CHAPTER XXXV.
Neither Mabel nor Madame Coulancourt, when they retired to rest that night, undressed, for they fully expected to be roused by the sounds of contention from Palos Creek. Mabel remained with her mother, and both, leaving their lamp burning, lay down as they were. Just before midnight the loud, dull sound of a heavy gun in the direction of the creek caused both ladies to jump up and listen; they threw up their window, which looked in the direction of the firing, and then came plainly enough the sounds of discharges of musketry, and the loud boom of the twelve-pound carronade.
“Oh, Heavens! how quick the discharges of musketry are,” said Mabel, trembling all over; “what a terrible fight they must have!”
“O God, protect those we love!” fervently uttered both mother and daughter; “and inspire them with mercy to their enemies. It’s frightful to think of men defacing God’s own image by slaying each other, and without one real feeling of individual animosity.”
“Ah, mother, rulers of states have a terrible responsibility to answer for, when they arm their poor subjects to slay and destroy other human beings, from some paltry political feeling. There goes the great gun again!”
A knock at the door interrupted the conversation.
“’Tis I, Mabel,” said the voice of Julia.
Mabel ran and opened the door; Julia was dressed.
“Mon Dieu!” said Mademoiselle Plessis, “what firing down at the creek; my father has been writing this half-hour. Sergeant Perrin has gone down to the sea-shore, he could not resist; he has left only two men on guard. My father is sure they will either cut out the ships or burn them; if they burn them, we shall see the glare in the heavens. My father is going to an old fisherman, who would risk his life for him, to get him to take out a letter and a packet of important papers to give Lieutenant Thornton, in which he has stated his plan of escape, so that the lieutenant may co-operate if practicable. The old fisherman will steal out in his boat, and, if possible, deliver the packet; if not, he will bring it safe back. To-morrow my father will make you fully acquainted with what he has done. He has gone out by a door, left unguarded by the departure of the men, and will bring us back word how the contest ends.”
It was, in truth, a night of deep anxiety to all; and not till long after the firing had ceased did any of the inhabitants of the château retire to rest. Monsieur Plessis, however, returned before Sergeant Perrin.
In the morning, as the family re-assembled at breakfast, jaded with the watching and anxiety of the past night, Julia informed the mother and daughter that the Vengeance and the brig had been both carried off by the English, after a desperate resistance. That there were nine or ten killed, on board and on shore, of the crew of the Vengeance, and amongst the soldiers. Captain Gaudet was not hurt, but furious and frantic at the loss of the vessel, which he imputed to the conduct of the soldiers, and the cowardice of the captain of the brig—attempting to run out instead of anchoring his vessel with her broadside to the entrance, and firing into the boats as they came up. “My father heard that one or two of the English had been killed, and some wounded, but no officer hurt; that the fisherman had delivered his letter and the packet into the hands of Lieutenant Thornton himself, who bade him say all were well.”
A glow spread over the pale cheek of Mabel at this intelligence, though she deeply mourned the loss of life.
“Where is your father, Julia?” demanded Madame Coulancourt, anxiously.
“He and my mother went early in the calash to Havre. He expects his messenger to-day from Paris by the mail-post, and my mother went with him to make some necessary arrangements. They will be back in the evening, and the day after to-morrow he thinks we may leave Coulancourt.”
“God grant it!” said the mother.
“What did Sergeant Perrin do down at the creek last night, did you hear him speak about it, Julia?”
“For a wonder, madame, he did not say a word, and seems very sulky. They are all sorely vexed at the cutting out of the Vengeance. I am going directly to Dame Moret, and very probably I shall see her son, and he surely will be able to tell us all the particulars; for the English did not touch or injure the fishing luggers, but put all the prisoners and wounded into them. I overheard one of the gendarmes saying to Sergeant Perrin, that the English crew and their leader that boarded the Vengeance, under a frightful fire from on board and on shore, were diables. That they were only about fifteen or sixteen men at first, that they cut down all before them, and that their leader—Lieutenant Thornton, I fancy—burst through all opposition and seized Captain Gaudet, who would otherwise have perished, and dragged him off, throwing him into the boats alongside, so that he might swim ashore or get on board the nearest boat.”
“That officer was surely our own dear friend,” said Mabel; “he said if ever he captured the Vengeance he would spare Captain Gaudet, though he did treat him and Bill Saunders most cruelly.”
