""Your father, who loves you as he has always loved you,
YVON CLOAREK.
""Segoffin will tell you the cause of my hasty departure for Havre, and how I happened to return in time to rescue you from the wretches who were dragging you away."
When the reading of this letter was concluded, Sabine, who was very pale and who seemed to be deeply moved, buried her face in her hands, and sobbed softly.
Segoffin exchanged another meaning look with Suzanne, and then, reconquering his own emotion, said:
"Now, mademoiselle, with your permission, I will tell you how M. Yvon got here in time to save you."
And Sabine making no reply, the head gunner continued:
"That powdered gentleman, who was here the other day, Mlle. Sabine, was the owner of our vessel. He came to try to persuade M. Yvon to make another voyage. He had heard of a vessel laden with two millions in gold, that would soon be along, and offered us a chance of a stirring fight besides; but M. Yvon had promised you he would not leave you again, so he refused, whereupon the ship owner told your father that the ship"s crew would certainly come for him, and take him away with them, whether or no. In order to prevent any such proceeding as that, which would have let the cat out of the bag, so far as you were concerned, we hurried off to Havre. Most of the crew were at a tavern there. They greeted M. Yvon with the wildest enthusiasm and delight, for he is as tenderly loved by these rough corsairs as he is by the members of his own family; for though he can be severe, if need be, he is also just and humane. There is more than one English captain, mademoiselle, whom M.
Yvon has captured and then set free with all his personal belongings.
And do you know why? Because the first question your father always asked a prisoner was, "Have you a daughter?"
"If he answered in the affirmative," continued Segoffin, "he was all right, for, as M. Yvon often said to me, "I love my little Sabine too much to hold a man who has a daughter, a prisoner."
"So Mlle. Sabine, you have made many a father and daughter happy in England, without even suspecting it. But excuse me, I had almost forgotten what I started to tell you. Well, though the sailors were so glad to see your father again, they got very angry when they found out that he had no intention of going to sea again, and there was no such thing as inducing them to listen to reason. I have seen M. Yvon in a great peril many a time, but never did I see him show such courage as he did the other day, when he refused what would have been the crowning glory of his maritime career, and why? "Because I have given my daughter my word," he said. But this was not all. His refusal so infuriated the crew that some of them even went so far as to hint that if your father refused, it was because he was afraid to fight the famous English captain. He, M. Yvon, afraid! After that, Mlle. Sabine, he said to me, in a low tone, and with a melancholy smile that I shall never forget:
""My affection for my daughter has been really put to the test for the first time in my life, and now I know that there is not a father in the world who loves his child more than I do.""
"Go on, go on, Segoffin," pleaded Sabine, evidently deeply moved.
"When they ventured to accuse M. Yvon of cowardice, he coldly replied that his mind was made up, and that it was useless for them to insist further. A scene of the wildest excitement followed, and some of the men shouted: "Let us take the captain, whether or no. The first mate can navigate the vessel, and when the captain sees the enemy, he"ll change his mind fast enough."
"They were all so excited that I don"t know how the affair would have ended, had not an officer of the fort, who knew that the captain of the _h.e.l.l-hound_ was at the tavern, come rushing in to tell M. Yvon that a fishing-smack had just come in and reported that a suspicious-looking schooner had been sighted from the cliffs, and that appearances seemed to indicate her intention of making a landing, as had been done at several other points along the coast. There being no war-ship in the harbour the officer came to implore the captain of the _h.e.l.l-hound_ to go out and attack the schooner if she made any attempt to land. M. Yvon could not refuse, as it was in defence of his country that he was requested to give his services. We were soon aboard the brig; the wind was favourable, we weighed anchor, and were soon flying along in search of the schooner. Right here, Mlle. Sabine, I must tell you something that M. Yvon dared not confess in his letter. He speaks, you know, of a superst.i.tious idea he had in connection with his never having been wounded. You must understand, Mlle. Sabine, that your poor father"s life has been divided as it were into two parts,--one supremely happy, the part spent at home or in talking with me about you; the other desolation itself, the hours spent in thinking of your poor dear mother, whom he loved even more tenderly than he loves you, as Suzanne has told you a hundred times. The night she died, it so happened that he had dressed himself in Breton costume to attend a fancy dress ball. Being very young at the time, you did not recognise him. After this calamity, when we shipped as common sailors on a privateer where every one dressed as he pleased, M. Yvon said to me: "As I am here to expiate a crime I shall regret all my life, I intend always to wear the costume of my native province at sea. It has become sacred to me, as I wore it on the fatal night when I held my poor dying wife in my arms for the last time."
