In the Day of Adversity

During the period that had elapsed, however, since he was rescued by Rooke, one thing had happened that had brought great happiness to his heart: he had heard more than once from Boussac, now a lieutenant of the Mousquetaires Noirs, and in so hearing had gained news of his child, who was still alive, and, as Boussac believed, well treated.

"Mon pauvre ami," that gallant officer had written, in reply to a letter forwarded him by St. Georges and addressed to Paris, where he imagined the Mousquetaires might be, "how shall I answer yours, since, when I received it, I had long deemed you dead? Ah! monsieur, I was desolated when we came into Paris at the tidings I gleaned. I sought for you at once, inquired at the Bureau Militaire, and learned – what? That you had threatened to murder the minister – had, indeed, almost murdered the Marquis de Roquemaure; and that for this you were condemned to the galley L'Idole, en perpétuité. Figure to yourself my dismay – nay, more, my most touching grief – for, my friend, I had news for you of the best, the most important. And I could not deliver it, should never now deliver it to you in this world. Monsieur, I had the news to give you that I had seen your child – had seen it well, and, as I think, not unhappy."

It was St. Georges's habit to sit sometimes in the little, old city churchyard beneath his window, and there to muse on his past and meditate upon the future. It had an attraction for him, this old place, more, perhaps, for the reason that scarce any one ever came into it on week days, except himself and a decrepit gravedigger to occasionally open old graves or prepare new ones, than for any other; but also because there was one tombstone that interested him sadly. It bore upon it a child's name, "Dorothy," and told how she had died, "aged three," in January, "in the yeare of Oure Lorde" 1688. And below the scroll of flowers, with an angel's head in their midst, was the quotation from Kings: "Is it well with the child? And she answered, It is well."

To his seared and bruised heart some sad yet tender comfort seemed to be afforded by this stone, which marked and recorded the death of one whose very name partly resembled the name of her he had lost – whose little life had been taken from her almost at the very time Dorine was snatched away from him. And the question of the prophet was the question that he so often asked in his prayers. The answer was that which so often he beseeched his Maker to vouchsafe to him.

He was seated opposite to this stone on the day he first received Boussac's letter, having brought it out with him to peruse in quiet. He was seated on it now, many months later, as he reread the mousquetaire's words which told him that Dorine was well, and, he thought, not unhappy. And he raised his eyes to the words of the Shunamite woman and murmured, "It is well with the child," and whispered, "God, I thank thee!" as he had done on the day when first the letter came to him. Then he continued:

"We passed through Troyes, monsieur, three months after you, and I saw her. She was a little outside the town, with an elderly bonne, hand in hand. I obtained permission to quit the ranks for a moment – I was not then promoted, you will understand – and, dismounting and leading my horse toward them – you remember the good horse, monsieur? – I said to the woman, 'Whose child is that, madame?' She drew away from me, gathered the petite to her, and answered, 'Mine,' whereon I smiled; for I could not be harsh with her – the little creature looked so well cared for – "

Again St. Georges lifted up his eyes, again he murmured, "I thank Thee!" and again went on with the letter:

"'And the father,' I demanded, 'where may he be?' 'Dead,' she answered. 'You know that?' I asked hurriedly, and she replied, 'Ay, I know it, monsieur.' But," Boussac continued, "I could see that she repeated a story she had been taught, that she was a paid gouvernante. Yet, what to do? Already the troop was out of sight; I might not linger. Had I been alone, it may be I would have snatched the child from her, jumped on my horse, and carried it away as once you carried it, guarded it as you – as we, monsieur – guarded it. Helas! that could not be. Therefore, on your behalf, I kissed the little thing, and I emptied my poor purse into the woman's hand. 'Keep it well,' I said, 'keep it well, and thereby you shall reap a reward greater by far than any you now receive. I know – I know more than you think.' Then the bonne replied to me: 'So long as I am able it will be guarded well. No danger threatens the child at present' – she said 'at present' – I am unhappy that I have to mention those words. But she spoke them. I knew not what had happened then; I know now from your letter. But, monsieur, what does it mean? De Roquemaure tried to slay the child when you had her in your keeping. Now that he has her in his own – for who can doubt it? – he treats her well. Monsieur, again I say, what does it mean? And the 'at present' – what, too, does that mean?"

St. Georges was no more able to answer that silent question than the far-distant writer of it. Instead, he repeated to himself again and again, as he had often done, the same words, "What did it mean?" And as a man stumbling in the dark, he could find no way that led him to the light.

