all over with me! Here they come!”

“I don’t hear anything,” said the Marquis.

“You have not the same interest that I have in listening for sounds in

the air.”

“You have been fighting a duel, I suppose, to be in such a state?”

queried the General, not a little disturbed by the color of those broad,

dark patches staining his visitor’s cloak.

“Yes, a duel; you have it,” said the other, and a bitter smile flitted

over his lips.

As he spoke a sound rang along the distant road, a sound of galloping

horses; but so faint as yet, that it was the merest dawn of a sound. The

General’s trained ear recognized the advance of a troop of regulars.

“That is the gendarmerie,” said he.

He glanced at his prisoner to reassure him after his own involuntary

indiscretion, took the lamp, and went down to the salon. He had scarcely

laid the key of the room above upon the chimney-piece when the hoof

beats sounded louder and came swiftly nearer and nearer the house. The

General felt a shiver of excitement, and indeed the horses stopped at

the house door; a few words were exchanged among the men, and one

of them dismounted and knocked loudly. There was no help for it; the

General went to open the door. He could scarcely conceal his inward

perturbation at the sight of half a dozen gendarmes outside, the metal

rims of their caps gleaming like silver in the moonlight.

“My lord,” said the corporal, “have you heard a man run past towards the

barrier within the last few minutes?”

“Towards the barrier? No.”

“Have you opened the door to any one?”

“Now, am I in the habit of answering the door myself--”

“I ask your pardon, General, but just now it seems to me that--”

“Really!” cried the Marquis wrathfully. “Have you a mind to try joking

with me? What right have you--?”

“None at all, none at all, my lord,” cried the corporal, hastily putting

in a soft answer. “You will excuse our zeal. We know, of course, that a

peer of France is not likely to harbor a murderer at this time of night;

but as we want any information we can get--”

“A murderer!” cried the General. “Who can have been--”

“M. le Baron de Mauny has just been murdered. It was a blow from an axe,

and we are in hot pursuit of the criminal. We know for certain that he

is somewhere in this neighborhood, and we shall hunt him down. By your

leave, General,” and the man swung himself into the saddle as he spoke.

It was well that he did so, for a corporal of gendarmerie trained to

alert observation and quick surmise would have had his suspicions at

once if he had caught sight of the General’s face. Everything that

passed through the soldier’s mind was faithfully revealed in his frank

countenance.

“Is it known who the murderer is?” asked he.

“No,” said the other, now in the saddle. “He left the bureau full of

banknotes and gold untouched.”

“It was revenge, then,” said the Marquis.

“On an old man? pshaw! No, no, the fellow hadn’t time to take it, that

was all,” and the corporal galloped after his comrades, who were almost

out of sight by this time.

For a few minutes the General stood, a victim to perplexities which need

no explanation; but in a moment he heard the servants returning home,

their voices were raised in some sort of dispute at the cross-roads

of Montreuil. When they came in, he gave vent to his feelings in an

explosion of rage, his wrath fell upon them like a thunderbolt, and all

the echoes of the house trembled at the sound of his voice. In the

midst of the storm his own man, the boldest and cleverest of the

party, brought out an excuse; they had been stopped, he said, by the

gendarmerie at the gate of Montreuil, a murder had been committed, and

the police were in pursuit. In a moment the General’s anger vanished,

he said not another word; then, bethinking himself of his own singular

position, drily ordered them all off to bed at once, and left them

amazed at his readiness to accept their fellow servant’s lying excuse.

While these incidents took place in the yard, an apparently trifling

occurrence had changed the relative positions of three characters in

this story. The Marquis had scarcely left the room before his wife

looked first towards the key on the mantel-shelf, and then at Helene;

and, after some wavering, bent towards her daughter and said in a low

voice, “Helene your father has left the key on the chimney-piece.”

The girl looked up in surprise and glanced timidly at her mother. The

Marquise’s eyes sparkled with curiosity.

“Well, mamma?” she said, and her voice had a troubled ring.

“I should like to know what is going on upstairs. If there is anybody up

there, he has not stirred yet. Just go up--”

“_I_?” cried the girl, with something like horror in her tones.

“Are you afraid?”

“No, mamma, but I thought I heard a man’s footsteps.”

“If I could go myself, I should not have asked you to go, Helene,” said

her mother with cold dignity. “If your father were to come back and did

not see me, he would go to look for me perhaps, but he would not notice

your absence.”

“Madame, if you bid me go, I will go,” said Helene, “but I shall lose my

father’s good opinion--”

“What is this!” cried the Marquise in a sarcastic tone. “But since you

take a thing that was said in joke in earnest, I now _order_ you to go

upstairs and see who is in the room above. Here is the key, child. When

your father told you to say nothing about this thing that happened, he

did not forbid you to go up to the room. Go at once--and learn that a

daughter ought never to judge her mother.”

The last words were spoken with all the severity of a justly offended

mother. The Marquise took the key and handed it to Helene, who rose

without a word and left the room.

“My mother can always easily obtain her pardon,” thought the girl; “but

as for me, my father will never think the same of me again. Does she

mean to rob me of his tenderness? Does she want to turn me out of his

house?”

These were the thoughts that set her imagination in a sudden ferment, as

she went down the dark passage to the mysterious door at the end. When

she stood before it, her mental confusion grew to a fateful pitch.

Feelings hitherto forced down into inner depths crowded up at the

summons of these confused thoughts. Perhaps hitherto she had never

believed that a happy life lay before her, but now, in this awful

moment, her despair was complete. She shook convulsively as she set the

key in the lock; so great indeed was her agitation, that she stopped for

a moment and laid her hand on her heart, as if to still the heavy throbs

that sounded in her ears. Then she opened the door.

The creaking of the hinges sounded doubtless in vain on the murderer’s

ears. Acute as were his powers of hearing, he stood as if lost in

thought, and so motionless that he might have been glued to the wall

against which he leaned. In the circle of semi-opaque darkness, dimly

lit by the bull’s-eye lantern, he looked like the shadowy figure of

some dead knight, standing for ever in his shadowy mortuary niche in

the gloom of some Gothic chapel. Drops of cold sweat trickled over the

broad, sallow forehead. An incredible fearlessness looked out from every

tense feature. His eyes of fire were fixed and tearless; he seemed to

be watching some struggle in the darkness beyond him. Stormy thoughts

passed swiftly across a face whose firm decision spoke of a character

of no common order. His whole person, bearing, and frame bore out the

impression of a tameless spirit. The man looked power and strength

personified; he stood facing the darkness as if it were the visible

image of his own future.

These physical characteristics had made no impression upon the General,

familiar as he was with the powerful faces of the group of giants

gathered about Napoleon; speculative curiosity, moreover, as to the

why and wherefore of the apparition had completely filled his mind; but

Helene, with feminine sensitiveness to surface impressions, was struck

by the blended chaos of light and darkness, grandeur and passion,

suggesting a likeness between this stranger and Lucifer recovering from

his fall. Suddenly the storm apparent in his face was stilled as if by

magic; and the indefinable power to sway which the stranger exercised

upon others, and perhaps unconsciously and as by reflex action upon

himself, spread its influence about him with the progressive swiftness

of a flood. A torrent of thought rolled away from his brow as his face

resumed its ordinary expression. Perhaps it was the strangeness of this

meeting, or perhaps it was the mystery into which she had penetrated,

that held the young girl spellbound in the doorway, so that she could

look at a face pleasant to behold and full of interest. For some moments

she stood in the magical silence; a trouble had come upon her never

known before in her young life. Perhaps some exclamation broke from

Helene, perhaps she moved unconsciously; or it may be that the hunted

criminal returned of his own accord from the world of ideas to the

material world, and heard some one breathing in the room; however it

was, he turned his head towards his host’s daughter, and saw dimly in

the shadow a noble face and queenly form, which he must have taken for

an angel’s, so motionless she stood, so vague and like a spirit.

“Monsieur...” a trembling voice cried.

The murderer trembled.

