Twelve
Though the driver was not a man to hurry his horses, he cracked his whip when Pierre Verne promised him a gold-piece bonus if they made it to Paimboeuf before the Coralie sailed. The brougham rattled down the river road, bouncing on rocks and splashing through mud.
Any other time, Monsieur Verne would have complained about the rough ride and the lack of padding on the carriage seats. But today, he didn’t care.
Up ahead, a lad no older than Jules, wearing a floppy hat and carrying a willow frond three feet taller than himself, shooed seven sheep along the road. The driver hollered while urging his horses ahead, and the lad scattered his sheep out of the way before they were run down.
Six miles farther along, the path drove into steep highlands above the river estuary where the road was blocked by a cart whose wheel had broken. An old farmer sat next to the sagging wagon, watching his mule munch on a sack of grain. He seemed unconcerned that he had stalled all travel while waiting for someone to help him replace the wheel.
The carriage driver leaned back and called to Monsieur Verne, “If you want to move ahead, we’ll have to help him change his wheel.”
“All right. Be quick about it,” Pierre said impatiently.
The wagon owner and his mule appeared to be in no hurry, but Pierre scolded both drivers until they set to the task. So great was Pierre’s urgency that even he, dressed in fine business clothes, knelt in the mud and helped use a lever and boulders to lift the cart and replace the wheel. Then, before the farmer could casually pull in front of the brougham, Pierre shouted for the driver to hurry. The horses got up to a gallop again, and the carriage thundered past the rickety cart.
The sun lowered toward the horizon, spilling golden rays in a spectacular Atlantic sunset. Other carts and horses and wagons began to fill the road as they approached Paimboeuf. Monsieur Verne saw dozens of ships on the docks. He didn’t know how he would ever find the Coralie. It might take an hour to talk to the harbormasters and study docking records—and by that time the ship would have sailed with the outgoing tide.
Instead, he instructed the driver to take the brougham down to the quays. The impatient attorney leaned out the window, questioning sailors. “Where’s the Coralie?” He asked seven times until finally he said, “She’s about to sail. Which one is the Coralie?”
A young seaman with tanned skin and a wispy beard sat on a crate munching an apple. He looked up, unconcerned with Monsieur Verne’s urgency, and gestured down the docks. “Fourth one. You’d better hurry. They’re casting off.”
The driver whipped his horses. People on the docks scattered, much as the sheep had scattered on the highland road. The carriage rattled across the boardwalk, iron-shod wheels thundering like drumbeats. At last, Pierre caught sight of a three-masted ship with her sails furled to catch the wind and the outgoing tide. He saw the markings, the name Coralie, and—with horror—realized that sailors were already working to untie the brig from the pier.
With a rattling clangor, the heavy chains were drawn up into the hawse holes. The sailors raised the anchor.