Meanwhile, the number of pirates sailing the Spanish Main had increased exceedingly, and before proceeding on a voyage they had formed the habit of raiding the stockyards of the Buccaneers to provision their ships. This constant menace to the living of the Buccaneers caused many of those in Santo Domingo to become planters, which led to their descendants making great fortunes; but on Tortuga the area of cultivable land was negligible, so the Buccaneers there had abandoned their hunting and turned pirate, thus giving the latter their alternative name.
When the Vicomte had concluded this recital, Georgina asked him how it was that he had become a pirate himself. His thin face darkened as he replied:
"In '87 I inherited great estates in Martinique, so came out from France to inspect my property. I found that the climate suited me and that life in the island was delightful. Every reasonable amenity was obtainable, and the nobility formed a cultured and charming society; so I decided to settle there. It was the accursed Revolution that deprived me, like so many others, of wealth and security.
"Soon after our foolish King gave way to his criminal advisers and summoned the States General, our troubles began. By 1790 agitators were arriving in the islands and preaching their iniquitous doctrine of liberty and equality to the slaves. Uprisings followed and on isolated estates the slaves murdered their white masters. For a time we succeeded in localizing these revolts, but we were vilely betrayed by our government at home. The Convention passed a decree liberating the slaves, and sent a ruffian named Victor Hugues as their representative, to have the decree carried out. Civil war resulted. Later, with the help of the English, these revolts were suppressed; but I am speaking of the early days. In my part of the island we are hopelessly outnumbered. Several of my neighbours, with their wives and children, were massacred and those who survived fled for their lives.
"When I was younger I held a commission in the French Navy, and soon after settling in Martinique I had purchased a schooner which I kept in the harbour of Saint Pierre. By night I managed to get aboard her unseen with half a dozen mulattoes who had remained loyal to me. I had no money, few provisions and no refuge for which I could make; so I decided to continue the war as a free lance.
"Some nights later we surprised a larger vessel which I knew to be armed with cannon. I had planned the attack knowing most of her crew to be ashore; so we succeeded in overpowering the remainder, and forcing them to join us. For upwards of two months I then wrought much havoc among vessels trading with Revolutionary France. It was the English who caused me to abandon those waters, as some months earlier they had declared war on France, and their navy began to make it dangerous for French ships to leave port.
"My search for suitable quarry led me north to Saint-Domingue, but up here I found very similar conditions; so in order to maintain myself it became necessary to make prizes of any ships that offered, irrespective of their flags. My operations were ill regarded by one Bartholomew Redbeard, who had hitherto looked on these parts as his private preserve. By that time both my crew and the armament of my ship had been greatly strengthened; so one fine September morning I gave Monsieur Redbeard battle. By midday he was worsted, and as the sun went down I hanged him from his own yard arm. Those of his followers who survived the conflict agreed to serve under me, and it was they who led me here. Since I acquired this property I have greatly improved it, and as I find the excitement of the life agreeable I shall probably continue in it for some years. However, I am amassing a pleasant fortune in Genoa, to which Madame la Comtesse is about to make a handsome contribution; so if ever I become bored I shall be able to retire to Italy in affluent circumstances."
On the face of it the history he had related appeared to be one of calamitous ill-fortune overcome by audacity and high courage, but all his reluctant guests knew that if fully enquired into it would reveal him as cunning, unscrupulous, and a bloody-minded tyrant who, apart from one battle, had consistently preyed upon the weak. Roger hoped that long before he decided to retire on his ill-gotten gains he would be caught by a ship-of-war, and end his days kicking at empty air as he was hoisted to a gallows.
