Across the Salt Seas
- -
- 100%
- +
And still, as I reflected over this, there was one other thing in connection with him which also came back to me; his words, to wit, that there were even worse things than shot or steel or death to cloud a brave man's career-that many a soldier had gone down before worse than these. And I knew now against what he had intended to warn me-against the woman now lying here sore stricken, the woman whom I loved and worshipped, the one who had been to me as faithful as a dog.
"So be it," I said to myself, "so be it. If I am to become bankrupt and shipwrecked through my love for her, I must be. Henceforth she is all in all to me, and there is nothing else in my life. Yet, up to now, the admiral's warning has been but little realised-I owe no ruin to her, but, rather, salvation."
For I could not but recall that 'twas through her that any loophole of escape had come to me in the prison of Lugo; to her unhappy father that I owed, if Morales had spoken true, the absolute escape itself.
Even as I sat there meditating thus she moaned again: "My father. My lost, doomed father," and once more I heard her whisper: "His child! His child! The saints pity me!"
And now I set myself to place that lost father before her in a far different light than that in which she regarded him-to make her believe that, when almost all in the Indies who had their account with the sea had in their time been much as he had been, his crimes were not so black as they appeared to her; to also paint in glowing colours that sublime sacrifice-Morales had termed it truthfully! – which he had made in remaining behind whilst I escaped, in dying while opening to me the path to life and freedom.
"Juana, my sweet," I said, speaking low, yet as sympathetically as I could to her, "Juana, you deem his sin greater than it is. Also, remember, 'tis almost certain Morales lies when he said he died because-because-of your flight with him. For, remember-what the vagabond forgot in his rage and hate! – remember, he knew of your resolve, your determination to pretend to give yourself to him in exchange for his safety."
As I said these words I saw her eyes glisten, saw her head turned more toward me on the pillow-in her face the expression of one to whose mind comes back the recollection of a forgotten fact, a truth.
"Diôs!" she whispered, "it was so. He knew of my intention. 'Tis true; Morales lied. Yet," she went on a moment later, "yet that cannot cleanse him from his past sins, purge his soul from the crimes with which 'tis stained."
"Crimes!" I re-echoed, "Crimes! Think, recall, my beloved, what those crimes were. Those of buccaneer, 'tis true, yet not so bad but that all like him were not deemed too sunken in sin to be refused pardon by Spain, by France, even by my own land. Those pardons were sent out to the Indies shortly before he was thought to be lost-had he returned to France, then he would have held a position of honour under Louis."
"How?" she asked-and now I noticed that in her face there seemed to be a look of dawning hope, a look too, as though with that newborn hope there was a return of strength accompanied by an absence of such utter despair as had broken her down. "How know you that?"
"I was there in the court when he was tried," I said, "I heard his words-and none who heard them could doubt their truth, no more than they could his fierce denouncement of that unutterable villain, Eaton. Juana," I said, endeavouring to speak as impressively as was in my power, to thrust home more decisively the growing conviction to her heart that Gramont was not the devil he had been painted, "you must teach yourself to think less ill of your father than report has made him. And-and remember, he could have escaped an he would; it was, as that man said, a sublime sacrifice when he went to his doom."
"But why?" she asked, "why?" Though even as she did so, I saw, I knew, that in her heart there was the hope and wish to find something that might whiten his memory for her.
"Why," I repeated, bending near to her, speaking as deeply and earnestly as I could; above all, the softened feeling I was endeavouring to bring about in her heart toward that lost, dead father must be made to grow, until at last she should regard his memory with pity if naught else. "Why, because as I do believe, as I believe before God, he knew we loved each other, Juana-"
"Ah, Mervan!"
"Because his life was already far spent, because ours were in their spring; because, it may be, he knew that with him gone and me escaped in his place there was the hope of many happy years before you-with me-of years always together, of our being ever by each other's side until the end. Juana, my beloved, my love, think not of him as one beyond pardon and redemption, but rather as one who purified forever the errors of his life by the deep tenderness and sacrifice of his end."
I had won.
