Chapter 10

She had not failed in any of her arrangements. The unsuspecting François had fallen into her snare, and, delighted with the assignation, he had run great risk in the hope of securing the love of the charming Léontine. He had borrowed for her a comrade's uniform and arms; and thus accoutred as a soldier, she had met him at the appointed hour. They were now standing together by the edge of the moat, and Léontine had listened to his warm declarations of affection. François was enraptured; for more than a year he had vainly sought to win her love. As the belle of the village, Léontine had many admirers; a certain lieutenant was reported to be a favored suitor; thus what chance was there for a private such as François? True or false, the jealous heart of François had believed these reports, and he had yielded to despair. Judge of his transport when, within the last few hours, he had been led to hope; and now, when he had nearly given her up as lost, he almost held her in his arms. Alas! for military discipline when beauty leads the attack! François thought of nothing but his love. There was a railing by the edge of the moat, against which Léontine had rested her musket; the unwary sentry did the same; and the two weapons leaned peacefully side by side, as the soldier, intoxicated by his love, suddenly caught her round the waist with both arms and pressed his lips to her cheek. At this moment the dull clang of the prison clock struck the half hour. Struggling in his embrace, Léontine exclaimed: "Oh, if I could call 'a friend!'"

At the same instant with both her hands she slipped into his mouth a wooden instrument called a gag, that was used to silence uproarious prisoners. The signal, "A friend," had been given in a loud voice, as though in reply to the usual challenge, and before the unlucky François could relieve himself from the gag he was caught from behind in the tremendous grasp of Paul's arms, while Dick Stone by mistake rushed upon Léontine; a vigorous smack on the face from her delicate hand immediately undeceived him.

"Take that musket," whispered Léontine, quickly, "and come along."

At the same time she seized the remaining musket, while Paul pinioned the arms of their prisoner with his handkerchief, and threatened him with instant death should he resist.

No time was lost. Paul threw the sentry over his shoulder as though he had been a lamb, and the whole party hurried after Léontine, who had led the way to the beach.

This affair had been managed so dexterously and quietly that no sound had been heard except the reply, "A friend," that was the preconcerted signal of attack; but upon arrival at the beach the rattling of the shingle as the large party hurried toward the boat threatened to attract a dangerous attention.

A large number of boats were drawn up upon the beach, but Léontine, without a moment's hesitation, led Paul and his party to one that had the oars already arranged; and the powerful crew, seizing it by the bow and the stern, ran it along the steep incline and launched it through the waves.

Not a word had been spoken, but there was a sound of many feet as the crew jumped into the boat that could not be mistaken. Paul laid his struggling burden upon the beach, and Léontine, before she leaped into the boat, whispered in the captive's ear:

"François, if you give the alarm I'll never love you again." With this coquettish adieu she followed Paul and Dick Stone, who were the last of the party.

"Steer straight for the 'Polly,' and give way, my lads! for there's no time to lose," said Paul, who had taken his position in the bow of the boat with Dick Stone, both of whom were armed with muskets, while two men with sword-bayonets were ready to follow them.

"Make a rush on board," said Paul, "and knock down everybody without asking questions; then seize the arms from the rack and chest."

The water was deep in the rocky bay; thus the "Polly" was moored to a buoy little more than two hundred yards from shore; a light was visible on board, and the lanterns of the corvette were also burning about fifty paces distant, where she lay moored by stem and stern.

They now pulled swiftly but silently toward the lugger. Paul's heart bounded with hope, while Dick Stone, as cool as ice, but determined upon the event, waited for the command. They neared the vessel. "What boat's that?" was the sudden challenge from the lugger's deck, as their boat came within a couple of oars' length. "A friend!" shouted Léontine in French, and almost in the same instant a man in the bow of the boat caught hold of the mizzen shrouds of the lugger with his boat-hook, and held on.

