It was current gossip that even Mademoiselle d’Ogeron, the Governor’s daughter, had been caught in the snare of his wild attractiveness, and that Levasseur had gone the length of audacity of asking her hand in marriage of her father. M. d’Ogeron had made him the only possible answer. He had shown him the door. Levasseur had departed in a rage, swearing that he would make mademoiselle his wife in the teeth of all the fathers in Christendom, and that M. d’Ogeron should bitterly rue the affront he had put upon him.
This was the man who now thrust himself upon Captain Blood with a proposal of association, offering him not only his sword, but his ship and the men who sailed in her.
A dozen years ago, as a lad of barely twenty, Levasseur had sailed with that monster of cruelty L’Ollonais, and his own subsequent exploits bore witness and did credit to the school in which he had been reared. I doubt if in his day there was a greater scoundrel among the Brethren of the Coast than this Levasseur. And yet, repulsive though he found him, Captain Blood could not deny that the fellow’s proposals displayed boldness, imagination, and resource, and he was forced to admit that jointly they could undertake operations of a greater magnitude than was possible singly to either of them. The climax of Levasseur’s project was to be a raid upon the wealthy mainland city of Maracaybo; but for this, he admitted, six hundred men at the very least would be required, and six hundred men were not to be conveyed in the two bottoms they now commanded. Preliminary cruises must take place, having for one of their objects the capture of further ships.
Because he disliked the man, Captain Blood would not commit himself at once. But because he liked the proposal he consented to consider it. Being afterwards pressed by both Hagthorpe and Wolverstone, who did not share his own personal dislike of the Frenchman, the end of the matter was that within a week articles were drawn up between Levasseur and Blood, and signed by them and — as was usual — by the chosen representatives of their followers.
These articles contained, inter alia, the common provisions that, should the two vessels separate, a strict account must afterwards be rendered of all prizes severally taken, whilst the vessel taking a prize should retain three fifths of its value, surrendering two fifths to its associate. These shares were subsequently to be subdivided among the crew of each vessel, in accordance with the articles already obtaining between each captain and his own men. For the rest, the articles contained all the clauses that were usual, among which was the clause that any man found guilty of abstracting or concealing any part of a prize, be it of the value of no more than a peso, should be summarily hanged from the yardarm.
All being now settled they made ready for sea, and on the very eve of sailing, Levasseur narrowly escaped being shot in a romantic attempt to scale the wall of the Governor’s garden, with the object of taking passionate leave of the infatuated Mademoiselle d’Ogeron. He desisted after having been twice fired upon from a fragrant ambush of pimento trees where the Governor’s guards were posted, and he departed vowing to take different and very definite measures on his return.
That night he slept on board his ship, which with characteristic flamboyance he had named La Foudre, and there on the following day he received a visit from Captain Blood, whom he greeted half-mockingly as his admiral. The Irishman came to settle certain final details of which all that need concern us is an understanding that, in the event of the two vessels becoming separated by accident or design, they should rejoin each other as soon as might be at Tortuga.
Thereafter Levasseur entertained his admiral to dinner, and jointly they drank success to the expedition, so copiously on the part of Levasseur that when the time came to separate he was as nearly drunk as it seemed possible for him to be and yet retain his understanding.
Finally, towards evening, Captain Blood went over the side and was rowed back to his great ship with her red bulwarks and gilded ports, touched into a lovely thing of flame by the setting sun.
He was a little heavy-hearted. I have said that he was a judge of men, and his judgment of Levasseur filled him with misgivings which were growing heavier in a measure as the hour of departure approached.
He expressed it to Wolverstone, who met him as he stepped aboard the Arabella:
“You over persuaded me into those articles, you blackguard; and it’ll surprise me if any good comes of this association.”
The giant rolled his single bloodthirsty eye, and sneered, thrusting out his heavy jaw. “We’ll wring the dog’s neck if there’s any treachery.”
“So we will — if we are there to wring it by then.” And on that, dismissing the matter: “We sail in the morning, on the first of the ebb,” he announced, and went off to his cabin.
