CHAPTER XIX—NOW FOR THE TRAITOR LANDAIS
While the Dutch and Sir Joseph are debating as to whether Commodore Paul Jones is a rebel, a pirate or a disagreeable guest, that gentleman discovers Landais, with the Alliance, tucked away in a corner of the Texel. Headwinds, and an overplus of English on the high seas, have forced the miscreant into the Helder, and he finds himself as much cooped up as does Commodore Paul Jones. Indeed the miserable Landais is in a far more serious predicament; for, aside from the English outside, waiting at the Helder’s mouth like terriers at a rat-hole, the formidable Paul Jones is inside with him, and Landais fears the latter as no Frenchman ever feared the English.
The alarms of Landais are well grounded; Commodore Paul Jones opens negotiations at once. He sends word to Landais to give command of the Alliance to Lieutenant Degge, and at once leave the ship. The word is supplemented by the assurance that at the end of twenty-four hours he, Commodore Paul Jones, shall come aboard the Alliance. Should he then find Landais, he will be put in irons.
“Why not arrest the scoundrel at once?” pleads Lieutenant Dale.
“He is a Frenchman, Dick,” returns Commodore Paul Jones, “and I fear to worry Doctor Franklin.” Then, assuming a look of cunning, vast and deep: “Wait until my diplomacy unfolds itself. You will find that I have the wisdom of the serpent.”
Lieutenant Dale grunts disgustedly. He cares nothing for the wisdom of the serpent, less for any spun-glass diplomacy. What he wants is the Landais blood directly; and says as much.
“Remember,” he goes on, “this murderer Landais killed Caswell with that last felon broadside!”
“I shall forget nothing,” returns Commodore Paul Jones.
At the end of twenty-four hours, Commodore Paul Jones boards the Alliance. He finds Lieutenant Degge in command; the craven Landais has slipped ashore with all his belongings. Commodore Paul Jones is the last man he cares to face. The latter tells Lieutenant Degge to clap the irons on Landais, should he return, and signal the Serapis.
“You must understand, sir,” responds Lieutenant Degge, “that my crew is honeycombed with mutiny. Captain Landais brought about a conspiracy; two-thirds of the ship’s company are in it.”
“Make me out a list of the leaders, and muster them aft.”
Lieutenant Degge gives Commodore Paul Jones the names of twenty. These are called aft—lowering and sullen. Commodore Paul Jones orders them transferred to the Serapis.
“I’ll send you an even number to take their places,” he says to Lieutenant Degge. “Meanwhile, my old sea-wolves will lick them into patriotic shape. Should they fail, you may find some half dozen of the ringleaders at least, dangling from my yardarms.”
The caitiff Landais, driven from his ship, fumes and blusters. He tries to see the French Ambassador, and is refused. Then he sends a challenge to Commodore Paul Jones.
Lieutenant Dale finds the latter mariner in his cabin, blandly triumphant.
“There,” he cries, tossing the Landais challenge over to Lieutenant Dale—“there, Dick, read that! You will then see what I meant by telling you to wait until my diplomacy had had time to unfold.”
“But you don’t mean to fight the creature?” and Lieutenant Dale glances up from his reading, horrified.
“Fight him; and kill him, sir! Why not? Do you suppose for a moment that poor Caswell is to go unavenged?”
“But think what you do! You can’t fight this fellow! The man is to be court-martialed.”
“Ah, yes, Dick! But observe; I’ve as yet refrained from making formal charges against him. So far as the books go, he rates as well as you or I.”
Commodore Paul Jones gets this off with inexpressible slyness, as one who discloses the very heart of his cunning.
“But my dear Commodore,” returns Lieutenant Dale, desperately, “the thing is impossible! This Landais is not a gentleman! He is the commonest of blacklegs.”
“Dick! Dick!” remonstrates Commodore Paul Jones; “you do him an injustice! Technically at least you wrong him. You should summon up more fairness. Now, here is how I look at it:” Commodore Paul Jones grows highly judgmatical. “I follow the law, which says that a man is supposed to be innocent until he’s shown to be guilty. Influenced by this, which to my mind breathes the very spirit of justice, I make it an unbreakable rule, in matters of the duello, to regard every man as a gentleman unless the contrary has been explicitly demonstrated. No, Dick”—this solemnly—“Landais, whatever you or I may privately think, has still his rights. I shall fight him, Dick.”
Commodore Paul Jones sends Lieutenant May-rant ashore, as his representative, to accept the Landais challenge.
