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Updated: May 3, 2025
Charles stood pale and trembling with the effort to restrain himself, as he listened to this recital, and De Roberval exulted in the thought that in another moment he would see the man whom he now no longer dreaded lying dead at his feet. At last La Pommeraye found his tongue.
Nothing daunted, La Pommeraye determined to venture again, and Etienne stood by him; but when they came to look for their crew, they found that the fellows had all fled St Malo, and could not be found. No other men were willing to take their places; and through the winter, La Pommeraye, like one distraught, went up and down the streets seeking seamen. But none would join his expedition.
He knew that his own life was not safe a moment while La Pommeraye lived; and he knew, moreover, that should the truth of the story get abroad, his hopes of advancement and honour would be at an end. There was no help for it; he had gone too far to retreat. Charles must not be allowed to leave the castle alive. In Etienne, De Roberval thought he had a faithful ally.
"The Devil, or La Pommeraye," said Jules. "Neither! Too merry for the Devil," answered Henri, "and La Pommeraye, we heard, was killed in Paris." "Nay," replied Jules, "that report was false. But it is true that he is no longer in France. Guillaume Leblanc saw him on board one of Cartier's ships, making for the New World. I was glad of the tidings, I have to confess.
On to Charlesbourg Royal they sailed; and a horrible dread seized La Pommeraye as he approached the place. A dead silence reigned on the steep banks of the broad river. A substantial structure now stood where Cartier had had his rude fort, and its two towers loomed up before the eyes of the Frenchmen.
At last she turned to him, and with an imploring gesture said: "I beg of you to spare my uncle's life." La Pommeraye began his habitual stride up and down the room. His brow was dark, and he gnawed his underlip savagely. That she should plead for the life of the man who had brought all this upon her was to him inexplicable. Was he then to be baulked of his revenge?
At the appointed hour he went to the rendezvous, where La Pommeraye was impatiently awaiting him. The nobleman's demeanour had entirely changed since he left Charles in the afternoon. He now assumed the dignity of a man who has been unjustly suspected, and is prepared to avenge an insult.
It was not till the victor, flushed but triumphant, his gay riding-suit covered with blood and dust, advanced, and doffing his hat almost to the ground bowed low before her, that she recognised La Pommeraye. "Mademoiselle is uninjured, I trust?" said Charles.
He knew that at the least move on his part La Pommeraye would be able to turn all tongues against him; and if the young man had, as he had hinted, any influence with the Duke of Guise, he would undoubtedly call down upon him the heavy hand of the great minister, who had already no love for the ambitious little nobleman. Charles, too, was kept silent by what he had learned.
"Mademoiselle has a strange guardian," said La Pommeraye, who had risen at the animal's approach. "He has kept me alive, Monsieur. But for him I should have gone mad, or cast myself into the sea." "Where are your companions?" La Pommeraye shuddered as he asked the question, but he could keep it back no longer. "It is well with them," she answered calmly; "they sleep behind yonder hill."
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