The Blue Pavilions by Arthur Quiller-Couch (most read books .txt) 📖

looking straight beneath him, determined in his heart that, bad as his present plight might be, he would endure it rather than trust himself in his father's hands again. The Captain stepped briskly up the ladder and gained the galley's deck. He had given the young man a glance and no more. It was not wonderful that he had failed to recognise in the young forçat with the shaven head and rough, stubbly beard the son whom he had abandoned more than a month before. Besides, he was busy composing in his mind an introductory speech to be let off on M. de la Pailletine, in whose manner of receiving him he anticipated some little frigidity.

However, he stepped on deck and advanced towards the officer on the poop with a pleasant smile, doffing his laced hat with one hand and holding forward a letter in the other. M. de la Pailletine took his hands from beneath his coat-tails and also advanced, returning the salute very politely.

"The Commodore de la Pailletine, I believe?"

"The same, monsieur."

The two gentlemen regarded each other narrowly for an instant; then, still smiling, Captain Salt presented his letter, and stood tapping the deck with the toe of his square-pointed shoe and looking amiably about him while the Commodore glanced at the seal, broke it, and began to read.

At the first sentence the muscles of M. de la Pailletine's forehead contracted slightly.

"Just as I expected," said the Englishman to himself, as he stole a glance. But he continued to wear his air of good-fellowship, and his teeth, which were white as milk and quite even, showed all the time.

Meanwhile the Commodore's brow did not clear. He was a wiry, tall man, of beautiful manners and a singularly urbane demeanour, but he could not hide the annoyance which this letter caused him. He finished it, turned abruptly to the beginning, and read it through again; then looked at Captain Salt with a shade of severity on his face. "Sir," he said, in a carefully regulated voice, "you may count on my obeying his Majesty's commands to the letter." He laid some stress on the two words "commands" and "letter."

"I thank you, monsieur," answered the Englishman, without allowing himself to show that he perceived this.

"I am ordered"—again the word "ordered" was slightly emphasised—"I am ordered to make you welcome on board my galley. Therefore I must ask you to consider yourself at home here for so long as it may please you to stay."

He bowed again, but very stiffly, nor did he offer to shake hands. Captain Salt regarded him with his head tilted a little to one side, and his lips pursed up as if he were whistling silently. As a matter of fact he was whispering to himself, "You shall rue this, my gentleman!" But aloud he asked the somewhat puzzling question:

"Is that all, monsieur?"

"Why, yes," answered M. de la Pailletine, "except that you need have no doubt I shall treat you with the respect which is your due, or rather—"

"Pray proceed."

"—Or rather, with the respect which his Majesty thinks is your due."

"And which you do not."

"Excuse me, sir; I do not venture to set up my opinion against that of King Lewis."

"Yes, yes, of course; but, monsieur, I was trying to get at your own feelings. You do not think that a man who enlists against his own country, even on the side of his rightful King, can be entitled to any respect?"

"Excuse me—" began the Commodore; but Captain Salt interrupted with a gentle wave of the hand.

"Tut, tut, my dear sir! Pray do not imagine that I resent this expression of your feelings. On the contrary, I am grateful to you for treating me so frankly. I have consolations. Your sovereign"— he pointed to the letter which M. de la Pailletine was folding up and placing in his breast-pocket—"has a more intelligent sense of my merits and my honour."

"Doubtless, monsieur," the Commodore answered; "but permit me to suggest that the discussion of these matters is out of place on deck. Suffer me, therefore, to conduct you to my cabin, which is at your disposal while you choose to honour us."

The Englishman bowed and followed his host below. Nor could Tristram, who had heard every sentence of their conversation, feel sufficiently thankful that he had finished painting the cabin windows three days before, and was not obliged to expose his face to the chance of recognition. And yet it is doubtful if he would have been recognised, so direly had tribulation altered him. He finished his work for the morning with less artistry than usual, and was drawn upon deck shortly before the dinner-hour, by which time the galley's complement was brought on board for a short cruise. As Tristram rose and fell to his oar, that afternoon, he heard his father's voice just over his head, and then the Commodore's answering it. Their tones were not cordial; but their feet were pacing side by side, and it was obvious that the Englishman had already in some measure abated the Commodore's dislike.

Indeed, in the course of the next week Tristram learnt enough to be sure that his father was making steady progress in the affections of the officers of the galley. At first there is little doubt that the Captain was moved to capture their good will from a merely vague desire, common to all men of his character, to stand well in the opinion of everybody he met. He had arrived at Saint Germains, and had ridden thence to meet King James, who was returning from Calais in a dog's temper over the failure of the mutinous ships to meet him at that port. Captain Salt presented the Earl's letter, and by depicting the mutiny in colours which his imagination supplied, laying stress on the enthusiasm of the crews, and declaring that the success of their plot was delayed rather than destroyed by the cunning of the usurper, he contrived to inspire hope again in the breast of the cantankerous and exiled monarch, who kept him at his side during the rest of the journey back to Paris, and there introduced him to the favour of King Lewis. The latter monarch, who happened to be bored, asked Captain Salt what he could do for him.

