CHAPTER XXIII.
THE BITTERNESS OF DEATH
As he staggered back after that revelation, St. Georges noticed that the great chant sounded less strongly and more distantly in his ears, and, seized with a sudden apprehension, he rushed to the cabin porthole.
Then he knew that what he had dreaded, that the idea which had sprung into his mind a second before, as the sturdy English voices became more hushed and subdued, was indeed an absolute fact – the flotilla was retiring. It had finished its work of destruction – it was returning to the man-of-war.
And he was left behind!
Behind! to fall into the hands of the French, who, he knew very well, would come forth from the fort and batteries directly the conquerors had withdrawn. He was in a trap from which there was no escape. He would be found there, and his doom be swift.
Yet, in a moment, even as he glanced down at his enemy at his feet and noted the set features – handsome as in life – the white face, the blood at either side of the mouth, looking as before like two small down-turned horns, he asked himself if he was indeed doomed? Also, why stay there to be taken like a rat in a trap? The sea was beneath him; a mile off was the English fleet. If he could swim to that, even halfway to it, he could make signs and, perhaps, be seen and rescued; at the worst it would but be death. And a more fearful death than any the sea could bring awaited him if he remained here.
He cast one more look at De Roquemaure lying with his head upon the locker. At last he was done for! He would never cross his path again. If he himself could live, if he could escape out of this burning pandemonium, could again stand a free man on an English deck, he would have to contend with him no more. There would be but one thing further to do then – to stand face to face with Aurélie de Roquemaure, to ask her if this charge against her was true – as St. Georges never doubted! – to demand his child, and, if she would not restore it to him, to – to – what? His mind was full of deeds of savagery now; the last few days, filled with slaughter and spent amid the arousal of men's fiercest passions, had made him fierce too. At this moment if Aurélie could appear before him he knew that he should slay her – send her to join her brother and all the other victims of his own aroused passions. It would be dangerous for her if she were face to face with him at this moment and refused to acknowledge where she had hidden Dorine.
She was not there, however; at the present moment he had to take steps to free himself, to escape from the burning transport. "'Twill be time enough," he muttered, "to tax her with her perfidy when I stand once more before her to punish her for it. And my own hour is too near, may be too close at hand, for me to think of that. But when it comes, then – "
He heard an explosion in another part of the vessel – he knew another tier of guns had been reached by the flames; he was tarrying too long. The magazine must be close to the cabin in which he was, might be, indeed, beneath the cabin floor – at any moment he risked being blown to atoms. He must lose no time. To be caught there was death, instant and certain!
Lying at the door of the main cabin where he had been slain was one of the officers of the transport; near him another man of lower rank, the one shot through the back the other cut down by Rooke's sailors as he fled into the cabin; and as his eye rested on them a thought struck him. None of Bellefonds and James's forces on land could say who were or were not officers of the transports – what was there to prevent him from being one for the time being? All was fair in war! – and he was as much French as any who might come out from the forts or batteries to the sinking and exploding ships – if any dared to come at all. Once in the garb of either of these lying here, officer or petty officer, and he would be able to get safely ashore, and could avoid question by disappearing a moment afterward, or as soon as might be.
And he would be in France – would be so much nearer to the reckoning with Aurélie de Roquemaure!
He drew on the jacket of the officer as the thoughts of all this chased one another through his mind, threw his own sword down and took up that of the dead man, placed on his head the hat he had worn – bearing in it a gold cockade on which a glittering sun was stamped – and then, glancing through the square porthole that gave on the shore, he looked to see if, yet, any of the French were coming out to save some of their vessels from the conflagration. But the wind was blowing off the sea to the land and carrying with it the smoke from the burning ships; between those ships and the shore all was obscured. And still, as he looked, the explosions – though fainter now – took place at every moment; he could hear the crackling of the flames in the vessel in which he was.
He knew that he must go – must not tarry another instant. Those flames were gaining round him; they would reach the magazine before long – and – then! He must go at once.
He cast one more hurried glance at De Roquemaure, who seemed quite dead now. But, dead or alive, what mattered it? If dead, so much the better; if alive, he would be blown to atoms in a few more moments – as he would himself if he tarried longer. He must go at once.
"Farewell, dog!" he muttered, with one look downward at his enemy. "Farewell. Your account is made!" And without wasting another moment – for his fear of being hurled into eternity himself the next moment had gained terrible hold on him – he rushed to the main cabin door and seized the handle.
An awful sweat of fear – a cold, clammy sweat – broke out all over him as he did so; he knew now how dear life was to him – dearer than he had ever dreamed before that it would be; or was it rather the fear of an awful death than death itself? Was it that which caused him to almost faint with horror as he recognised that the door was either locked or jammed, so that it would not open?