“A woman!” he cried under his breath. “Is it possible? Go,” he cried, “I

deny that any one has a right to pity, to absolve, or condemn me. I

must live alone. Go, my child,” he added, with an imperious gesture, “I

should ill requite the service done me by the master of the house if I

were to allow a single creature under his roof to breathe the same air

with me. I must submit to be judged by the laws of the world.”

The last words were uttered in a lower voice. Even as he realized with

a profound intuition all the manifold misery awakened by that melancholy

thought, the glance that he gave Helene had something of the power of

the serpent, stirring a whole dormant world in the mind of the strange

girl before him. To her that glance was like a light revealing unknown

lands. She was stricken with strange trouble, helpless, quelled by a

magnetic power exerted unconsciously. Trembling and ashamed, she went

out and returned to the salon. She had scarcely entered the room before

her father came back, so that she had not time to say a word to her

mother.

The General was wholly absorbed in thought. He folded his arms, and

paced silently to and fro between the windows which looked out upon the

street and the second row which gave upon the garden. His wife lay the

sleeping Abel on her knee, and little Moïna lay in untroubled slumber in

the low chair, like a bird in its nest. Her older sister stared into the

fire, a skein of silk in one hand, a needle in the other.

Deep silence prevailed, broken only by lagging footsteps on the stairs,

as one by one the servants crept away to bed; there was an occasional

burst of stifled laughter, a last echo of the wedding festivity, or

doors were opened as they still talked among themselves, then shut. A

smothered sound came now and again from the bedrooms, a chair fell, the

old coachman coughed feebly, then all was silent.

In a little while the dark majesty with which sleeping earth is invested

at midnight brought all things under its sway. No lights shone but the

light of the stars. The frost gripped the ground. There was not a sound

of a voice, nor a living creature stirring. The crackling of the fire

only seemed to make the depth of the silence more fully felt.

The church clock of Montreuil had just struck one, when an almost

inaudible sound of a light footstep came from the second flight of

stairs. The Marquis and his daughter, both believing that M. de Mauny’s

murderer was a prisoner above, thought that one of the maids had come

down, and no one was at all surprised to hear the door open in the

ante-chamber. Quite suddenly the murderer appeared in their midst. The

Marquis himself was sunk in deep musings, the mother and daughter were

silent, the one from keen curiosity, the other from sheer astonishment,

so that the visitor was almost half-way across the room when he spoke to

the General.

“Sir, the two hours are almost over,” he said, in a voice that was

strangely calm and musical.

“_You here_!” cried the General. “By what means----?” and he gave wife

and daughter a formidable questioning glance. Helene grew red as fire.

“You!” he went on, in a tone filled with horror. “_You_ among us! A

murderer covered with blood! You are a blot on this picture! Go, go

out!” he added in a burst of rage.

At that word “murderer,” the Marquise cried out; as for Helene, it

seemed to mark an epoch in her life, there was not a trace of surprise

in her face. She looked as if she had been waiting for this--for him.

Those so vast thoughts of hers had found a meaning. The punishment

reserved by Heaven for her sins flamed out before her. In her own eyes

she was as great a criminal as this murderer; she confronted him with

her quiet gaze; she was his fellow, his sister. It seemed to her that in

this accident the command of God had been made manifest. If she had been

a few years older, reason would have disposed of her remorse, but at

this moment she was like one distraught.

The stranger stood impassive and self-possessed; a scornful smile

overspread his features and his thick, red lips.

“You appreciate the magnanimity of my behavior very badly,” he said

slowly. “I would not touch with my fingers the glass of water you

brought me to allay my thirst; I did not so much as think of washing my

blood-stained hands under your roof; I am going away, leaving nothing

of _my crime_” (here his lips were compressed) “but the memory; I have

tried to leave no trace of my presence in this house. Indeed, I would

not even allow your daughter to--”

“_My daughter_!” cried the General, with a horror-stricken glance at

Helene. “Vile wretch, go, or I will kill you--”

“The two hours are not yet over,” said the other; “if you kill me or

give me up, you must lower yourself in your own eyes--and in mine.”

At these last words, the General turned to stare at the criminal in dumb

amazement; but he could not endure the intolerable light in those eyes

which for the second time disorganized his being. He was afraid of

showing weakness once more, conscious as he was that his will was weaker

already.

“An old man! You can never have seen a family,” he said, with a father’s

glance at his wife and children.

“Yes, an old man,” echoed the stranger, frowning slightly.

“Fly!” cried the General, but he did not dare to look at his guest. “Our

compact is broken. I shall not kill you. No! I will never be purveyor to

the scaffold. But go out. You make us shudder.”

“I know that,” said the other patiently. “There is not a spot on French

soil where I can set foot and be safe; but if man’s justice, like God’s,

took all into account, if man’s justice deigned to inquire which was the

monster--the murderer or his victim--then I might hold up my head among

my fellows. Can you not guess that other crimes preceded that blow from

an axe? I constituted myself his judge and executioner; I stepped in

where man’s justice failed. That was my crime. Farewell, sir. Bitter

though you have made your hospitality, I shall not forget it. I shall

always bear in my heart a feeling of gratitude towards one man in the

world, and you are that man.... But I could wish that you had showed

yourself more generous!”

He turned towards the door, but in the same instant Helene leaned to

whisper something in her mother’s ear.

“Ah!...”

At the cry that broke from his wife, the General trembled as if he had

seen Moïna lying dead. There stood Helene, and the murderer had turned

instinctively, with something like anxiety about these folk in his face.

“What is it, dear?” asked the General.

“Helene wants to go with him.”

The murderer’s face flushed.

“If that is how my mother understands an almost involuntary

exclamation,” Helene said in a low voice, “I will fulfil her wishes.” She

glanced about her with something like fierce pride; then the girl’s eyes

fell, and she stood, admirable in her modesty.

“Helene, did you go up to the room where----?”

“Yes, father.”

“Helene” (and his voice shook with a convulsive tremor), “is this the

first time that you have seen this man?”

“Yes, father.”

“Then it is not natural that you should intend to--”

“If it is not natural, father, at any rate it is true.”

“Oh! child,” said the Marquise, lowering her voice, but not so much but

that her husband could hear her, “you are false to all the principles of

honor, modesty, and right which I have tried to cultivate in your

heart. If until this fatal hour you life has only been one lie, there is

nothing to regret in your loss. It can hardly be the moral perfection of

this stranger that attracts you to him? Can it be the kind of power that

commits crime? I have too good an opinion of you to suppose that--”

“Oh, suppose everything, madame,” Helene said coldly.

But though her force of character sustained this ordeal, her flashing

eyes could scarcely hold the tears that filled them. The stranger,

watching her, guessed the mother’s language from the girl’s tears,

and turned his eagle glance upon the Marquise. An irresistible power

constrained her to look at this terrible seducer; but as her eyes met

his bright, glittering gaze, she felt a shiver run through her frame,

such a shock as we feel at the sight of a reptile or the contact of a

Leyden jar.

“Dear!” she cried, turning to her husband, “this is the Fiend himself.

He can divine everything!”

The General rose to his feet and went to the bell.

“He means ruin for you,” Helene said to the murderer.

The stranger smiled, took one forward stride, grasped the General’s arm,

and compelled him to endure a steady gaze which benumbed the soldier’s

brain and left him powerless.

“I will repay you now for your hospitality,” he said, “and then we shall

be quits. I will spare you the shame by giving myself up. After all,

what should I do now with my life?”

“You could repent,” answered Helene, and her glance conveyed such hope

as only glows in a young girl’s eyes.

“_I shall never repent_,” said the murderer in a sonorous voice, as he

raised his head proudly.

“His hands are stained with blood,” the father said.

“I will wipe it away,” she answered.

“But do you so much as know whether he cares for you?” said her father,

not daring now to look at the stranger.

