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And La Vieuville added: "I was with him at Ouessant." "On the Saint Esprit?" "Yes." "Had he obeyed Admiral d'Orvillier's signal to keep to the windward, he would have prevented the English from passing." "True." "Was he really hidden in the bottom of the hold?" "No; but we must say so all the same." And La Vieuville burst out laughing. Boisberthelot continued: "Fools are plentiful.
"But you are the general," replied Boisberthelot. The old man looked at the gunner. "Come forward," he said. The gunner approached. The old man turned toward the Count de Boisberthelot, took off the cross of Saint-Louis from the captain's coat and fastened it on the gunner's jacket. "Hurrah!" cried the sailors. The mariners presented arms.
"You mean relentless?" said Boisberthelot. The count and the chevalier looked at each other. "Monsieur Boisberthelot, you have defined the meaning of the word. Relentless, yes, that's what we need. This is a war that shows no mercy. The blood-thirsty are in the ascendant. The regicides have beheaded Louis XVI; we will quarter the regicides. Yes, the general we need is General Relentless.
"With whom he is connected." Boisberthelot resumed, "In France and in the carriages of the king he is a marquis, as I am a count, and you a chevalier." "The carriages are far away!" exclaimed Vieuville. "We are living in the time of the tumbril." A silence ensued. Boisberthelot went on, "For lack of a French prince we take one from Brittany."
Captain Boisberthelot and Lieutenant la Vieuville, brave men though they were, paused at the top of the ladder, silent, pale, and undecided, looking down on the deck. Some one pushed them aside with his elbow, and descended. It was their passenger, the peasant, the man about whom they were talking a moment ago. Having reached the bottom of the ladder he halted.
But a few moments longer, and shipwreck would be inevitable. They must either overcome this calamity or perish; some decisive action must be taken. But what? What a combatant was this carronade! Here was this mad creature to be arrested, this flash of lightning to be seized, this thunderbolt to be crushed. Boisberthelot said to Vieuville: "Do you believe in God, chevalier?"
The man on whose breast shone the cross of Saint Louis bowed his head, and at a sign of Count Boisberthelot two sailors went down to the gun-deck, and presently returned bringing the hammock-shroud, the two sailors were accompanied by the ship's chaplain, who since the departure had been engaged in saying prayers in the officers' quarters.
But then he is brave, and knows how to fight." "Priests when one needs soldiers! bishops who are no bishops at all! generals who are no generals!" La Vieuville interrupted Boisberthelot. "Have you the Moniteur in your stateroom, commander?" "Yes." "What are they giving now in Paris?" "'Adele and Pauline' and 'La Caverne." "I should like to see that." "You may. We shall be in Paris in a month."
The theme was evidently their passenger; and this was the substance of the conversation which the wind wafted through the darkness. Boisberthelot grumbled half audibly to La Vieuville, "It remains to be seen whether or no he is a leader." La Vieuville replied, "Meanwhile he is a prince." "Almost." "A nobleman in France, but a prince in Brittany." "Like the Trémouilles and the Rohans."
A little after ten, the Count Boisberthelot and the Chevalier de la Vieuville escorted the man in the peasant garb to the door of his cabin, which was the captain's own room. As he was about to enter, he remarked, lowering his voice: "You understand the importance of keeping the secret, gentlemen. Silence up to the moment of explosion. You are the only ones here who know my name."
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