George Gibbs

“ The cloud that had hung upon Cornbury’s face at the beginning of the combat had disappeared, and with a childish delight in the clash of arms he watched his friend slowly but surely steal away the offensive power of the Dutchman, whose look of confidence had been replaced by a lightness of eye and a quivering of the forehead and lips which denoted the gravest quandary of uncertainty. Monsieur Mornay was breathing rapidly, but his brows were as level, his eye as clear, his hand as steady as when he had begun. ”

“ A few men in breast-pieces, who gave back, firing a desultory volley, made a brief stand upon the forecastle, from which they were speedily swept down into the head and so forward upon the prow and into the sea.
Bras-de-Fer and Cornbury sprang into the after-passage. Two blanched priests fell upon the deck, raining their jewels like hailstones before them and chattering out a plea for mercy from the pirato. Indeed, Bras-de-Fer looked not unlike the pictures of the most desperate of those bloody villains. ”

“ The dusk swept up over the ocean like the shadow of a storm, and night drew a purplish curtain across the smiling heaven. The stars twinkled into sudden life, and night fell, clear, warm, spangled, while the soft, stealthy seas crept alongside and leaped and fawned at the shearing prow of the pinnace. An arching moon arose and sailed, a silver boat, high into the heavens. But Bras-de-Fer moved not and Barbara still slept. Continually his keen eyes swept the dark rim of the horizon for a blur of sail or the sign of any portentous movement of the elements. ”

“ INDECISION Mornay waited while the Englishman smothered his rage. Then, with a sudden motion, he brushed his kerchief across his temples, as though to wipe the clouds from his forehead.
“If madame will but bear with my brutality a little longer”—he smiled—“a little longer—then she will have done with me forever.” The gesture and the air of contrition were rather racial than personal characteristics. But, as one sometimes will in times of great stress, Mistress Barbara could not but compare Mornay’s ease and sang-froid with the heavy and somewhat brutal bearing of Captain Ferrers. ”

“ Mistress Clerke, who had been about to speak, paused bewildered. Ferrers stammered awkwardly, as though gathering his wits for a reply.
“The papers!” he gasped at last. “The papers!” And then with a futile attempt at sang-froid, “What papers, monsieur?”
If the Englishman had not been so completely off his guard he would have seen a flash of triumph in the Frenchman’s eyes. Mornay narrowly watched his discomfiture; then continued, quietly:
“Monsieur le Capitaine Ferraire, René d’Añasco has been found. The son of Eloise de Bresac has come to life and is to-day in London. ”

“ It was that of the woman who in all companies of men and women held her fame so fair that, whatever their reputations for high deeds or ignoble vices, none was so great as she. In that great court where virtue was a gem of so little worth that it was kept hid and secret, Mistress Barbara had worn it openly, broadly, high upon her brow, with a rare pride, as the most priceless of her inestimable jewels. ”

“ The story of the Frenchman tallied strangely with the facts as she knew them. How did Mornay know of the unfortunate woman’s death at Amiens? Was the story of the Spaniard D’Añasco invented to comport with the family’s traditionary hatred of the Spanish? Were the names Castillano, of the ship, and Ruiz, of the boy, mere fabrications, to achieve an end? How did he know these things? The family history of the Bresacs was not an open book to all the world. No one but Sir Henry Heywood and herself had known of the visits to Paris and the death-place of Eloise. ”

“ Bras-de-Fer cleared his ship for action and called his men aft.
“There, my fine fellows,” he cried, “is steel worthy of your metal. Let it not be said that Saucy Sally takes her sustenance from the weak and cowardly and flirts her helm to the powerful. Yonder is your prize. She has thrice your bulk and complement—three gun tiers and twenty score of men. So much the more honor! For in her hold are gold and silver bright and new minted from the Spanish treasury, and wines for fat priests, which shall run no less smoothly down your own proper throats. ”

“ Joy gave her new strength and energy. There against the bulwarks, pale and breathless, but erect and strong, with the light of battle still [258] undiminished in his eyes, was Bras-de-Fer; while around him in a wide, snarling circle were a dozen of the wolves of the Saucy Sally, ready to spring in upon him, and yet each fearful to be the first to bite. There was a smell of rum in the air, and a broken cask told a part of the cause of the difficulty. Upon the deck curious loose distortions made a ghastly parody of the flesh which they had been. ”

“ The perruque was admirably curled, and the laces and jewels were such that a king might have envied him. A black patch extending along the forehead gave him an odd appearance, and the white brow seemed the more pallid by contrast. His features in repose bore the look of settled melancholy [7] one sometimes sees on the faces of men who live for pleasure alone. But as his eyes turned towards the table a smile, full of careless good-humor, came over his features. He advanced, pausing a moment as Wynne and Heywood pushed Ferrers down by main force into his seat. ”

“ Her cheeks glowed with a color which put to shame the rouge-pot in her toilet-closet. She was more like some tall Norse goddess, with the breath of the sea and [14] the pines in her nostrils, than a figure in a world of luxury and pampered ease. Her eyes, clear and full, were strangers to qualms and apprehensions, and the thought of a possible scene with this impertinent Frenchman gave them a sparkle which added to their shadowed luster. In the thinking, she did Monsieur Mornay the honor to add just one more patch to her chin. ”

“ The Frenchman turned his back to pass beyond the circle of grinning men who had not scrupled to hide their delight and admiration at his prowess in vanquishing their bully. But Gratz, whose exhaustion even could not avail to curb his fury, put all the small store of his remaining energy into a savage rush, which he directed full at the back of the retiring Frenchman. A cry arose, and Mornay would have been transfixed had not Cornbury intercepted the cowardly thrust by a nimble foot, over which the Dutchman stumbled and fell sprawling into the scuppers. ”

