A shudder ran through the group behind the French boy.
He looked up at the owl and said:
“Too late, my bird; Iwilllook.”
And he advanced.
The crackling sound made by his thick-nailed boots among the furze bushes did not prevent his hearing the noise in the house, which rose and fell with the continuousness and the calm accent of a dialogue.
A moment afterwards the boy added:
“Besides, it is only fools who believe in spirits.”
Insolence in the face of danger rallies the cowardly, and inspirits them to go on.
The two Torteval lads resumed their march, quickening their steps behind the caulker’s apprentice.
The haunted house seemed to them to grow larger before their eyes. This optical illusion of fear is founded in reality. The house did indeed grow larger, for they were coming nearer to it.
Meanwhile the voices in the house took a tone more and more distinct. The children listened. The ear, too, has its power of exaggerating. It was different to a murmur, more than a whispering, less than an uproar. Now and then one or two words, clearly articulated, could be caught. These words, impossible to be understood, sounded strangely. The boys stopped and listened; then went forward again.
“It’s the ghosts talking,” said the caulker’s apprentice; “but I don’t believe in ghosts.”
The Torteval boys were sorely tempted to shrink behind the heap of fagots, but they had already left it far behind; and their friend the caulker continued to advance towards the house.They trembled at remaining with him; but they dared not leave him.
Step by step, and perplexed, they followed. The caulker’s apprentice turned towards them and said—
“You know it isn’t true. There are no such things.”
The house grew taller and taller. The voices became more and more distinct.
They drew nearer.
And now they could perceive within the house something like a muffled light. It was a faint glimmer, like one of those effects produced by dark lanterns, already referred to, and which are common at the midnight meetings of witches.
When they were close to the house they halted.
One of the two Torteval boys ventured on an observation:
“It isn’t spirits: it is ladies dressed in white.”
“What’s that hanging from the window?” asked the other.
“It looks like a rope.”
“It’s a snake.”
“It is only a hangman’s rope,” said the French boy, authoritatively. “That’s what they use. Only I don’t believe in them.”
And in three bounds, rather than steps, he found himself against the wall of the building.
The two others, trembling, imitated him, and came pressing against him, one on his right side, the other on his left. The boys applied their ears to the wall. The sounds continued.
The following was the conversation of the phantoms:—
“Asi, entendido esta?”
“Entendido.”
“Dicho?”
“Dicho.”
“Aqui esperara un hombre, y podra marcharse en Inglaterra con Blasquito.”
“Pagando?”
“So that is understood?”
“Perfectly.”
“As is arranged?”
“As is arranged.”
“A man will wait here, and can accompany Blasquito to England.”
“Paying the expense?”
“Pagando.”
“Blasquito tomara al hombre en su barca.”
“Sin buscar para conocer a su pais?”
“No nos toca.”
“Ni a su nombre del hombre?”
“No se pide el nombre, pero se pesa la bolsa.”
“Bien: esperara el hombre en esa casa.”
“Tenga que comer.”
“Tendra.”
“Onde?”
“En este saco que he llevado.”
“Muy bien.”
“Puedo dexar el saco aqui?”
“Los contrabandistas no son ladrones.”
“Y vosotros, cuando marchais?”
“Mañana por la mañana. Si su hombre de usted parado podria venir con nosotros.”
“Parado no esta.”
“Hacienda suya.”
“Cuantos dias esperara alli?”
“Paying the expense.”
“Blasquito will take the man in his bark.”
“Without seeking to know what country he belongs to?”
“That is no business of ours.”
“Without asking his name?”
“We do not ask for names; we only feel the weight of the purse.”
“Good: the man shall wait in this house.”
“He must have provisions.”
“He will be furnished with them.”
“How?”
“From this bag which I have brought.”
“Very good.”
“Can I leave this bag here?”
“Smugglers are not robbers.”
“And when do you go?”
“To-morrow morning. If your man was ready he could come with us.”
“He is not prepared.”
“That is his affair.”
“How many days will he have to wait in this house?”
“Dos, tres, quatro dias; menos o mas.”
“Es cierto que el Blasquito vendra?”
“Cierto.”
“En est Plainmont?”
“En est Plainmont.”
“A qual semana?”
“La que viene.”
“A qual dia?”
“Viernes, o sabado, o domingo.”
“No peuede faltar?”
“Es mi tocayo.”
“Por qualquiera tiempo viene?”
“Qualquiera. No tieme. Soy el Blasco, es el Blasquito.”
“Asi, no puede faltar de venir en Guernesey?”
“Vengo a un mes, y viene al otro mes.”
“Entiendo.”
“A cuentar del otro sabado, desde hoy en ocho, no se parasan cinco dias sin que venga el Blasquito.”
“Pero un muy malo mar?”
“Egurraldia gaiztoa.”
“Two, three, or four days; more or less.”
“Is it certain that Blasquito will come?”
“Certain.”
“Here to Pleinmont?”
“To Pleinmont.”
“When?”
“Next week.”
“What day?”
“Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.”
“May he not fail?”
“He is my Tocayo.”
“Will he come in any weather?”
“At any time. He has no fear. My name is Blasco, his Blasquito.”
“So he cannot fail to come to Guernsey?”
“I come one month—he the other.”
“I understand.”
“Counting from Saturday last, one week from to-day, five days cannot elapse without bringing Blasquito.”
“But if there is much sea?”
“Bad weather?”
“Si.”
“No vendria el Blasquito tan pronto, pero vendria.”
“Donde vendra?”
“De Vilvao.”
“Onde ira?”
“En Portland.”
“Bien.”
“O en Tor Bay.”
“Mejor.”
“Su humbre de usted puede estarse quieto.”
“No traidor sera, el Blasquito?”
“Los cobardes son traidores. Somos valientes. El mar es la iglesia del invierno. La traicion es la iglesia del infierno.”
“No se entiende a lo que dicemos?”
“Escuchar a nosotros y mirar a nosotros es imposible. La espanta hace alli el desierto.”
“Lo sè.”
“Quien se atravesaria a escuchar?”
“Es verdad.”
“Y escucharian que no entiendrian. Hablamos a una
“Yes.”
