The other young man was pale, with long, dark hair and large, deep brown eyes that bespoke a sensitive, ever-preoccupied mind and a firmness of character that immediately struck everyone who met him. It seemed as if his entire being was directed not by physical instinct but by moral strength—a rarity indeed. His gaze shone with some fire within, darting rays of light that seemed to come from the very depths of his soul. His features were pure, if slightly irregular; the smoothness of his forehead was marked by a faint scar, barely perceptible except when his face flushed red. A fine black mustache shadowed firm lips and even white teeth. The gravity of his character was unmistakable; it showed in his perpetually knitted brows and serious expression—here, undoubtedly, was a man of deep introspection and unshakable resolve. In contrast with his companion, who was forty years old but looked a decade younger, he, at twenty-five, looked closer to thirty. He was of average height, but well proportioned; his limbs were a bit on the slender side, perhaps, but it was clear that he could move with speed and agility when roused by emotion. He gave the impression of barely controlled nervous tension rather than great strength; it was obvious to those who beheld him that nature had given him quickness and coordination but refused him true vigor. He was dressed with elegant simplicity in a perfectly cut frock coat and trousers made by one of the best tailors in Paris, and the ribbons of Charles III and the Légion d’honneur were hung with careless grace from his lapel.
The former had boarded the Leicester at Portsmouth, the latter at Cadiz. They had immediately recognized each other from various meetings in the salons of London and Paris, and had greeted each other as old acquaintances. Though they had never been introduced, the sea air, the unvarying scenery, and the close confines of the ship dissolved their aristocratic reserve and made conventional formalities unnecessary. They exchanged only pleasantries at first, then spoke at greater length, and at the end of two days each viewed the other as a man of great worth and congratulated himself on discovering such a companion for the long journey. It was a voyage of three months, and they developed the sort of friendship that, lacking history, serves as a temporary distraction rather than holding any promise for the future. During long equatorial evenings spent discussing science, politics, and art, matching intellects as if they were sparring partners, they came to know each other well, and to consider themselves equals.
On one occasion, though, the first man gained an advantage over the second. A sudden squall had overtaken the Leicester just after she rounded the Cape of Good Hope. The ship’s captain, struck by a falling spar, had been carried to his cabin unconscious; the first mate was seriously ill and could not leave his hammock. The blond passenger, seizing a bullhorn, issued a series of orders with the forcefulness of a man used to command and the knowledge of a seasoned sailor. The frigate was thus able to outmaneuver the worst of the storm. The danger past, the blond man’s face lost the resplendent pride that had blazed there for an instant, as it does when any man fights the powers of God, and reassumed its habitual, somewhat bland expression. The timbre of his voice, which a moment before had rung louder than thunder, became low and smooth once again. With a gesture as casual as his actions of a moment before had been poetic, he handed the bullhorn to a nearby lieutenant.
Throughout this startling episode, the dark-haired passenger had watched his friend’s every move with rapt attention. His face remained inscrutable, but in his eyes there shone the envy of one suddenly conscious of his own inferiority to a man he had previously believed to be his equal. When they stood together at the rail once more, he ventured a single comment: “You have captained a vessel, then, milord?”
“Yes,” returned the blond man simply, giving no sign that he had noticed the honorific. “I even reached the rank of commodore, but six years ago I became a diplomat. I suppose I just remembered my former occupation a moment ago, that’s all.”
The two men did not speak further of the incident, but from then on it was clear that the younger stood a little in awe of the elder. During the three months of their voyage together they had never questioned the affinity they felt for each other; they knew each other to be men of intelligence, and both were en route to île de France, and that was enough. The subject of social standing never arose. When their destination was finally sighted the dark-haired man was at the rail; the always rousing cry of “Land, ho!” from the crow’s nest quickly brought his blond companion on deck as well.
“We seem to have arrived, milord,” remarked the younger man. “I must admit, though, that much as I strain my eyes I can’t see any land—just a sort of mist on the water.”
“Hmm, yes,” the other man replied. “It takes a sailor’s eye to spot true land in the midst of sea, sky, and clouds. Old sea dog that I am, I can see our island quite well.”
“Here is more proof, milord, that you are a more accomplished man than I! I can hardly believe you; it seems impossible.”
“Here, then,” said the blond man, handing his companion a spyglass. “Look, and I will describe what you see using only my naked eye. Will you believe me then?”
“Milord,” was the incredulous response, “I know you are a man among men in every way; you need do nothing to prove yourself to me. I will accept the spyglass, but to satisfy my heart’s desire of seeing home rather than my curiosity about your claim.”
“Come, come!” The blond man laughed. “I see that the island air is already affecting you; you’re turning into a flatterer!”
“Me, flatter you?” The dark-haired young man shook his head. “The Leicester will round the globe before I ever stoop to flattery! I simply want to thank you, milord, for the kindness you have shown me during our long journey—for the friendship, I might even presume to call it, that you have graciously bestowed on a poor stranger.”
