Frenchman's Creek

"Ah, the rest we owe to Rock too. It was his plan, from the first. He suggested it to Eustick and George Godolphin when we met them at Helston. 'Have your men posted on the beaches,' he said, 'and boats in readiness, and if there is a vessel hiding up the river, you'll get her as she comes down by night, on the top of the tide.' But instead of getting the ship, we got the leader instead."

And he laughed, pulling at the dog's ears, and tickling his back.

"Yes, Duchess, we got the leader, and he'll hang for piracy and murder, won't he? And the people will sleep easy in their beds once more."

Dona heard herself saying sharply in a clear cold voice, "Was he wounded at all? I don't understand."

"Wounded? God bless me, no. He'll hang without a scratch on him, and he'll know what it feels like. The devilry up here had delayed him, you see, and those three other scoundrels, and they were making for a point below Helford to join their vessel in mid-river. He must have told the rest of his crew to get the ship under way when he was up at the house. God knows how they managed it, but they did. When Eustick and the others got down to the point agreed upon, there was the ship in mid-stream, and the fellows swimming out to her, all but their leader, and he was standing on the beach, as cool as a blade of steel, fighting two of our people at once, while his men got away. He kept shouting over his shoulder to them in his damned lingo as they swam to the ship, and though the boats were launched from the beaches, as we arranged, they were too late to catch the scoundrels or the ship. She sailed out of Helford with a roaring tide under her, and a fair wind on her quarter, and the Frenchman watched her go, and God damn it, he was laughing, Eustick said."

As Harry spoke it seemed to Dona that she could see the river where it broadened, and met the sea, and she could hear the wind in the rigging of La Mouette as she had heard it once, and the escape would be a repetition of all the escapes that had gone before, but this time they sailed without their captain, this time they went alone. Pierre Blanc, Edmond Vacquier, and the rest, they had left him there on the beach because he had bid them do so, and she guessed what his words must have been, as he stood there, facing his enemies, while they swam to the ship. He had saved his crew, and he had saved his ship, and even now, in whatever prison he found himself, that calm unfettered brain of his would be working and planning some new method of escape, and she realised now that she was stunned and afraid no longer, for the manner of his capture had killed all fear within her.

"Where have they taken him then?" she asked, rising now, throwing on the ground the wrap that Harry had put round her shoulders. He told her, "George Godolphin has him in the keep, strongly guarded, and they're for moving him up to Exeter or Bristol when an escort comes down for him in forty-eight hours."

"And what then?"

"Why, they'll hang him, Dona, unless George and Eustick and the rest of us save His Majesty's servants the trouble of doing so, and hang him on Saturday midday, as a treat to the people."

They entered the house, and she stood now on the spot where he had bidden her farewell, and she said, "Would that be within the law?" "No, perhaps not," said Harry, "but I don't think His Majesty would trouble us for a reason."

So there was little time to lose, she thought, and much to be done. She remembered the words he had spoken: how the most hazardous performance was often the most successful. That was a piece of advice she would repeat to herself continually during the next hours, for if any situation appeared beyond all saving and all hope, the saving of him did so at this moment.

"You are all right again, are you not?" said Harry anxiously, putting an arm about her. "It was the shock of poor Rock's death I believe that made you so strange these two days. That was it, wasn't it?"

"Perhaps," she said. "I don't know. It does not matter. But I am well again now. There is no need for you to be anxious."

"I want to see you well," he repeated. "That's all I are about, damn it, to see you well and happy." And he stared down at her, his blue eyes humble with adoration, and he reached clumsily for her hand.

"We'll go to Hampshire, then, shall we?" he said. "Yes," she answered, "yes, Harry, we'll go to Hampshire." And she sat down on the low seat before the fireplace where no fire burnt because it was midsummer, and she stared at the place where the flames should have been while Harry, forgetting that Navron had been a house of death called, "Hi, Duke… Hi, Duchess, your mistress says she'll come with us to Hampshire. Find it, then, go seek."