Carette of Sark Part 28

"I know it," said Torode. "I hear she favours you, but a dead man is no good. If you don't get her, as sure as the sun is in the sky the boy shall have her."

"Even so I will not join you."

"And that is your last word?"

"My last word. I will not join you. I have lived honest. I will die honest."

"Soit!" he growled, and went away, leaving me to somewhat gloomier thoughts.

CHAPTER XXI

HOW I FACED DEATHS AND LIVED

On the sixteenth day of my imprisonment I had stood against my bars till the last faint glow of the sunset faded off a white cloud in the east, and all outside had become gray and dim, and my room was quite dark. I had had my second meal, and looked as usual for no further diversion till breakfast next morning. But of a sudden I heard heavy feet outside my door, and Torode came in with a lantern, followed by two of his men.

"You are still of that mind?" he asked, as though we had discussed the matter but five minutes before.

"Yes."

"Then your time is up;" and at a word from him the men bound my hands and feet as before, tied a cloth over my eyes, and carried me off along the rocky way--to my death I doubted not.

To the schooner first in any case, though why they could not kill a man on sh.o.r.e as easily as at sea surprised me. Though, to be sure, a man's body is more easily and cleanly disposed of at sea than on sh.o.r.e, and leaves no mark behind it.

I was placed in the same bunk as before, and fell asleep wondering how soon the end of this strange business would come, but sure that it would not be long.

I was wakened in the morning by the crash of the big guns, and surmised that we had run across something. I heard answering guns and more discharges of our own, then the lowering of a boat, and presently my porthole was obscured as the schooner ground against another vessel.

Then the unexpected happened, in a furious fusillade of small arms from the other ship. Treachery had evidently met treachery, and Death had his hands full.

From the shouting aboard the other ship I felt sure they were Frenchmen, and glad as I was at thought of these ruffians getting paid in their own coin, and fit as it might be to meet cunning with cunning, I was yet glad that the payment was French and not English.

Of the first issue, however, I had small doubts in view of Torode's long guns and merciless methods, and though I could see nothing, with our own experiences red in my mind, I could still follow what happened.

The schooner sheared off, and presently the long guns got to work with their barbarous shot, and pounded away venomously, till I could well imagine what the state of that other ship must be.

When we ranged alongside again, no word greeted us. There was traffic between the two ships, and when we cast off I heard the crackling of flames.

Then there was much sluicing of water above my head, as our decks were washed down, and presently there came a rattling of boards which puzzled me much, until the end of one dipped suddenly across my porthole, and my straining wits suggested that Torode was changing his stripes and becoming a Frenchman once more.

The next day pa.s.sed without any happening, and I lay racking my brain for reasons why one spot of sea should not be as good as another for dropping a man's body into.

But on the day after that, Torode came suddenly in on me in the afternoon, and looking down on me as I lay, he said roughly--

"Listen, you, Carre! By every reason possible you should die, but--well, I am going to give you chance of life. It is only a chance, but your death will not lie at my door, as it would do here. Now here is my last word. You know more than is good for me. If ever you disclose what you know, whether you come back or not, I will blot out all you hold dear in Sercq from top to bottom, though I have to bring the Frenchmen down to do it. You understand?"

"I understand."

"Be advised, then, and keep a close mouth."

I was blindfolded and carried out and laid in a waiting boat, which crossed to another vessel, and I was pa.s.sed up the side, and down a gangway, amid the murmur of many voices.

When my eyes and bonds were loosed I found myself among a rough crowd of men in the 'tween decks of a large ship. The air was dim and close. From the row of heavy guns and great ports, several of which were open, I knew her to be a battleship and of large size. From the gabble of talk all round me I knew she was French.

After the first minute or two no one paid me any attention. All were intent on their own concerns. I sat down on the carriage of the nearest gun and looked about me.

The company was such as one would have looked for on a ship of the Republic--coa.r.s.e and free in its manners, and loud of talk. They were probably most of them pressed men, not more than one day out, and looked on me only as a belated one of themselves. There was--for the moment at all events--little show of discipline. They all talked at once, and wrangled and argued, and seemed constantly on the point of blows; but it all went off in words, and no harm was done. But to me, who had barely heard a spoken word for close on twenty days, the effect was stunning, and I could only sit and watch dazedly, while my head spun round with the uproar.

Food was served out presently--well-cooked meat and sweet coa.r.s.e bread, and a mug of wine to every man, myself among the rest. There was no lessening of the noise while they ate and drank, and I ate with the rest, and by degrees found my thoughts working reasonably.

I was at all events alive, and it is better to be alive than dead.

I was on a French ship of war, and that, from all points of view, save one, was better than being on a King's ship.

The one impossible point in the matter was that I was an Englishman on a ship whose mission in life must be to fight Englishmen. And that I never would do, happen what might, and it seemed to me that the sooner this matter was settled the better.

Discipline on a ship under the Republican flag was, I knew, very different from that on our own ships. The principles of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, if getting somewhat frayed and threadbare, still tempered the treatment of the ma.s.ses, and so long as men reasonably obeyed orders, and fought when the time came, little more was expected of them, and they were left very much to themselves.

That was no doubt the reason why I had not so far, since I recovered my wits, come across anyone in authority, which I was now exceedingly anxious to do.

It was almost dark, outside the ship as well as inside, when I spied one who seemed, from his dress and bearing, something above the rest, and I made my way to him.

"Will you be so good as to tell me where I sleep, monsieur?" I asked.

"Same place as you slept last night, my son."

"I would be quite willing--"

"Ah tiens! you are the latest bird."

"At your service, monsieur."

"Come with me, and I'll get you a hammock and show you where to sling it."

And as he was getting it for me, I asked him the name of the ship and where she was going.

"The _Josephine_, 40-gun frigate, bound for the West Indies."

Then I proffered my request--

"Can you procure me an interview with the captain, monsieur?"

"What for?"

"I have some information to give him--information of importance."