doctor franklin journeys down to lyons, on some secret errand of his own; he will be gone a week. commodore paul jones, at home with the good marsan, drunk with love, forgets the blue of the ocean in the blue of aimee’s eyes. one sun-filled afternoon he is disturbed by lieutenant dale, who stalks in with a scowl on his usually steady face.
“what is it, dick?” asks commodore paul jones, alive in a moment.
“something too deep for me, commodore, or i shouldn’t be here with the tangle. commissioner lee, with landais, has taken the alliance.”
“what?”
“it’s as i say. lee declares that doctor franklin had no authority to depose landais. he, lee, has restored him to command, and the pair have possession of the ship.”
“what did you do?”
“i did nothing. i’m a sailor, and pretend to no knowledge of the limits of mr. lee’s authority. speaking for myself, i refused to serve with landais; and lieutenants stack, mccarty and lunt, and midshipman lindthwait did the same. we came ashore, and bo’sen jack robinson at the head of sixty of the crew came with us.” commodore paul jones, while lieutenant dale talks, is thinking. what is to be done! manifestly nothing. doctor franklin is out of reach. without the doctor’s authority no one can meddle with arthur lee, who still has his powers as a commissioner. besides, there’s the serapis; it is only a question of weeks when he, commodore paul jones, will be given its command. meanwhile, lieutenant dale and the others can disport themselves ashore, as he does. let lee and landais keep the alliance, since they already have it.
“you’ve done right, dick,” he says. “stay ashore then, and keep the lads together; we’ll wait for the serapis. also, king louis has given doctor franklin the ariel, a ship-sloop the size of the old ranger. when i take the serapis to sea, dick, you shall sail captain of the ariel.”
lieutenant dale goes his way, and commodore paul jones returns to aimee, pleased in secret to think he may continue unhindered to sun himself in her smiles. it grinds a bit to think of the “dog landais,” and the “traitor arthur lee,” in control of the alliance. still, all will come right; for is he not to have the serapis? and while he waits, there is aimee; and love is even sweeter than war. so he goes back to his goddess, with her deep eyes and red-gold hair, and puts such caitiff creatures as lee and landais outside his thoughts. it is for congress to deal with them.
commodore paul jones is not permitted to forget lee and landais. within the hour, he is again called from the side of aimee by his friend genet, a noble upperling in the french foreign office.
“i come to tell you,” says genet, “that captain landais and monsieur lee have got the alliance.”
“i know!”
“they are to sail in three days.”
“lieutenant dale has told me.”
“he did not tell you that we have issued orders to thevenard, who commands the forts at the barrier, to sink the alliance, should she try to put to sea.”
“sink the alliance!” commodore paul jones is thunderstruck. “my dear genet, you jest.”
“no jest, my friend. the orders have been given. should the alliance attempt to pass the harriers, thevenard will fire on it with all his hundreds of big guns, and snuff it out like a candle. it is by request of your doctor franklin.”
“do you tell me that doctor franklin asks you to sink the alliance?”
“he has asked us—for he had some inkling of the designs of lee and landais—to prevent them sailing away with the ship. we know of but one way to do that. we must sink it, since we have no ship here to arrest them. so we gave the orders to thevenard. those orders, however, we did not impart to doctor franklin; and, in good truth, i tell them to you now, not as a french official, but as a friend.”
“this must be stopped!” cries commodore paul jones, his habits of decision and iron promptitude reassumed in a moment. “what! sink two hundred brave, good men, to punish a pair of traitors? never!”
genet, who makes a cult of red tape, shrugs his shoulders and spreads his hands.
“it is too late,” he says. “there is doctor franklin’s request. i cannot countermand the orders to thevenard until he withdraws his request.”
“i shall see thevenard!”
two hundred and eighty miles in fifty-four hours! an unprecedented thing! and yet commodore paul jones does it, and rides into l’orient in time to prevail on general thevenard, who is his friend and his worshipper, to let the alliance pass free. the forts would else have sunk the ship with their tons upon tons of metal. he saves the alliance by a narrow margin of hours, and lee and landais shake out their sails for america.
