He who had left Marseille some years before, knowing the interior of the house of Morrel, and who had entered it at the period to which we have now come, would have found a great change there.
Instead of that air of life, of ease, and of happiness which exhales, so to speak, from a house on the road to prosperity; instead of those joyful faces showing themselves behind the window curtains, of those busy clerks crossing the corridors, a pen stuck behind the ear; instead of that courtyard encumbered with bales, resounding with the shouts and laughter of the porters; he would have found, at first sight, I know not what of sadness and of death. In that deserted corridor and that empty courtyard, of the numerous employees who had once peopled the offices, only two remained: one was a young man of twenty-three or twenty-four years, named Emmanuel Raymond, who was in love with M. Morrel's daughter, and had stayed in the house despite all his parents could do to withdraw him from it; the other was an old cashier, one-eyed, named Coclès, a nickname that the young men who had once populated this great humming hive, now almost uninhabited, had given him, and which had so well and so completely replaced his real name, that, in all probability, he would not even have turned round had he been called by that name today.
Coclès had remained in the service of M. Morrel, and a singular change had taken place in the brave man's position. He had at once risen to the rank of cashier, and sunk to the rank of domestic.
Yet it was the same Coclès, good, patient, devoted, but inflexible in matters of arithmetic, the only point on which he would have stood up against the whole world, even against M. Morrel, and knowing nothing but his multiplication table, which he knew by heart, however it might be turned about and whatever error one might try to make him fall into.
Amid the general sadness that had invaded the house of Morrel, Coclès was besides the only one who had remained impassive. But let no one be mistaken; this impassiveness came not from a lack of affection, but on the contrary from an unshakable conviction. Like the rats, who, it is said, little by little leave a building condemned in advance by fate to perish at sea, so that these selfish guests have completely abandoned it at the moment it weighs anchor, so, as we have said, all that crowd of clerks and employees who drew their living from the shipowner's house had little by little deserted office and warehouse; now, Coclès had seen them all go away without so much as thinking to account to himself for the cause of their departure; everything, as we have said, reduced itself for Coclès to a question of figures, and for twenty years that he had been in the house of Morrel, he had always seen payments made at open counters with such regularity, that he no more admitted that this regularity could stop and these payments be suspended, than a miller who possesses a mill fed by the waters of a rich river admits that this river can cease to flow. Indeed, up to then nothing had yet come to shake Coclès's conviction. The last end of the month had been effected with rigorous punctuality. Coclès had detected an error of seventy centimes made by M. Morrel to his own prejudice, and on the same day he had brought back the fourteen sous of excess to M. Morrel, who, with a melancholy smile, had taken them and let them fall into a nearly empty drawer, saying:
“Very good, Coclès, you are the pearl of cashiers.”
And Coclès had withdrawn more than satisfied; for a word of praise from M. Morrel, that pearl of the honest men of Marseille, flattered Coclès more than a gratuity of fifty crowns.
But since that end of the month so victoriously accomplished, M. Morrel had passed through cruel hours; to meet this end of the month, he had gathered all his resources, and he himself, fearing lest the rumor of his distress should spread through Marseille when he was seen to have recourse to such extremities, had made a journey to the Beaucaire fair to sell some jewels belonging to his wife and daughter, and part of his plate. By means of this sacrifice, everything had again this time passed to the greatest honor of the house of Morrel; but the cash box had remained completely empty. Credit, frightened by the rumor that was abroad, had withdrawn with its habitual selfishness; and to meet the hundred thousand francs to be repaid on the 15th of the present month to M. de Boville, and the other hundred thousand francs which were to fall due on the 15th of the next month, M. Morrel had in reality only the hope of the return of the Pharaon, of which a vessel that had weighed anchor at the same time as she, and which had arrived safe in port, had announced the departure.
But already this vessel, coming, like the Pharaon, from Calcutta, had arrived fifteen days before, while of the Pharaon there was no news.
