CHAPTER XIV. LEVASSEUR'S HEROICS
It would be somewhere about ten o'clock on the following morning, afull hour before the time appointed for sailing, when a canoe brought upalongside La Foudre, and a half-caste Indian stepped out of her and wentup the ladder. He was clad in drawers of hairy, untanned hide, and a redblanket served him for a cloak. He was the bearer of a folded scrap ofpaper for Captain Levasseur.
The Captain unfolded the letter, sadly soiled and crumpled by contactwith the half-caste's person. Its contents may be roughly translatedthus:
"My well-beloved--I am in the Dutch brig Jongvrow, which is about tosail. Resolved to separate us for ever, my cruel father is sending me toEurope in my brother's charge. I implore you, come to my rescue. Deliverme, my well-beloved hero!--Your desolated Madeleine, who loves you."
The well-beloved hero was moved to the soul of him by that passionateappeal. His scowling glance swept the bay for the Dutch brig, whichhe knew had been due to sail for Amsterdam with a cargo of hides andtobacco.
She was nowhere to be seen among the shipping in that narrow, rock-boundharbour. He roared out the question in his mind.
In answer the half-caste pointed out beyond the frothing surf thatmarked the position of the reef constituting one of the stronghold'smain defences. Away beyond it, a mile or so distant, a sail was standingout to sea. "There she go," he said.
"There!" The Frenchman gazed and stared, his face growing white. Theman's wicked temper awoke, and turned to vent itself upon the messenger."And where have you been that you come here only now with this? Answerme!"
The half-caste shrank terrified before his fury. His explanation, if hehad one, was paralyzed by fear. Levasseur took him by the throat, shookhim twice, snarling the while, then hurled him into the scuppers. Theman's head struck the gunwale as he fell, and he lay there, quite still,a trickle of blood issuing from his mouth.
Levasseur dashed one hand against the other, as if dusting them.
"Heave that muck overboard," he ordered some of those who stood idlingin the waist. "Then up anchor, and let us after the Dutchman."
"Steady, Captain. What's that?" There was a restraining hand upon hisshoulder, and the broad face of his lieutenant Cahusac, a burly, callousBreton scoundrel, was stolidly confronting him.
Levasseur made clear his purpose with a deal of unnecessary obscenity.
Cahusac shook his head. "A Dutch brig!" said he. "Impossible! We shouldnever be allowed."
"And who the devil will deny us?" Levasseur was between amazement andfury.
"For one thing, there's your own crew will be none too willing. Foranother there's Captain Blood."
"I care nothing for Captain Blood...."
"But it is necessary that you should. He has the power, the weight ofmetal and of men, and if I know him at all he'll sink us beforehe'll suffer interference with the Dutch. He has his own views ofprivateering, this Captain Blood, as I warned you."
"Ah!" said Levasseur, showing his teeth. But his eyes, riveted upon thatdistant sail, were gloomily thoughtful. Not for long. The imaginationand resource which Captain Blood had detected in the fellow soonsuggested a course.
Cursing in his soul, and even before the anchor was weighed, theassociation into which he had entered, he was already studying waysof evasion. What Cahusac implied was true: Blood would never sufferviolence to be done in his presence to a Dutchman; but it might be donein his absence; and, being done, Blood must perforce condone it, sinceit would then be too late to protest.
Within the hour the Arabella and La Foudre were beating out to seatogether. Without understanding the change of plan involved, CaptainBlood, nevertheless, accepted it, and weighed anchor before theappointed time upon perceiving his associate to do so.
All day the Dutch brig was in sight, though by evening she had dwindledto the merest speck on the northern horizon. The course prescribedfor Blood and Levasseur lay eastward along the northern shores ofHispaniola. To that course the Arabella continued to hold steadilythroughout the night. When day broke again, she was alone. La Foudreunder cover of the darkness had struck away to The northeast with everyrag of canvas on her yards.
Cahusac had attempted yet again to protest against this.
"The devil take you!" Levasseur had answered him. "A ship's a ship, beshe Dutch or Spanish, and ships are our present need. That will sufficefor the men."
His lieutenant said no more. But from his glimpse of the letter, knowingthat a girl and not a ship was his captain's real objective, he gloomilyshook his head as he rolled away on his bowed legs to give the necessaryorders.