“Blasquito will not come so quickly, but he will come.”
“Whence will he come?”
“From Bilbao.”
“Where will he be going?”
“To Portland.”
“Good.”
“Or to Torbay.”
“Better still.”
“Your man may rest easy.”
“Blasquito will betray nothing?”
“Cowards are the only traitors. We are men of courage. The sea is the church of winter. Treason is the church of hell.”
“No one hears what we say?”
“It is impossible to be seen or overheard. The people’s fear of this spot makes it deserted.”
“I know it.”
“Who is there who would dare to listen here?”
“True.”
“Besides, if they listened, none would understand. We
lengua fiera y nuestra que no se conoce. Despues que la sabeis, eries con nosotros.”
“Soy viendo para componer las haciendas con ustedes.”
“Bueno.”
“Y allora me voy.”
“Mucho.”
“Digame usted, hombre. Si el pasagero quiere que el Blasquito le lleven en unguna otra parte que Portland o Tor Bay?”
“Tenga onces.”
“El Blasquito hara lo que querra el hombre?”
“El Blasquito hace lo que quieren las onces.”
“Es menester mucho tiempo para ir en Tor Bay?”
“Como quiere el viento.”
“Ocho horas?”
“Menos, o mas.”
“El Blasquito obedecera al pasagero?”
“Si le obedece el mar al Blasquito.”
“Bien pagado sera.”
“El oro es el oro. El viento es el viento.”
“Mucho.”
speak a wild language of our own, which nobody knows hereabouts. As you know it, you are one of us.”
“I came only to make these arrangements with you.”
“Very good.”
“I must now take my leave.”
“Be it so.”
“Tell me; suppose the passenger should wish Blasquito to take him anywhere else than to Portland or Torbay?”
“Let him bring some gold coins.”
“Will Blasquito consult the stranger’s convenience?”
“Blasquito will do whatever the gold coins command.”
“Does it take long to go to Torbay?”
“That is as it pleases the winds.”
“Eight hours?”
“More or less.”
“Will Blasquito obey the passenger?”
“If the sea will obey Blasquito.”
“He will be well rewarded.”
“Gold is gold; and the sea is the sea.”
“That is true.”
“El hombre hace lo que puede con el oro. Dios con el viento hace lo que quiere.”
“Aqui sera viernes el que desea marcharse con Blasquito.”
“Pues.”
“A qual momento llega Blasquito.”
“A la noche. A la noche se llega, a la noche se marcha. Tenemos una muger quien se llama el mar, y una quien se llama la noche.”
“La muger puede faltar, la hermana no.”
“Todo dicho esta. Abour, hombres.”
“Buenas tardes. Un golpe de aquardiente?”
“Gracias.”
“Es mejor que xarope.”
“Tengo vuestra palabra.”
“Mi nombre es Pundonor.”
“Sea usted con Dios.”
“Ereis gentleman, y soy caballero.”
“Man with his gold does what he can. Heaven with its winds does what it will.”
“The man who is to accompany Blasquito will be here on Friday.”
“Good.”
“At what hour will Blasquito appear?”
“In the night. We arrive by night; and sail by night. We have a wife who is called the sea, and a sister called night. The wife betrays sometimes; but the sister never.”
“All is settled, then. Good-night, my men.”
“Good-night. A drop of brandy first?”
“Thank you.”
“That is better than a syrup.”
“I have your word.”
“My name is Point-of-Honour.”
“Adieu.”
“You are a gentleman: I am a caballero.”
It was clear that only devils could talk in this way. The children did not listen long. This time they took to flight in earnest; the French boy, convinced at last, running even quicker than the others.
On the Tuesday following this Saturday, Sieur Clubin returned to St. Malo, bringing back the Durande.
TheTamaulipaswas still at anchor in the roads.
Sieur Clubin, between the whiffs of his pipe, said to the landlord of the Jean Auberge:
“Well; and when does theTamaulipasget under way?”
“The day after to-morrow—Thursday,” replied the landlord.
On that evening, Clubin supped at the coast-guard officers’ table; and, contrary to his habit, went out after his supper. The consequence of his absence was, that he could not attend to the office of the Durande, and thus lost a little in the matter of freights. This fact was remarked in a man ordinarily punctual.
It appeared that he had chatted a few moments with his friend the money-changer.
He returned two hours after Noguette had sounded the Curfew bell. The Brazilian bell sounds at ten o’clock. It was therefore midnight.
Forty years ago, St. Malo possessed an alley known by the name of the “Ruelle Coutanchez.” This alley no longer exists, having been removed for the improvements of the town.
It was a double row of houses, leaning one towards the other, and leaving between them just room enough for a narrow rivulet, which was called the street. By stretching the legs, it was possible to walk on both sides of the stream, touching with head or elbows, as you went, the houses either on the right or the left. These old relics of mediæval Normandy have almost a human interest. Tumbledown houses and sorcerers always go together. Their leaning stories, their overhanging walls, their bowed penthouses, and their old thick-set irons, seem like lips, chin, nose, and eyebrows. The garret window is the blind eye. The walls are the wrinkled and blotchy cheeks. The opposite houses lay their foreheads together as if they were plotting some malicious deed. All those words of ancient villany—like cut-throat, “slit-weazand,” and the like—are closely connected with architecture of this kind.
One of these houses in the alley—the largest and the most famous, or notorious—was known by the name of the Jacressade.
The Jacressade was a lodging-house for people who do not lodge. In all towns, and particularly in sea-ports, there is always found beneath the lowest stratum of society a sort of residuum: vagabonds who are more than a match for justice; rovers after adventures; chemists of the swindling order, whoare always dropping their lives into the melting-pot; people in rags of every shape, and in every style of wearing them; withered fruits of roguery; bankrupt existences; consciences that have filed their schedule; men who have failed in the house-breaking trade (for the great masters of burglary move in a higher sphere); workmen and workwomen in the trade of wickedness; oddities, male and female; men in coats out at elbows; scoundrels reduced to indigence; rogues who have missed the wages of roguery; men who have been hit in the social duel; harpies who have no longer any prey; petty larceners;queuxin the double and unhappy meaning of that word. Such are the constituents of that living mass. Human nature is here reduced to something bestial. It is the refuse of the social state, heaped up in an obscure corner, where from time to time descends that dreaded broom which is known by the name of police. In St. Malo, the Jacressade was the name of this corner.