“I should have sent you, Dick,” he explains to Lieutenant Dale, who inclines to the cloudy because he had been slighted; “but, to tell the truth, I couldn’t trust you. Yes; you’d have cut in between us, and fought him in my stead. And the fact is, if you must have it, I’ve set my heart on killing the rogue myself.”
Lieutenant Mayrant finds Landais, vaporing and blustering.
“Pistols; ten paces,” says Lieutenant May-rant. “Time and place you may settle for yourself.”
“Pistols!” exclaims Landais, his face a muddy gray. Pistols and Paul Jones mean death. With a gesture, as though dismissing an unpleasant thought, he cries: “I shall not fight with pistols! They are not recognized in Prance as the weapons of a gentleman!”
“They are in America,” retorts Lieutenant Mayrant. “Neither shall you palter or split hairs! Pistols it shall be; or I tell you frankly that the officers of the Serapis, ay! the very foc’sel hands, will beat you and drub you for a cowardly swab, wherever they come across you.”
Landais does not respond directly to this. He walks up and down, stomaching the hard words in silence. For he perceives, as through an open window, that the hidden purpose of Lieutenant Mayrant is to pick a quarrel with him. At last Landais makes it clear that under no compulsion will he fight with pistols. Neither will he give the hopeful Mayrant an opening to edge in a challenge for himself. After a fruitless hour the latter, sad and depressed, returns aboard the Serapis.
“Nothing could have been handled more delicately,” he reports to Commodore Paul Jones; “but, do my best, sir, I couldn’t coax the rascal to the field.”
The next day Lieutenant Dale, making a flimsy excuse about wishing to see the French secretary, goes ashore. He is using a crutch; for, like Lieutenant Mayrant, he was wounded in the battle. He finds the crutch inexpressibly convenient. Having hunted down Landais, whom he finds in a change house, he uses it to belabor that personage, giving him the while such descriptives as “dog!” “spy!” “liar!” “coward!” The heavy Dutchmen, quaffing their beer, interfere to save Landais from the warlike Lieutenant Dale. That night Landais starts post for Paris, to the mighty disappointment of Commodore Paul Jones.
“You told me you wanted to see the French secretary. It wasn’t fair of you, Dick!” is all Commodore Paul Jones says, when he learns of the doings of Lieutenant Dale and his crutch in the change house.
“Well!” grumbles Lieutenant Dale defensively, “so I did want to see the French secretary; although I’ve now forgotten what it was all about. The sight of that dastard drove it from my head.”
The French Ambassador again boards the Serapis. He bears orders from De Sartine, the French Minister of Marine, and a letter from Doctor Franklin, full of suggestions which have the force of orders. The Pallas is a French ship, and the Scarboro captured by it, is a French prize. The Serapis, prize to the Richard, also a French ship, is by the same token a French prize. The French flag must be hoisted on these ships, and the trio made over to the French Ambassador. The Alliance, an American built ship, the King of France doesn’t claim. He recommends, however, that it run up French colors, as a diplomatic method of quieting Dutch excitement, which is slowly but surely rising. Doctor Franklin’s letter sustains the French claim to the Pallas, the Scarboro and the Serapis. He leaves Commodore Paul Jones to settle flags for the Alliance as he may deem best. The Ambassador makes, in this connection, a second tender of a Captain’s commission in the French Navy.
“No,” responds Commodore Paul Jones bitterly, “I shall not accept it. King Louis shall have the Serapis, the Pallas and the Scarboro since Doctor Franklin so orders. The Alliance and I, however, shall remain American.”
Commodore Paul Jones gives the French Ambassador possession of the Serapis. Also, he waxes sarcastic, and intimates that it is the only way by which the French could have gotten the Serapis into their hands. This piece of wit does him no good, when later he asks it back from De Sartine. Sullen and dogged, he prepares to go aboard the Alliance, and orders the crew of the Serapis to follow.
Again the French Ambassador interferes. What French subjects are on the musters of the Alliance and Serapis must be left in his charge. Commodore Paul Jones is to have none but Americans.
At this some sixty Danes speak up. They may not be Americans, but at least they are not French. Making this announcement, the gallant Scands refuse the orders of the French Ambassador, and pack their kits for the Alliance. These Danes are of the true viking litter, with yellow hair and steel-gray eyes. Their action comes like balm to the sore heart of Commodore Paul Jones. Later when he musters his reorganized crew aboard the Alliance, and makes them a brief talk, he speaks of the desertion of the French. He is interrupted by a youth—small and light and delicate. The youth steps out from among the sailors, and with him come four others. The youth bows half-way to the deck.
“No,” he says—“no, Monsieur le Commodore, not all the French have desert. I, Pierre Gerard, am still with you—I, and my four bold comrades, who are brave men.”
