To know that she lived and loved me still, but was for ever separated from me—that I dared not see, or visit, or talk with her, and love her in return—filled me with perplexity, irritation, and sorrow; but there was no help for it now.
In all this deep interest no thought of marriage ever occurred to me; in short, I was still too much of a boy to think of this. The romance of loving her sufficed for me; but as some one says, "Did Petrarch ever reflect if Laura would make a good wife? Did Oswald ever think it of Corinne? Would it not weaken faith in their romantic passages if you believed it? What have such practical issues to do with that passion which sublimates the faculties, and makes the loving dreamer to live in an ideal sphere, wherein nothing but goodness and brightness can come?"
Then, as I conjured up the fair image of Eulalie, and thought of the deep mine of tenderness and love which lay buried in that living tomb at St. Pierre, I hailed with joy the order that sent us to the conquest of St. Lucia.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
LA FLEUR D'EPÉE.
In the Grenadier brigade of Major-General H.R.H. Edward Duke of Kent (the father of her present Majesty), the Scots Fusiliers accompanied General Dundas, of Fingask, with the 6th, 9th, and 43rd regiments, to the reduction of the fertile and beautiful isle of St. Lucia, which we reached after two days' sail in hazy and rainy, but calm weather; and the conquest of which we completed in three days without the loss of a man, as General Ricard, with all the soldiers of the republic, capitulated and laid down their arms. When Ricard came forth, he had more lorettes under his colours than rank and file—hence perhaps the brevity of his defence.
I consider it very remarkable that there was not a single British soldier or seaman even wounded at the conquest of St. Lucia, although, as Sir Charles Grey mentions in his despatch, there had been heavy cannonading from the enemy's batteries; and in storming one near Morne Fortunée, Colonel Coote, at the head of four light companies, killed two French officers, with thirty of their soldiers, and spiked six pieces of great ordnance. In Morne Fortunée we found a vast quantity of plunder and military stores; and every man got as much rum and sangaree, with yams and plaintains, as he could carry off.
There is an old story of an English ship bound for Guinea, in the days of Charles I., having marooned sixty mutineers on this island, when the Caribs—its former inhabitants, fierce cannibals, who painted their naked bodies with yellow ochre, and drew a stripe of vermillion from ear to ear—tortured, roasted, and devoured the whole of them.
After the capture we left a garrison and re-embarked; the left wing was on board the Adder, the right on board the frigate of Lord Garlies, eldest son of the Earl of Galloway, a gallant Scottish naval officer, who bore a distinguished part in the reduction of the French Antilles.
The rocky islets named Los Santos by the adventurous Spaniards, who discovered them on the festival of All Saints, were our next scene of service, and a bloody one it proved.