CHAPTER VIII.

THE CAPTAIN'S NARRATIVE.

"All France is familiar with the name and heroic valour of Captain l'Endurci, commander of the privateer _Hell-hound_, as well as the large number of prizes which the gallant captain has recently captured from the English.

"Only a few days ago Captain l'Endurci returned to Dieppe, with a large three-master belonging to the East India Company, and armed with thirty guns, in tow, while the _Hell-hound_ can boast of only sixteen. This three-master, which was convoying several merchant vessels loaded with wheat, had, together with her convoy, been captured by the intrepid captain, after a desperate fight of three hours, in which nearly or quite one-half of the French crew had been killed or wounded.

"The gallant captain's entrance into the port of Dieppe was a veritable triumph. The entire population of the town assembled upon the piers, and when the brig, black with powder and riddled with shot, sailed slowly in with her prizes, shouts of the wildest enthusiasm rent the air, but the brave captain's triumph became an ovation when the people learned that the vessels which the three-master was convoying were laden with wheat. At a time when grain is so appallingly scarce in France, such a capture is a national benefaction, and when the people discovered that Captain l'Endurci, being aware of the speedy arrival of these vessels, had spent several days lying in wait for them, allowing richer and less dangerous prizes to pass unmolested, all Dieppe went wild."

"How grand!" exclaimed the housekeeper, enthusiastically. "Ah, I would give ten years of my life to be the mother or sister of such a hero."

"And I, my friend, deem myself a thousand times more fortunate in being the daughter of an honest merchant, instead of having some bloodthirsty hero for a father," remarked Sabine.

"What a strange child you are! Wouldn't you feel proud to be able to say: 'That famous man is my father?'"

"Not by any means. If he were absent, I should be always trembling to think of the danger he might be in; if he were with me, I should always be imagining I saw blood on his hands."

"Such ideas seem very strange to me, for I love heroes, myself," said the older woman, gaily. "But go on, Onésime, I am anxious to hear how this valiant captain could have been kidnapped on French soil." Then, noticing that her nephew was unusually pale, and that big drops of perspiration were standing on his brow, she asked:

"What is the matter, Onésime? You seem to be suffering."

"No, indeed, aunt," replied the young man, enraged at himself for not being able to conceal the agony his burn was causing him. "Now listen to the rest of the story.

"Captain l'Endurci, after a three day's sojourn in Dieppe, started for Paris, unfortunately leaving his head gunner, one of his oldest comrades-in-arms, who was seriously wounded in the last engagement, in Dieppe to attend to some business matters.

"It was between the second and the third post-stations on his route that this audacious attack was made upon the captain, evidently by English emissaries who had been lying in wait for him. It seems that these emissaries had taken advantage of the postilion's credulity to persuade him to allow one of them to take his place and drive the vehicle for awhile. This change of drivers was made while ascending a steep hill, where the progress of the vehicle was necessarily slow, but the Englishman was scarcely in the saddle before he started the horses off at a frightful pace, while the postilion was hurled half-dead upon the ground by the other Englishman, who was clinging to the back of the post-chaise.

"The captain astonished at the terrific speed with which the horses were tearing down the steep descent, thought that the postilion had neglected to put on the brake, and had lost all control of the horses; but soon the rate of speed diminished perceptibly, though the vehicle continued to fly swiftly along.

"The night having become very dark, the captain could not see that the carriage, instead of following the main road, was going in an entirely different direction. Not having the slightest suspicion of this fact, and ignorant of the change of postilions, the captain rode on in this way about an hour and a half, and finally fell asleep.

"The sudden stopping of the carriage woke him, and supposing that he had reached the next relay station, and seeing two or three lanterns flitting about, he was unsuspectingly alighting from the vehicle, when several men suddenly rushed upon him, and, before he had time to offer the slightest resistance, he was securely bound and gagged, and dragged down to the beach on the outskirts of the little seaport town of Hosey, about fifteen miles from Dieppe, and known as the headquarters of a daring gang of smugglers. Here, the captain, who was unable to make the slightest movement or utter a word, was hustled aboard a fishing-smack, and a few minutes afterward, wind and tide both being favourable, the little vessel set sail for England.

"But Captain l'Endurci is not the man to tamely submit to defeat, as the following extract from that gentleman's letter to a friend in this city conclusively proves.