“We may expect this Monsieur Gramont here to-day,” said Madame Coulancourt.
“Yes, madame,” said Julia; “so Sergeant Perrin tells me.”
“Then I will take very good care to keep out of his way,” said Mabel: “for I am sure it is owing to his schemes that we have been molested.”
Leaving the inmates of Château Coulancourt in a rather troubled and apprehensive state of mind, we beg our readers to follow us into an apartment of the mansion inhabited by Monsieur Gramont.
Stretched on a bed, in a remote chamber of the house, lay Augustine Vadier; his right eye had been knocked out by a splinter of rock, and although the piece had been extracted, and the wound bound up by a surgeon from Havre, the eye was gone for ever, and there was considerable danger from inflammation. Notwithstanding this severe visitation and suffering, Augustine Vadier showed no kind of remorse for his past crimes, or evinced any symptoms of regret; on the contrary, his passion and vexation at being the only one wounded, and the escape of the person he intended to entrap, rendered the fever much worse.
“Has Monsieur Gramont arrived?” demanded Vadier of the sulky domestic that attended to his wants.
“He has not,” returned the man, “but he will be here before mid-day; he slept at Havre.”
“So those sacre Anglais have cut out the vessels in Palos Creek,” muttered Vadier, with a smothered execration; “this would not have occurred if that lazy rascal, the coast-guard, had followed my directions. We should have entrapped that English spy, who was here amongst those traitors at the Château Coulancourt, for the purpose of prying into the situation of the Vengeance. If, instead of watching the movements of the corvette, they had posted themselves on the sand-hills, they would have secured them all. Curse them! I am the only sufferer.”
“Wouldn’t care if they had settled you out and out,” muttered the man to himself. “Ah! there is Monsieur Gramont riding into the yard.”
“Prop me up with pillows,” said the sick man, “for he will be with me directly.”
The domestic did so, grumbling at having an office put upon him that an old woman would have done better.
“Yes, rascal,” exclaimed the irritated invalid, “le diable, for that matter, would do better than you, thankless scoundrel; your master shall hear of your insolence.”
“I don’t care who hears of it,” said the man, walking away. “You promised me five hundred francs for making Dedan a spy on her mistress, where are they?”
A few minutes afterwards Bertram Gramont, in his riding-dress, entered the chamber, closing the door after him.
“Here’s a pretty mess you have got yourself into,” said the maire, throwing himself into a chair by the bedside. “Did I not tell you to take things quietly till my return? and now here you are with your eye knocked out; and worse, our prey escaped, when I have an order from Fouché, the Minister of Police, to arrest the whole party, and send them prisoners to Paris. I may almost consider the Coulancourt estate as mine.”
“I acted for the best,” growled Augustine Vadier; “that cursed Englishman, Lieutenant Thornton, who is the very same who had the care of the casket in Toulon, was preparing to escape with that other Englishman living under the name of Lebeau. Who he is I cannot imagine; Madame Coulancourt has had him concealed in the château, and I was told was seen embracing him.”
“The diable!” interrupted Bertram Gramont, with a start. “Not a lover, surely, at her age, and with such a youth; are you sure of this, Vadier? I really am sorry to hear that you will lose the sight of your eye.”
“Lose the sight! Curse it, man, it’s knocked clean out,” exclaimed Vadier; “but if I can get on my legs soon, I will manage with the other. I am sure of what I say,” continued the wounded man. “They little suspect that their servant-girl, one of old Dame Moret’s farm domestics, is a spy upon them.”
“What induced you to attempt to entrap this Englishman before my return?” asked Monsieur Gramont.
“Because I found out that this Lieutenant Thornton and this Louis Lebeau, whose Christian name is, however, Julian——”
“Julian! Julian!” repeated Bertram Gramont, with a start. “By the saints, I have it! No, no, he’s no lover. Julian! Yes, that’s the name of Madame Coulancourt’s son, supposed to have been killed amongst the good people of Lyons at the time D’Herbois shot them down like rooks. I trust Sergeant Perrin has secured him, at all events?”
“Not he; that cursed Jean Plessis is too wide awake for that. He’s gone—where, I can’t say—but he left the château on a pony last night with a boy called Joseph.”
