The Last Hope Read online

  CHAPTER XIV

  THE LIFTED VEIL

  "Where is the boatman?" asked Marie, as she followed Juliette andBarebone along the deserted jetty. A light burnt dimly at the end of itand one or two boats must have been moored near at hand; for the watercould be heard lapping under their bows, a secretive, whispering soundfull of mystery.

  "I am the boatman," replied Loo, over his shoulder. "Are you afraid?"

  "What is the good of being afraid?" asked this woman of the world,stopping at the head of the steps and peering down into the darkness intowhich he had descended. "What is the good of being afraid when one is oldand married? I was afraid enough when I was a girl, and pretty andcoquette like Mademoiselle, here. I was afraid enough then, and it wasworth my while--_allez_!"

  Barebone made no answer to this dark suggestion of a sprightly past. Thepresent darkness and the coming storm commanded his full attention. Inthe breathless silence, Juliette and Marie--and behind them, Jean,panting beneath the luggage balanced on his shoulder--could hear the wetrope slipping through his fingers and, presently, the bump of the heavyboat against the timber of the steps.

  This was followed by the gurgle of a rope through a well-greased sheaveand the square lug, which had been the joy of little Sep Marvin atFarlingford, crept up to the truck of the stubby mast.

  "There is no wind for that," remarked Marie, pessimistically.

  "There will be to spare in a few minutes," answered Barebone, and themonosyllabic Jean gave an acquiescent grunt.

  "Luggage first," said Barebone, lapsing into the curtness of the sea."Come along. Let us make haste."

  They stumbled on board as best they could, and were guided to a safeplace amidships by Loo, who had thrown a spare sail on the bottom of theboat.

  "As low as you can," he said. "Crouch down. Cover yourselves with this.Right over your heads."

  "But why?" grumbled Marie.

  "Listen," was all the answer he gave her. And as he spoke, the stormrushed upon them like a train, with the roar and whirl of a locomotive.

  Loo jumped aft to the tiller. In the rush of the hail, they heard himgive a sharp order to Jean, who must have had some knowledge of the sea,for he obeyed at once, and the boat, set free, lurched forward with aflap of her sail, which was like the report of a cannon. For a moment,all seemed confusion and flapping chaos, then came a sense of tenseness,and the boat heeled over with a swish, which added a hundred-weight ofsolid water to the beating of the hail on the spare sail, beneath whichthe women crouched.

  "What? Did you speak?" shouted Loo, putting his face close to the canvas.

  "It is only Marie calling on the saints," was the answer, in Juliette'slaughing voice.

  In a few minutes it was over; and, even at the back of the winds, couldbe heard the retreat of the hail as it crashed onward toward the valleysof which every slope is a named vineyard, to beat down in a few wildmoments the result of careful toil and far-sighted expenditure; to wipeout that which is unique, which no man can replace--the vintage of ayear.

  When the hail ceased beating on it, Juliette pushed back the soakedcanvas, which had covered them like a roof, and lifted her face to thecooler air. The boat was rushing through the water, and close toJuliette's cheek, just above the gunwale, rose a curved wave, green andwhite, and all shimmering with phosphorescence, which seemed to hoverlike a hawk above its prey.

  The aftermath of the storm was flying overhead in riven ribbons of cloud,through which the stars were already peeping. To the westward the sky wasclear, and against the last faint glow of the departed sun the lightningran hither and thither, skipping and leaping, without sound orcessation, like fairies dancing.

  Immediately overhead, the sail creaked and tugged at its earings, whilethe wind sang its high clear song round mast and halliards.

  Juliette turned to look at Barebone. He was standing, ankle deep, inwater, leaning backward to windward, in order to give the boat everypound of weight he could. The lambent summer-lightning on the westernhorizon illuminated his face fitfully. In that moment Juliette saw whatis given to few to see and realise--though sailors, perforce, lie down tosleep knowing it every night--that under Heaven her life was wholly andsolely in the two hands of a fellow-being. She knew it, and saw thatBarebone knew it, though he never glanced at her. She saw the whites ofhis eyes gleaming as he looked up, from moment to moment, to the head ofthe sail and stooped again to peer under the foot of it into the darknessahead. He braced himself, with one foot against the thwart, to haul in afew inches of sheet, to which the clumsy boat answered immediately. Mariewas praying aloud now, and when she opened her eyes the sight of thetossing figure in the stern of the boat suddenly turned her terror intoanger.