CHAPTER XIV. LEVASSEUR’S HEROICS
It would be somewhere about ten o’clock on the following morning, a full hour before the time appointed for sailing, when a canoe brought up alongside La Foudre, and a half-caste Indian stepped out of her and went up the ladder. He was clad in drawers of hairy, untanned hide, and a red blanket served him for a cloak. He was the bearer of a folded scrap of paper for Captain Levasseur.
The Captain unfolded the letter, sadly soiled and crumpled by contact with the half-caste’s person. Its contents may be roughly translated thus:
“My well-beloved — I am in the Dutch brig Jongvrow, which is about to sail. Resolved to separate us for ever, my cruel father is sending me to Europe in my brother’s charge. I implore you, come to my rescue. Deliver me, my well-beloved hero! — Your desolated Madeleine, who loves you.”
The well-beloved hero was moved to the soul of him by that passionate appeal. His scowling glance swept the bay for the Dutch brig, which he knew had been due to sail for Amsterdam with a cargo of hides and tobacco.
She was nowhere to be seen among the shipping in that narrow, rock-bound harbour. He roared out the question in his mind.
In answer the half-caste pointed out beyond the frothing surf that marked the position of the reef constituting one of the stronghold’s main defences. Away beyond it, a mile or so distant, a sail was standing out to sea. “There she go,” he said.
“There!” The Frenchman gazed and stared, his face growing white. The man’s wicked temper awoke, and turned to vent itself upon the messenger. “And where have you been that you come here only now with this? Answer me!”
The half-caste shrank terrified before his fury. His explanation, if he had one, was paralyzed by fear. Levasseur took him by the throat, shook him twice, snarling the while, then hurled him into the scuppers. The man’s head struck the gunwale as he fell, and he lay there, quite still, a trickle of blood issuing from his mouth.
Levasseur dashed one hand against the other, as if dusting them.
“Heave that muck overboard,” he ordered some of those who stood idling in the waist. “Then up anchor, and let us after the Dutchman.”
“Steady, Captain. What’s that?” There was a restraining hand upon his shoulder, and the broad face of his lieutenant Cahusac, a burly, callous Breton scoundrel, was stolidly confronting him.
Levasseur made clear his purpose with a deal of unnecessary obscenity.
Cahusac shook his head. “A Dutch brig!” said he. “Impossible! We should never be allowed.”
“And who the devil will deny us?” Levasseur was between amazement and fury.
“For one thing, there’s your own crew will be none too willing. For another there’s Captain Blood.”
“I care nothing for Captain Blood....”
“But it is necessary that you should. He has the power, the weight of metal and of men, and if I know him at all he’ll sink us before he’ll suffer interference with the Dutch. He has his own views of privateering, this Captain Blood, as I warned you.”
“Ah!” said Levasseur, showing his teeth. But his eyes, riveted upon that distant sail, were gloomily thoughtful. Not for long. The imagination and resource which Captain Blood had detected in the fellow soon suggested a course.
Cursing in his soul, and even before the
anchor was weighed, the association into which he had entered, he was already studying ways of evasion. What Cahusac implied was true: Blood would never suffer violence to be done in his presence to a Dutchman; but it might be done in his absence; and, being done, Blood must perforce condone it, since it would then be too late to protest.
Within the hour the Arabella and La Foudre were beating out to sea together. Without understanding the change of plan involved, Captain Blood, nevertheless, accepted it, and weighed anchor before the appointed time upon perceiving his associate to do so.
All day the Dutch brig was in sight, though by evening she had dwindled to the merest speck on the northern horizon. The course prescribed for Blood and Levasseur lay eastward along the northern shores of Hispaniola. To that course the Arabella continued to hold steadily throughout the night. When day broke again, she was alone. La Foudre under cover of the darkness had struck away to The northeast with every rag of canvas on her yards.
Cahusac had attempted yet again to protest against this.
