Kitabı oku: «Seven Frozen Sailors», sayfa 8

I have been at sea sixty years; yet well do I recollect the first day that I shipped on board the galliot Jungvrauw, at Rotterdam, bound for Great Yarmouth, England. When I got on board the vessel was just wearing out of port, and, thinking that about the best thing I could do was to begin to make myself useful at once, I tailed on to a rope that some of the crew were hauling in; and the next thing I began to learn was to coil a rope. There’s only two ways to do it – a right one and a wrong one. The right way is to coil it the way the sun goes round. And then I learned that about the surest manner in which a young sailor can get a knowledge of his trade is to watch how his shipmates set about doing their work. He may be laughed at, grumbled at, or sworn at, but at last he’ll learn his duty, and that’s something.

If I were to tell you all the wonderful things that have happened to me, man and boy, as carpenter, bo’sun, third mate, second mate, and first mate – I never had the luck to rise to be a skipper – I am afraid that you wouldn’t believe half the yarns I could spin for you. I’ve been in both the Indies, and in both the Americas, and in our own Dutch Colony of Java, and in China and Japan (where the Dutch used to have a mighty fine factory) over and over again. I’ve been in action; and was wounded once by a musket-ball, which passed right through the nape of my neck. I’ve been a prisoner of war, and I was once nearly taken by a Sallee rover. I’ve had to fight with the Dutch for the French, and with the French against the Dutch, and with the Dutch for the English. I’ve had the yellow fever over and over again. I’ve had my leg half bitten off by a shark; and if anybody tells you that a shark won’t eat niggers, tell him, with my compliments, that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, for I saw a shark bite a nigger that had fallen overboard, right in two, in the harbour of Havana. I don’t say that the shark doesn’t like white flesh best. The black man, perhaps, he locks upon as mess beef, not very prime; but the white man he considers as pork or veal, and the nicer of the two. At all events he’ll eat nigger if he’s hungry, and a shark’s always hungry.

Perhaps the strangest thing that ever happened to me in the coarse of all my voyages was in connection with a lot of swallows, and I’ll wind up my yarn with this one, first because it’s short, and next because I think it’s got something that’s pretty about it, and will please the yunkers and the vrauws; and, old man-like, I always like to please them. It was about thirty years ago, and in the middle of September, that I signed articles at Liverpool as second mate of a brig bound to Marseilles, Barcelona, in Spain, Gibraltar (that belongs to the Englanders), Oran, and Algiers. The middle of September mind. The name of the brig was the Granite, and the skipper, Captain Marbles, a Yorkshireman, was about the hardest commander I ever sailed under. He never swore at the men, – that they wouldn’t have much minded; but he was always turning up the hands for punishment; and punishment in the merchant service, thirty years ago, was little less severe than it was in the navy. Indeed, it was often more unjust, and more cruel; for when a merchant skipper flogged a man he was generally drunk, or in a fearfully bad temper; whereas on board a man-o’-war a sailor was never punished in cold blood, and had at least some show of a trial. I must do Captain Marbles the credit to say that he was never half seas over; but on the other hand he was always in a bad temper. On me he dared not lay a finger, for I was an officer, and I would have knocked him down with a marlinspike had he struck me; but he led the foremast-men and the boys, of whom we had at least half a dozen aboard – principally, I fancy, because the Captain liked to torture boys – a terrible life. Well, we had discharged cargo at Marseilles, and taken in more at Barcelona. We had put in at Gibraltar, and after clearing out from the Rock were shaping our course with a pretty fair wind for Gran, when, one evening – now what in the world do you think happened?