It is not in dens of this sort that we find the high-class criminals—the robbers, forgers, and other great products of ignorance and poverty. If murder is represented here, it is generally in the person of some coarse drunkard; in the matter of robbery, the company rarely rise higher than the mere sharper. The vagrant is there; but not the highwayman. It would not, however, be safe to trust this distinction. This last stage of vagabondage may have its extremes of scoundrelism. It was on an occasion, when casting their nets into the Epi-scié—which was in Paris what the Jacressade was in St. Malo—that the police captured the notorious Lacenaire.
These lurking-places refuse nobody. To fall in the social scale has a tendency to bring men to one level. Sometimes honesty in tatters found itself there. Virtue and probity have been known before now to be brought to strange passes. We must not judge always by appearances, even in the palace or at the galleys. Public respect, as well as universal reprobation, requires testing. Surprising results sometimes spring from this principle. An angel may be discovered in the stews; a pearl in the dunghill. Such sad and dazzling discoveries are not altogether unknown.
The Jacressade was rather a courtyard than a house; and more of a well than a courtyard. It had no stories looking on the street. Its façade was simply a high wall, with a low gateway. You raised the latch, pushed the gate, and were at once in the courtyard.
In the midst of this yard might be perceived a round hole, encircled with a margin of stones, and even with the ground. The yard was small, the well large. A broken pavement surrounded it.
The courtyard was square, and built on three sides only. On the side of the street was only the wall; facing you as you entered the gateway stood the house, the two wings of which formed the sides to right and left.
Any one entering there after nightfall, at his own risk and peril, would have heard a confused murmur of voices; and, if there had been moonlight or starlight enough to give shape to the obscure forms before his eyes, this is what he would have seen.
The courtyard: the well. Around the courtyard, in front of the gate, a lean-to or shed, in a sort of horse-shoe form, but with square corners; a rotten gallery, with a roof of joists supported by stone pillars at unequal distances. In the centre, the well; around the well, upon a litter of straw, a kind of circular chaplet, formed of the soles of boots and shoes; some trodden down at heel, some showing the toes of the wearers, some the naked heels. The feet of men, women, and children, all asleep.
Beyond these feet, the eye might have distinguished, in the shadow of the shed, bodies, drooping heads, forms stretched out lazily, bundles of rags of both sexes, a promiscuous assemblage, a strange and revolting mass of life. The accommodation of this sleeping chamber was open to all, at the rate of two sous a week. On a stormy night the rain fell upon the feet, the whirling snow settled on the bodies of those wretched sleepers.
Who were these people? The unknown. They came there at night, and departed in the morning. Creatures of this kind form part of the social fabric. Some stole in during the darkness, and paid nothing. The greater part had scarcely eaten during the day. All kinds of vice and baseness, every sort of moral infection, every species of distress were there. The same sleep settled down upon all in this bed of filth. The dreams of all these companions in misery went on side by side. A dismal meeting-place, where misery and weakness, half-sobered debauchery, weariness from long walking to and fro, with evil thoughts, in quest of bread, pallor with closed eyelids, remorse, envy, lay mingled and festering in the same miasma, with faces that had the look of death, and dishevelled hair mixed with the filth and sweepings of the streets. Such was the putrid heap of life fermenting in this dismal spot. An unlucky turn of the wheelof fortune, a ship arrived on the day before, a discharge from prison, a dark night, or some other chance, had cast them here, to find a miserable shelter. Every day brought some new accumulation of such misery. Let him enter who would, sleep who could, speak who dared; for it was a place of whispers. The new comers hastened to bury themselves in the mass, or tried to seek oblivion in sleep, since there was none in the darkness of the place. They snatched what little of themselves they could from the jaws of death. They closed their eyes in that confusion of horrors which every day renewed. They were the embodiment of misery, thrown off from society, as the scum is from the sea.
It was not every one who could even get a share of the straw. More than one figure was stretched out naked upon the flags. They lay down worn out with weariness, and awoke paralysed. The well, without lid or parapet, and thirty feet in depth, gaped open night and day. Rain fell around it; filth accumulated about, and the gutters of the yard ran down and filtered through its sides. The pail for drawing the water stood by the side. Those who were thirsty drank there; some, disgusted with life, drowned themselves in it—slipped from their slumber in the filthy shed into that profounder sleep. In the year 1819, the body of a boy, of fourteen years old, was taken up out of this well.
To be safe in this house, it was necessary to be of the “right sort.” The uninitiated were regarded with suspicion.
Did these miserable wretches, then, know each other? No; yet they scented out the genuine guest of the Jacressade.
The mistress of the house was a young and rather pretty woman, wearing a cap trimmed with ribbons. She washed herself now and then with water from the well. She had a wooden leg.
At break of day, the courtyard became empty. Its inmates dispersed.
An old cock and some other fowls were kept in the courtyard, where they raked among the filth of the place all day long. A long horizontal beam, supported by posts, traversed the yard—a gibbet-shaped erection, not out of keeping with the associations of the place. Sometimes on the morrow of a rainy-day, a silk dress, mudded and wet, would be seen hanging out to dry upon this beam. It belonged to the woman with the wooden leg.
Over the shed, and like it, surrounding the yard, was a story, and above this story a loft. A rotten wooden ladder, passingthrough a hole in the roof of the shed, conducted to this story; and up this ladder the woman would climb, sometimes staggering while its crazy rounds creaked beneath her.
The occasional lodgers, whether by the week or the night, slept in the courtyard; the regular inmates lived in the house.