“The devil take you!” Levasseur had answered him. “A ship’s a ship, be she Dutch or Spanish, and ships are our present need. That will suffice for the men.”
His lieutenant said no more. But from his glimpse of the letter, knowing that a girl and not a ship was his captain’s real objective, he gloomily shook his head as he rolled away on his bowed legs to give the necessary orders.
Dawn found La Foudre close on the Dutchman’s heels, not a mile astern, and the sight of her very evidently flustered the Jongvrow. No doubt mademoiselle’s brother recognizing Levasseur’s ship would be responsible for the Dutch uneasiness. They saw the Jongvrow crowding canvas in a futile endeavour to outsail them, whereupon they stood off to starboard and raced on until they were in a position whence they could send a warning shot across her bow. The Jongvrow veered, showed them her rudder, and opened fire with her stern chasers. The small shot went whistling through La Foudre’s shrouds with some slight damage to her canvas. Followed a brief running fight in the course of which the Dutchman let fly a broadside.
Five minutes after that they were board and board, the Jongvrow held tight in the clutches of La Foudre’s grapnels, and the buccaneers pouring noisily into her waist.
The Dutchman’s master, purple in the face, stood forward to beard the pirate, followed closely by an elegant, pale-faced young gentleman in whom Levasseur recognized his brother-in-law elect.
“Captain Levasseur, this is an outrage for which you shall be made to answer. What do you seek aboard my ship?”
“At first I sought only that which belongs to me, something of which I am being robbed. But since you chose war and opened fire on me with some damage to my ship and loss of life to five of my men, why, war it is, and your ship a prize of war.”
From the quarter rail Mademoiselle d’Ogeron looked down with glowing eyes in breathless wonder upon her well-beloved hero. Gloriously heroic he seemed as he stood towering there, masterful, audacious, beautiful. He saw her, and with a glad shout sprang towards her. The Dutch master got in his way with hands upheld to arrest his progress. Levasseur did not stay to argue with him: he was too impatient to reach his mistress. He swung the poleaxe that he carried, and the Dutchman went down in blood with a cloven skull. The eager lover stepped across the body and came on, his countenance joyously alight.
But mademoiselle was shrinking now, in horror. She was a girl upon the threshold of glorious womanhood, of a fine height and nobly moulded, with heavy coils of glossy black hair above and about a face that was of the colour of old ivory. Her countenance was cast in lines of arrogance, stressed by the low lids of her full dark eyes.
In a bound her well-beloved was beside her, flinging away his bloody poleaxe, he opened wide his arms to enfold her. But she still shrank even within his embrace, which would not be denied; a look of dread had come to temper the normal arrogance of her almost perfect face.
“Mine, mine at last, and in spite of all!” he cried exultantly, theatrically, truly heroic.
But she, endeavouring to thrust him back, her hands against his breast, could only falter: “Why, why did you kill him?”
He laughed, as a hero should; and answered her heroically, with the tolerance of a god for the mortal to whom he condescends: “He stood between us. Let his death be a symbol, a warning. Let all who would stand between us mark it and beware.”
It was so splendidly terrific, the gesture of it was so broad and fine and his magnetism so compelling, that she cast her silly tremors and yielded herself freely, intoxicated, to his fond embrace. Thereafter he swung her to his shoulder, and stepping with ease beneath that burden, bore her in a sort of triumph, lustily cheered by his men, to the deck of his own ship. Her inconsiderate brother might have ruined that romantic scene but for the watchful Cahusac, who quietly tripped him up, and then trussed him like a fowl.
Thereafter, what time the Captain languished in his lady’s smile within the cabin, Cahusac was dealing with the spoils of war. The Dutch crew was ordered into the longboat, and bidden go to the devil. Fortunately, as they numbered fewer than thirty, the longboat, though perilously overcrowded, could yet contain them. Next, Cahusac having inspected the cargo, put a quartermaster and a score of men aboard the Jongvrow, and left her to follow La Foudre, which he now headed south for the Leeward Islands.
