a step beside me on the hard grass, and, looking up, I found myself face to face with the "Leopard." He was almost naked, his hands were cut and bleeding, his wounded arm hung limp by his side. Panting like a dog, he lay at my feet, and told me almost in a sentence that he had climbed the headland.
"I was born at Chambéry," he said in his own idiom, "among the mountains, monsieur. Englishmen know Jules Marchand, the guide. So I am train. Better the broken neck than the skin off the body. Là bas, they are all devils when the Captain is away. Very well, I away also until he come. He shall give them the back on the rope. Very good man, the Captain, when he not have the thunderstorm. Mon Dieu, he burn like the lightnings then; but afterward it is the blue sky, and he laugh. I go to him and say, 'Pardon,' and he shall give me the handshake. For the others, not so; they take the ship out. Captain say that very bad. Oh, my dam, there shall be the skin off the back for that."
I laughed at the drollery of it, and then asked him if he had seen the cruiser. When he replied, "Certainly; she is the Vengeur, from Toulon," I remembered that he was a seaman, and likely to miss nothing the horizon could show him.
"Why should she be here?" I asked him. "Do you think they have discovered the caves? Has any one betrayed the Captain?"
He shook his head. "They hunt the bay," he said. "Why for not? If be they discover, all the worse for them. That's what I say when I see the Zero come up. Cruiser go to hell by and by. Much better if they were not my countrymen, monsieur; I have sorrow for that. But I am the servant of the Captain, and what can I do? Captain Black, he the greatest man that ever have live in the world. If my countrymen so big fool as to send the ship, they pay the price as well as any other. The Vengeur never go back to Toulon again, sure and certain. She, what you say, done and gone for."
"Then it's an accident that brought her here, Marchand?"
He shrugged his shoulders with a Frenchman's gesture.
"Probablement. But she will not remain, monsieur; she will pay the price. Ecco, you shall see."
He repeated this, using the Italian exclamation again and again; and, being now a little recovered, he turned flat upon his stomach, and gazed intently down upon the hither sea. Fascinated by his vague words, which I could not but understand, I also turned my eyes upon the ship; and so we lay, side by side, watching the approaching cruiser, and wondering, perchance, if a tenth part of what we feared for her was in the minds of those who manned her.
What a placid scene! How still the sea! How characteristic of a desolate ocean whose waves beat upon a land of solitudes! Search it to a remote horizon, and the eye could detect no ship upon the broad of the waters. Gulls wheeled above the black islands as though to scare men from their dangers. Mingling in a sensuous play of colours were blues such as Murillo would have loved, greens which were not greens until the sea played upon them, the jewels of the impregnable ramparts, the gold fleck of the burning sun. Not a sound arose but that of the screeching birds. The ship's propeller made thunder in the silence as she drew in toward the land. And she was doomed beyond hope; three hundred souls aboard her would never see the sun rise again! I trembled at the horror of the thought. It came upon me as a chill wind blowing out of the night. Death! It was there upon the sea, and a man might have heard the beating of its wings.
Upon the other side stood the palpable fact that the Vengeur knew the secrets of the caves, and had come to search them. I could not doubt it as I watched her. Viewed from that high place, every movement upon the bridge was plainly visible. I saw officers with gold epaulets spying out the shore; there were leadsmen in the forechains, a group of soldiers aft, a busying to and fro which could not be mistaken. Anon, I heard the bells ring out, and saw the ship bring to. The fearful dread which had been upon me began to pass away. Our men had fled from her, I said; it must be that. When I told Marchand as much, he laughed aloud. This was a fine spectacle to him; he had forgotten all about his countrymen, it appeared.
"Our people very wise," he said, half turning his head; "they know how to wait. Be glad you are not down there, mon ami. Death a very bad thing, but, mon Dieu, the death they will die! Wait a little while, just a little while, and then"