The Buccaneer Chief: A Romance of the Spanish Main

At the period of our narration only the first was fortified; the other, inhabited by a few fishermen, merely contained the still considerable ruins of the monastery founded by Saint Honorat circa the year 400.

The Sainte Marguerite island was uninhabited, flat, and only offering along its entire coast, one very unsafe creek for vessels. Although it is extremely fertile, and pomegranates, orange and fig trees, grow there in the open air, no one had thought of taking up his abode there, and we are not aware whether a change has since taken place.

A very important fortress, which, at a later date, attained a melancholy reputation as a state prison, was erected on the island, the greater portion of which it occupied.

This fort was composed of three towers, connected together by terraces, which time had covered with a yellowish moss, while a wide deep moat surrounded the walls.

A few years prior to the beginning of our story, in 1635, the Spaniards had seized it by surprise.

The Cardinal, in order to prevent the repetition of such a calamity, had judged it advisable to protect the fort from a coup de main, by placing there a garrison of fifty picked soldiers, commanded by a major performing the duties of governor. He was an old officer of fortune, whom this post served as a retreat, and who, far from the cares of the world, led a perfect canonical life, thanks to a tacit understanding with the smugglers, who alone cast anchor in these parts.

The officer who commanded the fort at this moment was an old gentleman, tall, thin, and wizened, with harsh features, who had had a leg and arm cut off. His name was Monsieur de l'Oursière; he was constantly scolding and abusing his subordinates, and the day when he left the Crown regiment, in which he held the rank of major, was kept as a holiday by the whole regiment, officers and men; so cordially was the worthy man detested.

Cardinal de Richelieu was a good judge of men; in selecting Major de l'Oursière to make him governor of Sainte Marguerite, and metamorphose him into a gaoler, he had found the exact post which suited his quarrelsome temper, and his cruel instincts.

It was on this amiable personage that the Count de Barmont would have to be dependant for doubtless a considerable period; for, if the Cardinal Minister easily shut the gate of a state prison on a gentleman, to make up for it, he was never in a hurry to open it again, and a prisoner, unless something extraordinary occurred, was almost safe to die forgotten in his dungeon, except when his Eminence had a whim to have his head cut off in broad daylight.

After a number of countersigns had been exchanged with a profuseness of caution which bore witness to the good guard and strict discipline maintained by the governor, the prisoner and his escort were at length introduced into the fortress, and admitted to the Major's presence.

The Major was just finishing his breakfast, when a Cardinal's messenger was announced to him: he buttoned his uniform, put on his sword and hat, and ordered the messenger to be shown in.

François Bouillot entered, followed by the Count, bowed, and presented the order of which he was the bearer.

The governor took it, and read it through; then he turned to the Count, who was standing motionless a few paces in the rear, made him a slight bow, and addressed him in a dry voice, and with a rough accent.

"Your servant, sir," he said to him: "are you the Count de Barmont, whose name is written on this paper?"

"Yes, sir," the Count answered, bowing in his turn.

"I am sorry, sir, truly sorry," the Major resumed; "but I have strict orders with reference to you, and a soldier only knows his duty; still, believe me, sir, hum, hum, that I shall try to reconcile my natural humanity with the rigour that is recommended to me, hum, hum, I know how gentlemen ought to behave to each other, sir; be assured of that."

And the governor, doubtless satisfied at the speech he had just uttered, smiled, and drew himself gracefully up.

The Count bowed, but made no answer.

"You shall be conducted to your apartment at once, sir," the Major went on; "hum, hum! I wish it was handsomer, but I did not expect you; hum, hum, and you know how things are – hum, hum, we will manage to lodge you more comfortably hereafter; la Berloque," he added, turning to a soldier standing near the door, "conduct this gentleman, hum, hum, to room No. 8, in the second turret; hum, hum, I believe it is the most habitable one; your servant, sir, your servant, hum, hum!"

And after having thus unceremoniously dismissed the Count, the Major went into another room.

M. de Barmont, accompanied by Bouillot and the guards, who had brought him, followed the soldier.

The latter led them through several passages, and up various stairs, and then stopped before a door, garnished with formidable bolts.

"It is here," he said.

The Count then turned to Bouillot, and affectionately offered him his hand.

"Farewell, my old friend," he said to him in a gentle but firm voice, while a vague smile played round his lips.

"Farewell, till we meet again," Bouillot said, with a stress on the words. Then he took leave of him, and withdrew, with his eyes full of tears.

The door closed with a mournful sound on the prisoner.

"Oh!" the old servant muttered, as he pensively went down the turret stairs, "Woe to those who venture to oppose the Count, if ever he leaves his prison again! And he shall do so, I swear it, even if I must risk my life in securing his escape."

CHAPTER V

A BACKWARD GLANCE

The family of the Count de Barmont Senectaire was one of the most ancient and noble in Languedoc; their origin went back to an antiquity so remote, that we may declare without fear of contradiction that it was lost in the mist of ages.

