While the Bohemian was on board the Red Galleon Erebus, now virtually
considered a prisoner, shared the cabin of the chebec with Reine and
Stephanette.
Notwithstanding her anger, notwithstanding her fright, notwithstanding
her keen anxiety concerning the fate of her father, Mlle. des Anbiez
could not remain insensible to the despair of Erebus.
He reproached himself so bitterly for her abduction, and had done
so much to obtain from the Bohemian both her liberty and that of
Stephanette, that she could not stifle every emotion of pity that rose
in her heart.
Besides, in the frightful position in which she was placed, she felt
that in him, at least, she had a defender.
A feeble ray of the sun lighted the little apartment where these three
persons were associated.
Stephanette, exhausted by fatigue, was sleeping, half-recumbent on a
mat.
Reine, seated, hid her face in her two hands.
Erebus stood with his arms crossed and head bowed, while great tears
rolled down his pale cheeks.
“Nothing--nothing, I see no help,” said he, in a low voice; then,
lifting a supplicating glance to Reine, he said: “What can be done, my
God, to snatch you from the hands of these wretches?”
“My father, my father!” said Reine, in a hollow voice. Then turning
to Erebus, she exclaimed: “Ah, be accursed, you have caused all
my sorrows! But for you I should be with my father. Perhaps he is
suffering--perhaps he is wounded! And then at least he would have my
care. Ah, be accursed!”
“Yes, always accursed!” repeated Erebus, with bitterness. “My
mother doubtless cursed me at my birth! Cursed by the man who reared me!
Cursed by you!” added he, in a heartrending voice.
“Have you not taken a daughter from her father? Have you not often
been the accomplice of the brigands who ravaged that unfortunate
city!” cried Reine, with indignation.
“Oh, for pity’s sake do not crush me! Yes, I have been their
accomplice. But, my God! have compassion on me. I was brought up to
evil, as you have been brought up to good. You had a mother. You have a
father. You have had always before your eyes noble examples to imitate.
I,--thrown by chance among these wretches at the age of four or five
years, I believe, without parents, without relations, a victim of
Pog-Reis, who for his pastime--he told me yesterday--trained me to evil
as one would train a young wolf to slaughter, accustomed to hear nothing
but the language of bad passions, to know no restraint,--yet, at least,
I repent of the evils I have caused. I weep--I weep with despair,
because I cannot save you. These tears, which the most cruel suffering
would not have wrung from me,--these tears are the expression of the
remorse I feel for having wronged you. This wrong I have tried to repair
by wishing to conduct you back to your father. Unfortunately, I could
not succeed. Ah, if I only had not met you that day in the rocks of
Provence, if only I had not seen your beauty--”
“Not a word more,” said Reine, with dignity. “It was that day my
sorrows began. Oh, it was indeed a fatal day!”
“Yes, fatal, for if I had not seen you I should never have felt an
aspiration toward good. My life would always have been a life of crime.
I should never have been tormented by the remorse which now consumes
me,” said Erebus, with a gloomy air.
“Unhappy man!” cried Reine, carried away in spite of herself by her
secret preference. “Do not speak thus. Notwithstanding all the evil
you have done me and mine, I shall despise our fatal meeting less, if
you owe to it the only feelings which some day may result in the saving
of your soul.”
Reine des Anbiez uttered these words with such earnestness, and with
such an accent of interest, that Erebus clasped his hands, looking at
her with gratitude and astonishment.
“Save my soul! I do not understand your words. Pog-Reis has always
taught me there was no soul, but at last I see that you have a little
pity for me. Those are the only kind words I have ever heard during my
existence. Severity and cruelty repel me. Goodness would surely conquer
me, would render me better, but, alas! who cares whether I am better or
not? No one! I see only hatred, contempt, or indifference around me.”
He put his hand over his eyes, and remained silent.
Reine could not repress an emotion of pity for the unfortunate youth,
nor a feeling of horror at the thought of his cruel education.
Moved with compassion, she could but hope that his natural instincts
toward good had prevented his utter corruption. Since she had been in
the power of the pirates, the conduct of Erebus had never transgressed
the limits of the most profound respect. If he had abducted her from
her father’s castle, with a most criminal audacity, he had, at least,
shown in his bearing toward her a delicacy and forbearance which seemed
almost like timidity.
This decided contrast proved to her the struggle of a noble, generous
nature against a perverse education, and her imagination fondly pictured
what he might have been, but for the cruel fate which imposed such a
life upon him.
But these sentiments soon gave way to the anxious fears which agitated
her mind concerning her father, and she cried with tears, “Oh, my
father, my father! when shall I see him again? Oh, how dreadful!”
Erebus, thinking that she addressed him, replied, sadly, “Do you
think I would not attempt everything in the world to take you from this
vessel? But what can be done? Ah, without you, without the vague hope
that I have been useful to you--” Erebus could not finish, but his
countenance was so sad that Reine, frightened, cried, “What do you
mean?”