As I concluded she raised herself from the pillows on which she lay, the long shapely arms met round my neck, the dark curly head sank to my shoulder; soon nothing broke the silence of the room but her sobs. Yet ever and again she whispered through her tears: "My father, my unhappy father. May God forgive me if I have judged you too harshly."
Soon after that I left her sleeping peacefully and with, as it seemed to me, much of her fever gone-yet even as she slept I, sitting watching by her side, saw still the tears trickle forth from beneath the long eyelashes that fringed her cheeks, and knew that in her sleep she was dreaming of him.
But again I told myself that I had won; that henceforth the memory of her father's erring life would not stand between her and me, between our love.
The peasant who kept the miserable inn, and whose curiosity as to all that had taken place recently-the arrival of Juana and Morales, the duel, and then the rapid departure of him and the mute, while I remained behind in his place-was scarcely appeased by my curt and stern information that the lady above was shortly to become my wife, told me that there was no suitable sleeping place for me other than the public room. The other señor, he said, had had to make shift with that, since the one spare room which the señora occupied was the only one available in the house. He supposed, he added gruffly, that I, too, could do the same thing. There was a bench-and he pointed as he spoke to a rough wooden thing which did not promise much ease or rest-on which the other señor had slept; also a deep chair, in which one might repose easily before the fire. Would that do? Yes, I answered, either would do very well. I was fatigued, and could sleep anywhere. All I asked was that I should be left alone.
This was done, though ere the man and his wife departed to their quarters for the night the latter took occasion to make a remark to me. The lady, she observed, if she might make so bold as to say it, seemed to be of an undecided frame of mind. When she and the other señor arrived she had understood that he was the person to whom she was about to be married. It was strange, she thought, that the lady should elope over the border with one señor, to be married to another. However, she added, it was no affair of hers.
"It is no affair of yours," I said sternly once more. "Leave me alone and interfere not in our affairs. Your bill," I continued, "will be paid; that is sufficient." Whereon she said that was all that was required, and so, at last, I was left to myself.
Left to myself to sit in the great chair before the fire and muse on all that had lately occurred to make my journey toward Flanders a failure; to muse still more deeply on the love that had come to me unsought, unthought of; the love that, when I had at last accomplished my task and rejoined Marlborough, would, I hoped, crown my life.
Yet, as the snow beat against the window, for once more it was a rough night and the wind howled here as it had howled the night before, across in Spain-while as before the flakes falling on the rude panes seemed to my mind to resemble ghostly finger-tips that touched the glass and then were drawn off it back into the darkness without-I thought also of the now dead and destroyed man, the buccaneer who, all blood-guilty as he was, had yet gone to a doom that he might have escaped from.
And my thought prevented sleep, even though I had not now slept for many, many hours-my terrible reflections unstrung me-it seemed almost as if the spirit of that dead man had followed me, was outside the rough wooden door; as if, amidst those falling and swift-vanishing snowflakes on the glass, I saw his eyes glaring out of the blackness into the room. And soon I became over-wrought, the gentle beat of the snow became the tap of a hand summoning me to open and admit his spectral form-an awful fantasy took possession of me!
Was, I asked myself-as furtively I turned my eyes to those solemn, silent flakes that fell upon the window pane, rested there a moment gleaming white, then vanished into nothingness-was the lost soul of that man hovering outside the door or that window-the soul that but a few hours ago had quitted his body?
If I looked again at the casement should I see, as though behind some dark veil, the eyes of Gramont glaring into the room; see those flakes of snow take more tangible form-the form of a dead man's fingers scratching at the panes, tearing at them to attract my attention?
Distraught-maddened by the terror of my thoughts, fearful of myself, of the silence that reigned through the house, I sprang to my feet-I was mad! – I must go out into the gloom and blackness of the night-
God! – what was that?
There was a tapping at the door-a footstep-next a tap at the window. The hands were there; I saw the fingers-the snow falling round them-on them. I saw, too, the eyes of Gramont peering in at me.
"What is it?" I cried hoarsely. "What? What?"
Then through the roar of the tempest without, through the shriek of the wind, above the loud hum of the torrent, I heard-or was I mad and dreaming that I heard? – the words:
"Open. To me-her father."