  "Ah!" she cried, "that Jean is a fool. And he, who pretends to have beena fisherman when he was young--to let us come to our deaths like this!"

  She lifted her head, and ducked it again, as a sea jumped up under thebow and rattled into the boat.

  "I see no ship," she cried. "Let us go back, if we can. Name of God!--weshall be drowned! I see no ship, I tell you!"

  "But I do," answered Barebone, shaking the water from his face, for hehad no hand to spare. "But I do, which is more important. And you are noteven wet!"

  And he laughed as he brought the boat up into the wind for a few seconds,to meet a wild gust. Juliette turned in surprise at the sound of hisvoice. In the safe and gentle seclusion of the convent-school no one hadthought to teach her that death may be faced with equanimity by othersthan the ordained of the Church, and that in the storm and stress of lifemen laugh in strange places and at odd times.

  Loo was only thinking of his boat and watching the sky for the last ofthe storm--that smack, as it were, in the face--with which the Atlanticends those black squalls that she sends us, not without thunder and thecurtailed lightning of northern seas. He was planning and shaping hiscourse; for the watchers on board "The Last Hope" had already seen him,as he could ascertain by a second light, which suddenly appeared, swunglow, casting a gleam across the surf-strewn water, to show him where theladder hung overside.

  "Tell Monsieur de Gemosac that I have Mademoiselle and her maid here inthe boat," Barebone called out to Captain Clubbe, whose large face loomedabove the lantern he was holding overside, as he made fast the rope thathad been thrown across his boat and lowered the dripping sail. The waterwas smooth enough under the lee of "The Last Hope," which, being deeplyladen, lay motionless at her anchor, with the stream rustling past hercables.

  "Stand up, mademoiselle," said Barebone, himself balanced on theafter-thwart. "Hold on to me, thus, and when I let you go, let yourselfgo."

  There was no time to protest or to ask questions. And Juliette feltherself passed on from one pair of strong arms to another, until she wasstanding on the deck under the humming rigging, surrounded by men whoseemed huge in their gleaming oil-skins.

  "This way, mademoiselle," said one, who was even larger than the others,in English, of which she understood enough to catch his meaning. "I willtake you to your father. Show a light this way, one of you."

  His fingers closed round her arm, and he led her, unconscious of astrength that almost lifted her from her feet, toward an open door, wherea lamp burnt dimly within. It smelt abominably of an untrimmed wick,Juliette thought, and the next minute she was kissing her father, who layfull length on a locker in the little cabin.

  She asked him a hundred questions, and waited for few of the answers.Indeed, she supplied most of them herself; for she was very quick andgay.

  "I see," she cried, "that your foot has been tied up by a sailor. He hastried to mend it as if it were a broken spar. I suppose that was theCaptain who brought me to you, and then ran away again, as soon as hecould. Yes; I have Marie with me. She is telling them to be careful withthe luggage. I can hear her. I am so glad we had a case of fever at theschool. It was a lay sister, a stupid woman. But how lucky that I shouldbe at home just when you wanted me!"

  She stood upright again, after deftly loosening t
he bandage round herfather's ankle, and looked at him and laughed.

  "Poor, dear old papa," she said. "One sees that you want some one to takecare of you. And this cabin--oh! _mon Dieu_! how bare and uncomfortable!I suppose men have to go to sea alone because they can persuade no womanto go with them."

  She pounced upon her father again, and arranged afresh the cushionsbehind his back, with a little air of patronage and protection. Her backwas turned toward the door, when some one came in, but she heard theapproaching steps and looked quickly round the cabin walls.

  "Heavens!" she exclaimed, in a gay whisper. "No looking-glass! One seesthat it is only men who live here."