“they go to disgrace and grief,” thinks commodore paul jones, consoling himself for their escape. then he considers how he has saved the lives of more than two hundred honest sailors, who have fought well for flag and country, and is consoled in earnest.
commodore paul jones is surrounded by surprises. he is met on the road, while returning to his aimee, by a message from the duchess de chartres.
“come instantly to me!” it says.
there is a look of mingled sorrow and resentment, with over all a hue of humor, on the duchess’ bright face when she welcomes commodore paul jones.
“the marchioness de marsan and i have arranged it,” she says, and her glance is wicked and amused.
“arranged what?”
“your marriage, my friend! i congratulate you! you and your red-haired, blue-eyed one are to wed.”
“with all my heart, then!” says he, turning wicked, too. manlike, it offends his vanity that one who has pretended to love him so deeply should be now so ready to give him to another. “i could wish no fairer fate.”
“but the wedding must be secret.”
“secret! believe me, i shall tell all france.”
“and ruin the blue-eyed one! hear me, my commodore—once my beloved, ever to be my friend! i have had a world of trouble in your affairs. i arranged with the marsan; but only by agreeing that the marriage be buried in secrecy. you know much of the sea; little of the shore when all’s said. should the king hear of aimee as your wife, he would drive her from court.”
“may i ask why!” and his cheek begins to burn angrily.
“you forget that aimee is a bourbon,” returns the duchess, with a fashion of malicious satisfaction. he has deserted her for his aimee; it is her revenge to irritate his pride. “you are a valorous man, and the king makes much of you. besides, you beat the english, whom he fears and hates. and yet he does not forget that you are a peasant—as i did. marry aimee, my friend—. marry a bourbon, even a bourbon by the left hand, and king louis will bolt the doors of france in both your faces. indeed, the bastile might be the end of it for your aimee.”
“i think your royal highness sees unnecessary ghosts,” he replies, with a sneer. just the same, that linking of the bastile and aimee alarms him. “without pausing to question the king’s powers touching bastiles and french doors, i may tell you he has already heard that i love aimee. doctor franklin, himself, told me.”
“love aimee! yes; love her as much and to what limit you will! the king will never resent that. but do not let the whisper that you have married aimee reach the kingly ear. can you not understand! here, i will put it in the abstract. a princess may have a liaison with a peasant, and in the shadow of that dishonor she will remain forever a princess. should the princess, in some gust of virtue, be swept into a marriage with the peasant, she becomes instantly a peasant. it is one of those strange cases, my friend, where the word ‘wife’ is a stain and the word ‘mistress’ no stain at all.”
it is midnight; two candles burn dimly on the altar of “our lady of loretto.” the great chapel is dark and vacant; the feeble light does not reach the vaulted roof, and the groined arches disappear upward in a thick blackness.
at the altar stands a priest. near the rail is gathered a group of four, the duchess de chartres, the good marchioness de marsan, aimee—heart a-flutter, her pink cheeks hidden in a veil—and commodore paul jones. the priest draws the duchess aside.
“your royal highness,” he whispers, pleadingly, “i am afraid.”
“afraid of whom, pray?”
“the king, your royal highness.”
the duchess makes an angry motion with her hand, while her little boot smites the stone floor and sends an echo through the room’s vast emptiness.
“father joseph, observe! you are my almoner. through your hands i give fifty thousand louis to the poor of paris, and keep you in fatness besides. it is i, not the king, whom you should fear.”
and so, before the flickering altar candles, commodore paul jones weds aimee adele de telison. in the book which the duchess and the good marsan sign as witnesses, father joseph, with a pen that shakes a little, records the nuptials of “monsieur le joignes and mademoiselle adele de bonneval.” for “de bonneval” was the dead king’s name for aimee’s mother in the days of monsieur le bel and the parc-aux-cerfs.
