The Grey Cloak, Harold MacGrath [smart books to read TXT] 📗

interested him curiously. The Chevalier hid none of his thoughts; they lay in his eyes, in the wrinkles on his brow, in the immobility of his pose. How easy it was to read that the Chevalier saw nothing, save in a nebulous way, of the wonderful panorama surrounding. He was with the folly of the night gone, with Paris, with to-day's regrets for vanished yesterday. The vicomte could see perfectly well that Victor's gaiety was natural and unassumed; that the past held him but loosely, since this past held the vision of an ax. The analyst passed on to Brother Jacques, and received a slight shock. The penetrating grey eyes of the priest caught his and held them menacingly.

"Ah!" murmured the vicomte, "the little Jesuit has learned the trick, too, it would seem. He is reading my face. I must know more of this handsome fellow whose blood is red and healthy. He comes from no such humble origin as Father Chaumonot. Bah! and look at those nuns: they are animated coffins, holding only dead remembrances and dried, perfumeless flowers."

A strong and steady east wind had driven away all vestige of the storm. The sea was running westward in long and swinging leaps, colorful, dazzling, foam-crested. The singing air was spangled with frosty brine-mist; a thousand flashes were cast back from the city windows; the flower of the lily fluttered from a hundred masts. A noble vision, truly, was the good ship Saint Laurent, standing out boldly against the clear horizon and the dark green of the waters. High up among the spars and shrouds swarmed the seamen. Canvas flapped and bellied as it dropped, from arm to arm, sending the fallen snow in a flurry to the decks. On the poop-deck stood the black-gowned Jesuits, the sad-faced nuns, several members of the great company, soldiers and adventurers. The wharves and docks and piers were crowded with the curious: bright-gowned peasants, soldiers from the fort, merchants, and a sprinkling of the noblesse. It was not every day that a great ship left the harbor on so long and hazardous a voyage.

The Chevalier leaned against the railing, dreamily noting the white faces in the sunshine. He was still vaguely striving to convince himself that he was in the midst of some dream. He was conscious of an approaching illness, too. When would he wake? . . . and where? A hand touched his arm. He turned and saw Brother Jacques. There was a kindly expression on the young priest's face. He now saw the Chevalier in a new light. It was not as the gay cavalier, handsome, rich, care-free; it was as a man who, suffering a mortal stroke, carried his head high, hiding the wound like a Spartan.

"A last look at France, Monsieur le Chevalier, for many a day to come."

The Chevalier nodded.

"For many days, indeed. . . . And who among us shall look upon France again in the days to come? It is a long way from the Candlestick in Paris to the deck of the Saint Laurent. The widest stretch of fancy would not have brought us together again. There is, then, some invisible hand that guides us surely and certainly to our various ends, as the English poet says." The Chevalier was speaking to a thought rather than to Brother Jacques. "Who among us shall look upon these shores again?"

"What about these shores, Paul?" asked Victor, coming up. "They are not very engaging just now."

"But it is France, Victor; it is France; and from any part of France Paris may be reached." He turned his face toward the north, in the direction of Paris. His eyes closed; he was very pale. "Do we not die sometimes, Victor, while yet the heart and brain go on beating and thinking?"

Victor grasped the Chevalier's hand. There are some friendships which are expressed not by the voice, but by the pressure of a hand, a kindling glance of the eye. Brother Jacques moved on. He saw that for the present he had no part in these two lives.

"Look!" Victor cried, suddenly, pointing toward the harbor towers.

"Jehan?" murmured the Chevalier. "Good old soul! Is he waving his hand, Victor? The sun . . . I can not see."

"Do you suppose your father . . ."

"Who?" calmly.

"Ah! Well, then, Monsieur le Marquis: do you suppose he has sent Jehan to verify the report that you sail for Quebec?"

"I do not suppose anything, Victor. As for Monsieur le Marquis, I have already ceased to hate him. How beautiful the sea is! And yet, contemplate the horror of its rolling over your head, beating your life out on the reefs. All beautiful things are cruel."

"But you are glad, Paul," affectionately, "that I am with you?"

"Both glad and sorry. For after a time you will return, leaving me behind."

"Perhaps. And yet who can say that we both may not return, only with fame marching on ahead to announce us in that wonderfully pleasing way she has?"

"It is your illusions that I love, Victor: I see myself again in you. Keep to your ballades, your chant-royals, your triolets; you will write an epic whenever you lose your illusions; and epics by Frenchmen are dull and sorry things. When you go below tell Breton to unpack my portmanteau."


On the wharf nearest the vessel stood two women, hooded so as to conceal their faces.

"There, Gabrielle; you have asked to see the Chevalier du Cévennes, that is he leaning against the railing."

