It was useless to reason, to expostulate, to advise. He was mad. It remained to fight. I commended the issue to Providence, and prayed that neither of us, unfit for death, miraculously saved and brought back to the sound of human voices, might fall.

He pulled two bents from a tuft of the mountain grass growing on a hillock near us – one shorter, one longer, – and presented them to me for choice.

“You can trust me!” he said, with a wildly ironical smile.

To hesitate was to be shot in cold blood. I felt this, and acted with resolution.

“I can trust you, Marc.”

“Short fires first!”

I pulled, and drew the short bent.

He took a cap from a small cylindrical metal case he carried in his pocket, and fixed it on the nipple of his pistol. Then he handed the weapon to me.

I took it from him, examined it with the greatest care – I see it now; it was an old-fashioned firearm of Spanish make, – stood a pace only back from him, fixed my eye on his, with a sudden jerk flung the pistol fifty paces behind me, and throwing myself upon Marc, bore him to the ground, and held him there in a vice!

Then began our struggle for life!

At first, the advantage was mine. I was a-top. In strength we had always been pretty equally matched. Sometimes I had been able to throw Marc, sometimes he had thrown me. Now the contest was unequal. It is true I had the advantage of fighting for life, but the struggle was with the supernatural strength of a madman. I had dropped my stick before taking the pistol from the hand of Marc. In this tussle it would have been of no service to me. This was man to man.

I pinned mad Marc to the ground, my hands on his arms, my knees on his chest. He writhed, and tore, and struggled under me. No word was spoken between us. The advantage was with me. Thus we continued for what seemed an immense length of time – for what was, perhaps, a quarter of an hour. It was an incessant struggle with us both; with me to keep Marc Debois down – with Marc to master me.

I felt my strength giving way. My joints were stiffening, my fingers becoming numb with the pressure. Besides this, I was in a profuse sweat, caused by the violent exertion, and partly by the alarm at what would happen if I should, in turn, be under the giant frame of Marc. It was to the accident of throwing him first, by my sudden and unexpected attack, that I owed the last fifteen minutes of my life. If I spoke, I found it made him more violent in his efforts to master me. I thought the sound of my voice maddened him the more.

My brain seemed clogged. At first, thought had followed thought with painful rapidity. My life had passed before me in panoramic procession. Now I had a novel feeling, such as I had never experienced before. Was I – the thought was terrible! – was I, under the horrible fascination of Marc’s eye – losing my reason? I made an effort to think. To rouse myself I multiplied fifteen by sixty. Nine hundred – nine hundred seconds of my life had passed in this fearful struggle with a madman! How many more seconds had I to live? How much longer could I hold my own? Not long! I was rapidly becoming exhausted. I commended myself to the Almighty.

Hark! wheels – coming.

Marc hears the sound, too. I am weak now. He makes one gigantic effort. I am overcome. His great fingers fasten with a desperate clutch upon my throat. He will tear out my gullet.

I become insensible.

When I come to myself I am seated on the box of the carriage which had conveyed Cécile and M. André to the château. It had passed us on its way back.

We are near Bénévent.

It is three strong men’s work inside the chaise to restrain Marc and keep him from murdering them.

We drive to the office of police. A little crowd follows us. I am able to give some formal evidence. Then I am taken home. The unfortunate man is placed under proper restraint. There is a great buzz of excitement in Bénévent.

Nobody recognises Marc; he is so changed. I do not disclose his name. It is better to wait the course of events.

After the fearful peril of the last hour, I am astonished to find myself alive. I am alive, and thankful.

After the struggle in the defile I was unable to leave my bed for some days. I had been much tried both in mind and body; but I received the kindest attention from the good friends around me.

In these little places every trifle creates a mighty stir. All Bénévent came to inquire after my health. I had been killed. No; well, then, nearly done to death by a murderous assassin escaped from the galleys. The police knew him. It was the same man who five years before had attempted the life of the Emperor. He had a homicidal mania. There were a hundred different reports – none of them true.

I was examined and re-examined; examined again, and cross-examined. You have formed the conclusion that I am a witness, if I choose, out of whom not much can be got. I battled the Maire, the prefect, the police. I had been attacked by a man who carried a pistol, and I was rescued by some persons returning from M. André’s château in a chaise. What could be more simple? And these are the facts duly entered – wrapped in plenty of official verbiage – in police record.

