Simon Hawke - The Nautilus Sanction

“It is not generally known, nor will it be known until many years after Youx’s death, that he is Lafitte’s brother, Alexander. An older brother whose adventures necessitated an alias.”

“I thought his brother was named Pierre,” said Finn.

“That is another brother,” Drakov said. “We may or may not see him. He spends much of his time in New Orleans. One side of his face has been affected by a stroke. Should we encounter him, try not to stare.”

“That lying little bastard,” Finn said. “In Paris, he told us Pierre was his only brother!”

Drakov shrugged. “Lafitte has always been secretive about his past. Future biographers will disagree on many facts concerning him. Even in his own journal, when he writes it long after his retirement, Jean will be somewhat elusive. I have a copy of it aboard the Nautilus. He is a pivotal figure in history. His island will eventually be overrun by an American naval force, yet he will nevertheless go to the aid of General Andrew Jackson and help repel the British invasion of New Orleans. For this, he will receive a pardon from President Madison, but no recompense for his losses. Undaunted, he will establish another corsairs’ base on Galveston, displacing a pirate named d’Avry, and go on as before. When he leaves Galveston, he will burn his colony and for years it will be believed that he has sailed off into the sunset, never to be seen or heard from again. In fact, he will take the name John Lafflin and settle in Charleston, South Carolina, where he will marry, father a son and pursue a career as a merchant and ship owner. In time, he will move to St. Louis, then to Europe, where he will meet two gentlemen named Marx and Engels, whose ideas will so appeal to him that he will finance the printing of the Communist Manifesto. He will bring copies of it back to America with him and even have one delivered to a congressman named Lincoln. He will die in Alton, Illinois, in the year 1854, having lived to the ripe old age of seventy-two.”

“What are you talking about back there?” said Youx.

“I was telling my friends about your chief,” said Drakov. “They are quite anxious to meet him.”

“We are almost there,” said Youx.

“Imagine,” said Verne, “to know a man while he lives, and yet to know the date of his death and all that will happen in his future!”

“I have, of course, had the courtesy not to reveal any of this to him,” said Drakov, in an amused tone. “I have no idea how he would take it.”

“You seem to think pretty highly of him,” Lucas said.

“He has become, in many ways, my role model, Mr. Priest,” said Drakov. “A hero in a world in which, even in this time, heroes are becoming a dying breed. Lafitte is the last of the swashbucklers, the final gasp of the golden age of piracy.”

“You will excuse my saying this, I hope,” said Verne, “but I have some difficulty in comprehending what it is about a pirate that is in any way heroic.”

“I will concede your point to a degree,” said Drakov. “Most of them were barbarians, indeed. Men such as Francois Lolonois, Roche Brasiliano, Henry Morgan, Blackbeard, even women, such as Anne Bonny and Mary Read, were capable of unspeakable acts of cruelty. Yet, consider the cruelty of the times in which they lived. Few of their actions were more cruel than those practiced aboard Spanish and British ships. They were criminals, outcasts of society, but they were also free. They recognized no code of ethics other than their own, to which they rigidly adhered. They were dissatisfied with their world, so they made their own, upon the seas. I find heroism in that.”

“I find self-justification,” said Andre.

“You would, Miss Cross,” said Drakov. “Condemnation is only to be expected when one flaunts the laws and conventions of society. The alien is not to be tolerated. Yet what if society is wrong? What is the individual of principle to do, go along with the wrongs and conform, thereby being accepted by society? Or choose the more difficult path of idealism and resist the society he feels is wrong?”

“Who’s to say he’s right?” said Andre.

“A question such as that could lead to endless philosophical debate,” said Drakov. “Frankly, I am not in the mood. A free man is concerned with no one’s judgment other than his own. He makes his own decisions and lives by the consequences.”

“Interesting,” said Verne. “There was a novel published this year-or rather, in the year 1866, since I am there no longer-by a Russian named Dostoyevski, in which a very similar argument is raised, that the superior man is above the law. Have you read Crime and Punishment, Captain Drakov?”

“Try to remember to address me as Captain Drako while we are here. And in reply to your question, yes, of course I have read it. A fascinating novel; the story of a self-deluded young man. However, I dispute your statement concerning the similarity. It is one thing to believe, as did Dostoyevski’s protagonist, that a man of genius is above moral law. It is quite another to recognize the existence of non-subjective morality, base one’s principles upon it and perceive society as having violated that morality. In that sense, I am not an outcast of society due to my beliefs. I have never been a part of society. I was born in the 19th century and my education was completed in the 27th century. In neither century did I belong. I was an outsider from birth, by virtue of my birth. No one can view society quite so clearly as an outsider, Mr. Verne. No one is or has ever been more of an outsider than myself.”

The carriage drove down a narrow path, past small cottages with no more than one or two rooms and windows with heavy blinds made of strips of wood which were favored over glass for protection from the storms that lashed the gulf. Orange groves and large oleander bushes were everywhere. Palm trees and vivid flowers gave the palmetto-thatched settlement a tropical flavor. It was a peaceful, lazy scene, one in which their conversation seemed incongruous.

Lafitte’s house was a mansion, located near the warehouses where the slaves were kept. His home was on a rise, overlooking the sea, its brick walls covered with plaster mixed together with crushed oyster shells. There were two floors, with iron bars on the windows and a veranda circling the house on the second floor, creating a shaded area beneath. As they drove up, Lafitte stood on the veranda, hands on hips, looking down at them with a wide smile upon his face.

He was a tall, slim man in his late twenties, with black hair and long sideburns. His teeth were very white and his eyes were very dark, very striking. He was an elegant, handsome man. He called out to them in French, in a clear, strong, mellifluous voice.

“Drako! You scoundrel! Where have you been keeping yourself? Come in, come in, bring your friends and have a drink or two or ten.”

The door was opened for them by a quadroon girl, one of the loveliest young women they had ever seen. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen years old. Her skin was light, almost golden-colored and her eyes were a deep, dark brown and very large. Her hair was a thick, luxuriant mass of dark curls. She curtsied as they entered.

Lafitte came down to greet them, dressed in a lightweight black suit and a black brocade vest with a white silk shirt. He moved gracefully and his carriage was that of a nobleman.

“Marie, some wine for our friends,” he said. He came up to Drakov and embraced him.

“You look well, Jean.”

“A year has not aged you at all,” Lafitte said. “It is a mystery to me how you stay at sea so long, yet never grow very tanned or appear weathered. But then, you are a man of many mysteries, no? Tell me, have you reconsidered my offer?”