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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of New Arabian Nights, by Robert Louis Stevenson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title:  New Arabian Nights
+
+Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
+
+Release Date: March 4, 1997 [eBook #839]
+[Most recently updated: August 24, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: David Price
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS ***
+
+
+
+
+NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS
+
+BY
+ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
+
+LONDON
+CHATTO & WINDUS
+1920
+
+_Printed at_ The Ballantyne Press
+Spottiswoode, Ballantyne & Co. Ltd.
+_Colchester_, _London & Eton_, _England_
+
+
+
+
+TO
+_Robert Allan Mowbray Stevenson_
+
+IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF THEIR YOUTH
+AND THEIR ALREADY OLD AFFECTION
+
+
+Contents
+
+ THE SUICIDE CLUB:
+ Story of the Young Man with the Cream Tarts
+ Story of the Physician and the Saratoga Trunk
+ The Adventure of the Hansom Cabs
+
+ THE RAJAH’S DIAMOND:
+ Story of the Bandbox
+ Story of the Young Man in Holy Orders
+ Story of the House with the Green Blinds
+ The Adventure of Prince Florizel and a Detective
+
+ THE PAVILION ON THE LINKS:
+ CHAPTER I. Tells how I Camped in Graden Sea-wood, and beheld a Light in the Pavilion
+ CHAPTER II. Tells of the Nocturnal Landing from the Yacht
+ CHAPTER III. Tells how I became acquainted with my Wife
+ CHAPTER IV. Tells in what a startling manner I learned that I was not alone in Graden Sea-wood
+ CHAPTER V. Tells of an Interview between Northmour, Clara, and Myself
+ CHAPTER VI. Tells of my Introduction to the Tall Man
+ CHAPTER VII. Tells how a Word was Cried through the Pavilion Window
+ CHAPTER VIII. Tells the Last of the Tall Man
+ CHAPTER IX. Tells how Northmour carried out his Threat
+
+ A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT
+
+ THE SIRE DE MALÉTROIT’S DOOR
+
+ PROVIDENCE AND THE GUITAR
+
+
+
+
+THE SUICIDE CLUB
+
+
+
+
+STORY OF THE YOUNG MAN WITH THE CREAM TARTS
+
+
+During his residence in London, the accomplished Prince Florizel of
+Bohemia gained the affection of all classes by the seduction of his
+manner and by a well-considered generosity. He was a remarkable man
+even by what was known of him; and that was but a small part of what he
+actually did. Although of a placid temper in ordinary circumstances,
+and accustomed to take the world with as much philosophy as any
+ploughman, the Prince of Bohemia was not without a taste for ways of
+life more adventurous and eccentric than that to which he was destined
+by his birth. Now and then, when he fell into a low humour, when there
+was no laughable play to witness in any of the London theatres, and
+when the season of the year was unsuitable to those field sports in
+which he excelled all competitors, he would summon his confidant and
+Master of the Horse, Colonel Geraldine, and bid him prepare himself
+against an evening ramble. The Master of the Horse was a young officer
+of a brave and even temerarious disposition. He greeted the news with
+delight, and hastened to make ready. Long practice and a varied
+acquaintance of life had given him a singular facility in disguise; he
+could adapt not only his face and bearing, but his voice and almost his
+thoughts, to those of any rank, character, or nation; and in this way
+he diverted attention from the Prince, and sometimes gained admission
+for the pair into strange societies. The civil authorities were never
+taken into the secret of these adventures; the imperturbable courage of
+the one and the ready invention and chivalrous devotion of the other
+had brought them through a score of dangerous passes; and they grew in
+confidence as time went on.
+
+One evening in March they were driven by a sharp fall of sleet into an
+Oyster Bar in the immediate neighbourhood of Leicester Square. Colonel
+Geraldine was dressed and painted to represent a person connected with
+the Press in reduced circumstances; while the Prince had, as usual,
+travestied his appearance by the addition of false whiskers and a pair
+of large adhesive eyebrows. These lent him a shaggy and weather-beaten
+air, which, for one of his urbanity, formed the most impenetrable
+disguise. Thus equipped, the commander and his satellite sipped their
+brandy and soda in security.
+
+The bar was full of guests, male and female; but though more than one
+of these offered to fall into talk with our adventurers, none of them
+promised to grow interesting upon a nearer acquaintance. There was
+nothing present but the lees of London and the commonplace of
+disrespectability; and the Prince had already fallen to yawning, and
+was beginning to grow weary of the whole excursion, when the swing
+doors were pushed violently open, and a young man, followed by a couple
+of commissionaires, entered the bar. Each of the commissionaires
+carried a large dish of cream tarts under a cover, which they at once
+removed; and the young man made the round of the company, and pressed
+these confections upon every one’s acceptance with an exaggerated
+courtesy. Sometimes his offer was laughingly accepted; sometimes it was
+firmly, or even harshly, rejected. In these latter cases the new-comer
+always ate the tart himself, with some more or less humorous
+commentary.
+
+At last he accosted Prince Florizel.
+
+“Sir,” said he, with a profound obeisance, proffering the tart at the
+same time between his thumb and forefinger, “will you so far honour an
+entire stranger? I can answer for the quality of the pastry, having
+eaten two dozen and three of them myself since five o’clock.”
+
+“I am in the habit,” replied the Prince, “of looking not so much to the
+nature of a gift as to the spirit in which it is offered.”
+
+“The spirit, sir,” returned the young man, with another bow, “is one of
+mockery.”
+
+“Mockery?” repeated Florizel. “And whom do you propose to mock?”
+
+“I am not here to expound my philosophy,” replied the other, “but to
+distribute these cream tarts. If I mention that I heartily include
+myself in the ridicule of the transaction, I hope you will consider
+honour satisfied and condescend. If not, you will constrain me to eat
+my twenty-eighth, and I own to being weary of the exercise.”
+
+“You touch me,” said the Prince, “and I have all the will in the world
+to rescue you from this dilemma, but upon one condition. If my friend
+and I eat your cakes—for which we have neither of us any natural
+inclination—we shall expect you to join us at supper by way of
+recompense.”
+
+The young man seemed to reflect.
+
+“I have still several dozen upon hand,” he said at last; “and that will
+make it necessary for me to visit several more bars before my great
+affair is concluded. This will take some time; and if you are hungry—”
+
+The Prince interrupted him with a polite gesture.
+
+“My friend and I will accompany you,” he said; “for we have already a
+deep interest in your very agreeable mode of passing an evening. And
+now that the preliminaries of peace are settled, allow me to sign the
+treaty for both.”
+
+And the Prince swallowed the tart with the best grace imaginable.
+
+“It is delicious,” said he.
+
+“I perceive you are a connoisseur,” replied the young man.
+
+Colonel Geraldine likewise did honour to the pastry; and every one in
+that bar having now either accepted or refused his delicacies, the
+young man with the cream tarts led the way to another and similar
+establishment. The two commissionaires, who seemed to have grown
+accustomed to their absurd employment, followed immediately after; and
+the Prince and the Colonel brought up the rear, arm in arm, and smiling
+to each other as they went. In this order the company visited two other
+taverns, where scenes were enacted of a like nature to that already
+described—some refusing, some accepting, the favours of this vagabond
+hospitality, and the young man himself eating each rejected tart.
+
+On leaving the third saloon the young man counted his store. There were
+but nine remaining, three in one tray and six in the other.
+
+“Gentlemen,” said he, addressing himself to his two new followers, “I
+am unwilling to delay your supper. I am positively sure you must be
+hungry. I feel that I owe you a special consideration. And on this
+great day for me, when I am closing a career of folly by my most
+conspicuously silly action, I wish to behave handsomely to all who give
+me countenance. Gentlemen, you shall wait no longer. Although my
+constitution is shattered by previous excesses, at the risk of my life
+I liquidate the suspensory condition.”
+
+With these words he crushed the nine remaining tarts into his mouth,
+and swallowed them at a single movement each. Then, turning to the
+commissionaires, he gave them a couple of sovereigns.
+
+“I have to thank you,” said be, “for your extraordinary patience.”
+
+And he dismissed them with a bow apiece. For some seconds he stood
+looking at the purse from which he had just paid his assistants, then,
+with a laugh, he tossed it into the middle of the street, and signified
+his readiness for supper.
+
+In a small French restaurant in Soho, which had enjoyed an exaggerated
+reputation for some little while, but had already begun to be
+forgotten, and in a private room up two pair of stairs, the three
+companions made a very elegant supper, and drank three or four bottles
+of champagne, talking the while upon indifferent subjects. The young
+man was fluent and gay, but he laughed louder than was natural in a
+person of polite breeding; his hands trembled violently, and his voice
+took sudden and surprising inflections, which seemed to be independent
+of his will. The dessert had been cleared away, and all three had
+lighted their cigars, when the Prince addressed him in these words:—
+
+“You will, I am sure, pardon my curiosity. What I have seen of you has
+greatly pleased but even more puzzled me. And though I should be loth
+to seem indiscreet, I must tell you that my friend and I are persons
+very well worthy to be entrusted with a secret. We have many of our
+own, which we are continually revealing to improper ears. And if, as I
+suppose, your story is a silly one, you need have no delicacy with us,
+who are two of the silliest men in England. My name is Godall,
+Theophilus Godall; my friend is Major Alfred Hammersmith—or at least,
+such is the name by which he chooses to be known. We pass our lives
+entirely in the search for extravagant adventures; and there is no
+extravagance with which we are not capable of sympathy.”
+
+“I like you, Mr. Godall,” returned the young man; “you inspire me with
+a natural confidence; and I have not the slightest objection to your
+friend the Major, whom I take to be a nobleman in masquerade. At least,
+I am sure he is no soldier.”
+
+The Colonel smiled at this compliment to the perfection of his art; and
+the young man went on in a more animated manner.
+
+“There is every reason why I should not tell you my story. Perhaps that
+is just the reason why I am going to do so. At least, you seem so well
+prepared to hear a tale of silliness that I cannot find it in my heart
+to disappoint you. My name, in spite of your example, I shall keep to
+myself. My age is not essential to the narrative. I am descended from
+my ancestors by ordinary generation, and from them I inherited the very
+eligible human tenement which I still occupy and a fortune of three
+hundred pounds a year. I suppose they also handed on to me a hare-brain
+humour, which it has been my chief delight to indulge. I received a
+good education. I can play the violin nearly well enough to earn money
+in the orchestra of a penny gaff, but not quite. The same remark
+applies to the flute and the French horn. I learned enough of whist to
+lose about a hundred a year at that scientific game. My acquaintance
+with French was sufficient to enable me to squander money in Paris with
+almost the same facility as in London. In short, I am a person full of
+manly accomplishments. I have had every sort of adventure, including a
+duel about nothing. Only two months ago I met a young lady exactly
+suited to my taste in mind and body; I found my heart melt; I saw that
+I had come upon my fate at last, and was in the way to fall in love.
+But when I came to reckon up what remained to me of my capital, I found
+it amounted to something less than four hundred pounds! I ask you
+fairly—can a man who respects himself fall in love on four hundred
+pounds? I concluded, certainly not; left the presence of my charmer,
+and slightly accelerating my usual rate of expenditure, came this
+morning to my last eighty pounds. This I divided into two equal parts;
+forty I reserved for a particular purpose; the remaining forty I was to
+dissipate before the night. I have passed a very entertaining day, and
+played many farces besides that of the cream tarts which procured me
+the advantage of your acquaintance; for I was determined, as I told
+you, to bring a foolish career to a still more foolish conclusion; and
+when you saw me throw my purse into the street, the forty pounds were
+at an end. Now you know me as well as I know myself: a fool, but
+consistent in his folly; and, as I will ask you to believe, neither a
+whimperer nor a coward.”
+
+From the whole tone of the young man’s statement it was plain that he
+harboured very bitter and contemptuous thoughts about himself. His
+auditors were led to imagine that his love affair was nearer his heart
+than he admitted, and that he had a design on his own life. The farce
+of the cream tarts began to have very much the air of a tragedy in
+disguise.
+
+“Why, is this not odd,” broke out Geraldine, giving a look to Prince
+Florizel, “that we three fellows should have met by the merest accident
+in so large a wilderness as London, and should be so nearly in the same
+condition?”
+
+“How?” cried the young man. “Are you, too, ruined? Is this supper a
+folly like my cream tarts? Has the devil brought three of his own
+together for a last carouse?”
+
+“The devil, depend upon it, can sometimes do a very gentlemanly thing,”
+returned Prince Florizel; “and I am so much touched by this
+coincidence, that, although we are not entirely in the same case, I am
+going to put an end to the disparity. Let your heroic treatment of the
+last cream tarts be my example.”
+
+So saying, the Prince drew out his purse and took from it a small
+bundle of bank-notes.
+
+“You see, I was a week or so behind you, but I mean to catch you up and
+come neck and neck into the winning-post,” he continued. “This,” laying
+one of the notes upon the table, “will suffice for the bill. As for the
+rest—”
+
+He tossed them into the fire, and they went up the chimney in a single
+blaze.
+
+The young man tried to catch his arm, but as the table was between them
+his interference came too late.
+
+“Unhappy man,” he cried, “you should not have burned them all! You
+should have kept forty pounds.”
+
+“Forty pounds!” repeated the Prince. “Why, in heaven’s name, forty
+pounds?”
+
+“Why not eighty?” cried the Colonel; “for to my certain knowledge there
+must have been a hundred in the bundle.”
+
+“It was only forty pounds he needed,” said the young man gloomily. “But
+without them there is no admission. The rule is strict. Forty pounds
+for each. Accursed life, where a man cannot even die without money!”
+
+The Prince and the Colonel exchanged glances. “Explain yourself,” said
+the latter. “I have still a pocket-book tolerably well lined, and I
+need not say how readily I should share my wealth with Godall. But I
+must know to what end: you must certainly tell us what you mean.”
+
+The young man seemed to awaken; he looked uneasily from one to the
+other, and his face flushed deeply.
+
+“You are not fooling me?” he asked. “You are indeed ruined men like
+me?”
+
+“Indeed, I am for my part,” replied the Colonel.
+
+“And for mine,” said the Prince, “I have given you proof. Who but a
+ruined man would throw his notes into the fire? The action speaks for
+itself.”
+
+“A ruined man—yes,” returned the other suspiciously, “or else a
+millionaire.”
+
+“Enough, sir,” said the Prince; “I have said so, and I am not
+accustomed to have my word remain in doubt.”
+
+“Ruined?” said the young man. “Are you ruined, like me? Are you, after
+a life of indulgence, come to such a pass that you can only indulge
+yourself in one thing more? Are you”—he kept lowering his voice as he
+went on—“are you going to give yourselves that last indulgence? Are you
+going to avoid the consequences of your folly by the one infallible and
+easy path? Are you going to give the slip to the sheriff’s officers of
+conscience by the one open door?”
+
+Suddenly he broke off and attempted to laugh.
+
+“Here is your health!” he cried, emptying his glass, “and good night to
+you, my merry ruined men.”
+
+Colonel Geraldine caught him by the arm as he was about to rise.
+
+“You lack confidence in us,” he said, “and you are wrong. To all your
+questions I make answer in the affirmative. But I am not so timid, and
+can speak the Queen’s English plainly. We too, like yourself, have had
+enough of life, and are determined to die. Sooner or later, alone or
+together, we meant to seek out death and beard him where he lies ready.
+Since we have met you, and your case is more pressing, let it be
+to-night—and at once—and, if you will, all three together. Such a
+penniless trio,” he cried, “should go arm in arm into the halls of
+Pluto, and give each other some countenance among the shades!”
+
+Geraldine had hit exactly on the manners and intonations that became
+the part he was playing. The Prince himself was disturbed, and looked
+over at his confidant with a shade of doubt. As for the young man, the
+flush came back darkly into his cheek, and his eyes threw out a spark
+of light.
+
+“You are the men for me!” he cried, with an almost terrible gaiety.
+“Shake hands upon the bargain!” (his hand was cold and wet). “You
+little know in what a company you will begin the march! You little know
+in what a happy moment for yourselves you partook of my cream tarts! I
+am only a unit, but I am a unit in an army. I know Death’s private
+door. I am one of his familiars, and can show you into eternity without
+ceremony and yet without scandal.”
+
+They called upon him eagerly to explain his meaning.
+
+“Can you muster eighty pounds between you?” he demanded.
+
+Geraldine ostentatiously consulted his pocket-book, and replied in the
+affirmative.
+
+“Fortunate beings!” cried the young man. “Forty pounds is the entry
+money of the Suicide Club.”
+
+“The Suicide Club,” said the Prince, “why, what the devil is that?”
+
+“Listen,” said the young man; “this is the age of conveniences, and I
+have to tell you of the last perfection of the sort. We have affairs in
+different places; and hence railways were invented. Railways separated
+us infallibly from our friends; and so telegraphs were made that we
+might communicate speedier at great distances. Even in hotels we have
+lifts to spare us a climb of some hundred steps. Now, we know that life
+is only a stage to play the fool upon as long as the part amuses us.
+There was one more convenience lacking to modern comfort; a decent,
+easy way to quit that stage; the back stairs to liberty; or, as I said
+this moment, Death’s private door. This, my two fellow-rebels, is
+supplied by the Suicide Club. Do not suppose that you and I are alone,
+or even exceptional in the highly reasonable desire that we profess. A
+large number of our fellowmen, who have grown heartily sick of the
+performance in which they are expected to join daily and all their
+lives long, are only kept from flight by one or two considerations.
