Across the Salt Seas: A Romance of the War of Succession

Aboard the French cutter La Mouche Noire, the narrator drifts through a restless sea that mirrors the turmoil of the War of Succession. The deck shudders under the weight of gun‑metal and gossip, and the crew’s uneasy chatter is punctuated by the captain’s nervous exclamations about “death agonies.” When a frail, white‑haired stranger is brought aboard at Rotterdam, the sailors mistake him for a harmless clergyman, but his wild, muttering cries hint at something far more unsettling.

The old man lies in his cabin, his satin robes and gold buttons a stark contrast to his gaunt, trembling frame. He sings a raucous, drunken ballad that seems out of place for a man of his years, while the ship’s officers scramble to ready their weapons. Reluctantly, the narrator agrees to attend to the mysterious passenger, drawn into a web of eerie chants, looming danger, and the promise of hidden stories that the salty winds whisper across the deck.