Part 19

Michel hesitated for a moment before this extraordinary proposal. At last he did so, and Peyrol, holding the bereaved fisherman’s hand in a powerful grip, said:

“If I had gone away by myself, I would have left you marooned on this earth like a man thrown out to die on a desert island.” Some dim perception of the solemnity of the occasion seemed to enter Michel’s primitive brain. He connected Peyrol’s words with the sense of his own insignificant position at the tail of all mankind, and, timidly, he murmured with his clear, innocent glance unclouded, the fundamental axiom of his philosophy:

“Somebody must be last in this world.”

“Well, then, you will have to forgive me all that may happen between this and the hour of sunset.”

The tartane, obeying the helm, fell off before the wind, with her head to the eastward.

Peyrol murmured: “She has not forgotten how to walk the seas.” His unsubdued heart, heavy for so many days, had a moment of buoyancy--the illusion of immense freedom.

At that moment Réal, amazed at finding no tartane in the basin, was running madly towards the cove, where he was sure Peyrol must be waiting to give her up to him. He ran out on to the very rock on which Peyrol’s late prisoner had sat after his escape, too tired to care, yet cheered by the hope of liberty. But Réal was in a worse plight. He could see no shadowy form through the thin veil of rain which pitted the sheltered piece of water framed in the rocks. The little craft had been spirited away. Impossible! There must be something wrong with his eyes! Again the barren hillsides echoed the name of “Peyrol,” shouted with all the force of Réal’s lungs. He shouted it only once, and about five minutes afterwards appeared at the kitchen door, panting, streaming with water as if he had fought his way up from the bottom of the sea. In the tall-backed armchair Arlette lay, with her limbs relaxed, her head on Catherine’s arm, her face white as death. He saw her open her black eyes, enormous and as if not of this world; he saw old Catherine turn her head, heard a cry of surprise, and saw a sort of struggle beginning between the two women. He screamed at them like a madman: “Peyrol has betrayed me!” and in an instant, with a bang of the door, he was gone.

The rain had ceased. Above his head the unbroken mass of clouds moved to the eastward, and he moved in the same direction, as if he too were driven by the wind up the hillside, towards the lookout. When he reached the spot and, gasping, flung one arm round the trunk of the leaning tree, the only thing he was aware of during the sombre pause in the unrest of the elements was the distracting turmoil of his thoughts. After a moment he perceived through the rain the English ship with her topsails lowered on the caps, forging ahead slowly across the northern entrance of the Petite Passe. His distress fastened insanely on the notion of there being a connection between that enemy ship and Peyrol’s inexplicable conduct. That old man had always meant to go himself! And when a moment after, looking to the southward, he made out the shadow of the tartane coming round the land in the midst of another squall, he muttered to himself a bitter “Of course!” She had both her sails set. Peyrol was indeed pressing her to the utmost in his shameful haste to traffic with the enemy. The truth was that from the position in which Réal first saw him, Peyrol could not yet see the English ship, and held confidently on his course up the middle of the strait. The man-of-war and the little tartane saw each other quite unexpectedly at a distance that was very little over a mile. Peyrol’s heart flew into his mouth at finding himself so close to the enemy. On board the _Amelia_ at first no notice was taken. It was simply a tartane making for shelter on the north side of Porquerolles. But when Peyrol suddenly altered his course, the master of the man-of-war noticing the manœuvre, took up the long glass for a look. Captain Vincent was on deck and agreed with the master’s remark that “there was a craft acting suspiciously.” Before the _Amelia_ could come round in the heavy squall, Peyrol was already under the battery of Porquerolles and, so far, safe from capture. Captain Vincent had no mind to bring his ship within reach of the battery and risk damage in his rigging or hull for the sake of a small coaster. However, the tale brought on board by Symons of his discovery of a hidden craft, of his capture, and his wonderful escape, had made every tartane an object of interest to the whole ship’s company. The _Amelia_ remained hove to in the strait while her officers watched the lateen sails gliding to and fro under the protecting muzzles of the guns. Captain Vincent himself had been impressed by Peyrol’s manœuvre. Coasting craft, as a rule, were not afraid of the _Amelia_. After taking a few turns on the quarter-deck he ordered Symons to be called aft.