A Barmont Senectaire fought at Bouvines by the side of Philip Augustus.

The chronicle of Joinville mentions a Barmont Senectaire, knight banneret, who died of the plague at Tunis, in 1270, during the second crusade of King Louis IX.

Francis I. on the evening of the battle of Marignano, gave the rank of Count on the battlefield itself to Euguerrand de Barmont Senectaire, captain of one hundred men at arms, to reward him for his grand conduct and the sturdy blows he had seen him deal during the whole period of that combat of giants.

Few noble families have such splendid title deeds among their archives.

The Counts de Barmont were always military nobles, and they gave France several celebrated generals.

But in the course of time, the power and fortune of this family gradually diminished: during the reign of Henri III. it was reduced to a condition bordering on poverty. Still, justly proud of a stainless past, they continued to carry their heads high in the province, and if the Count de Barmont endured hard privations in order to support his name worthily, nothing of this was visible externally, and everybody was ignorant of the fact.

The Count had attached himself to the fortunes of the King of Navarre as much through the hope of regaining a position through the war, as through admiration of this prince, whose genius he had probably divined. A brave soldier, but young, impetuous, and handsome, the Count had several affairs of gallantry. One among others with a lady of the Town of Cahors, affianced to a very rich Spanish noble, whom he succeeded in carrying off on the very day before that appointed for the marriage. The Spaniard, who was very strict in matters affecting his honour, considered this joke in bad taste, and demanded satisfaction of the Count; the latter gave him two sword thrusts, and left him dead on the ground. This affair attracted great attention, and gained the Count much honor among people of refinement; but the Spaniard, contrary to expectation, recovered from his wounds. The two gentlemen fought again, and this time the Count so ill treated his adversary that the latter was constrained to give up all thoughts of a new meeting. This adventure disgusted the Count with gallantry, not that he personally feared the results of the hatred which the Duke of Peñaflor had sworn against him, for he never heard of him again, but because his conscience reproached him with having, for the satisfaction of a caprice which passed away so soon as it was satisfied, destroyed the happiness of an honourable man, and he felt remorse for his conduct in the affair.

After bravely fighting by the side of the King during all his wars, the Count finally retired to his estates, about the year 1610, after the death of that Prince, disgusted with the Court, and feeling the necessity of repose after such an amount of fatigue.

Here, four or five years later, wearied with the solitude in which he lived, and, perhaps, in the hope of expelling from his mind a troublesome recollection, which, in spite of the time that had elapsed, did not cease to torture him, the Count resolved to marry, and selected for his wife a young lady belonging to one of the best families in the province – charming and gentle, but as poor as himself; this circumstance was far from bringing ease into the family, whose position daily became more difficult.

The union, however, was a happy one; in 1616 the Countess was delivered of a son, who at once became the joy of the poor household.

This son was Count Ludovic, whose story we have undertaken to tell.

In spite of his fondness for the boy, the Count, however, brought him up strictly, wishing to make of him a rude, brave, and loyal gentleman, like himself.

Young Ludovic felt at an early hour, on discovering what misery was concealed behind the apparent splendour of his family, the necessity of creating for himself an independent position, which would allow him not only to be no longer a burden to parents whom he loved, and who sacrificed to him the greater portion of their income, but to restore also the eclipsed lustre of the name he bore.

Contrary to the custom followed by his ancestors, who had all served the king or his armies, his tastes led him to the navy.

Owing to the assiduous care of an old and worthy priest, who had become his tutor through attachment to his family, he had received a solid education, by which he had profited; accounts of voyages, which constituted his principal reading, inflamed his imagination; all his thoughts were turned to America, where, according to the statements of sailors, gold abounded, and he had but one desire – to land himself in this mysterious country, and take his part of the rich crop which everybody garnered there.

His father, and his mother even more, for a long time resisted his entreaties. The old man, who had fought during so many years, could not understand why his son should not do the same, or prefer the navy to a commission in the army. The Countess, in her heart, did not wish to see her son either soldier or sailor, for both professions terrified her; she feared for her son the unknown perils of distant excursions, and her tenderness was alarmed by the thought of what might be an eternal separation.

Still, something must be done, and as the young man obstinately adhered to his resolution, his parents were compelled to yield and consent to what he desired, whatever might be the future consequences of this determination.

The Count still had some old friends at Court, among them being the Duke de Bellegarde, who stood on terms of great intimacy with King Louis XIII., surnamed the "Just" during his lifetime, because he was born under the sign of Libra.

Monsieur de Barmont had also been connected at an earlier date with the Duke d'Epernon, created Admiral of France in 1587; but he had a repugnance in applying to him, owing to the rumours that were spread at the time of the assassination of Henri IV. Still, in a case so urgent as the present one, the Count comprehended that for the sake of his son he must silence his private feelings, and at the same time as he addressed a letter to the Duke de Bellegarde, he sent another to Epernon, who at this period was Governor of Guyenne.