Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) (618 page)

CHAPTER XVI

Astern of the tartane, the sun, about to set, kindled a streak of dull crimson glow between the darkening sea and the overcast sky. The peninsula of Giens and the islands of Hyres formed one mass of land detaching itself very black against the fiery girdle of the horizon; but to the north the long stretch of the Alpine coast continued beyond sight its endless sinuosities under the stooping clouds.

The tartane seemed to be rushing together with the run of the waves into the arms of the oncoming night. A little more than a mile away on her lee quarter, the Amelia, under all plain sail, pressed to the end of the chase. It had lasted now for a good many hours, for Peyrol, when slipping away, had managed to get the advantage of the Amelia from the very start. While still within the large sheet of smooth water which is called the Hyres roadstead, the tartane, which was really a craft of extraordinary speed, managed to gain positively on the sloop. Afterwards, by suddenly darting down the eastern passage between the two last islands of the group, Peyrol actually got out of sight of the chasing ship, being hidden by the Ile du Levant for a time. The Amelia having to tack twice in order to follow, lost ground once more. Emerging into the open sea, she had to tack again, and then the position became that of a stern chase, which proverbially is known as a long chase. Peyrol’s skilful seamanship had twice extracted from Captain Vincent a low murmur accompanied by a significant compression of lips. At one time the Amelia had been near enough the tartane to send a shot ahead of her. That one was followed by another which whizzed extraordinarily close to the mastheads, but then Captain Vincent ordered the gun to be secured again. He said to his first lieutenant, who, his speaking trumpet in hand, kept at his elbow: ``We must not sink that craft on any account. If we could get only an hour’s calm, we would carry her with the boats.’’

The lieutenant remarked that there was no hope of a calm for the next twenty-four hours at least.

``No,’’ said Captain Vincent, ``and in about an hour it will be dark, and then he may very well give us the slip. The coast is not very far off and there are batteries on both sides of Frjus, under any of which he will be as safe from capture as though he were hove up on the beach. And look,’’ he exclaimed after a moment’s pause, ``this is what the fellow means to do.’’

``Yes, sir,’’ said the lieutenant, keeping his eyes on the white speck ahead, dancing lightly on the short Mediterranean waves, ``he is keeping off the wind.’’

``We will have him in less than an hour,’’ said Captain Vincent, and made as if he meant to rub his hands, but suddenly leaned his elbow on the rail. ``After all,’’ he went on, ``properly speaking, it is a race between the Amelia and the night.’’

``And it will be dark early to-day,’’ said the first lieutenant, swinging the speaking trumpet by its lanyard. ``Shall we take the yards off the back-stays, sir?’’

``No,’’ said Captain Vincent. ``There is a clever seaman aboard that tartane. He is running off now, but at any time he may haul up again. We must not follow him too closely, or we shall lose the advantage which we have now. That man is determined on making his escape.’’

If those words by some miracle could have been carried to the ears of Peyrol, they would have brought to his lips a smile of malicious and triumphant exultation. Ever since he had laid his hand on the tiller of the tartane every faculty of his resourcefulness and seamanship had been bent on deceiving the English captain, that enemy whom he had never seen, the man whose mind he had constructed for himself from the evolutions of his ship. Leaning against the heavy tiller he addressed Michel, breaking the silence of the strenuous afternoon.

``This is the moment,’’ his deep voice uttered quietly. ``Ease off the mainsheet, Michel. A little now, only.’’

When Michel returned to the place where he had been sitting to windward, the rover noticed his eyes fixed on his face wonderingly. Some vague thoughts had been forming themselves slowly, incompletely, in Michel’s brain. Peyrol met the utter innocence of the unspoken inquiry with a smile that, beginning sardonically on his manly and sensitive mouth, ended in something resembling tenderness.

``That’s so, camarade,’’ he said with particular stress and intonation, as if those words contained a full and sufficient answer. Most unexpectedly Michel’s round and generally staring eyes blinked as if dazzled. He too produced from somewhere in the depths of his being a queer, misty smile from which Peyrol averted his gaze.

``Where is the citizen?’’ he asked, bearing hard against the tiller and staring straight ahead. ``He isn’t gone overboard, is he? I don’t seem to have seen him since we rounded the land near Porquerolles Castle.’’

Michel, after craning his head forward to look over the edge of the deck, announced that Scevola was sitting on the keelson.

