Part 26 (1/2)
It was the road, too, to Troyes and Aurelie de Roquemaure, the woman who had to answer to him for the theft of his child, and also for her duplicity when they had met in Paris!
CHAPTER XXV.
”I KNOW YOUR FACE.”
The deserted road along which he now walked was, in a way, a relief to him. Nothing could have better suited his present needs than to be thus outside the life of any town and free from all observation, for he had much to meditate upon--many plans to form for his safety. And of those plans, the first to be carried out was to free himself from any appearance of conspicuousness which would draw attention on him.
There was, to begin with, the officer's jacket and cap which he had a.s.sumed, and the naval sword by his side, from which he had by now removed all damp it might have received from being in the sea. Yet how to deprive himself of the latter, and still be safe, he knew not.
As for the jacket--which was, indeed, a short coat filled with pockets, outside and in--he could dispense with it very well. He had dragged it on over his own coat when quitting the burning transport, simply as a disguise, as a safeguard. It could now be discarded.
His clothes--the plain English clothes which he had worn in London, and in which he had joined Rooke's flags.h.i.+p and fought through Barfleur and La Hogue[8]--would attract no attention. They were suitable to any one in the middle cla.s.s; but with the cap it was not the same thing, since he had nothing wherewith to replace it, and if he rejected that he must go bareheaded. This would not do; he had, therefore, to cast about for some headdress.
[Footnote 8: In those days none possessed naval uniform, and, from admiral downward, all wore what they chose.]
At last, however, he was obliged to retain it, altering it as well as he was able with his fingers, tearing off a strip of lace round it and throwing away the gilt c.o.c.kade. As for the jacket, that was easily disposed of; he rolled up some stones in it and flung it into a pool of water among the reeds by the wayside, where it soon sank beneath the surface. But the sword still remained--a good enough blade, in a leather scabbard, and with not too much to proclaim that it was a sailor's except an anchor--on, of course, the eternal sun, Louis's emblem--fastened to the top of its handle. There was also a sword knot, which followed the jacket into another pool, and he decided that he must take his chance with the weapon itself.
”At least,” he thought grimly, ”none will have much chance to observe it closely if I am using it against them; if I am not, I can keep my hand on the emblem. Under any circ.u.mstances it cannot be parted with.”
And now he neared Bayeux, worn and spent with all he had gone through in the last twenty-four hours, since he had hardly slept at all, and that only by s.n.a.t.c.hes after the battle off Barfleur had begun; also his immersion in the sea and his long ride had made him very weary.
”Rest! rest!” he muttered to himself, ”a long rest I must have. And then for Troyes and my child--and for Aurelie de Roquemaure. Ay, for her!”
He trudged along by the horse's side, still carrying the saddle over his arm to ease it, and it was not until the gates and walls of Bayeux came into sight that he mounted it again. It would have a good night in a stall before long; that small addition to its day's work would not hurt it much. And he could not present himself on foot before the custodian without raising suspicion of having come a long distance, without courting remark.
”You are from the coast?” the man asked, as he rode through the gate.
”How goes it with the marshal's army there? Have they invaded England yet?”
”Not yet, so far as I am aware,” he answered. He knew it would be madness to appear cognizant of what had taken place at La Hogue. The whole town would clamour for news, and he would be for the time the most conspicuous man in it. ”Not yet.”
”We have heard strange rumours,” the man said. ”But this morning one came in from St. Mere Eglise who said that loud sounds of firing were heard all last night out to sea; and another, _a pecheur de mer_, says that great fleets have been seen pa.s.sing from the west. _Mon Dieu_! it cannot be that those English _chiens_ would dare to attack us!”
”Impossible, _mon ami_, impossible! There can be no chance of that.
Tourville's fleet would prevent that.”
”_Je crois bien._ Yet why fire all through the night? One fires not on imaginary foes.”
”True. Well, later, no doubt, we shall hear more. My friend, tell me a good inn, where I may rest awhile.”
”Oh! as for that, there are several. The _Pomme d'Or_, among others, is good and cheap; also _Les Rochers de Calvados_. Try one of those and you will be content.”
Thanking him, St. Georges pa.s.sed into the old city, though without the slightest intention of going to either of those houses. His object was to remove every trace of himself as he pa.s.sed onward to the goal ahead of him--to obliterate his tracks entirely.
He rode quietly through the town, therefore, observing what good and comfortable-looking inns those were which the man had mentioned, but at the same time regretfully avoiding them. For under no circ.u.mstances would he have felt justified in alighting at either--he doubted if he could have afforded to do so. When he received Rooke's hasty summons to join him he had but forty-five guineas, saved after two years of an existence that at best had been a hard one. It had been a task to acc.u.mulate even that sum, a task entailing careful living, abstinence, almost even a life of total deprivation; when he had paid scrupulously every farthing he owed in the neighbourhood where he lodged, the sum had dwindled down to thirty-five guineas. It was little enough to enable him now to reach Troyes and provide for himself and the horse he had become possessed of on the road, to regain his child, and find his way back to England--if he succeeded in doing so.
To find his way back to England! Would that be possible? Could he pa.s.s through the north of France undiscovered? Could he, the ex-galley slave, the man whose face had become known to hundreds of persons connected with the galleys, besides having been known to hundreds of soldiers also, with whom he had been quartered, hope to escape recognition?
”G.o.d only knows!” he murmured as he rode through the empty streets of the already dead-and-gone city. ”He alone knows. Yet, ere I will be taken alive--ere the mark upon my shoulder shall ever testify against me--I will end it all! Yet, courage! courage! At present I am safe.”