He was doomed – the fire was spreading – he heard one great gun explode by itself – a gun on the lower deck near where the powder room must be —
beneath
him – he was doomed! In another few moments – perhaps not more than four or five at most – the bulkheads would fly asunder, the deck split like matchwood, he and the dead bodies of De Roquemaure and the others be flung to the elements, be blown into portions of the elements themselves.
Drenched with sweat, paralyzed with terror – it
was
the terror of an awful death and not of death itself; livid with horror – though he was not aware such was the case; his lips parched and glued together; not knowing whether his limbs were shaking beneath him or the deck of the cabin quivering before its impending upheaval, his starting eyes glared round the prison he was in. And as he so glared he saw – if God gave him a moment more – his opportunity. The great square ports – an invention of but the last few years and superseding the old small round ones – furnished that opportunity.
With a gasp – nay, almost a cry – he clambered on the locker beneath the nearest one – again it seemed as though the ship was quivering with the impending explosion! – thrust his head and shoulders through, dragged the sword by his side carefully after him, seized a top chain hanging down into the water, and was himself in the water a moment later. Then a nervous, hurried thrust of one foot against the hull, with an impetus obtained thereby which propelled him a dozen feet from the vessel, a few masterful strokes made boldly, all trembling with fear and horror as he was, and he plunged into a puff of black smoke, the cinders among which hissed on his face as he struck it, and he was saved – saved from that most awful death, even though countless other deaths surrounded and loomed up before him; saved, at least, from being dismembered and flung piecemeal in a million atoms on the bosom of the ocean.
The smoke drifting in his face recalled to him that he was swimming toward the English fleet; the current still making toward the shore told him that he could never reach that fleet. Even as he swam away from the doomed transport he knew that the powerful tide beneath was carrying him back; he must change his course, or another moment would carry his body against the after part of the ship he had but now escaped from, the ship which must now ere long be hurled out of the sea! It was easy to do so, however; to turn himself away from her so that, even though borne back to the coast of Cotentin, he would pass far astern of her. He had enough strength for that, enough left to haul himself far out from where she lay – but not much more. He was sore spent now with all he had gone through, and was borne down also with the double weight of clothes upon him; as he glided by, or was carried back – though some forty yards adrift of the transport – he could do nothing more than tread water and so manage to keep himself afloat.
Borne through the murky grime, along that water there came now the swish of oars and the voices of men speaking in French – French strongly accentuated and in the Manche
patois
. What were they doing, he wondered. Had they come out to save some of the burning transports and boats, to endeavour to stop the flames and also the firing of the guns by the heat – their own guns that, as they fired, hurled their charges on their own shore? Were they going to meet their dooms unknowingly by venturing on that very place of death which he had just escaped from?
It might be – might well be so; and though he had fought against them – though they were Frenchmen and his enemies, too, he must warn them, save them, if he could: they were men, human beings; he could not let them go unwittingly to such an awful end as this, could not let them board that ship and meet the fate he had avoided. Therefore he hailed them as loudly as he was able, screamed to them, besought them to enter no vessel near; above all to avoid the burning transport. But whether they understood him, even if they heard, he could not guess; he caught still the beat of the oars upon the waves, heard their chattering voices, even one or two of their expressions; and then, as the tide took him nearer and nearer to the shore, he lost sound of those voices altogether.
"Strange," he muttered, "strange she blows not up – many minutes have elapsed since I quitted her – twenty at the least, and yet the explosion has not come. They may have boarded her, those men, have extinguished the flames: there may have been no powder left in the mag – Ah!"
There came an awful roar as he so muttered, a roar such as he had heard twenty times in as many hours; a hundred feet above and behind him, as he turned swiftly in the water, he saw a fan-shaped mass of flame ascending to the skies; he saw black objects amid that mass of flame – what were they, beams, masts, or human bodies? – he saw the smoke rent open, and great pieces of the transport floating or falling on to the waters with terrific crashes. Then there rushed down on him a fresh mountain of blood-coloured smoke, with blazing cinders and pieces of burning wood, and smouldering sails all borne along in its midst, and it enveloped him and choked him, while the burning matter fell on him and hissed on his wet hair and skin, so that he was fain to let himself sink below the waves for some few seconds to escape the
débris
and those suffocating fumes. And even as he did so, and when he arose to the surface once more, cooled and refreshed by the immersion of his face, his first thought was to utter a heartfelt prayer for his escape from the awful fate that, but half an hour ago, had threatened him and been so near.
