Ralestone Luck Part 4

Perhaps by murder. But he died miserably enough of a heavy cold got by lying in a ditch to escape Dutch William's soldiers."

"'So is this perilous Luck come again into our hands. Then did I persevere to mend the fortunes of my house.' That's what Rupert's son Richard wrote about the Luck," Ricky recalled. "Richard, the first pirate."

"He did a good job of fortune mending," commented Val dryly. "Married one of the wealthiest of the French king's wards and sailed for the French West Indies all in a fortnight. Turned pirate with the approval of the French and took to lifting the cargoes of other pirates."

"I'll bet that most of his success was due to the Lady Richanda,"

observed Ricky. "She sailed with him dressed in man's clothes. Remember that miniature of her that we saw in New York, the one in the museum?

All the 'Black' Ralestones are supposed to look like her. Hear that, Val?"

"At least it was the Lady Richanda who persuaded her husband to settle ash.o.r.e," said Rupert. "She was personally acquainted with Bienville and Iberville who were proposing to rule the Mississippi valley for France by building a city near the mouth of the river. And 'Black d.i.c.k,' the pirate, obtained a grant of land lying along Lake Borgne and this bayou.

Although the city was not begun until 1724, this house was started in 1710 by workmen imported from England.

"The house of an exile," Rupert continued slowly. "Richard Ralestone was born in England, but he left there in his tenth year. In spite of the price on his head, he crept back to Devon in 1709 to see Lorne for the last time. And it was from the rude sketches he made of ruined Lorne that Pirate's Haven was planned."

"Why, we saw those sketches!" Ricky's eyes shone with excitement. "Do you remember, Val?"

Her brother nodded. "Must have cost him plenty to do it," he replied.

"Richard had an immense personal fortune of his own gained from piracy, and he spared no expense in building. The larger part of the stone in these walls was brought straight from Europe, just as they later brought the paving blocks for the streets of New Orleans. When he had done--and the place was five years a-building because of Indian troubles and other disturbances--he settled down to live in feudal state. Some of his former seamen rallied around him as a guard, and he imported blacks from the islands to work his indigo fields.

"The family continued to prosper through both French and Spanish domination until the time of American rule."

"Now for Uncle Rick." Ricky settled herself with a wriggle. "This is even more exciting than Pirate d.i.c.k."

"In the year 1788, the time of the great fire which destroyed over half of New Orleans, twin boys were born at Pirate's Haven. They came into their heritage early, for their parents died of yellow fever when the twins were still small children.

"Those were restless times. New Orleans was full of refugees. From Haiti, where the revolting blacks were holding a reign of terror, and from France, where to be a n.o.ble was to be a dead one, came hundreds.

Even members of the royal house, the Duc d'Orleans and his brother, the Duc de Montpensier, came for a s.p.a.ce in 1798.

"The city had always been more or less lawless and intolerant of control. Like the New Englanders of the eighteenth century, many respected merchants were also smugglers."

"And pirates," suggested Val.

"The king of smugglers was Jean Lafitte. His forge--where his slaves shaped the wrought-iron which was one of the wonders of the city--was a fashionable meeting-place for the young bloods. He was the height of wit and fashion--daring openly to placard the walls of the town with his notices of smugglers' sales.

"And Roderick Ralestone, the younger of the twins, became one of Lafitte's men. In spite of the remonstrances of his brother Richard, young Rick withdrew to Barataria with Dominque You and the rest of the outlawed captains.

"In the winter of 1814 matters came to a head. Richard wanted to marry an American girl, the daughter of one of Governor Claiborne's friends.

Her father told him very pointedly that since the owners of Pirate's Haven seemed to be indulging in law breaking, such a marriage was out of the question. Aroused, Richard made a secret inspection of certain underground storehouses which had been built by his pirate great-grandfather and discovered that Rick had put them in use again for the very same purpose for which they had been first intended--the storing of loot.

