“And you?”—to me.
“If not with you, then with some other,” I replied.
“Ah! Then that is done,” he exclaimed joyfully. “Now to the plans. I believe in my company first and my plans next. For plans are of no use if there is no one to put them to practise. Here is what I shall do. If during the week to come the King of France does not obtain reparation from Spain and the degradation of this monster, Menendez, I will provide ships and men, and myself sail for Florida.”
“But how?” we both asked in the same breath.
“My inheritance is for sale,” said this wonderful man with a cunning smile, as though he were bartering a horse. “I shall obtain money from my brother and any others who may still find a virtue in honor. I shall have three small vessels with a hundred arquebusiers and eighty sailors. Blaise de Montluc, lieutenant for the King in Guienne, where my brother has a high post, will give me a commission to make war upon the negroes of Benin—to bring them out as slaves, an adventure now held most honorable—and then—then, voyez-vous, we will go not to Benin, but elsewhere—where, we cannot at this time precisely tell and so cannot inform our valiant company—but to some place where there is easy service and much profit. Is not the plan a good one?”
De Brésac had listened, his eye kindling with enthusiasm. He now cried out, “It is more than good, it is wonderful! And upon my life, it succeeds! You shall have—not two hundred men, but two thousand—for by now there is not one Indian friendly to the Spanish among all the tribes of Satouriona. They will not live in subjection. I have lived among them and I know.”
“Think you so? Then pardieu, ’tis simple as plain sailing, and not one stone of this fort will we leave upon another. There’s my hand on it. And now adieu and for the present—silence!” So saying he threw his cloak about him and went away as quickly as he had come.
So rapidly had the whole business been accomplished, that when he had disappeared I began wondering whether it were all true, or whether this strange person were but a whirlwind creature of the fancy. But there was De Brésac holding his hand and looking at his fingers, which De Gourgues had clasped.
“Ugh! Shall I ever straighten them?” he cried. “He has the grasp of the Scavenger’s Daughter.[C] This comes of being chained to a galley-oar. No, ’tis no dream. He will do what he promises, never fear. ’Tis the most wonderful man this side of hell, Killigrew!”