CHAPTER XLIII.
IN TARRAGONA BAY
Henceforth little personal was said. The two men spoke mostly of thework of the ship, the chances of escape (like all prisoners), andespecially concerning the progress of the Holy War against ignorance andtyranny. But of Claire, nothing.
Something withheld them. A new thing was working in the heart of Johnd'Albret. Like many another he had been born a Catholic, and it hadalways seemed impossible to him to change. But the Place of Eyes, theQuestion Greater and Lesser in the Street of the Money, the comradeshipof Rosny and D'Aubigne in the camps of the Bearnais, had shaken him. Nowhe listened, as often as he had time to listen, to the whisperedarguments and explanations of his new friend. I do not know whether hewas convinced. I am not sure even that he always heard aright. But,moved most of all by the transparent honesty of the man whose body hadso suffered for that royal law of liberty which judges not byprofessions but by works, the Abbe John resolved no more to fight in thearmies of the Huguenot Prince merely as a loyal Catholic, but to be evensuch a man as Francis Agnew, if it in him lay.
That it did not so lie within his compass detracts nothing from theexcellence of his resolution. The flesh was weak and would ever remainso. This gay, careless spirit, bold and hardy in action, was much likethat of Henry of Navarre in his earlier days. There were indeed twosorts of Huguenots in France in the days of the Wars of Religion. Theydivided upon the verse in James which says, "Is any among you afflicted?Let him pray. Is any merry? Let him sing."
The Puritans afterwards translated the verse, "Let him sing _psalms_."But the Genevan translators (whom in this book I follow in their firstedition of 1560) more mercifully left out the "psalms": "_Is any merry,let him sing!_" say they.
Now such was the fashion of the men who fought for Henry IV. EvenD'Aubigne, the greatest of all--historian, poet, and satirist--expelledfrom France for over-rigidity, found himself equally in danger in Genevabecause of the liberty of his Muse's wing.
So, though the Abbe John became a suffering and warring Huguenot, ongrounds good and sufficient to his own conscience, he remained ever thelad he was when he scuffled on the Barricades for the "Good Guise"--andthe better fighting! A little added head-knowledge does not change men.
No motives are ever simple. No eye ever quite single. And I will not saywhat force, if any, the knowledge that Francis Agnew the Scot wouldnever give his daughter in marriage to a Persecutor of the Brethren, hadin bringing about the Abbe John's decision.
Perhaps none at all--I do not know. I am no man's judge. The weightwhich such an argument might have with oneself is all any man can know.And that is, after all, perhaps best left unstated.
At first John was all for revealing his name and quality; but againstthis Francis Agnew warned him At present he was treated as a pressedman, escaping the "hempen breakfasts of the heretic dogs"--which thecaptain, the young Duke d'Err, often commanded the "comite" to serve outto those condemned for their faith. Only the Turks, of whom there were agood many, captured during the Levantine wars, strong, grave, sturdymen, were better treated than he.
"If, then," said his companion, "they know that you are a cousin of theBearnais, they will most likely send you to the Holy Bonfire, especiallyas you are of too light weight to row in the galley, at any rate."
The Abbe John cried out against this. He was as good as any man, in thegalley or elsewhere.
"In intent, yes," said the Scot, "but your weight is as nothing toHamal's or even mine, when it comes to pulling at fifty foot of oar onan upper deck!"
The Duke of Err was a young nobleman who had early ruined himself byevil life. The memory rankled, so that sometimes the very devil ofcruelty seemed to ride him. He would order the most brutal acts forsport, and laugh afterwards as they threw the dead slaves over, hangingcrucifixes, Korans, or Genevan Bibles about their necks in mockeryaccording to their creed.
"My galley is lighter by so much carrion!" he would say on suchoccasions.
It chanced that in the late autumn, when the great heats were beginningto abate and the equinoctials had not yet begun to blow on that exposedeastern coast of Spain, that for a private reason the Duke-Captaindesired to be at Tarragona by nightfall. So all that day the slaves weredriven by the "executioners"--as the Duke invariably named his"comites"--till they prayed for death.