"So that is the Chevalier. And he goes to Quebec. In mercy's name, what business has he there?"

"You are hurting my arm, dear. Victor would not tell me why he goes to Quebec."

"Ah, if he goes out of friendship for Victor, it is well."

"Is he not handsome?"

"Melancholy handsome, after the pattern of the Englishman's Hamlet. I like a man with a bright face. When does the Henri IV sail?" suddenly.

"Two weeks from to-morrow. To-morrow is Fools' Day."

"Why, then, do not those on yonder ship sail to-morrow instead of to-day?"

"You were not always so bitter."

"I must have my jest. To-morrow may have its dupes as well as its fools. . . . Silence! The Comte d'Hérouville in Rochelle? I am lost if he sees me. Let us go!" And Madame de Brissac dragged her companion back into the crowd. "That man here? Anne, you must hide me well."

"Why do you ask about the gloomy ship which is to take me to Quebec?" asked Anne, her curiosity aroused of a sudden.

Madame put a finger against her lips. "I shall tell you presently. Just now I must find a hiding place immediately. He must not know that I am here. He must have traced me here. Oh! am I not in trouble enough without that man rising up before me? I am afraid of him, Anne."

The two soon gained their chairs and disappeared. Neither of them saw the count go on board the ship.


On board all was activity. There came a lurch, a straining of ropes and a creaking of masts, and the good ship Saint Laurent swam out to sea. Suddenly the waters trembled and the air shook: the king's man-of-war had fired the admiral's salute. So the voyage began. Priests, soldiers, merchants, seamen, peasants and nobles, all stood silent on the poop-deck, watching the rugged promontory sink, turrets and towers and roofs merge into one another, black lines melt into grey; stood watching till the islands became misty in the sunshine and nothing of France remained but a long, thin, hazy line.

"The last of France, for the present," said the poet.

"And for the present," said the vicomte, "I am glad it is the last of France. France is not agreeable to my throat."

The Chevalier threw back his shoulders and stood away from the rail.

The Comte d'Hérouville, his face purple with rage and chagrin, came up. He approached Victor.

"Monsieur," he said, "you lied. Madame is not on board." He drew back his hand to strike the poet in the face, but fingers of iron caught his wrist and held it in the air.

"The day we land, Monsieur," said the Chevalier, calmly. "Monsieur de Saumaise is not your equal with the sword."

"And you?" with a sneer.

"Well, I can try."


CHAPTER XII

ACHATES WRITES A BALLADE OF DOUBLE REFRAIN

The golden geese of day had flown back to the Master's treasure house; and ah! the loneliness of that first night at sea!-the low whistling song of the icy winds among the shrouds; the cold repellent color tones which lay thinly across the west, pressing upon the ragged, heaving horizon; the splendor and intense brilliancy of the million stars; the vast imposing circle of untamed water, the purple of its flowing mountains and the velvet blackness of its sweeping valleys; the monotonous seething round the boring prow and the sad gurgle of the speeding wake; the weird canvas shadows rearing heavenward; and above all, that silence which engulfs all human noises simply by its immensity! More than one stout heart grew doubtful and troubled under the weight of this mystery.

Even the Iroquois Indian, born without fear, stoic, indifferent to physical pain, even he wrapped his blanket closer about his head, held his pipe pendent in nerveless fingers, and softly chanted an appeal to the Okies of his forebears, forgetting the God of the black-robed fathers in his fear of never again seeing the peaceful hills and valleys of Onondaga or tasting the sweet waters of familiar springs. For here was evil water, of which no man might drink to quench his thirst; there were no firebrands to throw into the face of the North Wind; there was no trail, to follow or to retrace. O for his mat by the fire in the Long House, with the young braves and old warriors sprawling around, recounting the victories of the hunt!

Only the seamen and the priests went about unconcerned, untroubled, tranquil, the one knowing his sea and the other his God. There was something reassuring in the serenity of the black cassocks as they went hither and thither, offering physical and spiritual assistance. They inspired the timid and the fearful, many of whom still believed that the world had its falling-off place. And seasickness overcame many.

With some incertitude the Vicomte d'Halluys watched the Jesuits. After all, he mused, it was something to be a priest, if only to possess this calm. He himself had no liking for this voyage, since the woman he loved was on the way to Spain. Whenever Brother Jacques passed under the ship's lanterns, the vicomte stared keenly. What was there in this handsome priest that stirred his antagonism? For the present there seemed to be no solution. Eh, well, all this was a strange whim of fate. Fortune had as many faces as Notre Dame has gargoyles. To bring the Comte d'Hérouville, himself, and the Chevalier du Cévennes together on a voyage of hazard!