CHAPTER XXIII. THE COMMANDER
The spectacle which met the eyes of Father Elzear was both frightful and solemn.
The chamber, which was very small, and lighted only by two narrow windows, was hung with black.
A coffin of white wood, filled with ashes, and fastened to the floor by screws, served as a bed for Commander Pierre des Anbiez.
Above this funereal bed was suspended the portrait of a young man wearing a cuirass, and leaning on a helmet. An aquiline nose, a delicate and gracefully chiselled mouth, and large, sea-green eyes gave to this face an expression which was, at the same time, proud and benevolent.
Below the frame, on a tablet, was written distinctly the date December 25,1613; a black curtain hanging near the picture could be drawn over it at pleasure.
Weapons of war, attached to a rack, constituted the sole ornaments of this gruesome habitation.
Pierre des Anbiez had not observed the entrance of his brother. On his knees before his praying-desk, the commander was half covered with a coarse haircloth, which he wore night and day; his shoulders were bare. By the drops of coagulated blood, and by the furrows which veined his flesh, it could be seen that he had just inflicted upon himself a bloody discipline. His bowed head rested on his two hands, and now and then convulsive shudders shook his lacerated shoulders, as if his breast heaved under the agony of suppressed sobs. The praying-desk, where he was kneeling, was placed below the two small windows, which admitted an occasional and doubtful light into this chamber.
In the midst of this dim light the pale face and long white vestments of Father Elzear contrasted strangely with the wainscoting hung with black; he looked like a spectre. He stood there as if petrified; he had never believed his brother capable of such mortifications, and, lifting his hands to Heaven, he uttered a profound sigh.
The commander started. He turned around quickly, and, seeing in the shadow the immovable figure of Father Elzear, cried, in terror:
“Are you a spirit? Do you come to ask account of the blood I have shed?” His countenance was frightful. Never remorse, never despair, never terror impressed its seal more terribly upon the brow of guilt!
His eyes, red with weeping, were fixed and haggard; his gray, closely shaven hair seemed to bristle upon his brow; his bluish lips trembled with fear, and his scraggy, muscular arms were extended before him as if they entreated a supernatural vision.
“My brother! my brother!” exclaimed Elzear, throwing himself upon the commander. “My brother, it is I; may God be with you!”
Pierre des Anbiez stared at the good brother as if he did not recognise him; then, sinking down before his praying-desk, he let his head fall on his breast, and cried, in a hollow voice:
“The Lord is never with a murderer, and yet,” added he, raising his head half-way and looking at the portrait in terror, “and yet, to expiate my crime, I have placed the face of my victim always under my eyes! There, on my bed of ashes, where I seek a repose which flies from me, at every hour of the day, at every hour of the night, I behold the unrelenting face of him who says to me unceasingly, ‘Murderer! Murderer! You have shed my blood! Be accursed!’”
“My brother, oh, my brother, come back to your senses,” whispered the father. He feared the voice of the commander might be heard outside.
Without replying to his brother, the commander withdrew himself from his arms, rose to the full height of his tall stature, and approached the portrait.
“For twenty years there has not passed a day in which I have not wept my crime! For twenty years have I not tried to expiate this murder by the most cruel austerities? What more do you wish, infernal memory? What more do you ask? You, also, – you, my victim, have you not shed blood, – the blood of my accomplice? But alas! alas! this blood, you could shed it, you, – vengeance gave you the right, while I am the infamous assassin! Oh, yes, vengeance is just! Strike, strike, then, without pity! Soon the hand of God will strike me eternally!”
Overcome by emotion, the commander, almost deprived of consciousness, again fell on his knees, half recumbent upon the coffin which served him as bed.
Father Elzear had never discovered his brother’s secret. He knew him to be a prey to profound melancholy, but was ignorant of the cause, and now was frightened and distressed at the dreadful confidence betrayed in a moment of involuntary excitement.
That Pierre des Anbiez, a man of iron character, of invincible courage, should fall into such remorseful melancholy and weakness and despair, argued a cause that was terrible indeed!