+Some have families who would be shocked, or even blamed, if the matter
+became public; others have a weakness at heart and recoil from the
+circumstances of death. That is, to some extent, my own experience. I
+cannot put a pistol to my head and draw the trigger; for something
+stronger than myself withholds the act; and although I loathe life, I
+have not strength enough in my body to take hold of death and be done
+with it. For such as I, and for all who desire to be out of the coil
+without posthumous scandal, the Suicide Club has been inaugurated. How
+this has been managed, what is its history, or what may be its
+ramifications in other lands, I am myself uninformed; and what I know
+of its constitution, I am not at liberty to communicate to you. To this
+extent, however, I am at your service. If you are truly tired of life,
+I will introduce you to-night to a meeting; and if not to-night, at
+least some time within the week, you will be easily relieved of your
+existences. It is now (consulting his watch) eleven; by half-past, at
+latest, we must leave this place; so that you have half-an-hour before
+you to consider my proposal. It is more serious than a cream tart,” he
+added, with a smile; “and I suspect more palatable.”
+
+“More serious, certainly,” returned Colonel Geraldine; “and as it is so
+much more so, will you allow me five minutes’ speech in private with my
+friend, Mr. Godall?”
+
+“It is only fair,” answered the young man. “If you will permit, I will
+retire.”
+
+“You will be very obliging,” said the Colonel.
+
+As soon as the two were alone—“What,” said Prince Florizel, “is the use
+of this confabulation, Geraldine? I see you are flurried, whereas my
+mind is very tranquilly made up. I will see the end of this.”
+
+“Your Highness,” said the Colonel, turning pale; “let me ask you to
+consider the importance of your life, not only to your friends, but to
+the public interest. ‘If not to-night,’ said this madman; but supposing
+that to-night some irreparable disaster were to overtake your
+Highness’s person, what, let me ask you, what would be my despair, and
+what the concern and disaster of a great nation?”
+
+“I will see the end of this,” repeated the Prince in his most
+deliberate tones; “and have the kindness, Colonel Geraldine, to
+remember and respect your word of honour as a gentleman. Under no
+circumstances, recollect, nor without my special authority, are you to
+betray the incognito under which I choose to go abroad. These were my
+commands, which I now reiterate. And now,” he added, “let me ask you to
+call for the bill.”
+
+Colonel Geraldine bowed in submission; but he had a very white face as
+he summoned the young man of the cream tarts, and issued his directions
+to the waiter. The Prince preserved his undisturbed demeanour, and
+described a Palais Royal farce to the young suicide with great humour
+and gusto. He avoided the Colonel’s appealing looks without
+ostentation, and selected another cheroot with more than usual care.
+Indeed, he was now the only man of the party who kept any command over
+his nerves.
+
+The bill was discharged, the Prince giving the whole change of the note
+to the astonished waiter; and the three drove off in a four-wheeler.
+They were not long upon the way before the cab stopped at the entrance
+to a rather dark court. Here all descended.
+
+After Geraldine had paid the fare, the young man turned, and addressed
+Prince Florizel as follows:—
+
+“It is still time, Mr. Godall, to make good your escape into thraldom.
+And for you too, Major Hammersmith. Reflect well before you take
+another step; and if your hearts say no—here are the cross-roads.”
+
+“Lead on, sir,” said the Prince. “I am not the man to go back from a
+thing once said.”
+
+“Your coolness does me good,” replied their guide. “I have never seen
+any one so unmoved at this conjuncture; and yet you are not the first
+whom I have escorted to this door. More than one of my friends has
+preceded me, where I knew I must shortly follow. But this is of no
+interest to you. Wait me here for only a few moments; I shall return as
+soon as I have arranged the preliminaries of your introduction.”
+
+And with that the young man, waving his hand to his companions, turned
+into the court, entered a doorway and disappeared.
+
+“Of all our follies,” said Colonel Geraldine in a low voice, “this is
+the wildest and most dangerous.”
+
+“I perfectly believe so,” returned the Prince.
+
+“We have still,” pursued the Colonel, “a moment to ourselves. Let me
+beseech your Highness to profit by the opportunity and retire. The
+consequences of this step are so dark, and may be so grave, that I feel
+myself justified in pushing a little farther than usual the liberty
+which your Highness is so condescending as to allow me in private.”
+
+“Am I to understand that Colonel Geraldine is afraid?” asked his
+Highness, taking his cheroot from his lips, and looking keenly into the
+other’s face.
+
+“My fear is certainly not personal,” replied the other proudly; “of
+that your Highness may rest well assured.”
+
+“I had supposed as much,” returned the Prince, with undisturbed good
+humour; “but I was unwilling to remind you of the difference in our
+stations. No more—no more,” he added, seeing Geraldine about to
+apologise, “you stand excused.”
+
+And he smoked placidly, leaning against a railing, until the young man
+returned.
+
+“Well,” he asked, “has our reception been arranged?”
+
+“Follow me,” was the reply. “The President will see you in the cabinet.
+And let me warn you to be frank in your answers. I have stood your
+guarantee; but the club requires a searching inquiry before admission;
+for the indiscretion of a single member would lead to the dispersion of
+the whole society for ever.”
+
+The Prince and Geraldine put their heads together for a moment. “Bear
+me out in this,” said the one; and “bear me out in that,” said the
+other; and by boldly taking up the characters of men with whom both
+were acquainted, they had come to an agreement in a twinkling, and were
+ready to follow their guide into the President’s cabinet.
+
+There were no formidable obstacles to pass. The outer door stood open;
+the door of the cabinet was ajar; and there, in a small but very high
+apartment, the young man left them once more.
+
+“He will be here immediately,” he said, with a nod, as he disappeared.
+
+Voices were audible in the cabinet through the folding doors which
+formed one end; and now and then the noise of a champagne cork,
+followed by a burst of laughter, intervened among the sounds of
+conversation. A single tall window looked out upon the river and the
+embankment; and by the disposition of the lights they judged themselves
+not far from Charing Cross station. The furniture was scanty, and the
+coverings worn to the thread; and there was nothing movable except a
+hand-bell in the centre of a round table, and the hats and coats of a
+considerable party hung round the wall on pegs.
+
+“What sort of a den is this?” said Geraldine.
+
+“That is what I have come to see,” replied the Prince. “If they keep
+live devils on the premises, the thing may grow amusing.”
+
+Just then the folding door was opened no more than was necessary for
+the passage of a human body; and there entered at the same moment a
+louder buzz of talk, and the redoubtable President of the Suicide Club.
+The President was a man of fifty or upwards; large and rambling in his
+gait, with shaggy side whiskers, a bald top to his head, and a veiled
+grey eye, which now and then emitted a twinkle. His mouth, which
+embraced a large cigar, he kept continually screwing round and round
+and from side to side, as he looked sagaciously and coldly at the
+strangers. He was dressed in light tweeds, with his neck very open in a
+striped shirt collar; and carried a minute book under one arm.
+
+“Good evening,” said he, after he had closed the door behind him. “I am
+told you wish to speak with me.”
+
+“We have a desire, sir, to join the Suicide Club,” replied the Colonel.
+
+The President rolled his cigar about in his mouth. “What is that?” he
+said abruptly.
+
+“Pardon me,” returned the Colonel, “but I believe you are the person
+best qualified to give us information on that point.”
+
+“I?” cried the President. “A Suicide Club? Come, come! this is a frolic
+for All Fools’ Day. I can make allowances for gentlemen who get merry
+in their liquor; but let there be an end to this.”
+
+“Call your Club what you will,” said the Colonel, “you have some
+company behind these doors, and we insist on joining it.”
+
+“Sir,” returned the President curtly, “you have made a mistake. This is
+a private house, and you must leave it instantly.”
+
+The Prince had remained quietly in his seat throughout this little
+colloquy; but now, when the Colonel looked over to him, as much as to
+say, “Take your answer and come away, for God’s sake!” he drew his
+cheroot from his mouth, and spoke—
+
+“I have come here,” said he, “upon the invitation of a friend of yours.
+He has doubtless informed you of my intention in thus intruding on your
+party. Let me remind you that a person in my circumstances has
+exceedingly little to bind him, and is not at all likely to tolerate
+much rudeness. I am a very quiet man, as a usual thing; but, my dear
+sir, you are either going to oblige me in the little matter of which
+you are aware, or you shall very bitterly repent that you ever admitted
+me to your ante-chamber.”
+
+The President laughed aloud.
+
+“That is the way to speak,” said he. “You are a man who is a man. You
+know the way to my heart, and can do what you like with me. Will you,”
+he continued, addressing Geraldine, “will you step aside for a few
+minutes? I shall finish first with your companion, and some of the
+club’s formalities require to be fulfilled in private.”
+
+With these words he opened the door of a small closet, into which he
+shut the Colonel.
+
+“I believe in you,” he said to Florizel, as soon as they were alone;
+“but are you sure of your friend?”
+
+“Not so sure as I am of myself, though he has more cogent reasons,”
+answered Florizel, “but sure enough to bring him here without alarm. He
+has had enough to cure the most tenacious man of life. He was cashiered
+the other day for cheating at cards.”
+
+“A good reason, I daresay,” replied the President; “at least, we have
+another in the same case, and I feel sure of him. Have you also been in
+the Service, may I ask?”
+
+“I have,” was the reply; “but I was too lazy, I left it early.”
+
+“What is your reason for being tired of life?” pursued the President.
+
+“The same, as near as I can make out,” answered the Prince;
+“unadulterated laziness.”
+
+The President started. “D—n it,” said he, “you must have something
+better than that.”
+
+“I have no more money,” added Florizel. “That is also a vexation,
+without doubt. It brings my sense of idleness to an acute point.”
+
+The President rolled his cigar round in his mouth for some seconds,
+directing his gaze straight into the eyes of this unusual neophyte; but
+the Prince supported his scrutiny with unabashed good temper.
+
+“If I had not a deal of experience,” said the President at last, “I
+should turn you off. But I know the world; and this much any way, that
+the most frivolous excuses for a suicide are often the toughest to
+stand by. And when I downright like a man, as I do you, sir, I would
+rather strain the regulation than deny him.”
+
+The Prince and the Colonel, one after the other, were subjected to a
+long and particular interrogatory: the Prince alone; but Geraldine in
+the presence of the Prince, so that the President might observe the
+countenance of the one while the other was being warmly cross-examined.
+The result was satisfactory; and the President, after having booked a
+few details of each case, produced a form of oath to be accepted.
+Nothing could be conceived more passive than the obedience promised, or
+more stringent than the terms by which the juror bound himself. The man
+who forfeited a pledge so awful could scarcely have a rag of honour or
+any of the consolations of religion left to him. Florizel signed the
+document, but not without a shudder; the Colonel followed his example
+with an air of great depression. Then the President received the entry
+money; and without more ado, introduced the two friends into the
+smoking-room of the Suicide Club.
+
+The smoking-room of the Suicide Club was the same height as the cabinet
+into which it opened, but much larger, and papered from top to bottom
+with an imitation of oak wainscot. A large and cheerful fire and a
+number of gas-jets illuminated the company. The Prince and his follower
+made the number up to eighteen. Most of the party were smoking, and
+drinking champagne; a feverish hilarity reigned, with sudden and rather
+ghastly pauses.
+
+“Is this a full meeting?” asked the Prince.
+
+“Middling,” said the President. “By the way,” he added, “if you have
+any money, it is usual to offer some champagne. It keeps up a good
+spirit, and is one of my own little perquisites.”
+
+“Hammersmith,” said Florizel, “I may leave the champagne to you.”
+
+And with that he turned away and began to go round among the guests.
+Accustomed to play the host in the highest circles, he charmed and
+dominated all whom he approached; there was something at once winning
+and authoritative in his address; and his extraordinary coolness gave
+him yet another distinction in this half maniacal society. As he went
+from one to another he kept both his eyes and ears open, and soon began
+to gain a general idea of the people among whom he found himself. As in
+all other places of resort, one type predominated: people in the prime
+of youth, with every show of intelligence and sensibility in their
+appearance, but with little promise of strength or the quality that
+makes success. Few were much above thirty, and not a few were still in
+their teens. They stood, leaning on tables and shifting on their feet;
+sometimes they smoked extraordinarily fast, and sometimes they let
+their cigars go out; some talked well, but the conversation of others
+was plainly the result of nervous tension, and was equally without wit
+or purport. As each new bottle of champagne was opened, there was a
+manifest improvement in gaiety. Only two were seated—one in a chair in
+the recess of the window, with his head hanging and his hands plunged
+deep into his trouser pockets, pale, visibly moist with perspiration,
+saying never a word, a very wreck of soul and body; the other sat on
+the divan close by the chimney, and attracted notice by a trenchant
+dissimilarity from all the rest. He was probably upwards of forty, but
+he looked fully ten years older; and Florizel thought he had never seen
+a man more naturally hideous, nor one more ravaged by disease and
+ruinous excitements. He was no more than skin and bone, was partly
+paralysed, and wore spectacles of such unusual power, that his eyes
+appeared through the glasses greatly magnified and distorted in shape.
+Except the Prince and the President, he was the only person in the room
+who preserved the composure of ordinary life.
+
+There was little decency among the members of the club. Some boasted of
+the disgraceful actions, the consequences of which had reduced them to
+seek refuge in death; and the others listened without disapproval.
+There was a tacit understanding against moral judgments; and whoever
+passed the club doors enjoyed already some of the immunities of the
+tomb. They drank to each other’s memories, and to those of notable
+suicides in the past. They compared and developed their different views
+of death—some declaring that it was no more than blackness and
+cessation; others full of a hope that that very night they should be
+scaling the stars and commencing with the mighty dead.
+
+“To the eternal memory of Baron Trenck, the type of suicides!” cried
+one. “He went out of a small cell into a smaller, that he might come
+forth again to freedom.”
+
+“For my part,” said a second, “I wish no more than a bandage for my
+eyes and cotton for my ears. Only they have no cotton thick enough in
+this world.”
+
+A third was for reading the mysteries of life in a future state; and a
+fourth professed that he would never have joined the club, if he had
+not been induced to believe in Mr. Darwin.
+
+“I could not bear,” said this remarkable suicide, “to be descended from
+an ape.”
+
+Altogether, the Prince was disappointed by the bearing and conversation
+of the members.
+
+“It does not seem to me,” he thought, “a matter for so much
+disturbance. If a man has made up his mind to kill himself, let him do
+it, in God’s name, like a gentleman. This flutter and big talk is out
+of place.”
+
+In the meanwhile Colonel Geraldine was a prey to the blackest
+apprehensions; the club and its rules were still a mystery, and he
+looked round the room for some one who should be able to set his mind
+at rest. In this survey his eye lighted on the paralytic person with
+the strong spectacles; and seeing him so exceedingly tranquil, he
+besought the President, who was going in and out of the room under a
+pressure of business, to present him to the gentleman on the divan.
+
+The functionary explained the needlessness of all such formalities
+within the club, but nevertheless presented Mr. Hammersmith to Mr.
+Malthus.
+
+Mr. Malthus looked at the Colonel curiously, and then requested him to
+take a seat upon his right.
+
+“You are a new-comer,” he said, “and wish information? You have come to
+the proper source. It is two years since I first visited this charming
+club.”
+
+The Colonel breathed again. If Mr. Malthus had frequented the place for
+two years there could be little danger for the Prince in a single
+evening. But Geraldine was none the less astonished, and began to
+suspect a mystification.
+
+“What!” cried he, “two years! I thought—but indeed I see I have been
+made the subject of a pleasantry.”
+
+“By no means,” replied Mr. Malthus mildly. “My case is peculiar. I am
+not, properly speaking, a suicide at all; but, as it were, an honorary
+member. I rarely visit the club twice in two months. My infirmity and
+the kindness of the President have procured me these little immunities,
+for which besides I pay at an advanced rate. Even as it is my luck has
+been extraordinary.”
+
+“I am afraid,” said the Colonel, “that I must ask you to be more
+explicit. You must remember that I am still most imperfectly acquainted
+with the rules of the club.”
+
+“An ordinary member who comes here in search of death like yourself,”
+replied the paralytic, “returns every evening until fortune favours
+him. He can even, if he is penniless, get board and lodging from the
+President: very fair, I believe, and clean, although, of course, not
+luxurious; that could hardly be, considering the exiguity (if I may so
+express myself) of the subscription. And then the President’s company
+is a delicacy in itself.”
+
+“Indeed!” cried Geraldine, “he had not greatly prepossessed me.”
+
+“Ah!” said Mr. Malthus, “you do not know the man: the drollest fellow!
+What stories! What cynicism! He knows life to admiration and, between
+ourselves, is probably the most corrupt rogue in Christendom.”
+
+“And he also,” asked the Colonel, “is a permanency—like yourself, if I
+may say so without offence?”
+
+“Indeed, he is a permanency in a very different sense from me,” replied
+Mr. Malthus. “I have been graciously spared, but I must go at last. Now
+he never plays. He shuffles and deals for the club, and makes the
+necessary arrangements. That man, my dear Mr. Hammersmith, is the very
+soul of ingenuity. For three years he has pursued in London his useful
+and, I think I may add, his artistic calling; and not so much as a
+whisper of suspicion has been once aroused. I believe him myself to be
+inspired. You doubtless remember the celebrated case, six months ago,
+of the gentleman who was accidentally poisoned in a chemists shop? That
+was one of the least rich, one of the least racy, of his notions; but
+then, how simple! and how safe!”
+
+“You astound me,” said the Colonel. “Was that unfortunate gentleman one
+of the—” He was about to say “victims”; but bethinking himself in time,
+he substituted—“members of the club?”