Scarce had he done so than, as he swam a little now, being eased by having floated and trod water for some time, he saw beneath the smoke, which dispersed as it neared the shore and drifted inland, that he himself was close in shore. He could perceive quite clearly the yellow beach of Cotentin on which the incoming tide was rippling, and could see also several bodies lying about on that beach – soldiers doubtless killed by the fire from the English war vessels, or, perhaps, by the discharge of the French guns when turned upon them by the parties which had boarded their own ships. But that was all, except one or two figures moving about and bending over them – no doubt the ghouls who are to be found wherever a dead body is after a battle.
And as he glanced at these last relics of the great battle of La Hogue, his foot touched the bottom; a moment later he was wading ashore.
He stood once more in France, the land in which he would find his child – if she was still alive.
CHAPTER XXIV.
ON THE ROAD
He stood once more upon French ground – then fell half fainting on the wet, shining shingle, struggling to get his breath back, panting and gasping painfully.
Then came toward him a figure terrible to behold, a creature in the garb of a woman, a knife at her girdle, her pockets, which were outside her dress, bulging, and from their openings pieces of gold lace, a silver-hilted pistol, and other things protruding. But besides her and the dead bodies lying further inland upon the beach nothing else was to be seen. The thirty thousand men – some, and most of them, those rapparees whom Louis had thought good enough to send against England – some forming part of the regiments of Picardy, Verdelin, Le Calvados, and others, were not visible, although he could see on the roofs and turrets of the forts that they were still there and lined the coast for many miles. Also he saw with dimmed eyes that the English fleet was moving. It had done its work!
The creature prowling about came nearer, and St. Georges sprang to his feet and drew from the wet scabbard which had remained by his side during his swim ashore, his sword.
"Wretch," he said, "put down that knife and come no nearer, or I will run you through, woman though you seem to be! Begone, vulture!"
The robber of the dead and wounded paused and stared at him; then she assumed a whining tone, and exclaimed in her northern accent:
"Oh, good gentleman, you mistake. I am no slayer of injured men, but a comforter thereof. Will you not take a sup of good Nantz to ease you?"
"No, begone! Away. Yet stay. Where is the nearest village where I can procure food? Answer me, quickly."
"A mile off, good gentleman; there is an auberge there. It is very good.
I
keep it."
"You!"
"Yes, I. Yes, an excellent inn. But," with a suspicious glance at him, "why not go to the fort, good gentleman? The marshal is there and that king who has been ruined by his own subjects to-day."
"I do not wish to go to the fort. I am not a soldier, but a sailor – saved from one of the transports. Direct me."
"Ha!" she said, with a grunt. "You are not the first. There are many like you who do not want to go to the fort. A many poltroons who are deserting from the army, now defeat has come to France. Are you deserting too, friend?"
"No. But I have nothing to do with the forts nor the army. Direct me, I say."
"There is the road," the hag said, pointing to the north across the sandhills. "Follow that a mile and you will come to my house. But," and she came a step nearer, "give me some money, or you will, perhaps, be followed. The others have given me some. Give me a piece, and I will be silent."
"Away, wretch!" St. Georges said. "If the soldiers come forth again you will flee from them, not wait a moment. I do not fear you," and pushing past her he made toward the road she had indicated, while she stood there muttering curses after him. Then she returned to her work of prowling among the dead and dying, and rifling their pockets.
He made his way among those dead and dying, most of whom were wounded French seamen who had managed to get ashore only to fall down and expire where they fell, and a few of whom were soldiers on land who had been struck by the projectiles from the French vessels while standing gazing at the sea fight. In all, there were lying about the dunes some hundred men, who were in different states of approaching death. One thing he noticed as he went on – several wore the colours of the Picardy Regiment, which he knew well, from having once been quartered with it. Therefore, he understood why De Roquemaure had been on board the transport. They had doubtless been shipped ready for the projected invasion, and these wretched soldiers had been more fortunate than he in one way – they had at least escaped ashore to die, instead of being blown to pieces in the explosions of the transports.
He made his way through the sand, stopping once or twice to endeavour to help some dying wretch whom he came across, and then going on again when he found his efforts useless; and so he came at last to what he supposed must be the auberge spoken of by the woman, a miserable wooden structure with a seat and a bench outside the door.
Two horsemen were drawn up in front of this, and were speaking to some stragglers standing before them, all of whom St. Georges noticed stood cap in hand. One, a tall thin man with a hatchet face, dressed in gray, was questioning them; the other, who sat his horse by his side, was an elderly man of dark, swarthy features, who was, however, deathly pale. His eye – a wandering one – lighted on St. Georges's the instant he approached the front of the inn, and turning away from his companion he addressed him in good French, which, however, St. Georges noticed had a strong accent.
"What uniform is yours, sir?" he asked. "I do not know it. And you seem to have been in the water. Are you one of his Majesty's naval officers?"