Windows without a pane of glass, door-frames with no door, fireplaces without stoves; such were the chief features of the interior. You might pass from one room to the other, indifferently, by a long square aperture which had been the door, or by a triangular hole between the joists of the partitions. The fallen plaster of the ceiling lay about the floor. It was difficult to say how the old house still stood erect. The high winds indeed shook it. The lodgers ascended as they could by the worn and slippery steps of the ladder. Everything was open to the air. The wintry atmosphere was absorbed into the house, like water into a sponge. The multitude of spiders seemed alone to guarantee the place against falling to pieces immediately. There was no sign of furniture. Two or three paillasses were in the corner, their ticking torn in parts, and showing more dust than straw within. Here and there were a water-pot and an earthen pipkin. A close, disagreeable odour haunted the rooms.
The windows looked out upon the square yard. The scene was like the interior of a scavenger’s cart. The things, not to speak of the human beings, which lay rusting, mouldering, and putrefying there, were indescribable. The fragments seemed to fraternise together. Some fell from the walls, others from the living tenants of the place. The débris were sown with their tatters.
Besides the floating population which bivouacked nightly in the square yard, the Jacressade had three permanent lodgers—a charcoal man, a rag-picker, and a “gold-maker.” The charcoal man and the rag-picker occupied two of the paillasses of the first story; the “gold-maker,” a chemist, lodged in the loft, which was called, no one knew why, the garret. Nobody knew where the woman slept. The “gold-maker” was a poet in a small way. He inhabited a room in the roof, under the tiles—a chamber with a narrow window, and a large stone fireplace forming a gulf, in which the wind howled at will. The garret window having no frame, he had nailed across it a piece of iron sheathing, part of the wreck of a ship. This sheathing left little room for the entrance of light and much for the entrance of cold. The charcoal-man paid rent from time to time in theshape of a sack of charcoal; the rag-picker paid with a bowl of grain for the fowls every week; the “gold-maker” did not pay at all. Meanwhile the latter consumed the very house itself for fuel. He had pulled down the little woodwork which remained; and every now and then he took from the wall or the roof a lath or some scantling, to heat his crucible. Upon the partition, above the rag-picker’s mattress, might have been seen two columns of figures, marked in chalk by the rag-picker himself from week to week—a column of threes, and a column of fives—according as the bowl of grain had cost him three liards or five centimes. The gold-pot of the “chemist” was an old fragment of a bomb-shell, promoted by him to the dignity of a crucible, in which he mixed his ingredients. The transmutation of metals absorbed all his thoughts. He was determined before he died to revenge himself by breaking the windows of orthodox science with the real philosopher’s stone. His furnace consumed a good deal of wood. The hand-rail of the stairs had disappeared. The house was slowly burning away. The landlady said to him, “You will leave us nothing but the shell.” He mollified her by addressing her in verses.
Such was the Jacressade.
A boy of twelve, or, perhaps, sixteen—for he was like a dwarf, with a large wen upon his neck, and always carrying a broom in his hand—was the domestic of the place.
The habitués entered by the gateway of the courtyard; the public entered by the shop.
In the high wall, facing the street, and to the right of the entrance to the courtyard, was a square opening, serving at once as a door and a window. This was the shop. The square opening had a shutter and a frame—the only shutter in all the house which had hinges and bolts. Behind this square aperture, which was open to the street, was a little room, a compartment obtained by curtailing the sleeping shed in the courtyard. Over the door, passers-by read the inscription in charcoal, “Curiosities sold here.” On three boards, forming the shop front, were several china pots without ears, a Chinese parasol made of goldbeater’s skin, and ornamented with figures, torn here and there, and impossible to open or shut; fragments of iron, and shapeless pieces of old pottery, and dilapidated hats and bonnets, three or four shells, some packets of old bone and metal buttons, a tobacco-box with a portrait of Marie-Antoinette, and a dog’s-eared volume of Boisbertrand’sAlgebra. Such was the stock of the shop; this assortment completed the “curiosities.” Theshop communicated by a back door with the yard in which was the well. It was furnished with a table and a stool. The woman with a wooden leg presided at the counter.
Clubin had been absent from the Jean Auberge all the evening of Tuesday. On the Wednesday night he was absent again.
In the dusk of that evening, two strangers penetrated into the mazes of the Ruelle Coutanchez. They stopped in front of the Jacressade. One of them knocked at the window; the door of the shop opened, and they entered. The woman with the wooden leg met them with the smile which she reserved for respectable citizens. There was a candle on the table.
The strangers were, in fact, respectable citizens. The one who had knocked said, “Good-day, mistress. I have come for that affair.”
The woman with the wooden leg smiled again, and went out by the back-door leading to the courtyard, and where the well was. A moment afterwards the back-door was opened again, and a man stood in the doorway. He wore a cap and a blouse. It was easy to see the shape of something under his blouse. He had bits of old straw in his clothes, and looked as if he had just been aroused from sleep.
He advanced and exchanged glances with the strangers. The man in the blouse looked puzzled, but cunning; he said—
“You are the gunsmith?”
The one who had tapped at the window replied—
“Yes; you are the man from Paris?”
“Known as Redskin. Yes.”
“Show me the thing.”
The man took from under his blouse a weapon extremely rare at that period in Europe. It was a revolver.
The weapon was new and bright. The two strangers examined it. The one who seemed to know the house, and whom the man in the blouse had called “the gunsmith,” tried the mechanism. He passed the weapon to the other, who appeared less at home there, and kept his back turned to the light.
The gunsmith continued—
“How much?”
The man in the blouse replied—
“I have just brought it from America. Some people bring monkeys, parrots, and other animals, as if the French people were savages. For myself I brought this. It is a useful invention.”
“How much?” inquired the gunsmith again.
“It is a pistol which turns and turns.”
“How much?”
“Bang! the first fire. Bang! the second fire. Bang! the third fire. What a hailstorm of bullets! That will do some execution.”
“The price?”
“There are six barrels.”
“Well, well, what do you want for it?”
“Six barrels; that is six Louis.”
“Will you take five?”
“Impossible. One Louis a ball. That is the price.”
“Come, let us do business together. Be reasonable.”
“I have named a fair price. Examine the weapon, Mr. Gunsmith.”
“I have examined it.”
“The barrel twists and turns like Talleyrand himself. The weapon ought to be mentioned in theDictionary of Weathercocks. It is a gem.”
“I have looked at it.”
“The barrels are of Spanish make.”
