CHAPTER VII.

CHASING LA BELLE ROSE.

It was broad day when Captain Ducie awoke. Even before his eyes were open, or he was conscious of where he was, there was upon him the overwhelming sense of some great calamity.

His gaze wandered round the familiar room, and as it did so, he asked himself what it was that had befallen him.

Before he had time to consider the question, or even to answer it, a great shock went through his heart, and with a loud cry he sprang from his bed on to the floor.

"The Diamond!"

He felt for it. It was gone. Even before his fingers had time to touch the sealskin pouch his instinct told him that it was not there. He turned as white as a man at the point of death, and sank into a chair with a deep groan. His chin dropped on his breast, and two great tears rolled slowly from his eyes and fell to the ground.

A disarrangement of the carpet attracted his eye. It had been turned back for the space of a yard or so, leaving the boards bare. On this bare patch was a tiny cone of white ash.

Ducie's suspicions were aroused in a moment. He stooped and took up a pinch of the ash and smelt at it. It emitted a faint odour, similar to that more powerful odour which had overcome him so strangely in the course of the night.

No recollection of his dream, or of that still more singular vision in which Cleon had acted so prominent a part, had touched his memory since waking. But now, by one of those peculiar mental processes with which all of us are familiar, although we may not be able to explain them, the faint perfume that still pervaded the ash he had taken up between his fingers brought vividly back to his recollection every scene, real and imaginary, in which he had acted a part during his sleeping hours.

The five of clubs and his game of cards with the Memphian statue--he remembered that, and he at once put it aside as nothing more than a dream of a somewhat bizarre character. After that, the strange odour that filled his room, precisely similar to that of the ash in his hand; the sudden apparition of Cleon; the dagger, and the rape of the Diamond: were those things dreams or realities? Dreams, nothing but idle dreams, he should have replied at any other time, but with the sense of his irreparable loss eating into his very soul, he could only acknowledge that for him they made up a bitter reality.

Cleon had been there in person, and had succeeded in stealing the Diamond.

With a terrible string of imprecations on the mulatto's head, Ducie flung open the casement, and let in the sweet morning air. There were two more tiny cones of white ash, similar to the first, on other parts of the floor.

"That fiend of a mulatto has obtained access to my room," muttered Ducie to himself. "The powerful odour which had such a strange effect upon me must have been emitted by the pastilles, the ashes of which are before me. The pastilles were doubtless compounded of some strong narcotics, probably of certain Oriental drugs with the qualities of which Cleon was acquainted. I have been the victim of an infernal plot."

That Cleon had been there could not be doubted; but where was he now? Ducie halted in his troubled walk as this question put itself to him, and turned to examine the door. It was unbolted, but otherwise shut. His custom was to bolt it every night before getting into bed; but did he really bolt it last night? He could not recollect. Considering the state in which he was when he came to bed, was not the probability in favour of his having left it unfastened? In any case, that was now a point of little consequence. The Diamond was gone, and Cleon was doubtless gone with it. The mulatto was not such a fool as to remain in the neighbourhood of a man whom he had mortally offended, especially when his interests imperatively demanded that he should get safely away. Between him and Ducie the case was now one of life and death.

A fresh thought struck him and he turned to look at his watch. It was a quarter past six. The Southampton boat did not sail till a quarter to seven. Was it not most probable that Cleon, calculating on his, Ducie's, not awaking till after that time, would attempt to leave the island by the early boat? It was most probable that he would do so. "But if he leaves Jersey, I leave it with him," murmured the captain. "I shall certainly kill him the first opportunity I have of doing so."