“I mean that when one cannot endure life the best thing is to get
rid of it; when you are rescued and in safety, Erebus will give a last
thought to you, and then kill himself.”
“Another crime! he will end a life already so guilty by another
misdeed!” cried Reine. “But you do not know that your life belongs
to God only!”
Erebus smiled bitterly, and replied: “My life belongs to me, since I
can free myself from it when it becomes a burden. When I shall have left
you, I can live no longer. I do not kill myself at your feet, because
I still hope to be useful to you. What good is my life henceforth?
You have made me understand how criminal has been the life I have been
leading. But the future! The future for me is you, and I am unworthy of
you, and you do not love me--and you will never love me. Ah, cursed be
the Bohemian who has deceived me, who told me that you had not forgotten
him who saved your father’s life!”
“I have never forgotten that you were my father’s saviour,” said
Reine, with dignity, “nor can I forget the outrage practised upon
me, yet I ought to take kindly what you have done to repair that wrong.
Repentance for the greatest crimes finds pardon before the Lord! If I
am permitted to see my father and my home again, I will forgive you.
But before I leave, I will say to you: ‘Never despair of the infinite
goodness of God! Instead of yielding to an insane despair, abandon for
ever those who made you their accomplice, seek instruction in our holy
religion, learn to know and love and bless the Lord, become a good man;
prove by an exemplary life that you have forsaken the criminal
career which wicked men forced upon you; then can we pity your past
misfortunes, then we can forget your outrages, then we can believe,
indeed, that you wish to expiate the guilty actions of the past, by
good.’”
“And if I follow your counsel,” cried Erebus, transported by the
pious and lofty language of Reine, “if I become a good man, may I some
day present myself at Maison-Forte?”
Reine looked downwards.
The door of the cabin suddenly opened, and the Bohemian entered, and
perhaps saved the young girl from an embarrassing reply.
Stephanette started out of sleep, and said, artlessly:
“Ah, my God, mademoiselle, I dreamed that I was married to my poor
Luquin, who had rescued us, and that he was having that wicked vagabond
hanged.”
“All I wish, my pretty girl,” said the Bohemian, with an insolent
smile, “is that the very opposite of your dream may happen, which is
usually the case. You can believe that such are my intentions concerning
Captain Luquin.”
“What do you want?” asked Erebus, impatiently, interrupting Hadji.
“I have come for you. Pog-Reis wants you. He is waiting for you on
board the _Red Galleon_.”
“Tell Pog-Reis that I will not leave this chebec except to conduct
Mlle, des Anbiez ashore. She has no other protector, and I will not
abandon her.”
The Bohemian, knowing the determined spirit of Erebus, preferred to have
recourse to a lie to employing force to take him away from the young
girls, and said to him:
“Pog-Reis asks for you because he wishes to get rid of you. He knows
that you tried to make his crew act contrary to his orders. As to these
two women, he prefers a ransom. You are to go and demand this ransom
from Raimond V. As soon as the money is here, you can conduct the two
doves to Maison-Forte.”
“That is a decoy to separate me from them,” cried Erebus. “You are
lying.”
“And if I only wished to take you away, my young captain, what would
hinder my calling our men to my aid, and making them carry you off?”
“I have a kangiar in my belt,” said Erebus.
“And when you have stabbed one, or two, or three of these honest
pirates, will you not be obliged to yield to numbers sooner or later?
So believe me; go on board the _Red Galleon_. Pog-Reis will give you his
orders and a little boat. You will go to Raimond V., and to-morrow you
can be here with a large sum of gold that the old baron will be only too
glad to give for his daughter. To-morrow, I tell you, you can take away
these two girls.”
“My God, what is to be done?” cried Reine. “That man perhaps is
speaking the truth. And my father would not hesitate to give any sum,
whatever it might be. Yet, if the man is lying, we will only lose our
only protector,” added she, turning to Erebus.
Erebus was equally perplexed. He realised that he must succumb to
numbers at last, and that, in refusing Pog-Reis, he would only aggravate
the situation of Mlle, des Anbiez.
After some moments of reflection Reine said to Erebus, in a voice full
of courage:
“Go to my father, and give me that weapon,” and she pointed to the
dagger which Erebus wore at his side.
“I am left without a defender, but at least death will be able to save
from dishonour.”
Impressed with these simple and dignified words, Erebus knelt
respectfully before Reine, and gave her his kangiar without uttering a
word, as if he feared to profane the solemnity of the scene.
He left the cabin, followed by the Bohemian, embarked in a small boat,
and presented himself to Pog, on board the _Red Galleon_.
Hadji left Erebus on board this vessel, and returned to the chebec to
carry out the orders of Pog.
The Bohemian set sail and was out of the bay before Reine and
Stephanette knew that he had returned.
After a few tacks, he distinguished perfectly the commander’s black
galley and Captain Trinquetaille’s polacre to his windward. The two
vessels were coming from La Ciotat. A few words will explain their
presence in sight of the bay, and how they had been able to follow the
track of the pirates.