It is in this state of things that, on the morrow of the day when he had concluded with M. de Boville the important business we have spoken of, the agent of the house of Thomson and French of Rome presented himself at M. Morrel's.
Emmanuel received him. The young man, whom every new face alarmed, for every new face announced a new creditor who, in his anxiety, came to question the head of the house, the young man, we say, wished to spare his master the annoyance of this visit: he questioned the newcomer; but the newcomer declared that he had nothing to say to M. Emmanuel, and that it was M. Morrel in person he wished to speak to. Emmanuel sighed and called Coclès. Coclès appeared, and the young man ordered him to conduct the stranger to M. Morrel.
Coclès walked ahead, and the stranger followed him.
On the stairs, they met a beautiful young girl of sixteen or seventeen, who looked at the stranger with uneasiness.
Coclès did not notice this expression of countenance, which nevertheless did not appear to have escaped the stranger.
“M. Morrel is in his study, is he not, Mademoiselle Julie?” asked the cashier.
“Yes, at least I think so,” said the young girl hesitating; “look first, Coclès, and if my father is there, announce the gentleman.”
“To announce me would be useless, mademoiselle,” answered the Englishman; “M. Morrel does not know my name. This good man has only to say that I am the chief clerk of Messrs. Thomson and French of Rome, with whom your father's house is in relation.”
The young girl grew pale and continued to descend, while Coclès and the stranger continued to ascend.
She entered the office where Emmanuel was, and Coclès, by means of a key of which he was possessor, and which announced his great intimacy with the master, opened a door placed in the angle of the landing on the second floor, introduced the stranger into an anteroom, opened a second door which he closed behind him, and, after leaving the agent of the house of Thomson and French alone for a moment, reappeared making him a sign that he might enter.
The Englishman entered; he found M. Morrel seated before a table, growing pale before the frightful columns of the ledger where his liabilities were inscribed.
On seeing the stranger, M. Morrel closed the ledger, rose and advanced a chair; then, when he had seen the stranger seat himself, he seated himself in his turn.
Fourteen years had greatly changed the worthy merchant who, aged thirty-six at the beginning of this history, was on the point of reaching fifty: his hair had whitened, his brow had furrowed under anxious wrinkles; finally his glance, formerly so firm and steady, had become vague and irresolute, and seemed always to fear being forced to rest either on an idea or on a man.
The Englishman looked at him with a sentiment of curiosity evidently mingled with interest.
“Sir,” said Morrel, whose uneasiness this examination seemed to redouble, “you wished to speak to me?”
“Yes, sir. You know from whom I come, do you not?”
“From the house of Thomson and French, as my cashier at least told me.”
“He told you the truth, sir. The house of Thomson and French had, in the course of this month and the next, three or four hundred thousand francs to pay in France, and knowing your rigorous exactitude, it has gathered all the paper it could find bearing that signature, and has charged me, as these papers fall due, to collect the funds from you and to make use of these funds.”
Morrel uttered a deep sigh, and passed his hand over his brow covered with sweat.
“So, sir,” asked Morrel, “you have bills drawn by me?”
“Yes, sir, for a rather considerable sum.”
“For what sum?” asked Morrel in a voice he tried to make assured.
“But here first,” said the Englishman, drawing a bundle from his pocket, “is a transfer of two hundred thousand francs made to our house by M. de Boville, the inspector of prisons. Do you acknowledge owing this sum to M. de Boville?”
“Yes, sir, it is an investment he made with me, at four and a half per cent, nearly five years ago.”
“And which you are to repay…”
“Half on the 15th of this month, half on the 15th of next month.”
“That is it; then here are thirty-two thousand five hundred francs, end of the month: these are bills drawn by you and endorsed to our order by third-party holders.”
“I acknowledge them,” said Morrel, to whom the red of shame mounted to the face, thinking that for the first time in his life he perhaps would not be able to honor his signature; “is that all?”
“No, sir, I still have for the end of next month these values here, which the house of Pascal and the house of Wild and Turner of Marseille passed to us, about fifty-five thousand francs: in all two hundred eighty-seven thousand five hundred francs.”
