Prisoners of Chance

Any call to action, of either hazard or pleasure, steadies my nerves. To realize necessity for doing renders me a new man, clear of brain, quick of decision. Possibly this comes from that active life I have always led in the open. Be the cause what it may, I was the first to recover speech.

"I hope to show myself worthy your trust, Madame," I said somewhat stiffly, for it hurt to realize that this emotion arose from her husband's peril. "At best I am only an adventurer, and rely upon those means with which life upon the border renders me familiar. Such may prove useless where I have soldiers of skill to deal with. However, we have need of these minutes flying past so rapidly; they might be put to better use than tears, or words of gratitude."

She looked upward at me with wet eyes.

"You are right; I am a child, it seems. Tell me your desire, and I will endeavor to act the woman."

"First, I must comprehend more clearly the nature of the work before me. The Chevalier de Noyan is already under sentence of death; the hour of execution to-morrow at sunrise?"

She bent her head in quiet acquiescence, her anxious eyes never leaving my face.

"It is now already approaching noon, leaving us barely eighteen hours in which to effect his rescue. Faith! 't is short space for action."

I glanced uneasily aside at the silently observant priest, now standing, a slender gray figure, close beside the door. He was not of an Order I greatly loved.

"You need have no fear," she exclaimed, hastily interpreting my thought. "Father Petreni can be fully trusted. He is more than my religious confessor; he has been my friend from childhood."

"Yes, Monsieur," he interposed sadly, yet with a grave smile lighting his thin white face. "I shall be able to accomplish little in your aid, for my trade is not that of arms, yet, within my physical limitations, I am freely at your service."

"That is well," I responded heartily, words and tone yielding me fresh confidence in the man. "This is likely to prove a night when comrades will need to know each other. Now a few questions, after which I will look over the ground before attempting to outline any plan of action. You say, Madame, that your--Chevalier de Noyan is a prisoner on the fleet in the river. Upon which ship is he confined?"

"The 'Santa Maria.'"

"The 'Santa Maria'?--if memory serve, the largest of them all?"

"Yes! the flag-ship."

"She lies, as I remember, for I stood on the levee two hours ago watching the strange spectacle, close in toward the shore, beside the old sugar warehouse of Bomanceaux et fils."