Captain Ducie's window commanded a view of that end of the pier from which the steamer started. He could see a knot of passengers and their luggage already assembled. It was hardly likely that the mulatto would be one of the lot, still Ducie thought that he might as well satisfy himself on that point. On his dressing-table was a very powerful field-glass. Ducie took it up and directed it full on the clump of people at the end of the pier. His eye ranged over the component parts one by one, but no Cleon was to be seen. He was hardly disappointed, because he had not expected to find the mulatto there. Before putting down the glass, with an instinct that to him was like second nature, he swept the horizon of sky and sea with it. Elizabeth Castle and the whole expanse of St. Aubin's Bay were visible to him. The morning was clear--deceitfully clear--and Ducie's experienced eye told him that a change of weather was at hand. Coming back from the horizon his eye took in the features nearer home. One or two pair-oar boats were paddling lazily about just outside the harbour. Beyond them were three or four sailing boats with their white wings outspread to catch the light and fickle breeze which seemed this morning as if it could not make up its mind to blow steadily from one point for more than five minutes at a time. The outermost of the sailing boats was tacking out of the harbour with every inch of its tiny sails spread to catch the wind. In this boat were three men, two of them sailors, the third evidently a passenger, probably some visitor to the island going out on a fishing excursion. Such would have been Ducie's natural conclusion had he cared to think about the matter at all. The boat came for a moment within the range of his glass, and in that moment one of the three men turned his head as if to see what progress had been made from land. He turned his head and Ducie gave a start and a cry. The man who had looked back was none other than the mulatto.

One more steady look at the boat and its occupants and then Captain Ducie went on dressing with all speed. He understood the case in a moment. Cleon would not venture to leave the island by the steamer, fearing, probably, that she might be boarded by Ducie before leaving. His plan had been to hire a smack to take him either to the French coast or to Guernsey, and had it not happened to be dead low water about the time he ought to have got away, and the boats to be all lying high and dry in the harbour, two facts which had probably never entered into his calculations, he would have been a dozen miles from St. Helier by this time, and might have set pursuit at defiance.

In five minutes Captain Ducie was ready to start. His field-glass was slung over his shoulder. In one pocket of his gray shooting-jacket he carried a Colt's revolver, and in the other a flask containing brandy, and a few biscuits.

"Unless I am greatly mistaken," muttered Ducie to himself as he made his way with rapid strides towards the basin, "my friend Martin's little _Demoiselle_ will outsail yonder clumsy craft on a light wind, in which case Mr. Cleon and I may have an earlier reckoning than he dreams of."

Captain Ducie was fortunate enough to find his friend Martin smoking an early pipe by the edge of the basin, and watching his tiny craft with a loving eye as she curtsied lightly to the incoming tide. Martin was a handsome stalwart young fellow whose ancestors for five hundred years back had followed the same occupation in the same place. Ducie had employed him several times on fishing excursions, and the two were sufficiently well known to each other. His boat, _La Demoiselle_, was famed, in the hands of her master, as being one of the fleetest little craft on the island.

A few words sufficed to let Martin understand what was required of him, and three minutes later the Demoiselle with outspread wings was skimming saucily over the crests of the tide in pursuit of the other boat, which Martin pronounced to be the _Belle Rose_. Martin's assistant had been left behind in order that the _Demoiselle_ might sail as lightly as possible, Ducie himself engaging to assist in working the little craft.

_La Belle Rose_ had got a clear half-hour's start, and was working out nearly due south, that being her best tack for sailing as the wind then was. "She'll take a turn sou'east before another ten minutes is over," said Martin. "You see, sir, if she don't; and then she'll make straight for the Normandy coast."

"Martin," said Captain Ducie impressively, "on board yonder boat is a man who has robbed me of that which was of more importance to me than all else in the world."

"Master!" exclaimed Martin, in surprise.

"What I say is true. Now, listen. I want my revenge--as you would want yours were you in my place--eh?"

Martin nodded his head gravely, and drew a knife in pantomime.

"Consequently," resumed Ducie, "I want you to catch _La Belle Rose_. She has got a long start. Can you come up with her?"

"Master, I will try. The _Demoiselle_ has never failed me yet when I've put her to the proof, and I don't think she will fail me to-day. We must steer more easterly, and not as if we were following the other boat; and then when she tacks, as she must do soon, we shall have gained a full half mile on her."