The swallow, you know, is a bird that, like our stork, cannot abide the cold. He is glad enough to come and see us in summer, when the leaves are green, and the sun shines brightly; but so soon as ever the weather begins to grow chilly, off goes Mr Swallow to the Pyramids of Egypt, or the Desert of Sahara, or some nice, warm, comfortable place of that kind. He generally arrives in our latitudes about the second week in April; and he cuts his stick again for hot winter quarters toward the end of September. I’ve heard book-learned gentlemen say that the birds almost always fly in a line, directly north and south, influenced, no doubt, by the magnetic current which flows forever and ever in that direction. Well, on the afternoon to which my yarn relates, our course was due south, and, just before sunset, we saw a vast space of the sky astern absolutely darkened by the largest flight of birds I ever saw, winging their way together. As a rule, I’ve been told, the swallows don’t migrate in large flocks, but in small families. This, however, must have been an exception to the rule, for they appeared absolutely to number thousands; and what should they do when they neared us but settle down in their thousands on the masts and rigging of the brig Granite. They were tired, poor things, no doubt, with long flying; and I have been told that it is a common custom for them to rest themselves on the riggings of ships. But there were so many of them this time that the very deck was covered with them, and vast numbers more fluttered below, into the forecastle and the captain’s cabin. The skipper ordered the hatches to be battened down, and all was made snug for the night. In the morning the birds on the deck and the rigging were gone, but we had still hundreds of swallows in the hold and in the cabin, and the noise the poor creatures made to be let out was most pitiable – indeed, it was simply heartrending. It was like the cry of children. It sounded like, “For God’s sake, let us go free!” Captain Marbles – I have said so before – was a hard man, but he could not stand the agonised twittering of the wretched little birds; and as he ordered me to have the hatches opened, I noticed that there were two great tears coursing down his stern, weather-beaten cheeks. He had, for the first time in his life, perhaps, become acquainted with a certain blessed thing called PITY. Nor did we fail to notice afterward that he was not half so hard on the boys we had aboard. Perhaps he remembered the cry of the swallows.

That’s my yarn. There’s nothing very grand about it; but, at least, it’s true. As true, I mean, as old sailors’ yarns usually are.

“Gone!” cried the doctor, as the Dutchman, a minute before solid in appearance, suddenly collapsed into air and moisture, which directly became ice. “If I hadn’t been so polite I might have stopped him. I suppose the effort of telling their histories exhausts them.”

“Well, sir, it’s jolly interesting!” said Bostock.

“Yes, my man,” said the doctor; “but there’s no science in it. What is there in his talk about how he came here, or for me to report to the learned societies?”

“Can’t say, I’m sure, sir,” I said; “only, the discoveries.”

“Yes, that will do, Captain. But come, let’s find another?”

We all set to eagerly, for the men now thoroughly enjoyed the task. The stories we heard enlivened the tedium, and the men, far from being afraid now, went heartily into the search.

“Shouldn’t wonder if we found a nigger friz-up here, mates,” said Binny Scudds.

“Or a Chine-hee,” said one of the men.

“Well, all I can say,” exclaimed Bostock, “is this here, I don’t want to be made into a scientific speciment.”

“Here y’are!” shouted one of the men. “Here’s one on ’em!”

“Get out!” said Binny Scudds, who had run to the face of a perpendicular mass of ice, where the man stood with his pick. “That ain’t one!”

“Tell yer it is,” said the man. “That’s the ’airs of his ’ead sticking out;” and he pointed to what appeared to be dark threads in the white, opaque ice.

“Tell you, he wouldn’t be standing up,” said Binny Scudds.

“Why not, if he was frozen so, my men?” said the doctor. “Yes; that’s a specimen. This ice has been heaved up.”

“Shall we fetch him out with powder,” said Bostock.

“Dear me, no!” said the doctor. “Look! that ice is laminated. Try driving in wedges.”

Three of the men climbed onto the top, and began driving in wedges, when the ice split open evenly, leaving the figure of what appeared to be a swarthy-looking Frenchman, exposed as to the face; but he was held in tightly to the lower half of the icy case, by his long hair.

“Blest if he don’t look jest like a walnut with one shell off!” growled Scudds; but he was silent directly, for the Frenchman opened his eyes, stared at us, smiled, and opened his lips.

“Yes; thank you much, comrades. You have saved me. I did not thus expect, when we went drift, drift, drift north, in the little vessel, with the rats; but listen, you shall hear. I am a man of wonderful adventure. You take me for a ghost?”

Bostock nodded.

“Brave lads! brave lads!” said the Frenchman; “but it is not that I am. I have been taken for a ghost before, and prove to my good friends that I am not. I prove to you I am not; but a good, sound, safe, French matelot! – sailor, you call it.”

“I should like to hear you,” said Binny Scudds, in a hoarse growl.

“You shall, my friend, who has helped to save me.”

“Let it be scientific, my friend,” said the doctor.

“It shall, sir – it shall,” said the Frenchman.

