Captain Canot Part 27

Did I not bless the wit and heart of woman again and again in my joy of industrial deliverance! The heart of woman--that n.o.ble heart! burn it in the fire of Africa; steep it in the snow of Sweden; lap it in the listless elysium of Indian tropics; cage it in the centre of dungeons, as the palpitating core of that stony rind,--yet every where and always, throughout my wild career, has it been the last sought--but surest, sweetest, and truest of devoted friends!

_Aide toi, et Dieu t'aidera!_--was my motto from that moment. For years it was the first lesson of intellectual power and self-reliance that had checkered a life of outlawry, in which adventurous impatience preferred the gambling risks of fortune to the slow accretions of regular toil. I was a schoolmaster!

Madame Sorret's plan was perfectly successful. In less than a week I was installed in her chamber, with a cla.s.s formed of my lady's lads, a son and friend of my lawyer, and a couple of sons of officers in the chateau; the whole producing a monthly income of fifty francs. As I a.s.sumed my vocation with the spirit of a needy professor, I gained the good will of all the parents by a.s.siduous instruction of their children. Gradually I extended the sphere of my usefulness, by adding penmanship to my other branches of tuition; and so well did I please the parents, that they volunteered a stipend of eighteen _francs_ more.

I would not dare affirm, that my pupils made extraordinary progress; yet I am sure the children not only acquired cleverly, but loved me as a companion. My scheme of instruction was not modelled upon that of other pedagogues; for I simply contented myself, in the small cla.s.s, with reasoning out each lesson thoroughly, and never allowing the boys to depart till they comprehended every part of their task. After this, it was my habit to engage their interest _in language_, by familiar dialogues, which taught them the names of furniture, apparel, instruments, implements, animals, occupations, trades; and thus I led them insensibly from the most simple nomenclature to the most abstract. I deprived the interview, as much as I could, of task-like formality; and invariably closed the school with a story from my travels or adventures. I may not have ripened my scholars into cla.s.sical Anglo-Saxons, but I have the happiness to know that I earned an honest living, supported my companions, and obtained the regard of my pupils to such a degree, that the little band accompanied me with tears to the ship, when, long afterwards, I was sent a happy exile from France.

CHAPTER XLVII.

I have said that our genteel felon was not only refined in manners but shy towards his new companions; nor, for several weeks, could all our efforts rub off his reserve. I was not surprised that he kept aloof from the coa.r.s.er inmates, but I was not prepared to find that all my own advances to confidence and companionship, were repulsed with even more decision than those of my officers. At last, some pa.s.sing event disclosed my _true_ character to him, when I learned for the first time that he had mistaken me for _a government spy_; inasmuch as he could not otherwise account for my intimacy with Madame Sorret and her spouse.

Our first move towards confidence was owing to the following circ.u.mstance. I had been engaged one forenoon in writing a letter to my mother, when Madame Sorret sent for me to see the Sisters of Charity, who were making their rounds with a few comforts for the convicts. I made my toilette and repaired to the parlor, where the charitable women, who heard many kind things of me from the landlady, bestowed a liberal donation of books. Returning quickly to my letter, which I had left open on the table, confident that no one in the room read Italian, I again took up my pen to finish a paragraph. But, as I observed the page, it seemed that I had not written so much, yet the sheet was nearly full of words, and all in my handwriting. I reperused the doc.u.ment and found several lines, which, though in perfect keeping with the sense and context of the composition, were certainly not in my natural style. I was sure I had not used the complimentary language, to which I am always so averse. Still I read the page again--again--and again! I got up; walked about the room; took the paper to the window; put it down; walked about again, and then reperused the letter. For my life, I could not detect the precise difficulty that puzzled me. The paper was, perhaps, bewitched! It was mine, and yet it was not! In my dilemma, I rolled out a round Spanish _carramba_ or two; and, with an _Ave Maria_ of utter bewilderment, begun to put up my writing materials.

