And so for the present it was settled. Monsieur Mornay sought rest vainly, and crept upon deck at the first flashing of the sun upon the horizon. The Sally, dressed in a full suit of cloths upon both her masts, went courtesying upon her course with a fine show of white about her bows and under her counter. The brig was not inaptly named, for there was an impudence in the rake of her masts and in the way she wore her canvas which belied her reputation for a sober and honest-dealing merchantman. There was a suggestion of archness, too, in the way her slender stem curved away from the caresses of the leaping foam which danced rosy and warm with the dawn to give her greeting, and a touch of gallantry in the tosses and swayings of her prow and head as they nodded up and down, the very soul of careless coquetry. But Something of the exhilaration of the old life came upon Monsieur Mornay as he sent a seaman-like eye aloft at the straining canvases. The Sally was leaving the narrows and making for the broad reaches where the Channel grew into the wide ocean. Far away over his larboard quarter, growing ever dimmer in the eastern mist of the morning, was the coast of France, the land where he was born, where he had suffered and struggled to win the good From these reflections he was surprised by the sound of a voice at his elbow. There, beside him, stood a fat man munching at a sea-biscuit. His face, in consonance with the body, was round and flabby, but there the consistency ended, for in color it was gray, like a piece of mildewed sail-cloth. The distinguishing feature of his person was his nose, which, round and inflamed, shone like a beacon in the middle of his pallid physiognomy. His voice was lost in the immensity of his frame, for when he spoke it seemed to come from a long distance, as though choked in the utterance by the layers of flesh which hung from his chin and throat. The pucker which did duty for a frown upon his brow became a fat knot. “You vhos a passenger upon dis schip, hey?” he said, with well-considered sarcasm. “You But still Mornay looked at him, smiling. He was in a reckless mood, and welcomed any opportunity that took him out of himself. “Vell,” the Dutchman asked, his little, thin voice grown shrill with rising temper, “vy don’t you moofe? Vy you standt looking at me?” And, rushing suddenly forward, he aimed a blow of his heavy boot at Mornay, which, had it reached its destination, must have wrought a grave injury to the Frenchman. So great an impetus had it that, not finding the expected resistance, the foot flew high in the air. But the Frenchman was not there. He had stepped quickly aside, and, deftly catching the heel of But the captain, no matter how deep in drink, was a person with the shrewdest sense of his importance upon a ship of his own. He was jealous of all blows not aimed by his own sturdy fist, and it was his fancy that none should strike any but himself. It was therefore with a sense of his outraged office that he rushed between the two men, and with his bulky body and long arms averted the windmill attack of the burly Dutchman. “Mutiny, by ——, and not hout of soundings! Stand fast, Gratz! Stand fast, I say! Hi’ll do the billy-coddling on this ship. Stand, I say! Now, what is it?” Gratz stepped forward a pace and spat. “Yaw! I gif her orders. And she stumpled me packwards upon de deck.” “What!” roared the captain. “Soho! we’ll see!” and he seized a pin from the rail. The situation was threatening. Winch was already striding forward, and his upraised pin seemed about to descend upon the luckless Mornay when Jacquard interposed a long, bony arm. “Fair play, Billee Winch! You’ll slaughter the man!” “Out of the way!” “Fair play, I say, Billee Winch!” Jacquard stood his ground and only gripped the captain the tighter. “Fair play, Billee Winch, I tell you! Gratz fell over his own feet. I saw it. Listen to me.” The captain paused a moment. The lie had distracted him, and in that pause Jacquard saw safety. The captain looked blearily at Mornay, who had made no move to defend himself, but stood with little sign of discomposure, awaiting the outcome of the difficulty. “If Monsieur le Capitaine will but allow me—” “By Cott,” broke in Gratz, “you shall not!” and made a wild effort to strike Mornay again. But this time Jacquard caught him and twisted him safely out of the way. “By the Devil’s Pot!” roared Winch, “am I in command, or am I not?” He raised his weapon this time towards Gratz, who cowered away as though he feared the blow would fall. “If Monsieur le Capitaine will allow me,” began Mornay again, politely, “I would take it as a pleasure—” “You!” sneered the captain, with a kind of laugh. “You! Why, Frenchman, Yan Gratz will make three of ye. He’ll eat ye skin an’ bones.” Jacquard smiled a little. “VoilÀ! Billee Winch,” he cried, “the way out of your difficulty: a little circle upon the deck, a falchion or a half-pike—fair play for all, and—” “Yaw! yaw! Fair play! fair play!” yelled the crew, rejoicing at the prospect of the sport. Billy Winch blinked a bleared and bloodshot “If ye’ll have it that way,” he grinned, “ye’ll be stuck like a sheep. But ’twill save me trouble. So fight away, my bully, an’ be dammed to ye!” Immediately a ring was formed, into which the combatants were speedily pushed. Gratz laughed in his shrillest choked falsetto, while he threw off his coat and leered at the Frenchman. The huge bulk of the man was the more apparent when his coat had been removed, for in spite of his girth and fat his limbs were set most sturdily in his body, and though the muscles of his arms moved slothfully beneath the skin, it was easily to be seen that this was a most formidable antagonist. That he himself considered his task a rare sport, which would still further enhance his reputation among the crew, was easily to be perceived in the way he looked at Monsieur Mornay. And in this opinion he was not alone, for even Cornbury, who had pressed closely to the Frenchman’s side, wore a look which showed how deep was his