“I see they are.”
“They are twisted. This is how this twisting is done. They empty into a forge the basket of a collector of old iron. They fill it full of these old scraps, with old nails, and broken horseshoes swept out of farriers’ shops.”
“And old sickle-blades.”
“I was going to say so, Mr. Gunsmith. They apply to all this rubbish a good sweating heat, and this makes a magnificent material for gun-barrels.”
“Yes; but it may have cracks, flaws, or crosses.”
“True; but they remedy the crosses by little twists, and avoid the risk of doublings by beating hard. They bring their mass of iron under the great hammer; give it two more good sweating heats. If the iron has been heated too much, they re-temper it with dull heats, and lighter hammers. And then they take out their stuff and roll it well; and with this iron they manufacture you a weapon like this.”
“You are in the trade, I suppose?”
“I am of all trades.”
“The barrels are pale-coloured.”
“That’s the beauty of them, Mr. Gunsmith. The tint is obtained with antimony.”
“It is settled, then, that we give you five Louis?”
“Allow me to observe that I had the honour of saying six.”
The gunsmith lowered his voice.
“Hark you, master. Take advantage of the opportunity. Get rid of this thing. A weapon of this kind is of no use to a man like you. It will make you remarked.”
“It is very true,” said the Parisian. “It is rather conspicuous. It is more suited to a gentleman.”
“Will you take five Louis?”
“No, six; one for every shot.”
“Come, six Napoleons.”
“I will have six Louis.”
“You are not a Bonapartist, then. You prefer a Louis to a Napoleon.”
The Parisian nicknamed “Redskin” smiled.
“A Napoleon is greater,” said he, “but a Louis is worth more.”
“Six Napoleons.”
“Six Louis. It makes a difference to me of four-and-twenty francs.”
“The bargain is off in that case.”
“Good: I keep the toy.”
“Keep it.”
“Beating me down! a good idea! It shall never be said that I got rid like that of a wonderful specimen of ingenuity.”
“Good-night, then.”
“It marks a whole stage in the progress of making pistols, which the Chesapeake Indians call Nortay-u-Hah.”
“Five Louis, ready money. Why, it is a handful of gold.”
“‘Nortay-u-Hah,’ that signifies ‘short gun.’ A good many people don’t know that.”
“Will you take five Louis, and just a bit of silver?”
“I said six, master.”
The man who kept his back to the candle, and who had not yet spoken, was spending his time during the dialogue in turning and testing the mechanism of the pistol. He approached the armourer’s ear and whispered—
“Is it a good weapon?”
“Excellent.”
“I will give the six Louis.”
Five minutes afterwards, while the Parisian nicknamed “Redskin” was depositing the six Louis which he had just received in a secret slit under the breast of his blouse, the armourer and his companion carrying the revolver in his trousers pocket, stepped out into the straggling street.
On the morrow, which was a Thursday, a tragic circumstance occurred at a short distance from St. Malo, near the peak of the “Décollé,” a spot where the cliff is high and the sea deep.
A line of rocks in the form of the top of a lance, and connecting themselves with the land by a narrow isthmus, stretch out there into the water, ending abruptly with a large peak-shaped breaker. Nothing is commoner in the architecture of the sea. In attempting to reach the plateau of the peaked rock from the shore, it was necessary to follow an inclined plane, the ascent of which was here and there somewhat steep.
It was upon a plateau of this kind, towards four o’clock in the afternoon, that a man was standing, enveloped in a large military cape, and armed; a fact easy to be perceived from certain straight and angular folds in his mantle. The summit on which this man was resting was a rather extensive platform, dotted with large masses of rock, like enormous paving-stones, leaving between them narrow passages. This platform, on which a kind of thick, short grass grew here and there, came to an end on the sea side in an open space, leading to a perpendicular escarpment. The escarpment, rising about sixty feet above the level of the sea, seemed cut down by the aid of a plumb-line. Its left angle, however, was broken away, and formed one of those natural staircases common to granite cliffs worn by the sea, the steps of which are somewhat inconvenient, requiring sometimes the strides of a giant or the leaps of an acrobat. These stages of rock descended perpendicularly to the sea, where they were lost. It was a break-neck place. However, in case of absolute necessity, a man might succeed in embarking there, under the very wall of the cliff.
A breeze was sweeping the sea. The man wrapped in hiscape and standing firm, with his left hand grasping his right shoulder, closed one eye, and applied the other to a telescope. He seemed absorbed in anxious scrutiny. He had approached the edge of the escarpment, and stood there motionless, his gaze immovably fixed on the horizon. The tide was high; the waves were beating below against the foot of the cliffs.
The object which the stranger was observing was a vessel in the offing, and which was manœuvring in a strange manner. The vessel, which had hardly left the port of St. Malo an hour, had stopped behind the Banquetiers. It had not cast anchor, perhaps because the bottom would only have permitted it to bear to leeward on the edge of the cable, and because the ship would have strained on her anchor under the cutwater. Her captain had contented himself with lying-to.
The stranger, who was a coast-guardman, as was apparent from his uniform cape, watched all the movements of the three-master, and seemed to note them mentally. The vessel was lying-to, a little off the wind, which was indicated by the backing of the small topsail, and the bellying of the main-topsail. She had squared the mizen, and set the topmast as close as possible, and in such a manner as to work the sails against each other, and to make little way either on or off shore. Her captain evidently did not care to expose his vessel much to the wind, for he had only braced up the small mizen-topsail. In this way, coming crossway on, he did not drift at the utmost more than half a league an hour.
It was still broad daylight, particularly on the open sea, and on the heights of the cliff. The shores below were becoming dark.
The coast-guardman, still engaged in his duty, and carefully scanning the offing, had not thought of observing the rocks at his side and at his feet. He turned his back towards the difficult sort of causeway which formed the communication between his resting-place and the shore. He did not, therefore, remark that something was moving in that direction. Behind a fragment of rock, among the steps of that causeway, something like the figure of a man had been concealed, according to all appearances, since the arrival of the coast-guardman. From time to time a head issued from the shadow behind the rock; looked up and watched the watcher. The head, surmounted by a wide-brimmed American hat, was that of the Quaker-looking man, who, ten days before, was talking among the stones of the Petit-Bey to Captain Zuela.
