Marianne and the Rebels

As a result, they had gone aboard at nightfall, just as Venice was lighting her lamps and making ready for her nocturnal revelry.

Jason Beaufort was waiting at the head of the ship's gangway to welcome his passengers aboard. The bow he gave them was sufficiently formal to send a chill through Marianne's heart but at the same time acted as a spur to her anger, hardening her determination to fight back. Seeing that this was how he wanted it, she tilted her pretty nose insolently and considered him with an ironic concern.

'Surely, Captain, we are a little later than arranged? Or am I mistaken?'

'You are perfectly correct, madam.' Jason's voice was clipped but his evident annoyance did not go to the length of 'Serene Highnessing' her. 'I was obliged to delay our departure for commercial reasons of my own. I must ask you to excuse me, but you must remember, at the same time, that this brig is not a ship of war. If you wanted punctuality, you would have done better to apply to your Admiral Ganteaume for a frigate.'

'Not a ship of war? Yet I see cannon there. At least twenty of them, surely? Do you employ them going after whales?' Marianne asked sweetly.

From the set of his jaw and the whitening of his knuckles, this little exchange seemed to be putting a severe strain on the captain's nerves but his politeness did not falter, in spite of his very evident desire to send his passenger to the right about.

'You may not be aware, madam, that, as matters stand today, even the smallest merchant vessel must have some means of defence.'

But the lady appeared determined to push him to his limit.

'There is a great deal I am not aware of, Captain, but if this is a merchant ship, then I'll be hanged! Even a blind man could see she's built for speed, not for lumbering about the sea with a hold full of merchandise.'

'She is a privateer, certainly,' Jason said fiercely, 'but a neutral vessel. And if a neutral privateer wants to get a living these days, with your confounded Emperor's damned blockade, then there's nothing for it but trade! And now, if you have no more questions, allow me to show you to your cabin.'

Without waiting for a reply, he led the way across the scrubbed decks, their brasswork gleaming in the lantern light, and in his haste almost knocked over a thin man of middle height, dressed in black, who was coming round the corner of the deck house.

'Oh, is that you, John? I didn't see you there,' he apologized with a smile which did not quite reach his eyes. 'Come and be introduced. Princess, this is Doctor Leighton, our surgeon. Princess Corrado Sant'Anna,' he added, laying a slight, deliberate stress on the first name.

'You have a medical man on board?' Marianne exclaimed in genuine surprise. 'You take good care of your men, Captain. I congratulate you. But how is it that you said nothing of there being a follower of Aesculapius on board?'

'Because there wasn't. But the absence of a surgeon is a thing I have long regretted. So much so that I engaged the services of my friend Leighton some months ago.'

Friend? Marianne studied the doctor's pale face to which the lantern light had imparted a yellowish tinge. He had light, deeply-sunken eyes of no very clearly defined colour, calculating eyes which seemed to be weighing her up in some cold scale of his own.

Marianne thought with a little shudder that Lazarus might have looked like that when he rose from the dead. He said nothing but merely bowed, unsmiling, and Marianne had the sudden, instinctive feeling that not only did the man not like her, he disliked everything about her very presence on the ship. She made up her mind that she had better avoid Dr Leighton in future as far as possible. She had no wish to encounter that death's head. It remained to see, however, what degree of friendship really existed between Jason and this sinister little man.

While Jolival went off to take up his quarters in the poop and Gracchus settled in with the crew forward, Marianne took up residence with Agathe in the deck house.

On first entering her cabin, she had been conscious of a little pang: the room had so obviously been refurbished for a woman's occupation. The waxed mahogany floor was covered with a fine Persian rug; there was a toilet table adorned with a number of pretty knicknacks, and sea-green damask was used for the curtains over the portholes and the coverings on the soft feather bed. It all spoke so clearly of the tender care of a man in love that Marianne was touched. This room had been made ready for her, so that she should feel at home there, to be a frame for her happiness. Bravely she put the thought aside, although promising herself to thank the master of the vessel for his courtesy next day, for neither Marianne nor her maid left the cabin again that evening. They spent the time unpacking their trunks and settling themselves in, which was by no means the work of a moment.

Agathe, for her part, took possession of a tiny cabin next-door to that of her mistress. It contained a bunk, a toilet table and a porthole, but its new owner was more than a little suspicious of it, being unashamedly terrified of the sea.

Marianne lay in bed and stretched, yawned and finally sat up, wrinkling her nose. The inside of the ship had a strange smell, faint, it was true, but in some indefinable way disagreeable. She had noticed it when she came aboard and it had surprised her a little because the slight aroma, reminiscent of something ancient and unclean, seemed out of keeping with the holystoned appearance of the ship.

She glanced at the clock set in the panelling, saw that it was ten o'clock, and considered getting up. Not that she particularly wanted to but she did feel very hungry, for she had eaten nothing before coming aboard the night before.

She was still hesitating when the door opened to admit first a laden tray and then the person of Agathe, as prim and starched as if they were at home in Paris, followed in turn by Jolival in a dressing-gown. He appeared in excellent spirits.

'I came to see how you had passed the night,' he said cheerfully, 'and how you were settling in. But I can see you lack nothing. Well, I never! Damasks and carpets! Our captain has looked after you very nicely.'

'Are you not comfortable, Arcadius?'

'Oh, I'm well enough. Much like himself, which is to say plain but wholesome. And the cleanliness of the ship is beyond praise.'

'It's clean, I agree, but there's a funny smell… I can't precisely pin it down. Don't you notice it? Or haven't you got it where you are?'

'Oh, yes. I've noticed it,' Jolival said, seating himself on the foot of Marianne's bunk and helping himself to a piece of bread and butter and some cakes from the tray. 'I noticed it, although it is very faint… but I couldn't believe it.'

'Not believe it? Why ever not?'

'Because…'

Jolival paused to finish his bread and butter before he went on with unexpected seriousness:

'Because I have smelled something like it once before in my life, only much, much stronger, a truly unbelievable stench. It was at Nantes, in the harbour there… near a slave ship. The wind was blowing from the wrong direction.'

Marianne's hand remained poised, in the act of pouring herself a cup of coffee. She stared incredulously at her friend.

'It was the same smell? You are quite sure?'

'It's not a smell you forget if you've once met it. I tell you, it haunted me all night.'

Marianne set down the coffee-pot with a hand that shook suddenly, so that a large brown stain spread over the tray-cloth.

'You aren't suggesting Jason is engaged in that frightful trade?'

'No because then the smell would be much stronger, in spite of any amount of scrubbing and fumigating. But it makes me wonder if he hasn't had something to do with that kind of – of transport at some time or other.'

'It's quite impossible!' Marianne cried vehemently. Don't forget, Arcadius, that six months ago the Witch was lying in Morlaix roads, where Surcouf took her and sailed her to our rendezvous. If Jason had been engaged in that foul trade, he would have smelled the smell, and I can't think he would have run the risks he did for the master of that sort of vessel. Anyway, when Jason does carry contraband, let me remind you, it's wine not human beings!'

She was trembling with indignation, so that when she put down her cup it rattled nervously in the saucer. Jolival smiled soothingly.

'No need to get so excited. In a minute you'll be accusing me of calling our friend a dirty slaver! I said