The murderer came up a little nearer. Some light within seemed to glow

through Helene’s beauty, grave and maidenly though it was, coloring and

bringing into relief, as it were, the least details, the most delicate

lines in her face. The stranger, with that terrible face still blazing

in his eyes, gave one tender glance to her enchanting loveliness, then

he spoke, his tones revealing how deeply he had been moved.

“And if I refuse to allow this sacrifice of yourself, and so discharge

my debt of two hours of existence to your father; is not this love, love

for yourself alone?”

“Then do you too reject me?” Helene’s cry rang painfully through the

hearts of all who heard her. “Farewell, then, to you all; I will die.”

“What does this mean?” asked the father and mother.

Helene gave her mother an eloquent glance and lowered her eyes.

Since the first attempt made by the General and his wife to contest

by word or action the intruder’s strange presumption to the right of

staying in their midst, from their first experience of the power of

those glittering eyes, a mysterious torpor had crept over them, and

their benumbed faculties struggled in vain with the preternatural

influence. The air seemed to have suddenly grown so heavy, that they

could scarcely breathe; yet, while they could not find the reason of

this feeling of oppression, a voice within told them that this magnetic

presence was the real cause of their helplessness. In this moral agony,

it flashed across the General that he must make every effort to overcome

this influence on his daughter’s reeling brain; he caught her by the

waist and drew her into the embrasure of a window, as far as possible

from the murderer.

“Darling,” he murmured, “if some wild love has been suddenly born in

your heart, I cannot believe that you have not the strength of soul to

quell the mad impulse; your innocent life, your pure and dutiful soul,

has given me too many proofs of your character. There must be something

behind all this. Well, this heart of mine is full of indulgence, you can

tell everything to me; even if it breaks, dear child, I can be silent

about my grief, and keep your confession a secret. What is it? Are you

jealous of our love for your brothers or your little sister? Is it some

love trouble? Are you unhappy here at home? Tell me about it, tell me

the reasons that urge you to leave your home, to rob it of its greatest

charm, to leave your mother and brothers and your little sister?”

“I am in love with no one, father, and jealous of no one, not even of

your friend the diplomatist, M. de Vandenesse.”

The Marquise turned pale; her daughter saw this, and stopped short.

“Sooner or later I must live under some man’s protection, must I not?”

“That is true.”

“Do we ever know,” she went on, “the human being to whom we link our

destinies? Now, I believe in this man.”

“Oh, child,” said the General, raising his voice, “you have no idea of

all the misery that lies in store for you.”

“I am thinking of _his_.”

“What a life!” groaned the father.

“A woman’s life,” the girl murmured.

“You have a great knowledge of life!” exclaimed the Marquise, finding

speech at last.

“Madame, my answers are shaped by the questions; but if you desire it, I

will speak more clearly.”

“Speak out, my child... I am a mother.”

Mother and daughter looked each other in the face, and the Marquise said

no more. At last she said:

“Helene, if you have any reproaches to make, I would rather bear them

than see you go away with a man from whom the whole world shrinks in

horror.”

“Then you see yourself, madame, that but for me he would be quite

alone.”

“That will do, madame,” the General cried; “we have but one daughter

left to us now,” and he looked at Moïna, who slept on. “As for you,” he

added, turning to Helene, “I will put you in a convent.”

“So be it, father,” she said, in calm despair, “I shall die there. You

are answerable to God alone for my life and for _his_ soul.”

A deep sullen silence fell after these words. The on-lookers during

this strange scene, so utterly at variance with all the sentiments of

ordinary life, shunned each other’s eyes.

Suddenly the Marquis happened to glance at his pistols. He caught up one

of them, cocked the weapon, and pointed it at the intruder. At the click

of firearms the other turned his piercing gaze full upon the General;

the soldier’s arm slackened indescribably and fell heavily to his side.

The pistol dropped to the floor.

“Girl, you are free,” said he, exhausted by this ghastly struggle. “Kiss

your mother, if she will let you kiss her. For my own part, I wish never

to see nor to hear of you again.”

“Helene,” the mother began, “only think of the wretched life before

you.”

A sort of rattling sound came from the intruder’s deep chest, all eyes

were turned to him. Disdain was plainly visible in his face.

The General rose to his feet. “My hospitality has cost me dear,” he

cried. “Before you came you had taken an old man’s life; now you are

dealing a deadly blow at a whole family. Whatever happens, there must be

unhappiness in this house.”

“And if your daughter is happy?” asked the other, gazing steadily at the

General.

The father made a superhuman effort for self-control. “If she is happy

with you,” he said, “she is not worth regretting.”

Helene knelt timidly before her father.

“Father, I love and revere you,” she said, “whether you lavish all the

treasures of your kindness upon me, or make me feel to the full the

rigor of disgrace.... But I entreat that your last words of farewell

shall not be words of anger.”

The General could not trust himself to look at her. The stranger came

nearer; there was something half-diabolical, half-divine in the smile

that he gave Helene.

“Angel of pity, you that do not shrink in horror from a murderer, come,

since you persist in your resolution of intrusting your life to me.”

“Inconceivable!” cried her father.

The Marquise then looked strangely at her daughter, opened her arms, and

Helene fled to her in tears.

“Farewell,” she said, “farewell, mother!” The stranger trembled as

Helene, undaunted, made sign to him that she was ready. She kissed her

father’s hand; and, as if performing a duty, gave a hasty kiss to Moïna

and little Abel, then she vanished with the murderer.

“Which way are they going?” exclaimed the General, listening to the

footsteps of the two fugitives.--“Madame,” he turned to his wife, “I

think I must be dreaming; there is some mystery behind all this, I do

not understand it; you must know what it means.”

The Marquise shivered.

“For some time past your daughter has grown extraordinarily romantic and

strangely high-flown in her ideas. In spite of the pains I have taken to

combat these tendencies in her character--”

“This will not do----” began the General, but fancying that he heard

footsteps in the garden, he broke off to fling open the window.

“Helene!” he shouted.

His voice was lost in the darkness like a vain prophecy. The utterance

of that name, to which there should never be answer any more, acted

like a counterspell; it broke the charm and set him free from the evil

enchantment which lay upon him. It was as if some spirit passed over

his face. He now saw clearly what had taken place, and cursed his

incomprehensible weakness. A shiver of heat rushed from his heart to

his head and feet; he became himself once more, terrible, thirsting for

revenge. He raised a dreadful cry.

“Help!” he thundered, “help!”

He rushed to the bell-pull, pulled till the bells rang with a strange

clamor of din, pulled till the cord gave way. The whole house was roused

with a start. Still shouting, he flung open the windows that looked upon

the street, called for the police, caught up his pistols, and fired them

off to hurry the mounted patrols, the newly-aroused servants, and the

neighbors. The dogs barked at the sound of their master’s voice; the

horses neighed and stamped in their stalls. The quiet night was suddenly

filled with hideous uproar. The General on the staircase, in pursuit

of his daughter, saw the scared faces of the servants flocking from all

parts of the house.

“My daughter!” he shouted. “Helene has been carried off. Search

the garden. Keep a lookout on the road! Open the gates for the

gendarmerie!--Murder! Help!”

With the strength of fury he snapped the chain and let loose the great

house-dog.

“Helene!” he cried, “Helene!”

The dog sprang out like a lion, barking furiously, and dashed into the

garden, leaving the General far behind. A troop of horses came along the

road at a gallop, and he flew to open the gates himself.

“Corporal!” he shouted, “cut off the retreat of M. de Mauny’s murderer.

They have gone through my garden. Quick! Put a cordon of men to watch

the ways by the Butte de Picardie.--I will beat up the grounds, parks,

and houses.--The rest of you keep a lookout along the road,” he ordered

the servants, “form a chain between the barrier and Versailles. Forward,

every man of you!”

He caught up the rifle which his man had brought out, and dashed into

the garden.

“Find them!” he called to the dog.

An ominous baying came in answer from the distance, and he plunged in

the direction from which the growl seemed to come.