Suddenly, the curiosity of the coast-guardman seemed to be still more strongly awakened. He polished the glass of his telescope quickly with his sleeve, and brought it to bear closely upon the three-master.
A little black spot seemed to detach itself from her side.
The black spot, looking like a small insect upon the water, was a boat.
The boat seemed to be making for the shore. It was manned by several sailors, who were pulling vigorously.
She pulled crosswise by little and little, and appeared to be approaching the Pointe du Décollé.
The gaze of the coast-guardman seemed to have reached its most intense point. No movement of the boat escaped it. He had approached nearer still to the verge of the rock.
At that instant a man of large stature appeared on one of the rocks behind him. It was the Quaker. The officer did not see him.
The man paused an instant, his arms at his sides, but with his fists doubled; and with the eye of a hunter, watching for his prey, he observed the back of the officer.
Four steps only separated them. He put one foot forward, then stopped; took a second step, and stopped again. He made no movement except the act of walking; all the rest of his body was motionless as a statue. His foot fell upon the tufts of grass without noise. He made a third step, and paused again. He was almost within reach of the coast-guard, who stood there still motionless with his telescope. The man brought his two closed fists to a level with his collar-bone, then struck out his arms sharply, and his two fists, as if thrown from a sling, struck the coast-guardman on the two shoulders. The shock was decisive. The coast-guardman had not the time to utter a cry. He fell head first from the height of the rock into the sea. His boots appeared in the air about the time occupied by a flash of lightning. It was like the fall of a stone in the sea, which instantly closed over him.
Two or three circles widened out upon the dark water.
Nothing remained but the telescope, which had dropped from the hands of the man, and lay upon the turf.
The Quaker leaned over the edge of the escarpment a moment, watched the circles vanishing on the water, waited a few minutes, and then rose again, singing in a low voice:
“The captain of police is dead,Through having lost his life.”
He knelt down a second time. Nothing reappeared. Only at the spot where the officer had been engulfed, he observed on the surface of the water a sort of dark spot, which became diffused with the gentle lapping of the waves. It seemed probable that the coast-guardman had fractured his skull against some rock under water, and that his blood caused the spot in the foam. The Quaker, while considering the meaning of this spot, began to sing again:
“Not very long before he died,The luckless man was still alive.”
He did not finish his song.
He heard an extremely soft voice behind him, which said:
“Is that you, Rantaine? Good-day. You have just killed a man!”
He turned. About fifteen paces behind him, in one of the passages between the rocks, stood a little man holding a revolver in his hand.
The Quaker answered:
“As you see. Good-day, Sieur Clubin.”
The little man started.
“You know me?”
“You knew me very well,” replied Rantaine.
Meanwhile they could hear a sound of oars on the sea. It was the approach of the boat which the officer had observed.
Sieur Clubin said in a low tone, as if speaking to himself:
“It was done quickly.”
“What can I do to oblige you?” asked Rantaine.
“Oh, a trifling matter! It is very nearly ten years since I saw you. You must have been doing well. How are you?”
“Well enough,” answered Rantaine. “How are you?”
“Very well,” replied Clubin.
Rantaine advanced a step towards Clubin.
A little sharp click caught his ear. It was Sieur Clubin who was cocking his revolver.
“Rantaine, there are about fifteen paces between us. It is a nice distance. Remain where you are.”
“Very well,” said Rantaine. “What do you want with me?”
“I! Oh, I have come to have a chat with you.”
Rantaine did not offer to move again. Sieur Clubin continued:
“You assassinated a coast-guardman just now.”
Rantaine lifted the flap of his hat, and replied:
“You have already done me the honour to mention it.”
“Exactly; but in terms less precise. I said a man: I say now, a coast-guardman. The man wore the number 619. He was the father of a family; leaves a wife and five children.”
“That is no doubt correct,” said Rantaine.
There was a momentary pause.
“They are picked men—those coast-guard people,” continued Clubin; “almost all old sailors.”
“I have remarked,” said Rantaine, “that people generally do leave a wife and five children.”
Sieur Clubin continued:
“Guess how much this revolver cost me?”
“It is a pretty tool,” said Rantaine.
“What do you guess it at?”
“I should guess it at a good deal.”
“It cost me one hundred and forty-four francs.”
“You must have bought that,” said Rantaine, “at the shop in the Ruelle Coutanchez.”
Clubin continued:
“He did not cry out. The fall stopped his voice, no doubt.”
“Sieur Clubin, there will be a breeze to-night.”
“I am the only one in the secret.”
“Do you still stay at the Jean Auberge?”
“Yes: you are not badly served there.”
“I remember getting some excellent sour-krout there.”
“You must be exceedingly strong, Rantaine. What shoulders you have! I should be sorry to get a tap from you. I, on the other hand, when I came into the world, looked so spare and sickly, that they despaired of rearing me.”
“They succeeded though; which was lucky.”
“Yes: I still stay at the Jean Auberge.”
“Do you know, Sieur Clubin, how I recognised you? It was from your having recognised me. I said to myself, there is nobody like Sieur Clubin for that.”
And he advanced a step.
“Stand back where you were, Rantaine.”
Rantaine fell back, and said to himself:
“A fellow becomes like a child before one of those weapons.”
Sieur Clubin continued:
“The position of affairs is this: we have on our right, in the direction of St. Enogat, at about three hundred paces from here, another coast-guardman—his number is 618—who is still alive; and on our left, in the direction of St. Lunaire—a customsstation. That makes seven armed men who could be here, if necessary, in five minutes. The rock would be surrounded; the way hither guarded. Impossible to elude them. There is a corpse at the foot of this rock.”
Rantaine took a side-way glance at the revolver.
“As you say, Rantaine, it is a pretty tool. Perhaps it is only loaded with powder; but what does that matter? A report would be enough to bring an armed force—and I have six barrels here.”
The measured sound of the oars became very distinct. The boat was not far off.
The tall man regarded the little man curiously. Sieur Clubin spoke in a voice more and more soft and subdued.