What the unhappy Morrel suffered during this enumeration is impossible to describe.
“Two hundred eighty-seven thousand five hundred francs,” he repeated mechanically.
“Yes, sir,” answered the Englishman. “Now,” he continued after a moment of silence, “I will not hide from you, M. Morrel, that, while doing justice to your blameless probity up to the present, the public rumor of Marseille is that you are not in a state to meet your engagements.”
At this almost brutal opening, Morrel grew frightfully pale.
“Sir,” said he, “until now, and it is more than twenty-four years since I received the house from the hands of my father, who himself had managed it thirty-five years, until now not a note signed Morrel and Son has been presented at the cash box without being paid.”
“Yes, I know that,” answered the Englishman; “but from man of honor to man of honor, speak frankly. Sir, will you pay these with the same exactitude?”
Morrel started and looked at him who spoke thus to him with more assurance than he had yet done.
“To questions put with that frankness,” said he, “a frank answer must be made. Yes, sir, I shall pay if, as I hope, my vessel arrives safe in port, for her arrival will restore me the credit that the successive accidents of which I have been the victim have taken from me; but if by misfortune the Pharaon, this last resource on which I count, should fail me…”
Tears rose to the poor shipowner's eyes.
“Well,” asked his interlocutor, “if this last resource should fail you?…”
“Well,” continued Morrel, “sir, it is cruel to say… but, already accustomed to misfortune, I must accustom myself to shame; well, I believe I should be forced to suspend my payments.”
“Have you then no friends who could help you in this circumstance?”
Morrel smiled sadly.
“In business, sir,” said he, “one has no friends, you know that well; one has only correspondents.”
“That is true,” murmured the Englishman. “So you have but one hope left?”
“Only one.”
“The last?”
“The last.”
“So that if this hope fails you…”
“I am lost, sir, completely lost.”
“As I was coming to your house, a vessel was entering the port.”
“I know it, sir. A young man who has remained faithful to my ill fortune spends part of his time at a belvedere situated at the top of the house, in the hope of coming to announce to me the first a piece of good news. I learned from him the entrance of this vessel.”
“And it is not yours?”
“No, it is a Bordeaux vessel, the Gironde; she comes from India also, but she is not mine.”
“Perhaps she has had news of the Pharaon and brings you some tidings.”
“Must I tell you, sir! I almost fear as much to learn news of my three-master as to remain in uncertainty. Uncertainty is still hope.”
Then M. Morrel added in a hollow voice:
“This delay is not natural; the Pharaon left Calcutta on the 5th of February: more than a month ago she should have been here.”
“What is that,” said the Englishman, lending his ear, “and what means that noise?”
“O my God! my God!” cried Morrel, growing pale, “what is there now?”
Indeed, a great noise was making itself on the stairs; they went and came, and a cry of pain was even heard.
Morrel rose to go open the door, but his strength failed him and he fell back into his armchair.
The two men remained face to face, Morrel trembling in all his limbs, the stranger looking at him with an expression of deep pity. The noise had ceased; but yet it would have seemed that Morrel was expecting something; this noise had a cause and must have a sequel.
It seemed to the stranger that someone was softly mounting the stairs and that the steps, which were those of several persons, stopped on the landing.
A key was introduced into the lock of the first door, and the door was heard to creak on its hinges.
“There are but two persons who have the key to that door,” murmured Morrel: “Coclès and Julie.”
At the same time the second door opened and the young girl was seen to appear, pale and with cheeks bathed in tears.
Morrel rose all trembling, and supported himself on the arm of his armchair, for he could not have stood upright. His voice wished to question, but he had no voice.
“O my father!” said the young girl, joining her hands, “forgive your child for being the messenger of bad news!”
Morrel grew frightfully pale; Julie came to throw herself into his arms.
“O my father! my father!” said she, “courage!”
“So the Pharaon is lost?” asked Morrel in a strangled voice.
The young girl did not answer, but she made an affirmative sign with her head, leaned on her father's breast.
