The good lady was so distressed at the thought of leaving her new friends for this, their first Christmas, that she came back two or three times to ask them if they would not rather she stayed, or would like to come with her to her family. However, in the face of their firm, though smiling refusal, she eventually brought herself, with many expressions of regret, to say good-bye, although not without innumerable injunctions to Marianne regarding local customs: the welcome to be given to the youthful carol singers, not to forget to say a prayer for the dead before going off to midnight mass, to have the hearth cakes and the chicken ready for the modest revelllon which should follow and a host of other things, one of the most important of which was a strict injunction to remain fasting until the evening.
'To eat nothing?' Jolival protested. 'When we have enough ado as it is to make her eat like anyone else?'
Madame le Guilvinec raised an admonitory finger to the blackened rafters:
'If she wants to see miracles happen on the holy night, or even if she wants her own wishes to come true, she must take nothing all day long, not until after dark when she can count nine stars in the sky. If she is still fasting when the ninth star comes out, then she can expect to have a gift from heaven.'
Arcadius, being a rational man with a strong aversion to anything that smacked of superstition, might have muttered a little, but Marianne was deeply attracted by this romantic prophecy. It was with eyes suddenly softened that she looked at the widow from Pont-Croix, standing there in her black garments, like some antique sibyl.
'The ninth star,' she said seriously. 'I will wait, then, until it is out. Although in this fog—'
'The fog will go away with the tide. God bless you and keep you, young lady. Nicolas Mallerousse did well to leave his house to you.'
With one last stroke for her cat which she was leaving with her neighbours, she was gone and Marianne, watching her wide, black cloak billowing along the road to the church, felt oddly sad for a moment. Just as Madame le Guilvinec had predicted, the fog was already beginning to clear, blown away by the gusts of wind that had got up, and by the beginning of the afternoon it had gone completely, leaving the countryside restored to all its wild beauty. It was about an hour after this that a lugger with red sails entered the harbour channel below the castle and came on up the Penfeld. The Saint-Guénolé had reached the rendezvous. The adventure had begun.
That evening, when it was quite dark, Marianne, Jolival and Gracchus left the house silently. They locked the door behind them, having taken care to leave a window open and unshuttered so that Madame le Guilvinec's cat, left with ample supplies of fish and milk, might come and go at will. Gracchus skipped lightly over the low garden wall and slid the key under the neighbour's door, along with a note explaining that Marianne and her 'uncle' had been obliged to return to Paris unexpectedly.
It was long after the time when the castle gun and the great bell of the prison had announced the end of work for the day and the church bells had rung for evening prayer, yet the town was not going to sleep as it usually did. The ships of war were dressed overall and as the lights went up on the mastheads so the lighted sterncastles showed that those aboard were keeping their own Christmas Eve. From the taverns came the sounds of lusty voices singing everything from the old Christmas carols down to lewd sea shanties, while the streets were full of people, whole families of them, all in their best caps and bonnets, the men carrying in one hand a lantern and in the other the knotted wooden staff called the pen-bas, and all hurrying off to spend the evening with friends until the time came round to go to church. There were groups of small boys as well, armed with beribboned branches, going the rounds of the houses knocking on doors and singing carols for all they were worth, for the reward of a few coins or a cake apiece. The whole town basked in the aromatic scents of cider, rum and pancakes.
The three of them attracted little notice, in spite of the small box containing Marianne's few clothes and her jewels which Gracchus carried under his arm, beneath his heavy cloak, and her own carpet bag. There was little to mark them out from other pedestrians that night.
Once they reached the other side of the Pont de Recouvrance, the bridge being the shorter way on this occasion, they began to encounter the occasional drunk. The lights of the taverns at the lower end of the rue de Siam, near the harbour, shone out across the pavement, and now and then gleamed on the dark water beyond. Everywhere there was a holiday feeling in the air and only those few vessels that were putting to sea on the tide showed any signs of activity aboard.
Marianne had taken Arcadius's arm and all the way she kept her eyes glued to the dark sky, counting the rare stars that appeared there. So far, she had reached no more than six and Jolival smiled at her worried face.
'If it clouds over, you're likely to starve to death, my child.'
She only shook her head, without answering, then pointed suddenly to where the seventh star had come out, above the tall masts of a frigate in the bay. As for starving, until she had found Jason again she was oblivious of hunger.
At the same time, she caught sight of the lugger, tied up below Keravel, and the figure of Jean Ledru beckoning on the deck. The Saint-Guénolé looked very small alongside the brig Trident and the two frigates, Sirène and Armide, berthed close by, but her very insignificance was a safeguard, as was the single, modest riding light at her masthead.
Seconds later, the fugitives had crossed the plank connecting her with the shore and were aboard. Suddenly, in the yellow light of the ship's lanterns, Marianne found herself the centre of a ring of silent faces which might have been carved out of mahogany, despite the many blond heads and beards among them. Dressed all alike in thick, dark jerseys, their caps pulled well down over their eyes, Jean Ledru's men looked far more like a crew of pirates than of honest seamen, but all their faces wore the same look of grim determination and the muscles beneath the heavy jerseys were certainly like knotty oaks.
'You're just in time,' Ledru grunted. 'You go down below, Marianne, and wait for us. Monsieur, your uncle, will stay with you.'
With one accord, the two persons addressed opened their mouths to protest.
'No!' Arcadius said. 'I'm going with you.'
'Me, too!' echoed Marianne.
It was one of the men, a big, red-headed fellow with something of the look of a large, reddish bear, who voiced immediate opposition to this suggestion:
'It's bad enough, Cap'n, having a woman aboard! If we've got to cart her along with us!'
'You'll not be obliged to cart me, as you put it,' Marianne exclaimed indignantly. 'And if I go with you, I shall be the less time aboard your boat. It is my man you are going to rescue and I want to share the risk with you.'
'And climb the wall, in your petticoats?'
'I can wait at the bottom. I'll keep watch. And I know how to use this, as well…' she added, putting aside the folds of her cloak and showing one of the pistols Napoleon had given her tucked into her belt.
The red-headed seaman gave a shout of laughter:
'By God! If that's the way of it, come you shall! You're a brave lass, after all, and an extra hand is always welcome.'
Jean Ledru, who had disappeared for a moment during this exchange, now reappeared, closing the cabin door behind him. As he did so, Marianne's sharp eyes caught sight of the length of rope coiled neatly about his chest. He glanced quickly round his crew.
'Is everyone ready? Joel, got the rope? You, Thomas and Goulven, the grapnels?'