Only a few paces away, the treacherous steersman and the sailor who had boasted of the Parisian’s power were fraternizing with the crew of the Othello, and pointing out those among their own number, who, in their opinion, were worthy to join the crew of the privateer. Then the boys tied the rest together by the feet in spite of frightful oaths. It was soon over; the eight gunners seized the doomed men and flung them overboard without more ado, watching the different ways in which the drowning victims met their death, their contortions, their last agony, with a sort of malignant curiosity, but with no sign of amusement, surprise, or pity. For them it was an ordinary event to which seemingly they were quite accustomed. The older men looked instead with grim, set smiles at the casks of piastres about the main mast.
The General and Captain Gomez, left seated on a bale of goods, consulted each other with well-nigh hopeless looks; they were, in a sense, the sole survivors of the Saint-Ferdinand, for the seven men pointed out by the spies were transformed amid rejoicings into Peruvians.
“What atrocious villains!” the General cried. Loyal and generous indignation silenced prudence and pain on his own account.
“They do it because they must,” Gomez answered coolly. “If you came across one of those fellows, you would run him through the body, would you not?”
The lieutenant now came up to the Spaniard.
“Captain,” said he, “the Parisian has heard of you. He says that you are the only man who really knows the passages of the Antilles and the Brazilian coast. Will you—”
The captain cut him short with a scornful exclamation.
“I shall die like a sailor,” he said, “and a loyal Spaniard and a Christian. Do you hear?”
“Heave him overboard!” shouted the lieutenant, and a couple of gunners seized on Gomez.
“You cowards!” roared the General, seizing hold of the men.
“Don’t get too excited, old boy,” said the lieutenant. “If your red ribbon has made some impression upon our captain, I myself do not care a rap for it.—You and I will have our little bit of talk together directly.”
A smothered sound, with no accompanying cry, told the General that the gallant captain had died “like a sailor,” as he had said.
“My money or death!” cried the Marquis, in a fit of rage terrible to see.
“Ah! now you talk sensibly!” sneered the lieutenant. “That is the way to get something out of us—”
Two of the men came up at a sign and hastened to bind the Frenchmen’s feet, but with unlooked-for boldness he snatched the lieutenant’s cutlass and laid about him like a cavalry officer who knows his business.
“Brigands that you are! You shall not chuck one of Napoleon’s troopers over a ship’s side like an oyster!”
At the sound of pistol shots fired point blank at the Frenchman, “the Parisian” looked round from his occupation of superintending the transfer of the rigging from the Saint-Ferdinand. He came up behind the brave General, seized him, dragged him to the side, and was about to fling him over with no more concern than if the man had been a broken spar. They were at the very edge when the General looked into the tawny eyes of the man who had stolen his daughter. The recognition was mutual.
The captain of the privateer, his arm still upraised, suddenly swung it in the contrary direction as if his victim was but a feather weight, and set him down at the foot of the main mast. A murmur rose on the upper deck, but the captain glanced round, and there was a sudden silence.
“This is Hélène’s father,” said the captain in a clear, firm voice. “Woe to anyone who meddles with him!”
A hurrah of joy went up at the words, a shout rising to the sky like a prayer of the church; a cry like the first high notes of the Te Deum. The lads swung aloft in the rigging, the men below flung up their caps, the gunners pounded away on the deck, there was a general thrill of excitement, an outburst of oaths, yells, and shrill cries in voluble chorus. The men cheered like fanatics, the General’s misgivings deepened, and he grew uneasy; it seemed to him that there was some horrible mystery in such wild transports.
“My daughter!” he cried, as soon as he could speak. “Where is my daughter?”
For all answer, the captain of the privateer gave him a searching glance, one of those glances which throw the bravest man into a confusion which no theory can explain. The General was mute, not a little to the satisfaction of the crew; it pleased them to see their leader exercise the strange power which he possessed over all with whom he came in contact. Then the captain led the way down a staircase and flung open the door of a cabin.
“There she is,” he said, and disappeared, leaving the General in a stupor of bewilderment at the scene before his eyes.
Hélène cried out at the sight of him, and sprang up from the sofa on which she was lying when the door flew open. So changed was she that none but a father’s eyes could have recognized her. The sun of the tropics had brought warmer tones into the once pale face, and something of Oriental charm with that wonderful coloring; there was a certain grandeur about her, a majestic firmness, a profound sentiment which impresses itself upon the coarsest nature. Her long, thick hair, falling in large curls about her queenly throat, gave an added idea of power to the proud face. The consciousness of that power shone out from every movement, every line of Hélène’s form. The rose-tinted nostrils were dilated slightly with the joy of triumph; the serene happiness of her life had left its plain tokens in the full development of her beauty. A certain indefinable virginal grace met in her with the pride