“They wants to stay, sir,” vouchsafes Boatswain Jack Robinson, coming forward to the aid of little Pierre and his companions. “An’ so, d’ye see, since I always likes to encourage zeal, I stows ‘em away in the long boat till that frog-eatin’ Ambassador is over the side. An’ so, here they be, game as pebbles, an’ a credit to the sta’board watch.”
All his prisoners and wounded have been put ashore, under arrangements with the Dutch and the gouty Sir Joseph. Aboard the Alliance, Commodore Paul Jones finds himself at the head of four hundred and twelve war-hardened wolves of the sea, American blood to a man, all save the sixty vikings, and little Pierre with his four.
CHAPTER XX—AIMEE ADELE DE TELISON
It is Christmas day. Out of the furious southwest blows a storm. The English ships, guarding the mouth of the Helder, are driven from their stations, and carried far out to sea. Tired of the Texel, with its French and English and Dutch, Commodore Paul Jones, taking advantage of the English scudding seaward before the gale, runs out with the Alliance, and lays her nose for the English coast, in the very face of the weather.
Being Christmas day, when Commodore Paul Jones puts the Dutch coast astern, there is plum duff and double grog aboard the Alliance. These, and the blue water beneath their fore-foot, mightily cheer the hearts of the crew. The exuberance takes shape in a way grateful to the soul of Commodore Paul Jones. A missive, borne by the tarry hand of Boatswain Jack Robinson, finds him during the larboard watch. As Boatswain Robinson rolls aft, the whole crew follow him, a respectable distance in the rear.
“It’s a deppytation,” explains Boatswain Robinson, pulling his forelock—“a deppytation of the entire ship’s company down to cooks an’ cabin-boys, an’ be dammed to ‘em! They sets forth their views in a round robin, which I hereby tenders.”
Boatswain Robinson holds out a square of dingy bown paper. It is signed by every member of the crew, beginning with the redoubtable Robinson. Commodore Paul Jones reads the round robin, which is written in black sprawling characters, while Lieutenant Dale who comes up holds a ship’s lantern. Thus runs the document, the compilation whereof has exhausted the forecastle.
“We respectfully request you, sir, to lay us alongside any single-decked English ship to be found in these seas, or any double-decked ship under a fifty.”
“My lads,” says Commodore Paul Jones, when he finished reading the round robin, “this is what I like. Our ship is a thirty-six, our biggest gun a twelve-pounder. You say ‘lay her alongside a fifty gun ship, with her lower tier of eighteen-pounders. I promise that I’ll do my best. I’ll cruise between St. George’s Channel and the Bay of Biscay two full weeks, looking for what you ask. Still, I must tell you that, while I’ve plenty of hope, I’ve little expectation. This is winter weather, lads, and the chances of our finding a fight are slim. If we find one, however, I shall, by way of compliment, take you over the Englishman’s hammock nettings myself; for I hold you, man and boy, to be as stout a crew as ever primed pistol or laid cutlass to grindstone, and one that it’s an honor to lead. Mr. Bo’sen, pipe the men for’ard. Mr. Dale will give orders for another ration of grog all’round. And so, shipmates, I give you a Merry Christmas!”
The Alliance goes looking for a British fifty. But nothing comes of it. Between wind and snow and biting weather, the ships have deserted the open ocean, like wild fowl, for the friendly sheltering warmth of the ports. When the two weeks are up, four weeks more are added to the cruise by common consent. Stores, however, are running low, and following six weeks futile looking about, Commodore Paul Jones stands in for the Isle au Grroaix, and anchors in the harbor of l’Orient.
It is February fourteenth, the day of sweet St. Valentine. Also, it is among the coy and blushing possibilities, that sweet Saint Valentine has been lying in wait for him; for our sailor, home from sea, finds in the hands of his agent a pretty note, which in its sequence is to carry him into the midst of much tenderness and flowery happiness.
The note is from his good friend, the Marchioness de Marsan. The Marchioness asks Commodore Paul Jones, when he is next in l’Orient and can spare himself from his ship, to visit her at her palace. Weary with the sea, sore from the loss of the Serapis, the summons falls in with his tired humor. He leaves the Alliance in charge of Lieutenant Dale, and goes with what haste he may to his friend the Marchioness. That good noblewoman kisses him on both cheeks.
“It is for your victory!” she says. “France is a-quiver with it!”
As Commodore Paul Jones is about to reply, a girl of twenty enters the room.
“Aimee de Telison, Commodore,” says the Marchioness, presenting him. Then aside: “She is my ward—my godchild! Is she not beautiful?”