“ By midnight the wind fell, and with the flapping of the idle sail Barbara awoke.
She lay for some moments, her eyes winking at the swinging stars, then pushed the cloak aside, lifted her head, and looked wide-eyed around and into the face of Bras-de-Fer.
“I have slept?” she asked, bewildered—“I have slept in this boat?” He bent forward over her eager delight.
“The clock around, Barbara, dear. You were so weary, so weary, I have let you rest.”
“Ah, yes, I remember. The Saucy Sally—”
“An evil dream, a nightmare. See; we are borne upon a fairy sea. All the world is at peace. ”

“ The old life in London, with its gaming, its carousing and gallantry—he could see it all through new eyes, washed clean and clear by the purging winds and storms of heaven. Himself he marked from a great moral distance, almost as though from another planet—the silly, spoiled child of folly that he had been. And it was this impotent creature who had cried out against his fate, which, with a rare honesty, had only lowered him from the high estate to which he had won, in accordance with the same inexorable regulations of the human law which had raised him there. ”

“ Cast upon himself, Bras-de-Fer halted and stammered again. He was daunted by that cold, gray eye, and discovered an inquietude and trepidation greater than he had felt in the presence of a company of pikemen. He wiped his sword and thrust it into its scabbard with something of an air of the blusterer, fumbled at the collar at his throat, and with a gesture tossed back the curls from his brow, finally taking refuge in the women at his knees from that chill glance which seemed to read and reproach him. ”

“ Refuse me, deny me, and order me about like a willful child with your insolent glare and your cool, puckered brow. What is my safety to you? I do not believe—”
“Madame, you must come at once.”
“Never!” she cried. “Never! No power shall move me from the spot. Nothing—” At this moment a crash ten times more dreadful [242] than the first shook the vessel like a hundred thunderbolts. Cornbury, in blissful ignorance of the battle raging below, had opened the battle above with the entire starboard broadside.
Mistress Barbara stammered, faltered, and fell back towards the table, trembling with fear. ”

“ THE ENEMY IN THE HOUSE In the first flood of his astonishment the Frenchman lost countenance and fell back upon the entrance of the cabin. He forgot the efficiency of his disguise. In London he had worn the mustachio, smooth chin, and perruque; and the deft touches of poor Vigot had given him a name for a beau which no art of the tailor alone could have bestowed. All of these were lacking in the rough garments that he wore. When last my lady had seen him it had been in the laces, orders, and all the accouterments of a man of fashion, as befitted his station. ”

“ Have you no pride of manhood left—no honor? No respect for the sanctity of the sex that bore you? Would you oppress and hold a helpless woman in restraint? Monsieur, you are a coward!—a coward! I repeat for the last [74] time, I do not believe you. I would not believe you if you gave me your oath.”
Ferrers said nothing, but the curl of his lips told the volume of his pleasure.
They were dreadful words to Mornay, but he looked at her with a calmness that gave no sign of hidden discomfiture. ”

“ The cabin was aflood with light when she awoke. There was a sound of rushing feet overhead, the clatter of heavy boots, and the rattle of blocks and spars. Hoarse orders rang forward and aft, and the very air seemed aquiver with import. Deep down in the bowels of the vessel below her she heard the jangling of arms and the jarring of heavy objects. She started up, half in wonder, half in fear, and rushed to the port by the bulkhead.
There the reason for this ominous activity was apparent. Not a league distant under the lee was a large vessel under full press of canvas, fleeing for her life. ”

“ But the crimson seal of the crown, dangling from its cords, caught her eye, and, half bewildered, she glanced down over the writing.
“Clemency—thief—murderer—Nick Rawlings—pardon?—a pardon for me, monsieur?”
Monsieur Mornay showed his white teeth as he smiled.
“Madame forgets her promise of the coranto. Voilà! Here is the pardon. There is the musique. Will madame not dance?”
A silence had fallen upon those within earshot, and not a couple took the floor for the dance. His grace of Dorset looked serious. Sir Henry Heywood thrust himself into the circle. ”

“ Nothing should turn the iron helm of his will. But as he sought the deck, hot memory poured over him in a flood. He recalled the times she had tossed her head at him, even before the incident of the coach. That, too, he remembered, even with a sense of amusement. The coranto! and how he had sought to patch and mend his wounded pride by fruitlessly assailing hers, battering abortively at the citadel of the heart he could never hope to win. Ferrers! ”

“ She made no reply, but sat rigidly, her arm upon the back of the bench, the seat of which her skirts had completely covered. There was no indication of the turmoil that raged within her but the tapping of her silken shoe upon the graveled walk.
“How have I offended, madame?” he continued. “Is it a fault to admire? Is my tribute a sin? Is my service a crime? Have I not the right of any other of your poor prisoners—to do you honor from afar?”
“From afar?” she asked, coldly satirical.
Mornay shrugged his shoulders with a pretty gesture. ”

“ The arm of the chevalier, as he brought his pike into a posture of defense, showed a more remarkable degree of development than he had ever seen before in any man—Frenchman or Englishman—of his stature. The legs, strong and straight as they [157] were, with a generous bulge at the calf, betrayed nothing of this wonderful arm, which, swelling from a strong though not unslender wrist, rose in fine layers of steel-like ligament, tangled and knotted like the limbs of an oak. ”