Ducie was steering, and he saw that by following the sailor's advice, the _Demoiselle_ would cut off a large slice of the angle which must necessarily be made by the _Belle Rose_ before she could touch the nearest part of the French coast. Besides which, such a course would divert suspicion from their real intentions, and in a stern chase that goes for something.

Ducie lighted a cigar, and passed his flask forward to the young sailor. "We shall have rain and more wind, sir, before the day is three hours older," said the latter.

"So much the better," answered Ducie, quietly. "A gloomy deed should have a gloomy day. Martin! either the man in yonder boat or I will never see another sunrise. Perhaps neither of us may."

The young sailor gave his companion a look that was not unmixed with admiration. There was something that touched his wild notions of Justice in the idea of a man being his own Avenger.

Captain Ducie really meant what he said. He was thoroughly impressed with the belief that either for himself or Cleon that would be the last of earthly days. There was an element of gloom at the bottom of his nature--a dark abyss that had never been thoroughly sounded till a few hours ago. But the loss of his Diamond, preceded as it was by the unaccountable desertion of Mirpah Van Loal--Love and Fortune both gone in a few short hours--had served to raise a demon in his soul of which he had heretofore been thoroughly master. Now it mastered him, and he gave himself up to it without a struggle. But the grand calm of a thoroughbred Englishman did not desert him even now. The young sailor discerned no change in him from the Captain Ducie who had gone out fishing but four days before, save, perhaps, that his eyebrows seemed to come down a shade lower, and that the eyes themselves were a shade darker, and that his voice was somewhat graver than common. Otherwise there was no outward sign to tell of the change within, and yet Jean Martin had an instinctive sense that he had a desperate man aboard his tiny craft--one determined to carry out his own will to the end, however terrible that end might be.

Captain Ducie sat in the stern and steered the _Demoiselle_, taking the word occasionally from Jean Martin. His glass was beside him, and now and then he took a peep at the chase. The different tacks on which the two boats were steering would have seemed, in a landsman's eye, to be hopelessly widening the distance between them, but when the _Belle Rose_ suddenly yawed round and began to steer nearly due east of her previous course, Ducie saw the wisdom of Martin's advice. The two boats had, so to speak, been sailing down the opposite sides of a triangle. The Belle Rose had completed her side, and having turned the corner, was now sailing along the line of the base. But before she could reach the opposite end of the base, she would be intercepted by the _Demoiselle_.

Up to this time the progress of the _Demoiselle_. seemed to have been unheeded by the people in the _Belle Rose_. But as soon as it became evident to those in the latter that the two boats were rapidly nearing, and must in a few minutes cross each other's line within speaking distance, a slight commotion was visible on board the _Belle Rose_. Suddenly Martin, who had Ducie's glass to his eye, cried out, "They are getting suspicious of us. They are taking stock of us through their glasses--and--no--yes, by the nightcap of St. Jaques! there's a black man on board the _Belle Rose!_"

"He is the man of whom I am in pursuit," said Ducie, from the stern. Then he added:

"Keep your eye on them, Martin. Watch every movement, and tell me all you see."

"They have not seen your face yet, master, and they seem easier in their minds. But the black man keeps his glass to his eye. Ah, thief! scélérat! Jean Martin would like to have his fingers round your throat! Do you wish me to run close up to the _Belle Rose_, master? In five minutes you may, if you like, have you black hound in your grip."

"Come you to the tiller now, Martin, and steer to within twenty yards of the _Belle Rose_, but no nearer unless I tell you."

So the two men changed places, and Ducie went forward with the glass in his hand. Cleon on his side was watching every movement on board the _Demoiselle_. Up to the present time the person of Captain Ducie had been in great part hidden by the sail, but now that he came forward he was plainly visible. The moment Cleon's glass showed him that stern pale face, he fell back on his seat with an exclamation of terror, and seemed for a moment or two like one utterly paralysed. But the mulatto was by no means deficient in a sort of dogged animal courage, and the extremity of his peril left him no time for anything but immediate action. The two boats were now within fifty yards of each other, the _Demoiselle_ bearing down like an arrow on the track of the _Belle Rose_. The mulatto took one more peep through his glass at Ducie. In the hand of the latter was an ugly-looking revolver.