“Beautiful! Skin pink and white! Teeth like pearls or rice! Damask lips, eyes deep and lustrous and large! Hair a flood of red gold! In form a little rounded goddess! Beautiful!”
Thus run the thoughts of the sailor, as the sweetness and witchery of the vision carries his senses along.
“Aimee de Telison!” he repeats in a whisper. “Who is she?”
The Marchioness hesitates; then she returns in the same guarded tones:
“Who is she? She is the daughter of a King.”
CHAPTER XXI—ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
Presently the beautiful Aimee quits the room, and the good Marchioness de Marsan tells her story.
“There is surely no reason why you shouldn’t know, my dear Commodore,” she says; “since all France knows. Aimee’s mother is of the de Tiercelins—a noble house, but impoverished. As a girl the mother was ravishingly lovely. This was in the days of Monsieur le Bel and the Parc-aux-Cerfs. The old king saw Mademoiselle de Tiercelin; the Pompadour did not object. Aimee was born; and presently her mother, whom the king called his ‘de Bonneval,’ was put away with a pension. The Bonneval’s father talked loudly, and was sent to the Bastile as a ‘Russian spy.’ One may say what one will in the Bastile; the walls are thick and have no ears. The Pompadour looked after poor de Bonneval and the little Aimee. She married the mother to a gentleman named Telison. The Pompadour died; the king died; Aimee was sixteen. Her stepfather de Telison, and her mother de Bonneval neglected her. They said ‘She is a Bourbon. Let the Bourbons provide.’ So I, who am her godmother, took Aimee. That was four years ago; and now it is as though she were my own child in very fact—I love her so.”
“But the present king?”
“Thus far he has done nothing for Aimee. She goes to court; her position is recognized; the king is kind. But you know the cold Savoy blood?—it is stingy! However, that is now of little moment so far as Aimee is concerned, for I am rich.”
Commodore Paul Jones is established at the palace of the good Marsan. Sailors are swift to love; the image of Aimee fits into his heart as into a niche that was made for it.
The second day he calls on the Duchess de Chartres—the beautiful girl-Duchess. He wears a guilty feeling at the base of his conscience. Fortunately his cheek is tanned by wind and weather, and the guilty feeling does not show.
The girl-Duchess is with her husband, the Duke de Chartres, who has quit the sea for the shore, his man-of-war for his palace. The girl-Duchess receives Commodore Paul Jones in something of a formal manner, which is a relief to him. His manner is also formal, which is not a relief to her. The Duke, who makes a specialty of democracy, greets him with bluff cordiality as a brother sailor. He congratulates him on beating the “English dogs,” whom he hates professionally. Commodore Paul Jones is modest in his replies. For he is not thinking of the Serapis, but on Aimee; and, with the eyes of the girl-Duchess upon him, that guilty feeling overlays all else.
The girl-Duchess watches him through halfshut lids. She almost guesses the truth; for she knows of the good Marsan, and Aimee. Besides, she is a woman, and clairvoyant in matters of the heart.
After an hour with the Duke and the girl-Duchess, Commodore Paul Jones goes back to the good Marchioness de Marsan and to Aimee. As an excuse for his own idleness, he travels down to l’Orient and, albeit the Alliance is as fit as a fiddle, sets Lieutenant Dale, “Dick the practical,” to overhauling the ship from truck to keel. Then he returns to the good Marsan and Aimee.
Now he spends sunny hours in the beautiful Aimee’s company, and his love creeps and grows upon him like ivy on a wall. The conqueror is conquered; the invincible is overthrown. As for Aimee, her blue eyes become a deeper blue, her pink cheeks take on a warmer pink when he is near. And the good Marsan sees it all, and does not interfere. For she is versed in the world and its ways; and this is France; and after life comes death.
When the ardent sailor would be too ardent, Aimee represses him; the barrier of her modesty is as a barrier of ice between them. Thereupon he loves her the more, and refreshes his soul with Shakespeare:
“Chaste as the icicle
That’s curdled by the frost of purest snow,
And hangs on Dian’s temple.”
Commodore Paul Jones goes down to l’Orient again. Not so much to see after the Alliance, as to pique his love and give it edge. For absence makes the flame burn brighter, and Aimee bursts upon him with a new charm when he has been away.
For all his lovelorn case, however, he makes arrangements for his two pets, Lieutenants May-rant and Fanning, to go privateering for the French, and gives them nearly one hundred and fifty of his fiercest sea-wolves to bear them company.
“Why keep them rusting ashore,” says he, “like good blades in their sheaths! No; let the lads sail forth with letters of marque, and make their fortunes.”