Paul seized a rope, and in one bound he was upon the lugger's deck, while Dick Stone followed like his shadow. To knock down the first man with a double-handed thrust with the barrel of his musket was the work of a moment, at the same instant Dick struck and felled a Frenchman who had rushed to the arm-chest. A shot was now fired by one of the French crew, and several men made a dash at the arm-rack, but Paul was there before them, and with the butt end of his musket he struck down the leader of the party.

At this moment a loud shrill cry of alarm was heard from the shore.

"_Ha, le sacre François_!" exclaimed Léontine, who had in the meantime attached the deserted boat to the lugger's stern. "_Ha, le misérable_!" she cried; "this is a return for my love!"

Two or three shots were now fired by the French crew, but without other results than to alarm the ship-of-war; the drum beat to quarters, lights were seen at her ports; a tremendous flash was accompanied by the report of a cannon as she fired an alarm-gun; this was quickly answered by a shot from a battery above the town.

The bells of the church and the prison rang wildly as shot after shot was fired from the battery, and the alarm spread like wild-fire throughout the port.

In the meantime, while the fight had been hot upon the "Polly's" decks, Captain Dupuis, who had been asleep when the vessel was first boarded, now rushed up from the cabin, and meeting Paul he fired a pistol within a few feet of his chest; fortunately, at that moment Paul was in the act of raising his musket, and the ball lodged within the tough walnut stock; the next instant the weapon fell with a crash upon Dupuis's skull, who reeled backward, and stumbling against the low bulwarks, he fell overboard and sunk.

Dick Stone, with his musket in one hand that he had not yet discharged, was now standing at the helm. The English crew had gained the arms from the rack, and several shots were fired as they drove the French toward the bows of the lugger, following them up with the bayonet. Many of the French jumped overboard, calling loudly to the man-of-war for assistance, and those who were down below were already helpless, as the companion ladder was guarded by two armed men. The surprise was complete; Léontine had hauled her boat alongside, and had climbed on board; the cable was cut, and the sails were let loose; but the danger had increased. The French crew who had jumped overboard called to the corvette to fire and sink the lugger. This they had hitherto been afraid to do, as their own countrymen were on board. A blue light was now burned upon the decks of the corvette, and distinctly illumined the scene just as the sails of the "Polly" filled, as her head turned from the severed cable, and she met the full force of the gale from shore. In an instant she leaned over, and as the water rippled from her bows and the boom was slacked off she started like a wild duck frightened from its nest.

"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" rang three hearty British cheers as the clipper lugger glided rapidly through the dark water and passed the terrible broadside of the corvette within fifty or sixty yards. But hardly had the "Polly" cleared the deadly row of guns, when, a flash! and the shock seemed to sweep her deck as the dense smoke rolled across her in the midst of the roar of a twenty-four-pounder fired from the last gun of the tier.

A terrible crash almost immediately followed the shock, and the painter or rope that attaches the boat to the stern of the lugger suddenly dangled loosely in the water, as the shot had dashed the boat to atoms; fortunately the "Polly" had just passed the fatal line of fire. Another wild "hurrah!" replied to the unsuccessful gun, as the lugger, released from the boat's weight, seemed to fly still quicker through the water.

"Take the helm for a moment," said Dick to a sailor by his side, and running amidships he called upon Paul, "Give a hand, captain, and we'll get the Long Tom round."

In an instant Paul put his powerful shoulder to the long six-pounder that worked on a pivot, and together, with joint exertions, they trained the gun upon the stern windows of the corvette. Dick Stone had just beforehand lighted his pipe when standing at the helm, and as the long gun bore upon its object he suddenly pushed Paul upon one side, and emptied his fiery bowl upon the touch-hole. Bang! went the gun, as the six-pound shot crashed through the cabin windows of the corvette, and through the various bulk-heads, raking her from stem to stern.

"Hurrah!" again shouted the crew, who like true British sailors were ready for any fight without reckoning the odds when the cannon once began to speak, while Paul and several men sponged and reloaded the long gun, as the corvette had lowered several boats to give chase.