Dawn found La Foudre close on the Dutchman's heels, not a mile astern,and the sight of her very evidently flustered the Jongvrow. No doubtmademoiselle's brother recognizing Levasseur's ship would be responsiblefor the Dutch uneasiness. They saw the Jongvrow crowding canvas in afutile endeavour to outsail them, whereupon they stood off to starboardand raced on until they were in a position whence they could senda warning shot across her bow. The Jongvrow veered, showed them herrudder, and opened fire with her stern chasers. The small shot wentwhistling through La Foudre's shrouds with some slight damage to hercanvas. Followed a brief running fight in the course of which theDutchman let fly a broadside.
Five minutes after that they were board and board, the Jongvrow heldtight in the clutches of La Foudre's grapnels, and the buccaneerspouring noisily into her waist.
The Dutchman's master, purple in the face, stood forward to beard thepirate, followed closely by an elegant, pale-faced young gentleman inwhom Levasseur recognized his brother-in-law elect.
"Captain Levasseur, this is an outrage for which you shall be made toanswer. What do you seek aboard my ship?"
"At first I sought only that which belongs to me, something of which Iam being robbed. But since you chose war and opened fire on me with somedamage to my ship and loss of life to five of my men, why, war it is,and your ship a prize of war."
From the quarter rail Mademoiselle d'Ogeron looked down with glowingeyes in breathless wonder upon her well-beloved hero. Gloriously heroiche seemed as he stood towering there, masterful, audacious, beautiful.He saw her, and with a glad shout sprang towards her. The Dutch mastergot in his way with hands upheld to arrest his progress. Levasseur didnot stay to argue with him: he was too impatient to reach his mistress.He swung the poleaxe that he carried, and the Dutchman went down inblood with a cloven skull. The eager lover stepped across the body andcame on, his countenance joyously alight.
But mademoiselle was shrinking now, in horror. She was a girl upon thethreshold of glorious womanhood, of a fine height and nobly moulded,with heavy coils of glossy black hair above and about a face that was ofthe colour of old ivory. Her countenance was cast in lines of arrogance,stressed by the low lids of her full dark eyes.
In a bound her well-beloved was beside her, flinging away his bloodypoleaxe, he opened wide his arms to enfold her. But she still shrankeven within his embrace, which would not be denied; a look of dread hadcome to temper the normal arrogance of her almost perfect face.
"Mine, mine at last, and in spite of all!" he cried exultantly,theatrically, truly heroic.
But she, endeavouring to thrust him back, her hands against his breast,could only falter: "Why, why did you kill him?"
He laughed, as a hero should; and answered her heroically, with thetolerance of a god for the mortal to whom he condescends: "He stoodbetween us. Let his death be a symbol, a warning. Let all who wouldstand between us mark it and beware."
It was so splendidly terrific, the gesture of it was so broad and fineand his magnetism so compelling, that she cast her silly tremors andyielded herself freely, intoxicated, to his fond embrace. Thereafter heswung her to his shoulder, and stepping with ease beneath that burden,bore her in a sort of triumph, lustily cheered by his men, to thedeck of his own ship. Her inconsiderate brother might have ruined thatromantic scene but for the watchful Cahusac, who quietly tripped him up,and then trussed him like a fowl.
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p; Thereafter, what time the Captain languished in his lady's smile withinthe cabin, Cahusac was dealing with the spoils of war. The Dutch crewwas ordered into the longboat, and bidden go to the devil. Fortunately,as they numbered fewer than thirty, the longboat, though perilouslyovercrowded, could yet contain them. Next, Cahusac having inspected thecargo, put a quartermaster and a score of men aboard the Jongvrow, andleft her to follow La Foudre, which he now headed south for the LeewardIslands.
Cahusac was disposed to be ill-humoured. The risk they had run intaking the Dutch brig and doing violence to members of the family ofthe Governor of Tortuga, was out of all proportion to the value of theirprize. He said so, sullenly, to Levasseur.