It was seven o’clock in the morning; all the search made by gendarmes,

servants, and neighbors had been fruitless, and the dog had not come

back. The General entered the salon, empty now for him though the other

three children were there; he was worn out with fatigue, and looked old

already with that night’s work.

“You have been very cold to your daughter,” he said, turning his eyes

on his wife.--“And now this is all that is left to us of her,” he added,

indicating the embroidery frame, and the flower just begun. “Only just

now she was there, and now she is lost... lost!”

Tears followed; he hid his face in his hands, and for a few minutes he

said no more; he could not bear the sight of the room, which so short

a time ago had made a setting to a picture of the sweetest family

happiness. The winter dawn was struggling with the dying lamplight; the

tapers burned down to their paper-wreaths and flared out; everything was

all in keeping with the father’s despair.

“This must be destroyed,” he said after a pause, pointing to the

tambour-frame. “I shall never bear to see anything again that reminds us

of _her_!”

The terrible Christmas night when the Marquis and his wife lost their

oldest daughter, powerless to oppose the mysterious influence exercised

by the man who involuntarily, as it were, stole Helene from them, was

like a warning sent by Fate. The Marquis was ruined by the failure of

his stock-broker; he borrowed money on his wife’s property, and lost

it in the endeavor to retrieve his fortunes. Driven to desperate

expedients, he left France. Six years went by. His family seldom had

news of him; but a few days before Spain recognized the independence of

the American Republics, he wrote that he was coming home.

So, one fine morning, it happened that several French merchants were on

board a Spanish brig that lay a few leagues out from Bordeaux, impatient

to reach their native land again, with wealth acquired by long years of

toil and perilous adventures in Venezuela and Mexico.

One of the passengers, a man who looked aged by trouble rather than

by years, was leaning against the bulwark netting, apparently quite

unaffected by the sight to be seen from the upper deck. The bright

day, the sense that the voyage was safely over, had brought all the

passengers above to greet their land. The larger number of them insisted

that they could see, far off in the distance, the houses and lighthouses

on the coast of Gascony and the Tower of Cardouan, melting into the

fantastic erections of white cloud along the horizon. But for the silver

fringe that played about their bows, and the long furrow swiftly effaced

in their wake, they might have been perfectly still in mid-ocean, so

calm was the sea. The sky was magically clear, the dark blue of the

vault above paled by imperceptible gradations, until it blended with

the bluish water, a gleaming line that sparkled like stars marking the

dividing line of sea. The sunlight caught myriads of facets over the

wide surface of the ocean, in such a sort that the vast plains of salt

water looked perhaps more full of light than the fields of sky.

The brig had set all her canvas. The snowy sails, swelled by the

strangely soft wind, the labyrinth of cordage, and the yellow flags

flying at the masthead, all stood out sharp and uncompromisingly clear

against the vivid background of space, sky, and sea; there was nothing

to alter the color but the shadow cast by the great cloudlike sails.

A glorious day, a fair wind, and the fatherland in sight, a sea like a

mill-pond, the melancholy sound of the ripples, a fair, solitary vessel,

gliding across the surface of the water like a woman stealing out to

a tryst--it was a picture full of harmony. That mere speck full of

movement was a starting-point whence the soul of man could descry the

immutable vast of space. Solitude and bustling life, silence and sound,

were all brought together in strange abrupt contrast; you could not

tell where life, or sound, or silence, and nothingness lay, and no human

voice broke the divine spell.

The Spanish captain, the crew, and the French passengers sat or stood,

in a mood of devout ecstasy, in which many memories blended. There was

idleness in the air. The beaming faces told of complete forgetfulness

of past hardships, the men were rocked on the fair vessel as in a golden

dream. Yet, from time to time the elderly passenger, leaning over the

bulwark nettings, looked with something like uneasiness at the horizon.

Distrust of the ways of Fate could be read in his whole face; he seemed

to fear that he should not reach the coast of France in time. This

was the Marquis. Fortune had not been deaf to his despairing cry and

struggles. After five years of endeavor and painful toil, he was a

wealthy man once more. In his impatience to reach his home again and to

bring the good news to his family, he had followed the example set by

some French merchants in Havana, and embarked with them on a Spanish

vessel with a cargo for Bordeaux. And now, grown tired of evil

forebodings, his fancy was tracing out for him the most delicious

pictures of past happiness. In that far-off brown line of land he seemed

to see his wife and children. He sat in his place by the fireside; they

were crowding about him; he felt their caresses. Moïna had grown to be

a young girl; she was beautiful, and tall, and striking. The fancied

picture had grown almost real, when the tears filled his eyes, and, to

hide his emotion, he turned his face towards the sea-line, opposite the

hazy streak that meant land.

“There she is again.... She is following us!” he said.

“What?” cried the Spanish captain.

“There is a vessel,” muttered the General.

“I saw her yesterday,” answered Captain Gomez. He looked at his

interlocutor as if to ask what he thought; then he added in the

General’s ear, “She has been chasing us all along.”

“Then why she has not come up with us, I do not know,” said the General,

“for she is a faster sailor than your damned _Saint-Ferdinand_.”

“She will have damaged herself, sprung a leak--”

“She is gaining on us!” the General broke in.

“She is a Columbian privateer,” the captain said in his ear, “and we are

still six leagues from land, and the wind is dropping.”

“She is not _going_ ahead, she is flying, as if she knew that in two

hours’ time her prey would escape her. What audacity!”

“Audacity!” cried the captain. “Oh! she is not called the _Othello_ for

nothing. Not so long back she sank a Spanish frigate that carried thirty

guns! This is the one thing I was afraid of, for I had a notion that she

was cruising about somewhere off the Antilles.--Aha!” he added after a

pause, as he watched the sails of his own vessel, “the wind is rising;

we are making way. Get through we must, for ‘the Parisian’ will show us

no mercy.”

“She is making way too!” returned the General.

The _Othello_ was scarce three leagues away by this time; and although

the conversation between the Marquis and Captain Gomez had taken place

apart, passengers and crew, attracted by the sudden appearance of a

sail, came to that side of the vessel. With scarcely an exception,

however, they took the privateer for a merchantman, and watched her

course with interest, till all at once a sailor shouted with some energy

of language:

“By Saint-James, it is all up with us! Yonder is the Parisian captain!”

At that terrible name dismay, and a panic impossible to describe, spread

through the brig. The Spanish captain’s orders put energy into the

crew for a while; and in his resolute determination to make land at all

costs, he set all the studding sails, and crowded on every stitch

of canvas on board. But all this was not the work of a moment; and

naturally the men did not work together with that wonderful unanimity

so fascinating to watch on board a man-of-war. The _Othello_ meanwhile,

thanks to the trimming of her sails, flew over the water like a swallow;

but she was making, to all appearance, so little headway, that the

unlucky Frenchmen began to entertain sweet delusive hopes. At last,

after unheard-of efforts, the _Saint-Ferdinand_ sprang forward, Gomez

himself directing the shifting of the sheets with voice and gesture,

when all at once the man at the tiller, steering at random (purposely,

no doubt), swung the vessel round. The wind striking athwart the beam,

the sails shivered so unexpectedly that the brig heeled to one side, the

booms were carried away, and the vessel was completely out of hand.

The captain’s face grew whiter than his sails with unutterable rage. He

sprang upon the man at the tiller, drove his dagger at him in such blind

fury, that he missed him, and hurled the weapon overboard. Gomez took

the helm himself, and strove to right the gallant vessel. Tears of

despair rose to his eyes, for it is harder to lose the result of our

carefully-laid plans through treachery than to face imminent death.

But the more the captain swore, the less the men worked, and it was

he himself who fired the alarm-gun, hoping to be heard on shore. The

privateer, now gaining hopelessly upon them, replied with a cannon-shot,

which struck the water ten fathoms away from the _Saint-Ferdinand_.

“Thunder of heaven!” cried the General, “that was a close shave! They

must have guns made on purpose.”

“Oh! when that one yonder speaks, look you, you have to hold your

tongue,” said a sailor. “The Parisian would not be afraid to meet an

English man-of-war.”

