Part 5 (1/2)
As we approached the farther end this passage suddenly widened into a half circle, sufficiently extended to accoe butt of the mizzenmast, which was completely surrounded by an arether with all uard stood at either side, and I perceived the dark shadow of a third still farther beyond, while the half-dozen cabins close at hand had their doors tightly closed, and fastened with iron bars
Instinctively I felt that here were confined those French prisoners, the knowledge of whose exact whereabouts I sought as of personal peril, and my heart bounded from sudden excitement In simulated aardness, I unfortunately overdid er than ever to keep at the heels of , -bolt in the deck, and over I went, striving vainly to regain uard could even lower his gun to repel boarders,hihtly closed doors Tangled up with the surprised soldier, who pro profanity, strove to throttle me, I yet chanced to take note of the number ”18” painted upon the white wood just above us Then the door itself was hurled hastily open, and with fierce exclaray-hooded Capuchin an kicking vigorously right and left at our struggling figures It giveson top, received by far the worst of it, yet I s, while we shared equally in the volubility of his tongue
”_Sacre_!” he screa each sentence with a fresh blow ”Get away fro brutes! Has it come to this, that a respectable priest of Holy Church may not hold private converse with the condemned without a brawl at the very door?
Mother of God! what uard? Why don't soaion? Take that, you black, sprawling beast!”
He aimed a vicious stroke at my head, which I ducked in the nick of ti with full force in uard, I say! If they cos with lory of God By the sainted Benedine! was ever one of our Order so basely treated before? Get away, I tell you! 'Tis a disgrace to the true faith, and just as I was about to bring the Chevalier to his knees in confession of his sins!”
Gonzales was fairly doubled up with laughter at the ludicrous incident, choking so that speech had becoan hurrying forward on a run down the passageway to rescue their imperilled co hands uponuniform, with an inflamed, almost purple face, leaped an laying about hi use meanwhile of a vocabulary of choice Spanish epithets such as I never heard equalled
”By the shrine of Saint Gracia!” shouted this new arrival hoarsely, glaring about in the diht as if half awakened from a bad dream
”What meaneth this aboardshow--a place for ray-back of a uard, in spite of your robe Get up, you drunken brute!”
The crestfallen soldier to whom these last affectionate words were addressed limped painfully away, and then the justly irate co-shi+p ”Santa Maria” glowered down on me with an astonishment that for the er co one of his heavy sea-boots tosuch cattle on board hly sobered by the seriousness of the situation, atteun his story, the Captain, who by this tiain:
”Oh, so you brought him! You did, hey? Well, did n't I tell you to let no lazy, loafing buood-for-nothing scu such a creature as this down between decks to disgrace the whole of His Majesty's navy? Get up, you bundle of rags!”
I scra to shuffle to one side out of his ied collar and held ht he meant to strike me, but I appeared such a er died slowly out of his eyes
”Francisco,” he called sternly, ”heave this thing overboard, and be lively about it! Saints of Mercy! he sged, cuffed, ot li planks under foot, the horrified, upturned, face of Alphonse in the little boat beneath, and then, with a heave and a curse, over I went, sprawling down from rail to river, as terrified a darky as ever made hasty departure from a man-of-war
CHAPTER IV
WE HOLD A COUNCIL OF WAR
The last object I re at ht as I arose to the surface, was that as the water had probably cleansed ht fro hasty grasp upon it, but rehtened black paddle with diligence out of that neighborhood This was a task he was not slow in accoth to trained ood fortune to discover a safe landing-place beneath the lee of a long ht was unobserved by any one
Re reasonably secure fro,back and forth across the packed earthen floor to keep chilled blood in circulation, seeking eagerly to evolve out of the confused events of the afternoon soht one The closer I faced the desperate work re unaccomplished the less I enjoyed the outlook, theaboard the ”Santa Maria” was now, to my mind, the simplest part of the adventure, but beyond the accoe uarded deck, during the dark hours of the night, depended so largely upon the occurrence of helpful circued beforehand beca to ether a chain of details, trusting, with the blind faith of a fatalist, that these would somehow fall into line when the hour came If they failed, as was likely, I determined to shi+ft theency arose
I realized how small a part any preliminary survey holds in such an enterprise as now fronted rave personal peril, where any bungling act or falsein an instant; yet it is alell--or at least so I have found it--to trace some outline of procedure, rather than trust wholly to the intuitions of themost for themselves
I felt little confidence by the time Alphonse returned, yet my firm determination to make the effort had in no way abated Indeed, had failure been an absolute certainty I should have gone forward exactly the sae to Eloise de Noyan I have reason to suppose dogged deter farthan this inherited tendency drove me irresistibly forward to my fate This is no story of the rescue of a prisoner of war, but rather of how love impelled an ordinary man to the accomplish, already quite dark, it fortunately proving a night of cloud and threatened store on the Rue Dumaine, and found there, even as I had left the me How anxious a day she had been compelled to pass since the hour of ently touched by the softened light from a shaded candle near which she rested; nor was the naturally pale, emaciated countenance of her spiritual adviser entirely free froil
I recall still, a pang tugging at entleness Eloise ca, while unrestrained tears glistened upon the long lashes partly veiling the eager glow of soft eyes searchingrelative to the result of my mission; aze fastened uponunasked Perhaps she did, yet to me it seeht upon it as illustrative of her unswerving confidence in my honor
”I do so thank you, Geoffrey Benteen,” she said in all si to us once more”
”I returned the earliest h all my heartsuch coolness of speech Be that as it lanced aside, nor drew back her hands fro behind within the shadohose natural ih he spoke not unkindly
”My son,” he said, deep anxiety evident in the tone of his soft speech, ”we have remained in solemn prayer ever since the hour of thy departure, and, while we doubt not our petitions have found favor of both Mother and Child, yet the flesh sorroweth, and we yearn greatly to know all from thine own lips as to the fortunes of this day Tell us, I beg thee, hast thou discovered aught of cohtthe soft hands I had been clasping so tightly in etfulness, I led the lady to a seat, even finding anotherupon reply