“Here’s the prog, Charley,” said the Captain, helping himself to a plentiful allowance of a very tempting breakfast pie—for the Onyx was capitally victualled, and had a first-rate cook. Her worthy captain, if he loved fighting, also loved good cheer, and no commander could be more beloved by his officers and crew than Patrick O’Loughlin.
Having finished breakfast, Lieutenant Pole took Julian Arden to his cabin, to rig him out in a suit of his shore-going clothes, whilst Captain O’Loughlin proceeded on deck. The wind had lulled considerably, and the fog looked as if inclined to lift. The reefs were shaken out of the topsails, and the course of the corvette altered, standing in for the land, hoping to fall in with her consort. About mid-day the fog cleared; they could distinguish the land about five leagues off, but no sign of their late antagonist; and Captain O’Loughlin resolved to run down along the coast, and cruise off the mouth of the Seine. During the day nothing was seen worth giving chase to—a few fishing luggers, and one or two small coasters, standing in for the land. Lieutenant Pole and Julian Arden made their appearance on deck, the latter dressed in the former’s garments. He was a remarkably handsome young man, slight, but well made, and very active. As they walked the quarter-deck, Captain O’Loughlin made the latter fully acquainted with all the particulars he knew respecting Madame Coulancourt and Mabel, and of the property and title of the Ethertons falling to Captain Arden, his uncle, and then to his son Howard, and mentioned the cruel and unjust conduct of the latter towards Mabel.
“You are now, in point of fact, Sir Julian Etherton,” added Captain O’Loughlin, as the narrative was brought to a conclusion.
“Yes,” said the young man, his cheek flushing, as he thought of the bitter treatment and contemptuous words of Sir Howard Etherton towards his sister; “yes, and, please God, I will assert those rights; though I may, till I can communicate with my mother, find some difficulty as I am, as I now stand as nobody in the eyes of the law. Do you know, Captain O’Loughlin, I have just been wishing you could land me on the coast to the eastward of Havre; Coulancourt is within a league of the sea. I remember every yard of the country. I may say I am almost a Frenchman, in manner, and speaking the language, having passed almost all my life in France and with Frenchmen. My mother is in Paris; and I have no doubt of being able to make my way there without any suspicion being attached to me.”[6]
“By Jove! it is not a bad idea,” said Captain O’Loughlin; “but your dress, and the want of French money. Be the powers of war! we must capture some fellow, and supply ourselves with the needful. It is possible you might pick up some intelligence of my poor friend, Sir Oscar, who, I fear, is a prisoner with Sir Sidney Smith; at all events, we will run down along the coast, and see what is to be done.”
In the evening, after the watch was set, the weather fine, and the wind blowing from the land, the officers of the Onyx were assembled in the Captain’s cabin, enjoying a social bottle of wine, having been invited by their Commander. When only Lieutenant Pole and Julian Arden were left with the Captain, the latter gave them the following account of his escape from the perils of the revolutionary bloodhounds, and his adventures afterwards:—
“I was scarcely sixteen years of age,” began Julian Arden, “when the demons let loose by the revolution at Lyons seized me one morning in the saloon with my mother and sister. Mocking their cries and lamentations, they tore me forcibly away, and dragging me through the streets filled with a revolutionary rabble, who seemed to revel in the miseries of the victims driven along with myself, they consigned me to the tender mercies of Marachat, the notorious and ferocious head gaoler of the prisons of Lyons.
“‘There,’ said my brutal conductors, giving me a blow that drove me on my face with force, causing the blood to flow down my cheeks, ‘there’s a spawn of an aristocrat for you, Marachat; treat him tenderly, and do not make him too fat with kindness.’
“‘Ah! my brave garçon, be not afraid,’ returned the gaoler, ‘I will tell my chef de cuisine to be sparing of his lard.’
“Ordering one of the turnkeys to take charge of me, I was hurried along and thrust into a damp and dismal cell, in which were more than a hundred and fifty unfortunate wretches, half starved, scantily clothed, and many suffering from disease; robbing the guillotine, as our vile gaoler said when any died, of its just dues. I was young, not too young to think; but I will not pain you with minutely detailing my thoughts or my sufferings. This frightful cell was not more than thirty-five feet long and ten broad, and so feebly lighted from above from a slit in the wall, that until well accustomed to the place I could scarcely see. After some eight or ten days’ incarceration, three of our number died, and for four days their bodies were left by those accursed wretches before they were removed. One day I was made to approach the wretch Marachat; a gaoler held a lantern till its light fell upon my features.