“Rantaine, the men in the boat which is coming, knowing what you did here just now, would lend a hand and help to arrest you. You are to pay Captain Zuela ten thousand francs for your passage. You would have made a better bargain, by the way, with the smugglers of Pleinmont; but they would only have taken you to England; and besides, you cannot risk going to Guernsey, where they have the pleasure of knowing you. To return, then, to the position of affairs—if I fire, you are arrested. You are to pay Zuela for your passage ten thousand francs. You have already paid him five thousand in advance. Zuela would keep the five thousand and be gone. These are the facts. Rantaine, you have managed your masquerading very well. That hat—that queer coat—and those gaiters make a wonderful change. You forgot the spectacles; but did right to let your whiskers grow.”
Rantaine smiled spasmodically. Clubin continued:
“Rantaine, you have on a pair of American breeches, with a double fob. In one side you keep your watch. Take care of it.”
“Thank you, Sieur Clubin.”
“In the other is a little box made of wrought iron, which opens and shuts with a spring. It is an old sailor’s tobacco-box. Take it out of your pocket, and throw it over to me.”
“Why, this is robbery.”
“You are at liberty to call the coast-guardman.”
And Clubin fixed his eye on Rantaine.
“Stay, Mess Clubin,” said Rantaine, making a slight forward movement, and holding out his open hand.
The title “Mess” was a delicate flattery.
“Stay where you are, Rantaine.”
“Mess Clubin, let us come to terms. I offer you half.”
Clubin crossed his arms, still showing the barrels of his revolver.
“Rantaine, what do you take me for? I am an honest man.”
And he added after a pause:
“I must have the whole.”
Rantaine muttered between his teeth, “This fellow’s of a stern sort.”
The eye of Clubin lighted up, his voice became clear and sharp as steel. He cried:
“I see that you are labouring under a mistake. Robbery is your name, not mine. My name is Restitution. Hark you, Rantaine. Ten years ago you left Guernsey one night, taking with you the cash-box of a certain partnership concern, containing fifty thousand francs which belonged to you, but forgetting to leave behind you fifty thousand francs which were the property of another. Those fifty thousand francs, the money of your partner, the excellent and worthy Mess Lethierry, make at present, at compound interest, calculated for ten years, eighty thousand six hundred and sixty-six francs. You went into a money-changer’s yesterday. I’ll give you his name—Rébuchet, in St. Vincent Street. You counted out to him seventy-six thousand francs in French bank-notes; in exchange for which he gave you three notes of the Bank of England for one thousand pounds sterling each, plus the exchange. You put these bank-notes in the iron tobacco-box, and the iron tobacco-box into your double fob on the right-hand side. On the part of Mess Lethierry, I shall be content with that. I start to-morrow for Guernsey, and intend to hand it to him. Rantaine, the three-master lying-to out yonder is theTamaulipas. You have had your luggage put aboard there with the other things belonging to the crew. You want to leave France. You have your reasons. You are going to Arequipa. The boat is coming to fetch you. You are awaiting it. It is at hand. You can hear it. It depends on me whether you go or stay. No more words. Fling me the tobacco-box.”
Rantaine dipped his hand in the fob, drew out a little box, and threw it to Clubin. It was the iron tobacco-box. It fell and rolled at Clubin’s feet.
Clubin knelt without lowering his gaze; felt about for the box with his left hand, keeping all the while his eyes and the six barrels of the revolver fixed upon Rantaine.
Then he cried:
“Turn your back, my friend.”
Rantaine turned his back.
Sieur Clubin put the revolver under one arm, and touched the spring of the tobacco-box. The lid flew open.
It contained four bank-notes; three of a thousand pounds, and one of ten pounds.
He folded up the three bank-notes of a thousand pounds each, replaced them in the iron tobacco-box, shut the lid again, and put it in his pocket.
Then he picked up a stone, wrapped it in the ten-pound note, and said:
“You may turn round again.”
Rantaine turned.
Sieur Clubin continued:
“I told you I would be contented with three thousand pounds. Here, I return you ten pounds.”
And he threw to Rantaine the note enfolding the stone.
Rantaine, with a movement of his foot, sent the bank-note and the stone into the sea.
“As you please,” said Clubin. “You must be rich. I am satisfied.”
The noise of oars, which had been continually drawing nearer during the dialogue, ceased. They knew by this that the boat had arrived at the base of the cliff.
“Your vehicle waits below. You can go, Rantaine.”
Rantaine advanced towards the steps of stones, and rapidly disappeared.
Clubin moved cautiously towards the edge of the escarpment, and watched him descending.
The boat had stopped near the last stage of the rocks, at the very spot where the coast-guardman had fallen.
Still observing Rantaine stepping from stone to stone, Clubin muttered:
“A good number 619. He thought himself alone. Rantaine thought there were only two there. I alone knew that there were three.”
He perceived at his feet the telescope which had dropped from the hands of the coast-guardman.
The sound of oars was heard again. Rantaine had stepped into the boat, and the rowers had pushed out to sea.
When Rantaine was safely in the boat, and the cliff was beginning to recede from his eyes, he arose again abruptly. His features were convulsed with rage; he clenched his fist and cried:
“Ha! he is the devil himself; a villain!”
A few seconds later, Clubin, from the top of the rock, while bringing his telescope to bear upon the boat, heard distinctly the following words articulated by a loud voice, and mingling with the noise of the sea:
“Sieur Clubin, you are an honest man; but you will not be offended if I write to Lethierry to acquaint him with this matter; and we have here in the boat a sailor from Guernsey, who is one of the crew of theTamaulipas; his name is Ahier-Tostevin, and he will return to St. Malo on Zuela’s next voyage, to bear testimony to the fact of my having returned to you, on Mess Lethierry’s account, the sum of three thousand pounds sterling.”
It was Rantaine’s voice.
Clubin rarely did things by halves. Motionless as the coast-guardman had been, and in the exact same place, his eye still at the telescope, he did not lose sight of the boat for one moment. He saw it growing less amidst the waves; watched it disappear and reappear, and approach the vessel, which was lying-to; finally he recognised the tall figure of Rantaine on the deck of theTamaulipas.