Although it was a known sea and a time of peace the slaves were allowedno quarter--that is, one half rowing while the other rested. All wereforced most mercilessly through a long day's agony of heat and labour.
"Strike, _bourreau_--strike!" cried the captain incessantly; "what elseare you paid the King's good money for? If we do not get to Tarragona byfour o'clock this afternoon, I will have you hung from the yardarm. Soyou are warned. If you cannot animate, you can terrorise. Once I saw a'comite' in the galleys of Malta cut off a slave's arm, and beat theother dogs about the head with it till they doubled their speed!"
It was in order to give a certain entertainment at Tarragona that theDuke of Err was so eager to get there. For hardly had the _Conquistador_anchored, before the great sail was down, the fore-rudder unshipped, theafter part of the deck cleared, and a gay marquee spread, with tablesset out underneath for a banquet.
By this time, what with the freshness of the sea and fear of missing astroke occasionally--a crime always relentlessly punished--the men wereso fatigued with the heat, the toil, and the bruising of their chestsupon the oar-handles, that many would gladly have fallen asleep as theywere--but the order came not. All were kept at their posts ready for thesalute when the guests of the Duke should come on board--that is, thelifting of the huge oars out of the water all in a moment and holdingthem parallel and dripping, a thing which, when well performed, producesa very happy effect.
After dinner the Duke conducted his guests upon the _coursier_, orraised platform, to look down upon the strange and terrible spectaclebeneath. It was full moon, and the guests, among them several ladies,gazed upon that mass of weary humanity as on a spectacle.
"God who made us all," murmured the Abbe John, "can woman born of womanbe so cruel?"
The young Duke was laughing and talking to a lady whom he heldcavalierly by the hand, to preserve her from slipping upon the narrowledge of the _coursier_.
"I told you I had the secret of sleep," he said; "I will prove it. Iwill make three hundred and fifty men sleep with a motion of my hand."
He signed to one of the "comites," whom he was accustomed to call his"chief hangman," and the man blew a long modulated note. Instantly thewhole of the men who had kept at attention dropped asleep--most of thembeing really so, because of their weariness. And others, like Johnd'Albret and Francis the Scot, only pretended to obey the order.
At the sight of the hundreds of miserable wretches beneath, crowdedtogether, naked to the waist (for they had had no opportunity ofdressing), their backs still bleeding from the blows of the _bourreau_,the lady shuddered and drew her arm hastily from that of the captain.But he, thinking that she was pleased, and only in fear of slippingamong such a horrid gang, led her yet farther along the estrade, andcontinued his jesting in the same strain as before.
"My dear lady," he said, "you have now seen that I am possessed of theart of making men sleep. Now you will see that I know equally well howto awake them."
Again he signed to the "comites" to blow the _reveille_.
A terrible scene ensued as the men rose to resume their oars. The chainsclanked and jingled. The riveted iron girdles about their waistsglistened at the part where the back-pull of the oar catches it. Hardlyone of the crew was fit to move. With the long strain of waiting theirlimbs had stiffened; their arms had become like branches of trees. Eventhe utmost efforts of "hangman" were hardly able to put into them asemblance of activity.
As the party looked from above upon that moving mass, the moon, whichhad been clouded over, began to draw clear. Above, was the white andsleeping town sprinkled with illuminated windows--beneath, manyriding-lights of ships in harbour. The moon sprang
from behind thecloud, sailing small and clear in the height of heaven, and Valentine laNina found herself looking into a pallid, scarcely human face--that ofJohn d'Albret, galley-slave.
He was--where she had vowed him. Her curse had held true. With a cry sheslipped from the captain's arm, sprang from the _coursier_, and threwher arms about the neck of the worn and bleeding slave!
The White Plumes of Navarre: A Romance of the Wars of Religion Page 44