"How can I answer him?" he mused. "What answer find? The villain tried to slay her, as Boussac says, when we were there to guard her; now that he has her in his charge, now that his hate is doubled, must be doubled and intensified by my determination to slay him, as I almost succeeded in doing, he stays his hand. What does the mystery mean?" And one answer alone presented itself to him. De Roquemaure might have discovered that that which he once suspected to be the case was in reality not so. He might have found that, in truth, he, St. Georges, was not the Duc de Vannes.

"Thus," he reflected, "he would hesitate to murder the harmless child. His vengeance on me is glutted; he must have known, even so early as Boussac's passage through Troyes, that I was as good as dead in that vile galley; if he knew, too, that I am not really De Vannes's heir, the child no longer stands in his light. And devil though he is, even his tigerish nature may have halted at the murder of so helpless a thing."

Also he knew, by now, that both De Roquemaure and Louvois must be perfectly confident that not only was he practically dead but actually so. The galley was gone – sunk; and of the few saved none had gone back to France. And the other galleys – those which had chased the Dutch merchantman – would take the news back; none would suppose that he and a few more were still alive.

As he reflected on this month by month – while often his eyes would rest now on the words before him, "It is well with the child" – another light came at last to his mind: he saw that, almost without any danger, he might return to Troyes. He was a dead man; none would be on the watch for him.

"Return to Troyes!" he repeated. "Return to Troyes!" And starting from his seat he walked hurriedly away after one more glance at the consoling words. He would go at once, find the child, and then return to England forever. Yes, he thought, he would do that. He had money enough now to reach that city.

Excited by this determination, he strode toward his lodging, determined to set out directly. Months had passed, no fresh volunteers had been called for, and although he knew that Louis was massing together a large number of troops in the north of France – with the intention of once more attempting to put James II on the throne he had fled from – nothing had yet been done. It seemed as if nothing would be done beyond endeavouring to guard the shores of England from a French invasion and securing suspected persons and sending forces to the seacoast. But for himself he heard nothing from any source. Perhaps, he mused, he was forgotten.

Yet as he entered his room he learned that the time had not yet come for him to take that solitary and dangerous journey to France. There was something else to be done first.

Lying on his table were two letters: one, with a great seal upon it, from Admiral Rooke; the other, addressed to a firm of merchants in the city, but with – since its arrival in London – St. Georges's name written over theirs, from Boussac. He read the latter first; before all else it was the child he thought of – then threw it down almost with impatience. He looked eagerly for these letters; they were indeed the anxiety of his life, and now that this had come it told him nothing that he cared to hear.

Yet there was one piece of intelligence in the letter that once would have interested him. The mousquetaire had seen Aurélie de Roquemaure, had spoken with her.

"I met her, mon ami," he wrote, "entering the gallery of audience at Versailles where I was in attendance, and she looked, although pale, for she wears no paint like the other grandes dames– I know not why, since his Christian Majesty expects it – "

"She wore enough when I saw her last!" St. Georges muttered.

" – most beautiful. Mon Dieu! what eyes, what a figure! I knew her only from seeing her pass in to audience before, while as for me she had never deigned so much as a glance. Yet now, figurez vous, mon ami, she spoke to me while waiting for the others to pass before her. 'I have heard,' she said, speaking very low, 'that you are Monsieur Boussac.' I answered that that was my name. Then, after a glance around to see that no eyes were upon us, she went on: 'You did a service once to an unhappy gentleman – a chevau-léger– now dead?' What she was going to say further I know not, since I interrupted her so by the slight start I gave that she paused in her intention, whatever it may have been, raised her eyes to mine and regarded me fixedly. Then she approached her face nearer to mine and whispered: 'Why do you start? He is dead – is he not?' Mon ami, what could I reply? She is the sister, by marriage, of your foe; if I told her you lived, who knows what evil I might work? Therefore, I answered briefly, 'Madame, the galère L'Idole was sunk, and he was in it.' Still she regarded me, however —mon Dieu! it seemed as though her eyes would tear the secret from out of my brains. Then – for now the throng was moving on and she had to go with it – she whispered again: 'If – if by any hazard – he was not sunk with the galley – if he still lives, there is news for him that would make him happy.' Then she passed on with the others, and so out by the main gallery, and I have not seen her since."