“It is all over with us,” the captain cried in desperation; he had

pointed his telescope landwards, and saw not a sign from the shore. “We

are further from the coast than I thought.”

“Why do you despair?” asked the General. “All your passengers are

Frenchmen; they have chartered your vessel. The privateer is a Parisian,

you say? Well and good, run up the white flag, and--”

“And he would run us down,” retorted the captain. “He can be anything he

likes when he has a mind to seize on a rich booty!”

“Oh! if he is a pirate--”

“Pirate!” said the ferocious looking sailor. “Oh! he always has the law

on his side, or he knows how to be on the same side as the law.”

“Very well,” said the General, raising his eyes, “let us make up our

minds to it,” and his remaining fortitude was still sufficient to keep

back the tears.

The words were hardly out of his mouth before a second cannon-shot,

better aimed, came crashing through the hull of the _Saint-Ferdinand_.

“Heave to!” cried the captain gloomily.

The sailor who had commended the Parisian’s law-abiding proclivities

showed himself a clever hand at working a ship after this desperate

order was given. The crew waited for half an hour in an agony of

suspense and the deepest dismay. The _Saint-Ferdinand_ had four millions

of piastres on board, the whole fortunes of the five passengers, and the

General’s eleven hundred thousand francs. At length the _Othello_ lay

not ten gunshots away, so that those on the _Saint-Ferdinand_ could look

into the muzzles of her loaded guns. The vessel seemed to be borne along

by a breeze sent by the Devil himself, but the eyes of an expert would

have discovered the secret of her speed at once. You had but to look

for a moment at the rake of her stern, her long, narrow keel, her tall

masts, to see the cut of her sails, the wonderful lightness of her

rigging, and the ease and perfect seamanship with which her crew trimmed

her sails to the wind. Everything about her gave the impression of the

security of power in this delicately curved inanimate creature, swift

and intelligent as a greyhound or some bird of prey. The privateer

crew stood silent, ready in case of resistance to shatter the wretched

merchantman, which, luckily for her, remained motionless, like a

schoolboy caught in flagrant delict by a master.

“We have guns on board!” cried the General, clutching the Spanish

captain’s hand. But the courage in Gomez’s eyes was the courage of

despair.

“Have we men?” he said.

The Marquis looked round at the crew of the _Saint-Ferdinand_, and a

cold chill ran through him. There stood the four merchants, pale and

quaking for fear, while the crew gathered about some of their own number

who appeared to be arranging to go over in a body to the enemy. They

watched the _Othello_ with greed and curiosity in their faces. The

captain, the Marquis, and the mate exchanged glances; they were the only

three who had a thought for any but themselves.

“Ah! Captain Gomez, when I left my home and country, my heart was half

dead with the bitterness of parting, and now must I bid it good-bye once

more when I am bringing back happiness and ease for my children?”

The General turned his head away towards the sea, with tears of rage in

his eyes--and saw the steersman swimming out to the privateer.

“This time it will be good-bye for good,” said the captain by way

of answer, and the dazed look in the Frenchman’s eyes startled the

Spaniard.

By this time the two vessels were almost alongside, and at the first

sight of the enemy’s crew the General saw that Gomez’s gloomy prophecy

was only too true. The three men at each gun might have been bronze

statues, standing like athletes, with their rugged features, their bare

sinewy arms, men whom Death himself had scarcely thrown off their feet.

The rest of the crew, well armed, active, light, and vigorous, also

stood motionless. Toil had hardened, and the sun had deeply tanned,

those energetic faces; their eyes glittered like sparks of fire with

infernal glee and clear-sighted courage. Perfect silence on the upper

deck, now black with men, bore abundant testimony to the rigorous

discipline and strong will which held these fiends incarnate in check.

The captain of the _Othello_ stood with folded arms at the foot of the

main mast; he carried no weapons, but an axe lay on the deck beside him.

His face was hidden by the shadow of a broad felt hat. The men looked

like dogs crouching before their master. Gunners, soldiers, and ship’s

crew turned their eyes first on his face, and then on the merchant

vessel.

The two brigs came up alongside, and the shock of contact roused the

privateer captain from his musings; he spoke a word in the ear of the

lieutenant who stood beside him.

“Grappling-irons!” shouted the latter, and the _Othello_ grappled

the _Saint-Ferdinand_ with miraculous quickness. The captain of the

privateer gave his orders in a low voice to the lieutenant, who repeated

them; the men, told off in succession for each duty, went on the upper

deck of the _Saint-Ferdinand_, like seminarists going to mass. They

bound crew and passengers hand and foot and seized the booty. In the

twinkling of an eye, provisions and barrels full of piastres were

transferred to the _Othello_; the General thought that he must be

dreaming when he himself, likewise bound, was flung down on a bale of

goods as if he had been part of the cargo.

A brief conference took place between the captain of the privateer and

his lieutenant and a sailor, who seemed to be the mate of the

vessel; then the mate gave a whistle, and the men jumped on board

the _Saint-Ferdinand_, and completely dismantled her with the nimble

dexterity of a soldier who strips a dead comrade of a coveted overcoat

and shoes.

“It is all over with us,” said the Spanish captain coolly. He had eyed

the three chiefs during their confabulation, and saw that the sailors

were proceeding to pull his vessel to pieces.

“Why so?” asked the General.

“What would you have them do with us?” returned the Spaniard. “They

have just come to the conclusion that they will scarcely sell the

_Saint-Ferdinand_ in any French or Spanish port, so they are going to

sink her to be rid of her. As for us, do you suppose that they will put

themselves to the expense of feeding us, when they don’t know what port

they are to put into?”

The words were scarcely out of the captain’s mouth before a hideous

outcry went up, followed by a dull splashing sound, as several bodies

were thrown overboard. He turned, the four merchants were no longer to

be seen, but eight ferocious-looking gunners were still standing with

their arms raised above their heads. He shuddered.

“What did I tell you?” the Spanish captain asked coolly.

The Marquis rose to his feet with a spring. The surface of the sea was

quite smooth again; he could not so much as see the place where his

unhappy fellow-passengers had disappeared. By this time they were

sinking down, bound hand and foot, below the waves, if, indeed, the fish

had not devoured them already.

Only a few paces away, the treacherous steersman and the sailor who had

boasted of the Parisian’s power were fraternizing with the crew of the

_Othello_, and pointing out those among their own number, who, in their

opinion, were worthy to join the crew of the privateer. Then the boys

tied the rest together by the feet in spite of frightful oaths. It

was soon over; the eight gunners seized the doomed men and flung them

overboard without more ado, watching the different ways in which the

drowning victims met their death, their contortions, their last agony,

with a sort of malignant curiosity, but with no sign of amusement,

surprise, or pity. For them it was an ordinary event to which seemingly

they were quite accustomed. The older men looked instead with grim, set

smiles at the casks of piastres about the main mast.

The General and Captain Gomez, left seated on a bale of goods, consulted

each other with well-nigh hopeless looks; they were, in a sense, the

sole survivors of the _Saint-Ferdinand_, for the seven men pointed out

by the spies were transformed amid rejoicings into Peruvians.

“What atrocious villains!” the General cried. Loyal and generous

indignation silenced prudence and pain on his own account.

“They do it because they must,” Gomez answered coolly. “If you came

across one of those fellows, you would run him through the body, would

you not?”

The lieutenant now came up to the Spaniard.

“Captain,” said he, “the Parisian has heard of you. He says that you

are the only man who really knows the passages of the Antilles and the

Brazilian coast. Will you--”

The captain cut him short with a scornful exclamation.

“I shall die like a sailor,” he said, “and a loyal Spaniard and a

Christian. Do you hear?”

“Heave him overboard!” shouted the lieutenant, and a couple of gunners

seized on Gomez.

“You cowards!” roared the General, seizing hold of the men.

“Don’t get too excited, old boy,” said the lieutenant. “If your red

ribbon has made some impression upon our captain, I myself do not care

a rap for it.--You and I will have our little bit of talk together

directly.”