When the boat was raised, and slung again to the davits, theTamaulipaswas in motion once more. The land-breeze was fresh, and she spread all her sails. Clubin’s glass continued fixed upon her outline growing more and more indistinct; until half an hour later, when theTamaulipashad become only a dark shape upon the horizon, growing smaller and smaller against the pale twilight in the sky.
On that evening, Sieur Clubin returned late.
One of the causes of his delay was, that before going to his inn, he had paid a visit to the Dinan gate of the town, a place where there were several wine-shops. In one of these wine-shops, where he was not known, he had bought a bottle of brandy, which he placed in the pocket of his overcoat, as if he desired to conceal it. Then, as the Durande was to start on the following morning, he had taken a turn aboard to satisfy himself that everything was in order.
When Sieur Clubin returned to the Jean Auberge, there was no one left in the lower room except the old sea-captain, M. Gertrais-Gaboureau, who was drinking a jug of ale and smoking his pipe.
M. Gertrais-Gaboureau saluted Sieur Clubin between a whiff and a draught of ale.
“How d’ye do, Captain Clubin?”
“Good evening, Captain Gertrais.”
“Well, theTamaulipasis gone.”
“Ah!” said Clubin, “I did not observe.”
Captain Gertrais-Gaboureau expectorated, and said:
“Zuela has decamped.”
“When was that?”
“This evening.”
“Where is he gone?”
“To the devil.”
“No doubt; but where is that?”
“To Arequipa.”
“I knew nothing of it,” said Clubin.
He added:
“I am going to bed.”
He lighted his candle, walked towards the door, and returned.
“Have you ever been at Arequipa, Captain?”
“Yes; some years ago.”
“Where do they touch on that voyage?”
“A little everywhere; but theTamaulipaswill touch nowhere.”
M. Gertrais-Gaboureau emptied his pipe upon the corner of a plate and continued:
“You know the lugger called theTrojan Horse, and that fine three-master, theTrentemouzin, which are gone to Cardiff? I was against their sailing on account of the weather. They have returned in a fine state. The lugger was laden with turpentine; she sprang a leak, and in working the pumps they pumped up with the water all her cargo. As to the three-master, she has suffered most above water. Her cutwater, her headrail, the stock of her larboard anchor are broken. Her standing jibboom is gone clean by the cap. As for the jib-shrouds and bobstays, go and see what they look like. The mizenmast is not injured, but has had a severe shock. All the iron of the bowsprit has given way; and it is an extraordinary fact that, though the bowsprit itself is not scratched, it is completely stripped. The larboard-bow of the vessel is stove ina good three feet square. This is what comes of not taking advice.”
Clubin had placed the candle on the table, and had begun to readjust a row of pins which he kept in the collar of his overcoat. He continued:
“Didn’t you say, Captain, that theTamaulipaswould not touch anywhere?”
“Yes; she goes direct to Chili.”
“In that case, she can send no news of herself on the voyage.”
“I beg your pardon, Captain Clubin. In the first place, she can send any letters by vessels she may meet sailing for Europe.”
“That is true.”
“Then there is the ocean letter-box.”
“What do you mean by the ocean letter-box?”
“Don’t you know what that is, Captain Clubin?”
“No.”
“When you pass the straits of Magellan——”
“Well.”
“Snow all round you; always bad weather; ugly down-easters, and bad seas.”
“Well.”
“When you have doubled Cape Monmouth——”
“Well, what next?”
“Then you double Cape Valentine.”
“And then?”
“Why, then you double Cape Isidore.”
“And afterwards?”
“You double Point Anne.”
“Good. But what is it you call the ocean letter-box?”
“We are coming to that. Mountains on the right, mountains on the left. Penguins and stormy petrels all about. A terrible place. Ah! by Jove, what a howling and what cracks you get there! The hurricane wants no help. That’s the place for holding on to the sheer-rails; for reefing topsails. That’s where you take in the mainsail, and fly the jibsail; or take in the jibsail and try the stormjib. Gusts upon gusts! And then, sometimes four, five, or six days of scudding under bare poles. Often only a rag of canvas left. What a dance! Squalls enough to make a three-master skip like a flea. I saw once a cabin-boy hanging on to the jibboom of an English brig, theTrue Blue, knocked, jibboom and all, to ten thousand nothings. Fellows are swept into the air there like butterflies. I saw the second mate of theRevenue, a pretty schooner, knocked fromunder the forecross-tree, and killed dead. I have had my sheer-rails smashed, and come out with all my sails in ribbons. Frigates of fifty guns make water like wicker baskets. And the damnable coast! Nothing can be imagined more dangerous. Rocks all jagged-edged. You come, by and by, to Port Famine. There it’s worse and worse. The worst seas I ever saw in my life. The devil’s own latitudes. All of a sudden you spy the words, painted in red, ‘Post Office.’”
“What do you mean, Captain Gertrais?”
“I mean, Captain Clubin, that immediately after doubling Point Anne you see, on a rock, a hundred feet high, a great post with a barrel suspended to the top. This barrel is the letter-box. The English sailors must needs go and write up there ‘Post Office.’ What had they to do with it? It is the ocean post-office. It isn’t the property of that worthy gentleman, the King of England. The box is common to all. It belongs to every flag.Post Office!there’s a crack-jaw word for you. It produces an effect on me as if the devil had suddenly offered me a cup of tea. I will tell you now how the postal arrangements are carried out. Every vessel which passes sends to the post a boat with despatches. A vessel coming from the Atlantic, for instance, sends there its letters for Europe; and a ship coming from the Pacific, its letters for New Zealand or California. The officer in command of the boat puts his packet into the barrel, and takes away any packet he finds there. You take charge of these letters, and the ship which comes after you takes charge of yours. As ships are always going to and fro, the continent whence you come is that to which I am going. I carry your letters; you carry mine. The barrel is made fast to the post with a chain. And it rains, snows and hails! A pretty sea. The imps of Satan fly about on every side. TheTamaulipaswill pass there. The barrel has a good lid with a hinge, but no padlock. You see, a fellow can write to his friends this way. The letters come safely.”