One night I was leaving the café when Captain Fourneau followed me, and touching me on the arm he led me without saying a word for some distance until we reached his lodgings. “I wish to have a chat with you,” said he, and so conducted me up the stair to his room. There he lit a lamp and handed me a sheet of paper which he took from an envelope in his bureau. It was dated a few months before from the Palace of Schönbrunn at Vienna. “Captain Fourneau is acting in the highest interests of the Emperor Napoleon. Those who love the Emperor should obey him without question.–Marie Louise.” That is what I read. I was familiar with the signature of the Empress, and I could not doubt that this was genuine.
“Well,” said he, “are you satisfied as to my credentials?”
“Entirely.”
“Are you prepared to take your orders from me?”
“This document leaves me no choice.”
“Good! In the first place, I understand from something you said in the café that you can speak English?”
“Yes, I can.”
“Let me hear you do so.”
I said in English, “Whenever the Emperor needs the help of Etienne Gerard I am ready night and day to give my life in his service.” Captain Fourneau smiled.
“It is funny English,” said he, “but still it is better than no English. For my own part I speak English like an Englishman. It is all that I have to show for six years spent in an English prison. Now I will tell you why I have come to Paris. I have come in order to choose an agent who will help me in a matter which affects the interests of the Emperor. I was told that it was at the café of the Great Man that I would find the pick of his old officers, and that I could rely upon every man there being devoted to his interests. I studied you all, therefore, and I have come to the conclusion that you are the one who is most suited for my purpose.”
I acknowledged the compliment. “What is it that you wish me to do?” I asked.
“Merely to keep me company for a few months,” said he. “You must know that after my release in England I settled down there, married an English wife, and rose to command a small English merchant ship, in which I have made several voyages from Southampton to the Guinea coast. They look on me there as an Englishman. You can understand, however, that with my feelings about the Emperor I am lonely sometimes, and that it would be an advantage to me to have a companion who would sympathize with my thoughts. One gets very bored on these long voyages, and I would make it worth your while to share my cabin.”
He looked hard at me with his shrewd grey eyes all the time that he was uttering this rigmarole, and I gave him a glance in return which showed him that he was not dealing with a fool. He took out a canvas bag full of money.
“There are a hundred pounds in gold in this bag,” said he. “You will be able to buy some comforts for your voyage. I should recommend you to get them in Southampton, whence we will start in ten days. The name of the vessel is the Black Swan. I return to Southampton to-morrow, and I shall hope to see you in the course of the next week.”
“Come now,” said I. “Tell me frankly what is the destination of our voyage?”
“Oh, didn&csq;t I tell you?” he answered. “We are bound for the Guinea coast of Africa.”
“Then how can that be in the highest interests of the Emperor?” I asked.
“It is in his highest interests that you ask no indiscreet questions and I give no indiscreet replies,” he answered, sharply. So he brought the interview to an end, and I found myself back in my lodgings with nothing save this bag of gold to show that this singular interview had indeed taken place.
There was every reason why I should see the adventure to a conclusion, and so within a week I was on my way to England. I passed from St. Malo to Southampton, and on inquiry at the docks I had no difficulty in finding the Black Swan, a neat little vessel of a shape which is called, as I learned afterward, a brig. There was Captain Fourneau himself upon the deck, and seven or eight rough fellows hard at work grooming her and making her ready for sea. He greeted me and led me down to his cabin.