The Mystery of the Lost Dauphin Part 20

"What right?" retorted the Breton. "Tell me first by what right the innocent boy-king was tortured, imprisoned, buried? When that schooner and its crew sleep on the floor of ocean, no man will arise to speak to me about rights. Ho there! to business." And he ran down the stairs, followed by Rene and the Carbonari. Amelie flung her arms around her father's neck as he fell on his knees in prayer. The pale blue morning light filtered through the cabin windows and gleamed over the water.

Chapter IX

THE SCHOONER

The Polipheme with outstretched sails sped swiftly after the schooner.

Soliviac turned the telescope upon her, remarking to the mate:

"She seems to be lying to."

The mate took the instrument and looked also.

"Not only lying to," he said, "but she is also drawing in sails."

"What can that mean?" mused the captain.

"It means good luck to us, for within another quarter of an hour she will be within our reach. Then we may send her a salute. There is no necessity of announcing our intentions to the high seas: therefore, lower the French flag and hoist the Dutch, in case there be witnesses to our fray."

These orders were silently executed. The crew never commented upon the captain's acts. Besides, having been habituated by their long campaigns against England to piracy and l.u.s.t for booty, they chafed at the restrictions of a normally organized commerce and enthusiastically welcomed the approaching struggle. The schooner's graceful form, floating the English flag, was easily discernible. Her crew appeared like ants, moving to and fro.

"Captain," exclaimed the pilot, "do you not see them signal? They have just fired off a sky rocket."

"Let us give them a sample of _our_ rockets!" answered Soliviac.

"Let us demand the spy," whispered Giacinto.

"Are you crazy?" asked Louis Pierre. "What if the fellow leave them a letter for the government? No. The vessel that has rescued Volpetti must perish. Are you trembling? Have you contracted the scruples of the man who is praying on his knees in the cabin? I also believe in divine justice. I believe that 'tis we who accomplish it."

"Captain," called out the mate, "do you see that thin column of smoke rising from her right side?"

Soliviac dropped the telescope, for his eyes served him better at that distance than the instrument. He saw that the vessel was burning.

"She is afire!" he called out.

"Fire!" shouted the three Carbonari.

"The divine justice of which Naundorff spoke," said Rene.

"Nevertheless, inasmuch as a few buckets of water may extinguish that justice, let us send a salute to the English flag, Captain," ironically remarked Louis Pierre.

Soliviac gave the order and four little cannon, with a simultaneous precision which revealed practice, sent their load into the schooner's side.

"Load again!" shouted Soliviac. "At the masts and spars!"

Aboard the schooner, the unexpected attack produced panic. The crew ran back and forth in consternation and the smoke grew denser.

"Louis Pierre!" called out Giacinto in ferocious joy, "I see Volpetti aboard."

The Polipheme's second discharge broke the mizzen mast, which, falling, caught beneath it two of the sailors. The smoke rose in great columns and 'twas impossible to see what further happened.

"Where are we?" asked Soliviac of the pilot.

"Opposite the isle of Jersey, but nearer the sh.o.r.e than they. Those who count on swimming ash.o.r.e have slim chance."

"Keep an eye on the skiffs," called the captain. "Now they are trying to save themselves."

Red tongues of flame shot out amid the smoke. The captain commanded.

"Another salute! Let water in to quench their fire."

Again the cannons' load was poured into the schooner's side. She attempted no defence, for all her energy was directed to fighting the fire aboard. One of the Polipheme's b.a.l.l.s went into her bow, and the water roared through the aperture.

"Now she goes to the bottom!" shouted Giacinto, wild with joy.

Just then the crew lowered a skiff. The tiny craft dropped to the water and floated like a sh.e.l.l, and several persons cast themselves therein.

Two seized the oars and, to the astonishment of the spectators, started toward the Polipheme, whose sailors would gladly have fired upon them had not Louis Pierre interposed. The skiff came within hailing distance.

Two men, a woman and a child of some five years were visible.

"Save us!" they entreated wildly. "We have not harmed you!"

Amelie shudderingly grasped the captain's arm.

"Have mercy on them!" she said.

"It cannot be," he answered.

"At least the child," she insisted.

"h.e.l.lo there!" he called to a sailor. "Cast them a cable and hoist up the boy."

"And the others?"

A look and gesture from Soliviac answered the I question. The skiff drew nearer and some moments later the child, almost dead with fright, was drawn up to the deck. Amelie gathered him in her arms and covered his face with kisses.

"Mamma! mamma!" wailed the little fellow in English.

Notwithstanding her natural courage, Amelie took refuge in a heap of cables and clasped the child tightly to her breast. She did not wish to see or hear, but the shrieks of the skiff's inmates sounded on her ears even tho she covered them close.

She clasped the child tightly. Suddenly she I screamed aloud, for she felt the vessel beneath her tremble amid a deafening explosion. The child ceased sobbing through fright. The schooner's magazine had exploded, casting her into the air. The detonation was followed by a terrible silence while pieces of broken timber and mutilated bodies floated on the surface of the water.

Naundorff raised the almost inanimate form of his daughter from the deck, and then exclaimed in broken tones that seemed to presage naught but a hopeless future:

"Blood has been spilled for our cause; G.o.d is against us!"