every Sunday when there was matter for consideration. The watchman had served as patron seaman on the galleys of Malta for more than twenty years, never in all his navigations having left the Commander Pierre des Anbiez, of the venerable nation of Provence, and brother of Raimond V., Baron des Anbiez, who lived on the coast in the fortified house of which we have spoken. On each of these voyages to France the commander never failed to visit the watchman. Their interviews lasted a long time, and it was observed that the habitual melancholy of the commander increased after these conversations.
Peyrou, a lifelong sufferer from serious wounds, and unfit for active service on the sea, had been, at the recommendation of his old captain, chosen watchman by the council of the town of La Ciotat. When on Sunday he presided at the consultation of the overseers, an experienced sailor supplied his place at the sentry-box. Naturally endowed with a sense of right and justice, and living ten years in solitude, between the sky and the sea, Peyrou had added much to his intelligence by meditation. Already possessing the nautical and astronomical knowledge necessary to an officer on a galley of the seventeenth century, he continued to learn by a constant study of the great phenomena of nature always before his eyes.
Thanks to his experience, and his habit of comparing cause and effect, no one knew better than himself how to predict the beginning, the duration, and the end of the storms which prevailed on the coast.
He announced the calm and the tempest, the disastrous hurricanes of the mistraon, as the northwester was named in Provence, the gentle, fruitful rains of the miegion, or south wind, and the violent tornado of the labechades, or wind from the southwest; in fact, the form of the clouds, the soft or brilliant azure of the sky, the various colours of the sea, and all those vague, deep, and undefined noises which occasionally spring up in the midst of the silence of the elements were for him so many evident signs, from which he deduced the most infallible conclusions.
Never a captain of a merchantman, never a cockswain of a bark, put to sea without having consulted Master Peyrou.
Men ordinarily surround with a sort of superstitious reverence and halo those who live apart from the rest of the world.
Peyrou was no exception to the rule.
As his predictions about the weather were almost invariably realised, the inhabitants of La Ciotat and the environs soon persuaded themselves that a man who knew so much of the things in the sky could not be ignorant of the things on the earth.
Without passing exactly as a sorcerer, the hermit of the cape of L’Aigle, consulted in so many important circumstances, became the depositary of many secrets.
A dishonest man would have cruelly abused this power, but Peyrou took advantage of it to encourage, sustain, and defend the good, and to accuse, confound, and intimidate the wicked.
A practical philosopher, he felt that his opinion, his predictions, and his threats would lose much if their authority was not supported by a certain cabalistic display; hence, although he did so with reluctance, he accompanied each opinion with a mysterious formula.
The excellent spy-glass was a marvellous aid to his power of divination. Not only did he turn it to the horizon in order to discover the chebecs and piratical vessels of Barbary, but he directed it to the little town of La Ciotat,—on the houses, the fields, and the beach,—and thus surprised many secrets and mysteries, and by this means increased the reverence he inspired.
Peyrou, however, was altogether above the vulgar sorcerer by his entire disinterestedness. Had he some honest poverty to befriend, he ordered one of his wealthier clients to put a moderate offering in some secret spot which he indicated; the poor client, informed by Peyrou, went to the spot and found the mysterious alms.
Instigated by a blind zeal, the priests of the diocese of Marseilles wished to criminate the mysterious life of Peyrou, but the surrounding population immediately assumed such a menacing attitude, and the town council bore such testimony to the excellence of the watchman’s character, that he was permitted to live his solitary life in peace.
His only companion in this profound retreat was a female eagle which, two years before, had come to lay her eggs in one of the hollows of the inaccessible rocks which bordered the coast. The male bird had no doubt been killed, as the watchman never saw him.
Peyrou gave food to the young eagles; by degrees the mother grew accustomed to the sight of him, and the year after, she returned in perfect confidence to lay in the nest which Peyrou had prepared for her in a neighbouring rock.
Often the eagle perched on the branches of the tall pine which shaded the watchman’s house, and sometimes walked with a heavy and awkward step on the little platform.
Upon that day, Brilliant, for so the watchman had named the noble bird, seduced him from his reverie. She tumbled down from the topmost branch of the pine, and with half-open wings ran up to her friend with the ungraceful, waddling gait of a bird, of prey. Her plumage, black and brown on the wings, was ash-coloured and spotted with white on the body and neck; her formidable talons, covered with thick and shining scales, terminated in three claws and a sharp spur of smooth, black horn.
Brilliant looked up at the watchman, lifting high her flat, gray head, where glittered two bold round eyes, whose iris dilated in a transparent cornea, the colour of topaz.
Her beak, strong and bluish like burnished steel, disclosed, when it opened, a slender tongue of pale red.
To attract the watchman’s attention, the eagle gently bit the end of his shoe, made of fawn leather.
Peyrou stooped and caressed Brilliant, who ruffled her feathers and uttered a discordant and broken cry.
But suddenly, hearing a step in the narrow foot-path which led to the cabin, the eagle lifted herself, uttered a long barking cry, stretched her powerful wings, hovered a moment over the colossal pine, and like an arrow shot into space. Soon nothing could be seen but a black spot on the deep blue sky.
CHAPTER IV. STEPHANETTE.
A young girl with light complexion, black eyes, white teeth, and a bright and mischievous smile, appeared, and stopped a moment on the last step of the stair of rocks which led to the house of the watchman.
She wore the graceful and picturesque costume of the girls of Provence: a brown petticoat and red waist, with wide basques and tight sleeves. Her little felt hat left visible the beautiful nape of her neck and long tresses of black hair rolled under a scarlet silk net.
Orphan and foster-sister to Mlle. Reine des Anbiez, Stephanette served her in the duties of a companion, and was treated more as a friend than a servant.
Stephanette’s heart was good, true, and grateful, her conduct irreproachable. Her only fault was a mischievous village coquetry, which was the despair of the fishers and captains of small craft in the gulf of La Ciotat, nor will we except from the number of these interesting victims her betrothed, Captain Luquin Trinquetaille, captain of the polacre, Holy Terror to the Moors, by the Grace of God,—a long and significant appellation, inscribed at full length on the stern of Captain Trinque-taille’s boat.
Gallantly armed with six swivel-guns, it was the business of the polacre to escort vessels from La Ciotat which, forced by their commerce to have free intercourse with the coasts of Italy, dreaded the attacks of pirates.
Stephanette