``Go forward,’’ said Peyrol, ``and ease off the fore-sheet now a little. This tartane has wings,’’ he added to himself.

Alone on the after-deck Peyrol turned his head to look at the Amelia. That ship, in consequence of holding her wind, was now crossing obliquely the wake of the tartane. At the same time she had diminished the distance. Nevertheless, Peyrol considered that had he really meant to escape, his chances were as eight to ten — -practically an assured success. For a long time he had been contemplating the lofty pyramid of canvas towering against the fading red belt on the sky, when a lamentable groan made him look round. It was Scevola. The citizen had adopted the mode of progression on all fours, and while Peyrol looked at him he rolled to leeward, saving himself rather cleverly from going overboard, and holding on desperately to a cleat, shouted in a hollow voice, pointing with the other hand as if he had made a tremendous discovery: ``La terre! La terre!’’

``Certainly,’’ said Peyrol, steering with extreme nicety. ``What of that?’’

``I don’t want to be drowned!’’ cried the citizen in his new hollow voice. Peyrol reflected a bit before he spoke in a serious tone:

``If you stay where you are, I assure you that you will . . .’’ he glanced rapidly over his shoulder at the Amelia. . . ``not die by drowning.’’ He jerked his head sideways. ``I know that man’s mind.’’

``What man? Whose mind?’’ yelled Scevola with intense eagerness and bewilderment. ``We are only three on board.’’

But Peyrol’s mind was contemplating maliciously the figure of a man with long teeth, in a wig and with large buckles to his shoes. Such was his ideal conception of what the captain of the Amelia ought to look like. That officer, whose naturally good-humoured face wore then a look of severe resolution, had beckoned his first lieutenant to his side again.

``We are gaining,’’ he said quietly. ``I intend to close with him to windward. We won’t risk any of his tricks. It is very difficult to outmanuvre a Frenchman, as you know. Send a few armed marines on the forecastle-head. I am afraid the only way to get hold of this tartane is to disable the men on board of her. I wish to goodness I could think of some other. When we close with her, let the marines fire a well-aimed volley. You must get some marines to stand by aft as well. I hope we may shoot away his halliards; once his sails are down on his deck he is ours for the trouble of putting a boat over the side.’’

For more than half an hour Captain Vincent stood silent, elbow on rail, keeping his eye on the tartane, while on board the latter Peyrol steered silent and watchful but intensely conscious of the enemy ship holding on in her relentless pursuit. The narrow red band was dying out of the sky. The French coast, black against the fading light, merged into the shadows gathering in the eastern board. Citizen Scevola, somewhat soothed by the assurance that he would not die by drowning, had elected to remain quiet where he had fallen, not daring to trust himself to move on the lively deck. Michel, squatting to windward, gazed intently at Peyrol in expectation of some order at any minute. But Peyrol uttered no word and made no sign. From time to time a burst of foam flew over the tartane, or a splash of water would come aboard with a scurrying noise.

It was not till the corvette had got within a long gunshot from the tartane that Peyrol opened his mouth.

``No!’’ he burst out, loud in the wind, as if giving vent to long anxious thinking, ``No! I could not have left you behind with not even a dog for company. Devil take me if I don’t think you would not have thanked me for it either. What do you say to that, Michel?’’

A half-puzzled smile dwelt persistently on the guileless countenance of the ex-fisherman. He stated what he had always thought in respect of Peyrol’s every remark: ``I think you are right, matre.’’

``Listen then, Michel. That ship will be alongside of us in less than half an hour. As she comes up they will open on us with musketry.’’

``They will open on us . . .’’ repeated Michel, looking quite interested. ``But how do you know they will do that, matre?’’

``Because her captain has got to obey what is in my mind,’’ said Peyrol, in a tone of positive and solemn conviction. ``He will do it as sure as if I were at his car telling him what to do. He will do it because he is a first-rate seaman, but I, Michel, I am just a little bit cleverer than he.’’ He glanced over his shoulder at the Amelia rushing after the tartane with swelling sails, and raised his voice suddenly. ``He will do it because no more than half a mile ahead of us is the spot where Peyrol will die!’’

Michel did not start. He only shut his eyes for a time, and the rover continued in a lower tone:

``I may be shot through the heart at once,’’ he said: ``and in that case you have my permission to let go the halliards if you are alive yourself. But if I live I mean to put the helm down. When I do that you will let go the foresheet to help the tartane to fly into the wind’s eye. This is my last order to you. Now go forward and fear nothing. Adieu.’’ Michel obeyed without a word.