"Hurrah for the saucy 'Polly!'" shouted Paul, as he and Dick now trained the gun upon the leading boat; but at that moment they turned the sharp headland of the rocky island, and both the corvette and her boats were obscured from their view.

It was blowing hard, but the water in the bay was perfectly smooth, as the wind was directly off the shore, and the "Polly" flew like a race- horse toward the open sea. In a few minutes she passed the last headland, and rushed at foaming speed over the long swell of the Atlantic. With the gale fairly on her quarter, there was nothing that could touch the "Polly." There was no fear of a chase, although the heavy booming of the alarm-guns could still be heard in the distance.

Three Frenchmen had been killed in the fight, and their bodies, which now lay on deck, were thrown overboard; two were prisoners down below; the remainder of the crew had escaped by jumping overboard, with the exception of the treacherous Captain Dupuis, who had sunk when knocked down by Paul.

Dick Stone was now at the helm; his pipe was well alight; and could his features have been distinguished in the dark they would be seen to wear an unusually cheerful expression as he said to Paul, "It wouldn't have been purlite of us to leave the Mounseers without a salute, and without my pipe we couldn't have fired the gun. It's a wonderful thing is a pipe! Ain't it, captain?"

"Nor'-nor'-east is the course, Dick," replied Paul, who was at that moment thinking of his wife, and the happiness it would be to meet her on the following day; at the same time he was anxious lest any misfortune should have occurred during his long absence.

"Nor'-nor-east it is, captain," replied Dick, with a sailor's promptitude; "but I can't help larfing when I think of Captain Doopwee, who has put a cargo on board the 'Polly' all for nothing, and has got knocked on the head into the bargain. Well, sarve him right, sarve him right," continued Dick, musingly; "he was a, very purlite varmint, too purlite to be honest, by a long chalk." After this curt biographical memoir of the late Captain Dupuis, Dick Stone applied himself to his pipe and kept the "Polly's" course N.N.E.

While Paul and Dick Stone were upon deck Léontine was lying upon a cot within the cabin. The excitement of the day had nearly worn her out, and despite the uneasy movement of the vessel, which tried her more severely than any danger, she fell asleep in the uniform of a private in the French chasseurs, and she dreamed happily that her brother Victor was released.

STORIES OF THE CREATION

THE GREEK AND ROMAN MYTH

Almost every ancient or primitive people makes an attempt to explain how the world and human beings came into existence. They all take it for granted that things did not simply "happen," but that some being with intelligence had a hand in the making of things. Accounts as told by various peoples are here given.

There were various stories of the creation told by the Greeks and Romans, but the accounts differed only in detail. Most of the Greeks believed that there was a time when the earth and the sea and the sky did not exist. All the elements of which they are made existed, but were jumbled together in a confused mass, which was called Chaos. Over this Chaos ruled the deities Erebus or Darkness, and Nox or Night, although it would seem that there could not have been much need of rulers. Strangely enough, the children of this gloomy pair were Aether and Hemera, who stood for Light and Day, and they felt that if they were to become rulers, they wanted a more cheerful realm than Chaos seemed to be. With the help of Eros (Love), they created Gaea (The Earth), Uranus (The Sky), and Pontus (The Sea). Uranus married Gaea, and before long these two took the power from Aether and Hemera and reigned in their stead. To this god and goddess were born twelve children--six sons and six daughters--who were known as Titans. As they were of gigantic size and were extremely strong, their father feared that they might treat him as he had treated Aether, and to prevent this he shut them up in an underground cavern.

Naturally Gaea was not pleased with this treatment of her children, so she helped Saturn, the youngest of the Titans, to escape, and gave him a scythe with which he might revenge himself on his father.

After defeating Uranus, Saturn released all his brothers and sisters, and made them swear to be faithful to him as the new ruler. He then chose as his queen Rhea, a goddess who was both good and beautiful, and began his reign in happiness.