+
+In the same flash of thought, it occurred to him that Mr. Malthus
+himself had not at all spoken in the tone of one who is in love with
+death; and he added hurriedly:
+
+“But I perceive I am still in the dark. You speak of shuffling and
+dealing; pray for what end? And since you seem rather unwilling to die
+than otherwise, I must own that I cannot conceive what brings you here
+at all.”
+
+“You say truly that you are in the dark,” replied Mr. Malthus with more
+animation. “Why, my dear sir, this club is the temple of intoxication.
+If my enfeebled health could support the excitement more often, you may
+depend upon it I should be more often here. It requires all the sense
+of duty engendered by a long habit of ill-health and careful regimen,
+to keep me from excess in this, which is, I may say, my last
+dissipation. I have tried them all, sir,” he went on, laying his hand
+on Geraldine’s arm, “all without exception, and I declare to you, upon
+my honour, there is not one of them that has not been grossly and
+untruthfully overrated. People trifle with love. Now, I deny that love
+is a strong passion. Fear is the strong passion; it is with fear that
+you must trifle, if you wish to taste the intensest joys of living.
+Envy me—envy me, sir,” he added with a chuckle, “I am a coward!”
+
+Geraldine could scarcely repress a movement of repulsion for this
+deplorable wretch; but he commanded himself with an effort, and
+continued his inquiries.
+
+“How, sir,” he asked, “is the excitement so artfully prolonged? and
+where is there any element of uncertainty?”
+
+“I must tell you how the victim for every evening is selected,”
+returned Mr. Malthus; “and not only the victim, but another member, who
+is to be the instrument in the club’s hands, and death’s high priest
+for that occasion.”
+
+“Good God!” said the Colonel, “do they then kill each other?”
+
+“The trouble of suicide is removed in that way,” returned Malthus with
+a nod.
+
+“Merciful heavens!” ejaculated the Colonel, “and may you—may I—may
+the—my friend I mean—may any of us be pitched upon this evening as the
+slayer of another man’s body and immortal spirit? Can such things be
+possible among men born of women? Oh! infamy of infamies!”
+
+He was about to rise in his horror, when he caught the Prince’s eye. It
+was fixed upon him from across the room with a frowning and angry
+stare. And in a moment Geraldine recovered his composure.
+
+“After all,” he added, “why not? And since you say the game is
+interesting, _vogue la galère_—I follow the club!”
+
+Mr. Malthus had keenly enjoyed the Colonel’s amazement and disgust. He
+had the vanity of wickedness; and it pleased him to see another man
+give way to a generous movement, while he felt himself, in his entire
+corruption, superior to such emotions.
+
+“You now, after your first moment of surprise,” said he, “are in a
+position to appreciate the delights of our society. You can see how it
+combines the excitement of a gaming-table, a duel, and a Roman
+amphitheatre. The Pagans did well enough; I cordially admire the
+refinement of their minds; but it has been reserved for a Christian
+country to attain this extreme, this quintessence, this absolute of
+poignancy. You will understand how vapid are all amusements to a man
+who has acquired a taste for this one. The game we play,” he continued,
+“is one of extreme simplicity. A full pack—but I perceive you are about
+to see the thing in progress. Will you lend me the help of your arm? I
+am unfortunately paralysed.”
+
+Indeed, just as Mr. Malthus was beginning his description, another pair
+of folding-doors was thrown open, and the whole club began to pass, not
+without some hurry, into the adjoining room. It was similar in every
+respect to the one from which it was entered, but somewhat differently
+furnished. The centre was occupied by a long green table, at which the
+President sat shuffling a pack of cards with great particularity. Even
+with the stick and the Colonel’s arm, Mr. Malthus walked with so much
+difficulty that every one was seated before this pair and the Prince,
+who had waited for them, entered the apartment; and, in consequence,
+the three took seats close together at the lower end of the board.
+
+“It is a pack of fifty-two,” whispered Mr. Malthus. “Watch for the ace
+of spades, which is the sign of death, and the ace of clubs, which
+designates the official of the night. Happy, happy young men!” he
+added. “You have good eyes, and can follow the game. Alas! I cannot
+tell an ace from a deuce across the table.”
+
+And he proceeded to equip himself with a second pair of spectacles.
+
+“I must at least watch the faces,” he explained.
+
+The Colonel rapidly informed his friend of all that he had learned from
+the honorary member, and of the horrible alternative that lay before
+them. The Prince was conscious of a deadly chill and a contraction
+about his heart; he swallowed with difficulty, and looked from side to
+side like a man in a maze.
+
+“One bold stroke,” whispered the Colonel, “and we may still escape.”
+
+But the suggestion recalled the Prince’s spirits.
+
+“Silence!” said be. “Let me see that you can play like a gentleman for
+any stake, however serious.”
+
+And he looked about him, once more to all appearance at his ease,
+although his heart beat thickly, and he was conscious of an unpleasant
+heat in his bosom. The members were all very quiet and intent; every
+one was pale, but none so pale as Mr. Malthus. His eyes protruded; his
+head kept nodding involuntarily upon his spine; his hands found their
+way, one after the other, to his mouth, where they made clutches at his
+tremulous and ashen lips. It was plain that the honorary member enjoyed
+his membership on very startling terms.
+
+“Attention, gentlemen!” said the President.
+
+And he began slowly dealing the cards about the table in the reverse
+direction, pausing until each man had shown his card. Nearly every one
+hesitated; and sometimes you would see a player’s fingers stumble more
+than once before he could turn over the momentous slip of pasteboard.
+As the Prince’s turn drew nearer, he was conscious of a growing and
+almost suffocating excitement; but he had somewhat of the gambler’s
+nature, and recognised almost with astonishment, that there was a
+degree of pleasure in his sensations. The nine of clubs fell to his
+lot; the three of spades was dealt to Geraldine; and the queen of
+hearts to Mr. Malthus, who was unable to suppress a sob of relief. The
+young man of the cream tarts almost immediately afterwards turned over
+the ace of clubs, and remained frozen with horror, the card still
+resting on his finger; he had not come there to kill, but to be killed;
+and the Prince in his generous sympathy with his position almost forgot
+the peril that still hung over himself and his friend.
+
+The deal was coming round again, and still Death’s card had not come
+out. The players held their respiration, and only breathed by gasps.
+The Prince received another club; Geraldine had a diamond; but when Mr.
+Malthus turned up his card a horrible noise, like that of something
+breaking, issued from his mouth; and he rose from his seat and sat down
+again, with no sign of his paralysis. It was the ace of spades. The
+honorary member had trifled once too often with his terrors.
+
+Conversation broke out again almost at once. The players relaxed their
+rigid attitudes, and began to rise from the table and stroll back by
+twos and threes into the smoking-room. The President stretched his arms
+and yawned, like a man who has finished his day’s work. But Mr. Malthus
+sat in his place, with his head in his hands, and his hands upon the
+table, drunk and motionless—a thing stricken down.
+
+The Prince and Geraldine made their escape at once. In the cold night
+air their horror of what they had witnessed was redoubled.
+
+“Alas!” cried the Prince, “to be bound by an oath in such a matter! to
+allow this wholesale trade in murder to be continued with profit and
+impunity! If I but dared to forfeit my pledge!”
+
+“That is impossible for your Highness,” replied the Colonel, “whose
+honour is the honour of Bohemia. But I dare, and may with propriety,
+forfeit mine.”
+
+“Geraldine,” said the Prince, “if your honour suffers in any of the
+adventures into which you follow me, not only will I never pardon you,
+but—what I believe will much more sensibly affect you—I should never
+forgive myself.”
+
+“I receive your Highness’s commands,” replied the Colonel. “Shall we go
+from this accursed spot?”
+
+“Yes,” said the Prince. “Call a cab in Heaven’s name, and let me try to
+forget in slumber the memory of this night’s disgrace.”
+
+But it was notable that he carefully read the name of the court before
+he left it.
+
+The next morning, as soon as the Prince was stirring, Colonel Geraldine
+brought him a daily newspaper, with the following paragraph marked:—
+
+“Melancholy Accident.—This morning, about two o’clock, Mr. Bartholomew
+Malthus, of 16 Chepstow Place, Westbourne Grove, on his way home from a
+party at a friend’s house, fell over the upper parapet in Trafalgar
+Square, fracturing his skull and breaking a leg and an arm. Death was
+instantaneous. Mr. Malthus, accompanied by a friend, was engaged in
+looking for a cab at the time of the unfortunate occurrence. As Mr.
+Malthus was paralytic, it is thought that his fall may have been
+occasioned by another seizure. The unhappy gentleman was well known in
+the most respectable circles, and his loss will be widely and deeply
+deplored.”
+
+“If ever a soul went straight to Hell,” said Geraldine solemnly, “it
+was that paralytic man’s.”
+
+The Prince buried his face in his hands, and remained silent.
+
+“I am almost rejoiced,” continued the Colonel, “to know that he is
+dead. But for our young man of the cream tarts I confess my heart
+bleeds.”
+
+“Geraldine,” said the Prince, raising his face, “that unhappy lad was
+last night as innocent as you and I; and this morning the guilt of
+blood is on his soul. When I think of the President, my heart grows
+sick within me. I do not know how it shall be done, but I shall have
+that scoundrel at my mercy as there is a God in heaven. What an
+experience, what a lesson, was that game of cards!”
+
+“One,” said the Colonel, “never to be repeated.”
+
+The Prince remained so long without replying, that Geraldine grew
+alarmed.
+
+“You cannot mean to return,” he said. “You have suffered too much and
+seen too much horror already. The duties of your high position forbid
+the repetition of the hazard.”
+
+“There is much in what you say,” replied Prince Florizel, “and I am not
+altogether pleased with my own determination. Alas! in the clothes of
+the greatest potentate, what is there but a man? I never felt my
+weakness more acutely than now, Geraldine, but it is stronger than I.
+Can I cease to interest myself in the fortunes of the unhappy young man
+who supped with us some hours ago? Can I leave the President to follow
+his nefarious career unwatched? Can I begin an adventure so entrancing,
+and not follow it to an end? No, Geraldine: you ask of the Prince more
+than the man is able to perform. To-night, once more, we take our
+places at the table of the Suicide Club.”
+
+Colonel Geraldine fell upon his knees.
+
+“Will your Highness take my life?” he cried. “It is his—his freely; but
+do not, O do not! let him ask me to countenance so terrible a risk.”
+
+“Colonel Geraldine,” replied the Prince, with some haughtiness of
+manner, “your life is absolutely your own. I only looked for obedience;
+and when that is unwillingly rendered, I shall look for that no longer.
+I add one word: your importunity in this affair has been sufficient.”
+
+The Master of the Horse regained his feet at once.
+
+“Your Highness,” he said, “may I be excused in my attendance this
+afternoon? I dare not, as an honourable man, venture a second time into
+that fatal house until I have perfectly ordered my affairs. Your
+Highness shall meet, I promise him, with no more opposition from the
+most devoted and grateful of his servants.”
+
+“My dear Geraldine,” returned Prince Florizel, “I always regret when
+you oblige me to remember my rank. Dispose of your day as you think
+fit, but be here before eleven in the same disguise.”
+
+The club, on this second evening, was not so fully attended; and when
+Geraldine and the Prince arrived, there were not above half-a-dozen
+persons in the smoking-room. His Highness took the President aside and
+congratulated him warmly on the demise of Mr. Malthus.
+
+“I like,” he said, “to meet with capacity, and certainly find much of
+it in you. Your profession is of a very delicate nature, but I see you
+are well qualified to conduct it with success and secrecy.”
+
+The President was somewhat affected by these compliments from one of
+his Highness’s superior bearing. He acknowledged them almost with
+humility.
+
+“Poor Malthy!” he added, “I shall hardly know the club without him. The
+most of my patrons are boys, sir, and poetical boys, who are not much
+company for me. Not but what Malthy had some poetry, too; but it was of
+a kind that I could understand.”
+
+“I can readily imagine you should find yourself in sympathy with Mr.
+Malthus,” returned the Prince. “He struck me as a man of a very
+original disposition.”
+
+The young man of the cream tarts was in the room, but painfully
+depressed and silent. His late companions sought in vain to lead him
+into conversation.
+
+“How bitterly I wish,” he cried, “that I had never brought you to this
+infamous abode! Begone, while you are clean-handed. If you could have
+heard the old man scream as he fell, and the noise of his bones upon
+the pavement! Wish me, if you have any kindness to so fallen a
+being—wish the ace of spades for me to-night!”
+
+A few more members dropped in as the evening went on, but the club did
+not muster more than the devil’s dozen when they took their places at
+the table. The Prince was again conscious of a certain joy in his
+alarms; but he was astonished to see Geraldine so much more
+self-possessed than on the night before.
+
+“It is extraordinary,” thought the Prince, “that a will, made or
+unmade, should so greatly influence a young man’s spirit.”
+
+“Attention, gentlemen!” said the President, and he began to deal.
+
+Three times the cards went all round the table, and neither of the
+marked cards had yet fallen from his hand. The excitement as he began
+the fourth distribution was overwhelming. There were just cards enough
+to go once more entirely round. The Prince, who sat second from the
+dealer’s left, would receive, in the reverse mode of dealing practised
+at the club, the second last card. The third player turned up a black
+ace—it was the ace of clubs. The next received a diamond, the next a
+heart, and so on; but the ace of spades was still undelivered. At last,
+Geraldine, who sat upon the Prince’s left, turned his card; it was an
+ace, but the ace of hearts.
+
+When Prince Florizel saw his fate upon the table in front of him, his
+heart stood still. He was a brave man, but the sweat poured off his
+face. There were exactly fifty chances out of a hundred that he was
+doomed. He reversed the card; it was the ace of spades. A loud roaring
+filled his brain, and the table swam before his eyes. He heard the
+player on his right break into a fit of laughter that sounded between
+mirth and disappointment; he saw the company rapidly dispersing, but
+his mind was full of other thoughts. He recognised how foolish, how
+criminal, had been his conduct. In perfect health, in the prime of his
+years, the heir to a throne, he had gambled away his future and that of
+a brave and loyal country. “God,” he cried, “God forgive me!” And with
+that, the confusion of his senses passed away, and he regained his
+self-possession in a moment.
+
+To his surprise Geraldine had disappeared. There was no one in the
+card-room but his destined butcher consulting with the President, and
+the young man of the cream tarts, who slipped up to the Prince, and
+whispered in his ear:—
+
+“I would give a million, if I had it, for your luck.”
+
+His Highness could not help reflecting, as the young man departed, that
+he would have sold his opportunity for a much more moderate sum.
+
+The whispered conference now came to an end. The holder of the ace of
+clubs left the room with a look of intelligence, and the President,
+approaching the unfortunate Prince, proffered him his hand.
+
+“I am pleased to have met you, sir,” said he, “and pleased to have been
+in a position to do you this trifling service. At least, you cannot
+complain of delay. On the second evening—what a stroke of luck!”
+
+The Prince endeavoured in vain to articulate something in response, but
+his mouth was dry and his tongue seemed paralysed.
+
+“You feel a little sickish?” asked the President, with some show of
+solicitude. “Most gentlemen do. Will you take a little brandy?”
+
+The Prince signified in the affirmative, and the other immediately
+filled some of the spirit into a tumbler.
+
+“Poor old Malthy!” ejaculated the President, as the Prince drained the
+glass. “He drank near upon a pint, and little enough good it seemed to
+do him!”
+
+“I am more amenable to treatment,” said the Prince, a good deal
+revived. “I am my own man again at once, as you perceive. And so, let
+me ask you, what are my directions?”
+
+“You will proceed along the Strand in the direction of the City, and on
+the left-hand pavement, until you meet the gentleman who has just left
+the room. He will continue your instructions, and him you will have the
+kindness to obey; the authority of the club is vested in his person for
+the night. And now,” added the President, “I wish you a pleasant walk.”
+
+Florizel acknowledged the salutation rather awkwardly, and took his
+leave. He passed through the smoking-room, where the bulk of the
+players were still consuming champagne, some of which he had himself
+ordered and paid for; and he was surprised to find himself cursing them
+in his heart. He put on his hat and greatcoat in the cabinet, and
+selected his umbrella from a corner. The familiarity of these acts, and
+the thought that he was about them for the last time, betrayed him into
+a fit of laughter which sounded unpleasantly in his own ears. He
+conceived a reluctance to leave the cabinet, and turned instead to the
+window. The sight of the lamps and the darkness recalled him to
+himself.
+
+“Come, come, I must be a man,” he thought, “and tear myself away.”
+
+At the corner of Box Court three men fell upon Prince Florizel and he
+was unceremoniously thrust into a carriage, which at once drove rapidly
+away. There was already an occupant.
+
+“Will your Highness pardon my zeal?” said a well known voice.
+
+The Prince threw himself upon the Colonel’s neck in a passion of
+relief.
+
+“How can I ever thank you?” he cried. “And how was this effected?”
+
+Although he had been willing to march upon his doom, he was overjoyed
+to yield to friendly violence, and return once more to life and hope.
+
+“You can thank me effectually enough,” replied the Colonel, “by
+avoiding all such dangers in the future. And as for your second
+question, all has been managed by the simplest means. I arranged this
+afternoon with a celebrated detective. Secrecy has been promised and
+paid for. Your own servants have been principally engaged in the
+affair. The house in Box Court has been surrounded since nightfall, and
+this, which is one of your own carriages, has been awaiting you for
+nearly an hour.”
+
+“And the miserable creature who was to have slain me—what of him?”
+inquired the Prince.
+
+“He was pinioned as he left the club,” replied the Colonel, “and now
+awaits your sentence at the Palace, where he will soon be joined by his
+accomplices.”
