Sir Isumbras at the Ford

by D. K. Broster

"And now," said Raymonde de Guéfontaine, "it is time to tell me how you escaped at Quiberon."

So, as the little boat held on, with a freshening wind, under a sky growing overcast, Fortuné told her. He had not foreseen the exquisite pleasure that it would be to him to make that recital to this, of all listeners.

"It is incredible—miraculous!" she exclaimed at the end, drawing a long breath. "You must have had some talisman, some charm!"

"On the contrary, I refused one," said her lover, laughing, and he told her of Grain d'Orge's consecrated cow's tail. The episode led her to ask news of that unwilling squire of hers, and Fortuné told her that a few weeks ago he had had the satisfaction of receiving, by way of Jersey, a grimy and ill-spelt letter from Kerdronan, in which the veteran campaigner, availing himself of the services of the most cultivated of the band (for he could not even sign his name himself) informed his leader, on the chance of the latter's being alive, that he and various others had escaped to the mainland as indicated, and had made their way up to the Côtes-du-Nord, and that he was reorganising the parishes round Kerdronan against such time as M. Augustin should come back to them. Le Goffic, he added, had been hidden by some peasants at Quiberon till he was sufficiently recovered to sail across to Sarzeau, in the peninsula of Rhuis, and thence he had joined the forces of Charette in Vendée. But since Charette's capture and execution last March he also, thought Grain d'Orge, was probably on his way to Kerdronan.

"But I had a talisman, Raymonde," said the narrator, breaking off. "I had the thought of you, as I have told you. That very unpleasant night at Quiberon, had you not been with me, I should certainly have lain there on the shore till I was found."

"And you had another also," replied Raymonde, glancing aloft at the foreleach of the sail. "What of the little boy—the little boy who cried so for you?"

"Eh bien, cela n'empêchait pas," asseverated La Vireville.—"Yes, it would be better to luff a little; the wind is undoubtedly getting up, and I shall be glad when we make the harbour.—You are right, I had the thought of Anne too, for I had promised his father to look after him if necessary—I forget if I told you that—but as, mercifully, M. de Flavigny was saved, you cannot be Anne's mother, Raymonde."

"He is a darling child," said Mme. de Guéfontaine softly, putting the tiller farther over as she was recommended. Her eyes sparkled, then fell. Perhaps that same thought at which Fortuné had hinted was in her mind too at that moment. In Fortuné's at any rate shone that old dream of his of standing under the larches at Kerdronan with her—and another. Yet now as he gazed at her, sitting, so unbelievably, at the helm of his boat, he suddenly saw, behind her, something else. . . . He gave an exclamation and let go the mainsheet.

"Keep the helm over—hard!" he said. "There is a squall coming; it will be on us in a moment. We must have this sail down. Don't leave the tiller!" And without losing a second he began to tug at the mainsail halyards.

But, the blocks running stiffly, or the ropes being swollen, before the sail was more than half-way down the squall struck them, with a howling blast that seemed to issue from some stupendous bellows, and rain that fell like steel rods. Over, over went the little boat, staggering under the onset, while Fortuné fought desperately both to get the sail completely down and to prevent it, as it came, from flapping into the angry water and pulling them under. It came back to him, like a demon's laughter, as he wrestled with it one-handed, how a few short hours ago he had said that two arms were unnecessary. What a lie!