"I am," St. Georges replied, recognising at once the danger he was in. "And the uniform is that of a transport officer."
"A transport officer!" the other exclaimed, turning round suddenly at the words – "a transport officer! Have any escaped?"
"I have, at any rate," St. Georges replied.
"You can then give us some information," the first said. "How many others are there who have also escaped?"
"Very few, I imagine. I myself did so only by swimming ashore. And even then the transport was blown up ere I had quitted it very long."
"And," asked the second, "have the – English – made many prisoners?"
"A great number, I should suppose."
"God help me!" the dark, pale man exclaimed.
"Louis will do no more. This is our last chance, Melfort."
As he spoke St. Georges knew in whose presence he was – the presence of the unhappy James. Then, because he knew also that this place was full of danger to him – some naval officers of the French fleet might by chance have got ashore as he had done, and might also come here at any moment – he saluted James, and said he must make his way onward as fast as possible.
"Where are you going to, sir?" the late King of England asked. "You will be better in the forts. They will not refuse you succour."
"Doubtless. Yet I must go on. I have to – "
As he spoke his eyes fell on the doorway of the inn, and, brave man though he was, what he saw there appalled him.
Leaning against the doorpost, regarding him fixedly, were two French sailors whom he had last seen on board the transport – two sailors who, as he had leaped on board followed by his own men, had disputed his entrance, had then been driven back to the larboard side of the ship, and had hurled themselves into the shoalwater and so escaped.
What was there for him to do? In another moment it was possible – certain – that they would denounce him, that he would be seized by the half dozen soldiers standing or sitting about.
He had to make his plans quickly ere these men could speak – already he could perceive they were about to do so; one touched the other with his finger and called his attention to him, and looked with an inquiring glance into his companion's eyes, as though asking if by any possibility he could be mistaken? He had to act at once. But how? Then in a moment an inspiration came.
With a cry he wrenched his sword from his sheath and rushed at them, uttering exclamations that at least he hoped might confuse the others round and also drown any words of those two men.
"Villains!
Lâches!
Deserters!" he cried, as he flew at them, striking one with the flat of his sword and, with his elbows and body, forcing the other into the passage behind. "Villains! You would desert in the hour of need! Fly the ship, would you!" and other exclamations in as harsh and loud a tone as possible.
And the ruse succeeded beyond even what he dared to hope. The two sailors affrighted, perhaps not hearing his words, and only thinking that the terrible English officer meant to slay them on land, as he had almost succeeded in doing on their own deck, fled down the passage roaring; while to add to the hubbub two large dogs, sitting by the fire of a room opening out of that passage, dashed out barking and yelping. A woman too came from the kitchen and screamed for help, and meanwhile the soldiers who had been lounging about rushed in at the front door. As for James and Melfort, they shrugged their shoulders and turned their horses away. Such a scene as this, which they but half understood, had little enough interest for them. An officer punishing two deserters, as they assumed to be the case, was a trifle in comparison to the ruin which had fallen forever on their cause that day.
The sailors fled down the passage yelling "
Au secours! au secours!
" and "
Sauvez-nous!
" and after them rushed St. Georges, making as much noise as he could, and so they reached first a yard behind, and then the
potager
, or herb garden. One man dashed into an outhouse full of billets of wood and kindlings, and yelled for mercy. "The fight is over!" he screamed; "spare me, spare me!" and in a moment St. Georges had shut the door and turned the key – fortunately it was outside – on him; then he rushed after the other down the sandy path of the garden.
His object was to drive the man on as far as possible away from the inn, and then desist from the chase and escape himself. Behind the garden there ran another path that passed up to a copse of stunted, miserable, wind-blown trees; if he could get into that, he might succeed in avoiding any pursuit.
So he let the sailor gain on him as he neared this copse, and then another chance arose before him – an unhoped, undreamed-of chance! Tethered at the end of the garden, by the reins to the paling, was a horse belonging possibly to some
bourgeois
who had ridden in to the inn from a village inland and had left his horse at the back. A chance sent by Heaven in its mercy!
Still the sailor ran on swiftly, until, no longer hearing his pursuer behind him, he dared to look over his shoulder, thinking the chase was over; what he saw when he so looked caused him to renew his speed, even to yell with fresh terror.
St. Georges was mounted now, he was urging the horse to its greatest pace, he would be behind him in a moment. And then it would be death, dealt from the sword wielded by the terrible Englishman – almost the man could feel that sword through his back as he ran and the hoofs clattered behind him!
He stumbled and nearly fell in the white sandy dust, got up again with a shriek, and then, in a last, frenzied hope, plunged into the copse which he had now reached. And the a