My companions, who had been huddled in a corner, watching my actions, could stand it no longer, but bursting into peals of hearty laughter, announced that Monsieur Germaine had taken the liberty to add a postscript, while I was deep in literature with the Sisters of Charity!

The ice was broken! Monsieur Germaine was not yet convicted, so we gave him the benefit of the British law, and resolving to "consider the fellow innocent till proved to be guilty," we raised him to the dignity of companionship. His education was far superior to mine, and his conversational powers were wonderful. He seemed perfectly familiar with Latin and Greek, and had a commanding knowledge of history, theology, mathematics, and astronomy. I never met his equal in penmanship, drawing, and designing.

A few days of sociability sufficed to win a mutual confidence, and to demand the mutual stories of our lives.

Germaine was born so high up on those picturesque borders of Piedmont, that it was difficult to say whether the Swiss or Italian predominated in his blood. The troubles and wars of the region impoverished his parents, who had been gentlefolks in better times; yet they managed to bestow the culture that made him the accomplished person I have described. No opportunity offered, however, for his advancement as he reached maturity, and it was thought best that he should go abroad in search of fortune. For a while the quiet and modest youth was successful in the humbler employments to which he stooped for bread; but his address and talents, and especially his skill in designing and penmanship, attracted the notice of a sharper, with whom he accidentally became intimate; so that, before he knew it, the adroit scrivener was both _used_ and _compromised_ by the knave. In truth, I do not suppose that Germaine's will was made of stern and tough materials. Those soft and gentle beings are generally disposed to grasp the pleasures of life without labor; and whenever a relaxed conscience has once allowed its possessor to tamper with crime, its success is not only a stimulant but a motive for farther enterprise.

Germaine was soon a successful forger. He ama.s.sed twenty or thirty thousand _francs_ by practices so perfect in their execution, that he never dreamed of detection. But, at last, a daring speculation made him our companion in the tower.

Three days before his introduction to the _chateau_ of Brest, and a few hours before the regular departure of the Paris mail, Germaine called on an exchange broker with seventeen thousand _francs_ in gold, with which he purchased a sight draft on the capital. Soon after he called a second time on the broker, and exhibiting a letter of orders, bearing a regular post-mark, from his princ.i.p.als, who were alleged to be oil merchants at Ma.r.s.eilles, desired to countermand the transaction, and receive back his gold for the bill of exchange which he tendered. The princ.i.p.al partner of the brokers did not happen to be within at the moment, and the junior declined complying till his return. _En attendant_, Monsieur Germaine sallied forth, and offered a neighboring broker an additional half per cent, on the current value of gold for the cash. He expressed, as the cause of this sacrifice, extreme anxiety to depart by the four o'clock _diligence_, but the urgency aroused the broker's suspicion, and led him to request Germaine's return in half an hour, which he required to collect the specie.

The incautious forger went off to his hotel with the promise in his ear, while the wary broker dropped in on the drawers of the draft to compare notes. The result of the interview was a visit to the _bureau de police_, whence a couple of officers were despatched to Germaine's hotel. They entered the dandy's room in disguise, but they were not quick enough to save from destruction several _proof impressions_ of blank drafts, which the counterfeiter cast into the fire the moment he heard a knock at his door. In his trunks, they found engraving tools, a small press, various acids and a variety of inks; all of which were duly noted and preserved, while Monsieur Germaine was committed to the _chateau_.

In those days there were no electric wires, and as the weather became thick and cloudy, the old-fashioned semaph.o.r.e or telegraph was useless in giving notice to the Parisian police to stop the payment of a suspected draft, and arrest the forger's accomplice in the capital.

Soon after the mail _of that day_ from Brest reached the metropolis, a lady of most respectable appearance, clad in mourning, presented herself at the counter of the broker's Parisian correspondent, and exhibiting an unquestionable draft, drew seventeen thousand francs.

