which, indeed, was more an instinctive presentiment than positive
reality. At last the negro brought the so much longed for telescope.
Lusignan uttered a cry of joy, and then handed it to Marguerite: he
had recognized the sculpture of Guillaume Costou, upon the prow of the
vessel, and it was really the _Indienne_ which was advancing towards
Basseterre.
Lusignan raised Marguerite from the hammock and placed her on her feet,
for their first impulse was to hasten to the harbour; but then they
reflected that Paul had left the _Indienne_ nearly five years, at the
time that his promotion entitled him to the command of a larger vessel,
and that she might now be under the orders of another captain, and they
paused with palpitating hearts and trembling limbs. During this time,
their son Hector had taken up the telescope, and placing it to his eye,
looked through it, and soon after exclaimed,--“Father, see there,--upon
the deck stands an officer, dressed in a black coat, embroidered
with gold, just like the one in the picture of my dear friend, Paul!”
Lusignan hastily snatched the glass from his son’s hands, looked through
it for a few moments, then again passed it to Marguerite, who, after
directing it toward the vessel, let it fall, and then they threw
themselves into each other’s arms; they had recognized their friend,
who, as he was about to visit them, had put on the dress which we have
before said he had generally worn. At this instant the frigate passed
the fort, which it saluted with three guns, and the fort returned the
salute with an equal number.
From the moment that Lusignan and Marguerite had acquired the certitude
that their friend and brother was actually on board the _Indienne_, they
had hastened down the mountain, followed by young Hector, towards the
port, leaving their little Blanche in the hammock. The captain had
also recognized them, so that at the moment they left the garden he had
ordered a boat to be lowered, and, thanks to the united strength of ten
vigorous oarsmen, he had rapidly glided over the distance between the
anchorage ground and the port, and had sprung upon the jetty at the
instant that his friends arrived there. Such sensations as then filled
their breasts cannot be expressed in words; tears are their only
interpreter. And thus their joy more closely resembled grief, for they
all wept, even to the child, who wept because he saw them weep.
After giving some orders relating to the vessel, the young commodore,
with his delighted friends, slowly ascended the hill down which they
had rushed so rapidly to meet him. Paul told them that the expedition
of Admiral Vaudreuil having failed, he had returned to Philadelphia, and
peace having been signed, as we have before mentioned, with England, the
Congress, as a token of gratitude, had presented him with the first ship
he had commanded as captain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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