“And the crew?” asked Morrel.
“Saved,” said the young girl, “saved by the Bordeaux vessel which has just entered the port.”
Morrel raised both hands to heaven with an expression of sublime resignation and thankfulness.
“Thanks, my God!” said Morrel; “at least you strike but me alone.”
However phlegmatic the Englishman might be, a tear moistened his eyelid.
“Enter,” said Morrel, “enter, for I presume you are all at the door.”
Indeed, scarcely had he pronounced these words than Madame Morrel entered sobbing; Emmanuel followed her; at the back, in the anteroom, could be seen the rough faces of seven or eight half-naked sailors. At the sight of these men the Englishman started; he made a step as if to go to them, but he restrained himself and on the contrary withdrew into the darkest and most distant corner of the study.
Madame Morrel went to seat herself in the armchair, took one of her husband's hands in hers, while Julie remained leaning on her father's breast. Emmanuel had remained midway between the room and the door, and seemed to serve as a link between the group of the Morrel family and the sailors who held themselves at the door.
“How did this happen?” asked Morrel.
“Come forward, Penelon,” said the young man, “and tell the story.”
An old sailor, bronzed by the sun of the equator, advanced rolling between his hands the remains of a hat.
“Good day, M. Morrel,” said he, as if he had left Marseille the day before and were arriving from Aix or Toulon.
“Good day, my friend,” said the shipowner, unable to refrain from smiling through his tears: “but where is the captain?”
“As for the captain, M. Morrel, he stayed ill at Palma; but, please God, it will be nothing, and you will see him arrive in a few days as well as you and me.”
“That is well… now speak, Penelon,” said M. Morrel.
Penelon passed his quid from his right cheek to his left, put his hand before his mouth, turned aside, launched into the anteroom a long jet of blackish spittle, advanced his foot, and balancing on his hips:
“Why, M. Morrel,” said he, “we were something like that, between Cape Blanc and Cape Bojador, sailing with a pretty south-southwest breeze, after having knocked about for eight days in a calm, when Captain Gaumard comes up to me—I should tell you I was at the helm—and says to me: ‘Father Penelon, what do you think of those clouds rising yonder at the horizon?’
“Just then I was looking at them.
“—What I think, captain! I think they are rising a little faster than they have a right to, and that they are blacker than becomes clouds that had no ill intentions.
“—That is my opinion too, said the captain, and I am going to take my precautions all the same. We have too much sail for the wind there is going to be presently…. Hola! hey! clear away to take in the royals and to haul down the flying jib!
“It was time; the order was not executed before the wind was at our heels and the vessel was heeling over.
“—Good! said the captain, we still have too much canvas, clear away to brail up the mainsail!
“Five minutes after, the mainsail was brailed up, and we were sailing with the forecourse, the top-sails and the topgallant-sails.
“—Well, father Penelon, says the captain to me, what makes you shake your head so?
“—What makes me, in your place, see you, I wouldn't stay in such fine road.
“—I believe you are right, old fellow, says he, we are going to have a squall.
“—Ah! indeed, captain, says I to him, he who would buy what is going on yonder for a squall would make something by it; it is a fine and proper tempest, or I know nothing about it!
“That is to say, one saw the wind coming as one sees the dust coming at Montredon; fortunately he had to do with a man who knew it.
“—Clear away to take two reefs in the topsails! cries the captain; ease off the bowlines, brace to the wind, lower the topsails, sway on the clewlines!
“—That was not enough in those parts, said the Englishman; I would have taken four reefs and got rid of the forecourse.”
This firm, sonorous and unexpected voice made everyone start. Penelon put his hand to his eyes and looked at him who was thus checking with such assurance the maneuver of his captain.
“We did better than that even, sir,” said the old sailor with a certain respect, “for we brailed up the brigantine and put the helm to windward to run before the tempest. Ten minutes after, we took in the topsails and went along bare of sail.
“—The vessel was old to risk that, said the Englishman.