Captain Salt, remembering the Earl's promise, suggested that a descent on the English coast might be made from Dunkirk, if his Majesty were still disposed to befriend the unfortunate House of Stuart.

King Lewis yawned, remembered that he had a certain number of galleys languishing at Dunkirk for want of exercise, and suggested that Captain Salt had better go and see for himself what they were likely to effect.

Captain Salt went. His main purpose was to live in comfortable quarters at the King's expense, while awaiting for the promised letter from the Earl of Marlborough. On the eighth day after his arrival, a small fishing-smack with a green pennant came racing past the two castles at the entrance of Dunkirk pier, slackened her main-sheet, spun down between the forts with the wind astern, rounded, and cast anchor in the Royal Basin. Her crew then lowered a little cockleshell of a dinghy, which she carried inboard, and a tanned, red-bearded man pulled straight for the Commodore's galley.

He bore a letter addressed to Captain Roderick Salt. It was written in cipher, but read as follows:

Dear S.,—Portland suspected you and had you followed. I saw his eye upon you during your last interview with William. It was clever to get through, nor can I discover how you managed it: for the account given by your pursuers is plainly absurd. I've been turning over their cock-and-bull story, which finds credence here, and cannot fit it with the probabilities. Yet they seem William's men. I find that the horse on which one of them returned is not the same as that upon which he rode away; nor does their narrative account for this. But the main point is that you are safe. By the way, I hope you have kept your son at your side; for I have now received the information about which I dropped you some hints. It appears that he inherits from a great-uncle (one Silvanus Tellworthy) certain American estates, of which you and a Captain Runacles, of Harwich, are the legal administrators. I fancy this has been kept from you; and, if so, a descent upon Harwich may be used to furnish you with a provision for your old age. Still, there is a present danger that you may be declared a traitor, and your goods confiscate, which would spoil all. This (since naught has been proved against you, and the aim of your journey not known) you may avert by keeping your eyes open at Dunquerque, and writing a report of it to Wm. Such a report, aptly drawn, may not only check Portland, but justify me, as knowing your intent from the start, and that it was a move for Wm's, good.—M.

On reading this Captain Salt cursed several times; and paced the deck in meditation for a whole afternoon. Then an idea struck him.

During the week that followed he made excellent progress in the affections of the officers of L'Heureuse. He had a face full of bonhomie, an engaging knack of seeming to flatter his companions while he merely listened to their talk, a fund of anecdote, and (as we know) a voice for singing that conciliated all who had an ear for music. All these advantages he used. For the next few days the officers came late to bed, and Tristram and his companions could allay the irritation of their skins as they listed. Night after night shouts of laughter came from the Commodore's room: and with the savour of delicate meats there now reached them the notes of a tenor voice that moved many of the most abandoned to tears.

The end was that the officers admitted him to their counsels, which may have been the reason that the galleys, that until now had taken but the shortest cruises, began to risk more daring expeditions, and once or twice adventured within a league of the English coast. But no occasion was found for landing and burning a town—which was the object continually debated at the officers' board. In fact, the weather did not favour it; and, moreover, the whole line of coast was guarded by patrolling parties, ready to give warning to the train-bands stationed at convenient distances, so that the crews ran no inconsiderable risk of being surprised and cut to pieces if they landed, not to speak of having their galleys taken behind them by the British cruisers. And none knew better than M. de la Pailletine that the slaves, if left without sufficient guard to coerce them, were as likely as not to murder their overseers and hand their galleys over to the first enemy they met.

Nothing of any consequence, therefore, was done for six weeks; and at the end of that time Captain Salt sought out the Commodore, and announced that he had received a letter from a friend in Paris summoning him thither on private business. The Commodore, who had really grown to like the Englishman, expressed his regret. He suspected nothing.

 

CHAPTER XII. WILLIAM OF ORANGE.

On the third day after Captain Salt departed for Paris certain events befell at The Hague which demand our attention.

The campaign of 1691 in Flanders was conducted on both sides with the utmost vigour and the least possible result. Between May and September the armies marched and counter-marched, walked up to each other and withdrew with every expression of defiance. No important action was fought, though for some time less than a league divided their hostility. William, whose patience was worn out almost sooner than the shoe-leather of his subjects, left the command in Marlborough's hands, and retired to his park at Loo, whence, in the beginning of July, he posted to The Hague to attend a meeting of the States-General.

On the 17th day of that month, and at