Chapter Seven.
The French Sailor’s Yarn

I am master of the yacht Zéphire; at least I was her master. A hundred fathoms of green water roll over her masts now. Fishes of monstrous shape feed on our good stores. For anything I know, a brood of young sea-serpents is at this moment in possession of my hammock. Let be, I will tell the story of the Zéphire. Ten years ago an American vessel lay off the little port of Bénévent, in the south of France. The time was high noon; the month, August. The day was bright. The sunbeams danced over the white spray and green waves. A boat put off for the shore. I, Pierre Crépin, sat in the stern and held the rudder-lines. My heart was full of joy. I had been born in Bénévent; my friends were there – if they were alive. My mother, with good Aunt Lisette, in the little cottage by the hill-side. My old companions drinking white wine at “The Three Magpies.” All the old faces I knew – had known from childhood – loved better than anything else in the world. I could throw a stone to where they sat. I could almost hear them talk. “Pull, my comrades, pull!” I grow impatient; I, the lost found; I, the dead returned to life; I, Pierre Crépin, back in Bénévent. Who will believe it? For some time I must seem the ghost of myself. My old companions will put down their glasses and stare. Then they will till them to the brim and drink the health of Pierre Crépin, till the roof-tree of “The Three Magpies” echoes with “Pierre – Pierre Crépin, welcome back!” And my mother, she will know the footsteps of her son on the pebbles. She will rush out to fold me to her heart. And good Aunt Lisette! She is feeble – it will be almost too much for her. And —

The boat’s keel grates harshly on the shingle. “Steady!” say the seamen. I make my adieux tenderly, for they have been too kind to me. I wring their hands; I leap ashore. They go back to their ship. I turn my steps first to the little whitewashed cottage on the hill-side.

Is it necessary for me to tell how my mother embraces me. Poor Aunt Lisette! She knows I am back; but she is not here to welcome me. She is at rest. At last I have told all. It is night now, and I am free to go to the kitchen of “The Three Magpies.”

There it is. “Mon Dieu!” “Impossible; it is his ghost!” I soon convince them that it is, indeed, I myself. The news spreads over the market place. “Pierre Crépin is come back to Bénévent. After all, he is not drowned; he is alive and well.” The kitchen of “The Three Magpies” will not hold the crowd. Antoine, the drawer, cannot pull the corks fast enough. My eyes fill with tears. The brave fellows are too good to me. I must tell them my story. Pouches are drawn out; pipes and cigars are lighted; glasses are tilled for the twentieth time. I begin my yarn.

You see me, my good friends, safely back in Bénévent. It is four years since I parted from you. The ship in which I sailed from Marseilles was wrecked on a coral reef. All hands were lost. The last I saw alive was Marc Debois. He had seized a spar, and was struggling manfully for life. There are sharks in those seas. The waves ran high, and the foam of the breakers blinded me. I was safe on the land. I could not help Marc, but I watched him. A great wave came. It rolled on toward my feet.

There was a patch of blood on the water, mingling with the white foam of the breakers, then disappearing. Poor Marc had met his fate. All was over. I saw him no more. The spar to which he had clung was washed ashore at my feet. I was alone, wet, cold, wretched. I envied Marc. Shaking myself, I ran along the shore, to restore to my drenched limbs heat and life. Then I climbed a precipitous crag – one of a line that stretched along the shore as far as the eye could see. But I must not become tedious with my tale.

“Go on, Pierre Crépin!” they all cried.

Well, then, I continued, the island was desolate, uninhabited. There were fruits and berries, turtles, young birds in nests. Long times of dry weather under a tropical sun. In this I made a fire day after day by rubbing sticks together till I could kindle the dry leaves. Then came seasons of wet of weeks together. In these I had no fire, and had to subsist on berries and fruits, and the eggs of sea-fowl. I was there, as it seemed, an age. It was three years. I had long given up all hope of seeing Bénévent or men again. My island was about nine leagues round. On the highest hill, by the shore, I raised a mast. In a cleft in it I struck a piece of plank. On the plank I wrote, with white chalk —

“Au Secours! Pierre Crépin!”

This I renewed as the rains washed out my characters. At last help came. Unshaven, ragged, unkempt, I was taken on board an American vessel that had been driven by stress of weather far out of her course. And I am here.

My narrative ended, I was plied with a thousand questions, and it was not until mine host closed his doors for the night, and thrust us good-humouredly into the street, that I was able to bid my friends good-night, and turn my steps toward my mother’s cottage – that cottage where the dear soul awaited me with the anxiety of a mother who has mourned her only son as lost. That cottage where the soft bed of my boyish days, spread for me, with snowy linen, by the kindest of hands, had been ready for me these three hours. But I was not unattended. My friends, some dozen of them, would see me home to my mother’s door – would wring her hand in hearty congratulation at my return.

