The officer of the watch silently walked the deck—now listening to the waves surging against the sides of the little vessel—now stooping a moment over the light of the binnacle—anon watching the sails that napped loosely upon the yards, now turned contrary to the direction of the wind.
An hour had been passed in this manner, when a brisk fusillade was heard from several points on the shore. Other reports of musketry appeared to respond and shortly after the two boats came hastening back to the coaster.
It was Pepé who had caused all this; Pepé, who, to the great chagrin of his captain, had given warning to the coast-guards. He had been too late, notwithstanding his zeal, for the boats came back laden with sheep and other provisions of every soft.
The last of the men who climbed over the gangway—just as the boats were being hoisted up—was a sailor of gigantic height, of colossal proportions, and Herculean vigour. He was a Canadian by birth. He carried in his arms a young child that was cold and motionless, as if dead. A slight trembling in its limbs, however, proclaimed that there was still life in it.
“What the deuce have you got there, Bois-Rose?” demanded the officer of the watch.
“With your leave, lieutenant, it’s a young child that I found in a boat adrift, half dead with hunger and cold. A woman, quite dead, and bathed in her own blood, still held it in her arms. I had all the trouble in the world to get the boat away from the place where I found it, for those dogs of Spaniards espied it, and took it for one of ours. There was a terrible devil of a coast-guard kept all the while firing at me with as much obstinacy as awkwardness. I should have silenced him with a single shot, had I not been hindered in looking after this poor little creature. But if ever I return—ah!”
“And what do you intend to do with the child?”
“Take care of it, lieutenant, until peace be proclaimed, then return here and find out who it belongs to.”
Unfortunately the only knowledge he was able to obtain about the infant was its name, Fabian, and that the woman who had been assassinated was its mother.
Two years passed during which the French privateer did not return to the coast of Spain. The tenderness of the sailor towards the child he had picked up—which was no other than the young Count Fabian de Mediana—did not cease for an instant, but seemed rather to increase with time. It was a singular and touching spectacle to witness the care, almost motherly, which this rude nurse lavished upon the child, and the constant ruses to which he had recourse to procure a supplement to his rations for its nourishment. The sailor had to fight for his own living; but he often indulged in dreams that some day a rich prize would be captured, his share of which would enable him to take better care of his adopted son. Unfortunately he did not take into his calculations the perilous hazards of the life he was leading.