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"Hand was some sort of henchman to Monsieur Chatelard, I believe. And he told me that your cousin was picked up in New York harbor, swimming for life, it appeared. No one seemed to know any more." Aleck stopped short, looked at Agatha, pursed his lips for a whistle and remained silent.
His sudden failure of strength in the water had been due to a blow from a floating spar, as a bruise on his forehead testified; "the old man," whom Jim supposed to be the captain, was a hard master; Monsieur Chatelard was owner, or at least temporary proprietor, of the yacht; and the present voyage was an unlucky one by all the signs and omens known to the seamen's horoscope.
Mary entreated her brother that Chatelard might be sent back to France; but Murray made her see what terrible consequences such a use of her right of pardon might have, so that Mary was obliged to let justice take its course: Chatelard was led to execution.
Then she left me and was gone a long time; and when she came back, that man was with her. I learned afterward that he was called Monsieur Chatelard. They both looked at me, arguing fiercely in such a furious French that I could not understand more than half they said.
Chatelard started toward the hatchway, followed sharply by Jim's revolver, but at the foot of the ladder he turned his contemptuous, sneering face toward Jim, with the remark: "Your words are the words of a fool, you pig of an American! There is no lady aboard this yacht, and I never so much as heard of your Agatha Redmond. Otherwise, I'd be pleased to play Mercury to your Venus."
Then Marshal Damville, who knew nothing of Chatelard's passion, and who himself, encouraged by Mary's kindness, was among the candidates to succeed Francis II as husband, set out for Scotland with the poor exile, taking Chatelard with him, and, not imagining he would find a rival in him, he made a confidant of him, and left him with Mary when he was obliged to leave her, charging the young poet to support with her the interests of his suit.
But this kindness only increased Chatelard's confidence: he put down the reprimand he had received to the presence of the queen's women, and supposed that if she had been alone she would have forgiven him still more completely; so that, three weeks after, this same scene was repeated. But this time, Chatelard, discovered in a cupboard, when the queen was already in bed, was placed under arrest.
They looked as if they were appraising me, like an article for sale, but Madame Sofie held out steadily, on some point, against Monsieur Chatelard, and finally it appeared that she converted him to her own point of view. He went away very angry, and I did not see him again, except at a distance, until the night of the wreck."
Jim laughed, remembering certain incidents on the Jeanne D'Arc. "Do you know," Chamberlain continued, "I'm convinced the bloomin' beggar is hiding about here somewhere. I'm glad Aleck is getting away." "I thought the evidence favored the theory that Chatelard had made straight for New York." "Not a bit of it. Aleck and I let you all believe that, for the sake of the ladies.
Among the lords who had followed Mary Stuart to Scotland was, as we have mentioned, a young nobleman named Chatelard, a true type of the nobility of that time, a nephew of Bayard on his mother's side, a poet and a knight, talented and courageous, and attached to Marshal Damville, of whose household he formed one.
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