"'Yet, Señorita,' I murmured--'how to do it? These walls seem strong, each window heavily grated, doubtless the house well guarded--and--and we sail at daybreak.'
"'Yet an entrance may be made by the garden,' she whispered in reply; 'the house is defended by negroes only--my room at the top of the stairs. Save me. Save me.'"
Again Gramont paused--again he pointed at the day-spring outside--hurriedly he went on:
"I saved her. Twenty of us--that vile Eaton was one!--passed through the garden at midnight--up those stairs--killing three blacks who opposed us"--even as he spoke I remembered Eaton's ravings in La Mouche Noire as to the dead men glaring down into the passage; knew now of what his frenzied mind had been thinking on--"bore her away. Enough! three months later, we were married in Jamaica!"
He rose as though to go forth and seek his horse, determined to make his way on in spite of the snow that lay upon the ground in masses--because, as I have ever since thought, he had sworn to undergo his self-imposed expiation of never gazing more upon his child's face!--then he paused, and spoke once more:
"She died," and now his voice was broken, trembled, "in giving birth to her who is above; died when I had grown rich again--so rich that when I sailed for France, my pardon assured, my commission as Lieutenant du Roi to Louis in my pocket, I left her with Eaton, not even then believing how deep a villain he was; thinking, too, that I should soon return. Left with him, also, a fortune for her, What happened to her and that fortune you have learnt. Yet, something else you have to learn. Her mother's name had been Belmonte, and when Juana fled from Eaton, driven thence by his cruelty, she, knowing this, found means to communicate with an old comrade of mine, by then turned priest and settled at the other end of the island--at Montego. Now, see how things fall out; how, even to one belonging to me, God is good. 'Twas in '86 I sailed for France, my commission in my cabin--nailed in my pride to a bulkhead--when, alas! madman as I was, I encountered a great ship--a treasure ship, as I believed, sailing under Spanish colours. And--and--the devil was still strong in me--still strong the hatred of Spain--the greed and lust of plunder. God help me! God help and pardon me!" and as he spoke he beat his breast and paced the dreary room, now all lit up by the daylight from without. Even as I write I see and remember him, as I see and remember so many other things that happened in those times.
"We boarded her," he continued, a moment later; "we took her treasure; she was full of it--yet even as we did so I knew that I was lost forever in this world, all chance of redemption gone--my hopes of better things passed away forever. For she was sailing under false colours; she was a French ship, one of Louis' own, and, seeing that we ourselves carried the Spanish flag, the better to escape the ships of war of Spain that were all about, had herself run them up. And we could not slay them and scuttle the ship--we had passed our word for their safety--moreover, an we would have done so 'twas doubtful if we should have succeeded. There were women on board, and, though the men fought but half-heartedly to guard the treasure that was their king's, they would have fought to the death for them. Therefore, we emptied the vessel of all that it had--we left them their lives--let them go free."
"But why, why?" I asked, still not comprehending how this last attack upon another ship--and that but one of many stretching over long years!--should be so fateful to him, "why not still go on to France, commence a new life under better surroundings?"
"Why?" he repeated, "why? Alas! you do not understand. I, a commissioned officer of the French king, had made war on his ships, taken his goods; also," and he drew a long breath now, "also there were those on board who knew and recognised me--we had met before--knew I was Gramont. That was enough. There was no return to France for me; or, if once there, nothing but the block or the wheel."
"God pity you," I gasped, "to have thrown all chance away thus--thus!"