Andrew and Jean go ashore (Andrew mimics the island dialect in half an hour); they make the dizzy climb from a precarious landing ledge just behind a surf-breaking rock on the island’s sea-fogged northwest shore, entirely concealed from the official landing at St. James’s Bay. A fortnight’s reconnoitering among the villagers and the garrison discovers the same variety of opinion, in more detaiclass="underline" the prisoner is dying of undulant fever, of venereal complications, of pyloric cancer, of boredom and inaction, of arsenic, of dysentery or hepatitis or typhus. He has gone mad, believes himself an ordinary conscript arrested and exiled by an accident of resemblance. He is that hapless conscript. He is an impostor, Metternich’s creature. He is dead.
They ascend through subtropical greenery to the temperate middle elevations, thick with cedars and willows, through Geranium Valley to the fishermen’s trysting and viewing spot, a dense bower of shrubs, withes, and creepers overlooking the tidy château of Longwood. Supplied by their hired comrades with food, wine, and blankets for the chill nights, they make a little encampment. Andrew identifies Count and Mme Bertrand, the Count de Montholon. One evening a short tubby chap in military uniform steps into the gardens (modeled in miniature after those of Malmaison) and pops desultorily with dueling pistols at a nearby goat and chicken, striking neither. A bored attendant reloads the weapons. The hidden onlookers turn from their spyglasses: Andrew nods.
I was fairly satisfy’d it was he, he reports to Andrée, tho indeed much changed since Rochefort & Tor Bay. What most gratify’d me was that Jean was less sure, and must take my word for it. Also, that one glance assured me I could manage the counterfeit, once the substitution had been arranged. Our plan was that Jean would take Jean Blanque up to the newly establisht Republic of Liberia for provisioning, & perhaps seize a Spaniard or two along the way for profit’s sake, returning at the Vernal Equinox. He would leave with me, “for my assistance,” his 2nd mate, Maurice Shomberg, a Pyrenean Sephardic Jew call’d by the Baratarians “le Maure” for his dark skin, great size & strength, and ferocity in combat: a man much given to the slicing & dicing of his enemies, and utterly loyal to the brothers Lafitte. Whilst le Maure watcht & waited in the bush, I was to install myself among the gardeners & grounds keepers of Longwood, recruit if I could the confidence of Mme Bertrand (who was known to be impatient with her exile & jealous of Mme de Montholon), verify that the Emperor was the Emperor, sound his temper on the matter of escaping, present our (forged) credentials from Joseph B. & Mayor Girod, & cet. & cet., finally delivering him to le Maure upon Jean’s return & taking his place at Longwood. In fact, I meant to do all of those save the last two, and was both reassured, by Jean’s leaving with me his trusty “Moor,” that he would probably return for us in March; and confirm’d that he no longer trusted me to do the job alone. Le Maure’s great size and visibility were no aid to concealment; he was fit only for hauling & killing, and might well be assign’d to dispatch me to the sharks, once Napoleon was in our hands.
Lafitte leaves. Andrew befriends one or two of the gardeners, is put to work spading, manuring, terracing. He converses in Sicilian with Vignali, the auxiliary priest sent out only a few months before in the party from Rome, who declares that Napoleon is Napoleon but won’t be for long: the Count de Montholon is poisoning him from jealousy of Count Bertrand. He speaks Corsican French with Montholon’s valet: the British doctors are feeding arsenic to the lot of them. He peddles a pilchard to Ortini, the emperor’s own footman: the new Italian doctor, Antommarchi, is the villain, assisted by Mme Bertrand. The French and Italians agree that Napoleon is Napoleon, and that he is nowise interested in escape. But among the fishermen and farmers who provision Longwood, and with whom both le Maure and Andrew carefully converse, there is more general suspicion that the French are conspiring to trick and/or to blame the English, an opinion shared in some measure by the British physicians on Sir Hudson Lowe’s staff: some believe Bonaparte—“if that’s who the rascal is”—to be poisoning himself, in order to consummate his martyrdom and inspire sympathy for his son’s succession. The only hypothesis not seriously entertained on the island is the one Andrew Cook more and more inclines to as his deadline nears: that while the ailing fellow who ever less frequently ventures outdoors (and in March takes to his bed almost constantly) just might be an impostor, and just might be being poisoned by one or a number of “interests,” he is most probably Napoleon Bonaparte dying in his fifty-second year of a variety of natural physical and psychological complaints.
So mutual are everyone’s suspicions among the Longwood entourage, so clear (however mixed with grief for their leader) their eagerness to begone, Andrew dares take none into his confidence; and there is no use in relaying his “credentials” to an obviously dying man. It becomes his job to persuade le Maure that he has already made contact with the emperor, who looks forward eagerly to rescue and who is feigning illness the better to isolate himself from English surveillance and mislead suspected traitors in his own household. The equinox approaches, but Andrew’s inventiveness fails him: how on earth to get himself delivered to Lafitte and le Maure as the emperor of the French, and at the same time persuade them that “André Castine” is ensconced in Longwood, composing the emperor’s last will and testament? He had not anticipated so universal and profound distrust, such general assumptions of conspiracy, counterconspiracy, double- and triple-agentry!
Word comes from le Maure that Jean Blanque has returned on schedule. Lafitte himself slips ashore, cool and smiling. With not the slightest notion how to manage it, Andrew assures him that all is arranged: after moonset next night, two of Bonaparte’s household — the lamplighter Rousseau and the usher Chauvin — will deliver their master to the trysting place. Bonaparte will be harmlessly narcotized, to exculpate him from charges of complicity should the escape be foiled by the British. He is in mild ill health, but expects to recover, the more rapidly for a bracing ocean voyage and release from captivity. He has reservations about the Louisiana Project, but is open to persuasion. Rousseau and Chauvin are acting in their master’s best interest, but will not refuse a just reward for their risk. Et cetera! Andrew even invites the Baratarian to slip back to Longwood next day and receive a signal from himself that the substitution has been successful; that he will carry through the charade of dying, return to the ranks of the fishermen, and confidently await his own rescue.
Desperate improvisation! He expects many questions, whether anxious or suspicious: Lafitte merely embraces him with a light smile, wishes him bonne chance, promises to be in the appointed place at the appointed hour on the morrow.
Throughout the 21st Cook conjures “shift after desperate shift,” and can hit upon nothing even remotely likely. He has not got through to the invalid prisoner. He has no confidence in Rousseau, Chauvin, Ortini; barely knows them. Beyond bribing a suit of Napoleon’s clothes from a laundry girl (the loss causes little stir; souvenir pilfering and counterfeiting are an industry on the island), he has been able to make no arrangements whatever. In a lifetime of stratagems and ruses he has never been so nonplussed.