I had everybody’s sympathy. I had something better. Sympathy one can’t spend; francs one can. A subscription was raised for my benefit. I was compelled to accept the money – a thousand francs of it. The rest – some odd hundreds of francs and a bundle of warm clothing, intended for me by some Bénévent valetudinarian, together with thirteen copies of religious books and two rosaries – I presented to the cure for distribution among the poor of his parish.

But I had a weight on my mind even francs could not remove – Marc and Cécile.

She, poor woman, was happy in being rich; in having fine dresses and gaiety; in being an old man’s idol. It is so with women. She was, I found, the donor of some of the religious books and of one of the two rosaries. Perhaps, then, at the château all was not happiness for the mistress. At times she still mourned for Marc.

And Marc?

After months of the greatest anxiety on my part, lest in his ravings he should betray himself, he was happily restored to reason.

The doctor said it happened through his seeing me.

He knew me as I sat in the room with him. His keepers said he had raved always of “Cécile, Cécile!” What of it? It led to no suspicion of his identity with Marc Debois. Are there not hundreds of Céciles?

The wretched man’s memory was a blank. As I had done him a most terrible injury, I tried to repair – in some slight degree – to atone.

He was lodged with me in my dear mother’s cottage. I used to lead him about like a child. I took him every day to the sea to see the shipping. This by degrees brought back his memory of his profession.

At last all came back, save the scene in the defile. He told me he had also been on a desolate island. Whether the same as mine, or an adjacent desert, I shall never know. A ship took him off, too, and landed him at Marseilles. He tramped it to Bénévent, and arrived there in time to see Cécile just married to M. André.

No wonder that his mind gave way.

He implored my forgiveness.

I implored his.

He was silent, sullen. No one knew his name. I explained that he was an old shipmate. This hardly satisfied the people. At Bénévent they love a mystery.

Marc solved it for them. He disappeared, without saying good-by. I guessed that he had gone to sea again.

He had said, the night before he left us, “Pierre, I will not wreck her life as she has wrecked mine. I will not seek her; but God save her if she crosses my path in this life.”

I was right; he had gone to sea. I got a letter a week after, with the Marseilles postmark on it.

“I am mate of the Lépante,” Marc said.

Months had passed since their marriage – about a year. Cécile was a mother. She called upon me in her carriage one day. A nurse was in attendance upon her, carrying in her arms a little child. It was a girl, two months old. Cécile was proud; but M. André chuckled incessantly, as old cocks will. I, with my terrible secret, could hardly bear to look at her.

“You are not friendly with me now, M. Crépin,” she said; “not as you used to be. I desire to keep all my old friends, and to make as many new ones as I can.”

I replied as well as I could; for I was thinking of Madame Debois, and not of Madame André, as she was now called.

“I have come to ask a favour. Say you will grant it me?”

Like a Frenchman, I bowed complaisantly.

Cécile went on, like a Frenchwoman, flatteringly, “Pierre – for I will call you by the old name; I like it best – I cannot be so stiff with an old friend as to keep calling you Monsieur Crépin; but, if you will let me, I will call you Captain Crépin.”

Again I bowed, slightly mystified.

“Captain Crépin, you are – you are brave. All Bénévent knows it. You are an able and experienced seaman.”

“Madame is too good.”

“Not a bit,” put in my mother, who would have heard me called angel with pleasure.

“I love the sea. M. André does not; but he humours me in everything. I have made him buy a fine yacht – large, strong, swift, of English build. You have seen her. I have called her the Zéphire. She lies in the harbour there, and wants a captain and a crew. You must be the captain, P-i-e-r-r-e!”

You know how women wheedle – handsome, especially?

“This summer,” continued Cécile, “we intend to cruise north. I long to see new countries. I am tired of life here. I long to skim over the waves and feel the cool breezes of northern seas.”

“Madame, I will consider. I must have time. You must give me time.”

“You will not refuse me – nobody would. I shall feel safe only with you in command of our yacht. What answer shall I give M. André, who is all impatience to know?”

“I will answer myself to M. André to-morrow.”

When she was gone, my good mother pressed me to go – though she would a thousand times rather have kept me at home. But she knew that it is necessary for a man to be doing something. Ah, she is a woman, indeed!

“This will be an easy berth, Pierre,” she said. “You will be at home with me here all the winters, with the Zéphire safely laid up in dock.”

The next day I called upon M. André at his office.

“I accept the command of your yacht, monsieur,” I said. “I shall always do my best for you, I hope.”

The wages were liberal. I was to choose a crew of picked men – all old sailors.

“We wish to sail in a week,” said M. André. “Can you be ready by then?”

“I can,” was my answer.