"You'll keep that opinion to yourself," the Captain answered him. "Don'tthink I am the man to thrust my neck into a noose, without knowing howI am going to take it out again. I shall send an offer of terms to theGovernor of Tortuga that he will be forced to accept. Set a course forthe Virgen Magra. We'll go ashore, and settle things from there. Andtell them to fetch that milksop Ogeron to the cabin."
Levasseur went back to the adoring lady.
Thither, too, the lady's brother was presently conducted. The Captainrose to receive him, bending his stalwart height to avoid striking thecabin roof with his head. Mademoiselle rose too.
"Why this?" she asked Levasseur, pointing to her brother's pinionedwrists--the remains of Cahusac's precautions.
"I deplore it," said he. "I desire it to end. Let M. d'Ogeron give mehis parole...."
"I give you nothing," flashed the white-faced youth, who did not lackfor spirit.
"You see." Levasseur shrugged his deep regret, and mademoiselle turnedprotesting to her brother.
"Henri, this is foolish! You are not behaving as my friend. You...."
"Little fool," her brother answered her--and the "little" was out ofplace; she was the taller of the twain. "Little fool, do you thinkI should be acting as your friend to make terms with this blackguardpirate?"
"Steady, my young cockerel!" Levasseur laughed. But his laugh was notnice.
"Don't you perceive your wicked folly in the harm it has broughtalready? Lives have been lost--men have died--that this monster mightovertake you. And don't you yet realize where you stand--in the powerof this beast, of this cur born in a kennel and bred in thieving andmurder?"
He might have said more but that Levasseur struck him across the mouth.Levasseur, you see, cared as little as another to hear the truth abouthimself.
Mademoiselle suppressed a scream, as the youth staggered back under theblow. He came to rest against a bulkhead, and leaned there with bleedinglips. But his spirit was unquenched, and there was a ghastly smile onhis white face as his eyes sought his sister's.
"You see," he said simply. "He strikes a man whose hands are bound."
The simple words, and, more than the words, their tone of ineffabledisdain, aroused the passion that never slumbered deeply in Levasseur.
"And what should you do, puppy, if your hands were unbound?" He took hisprisoner by the breast of his doublet and shook him. "Answer me! Whatshould you do? Tchah! You empty windbag! You...." And then came atorrent of words unknown to mademoiselle, yet of whose foulness herintuitions made her conscious.
With blanched cheeks she stood by the cabin table, and cried out toLevasseur to stop. To obey her, he opened the door, and flung herbrother through it.
"Put that rubbish under hatches until I call for it again," he roared,and shut the door.
Composing himself, he turned to the girl again with a deprecatory smile.But no smile answered him from her set face. She had seen her belovedhero's nature in curl-papers, as it were, and she found the spectacledisgusting and terrifying. It recalled the brutal slaughter of the Dutchcaptain, and suddenly she realized that what her brother had just saidof this man was no more than true. Fear growing to panic was written onher face, as she stood there leaning for support against the table.
"Why, sweetheart, what is this?" Levasseur moved towards her. Sherecoiled before him. There was a smile on his face, a glitter in hiseyes that fetched her heart into her throat.
He caught her, as she reached the uttermost limits of the cabin, seizedher in his long arms and pulled her to him.
"No, no!" she panted.
"Yes, yes," he mocked her, and his mockery was the most terrible thingof all. He crushed her to him brutally, deliberately hurtful because sheresisted, and kissed her whilst she writhed in his embrace. Then, hispassion mounting, he grew angry and stripped off the last rag of hero'smask that still may have hung upon his face. "Little fool, did younot hear your brother say that you are in my power? Remember it, andremember that of your own free will you came. I am not the man with whoma woman can play fast and loose. So get sense, my girl, and accept whatyou have invited." He kissed her again, almost contemptuously, and flungher off. "No more scowls," he said. "You'll be sorry else."
Some one knocked. Cursing the interruption, Levasseur strode off toopen. Cahusac stood before him. The Breton's face was grave. He cameto report that they had sprung a leak between wind and water, theconsequence of damage sustained from one of the Dutchman's shots. Inalarm Levasseur went off with him. The leakage was not serious so longas the weather kept fine; but should a storm overtake them it mightspeedily become so. A man was slung overboard to make a partial stoppagewith a sail-cloth, and the pumps were got to work.