  And she turned, with smiling eyes and a hand upraised to her disorderedhair, to note the new-comer. It was Dormer Colville, who laid aside hiswaterproof as he came and greeted her as an old friend. He had, indeed,known her since her early childhood, and had always succeeded in keepingpace with her, even in the rapid changes of her last year at school.

  "Here is an adventure," he said, shaking hands. "But I can see that youhave taken no harm, and have not even been afraid. For us, it is apleasant surprise."

  He glanced at her with a smiling approbation, not without a delicatesuggestion of admiration, such as he might well permit himself, and shemight now even consider her due. He was only keeping pace.

  "I stayed behind to initiate your maid, who is, of course, unused to aship, and the steward speaks but little French. But now they arearranging your cabin together."

  "How delightful!" cried Juliette. "I have never been on a ship before,you know. And it is all so strange and so nice. All those big men, likewet ghosts, who said nothing! I think they are more interesting thanwomen; perhaps it is because they talk less."

  "Perhaps it is," admitted Colville, with a sudden gravity, similar tothat with which she had made the suggestion.

  "You should hear the Sisters talk--when they are allowed," she said,confidentially.

  "And whisper when they are not. I can imagine it," laughed Colville. "Butnow you have left all that behind, and have come out into the world--ofmen, one may say. And you have begun at once with an adventure."

  "Yes! And we are going to Bordeaux, papa and I, until his foot is wellagain. Of course, I was in despair when I was first told of it, but nowthat I see him I am no longer anxious. And your messenger assured me thatit was not serious."

  She paused to look round the cabin, to make sure that they were alone.

  "How strange he is!" she said to both her hearers, in confidence, lookingfrom one to the other with a quick, bird-like turn of the head and brighteyes. "I have never seen any one like him."

  "No?" said Dormer Colville, encouragingly.

  "He said he was an Englishman; but, of course, he is not. He is, French,and has not the manner of a _bourgeoie_ or a sailor. He has the manner ofan aristocrat--one would say a Royalist--like Albert de Chantonnay, onlya thousand times better."

  "Yes," said Colville, glancing at Monsieur de Gemosac.

  "More interesting, and so quick and amusing. He spoke of a heritage inFrance, and yet he said he was an Englishman. I hope he will secure hisheritage."

  "Yes," murmured Colville, still looking at Monsieur de Gemosac.

  "And then, when we were in the boat," continued Juliette, still inconfidence to them both, "he changed quite suddenly. He was short andsharp. He ordered us to do this and that; and one did it, somehow,without question. Even Marie obeyed him without hesitating, althoughshe was half mad with fear. We were in danger. I knew that. Any one musthave known it. And yet I was not afraid; I wonder why? And he--helaughed--that was all. _Mon Dieu!_ he was brave. I never knew that anyone could be so brave!"

  She broke off suddenly, with her finger to her lips; for some one hadopened the cabin door. Captain Clubbe came in, filling the whole cabinwith his bulk, and on his heels followed Loo Barebone, his face and hairstill wet and dripping.

  "Mademoiselle was wondering," said Dormer Colville, who, it seemed, wasquick to step into that silence which the object of a conversation is aptto cause--"Mademoiselle was wondering how it was that you escapedshipwreck in the storm."

  "Ah! because one has a star. Even a poor sailor may have a star,mademoiselle. As well as the Prince Napoleon, who boasts that he has oneof the first magnitude, I understand."

  "You are not a poor sailor, monsieur," said Juliette.

  "Then who am I?" he asked, with a gay laugh, spreading out his hands andstanding before them, beneath the swinging lamp.

  The Marquis de Gemosac raised himself on one elbow.

  "I will tell you who you are," he said, in a low, quick voice, pointingone hand at Loo. "I will tell you." And his voice rose.

  "You are the grandson of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. You are the LastHope of the French. That is your heritage. Juliette! this is the King ofFrance!"

  Juliette turned and looked at him, with all the colour gone from herface. Then, instinctively, she dropped on one knee, and before he hadunderstood, or could stop her, had raised his hand to her lips.