It was not the wheedling of Cécile; it was not my mother’s urging me; it was not the beautiful yacht of M. André’s, nor his good wages, that made me decide to become captain of the Zéphire.

It was because the Lépante had gone north.

The Zéphire was as fine a craft as ever seaman handled. She was perfect, from keel to mast, from bow to stern.

Those English know how to build ships.

I had under me a crew of six picked men. We had, besides, a cook, a real chef, for M. André was something of a gourmet, and would have the hand of an artist in his dishes, not the bungling of a scullion.

Monsieur and Madeline, with the little Cécile and their servants, came on board on Sunday morning, as the people were going to mass; for we would sail on a seaman’s lucky day. We weighed anchor. There was wind enough in the bay to fill our new white sails. All went without a hitch: we were off!

We had two months of the finest weather. Cécile’s cheeks wore new colour, and her black eyes sparkled with delight, as we sped along ten knots an hour. M. André was not dissatisfied. He saw Madame pleased. That is something for an elderly husband. He dined well, and he slept undisturbed under an awning on deck, or in his cabin. But this could not last forever. We were three days from the last port we had touched at, in a northerly latitude, and I could see we were going to have some weather. The sunset was angry; black clouds rose; the wind freshened into a stiff breeze. M. André called it an infernal gale.

The sea became rough for a landsman; and Monsieur not unnaturally felt squeamish. Dinner was served under difficulties that evening, and Monsieur could not taste even the soup.

I took every precaution. Sails were reefed, and all was made taut.

“Bad weather coming, sir!” said my mate.

“Do you think so?” I answered, not wishing my own opinion to get to the ears of Cécile, as she would be frightened enough before morning.

But I stepped aft, and told M. André. The brave merchant groaned, and wished he was in bed at Bénévent. But wishing will not take one there.

It was in the small hours. We men were all on deck. We were driving along at a fearful rate under bare poles. The waves were huge mountains. The storm raged with fury. The night was pitchy dark. Thunder and lightning did not serve to make things more agreeable. Not a seaman on board had ever seen such a night. It was necessary to lash oneself to the vessel to avoid being washed overboard.

Of a sudden there was a terrific crash!

The women below shrieked and prayed.

The chef wanted to jump overboard.

M. André cried, “We have struck on a rock! We are lost!”

“Have courage!” I cried. “Fetch the women on deck. There is not an instant to be lost. The yacht is filling!”

We had come into collision with a large vessel. I could see her lights. She had just cleared us. A flash of blue lightning showed me the name painted in white letters on her stern.

She was the Lépante, of Marseilles.

There was a lull in the storm.

There remained one chance for life – to get on board the vessel. The yacht was filling fast, and in a few minutes would settle down.

Except one or two tried sailors – old comrades of mine – everybody on board was paralysed.

It was for me to act – to choose for all.

The choice was – Death or the Lépante.

I chose the Lépante.

A Frenchman stays at the post of duty.

As captain, I was responsible for the lives of all on board. I was, therefore, the last to leave the sinking Zéphire. Cécile was hoisted up the side of the Lépante first. I heard a shriek. In the just-beginning twilight I could see two figures.

A man’s and a woman’s. I knew them.

Marc had raised Cécile on to the deck of the Lépante, and had recognised her, and she him.

The horrors of the storm, of the shipwreck, the prospect of death, were to me as nothing to this meeting.

Marc and Cécile!

In a few seconds I was safe on the deck of the Lépante.

M. André, the crew, the spectators, were horror-struck.

A man goes mad in an instant. Marc was again raving, as he had raved in the madhouse at Bénévent. But the sight of Cécile had given purpose to his language.

“Vengeance – vengeance! Fiend! The time has come! Fate – fate has brought us together! I could not escape you! I must kill you – kill you! We must be damned together! Hark at the roar of the waters! Hark at the wailing of the winds! Our shroud! – our dirge! – our requiem! that tells us of hell! for I am a murderer, and you – ”

He had the strength of ten strong men.

It took that number to hold him.

The wretched André fell prone in a swoon.

Cécile’s women called on the Virgin and the saints.

We all held Marc.

Cécile turned upon me.

“You told me he was dead,” she said.

Then, to the captain of the Lépante– “I am innocent – innocent – innocent!”

But, in moments of supreme danger, men’s ears are deaf to other people’s business.

It was save himself who can.

A leak had been sprung in the Lépante by the collision with our yacht. The pumps could not hold their own with the waters.

There was a panic on board.

The storm had abated. The boats were got ready. All rushed to them.