“—Why, just so! that was what ruined us. After twelve hours that we were tossed about that the devil would have taken to heart, there broke out a leak. ‘Penelon,’ says the captain, ‘I believe we are sinking, old fellow; give me the helm and go down into the hold.’
“I give him the helm, I go down; there were already three feet of water. I come up crying: ‘To the pumps! to the pumps!’ Ah! yes indeed, it was already too late! They set to work; but I believe the more we drew, the more there was.
“—Ah! faith, says I after four hours of work, since we are sinking, let us sink, one dies but once!
“—Is that how you set the example, master Penelon? says the captain; well, wait, wait! He went to take a pair of pistols in his cabin.
“—The first who leaves the pump, says he, I blow his brains out!
“—Well done, said the Englishman.
“—There is nothing gives courage like good reasons, continued the sailor, all the more that meanwhile the weather had cleared and the wind had fallen; but it is none the less true that the water kept rising, not much, two inches perhaps per hour, but still it rose. Two inches per hour, you see, that looks like nothing; but in twelve hours that makes no less than twenty-four inches, and twenty-four inches make two feet. Two feet and the three we already had makes five. Now, when a vessel has five feet of water in her belly, she may pass for dropsical.
“—Come, says the captain, that is enough and M. Morrel will have nothing to reproach us with: we have done what we could to save the vessel; now, we must try to save the men. To the longboat, lads, and quicker than that!
“Listen, M. Morrel, continued Penelon, we loved the Pharaon well, but however much the sailor loves his ship, he loves his skin still better. So we did not need to be told twice; with that, you see, the vessel was complaining and seemed to say to us: ‘Be off, then, be off!’ And she did not lie, the poor Pharaon, we felt her literally sinking under our feet. So it was that in a twinkling the longboat was at sea, and we were all eight in her.
“The captain went down last, or rather, no, he did not go down, for he would not leave the ship, it is I who took him in my arms and threw him to the comrades, after which I jumped in my turn. It was time. As I had just jumped, the deck burst with a noise one would have said the broadside of a forty-eight-gun ship.
“Ten minutes after, she dived head foremost, then stern foremost, then she began to turn round like a dog chasing his tail; and then, good night to the company, brrou!… all was said, no more Pharaon!
“As for us, we stayed three days without drinking or eating; so that we were talking of drawing lots to know who should feed the others, when we caught sight of the Gironde: we made signals to her, she saw us, bore down upon us, sent her longboat and took us up. That is how it passed, M. Morrel, word of honor! sailor's faith! Is it not so, the others?”
A general murmur of approbation indicated that the narrator had gathered all votes by the truth of the substance and the picturesque of the details.
“Well, my friends,” said M. Morrel, “you are brave fellows, and I knew beforehand that in the misfortune which has befallen me there was no other culprit than my destiny. It is the will of God and not the fault of men. Let us adore the will of God. Now, how much are you due in wages?”
“Oh, bah! let us not speak of that, M. Morrel.”
“On the contrary, let us speak of it,” said the shipowner with a sad smile.
“Why, we are owed three months…” said Penelon.
“Coclès, pay two hundred francs to each of these brave fellows. In another time, my friends,” continued Morrel, “I should have added: ‘Give them each two hundred francs gratuity’; but the times are unhappy, my friends, and the little money I have left no longer belongs to me. Excuse me then, and do not love me less for it.”
Penelon made a grimace of emotion, turned toward his companions, exchanged a few words with them and came back.
“As for that, M. Morrel,” said he, passing his quid to the other side of his mouth and launching into the anteroom a second jet of spittle which went to pair with the first, “as for that…”
“Of what?”
“Of the money…”
“Well?”
“Why, M. Morrel, the comrades say that for the moment they will have enough with fifty francs each and will wait for the rest.”
“Thanks, my friends, thanks!” cried M. Morrel, touched to the heart: “you are all brave hearts; but take, take, and if you find a good service, enter it, you are free.”