"M. Yvon has kept his word ever since, in spite of my entreaties, for it having been reported in England that the famous corsair, Captain l"Endurci, wore the Breton costume, it was at M. Yvon that every one aimed. But though your father exposed himself so much more than any of the rest of us, he was never wounded, and as there is a superst.i.tious streak in the composition of every human being, M. Yvon finally began to think that there must be a protecting charm attached to our national costume. The sailors, too, imagined that this costume brought the ship good luck. At least, they would have felt much less confident of success if M. Yvon had commanded them in any other garb, so that is why M. Yvon, when he went aboard to go out and fight the schooner, put on the costume of his native province exactly as he would have put on a uniform, not supposing for an instant that there was any likelihood of his going to his own home.
"We had been sailing around about three-quarters of an hour, when all at once we saw a bright light stream up on the coast above the cliffs. A careful scrutiny convinced the captain that the house where we lived was on fire; and almost at the same moment, the first mate, with the aid of a night telescope, discovered the schooner riding at anchor, with all her boats at the foot of the cliff where the English had doubtless landed. The captain ordered the long-boat lowered, and sprang into it in company with me and twenty picked men. We reached the scene of action in a quarter of an hour. M. Yvon received his first wound while striking down the leader of the bandits, a Captain Russell, who figured so prominently in the abduction of M. Yvon a short time ago. Wounded by your father and left a prisoner at Dieppe, he had nevertheless managed to make his escape and concoct this new conspiracy. This, Mlle. Sabine, is the whole truth with regard to M. Yvon. He has suffered, oh, how he has suffered these three last days! and this is nothing to what he will suffer up to the time of your marriage; but after that, when he knows you are happy, I fear that he can endure it no longer. No human being could and--"
"My father, where is my father?" cried Sabine, trembling with grief, anxiety, and long repressed tenderness.
"Really, mademoiselle, I do not know that I ought--"
"My father, is he here?" repeated the girl breathlessly.
"He is not very far off, perhaps," replied Segoffin, nearly wild with joy; "but if he returns, it must be never to leave you again."
"Oh, can he ever forgive me for having doubted his love and his n.o.bility of soul for one moment? If he will, all the rest of my life shall be devoted to him. My G.o.d! you are silent, you are all weeping--you are all looking toward that room as if my father were there. Thank Heaven! my father is there!" cried Sabine, her face radiant with inexpressible joy as she ran toward the door leading into the next room.
The door suddenly opened, and in another instant father and daughter were locked in each other"s arms.
One month afterward, a double marriage united Suzanne and Segoffin, Sabine and Onesime.
The famous Doctor Gasterini, equally celebrated as a gourmand and as a physician, had restored Onesime"s sight.
On returning from the church, Segoffin remarked to Suzanne with a triumphant air:
"Ah, well, my dear, was I not right in telling you that, "what is to be, will be?" Haven"t I always predicted that you would be Madame Segoffin some day? Are you, or are you not?"
"Oh, well, I suppose one must make the best of it," responded Madame Segoffin, with a pretended sigh, though she really felt as proud of her husband as if he had been one of the heroes of the _Grande Armee_ she was so fond of raving about. "There"s no help for it, I suppose, as "that which is done cannot be undone.""
THE END.