“Place aux dames!” I cried; and, with the spasmodic strength of great crises, I held back the men, and got the women off first. Then men enough to take charge of the boat.

M. André was in it; the first that was lowered. Another followed, filled with the crew of the Lépante. Her captain was the first to leap into it.

And Marc, freed from the arms that held him, dashed over the side into the foaming waters, to swim after Cécile.

His vengeance was not in this world.

As for me, I was left alone on the Lépante– with the rats.

I am a sailor, and have a sailor’s prejudices, fears, hopes, beliefs.

I saw the rats. They had not left the ship. I accepted the omen. I knew the Lépante was not doomed, if they stayed.

To take to such a sea in an open boat seemed certain death.

I preferred to stay with my friends, the rats.

Rudderless, dismasted, we still floated.

And drifted – drifted – drifted —

Northward, into the ice.

Into the ice-bound, ice-bearing sea that is round the North Pole.

I know no more.

“Gone again, sir!” I said, for just as the doctor made a lurch at the Frenchman, he melted away like the others.

“I never knew anything so provoking,” cried the doctor. “But never mind, we must find another, and keep to my old plan – cut him out in a block, and take him home frozen, like a fly in amber. What a sensation!”

“What! being friz?” said Scudds.

“No, my man. What a sensation it will make at the Royal Society, when I uncover my specimen, pointing to it like a huge fly in amber. It will be the greatest evening ever known.”

He gave us no peace till we found another specimen, which we did, and cut out by rule, and at last had it lying there by the tent, as clear as glass, and the doctor was delighted.

“Not a very handsome specimen, doctor,” I said, looking through the ice at a lean, long, ugly Yankee, lying there like a western mummy, with his eyes shut, and an ugly leer upon his face, just as if he heard what we said, and was laughing at us.

“No, not handsome, Captain, but a wonderful specimen. We must give up the North Pole, and go back to-morrow. I wouldn’t lose that specimen for worlds.”

I gave my shoulders a shrug like the Frenchman did, and said nothing, though I knew we could never get that block over the ice, even if it did not melt.

Just then I saw the doctor examining the glass, and before long a most rapid thaw set in. The surface ice was covered with slushy snow, and for the first time for days we felt the damp cold horribly, huddling together round the lamp, and longing for the frost to set in once more.

We had not stirred outside for twelve hours, a great part of which had been spent in sleep, when suddenly the doctor exclaimed —

“Why, it will be thawed out!”

“What will?” I said.

“My specimen!” he exclaimed.

“Here it is!” I said; and we all started, in spite of being used to such appearances; for just then the tent opening was dragged aside, and the tall Yankee, that we had left in the ice slab, came discontentedly in, and just giving us a nod, he stood there staring straight before him in a half-angry, spiteful way.

I never could have believed that tobacco would have preserved its virtue so long, till I saw that tall, lean, muscular Yankee begin slowly to wag his jaw in a regular grind, grind, grind; when, evidently seeing their danger, our men backed away. For our friend began coolly enough to spit about him, forming a regular ring, within which no one ventured; and at last, taking up his position opposite the lamp, he would have put it out in about a couple of minutes, had not the doctor slewed him round, when, facing the wind, we all set to wondering at the small brown marbles that began to fall, and roll about on the ice, till we saw that it was freezing so hard again that the tobacco-juice congealed as it left his lips.

“I like grit – I do like a fellow as can show grit!” he kept on muttering in a discontented kind of way, as he took a piece of pine-wood out of his pocket, and then, hoisting a boot like a canoe upon his knee, he sharpened his knife, and began to whittle.

“Where did you get that piece of wood?” said the doctor, then.

The Yankee turned his head slowly, spat a brown hailstone on to the ice, and then said —

“Whar did I get that thar piece o’ wood, stranger? Wall, I reckon that’s a bit o’ Pole – North Pole – as I took off with these here hands with the carpenter’s saw.”

“I’ll take a piece of it,” said the doctor, and turning it over in his hands, “Ha, hum!” he muttered; “Pinus silvestris.” Then aloud – “But how did you get up here, my friend?”

“Wall, I’ll tell you,” drawled the Yankee. “But I reckon thar’s yards on it; and when I begin, I don’t leave off till I’ve done, that I don’t, you bet – not if you’re friz. Won’t it do that I’m here?”

“Well, no,” said the doctor; “we should like to know how you got here.”

“So,” said the Yankee sailor, and, drawing his legs up under him, firing a couple of brown hailstones off right and left, and whittling away at so much of the North Pole as the doctor had left him, he thus began.