A smothered sound, with no accompanying cry, told the General that the

gallant captain had died “like a sailor,” as he had said.

“My money or death!” cried the Marquis, in a fit of rage terrible to

see.

“Ah! now you talk sensibly!” sneered the lieutenant. “That is the way to

get something out of us----”

Two of the men came up at a sign and hastened to bind the Frenchmen’s

feet, but with unlooked-for boldness he snatched the lieutenant’s

cutlass and laid about him like a cavalry officer who knows his

business.

“Brigands that you are! You shall not chuck one of Napoleon’s troopers

over a ship’s side like an oyster!”

At the sound of pistol shots fired point blank at the Frenchman,

“the Parisian” looked round from his occupation of superintending the

transfer of the rigging from the _Saint-Ferdinand_. He came up behind

the brave General, seized him, dragged him to the side, and was about

to fling him over with no more concern than if the man had been a broken

spar. They were at the very edge when the General looked into the tawny

eyes of the man who had stolen his daughter. The recognition was mutual.

The captain of the privateer, his arm still upraised, suddenly swung it

in the contrary direction as if his victim was but a feather weight, and

set him down at the foot of the main mast. A murmur rose on the upper

deck, but the captain glanced round, and there was a sudden silence.

“This is Helene’s father,” said the captain in a clear, firm voice. “Woe

to any one who meddles with him!”

A hurrah of joy went up at the words, a shout rising to the sky like a

prayer of the church; a cry like the first high notes of the _Te Deum_.

The lads swung aloft in the rigging, the men below flung up their caps,

the gunners pounded away on the deck, there was a general thrill of

excitement, an outburst of oaths, yells, and shrill cries in voluble

chorus. The men cheered like fanatics, the General’s misgivings

deepened, and he grew uneasy; it seemed to him that there was some

horrible mystery in such wild transports.

“My daughter!” he cried, as soon as he could speak. “Where is my

daughter?”

For all answer, the captain of the privateer gave him a searching

glance, one of those glances which throw the bravest man into a

confusion which no theory can explain. The General was mute, not a

little to the satisfaction of the crew; it pleased them to see their

leader exercise the strange power which he possessed over all with whom

he came in contact. Then the captain led the way down a staircase and

flung open the door of a cabin.

“There she is,” he said, and disappeared, leaving the General in a

stupor of bewilderment at the scene before his eyes.

Helene cried out at the sight of him, and sprang up from the sofa on

which she was lying when the door flew open. So changed was she that

none but a father’s eyes could have recognized her. The sun of the

tropics had brought warmer tones into the once pale face, and something

of Oriental charm with that wonderful coloring; there was a certain

grandeur about her, a majestic firmness, a profound sentiment which

impresses itself upon the coarsest nature. Her long, thick hair, falling

in large curls about her queenly throat, gave an added idea of power

to the proud face. The consciousness of that power shone out from every

movement, every line of Helene’s form. The rose-tinted nostrils were

dilated slightly with the joy of triumph; the serene happiness of her

life had left its plain tokens in the full development of her beauty. A

certain indefinable virginal grace met in her with the pride of a woman

who is loved. This was a slave and a queen, a queen who would fain obey

that she might reign.

Her dress was magnificent and elegant in its richness; India muslin was

the sole material, but her sofa and cushions were of cashmere. A Persian

carpet covered the floor in the large cabin, and her four children

playing at her feet were building castles of gems and pearl necklaces

and jewels of price. The air was full of the scent of rare flowers in

Sevres porcelain vases painted by Madame Jacotot; tiny South American

birds, like living rubies, sapphires, and gold, hovered among the

Mexican jessamines and camellias. A pianoforte had been fitted into the

room, and here and there on the paneled walls, covered with red silk,

hung small pictures by great painters--a _Sunset_ by Hippolyte Schinner

beside a Terburg, one of Raphael’s Madonnas scarcely yielded in charm to

a sketch by Gericault, while a Gerard Dow eclipsed the painters of the

Empire. On a lacquered table stood a golden plate full of delicious

fruit. Indeed, Helene might have been the sovereign lady of some great

country, and this cabin of hers a boudoir in which her crowned lover

had brought together all earth’s treasure to please his consort. The

children gazed with bright, keen eyes at their grandfather. Accustomed

as they were to a life of battle, storm, and tumult, they recalled the

Roman children in David’s _Brutus_, watching the fighting and bloodshed

with curious interest.

“What! is it possible?” cried Helene, catching her father’s arm as if to

assure herself that this was no vision.

“Helene!”

“Father!”

They fell into each other’s arms, and the old man’s embrace was not so

close and warm as Helene’s.

“Were you on board that vessel?”

“Yes,” he answered sadly, and looking at the little ones, who gathered

about him and gazed with wide open eyes.

“I was about to perish, but--”

“But for my husband,” she broke in. “I see how it was.”

“Ah!” cried the General, “why must I find you again like this, Helene?

After all the many tears that I have shed, must I still groan for your

fate?”

“And why?” she asked, smiling. “Why should you be sorry to learn that I

am the happiest woman under the sun?”

“_Happy_?” he cried with a start of surprise.

“Yes, happy, my kind father,” and she caught his hands in hers and

covered them with kisses, and pressed them to her throbbing heart. Her

caresses, and a something in the carriage of her head, were interpreted

yet more plainly by the joy sparkling in her eyes.

“And how is this?” he asked, wondering at his daughter’s life, forgetful

now of everything but the bright glowing face before him.

“Listen, father; I have for lover, husband, servant, and master one

whose soul is as great as the boundless sea, as infinite in his kindness

as heaven, a god on earth! Never during these seven years has a chance

look, or word, or gesture jarred in the divine harmony of his talk,

his love, his caresses. His eyes have never met mine without a gleam of

happiness in them; there has always been a bright smile on his lips for

me. On deck, his voice rises above the thunder of storms and the

tumult of battle; but here below it is soft and melodious as Rossini’s

music--for he has Rossini’s music sent for me. I have everything that

woman’s caprice can imagine. My wishes are more than fulfilled. In

short, I am a queen on the seas; I am obeyed here as perhaps a queen may

be obeyed.--Ah!” she cried, interrupting herself, “_happy_ did I say?

Happiness is no word to express such bliss as mine. All the happiness

that should have fallen to all the women in the world has been my share.

Knowing one’s own great love and self-devotion, to find in _his_

heart an infinite love in which a woman’s soul is lost, and lost for

ever--tell me, is this happiness? I have lived through a thousand lives

even now. Here, I am alone; here, I command. No other woman has set foot

on this noble vessel, and Victor is never more than a few paces distant

from me,--he cannot wander further from me than from stern to prow,” she

added, with a shade of mischief in her manner. “Seven years! A love

that outlasts seven years of continual joy, that endures all the tests

brought by all the moments that make up seven years--is this love? Oh,

no, no! it is something better than all that I know of life... human

language fails to express the bliss of heaven.”

A sudden torrent of tears fell from her burning eyes. The four little

ones raised a piteous cry at this, and flocked like chickens about their

mother. The oldest boy struck the General with a threatening look.

“Abel, darling,” said Helene, “I am crying for joy.”

Helene took him on her knee, and the child fondled her, putting his arms

about her queenly neck, as a lion’s whelp might play with the lioness.

“Do you never weary of your life?” asked the General, bewildered by his

daughter’s enthusiastic language.

“Yes,” she said, “sometimes, when we are on land, yet even then I have

never parted from my husband.”

“But you need to be fond of music and balls and fetes.”

“His voice is music for me; and for fetes, I devise new toilettes for

him to see. When he likes my dress, it is as if all the world admired

me. Simply for that reason I keep the diamonds and jewels, the precious

things, the flowers and masterpieces of art that he heaps upon me,

saying, ‘Helene, as you live out of the world, I will have the world

come to you.’ But for that I would fling them all overboard.”