As the meal progressed conversation became more general, and Roger attempted to draw out his left-hand neighbour. But Philo the
Greek had evidently been selected as one of the Vicomte's Lieutenants only on his qualities as a sea-rover. Although he had been born in Greece and had not come to the Spanish Main until well into his twenties he knew nothing of the history of his country. He was simply a rough diamond who m other circumstances might have made an excellent captain in a trading vessel. He was clearly not an evil man by nature, but accepted the merciless deeds, inseparable from piracy, as part of the way of life fate had decreed that he should lead. His ability to reply to questions was, moreover, considerably hampered by his having to concentrate on eating with some semblance of a propriety to which he was obviously unaccustomed.
Cyrano was much more forthcoming. He was a man-of some education and the son of a Nantes shipowner. Romance had been the cause of his undoing; for he had seduced the daughter of a 'noble of the robe' as the legal nobility of France were termed, and been found out. To save him from prison his father had got him away in one of the family's ships; but she had been captured by pirates off the French island of St. Christopher, and the pirates had pressed him into their service. Finding a life of adventure, with easy money and plenty of women, much more to his taste than a bourgeois existence m France, he had made no attempt to escape but continued in it. Some years later he had joined Bartholomew Redbeard and, in due course, came under the banner of the Vicomte.
They had been talking for some time when he remarked to Roger: "May I congratulate you on your French, Monsieur. You speak it with an accent and fluency quite exceptional in an Englishman."
"Thank you," Roger smiled. "But that is readily accounted for by my having lived for a good part of my life in France."
A momentary silence having fallen, the Vicomte caught the exchange and, looking down the table, said: "I think, then, that we must have met before. When I first saw you this morning your face seemed familiar to me."
"I had the same feeling," Roger replied. "But on your telling us a while back that you have been m the Indies since '87 I decided that I must have been mistaken."
"Why so, if, as you say, you have spent a good part of your life in France?"
"That is true; for I ran away from home to France when I was not yet sixteen, and have since returned there many times, often for lengthy periods."
"In what parts of France have you lived?"
"Mostly in Paris; but at one time or another I have stayed for a while in many of the great provincial cities. However, I spent my first few years in Brittany, and during them my circumstances were such that it is highly improbable that I should have made the acquaintance of Monsieur le Vicomte. Indeed, had I done so I should certainly recall it."
"Did you never go to Versailles?" the Vicomte persisted. "Yes; and latterly I had the honour to be received on numerous occasions by their Majesties. But that would be after Monsieur le Vicomte had left for Martinique. My early visits to the palace were made only in the role of a young secretary carrying documents to a nobleman who had apartments there." "To whom do you refer?"
"I was at that time in the service of the Marquis de Rochambeau."
There was a moment's silence. During it de Senlac's thin face paled and purple blotches appeared on it Suddenly he sprang to his feet, thrust out a quivering jewelled hand, pointed at Roger and screamed:
"Murderer! Assassin! I know you now! Twas you who foully slew my beloved uncle, M. le Comte de Caylus."
chapter X
A HAND FROM THE GRAVE
That recognition should have led to this caused Roger's heart to bound with swift, terrible misgiving. Rising more slowly he strove to conceal his emotion. With an effort he kept his voice level, as he replied:
"You are mistaken, Monsieur. I killed the Count, but fairly, in a duel."
&nb
sp; "Liar! Assassin!" stormed the Vicomte, trembling with rage. "I know the truth! You waylaid his coach like a footpad in the forest of Melun, and did him to death."
"That is not true!" Roger protested hotly. "In the belief that I was not of noble blood, he refused my challenge. I had no alternative other than to force a fight upon him at a place of my own choosing. But it was a fair fight. In fact he was reputed the finest swordsman in all France while I was still a stripling novice; so the odds were all against me."
"Lies! Lies! Lies! Without warning or witnesses you set upon and killed him."
"Comte Lucien de Rochambeau was in his coach, and present throughout the whole affair. M. le Vicomte de la Tour d'Auvergne and the Abbé de Talleyrand-Perigord were also in the immediate neighbourhood. They were aware of all that took place at the encounter from start to finish. Both afterwards vouched for it that I did nothing unfitting in a man of honour."
