The Battle of the Strong Part 44

A strange, thrilling silence fell upon all the Court. The jurats shifted in their seats with excitement. The Bailly, in a hoa.r.s.e, dry voice, said:

"We must have proof. There must be record as well as witness."

From near the great doorway came a voice saying: "The record is here,"

and Detricand stepped forward, in his uniform of the army of the Vendee.

A hushed murmur ran round the room. The jurats whispered to each other.

"Who are you, monsieur?" said the Bailly.

"I am Detricand, Prince of Vaufontaine," he replied, "for whom the Comtesse Chantavoine will vouch," he added in a pained voice, and bowed low to her and to Guida. "I am but this hour landed. I came to Jersey on this very matter."

He did not wait for the Bailly to reply, but began to tell of the death of Lorenzo Dow, and, taking from his pocket the little black journal, opened it and read aloud the record written therein by the dead clergyman. Having read it, he pa.s.sed it on to the Greffier, who handed it up to the Bailly. Another moment's pause ensued. To the most ignorant and casual of the onlookers the strain was great; to those chiefly concerned it was supreme. The Bailly and the jurats whispered together.

Now at last a spirit of justice was roused in them. But the law's technicalities were still to rule.

The Bailly closed the book, and handed it back to the Greffier with the words: "This is not proof though it is evidence."

Guida felt her heart sink within her. The Comtesse Chantavoine, who still held her hand, pressed it, though herself cold as ice with sickness of spirit.

At that instant, and from Heaven knows where--as a bird comes from a bush--a little grey man came quickly among them all, carrying spread open before him a book almost as big as himself. Handing it up to the Bailly, he said:

"Here is the proof, Monsieur le Bailly--here is the whole proof."

The Bailly leaned over and drew up the book. The jurats crowded near and a dozen heads gathered about the open volume.

At last the Bailly looked up and addressed the Court solemnly.

"It is the lost register of St. Michael's," he said. "It contains the record of the marriage of Lieutenant Philip d'Avranche and Guida Landresse de Landresse, both of the Isle of Jersey, by special license of the Bishop of Winchester."

"Precisely so, precisely so," said the little grey figure--the Chevalier Orvillier du Champsavoys de Beaumanoir. Tears ran down his cheeks as he turned towards Guida, but he was smiling too.

Guida's eyes were upon the Bailly. "And the child?" she cried with a broken voice--"the child?"

"The child goes with its mother," answered the Bailly firmly.

DURING ONE YEAR LATER

CHAPTER XL

The day that saw Guida's rest.i.tution in the Cohue Royale brought but further trouble to Ranulph Delagarde. The Chevalier had shown him the lost register of St. Michael's, and with a heart less heavy, he left the island once more. Intending to join Detricand in the Vendee, he had scarcely landed at St. Malo when he was seized by a press-gang and carried aboard a French frigate commissioned to ravage the coasts of British America. He had stubbornly resisted the press, but had been knocked on the head, and there was an end on it.

In vain he protested that he was an Englishman. They laughed at him. His French was perfect, his accent Norman, his was a Norman face--evidence enough. If he was not a citizen of France he should be, and he must be. Ranulph decided that it was needless to throw away his life. It was better to make a show of submission. So long as he had not to fight British ships, he could afford to wait. Time enough then for him to take action. When the chance came he would escape this bondage; meanwhile remembering his four years' service with the artillery at Elizabeth Castle, he asked to be made a gunner, and his request was granted.

The Victoire sailed the seas battle-hungry, and presently appeased her appet.i.te among Dutch and Danish privateers. Such excellent work did Ranulph against the Dutchmen, that Richambeau, the captain, gave him a gun for himself, and after they had fought the Danes made him a master-gunner. Of the largest gun on the Victoire Ranulph grew so fond that at last he called her ma couzaine.

Days and weeks pa.s.sed, until one morning came the cry of "Land!

Land!" and once again Ranulph saw British soil--the tall cliffs of the peninsula of Gaspe. Gaspe--that was the ultima Thule to which Mattingley and Carterette had gone.

Presently, as the Victoire came nearer to the coast, he could see a bay and a great rock in the distance, and, as they bore in now, the rock seemed to stretch out like a vast wall into the gulf. As he stood watching and leaning on ma couzaine, a sailor near him said that the bay and the rock were called Perce.