+
+“Geraldine,” said the Prince, “you have saved me against my explicit
+orders, and you have done well. I owe you not only my life, but a
+lesson; and I should be unworthy of my rank if I did not show myself
+grateful to my teacher. Let it be yours to choose the manner.”
+
+There was a pause, during which the carriage continued to speed through
+the streets, and the two men were each buried in his own reflections.
+The silence was broken by Colonel Geraldine.
+
+“Your Highness,” said he, “has by this time a considerable body of
+prisoners. There is at least one criminal among the number to whom
+justice should be dealt. Our oath forbids us all recourse to law; and
+discretion would forbid it equally if the oath were loosened. May I
+inquire your Highness’s intention?”
+
+“It is decided,” answered Florizel; “the President must fall in duel.
+It only remains to choose his adversary.”
+
+“Your Highness has permitted me to name my own recompense,” said the
+Colonel. “Will he permit me to ask the appointment of my brother? It is
+an honourable post, but I dare assure your Highness that the lad will
+acquit himself with credit.”
+
+“You ask me an ungracious favour,” said the Prince, “but I must refuse
+you nothing.”
+
+The Colonel kissed his hand with the greatest affection; and at that
+moment the carriage rolled under the archway of the Prince’s splendid
+residence.
+
+An hour after, Florizel in his official robes, and covered with all the
+orders of Bohemia, received the members of the Suicide Club.
+
+“Foolish and wicked men,” said he, “as many of you as have been driven
+into this strait by the lack of fortune shall receive employment and
+remuneration from my officers. Those who suffer under a sense of guilt
+must have recourse to a higher and more generous Potentate than I. I
+feel pity for all of you, deeper than you can imagine; to-morrow you
+shall tell me your stories; and as you answer more frankly, I shall be
+the more able to remedy your misfortunes. As for you,” he added,
+turning to the President, “I should only offend a person of your parts
+by any offer of assistance; but I have instead a piece of diversion to
+propose to you. Here,” laying his hand on the shoulder of Colonel
+Geraldine’s young brother, “is an officer of mine who desires to make a
+little tour upon the Continent; and I ask you, as a favour, to
+accompany him on this excursion. Do you,” he went on, changing his
+tone, “do you shoot well with the pistol? Because you may have need of
+that accomplishment. When two men go travelling together, it is best to
+be prepared for all. Let me add that, if by any chance you should lose
+young Mr. Geraldine upon the way, I shall always have another member of
+my household to place at your disposal; and I am known, Mr. President,
+to have long eyesight, and as long an arm.”
+
+With these words, said with much sternness, the Prince concluded his
+address. Next morning the members of the club were suitably provided
+for by his munificence, and the President set forth upon his travels,
+under the supervision of Mr. Geraldine, and a pair of faithful and
+adroit lackeys, well trained in the Prince’s household. Not content
+with this, discreet agents were put in possession of the house in Box
+Court, and all letters or visitors for the Suicide Club or its
+officials were to be examined by Prince Florizel in person.
+
+
+_Here_ (says my Arabian author) _ends_ The Story of the Young Man with
+the Cream Tarts, _who is now a comfortable householder in Wigmore
+Street_, _Cavendish Square_. _The number_, _for obvious reasons_, _I
+suppress_. _Those who care to pursue the adventures of Prince Florizel
+and the President of the Suicide Club_, _may read the_ History of the
+Physician and the Saratoga Trunk.
+
+
+
+
+STORY OF THE PHYSICIAN AND THE SARATOGA TRUNK
+
+
+Mr. Silas Q. Scuddamore was a young American of a simple and harmless
+disposition, which was the more to his credit as he came from New
+England—a quarter of the New World not precisely famous for those
+qualities. Although he was exceedingly rich, he kept a note of all his
+expenses in a little paper pocket-book; and he had chosen to study the
+attractions of Paris from the seventh story of what is called a
+furnished hotel, in the Latin Quarter. There was a great deal of habit
+in his penuriousness; and his virtue, which was very remarkable among
+his associates, was principally founded upon diffidence and youth.
+
+The next room to his was inhabited by a lady, very attractive in her
+air and very elegant in toilette, whom, on his first arrival, he had
+taken for a Countess. In course of time he had learned that she was
+known by the name of Madame Zéphyrine, and that whatever station she
+occupied in life it was not that of a person of title. Madame
+Zéphyrine, probably in the hope of enchanting the young American, used
+to flaunt by him on the stairs with a civil inclination, a word of
+course, and a knock-down look out of her black eyes, and disappear in a
+rustle of silk, and with the revelation of an admirable foot and ankle.
+But these advances, so far from encouraging Mr. Scuddamore, plunged him
+into the depths of depression and bashfulness. She had come to him
+several times for a light, or to apologise for the imaginary
+depredations of her poodle; but his mouth was closed in the presence of
+so superior a being, his French promptly left him, and he could only
+stare and stammer until she was gone. The slenderness of their
+intercourse did not prevent him from throwing out insinuations of a
+very glorious order when he was safely alone with a few males.
+
+The room on the other side of the American’s—for there were three rooms
+on a floor in the hotel—was tenanted by an old English physician of
+rather doubtful reputation. Dr. Noel, for that was his name, had been
+forced to leave London, where he enjoyed a large and increasing
+practice; and it was hinted that the police had been the instigators of
+this change of scene. At least he, who had made something of a figure
+in earlier life, now dwelt in the Latin Quarter in great simplicity and
+solitude, and devoted much of his time to study. Mr. Scuddamore had
+made his acquaintance, and the pair would now and then dine together
+frugally in a restaurant across the street.
+
+Silas Q. Scuddamore had many little vices of the more respectable
+order, and was not restrained by delicacy from indulging them in many
+rather doubtful ways. Chief among his foibles stood curiosity. He was a
+born gossip; and life, and especially those parts of it in which he had
+no experience, interested him to the degree of passion. He was a pert,
+invincible questioner, pushing his inquiries with equal pertinacity and
+indiscretion; he had been observed, when he took a letter to the post,
+to weigh it in his hand, to turn it over and over, and to study the
+address with care; and when he found a flaw in the partition between
+his room and Madame Zéphyrine’s, instead of filling it up, he enlarged
+and improved the opening, and made use of it as a spy-hole on his
+neighbour’s affairs.
+
+One day, in the end of March, his curiosity growing as it was indulged,
+he enlarged the hole a little further, so that he might command another
+corner of the room. That evening, when he went as usual to inspect
+Madame Zéphyrine’s movements, he was astonished to find the aperture
+obscured in an odd manner on the other side, and still more abashed
+when the obstacle was suddenly withdrawn and a titter of laughter
+reached his ears. Some of the plaster had evidently betrayed the secret
+of his spy-hole, and his neighbour had been returning the compliment in
+kind. Mr. Scuddamore was moved to a very acute feeling of annoyance; he
+condemned Madame Zéphyrine unmercifully; he even blamed himself; but
+when he found, next day, that she had taken no means to baulk him of
+his favourite pastime, he continued to profit by her carelessness, and
+gratify his idle curiosity.
+
+That next day Madame Zéphyrine received a long visit from a tall,
+loosely-built man of fifty or upwards, whom Silas had not hitherto
+seen. His tweed suit and coloured shirt, no less than his shaggy
+side-whiskers, identified him as a Britisher, and his dull grey eye
+affected Silas with a sense of cold. He kept screwing his mouth from
+side to side and round and round during the whole colloquy, which was
+carried on in whispers. More than once it seemed to the young New
+Englander as if their gestures indicated his own apartment; but the
+only thing definite he could gather by the most scrupulous attention
+was this remark made by the Englishman in a somewhat higher key, as if
+in answer to some reluctance or opposition.
+
+“I have studied his taste to a nicety, and I tell you again and again
+you are the only woman of the sort that I can lay my hands on.”
+
+In answer to this, Madame Zéphyrine sighed, and appeared by a gesture
+to resign herself, like one yielding to unqualified authority.
+
+That afternoon the observatory was finally blinded, a wardrobe having
+been drawn in front of it upon the other side; and while Silas was
+still lamenting over this misfortune, which he attributed to the
+Britisher’s malign suggestion, the concierge brought him up a letter in
+a female handwriting. It was conceived in French of no very rigorous
+orthography, bore no signature, and in the most encouraging terms
+invited the young American to be present in a certain part of the
+Bullier Ball at eleven o’clock that night. Curiosity and timidity
+fought a long battle in his heart; sometimes he was all virtue,
+sometimes all fire and daring; and the result of it was that, long
+before ten, Mr. Silas Q. Scuddamore presented himself in unimpeachable
+attire at the door of the Bullier Ball Rooms, and paid his entry money
+with a sense of reckless devilry that was not without its charm.
+
+It was Carnival time, and the Ball was very full and noisy. The lights
+and the crowd at first rather abashed our young adventurer, and then,
+mounting to his brain with a sort of intoxication, put him in
+possession of more than his own share of manhood. He felt ready to face
+the devil, and strutted in the ballroom with the swagger of a cavalier.
+While he was thus parading, he became aware of Madame Zéphyrine and her
+Britisher in conference behind a pillar. The cat-like spirit of
+eaves-dropping overcame him at once. He stole nearer and nearer on the
+couple from behind, until he was within earshot.
+
+“That is the man,” the Britisher was saying; “there—with the long blond
+hair—speaking to a girl in green.”
+
+Silas identified a very handsome young fellow of small stature, who was
+plainly the object of this designation.
+
+“It is well,” said Madame Zéphyrine. “I shall do my utmost. But,
+remember, the best of us may fail in such a matter.”
+
+“Tut!” returned her companion; “I answer for the result. Have I not
+chosen you from thirty? Go; but be wary of the Prince. I cannot think
+what cursed accident has brought him here to-night. As if there were
+not a dozen balls in Paris better worth his notice than this riot of
+students and counter-jumpers! See him where he sits, more like a
+reigning Emperor at home than a Prince upon his holidays!”
+
+Silas was again lucky. He observed a person of rather a full build,
+strikingly handsome, and of a very stately and courteous demeanour,
+seated at table with another handsome young man, several years his
+junior, who addressed him with conspicuous deference. The name of
+Prince struck gratefully on Silas’s Republican hearing, and the aspect
+of the person to whom that name was applied exercised its usual charm
+upon his mind. He left Madame Zéphyrine and her Englishman to take care
+of each other, and threading his way through the assembly, approached
+the table which the Prince and his confidant had honoured with their
+choice.
+
+“I tell you, Geraldine,” the former was saying, “the action is madness.
+Yourself (I am glad to remember it) chose your brother for this
+perilous service, and you are bound in duty to have a guard upon his
+conduct. He has consented to delay so many days in Paris; that was
+already an imprudence, considering the character of the man he has to
+deal with; but now, when he is within eight-and-forty hours of his
+departure, when he is within two or three days of the decisive trial, I
+ask you, is this a place for him to spend his time? He should be in a
+gallery at practice; he should be sleeping long hours and taking
+moderate exercise on foot; he should be on a rigorous diet, without
+white wines or brandy. Does the dog imagine we are all playing comedy?
+The thing is deadly earnest, Geraldine.”
+
+“I know the lad too well to interfere,” replied Colonel Geraldine, “and
+well enough not to be alarmed. He is more cautious than you fancy, and
+of an indomitable spirit. If it had been a woman I should not say so
+much, but I trust the President to him and the two valets without an
+instant’s apprehension.”
+
+“I am gratified to hear you say so,” replied the Prince; “but my mind
+is not at rest. These servants are well-trained spies, and already has
+not this miscreant succeeded three times in eluding their observation
+and spending several hours on end in private, and most likely
+dangerous, affairs? An amateur might have lost him by accident, but if
+Rudolph and Jérome were thrown off the scent, it must have been done on
+purpose, and by a man who had a cogent reason and exceptional
+resources.”
+
+“I believe the question is now one between my brother and myself,”
+replied Geraldine, with a shade of offence in his tone.
+
+“I permit it to be so, Colonel Geraldine,” returned Prince Florizel.
+“Perhaps, for that very reason, you should be all the more ready to
+accept my counsels. But enough. That girl in yellow dances well.”
+
+And the talk veered into the ordinary topics of a Paris ballroom in the
+Carnival.
+
+Silas remembered where he was, and that the hour was already near at
+hand when he ought to be upon the scene of his assignation. The more he
+reflected the less he liked the prospect, and as at that moment an eddy
+in the crowd began to draw him in the direction of the door, he
+suffered it to carry him away without resistance. The eddy stranded him
+in a corner under the gallery, where his ear was immediately struck
+with the voice of Madame Zéphyrine. She was speaking in French with the
+young man of the blond locks who had been pointed out by the strange
+Britisher not half-an-hour before.
+
+“I have a character at stake,” she said, “or I would put no other
+condition than my heart recommends. But you have only to say so much to
+the porter, and he will let you go by without a word.”
+
+“But why this talk of debt?” objected her companion.
+
+“Heavens!” said she, “do you think I do not understand my own hotel?”
+
+And she went by, clinging affectionately to her companion’s arm.
+
+This put Silas in mind of his billet.
+
+“Ten minutes hence,” thought he, “and I may be walking with as
+beautiful a woman as that, and even better dressed—perhaps a real lady,
+possibly a woman or title.”
+
+And then he remembered the spelling, and was a little downcast.
+
+“But it may have been written by her maid,” he imagined.
+
+The clock was only a few minutes from the hour, and this immediate
+proximity set his heart beating at a curious and rather disagreeable
+speed. He reflected with relief that he was in no way bound to put in
+an appearance. Virtue and cowardice were together, and he made once
+more for the door, but this time of his own accord, and battling
+against the stream of people which was now moving in a contrary
+direction. Perhaps this prolonged resistance wearied him, or perhaps he
+was in that frame of mind when merely to continue in the same
+determination for a certain number of minutes produces a reaction and a
+different purpose. Certainly, at least, he wheeled about for a third
+time, and did not stop until he had found a place of concealment within
+a few yards of the appointed place.
+
+Here he went through an agony of spirit, in which he several times
+prayed to God for help, for Silas had been devoutly educated. He had
+now not the least inclination for the meeting; nothing kept him from
+flight but a silly fear lest he should be thought unmanly; but this was
+so powerful that it kept head against all other motives; and although
+it could not decide him to advance, prevented him from definitely
+running away. At last the clock indicated ten minutes past the hour.
+Young Scuddamore’s spirit began to rise; he peered round the corner and
+saw no one at the place of meeting; doubtless his unknown correspondent
+had wearied and gone away. He became as bold as he had formerly been
+timid. It seemed to him that if he came at all to the appointment,
+however late, he was clear from the charge of cowardice. Nay, now he
+began to suspect a hoax, and actually complimented himself on his
+shrewdness in having suspected and outmanoeuvred his mystifiers. So
+very idle a thing is a boy’s mind!
+
+Armed with these reflections, he advanced boldly from his corner; but
+he had not taken above a couple of steps before a hand was laid upon
+his arm. He turned and beheld a lady cast in a very large mould and
+with somewhat stately features, but bearing no mark of severity in her
+looks.
+
+“I see that you are a very self-confident lady-killer,” said she; “for
+you make yourself expected. But I was determined to meet you. When a
+woman has once so far forgotten herself as to make the first advance,
+she has long ago left behind her all considerations of petty pride.”
+
+Silas was overwhelmed by the size and attractions of his correspondent
+and the suddenness with which she had fallen upon him. But she soon set
+him at his ease. She was very towardly and lenient in her behaviour;
+she led him on to make pleasantries, and then applauded him to the
+echo; and in a very short time, between blandishments and a liberal
+exhibition of warm brandy, she had not only induced him to fancy
+himself in love, but to declare his passion with the greatest
+vehemence.
+
+“Alas!” she said; “I do not know whether I ought not to deplore this
+moment, great as is the pleasure you give me by your words. Hitherto I
+was alone to suffer; now, poor boy, there will be two. I am not my own
+mistress. I dare not ask you to visit me at my own house, for I am
+watched by jealous eyes. Let me see,” she added; “I am older than you,
+although so much weaker; and while I trust in your courage and
+determination, I must employ my own knowledge of the world for our
+mutual benefit. Where do you live?”
+
+He told her that he lodged in a furnished hotel, and named the street
+and number.
+
+She seemed to reflect for some minutes, with an effort of mind.
+
+“I see,” she said at last. “You will be faithful and obedient, will you
+not?”
+
+Silas assured her eagerly of his fidelity.
+
+“To-morrow night, then,” she continued, with an encouraging smile, “you
+must remain at home all the evening; and if any friends should visit
+you, dismiss them at once on any pretext that most readily presents
+itself. Your door is probably shut by ten?” she asked.
+
+“By eleven,” answered Silas.
+
+“At a quarter past eleven,” pursued the lady, “leave the house. Merely
+cry for the door to be opened, and be sure you fall into no talk with
+the porter, as that might ruin everything. Go straight to the corner
+where the Luxembourg Gardens join the Boulevard; there you will find me
+waiting you. I trust you to follow my advice from point to point: and
+remember, if you fail me in only one particular, you will bring the
+sharpest trouble on a woman whose only fault is to have seen and loved
+you.”
+
+“I cannot see the use of all these instructions,” said Silas.
+
+“I believe you are already beginning to treat me as a master,” she
+cried, tapping him with her fan upon the arm. “Patience, patience! that
+should come in time. A woman loves to be obeyed at first, although
+afterwards she finds her pleasure in obeying. Do as I ask you, for
+Heaven’s sake, or I will answer for nothing. Indeed, now I think of
+it,” she added, with the manner of one who has just seen further into a
+difficulty, “I find a better plan of keeping importunate visitors away.