CHAPTER XXIX.
"LET US KISS AND PART."
As I unbarred the door that gave directly from the miserable living-room of the house to the outside he came in, the snow upon the shoulders of the cape he wore-some flakes even upon his face.
"You are alive! Escaped!" I whispered, recognising that this was no phantom of my brain, but the man himself. "Safe! Thank God!"
"Where is she?" he asked, pausing for no greeting, giving me none. "My child! Is she safe? Or-have I come too late?"
"She is here-safe. It is not too late."
His eyes roamed round the room; then, not seeing her, he continued:
"Where? I must see her-once."
"Once?"
"For the last time. After that we shall never meet again. The shadow of my life, my past, must fall on her no more. Yet-once-I must see her. Lead me to where she is."
"She has been ill, delirious-is crushed by all that has happened-by-"
"All that she has learnt," he interrupted, his voice deep and solemn-broken, too. "Yet I must see her."
"She is asleep above."
For answer to this he made simply a sign, yet one I understood very well-a sign that I should delay no longer.
"Come," I said, "come." And together we went up the narrow stairs to the room she occupied-stole up them, as though in fear of waking her.
Pushing the door open gently, we saw by the rays of the veilleuse, which I had ordered to be placed in the room, that she was sleeping; observed also that our entry did not disturb her; also it was easy to perceive that she was dreaming. Sometimes, as we standing there gazed down, the long, dark lashes that drooped upon her cheeks quivered; from beneath them there stole some tears; once, too, the rosy lips parted, and a sigh came from between them.
"My child, my child!" Gramont whispered to himself, "child of her whom I loved better than my life-that we should meet at last, only to part forever!"
And from his own eyes the tears rolled down-from his! He stooped and bent over her; his face approached hers; his lips touched that white brow, over which the short-cut hair curled in such glorious dishevelment, while he murmured:
"Unclose those eyelids once, look for the last time on me." Then he half-turned his head away, as though to prevent his own tears from falling on and awakening her.
Was he a sorcerer, I wondered, even as I watched-a sorcerer, as well as other things unnamable? Had he the power over his own child to thus reach her mind and brain, even though both were sunk in a deep, feverish sleep? In truth, it appeared so.
For, even as he spoke, those eyelids did unclose, the dark, dreamy eyes gazed up into his, while, slowly, the full, white, rounded arms encircled his neck, and their lips met, and from him I heard the whispered words:
"Farewell, farewell, forever. Oh, my child, my child!"
Yet-and I thanked God for it then, as ever since I have thanked Him again and again! – he had turned away ere the answering whisper came from her lips, had not heard the words that fell from them-the words:
"Mervan, Mervan, my beloved!"
Thanked God he had not known how, in her sleep, she deemed those kisses mine, and dreamed of me alone.
* * * * * * * * *"'Twas went on the storm increased, the snow no longer came in flakes against the window of the room below, in which we sat, but, instead, lay thick and heavy in masses on the sill without-was driven, too, against the window by the fierce, tempestuous wind that howled down from the mountains above, and rocked the miserable inn.
"There is no going on to-night," Gramont said, coming in out of the storm after having gone forth to attend to the horse that had brought him from Lugo, and having bestowed it in the stables, where were the animals on which Juana and I had also ridden. "No going on to-night." Then, changing the subject abruptly, he said: "Where is that man?"
Not pretending to doubt as to whom he made allusion, I said:
"The Alcáide?"
"Ay, the Alcáide."
Whereon I told him of all that had happened since my arrival with the mute, and of his immediate departure further on into Portugal.
"You should have slain him," he said, "the instant you had disarmed him. You loved Juana and she you-she told me so when she divulged his scheme to me in the prison-you should never have let him go free with life."
"I had disarmed him. I could not slay a weaponless, defenceless man."
"One slays a snake-awake or sleeping. He merited death."
"Yet to him, in a manner, we all owe our lives. Juana-I-you."
"Owe our lives! Owe our lives to him! To one who trafficked with my girl's honour as against her father's freedom; a man who betrayed his trust to his own country as a means whereby to gratify his own evil desires! And for you-for me-what do we owe him? The chance of my escape came from another's hand than his."