The Serapis is held by the French as a king’s prize, and de Sartine pays Commodore Paul Jones twelve thousand dollars as his share. There are other thousands from other prizes, and, after a French sort, he finds himself rich.
When, following his visit to l’Orient, he returns to the good Marsan, that estimable lady is discovered in a state of much excitement. The Duchess de Chartres has “commanded” the presence of Commodore Paul Jones at her palace.
The prospect does not overcome him. He receives it with steadiness, although privily a-quake because of that feeling of guilt. The good Marsan’s excitement is supplanted by wonder to see him take his honors so coolly.
“Ah, these Americans!” she thinks. Then, out loud: “She is a Bourbon, my Commodore! No one below the blood royal has ever received such a summons.”
In spite of the uplifted palms of the good Marsan, her “Commodore” refuses to be impressed. He will go; since no one should decline the “command” of royalty. But he will go calmly—hiding of course his sense of guilt, and spreading the skirts of his conscience very wide to hide it.
Aimee hears that he is to go, and cannot avoid a little flutter of alarm. She knows her beautiful kinswoman, the girl-Duchess—knows the spell and the power of her. It gives the tender Aimee a dull ache of the heart. A lone feeling of helplessness overwhelms her, as fears rise up for her poor love that, in so short a space, has become the one sweet thing in life. True, she herself is a Bourbon! But with the bar sinister. How then shall she, obscure and poor and by the left hand, hope to sustain herself in the heart of her lover against the wiles and siren wooings of one who is at once the most legitimate, the most beautiful, and the most wealthy woman in France! The tears gather in the soft eyes.
The good Marsan goes from the room; for she has a deal of sympathy and good sense. Commodore Paul Jones, when now the two are alone, draws Aimee to him, and dries those tears in ways that lovers know. For the first time he folds her in his arms and kisses her lips.
“Perhaps it is also the last time,” she thinks sadly.
And the gallant lover, as though he reads her thoughts, kisses her again, and vows by sword and ship to love her always.
Commodore Paul Jones finds the Duchess de Chartres in spirits. She and the Duke give him a suite of apartments that has heretofore been sacred to Bourbon occupation alone. At this the sensation that rocks the Court is profound.
It even reaches the rabbit-faced king—weak rather than dull—at Versailles, and gives him a shock. He draws down the uncertain corners of his undecided mouth, says naught, and goes out under the trees to feed his squirrels. He would be wiser were he to go out into the starved highways and byways of his oppressed realm, and feed his subjects. Did he do so, he might even yet avoid that revolution, which is slowly yet terribly preparing itself in the ante-chamber of Time.
CHAPTER XXII—THE FÊTE OF THE DUCHESS DE CHARTRES
The Duke and Duchess de Chartres give a grand banquet in honor of Commodore Paul Jones. The Duchess asks Doctor Franklin, whom she esteems, and calls “Monsieur le Sage” for his wisdom. Also, to please the worthy doctor, she has Madame de Houdetot, and the rest of his Passy friends, including the vivacious Madame Helvetius.
“Only,” says the Duchess, who has weaknesses that favor washtubs—“only I trust that our ‘Rich Widow of Passy’ will wear a fresh frock, if only to give us something to, talk about.”
The good Marsan and Aimee are among the guests. Indeed, it is to see Aimee and Commodore Paul Jones together that has caused the Duchess de Chartres to order the fête. She will bring the pair beneath her eyes—the young Aimee, and the “Commodore,” who has become formal. She will then know the best and worst of their hearts.
The Duchess is right in this assumption; for you may no more hide love than smoke. With half-watchfulness, she readily surprises their secret. Still she is gay and light; for her heart is the heart of a Bourbon, and the heart of your Bourbon is never a breakable.
She seats Commodore Paul Jones on her right, which is the thing expected. Aimee is on his other hand; which last excites his suspicions—having that guilty feeling—while attracting the attention of nobody else. Over across is the wise Franklin, who finds himself vastly at home between the Houdetot and the rosy Helvetius, who is a marvel of tidiness.
The Duchess pays a deal of polite attention to Commodore Paul Jones.
“I cannot think, my dear Commodore,” she cries, “how, with your ship on fire, and sinking under your feet, you had courage to continue the fight.”
“Your royal highness forgets. To surrender would have meant a postponement of the bliss of meeting you.”
“Now, Bayard himself,” returns the Duchess, “could have said nothing so knightly!”
Aimee glows at this. In the face of her fears, she still likes to hear her lover-hero praised.
“There is a promise!” exclaims the Duchess.