The intrepidity of the commander was proverbial; in the midst of the most frightful perils, his cool daring had been the wonder of all who beheld it. His gloomy impassibility had never forsaken him before, even amid the awful combats a seaman is compelled to wage with the elements. His courage approached ferocity. Once engaged in battle, once in the thick of the fight, he never gave quarter to the pirates. But this fever of massacre ceased when the battle-cries of the combatants and the sight of the blood excited him no longer. Then he became calm and humane, although pitiless toward the least fault of discipline. He had sustained the most brilliant engagements with Barbary pirates. His black galley was tie terror as well as the constant aim of attack among the pirates, but, thanks to the superiority of equipment, Our Lady of Seven Sorrows had never been captured, and her defeats had cost the enemy dear.
Father Elzear, seated on the edge of the coffin, sustained the head of his brother on his knees. The commander, as pale as a ghost, lay unconscious, his brow wet with a cold sweat At last he regained his consciousness, and looked around him with a sad and astonished air; then, throwing a glance upon his arms and naked shoulders, scarcely covered by the haircloth, he asked the priest, abruptly:
“How came you here, Elzear?”
“Although there was crape on your door, Pierre, I thought I could enter. The matter which brought me to you is a very important one.”
An expression of keen dissatisfaction was depicted on the commander’s countenance, as he cried:
“And I have been talking, no doubt?”
“The Lord has been moved to pity by your words, but I have not understood them, my brother. Besides, your mind was distracted; you were under the domination of some fatal illusion.”
Pierre smiled bitterly. “Yes, it was an illusion, – a dream,” said he. “You know, I am sometimes overcome by dreadful imaginations, and become delirious, – that is why I wish to be alone in these periods of madness. Believe me, Elzear, then the presence of any human being is intolerable to me, for I fear even you.”
As he said these words, the commander entered a closet adjoining his chamber, and soon came out dressed in a long robe of black woollen cloth, on which was quartered the white cross of his order.
The figure of Pierre des Anbiez was tall, erect, and robust. His thin, nervous limbs showed, in spite of age, an uncommon vigour. His features were severe and warlike; thick, black eyebrows shaded his deep-set, hollow, burning eyes, which seemed always to glow with the sombre fire of a fever; a deep scar divided his brow, and furrowed his cheek until it was lost in his gray, short, and bushy beard.
Returning to his chamber, he walked back and forth, his hands crossed behind his back, without saying a word to his brother.
Finally he paused and extended to the priest his hand, which had been painfully torn by a gunshot, and said:
“The sign which I had attached to my door ought to have assured my solitude. From the first officer to the last soldier on my galley, no one dares enter here after seeing that sign. I thought myself alone, as much alone as in the depth of a cloister, or the most hidden cell of the great penitentiary of our order. So, my brother, although you have seen, although you have heard, permit me to ask you never to say a word on this subject. Let what has passed here be forgotten, – as sacred as a confession made by a dying man under the seal of the confessional.”
“It shall be as you desire, Pierre,” replied Father Elzear, sadly. “I think of it only with pain that I cannot help you in the sorrows which have burdened you so long.”
“Reassure yourself. It is not given to the power of man to console me,” replied the commander. Then, as if he feared to wound the affection of his brother, he added:
“Yet your fraternal friendship and that of Raimond Digiare very dear to me; but, alas, although the dews of May and the sweet rains of June may fall in the sea, they can never sweeten the bitterness of its deep waters. But what did you come to ask me?”
“Pardon for a poor Moor condemned this morning to the chase-gun.”
“That sentence has been executed, and it could not be, my brother, that I should ever grant you this pardon.” “Thank God, the sentence has not been executed; there is still some hope left me, Pierre.”
“The hour-glass stands at two. I gave order to the captain of the mast to tie the Moor to the chase-gun at one o’clock; the slave ought to be now in the hands of the surgeon and chaplain, – may God save the soul of this pagan, if his body has not been able to endure the punishment.”
“At my earnest request, the captain of the mast suspended the execution, my brother.”
“You cannot say what is not true, Elzear, but this moment you have made a fatal gift to the captain of the mast.”
