Chapter 29

HOW I FACED DEATHS AND LIVED

On the sixteenth day of my imprisonment I had stood against my bars till the last faint glow of the sunset faded off a white cloud in the east, and all outside had become gray and dim, and my room was quite dark. I had had my second meal, and looked as usual for no further diversion till breakfast next morning. But of a sudden I heard heavy feet outside my door, and Torode came in with a lantern, followed by two of his men.

"You are still of that mind?" he asked, as though we had discussed the matter but five minutes before.

"Yes."

"Then your time is up;" and at a word from him the men bound my hands and feet as before, tied a cloth over my eyes, and carried me off along the rocky way--to my death I doubted not.

To the schooner first in any case, though why they could not kill a man on shore as easily as at sea surprised me. Though, to be sure, a man's body is more easily and cleanly disposed of at sea than on shore, and leaves no mark behind it.

I was placed in the same bunk as before, and fell asleep wondering how soon the end of this strange business would come, but sure that it would not be long.

I was wakened in the morning by the crash of the big guns, and surmised that we had run across something. I heard answering guns and more discharges of our own, then the lowering of a boat, and presently my porthole was obscured as the schooner ground against another vessel.

Then the unexpected happened, in a furious fusillade of small arms from the other ship. Treachery had evidently met treachery, and Death had his hands full.

From the shouting aboard the other ship I felt sure they were Frenchmen, and glad as I was at thought of these ruffians getting paid in their own coin, and fit as it might be to meet cunning with cunning, I was yet glad that the payment was French and not English.

Of the first issue, however, I had small doubts in view of Torode's long guns and merciless methods, and though I could see nothing, with our own experiences red in my mind, I could still follow what happened.

The schooner sheared off, and presently the long guns got to work with their barbarous shot, and pounded away venomously, till I could well imagine what the state of that other ship must be.

When we ranged alongside again, no word greeted us. There was traffic between the two ships, and when we cast off I heard the crackling of flames.

Then there was much sluicing of water above my head, as our decks were washed down, and presently there came a rattling of boards which puzzled me much, until the end of one dipped suddenly across my porthole, and my straining wits suggested that Torode was changing his stripes and becoming a Frenchman once more.

The next day passed without any happening, and I lay racking my brain for reasons why one spot of sea should not be as good as another for dropping a man's body into.

But on the day after that, Torode came suddenly in on me in the afternoon, and looking down on me as I lay, he said roughly--

"Listen, you, Carré! By every reason possible you should die, but--well, I am going to give you chance of life. It is only a chance, but your death will not lie at my door, as it would do here. Now here is my last word. You know more than is good for me. If ever you disclose what you know, whether you come back or not, I will blot out all you hold dear in Sercq from top to bottom, though I have to bring the Frenchmen down to do it. You understand?"

"I understand."

"Be advised, then, and keep a close mouth."

I was blindfolded and carried out and laid in a waiting boat, which crossed to another vessel, and I was passed up the side, and down a gangway, amid the murmur of many voices.

When my eyes and bonds were loosed I found myself among a rough crowd of men in the 'tween decks of a large ship. The air was dim and close. From the row of heavy guns and great ports, several of which were open, I knew her to be a battleship and of large size. From the gabble of talk all round me I knew she was French.

After the first minute or two no one paid me any attention. All were intent on their own concerns. I sat down on the carriage of the nearest gun and looked about me.

The company was such as one would have looked for on a ship of the Republic--coarse and free in its manners, and loud of talk. They were probably most of them pressed men, not more than one day out, and looked on me only as a belated one of themselves. There was--for the moment at all events--little show of discipline. They all talked at once, and wrangled and argued, and seemed constantly on the point of blows; but it all went off in words, and no harm was done. But to me, who had barely heard a spoken word for close on twenty days, the effect was stunning, and I could only sit and watch dazedly, while my head spun round with the uproar.

Food was served out presently--well-cooked meat and sweet coarse bread, and a mug of wine to every man, myself among the rest. There was no lessening of the noise while they ate and drank, and I ate with the rest, and by degrees found my thoughts working reasonably.

I was at all events alive, and it is better to be alive than dead.

I was on a French ship of war, and that, from all points of view, save one, was better than being on a King's ship.

The one impossible point in the matter was that I was an Englishman on a ship whose mission in life must be to fight Englishmen. And that I never would do, happen what might, and it seemed to me that the sooner this matter was settled the better.