Commodore Paul Jones reddens through the tan. What is coming! There is much of royal recklessness in the Duchess’ royal blood; she will now and then say a bold thing.
“You promised,” she goes on, “to lay an English frigate at my feet.”
Commodore Paul Jones is relieved. More, he is pleased, since the Duchess gives him a chance to be dramatic. He sends for his servant, who brings him a slim morocco case.
“Your royal highness,” he says, unbuckling the morocco case; “I shall be better than my word. I lay at your feet, not a frigate truly, but a forty-four gun ship of two decks. Here is the token of it—the sword of as brave a sailor as ever sailed.”
Commodore Paul Jones presents the Duchess with the vanquished sword of Captain Pearson, which he has taken from the morocco case. The Duchess, who has not foreseen this return to her sally, is deeply stirred. She receives the sword, and presses the gold scabbard to her lips.
“It is dear to me as the sword of a conquered Englishman!” she cries, turning with swimming eyes upon the company. “It is doubly dear when it comes from my Achilles of the ocean!”
There is a buzz of admiration about the tables. Aimee herself is in a dream of happiness; for she has alarms but no jealousies, and the glory of her lover is her glory.
Before the guests break up for departure, Doctor Franklin and Commodore Paul Jones have a word together.
“I have asked for it,” says the Doctor, “and de Sartine leads me to think that, as soon as the ship is refitted, the king will give you the Serapis.”
Commodore Paul Jones brightens to a sparkle.
“I could do wonders with so stout a ship,” he replies.
“I think you may count on it,” goes on the Doctor. “Indeed, when I remember in what manner the French came by the Serapis, I cannot see how the king is to refuse.”
“Should I get it, I’ll put Dick Dale in command of the Alliance. There shall be no second Landais you may be sure!”
“Speaking of the Alliance,” returns the Doctor, “I shall send it to America as soon as the overhaul is finished, with certain munitions of war I’ve collected.”
Commodore Paul Jones’ pulse begins to beat uneasily. Antony does not want to leave his Cleopatra. What the Doctor next says, sets him to renewed ease.
“Lieutenant Dale might better take the Alliance across. You will be needed here, if we are to coax the king into giving you the Serapis. There will be time for the Alliance to return before the Serapis is refitted.”
Doctor Franklin tells how he has formally relieved Landais from all command, and ordered him to report to the Marine Committee in Philadelphia, on charges of cowardice and treason. Also, Commissioner Arthur Lee has been called home; Congress has become suspicious of his work.
“The man’s a greater traitor than Landais!” cries Commodore Paul Jones heatedly.
“Without expressing myself on that point,” observes the Doctor, eye a-twinkle, “the situation produced by Mr. Lee’s recall, makes another reason why Dale should sail with the Alliance and you stay here. Mr. Lee, I understand, has decided to take passage home in the Alliance.”
It is the next day; the Duchess summons Commodore Paul Jones to the morning-room, where she sits alone in the spring sunshine.
“Your love is like your ship, my friend,” she observes. “It goes voyaging from heart to heart, as the other does from port to port. No, not a word! I promise that you shall not break my heart. Come, I will show you what makes me safe—safe even from that terrible heart-rover and sea-rover, that buccaneer of the ocean and of love, the invincible Paul Jones.”
She smiles; but there is that about the smile which reminds one of the hard glitter of a rapier. She rings a bell, says a low word, and presently a little round-faced boy is brought in. He is the baby son of the Duchess. Commodore Paul Jones has heard of the little boy; but this is his earliest glimpse of him.
He is a handsome child, and Commodore Paul Jones gazes upon him with admiration. The boy is to grow up and, fifty years later, sit on the French throne as the “Citizen King.” This, however, is a secret of the future, and neither the mother nor Commodore Paul Jones, as they look on the small, round face, is granted a least glint of it. Released by the nurse, little Louis Philippe toddles across to Commodore Paul Jones, pudgy hands outstretched. The latter catches him up and kisses him. At this the eyes of the Duchess soften with mother-love.
“See!” she remarks, and a sigh and a laugh struggle for precedence on her lips—“See! he is like all of us. He loves you!” She becomes grave. “There is my resource!” she goes on. “My friend, I will let you into a secret. No man’s treason, not though he be the bewildering Paul Jones”—this with a tinge of wicked emphasis—“can break a mother’s heart. No; she takes refuge in her child, and finds his kisses sweeter than a lover’s.”
She takes the boy out of his hands, and kisses the little face again and still again. Commodore Paul Jones says no word of protest, explanation or defence. The Duchess is taking her revenge; he knows it, and thinks her entitled to it. Moreover, he is beginning in his own heart to be relieved, and the guilty feeling that gnaws his conscience is sensibly dulled.