concern That superiority in men which in spite of every adverse circumstance will not be denied shone so conspicuously in the face and figure of the Frenchman that the row of hairy faces about him looked in wonder. There was a rough jest or two, for Yan Gratz had won his way from the bowsprit aft by buffets and blows, and had waxed fat in the operation. To them he was the very living embodiment of a fighting devil of The Frenchman, with a quiet deliberation, rolled the sleeves of his shirt above his elbows and took the half-pike that was thrust into his hands. It has been said that the Chevalier Mornay was not above the medium height, nor, with the exception of an arm which might have seemed a little too long to be in perfect proportion, gave in his appearance any striking evidence of especial physical prowess. He had been known in London for a graceful and ready sword, and in his few encounters he had never received so much as a scratch. But even Gratz was stricken with wonderment at the appearance of the forearm, which his wide sleeves had so effectually concealed. The arm of the chevalier, as he brought his pike into a posture of defense, showed a more remarkable degree of development than he had ever seen before in any man—Frenchman or Englishman—of his stature. The legs, strong and straight as they The cloud that had hung upon Cornbury’s face at the beginning of the combat had disappeared, and with a childish delight in the clash of arms he watched his friend slowly but surely steal away the offensive power of the Dutchman, whose look of confidence had been replaced by a lightness of eye and a quivering of the forehead and lips which denoted the gravest quandary of uncertainty. Monsieur Mornay was breathing rapidly, but his brows were as level, his eye as clear, his hand as steady as when he had begun. In a few moments the struggle which had promised such dire results became a farce. The Frenchman had suddenly assumed the offensive, and, beating down the guard of the other, began pricking him gently, with rare skill and discrimination, in different conspicuous parts of his anatomy. The chevalier’s weapon was sharp, and the skin of Yan Gratz was tender, Yan Gratz struggled on, his tired arms vainly striving against the Frenchman’s assaults. Once, when the Dutchman had been disarmed, Monsieur Mornay generously allowed him to regain his weapon, choosing the advantage of Yan Gratz’s posture, however, to complete the circle of his punctures by a prick in the seat of his honor, which quickly straightened him again. When the game had gone far enough, and the pallid pasty face of Yan Gratz was so suffused that it looked little less red than his nose or the blood upon his shirt, and his gasps for breath “Mynheer,” he said, “it was a mistake to have begun. I am the best half-pikeman in France.” The Dutchman blinked at him with his small pig-eyes, out of which the bitterness of his humiliation flashed and sparkled in a wild and vengeful light. The Frenchman turned his back to pass beyond the circle of grinning men who had not scrupled to hide their delight and admiration at his prowess in vanquishing their bully. But Gratz, whose exhaustion even could not avail to curb his fury, put all the small store of his remaining energy into a savage rush, which he directed full at the back of the retiring Frenchman. A cry arose, and Mornay would have been transfixed had not Cornbury intercepted the cowardly thrust by a nimble foot, over which the Dutchman stumbled and fell sprawling into the scuppers. The point of his “By the ’Oly Rood! A craven stroke!” cried the captain, fetching the Dutchman a resounding kick, which brought forth a feeble groan. “Get up!” he roared. “Get up an’ go forward. Hods-niggars! we want none but honest blows among shipmates.” Yan Gratz struggled to his feet and stumbled heavily down into the deck-house. Jacquard was grinning from ear to ear. If he had planned the combat himself, the result could not have been more to his liking. The favor of Billy Winch was no small thing to win, and Monsieur Mornay had chosen the nearest road to his heart. The captain, after hurling a parting curse at the Dutchman’s figure, slouched over to Mornay. “Zounds! but ye ’ave a ’and for the pike, my bully. ’Ave ye aught o’ seamanship? If Mornay laughed. “I’ve had the deck of a taller ship than Saucy Sally.” Billy Winch grasped Mornay by the hand right heartily. “Come, what d’ye say? Me an’ Jacky Jacquard an’ you. We three aft. We’ve need o’ ye. Zounds! but ye’ve the useful thrust an’ parry.” Then he roared with laughter. “An’ I’m mistaken if ye’re not as ’andy a liar as a pikeman. I’ve seen the play of the best in the French Marine, and Captain RenÉ Mornay would have a word to say with ye as to who’s the best half-pikeman in France.” Jacquard held his sides to better contain himself; his mouth opened widely and his little eyes were quite closed with the excess of his delight. Mornay and Cornbury smiled a little, and the Frenchman said, with composure: “Perhaps. Monsieur le Capitaine Mornay and I are not strangers. But he holds his reputation Here Jacquard could no longer contain himself. “Can you not see farther than the end of your bowsprit, Billee Winch?” he cried; and while the captain wondered, “Can you not see, stupid fish?—’tis Bras-de-Fer himself!” Blackbeard fell back a step or two in his amazement, while a murmur swept over the crew, who, loath to leave the scene, had remained interested listeners to the colloquy. “What! RenÉ the Iron Arm aboard the Sally?” said the captain, approaching the Frenchman again. “Soho! Though, by St. Paul’s—ye’re not unlike— An’ with a wig an’ doublet— ’Pon my soul, Jacky Jacquard, but I believe ’tis the truth. Say, is it so, master?” “I am RenÉ Mornay,” said the Frenchman. “Soho!” he roared in delight. “Then Sally shall give ye meat and drink and make a bed to ye. An’ when ye will she’ll set ye ashore in France. Or, if ye care for the clashin’ of arms, It was thus that Monsieur Mornay sailed forth for the Spanish Main. |