"You had no seconds; no doctor was present. You contravened every established rule of duelling. By the law of France that makes you an assassin."
"So thought her Majesty Queen Marie Antoinette until she learned the truth. She then secured me a pardon, and honoured me with her friendship."
"Lies! More lies! You had abused your position in M. de Rochambeau's household to seduce his daughter. Then, when in ignorance of the fact, my good uncle was about to marry her, rather than lose your mistress you murdered him."
"Athenais de Rochambeau was not my mistress," shouted Roger, now almost as angry as de Senlac
"I care not!" the Vicomte yelled back. "The Comte was a father to me! The best man that ever lived! And it was you who took his life. Heaven be praised for having sent me this chance to revenge his death. Mort de Dieu, you shall suffer as few men have! Philo! Cyrano! Seize him!"
Springing aside from his place, Roger grasped the back of his chair and swung it aloft. As Philo ran in he brought its legs crashing down on the pirate's shoulders and their cross-bar struck his head. With a moan, he went down in a heap. But before Roger could raise the chair again the two negro footmen flung themselves on him from behind. As they grabbed his arms Cyrano seized the chair and wrenched it from him. He landed a violent kick on the Frenchman's knee, and received in return a blow beneath the jaw. It was not a knock-out but temporarily deprived him of his powers of resistance. A minute later, while Cyrano limped away cursing with pain, the two powerful negroes secured their grip and held Roger rigid between them.
Everyone had risen from the table and, thrusting his way between the women, de Senlac strode up to his now helpless prisoner. His slightly hooded eyes blazing with rage, he struck Roger across the mouth with the back of his open hand.
"For that," cried Roger, "unless you are prepared to disgrace your ancestry, you will give me satisfaction."
Even as he uttered the words he knew that his chances of goading the Vicomte into a duel were exceedingly slender; and he proved right, for de Senlac sneered: "Are you half-witted? Is it likely that I would afford you a chance to kill me! No, you scum. I mean to stand by and watch you die horribly. Yes, and all shall witness the way in which I avenge my poor uncle. My crews, your women, the other prisoners, even the kitchen hands and slaves—everyone."
Turning away he shot a malevolent glance round the company and said: "Come, let me have your suggestions for the most painful way in which we can send this assassin screaming down to hell."
Now that they could get a word in, Amanda, Georgina and Clarissa all began to plead or attempt to reason with him; but he silenced them with a furious shout.
Cyrano was still cursing as he massaged his injured knee. With a malicious leer at Roger, he said: "I'd like to see him keelhauled. He'd not be so handsome after the barnacles on the ship's bottom had scraped half the flesh off his face."
The Vicomte shook his head. "Nay, we can do better than that. You know how the rope that draws them under is apt to get fouled. He might even drown during the very first trip."
"Why not have him flayed?" suggested the elder Herault laconically.
"No, no!" cried the younger. "Have him die the death the Caribs used to inflict on their enemies. It was yourself who told me of it. I mean that where they stuck them full of thorns, each thorn having been slit to hold a piece of wadding soaked in oil, so that when these were lit the victim danced a death jig clothed in a garment of tiny torches."
Nodding in turn to father and son, de Senlac muttered: "Both ideas have possibilities; but I somewhat favour smearing his stomach with honey and setting the fire-ants to eat their way into him."
Amanda's eyes fluttered up and she fainted.
As Georgina caught and lowered her to a chair Clarissa shrilled at de Senlac: "You cannot do such things! You cannot! Even the Fiend himself would baulk at inflicting such torment."
"I can, Mademoiselle, and I will," came the harsh retort. "More; it now occurs to me to combine these punishments. I'll have my pet crocodiles snap off his feet, make thorn-stuck torches of his arms, flay his back and let the ants have his innards."
Clarissa snatched up a glass from the table and flung it at de Senlac's face.