Ahead of them a low cloud showed on the horizon, which Cahusacpronounced one of the northernmost of the Virgin Islands.
"We must run for shelter there, and careen her," said Levasseur. "Ido not trust this oppressive heat. A storm may catch us before we makeland."
"A storm or something else," said Cahusac grimly. "Have you noticedthat?" He pointed away to starboard.
Levasseur looked, and caught his breath. Two ships that at the distanceseemed of considerable burden were heading towards them some five milesaway.
"If they follow us what is to happen?" demanded Cahusac.
"We'll fight whether we're in case to do so or not," swore Levasseur.
"Counsels of despair." Cahusac was contemptuous. To mark it he spat uponthe deck. "This comes of going to sea with a lovesick madman. Now, keepyour temper, Captain, for the hands will be at the end of theirs if wehave trouble as a result of this Dutchman business."
For the remainder of that day Levasseur's thoughts were of anything butlove. He remained on deck, his eyes now upon the land, now upon thosetwo slowly gaining ships. To run for the open could avail him nothing,and in his leaky condition would provide an additional danger. He muststand at bay and fight. And then, towards evening, when within threemiles of shore and when he was about to give the order to stripfor battle, he almost fainted from relief to hear a voice from thecrow's-nest above announce that the larger of the two ships was theArabella. Her companion was presumably a prize.
But the pessimism of Cahusac abated nothing.
"That is but the lesser evil," he growled. "What will Blood say aboutthis Dutchman?"
"Let him say what he pleases." Levasseur laughed in the immensity of hisrelief.
"And what about the children of the Governor of Tortuga?"
"He must not know."
"He'll come to know in the end."
"Aye, but by then, morbleu, the matter will be settled. I shall havemade my peace with the Governor. I tell you I know the way to compelOgeron to come to terms."
Presently the four vessels lay to off the northern coast of La VirgenMagra, a narrow little island arid and treeless, some twelve milesby three, uninhabited save by birds and turtles and unproductive ofanything but salt, of which there were considerable ponds to the south.
Levasseur put off in a boat accompanied by Cahusac and two otherofficers, and went to visit Captain Blood aboard the Arabella.
"Our brief separation has been mighty profitable," was CaptainBlood's greeting. "It's a busy morning we've both had." He was in highgood-humour as he led the way to the great cabin for a rendering ofaccounts.
/> The tall ship that accompanied the Arabella was a Spanish vessel oftwenty-six guns, the Santiago from Puerto Rico with a hundred and twentythousand weight of cacao, forty thousand pieces of eight, and the valueof ten thousand more in jewels. A rich capture of which two fifths underthe articles went to Levasseur and his crew. Of the money and jewels adivision was made on the spot. The cacao it was agreed should be takento Tortuga to be sold.
Then it was the turn of Levasseur, and black grew the brow of CaptainBlood as the Frenchman's tale was unfolded. At the end he roundlyexpressed his disapproval. The Dutch were a friendly people whom it wasa folly to alienate, particularly for so paltry a matter as these hidesand tobacco, which at most would fetch a bare twenty thousand pieces.
But Levasseur answered him, as he had answered Cahusac, that a ship wasa ship, and it was ships they needed against their projected enterprise.Perhaps because things had gone well with him that day, Blood endedby shrugging the matter aside. Thereupon Levasseur proposed that theArabella and her prize should return to Tortuga there to unload thecacao and enlist the further adventurers that could now be shipped.Levasseur meanwhile would effect certain necessary repairs, andthen proceeding south, await his admiral at Saltatudos, an islandconveniently situated--in the latitude of 11 deg. 11' N.--for theirenterprise against Maracaybo.
To Levasseur's relief, Captain Blood not only agreed, but pronouncedhimself ready to set sail at once.
No sooner had the Arabella departed than Levasseur brought his shipsinto the lagoon, and set his crew to work upon the erection of temporaryquarters ashore for himself, his men, and his enforced guests during thecareening and repairing of La Foudre.
At sunset that evening the wind freshened; it grew to a gale, and fromthat to such a hurricane that Levasseur was thankful to find himselfashore and his ships in safe shelter. He wondered a little how it mightbe faring with Captain Blood out there at the mercy of that terrificstorm; but he did not permit concern to trouble him unduly.