The nurse returns and takes the boy. The Duchess gives the little face a last kiss. Then her glance comes back to Commodore Paul Jones.
“Yes, my friend,” she says; “love your red-haired Aimee, since you love her; I can give you up; for even though you leave me, you leave me a Bourbon. And yet I feel a small jealousy—just a little stab! For that stab, my friend, you must pay. No one harms a Bourbon, and escapes unpunished.” This is said half quizzically, half seriously. “Yes, I shall have my revenge. I intend that you shall marry Aimee.”
CHAPTER XXIII—THE WEDDING WITHOUT BELLS
Doctor Franklin journeys down to Lyons, on some secret errand of his own; he will be gone a week. Commodore Paul Jones, at home with the good Marsan, drunk with love, forgets the blue of the ocean in the blue of Aimee’s eyes. One sun-filled afternoon he is disturbed by Lieutenant Dale, who stalks in with a scowl on his usually steady face.
“What is it, Dick?” asks Commodore Paul Jones, alive in a moment.
“Something too deep for me, Commodore, or I shouldn’t be here with the tangle. Commissioner Lee, with Landais, has taken the Alliance.”
“What?”
“It’s as I say. Lee declares that Doctor Franklin had no authority to depose Landais. He, Lee, has restored him to command, and the pair have possession of the ship.”
“What did you do?”
“I did nothing. I’m a sailor, and pretend to no knowledge of the limits of Mr. Lee’s authority. Speaking for myself, I refused to serve with Landais; and Lieutenants Stack, McCarty and Lunt, and Midshipman Lindthwait did the same. We came ashore, and Bo’sen Jack Robinson at the head of sixty of the crew came with us.” Commodore Paul Jones, while Lieutenant Dale talks, is thinking. What is to be done! Manifestly nothing. Doctor Franklin is out of reach. Without the Doctor’s authority no one can meddle with Arthur Lee, who still has his powers as a commissioner. Besides, there’s the Serapis; it is only a question of weeks when he, Commodore Paul Jones, will be given its command. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Dale and the others can disport themselves ashore, as he does. Let Lee and Landais keep the Alliance, since they already have it.
“You’ve done right, Dick,” he says. “Stay ashore then, and keep the lads together; we’ll wait for the Serapis. Also, King Louis has given Doctor Franklin the Ariel, a ship-sloop the size of the old Ranger. When I take the Serapis to sea, Dick, you shall sail Captain of the Ariel.”
Lieutenant Dale goes his way, and Commodore Paul Jones returns to Aimee, pleased in secret to think he may continue unhindered to sun himself in her smiles. It grinds a bit to think of the “dog Landais,” and the “traitor Arthur Lee,” in control of the Alliance. Still, all will come right; for is he not to have the Serapis? And while he waits, there is Aimee; and love is even sweeter than war. So he goes back to his goddess, with her deep eyes and red-gold hair, and puts such caitiff creatures as Lee and Landais outside his thoughts. It is for Congress to deal with them.
Commodore Paul Jones is not permitted to forget Lee and Landais. Within the hour, he is again called from the side of Aimee by his friend Genet, a noble upperling in the French foreign office.
“I come to tell you,” says Genet, “that Captain Landais and Monsieur Lee have got the Alliance.”
“I know!”
“They are to sail in three days.”
“Lieutenant Dale has told me.”
“He did not tell you that we have issued orders to Thevenard, who commands the forts at the barrier, to sink the Alliance, should she try to put to sea.”
“Sink the Alliance!” Commodore Paul Jones is thunderstruck. “My dear Genet, you jest.”
“No jest, my friend. The orders have been given. Should the Alliance attempt to pass the harriers, Thevenard will fire on it with all his hundreds of big guns, and snuff it out like a candle. It is by request of your Doctor Franklin.”
“Do you tell me that Doctor Franklin asks you to sink the Alliance?”
“He has asked us—for he had some inkling of the designs of Lee and Landais—to prevent them sailing away with the ship. We know of but one way to do that. We must sink it, since we have no ship here to arrest them. So we gave the orders to Thevenard. Those orders, however, we did not impart to Doctor Franklin; and, in good truth, I tell them to you now, not as a French official, but as a friend.”
“This must be stopped!” cries Commodore Paul Jones, his habits of decision and iron promptitude reassumed in a moment. “What! Sink two hundred brave, good men, to punish a pair of traitors? Never!”
Genet, who makes a cult of red tape, shrugs his shoulders and spreads his hands.
