A Desperate Voyage Part 6

Baptiste Liais was a very calm person when he was not in fear, and he had now entirely recovered his self-possession. He shrugged his shoulders, and replied carelessly, "There are a.s.sa.s.sins and a.s.sa.s.sins, monsieur. There is courage and courage. There is the blind bravery of the soldier, who, shrinking not from bloodshed, risks his life in battle; and there is the cool nerve of the educated man, who, in cold blood, removes with poison those who stand in his way. I suppose you allow that this last is also a species of courage?"

"Is that your sort of courage?"

The Frenchman shook his head in a deprecatory way, and exclaimed, in tones of playful remonstrance, as if he were only reb.u.t.ting a charge of one of those offences which are tolerated, and even fashionable, "But, monsieur, monsieur! you speak of me as if I had been proved to be an a.s.sa.s.sin. You forget that I was acquitted."

"You say that you are innocent?"

"Certainly. I am sure that I am a very inoffensive fellow." The man spoke with the quiet ease of one gentleman to another. It was plain that he had been used to decent society at some period of his life.

"Were you never on board the _Vrouw Elisa_?"

"I had never heard of the vessel till they arrested me here."

"And your companions, the two Spaniards?"

"As innocent as I am myself--no more, no less. But I see that you have some of that excellent English tobacco on the table. Permit me to make myself a cigarette."

"You are a cool fellow, Baptiste Liais. I can see that you are a man of education. You were not always a common sailor?"

"Your perception flatters me. You have divined the truth," said the Frenchman, bowing. "I am a gentleman by birth and education. My family is one of the most ancient and respected of the Provencal aristocracy. I need not tell you that the name I now go by is an a.s.sumed one. And I--well I, to be candid, am the scapegrace of the family."

He rolled himself up a cigarette, lit it, and, looking up, his eyes met those of Carew in the frankest way possible. And yet the solicitor had no doubt in his own mind that the man had committed the crimes imputed to him; and the Frenchman, on his part, did not imagine for a moment that Carew believed in his innocence.

"I suppose you will now look out for another ship?" the solicitor said.

"How can I do so in Rotterdam? My face is known here. I am execrated--hunted down. No captain would ship me, no crew serve with me."

"Won't your consul a.s.sist you?"

"I don't think so," replied the Frenchman drily.

Neither spoke for some time; then Carew said, "I realise your position, and am sorry for you. Now supposing I were to ship you on board my yacht, I imagine that it would be a matter of indifference to you to what part of the world we sailed?"

The Frenchman looked curiously and keenly at Carew out of the corners of his eyes. "I don't care a rap where I go to so long as I get out of this detestable Rotterdam," he replied.

"And your friends--would they come too?"

"Gladly. I will answer for them."

"What sort of men are they?"

"The little one, a Galician from Ferrol, is not at all a bad fellow, and he is an excellent sailor; but the big Basque is a savage brute--one of such is enough on a vessel. However, he can't do much harm by himself, unless he makes the rest of your crew discontented. Are they Englishmen?"

"I am alone. I have discharged my crew; and there would only be you three and myself on board."

"That would be a sufficient number to navigate this little ship. Do you really mean that you wish us to come with you?"

"I do," replied Carew, after a slight hesitation; and the Frenchman eyed him with a not unnatural astonishment.

The solicitor had rapidly surveyed the situation in all its bearings, and he had decided that it was his wisest and safest plan to engage these ruffians as his crew. Morally weak, acutely fearful of disgrace, and cowardly of conscience as he was, Carew had plenty of physical courage. He was not the least daunted by the idea of venturing across the wide ocean on a small yacht accompanied by these murderers.

Here was a crew ready to sail with him at a moment's notice and ask no questions. He felt that he ran but very little risk, after all; for these ruffians would gain nothing by murdering him. Piracy, in the old sense of the term, is almost impossible in these days. These men by themselves could do nothing with the yacht; they could not take her into any civilised port and dispose of her; neither of them could impersonate an English barrister. The seizure of the _Vrouw Elisa_ was a very different matter; for the mutineers then knew that there was a revolutionary party ready to purchase the vessel they had stolen.