Perce Bay--that was the exact point for which Elie Mattingley and Carterette had sailed with Sebastian Alixandre. How strange it was! He had bidden Carterette good-bye for ever, yet fate had now brought him to the very spot whither she had gone.

The Rock of Perce was a wall, three hundred feet high, and the wall was an island that had once been a long promontory like a battlement, jutting out hundreds of yards into the gulf. At one point it was pierced by an archway. It was almost sheer; its top was flat and level. Upon the sides there was no verdure; upon the top centuries had made a green field. The wild geese as they flew northward, myriad flocks of gulls, gannets, cormorants, and all manner of fowl of the sea, had builded upon the summit until it was rich with gra.s.s and shrubs. The nations of the air sent their legions here to bivouac, and the discord of a hundred languages might be heard far out to sea, far in upon the land. Millions of the races of the air swarmed there; at times the air above was darkened by clouds of them. No fog-bell on a rock-bound coast might warn mariners more ominously than these battalions of adventurers on the Perce Rock.

No human being had ever mounted to this eyrie. Generations of fishermen had looked upon the yellowish-red limestone of the Perce Rock with a valorous eye, but it would seem that not even the tiny clinging hoof of a chamois or wild goat might find a foothold upon the straight sides of it.

Ranulph was roused out of the spell Perce cast over him by seeing the British flag upon a building by the sh.o.r.e of the bay they were now entering. His heart gave a great bound. Yes, it was the English flag defiantly flying. And more--there were two old 12 pounders being trained on the French squadron. For the first time in years a low laugh burst from his lips.

"O mai grand doux," he said in the Jersey patois, "only one man in the world would do that. Only Elie Mattingley!"

At that moment, Mattingley now issued from a wooden fishing-shed with Sebastian Alixandre and three others armed with muskets, and pa.s.sed to the little fort on which flew the British and Jersey flags. Ranulph heard a guffaw behind. Richambeau, the captain, confronted him.

"That's a big splutter in a little pot, gunner," said he. He put his telescope to his eye. "The Lord protect us," he cried, "they're going to fight my ship!" He laughed again till the tears came. "Son of Peter, but it is droll that--a farce au diable! They have humour, these fisher-folk, eh, gunner?"

"Mattingley will fight you just the same," answered Ranulph coolly.

"Oh ho, you know these people, my gunner?" asked Richambeau.

"All my life," answered Ranulph, "and, by your leave, I will tell you how."

Not waiting for permission, after the manner of his country, he told Richambeau of his Jersey birth and bringing up, and how he was the victim of the pressgang.

"Very good," said Richambeau. "You Jersey folk were once Frenchmen, and now that you're French again, you shall do something for the flag. You see that 12-pounder yonder to the right? Very well, dismount it. Then we'll send in a flag of truce, and parley with this Mattingley, for his jests are worth attention and politeness. There's a fellow at the gun--no, he has gone. Dismount the right-hand gun at one shot. Ready now. Get a good range."

The whole matter went through Ranulph's mind as the captain spoke. If he refused to fire, he would be strung up to the yardarm; if he fired and missed, perhaps other gunners would fire, and once started they might raze the fishing-post. If he dismounted the gun, the matter would probably remain only a jest, for such as yet Richambeau regarded it.

Ranulph ordered the tackle and breechings cast away, had off the ap.r.o.n, p.r.i.c.ked a cartridge, primed, bruised the priming, and covered the vent.

Then he took his range steadily, quietly. There was a brisk wind blowing from the south--he must allow for that; but the wind was stopped somewhat in its course by the Perch Rock--he must allow for that.

All was ready. Suddenly a girl came running round the corner of the building.

It was Carterette. She was making for the right-hand gun. Ranulph started, the hand that held the match trembled.

"Fire, you fool, or you'll kill the girl!" cried Richambeau.

Ranulph laid a hand on himself as it were. Every nerve in his body tingled, his legs trembled, but his eye was steady. He took the sight once more coolly, then blew on the match. Now the girl was within thirty feet of the gun.

He quickly blew on the match again, and fired. When the smoke cleared away he saw that the gun was dismounted, and not ten feet from it stood Carterette looking at it dazedly.

He heard a laugh behind him. There was Richambeau walking away, telescope under arm, even as the other 12-pounder on sh.o.r.e replied impudently to the gun he had fired.

"A good aim," he heard Richambeau say, jerking a finger backward towards him.