“It is too late,” he says. “There is Doctor Franklin’s request. I cannot countermand the orders to Thevenard until he withdraws his request.”
“I shall see Thevenard!”
Two hundred and eighty miles in fifty-four hours! An unprecedented thing! And yet Commodore Paul Jones does it, and rides into l’Orient in time to prevail on General Thevenard, who is his friend and his worshipper, to let the Alliance pass free. The forts would else have sunk the ship with their tons upon tons of metal. He saves the Alliance by a narrow margin of hours, and Lee and Landais shake out their sails for America.
“They go to disgrace and grief,” thinks Commodore Paul Jones, consoling himself for their escape. Then he considers how he has saved the lives of more than two hundred honest sailors, who have fought well for flag and country, and is consoled in earnest.
Commodore Paul Jones is surrounded by surprises. He is met on the road, while returning to his Aimee, by a message from the Duchess de Chartres.
“Come instantly to me!” it says.
There is a look of mingled sorrow and resentment, with over all a hue of humor, on the Duchess’ bright face when she welcomes Commodore Paul Jones.
“The Marchioness de Marsan and I have arranged it,” she says, and her glance is wicked and amused.
“Arranged what?”
“Your marriage, my friend! I congratulate you! You and your red-haired, blue-eyed one are to wed.”
“With all my heart, then!” says he, turning wicked, too. Manlike, it offends his vanity that one who has pretended to love him so deeply should be now so ready to give him to another. “I could wish no fairer fate.”
“But the wedding must be secret.”
“Secret! Believe me, I shall tell all France.”
“And ruin the blue-eyed one! Hear me, my Commodore—once my beloved, ever to be my friend! I have had a world of trouble in your affairs. I arranged with the Marsan; but only by agreeing that the marriage be buried in secrecy. You know much of the sea; little of the shore when all’s said. Should the king hear of Aimee as your wife, he would drive her from court.”
“May I ask why!” and his cheek begins to burn angrily.
“You forget that Aimee is a Bourbon,” returns the Duchess, with a fashion of malicious satisfaction. He has deserted her for his Aimee; it is her revenge to irritate his pride. “You are a valorous man, and the king makes much of you. Besides, you beat the English, whom he fears and hates. And yet he does not forget that you are a peasant—as I did. Marry Aimee, my friend—. marry a Bourbon, even a Bourbon by the left hand, and King Louis will bolt the doors of France in both your faces. Indeed, the Bastile might be the end of it for your Aimee.”
“I think your royal highness sees unnecessary ghosts,” he replies, with a sneer. Just the same, that linking of the Bastile and Aimee alarms him. “Without pausing to question the king’s powers touching Bastiles and French doors, I may tell you he has already heard that I love Aimee. Doctor Franklin, himself, told me.”
“Love Aimee! Yes; love her as much and to what limit you will! The king will never resent that. But do not let the whisper that you have married Aimee reach the kingly ear. Can you not understand! Here, I will put it in the abstract. A Princess may have a liaison with a peasant, and in the shadow of that dishonor she will remain forever a Princess. Should the Princess, in some gust of virtue, be swept into a marriage with the peasant, she becomes instantly a peasant. It is one of those strange cases, my friend, where the word ‘wife’ is a stain and the word ‘mistress’ no stain at all.”
It is midnight; two candles burn dimly on the altar of “Our Lady of Loretto.” The great chapel is dark and vacant; the feeble light does not reach the vaulted roof, and the groined arches disappear upward in a thick blackness.
At the altar stands a priest. Near the rail is gathered a group of four, the Duchess de Chartres, the good Marchioness de Marsan, Aimee—heart a-flutter, her pink cheeks hidden in a veil—and Commodore Paul Jones. The priest draws the Duchess aside.
“Your royal highness,” he whispers, pleadingly, “I am afraid.”
“Afraid of whom, pray?”
“The king, your royal highness.”
The Duchess makes an angry motion with her hand, while her little boot smites the stone floor and sends an echo through the room’s vast emptiness.
“Father Joseph, observe! You are my almoner. Through your hands I give fifty thousand louis to the poor of Paris, and keep you in fatness besides. It is I, not the king, whom you should fear.”
And so, before the flickering altar candles, Commodore Paul Jones weds Aimee Adele de Telison. In the book which the Duchess and the good Marsan sign as witnesses, Father Joseph, with a pen that shakes a little, records the nuptials of “Monsieur le Joignes and Mademoiselle Adele de Bonneval.” For “de Bonneval” was the dead King’s name for Aimee’s mother in the days of Monsieur le Bel and the Parc-aux-Cerfs.