In The Day Of Adversity Part 20

"It is put about," the other went on, "that you are English yourself, like our pursuers. Is that true?"

"Partly. Henceforth, if ever I escape, wholly so. That or death, somehow."

On the _coursier_ there arose more noise and confusion now. The English frigate was nearing them; they could see with the perspective gla.s.ses her guns being run out on the lower tiers, so as better to sweep the galley; the course must be altered or their whole larboard side would be raked when once the frigate was on their beam. Therefore the chief captain gave his orders for the usual tactics of the galleys in an engagement to be pursued--they were to turn and "ram" the pursuers.

The first vessels of comparative modern warfare to utilize what is now known as the "ram" were the French galleys, they having at their prow or stern a long _eperon_, as it was termed, projecting from the deck above the water, and occupying the place of a bowsprit. Being far lower in the water than the ship, this spur was, consequently, in the exact position where it could inflict terrible damage; it struck a vessel of any size below the water line. And to add to the injury which a galley could do in thus advancing to meet an enemy "end on,"

there were behind this spur two huge gun forts in which were five bronze cannons of large calibre. As they rammed, therefore, propelled by hundreds of galley slaves, they fired also, and as the charge used was that known as _a mitraille_--viz., a metal case filled with b.a.l.l.s of various sizes and pieces of iron, which exploded as it struck, the wounds inflicted in any ship were terribly effective. Moreover, the galley which advanced this presented but a small object for attack, the breadth or beam being never more than forty-eight feet at the broadest.

The order was given, the larboard side _galeriens_ backed water, the starboard side pulled l.u.s.tily, a.s.sisted and urged on by both the whips and oaths of the _comites_ and by the alteration of the helm, and slowly--for it was a long business to turn so lengthy a fabric as L'Idole--the galley wore round to meet her pursuer.

She would not have done so could she have escaped by flight, but that was impossible. Even four hundred and twenty galley slaves, Christian and Turk, could not propel her as fast as the lightest breeze could move the great frigate. Moreover, they were caught unawares since they happened to be alone instead of, as was almost always the case, in company with half a dozen other galleys. Their companions had that morning gone in chase of a Dutch merchantman whose mainmast had broken, so that she could only proceed slowly, and L'Idole was being sent back to Dunkirk when observed and chased by the English man-of-war. She had, therefore, to fight and beat the enemy or be sunk and every man on board of her be slain--certainly every man not a slave. For the British sailor of those days so hated the French galleys, in which he knew well enough men of his own faith were kept and tortured, that he spared none in authority in those vessels whenever the chance to slay them arose. Nor, indeed, did he always spare the Protestant slaves themselves in the heat of an engagement.

They were fighting against England, and that was enough for him.

"_Saperlote!_" exclaimed the captain of the galley to the _maitre-canonnier_, by whose side he now stood in the fore part of the galley, "the _cochons_ will not be pierced! See how they change course with us! _Grand Dieu!_ they have our beam. To your guns, at once! What will they do now?"

What they would do in the frigate was obvious. _Their_ master gunner was also busy at his work; they could see his figure with the linstock in his hand, or could rather catch the gleam of the linstock itself, as he moved behind his gun ports. A moment later what he did was equally obvious. He ran along his tier, firing his cannon. Then there was a crash, followed by another, and another, and another, as cannon after cannon were discharged and the b.a.l.l.s smashed into the galley.

Some swept the _coursier_, cutting down the captain, two of the blaspheming and brutal _comites_, and the _aumonier_, or chaplain--who was encouraging the Protestant and Turkish slaves by reciting the Catholic service to them. Half a dozen more b.a.l.l.s struck the benches of the _galeriens_, wounding and killing one fifth of them, smashing even the chains by which some were bound to their seats, even smashing the benches themselves, and taking off legs and arms and heads. Then by a quick and masterly manoeuvre the frigate altered course, came round on the other side, and repeated the broadside with her other tier.

As that was delivered, and a moment afterward her boats were lowered, filled with sailors to board L'Idole, the galley heeled over and began to sink.

And No. 211 muttered, as with a jerk from the lurching craft he was thrown into the sea, "Thank G.o.d, the end has come!"[6]

[Footnote 6: The description of the galley is taken from Memoirs d'un Protestant cond.a.m.ne aux Galeres de France, and written by one Jean Marteidhe. It was published in Rotterdam in 1757, and again in Paris, by the Societe des ecoles du Dimanche, in 1865 and 1881, and is perhaps the best account in existence of the sufferings and terrible existence of French galley slaves. It is also well known in the translations by Oliver Goldsmith, a reprint of which, edited by W.

Austin Dobson, has just appeared.]

CHAPTER XIX.

"A NEW LIFE."

From the frigate there floated at the maintop-gallant-masthead the flag of a rear admiral; on the p.o.o.p of the frigate herself there stood, surrounded by his officers, Admiral Rooke, the brilliant seaman, soon to win his knighthood and other honours.

The galley had disappeared--was gone forever--and with her had disappeared most of the sufferers from the cruelty of France, and also all those who had inflicted that suffering. Of her survivors there were but a dozen all told, who, some wounded and some untouched, were being brought on board. Among the latter was No. 211, who, in spite of the thanks he had given to G.o.d for having brought the end of all his miseries to him, now stood dripping on the deck of the Englishman.

"Send them down to the c.o.c.kpit to be attended to," the admiral said, "and let them be well cared for. Poor wretches! they all seem to be galley slaves; they have suffered enough, G.o.d knows, if all accounts be true!" Then he called to his own men attending to the rescued, and asked if any were unhurt.

"Only two, sir; this man standing here," and he pointed to 211, "and one other. He has just fainted."

"Let that man come up to me; I wish to know something of the--the late galley."