“Pierre, remember that I alone am responsible. Pardon, I pray – ”
“Holy Cross!” cried the commander, impetuously, “for the first time since I have commanded this galley, shall I pardon, in the same day, two of the gravest faults that can be committed: the revolt of a slave against a subordinate officer, and the want of discipline in the subordinate officer toward his chief? No, no, that is impossible!” The commander took a whistle from his belt and blew a shrill note through the little silver tube.
A page clothed in black appeared at the door.
“The captain of the mast!” said the commander, abruptly. The page went out.
“Ah, my brother, will you be altogether without pity?” cried Elzear, in a tone of sad reproach.
“Without pity?” and the commander smiled bitterly, “yes, without pity for the faults of others, as for my own faults.”
The priest, remembering the terrible chastisement that his brother had just inflicted upon himself, realised that such a man must be inexorable in the observance of discipline, and bowed his head, renouncing all hope.
The captain of the mast entered.
“You will remain eight nights in irons on the rambade,” said the commander.
The sailor bowed respectfully, without uttering a word.
“Let the chaplain and surgeon be informed that the Moor is to be chastised on the chase-gun.”
The captain of the mast bowed more profoundly still and disappeared.
“I, at least, will not abandon this poor wretch!” cried Father Elzear, rising hurriedly in order to accompany him.
The good brother went out, and Pierre des Anbiez resumed his slow promenade in his chamber.
From time to time his eyes were attracted, in spite of himself, by the fatal portrait of the man for whose murder he suffered such remorse.
Then his steps became irregular and his face became sad and gloomy again.
For the first time perhaps in many years, he felt a thrill of pain at the thought of the cruel suffering the Moor was about to undergo.
This punishment was just and deserved, but he remembered that the unhappy captive had been, up to that time, gentle, submissive, and industrious. Yet such was the inflexibility of his character that he reproached himself for this involuntary pity, as a culpable weakness.
Finally the solemn flourishes of the trumpets of the galley announced that the execution was finished. He heard the slow and regular step of the soldiers and sailors, who were breaking ranks after having assisted at the punishment.
Soon Father Elzear entered, pale, dismayed, his eyes bathed in tears, and his cassock stained with blood.
“Ah, my brother! my brother! if you assisted at these executions, never in your life could you have the heart to order them.”
“And the Moor?” asked the commander, without replying otherwise to his brother.
“I held his poor hands in mine; he endured the first blows with heroic resignation, closing his eyes to arrest the tears, and saying nothing but, ‘My good father, do not abandon me’. But when the pain became intolerable, when the blood began to gush out under the thongs, the unhappy man seemed to concentrate all his powers upon one thought, which might give him courage to endure this martyrdom. His face took on an expression of painful ecstasy; then he seemed to conquer pain, even to defy it, and cried, with an accent which came from the very depths of his paternal heart, ‘My son! my son! Acoub, my beloved child!’”
As he told of the punishment and last words of the Moor, Father Elzear could no longer restrain his tears; he wept as he continued:
“Ah, Pierre, if you had heard him – if you only knew with what passionate feeling he uttered those words, ‘My son! my beloved child,’ you would have had pity on this poor father, whom they have carried off in a state of unconsciousness.”
What was the astonishment of Father Elzear, when he saw the commander, overwhelmed with emotion, hide his head in his hands and cry, sobbing convulsively:
“A son! a son! I, too, have a son!”
CHAPTER XXIV. THE POLACRE
The day after the execution of the sentence on the Moor, the north wind was blowing with increasing violence.
The waves hurled themselves with fury against the girdle of rocks through which opened the narrow passage which led into the road of Tolari.
About eleven o’clock in the morning, Captain Simon, mounted on the platform of the rambade, was talking with Captain Hugues about the punishment which occurred the day before, and of the courage of the Moor.
Suddenly they saw a polacre, her sails almost torn away, flying before the tempest with the rapidity of an arrow, and about to enter the dangerous pass of which we have spoken.
Sometimes the frail vessel, rising on the crest of the towering waves, would show the edge of her keel running with foam like the breast of a race-horse.
Again, sinking in the hollow of the waves, she would plunge with such violence that her stem would be almost perpendicular.