"He waited there for his brother, determined to have it decided once and for all. They quarreled bitterly. Both were young, both had bad tempers, and each saw his side as the right of the matter--"

"Regular Ralestones, weren't they?" commented Val slyly.

"Undoubtedly," agreed Rupert. "Well, at last Richard started for the house, his brother in pursuit.

"Then they fought, here in this very hall. And not with words this time, but with the rapiers Richard had brought back from France. A slave named Falesse, who had been the twins' childhood nurse, was the only witness to the end of that duel. Richard lay face down across the hearth-stone as she came screaming down the stairs."

Ricky was studying the gray stone.

"By rights," Val agreed with her unspoken thought, "there ought to be a stain there. Unfortunately for romance, there isn't."

"Rick was standing by the door," Rupert continued. "When Falesse reached his brother, he laughed unsteadily and half raised his sword in a duelist's salute. Then he was gone. But there were two swords on the floor. And that niche was empty.

"When he fled into the night storm with his brother's blood staining his hands, Rick Ralestone took the Luck of his house with him.

"After almost a year of invalidism, Richard recovered. He never married his American beauty. But in 1819 he took a wife, a young Creole lady widowed by the Battle of New Orleans. Of Rick nothing was heard again, although his brother searched diligently for more than thirty years."

"How," Val grinned at his brother, "did Richard explain the little matter of the ghost which is supposed to walk at night?"

"I don't know. But when the Civil War broke out, Richard's son Miles was the master of Pirate's Haven. The once-great fortune of the family had shrunk. Business losses in the city, floods, a disaster at sea, had emptied the family purse--"

"The Luck getting in its dirty work by remote control," supplied the irrepressible Val.

"Perhaps. Young Miles had married in his teens, and the call to the Confederate colors brought both his twin sons under arms as well as their father.

"Miles, the father, fell in the First Battle of Bull Run. But Miles, the son and elder of the twins, a lieutenant of cavalry, came out of the war the only surviving male of his family.

"His brother Richard had been wounded and was home on sick leave when the Northerners occupied New Orleans. Betrayed by one of his former slaves, a mulatto who bore a grudge against the family, he was murdered by a gang of bullies and cutthroats who had followed the invading army.

"Richard had been warned of their raid and had managed to hide the family valuables in a secret place--somewhere within this very hall, according to tradition."

Val and Ricky sat up and looked about with wondering interest.

"But Richard was shot down in cold blood when he refused to reveal the hiding-place. His brother and some scouts, operating south without orders, arrived just in time to witness the last act. Miles Ralestone and his men summarily shot the murderers. But where Richard had so carefully concealed the last of the family treasure was never discovered.

"The war beggared the Ralestones. Miles went north in search of better luck, and this place was allowed to molder until it was leased in 1879 to a sugar baron. In 1895 it was turned over to a family distantly connected with ours. And since then it has been leased. We have had in all four tenants."

"But," Ricky broke in, "since the Luck went we have not prospered. And until it returns--"

Rupert tapped out his pipe against one of the fire irons. "It's nothing but a folk-tale," he told her.

"It isn't!" Ricky contradicted him vehemently. "And we've made a good beginning anyway. We've come back."

"If Rick took the Luck with him, I don't see how we have an earthly chance of finding it again," Val commented.

"It came back once before after it had gone from us," reminded his sister. "And I think that it will again. At least I'll hope so."

"Outside of the superst.i.tion, it would be well worth having. The names of the heads and heirs of the house are all engraved along the blade, from Sir Roderick on down. Seven hundred years of history scratched on steel." Rupert stretched and then glanced at his wrist-watch. "Ten to ten, and we've had a long day. Who's for bed?"

"I am, for one." Val swung his feet down from the couch, disturbing Satan who opened one yellow eye lazily.

Ricky stood by the fireplace fingering the wreath of stiff flowers carved in the stone. Val took her by the arm.

"No use wondering which one you push to reveal the treasure," he told her.

She looked up startled. "How did you know what I was thinking about?"

she demanded.

"My lady, your thoughts, like little white birds--"