The man approached. "Your Ladyship wishes to speak with me?" he asked in a voice he endeavored to make unconcerned.
"I do." In her manner the old antipathy she had felt toward him as a child again became manifest. "What do the soldiers want? Why have they come down?"
His eyes shifted. "I--my Lady--" he stammered.
The little foot struck the strand. "Why don"t you answer? You heard my question?"
"I am sorry, my Lady--" Again he hesitated: "_Le Seigneur Noir_ has been seen on the beach!"
"_Le Seigneur Noir?_" she repeated.
"Yes, my Lady. He was caught sight of among the peasants, at the time the barrels were opened, in accordance with your Ladyship"s command. I a.s.sure your Ladyship," with growing eagerness, "there can be no mistake, as--"
"Who," interrupted my lady sharply, "_is_ this Black Seigneur?"
Beppo"s manner changed. "A man," he said solemnly, "his Excellency, the Governor, has long been most anxious to capture."
The girl"s eyes flashed with impatience, and then she began to laugh.
"Saw you ever, my Lords and Ladies, his equal for equivocation? You put to him the question direct, and he answers--"
The loud report of a carbine from the other side of the Mount, followed by a desultory volley, interrupted her. The laughter died on her lips; the color left her cheek.
"What--" The startled look in her eyes completed the sentence.
Beppo rubbed his hands softly. "His Excellency takes no chances!" he murmured.
CHAPTER VI
A MESSENGER FOR MY LADY
"So you failed to capture him, Monsieur le Commandant?"
The speaker, the Marquis de Beauvillers, leaned more comfortably back in his chair in the small, rather barely furnished barracks"
sitting-room in which he found himself later that night and languidly surveyed the florid, irate countenance of the man in uniform before him.
"No, Monsieur le Marquis," said the latter, endeavoring to conceal any evidence of mortification or ill humor in the presence of a visitor so distinguished; "we didn"t. But," as if to turn the conversation, with a gesture toward a well-laden table, "I should feel honored if--"
"Thank you, no! After our repast on the beach--however, stand on no ceremony yourself. Nay, I insist--"
"If Monsieur le Marquis insists!--" The commandant drew up his chair; then, reaching for a bottle, poured out a gla.s.s of wine, which he offered his guest.
"No, no!" said the Marquis. "But as I remarked before, stand on no ceremony!" And daintily opening a snuff-box, he watched his host with an expression half-amused, half-ironical.
That person ate and drank with little relish; the wine--so he said--had spoiled; and the dishes were without flavor; it was fortunate Monsieur le Marquis had no appet.i.te--
Whereupon the Marquis smiled; but, considering the circ.u.mstances, in his own mind excused the commandant, who had only just come from the Governor"s palace, and who, after the interview that undoubtedly had ensued, could hardly be expected to find the pate palatable, or the wine to his liking. This, despite the complaisance of the young n.o.bleman whom the commandant had encountered, while descending from the Governor"s abode, and who, adapting his step to the other"s had accompanied the officer back to his quarters, and graciously accepted an invitation to enter.
"Well, you know the old saying," the Marquis closed the box with a snap, ""There"s many a slip"--but how," airily brushing with his handkerchief imaginary particles from a long lace cuff, "did he get away?"
"He _had_ got away before we were down on the beach. It was a wild-goose chase, at best. And so I told his Excellency, the Governor--"
"A thankless task, no doubt! But the shots we heard--"
"An imbecile soldier saw a shadow; fired at it, and--"
"The others followed suit?" laughed the visitor.
"Exactly!" The commandant"s face grew red; fiercely he pulled at his mustache. "What can one expect, when they make soldiers out of every dunderpate that comes along?"
"True!" a.s.sented the Marquis. "But this fellow, this Black Seigneur--why is the Governor so anxious to lay hands on him? Who is he, and what has he done? I confess," languidly, "to a mild curiosity."
"He"s a privateersman and an outlaw, and has done enough to hang himself a dozen times--"
"When you capture him!" interposed the visitor lightly. A moment he studied the ma.s.sive oak beams of the ceiling. "Why do they call him the Black Seigneur? An odd sobriquet!"
"His father was a Seigneur--the last of the fief of Desaurac. The Seigneurs have all been fair men for generations, while this fellow--"
"Then he has n.o.ble blood in him?" The Marquis showed surprise. "Where is the fief?"
"The woods on the sh.o.r.e mark the beginning of it."
"But--I don"t understand. The father was a Seigneur; the son--"
Bluntly the commandant explained; the son was a natural child; the mother, a common peasant woman whom the former Seigneur had taken to his house--
"I see!" The young n.o.bleman tapped his knee. "And that being the case--"
"Under the terms of the ancient grant, there being no legal heir, the lands were confiscated to the crown. His Excellency, however, had already bought many of the inc.u.mbrances against the property, and, in view of this, and his services to the King, the fief, declared forfeited by the courts, was subsequently granted and deeded, without condition, to the Governor."
"To the Governor!" repeated the Marquis.
"Who at once began a rare clearing-out; forcing the peasants who for years had not been paying metayage, to meet this just requirement, or--move away!"
"And did not some of them object?"
"They did; but his Excellency found means. The most troublesome were arrested and taken to the Mount, where they have had time to reflect--his Excellency believes in no half-way measures with peasants."
"A rich princ.i.p.ality, no doubt!" half to himself spoke the Marquis.
"I have heard," blurted the commandant, "he"s going to give it to the Lady Elise; restore the old castle and turn the grounds surrounding it into a n.o.ble park."
The visitor frowned, as if little liking the introduction of the lady"s name into the conversation. "And what did the Black Seigneur do then,"
he asked coldly, "when he found his lands gone?"
"Claimed it was a plot!--that his mother was an honest woman, though neither the priest who performed the ceremony nor the marriage records could be found. He even resisted at first--refused to be turned out--and, skulking about the forest with his gun, kept the deputies at bay. But they surrounded him at last; drove him to the castle, and would have captured him, only he escaped that night, and took to the high seas, where he has been making trouble ever since!"