The Confusion

Eliza was no great aficionado of ship-types, and made a practice of quitting any conversation in which the men drifted off into, and got stuck on, ship-prattle. But at a glance she guessed this one was eighty feet long. It had no transom and no superstructure, had two masts, was lug-rigged. In Holland it might have gone under the name of galjoot. In any case, it was a coastal trading-ship, adequate to cross the Channel, and it was obviously armed with at least one swivel-gun. The shot they had fired at the English marines had been mostly for effect. Never could this little smuggler’s craft have challenged Meteore, had Meteore been under sail, and properly manned; but as matters stood, the galjoot had enough sting in her swivel-guns to give the English second thoughts about standing in plain view and taking pot-shots at Men Overboard. Eliza had spied the boat a few minutes ago, and hoped it might be the one she had hired; this confirmed as much. It made no effort to pursue Meteore, but wore around so as to make itself a barrier between Meteore and the rowboat, and then released the air from its sails. Arbalete (for that was the name painted on her bows) approached with a curious mixture of charity and hostility, on the one hand flinging out lines for the ladies to snatch from the air, or rake up out of the water, on the other hand keeping loaded muskets at the ready. The only part of this morning’s proceedings that they had been led to expect was that they might be collecting an anonymous passenger from the vicinity of Meteore. All else-the assault of the English longboats, the apparition of the flaming Soleil Royal, and Flail-arm with his rowboat-had been unexpected. Eliza was already dreading the re-negotiation of the deal that probably lay ahead with the captain of Arbalete. That it had even ventured this far into the melee could probably be attributed solely to a bloke standing amidships holding a musket: Bob Shaftoe.

“All is well, Sergeant Bob. No, I don’t know who he is. He is a mute, or something. But he seems well-intentioned. The worst I can say of him is that he is more forthright in his methods than would be considered proper at Versailles.”

“I have noted him about the waterfront, spying on Meteore,” was Bob’s answer.

“Come to mention it, so have I,” said Eliza, “but lacking your penetration, sir, I could not make out whether he was spying, or merely satisfying his curiosity.”

“Perhaps lovely Duchesses are more accustomed to being stared at for hours at a time than mangled Sergeants,” Bob said. “To me it looked like spying.”

“As perhaps it was, Sergeant Bob; but this morning he has been of service to a boat-load of women.”

“Is it to be you alone, or the entire boat-load?” demanded the incredulous Monsieur Rigaud, Captain of Arbalete. Until this point, he had been preoccupied by the spectre-even more terrifying to a ship-captain than to any other sort of person-of the Soleil Royal drifting past them with gouts of flame spurting from her hundred gun-ports. Rigaud seemed at last to have convinced himself that the English, before setting fire to her, had extracted her stores of gunpowder-i.e., that they wanted her to burn for a long time, make a memorable spectacle for the citizenry of Cherbourg, and perhaps set fire to a few other ships-not simply blow up. If he was right, then the danger to Arbalete was past, for the flagship had unequivocally drifted beyond them. He had, accordingly, turned his mind to a threat almost as dire: an onslaught of female passengers.

“Only I,” said Eliza, and slung her bag at Rigaud’s head.

This was news to the other women, and caused a little flurry of gasps and outcries. Eliza considered trying to explain matters. Mommy must run off to England and steal three tons of silver. Instead she reached up-for the rowboat was grinding against Arbalete’s side-and let Bob seize one of her hands, and a French sailor the other. The weight came off of her feet. She was hoisted aboard Arbalete like a bale of silk. “Lovely Brigitte,” she called, “I hope that one day you will forgive me for now pressing you in to service as galerienne. But you must get in to shore before matters get any worse; and this man, I am afraid-”

“Rows in circles. The same had occurred to me, my lady.” Brigitte seized the oars.

“We shall keep our swivel-guns charged, and watch you in to the shore,” volunteered Monsieur Rigaud, who had become considerably more pliant now that the rowboat full of women was working away from Arbalete.

“Send a despatch to Captain Bart in Dunkerque,” Eliza called.

“Saying what, Madame?”

“That it is going to happen after all.”