The Delaware forged up alongside her, the gun captains looking along their sights, not a sound in the ship save for her sharp bows cleaving the water.
"Heave to, if you please, Mr. Hubbard," said Peabody, taking up his speaking trumpet.
"Sloop ahoy! What sloop's that?"
A high-pitched voice sent a reply back to him downwind, but the words were unintelligible.
"French, maybe. Or Eyetalian," said Hubbard.
"What sloop's that?" asked Peabody again, irascibly.
There was a second's pause before the reply came, in English this time, with a marked foreign accent.
"Say it again!" roared Peabody.
One of the gold-laced officers on the sloop's quarterdeck raised his speaking trumpet again. When he spoke his intonation betrayed quite as much exasperation as did Peabody's.
"His Most Christian Majesty's Ship--------- "
What the name was they could not be sure.
"Sounded like 'Negress,' sir," said Hubbard. "Queer name for a ship. Bet she's a Dago, or mebbe a Portugee."
"Neither of those," said Peabody.
The King of Spain was His Most Catholic Majesty, and the King of Portugal was His Most Faithful Majesty — he had heard the pompous expressions used time and again when he was with Preble in the Mediterranean. He had never heard of His Most Christian Majesty.
"I'll send a boat," he roared into the wind, and instantly decided that this was a business which he himself had better attend to; if an international incident were to grow out of this he wanted full responsibility.
"Pass the word for my servant to bring my sword," he said. "I'll go in the quarter boat, Mr. Hubbard — and pass the word for Mr. Peabody to come with me."
Washington came running with sword and belt and boat cloak; Jonathan came up from his post below. There was a fair sea running, but they made a neat job of
dropping the quarter boat into the lee which the ship afforded, with Jonathan sitting nursing his wounded arm in the stern sheets. Peabody swung himself down the fall, timed the rise of the boat as a wave lifted her, and dropped in a moment before she fell away again. With the spray that was flying he was glad of his boat cloak to preserve his uniform from salt.
"Give way," he said to the boat's crew, and they thrust against the Delaware's side and took up the stroke, the boat bobbing up and down over the big Atlantic waves.
"She's surely French enough in looks," he said, examining the smart little ship towards which they were heading.
"Is she?" said Jonathan.
"Oars!" said Peabody to the crew, and the slow rhythmic pulling stopped while the boat ran alongside the sloop. The bowman got to his feet with a boathook. A boatswain's chair came dangling down to them, and Peabody threw off his cloak and swung himself onto it.
"Follow me," he called to Jonathan, as the swell took the boat from under him.
A dozen curious faces looked up at him as he swung over the rail and dropped to the deck; he stepped down, removed his hat, and eyed the waiting group. With a little surprise he noticed two women, standing aft by the taffrail; but he did not have time for more than a brief glance. A stout officer with massive epaulettes stepped forward.
"Captain Nicolas Dupont," he said — his English was stilted and he pronounced the French names in French fashion, almost unintelligibly to Peabody — "of His Most Christian Majesty's sloop Tigresse."
"Captain Josiah Peabody, United States Ship Delaware," said Peabody.
Malta had accustomed him to encounters with officers of foreign services, but there was for him still a vague sort of unreality about stiff formality.
"You wore your — your coat in the boat, Captain," said Dupont. "We could not see your rank. Please pardon me for not receiving you with the appropriate compliments."
"Of course," said Peabody.
All this was the preliminary salute before crossing swords, he felt. He and Dupont eyed each other so keenly that neither paid any attention to Jonathan swaying down in the boatswain's chair behind Peabody.
"And now, sir," said Dupont, "would you have the goodness to explain why your ship fired upon me?"
"Why didn't you show your colors?" riposted Peabody. He was in no mood for a passive defensive.
Dupont's bushy brows came together angrily.
"We showed them, sir. We still show them."
He gesticulated towards the peak, where the white flag fluttered. Peabody noticed for the first time a gleam of gold on the white, and felt a moment's misgiving which he was determined not to show.
"Where are your national colors?" he asked.
"Those are they. The flag of His Most Christian Majesty."
"His Most Christian Majesty?"
"His Most Christian Majesty Louis, by the grace of God King of France and Navarre."
Dupont's rage was joined to genuine and obvious distress, like a man facing approaching humiliation.
"King of France!" said Peabody.
"King of France and Navarre," insisted Dupont.
Peabody began to see the light, and at the same time worse misgivings than ever began to assail him.
"Napoleon has fallen?" he said.
"The usurper Bonaparte has fallen," said Dupont solemnly. "Louis the Eighteenth sits on his rightful throne." It was the most tremendous news for twenty years. The shadow which had lain across the whole world for twenty years had lifted. They were emerging into the sunshine of a new era.
Dupont's distress was evaporating as he guessed at Peabody's astonishment, and Peabody began to feel sympathy for Dupont in the quandary in which he had found himself. A simple hoisting of the tricolor flag which the world knew so well would have saved all this misunderstanding, but Dupont had not been able to bring himself to hoist it — it would have been a horrible humiliation to have received protection from the colors of the Revolution, against which he had struggled for a lifetime. It must have been a humiliation, too, to discover that the world had forgotten that title of Most Christian Majesty which had at one time overawed Europe. And Peabody knew immediate qualms at the thought that he had fired upon the flag of what was presumably a neutral country. He saw the need for prompt apology, unreserved apology.
Mr. Madison would be furiously angry if he heard of the incident, but that was not the point. The United States could not afford to antagonize anyone else, not while she was locked in a death struggle with the greatest antagonist of all. He had thought for the moment of laughing at the whole affair, turning on his heel and quitting the Tigresse, leaving the politicians to disentangle the business as best they could; but he put aside the insidious temptation to reckless arrogance. It was his duty to humble himself. He swallowed twice as he collected the words together in his mind.
"Sir," he said slowly, "I hope you will allow me to apologize, to apologize for this — this unfortunate thing that has happened. I am very sorry, sir."
It was not the words of the apology which mollified Dupont as much as the tremendous reluctance with which the words came. A lion could hardly have given back a lamb to its mother more unreadily. An apology from a man so totally unaccustomed to apologizing was doubly sweet to the fat little captain, and his face cleared.
"Let us say no more about it, sir," said Dupont. He creased himself across his fat middle in a profound bow which Peabody tried to imitate, and then they looked at each other, Peabody at a loss as to what to say next. Polite small-talk, always difficult to him, was more difficult than ever after the strain of the last few minutes; but Dupont was equal to the occasion. He glanced across at Jonathan.
"And this gentleman is . . . ?" he asked.