Soon they could distinguish on the deluged deck two men enveloped in brown mantles with hoods, who were employing every possible effort to hold the whip-staff of the rudder.
Five other sailors, squatting at the prow, or holding on to the rigging, awaited the moment to aid in the manoeuvre.
So, by turns carried to the top of the waves and plunged in their depths, the polacre was hastening with frightful speed to tie narrow entrance of the channel, where the waves were dashing with fury.
“By St Elmo!” cried Captain Simon, “there’s a ship gone to destruction!”
“She is lost,” replied Hugues, coldly; “in a few minutes her rigging and hull will be nothing but a wreck, and her sailors will be corpses. May the Lord save the souls of our brothers!”
“Why did he dare venture in this passage at such a time?” said the gunner.
“If a man is to be shipwrecked it is better to perish with a feeble hope. When a man hopes, he prays, and dies a Christian; when he despairs, he blasphemes, and dies a pagan.
“Look, look, Simon, there is the little boat going into the breakers; it is all up with her!”
At that moment the commander, who had been informed of the approach of the vessel and of her desperate condition, appeared on deck with all the chevaliers, officers, and others who manned the galley.
After carefully examining the polacre and the breakers, Pierre des Anbiez called out, in a loud and solemn voice:
“Let the two long-boats be ready and equipped to gather the corpses on the beach: no human power can save this unfortunate ship. Only God can help her.” While the overseers superintended the execution of this order, the commander, turning to the chaplain, said:
“My brother, let us say the prayers for the dying, for these unfortunate men. Brothers, on your knees. Let the crew uncover.”
It was a grand and imposing spectacle.
All the chevaliers, clothed in black, were kneeling bareheaded on the deck; the bell for prayer dolefully tolled a funeral knell amid the wild shrieks of the tempest.
The slaves were also on their knees and uncovered.
In the rear, in the middle of a group of chevaliers dressed in black, Father Elzear in his white cassock could be distinguished.
Prayers for the dying were said with as much solemnity as if they were being recited in a church on land, or in a cloister.
It was not a mere form; these monk-soldiers were sad and contemplative. As sailors they saw a vessel without hope; as Christians they prayed for the souls of their brothers. In fact the polacre seemed in danger of going down every moment. The furious waves, rushing into the channel on their way to the sea, broke the current and whirled and tossed in every direction. Her sails, by which she might have made steady headway, were blown under the enormous rocks; her rudder was useless, and she was at the mercy of the wind and waters which rushed back and forth in unabating rage.
The prayers and chants continued without cessation.
Above all the other voices could be heard the manly, sonorous voice of the commander. The slaves on their knees looked in sullen apathy on this desperate struggle of man against the elements.
Suddenly, by an unhoped-for chance, either because the polacre was of such perfect construction, or because she responded finally to the action of her rudder, or because the little triangular sail that she hoisted caught some current of the upper air, the gallant little vessel steadied herself, resumed her headway, and cleared the dangerous passage with the rapidity and lightness of a sea-gull.
A few minutes after she was out of danger, calmly sailing the waters of the road.
This manoeuvre was so unforeseen, so wonderful, and so well executed, that for a moment astonishment suspended the prayers of the chevaliers.
The commander, amazed, said to the officers, after a few moments of breathless silence:
“My brothers, let us thank the Lord for having heard our prayers, and let us sing a song of thanksgiving.”
While the galley resounded with this pious and solemn invocation, the polacre, The Holy Terror to the Moors, for it was she, was beating about in the road with very little sail, in order to approach the black galley.
She was but a little distance from her when a cannon-shot, sent from the rambade of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows, signalled her to hoist her flag and lie to.
A second cannon-shot ordered her to send her captain on board the black galley. Whatever interest this vessel inspired in the commander when she was in danger, her perils past, she must conform to the established rules for visiting ships.
Soon the polacre lay to, and her little boat, equipped with two rowers and steered by a third sailor, approached the stem of the galley.
The man who was at the helm left the whip-staff, slowly climbed the stairs of the first seat of rowers, and stood before the commander and his chevaliers, who had gathered together in the rear of the galley. The sailor in question was no other than our old acquaintance, the worthy Luquin Trinquetaille. His hooded mantle, his boots, and his breeches of coarse wool were running with water.
