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If he had but known it, that very morning as he passed Mattingley's house Ranulph had looked down at him with infinite scorn and loathing but with triumph too, for the Chevalier had just shown him a certain page in a certain parish-register long lost, left with him by Carterette Mattingley. Philip knew naught of Ranulph save the story babbled by the islanders.
A flag-staff too was set up, and a red cloth waved defiantly in the breeze. At last Richambeau, who had watched the whole business from the deck of the Victoire, burst out laughing, and sent for Elie Mattingley. "Come, I've had enough," said Richambeau. "There never was a wilder jest, and I'll not spoil the joke. He has us on his toasting-fork. He shall have the honour of a flag of truce."
When day came clear and bright, it was known that Carterette as well as Ranulph had vanished. Mattingley shook his head stoically, but Richambeau on the Victoire was as keen to hunt down one Jersey-Englishman as he had ever been to attack an English fleet. More so, perhaps. Meanwhile the birds kept up a wild turmoil and shrieking. Never before had any one heard them so clamorous.
Land!" and once again Ranulph saw British soil the tall cliffs of the peninsula of Gaspe. Gaspe that was the ultima Thule to which Mattingley and Carterette had gone. Presently, as the Victoire came nearer to the coast, he could see a bay and a great rock in the distance, and, as they bore in now, the rock seemed to stretch out like a vast wall into the gulf.
Mattingley could hear the hollow sound of the sentinels' steps under the archway of the Vier Prison. He was quite stoical. If he had to die, then he had to die. Death could only be a little minute of agony; and for what came after well, he had not thought fearfully of that, and he had no wish to think of it at all. The visiting chaplain had talked, and he had not listened.
After the custom of the country, Carterette at once offered him refreshment, and brought him brandy good old brandy was always to be got at the house of Elie Mattingley! As he drank she noticed a peculiar, uncanny twitching of the fingers and eyelids. The old man's eyes were continually shifting from place to place. He asked Carterette many questions.
If he had but known it, that very morning as he passed Mattingley's house Ranulph had looked down at him with infinite scorn and loathing but with triumph too, for the Chevalier had just shown him a certain page in a certain parish-register long lost, left with him by Carterette Mattingley. Philip knew naught of Ranulph save the story babbled by the islanders.
This happened on the morning after the dark night when Mattingley, Carterette, and Alixandre hurried from the Vier Prison, through the Rue des Sablons to the sea, and there boarded Ranulph's boat, wherein was Olivier Delagarde the traitor. Accompanying Carterette to the shore was a little figure that moved along beside them like a shadow, a little grey figure that carried a gold- headed cane.
The untoward happenings of her life had killed her grandfather, had bowed and aged the old Chevalier, had forced her to reject the friendship of Carterette Mattingley, for the girl's own sake; had made the heart of one fat old woman heavy within her; and, it would seem, had taken hope and ambition from the life of this man before her.
He had had nothing to do with it, for he and Jean Touzel were the best of friends, as was proved by the fact that while he lay in his dungeon, Jean wandered the shore sorrowing for his fate. Thinking now of the whole business and of his past life, Mattingley suddenly had a pang. Yes, remorse smote him at last. There was one thing on his conscience only one.
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