In the morning you may be sure I had plenty of callers. It was like a levée. They began to come before I was up, but my mother would not suffer that I should be waked. And I, who had not slept in a Christian bed for years, slept like a top, and slept it out.

I was sitting at my breakfast of cutlets, omelette, and white wine, when Cécile knocked at the door of the cottage.

“Enter!” said my mother.

“Ah, Cécile!” I cried; “but not the Cécile I left at Bénévent when I went away.”

For she was altered. She had grown more matronly. The loveliness of her girlhood had gone. It had given place to the more mature beauty of womanhood. What a difference four years makes to a girl!

“Pierre,” she cries, “we are so glad to see you back! You bring us news – the news we all want that I want.”

She looked impatiently toward me. Perhaps her eyes expressed more to me than her words; for her mother was Spanish, and Cécile had her mother’s great, black, saucer eyes, with their long fringe of jet lashes. Still, her look was not what I had expected to see. She wore sad-coloured draperies, but she was not in mourning. Her dress was rich, of Lyons silk, and this surprised me; for her people were poor, and a sailor’s widow is not always too well off at Bénévent. Seamen are, not uncommonly, judges of merchandise. Do we not trade with the Indies, and a thousand other outlandish places? In this way it came about that I involuntarily counted up the cost of Cécile’s costly habit and rich lace. But this mental inventory took hardly a second – certainly, less time than it takes me to tell.

“Cécile,” I said, “my poor girl, I wish that I could tell you good news. Your husband sailed with me. It was his lot to be one of the less lucky ones. Marc – ”

“Is dead!” said Cécile, calmly. “I knew it all along – these three years. I felt it. Something told me long ago Marc was dead!”

She said this so quietly that I was astonished – perhaps a little shocked. Sailors’ widows in Bénévent mourn their husbands’ loss for years. My mother was a sailor’s widow ever since I knew her. No offer of a new ring could ever tempt her to throw aside the old one. She was true as Love.

I replied, with something of choking in my throat, but with hardness in my face, “Marc is dead, Cécile! He was drowned!” – for I could not bring myself to tell this beautiful woman, whom he had loved as only an honest sailor can love, the story of his fate, as I had told it to the comrades in the kitchen of “The Three Magpies” the night before. I desired to spare her this.

“So Marc is dead!” Cécile repeated, impassively. “Dead – as I always thought and said he was dead! Drowned! You saw it, Pierre?”

“The good God forgive me!” I said, “I saw it!”

As I said before, I held a levée that day in the parlour of my mother’s cottage. It gladdened my eyes, who would have worked my finger-nails below the quicks to save her from wanting anything – to see that the good soul was surrounded by the signs of plenty. She had wanted for nothing. Old Jean had tilled her piece of garden-ground to some purpose, and had never taken a sou as recompense for his work. Everybody had been kind to her. It brought tears into my eyes to hear of it. Her kitchen told a tale of plenty. From the smoke-blackened oak beams hung hams and flitches of bacon more than one would take the trouble to count. Bunches of garlic and strings of onions were there in plenty; and the great black kettle hanging always over the pine-wood fire, sent forth savoury steams, that made your heart leap into your mouth. The Widow Crépin’s was a pot-au-feu worth eating, I can tell you. Nor did we fail to wash down our food with draughts of good wine on every day of the week. I gave a supper that night to some of my friends. I had not quite forgotten the impression Cécile had made upon me in the morning. For Marc, the second officer, had been my friend ever since I could recollect sweetstuff. But we were merry together, talking of the old times, of my adventures in the desert island, of the good ship that had brought me safely back to Bénévent, and of other things.

Presently the name of Cécile was mentioned.

I shuddered involuntarily.

I knew bad news was coming from the tone of the speakers.

I guessed what it would be, and blew angry clouds from my long wooden pipe.

“Pierre – Pierre Crépin, has Cécile Debois been here to see you?”

“She has. She was here this morning.”

“She is well off!” said one.

“She has to want for nothing!” said another.

And they shook their heads wisely, as those do who know more than they say.

“What of Cécile?” I asked, with somewhat of anger in my tone.

“Do you not know?”

“Did she not tell you?”

“I know she is poor Marc’s widow. She told me nothing.”

