Sherzad's escape from the flagship

Sherzad's escape from the flagship is a two-stage struggle for freedom: an attempt to reach a cove ends with the ship stranded and Sherzad still trapped, but Marie-Josèphe de la Croix later cuts her out of the net and helps her vanish into the sea. The sequence shifts from a failed escape plan to a deliberate rescue. Its decisive turn belongs to Marie-Josèphe, who uses a broken sword-cane while a guard is nearby and a pistol shot follows close behind.

The First Attempt and the Grounding

The first effort begins around sunset. Sherzad sings, trying to read the shape of the seabed, as the wind pauses between day and night and then shifts with the dark. The captain objects to sailing blind so close to shore. Louis XIV, addressed in the scene as the King, orders him to proceed. The ship plunges forward, and Sherzad responds with a mixture of excitement and fear. Her singing accompanies a risky course through unfamiliar water; the scene does not explain precisely how she expected the seabed or the cove to help her escape.

A jagged stone rising from the seabed catches the ship and scrapes along its keel. The impact splinters timbers, and Sherzad is thrown against the net, whose rough cables cut her skin. Yet the wreck does not release her: the cords hold, and the ship remains stranded. The narration presents the attempt as a failed plot. Sherzad laughs, described as wild and terrible, even as she faces the prospect of dying in captivity. The crew leaves her hanging before the figurehead, while the waning moon follows the sun into the sea. The ship’s grounding has changed the immediate danger without changing her confinement.

Marie-Josèphe’s Decision

Later, while nearly asleep, Marie-Josèphe catches herself and begins singing softly. A guard near the bow nods off, wakes enough to check his pistol, and then nods off again. He has orders to shoot Sherzad if she tries to escape. Marie-Josèphe slips from beneath her blanket and takes Lucien de Chrétien’s sword-cane. Releasing its handle makes a sound as loud as the ship crashing against the rock, but no one responds. The contrast between the noise and the crew’s inattention makes the rescue possible without making it safe.

The blade is broken: only a handsbreadth of steel remains, though its edge is sharp. In stocking feet and long skirts, Marie-Josèphe creeps over the deck, passes the guard, and climbs onto the bowsprit. She is concerned that the rustle of her petticoat or her awkward movement might wake him. The passage gives the songs a double role: Sherzad’s song has lulled the guard, while the sea woman’s song enfolds Marie-Josèphe as she approaches. Her act is not simply an impulsive gesture made in the open; she advances quietly, carrying a small, damaged weapon and relying on the still-sleeping guard to remain unaware.

Cutting the Net

At the bowsprit, Marie-Josèphe whispers to Sherzad to carry her life in her heart, then slips the blade beneath a cord. The steel parts the first cable, and she cuts a second and a third. The sword was not made for cutting cable, and the coarse mesh quickly dulls its edge. Marie-Josèphe has to saw harder as Sherzad grows agitated, writhes, pushes a foot through the opening, and claws at the net. The rescue depends on both women’s effort: Marie-Josèphe works at the cords while Sherzad tears at the widening gap.

As the blade struggles against the mesh, Sherzad’s song falters into a moan. The musketeer behind them snorts awake and cries out. Sherzad shrieks in triumph and bursts through the net, tumbling into the sea. A pistol ball passes Marie-Josèphe’s ear and strikes the water. Still gripping the bowsprit and the broken sword, she looks into the dark, frightened that Sherzad has been hit. The sound of the shot makes the danger immediate, but it does not reverse the escape: a splash reaches Marie-Josèphe, Sherzad laughs, issues a challenge, and disappears beneath the darkness.

Outcome and Significance

The episode ends with an escape, not a reunion or a confirmed destination. The flagship remains stranded, and Marie-Josèphe is still aboard, clinging to the bowsprit as the ship creaks and shifts. Shaken and exhilarated, she hears a summons to come onto the deck. Sherzad, by contrast, has passed out of sight into the sea. The immediate result is clear—she is no longer caught in the ship’s net—but the scene does not establish where she goes afterward.

The failed grounding and the successful cutting of the net form a sharp reversal. The first attempt leaves Sherzad exposed before the figurehead; the later one succeeds because Marie-Josèphe turns the remains of Lucien de Chrétien’s sword-cane into a cutting tool and acts while the guard sleeps. The rescue also changes Marie-Josèphe’s role from interpreter of Sherzad’s apparent willingness to lead the ship to a participant in her escape. Her choice is made at close quarters, under the threat of an armed guard, and ends not in safety for both women but in Sherzad’s sudden freedom and Marie-Josèphe’s continued uncertainty aboard the ship.