“My dear companion,” the Englishman replied, taking the other man’s hand, “I hope that for you, as for me, there can be no strangers in this world except brigands, thieves, and drunks; all men of worth are relatives of a sort, and we recognize one another wherever we may meet. Now, enough of your compliments, my young friend! Take this glass and look, for we will soon be too close to the island to make my little demonstration of any use.”
The younger man obliged and held the spyglass to his eye.
“Can you see?” his companion inquired.
“Perfectly.”
“Île Ronde is there on the extreme right, is it not?”
“Indeed it is.”
“And now we are approaching île Plate—there is a brigantine at its foot that looks, curiously enough, like a warship to me just now. Tonight we’ll be where she is, and tomorrow we’ll follow in her wake.”
The dark-haired man lowered the glass and squinted at the horizon, but he could see nothing. “Miraculous!” He shook his companion’s hand, laughing, and raised the glass again.
“Do you see Coin-de-Mire,” continued the blond man, “nearly indistinguishable from Cape Malheureux, that place of such sad and lyrical memory? And the crag of Bambou, just in front of Mont Faience? And there, the mountain of Grand Port, and Mont Créole to its left?”
“Yes—yes, I see it all, and I remember everything well, from my childhood. I’ve guarded my memories like the most precious treasures, Lord knows. And you”—he closed the spyglass in his palm with a snap and turned to the other man—“you remember it, too, don’t you? This is not your first time here. Your descriptions are based on remembrance as much as on the sharpness of your vision.”
“True,” the Englishman conceded with a smile. “I see that there’s no chance of hoodwinking you, my friend! But,” he continued, “I imagine that my memories of this place are less sweet than yours. I came here first at a time when you and I were most likely enemies—it is fourteen years ago now.”
“But—that is just when I left île de France!” the dark-haired man exclaimed.
“Were you still there for the naval battle at Grand Port—which, for the sake of national pride, I shouldn’t even
mention, considering how badly we were beaten?”
“Oh, feel free to speak of it, milord!” returned the younger man. “You English have taken your revenge on us so many times that even your defeat holds a sort of pride.”
“I was here for that battle,” the blond man said. “I was serving in the navy then.”
“As a cadet?”
“As lieutenant on a frigate.”
“Forgive me for saying so, milord, but you can’t have been much more than a child fourteen years ago!”
The blond man smiled. “How old would you say I am?”
“Close to my own age, I should think. Thirty, perhaps?”
“I am near forty,” the Englishman replied. “I told you this was your day for flattery.”
The younger man, astonished, looked closely at his companion. There, at the corners of his eyes and mouth, were the faint lines that betrayed his true age. He nodded slowly. “I do remember that battle,” he said quietly, “and another one, too, that took place on the opposite side of the island. Do you know Port Louis, milord?”
“No—I only know this part of the shoreline. I was seriously wounded in combat at Grand Port and taken back to Europe as a prisoner of war. This is my first visit back to the Indian Ocean, and it will probably be a very long one indeed.”
As if the exchange had awakened unpleasant memories in both men, they moved mechanically away from each other and leaned upon the rails in silence.
The Leicester made her entry into Port Louis the next day, passing île d’Ambre and reaching the foot of île Plate to be greeted with all the excitement I described at the beginning of this chapter, which habitually met every ship arriving from Europe. It was welcomed with even more than the usual fanfare, because the colony was expecting its future governor. That individual had come on deck as the ship approached the harbor, impressively attired in a general’s uniform. It was only then that the dark-haired man knew the identity of his traveling companion. The blue-eyed Englishman was none other than William Murray, former sailor and erstwhile ambassador, who had just been named governor of île de France by His Majesty the king of England.
Remember, dear reader, the young lieutenant who was wounded aboard the Nereid, nephew of the ill-fated Captain Willoughby and sole survivor of the battle of Grand Port? He has reappeared as promised, and will play a very important role in our story.
As the new governor prepared to disembark, he turned to his traveling companion. “In three days I am giving a grand dinner for île de France’s dignitaries,” he said. “I hope you will do me the honor of being my guest.”
“With the greatest pleasure, milord,” the young man responded. “But before I accept, I should tell you that I am—”
Lord Murray waved his hand. “Just have yourself announced at the door, my dear sir, and then I will learn your name. I know your worth already; that is all that matters.”
With a smile and a salute, the blond man moved to join the Leicester’s captain in a dinghy that sped for land, rowed by ten vigorous men. A full complement of soldiers stood at attention on the shore, and the cannons fired in a royal salute as the little boat reached Chien-de-Plomb. Cries of “Vive Lord Murray!” greeted the new governor as he disembarked. Bells rang out, and the guns of both the fort and the frigate boomed out, to be answered by those of the other ships in the harbor. He responded graciously, waving and inclining his head to the crowd; then, accompanied by the city’s officials, he disappeared in the direction of the official residence.
