Gustave Aimard - The Buccaneer Chief - A Romance of the Spanish Main

This state of things went on for nearly a month. One day the Count suddenly received information of the resumption of the hostilities between Spain and France; he was himself forced to quit Cadiz, but wished to have a final interview with the Duke, in order to ask him for a frank explanation of his conduct; in the event of this explanation not satisfying him, he was resolved to carry his wife off.

When he arrived at the Duke's palace, a confidential servant informed him that his master, suddenly summoned by the king, had started an hour previously to Madrid, without, to his great regret, having had time to take leave of him.

On hearing this, the Count had a presentiment of evil; he turned pale, but succeeded in overcoming his emotion, and calmly asked the valet whether his master had not left a letter for him; the servant answered in the affirmative and handed him a sealed note.

The Count broke the seal with a trembling hand and ran through the letter, but his emotion was so great on perusing the contents that he tottered, and had not the valet sprang forward to support him, he would have fallen to the ground.

"Ah!" he muttered, "Michael was right," and he crumpled the paper savagely.

But suddenly recovering himself, he overcame his grief and, after giving the valet several louis, hurried away.

"Poor young man!" the valet muttered with a sorrowful shake of the head and re-entered the palace, the gates of which he closed after him.

A few yards from the palace the Count met Michael, who was coming towards him.

"A boat, quick, quick, my good Michael," he shouted, "'tis a matter of life and death."

The sailor, terrified at the condition in which he saw his commandant, wished to ask him what the matter was, but the Count roughly imposed silence on him by repeating his order to procure a boat at once.

Michael bowed his head.

"Woe is me. I foresaw this," he muttered, with mingled grief and anger, and he ran off towards the port.

It is not a difficult task to find a boat at Cadiz, and Michael had only to choose; comprehending that the Count was in a hurry, he selected one pulled by ten oars.

The Count arrived at the same moment.

"Twenty louis for you and your crew if you are at Puerto in twenty minutes," he shouted, as he leaped into the boat, which was almost capsized by the violence of the shock.

The boat started, the sailors bent over their oars, and made her fly through the water.

The captain with his eyes obstinately fixed on Santa Maria, and striking his clenched fist on the boat's gunwale, in spite of the excessive speed at which it was going, incessantly repeated in a choking voice —

"Quicker, quicker, muchachos."

He passed like an arrow across the bows of the frigate, whose crew were preparing to weigh anchor. At length they reached Puerto.

"No one is to follow me," the captain cried, as he leaped ashore.

But Michael did not heed this order, and at the risk of what might happen to him, he set out in pursuit of the Count, whom he would not abandon in his present frightful condition.

It was fortunate he did so, for when he reached the house Doña Clara had inhabited, he saw the young man lying senseless on the ground.

The house was deserted, and Doña Clara had disappeared.

The sailor took his captain on his shoulders and conveyed him to the boat, where he laid him as comfortably as he could in the stem sheets.

"Where are we going?" the master asked.

"To the French frigate; and make haste," Michael replied.

When the boat was alongside the frigate, Michael paid the master the promised reward, and then aided by several of the crew, conveyed the captain to his cabin. As it was eminently necessary to keep the Count's secret, and avoid arousing suspicions, the sailor in his report to the first commandant, ascribed to a violent fall from a horse, the condition in which the captain was; then, after making a signal to Bowline to follow him, he returned to the cabin.

M. de Barmont was still as motionless as if he were dead; the chief surgeon of the frigate in vain bestowed the greatest care on him without succeeding in recalling life, which seemed to have fled forever.

"Send away your assistants; Bowline and myself will suffice," Michael said to the doctor, with a meaning glance.

The surgeon comprehended, and dismissed the mates. When the door had closed on them the sailor drew the doctor into a gun berth, and said to him, in so low a voice as to be scarce audible —

"Major, the Commandant has just experienced a great sorrow, which produced the terrible crisis he is suffering from at this moment. I confide this to you because a surgeon is like a confessor."

"All right, my lad," the surgeon replied; "the Captain's secret has been trusted to sure ears."

"I am convinced of that, Major; the officers and crew must suppose that the Captain has been thrown from his horse, you understand. I have already told the lieutenant so in making the report."

"Very good; I will corroborate your statement, my lad."

"Thanks, Major; now I have another thing to ask of you."

"Speak."

"You must obtain the lieutenant's leave that no one but Bowline and myself may wait on the Captain. Look you, Major, we are old sailors of his, he can say what he likes before us; and then, too, he will be glad to have us near him; will you get this leave from the lieutenant?"

"Yes, my lad; I know that you are a good fellow, sincerely attached to the Captain, and that he places entire confidence in you; hence, do not feel alarmed – I will settle that with the lieutenant, and you and your companion shall alone come in here with me so long as the Captain is ill."

"Thanks, Major; if an opportunity offers itself I will repay you this; on the faith of a Basque, you are a worthy man."

The surgeon began laughing.

"Let us return to our patient," he said, in order to cut short the conversation.

In spite of the intelligent care the doctor paid him the Count's fainting fit lasted the whole day.

"The shock was frightful," he said – "it was almost a congestion."

It was not till night, when the frigate had been for a long time at sea, and had left Cadiz roads far behind it, that a favourable crisis set in, and the Captain became slightly better.

"He is about to regain his senses," the doctor said.

In fact, a few convulsive movements agitated the Count's body, and he half-opened his eyes; but his glances were wild and absent; he looked all around him, as if trying to discover where he was, and why he was thus lying on his bed.

The three men, with their eyes fixed on him, anxiously watched this return to life, whose appearance was anything but reassuring to them.

The surgeon, more especially, seemed restless; big forehead was wrinkled, and his eyebrows met, through the effort of some internal emotion.

All at once the Count hurriedly sat up, and addressed Michael, who was standing by his side.

"Lieutenant," he said to him, in a quick, sharp voice, "let her fall off a point, or else the Spanish vessel will escape – why have you not beat to quarters, sir?"

The surgeon gave Michael a sign.

"Pardon, Commandant," the latter replied, humouring the sick man's fancy, "we have beaten to quarters, and the tops are all manned."

"Very good," he answered; then suddenly changing his ideas, he muttered – "She will come, she promised it me. But no, she will not come; she is dead to me henceforth – dead! dead!" he repeated, in a hollow voice, with different intonations; then he uttered a piercing cry – "Oh, heaven! How I suffer!" he exclaimed, bursting into sobs, while a torrent of tears inundated his face.

He buried his head in his hands, and fell back on his bed.