“Ah, ah! She wanted the news of Marc’s death! She will be married to M. André, the merchant! There has this long while been a talk of them in Bénévent, and, for the matter of that, for miles round!”

“M. André!” I cried. “But he is elderly – old enough to be her father!”

“‘Old men – old fools,’ as the saying is!” put in Father Lancrac. He was old enough to know. I did not gainsay him. It is well to treat one’s elders with respect. And old M. Lancrac, my mother’s good friend and kinsman, was in his dotage. Besides, now others aimed their darts at her, I felt inclined to excuse Cécile.

“It is well,” I said. “Women many again in Bénévent, I suppose, as anywhere else in the world. Why not Cécile?”

Hearing me say this, and marking some sternness in my tone, they all said, “Ay, ay! Why not? She is a fine woman, and is to make a good match that we all ought to be proud of! Poor Marc is dead!” And so forth.

We puffed our pipes some time in silence, those of us who smoked. The others counted my mother’s hams and flitches of bacon, and the strings of onions throwing flickering shadows in the lamplight. But old age will not be silent.

Father Lancrac said, for his part, he wished he was Merchant André. He would marry again. Who would have him? He was better than most of the young ones now.

And the women folk laughed.

Lawyers are adroit. After this, the notary, Gaspard, who had honoured us with his company he had known my father – turned the conversation. He asked me questions about my adventures in the island, my mode of life, how I counted time, my subsistence, and such things. In this way our evening passed away, and we parted, as good friends should part – merry.

But it happened sooner than I had expected. Cécile and M. André were married a fortnight after. That was a scene, indeed, which will not soon be forgotten. The bride looked lovely, and M. André, worthy man, wore an appearance ten years younger than his real age, he was so happy.

Madame André! I thought of her as the wife of my old comrade, Marc. I recalled the humble nuptials of six years before. I seemed to see her as she stood before us then – girlish, beautiful, graceful, in her home-made bridal gown. Now her own friends were not grand enough to be bidden to the feast. But M. André’s well supplied their place. We, however, were permitted to look on – to cheer, huzza, and wish them both joy.

Her mother’s house was too small for her to be married from. She was taken to the Mairie by her second spouse from the house of one of his relatives; and, in her white dress and veil, she looked more dazzlingly lovely than any woman I had ever seen.

After the ceremonial at the church, there was a dejeuner, to which all the best people of Bénévent were invited. The newly married pair were to spend their honeymoon at a château of M. André’s, some three leagues from Bénévent, in the hills, overlooking the sea. A carriage and pair of horses, with a postilion in a gay jacket, waited to take them there. Bound the carriage, on the footway and in the road, was a crowd of people, curious to see all that there was to be seen, and desirous of giving bride and bridegroom “God-speed!” when they drove off.

I passed the place by accident, for I had not intended to be there. I had taken my stout stick in my hand, meaning to try a walk up the hills, by the coach road.

By chance I had passed the house where the bride and bridegroom were breakfasting. By chance I had found myself one of the crowd. A crowd impresses upon one its sympathies. I loitered among them – not long; – long enough to see a man, with a beard and tanned face, hurriedly asking some questions. I could not get near him for the people. Then, as hurriedly, he strode away, with great, heavy strides.

The face I did not know – I had caught but a hurried glance of it; but the broad shoulders, the strong limbs, the walk of the man, I did know.

A terrible feeling came over me.

My knees trembled under me.

My face was white as paper.

I could have fallen to the ground.

For I knew the walk was the walk of Marc!

And these three years he had been dead!

With the emotions called forth by this untimely apparition, do you suppose that I remained in the crowd in the narrow street? – that I desired to “huzza!” as M. André and Cécile drove away? I was stifled. I wanted air – to breathe – to breathe! I sought it, by turning my steps to the hills as fast as my trembling limbs would carry me.

It was the road he had taken.

Should I see him again?

I gathered strength. I walked fast – faster. I ran till I was out of breath. I stopped and sat down on a great moss-grown stone.

A lovely landscape spread out below me. It was years since I had seen it. The rivers flowing through a champagne country to the sea. The white houses and thatched roofs of the villages: the red-brick streets of Bénévent. How well I knew it all! It recalled memories of the past. The thought flashed upon me in an instant.

The last time I was here was with Marc. We desired again to take our walk – to see our old haunts of bird’s-nesting and berry-gathering. It was the day before he married Cécile.