He dodged the glass but some drops of wine sprayed over his coat. As he flicked at them with his lace handkerchief, he snarled: "The use to which you put that wine shall cost you dear. I'll make you weep a bucket of tears for every drop that splashed me. Aye, you shall slobber and gibber till the colour is washed from those blue eyes of yours."
Facing about, he cried to Roger: "You have heard the sentence I impose. Tomorrow at sundown the first part of it shall be carried out. I'll have you swung out over the pool where I keep my caymens, and they shall battle for which of them gets your toes."
Amanda raised her head from her lap, then flung herself forward, clasped the Vicomte round the knees, and sobbed: "I implore you to have mercy. The affair that so distresses you is long past. Whatever the rights of it leave Our Father in Heaven, who is aware of all, to pass judgment. Oh I beg, I implore you, not to do this terrible thing."
Still seething with almost apoplectic fury, de Senlac kicked her away from him, and shouted: "God can do as He will, Madame, but I am master here. For the murder of my uncle there is nothing that I would not make your husband suffer—nothing! Aye, and as I think on it I've the power to make him squirm mentally as well as physically."
Again he swung on Roger, and with dilated eyes screamed like one possessed. "Since Madame la Comtesse could find fifty thousand pounds to ransom you all, she can find it to save herself. As you die by stages these next few days you may contemplate all that is in store for Madame your wife, and her young spitfire of a cousin. On the night of your death I'll have them stripped of their clothes and flung to my men to make what sport they will with in the moonlight."
Roger, goaded beyond endurance, hurled back insults, imprecations and defiance, but he might just as well have held his tongue. At an abrupt order from de Senlac the negro footmen dragged him from the room and through the hall to the back quarters of the premises. Herault pere had accompanied them and produced a big key. With it he unlocked a massive door studded with iron nails. Through it Roger was thrust into pitch darkness. He stumbled down a few steps, then fell heavily, measuring his length on a stone-flagged floor. A moment later the heavy door clanged-to behind him.
The breath driven from his body, distraught with rage, misery and the bitter knowledge of his helplessness, he would have remained where he lay, had not there come a quick mutter of voices and groping hands that raised him until he was sitting up.
During the past two days the wound in his head had been mending nicely and he had not suffered greatly from it; but now, with every beat of his pulse, pain seared through it again. Temporarily, shock, agony, and the almost unbelievable change in his circumstances which had occurred in less than ten minutes bemused his mind.
After a brief respite he managed to pull himself together sufficiently to reply, in stammered sentences, to the questions with which his fellow prisoners were eage
rly bombarding him. They were, he found, young Doctor Fergusson, Jennings, the Circe's Second Mate, and Wells the Supercargo, all of whom had been condemned to death.
In halting phrases he told them what had happened to himself, but without raising false hopes could find no word to comfort them in their equally desperate situation. They had already explored the dungeon and found escape from it impossible; but none of them was bound, so for a while they speculated on the chances of a break-out next time the door was opened. Yet even as they discussed it they knew that with so many armed men at call they would be overcome before they could get out of the house. Despair reduced them temporarily to silence; then, at Fergusson's suggestion, they prayed together earnestly for deliverance. Afterwards fatigue dulled their distraught minds and they lay face down on the hard stone, their heads pillowed on their arms, in an attempt to get some sleep.
The swift succession of questions and answers which had landed Roger in his present sorry pass ran again and again through his mind. He wondered now if by denying that he was the man who had killed de Caylus he could have saved himself, but doubted it. De Senlac had probably seen him a dozen times when he was working in the bureau of the Marquis at the Hotel de Rochambeau in Paris. In any case he would certainly have been one of the guests at the great ball given there for the King and Queen, at which they had sponsored the betrothal of Athenais to his uncle. A denial could have only postponed the evil hour when some chance phrase, or trick of movement, struck a spark in the Vicomte's brain and illuminated in it the vivid memory of a past meeting.
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