Steps were heard on the stairs. Penellan appeared, loaded his pistol, and discharged it in the bear’s ear; he roared; the pain made him relax his paws for a moment, and Louis, exhausted, fell motionless on the deck; but the bear, closing his paws tightly in a supreme agony, fell, dragging down the wretched Vasling, whose body was crushed under him.
Penellan hurried to Louis Cornbutte’s assistance. No serious wound endangered his life: he had only lost his breath for a moment.
“Marie!” he said, opening his eyes.
“Saved!” replied Perfellan. “Herming is lying there with a knife-wound in his stomach.”
“And the bears—”
“Dead, Louis; dead, like our enemies! But for those beasts we should have been lost. Truly, they came to our succour. Let us thank Heaven!”
Louis and Penellan descended to the cabin, and Marie fell into their arms.
CHAPTER XVI.
CONCLUSION.
Herming, mortally wounded, had been carried to a berth by Misonne and Turquiette, who had succeeded in getting free. He was already at the last gasp of death; and the two sailors occupied themselves with Nouquet, whose wound was not, happily, a serious one.
But a greater misfortune had overtaken Louis Cornbutte. His father no longer gave any signs of life. Had he died of anxiety for his son, delivered over to his enemies? Had he succumbed in presence of these terrible events? They could not tell. But the poor old sailor, broken by disease, had ceased to live!