Half a dozen of the
Amelia
’s marines stood ranged on the forecastle-head ready with their muskets. Captain Vincent walked into the lee waist to watch his chase. When he thought that the jibboom of the Amelia had drawn level with the stern of the tartane he waved his hat and the marines discharged their muskets. Apparently no gear was cut. Captain Vincent observed the white-headed man, who was steering, clap his hand to his left side, while he hove the tiller to leeward and brought the tartane sharply into the wind. The marines on the poop fired in their turn, all the reports merging into one. Voices were heard on the decks crying that they ``had hit the white-haired chap.’’ Captain Vincent shouted to the master:

``Get the ship round on the other tack.’’

The elderly seaman who was the master of the Amelia took a critical look before he gave the necessary orders; and the Amelia closed on her chase with her decks resounding to the piping of boatswain’s mates and the hoarse shout: ``Hands shorten sail. About ship.’’

Peyrol, lying on his back under the swinging tiller, heard the calls shrilling and dying away; he heard the ominous rush of
Amelia
’s bow wave as the sloop foamed within ten yards of the tartane’s stern; he even saw her upper yards coming down, and then everything vanished out of the clouded sky. There was nothing in his ears but the sound of the wind, the wash of the waves buffeting the little craft left without guidance, and the continuous thrashing of its foresail the sheet of which Michel had let go according to orders. The tartane began to roll heavily, but Peyrol’s right arm was sound and he managed to put it round a bollard to prevent himself from being flung about. A feeling of peace sank into him, not unmingled with pride. Everything he had planned had come to pass. He had meant to play that man a trick, and now the trick had been played. Played by him better than by any other old man on whom age had stolen, unnoticed, till the veil of peace was torn down by the touch of a sentiment unexpected like an intruder and cruel like an enemy.

Peyrol rolled his head to the left. All he could see were the legs of Citizen Scevola sliding nervelessly to and fro to the rolling of the vessel as if his body had been jammed somewhere. Dead, or only scared to death? And Michel? Was he dead or dying, that man without friends whom his pity had refused to leave behind marooned on the earth without even a dog for company? As to that, Peyrol felt no compunction; but he thought he would have liked to see Michel once more. He tried to utter his name, but his throat refused him even a whisper. He felt himself removed far away from that world of human sounds, in which Arlette had screamed at him: ``Peyrol, don’t you dare!’’ He would never hear anybody’s voice again! Under that grey sky there was nothing for him but the swish of breaking seas and the ceaseless furious beating of the tartane’s foresail. His play-thing was knocking about terribly under him, with her tiller flying madly to and fro just clear of his head, and solid lumps of water coming on board over his prostrate body. Suddenly, in a desperate lurch which brought the whole Mediterranean with a ferocious snarl level with the slope of the little deck, Peyrol saw the Amelia bearing right down upon the tartane. The fear, not of death but of failure, gripped his slowing-down heart. Was this blind Englishman going to run him down and sink the dispatches together with the craft? With a mighty effort of his ebbing strength Peyrol sat up and flung his arm round the shroud of the mainmast.

The Ameleia, whose way had carried her past the tartane for a quarter of a mile, before sail could be shortened and her yards swung on the other tack, was coming back to take possession of her chase. In the deepening dusk and amongst the foaming seas it was a matter of difficulty to make out the little craft. At the very moment when the master of the man-of-war, looking out anxiously from the forecastle-head, thought that she might perhaps have filled and gone down, he caught sight of her rolling in the trough of the sea, and so close that she seemed to be at the end of the
Amelia
’s jibboom. His heart flew in his mouth. ``Hard a starboard!’’ he yelled, his order being passed along the decks.

Peyrol, sinking back on the deck in another heavy lurch of his craft, saw for an instant the whole of the English corvette swing up into the clouds as if she meant to fling herself upon his very breast. A blown seatop flicked his face noisily, followed by a smooth interval, a silence of the waters. He beheld in a flash the days of his manhood, of strength and adventure. Suddenly an enormous voice like the roar of an angry sea-lion seemed to fill the whole of the empty sky in a mighty and commanding shout: ``Steady!”‘‘. . . And with the sound of that familiar English word ringing in his ears Peyrol smiled to his visions and died.