+Tell the porter to admit no one for you, except a person who may come
+that night to claim a debt; and speak with some feeling, as though you
+feared the interview, so that he may take your words in earnest.”
+
+“I think you may trust me to protect myself against intruders,” he
+said, not without a little pique.
+
+“That is how I should prefer the thing arranged,” she answered coldly.
+“I know you men; you think nothing of a woman’s reputation.”
+
+Silas blushed and somewhat hung his head; for the scheme he had in view
+had involved a little vain-glorying before his acquaintances.
+
+“Above all,” she added, “do not speak to the porter as you come out.”
+
+“And why?” said he. “Of all your instructions, that seems to me the
+least important.”
+
+“You at first doubted the wisdom of some of the others, which you now
+see to be very necessary,” she replied. “Believe me, this also has its
+uses; in time you will see them; and what am I to think of your
+affection, if you refuse me such trifles at our first interview?”
+
+Silas confounded himself in explanations and apologies; in the middle
+of these she looked up at the clock and clapped her hands together with
+a suppressed scream.
+
+“Heavens!” she cried, “is it so late? I have not an instant to lose.
+Alas, we poor women, what slaves we are! What have I not risked for you
+already?”
+
+And after repeating her directions, which she artfully combined with
+caresses and the most abandoned looks, she bade him farewell and
+disappeared among the crowd.
+
+The whole of the next day Silas was filled with a sense of great
+importance; he was now sure she was a countess; and when evening came
+he minutely obeyed her orders and was at the corner of the Luxembourg
+Gardens by the hour appointed. No one was there. He waited nearly
+half-an-hour, looking in the face of every one who passed or loitered
+near the spot; he even visited the neighbouring corners of the
+Boulevard and made a complete circuit of the garden railings; but there
+was no beautiful countess to throw herself into his arms. At last, and
+most reluctantly, he began to retrace his steps towards his hotel. On
+the way he remembered the words he had heard pass between Madame
+Zéphyrine and the blond young man, and they gave him an indefinite
+uneasiness.
+
+“It appears,” he reflected, “that every one has to tell lies to our
+porter.”
+
+He rang the bell, the door opened before him, and the porter in his
+bed-clothes came to offer him a light.
+
+“Has he gone?” inquired the porter.
+
+“He? Whom do you mean?” asked Silas, somewhat sharply, for he was
+irritated by his disappointment.
+
+“I did not notice him go out,” continued the porter, “but I trust you
+paid him. We do not care, in this house, to have lodgers who cannot
+meet their liabilities.”
+
+“What the devil do you mean?” demanded Silas rudely. “I cannot
+understand a word of this farrago.”
+
+“The short blond young man who came for his debt,” returned the other.
+“Him it is I mean. Who else should it be, when I had your orders to
+admit no one else?”
+
+“Why, good God, of course he never came,” retorted Silas.
+
+“I believe what I believe,” returned the porter, putting his tongue
+into his cheek with a most roguish air.
+
+“You are an insolent scoundrel,” cried Silas, and, feeling that he had
+made a ridiculous exhibition of asperity, and at the same time
+bewildered by a dozen alarms, he turned and began to run upstairs.
+
+“Do you not want a light then?” cried the porter.
+
+But Silas only hurried the faster, and did not pause until he had
+reached the seventh landing and stood in front of his own door. There
+he waited a moment to recover his breath, assailed by the worst
+forebodings and almost dreading to enter the room.
+
+When at last he did so he was relieved to find it dark, and to all
+appearance, untenanted. He drew a long breath. Here he was, home again
+in safety, and this should be his last folly as certainly as it had
+been his first. The matches stood on a little table by the bed, and he
+began to grope his way in that direction. As he moved, his
+apprehensions grew upon him once more, and he was pleased, when his
+foot encountered an obstacle, to find it nothing more alarming than a
+chair. At last he touched curtains. From the position of the window,
+which was faintly visible, he knew he must be at the foot of the bed,
+and had only to feel his way along it in order to reach the table in
+question.
+
+He lowered his hand, but what it touched was not simply a
+counterpane—it was a counterpane with something underneath it like the
+outline of a human leg. Silas withdrew his arm and stood a moment
+petrified.
+
+“What, what,” he thought, “can this betoken?”
+
+He listened intently, but there was no sound of breathing. Once more,
+with a great effort, he reached out the end of his finger to the spot
+he had already touched; but this time he leaped back half a yard, and
+stood shivering and fixed with terror. There was something in his bed.
+What it was he knew not, but there was something there.
+
+It was some seconds before he could move. Then, guided by an instinct,
+he fell straight upon the matches, and keeping his back towards the bed
+lighted a candle. As soon as the flame had kindled, he turned slowly
+round and looked for what he feared to see. Sure enough, there was the
+worst of his imaginations realised. The coverlid was drawn carefully up
+over the pillow, but it moulded the outline of a human body lying
+motionless; and when he dashed forward and flung aside the sheets, he
+beheld the blond young man whom he had seen in the Bullier Ball the
+night before, his eyes open and without speculation, his face swollen
+and blackened, and a thin stream of blood trickling from his nostrils.
+
+Silas uttered a long, tremulous wail, dropped the candle, and fell on
+his knees beside the bed.
+
+Silas was awakened from the stupor into which his terrible discovery
+had plunged him by a prolonged but discreet tapping at the door. It
+took him some seconds to remember his position; and when he hastened to
+prevent anyone from entering it was already too late. Dr. Noel, in a
+tall night-cap, carrying a lamp which lighted up his long white
+countenance, sidling in his gait, and peering and cocking his head like
+some sort of bird, pushed the door slowly open, and advanced into the
+middle of the room.
+
+“I thought I heard a cry,” began the Doctor, “and fearing you might be
+unwell I did not hesitate to offer this intrusion.”
+
+Silas, with a flushed face and a fearful beating heart, kept between
+the Doctor and the bed; but he found no voice to answer.
+
+“You are in the dark,” pursued the Doctor; “and yet you have not even
+begun to prepare for rest. You will not easily persuade me against my
+own eyesight; and your face declares most eloquently that you require
+either a friend or a physician—which is it to be? Let me feel your
+pulse, for that is often a just reporter of the heart.”
+
+He advanced to Silas, who still retreated before him backwards, and
+sought to take him by the wrist; but the strain on the young American’s
+nerves had become too great for endurance. He avoided the Doctor with a
+febrile movement, and, throwing himself upon the floor, burst into a
+flood of weeping.
+
+As soon as Dr. Noel perceived the dead man in the bed his face
+darkened; and hurrying back to the door which he had left ajar, he
+hastily closed and double-locked it.
+
+“Up!” he cried, addressing Silas in strident tones; “this is no time
+for weeping. What have you done? How came this body in your room? Speak
+freely to one who may be helpful. Do you imagine I would ruin you? Do
+you think this piece of dead flesh on your pillow can alter in any
+degree the sympathy with which you have inspired me? Credulous youth,
+the horror with which blind and unjust law regards an action never
+attaches to the doer in the eyes of those who love him; and if I saw
+the friend of my heart return to me out of seas of blood he would be in
+no way changed in my affection. Raise yourself,” he said; “good and ill
+are a chimera; there is nought in life except destiny, and however you
+may be circumstanced there is one at your side who will help you to the
+last.”
+
+Thus encouraged, Silas gathered himself together, and in a broken
+voice, and helped out by the Doctor’s interrogations, contrived at last
+to put him in possession of the facts. But the conversation between the
+Prince and Geraldine he altogether omitted, as he had understood little
+of its purport, and had no idea that it was in any way related to his
+own misadventure.
+
+“Alas!” cried Dr. Noel, “I am much abused, or you have fallen
+innocently into the most dangerous hands in Europe. Poor boy, what a
+pit has been dug for your simplicity! into what a deadly peril have
+your unwary feet been conducted! This man,” he said, “this Englishman,
+whom you twice saw, and whom I suspect to be the soul of the
+contrivance, can you describe him? Was he young or old? tall or short?”
+
+But Silas, who, for all his curiosity, had not a seeing eye in his
+head, was able to supply nothing but meagre generalities, which it was
+impossible to recognise.
+
+“I would have it a piece of education in all schools!” cried the Doctor
+angrily. “Where is the use of eyesight and articulate speech if a man
+cannot observe and recollect the features of his enemy? I, who know all
+the gangs of Europe, might have identified him, and gained new weapons
+for your defence. Cultivate this art in future, my poor boy; you may
+find it of momentous service.”
+
+“The future!” repeated Silas. “What future is there left for me except
+the gallows?”
+
+“Youth is but a cowardly season,” returned the Doctor; “and a man’s own
+troubles look blacker than they are. I am old, and yet I never
+despair.”
+
+“Can I tell such a story to the police?” demanded Silas.
+
+“Assuredly not,” replied the Doctor. “From what I see already of the
+machination in which you have been involved, your case is desperate
+upon that side; and for the narrow eye of the authorities you are
+infallibly the guilty person. And remember that we only know a portion
+of the plot; and the same infamous contrivers have doubtless arranged
+many other circumstances which would be elicited by a police inquiry,
+and help to fix the guilt more certainly upon your innocence.”
+
+“I am then lost, indeed!” cried Silas.
+
+“I have not said so,” answered Dr. Noel “for I am a cautious man.”
+
+“But look at this!” objected Silas, pointing to the body. “Here is this
+object in my bed; not to be explained, not to be disposed of, not to be
+regarded without horror.”
+
+“Horror?” replied the Doctor. “No. When this sort of clock has run
+down, it is no more to me than an ingenious piece of mechanism, to be
+investigated with the bistoury. When blood is once cold and stagnant,
+it is no longer human blood; when flesh is once dead, it is no longer
+that flesh which we desire in our lovers and respect in our friends.
+The grace, the attraction, the terror, have all gone from it with the
+animating spirit. Accustom yourself to look upon it with composure; for
+if my scheme is practicable you will have to live some days in constant
+proximity to that which now so greatly horrifies you.”
+
+“Your scheme?” cried Silas. “What is that? Tell me speedily, Doctor;
+for I have scarcely courage enough to continue to exist.”
+
+Without replying, Doctor Noel turned towards the bed, and proceeded to
+examine the corpse.
+
+“Quite dead,” he murmured. “Yes, as I had supposed, the pockets empty.
+Yes, and the name cut off the shirt. Their work has been done
+thoroughly and well. Fortunately, he is of small stature.”
+
+Silas followed these words with an extreme anxiety. At last the Doctor,
+his autopsy completed, took a chair and addressed the young American
+with a smile.
+
+“Since I came into your room,” said he, “although my ears and my tongue
+have been so busy, I have not suffered my eyes to remain idle. I noted
+a little while ago that you have there, in the corner, one of those
+monstrous constructions which your fellow-countrymen carry with them
+into all quarters of the globe—in a word, a Saratoga trunk. Until this
+moment I have never been able to conceive the utility of these
+erections; but then I began to have a glimmer. Whether it was for
+convenience in the slave trade, or to obviate the results of too ready
+an employment of the bowie-knife, I cannot bring myself to decide. But
+one thing I see plainly—the object of such a box is to contain a human
+body.
+
+“Surely,” cried Silas, “surely this is not a time for jesting.”
+
+“Although I may express myself with some degree of pleasantry,” replied
+the Doctor, “the purport of my words is entirely serious. And the first
+thing we have to do, my young friend, is to empty your coffer of all
+that it contains.”
+
+Silas, obeying the authority of Doctor Noel, put himself at his
+disposition. The Saratoga trunk was soon gutted of its contents, which
+made a considerable litter on the floor; and then—Silas taking the
+heels and the Doctor supporting the shoulders—the body of the murdered
+man was carried from the bed, and, after some difficulty, doubled up
+and inserted whole into the empty box. With an effort on the part of
+both, the lid was forced down upon this unusual baggage, and the trunk
+was locked and corded by the Doctor’s own hand, while Silas disposed of
+what had been taken out between the closet and a chest of drawers.
+
+“Now,” said the Doctor, “the first step has been taken on the way to
+your deliverance. To-morrow, or rather to-day, it must be your task to
+allay the suspicions of your porter, paying him all that you owe; while
+you may trust me to make the arrangements necessary to a safe
+conclusion. Meantime, follow me to my room, where I shall give you a
+safe and powerful opiate; for, whatever you do, you must have rest.”
+
+The next day was the longest in Silas’s memory; it seemed as if it
+would never be done. He denied himself to his friends, and sat in a
+corner with his eyes fixed upon the Saratoga trunk in dismal
+contemplation. His own former indiscretions were now returned upon him
+in kind; for the observatory had been once more opened, and he was
+conscious of an almost continual study from Madame Zéphyrine’s
+apartment. So distressing did this become, that he was at last obliged
+to block up the spy-hole from his own side; and when he was thus
+secured from observation he spent a considerable portion of his time in
+contrite tears and prayer.
+
+Late in the evening Dr. Noel entered the room carrying in his hand a
+pair of sealed envelopes without address, one somewhat bulky, and the
+other so slim as to seem without enclosure.
+
+“Silas,” he said, seating himself at the table, “the time has now come
+for me to explain my plan for your salvation. To-morrow morning, at an
+early hour, Prince Florizel of Bohemia returns to London, after having
+diverted himself for a few days with the Parisian Carnival. It was my
+fortune, a good while ago, to do Colonel Geraldine, his Master of the
+Horse, one of those services, so common in my profession, which are
+never forgotten upon either side. I have no need to explain to you the
+nature of the obligation under which he was laid; suffice it to say
+that I knew him ready to serve me in any practicable manner. Now, it
+was necessary for you to gain London with your trunk unopened. To this
+the Custom House seemed to oppose a fatal difficulty; but I bethought
+me that the baggage of so considerable a person as the Prince, is, as a
+matter of courtesy, passed without examination by the officers of
+Custom. I applied to Colonel Geraldine, and succeeded in obtaining a
+favourable answer. To-morrow, if you go before six to the hotel where
+the Prince lodges, your baggage will be passed over as a part of his,
+and you yourself will make the journey as a member of his suite.”
+
+“It seems to me, as you speak, that I have already seen both the Prince
+and Colonel Geraldine; I even overheard some of their conversation the
+other evening at the Bullier Ball.”
+
+“It is probable enough; for the Prince loves to mix with all
+societies,” replied the Doctor. “Once arrived in London,” he pursued,
+“your task is nearly ended. In this more bulky envelope I have given
+you a letter which I dare not address; but in the other you will find
+the designation of the house to which you must carry it along with your
+box, which will there be taken from you and not trouble you any more.”
+
+“Alas!” said Silas, “I have every wish to believe you; but how is it
+possible? You open up to me a bright prospect, but, I ask you, is my
+mind capable of receiving so unlikely a solution? Be more generous, and
+let me further understand your meaning.”
+
+The Doctor seemed painfully impressed.
+
+“Boy,” he answered, “you do not know how hard a thing you ask of me.
+But be it so. I am now inured to humiliation; and it would be strange
+if I refused you this, after having granted you so much. Know, then,
+that although I now make so quiet an appearance—frugal, solitary,
+addicted to study—when I was younger, my name was once a rallying-cry
+among the most astute and dangerous spirits of London; and while I was
+outwardly an object for respect and consideration, my true power
+resided in the most secret, terrible, and criminal relations. It is to
+one of the persons who then obeyed me that I now address myself to
+deliver you from your burden. They were men of many different nations
+and dexterities, all bound together by a formidable oath, and working
+to the same purposes; the trade of the association was in murder; and I
+who speak to you, innocent as I appear, was the chieftain of this
+redoubtable crew.”
+
+“What?” cried Silas. “A murderer? And one with whom murder was a trade?
+Can I take your hand? Ought I so much as to accept your services? Dark
+and criminal old man, would you make an accomplice of my youth and my
+distress?”
+
+The Doctor bitterly laughed.
+
+“You are difficult to please, Mr. Scuddamore,” said he; “but I now
+offer you your choice of company between the murdered man and the
+murderer. If your conscience is too nice to accept my aid, say so, and
+I will immediately leave you. Thenceforward you can deal with your
+trunk and its belongings as best suits your upright conscience.”
+
+“I own myself wrong,” replied Silas. “I should have remembered how
+generously you offered to shield me, even before I had convinced you of
+my innocence, and I continue to listen to your counsels with
+gratitude.”
+
+“That is well,” returned the Doctor; “and I perceive you are beginning
+to learn some of the lessons of experience.”
+
+“At the same time,” resumed the New-Englander, “as you confess yourself
+accustomed to this tragical business, and the people to whom you
+recommend me are your own former associates and friends, could you not
+yourself undertake the transport of the box, and rid me at once of its
+detested presence?”
+
+“Upon my word,” replied the Doctor, “I admire you cordially. If you do
+not think I have already meddled sufficiently in your concerns, believe
+me, from my heart I think the contrary. Take or leave my services as I
+offer them; and trouble me with no more words of gratitude, for I value
+your consideration even more lightly than I do your intellect. A time
+will come, if you should be spared to see a number of years in health
+of mind, when you will think differently of all this, and blush for
+your to-night’s behaviour.”
+
+So saying, the Doctor arose from his chair, repeated his directions
+briefly and clearly, and departed from the room without permitting
+Silas any time to answer.