There was more in the letter, but at that time St. Georges read no further. Once this news would have stirred every fibre in him, for once he had believed that Aurélie de Roquemaure was his friend – was on his side! He had long ceased, however, to do so; had, instead, come to believe that she and her mother were as inimical to him as their cowardly brother. And long months of meditation had brought him to the belief also that the marquise's scorn against the man who had attacked him and Boussac, and endeavoured to slay the child, was simulated; that they regarded his and Dorine's existence with as much hatred as did De Roquemaure himself. And now, now he felt sure that she knew he was alive and was only eager to discover if he was anywhere near them – near enough to work vengeance on them. As for the news which would "make him happy!" – well, any scheming intriguer might endeavour to hoodwink so simple a soldier as Boussac with such a tale as that! He was only too thankful Boussac had had sufficient discretion not to betray his existence to her. To have done that would be to have put her and De Roquemaure on their guard against that return to France which should yet be made, against that revenge which should yet be taken.

He opened Sir George's letter now, quietly and without excitement, for he had grown used to occasional communications at long intervals from that gallant sailor, telling him that at present it was not in his power to be of service to him; but as he hastily ran his eye over the lines he uttered an exclamation of delight. They ran:

"Namesake, if you are still of the mind you were, the time has come. There is a big muster at St. Helens, for Tourville puts to sea to invade us. A place shall be found for you, though maybe not in my ship. Hurry, hurry, hurry!"

CHAPTER XXI.

MAY, 1692

None riding along the Portsmouth road that warm April night could doubt that a great crisis was at hand. Certainly St. Georges did not do so as couriers and messengers galloped past him toward London calling out the news to all who cared to hear it. As he mounted Kingston Vale two men, hastily jumping on their steeds outside "The Baldfaced Stag," cried that they must rouse the queen even, though she be a-bed,[7 - William was fighting on the Continent, and, as usual, being defeated.] for the Frenchman was at sea with an enormous fleet and had been seen in the morning from the coast of Dorset; and all along the route it was the same. Wherever he changed his horse he found couriers setting out for London; whomsoever he passed on the road gave him the same news. At Ripley they told him the French had landed under the command of Bellefonds and King James – but these were rustics drinking in a taproom – at Guildford the news was contradicted, but the certainty of the landing taking place shortly was much believed in. Then, at Godalming, where by now the day had come, he passed a regiment marching as fast as might be toward the coast, and the officer in command told him that no landing had yet been effected; at Petersfield he heard the same; at Portsmouth laughter and derision, scorn and contempt were hurled at all who dared even to suppose that a French fleet would put a French army ashore. For here, in every inn and tavern, were men who had fought in a score of naval engagements, and who were going out now to fight again. And, as he stood upon the Hard, waiting for a boat to take him off, he observed the vast fleet of sixty-three ships under Russell's command lying at anchor off the island, and saw from the maintop-gallant-mast head of the Britannia (flagship) the admiral's flag flying. Also on the main shrouds he saw another flag, showing that a council of war was already being held. There, too, were visible the ensigns of Rooke, Sir Cloudesley Shovell, Sir John Ashley, Sir Ralph Delaval, and Rear Admiral Carter, and as the noble spectacle met his view his heart beat fast within him. The country that had adopted him was about to help him revenge his wrongs on the country that had sent him forth to stripes and beatings and ignominy.

The shore boat made its way through countless others – some filled with officers and their baggage going off to the ships, some with sailors half drunk, who would, nevertheless, fight to the death when once they boarded the Frenchmen; some with provisions for the fleet; and some with other volunteers like himself, and with, in several cases, girls going off to say farewell to their sweethearts, or with mothers and wives. From most of these boats there rose the babel of scores of different songs and ballads, all telling how when French sailors met English their doom was sealed. Yet at this time, and for about another month, the French held the supremacy of the sea. After that month was over the supremacy was gone forever!

From the Britannia there came away, as St. Georges's boat approached the lines, several barges bearing the admirals and captains who had attended the council of war, and among them St. Georges saw that of Admiral Rooke, who, as he saluted him, made signs for the other boat to follow to his ship.

"Now," said Rooke, after he had greeted St. Georges and complimented him upon his promptitude in hastening down to the fleet, and also on his improved appearance – for the two years he had passed in London had done much to restore his original good looks, and, with the exception that there rested always upon his face a melancholy expression, none would have guessed the sufferings he had once endured – "now let me understand. Therefore, speak definitely and frankly. You have thrown in your lot forever with England."

"Forever," St. Georges replied.

"Without fear of change, eh?" the admiral said. "Remember – recall before we sail to-night – all you are doing. If you fight on our side now, there will be – henceforth – no tie between you and France. That dukedom of which you told me once is gone forever, no matter how clearly you may find your title to it. Louis will never forgive the work we mean to do. If you are English to-day – for the next week, the next month – you are English for always."

"I have come down here," St. Georges replied, his voice firm, his words spoken slowly, so that Rooke knew that henceforth his resolution would never be shaken, "to fight on England's side against France. There will be no wavering! If I fall, I fall an Englishman; if I survive, I am an Englishman for the rest of my life. I renounce my father's people, whomsoever that father may have been, provided he was a Frenchman: I acknowledge only my mother's. Short of one thing – my endeavour to regain my child."