I rose, wiped the perspiration from my brow, and continued my ascent. I reached the highest level of the coach road, where, for half a league, it takes its course through a narrow defile between two precipitous hills, whose rocky sides no time can change. I looked back.

The open carriage containing Cécile and her husband I could see on the road, far in the distance. They were driving at a good pace. “They will pass me in the defile,” I said, and hurried on. Why, I knew not. Presently the sound of wheels on the soft, sandy road was plain enough to the ear.

Nearer and nearer came the rumble. There were some juniper bushes of giant growth a little further on the road. It was a question which would reach them first, the chaise or I.

I had the start; but horses are quicker on their legs than men.

As it turned out, we reached them almost, together. I was slightly in advance, however.

The road here was very narrow. Two vehicles could hardly pass. I took to the rough grass. Pushing aside the boughs of a bush that was directly in my path, and intending to take my stand before it, and wave my hat as the carriage passed, I came suddenly upon – Marc!

It was he!

He stood with a wild fire of jealousy in his eyes, his hat on the grass beside him; his arm raised, a pistol in his hand, his finger on the trigger!

It was a supreme moment.

My courage did not desert me. I was calm.

The carriage was passing.

I made a dash at his arm, to strike the weapon from his hand. I stumbled and fell at his feet. Instantly I looked up. I wished to shout, but my tongue refused its office. It was glued, parched, to the roof of my mouth. There would be murder! Cécile would be killed – and by Marc! My eyes were riveted on the trigger of his pistol! He pulled it! There was a tiny flash – a tiny puff! No more! The weapon had missed fire. We were concealed by the bushes. The carriage drove by at a rapid pace. Cécile was saved for the time!

I gave a sigh of relief. Then came upon me the feeling of wonder that Marc was back. Marc, whom I had seen three years before to meet with his end – whom I had mourned as dead.

All this flashed across my mind in an instant. I rose to my knees, to my feet. I placed my hand on his arm. I looked into his eyes. His face was changed; there was terrible emotion in it.

“Marc,” I said, as quietly and with as much self-command as I could summon.

He suffered my hand to remain on his shoulder, and continued to look in the direction the chaise had taken; toward M. André’s château. We stood thus a second or so. Then, turning upon me, he gasped, in low, choked, guttural accents of reproach and of the deepest despair, “Cécile! Cécile!”

What could I say? My conscience smote me heavily. I had told my best friend’s wife that her husband was dead! That I knew it – had seen him meet his death! And upon my testimony she had acted. Marc and M. André – she was the wife of both! It was terrible to witness the agony of the wretched man. It was not for me to break in upon that sacred passion of grief.

“Cécile!” he murmured, as the pistol dropped from his hand, and he sank fainting in my arms.

I placed him gently on the rough grass by the roadside, raising his head, and loosening the collar of his shirt.

For an hour he remained in a swoon, broken only by incoherent cries, that at rare intervals fashioned themselves into language. Then it was always “Cécile!”

I had a flask of brandy in my pocket. I got water from a little mountain spring close by. I bathed my poor comrade’s temples, and gave him a reviving draught of the spirit and water. I rubbed his cold hands, and beat them, to restore him to consciousness.

At last he came to. How can I describe my joy when I found that he was, to all appearance, sane. For the attempt to shoot the unfortunate woman was the act of a madman. That attempt had happily been frustrated. What was now to be done? You will see, from my coolness and presence of mind in this danger, that I am able to act in an emergency. While Marc lay swooning on the grass by my side, I had had time to think. My course, my duty, were alike clear to me. I had been innocently – though I can never forgive myself – the cause of Cécile’s second marriage. I must not conceal this from Marc. My shoulders are broad. The truth must be told. I must tell it.

“Just now, Marc,” I said, shaking him gently by the hand, “you were not Marc Debois. You were a madman intent on murder – the murder of her whom he loved best in the world!”

“Name her not!” he burst out, throwing up his head and pressing his hands to his eyes; “faithless – false wretch!”

“Through me.”

“Through you?”

“Listen. A fortnight ago I was put ashore at Bénévent, after three years’ existence, for I will not call it life, in that island, on whose shores I thought I saw you swallowed up by the sharks. Cécile – ”

He started back a few paces from me at the mention of her name.

I continued, however.

“Cécile came to me; questioned me. I told her you were dead. It is my fault. You see, Marc, all the fault is mine. She had been faithful to her marriage vow, till certain news of your death reached her. Then she was free to marry. Alas! that mine was the tongue that gave her the freedom!”