"He writes as follows:

"'When I found myself a prisoner in the hold, my rage at the cowardly trick which had been played upon me became ungovernable. I had been thrown upon a few pieces of old sail in the hold, with my legs securely bound together with a long piece of rope as big as my thumb, and with my hands tied behind my back. I tried by stooping to reach with my teeth the rope that bound my legs, but found it impossible. I knew by the motion of the boat that a strong wind was blowing, and that we were heading straight for the shores of England.

"'I knew the fate that awaited me there. A few words that had passed between my captors had enlightened me. Instead of killing me outright, they wanted to see me lead a life of torture in the hulks. One of them had even spoken of exposing me to the jeers and insults of the populace for several days.

"'The mere thought of such a thing nearly drove me mad, and in a paroxysm of fury I sank back on the old sails, foaming with rage. This ebullition over, anger as usual gave me new strength. My blood boiled in my veins, then, mounting to my brain, gave birth to a thousand projects, each one more audacious than the other, and I felt both my physical and mental vigour increased a hundred-fold by this effervescent condition of all my vital powers.

"'I finally decided upon one of the plans that this paroxysm of rage had suggested to me. In any other frame of mind, it would have seemed utterly impracticable to me, and I believe it would have seemed so to any man who was not half frenzied by a spirit of anger,--anger, that dread and powerful divinity, as the Indian poet says.'"

For some time the young girl who sat listening had seemed to be a prey to a painful preoccupation; several times she had started impatiently as if anxious to escape from some harrowing thought, and now suddenly interrupting the reading in spite of herself, as it were, she exclaimed:

"That man makes me shudder!"

"And why?" demanded the housekeeper. "This brave sailor seems to me as brave as a lion."

"But what a man of iron!" exclaimed the girl, more and more excitedly. "How violent he is! And to think that any person should dare to excuse and even glorify anger when it is so horrible--so unspeakably horrible!"

The housekeeper, without attaching much importance to the girl's protest, however, replied:

"Nonsense, my child! You say that anger is so terrible. That depends,--for if anger suggested to the captain a way and means of escape from these treacherous Englishmen, he is perfectly right to glorify it, and I, in his place--But good Heavens!" she exclaimed, seeing the girl turn alarmingly pale and close her eyes as if she were about to swoon. "Good Heavens, what is the matter with you? Your lips are quivering. You are crying. You do not answer me,--speak, what is the matter?"

But the words failed to reach the ears of the poor child. With her large eyes distended with terror and bewilderment, she indicated with a gesture some apparition which existed only in her disordered imagination, and murmured, wildly:

"The man in black! Oh, the man in black! There he is now! Don't you see him?"

"Calm yourself! Don't allow yourself to think any more about that, in Heaven's name. Don't you know how hurtful such thoughts are to you?"

"Oh, that man! He was equally terrible in his rage, when--It was years and years ago, and I was little more than a baby, but I can see him yet, in his strange, sombre costume of black and white like the livery of the dead. It was night, and my father was absent from home when this man gained an entrance into our house, I know not how. I had never seen him before. He threatened my mother, who was holding me in her arms. 'At least spare my child!' she sobbed. I remember it well. But he only exclaimed, still advancing threateningly upon my mother, 'Don't you know that I am capable of anything in my anger?' And then he rushed out of the room. Oh, my mother, my mother dead, and I--"

The girl could say no more, for she was relapsing into one of the nervous spasms which this terrible recollection almost always caused,--this recollection of a deplorable occurrence from which her condition of morbid susceptibility seemed to have dated.

This crisis soon abated, thanks to the judicious attentions of the housekeeper, who was, alas! only too used to rendering them. When she was herself again, the young girl, whose character was a singular compound of weakness and firmness, thought with shame and regret of the lack of self-control she had displayed while this account of the corsair's escape was being read, an account which, strange to say, had an inexplicable fascination for her, inspiring her at the same time with horror and a sort of morbid curiosity; so, in spite of Onésime's entreaties, she insisted that he should continue the reading so unfortunately interrupted.

The housekeeper, noting this insistence, and fearing that any opposition might react very dangerously upon the girl's excitable nature just at this time, also requested Onésime to continue the account of Captain l'Endurci's escape.