File No. 113 - Emile Gaboriau (large screen ebook reader TXT) 📗

to him; that he had squandered his brother’s fortune, and was now frightened at the prospect of having to account for it. Still this did not explain Raoul’s conduct. Why did he show such fear?”

Two hours later, Clameran was on the road to Vesinet with Raoul, explaining to him his plans.

“It is my precious brother, and no mistake,” he said. “But that need not alarm you so easily, my lovely nephew.”

“Merciful powers! Doesn’t the banker expect to see him any day? Is he not liable to pounce down on me to-morrow?”

“Don’t be an idiot!” interrupted Clameran. “Does he know that Fauvel is Valentine’s husband? That is what we must find out. If he knows that little fact, we must take to our heels; if he is ignorant of it, our case is not desperate.”

“How will you find out?”

“By simply asking him.”

Raoul exclaimed at his ally’s cunning:

“That is a dangerous thing to do,” he said.

“‘Tis not as dangerous as sitting down with our hands folded. And, as to running away at the first suspicion of alarm, it would be imbecility.”

“Who is going to look for him?”

“I am.”

“Oh, oh, oh!” exclaimed Raoul in three different tones. Clameran’s audacity confounded him.

“But what am I going to do?” he inquired after a moment’s silence.

“You will oblige me by remaining here and keeping quiet. I will send you a despatch if there is danger; and then you can decamp.”

As they parted at Raoul’s door, Clameran said:

“Now, remember. Stay here, and during my absence be very intimate at your devoted mother’s. Be the most dutiful of sons. Abuse me as much as you please to her; and, above all, don’t indulge in any folly; make no demands for money; keep your eyes open. Good-by. To-morrow evening I will be at Oloron talking with this new Clameran.”

XVIII

After leaving Valentine de la Verberie, Gaston underwent great peril and difficulty in effecting his escape.

But for the experienced and faithful Menoul, he never would have succeeded in embarking.

Having left his mother’s jewels with Valentine, his sole fortune consisted of not quite a thousand francs; and with this paltry sum in his pocket, the murderer of two men, a fugitive from justice, and with no prospect of earning a livelihood, he took passage for Valparaiso.

But Menoul was a bold and experienced sailor.

While Gaston remained concealed in a farm-house at Camargue, Menoul went to Marseilles, and that very evening discovered, from some of his sailor friends, that a three-masted American vessel was in the roadstead, whose commander, Captain Warth, a not over-scrupulous Yankee, would be glad to welcome on board an able-bodied man who would be of assistance to him at sea.

After visiting the vessel, and finding, during a conversation over a glass of rum with the captain, that he was quite willing to take a sailor without disturbing himself about his antecedents, Menoul returned to Gaston.

“Left to my own choice, monsieur,” he said, “I should have settled this matter on the spot; but you might object to it.”

“What suits you, suits me,” interrupted Gaston.

“You see, the fact is, you will be obliged to work very hard. A sailor’s life is not boy’s play. You will not find much pleasure in it. And I must confess that the ship’s company is not the most moral one I ever saw. You never would imagine yourself in a Christian company. And the captain is a regular swaggering bully.”

“I have no choice,” said Gaston. “Let us go on board at once.”

Old Menoul’s suspicions were correct.

Before Gaston had been on board the Tom Jones forty-eight hours, he saw that chance had cast him among a collection of the most depraved bandits and cut-throats.

The vessel, which seemed to have recruited at all points of the compass, possessed a crew composed of every variety of thievish knaves; each country had contributed a specimen.

But Gaston’s mind was undisturbed as to the character of the people with whom his lot was cast for several months.

It was only his miserable wounded body, that the vessel was carrying to a new country. His heart and soul rested in the shady park of La Verberie, beside his lovely Valentine. He took no note of the men around him, but lived over again those precious hours of bliss beneath the old tree on the banks of the Rhone, where his beloved had confided her heart to his keeping, and sworn to love him forever.

And what would become of her now, poor child, when he was no longer there to love, console, and defend her?

Happily, he had no time for sad reflections.

His every moment was occupied in learning the rough apprenticeship of a sailor’s life. All his energies were spent in bearing up under the heavy burden of labor allotted to him. Being totally unaccustomed to manual work, he found it difficult to keep pace with the other sailors, and for the first week or two he was often near fainting at his post, from sheer fatigue; but indomitable energy kept him up.

This was his salvation. Physical suffering calmed and deadened his mental agony. The few hours relaxation granted him were spent in heavy sleep; the instant his weary body touched his bunk, his eyes closed, and no moment did he have to mourn over the past.

At rare intervals, when the weather was calm, and he was relieved from his constant occupation of trimming the sails, he would anxiously question the future, and wonder what he should do when this irksome voyage was ended.