Cahusac was disposed to be ill-humoured. The risk they had run in taking the Dutch brig and doing violence to members of the family of the Governor of Tortuga, was out of all proportion to the value of their prize. He said so, sullenly, to Levasseur.
“You’ll keep that opinion to yourself,” the Captain answered him. “Don’t think I am the man to thrust my neck into a noose, without knowing how I am going to take it out again. I shall send an offer of terms to the Governor of Tortuga that he will be forced to accept. Set a course for the Virgen Magra. We’ll go ashore, and settle things from there. And tell them to fetch that milksop Ogeron to the cabin.”
Levasseur went back to the adoring lady.
Thither, too, the lady’s brother was presently conducted. The Captain rose to receive him, bending his stalwart height to avoid striking the cabin roof with his head. Mademoiselle rose too.
“Why this?” she asked Levasseur, pointing to her brother’s pinioned wrists — the remains of Cahusac’s precautions.
“I deplore it,” said he. “I desire it to end. Let M. d’Ogeron give me his parole....”
“I give you nothing,” flashed the white-faced youth, who did not lack for spirit.
“You see.” Levasseur shrugged his deep regret, and mademoiselle turned protesting to her brother.
“Henri, this is foolish! You are not behaving as my friend. You....”
“Little fool,” her brother answered her — and the “little” was out of place; she was the taller of the twain. “Little fool, do you think I should be acting as your friend to make terms with this blackguard pirate?”
“Steady, my young cockerel!” Levasseur laughed. But his laugh was not nice.
“Don’t you perceive your wicked folly in the harm it has brought already? Lives have been lost — men have died — that this monster might overtake you. And don’t you yet realize where you stand — in the power of this beast, of this cur born in a kennel and bred in thieving and murder?”
He might have said more but that Levasseur struck him across the mouth. Levasseur, you see, cared as little as another to hear the truth about himself.
Mademoiselle suppressed a scream, as the youth staggered back under the blow. He came to rest against a bulkhead, and leaned there with bleeding lips. But his spirit was unquenched, and there was a ghastly smile on his white face as his eyes sought his sister’s.
“You see,” he said simply. “He strikes a man whose hands are bound.”
The simple words, and, more than the words, their tone of ineffable disdain, aroused the passion that never slumbered deeply in Levasseur.
“And what should you do, puppy, if yo
ur hands were unbound?” He took his prisoner by the breast of his doublet and shook him. “Answer me! What should you do? Tchah! You empty windbag! You....” And then came a torrent of words unknown to mademoiselle, yet of whose foulness her intuitions made her conscious.
With blanched cheeks she stood by the cabin table, and cried out to Levasseur to stop. To obey her, he opened the door, and flung her brother through it.
“Put that rubbish under hatches until I call for it again,” he roared, and shut the door.
Composing himself, he turned to the girl again with a deprecatory smile. But no smile answered him from her set face. She had seen her beloved hero’s nature in curl-papers, as it were, and she found the spectacle disgusting and terrifying. It recalled the brutal slaughter of the Dutch captain, and suddenly she realized that what her brother had just said of this man was no more than true. Fear growing to panic was written on her face, as she stood there leaning for support against the table.
“Why, sweetheart, what is this?” Levasseur moved towards her. She recoiled before him. There was a smile on his face, a glitter in his eyes that fetched her heart into her throat.
He caught her, as she reached the uttermost limits of the cabin, seized her in his long arms and pulled her to him.
“No, no!” she panted.
“Yes, yes,” he mocked her, and his mockery was the most terrible thing of all. He crushed her to him brutally, deliberately hurtful because she resisted, and kissed her whilst she writhed in his embrace. Then, his passion mounting, he grew angry and stripped off the last rag of hero’s mask that still may have hung upon his face. “Little fool, did you not hear your brother say that you are in my power? Remember it, and remember that of your own free will you came. I am not the man with whom a woman can play fast and loose. So get sense, my girl, and accept what you have invited.” He kissed her again, almost contemptuously, and flung her off. “No more scowls,” he said. “You’ll be sorry else.”
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 389