“I consented; we shook hands; and the Sanspareil, after landing poor Captain Botten and his four men at the fort, put to sea. On board the Sanspareil I remained fourteen months. She took several valuable prizes and returned to Bordeaux, and as I gave my word not to attempt to escape, I went ashore with him. I did him, and my countrymen taken in the prizes, good service; I saved several from captivity; and, during the month we remained in Bordeaux, I was received into the captain’s family, and treated with the greatest kindness. I told him, after some months, finding him a true-hearted, kind man, who I really was, and how I was connected with one of the first families in France. We again put to sea. You may be sure, though I really wished no misfortune to occur to my worthy skipper, I still looked forward to a change of fortune. The Sanspareil was a splendid sailing vessel, and nearly two hundred and fifty tons burden, with a fine crew; but her career was drawing to a close. We left Bordeaux for a cruise in the Channel; we were but three days out when we encountered one of the most tremendous gales, the captain said, he had ever witnessed. Every sail we attempted to set was blown into ribbons, whilst a tremendous sea cleared our decks of boats and every inch of bulwark. Our rigging snapped like whipcord, and, finally, our main-mast went over the side, carrying with it three of the crew; so we drove up Channel under our fore-mast without a rag on it. The sea was awful to look at, and the weather so thick that we expected each moment, ignorant of where we were, to run ashore. At length, under a deluge of rain, the wind shifted to the nor’-west, and at break of day the sky suddenly cleared, and to the captain’s consternation we found ourselves within gun-shot of an English frigate, under storm staysails. English colours were shown on our fore-mast, but the Sanspareil was well known, and considered too great a pest to be spared; and the ship, as we shot close by, lifted on a huge billow, hailed through a speaking trumpet, ordering us to heave-to, or she would sink us. Captain Eltherme, even in that tremendous sea, sought to escape; and with great bravery—for heave-to he could not—lowered the English flag, and hoisted the tricolor. He imagined in that boiling sea the English frigate would never open fire, but she did; the iron shower passed over without injury to us; but another, as the frigate paid off, gave us our death wound, the shot going into our side as we rolled over on a cross sea. Some accident evidently happened to the frigate, for instead of following us she again bore up in the wind, whilst we contrived to set a stay-sail on the fore-mast, and then bore away for the French coast; but we soon found that the pumps would not keep the vessel free, neither could the carpenters plug the shot-hole in the breaking seas. Just as the sun was setting, and we were fast settling in the water, we came up with the French frigate Prudente lying to. Signals of distress were hoisted, and as we passed under her stern, we stated we were sinking. With immense difficulty, and by almost incredible exertions with hawsers and barrels, for no boat could live, we were all taken out except nine, who went down with the unfortunate Sanspareil. It was five days after this that the Prudente was encountered by you, Captain O’Loughlin. Determined to be free or perish, I rushed up the rigging, and, thank God! succeeded in reaching this ship in safety. I have now brought, I fear, my tedious narrative, to which you have listened with patience, to a close.”
“Well, by Jove, my dear young friend, you have had your share of trials for one so young. Your narrative has greatly interested me, and now that you have finished, I will give you some intelligence that will, I know, gratify you. When the Vengeance foundered, on the 1st of June, in the engagement with Lord Howe’s fleet, the English boats saved many lives. Captain Renaudin was picked up by one boat, and his gallant little son by another. Each thought the other lost, when, to their intense joy, they again met in Portsmouth.”
“How rejoiced I am to hear this intelligence!” said Julian Arden, “for a nobler or braver spirit never breathed than Captain Renaudin.”
“He has been done justice to, I assure you. Our papers of that time gave the full particulars of the foundering of the Vengeance, and of the father and son’s reunion. The next piece of news I have to tell you is, that not very long ago I saw an article in the Times newspaper, announcing the appointment of a Lieutenant-General Packenham to the command of the garrison at Plymouth, mentioning the gallant services of the general whilst in India. I have no doubt but that this Lieutenant-General Packenham is the same Colonel Packenham you knew.”
“I dare say it is,” returned Julian, “and I trust time has not obliterated from Miss Packenham’s mind all memory of my unfortunate self.”
“Say fortunate, my dear young friend, for you have been providentially saved during severe trials. Do not, like most lovers absent from their charmers, give way to imaginary evils. ‘Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.’”
CHAPTER XXVII.
The following day, Julian Arden, attired in the garments of the French seaman, Louis Lebeau, and furnished with his papers and a good sum in French money, took leave of his kind friends on board the Onyx, was landed in the dusk on the French coast, actually within half a mile of the spot where the lugger, the Vengeance, had been run ashore by William Thornton, and his follower, Bill Saunders. Julian felt himself perfectly secure in his character of a French seaman, but he felt also greatly anxious to discover the fate of his dear mother; whether she still enjoyed freedom, or was under the surveillance of the Republic. Though he had no doubt, when daylight broke, that he should recognise from memory many of the features of the surrounding country, still, in the dark, he was loth to commence his journey to Coulancourt.
It was the month of June, so there was very little hardship in passing the night under the shelter of one of the sand-hills. Stretching himself at his ease, he lay ruminating over the past, and picturing to himself prospects for the future. He had many visions, during his uneasy sleep, but Cherry Packenham was the predominating one.