"How is that to be accomplished? If you survive this which we are about to undertake, your life will be forfeited in France."

"It is forfeited already. Remember, sir, I am still, in the eyes of the law of France, a galley slave. That alone is death, or worse than death. In the future when I go, as I intend to go if I live, upon another quest for her I have lost, I shall be in no worse case. Only, then, it will be the halter and not the galleys. So best!"

"Be it so," the admiral replied. "Henceforth you belong to us. Now, this is what I can do for you. Listen. I find there is a place for you here on this very ship. You know something of seamanship from your bitter experiences; as a soldier, also, you understand discipline. The master's mate of this ship was drowned a week ago; you can try the post if you please. And when the campaign is over, it may be that I can find you a better one."

"I accept, with thanks," St. Georges said. "I adopt from to-day your calling. Henceforth I am an English sailor."

"Come, then, and see your captain," Rooke replied; "you will find him a good one, and hating France as much as you can desire."

He followed the admiral to another cabin, where they found the captain, who was Lord Danby – Rooke's flagship being now the Windsor Castle – and here they were made acquainted with each other, though Danby had already heard the history of the man who was coming into his ship.

"I am very glad to see you, sir," he said quietly. "I know your story – at least so far as it concerns me. I only trust you will encounter some of your late friends' galleys and be able to repay them for some of the kindnesses they once testified toward you."

So St. Georges became a sailor once more – though in a very different manner from what he had last been – and as master's mate sailed in the Blue Squadron of Russell's fleet against the French fleet under Tourville.

The Dutch allies were coming in rapidly ere they left St. Helen's and Spithead on the 26th of April, and already of the fleet of thirty-six ships under Van Almonde many had joined. Their first cruise was, however of no result; they simply picked up their pilots from the Sally Rose, these men having been got from Jersey, and observed that all along the peninsula of Cotentin – where James and Marshal Bellefonds were encamped – great beacons were burning by night. They knew, therefore, that France expected the English fleet. A little later, while once more they lay off Spithead and St. Helen's, they knew that Tourville had put to sea to meet them. Fishermen coming into harbour, spies sent out in various directions, the Sally Rose herself – all brought the news that the French admiral was on the sea – his squadron headed by his own flagship, Le Soleil Royal, and by Le Triumphant and L'Ambitieux, had been seen from Portland cliffs.

The time had come.

On May 18th that great English fleet, formed into two squadrons – the Red commanded by Russell, Delaval, and Cloudesley Shovell, and the Blue by Sir John Ashby, Rooke, and Carter – and followed by the Dutch, stood away from the English coast, their course south and south by west. Swiftly, too, when clear of the Isle of Wight, the line of battle was formed, the Tyger leading the starboard and the Centurion the larboard tacks. And so they sailed to meet the enemy, and to frustrate the last attack of any importance ever made by the French to invade England.

It was not long ere that frustration commenced.

Scouts coming back swiftly on the morning of the 19th reported the enemy in full force near them, and from the Britannia ran out the signal – received with cheers from thousands of throats – to "clear the ships for action!" And St. Georges, busy with his own work, knew that the time was at hand for which he longed.

To the west there loomed up swiftly the topmasts of the French flagships; soon the figurehead of Le Soleil Royal was visible – a figurehead representing Louis standing upon his favourite emblem, a great sun, and with the inhabitants of other nations lying prostrate at his feet and bound in chains.

"Behold," said Rooke, as St. Georges passed close to him, "your late king! Ah, well! that sun shall set ere long, or – "

His words were drowned in more cheers. From all those English seamen on board the various ships – nearly thirty thousand men exclusive of the Dutch allies – there rose hurrah after hurrah, as swiftly the opposing forces advanced to meet one another. Then the Britannia saluted the Soleil Royal – a sinister politeness – and from the French flagships there came an answer in the shape of a discharge of small shot. The battle had begun.

From the English vessels that discharge was answered by broadsides from their great guns: from the Britannia, the Royal Sovereign – Delaval's flagship – those broadsides were poured in with merciless precision. Moreover, the wind favoured the English foe more than it did the French; their great ships being enabled to form a circle round their foes and to pour in their fire on either side of them. Already one Frenchman had blown up, hurling her contents into the air; already, too, the Soleil Royal had had her maintopsail shot away by the Britannia; in another moment she had let down her mainsail and was tacking away from her untiring foe. And following her went L'Admirable and Le Triumphant.