He was prepared to wipe out the fishing-post if Mattingley did not produce Ranulph—well, “here was Ranulph duly produced and insultingly setting up a tent on this sheer rock, with some snippet of the devil,” said Richambeau, and defying a great French war-ship. He would set his gunners to work. If he only had as good a marksman as Ranulph himself, the deserter should drop at the first shot “death and the devil take his impudent face!”
He was just about to give the order when Mattingley was brought to him. The old man’s story amazed him beyond measure.
“It is no man, then!” said Richambeau, when Mattingley had done. “He must be a damned fly to do it. And the girl—sacre moi! he drew her up after him. I’ll have him down out of that though, or throw up my flag,” he added, and turning fiercely, gave his orders.
For hours the Victoire bombarded the lonely rock from the north. The white tent was carried away, but the cannon-balls flew over or merely battered the solid rock, the shells were thrown beyond, and no harm was done. But now and again the figure of Ranulph appeared, and a half-dozen times he took aim with his musket at the French soldiers on the shore. Twice his shots took effect; one man was wounded, and one killed. Then whole companies of marines returned a musketry fire at him, to no purpose. At his ease he hid himself in the long grass at the edge of the cliff, and picked off two more men.
Here was a ridiculous thing: one man and a slip of a girl fighting and defying a battle-ship. The smoke of battle covered miles of the great gulf. Even the seabirds shrieked in ridicule.
This went on for three days at intervals. With a fine chagrin Richambeau and his men saw a bright camp-fire lighted on the rock, and knew that Ranulph and the girl were cooking their meals in peace. A flag-staff too was set up, and a red cloth waved defiantly in the breeze. At last Richambeau, who had watched the whole business from the deck of the Victoire, burst out laughing, and sent for Elie Mattingley. “Come, I’ve had enough,” said Richambeau.
“There never was a wilder jest, and I’ll not spoil the joke. He has us on his toasting-fork. He shall have the honour of a flag of truce.”
And so it was that the French battle-ship sent a flag of truce to the foot of Perch Rock, and a French officer, calling up, gave his captain’s word of honour that Ranulph should suffer nothing at the hands of a court-martial, and that he should be treated as an English prisoner of war, not as a French deserter.
There was no court-martial. After Ranulph, at Richambeau’s command, had told the tale of the ascent, the Frenchman said:
“No one but an Englishman could be fool enough to try such a thing, and none but a fool could have had the luck to succeed. But even a fool can get a woman to follow him, and so this flyaway followed you, and—”