The very islanders who cheered the arrival of their new governor were the same who had wept at the departure of the French fourteen years before—but that is a long time, to be sure, and most of the older generation was gone. No one now guarded the memory of things past like an ancient family tree. Fourteen years had been enough to dim the memories of destruction and of the deaths of close friends, and to make the people forget their vows to defeat the enemy at any cost. Time, it seems, is all it takes to destroy a great man, or a great nation.
V
THE PRODIGAL SON
All eyes followed Lord Murray until the doors of the governor’s residence closed behind him, then returned curiously to the deck of the vessel, where the dark-haired man was just descending the gangplank. The crowd had seen Murray address this stranger graciously and shake his hand; they decided that he must be some young French or English nobleman—a suspicion that was only reinforced when they noticed the double ribbon affixed to his lapel; one of these ribbons was a bit less common then than it is today. He gave the spectators ample opportunity to watch him, first scanning the crowd as if he expected to find a friend or relative among them, then standing at the water’s edge as first the governor’s horses, then his own, were brought off the ship. That task completed, he spoke a few words in an unknown language to his tanned equerry, who was dressed in the costume of an African Moor, and, taking their two horses—trapped in the Arabian fashion—by the bridle, since the animals’ travel-swollen legs would not yet allow them to bear riders, the two men departed, the dark-haired stranger still glancing around as if he yet hoped to see a familiar face appear suddenly in the milling crowd.
Among the islanders grouped on that particular dock, which was generally known as Pointe-aux-Blagueurs, was a rotund man of fifty or fifty-five with graying hair, coarse-featured and loud-voiced with a perpetually downturned mouth, and a handsome youth in his mid-twenties. The older man was dressed in a frock coat of burgundy merino wool with a lace cravat at his throat. The younger man, whose bearing and expression seemed modeled on his companion’s though his features were sharper, wore a gray hat and silk scarf with his white waistcoat and trousers. There was no mistaking the fact that the two were closely related.
“I say, there’s a handsome fellow,” the fat man remarked as the dark-haired stranger passed them. “We’d best keep a close eye on our wives and daughters if he stays on the island for long.”
“Fine horse, too,” the young man agreed, observing the animal through a lorgnette. “Pureblood Arabian, unless I miss my guess.”
“Anyone you know, Henri?”
“No, Father, but if he wants to sell that horse, I know someone who’d be glad to pay a thousand piastres for it.”
“And that someone would be Henri de Malmédie, wouldn’t it, my boy?” The older man chuckled. “Well, buy it, if it pleases you. You’re certainly rich enough.”
The dark stranger must have overheard Henri de Malmédie’s offer and his father’s approval of it as he passed, for he stopped to fix a disdainful—even threatening—eye on each of them in turn. His lip curled with scorn and he turned away dismissively, but as he continued on his way he could be heard to mutter softly: “Them again! Always them!”
“Why, what quarrel could a newcomer possibly have with us?” M. de Malmédie exclaimed.
“I’ve no idea, Father,” said Henri, “but if he looks at us in that way the next time we see him, you can be sure I’ll ask.”
“Now, Henri,” said the father in a tone that clearly indicated pity for the stranger’s ignorance, “he doesn’t know who we are.”
Henri’s face was grim. “Then I’ll teach him.”
The stranger whose dismissive glance had provoked Henri de Malmédie into threatening him made his way toward the ramparts, seemingly unaffected by the impression he had made and with no evident desire to return and gauge its effect. As he approached the gardens belonging to the island’s garrison, his attention was caught by a group gathered on a small bridge linking the gardens to the courtyard of a stately house. At the center of the group stood a lovely girl, perhaps fifteen or sixteen years old. The stranger, obviously a cultured young man and thus naturally drawn to beauty of any sort, was instantly captivated. He paused to gaze at his leisure.
She was at the doorstep of the mansion now; she belonged, no doubt, to one of the wealthiest families on the island. There was a governess with her, whose long blond hair and translucent complexion marked her out as an En
glishwoman. An old black man stood nearby as well, dressed in white pantaloons and waistcoat, ready to obey the girl’s slightest command.
The girl’s beauty was further enhanced in comparison with the ugliness of the man standing silent and immobile before her, with whom she was vainly attempting to negotiate the purchase of a charming carved-ivory fan, as transparent and fragile as lace. The seller was a bony, yellow-skinned individual with almond eyes and a long braid hanging down his back from beneath his large straw hat. A bamboo pole rested on the ground at his feet; baskets affixed to each end of it overflowed with the kind of feminine baubles that, whether in the outdoor markets of the tropics or the elegant shops of Alphonse Giroux and of Susse, were sure to turn the heads of young girls as well as their mothers. The lovely Creole girl stood amid the bric-a-brac, her attention focused on the fan—a delicate ivory thing, etched with fantastic representations of palaces, pagodas, and exotic beasts and birds existing only in the imaginations of the craftsmen of Canton and Peking.
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