From the rapidity with which the whole of this adroit scheme was accomplished in Brest and Paris, it seems that Germaine required but four hours to copy, engrave, print and fill up the forged bill; and yet, so perfectly did he succeed, that when the discharged draft came back to Brest, neither drawers, brokers, nor police could distinguish between the true one and the false! No one had seen Germaine at work, or could prove complicity with the lady. The mourning dame was nowhere to be found in Paris, Brest or Ma.r.s.eilles; so that when I finally quitted the _chateau_, the adroit _chevalier_ was still an inmate, but detained only _on suspicion_!

CHAPTER XLVIII.

This charming young soldier of fortune was our room-mate for nine months, and engaged in several of our enterprises for escape. But Germaine was more a man of _finesse_ than action, and his imprisonment was the first mishap of that nature in his felonious career; so that I cannot say I derived much advantage, either from his contrivances or suggestions.

I always cultivated a sneaking fondness for the s.e.x, and was, perhaps, especially devoted to those who _might_ aid me if they pleased, when I got into difficulties. Into this category, under existing circ.u.mstances, fell that very worthy person, Mademoiselle Babette, whom I have heretofore rather ungallantly reported as an "antique virgin." It is true that Babette was, perhaps, not as young as she had been; but an unmarried Frenchwoman is unquestionably possessed of an elixir against age,--some _eau restoratif_,--with which she defies time, preserves her outlines, and keeps up that elastic gayety of heart, which renders her always the most delightful of companions.

Now, I do not pretend, when I flirted with Babette, and sometimes made downright love to the damsel, that I ever intended leading her to any of the altars of Brest, when it should please the "king of the barricades" to release me from prison. No such design ever possessed my mind, at the age of twenty-seven, towards a maid of thirty. Yet, I confess that Babette bewitched the sting and memory from many an hour of prison-life, and played the comedy of love _a la Francaise_ to such perfection, that I doubt not her heart rebounded from the encounter as scarless as my own.

Germaine joked me very often about the tender pa.s.sion, the danger of trifling with youthful hearts, and the risk I ran from encounters with such glittering eyes; till, one day, he suggested that we should take advantage of the flirtation, by turning it to our benefit in flight.

Sorret and his wife often went out in the afternoon, and left the gate and the keys solely in charge of Babette, who improved their absence by spending half the time in our apartment. Now, Germaine proposed that, during one of these absences, I should, in my capacity as teacher, feign some excuse to leave our room, and, if I found the lieutenant porteress unwilling to yield the keys to my pa.s.sionate entreaty, we would unhesitatingly seize, gag, and m.u.f.fle the damsel so securely, that, with the keys in our possession, we might open the gates, and pa.s.s without question the only sentinels who guarded the exterior corridor. Germaine was eloquent upon the merit of his scheme, while, to my mind, it indicated the bungling project of a beginner, and was promptly rejected, because I would not injure with violence the innocent girl I had trifled with, and because I would not dishonor the kindness of Sorret and his wife, by compromising their _personal_ vigilance.

Next morning, Germaine turned over to me long before daylight, and whispered his delight that I had discarded his scheme, for it "never could have been perfected without pa.s.sports to quit the town!" This deficiency, he said, had absorbed his mind the livelong night, and, at last, a bright thought suggested the supply.

"Babette," continued the forger, "is _not_ to be molested in any way, so you may make your mind easy about your sweetheart, though I am afraid she will not be able to accompany us in our enterprise. First and foremost, we must have a visit from our Spanish girls to-morrow, and, as you enjoy more influence than I, it will be best for you to prepare them. Dolores, who is by far the cleverest of the party, is to go with Concha boldly to the prefecture of police, and demand pa.s.sports for Paris. These, in all likelihood, will be furnished without question. The pa.s.sports once in hand, our _demoiselles_ must be off to an apothecary's for such acids as I shall prescribe; and then, _mon capitaine_, leave the rest to me!"

I turned the matter over in my mind, pretending to finish a morning nap, and, while we were dressing, a.s.sented. The Spanish women, who never refused their countrymen a favor, daringly obtained the pa.s.sports, and smuggled them into prison with the required acids.