As he set foot on the deck of the galley he respectfully allowed his hood to fall back on his shoulders, and it could be easily seen that his good, honest face was still excited by the terrible experience through which he had just passed.
The commander, in his visits to Maison-Forte, had often seen Luquin, and was agreeably surprised to recognise a man who could give him some news of his brother, Raimond V.
“The Lord has rescued your ship from a great peril,” said the commander to him. “We have already prayed for your soul, and the souls of your companions.‘’
“May all of you be blessed, M. Commander; we had need of it, for our situation was awful; never since I have been at sea did I ever take part in such a frolic.”
The commander replied to the captain, sternly, “The trials that the Lord sends us are not frolics. How is my brother Raimond?”
“Monseigneur is well,” replied Trinquetaille, a little ashamed of having been reproved by the commander. “I left him in good health, day before yesterday, when I left Maison-Forte.”
“And how is Mlle, des Anbiez?” asked Father Elzear, who had come near.
“Mlle, des Anbiez is very well, father,” replied Luquin.
“Where did you sail from, and where are you going?” asked the commander.
“M. Commander, yesterday I came out of La Ciotat, with three fishing-boats, all armed, in order to cruise two or three leagues from the coasts to discover the pirates.”
“The pirates?”
“Yes, M. Commander. A pirate chebec appeared three days ago; Master Peyrou discovered it. All the coast is alarmed; they expect a descent from the pirates, and they are right, because a tartan from Nice, that I met before this squall, told me that on the east of Corsica had been seen three vessels, and one of them is the Red Galleon of Pog-Reis, the renegade.”
“Pog-Reis!” exclaimed the commander.
“Pog-Reis!” repeated the chevaliers, who surrounded the commander.
“Pog-Reis!” again said Pierre des Anbiez, with an expression of savage satisfaction, as if at last he was about to meet an implacable enemy he had long sought, but who, by some fatality, had always escaped him.
“What were you going to do at Tolari?” asked the commander of Trinquetaille.
“To speak truly, M. Commander, I was not going for pleasure. Surprised by the squall yesterday, I was beating about as I could, but the weather became so violent, and thinking my polacre doomed, I made a vow to Our Lady of Protection, and risked entering the pass, that I was acquainted with, for I have anchored there many a time, coming from the coasts of Sardinia.”
“The Lord grant that this north wind may stop blowing!” said the commander; then, addressing his expert pilot, he said, “What do you think of the weather, pilot?”
“M. Commander, if the wind increases until sunset, there is a chance that it will cease at the rising of the moon.”
“If that is so, and you can put out to-night without danger,” said the commander to Trinquetaille, “go to La Ciotat and inform my brother of my arrival.”
“And that will be a great joy to Maison-Forte, M. commander, although your arrival there may be useless, for a vessel from Marseilles, that I met, told me that soldiers had been sent to La Ciotat with the captain of the company of the guards attending the Marshal of Vitry. They said that these troops were to be sent to Maison-Forte, in consequence of the affair of the recorder Isnard.”
“And what is that?” asked the commander of Luquin.
The captain then told how Raimond V., instead of submitting to the orders of the Governor of Provence, had had his emissary chased by bulls.
As he listened to the narration of this imprudent pleasantry on the part of Raimond V., the commander and Father Elzear looked at each other sadly, as if they deplored the foolish and rash conduct of their brother.
“Go below to the refectory, and the head waiter will give you something to warm and strengthen you,” said the commander to Luquin.
The captain obeyed this order with gratitude, and returned to the prow, followed by a few curious sailors, anxious to learn all the news of Provence.
The commander entered his chamber with his brother, and said to him:
“As soon as the weather will permit, we will depart for Maison-Forte. I fear much that Raimond may be the victim of his rashness concerning the creatures of the cardinal. The Lord grant that I may meet Pog-Reis, and that I may be able to prevent the evil which he is no doubt preparing for this shore, which is so defenceless, and for the unfortunate city of La Ciotat.”