When his first child was born, however, Saturn remembered that Uranus had foretold his overthrow by one of his own children, and to prevent such a disaster he did a very strange and heartless thing---he swallowed his new-born son. Five children he got rid of in this manner, but when the sixth, Jupiter, was born, Rhea resolved to save him. She therefore wrapped up a stone and gave it to her husband instead of the child, and he, suspecting nothing, swallowed it. The young god grew up in concealment, and very rapidly he grew, for when he was but a year old he was strong enough to make successful war on his father and to take the supreme power from him. And then, strangest thing of all, he forced Saturn to disgorge all the children he had swallowed.

Either because he was generous or because he thought his kingdom was too great for him, Jupiter divided it with his brothers, Neptune and Pluto, but he himself remained supreme.

The gods themselves dwelt not on the earth, but above the top of Olympus, a mountain peak of Greece; and thus the entire Earth was uninhabited. However, it was not allowed to remain so, for Jupiter appointed Prometheus, a Titan, who had helped him in his war against Saturn, to make an inhabitant for the Earth. Prometheus accordingly moulded a man out of clay, and taking him before the gods, persuaded each one to bestow upon him some gift. A woman was made later, and from these two were descended all the peoples of the earth.

THE NORSE MYTH

As the Norse peoples, in their land which for so large a part of the year was ice-bound, dreaded the long, hard winter, and looked forward to the blessings brought by the summer, they imagined that the evil forces in the world worked through cold and darkness, the good forces through warmth and light. Thus they feared and hated the "frost giants," while they loved and reverenced the gods, whom they pictured as living in a world of brightness and warmth.

According to the Norse religion, or mythology, the world began in a contest between heat and cold. At first there was no earth; nothing existed except the yawning abyss, Ginungagap, which separated the world, or spacer, of mist and cold and darkness, on the north, from the world of fire and brightness, on the south. The mist world was called Niflheim; the fire world, Muspelheim. From a great fountain in the mist world there sprang twelve rivers, which after flowing far from their source tumbled their waters into the Ginungagap. Here the water was all turned to ice, with which in time the huge abyss was filled. Sparks and warm winds from Muspelheim, coming into contact with this ice, melted it, so that there hung always over the ice chasm a dense vapor. This, in turn, gradually took shape, and formed the giant Ymir and the cow Audhumbla; and for a season these were the only two creatures in all the expanse of space. Ymir fed upon the cow's milk, and she, in turn, got what nourishment she could by licking the salt and the hoarfrost from the ice.

One day as the cow licked a huge ice block, there appeared the hair of some being, and as she remained persistently at the same lump, within a short time she had set free a beautiful, strong god--the god Bori. Bori was the ancestor of all the gods, as Ymir was the ancestor of all the giants; and since the gods were as good as the frost giants were evil, it was plain enough to both that they could not live together.

The struggle between the races lasted for ages on ages, but finally Odin, Vili and Ve, the grandsons of Bori, succeeded in putting to death Ymir, the greatest and worst of the giants. And in killing him they accomplished much more than they expected; for from his wounds the blood gushed in such streams that it drowned all the wicked giants except Bergelmir and his wife, who saved themselves in a boat. Had they, too, but died, there would have been, to the end of time, no giants to trouble the gods; but their descendants kept up from Jotunheim, their home at the end of the world, their plots and warrings against the gods.

Odin, who was from the first the wisest and strongest of the gods, gazed upon the huge corpse of the slain giant, and then called the other gods about him.

"We cannot waste," he said, "the body of this giant. Where is the use of our power and wisdom if we cannot, out of this evil thing, make something good and beautiful?"

