At the expiration of four hours the governor returned with his guide, and immediately retraced his steps to St. Pierre. Some of those who formed his escort remarked that he was very pale and very much agitated. From that moment until the day of his death, which occurred thirteen months to the very day after his visit to Devil's Cliff, no one ever heard him pronounce the name of Blue Beard. The governor made a long confession to Father Griffen, who came to him from Macouba. It was observed that in leaving the penitent, Father Griffen appeared to have received a great shock.
From that time the kind of fatal and mysterious reputation which had attached itself to the name of Blue Beard increased day by day. Superstition mingled with the terror which she inspired, until her name was never mentioned without terror; it was firmly believed that she had assassinated her three husbands, and that she had escaped punishment by law only through the power of her wealth, thus purchasing the support of the different governors who succeeded each other in turn. No one, then, was tempted to trouble Blue Beard with visits to the wild and solitary place in which she dwelt, above all since the cannibal, the buccaneer and the privateer had come, as they said, to be companions or consolers to the widow.
Whether or not these men had ever legally rendered themselves liable for any crime, it was asserted that they pursued with an implacable hatred and vengeance all who attempted to come near Blue Beard. By reason of being repeated and exaggerated, these threats bore their fruit. The islanders care little to go, perhaps at the peril of their lives, to penetrate into the mysteries of Devil's Cliff. It required the desperate audacity of a Gascon in extremity, to attempt to surprise the secret of Blue Beard and undertake to espouse her. Such was possibly the fixed design of the Chevalier de Croustillac; he was not a man to renounce so easily the hope, insane as it was, of marrying a woman worth millions; beautiful or plain, young or old, it mattered little to him.
As a means to success, he counted upon his good carriage, his spirit, his amiability, and his manner, at the same time gallant and proud--for the chevalier had an excellent opinion of himself--but he counted still more on his wit, his cunning, and his courage. In fine, a man alert and determined, who had nothing to lose and feared nothing, who believed implicitly in himself and his star; who could say to himself as did Croustillac, "In risking death during a moment--for death can be but a moment's agony--I _may_ live in luxury and opulence"--such a man can perform miracles above all when he undertakes a project with such a grand object and as stimulating as that proposed by Croustillac.