"From another's! You could have escaped even without that vile compact made between-God help us-Juana and him?"
"Ay-listen. You stood by my side in the court when they tried us; you heard a voice in that court; saw the man who called out in loud tones to the man, Morales. You saw him, observed, maybe, that he bore about him the signs of a sailor."
As he spoke there came to me a recollection of something more than this-a recollection of where I had seen that man again, of how it was he who crouched behind the fallen masses of blasted rock in the passage beneath the bed of the river through which I had passed to freedom; also, I remembered the great gold rings in his ears, and the glistening of one upon the guarding of his cloak as he shrank back into the darkness.
"I remember him," I said, "very well-also, I saw him again, on the night that mute led me forth, helped me to escape."
"'Tis so. That man saved me, was bent on saving me from the moment he saw my face in the court. He is a Biscayan-yet we had met in other lands; once I had saved his life-from Eaton. He-that doubly damned traitor-that monster of sin-had taken him prisoner in a pink he owned, yet had not captured her without a hard fight, in which this man, Nuñez Picado, nearly slew him. Then, this was Eaton's revenge: He bound him and set him afloat in a dismantled ketch he had by him, that to which Picado was bound being a barrel of gunpowder. And in that barrel was one end of a slow match, the other end alight and trailing the length of the ketch's deck."
"My God!"
"So slow a match that it would take hours ere it reached the powder, hours in which the doomed wretch would suffer ten thousand-fold the tortures of the damned. Yet one thing Eaton forgot-forgot that those hours of long drawn-out horror to his victim were also hours in which succour might come. And it was so. I passed that craft drifting slowly to and fro off Porto Rico. In the blaze of the noontide I saw a brighter, redder light than the sparkle of sun on counter and brass-when I stepped on board the ketch there was not a foot of the slow-match left-not an hour longer of life left to the man. Only, the bitterness of death was over for him then-he was a raving maniac, and so remained for months."
"He has at last repaid you in full."
"Ay! In full. He knew the secret way into the ramparts; all was concocted, all arranged for our escapes."
"For yours and hers?"
"For hers and mine. Had it not been that you had to be saved also-that the freedom which Juana had obtained from Morales for me must be transferred to you, since I needed it not, she would never have been allowed to go forth with him. I or Picado would have slain him in the prison and escaped with her."
"I begin to understand."
"'Twas best, however, to let her go forth unknowing-at least it removed him away from what had to be done-made it certain that he could not impede your escape. The rest was easy. I persuaded the mute that 'twas you, not I, whom it was intended to save, that 'twas for you her letter was meant, that it was I who was doomed."
"And Eaton? Eaton?" I asked.
"Eaton has paid the forfeit of his treachery," he said. "It has rebounded on his own head. The braséro thirsted for its victim-the populace for its holiday. They have had it. Trust Nuñez Picado for that."
He said no more, neither then nor later, and never yet have I learnt how that vilest of men was the substitute for those whom he had hoped and endeavoured to send to the flames. Yet, also, never have I doubted that it was done, since certain it is that from that time he has never again crossed my path.
"The storm increases," Gramont said, as he strode to the window and peered out into the darksome night. "Yet-yet-I must go on at daybreak. I-I have that which needs take me on."
"Stay here with us," I cried, "stay here. Juana will be my wife at the first moment chance offers. Stay."
"Nay," he said. "Nay. She and I must never meet again. That is the expiation of my life which I have set myself-I will go through with it. In that last kiss above, I took my farewell of her forever in this world."
"What will you do?" I asked through my now fast-falling tears, tears that none needed to be ashamed of; tears that none, listening to his heart-broken words as they dropped slowly from his lips, could have forborne to shed. "What is your life to be?"
"God only knows," he replied; "yet one of penitence, of prayers for forgiveness so long as that life lasts. Thereby-thereby-I shall be fitter for the end. I am almost old now; it may not be far off."