Before night the deed was done; the gender of the doc.u.ments was changed; Germaine was metamorphosed into "_Pietro Nazzolini_" a tailor, and I was turned into a certain "_Dominico Antonetti_," by trade a carpenter!

How to escape was our next concern. This could not be effected without breaking prison,--a task of some enterprise, as our apartment was above a store-room, always closed, barred, and locked. The door of our room opened on a long pa.s.sage, broken at intervals by several iron gates before the main portal was reached; so that our only hope was the single window, that illuminated our apartment and looked into a small yard, guarded after sunset by a sentinel. This court, moreover, was entirely hemmed in by a wall, which, if successfully escaladed, would lead us to the parade ground of the _chateau_.

Days pa.s.sed, while my dull brain and the kindled fancy of the new Nazzolini were inventing plans. Pietro had schemes enough, for his imagination was both vivid and ceaseless; but whenever he came to reduce them to words, it was always found that they required a little more "_polishing_ in certain links," which he forthwith retired to perform.

One of our greatest difficulties was, how to deal with my officers, who had proved so false on the Senegal. We debated the matter for a long time; but, considering that they were sick of long confinement and bereft of future comfort without my labor we resolved to let them partake our flight, though, once outside the chateau, we would abandon them to their own resources.

Accordingly, we imparted our scheme, which was eagerly embraced; and, through the kindness of our Spanish girls, we secretly despatched all our spare garments, so that we might not issue bare into the censorious world.

All being prepared, it was proposed by _Signore Pietro_ that New Year, which was at hand, should be signalized by our enterprise. As I had carefully kept and secreted the saw received from my Goree friends, we possessed a most valuable implement; so that it was resolved to attack a bar the moment we had been mustered and locked up on that auspicious night. At eleven, a descent into the court beneath the window was to be commenced, and, if this proved successful, there was no doubt we could reach the beach across the parade. But the sentinel still required "polishing" out of the court-yard! This was a tremendous obstacle; still, Germaine once more put on his fancy-wings, and recommended that our fair Catalans, whose occupation made them familiar with the whole regiment, should ascertain the sentinels for the night in question, and, as it was a festival, they might easily insinuate a few bottles of brandy into the guard-house, and prepare the soldiery for sleep instead of vigilance. But the success and merit of this plan were considered so doubtful, that another scheme was kept in reserve to silence the soldier whose duty required a continual march beneath our window. If the women failed to accomplish our wishes with liquor, and if the sentry persisted in a vigilant promenade, it was proposed, as soon as the bar parted, to drop the noose of a _lazo_ quietly over his head, and dragging him with a run to the window-sill, knock out his brains, if necessary, with the iron.

The last days of December were at hand; every body was busy with hope or preparation; the women carried off our garments; then they brought us an abundance of fishing lines, hidden beneath their petticoats; and, finally, a rope, strong enough to hang a man, was spun in darkness by the whole detachment.

The wished-for day at length came, with the jollity, merriment, and drunkenness, that attend it almost universally throughout _la belle France_. But there was not so sober a party in the kingdom as that which was anxiously gathered together over a wineless meal in the chateau of Brest. We trembled lest a word, a traitor, or an accident, should frustrate our hope of life and freedom.

In the afternoon, our Spanish women, gay with fresh apparel, dashing ribbons, and abundant claret, visited their fluttering birds in the cage, and _a.s.sured_ success. The sergeant of the guard was married to one of their intimate friends, and, _in her_ company, they were confident, on such a night, of reaching the guard-room. A long embrace, perhaps a kiss, and a most affectionate farewell!

Supper was over. Muster pa.s.sed. Oh! how slowly was drawn the curtain of darkness over that shortest of days. Would night _never_ come? It did. By eight o'clock the severed bar hung by threads, while the well-greased _lazo_ lay coiled on the sill. Nine o'clock brought the sentinel, who began his customary tramp with great regularity, but broke forth in a drinking song as soon as the sergeant was out of hearing.