The hero of a unique and mysterious adventure, which had been the only subject of talk on board the corvette for the last twenty-four hours, came along rolling, hat in hand, and enjoying a secret sense of his importance.

“Take the glass,” said the captain, “and have a look at that vessel under the land. Is she anything like the tartane that you say you have been aboard of?”

Symons was very positive. “I think I can swear to those painted mastheads, your honour. It is the last thing I remember before that murderous ruffian knocked me senseless. The moon shone on them. I can make them out now with the glass.” As to the fellow boasting to him that the tartane was a dispatch-boat and had already made some trips, well, Symons begged his honour to believe that the beggar was not sober at the time. He did not care what he blurted out. The best proof of his condition was that he went away to fetch the soldiers and forgot to come back. The murderous old ruffian! “You see, you honour,” continued Symons, “he thought I was not likely to escape after getting a blow that would have killed nine out of any ten men. So he went away to boast of what he had done before the people ashore; because one of his chums, worse than himself, came down thinking he would kill me with a dam’ big manure fork, saving your honour’s presence. A regular savage he was.”

Symons paused, staring, as if astonished at the marvels of his own tale. The old master, standing at his captain’s elbow, observed in a dispassionate tone that, anyway, that peninsula was not a bad jumping-off place for a craft intending to slip through the blockade. Symons, not being dismissed, waited, hat in hand, while Captain Vincent directed the master to fill on the ship and stand a little nearer to the battery. It was done, and presently there was a flash of a gun low down on the water’s edge and a shot came skipping in the direction of the _Amelia_. It fell very short, but Captain Vincent judged the ship was close enough, and ordered her to be hove to again. Then Symons was told to take a look through the glass once more. After a long interval he lowered it and spoke impressively to his captain:

“I can make out three heads aboard, your honour, and one is white. I would swear to that white head anywhere.”

Captain Vincent made no answer. All this seemed very odd to him; but after all it was possible. The craft had certainly acted suspiciously. He spoke to the first lieutenant in a half-vexed tone.

“He has done a rather smart thing. He will dodge here till dark and then get away. It is perfectly absurd. I don’t want to send the boats too close to the battery. And if I do he may simply sail away from them and be round the land long before we are ready to give him chase. Darkness will be his best friend. However, we will keep a watch on him in case he is tempted to give us the slip late in the afternoon. In that case we will have a good try to catch him. If he has anything aboard, I should like to get hold of it. It may be of some importance, after all.”

On board the tartane Peyrol put his own interpretation on the ship’s movements. His object had been attained. The corvette had marked him for her prey. Satisfied as to that, Peyrol watched his opportunity and taking advantage of a long squall, with rain thick enough to blur the form of the English ship, he left the shelter of the battery to lead the Englishman a dance and keep up his character of a man anxious to avoid capture.

Réal, from his position on the lookout, saw in the thinning downpour the pointed lateen sails glide round the north end of Porquerolles and vanish behind the land. Some time afterwards the _Amelia_ made sail in a manner that put it beyond doubt that she meant to chase. Her lofty canvas was shut off too presently by the land of Porquerolles. When she had disappeared Réal turned to Arlette.

“Let us go,” he said.