He had sworn that he would return before the end of three years, rich enough to satisfy the exactions of Mme. de la Verberie. How should he be able to keep this boastful promise? Stern reality had convinced him that his projects could never be realized, except by hard work and long waiting. What he hoped to accomplish in three years was likely to require a lifetime.

Judging from the conversation of his companions, he was not now on the road to fortune.

The Tom Jones set sail for Valparaiso, but certainly went in a roundabout way to reach her destination.

The real fact was, that Captain Warth proposed visiting the Gulf of Guinea.

A friend of his, the “Black Prince,” he said, with a loud laugh, was waiting for him at Badagri, to exchange a cargo of “ebony” for some pipes of rum, and a hundred flint-lock muskets which were on board the Tom Jones.

Gaston soon saw that he was serving his apprenticeship on a slaver, one of the many ships sent yearly by the free and philanthropic Americans, who made immense fortunes by carrying on the slave-trade.

Although this discovery filled Gaston with indignation and shame, he was prudent enough to conceal his impressions.

His remonstrances, no matter how eloquent, would have made no change in the opinions of Captain Warth regarding a traffic which brought him in more than a hundred per cent, in spite of the French and English cruisers, the damages, sometimes entire loss of cargoes, and many other risks.

The crew admired Gaston when they learned that he had cut two men into mince-meat when they were insolent to him; this was the account of Gaston’s affair, as reported to the captain by old Menoul.

Gaston wisely determined to keep on friendly terms with the villains, as long as he was in their power. To express disapproval of their conduct would have incurred the enmity of the whole crew, without bettering his own situation.

He therefore kept quiet, but swore mentally that he would desert on the first opportunity.

This opportunity, like everything impatiently longed for, came not.

By the end of three months, Gaston had become so useful and popular that Captain Warth found him indispensable.

Seeing him so intelligent and agreeable, he liked to have him at his own table, and would spend hours at cards with him or consulting about his business matters. The mate of the ship dying, Gaston was chosen to replace him. In this capacity he made two successful voyages to Guinea, bringing back a thousand blacks, whom he superintended during a trip of fifteen hundred leagues, and finally landed them on the coast of Brazil.

When Gaston had been with Captain Warth about three years, the Tom Jones stopped at Rio Janeiro for a month, to lay in supplies. He now decided to leave the ship, although he had become somewhat attached to the friendly captain, who was after all a worthy man, and never would have engaged in the diabolical traffic of human beings, but for his little angel daughter’s sake. He said that his child was so good and beautiful, that she deserved a large fortune. Each time that he sold a black, he would quiet any faint qualms of conscience by saying, “It is for little Mary’s good.”

Gaston possessed twelve thousand francs, as his share of the profits, when he landed at Brazil.

As a proof that the slave-trade was repugnant to his nature, he left the slaver the moment he possessed a little capital with which to enter some honest business.

But he was no longer the high-minded, pure-hearted Gaston, who had so devotedly loved and perilled his life for the little fairy of La Verberie.

It is useless to deny that evil examples are pernicious to morals. The most upright characters are unconsciously influenced by bad surroundings. As the exposure to rain, sun, and sea-air first darkened and then hardened his skin, so did wicked associates first shock and then destroy the refinement and purity of Gaston’s mind. His heart had become as hard and coarse as his sailor hands. He still remembered Valentine, and sighed for her presence; but she was no longer the sole object of affection, the one woman in the world to him. Contact with sin had lowered his standard of women.

The three years, after which he had pledged himself to return, had passed; perhaps Valentine was expecting him. Before deciding on any definite project, he wrote to an intimate friend at Beaucaire to learn what had happened during his long absence. He expressed great anxiety about his family and neighbors.

He also wrote to his father, asking why he had never answered the many letters which he had sent to him by returning sailors, who would have safely forwarded the replies.

At the end of a year, he received an answer from his friend.

The letter almost drove him mad.

It told him that his father was dead; that his brother had left France, Valentine was lately married, and that he, Gaston, had been sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment for murder.

Henceforth he was alone in the world; with no country, no family, no home, and disgraced by a public sentence.

Valentine was married, and he had no object in life! He would hereafter have faith in no one, since she, Valentine, had cast him off, forgotten him. What could he expect of others, when she had broken her troth, had lacked the courage to keep her promise and wait for him?—she, whom he had so trusted.

In his despair, he almost regretted the Tom Jones. Yes, he sighed for the wicked slaver crew, his life of excitement and peril. The dangers and triumphs of those bold pirates whose only care was to heap up money would have been preferable to his present wretchedness.

But Gaston was not a man to be long cast down.

“Money is the cause of it all!” he said with rage. “If the lack of money can bring such misery, its possession must bestow intense happiness. Henceforth I will devote all my energies to getting money.”

He set to work with a greedy activity, which increased each day. He tried all the many speculations open to adventurers. Alternately he traded