My arms and back were so sore with the straining he had given me that it cost many an ache to bend over into the hatchway. I felt in worse plight than he, for further than showing a cloth about his neck and a certain huskiness in the voice he gave no sign of rough handling. He made no move to arise from his stool as I entered the cabin. He turned his eyes in my direction, looking sullen and angry as any great bull. But it was not the imperious look he bore after the sea battle; it was rather the eye-challenge of one man for another of equal station. I marked with pleasure how his eye traveled over me, and could barely suppress a smile. I had no mind to bring about further trouble, but in spite of good intention he took the visit ill; the malice he bore me and the hatred I bore him so filled his spirit and mine that there was no place in either for admiration of the prowess of the other.
“So, sir,” said he, “you must seek to humiliate me further.”
“I make offense to no man, save that of his own choosing,” I replied. “I come upon the matter of your exchange and liberation. In a short time I go ashore to settle the terms of your release; so we shall be quits. To-night you may go as you will without hindrance from my people.”
“I shall not leave you sadly, Sir Englishman,” growled he. “But mark you this,—I am no weakling enemy. You have bested me fairly, but for it all I like you not. I hate you for your handsome face, your sneaking air and your saintly mien. There has been an account opened that cannot be closed until one of us is dead. I will not die yet. One day you shall fawn at my feet for mercy until the fetters gnaw deep into your hide or the fire eats out your heretic heart!”
They were ill-omened threats. His manner was in no way to be mistaken and I was in no humor to be crossed by such as he. But seeing no good to come of further conversation I turned upon my heel and walked to the companion-way.
“I warn you now,” he went on as I paused at the foot of the hatch, “nothing in France can save the Sieur de la Notte—nothing—not even in Dieppe. I will seek you fair and I will seek you foul; I will take you fair if fairness offers; but, fair or foul, I will meet you when the advantage will not be upon your side—and so, good-by,—Sir Pirato!” I heard him laughing hoarsely as I walked up the gangway. Surely he was not a pleasant person.
By six o’clock in the evening my arrangements with Captain Hooper’s agent were made. In the settlement the Spanish prisoners were to be exchanged for certain Englishmen and Frenchmen, in all thirty in number. A purchaser found, the San Cristobal was to be sold forthwith, her equivalent in gold being transferred to me for Captain Hooper at Portsmouth. It gave me great disappointment that there was no authorized agent of Admiral Coligny in the town, to whom I could turn over in bulk the money in the closet in the cabin. The condition of affairs being so uncertain and men so little to be trusted, there seemed no other way but to carry this money to Coligny myself. Accordingly I also made arrangements through the agent to have this great treasure converted into jewels that I might convey it the more easily. My own seamen, save Goddard and Salvation Smith whom I retained, were to be set upon a ship sailing for Portsmouth in a few days. The Sieur de la Notte and his family were safely removed to rooms in the house of a Huguenot, who could be trusted to keep counsel; for in Dieppe, though the followers of Calvin had assembled in great numbers, there was even now danger for noble fugitives. In the present condition of matters of state, the Admiral, whose watchful eye seemed to reach all France, might do nothing except by subterfuge for his people; and there were many at court who bore La Notte so fierce a hatred that the aid of Coligny was now impossible. The house in which the unfortunate nobleman was quartered lay in the Rue Etienne under the shadow of the new church of Saint Remi. The city, topped by the frowning hill and battlements of the great Château, lay thickly to the left; and down several turnings to the right through the marts of the city was the quay where the tall ships of the house of Parmentier had for two generations brought in, each twelvemonth, the richest products of the East.
Thither, on the following evening, after my visit to the shipping agent, I directed my steps. Although I had a great treasure about me in jewels and money, I was at a loss for a safer place and felt that I might rest secure there until the morrow, when a Protestant vessel would be sailing for the Seine. I was going to leave Mademoiselle and my heart was heavy. Diego de Baçan was loose in Dieppe, and though at a disadvantage, I did not doubt he would waste no time in learning the whereabouts of every sympathizer in the town. Aye, and every bravo of his creed who could be hired to do his dirty work. As a matter of precaution there came with me Job Goddard and Salvation Smith who swung gleefully up from the counting-house and landing place, buffeting aside the staid townsmen and the seamen who were setting the supplies upon the vessels of the fleet of Jean Ribault which were to sail in a few days to establish the colony in America.
Goddard and Smith I sent into a tavern near by the abode of the Sieur de la Notte with instructions to engage no one in conversation and to await my coming. With the strongest admonitions to secrecy, I had told them of the jewels about me, of my plans and of my suspicions; for I wished, if anything happened to me, that the Sieur de la Notte should be informed. I knew these seamen devoted to my interests; and the desire to aid me, I fancied, had found no cause for abatement since the struggle of the evening before with the Spaniard.
Of the things which happened in the cabaret and of which I am about to tell, I afterward learned from Goddard himself, whose resolution was a thing of paper or of iron as he was in or out of his cups. He differed from Salvation Smith, for there was no hour, drunk or sober, in which that stalwart Christian would not vigorously assail the strongholds of the devil. There seemed to be no tenet of the New Religion which he had not at his tongue’s obedience; and when he and Goddard were drunk together, the exhortations of Salvation would reach a degree of frenzy which for the time silenced even the profanity of his companion. Quiet of common, his talk would then become louder and more forward until there was at last no opportunity for talk from others. And as his speech grew louder, that of Goddard, the blasphemer, would become more subdued, until, for a time perhaps, but few words—none of them of saintly origin—came from his lips. The torrent of the discourse of Smith, halted for a moment, gained by delay a stronger flow and burst forth the more sturdily, until burnt up at last in the flame of its own enthusiasm. Yet Job Goddard would not be denied for long, and so ingenious were his powers that his mutterings would at last resolve themselves into combinations of words so new and surprising that Salvation Smith even was soon agape with something very near to admiration.