Discipline on a ship under the Republican flag was, I knew, very different from that on our own ships. The principles of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, if getting somewhat frayed and threadbare, still tempered the treatment of the masses, and so long as men reasonably obeyed orders, and fought when the time came, little more was expected of them, and they were left very much to themselves.

That was no doubt the reason why I had not so far, since I recovered my wits, come across anyone in authority, which I was now exceedingly anxious to do.

It was almost dark, outside the ship as well as inside, when I spied one who seemed, from his dress and bearing, something above the rest, and I made my way to him.

"Will you be so good as to tell me where I sleep, monsieur?" I asked.

"Same place as you slept last night, my son."

"I would be quite willing--"

"Ah tiens! you are the latest bird."

"At your service, monsieur."

"Come with me, and I'll get you a hammock and show you where to sling it."

And as he was getting it for me, I asked him the name of the ship and where she was going.

"The _Joséphine_, 40-gun frigate, bound for the West Indies."

Then I proffered my request--

"Can you procure me an interview with the captain, monsieur?"

"What for?"

"I have some information to give him--information of importance."

"You can give it to me."

"No--to the captain himself, or to no one."

He looked at me critically and said curtly, "B'en, mon gars, we will see!" which might mean anything--threat or promise. But my thoughts during the night only confirmed me in my way.

Next morning after breakfast the same man came seeking me.

"Come then," he said, "and say your say," and he led me along to the quarterdeck, where the captain stood with some of his officers. He was a tall, good-looking man, very handsomely dressed. I came to know him later as Captain Charles Duchâtel.

"This is the man, M. le capitaine," said my guide, pushing me to the front.

"Well, my man," said the captain, pleasantly enough, "what is the important information you have to give me?"

"M. le capitaine will perhaps permit me to explain, in the first place, that I am an Englishman," said I, with a bow.

"Truly you speak like one, mon gars," he laughed.

"That is because I am of the Norman Isles, monsieur. I am from Sercq, by Guernsey."

"Well!" he nodded.

"And therefore monsieur will see that it is not possible for me to fight against my own country." And I went on quickly, in spite of the frown I saw gathering on his face. "I will do any duty put upon me to the best of my power, but fight against my country I cannot."

He looked at me curiously, and said sharply, "A sailor on board ship obeys orders. Is it not so?"

"Surely, monsieur. But I am a prisoner. And as an Englishman I cannot fight against my country. Could monsieur do so in like case?"

"This is rank mutiny, you know."

"I do not mean it so, monsieur, I assure you."

"And was this the important information you had to give me?"

"No, monsieur, it was this. The man who brought me prisoner on board here,--monsieur knows him?"

"Undoubtedly! He has made himself known."

"Better perhaps than you imagine, monsieur. The merchants of Havre and Cherbourg will thank you for this that I tell you now. Torode to the English, Main Rouge to the French--he lives on Herm, the next isle to Sercq, where I myself live. He is the most successful privateer in all these waters. And why? I will tell you, monsieur. It is because he robs French ships as an English privateer, and English ships as a French privateer. He changes his skin as he goes and plunders under both flags."

"Really! That is a fine fairy tale. On my word it is worthy almost of La Fontaine himself. And what proof do you offer of all this, my man?"

"Truly none, monsieur, except myself--that I am here for knowing it."

"And Main Rouge knew that you knew it?"

"That is why I am here, monsieur."

"And alive! Main Rouge is no old woman, my man."

"It is a surprise to me that I still live, monsieur, and I cannot explain it. He has had me in confinement for three weeks, expecting to die each day, since he sank our schooner and shot our men in the water as they swam for their lives. Why, of all our crew, I live, I do not know."

"It is the strongest proof we have that what you tell me is untrue."

"And yet I tell it at risk of more than my life, monsieur. Torode's last words to me were that if I opened my mouth he would smite my kin in Sercq till not one was left."

"And he told me you were such an inveterate liar and troublesome fellow that he had had enough of you, and only did not kill you because of your people, whom he knows," he said, with a knowing smile.

Torode's forethought staggered me somewhat, but I looked the captain squarely in the face and said, "I am no liar, monsieur, and I have had no dealings with the man save as his prisoner." But I could not tell whether he believed me or not.

"And your mind is made up not to obey orders?" he asked, after a moment's thought.

"I cannot lift a hand against my country, monsieur."

"Place him under arrest," he said quietly, to the man who had brought me there. "I will see to him later;" and I had but exchanged one imprisonment for another.

That was as dismal a night as ever I spent, with no ray of hope to lighten my darkness, and only the feeling that I could have done no other, to keep me from breaking down entirely.