So impatient were my comrades for escape, that they declined waiting till the appointed hour of eleven, and, at ten, ranged themselves along the floor, with the end of the rope firmly grasped, ready for a strong and sudden pull, while the intrepid Germaine stood by, bar in hand, ready to strike, if necessary. At a signal from me, after I had dropped the _lazo_, they were to haul up, make fast, and follow us through the aperture by a longer rope, which was already fastened for our descent.

Softly the sash was opened, and, stretching my neck into the darkness, I distinctly saw, by a bright star-light, the form of the sentinel, pacing, with staggering strides, beneath the cas.e.m.e.nt. Presently, he came to a dead halt, at the termination of a _roulade_ in his song, and, in a wink, the _lazo_ was over him. A kick with my heel served for signal to the halliards, and up flew the pendant against the window-sill. But, alas! it was not the sentinel. The noose had not slipped or caught with sufficient rapidity, and escaping the soldier's neck, it only grasped and secured his _chako_ and musket. In an instant, I saw the fatal misfortune, and, clearing the weapon, dropped it, _plumb_, on the head of the tipsy and terrified guardsman. Its fall must have stunned and prostrated the poor fellow, for not a word or groan escaped from the court-yard.

CHAPTER XLIX.

Silent as was the sentinel after the restoration of his musket, it was, nevertheless, unanimously voted that our enterprise was a failure. Accordingly, the bar was replaced, the window closed, our implements stowed in the mattresses, and ourselves packed beneath the blankets, in momentary expectation of a visit from the jailer and military commander. We pa.s.sed the night in feverish expectation, but our bolts remained undrawn.

Bright and early, with a plenteous breakfast, appeared our spirited Spaniards, and, as the turnkey admitted and locked them in, they burst into a fit of uproarious laughter at our maladroit adventure. The poor sentinel, they said, was found, at the end of his watch, stretched on the ground in a sort of fainting fit and half frozen. He swore, in accounting for a bleeding skull, that an invisible hand from the store-room beneath us, had dealt him a blow that felled him to the earth! His story was so silly and maudlin, that the captain of the guard, who remembered the festival and knew the tipsiness of the entire watch, gave no heed to the tale, but charged it to the account of New Year and _eau de vie_. We were sadly jeered by the la.s.ses for our want of pluck, in forsaking the advantage fortune had thrown in our way, and I was specially charged to practise my hand more carefully with the _lazo_, when I next got a chance on the plantations of Cuba, or among the _vaqueros_ of Mexico.

As we expected the daily visit from the punctual inspector, to try our bars with his iron rod, we hastened to secure our window, and stuffing all the fissures with straw and rags, so as almost to exclude light, we complained bitterly to the official of the cold wind to which the apertures exposed us, and thus prevented him from touching the sash.

Besides this precaution, we thought it best to get rid of our tools and cord in the same way we received them; and thus terminated our project of escape.

Soon after, I heard from a relative in Paris, that my pet.i.tion had been presented to Louis Philippe, whose reception of it encouraged a hope for my pardon. The news somewhat restored us to the good humor that used to prevail in our party, but which had been sadly dashed since our failure. Even Monsieur Germaine, saw in our antic.i.p.ated liberation, a phantom of encouragement for himself, and began to talk confidentially of his plans. He fancied that I had been gradually schooled _into a taste for misdemeanor_, so that he favored me with innumerable anecdotes of swindling, and countless schemes of future robbery. By making me an incipient accomplice, he thought to secure my aid either for his escape or release.

I will take the liberty to record a single specimen of Germaine's prolific fancy in regard to the higher grades of elegant felony, and will leave him to the tender mercy of the French government, which allows no _bail_ for such _chevaliers_ but chastises their crime with an iron hand.

We had scarcely recovered from our trepidation, when the forger got up one morning, with a radiant face, and whispered that the past night was fruitful to his brain, for he had planned an enterprise which would yield a fortune for _any two_ who were wise and bold enough to undertake it.