Cleon could not doubt for what purpose it was intended, and he was too well acquainted with Ducie's undoubted skill with the weapon, having seen him practice with it several times at Bon Repos, not to know that his chance of life would hang on the merest thread if Ducie were once to pull the trigger. One look at the revolver was sufficient. Cleon spoke to the man at the tiller. The course of the boat was at once altered. The sail lost its wind, flapped for a moment or two against the mast like the broken wing of a bird, then caught the breeze on the opposite tack, and the Belle Rose coming sharply round through the hissing water turned her nose nearly due west and began to retrace the way she had come. Captain Ducie smiled grimly. "If the cur thinks to escape me by going back to St. Helier and claiming the protection of the law, he will find himself mistaken. I will shoot him through the heart the moment his foot touches the pier."

Straight as a hawk after its quarry the _Demoiselle_ at once followed up in the wake of the other boat. The _Demoiselle_ had still some canvas to spare, and had she spread it, could easily have come up with the _Belle Rose_. But it was not Ducie's aim to do so.

Somewhat to Ducie's surprise, the _Belle Rose_ instead of turning northward and so making for the harbour of St. Helier, kept on her westerly course, and shot clean past the entrance, and so kept on till Elizabeth Castle was passed on the right, and both the boats found themselves skirting the outer edge of St. Aubin's Bay and Normont Point could be seen stretching out a rocky hand as if to bar their way. Ducie was puzzled, but said nothing. Could it be the mulatto's intention to skirt the western side of the island and make for Guernsey? But he would be no better off there than at Jersey. He, Ducie, would follow him to the very gates of Perdition.

Martin's prediction had been verified. By this time the morning had clouded over, the wind was freshening, and a light drizzling rain had begun to fall. It would be no pleasant voyage, truly, on such a day to cross the thirty miles of broken water between the two islands, and in so frail a craft. But what the _Belle Rose_ dared do, that also dared the _Demoiselle_.

Normont Point was quickly passed, and soon St. Brelade's romantic Bay opened into view. Martin still steered, and Ducie still crouched like a wary sentinel in the fore part of the boat. The mulatto was no longer to be seen. He had probably stretched himself out at the bottom of the boat, dreading lest Ducie might take it into his head to fire. Why Ducie had not already fired was probably a source of surprise to him.

La Moye Point which shuts in St. Brelade's Bay on the west, was neared and passed, and there, no great distance away, were the dread Corbière rocks wading out into the sea to entrap unwary mariners, smitten by the great waves and shrouding themselves in clouds of showy spray. And now the head of the _Belle Rose_ was turned northward, as if she were about to make for the shore. Ducie saw that the mulatto was about to take one of two courses: either to run full on the beach and so try to lose his pursuer among the rocks and caves which abound on that part of the island or else to run his boat through some of the narrow and dangerous passages between the Corbières, on the chance of the _Demoiselle_ not venturing to follow, and so gain sufficient headway by means of the short cut to render further pursuit hopeless. Ducie smiled to himself to think how futile the mulatto's efforts would be in either case.

It soon appeared that the hunted man had decided to take to the land as affording the best chance of escape. Close by was a small sandy nook that was sheltered between two protruding spurs of rock from the full swing of the tide. Into this tiny cove the _Belle Rose_ shot with furled sail, and before her keel had fairly touched the sand, the mulatto was out of the boat and scrambling up the shelving beach with the agility of a tiger cat. He just passed out of sight behind a broken fragment of rock as the _Demoiselle_ shot round the spur and followed the _Belle Rose_ into the little bay. Ducie pressed two sovereigns into the palm of Jean Martin and then leaped ashore. Cleon's footprints were plainly visible in the soft sand, and he followed them up with the instinct of a bloodhound.