To his surprise the man himself instantly turned and advanced toward the p.o.o.p ladder, and slowly mounted it. Then, as he reached the p.o.o.p itself he saluted Rooke, raising his hand to his dark, matted hair, and stood silent and dripping before him and the officers round.

"My man," the admiral said, while his eye roved over the torn and lacerated bare back and shoulders, saw the old and new cuts and bruises, and observed the half-starved flanks through which the bones were plainly visible--"my man, you understand English. Are you an Englishman?"

"My mother was an English woman," No. 211 replied, in a deep, hollow voice.

"That any English woman's son should suffer this!" exclaimed the other, again glancing at the worn, bruised body with warm and manly indignation. "And that!" pointing out to his officers the _fleur-de-lis_ roughly branded on his shoulder; sure sign of the _forcat_. Then, continuing, he asked, "What was your fault?"

"Nothing," 211 answered, as he had answered his brother _galerien_ an hour before. Only now he lifted his eyes and looked at the admiral, as though by that straight glance he would force him to believe. "No crime, no fault. I was--oh!" he broke off, "not now; not now! The story is too long to tell now."

His tone and bearing--sad and miserable as both were--told all who stood around him that this was no common man, no malefactor flung to the slave ship for an ign.o.ble crime, no wretched printer sent to the galleys for producing Protestant pamphlets, or chapel clerk for a.s.sisting in a Protestant service.

"You are of gentle blood?" the admiral asked kindly. "Followed, doubtless, the calling of a gentleman? What are you?"

"I was a cavalry officer of King Louis. But broken and ruined for--for----" and again he broke off.

"Will you tell me your name?"

"Georges St. Georges."

The name conveyed nothing to any on board the frigate; the rank he had borne, when stated by him, stirred them all. They knew one thing, however--namely, that the cavalry officers of France were all gentlemen of birth, and many of great position. Could this be true, or if true was it possible that the man before them had not perpetrated some hideous crime? Louis had the reputation of encouraging and treating good officers well; surely no man of that position could have been condemned to this awful existence but for some great sin. Rooke, however, thought he knew the clew, and continued:

"You are, perhaps, a Protestant? The King of France still wages bitter war against them. Is that your crime?"

"I am a Protestant; but that was not my crime."

He shivered as he spoke, although he stood in the full glare of the July sun, the burnt face whitened beneath its bronze, and the lips became livid and ghastly, then he reeled and staggered against the gun tackle on the p.o.o.p.

"Take him below," Rooke said, turning to one of the subaltern officers at his side; "let him be seen too and carefully tended and those sores dressed. Also find some proper apparel for him. And--treat him as a gentleman. It is more like that he has been sinned against than sinned himself."

So the fainting man was carried below in the brawny arms of the sailors, a spare cabin was found for him--it had but a few weeks before been occupied by a lieutenant who was killed in the disastrous battle off Beachy Head--and he was put into a clean, comfortable bunk.

The release which he had prayed for from the galley's slavery had come, though not in the only way he had dared to hope for.

"So!" exclaimed Rooke as he helped himself to a gla.s.s of Calcavella and pa.s.sed the bottle to the man whose life had been saved--"so the wanton stabbed you in the back just as you had the fellow at your mercy. The deuce is in it that you missed his heart and could only pink him in the arm. But go on--go on. Faith! 'tis a wondrous story of wrong and cruelty."

They were seated in the admiral's cabin on another such hot July day as that on which St. Georges had been dragged out of the sea with still a portion of his chain attached to the ring round his ankle, and which was rapidly sinking him, but the latter was looking in very different case now. The burnt face was still very black and hollow, the lines of suffering still plainly marked, as they would be for many a day, but otherwise all was changed. He was dressed as a gentleman once more, in a plain but neat suit of blue clothes, guarded with white cotton lace--it had been the unfortunate lieutenant's. His hair, which was combed and brushed now, was, although still somewhat short--it being the custom in the galleys to crop it close to the head for those days once a month--no longer thick and matted.

St. Georges went on as the admiral bade him; he was telling the whole story of his life to his host.

"Yet, sir," he continued, "she was no common wanton either, as I heard afterward, but a lady of Louis's court who loved De Roquemaure.

Doubtless her hate and anger were roused by the words I addressed to her. And I must have wronged her in one instance at least; it could scarce have been she who stole my--my poor little babe." And, as ever, when he mentioned that lost one, his eyes filled with tears. She was gone from him now, he feared, forever--he had been in that accursed galley for two years!--how could he hope to see her again on this earth? No wonder that the tears sprang to his eyes!

The seaman opposite to him certainly wondered not at their doing so; instead, he pa.s.sed his own hand before his eyes, as he had done more than once before in the course of the narrative. Countless men had been sent to their doom by that hand and by his orders, but that was in battle; now, as he thought of St. Georges's little lonely child and wondered if it still lived, his memory wandered back to Monk's Horton, a pleasant seat in Kent, where his own children were doubtless playing at their mother's knee, and his brave heart became as tender as a woman's.

"Poor babe!" he said, "poor babe! Pray G.o.d the other woman, the one who did steal her at Troyes, has some bowels of compa.s.sion! Surely she must have, however base in other respects."

"I pray so night and day," St. Georges said. "O G.o.d! how I pray so."

Then again, at the admiral's desire that he should not fret too much, but hope ever for the best, he went on with the account of all that had befallen him.

"When my wound was nearly healed," he said, "there came to the room in the inn, where I was closely guarded, a small body of exempts who carried me to Paris to the prison of La Tournelle, a place from which, as I shortly afterward learned, a chain of condemned galley slaves was to set out, all winter as it was, for Ma.r.s.eilles."

"'But,' I cried to the man who fed us morning and night like animals, while we lay each with an iron collar round our necks by which we were chained to a beam that traversed the dungeon----"