Again, he would make them acquainted with the fact that he was taking no money with him on the yacht; and he would promise to pay them, on their arrival at Buenos Ayres, a considerably larger sum than sailors ever receive for such a voyage. Under these circ.u.mstances, it could not possibly be to their interest to do away with him. On the contrary, it would be to their manifest advantage to serve him faithfully. Unless the men were absolute idiots, they would see all this; and he knew that the Frenchman, at least, was far too intelligent a man to commit a senseless crime that could do him no good.

So argued the solicitor; and there was yet another more subtle motive that urged him to engage these three men in preference to honest sailors--a motive of which he himself was only dimly conscious. When a man has a sentimental objection to being a villain, and yet is one, and has no intention of reforming, he likes his surroundings not to be of a sort to reproach him and remind him of his crimes. It is painful to him to a.s.sociate with good men. He prefers to be in the company of the bad; in their presence he does not feel the shame of his wickedness. So this man, with his strangely complex mind and conflicting instincts, was glad to take unto himself men worse even than himself as his companions across the ocean.

"And to what port did you say you were sailing?" asked the Frenchman.

"I will not tell you that until we are out at sea."

"Oh, very well," said the man, again casting a keen glance at Carew's face, and smiling, as one who should say, "Have you too your secret--have you too committed a crime? If so, there should at once be an agreeable bond of sympathy between us."

"How soon do you sail, sir?" he asked.

"If you are all on board to-night we will sail at daybreak. I am ready for sea. You need not trouble about getting an outfit, for I have plenty of clothes in the yacht for the lot of you." Carew was thinking of the effects of Allen and his man Jim.

"Oh, that is excellent!" cried the Frenchman. "And, excuse me, sir; what pay will you give us?--not that I wish to chaffer with one who has come to my rescue in so generous a manner."

"And I do not wish to stint you," replied Carew. "You, as mate, shall have seven pounds a month; your comrades five pounds a month each."

"That will do very well; but I should like you not to let the others know that I am receiving a higher pay than they. They might be jealous--not to say dangerous," said the cunning fellow. "Ha! what is that?" The Frenchman started, gripped Carew by the arm, and his cheeks again became white with fear.

There was a sound of footsteps on the deck, and the next moment the tub-shaped Willem entered the cabin. When he saw who was sitting opposite to his master he stood stock still, his jaw dropped, and an expression of extreme astonishment, which amounted to horror, settled on his stupid, honest face.

"What is the matter with you, Willem?" asked Carew, knowing well what was about to happen. "This is the mate I have engaged for the yacht."

"Dat--dat man!" cried the Dutchman, finding his voice with difficulty.

"You know who dat man is?"

"I do. He has just left the court-house. He was unjustly accused of murder, and has been found innocent."

"Vat--you take dat man for mate! Oh, den I go--I go at vonce! I not stay on board vid dat man."

The usually stolid Dutchman trembled with excitement, and his broad face was scarlet with indignation. After a few minutes, finding that Carew was obdurate and would insist on engaging the most loathed man in all Rotterdam as mate, Willem rolled up his scanty luggage into a bundle, demanded and received the few guilders that were owing to him, and hurried on sh.o.r.e, grumbling uncouth Dutch oaths to himself as he went.

Then the Frenchman, who had been observing the scene with a cynical smile, laughed bitterly.

"Had I been the fiend himself that fat idiot could not have been much more terrified at the sight of me. Ah, how they love me--these worthy people of Rotterdam!"

For a moment there was a troubled look upon Carew's face. With his usual inconsistency he half regretted, when it was too late, that honest Willem had left him. It seemed to him that he had now broken the last tie between himself and the world of law-abiding men. He felt a vague sense of something lost to him for ever; as if his guardian angel, despairing of him, had forsaken him. But he quickly shook off the feeling as a foolish fancy, and turned his attention to the business he had on hand.

"Now, Baptiste," he said, "we must find your two comrades. Do you know where they are?"

"I think I can find them. Antic.i.p.ating a separation, we arranged a rendezvous. But I dare not walk through the streets to look for them; I should be recognised and murdered."

"Nonsense! we will soon disguise you. Shave off your moustache and put on a suit of clothes that I will lend you, and your own mother would not know you."