What the result would be I could not tell, but from the captain's point of view I thought he would be justified in shooting me, and would probably do so as a warning to the rest. He evidently did not believe a word I said, and I could not greatly blame him.

I thought of them all at home, but mostly of my mother and of Carette. I had little expectation of ever seeing them again, but I was sure they would not have had me act otherwise. It was what my grandfather would have done, placed as I was, and no man could do better than that. Most insistently my thoughts were of Carette and those bright early days on Sercq, and black as all else was, those remembrances shone like jewels in my mind. And when at times I thought of Torode and his stupendous treachery, my heart was like to burst with helpless rage. I scarcely closed my eyes, and in the morning felt old and weary.

About midday they came for me, and I was content that the end had come. They led me to the waist of the ship, where the whole company was assembled, and there they stripped me to the waist and bound my wrists to a gun carriage.

It was little relief to me to know that I was to be flogged, for the lash degrades, and breaks a man's spirit even more than his body. Even if undeserved, the brand remains, and can never be forgotten. It seemed to me then that I would as lief be shot and have done with it.

The captain eyed me keenly.

"Well," he asked, "you are still of the same mind? You still will not fight?"

"Not against my own country--not though you flog me to ribbons, monsieur."

The cat rested lightly on my back as the man who held it waited for the word.

Then, as I braced myself for the first stroke, which would be the hardest to bear, the captain said quietly to the officer next to him, "Perhaps as well end it at once. Send a file of marines--" and they walked a few steps beyond my hearing, for the blood belled in my ears and blurred my eyes so that my last sight of earth was like to be a dim one.

"Cast him loose and bandage his eyes," said the captain, and they set me standing against the side of the ship and tied a white cloth over my eyes.

I heard clearly enough now and with a quickened sense. I heard them range the men opposite to me--I hard the tiny clicking of the rings on the muskets as the men handled them--the breathing of those who looked on--the soft wash of the sea behind. But as far as was in me I faced them without flinching, for in truth I had given myself up and was thinking only of Carette and my mother and my grandfather, and was sending them farewell and a last prayer for their good.

"Are you ready?" asked the captain. "You will fire when I drop the handkerchief. You--prisoner--for the last time--yes or no?"

I shook my head, for I feared lest my voice should betray me. Let none but him who has faced this coldest of deaths cast a stone at me.

"Present! Fire!"--the last words I expected to hear on earth. The muskets rang out--but I stood untouched.

The captain walked across to me, whipped off the bandage, and clapped me soundly on the bare shoulder. "You are a brave boy, and I take as truth every word you have told me. If we come to fighting with your countrymen you shall tend our wounded. As to _Red Hand_--when we return home we will attend to him. Now, mon gars, to your duty!" and to my amazement I was alive, unflogged, and believed.

Perhaps it was a harsh test and an over cruel jest. But the man had no means of coming at the truth, and if he had shot me none could have said a word against it.

For me, I said simply, "I thank you, monsieur," and went to my duty.

My shipmates were for making much of me, in their rough and excited way, but I begged them to leave me to myself for a time, till I was quite sure I was still alive. And they did so at last, and I heard them debating among themselves how it could be that an Englishman could speak French as freely as they did themselves.

I had no cause to complain of my treatment on board the _Joséphine_ after that. The life was far less rigorous than on our own ships, and the living far more ample. If only I could have sent word of my welfare to those at home, who must by this time, I knew, be full of fears for me, I could have been fairly content. The future, indeed, was full of uncertainty, but it is that at best, and my heart was set on escape the moment the chance offered.

I went about my work with the rest, and took a certain pride in showing them how a British seaman could do his duty. Our curious introduction had given Captain Duchâtel an interest in me. I often caught his eye upon me, and now and again he dropped me a word which was generally a cheerful challenge as to my resolution, and I always replied in kind. Recollections of those days crowd my mind as I look back on them, but they are not what I set out to tell, and greater matters lay just ahead.

With wonderful luck, and perhaps by taking a very outside course, we escaped the British cruisers, and arrived safely in Martinique, and there we lay for close on four months, with little to do but be in readiness for attacks which never came.

The living was good. Fresh meat and fruit were abundant, and we were allowed ashore in batches. And so the time passed pleasantly enough, but for the fact that one was an exile, and that those at home must be in sorrow and suspense, and had probably long since given up all hope of seeing their wanderer again. For this time was not as the last. They would expect news of us within a few weeks of our sailing, and the utter disappearance of the _Swallow_ could hardly leave them ground for hope.