Ralestone Luck | Page 8

seven hundred years of
history behind it--that means a lot."
"'Then did he take up ye sword fashioned by ye devilish art of ye East from two fine
blades found in ye tomb,'" Val quoted from the record of Brother Anselm, the friar who

had accompanied Sir Roderick on his crusading. "Do you suppose that that part's true?
Could the Luck have been made from two other swords found in an old tomb?"
"Not impossible. The Saracens were master metal workers. Look at the Damascus
blades."
"It all sounds like a fairy-tale," commented Ricky. "A sword with magic powers beaten
out of two other swords found in a tomb. And the whole thing done under the direction of
an Arab astrologer."
"You've got to admit," broke in Val, "that Sir Roderick had luck after it was given to him.
He came home a wealthy man and he died a Baron. And his descendants even survived
the Wars of the Roses when four-fifths of the great English families were wiped out."
"'And fortune continued to smile,'" Rupert took up the story, "'until a certain wild Miles
Ralestone staked the Luck of his house on the turn of a card--and lost.'"
"O-o-oh!" Ricky squirmed forward in her chair. "Now comes the pirate. Tell us that,
Rupert."
"You know the story by heart now," he objected.
"We never heard it here, where some of it really happened. Tell it, please, Rupert!"
"In your second childhood?" he asked.
"Not out of my first yet," she answered promptly. "Pretty please, Rupert."
"Miles Ralestone, Marquess of Lorne," he began, "rode with Prince Rupert of the Rhine.
He was a notorious gambler, a loose liver, and a cynic. And he even threw the family
Luck across the gaming table."
"'The Luck went from him who did it no honor,'" Val repeated slowly. "I read that in that
old letter among your papers, Rupert."
"Yes, the Luck went from him. He survived Marston Moor; he survived the death of his
royal master, Charles the First, on the scaffold. He lived long enough to witness the
return of the Stuarts to England. But the Luck was gone, and with it the good fortune of
his line. Rupert, his son, was but a penniless hanger-on at the royal court; the manor of
Lorne a fire-gutted wreckage.
"Rupert followed James Stuart from England when that monarch became a fugitive to
escape the wrath of his subjects. And the Marquess of Lorne sank to the role of pot-house
bully in the back lanes of Paris."
"And then?" prompted Val.
"And then a miracle occurred. Rupert was employed by his master on a secret mission to

London, and there the Luck came again into his hands. Perhaps by murder. But he died
miserably enough of a heavy cold got by lying in a ditch to escape Dutch William's
soldiers."
"'So is this perilous Luck come again into our hands. Then did I persevere to mend the
fortunes of my house.' That's what Rupert's son Richard wrote about the Luck," Ricky
recalled. "Richard, the first pirate."
"He did a good job of fortune mending," commented Val dryly. "Married one of the
wealthiest of the French king's wards and sailed for the French West Indies all in a
fortnight. Turned pirate with the approval of the French and took to lifting the cargoes of
other pirates."
"I'll bet that most of his success was due to the Lady Richanda," observed Ricky. "She
sailed with him dressed in man's clothes. Remember that miniature of her that we saw in
New York, the one in the museum? All the 'Black' Ralestones are supposed to look like
her. Hear that, Val?"
"At least it was the Lady Richanda who persuaded her husband to settle ashore," said
Rupert. "She was personally acquainted with Bienville and Iberville who were proposing
to rule the Mississippi valley for France by building a city near the mouth of the river.
And 'Black Dick,' the pirate, obtained a grant of land lying along Lake Borgne and this
bayou. Although the city was not begun until 1724, this house was started in 1710 by
workmen imported from England.
"The house of an exile," Rupert continued slowly. "Richard Ralestone was born in
England, but he left there in his tenth year. In spite of the price on his head, he crept back
to Devon in 1709 to see Lorne for the last time. And it was from the rude sketches he
made of ruined Lorne that Pirate's Haven was planned."
"Why, we saw those sketches!" Ricky's eyes shone with excitement. "Do you remember,
Val?"
Her brother nodded. "Must have cost him plenty to do it," he replied. "Richard had an
immense personal fortune of his own gained from piracy, and he spared no expense in
building. The larger