The Buccaneer Chief: A Romance of the Spanish Main

The adventurer had persuaded himself, rightly or wrongly, that he wanted a wife to manage his household; now he had seen Louise, Louise pleased him, she was for sale, and he resolved to buy her.

"Four hundred crowns!" he said with an air of defiance.

"Four hundred crowns," the company's agent repeated in his monotonous voice.

There was a silence.

Four hundred crowns is a large sum; Belle Tête triumphed.

"Five hundred!" a sharp shrill voice suddenly shouted.

The contest was beginning again; the adversaries had only stopped to regain their strength.

The company's agent rubbed his hands with a jubilant air, while repeating, —

"Six hundred, seven, eight, nine hundred crowns!"

A species of frenzy had seized on the spectators, and all bid furiously; the girl was still weeping.

Belle Tête was in a state of fury which approached to madness; clutching his fusil frenziedly in his clinched hand, he felt a wild temptation to send a bullet into the most determined of his competitors. Only the presence of M. de Fontenay restrained him.

"A thousand," he shouted in a hoarse voice.

"One thousand two hundred!" the most obstinate competitor immediately yelled.

Belle Tête stamped savagely, threw his fusil on his shoulder, drew his cap on to his head with a blow of his fist, and then with a step as slow and solemn as that of a statue would be, if a statue could walk, he went to place himself by the side of his unendurable rival, and letting the butt of his fusil fall heavily on the ground, scarce an inch from the man's foot, he looked him in the face for a moment with a defiant air, and shouted in a voice choked by emotion, —

"Fifteen hundred!"

The adventurer regarded him in his turn fiercely, fell back a step, and, after renewing the powder in the pan of his fusil, said, in a calm voice —

"Two thousand!"

Before these two obstinate adversaries the other bidders had prudently withdrawn; the competition was turning into a quarrel, and threatened to become sanguinary.

A deadly silence brooded over the shed; the over-excited passions of these two men had spoiled all the pleasures of the spectators, and silenced all their jokes.

The Governor followed with interest the different incidents of this struggle, ready to interfere at any moment.

The adventurers had gradually fallen back, and left a large free space between the two men.

Belle Tête recoiled a few paces in his turn, suddenly examined the priming of his fusil, and then, pointing the latter at his adversary, shouted —

"Three thousand!"

The other raised his fusil at the same moment to his shoulder.

"Three thousand five hundred crowns!" he shouted, as he pulled the trigger – the fusil was discharged.

But the Governor, with a movement rapid as thought, threw up the barrel with the end of his cane, and the ball lodged in the roof.

Belle Tête remained motionless, though, on hearing the shot, he lowered his fusil.

"Sir," the Governor exclaimed, indignantly, addressing the adventurer who had fired, "You have acted in a dishonourable way, and almost committed a murder."

"Governor," the adventurer coolly replied, "when I fired he had his gun pointed at me, and hence it is a duel."

The Governor hesitated, for the answer was specious.

"No matter, sir," he continued, a moment later, "the laws of duelling were not respected; to punish you I put you out of the bidding. Sir," he said, addressing the company's agent, "I order that the woman, who was the cause of this deplorable aggression, be knocked down to Señor Belle Tête for three thousand crowns."

The agent bowed with rather an angry look, for the worthy man had hoped, from the way things were going on, to reach a much higher figure; but he dared not make any observations to Chevalier de Fontenay; he must yield, and so he did.

"Louise is adjudged for three thousand crowns," he said, with a sigh of regret – not for the woman, but for the money – "to M. Belle Tête."

"Very good, Governor," the baffled adventurer said, with an ugly smile, "I must bow to your final sentence; but Belle Tête and I will meet again."

"I hope so, too, Picard," Belle Tête answered, coldly; "there must be bloodshed between us now." During this time Louise had come down from the platform, when another woman took her place, and had stationed herself, still weeping, by the side of Belle Tête, who was henceforth her lord and master.

M. de Fontenay gave a commiserating glance at the poor girl, who was about, in all probability, to endure such a cruel existence with so harsh a man, and then gently said to her —

"Madame, from this day you are for three years the legitimate wife of M. Belle Tête, and owe him obedience, affection, and fidelity; such are the laws of the colony: in three years you will be your own mistress, at liberty to leave him or to continue to live with him, if he desire it; be good enough to sign this paper."

The unhappy woman, blinded by her tears, and crushed by despair, signed, without looking at it, the paper which the Governor offered her; then she cast a heart-broken glance at this silent and indifferent crowd, in which she knew that she could not find a friend.

"Now, sir," she asked, in a gentle and trembling voice, "what must I do?"

"You must follow this man, who will be your husband for three years," M. de Fontenay answered, with a touch of pity, which he could not overcome.

At this moment Belle Tête laid his hand on the girl's shoulder; she shuddered all over, and looked wildly at him.

"Yes," he said, "my girl, you must follow me; for, as the Governor has told you, I am your husband for three years, and till the expiration of that time, you will have no other master but me. Now, listen to this, my darling, and engrave it carefully on your mind, so as to remember it at the right moment: what you have done, what you have been, until now, does not concern me, and I care little about it; but," he added, in a hollow, ferocious voice, which chilled the poor girl with horror, "from this day, from this moment, you belong to me – to me alone: I intrust to you my honour, which becomes yours, and if you compromise that honour – if you forget your duties," he said, as he dashed the butt end of his musket on the ground, so harshly, that the hammer rattled with an ill-omened sound, "this will remind you of them; now, follow me."

"Be gentle to her, Belle Tête," M. de Fontenay could not help saying – "she is so young."

"I shall be just, Governor: now, thanks for your impartiality, it is time for me to retire. Picard, my old friend, you know where to find me."

"I shall not fail to come and see you, but I do not, wish to trouble your honeymoon," Picard replied, with a growl.

Belle Tête withdrew, followed by his wife.

The sale henceforth offered nothing of interest; the few women remaining were sold at prices far inferior to that which Louise had fetched, to the great regret, we are bound to add, of the Company's agent.

The adventurers were preparing to leave the shed where they imagined there was nothing more to see; but at this moment Montbarts mounted the platform, and addressed the crowd in a sonorous voice —

"Brothers," he said, "stay, I have an important communication to make to you."

The adventurers remained motionless.