This last part of the phrase produced a prodigious effect on the worthy sailors. They looked at one another with astonished faces. Penelon, whose breath failed him, nearly swallowed his quid; happily, he brought his hand to his throat in time.
“How, M. Morrel,” said he in a strangled voice, “how, you send us away! are you then dissatisfied with us?”
“No, my children,” said the shipowner; “no, I am not dissatisfied with you, quite the contrary. No, I do not send you away. But, what would you have? I have no more vessels, I have no more need of sailors.”
“How you have no more vessels!” said Penelon. “Why, you will have others built, we will wait. Thank God, we know what knocking about is.”
“I have no more money to have vessels built, Penelon,” said the shipowner with a sad smile, “I cannot therefore accept your offer, obliging as it is.”
“Why, if you have no money, you must not pay us; then, we will do like the poor Pharaon, we will run bare of sail, that is all!”
“Enough, enough, my friends,” said Morrel, stifling with emotion; “go, I beg you. We shall meet again in better times. Emmanuel,” added the shipowner, “accompany them, and see that my wishes are fulfilled.”
“At least it is goodbye, is it not, M. Morrel?” said Penelon.
“Yes, my friends, I hope so, at least; go.”
And he made a sign to Coclès, who walked ahead. The sailors followed the cashier, and Emmanuel followed the sailors.
“Now,” said the shipowner to his wife and daughter, “leave me alone a moment; I have to talk with this gentleman.”
And he indicated with his eyes the agent of the house of Thomson and French, who had remained standing and motionless in his corner during all this scene, in which he had taken part only by the few words we have reported. The two women raised their eyes to the stranger whom they had completely forgotten, and withdrew; but, in withdrawing, the young girl cast at this man a sublime look of supplication, to which he replied by a smile that a cold observer would have been astonished to see bloom on that face of ice. The two men remained alone.
“Well, sir,” said Morrel, letting himself fall back into his armchair, “you have seen all, heard all, and I have nothing more to tell you.”
“I have seen, sir,” said the Englishman, “that there had befallen you a new misfortune as unmerited as the others, and that has confirmed me in the desire I have to be of service to you.”
“O sir!” said Morrel.
“Let us see,” continued the stranger. “I am one of your principal creditors, am I not?”
“You are at least the one who holds the paper at shortest date.”
“You wish a delay to pay me?”
“A delay might save my honor, and consequently my life.”
“How much do you ask?”
Morrel hesitated.
“Two months,” said he.
“Very well,” said the stranger, “I give you three.”
“But do you believe that the house of Thomson and French…”
“Be easy, sir, I take all upon myself. We are today the 5th of June.”
“Yes.”
“Well, renew me all these notes to the 5th of September; and on the 5th of September, at eleven o'clock in the morning (the clock was just striking eleven at that moment), I will present myself at your house.”
“I will await you, sir,” said Morrel, “and you shall be paid or I shall be dead.”
These last words were pronounced so low that the stranger could not hear them.
The notes were renewed, the old ones were torn, and the poor shipowner found himself at least with three months before him to gather his last resources.
The Englishman received his thanks with the phlegm peculiar to his nation, and took leave of Morrel, who accompanied him, blessing him, to the door.
On the stairs, he met Julie. The young girl pretended to be descending, but in reality she was waiting for him.
“O sir!” said she, joining her hands.
“Mademoiselle,” said the stranger, “you will one day receive a letter signed… Sindbad the Sailor…. Do exactly what this letter shall tell you, however strange the recommendation may appear to you.”
“Yes, sir,” answered Julie.
“Do you promise me to do it?”
“I swear it to you.”
“Very well! Adieu, mademoiselle. Remain always a good and holy girl as you are, and I have good hope that God will reward you by giving you Emmanuel for husband.”
Julie uttered a little cry, became red as a cherry and held to the banister not to fall.
The stranger continued on his way, making her a gesture of farewell. In the courtyard, he met Penelon, who held a roll of a hundred francs in each hand, and seemed unable to decide to carry them off.
“Come, my friend,” said he to him, “I have to speak to you.”