+
+The next morning Silas presented himself at the hotel, where he was
+politely received by Colonel Geraldine, and relieved, from that moment,
+of all immediate alarm about his trunk and its grisly contents. The
+journey passed over without much incident, although the young man was
+horrified to overhear the sailors and railway porters complaining among
+themselves about the unusual weight of the Prince’s baggage. Silas
+travelled in a carriage with the valets, for Prince Florizel chose to
+be alone with his Master of the Horse. On board the steamer, however,
+Silas attracted his Highness’s attention by the melancholy of his air
+and attitude as he stood gazing at the pile of baggage; for he was
+still full of disquietude about the future.
+
+“There is a young man,” observed the Prince, “who must have some cause
+for sorrow.”
+
+“That,” replied Geraldine, “is the American for whom I obtained
+permission to travel with your suite.”
+
+“You remind me that I have been remiss in courtesy,” said Prince
+Florizel, and advancing to Silas, he addressed him with the most
+exquisite condescension in these words:—“I was charmed, young sir, to
+be able to gratify the desire you made known to me through Colonel
+Geraldine. Remember, if you please, that I shall be glad at any future
+time to lay you under a more serious obligation.”
+
+And he then put some questions as to the political condition of
+America, which Silas answered with sense and propriety.
+
+“You are still a young man,” said the Prince; “but I observe you to be
+very serious for your years. Perhaps you allow your attention to be too
+much occupied with grave studies. But, perhaps, on the other hand, I am
+myself indiscreet and touch upon a painful subject.”
+
+“I have certainly cause to be the most miserable of men,” said Silas;
+“never has a more innocent person been more dismally abused.”
+
+“I will not ask you for your confidence,” returned Prince Florizel.
+“But do not forget that Colonel Geraldine’s recommendation is an
+unfailing passport; and that I am not only willing, but possibly more
+able than many others, to do you a service.”
+
+Silas was delighted with the amiability of this great personage; but
+his mind soon returned upon its gloomy preoccupations; for not even the
+favour of a Prince to a Republican can discharge a brooding spirit of
+its cares.
+
+The train arrived at Charing Cross, where the officers of the Revenue
+respected the baggage of Prince Florizel in the usual manner. The most
+elegant equipages were in waiting; and Silas was driven, along with the
+rest, to the Prince’s residence. There Colonel Geraldine sought him
+out, and expressed himself pleased to have been of any service to a
+friend of the physician’s, for whom he professed a great consideration.
+
+“I hope,” he added, “that you will find none of your porcelain injured.
+Special orders were given along the line to deal tenderly with the
+Prince’s effects.”
+
+And then, directing the servants to place one of the carriages at the
+young gentleman’s disposal, and at once to charge the Saratoga trunk
+upon the dickey, the Colonel shook hands and excused himself on account
+of his occupations in the princely household.
+
+Silas now broke the seal of the envelope containing the address, and
+directed the stately footman to drive him to Box Court, opening off the
+Strand. It seemed as if the place were not at all unknown to the man,
+for he looked startled and begged a repetition of the order. It was
+with a heart full of alarms, that Silas mounted into the luxurious
+vehicle, and was driven to his destination. The entrance to Box Court
+was too narrow for the passage of a coach; it was a mere footway
+between railings, with a post at either end. On one of these posts was
+seated a man, who at once jumped down and exchanged a friendly sign
+with the driver, while the footman opened the door and inquired of
+Silas whether he should take down the Saratoga trunk, and to what
+number it should be carried.
+
+“If you please,” said Silas. “To number three.”
+
+The footman and the man who had been sitting on the post, even with the
+aid of Silas himself, had hard work to carry in the trunk; and before
+it was deposited at the door of the house in question, the young
+American was horrified to find a score of loiterers looking on. But he
+knocked with as good a countenance as he could muster up, and presented
+the other envelope to him who opened.
+
+“He is not at home,” said he, “but if you will leave your letter and
+return to-morrow early, I shall be able to inform you whether and when
+he can receive your visit. Would you like to leave your box?” he added.
+
+“Dearly,” cried Silas; and the next moment he repented his
+precipitation, and declared, with equal emphasis, that he would rather
+carry the box along with him to the hotel.
+
+The crowd jeered at his indecision and followed him to the carriage
+with insulting remarks; and Silas, covered with shame and terror,
+implored the servants to conduct him to some quiet and comfortable
+house of entertainment in the immediate neighbourhood.
+
+The Prince’s equipage deposited Silas at the Craven Hotel in Craven
+Street, and immediately drove away, leaving him alone with the servants
+of the inn. The only vacant room, it appeared, was a little den up four
+pairs of stairs, and looking towards the back. To this hermitage, with
+infinite trouble and complaint, a pair of stout porters carried the
+Saratoga trunk. It is needless to mention that Silas kept closely at
+their heels throughout the ascent, and had his heart in his mouth at
+every corner. A single false step, he reflected, and the box might go
+over the banisters and land its fatal contents, plainly discovered, on
+the pavement of the hall.
+
+Arrived in the room, he sat down on the edge of his bed to recover from
+the agony that he had just endured; but he had hardly taken his
+position when he was recalled to a sense of his peril by the action of
+the boots, who had knelt beside the trunk, and was proceeding
+officiously to undo its elaborate fastenings.
+
+“Let it be!” cried Silas. “I shall want nothing from it while I stay
+here.”
+
+“You might have let it lie in the hall, then,” growled the man; “a
+thing as big and heavy as a church. What you have inside I cannot
+fancy. If it is all money, you are a richer man than me.”
+
+“Money?” repeated Silas, in a sudden perturbation. “What do you mean by
+money? I have no money, and you are speaking like a fool.”
+
+“All right, captain,” retorted the boots with a wink. “There’s nobody
+will touch your lordship’s money. I’m as safe as the bank,” he added;
+“but as the box is heavy, I shouldn’t mind drinking something to your
+lordship’s health.”
+
+Silas pressed two Napoleons upon his acceptance, apologising, at the
+same time, for being obliged to trouble him with foreign money, and
+pleading his recent arrival for excuse. And the man, grumbling with
+even greater fervour, and looking contemptuously from the money in his
+hand to the Saratoga trunk and back again from the one to the other, at
+last consented to withdraw.
+
+For nearly two days the dead body had been packed into Silas’s box; and
+as soon as he was alone the unfortunate New-Englander nosed all the
+cracks and openings with the most passionate attention. But the weather
+was cool, and the trunk still managed to contain his shocking secret.
+
+He took a chair beside it, and buried his face in his hands, and his
+mind in the most profound reflection. If he were not speedily relieved,
+no question but he must be speedily discovered. Alone in a strange
+city, without friends or accomplices, if the Doctor’s introduction
+failed him, he was indubitably a lost New-Englander. He reflected
+pathetically over his ambitious designs for the future; he should not
+now become the hero and spokesman of his native place of Bangor, Maine;
+he should not, as he had fondly anticipated, move on from office to
+office, from honour to honour; he might as well divest himself at once
+of all hope of being acclaimed President of the United States, and
+leaving behind him a statue, in the worst possible style of art, to
+adorn the Capitol at Washington. Here he was, chained to a dead
+Englishman doubled up inside a Saratoga trunk; whom he must get rid of,
+or perish from the rolls of national glory!
+
+I should be afraid to chronicle the language employed by this young man
+to the Doctor, to the murdered man, to Madame Zéphyrine, to the boots
+of the hotel, to the Prince’s servants, and, in a word, to all who had
+been ever so remotely connected with his horrible misfortune.
+
+He slunk down to dinner about seven at night; but the yellow
+coffee-room appalled him, the eyes of the other diners seemed to rest
+on his with suspicion, and his mind remained upstairs with the Saratoga
+trunk. When the waiter came to offer him cheese, his nerves were
+already so much on edge that he leaped half-way out of his chair and
+upset the remainder of a pint of ale upon the table-cloth.
+
+The fellow offered to show him to the smoking-room when he had done;
+and although he would have much preferred to return at once to his
+perilous treasure, he had not the courage to refuse, and was shown
+downstairs to the black, gas-lit cellar, which formed, and possibly
+still forms, the divan of the Craven Hotel.
+
+Two very sad betting men were playing billiards, attended by a moist,
+consumptive marker; and for the moment Silas imagined that these were
+the only occupants of the apartment. But at the next glance his eye
+fell upon a person smoking in the farthest corner, with lowered eyes
+and a most respectable and modest aspect. He knew at once that he had
+seen the face before; and, in spite of the entire change of clothes,
+recognised the man whom he had found seated on a post at the entrance
+to Box Court, and who had helped him to carry the trunk to and from the
+carriage. The New-Englander simply turned and ran, nor did he pause
+until he had locked and bolted himself into his bedroom.
+
+There, all night long, a prey to the most terrible imaginations, he
+watched beside the fatal boxful of dead flesh. The suggestion of the
+boots that his trunk was full of gold inspired him with all manner of
+new terrors, if he so much as dared to close an eye; and the presence
+in the smoking-room, and under an obvious disguise, of the loiterer
+from Box Court convinced him that he was once more the centre of
+obscure machinations.
+
+Midnight had sounded some time, when, impelled by uneasy suspicions,
+Silas opened his bedroom door and peered into the passage. It was dimly
+illuminated by a single jet of gas; and some distance off he perceived
+a man sleeping on the floor in the costume of an hotel under-servant.
+Silas drew near the man on tiptoe. He lay partly on his back, partly on
+his side, and his right forearm concealed his face from recognition.
+Suddenly, while the American was still bending over him, the sleeper
+removed his arm and opened his eyes, and Silas found himself once more
+face to face with the loiterer of Box Court.
+
+“Good-night, sir,” said the man, pleasantly.
+
+But Silas was too profoundly moved to find an answer, and regained his
+room in silence.
+
+Towards morning, worn out by apprehension, he fell asleep on his chair,
+with his head forward on the trunk. In spite of so constrained an
+attitude and such a grisly pillow, his slumber was sound and prolonged,
+and he was only awakened at a late hour and by a sharp tapping at the
+door.
+
+He hurried to open, and found the boots without.
+
+“You are the gentleman who called yesterday at Box Court?” he asked.
+
+Silas, with a quaver, admitted that he had done so.
+
+“Then this note is for you,” added the servant, proffering a sealed
+envelope.
+
+Silas tore it open, and found inside the words: “Twelve o’clock.”
+
+He was punctual to the hour; the trunk was carried before him by
+several stout servants; and he was himself ushered into a room, where a
+man sat warming himself before the fire with his back towards the door.
+The sound of so many persons entering and leaving, and the scraping of
+the trunk as it was deposited upon the bare boards, were alike unable
+to attract the notice of the occupant; and Silas stood waiting, in an
+agony of fear, until he should deign to recognise his presence.
+
+Perhaps five minutes had elapsed before the man turned leisurely about,
+and disclosed the features of Prince Florizel of Bohemia.
+
+“So, sir,” he said, with great severity, “this is the manner in which
+you abuse my politeness. You join yourselves to persons of condition, I
+perceive, for no other purpose than to escape the consequences of your
+crimes; and I can readily understand your embarrassment when I
+addressed myself to you yesterday.”
+
+“Indeed,” cried Silas, “I am innocent of everything except misfortune.”
+
+And in a hurried voice, and with the greatest ingenuousness, he
+recounted to the Prince the whole history of his calamity.
+
+“I see I have been mistaken,” said his Highness, when he had heard him
+to an end. “You are no other than a victim, and since I am not to
+punish you may be sure I shall do my utmost to help. And now,” he
+continued, “to business. Open your box at once, and let me see what it
+contains.”
+
+Silas changed colour.
+
+“I almost fear to look upon it,” he exclaimed.
+
+“Nay,” replied the Prince, “have you not looked at it already? This is
+a form of sentimentality to be resisted. The sight of a sick man, whom
+we can still help, should appeal more directly to the feelings than
+that of a dead man who is equally beyond help or harm, love or hatred.
+Nerve yourself, Mr. Scuddamore,” and then, seeing that Silas still
+hesitated, “I do not desire to give another name to my request,” he
+added.
+
+The young American awoke as if out of a dream, and with a shiver of
+repugnance addressed himself to loose the straps and open the lock of
+the Saratoga trunk. The Prince stood by, watching with a composed
+countenance and his hands behind his back. The body was quite stiff,
+and it cost Silas a great effort, both moral and physical, to dislodge
+it from its position, and discover the face.
+
+Prince Florizel started back with an exclamation of painful surprise.
+
+“Alas!” he cried, “you little know, Mr. Scuddamore, what a cruel gift
+you have brought me. This is a young man of my own suite, the brother
+of my trusted friend; and it was upon matters of my own service that he
+has thus perished at the hands of violent and treacherous men. Poor
+Geraldine,” he went on, as if to himself, “in what words am I to tell
+you of your brother’s fate? How can I excuse myself in your eyes, or in
+the eyes of God, for the presumptuous schemes that led him to this
+bloody and unnatural death? Ah, Florizel! Florizel! when will you learn
+the discretion that suits mortal life, and be no longer dazzled with
+the image of power at your disposal? Power!” he cried; “who is more
+powerless? I look upon this young man whom I have sacrificed, Mr.
+Scuddamore, and feel how small a thing it is to be a Prince.”
+
+Silas was moved at the sight of his emotion. He tried to murmur some
+consolatory words, and burst into tears.
+
+The Prince, touched by his obvious intention, came up to him and took
+him by the hand.
+
+“Command yourself,” said he. “We have both much to learn, and we shall
+both be better men for to-day’s meeting.”
+
+Silas thanked him in silence with an affectionate look.
+
+“Write me the address of Doctor Noel on this piece of paper,” continued
+the Prince, leading him towards the table; “and let me recommend you,
+when you are again in Paris, to avoid the society of that dangerous
+man. He has acted in this matter on a generous inspiration; that I must
+believe; had he been privy to young Geraldine’s death he would never
+have despatched the body to the care of the actual criminal.”
+
+“The actual criminal!” repeated Silas in astonishment.
+
+“Even so,” returned the Prince. “This letter, which the disposition of
+Almighty Providence has so strangely delivered into my hands, was
+addressed to no less a person than the criminal himself, the infamous
+President of the Suicide Club. Seek to pry no further in these perilous
+affairs, but content yourself with your own miraculous escape, and
+leave this house at once. I have pressing affairs, and must arrange at
+once about this poor clay, which was so lately a gallant and handsome
+youth.”
+
+Silas took a grateful and submissive leave of Prince Florizel, but he
+lingered in Box Court until he saw him depart in a splendid carriage on
+a visit to Colonel Henderson of the police. Republican as he was, the
+young American took off his hat with almost a sentiment of devotion to
+the retreating carriage. And the same night he started by rail on his
+return to Paris.
+
+
+_Here_ (observes my Arabian author) _is the end of_ The History of the
+Physician and the Saratoga Trunk. _Omitting some reflections on the
+power of Providence_, _highly pertinent in the original_, _but little
+suited to our occiddental taste_, _I shall only add that Mr. Scuddamore
+has already begun to mount the ladder of political fame_, _and by last
+advices was the Sheriff of his native town_.
+
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE HANSOM CABS
+
+
+Lieutenant Brackenbury Rich had greatly distinguished himself in one of
+the lesser Indian hill wars. He it was who took the chieftain prisoner
+with his own hand; his gallantry was universally applauded; and when he
+came home, prostrated by an ugly sabre cut and a protracted jungle
+fever, society was prepared to welcome the Lieutenant as a celebrity of
+minor lustre. But his was a character remarkable for unaffected
+modesty; adventure was dear to his heart, but he cared little for
+adulation; and he waited at foreign watering-places and in Algiers
+until the fame of his exploits had run through its nine days’ vitality
+and begun to be forgotten. He arrived in London at last, in the early
+season, with as little observation as he could desire; and as he was an
+orphan and had none but distant relatives who lived in the provinces,
+it was almost as a foreigner that he installed himself in the capital
+of the country for which he had shed his blood.
+
+On the day following his arrival he dined alone at a military club. He
+shook hands with a few old comrades, and received their warm
+congratulations; but as one and all had some engagement for the
+evening, he found himself left entirely to his own resources. He was in
+dress, for he had entertained the notion of visiting a theatre. But the
+great city was new to him; he had gone from a provincial school to a
+military college, and thence direct to the Eastern Empire; and he
+promised himself a variety of delights in this world for exploration.
+Swinging his cane, he took his way westward. It was a mild evening,
+already dark, and now and then threatening rain. The succession of
+faces in the lamplight stirred the Lieutenant’s imagination; and it
+seemed to him as if he could walk for ever in that stimulating city
+atmosphere and surrounded by the mystery of four million private lives.
+He glanced at the houses, and marvelled what was passing behind those
+warmly-lighted windows; he looked into face after face, and saw them
+each intent upon some unknown interest, criminal or kindly.
+
+“They talk of war,” he thought, “but this is the great battlefield of
+mankind.”
+
+And then he began to wonder that he should walk so long in this
+complicated scene, and not chance upon so much as the shadow of an
+adventure for himself.
+
+“All in good time,” he reflected. “I am still a stranger, and perhaps
+wear a strange air. But I must be drawn into the eddy before long.”
+
+The night was already well advanced when a plump of cold rain fell
+suddenly out of the darkness. Brackenbury paused under some trees, and
+as he did so he caught sight of a hansom cabman making him a sign that
+he was disengaged. The circumstance fell in so happily to the occasion
+that he at once raised his cane in answer, and had soon ensconced
+himself in the London gondola.
+
+“Where to, sir?” asked the driver.
+
+“Where you please,” said Brackenbury.
+
+And immediately, at a pace of surprising swiftness, the hansom drove
+off through the rain into a maze of villas. One villa was so like
+another, each with its front garden, and there was so little to
+distinguish the deserted lamp-lit streets and crescents through which
+the flying hansom took its way, that Brackenbury soon lost all idea of
+direction.