“Then he will be easily traced, so all is right there. How did you contrive to get this girl to betray the secrets of a mistress so well loved as Madame Coulancourt? I suppose you made love to her.”
“Not such a fool as that,” muttered Vadier. “You can never lay aside your jokes, not even when your deepest interests are concerned.”
“Possibly not, mon ami,” returned Monsieur le Maire, with a laugh, “it’s not very long ago since it was the fashion tobandy bon mots with the executioner, when he was adjusting your head for that interesting receptacle, the box under the guillotine. However, you see,” continued Monsieur Gramont, “one of the consequences of your interfering is that this Lieutenant Thornton, who was one of those who failed in cutting out the Vengeance in Havre Roads, tried it again last night, and, by Jove, he has got her, and the Hermaphrodite armed brig, of Bordeaux, with a valuable cargo. If you had left him alone till my return, this would have been prevented.”
“How so?” returned Vadier. “I do not see that; for he and that pretended Pierre Bompart were evidently seeking to communicate with the corvette when I thought to entrap them.”
“Yes, I admit that, mon ami; but they were not intending to go on board then. My idea is, and I am persuaded I am right, that they were merely communicating with the corvette, planning an escape for Madame Coulancourt and her daughter; so my return with the order for the arrest of the whole party would have struck a fatal blow to their projects, and saved both the Vengeance and the brig.”
“And what do you intend doing now?” demanded Vadier. “I have the false deeds quite ready, and the late duke’s signatures, &c., all complete.”
“I am going now—at least in half an hour—to the château; Sergeant Perrin went there last night by my orders, to keep watch. I will make a proposal to Madame Coulancourt, which if she does not accept, I will enforce the order for their arrest, and send them to Paris. She must be found guilty of plotting with the enemies of France, and by-the-by, this affair of the Vengeance will, after all, implicate her most forcibly, as she permitted an English officer to reside in her mansion, under an assumed name, and passed off her own daughter as a Mademoiselle de Tourville. I think, Augustine, I have a good head for plotting. Once convicted of this charge, which she cannot possibly refute, her estate will be confiscated, and then I intend producing my deeds and the late duke’s revocal of his former will; with the interest I possess when I shall, no doubt, be put in possession of the property. Strange to say I could not get Fouché to give me an order to arrest that confounded Jean Plessis. ‘No,’ said the Minister of Police, ‘he is a protégé of Barras; let him alone.’”
“Curse him!” fiercely exclaimed Vadier. “Then I will stick a knife in him. I hate that man; he was the chief witness against me when I was condemned in Paris to the galleys. I’ll have my revenge of him.”
“Very proper,” said Monsieur Gramont, “but get well first; you look feverish, and exciting yourself is bad.”
“Humph!” muttered Vadier. “I wish you would give methe five hundred francs for that rascal Dubois; he is growling like a bear—he wants to marry that girl Dedan, at the château, and she is getting frightened for fear of being found out.”
“Confound the rascal! let him wait. I have not five hundred to spare, mon cher, just yet; and as to the girl, serve her right if she is found out. We require neither of them now.”
“Then send off that sulky rascal Dubois; he handles me as if I was a bear.”
“Ma foi, with that hairy face of yours you are not unlike one,” said Monsieur Gramont. “The time is past now, or else I would despatch the rascal to prison as a royalist, and have his head off. As it is, I will send him about his business this moment—the easiest way of paying the five hundred francs. Now I must leave you; keep up your spirits, you will soon be on your legs; the loss of an eye will not spoil your beauty, and your other optic will gain redoubled force. I shall be back in the evening.”
“Ah!” muttered Augustine Vadier, bitterly, sinking back on the bed, “thus it always is with tools; but take care, Monsieur Gramont, I am a dangerous tool to cast aside as worthless.”
Monsieur Gramont was just the kind of man to neglect any one but himself. Selfish, heartless, and unprincipled, he felt for no one; he befriended the wretch Vadier, because he was a most expert forger, and because he knew he knew a secret or two of his late father’s, better hidden than disclosed. He wanted him no further, so he then thought, and in reality he was rather grieved that the splinter of the rock did not finish him entirely, instead of merely putting out his eye. Changing his dress, and making the most of his really handsome person, Bertram Gramont mounted his horse, and set out alone for Château Coulancourt.