“But there are others on board, wild, reckless men whose passions--”

“I understand, father,” she said smiling. “Do not fear for me. Never

was empress encompassed with more observance than I. The men are very

superstitious; they look upon me as a sort of tutelary genius, the luck

of the vessel. But _he_ is their god; they worship him. Once, and

once only, one of the crew showed disrespect, mere words,” she added,

laughing; “but before Victor knew of it, the others flung the offender

overboard, although I forgave him. They love me as their good angel; I

nurse them when they are ill; several times I have been so fortunate as

to save a life, by constant care such as a woman can give. Poor fellows,

they are giants, but they are children at the same time.”

“And when there is fighting overhead?”

“I am used to it now; I quaked for fear during the first engagement,

but never since.--I am used to such peril, and--I am your daughter,” she

said; “I love it.”

“But how if he should fall?”

“I should die with him.”

“And your children?”

“They are children of the sea and of danger; they share the life of

their parents. We have but one life, and we do not flinch from it. We

have but one life, our names are written on the same page of the book of

Fate, one skiff bears us and our fortunes, and we know it.”

“Do you so love him that he is more to you than all beside?”

“All beside?” echoed she. “Let us leave that mystery alone. Yet stay!

there is this dear little one--well, this too is _he_,” and straining

Abel to her in a tight clasp, she set eager kisses on his cheeks and

hair.

“But I can never forget that he has just drowned nine men!” exclaimed

the General.

“There was no help for it, doubtless,” she said, “for he is generous and

humane. He sheds as little blood as may be, and only in the interests of

the little world which he defends, and the sacred cause for which he is

fighting. Talk to him about anything that seems to you to be wrong, and

he will convince you, you will see.”

“There was that crime of his,” muttered the General to himself.

“But how if that crime was a virtue?” she asked, with cold dignity. “How

if man’s justice had failed to avenge a great wrong?”

“But a private revenge!” exclaimed her father.

“But what is hell,” she cried, “but a revenge through all eternity for

the wrong done in a little day?”

“Ah! you are lost! He has bewitched and perverted you. You are talking

wildly.”

“Stay with us one day, father, and if you will but listen to him, and

see him, you will love him.”

“Helene, France lies only a few leagues away,” he said gravely.

Helene trembled; then she went to the porthole and pointed to the

savannas of green water spreading far and wide.

“There lies my country,” she said, tapping the carpet with her foot.

“But are you not coming with me to see your mother and your sister and

brothers?”

“Oh! yes,” she cried, with tears in her voice, “if _he_ is willing, if

he will come with me.”

“So,” the General said sternly, “you have neither country nor kin now,

Helene?”

“I am his wife,” she answered proudly, and there was something very

noble in her tone. “This is the first happiness in seven years that has

not come to me through him,” she said--then, as she caught her father’s

hand and kissed it--“and this is the first word of reproach that I have

heard.”

“And your conscience?”

“My conscience; he is my conscience!” she cried, trembling from head to

foot. “Here he is! Even in the thick of a fight I can tell his footstep

among all the others on deck,” she cried.

A sudden crimson flushed her cheeks and glowed in her features, her eyes

lighted up, her complexion changed to velvet whiteness, there was joy

and love in every fibre, in the blue veins, in the unconscious trembling

of her whole frame. That quiver of the sensitive plant softened the

General.

It was as she had said. The captain came in, sat down in an easy-chair,

took up his oldest boy, and began to play with him. There was a moment’s

silence, for the General’s deep musing had grown vague and dreamy, and

the daintily furnished cabin and the playing children seemed like a nest

of halcyons, floating on the waves, between sky and sea, safe in the

protection of this man who steered his way amid the perils of war and

tempest, as other heads of household guide those in their care among

the hazards of common life. He gazed admiringly at Helene--a dreamlike

vision of some sea goddess, gracious in her loveliness, rich in

happiness; all the treasures about her grown poor in comparison with

the wealth of her nature, paling before the brightness of her eyes, the

indefinable romance expressed in her and her surroundings.

The strangeness of the situation took the General by surprise; the ideas

of ordinary life were thrown into confusion by this lofty passion and

reasoning. Chill and narrow social conventions faded away before this

picture. All these things the old soldier felt, and saw no less how

impossible it was that his daughter should give up so wide a life, a

life so variously rich, filled to the full with such passionate love.

And Helene had tasted danger without shrinking; how could she return to

the pretty stage, the superficial circumscribed life of society?

It was the captain who broke the silence at last.

“Am I in the way?” he asked, looking at his wife.

“No,” said the General, answering for her. “Helene has told me all. I

see that she is lost to us--”

“No,” the captain put in quickly; “in a few years’ time the statute of

limitations will allow me to go back to France. When the conscience

is clear, and a man has broken the law in obedience to----” he stopped

short, as if scorning to justify himself.

“How can you commit new murders, such as I have seen with my own eyes,

without remorse?”

“We had no provisions,” the privateer captain retorted calmly.

“But if you had set the men ashore--”

“They would have given the alarm and sent a man-of-war after us, and we

should never have seen Chili again.”

“Before France would have given warning to the Spanish admiralty--”

began the General.

“But France might take it amiss that a man, with a warrant still out

against him, should seize a brig chartered by Bordeaux merchants. And

for that matter, have you never fired a shot or so too many in battle?”

The General shrank under the other’s eyes. He said no more, and his

daughter looked at him half sadly, half triumphant.

“General,” the privateer continued, in a deep voice, “I have made it

a rule to abstract nothing from booty. But even so, my share will be

beyond a doubt far larger than your fortune. Permit me to return it to

you in another form--”

He drew a pile of banknotes from the piano, and without counting the

packets handed a million of francs to the Marquis.

“You can understand,” he said, “that I cannot spend my time in watching

vessels pass by to Bordeaux. So unless the dangers of this Bohemian

life of ours have some attraction for you, unless you care to see South

America and the nights of the tropics, and a bit of fighting now and

again for the pleasure of helping to win a triumph for a young nation,

or for the name of Simon Bolivar, we must part. The long boat manned

with a trustworthy crew is ready for you. And now let us hope that our

third meeting will be completely happy.”

“Victor,” said Helene in a dissatisfied tone, “I should like to see a

little more of my father.”

“Ten minutes more or less may bring up a French frigate. However, so be

it, we shall have a little fun. The men find things dull.”

“Oh, father, go!” cried Helene, “and take these keepsakes from me to my

sister and brothers and--mother,” she added. She caught up a handful of

jewels and precious stones, folded them in an Indian shawl, and timidly

held it out.

“But what shall I say to them from you?” asked he. Her hesitation on the

word “mother” seemed to have struck him.

“Oh! can you doubt me? I pray for their happiness every day.”

“Helene,” he began, as he watched her closely, “how if we should not

meet again? Shall I never know why you left us?”

“That secret is not mine,” she answered gravely. “Even if I had the

right to tell it, perhaps I should not. For ten years I was more

miserable than words can say--”

She broke off, and gave her father the presents for her family. The

General had acquired tolerably easy views as to booty in the course of

a soldier’s career, so he took Helene’s gifts and comforted himself with

the reflection that the Parisian captain was sure to wage war against

the Spaniards as an honorable man, under the influence of Helene’s pure

and high-minded nature. His passion for courage carried all before it.

It was ridiculous, he thought, to be squeamish in the matter; so he

shook hands cordially with his captor, and kissed Helene, his only

daughter, with a soldier’s expansiveness; letting fall a tear on the

face with the proud, strong look that once he had loved to see. “The

Parisian,” deeply moved, brought the children for his blessing. The

parting was over, the last good-bye was a long farewell look, with

something of tender regret on either side.