Arlette, stimulated by the short glimpse of Réal at the kitchen door, whom she had taken for a vision of a lost man calling her to follow him to the end of the world, had torn herself out of the old woman’s thin, bony arms which could not cope with the struggles of her body and the fierceness of her spirit. She had run straight to the lookout, though there was nothing to guide her there except a blind impulse to seek Réal wherever he might be. He was not aware of her having found him until she seized hold of his arm with a suddenness, energy and determination of which no one with a clouded mind could have been capable. He felt himself being taken possession of in a way that tore all his scruples out of his breast. Holding on to the trunk of the tree, he threw his other arm round her waist, and when she confessed to him that she did not know why she had run up there, but that if she had not found him she would have thrown herself over the cliff, he tightened his clasp with sudden exultation, as though she had been a gift prayed for instead of a stumbling-block for his pedantic conscience. Together they walked back. In the failing light the buildings awaited them, lifeless, the walls darkened by rain and the big slopes of the roofs glistening and sinister under the flying desolation of the clouds. In the kitchen Catherine heard their mingled footsteps, and rigid in the tall arm-chair awaited their coming. Arlette threw her arms round the old woman’s neck, while Réal stood on one side, looking on. Thought after thought flew through his mind and vanished in the strong feeling of the irrevocable nature of the event handing him to the woman whom, in the revulsion of his feelings, he was inclined to think more sane than himself. Arlette, with one arm over the old woman’s shoulders, kissed the wrinkled forehead under the white band of linen that, on the erect head, had the effect of a rustic diadem.

“To-morrow you and I will have to walk down to the church.”

The austere dignity of Catherine’s pose seemed to be shaken by this proposal to lead before the God with whom she had made her peace long ago that unhappy girl chosen to share in the guilt of impious and unspeakable horrors which had darkened her mind.

Arlette, still stooping over her aunt’s face, extended a hand towards Réal, who, making a step forward, took it silently into his grasp.

“Oh yes, you will, Aunt,” insisted Arlette. “You will have to come with me to pray for Peyrol, whom you and I shall never see any more.”

Catherine’s head dropped, whether in assent or grief; and Réal felt an unexpected and profound emotion, for he, too, was convinced that none of the three persons in the farm would ever see Peyrol again. It was as though the rover of the wide seas had left them to themselves on a sudden impulse of scorn, of magnanimity, of a passion weary of itself. However come by, Réal was ready to clasp for ever to his breast that woman touched by the red hand of the Revolution; for she, whose little feet had run ankle-deep through the terrors of death, had brought to him the sense of triumphant life.

XVI

Astern of the tartane, the sun, about to set, kindled a streak of dull crimson glow between the darkening sea and the overcast sky. The peninsula of Giens and the islands of Hyères formed one mass of land detaching itself very black against the fiery girdle of the horizon; but to the north the long stretch of the Alpine coast continued beyond sight its endless sinuosities under the stooping clouds.

The tartane seemed to be rushing together with the run of the waves into the arms of the oncoming night. A little more than a mile away on her lee quarter, the _Amelia_, under all plain sail, pressed to the end of the chase. It had lasted now for a good many hours, for Peyrol, when slipping away, had managed to get the advantage of the _Amelia_ from the very start. While still within the large sheet of smooth water which is called the Hyères Roadstead, the tartane, which was really a craft of extraordinary speed, managed to gain positively on the sloop. Afterwards, by suddenly darting down the eastern passage between the two last islands of the group, Peyrol actually got out of sight of the chasing ship, being hidden by the Ile du Levant for a time. The _Amelia_, having to tack twice in order to follow, lost ground once more. Emerging into the open sea, she had to tack again, and then the position became that of a stern chase, which proverbially is known as a long chase. Peyrol’s skilful seamanship had twice extracted from Captain Vincent a low murmur accompanied by a significant compression of lips. At one time the _Amelia_ had been near enough the tartane to send a shot ahead of her. That one was followed by another, which whizzed extraordinarily close to the mastheads, but then Captain Vincent ordered the gun to be secured again. He said to his first lieutenant, who, his speaking-trumpet in hand, kept at his elbow: “We must not sink that craft on any account. If we could get only an hour’s calm, we would carry her with the boats.”

The lieutenant remarked that there was no hope of a calm for the next twenty-four hours at least.