+
+He would have been tempted to believe that the cabman was amusing
+himself by driving him round and round and in and out about a small
+quarter, but there was something business-like in the speed which
+convinced him of the contrary. The man had an object in view, he was
+hastening towards a definite end; and Brackenbury was at once
+astonished at the fellow’s skill in picking a way through such a
+labyrinth, and a little concerned to imagine what was the occasion of
+his hurry. He had heard tales of strangers falling ill in London. Did
+the driver belong to some bloody and treacherous association? and was
+he himself being whirled to a murderous death?
+
+The thought had scarcely presented itself, when the cab swung sharply
+round a corner and pulled up before the garden gate of a villa in a
+long and wide road. The house was brilliantly lighted up. Another
+hansom had just driven away, and Brackenbury could see a gentleman
+being admitted at the front door and received by several liveried
+servants. He was surprised that the cabman should have stopped so
+immediately in front of a house where a reception was being held; but
+he did not doubt it was the result of accident, and sat placidly
+smoking where he was, until he heard the trap thrown open over his
+head.
+
+“Here we are, sir,” said the driver.
+
+“Here!” repeated Brackenbury. “Where?”
+
+“You told me to take you where I pleased, sir,” returned the man with a
+chuckle, “and here we are.”
+
+It struck Brackenbury that the voice was wonderfully smooth and
+courteous for a man in so inferior a position; he remembered the speed
+at which he had been driven; and now it occurred to him that the hansom
+was more luxuriously appointed than the common run of public
+conveyances.
+
+“I must ask you to explain,” said he. “Do you mean to turn me out into
+the rain? My good man, I suspect the choice is mine.”
+
+“The choice is certainly yours,” replied the driver; “but when I tell
+you all, I believe I know how a gentleman of your figure will decide.
+There is a gentlemen’s party in this house. I do not know whether the
+master be a stranger to London and without acquaintances of his own; or
+whether he is a man of odd notions. But certainly I was hired to kidnap
+single gentlemen in evening dress, as many as I pleased, but military
+officers by preference. You have simply to go in and say that Mr.
+Morris invited you.”
+
+“Are you Mr. Morris?” inquired the Lieutenant.
+
+“Oh, no,” replied the cabman. “Mr. Morris is the person of the house.”
+
+“It is not a common way of collecting guests,” said Brackenbury: “but
+an eccentric man might very well indulge the whim without any intention
+to offend. And suppose that I refuse Mr. Morris’s invitation,” he went
+on, “what then?”
+
+“My orders are to drive you back where I took you from,” replied the
+man, “and set out to look for others up to midnight. Those who have no
+fancy for such an adventure, Mr. Morris said, were not the guests for
+him.”
+
+These words decided the Lieutenant on the spot.
+
+“After all,” he reflected, as he descended from the hansom, “I have not
+had long to wait for my adventure.”
+
+He had hardly found footing on the side-walk, and was still feeling in
+his pocket for the fare, when the cab swung about and drove off by the
+way it came at the former break-neck velocity. Brackenbury shouted
+after the man, who paid no heed, and continued to drive away; but the
+sound of his voice was overheard in the house, the door was again
+thrown open, emitting a flood of light upon the garden, and a servant
+ran down to meet him holding an umbrella.
+
+“The cabman has been paid,” observed the servant in a very civil tone;
+and he proceeded to escort Brackenbury along the path and up the steps.
+In the hall several other attendants relieved him of his hat, cane, and
+paletot, gave him a ticket with a number in return, and politely
+hurried him up a stair adorned with tropical flowers, to the door of an
+apartment on the first storey. Here a grave butler inquired his name,
+and announcing “Lieutenant Brackenbury Rich,” ushered him into the
+drawing-room of the house.
+
+A young man, slender and singularly handsome, came forward and greeted
+him with an air at once courtly and affectionate. Hundreds of candles,
+of the finest wax, lit up a room that was perfumed, like the staircase,
+with a profusion of rare and beautiful flowering shrubs. A side-table
+was loaded with tempting viands. Several servants went to and fro with
+fruits and goblets of champagne. The company was perhaps sixteen in
+number, all men, few beyond the prime of life, and with hardly an
+exception, of a dashing and capable exterior. They were divided into
+two groups, one about a roulette board, and the other surrounding a
+table at which one of their number held a bank of baccarat.
+
+“I see,” thought Brackenbury, “I am in a private gambling saloon, and
+the cabman was a tout.”
+
+His eye had embraced the details, and his mind formed the conclusion,
+while his host was still holding him by the hand; and to him his looks
+returned from this rapid survey. At a second view Mr. Morris surprised
+him still more than on the first. The easy elegance of his manners, the
+distinction, amiability, and courage that appeared upon his features,
+fitted very ill with the Lieutenant’s preconceptions on the subject of
+the proprietor of a hell; and the tone of his conversation seemed to
+mark him out for a man of position and merit. Brackenbury found he had
+an instinctive liking for his entertainer; and though he chid himself
+for the weakness, he was unable to resist a sort of friendly attraction
+for Mr. Morris’s person and character.
+
+“I have heard of you, Lieutenant Rich,” said Mr. Morris, lowering his
+tone; “and believe me I am gratified to make your acquaintance. Your
+looks accord with the reputation that has preceded you from India. And
+if you will forget for a while the irregularity of your presentation in
+my house, I shall feel it not only an honour, but a genuine pleasure
+besides. A man who makes a mouthful of barbarian cavaliers,” he added
+with a laugh, “should not be appalled by a breach of etiquette, however
+serious.”
+
+And he led him towards the sideboard and pressed him to partake of some
+refreshment.
+
+“Upon my word,” the Lieutenant reflected, “this is one of the
+pleasantest fellows and, I do not doubt, one of the most agreeable
+societies in London.”
+
+He partook of some champagne, which he found excellent; and observing
+that many of the company were already smoking, he lit one of his own
+Manillas, and strolled up to the roulette board, where he sometimes
+made a stake and sometimes looked on smilingly on the fortune of
+others. It was while he was thus idling that he became aware of a sharp
+scrutiny to which the whole of the guests were subjected. Mr. Morris
+went here and there, ostensibly busied on hospitable concerns; but he
+had ever a shrewd glance at disposal; not a man of the party escaped
+his sudden, searching looks; he took stock of the bearing of heavy
+losers, he valued the amount of the stakes, he paused behind couples
+who were deep in conversation; and, in a word, there was hardly a
+characteristic of any one present but he seemed to catch and make a
+note of it. Brackenbury began to wonder if this were indeed a gambling
+hell: it had so much the air of a private inquisition. He followed Mr.
+Morris in all his movements; and although the man had a ready smile, he
+seemed to perceive, as it were under a mask, a haggard, careworn, and
+preoccupied spirit. The fellows around him laughed and made their game;
+but Brackenbury had lost interest in the guests.
+
+“This Morris,” thought he, “is no idler in the room. Some deep purpose
+inspires him; let it be mine to fathom it.”
+
+Now and then Mr. Morris would call one of his visitors aside; and after
+a brief colloquy in an ante-room, he would return alone, and the
+visitors in question reappeared no more. After a certain number of
+repetitions, this performance excited Brackenbury’s curiosity to a high
+degree. He determined to be at the bottom of this minor mystery at
+once; and strolling into the ante-room, found a deep window recess
+concealed by curtains of the fashionable green. Here he hurriedly
+ensconced himself; nor had he to wait long before the sound of steps
+and voices drew near him from the principal apartment. Peering through
+the division, he saw Mr. Morris escorting a fat and ruddy personage,
+with somewhat the look of a commercial traveller, whom Brackenbury had
+already remarked for his coarse laugh and under-bred behaviour at the
+table. The pair halted immediately before the window, so that
+Brackenbury lost not a word of the following discourse:—
+
+“I beg you a thousand pardons!” began Mr. Morris, with the most
+conciliatory manner; “and, if I appear rude, I am sure you will readily
+forgive me. In a place so great as London accidents must continually
+happen; and the best that we can hope is to remedy them with as small
+delay as possible. I will not deny that I fear you have made a mistake
+and honoured my poor house by inadvertence; for, to speak openly, I
+cannot at all remember your appearance. Let me put the question without
+unnecessary circumlocution—between gentlemen of honour a word will
+suffice—Under whose roof do you suppose yourself to be?”
+
+“That of Mr. Morris,” replied the other, with a prodigious display of
+confusion, which had been visibly growing upon him throughout the last
+few words.
+
+“Mr. John or Mr. James Morris?” inquired the host.
+
+“I really cannot tell you,” returned the unfortunate guest. “I am not
+personally acquainted with the gentleman, any more than I am with
+yourself.”
+
+“I see,” said Mr. Morris. “There is another person of the same name
+farther down the street; and I have no doubt the policeman will be able
+to supply you with his number. Believe me, I felicitate myself on the
+misunderstanding which has procured me the pleasure of your company for
+so long; and let me express a hope that we may meet again upon a more
+regular footing. Meantime, I would not for the world detain you longer
+from your friends. John,” he added, raising his voice, “will you see
+that this gentleman finds his great-coat?”
+
+And with the most agreeable air Mr. Morris escorted his visitor as far
+as the ante-room door, where he left him under conduct of the butler.
+As he passed the window, on his return to the drawing-room, Brackenbury
+could hear him utter a profound sigh, as though his mind was loaded
+with a great anxiety, and his nerves already fatigued with the task on
+which he was engaged.
+
+For perhaps an hour the hansoms kept arriving with such frequency, that
+Mr. Morris had to receive a new guest for every old one that he sent
+away, and the company preserved its number undiminished. But towards
+the end of that time the arrivals grew few and far between, and at
+length ceased entirely, while the process of elimination was continued
+with unimpaired activity. The drawing-room began to look empty: the
+baccarat was discontinued for lack of a banker; more than one person
+said good-night of his own accord, and was suffered to depart without
+expostulation; and in the meanwhile Mr. Morris redoubled in agreeable
+attentions to those who stayed behind. He went from group to group and
+from person to person with looks of the readiest sympathy and the most
+pertinent and pleasing talk; he was not so much like a host as like a
+hostess, and there was a feminine coquetry and condescension in his
+manner which charmed the hearts of all.
+
+As the guests grew thinner, Lieutenant Rich strolled for a moment out
+of the drawing-room into the hall in quest of fresher air. But he had
+no sooner passed the threshold of the ante-chamber than he was brought
+to a dead halt by a discovery of the most surprising nature. The
+flowering shrubs had disappeared from the staircase; three large
+furniture waggons stood before the garden gate; the servants were busy
+dismantling the house upon all sides; and some of them had already
+donned their great-coats and were preparing to depart. It was like the
+end of a country ball, where everything has been supplied by contract.
+Brackenbury had indeed some matter for reflection. First, the guests,
+who were no real guests after all, had been dismissed; and now the
+servants, who could hardly be genuine servants, were actively
+dispersing.
+
+‘“Was the whole establishment a sham?” he asked himself. “The mushroom
+of a single night which should disappear before morning?”
+
+Watching a favourable opportunity, Brackenbury dashed upstairs to the
+highest regions of the house. It was as he had expected. He ran from
+room to room, and saw not a stick of furniture nor so much as a picture
+on the walls. Although the house had been painted and papered, it was
+not only uninhabited at present, but plainly had never been inhabited
+at all. The young officer remembered with astonishment its specious,
+settled, and hospitable air on his arrival. It was only at a prodigious
+cost that the imposture could have been carried out upon so great a
+scale.
+
+Who, then, was Mr. Morris? What was his intention in thus playing the
+householder for a single night in the remote west of London? And why
+did he collect his visitors at hazard from the streets?
+
+Brackenbury remembered that he had already delayed too long, and
+hastened to join the company. Many had left during his absence; and
+counting the Lieutenant and his host, there were not more than five
+persons in the drawing-room—recently so thronged. Mr. Morris greeted
+him, as he re-entered the apartment, with a smile, and immediately rose
+to his feet.
+
+“It is now time, gentlemen,” said he, “to explain my purpose in
+decoying you from your amusements. I trust you did not find the evening
+hang very dully on your hands; but my object, I will confess it, was
+not to entertain your leisure, but to help myself in an unfortunate
+necessity. You are all gentlemen,” he continued, “your appearance does
+you that much justice, and I ask for no better security. Hence, I speak
+it without concealment, I ask you to render me a dangerous and delicate
+service; dangerous because you may run the hazard of your lives, and
+delicate because I must ask an absolute discretion upon all that you
+shall see or hear. From an utter stranger the request is almost
+comically extravagant; I am well aware of this; and I would add at
+once, if there be any one present who has heard enough, if there be one
+among the party who recoils from a dangerous confidence and a piece of
+Quixotic devotion to he knows not whom—here is my hand ready, and I
+shall wish him good-night and God-speed with all the sincerity in the
+world.”
+
+A very tall, black man, with a heavy stoop, immediately responded to
+this appeal.
+
+“I commend your frankness, Sir,” said he; “and, for my part, I go. I
+make no reflections; but I cannot deny that you fill me with suspicious
+thoughts. I go myself, as I say; and perhaps you will think I have no
+right to add words to my example.”
+
+“On the contrary,” replied Mr. Morris, “I am obliged to you for all you
+say. It would be impossible to exaggerate the gravity of my proposal.”
+
+“Well, gentlemen, what do you say?” said the tall man, addressing the
+others. “We have had our evening’s frolic; shall we all go homeward
+peaceably in a body? You will think well of my suggestion in the
+morning, when you see the sun again in innocence and safety.”
+
+The speaker pronounced the last words with an intonation which added to
+their force; and his face wore a singular expression, full of gravity
+and significance. Another of the company rose hastily, and, with some
+appearance of alarm, prepared to take his leave. There were only two
+who held their ground, Brackenbury and an old red-nosed cavalry Major;
+but these two preserved a nonchalant demeanour, and, beyond a look of
+intelligence which they rapidly exchanged, appeared entirely foreign to
+the discussion that had just been terminated.
+
+Mr. Morris conducted the deserters as far as the door, which he closed
+upon their heels; then he turned round, disclosing a countenance of
+mingled relief and animation, and addressed the two officers as
+follows.
+
+“I have chosen my men like Joshua in the Bible,” said Mr. Morris, “and
+I now believe I have the pick of London. Your appearance pleased my
+hansom cabmen; then it delighted me; I have watched your behaviour in a
+strange company, and under the most unusual circumstances: I have
+studied how you played and how you bore your losses; lastly, I have put
+you to the test of a staggering announcement, and you received it like
+an invitation to dinner. It is not for nothing,” he cried, “that I have
+been for years the companion and the pupil of the bravest and wisest
+potentate in Europe.”
+
+“At the affair of Bunderchang,” observed the Major, “I asked for twelve
+volunteers, and every trooper in the ranks replied to my appeal. But a
+gaming party is not the same thing as a regiment under fire. You may be
+pleased, I suppose, to have found two, and two who will not fail you at
+a push. As for the pair who ran away, I count them among the most
+pitiful hounds I ever met with. Lieutenant Rich,” he added, addressing
+Brackenbury, “I have heard much of you of late; and I cannot doubt but
+you have also heard of me. I am Major O’Rooke.”
+
+And the veteran tendered his hand, which was red and tremulous, to the
+young Lieutenant.
+
+“Who has not?” answered Brackenbury.
+
+“When this little matter is settled,” said Mr. Morris, “you will think
+I have sufficiently rewarded you; for I could offer neither a more
+valuable service than to make him acquainted with the other.”
+
+“And now,” said Major O’Rooke, “is it a duel?”
+
+“A duel after a fashion,” replied Mr. Morris, “a duel with unknown and
+dangerous enemies, and, as I gravely fear, a duel to the death. I must
+ask you,” he continued, “to call me Morris no longer; call me, if you
+please, Hammersmith; my real name, as well as that of another person to
+whom I hope to present you before long, you will gratify me by not
+asking and not seeking to discover for yourselves. Three days ago the
+person of whom I speak disappeared suddenly from home; and, until this
+morning, I received no hint of his situation. You will fancy my alarm
+when I tell you that he is engaged upon a work of private justice.
+Bound by an unhappy oath, too lightly sworn, he finds it necessary,
+without the help of law, to rid the earth of an insidious and bloody
+villain. Already two of our friends, and one of them my own born
+brother, have perished in the enterprise. He himself, or I am much
+deceived, is taken in the same fatal toils. But at least he still lives
+and still hopes, as this billet sufficiently proves.”
+
+And the speaker, no other than Colonel Geraldine, proffered a letter,
+thus conceived:—
+
+“Major Hammersmith,—On Wednesday, at 3 A.M., you will be admitted by
+the small door to the gardens of Rochester House, Regent’s Park, by a
+man who is entirely in my interest. I must request you not to fail me
+by a second. Pray bring my case of swords, and, if you can find them,
+one or two gentlemen of conduct and discretion to whom my person is
+unknown. My name must not be used in this affair.
+
+
+T. Godall.”
+
+
+“From his wisdom alone, if he had no other title,” pursued Colonel
+Geraldine, when the others had each satisfied his curiosity, “my friend
+is a man whose directions should implicitly be followed. I need not
+tell you, therefore, that I have not so much as visited the
+neighbourhood of Rochester House; and that I am still as wholly in the
+dark as either of yourselves as to the nature of my friend’s dilemma. I
+betook myself, as soon as I had received this order, to a furnishing
+contractor, and, in a few hours, the house in which we now are had
+assumed its late air of festival. My scheme was at least original; and
+I am far from regretting an action which has procured me the services
+of Major O’Rooke and Lieutenant Brackenbury Rich. But the servants in
+the street will have a strange awakening. The house which this evening
+was full of lights and visitors they will find uninhabited and for sale
+to-morrow morning. Thus even the most serious concerns,” added the
+Colonel, “have a merry side.”