A strange sight to seaward met the General’s eyes. The _Saint-Ferdinand_

was blazing like a huge bonfire. The men told off to sink the Spanish

brig had found a cargo of rum on board; and as the _Othello_ was already

amply supplied, had lighted a floating bowl of punch on the high seas,

by way of a joke; a pleasantry pardonable enough in sailors, who hail

any chance excitement as a relief from the apparent monotony of life

at sea. As the General went over the side into the long-boat of the

_Saint-Ferdinand_, manned by six vigorous rowers, he could not help

looking at the burning vessel, as well as at the daughter who stood by

her husband’s side on the stern of the _Othello_. He saw Helene’s white

dress flutter like one more sail in the breeze; he saw the tall, noble

figure against a background of sea, queenly still even in the presence

of Ocean; and so many memories crowded up in his mind, that, with a

soldier’s recklessness of life, he forgot that he was being borne over

the grave of the brave Gomez.

A vast column of smoke rising spread like a brown cloud, pierced here

and there by fantastic shafts of sunlight. It was a second sky, a murky

dome reflecting the glow of the fire as if the under surface had been

burnished; but above it soared the unchanging blue of the firmament, a

thousand times fairer for the short-lived contrast. The strange hues

of the smoke cloud, black and red, tawny and pale by turns, blurred

and blending into each other, shrouded the burning vessel as it flared,

crackled and groaned; the hissing tongues of flame licked up the

rigging, and flashed across the hull, like a rumor of riot flashing

along the streets of a city. The burning rum sent up blue flitting

lights. Some sea god might have been stirring the furious liquor as

a student stirs the joyous flames of punch in an orgy. But in the

overpowering sunlight, jealous of the insolent blaze, the colors were

scarcely visible, and the smoke was but a film fluttering like a thin

scarf in the noonday torrent of light and heat.

The _Othello_ made the most of the little wind she could gain to fly

on her new course. Swaying first to one side, then to the other, like a

stag beetle on the wing, the fair vessel beat to windward on her zigzag

flight to the south. Sometimes she was hidden from sight by the straight

column of smoke that flung fantastic shadows across the water, then

gracefully she shot out clear of it, and Helene, catching sight of her

father, waved her handkerchief for yet one more farewell greeting.

A few more minutes, and the _Saint-Ferdinand_ went down with a bubbling

turmoil, at once effaced by the ocean. Nothing of all that had been

was left but a smoke cloud hanging in the breeze. The _Othello_ was far

away, the long-boat had almost reached land, the cloud came between

the frail skiff and the brig, and it was through a break in the swaying

smoke that the General caught the last glimpse of Helene. A prophetic

vision! Her dress and her white handkerchief stood out against the murky

background. Then the brig was not even visible between the green water

and the blue sky, and Helene was nothing but an imperceptible speck, a

faint graceful line, an angel in heaven, a mental image, a memory.

The Marquis had retrieved his fortunes, when he died, worn out with

toil. A few months after his death, in 1833, the Marquise was obliged to

take Moïna to a watering-place in the Pyrenees, for the capricious child

had a wish to see the beautiful mountain scenery. They left the baths,

and the following tragical incident occurred on their way home.

“Dear me, mother,” said Moïna, “it was very foolish of us not to stay

among the mountains a few days longer. It was much nicer there. Did

you hear that horrid child moaning all night, and that wretched woman,

gabbling away in patois no doubt, for I could not understand a single

word she said. What kind of people can they have put in the next room to

ours? This is one of the horridest nights I have ever spent in my life.”

“I heard nothing,” said the Marquise, “but I will see the landlady,

darling, and engage the next room, and then we shall have the whole

suite of rooms to ourselves, and there will be no more noise. How do you

feel this morning? Are you tired?”

As she spoke, the Marquise rose and went to Moïna’s bedside.

“Let us see,” she said, feeling for the girl’s hand.

“Oh! let me alone, mother,” said Moïna; “your fingers are cold.”

She turned her head round on the pillow as she spoke, pettishly, but

with such engaging grace, that a mother could scarcely have taken it

amiss. Just then a wailing cry echoed through the next room, a faint

prolonged cry, that must surely have gone to the heart of any woman who

heard it.

“Why, if you heard _that_ all night long, why did you not wake me? We

should have--”

A deeper moan than any that had gone before it interrupted the Marquise.

“Some one is dying there,” she cried, and hurried out of the room.

“Send Pauline to me!” called Moïna. “I shall get up and dress.”

The Marquise hastened downstairs, and found the landlady in the

courtyard with a little group about her, apparently much interested in

something that she was telling them.

“Madame, you have put some one in the next room who seems to be very ill

indeed--”

“Oh! don’t talk to me about it!” cried the mistress of the house. “I

have just sent some one for the mayor. Just imagine it; it is a woman,

a poor unfortunate creature that came here last night on foot. She comes

from Spain; she has no passport and no money; she was carrying her baby

on her back, and the child was dying. I could not refuse to take her

in. I went up to see her this morning myself; for when she turned up

yesterday, it made me feel dreadfully bad to look at her. Poor soul!

she and the child were lying in bed, and both of them at death’s door.

‘Madame,’ says she, pulling a gold ring off her finger, ‘this is all

that I have left; take it in payment, it will be enough; I shall not

stay here long. Poor little one! we shall die together soon!’ she said,

looking at the child. I took her ring, and I asked her who she was, but

she never would tell me her name.... I have just sent for the doctor and

M. le Maire.”

“Why, you must do all that can be done for her,” cried the Marquise.

“Good heavens! perhaps it is not too late! I will pay for everything

that is necessary----”

“Ah! my lady, she looks to me uncommonly proud, and I don’t know that

she would allow it.”

“I will go to see her at once.”

The Marquise went up forthwith to the stranger’s room, without thinking

of the shock that the sight of her widow’s weeds might give to a woman

who was said to be dying. At the sight of that dying woman the Marquise

turned pale. In spite of the changes wrought by fearful suffering in

Helene’s beautiful face, she recognized her eldest daughter.

But Helene, when she saw a woman dressed in black, sat upright in bed

with a shriek of horror. Then she sank back; she knew her mother.

“My daughter,” said Mme. d’Aiglemont, “what is to be done? Pauline!...

Moïna!...”

“Nothing now for me,” said Helene faintly. “I had hoped to see my father

once more, but your mourning--” she broke off, clutched her child to her

heart as if to give it warmth, and kissed its forehead. Then she turned

her eyes on her mother, and the Marquise met the old reproach in them,

tempered with forgiveness, it is true, but still reproach. She saw it,

and would not see it. She forgot that Helene was the child conceived

amid tears and despair, the child of duty, the cause of one of the

greatest sorrows in her life. She stole to her eldest daughter’s side,

remembering nothing but that Helene was her firstborn, the child who had

taught her to know the joys of motherhood. The mother’s eyes were full

of tears. “Helene, my child!...” she cried, with her arms about her

daughter.

Helene was silent. Her own babe had just drawn its last breath on her

breast.

Moïna came into the room with Pauline, her maid, and the landlady and

the doctor. The Marquise was holding her daughter’s ice-cold hand in

both of hers, and gazing at her in despair; but the widowed woman, who

had escaped shipwreck with but one of all her fair band of children,

spoke in a voice that was dreadful to hear. “All this is your work,” she

said. “If you had but been for me all that--”

“Moïna, go! Go out of the room, all of you!” cried Mme. d’Aiglemont, her

shrill tones drowning Helene’s voice.--“For pity’s sake,” she continued,

“let us not begin these miserable quarrels again now----”

“I will be silent,” Helene answered with a preternatural effort. “I am a

mother; I know that Moïna ought not... Where is my child?”

Moïna came back, impelled by curiosity.

“Sister,” said the spoiled child, “the doctor--”

“It is all of no use,” said Helene. “Oh! why did I not die as a girl of

sixteen when I meant to take my own life? There is no happiness outside

the laws. Moïna... you...”

Her head sank till her face lay against the face of the little one; in

her agony she strained her babe to her breast, and died.

“Your sister, Moïna,” said Mme. d’Aiglemont, bursting into tears when

she reached her room, “your sister meant no doubt to tell you that a

girl will never find happiness in a romantic life, in living as nobody

else does, and, above all things, far away from her mother.”