Eagerly the gods set to work. It was by far the most interesting task they had ever been called upon to perform, and right well they performed it. In the exact center of the ice abyss they formed, of Ymir's flesh, the earth, and about it and through it they caused his blood to flow, as the sea, the rivers and the lakes. Of his teeth they made steep cliffs to front the sea, and of his bones they formed mountains and hills. His curly hair became grass and trees and flowers, and his eyebrows were set about the new earth as a high fence, to keep out the revengeful giants. Then, taking up the great skull, the gods set it over the earth to form the arch of the heavens, while the brains that it had contained they scattered about as clouds.

No wonder the gods were pleased with their work! But Odin saw that there was one thing lacking.

"Were we ourselves to dwell on this new created earth," he said, "it would be well; for to a god's eyes all things are clear. But those whom we shall fashion to inhabit it shall see with other eyes than ours, and lights will be needed--lights for day, and lights for night."

This was comparatively easy, after the work that had already been performed. All the gods set to work catching sparks from Muspelheim, and there was great rivalry as to which one should collect most. Some of the sparks were scattered through the sky as stars, but the brightest ones were put aside and kept for a greater purposes. When enough had been gathered, the gods made from the whitely glowing ones the moon; from the fiery red and golden ones, the sun. These lights they placed in chariots, to which were harnessed swift, tireless steeds; but it was evident to all that the steeds could not be trusted to take the chariots across the sky unguided. Feeling that they could not spare two of their own number for this work, the gods chose Sol (sun) and Mani (moon), the daughter and son of a giant, who had named his children after the new lights because of their beauty. The young drivers were given instructions as to just the hours when they must begin their journeys across the sky, as to how rapidly they must drive, and as to the paths they must take; and never did the gods find reason to be dissatisfied with the work of Sol and Mani.

Then two more chariots were made. To one was harnessed a black horse, named Hrimfaxi, whose mane dropped hoarfrost and whose bit scattered dew; while to the other was fastened the beautiful silver-white steed Skinfaxi, from whose shining mane beams of light were shed through all the earth. The giantess Night was entrusted with the first of these chariots, while the young god Day was made the driver of the other. Each was told to drive about the earth once each twenty-four hours.

The gods could make all these beautiful things, but they could not keep the giants from making ugly and evil things; and so there were two fierce wolves, set on by the giants, who constantly chased the sun and moon across the sky, attempting to catch and devour them. Occasionally one of these wolves would overtake his prey, and would start to swallow it, thus producing what was known on earth as an eclipse. But always, in some way or other, they were frightened away before the light of the heavens was utterly destroyed. When the gods had expressed their pleasure in all that had so far been done, Odin said, "Where shall we fix our own dwelling? Beyond the earth, beyond the ocean, live the giants; but neither on the earth, nor in the earth, nor above the earth s there any living thing." "You mistake, Father Odin," cried one of his sons. "If you but look down, you will see that within the earth are many living things."

All the gods looked down, and there, sure enough, were innumerable little creatures crawling in and out of the earth. They had been bred by the earth, and were little better than maggots; but the gods gave them a form which somewhat resembled that of the gods themselves, though smaller, and gave them intelligence and wonderful strength. Some of the new little creatures were ugly and dark and deformed; these the gods called gnomes or dwarfs, and to them they gave homes underground, with power over all that was hidden in the earth. But for the beautiful, fair creatures whom they called elves and fairies, the gods made a home somewhat above the earth, where they might live always among flowers and birds and butterflies.

"And now," said Odin, "let us build our own home in the heavens, above that of the fairies. This green earth which we have made we shall reserve for a race to be, which shall be our especial care."

Far in the blue heavens, therefore, above the mountain tops, above the clouds, was built the wonderful city of Asgard, home of the gods. In the center was the palace Gladsheim, of pure gold, within whose precious hall there were set golden thrones for all the gods. Odin had, too, a great palace of his own, called Valhalla, and each god and each goddess had a home built of precious metals and adorned with gleaming stones.

Then, last of all, Father Odin turned his thoughts to the making of man. With two of his brother gods he walked, one day, on the seashore in the beautiful empty earth which they had made; and suddenly he saw at his feet the trunks of two trees, an ash and an elm.