Part 21 (1/2)
”In a Christian country!” exclaimed the admiral--”a Christian country!”
”Ay! in a Christian country! Yet I cried, I say, to the man who guarded us: 'But these companions of mine _are_ condemned--I am not. I have undergone no trial!'
”'_Bah!_' he replied, 'your trial is made and done. _Bon Dieu!_ the courts cannot wait until criminals feel themselves in sufficient good health to a.s.sist at the _seances_. Your trial is over,' and the wretch made a joke therewith. 'Your _trials_ have now to commence. Keep a good heart!' 'Show me my sentence, then,' I exclaimed, 'produce it.'
'_a la bonne heure_,' he replied. 'To-morrow I will obtain it from the governor. You shall see.' And the next day he showed it to me. It was not so long but that I remember every word of it now. It ran: 'To Georges St. Georges. For that you, a cas.h.i.+ered officer of his Majesty's forces, have drawn sword upon and threatened a.s.sa.s.sination to his Majesty's chief of the army, Monsieur de Louvois, in his Majesty's own palace of the Louvre; for that, also, you attempted the a.s.sa.s.sination of his Majesty's subject, le Marquis de Roquemaure, appointed captain of his Majesty's Regiment of Picardy, and of a lady of his Majesty's court, you are condemned to the galleys in perpetuity. Signed, Le Marquis de Vrilliere.'”
Again the admiral exclaimed, ”In a Christian country!” and again St.
Georges continued:
”A week afterward we were on the road, chained together two and two by the neck, while all along the line through our chains ran another, joining the first couple to the last. The snow lay on the ground until we reached Avignon, six weeks later; at night we slept in barns, in stables, sometimes in the open air. Some--the old and sickly--fell down and were left by the roadside for the _communes_ to bury; more than fifty were left thus ere we reached Ma.r.s.eilles. There we were distributed to the galleys that were short of their complement, though not before the bishop of the province gave us the Roman blessing, saying that thereby the heretic spirit of the devil could alone be driven out of those who were Protestants. From then till now my life has been what my appearance, as you saw me naked, testifies.”
”What,” asked the admiral very gently, ”can you do now? To live is easy enough. You have been both soldier and sailor”--though he uttered the last word with an expression of disgust as he thought of what manner of sailor this unhappy man had been--”your existence is therefore easy. You can serve the king,” and he touched his hat with his finger as he spoke. ”Many Huguenots are doing so now, and some other old ones who followed Charles back to England. But”--and he leaned forward across the table as he spoke earnestly--”that will bring you no nearer to regaining your poor little babe; will scarce enable you to thrust your sword at last through the villain De Roquemaure's breast; to obtain the dukedom you believe to be yours.”
”Obtain the dukedom, sir!” St. Georges replied, looking at him. ”Nay, indeed, that is gone forever. You know what befalls the man in France who has been condemned to the galleys for life?”
”What?”
”He is as dead forever in the law's eyes as though he were sunk to the bottom of the sea. He can never inherit, can never dispose of aught that is his; if he is married, his wife is not considered as a married woman, but a mistress--every right has gone from him forever!”
”Is there no pardon?”
”Never. Unless he can by some wild chance prove a wrongful condemnation. And for me, how that? Louvois, the all-powerful minister, is my judge and executioner; and, further, when once I set foot on English ground I shall become an English soldier or sailor.”
”But the child! At least”--and the sailor spoke more softly even than before--”you must know her fate. And--De Roquemaure's punishment! How obtain these?”
”Heaven alone knows! May it, in its supreme mercy, direct me! Yet this is what I have thought, planned to do since you, sir, have taken pity on me. England and France are now most happily, as I think it, plunged in war once more. There is much to do----”
”Ay,” interposed the admiral, while his handsome face flushed and his eyes glistened, for he was smarting over his and Torrington's recent defeat. ”There is. There is Beachy Head to be wiped out--oh, for our next encounter with them!”
”Thereby,” continued St. Georges, ”my chance may come. For I may meet De Roquemaure. The sentence on me said he was appointed captain in one of the northern regiments; there have been stranger things than foes to the death meeting on the field, on opposite sides. Then for the child!”
”Ay, the child.”
”For that I must go back to France, disguised it may be; nay, must be!
That will be easy. The language is mine--though because of my mother's memory I have perfected myself in yours--in hers--there is nothing to reveal who or what I am but one thing”--and he made a gesture toward his shoulder where the hateful _fleur-de-lis_ was branded in forever--”and that thing you may be sure none shall ever see again until my body is prepared for the grave. But--which to do first? To become a soldier or a sailor fighting for England, or travel disguised to Troyes and find out if--if--my child still lives. That would be my desire--only--only----”
”Only?” repeated the admiral, looking at him.
”Only,” the other said--then broke off.
And Rooke knew as well as though St. Georges had uttered the words what he would have said. He knew that the man before him was beggared, that he had not a crown in the world to help him perform such a journey.
CHAPTER XX.
”HURRY, HURRY, HURRY!”
St. Georges was lodged in an old inn on Tower Hill now, in a large room that ran from the front to the back of the house and with, on the latter side, a lookout upon an old churchyard, which in the swift-coming spring of 1692--for it was now April of that year--was green and bright with the new shooting buds. Here he worked hard to earn a living, spending part of his day in translating a book or so from French into English--at beggar's wages!--another part in giving lessons in fencing and swordsmans.h.i.+p--he knowing every trick and _pa.s.sade_ of the French school--and a third in giving lessons in his old language. And between them he managed to earn enough to support existence while waiting for that which through the interest of Admiral Rooke had been promised him--namely, permission to volunteer into the first vessel taking detachments of recruits to sea with it.
Meanwhile, there were many about the court who had heard his story and who knew he was a man who had once worn the red dress of the _chiourme_--when his back was not bared to the las.h.i.+ngs of the _comites_!--that he had slaved at the galley oar in summer and been put to road-mending and road-sweeping in the winter, and that he nourished against France a deep revenge. And among them was the king himself.