“No,” said Captain Vincent, “and in about an hour it will be dark, and then he may very well give us the slip. The coast is not very far off and there are batteries on both sides of Fréjus, under any of which he will be as safe from capture as though he were hove up on the beach. And look,” he exclaimed after a moment’s pause, “this is what the fellow means to do.”

“Yes, sir,” said the lieutenant, keeping his eyes on the white speck ahead, dancing lightly on the short Mediterranean waves, “he is keeping off the wind.”

“We will have him in less than an hour,” said Captain Vincent, and made as if he meant to rub his hands, but suddenly leaned his elbow on the rail. “After all,” he went on, “properly speaking, it is a race between the _Amelia_ and the night.”

“And it will be dark early to-day,” said the first lieutenant, swinging the speaking-trumpet by its lanyard. “Shall we take the yards off the backstays, sir?”

“No,” said Captain Vincent. “There is a clever seaman aboard that tartane. He is running off now, but at any time he may haul up again. We must not follow him too closely, or we shall lose the advantage which we have now. That man is determined on making his escape.”

If those words by some miracle could have been carried to the ears of Peyrol, they would have brought to his lips a smile of malicious and triumphant exultation. Ever since he had laid his hand on the tiller of the tartane every faculty of his resourcefulness and seamanship had been bent on deceiving the English captain, that enemy whom he had never seen, the man whose mind he had constructed for himself from the evolutions of his ship. Leaning against the heavy tiller he addressed Michel, breaking the silence of the strenuous afternoon.

“This is the moment,” his deep voice uttered quietly. “Ease off the mainsheet, Michel. A little now, only.”

When Michel returned to the place where he had been sitting to windward, the rover noticed his eyes fixed on his face wonderingly. Some vague thoughts had been forming themselves slowly, incompletely, in Michel’s brain. Peyrol met the utter innocence of the unspoken inquiry with a smile that, beginning sardonically on his manly and sensitive mouth, ended in something resembling tenderness.

“That’s so, camarade,” he said with particular stress and intonation, as if those words contained a full and sufficient answer. Most unexpectedly Michel’s round and generally staring eyes blinked, as if dazzled. He too produced from somewhere in the depths of his being a queer, misty smile from which Peyrol averted his gaze.

“Where is the citizen?” he asked, bearing hard against the tiller and staring straight ahead. “He isn’t gone overboard, is he? I don’t seem to have seen him since we rounded the land near Porquerolles Castle.”

Michel, after craning his head forward to look over the edge of the deck, announced that Scevola was sitting on the keelson.

“Go forward,” said Peyrol, “and ease off the foresheet now a little. This tartane has wings,” he added to himself.

Alone on the after-deck Peyrol turned his head to look at the _Amelia_. That ship, in consequence of holding her wind, was now crossing obliquely the wake of the tartane. At the same time she had diminished the distance. Nevertheless, Peyrol considered that had he really meant to escape, his chances were as eight to ten--practically an assured success. For a long time he had been contemplating the lofty pyramid of canvas towering against the fading red belt on the sky, when a lamentable groan made him look round. It was Scevola. The citizen had adopted the mode of progression on all fours, and while Peyrol looked at him he rolled to leeward, saved himself rather cleverly from going overboard, and holding on desperately to a cleat, shouted in a hollow voice, pointing with the other hand as if he had made a tremendous discovery: “La terre! La terre!”

“Certainly,” said Peyrol, steering with extreme nicety. “What of that?”

“I don’t want to be drowned!” cried the citizen in his new hollow voice. Peyrol reflected a bit before he spoke in a serious tone:

“If you stay where you are, I assure you that you will ...” he glanced rapidly over his shoulder at the _Amelia_ ... “not die by drowning.” He jerked his head sideways. “I know that man’s mind.”

“What man? Whose mind?” yelled Scevola with intense eagerness and bewilderment. “We are only three on board.”