Silence came upon us after that-a silence broken only by the howl of the wind outside the lonely house, by the thud of snow falling now and again from the roof and eaves-blown off by the fury of the tempest. But broken by scarcely aught else, unless 'twas a sigh that occasionally, and all unwittingly, as I thought, escaped from that poor sinner's overcharged breast. Yet, for the rest, nothing; no sound from that room above, where Juana lay sleeping; nothing but sometimes the expiring logs falling together with a gentle clash in the grate.
Then suddenly, as I almost dozed on one side of those logs, he being on the other, I heard him speaking to me, his voice deep, sonorous and low-perhaps he feared it might reach her above! – yet clear and distinct.
"Evil," he said, "as my existence has been, misjudge me not. None started on life's path meaning better than I. God help me! none drifted into worse extremes. Will you hear my story-such as 'tis meet you should know-you who love my child?"
I bowed my head; I whispered, "Yes." Once, because I pitied him, I gently touched his hand with mine.
"I was a sailor," he went on, his dark eyes gleaming tenderly at that small offering of my sympathy, "bred up to the sea, the only child of a poor Protestant woman. Later-when Louis the king first fell under the thrall of the wanton, De Maintenon, my mother died of starvation, ruined by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, ruined ere that revocation by the shadow it cast before it on all of our faith. Think you that what was doing in the Indies by the Spaniards made me love the followers of the Romish church more?"
He paused a moment-again he went on:
"In the Indies to which I had wandered, I met with men who had sworn to extirpate, if might be, every Spaniard, every one of those who in their time swore that there was to be no peace beyond the line. That was their oath-we helped them to keep it, made it our watchword, too. All of us, Morgan, Pointis, Avery, Lolonois, your other countryman, Stede Bonnet, a hundred others, all of different lands, yet all of one complexion-hatred against Spain. And there was no peace beyond the line. You are a soldier, may be one for years, yet you will never know blood run as blood ran then. You may rack cities, even Louis' own capital, you will never know what sharing booty means as we knew it. Ere I was thirty I possessed a hundred thousand gold pistoles, ere another year had passed I owned nothing but the sword by my side, the deck I trod."
"Yet," I said, "when you were lost-disappeared-you left your child a fortune-which Eaton stole."
"I did more," he answered. "I left her that-but-I left her another which Eaton could not steal. She has it now; it is, it must be safe. Do you know your wife brings you a great dowry?"
I started-I had never thought of this! – yet, ere I could say aught, he went on again.
"I pass over much. I come to twenty years ago. Eaton was my lieutenant; we were about to besiege Maracaibo, a gallant company three hundred strong. Well, let me hurry-see, the daylight is coming. I must away-Maracaibo fell, our plunder was great. Also, we had many prisoners. Amongst them one, a girl, young and beautiful; God! she was an angel!"
"Juana's mother that was to be," I whispered, feeling sure.
"Hear me. She was my prize-there were others, but I heeded them not, had eyes only for her. Her ransom was fixed at five thousand pistoles, because she was the niece of the wealthiest man of all, to be paid ere we sailed three days later. And I prayed that they might never be forthcoming, that I might bear her away with me, teach her to love me as I loved her."
"And they were not paid?" I asked breathlessly.
"We did not sail in three days' time; the money of the place had been sent away inland on our approach; also one-half our body were all mad with drink ashore. 'Twas more nigh three weeks ere we were ready to depart."
"And the lady?"
"Her uncle had died meanwhile of a fever-yet-yet-the ransom was forthcoming. She was affianced to a planter; he came on board my ship, and with him he brought the gold."
"Ah!"
"My oath bound me to take it-had I refused, my brethren had the right-since we had laws regulating all things amongst us-to remove me from my command. I had to see him count the gold out on the cabin table, to tell her she was free to go."
"And she went?" I asked again, almost breathless.
CHAPTER XXX.
GONE
"She went," he continued, "and I thought that she was gone from me forever, since, filibuster as I was, as I say, my oath to my companions bound me to set her free upon payment of the ransom. Yet, by heaven's grace, she was mine again ere long."
He paused, looking out of the snow-laden window through which there stole now a greyness which told of the coming of the wintry day; pointed toward it as though bidding me remember that his time with me was growing short; then went on: