“I was leaning with my back against the mizzen-mast. M. Caoudal came and went, as if he were surprised at the change of wind, when, all of a sudden, the wave broke right over us. I never saw one like it all the five years since I left Paimpol, nor even before that, when I used to go fishing for cod. It was like a wall of molten metal pouring itself over the Hercules. Everything was broken up, smashed to pieces, and washed away. I had a sort of confused vision of M. Caoudal thrown against and clinging to the breech of the cannon on the upper deck, then, lifted up and swept away with the rest. At the same instant I was blown like a flag against the mast near which I was standing, and an enormous piece of wood broke my left leg, and then I became unconscious. Better for me if I had succumbed,” added the poor lad, in a discouraged tone. “What is the use of living, if I am to lose a leg? I shall be good for nothing. It would have been far better if I had been washed away instead of M. Caoudal! An officer like him is not met with every day!”
This was said with such evident sincerity that the young doctor was deeply moved. Nobody knew better than he what an irreparable loss the French navy had sustained in René Caoudal. He had been his most intimate friend and companion since their childhood. This praise of one whom he had always considered as a brother touched him to such a degree that his hand became unsteady, and he was obliged to wait a moment or two before he could proceed with the dressing of the broken limb. “Come, come, my brave Kermadec, no weakness,” said he to the seaman. “Your leg is not lost yet, and I have good hope of your keeping it, but I can’t promise you that, unless you take the greatest care to use every means to make it .as good again as ever. As to the regrets you express at the premature end of M. Caoudal, certainly they are proper! A braver heart, a more intelligent and distinguished officer, a better son, never lived!”
“How his poor mother will grieve!” pursued the seaman, unconsciously giving expression to the thought that was in the doctor’s mind. “It is hard for us who are left behind; it does n’t seem right; people that are devoted to one another here ought to make a compact to die together. Dear M. René! It was he who convinced me of the folly of spending my money at the drink-shop when I went ashore. I was so glad to have got the better of that habit. But now, who will give me good advice? Who will care whether I keep right or not? Clever gentleman though he was, he didn’t think it beneath him to talk to me and teach me a heap of things. He used to call me Friend Kermadec. Ah, me! I would have gone through fire and water for him, and to see him swept away under my very eyes, without being able to lift a finger to save him!”
The seaman paused, choked with grief. “You know how dear he was to me, my brave Kermadec,” said the doctor at length. “I will try to fill his place to you. If ever you are in need of advice or of help, if you think I can be useful in any way, come to me; for his sake I shall be happy to serve you.”
The dressing of the injured limb was accomplished. The commander and the doctor, having cordially pressed the man’s hand, left him and went on deck. They conversed a few minutes about the deplorable loss of the young officer before the commander went to draw up his report.
Everybody in the officers’ deck saloon was awaiting Patrice with impatience. Still quite young, but as modest as he was clever, lively, a pleasant companion, the doctor was every one’s favourite. No festivity was complete without him. But now, unusual cordiality was shown to him. They all knew what a close friendship had existed between him and Caoudal. They listened with breathless interest to the details of the accident that he had gathered from Kermadec.
“What you have to say only adds to our grief,” said Lieutenant Briant, an officer about forty years of age, with large, prominent, short-sighted eyes, and grave and somewhat repellent expression of face; “and for my part, I cannot tell you how pained I am at his premature death.”
“Dear, brave Caoudal,” cried Midshipman Des Bruyeres, “if he was good-natured and willing to help his inferiors, he was none the less a jolly fellow among his equals. Where shall we find such a cheery messmate? He can never be replaced.”
By a common impulse their thoughts turned to the Caoudal family, and the doctor did all he could to satisfy their respectful curiosity about them.
“René,” said he, “was the son and the grandson of a sailor. Like him, his father and grandfather were both drowned at sea. He was the only son; and poor Madame Caoudal had a great horror of his entering a profession which she felt to be so cruel, and she never ceased to wage war against any tendency in him towards the vocation of the sea, to which she always owed a grudge. Her friends and the servants were warned to be very careful to abstain from any nautical allusions or anything that might tend to foster a desire to follow the father’s example in that respect. Vain precautions! They might as well have tried to prevent a fish from swimming. René was a born sailor; no education but for that end would satisfy him. No one could prevent his seeing from a bend of the river a silhouette of a flying vessel, and what they failed to tell him he divined somehow or other. Nothing in the shape of a boat had ever figured among his toys; but, at seven years of age, he was found making one. “Whence had he got the idea? Surely it must have been inborn. From that time, all his thoughts, waking and sleeping, were taken up with long voyages, to the despair of his poor mother, who saw the birth and growth of a force against which she was powerless to contend. It was still worse when his little cousin Hélène came to live with them. The daughter of a sister of Lieutenant Caoudal, Hélène had been brought up by her mother to worship the profession, and with the most ardent admiration for maritime exploits. The child had been suddenly left an orphan; Madame Caoudal had given her the shelter of her roof, and, with the advent of her niece, fell the frail barriers that she vainly tried to raise between René and an irresistible vocation. At this time the two children were twelve years of age. They had not known each other before, the little girl having always lived in Algeria; but from the first day they were sworn friends. They had the same tastes, the same ambitions. Their talks ran always on the same theme,— distant voyages, expeditions to the North Pole, naval battles, and discoveries of unknown lands. Hélène’s bitter regret at being only a girl was somewhat mitigated by the thought of seeing her dreams take shape by proxy. Meanwhile they prepared for future exploits by the most ridiculous freaks. Our embryo navigators made it a duty to leave no nook or corner of the neighbourhood on the banks of the Loire, in which they lived, unexplored. Their adventures ‘by sea and by land’ were numberless. Hardly a day passed without their coming home either with a bruised forehead, or a limb more or less damaged, and their clothes torn. From that time, René had no wish for any career other than that of the sea. Madame Caoudal, who was a wise as well as a tender mother, brought herself at last to see it, and, sacrificing from that time forward the long cherished hope of keeping her son near her, generously kept her disappointment to herself. She opened, to the children’s great delight, the long closed wardrobes where she kept the sacred relics of her husband and his father, and thenceforth everything relating to the navy became a sort of religion to them. It was now no more a question of adventures ‘á la Robinson Crusoe,’ but seriously to think of preparing for the entrance examination for the naval school. I completed my medical studies the same year that Rend was admitted. Though there was a difference of six years between us, — a great difference at that age, precluding any childish intimacy,—we had always been good friends; we were neighbours, and our mothers on terms of close intimacy. It was a great satisfaction to me when I joined the Hercules. I expected great things from this promising sailor. But how miserably have our hopes been disappointed!”
All listened to this account of their late comrade with sympathetic interest, and Lieutenant Briant thanked the doctor in the name of his brother officers:
“All the details you have given us about him whom we have lost,” added he, “only make his memory the more dear, if that were possible. Qn you, my poor fellow, will devolve the painful task of breaking the mournful news to his mother. Tell her, when she can bear to hear it, of the esteem and affection we all bore for him.”
“And his cousin;” said Des Bruyeres, thoughtlessly, “for her also it will be a frightful blow. Perhaps she was his fiancée!”
“No,” replied the doctor, rather drily, “Mademoiselle Hélène Rieux and Caoudal were not engaged. We are speaking in confidence here. Why should I not tell you that Madame Caoudal’s great desire was that they should marry, but she was destined to be disappointed in this wish also, for they had flatly refused to lend themselves to the project. Hélène and René were brother and sister, or, rather, their regard for one another was like that of two brothers.”
While they chatted thus in the officers’ deck saloon, and Commander Harancourt wrote the details of the catastrophe in the log-book, the storm lost its force and soon ceased altogether. A quieter sea succeeded the formidable waves that had subjected the Hercules to so rude an assault. The watch changed at the usual hour; the men on the watch took up their posts, whilst their comrades separated, to seek in their hammocks the rest they so much needed. All night long the cruiser rolled like a cork on the chopping sea. Then, towards morning, it quieted down again, and, when the sun appeared above the horizon, it lighted up a sea as smooth as a mirror. The Hercules pursued her course. She very soon touched at Lisbon, and was able to repair her damages, after which she again put to sea and, in a few days, arrived at Lorient. It was by this time a fortnight since the loss of Midshipman Caoudal, but the sad event was still fresh in the memory of all. Kermadec, well on the road towards recovery, was already able, by the help of a pair of crutches, to hoist himself up on deck.
Doctor Patrice’s heart was as heavy as lead at the thought of the task that lay before him with regard to his friend’s unfortunate mother, but, with thoughtful delicacy, the commander had desired that she should be informed in this way, rather than by an official despatch from Lisbon.
The pilot had just boarded the Hercules, bringing letters, impatiently awaited by all on board. Suddenly, the commander appeared with a radiant face, and a blue paper in his hand.
“I have good news for you, gentlemen,” said he. “Midshipman Caoudal is safe and sound; picked up at sea by a mail-boat from La Plata. Two days ago he was in the hospital at Lorient, and is now convalescent.”
CHAPTER II
A PRODIGIOUS ADVENTURE.
T
HE doctor’s joy at learning that his friend still lived was as great as the grief of the past two weeks. What a relief to be spared the sad errand to Madame Caoudal; not to be obliged to face her grief, and that of her niece! And for himself, what happiness to have his friend restored to him; to be able to hope that René would live many years to torment his friends, to frighten them to death by his escapades, and yet to be liked by everybody, as of yore! But did anybody ever hear of such a curious piece of luck? To fall into the sea, in a furious storm, to the depth of a thousand feet, and then to find himself comfortable and calm in the roadstead at Lorient, two days before his comrades The scamp! No one but René Caoudal could have met with such adventures. How they longed to see him! Doctor Patrice lost no time in finding him, anc hearing his account of himself. Ten minutes after landing, he entered the room where the midshipman was lying. The first greetings over, he examined the young man carefully, feeling all over him, applying the stethoscope, and interrogating him, to make sure that there was no injury. His examination over, the doctor felt puzzled, for, physically, he was sound enough, and there did not appear to be any reason for his keeping his bed. And yet he could not conceal from himself a singular change in the mental condition of the young sailor. Sad, preoccupied, with pale face, and distrait expression, he evidently found difficulty in fixing his attention, and responded with reluctance to the eager questions of his friend. Truth to say, he appeared annoyed by them.
“What is the matter with you?” said Patrice, anxiously. “ You do not seem to be any the worse for your immersion. I must say, I cannot understand why you lie here like a log. Come, make an effort! Take a turn out-of-doors; that will put you to rights in a twinkling.”
“ Oh! a walk in Lorient!” said he, in a contemptuous tone.
“Lorient is not to be despised!” cried the doctor. “In any case, it would be better than lying here in the dumps, for you are in the dumps; that is evident. Come, what have you got on your mind?”
The only reply was a discouraged shrug of the shoulders.
“Do you feel ill?”
“Ill? No; not precisely ill.”
“Then what do you feel like? Have you any muscular pain, or any sprain? How long were you in the water?”
Again René shrugged his shoulders. “How do I know? Besides, what does it matter?” muttered he, impatiently.
And turning towards the wall, he hid his face with his arm, as if to insinuate that the conversation was burdensome. The doctor looked at him with surprise, which rapidly changed to uneasiness. What ailed him? Such a frank and lively fellow, with such an open nature, and so transparent! Had his head struck against a reef at the bottom of the sea? Must he attribute this dumbness, this unusual sullen-ness, to some injury of the brain?
“How is it; don’t you know?” he asked, determined to make him speak. “You must be able to remember what happened when you came to the surface. You were not long under the water, perhaps. How many minutes, should you judge?” A deep sigh was the sole response. “Perhaps you lost consciousness?” René was silent.
“You were found lashed to an empty barrel, if I am rightly informed,” said Patrice. “Was it long before you got hold of it? And the rope,—where , did you get it from?”
Another shrug of the shoulders, and impatient turn of the head, as if to shake off importunate noise. It seemed as if the voice of his friend grated on his nerves like a saw scraping marble. For some minutes, the doctor pressed questions on him without getting any answer.