But Peyrol’s mind was contemplating maliciously the figure of a man with long teeth, in a wig and with large buckles to his shoes. Such was his ideal conception of what the captain of the _Amelia_ ought to look like. That officer, whose naturally good-humoured face wore then a look of severe resolution, had beckoned his first lieutenant to his side again.

“We are gaining,” he said quietly. “I intend to close with him to windward. We won’t risk any of his tricks. It is very difficult to outmanœuvre a Frenchman, as you know. Send a few armed marines on the forecastle ahead. I am afraid the only way to get hold of this tartane is to disable the men on board of her. I wish to goodness I could think of some other. When we close with her, let the marines fire a well-aimed volley. You must get some marines to stand by aft as well. I hope we may shoot away his halliards; once his sails are down on his deck he is ours for the trouble of putting a boat over the side.”

For more than half an hour Captain Vincent stood silent, elbow on rail, keeping his eye on the tartane, while on board the latter Peyrol steered silent and watchful but intensely conscious of the enemy ship holding on in her relentless pursuit. The narrow red band was dying out of the sky. The French coast, black against the fading light, merged into the shadows gathering in the eastern board. Citizen Scevola, somewhat soothed by the assurance that he would not die by drowning, had elected to remain quiet where he had fallen, not daring to trust himself to move on the lively deck. Michel, squatting to windward, gazed intently at Peyrol in expectation of some order at any minute. But Peyrol uttered no word and made no sign. From time to time a burst of foam flew over the tartane, or a splash of water would come aboard with a scurrying noise.

It was not till the corvette had got within a long gunshot from the tartane that Peyrol opened his mouth.

“No!” he burst out, loud in the wind, as if giving vent to long anxious thinking, “no! I could not have left you behind with not even a dog for company. Devil take me if I don’t think you would not have thanked me for it either. What do you say to that, Michel?”

A half-puzzled smile dwelt persistently on the guileless countenance of the ex-fisherman. He stated what he had always thought in respect of Peyrol’s every remark: “I think you are right, maître.”

“Listen then, Michel. That ship will be alongside of us in less than half an hour. As she comes up they will open on us with musketry.”

“They will open on us ...” repeated Michel, looking quite interested. “But how do you know they will do that, maître?”

“Because her captain has got to obey what is in my mind,” said Peyrol, in a tone of positive and solemn conviction. “He will do it as sure as if I were at his ear telling him what to do. He will do it because he is a first-rate seaman, but I, Michel, I am just a little bit cleverer than he.” He glanced over his shoulder at the _Amelia_ rushing after the tartane with swelling sails, and raised his voice suddenly. “He will do it because no more than half a mile ahead of us is the spot where Peyrol will die!”

Michel did not start. He only shut his eyes for a time, and the rover continued in a lower tone:

“I may be shot through the heart at once,” he said; “and in that case you have my permission to let go the halliards if you are alive yourself. But if I live I mean to put the helm down. When I do that you will let go the foresheet to help the tartane to fly into the wind’s eye. This is my last order to you. Now go forward and fear nothing. Adieu.” Michel obeyed without a word.

Half a dozen of the _Amelia’s_ marines stood ranged on the forecastle-head ready with their muskets. Captain Vincent walked into the lee waist to watch his chase. When he thought that the jibboom of the _Amelia_ had drawn level with the stern of the tartane he waved his hat and the marines discharged their muskets. Apparently no gear was cut. Captain Vincent observed the white-headed man, who was steering, clap his hand to his left side, while he hove the tiller to leeward and brought the tartane sharply into the wind. The marines on the poop fired in their turn, all the reports merging into one. Voices were heard on the decks crying that they “had hit the white-haired chap.” Captain Vincent shouted to the master:

“Get the ship round on the other tack.”

The elderly seaman who was the master of the _Amelia_ took a critical look before he gave the necessary orders; and the _Amelia_ closed on her chase with her decks resounding to the piping of boatswain’s mates and the hoarse shout: “Hands shorten sail. About ship.”