+
+“And let us add a merry ending,” said Brackenbury.
+
+The Colonel consulted his watch.
+
+“It is now hard on two,” he said. “We have an hour before us, and a
+swift cab is at the door. Tell me if I may count upon your help.”
+
+“During a long life,” replied Major O’Rooke, “I never took back my hand
+from anything, nor so much as hedged a bet.”
+
+Brackenbury signified his readiness in the most becoming terms; and
+after they had drunk a glass or two of wine, the Colonel gave each of
+them a loaded revolver, and the three mounted into the cab and drove
+off for the address in question.
+
+Rochester House was a magnificent residence on the banks of the canal.
+The large extent of the garden isolated it in an unusual degree from
+the annoyances of neighbourhood. It seemed the _parc aux cerfs_ of some
+great nobleman or millionaire. As far as could be seen from the street,
+there was not a glimmer of light in any of the numerous windows of the
+mansion; and the place had a look of neglect, as though the master had
+been long from home.
+
+The cab was discharged, and the three gentlemen were not long in
+discovering the small door, which was a sort of postern in a lane
+between two garden walls. It still wanted ten or fifteen minutes of the
+appointed time; the rain fell heavily, and the adventurers sheltered
+themselves below some pendant ivy, and spoke in low tones of the
+approaching trial.
+
+Suddenly Geraldine raised his finger to command silence, and all three
+bent their hearing to the utmost. Through the continuous noise of the
+rain, the steps and voices of two men became audible from the other
+side of the wall; and, as they drew nearer, Brackenbury, whose sense of
+hearing was remarkably acute, could even distinguish some fragments of
+their talk.
+
+“Is the grave dug?” asked one.
+
+“It is,” replied the other; “behind the laurel hedge. When the job is
+done, we can cover it with a pile of stakes.”
+
+The first speaker laughed, and the sound of his merriment was shocking
+to the listeners on the other side.
+
+“In an hour from now,” he said.
+
+And by the sound of the steps it was obvious that the pair had
+separated, and were proceeding in contrary directions.
+
+Almost immediately after the postern door was cautiously opened, a
+white face was protruded into the lane, and a hand was seen beckoning
+to the watchers. In dead silence the three passed the door, which was
+immediately locked behind them, and followed their guide through
+several garden alleys to the kitchen entrance of the house. A single
+candle burned in the great paved kitchen, which was destitute of the
+customary furniture; and as the party proceeded to ascend from thence
+by a flight of winding stairs, a prodigious noise of rats testified
+still more plainly to the dilapidation of the house.
+
+Their conductor preceded them, carrying the candle. He was a lean man,
+much bent, but still agile; and he turned from time to time and
+admonished silence and caution by his gestures. Colonel Geraldine
+followed on his heels, the case of swords under one arm, and a pistol
+ready in the other. Brackenbury’s heart beat thickly. He perceived that
+they were still in time; but he judged from the alacrity of the old man
+that the hour of action must be near at hand; and the circumstances of
+this adventure were so obscure and menacing, the place seemed so well
+chosen for the darkest acts, that an older man than Brackenbury might
+have been pardoned a measure of emotion as he closed the procession up
+the winding stair.
+
+At the top the guide threw open a door and ushered the three officers
+before him into a small apartment, lighted by a smoky lamp and the glow
+of a modest fire. At the chimney corner sat a man in the early prime of
+life, and of a stout but courtly and commanding appearance. His
+attitude and expression were those of the most unmoved composure; he
+was smoking a cheroot with much enjoyment and deliberation, and on a
+table by his elbow stood a long glass of some effervescing beverage
+which diffused an agreeable odour through the room.
+
+“Welcome,” said he, extending his hand to Colonel Geraldine. “I knew I
+might count on your exactitude.”
+
+“On my devotion,” replied the Colonel, with a bow.
+
+“Present me to your friends,” continued the first; and, when that
+ceremony had been performed, “I wish, gentlemen,” he added, with the
+most exquisite affability, “that I could offer you a more cheerful
+programme; it is ungracious to inaugurate an acquaintance upon serious
+affairs; but the compulsion of events is stronger than the obligations
+of good-fellowship. I hope and believe you will be able to forgive me
+this unpleasant evening; and for men of your stamp it will be enough to
+know that you are conferring a considerable favour.”
+
+“Your Highness,” said the Major, “must pardon my bluntness. I am unable
+to hide what I know. For some time back I have suspected Major
+Hammersmith, but Mr. Godall is unmistakable. To seek two men in London
+unacquainted with Prince Florizel of Bohemia was to ask too much at
+Fortune’s hands.”
+
+“Prince Florizel!” cried Brackenbury in amazement.
+
+And he gazed with the deepest interest on the features of the
+celebrated personage before him.
+
+“I shall not lament the loss of my incognito,” remarked the Prince,
+“for it enables me to thank you with the more authority. You would have
+done as much for Mr. Godall, I feel sure, as for the Prince of Bohemia;
+but the latter can perhaps do more for you. The gain is mine,” he
+added, with a courteous gesture.
+
+And the next moment he was conversing with the two officers about the
+Indian army and the native troops, a subject on which, as on all
+others, he had a remarkable fund of information and the soundest views.
+
+There was something so striking in this man’s attitude at a moment of
+deadly peril that Brackenbury was overcome with respectful admiration;
+nor was he less sensible to the charm of his conversation or the
+surprising amenity of his address. Every gesture, every intonation, was
+not only noble in itself, but seemed to ennoble the fortunate mortal
+for whom it was intended; and Brackenbury confessed to himself with
+enthusiasm that this was a sovereign for whom a brave man might
+thankfully lay down his life.
+
+Many minutes had thus passed, when the person who had introduced them
+into the house, and who had sat ever since in a corner, and with his
+watch in his hand, arose and whispered a word into the Prince’s ear.
+
+“It is well, Dr. Noel,” replied Florizel, aloud; and then addressing
+the others, “You will excuse me, gentlemen,” he added, “if I have to
+leave you in the dark. The moment now approaches.”
+
+Dr. Noel extinguished the lamp. A faint, grey light, premonitory of the
+dawn, illuminated the window, but was not sufficient to illuminate the
+room; and when the Prince rose to his feet, it was impossible to
+distinguish his features or to make a guess at the nature of the
+emotion which obviously affected him as he spoke. He moved towards the
+door, and placed himself at one side of it in an attitude of the
+wariest attention.
+
+“You will have the kindness,” he said, “to maintain the strictest
+silence, and to conceal yourselves in the densest of the shadow.”
+
+The three officers and the physician hastened to obey, and for nearly
+ten minutes the only sound in Rochester House was occasioned by the
+excursions of the rats behind the woodwork. At the end of that period,
+a loud creak of a hinge broke in with surprising distinctness on the
+silence; and shortly after, the watchers could distinguish a slow and
+cautious tread approaching up the kitchen stair. At every second step
+the intruder seemed to pause and lend an ear, and during these
+intervals, which seemed of an incalculable duration, a profound
+disquiet possessed the spirit of the listeners. Dr. Noel, accustomed as
+he was to dangerous emotions, suffered an almost pitiful physical
+prostration; his breath whistled in his lungs, his teeth grated one
+upon another, and his joints cracked aloud as he nervously shifted his
+position.
+
+At last a hand was laid upon the door, and the bolt shot back with a
+slight report. There followed another pause, during which Brackenbury
+could see the Prince draw himself together noiselessly as if for some
+unusual exertion. Then the door opened, letting in a little more of the
+light of the morning; and the figure of a man appeared upon the
+threshold and stood motionless. He was tall, and carried a knife in his
+hand. Even in the twilight they could see his upper teeth bare and
+glistening, for his mouth was open like that of a hound about to leap.
+The man had evidently been over the head in water but a minute or two
+before; and even while he stood there the drops kept falling from his
+wet clothes and pattered on the floor.
+
+The next moment he crossed the threshold. There was a leap, a stifled
+cry, an instantaneous struggle; and before Colonel Geraldine could
+spring to his aid, the Prince held the man disarmed and helpless, by
+the shoulders.
+
+“Dr. Noel,” he said, “you will be so good as to re-light the lamp.”
+
+And relinquishing the charge of his prisoner to Geraldine and
+Brackenbury, he crossed the room and set his back against the
+chimney-piece. As soon as the lamp had kindled, the party beheld an
+unaccustomed sternness on the Prince’s features. It was no longer
+Florizel, the careless gentleman; it was the Prince of Bohemia, justly
+incensed and full of deadly purpose, who now raised his head and
+addressed the captive President of the Suicide Club.
+
+“President,” he said, “you have laid your last snare, and your own feet
+are taken in it. The day is beginning; it is your last morning. You
+have just swum the Regent’s Canal; it is your last bathe in this world.
+Your old accomplice, Dr. Noel, so far from betraying me, has delivered
+you into my hands for judgment. And the grave you had dug for me this
+afternoon shall serve, in God’s almighty providence, to hide your own
+just doom from the curiosity of mankind. Kneel and pray, sir, if you
+have a mind that way; for your time is short, and God is weary of your
+iniquities.”
+
+The President made no answer either by word or sign; but continued to
+hang his head and gaze sullenly on the floor, as though he were
+conscious of the Prince’s prolonged and unsparing regard.
+
+“Gentlemen,” continued Florizel, resuming the ordinary tone of his
+conversation, “this is a fellow who has long eluded me, but whom,
+thanks to Dr. Noel, I now have tightly by the heels. To tell the story
+of his misdeeds would occupy more time than we can now afford; but if
+the canal had contained nothing but the blood of his victims, I believe
+the wretch would have been no drier than you see him. Even in an affair
+of this sort I desire to preserve the forms of honour. But I make you
+the judges, gentlemen—this is more an execution than a duel and to give
+the rogue his choice of weapons would be to push too far a point of
+etiquette. I cannot afford to lose my life in such a business,” he
+continued, unlocking the case of swords; “and as a pistol-bullet
+travels so often on the wings of chance, and skill and courage may fall
+by the most trembling marksman, I have decided, and I feel sure you
+will approve my determination, to put this question to the touch of
+swords.”
+
+When Brackenbury and Major O’Rooke, to whom these remarks were
+particularly addressed, had each intimated his approval, “Quick, sir,”
+added Prince Florizel to the President, “choose a blade and do not keep
+me waiting; I have an impatience to be done with you for ever.”
+
+For the first time since he was captured and disarmed the President
+raised his head, and it was plain that he began instantly to pluck up
+courage.
+
+“Is it to be stand up?” he asked eagerly, “and between you and me?”
+
+“I mean so far to honour you,” replied the Prince.
+
+“Oh, come!” cried the President. “With a fair field, who knows how
+things may happen? I must add that I consider it handsome behaviour on
+your Highness’s part; and if the worst comes to the worst I shall die
+by one of the most gallant gentlemen in Europe.”
+
+And the President, liberated by those who had detained him, stepped up
+to the table and began, with minute attention, to select a sword. He
+was highly elated, and seemed to feel no doubt that he should issue
+victorious from the contest. The spectators grew alarmed in the face of
+so entire a confidence, and adjured Prince Florizel to reconsider his
+intention.
+
+“It is but a farce,” he answered; “and I think I can promise you,
+gentlemen, that it will not be long a-playing.”
+
+“Your Highness will be careful not to over-reach,” said Colonel
+Geraldine.
+
+“Geraldine,” returned the Prince, “did you ever know me fail in a debt
+of honour? I owe you this man’s death, and you shall have it.”
+
+The President at last satisfied himself with one of the rapiers, and
+signified his readiness by a gesture that was not devoid of a rude
+nobility. The nearness of peril, and the sense of courage, even to this
+obnoxious villain, lent an air of manhood and a certain grace.
+
+The Prince helped himself at random to a sword.
+
+“Colonel Geraldine and Doctor Noel,” he said, “will have the goodness
+to await me in this room. I wish no personal friend of mine to be
+involved in this transaction. Major O’Rooke, you are a man of some
+years and a settled reputation—let me recommend the President to your
+good graces. Lieutenant Rich will be so good as lend me his attentions:
+a young man cannot have too much experience in such affairs.”
+
+“Your Highness,” replied Brackenbury, “it is an honour I shall prize
+extremely.”
+
+“It is well,” returned Prince Florizel; “I shall hope to stand your
+friend in more important circumstances.”
+
+And so saying he led the way out of the apartment and down the kitchen
+stairs.
+
+The two men who were thus left alone threw open the window and leaned
+out, straining every sense to catch an indication of the tragical
+events that were about to follow. The rain was now over; day had almost
+come, and the birds were piping in the shrubbery and on the forest
+trees of the garden. The Prince and his companions were visible for a
+moment as they followed an alley between two flowering thickets; but at
+the first corner a clump of foliage intervened, and they were again
+concealed from view. This was all that the Colonel and the Physician
+had an opportunity to see, and the garden was so vast, and the place of
+combat evidently so remote from the house, that not even the noise of
+sword-play reached their ears.
+
+“He has taken him towards the grave,” said Dr. Noel, with a shudder.
+
+“God,” cried the Colonel, “God defend the right!”
+
+And they awaited the event in silence, the Doctor shaking with fear,
+the Colonel in an agony of sweat. Many minutes must have elapsed, the
+day was sensibly broader, and the birds were singing more heartily in
+the garden before a sound of returning footsteps recalled their glances
+towards the door. It was the Prince and the two Indian officers who
+entered. God had defended the right.
+
+“I am ashamed of my emotion,” said Prince Florizel; “I feel it is a
+weakness unworthy of my station, but the continued existence of that
+hound of hell had begun to prey upon me like a disease, and his death
+has more refreshed me than a night of slumber. Look, Geraldine,” he
+continued, throwing his sword upon the floor, “there is the blood of
+the man who killed your brother. It should be a welcome sight. And
+yet,” he added, “see how strangely we men are made! my revenge is not
+yet five minutes old, and already I am beginning to ask myself if even
+revenge be attainable on this precarious stage of life. The ill he did,
+who can undo it? The career in which he amassed a huge fortune (for the
+house itself in which we stand belonged to him)—that career is now a
+part of the destiny of mankind for ever; and I might weary myself
+making thrusts in carte until the crack of judgment, and Geraldine’s
+brother would be none the less dead, and a thousand other innocent
+persons would be none the less dishonoured and debauched! The existence
+of a man is so small a thing to take, so mighty a thing to employ!
+Alas!” he cried, “is there anything in life so disenchanting as
+attainment?”
+
+“God’s justice has been done,” replied the Doctor. “So much I behold.
+The lesson, your Highness, has been a cruel one for me; and I await my
+own turn with deadly apprehension.”
+
+“What was I saying?” cried the Prince. “I have punished, and here is
+the man beside us who can help me to undo. Ah, Dr. Noel! you and I have
+before us many a day of hard and honourable toil; and perhaps, before
+we have none, you may have more than redeemed your early errors.”
+
+“And in the meantime,” said the Doctor, “let me go and bury my oldest
+friend.”
+
+
+(_And this_, observes the erudite Arabian, _is the fortunate conclusion
+of the tale_. _The Prince_, _it is superfluous to mention_, _forgot
+none of those who served him in this great exploit_; _and to this day
+his authority and influence help them forward in their public career_,
+_while his condescending friendship adds a charm to their private
+life_. _To collect_, continues my author, _all the strange events in
+which this Prince has played the part of Providence were to fill the
+habitable globe with books_. _But the stories which relate to the
+fortunes of_ The Rajah’s Diamond _are of too entertaining a
+description_, says he, _to be omitted_. _Following prudently in the
+footsteps of this Oriental_, _we shall now begin the series to which he
+refers with the_ Story of the Bandbox.)
+
+
+
+
+THE RAJAH’S DIAMOND
+
+
+
+
+STORY OF THE BANDBOX
+
+
+Up to the age of sixteen, at a private school and afterwards at one of
+those great institutions for which England is justly famous, Mr. Harry
+Hartley had received the ordinary education of a gentleman. At that
+period, he manifested a remarkable distaste for study; and his only
+surviving parent being both weak and ignorant, he was permitted
+thenceforward to spend his time in the attainment of petty and purely
+elegant accomplishments. Two years later, he was left an orphan and
+almost a beggar. For all active and industrious pursuits, Harry was
+unfitted alike by nature and training. He could sing romantic ditties,
+and accompany himself with discretion on the piano; he was a graceful
+although a timid cavalier; he had a pronounced taste for chess; and
+nature had sent him into the world with one of the most engaging
+exteriors that can well be fancied. Blond and pink, with dove’s eyes
+and a gentle smile, he had an air of agreeable tenderness and
+melancholy, and the most submissive and caressing manners. But when all
+is said, he was not the man to lead armaments of war, or direct the
+councils of a State.
+
+A fortunate chance and some influence obtained for Harry, at the time
+of his bereavement, the position of private secretary to Major-General
+Sir Thomas Vandeleur, C.B. Sir Thomas was a man of sixty, loud-spoken,
+boisterous, and domineering. For some reason, some service the nature
+of which had been often whispered and repeatedly denied, the Rajah of
+Kashgar had presented this officer with the sixth known diamond of the
+world. The gift transformed General Vandeleur from a poor into a
+wealthy man, from an obscure and unpopular soldier into one of the
+lions of London society; the possessor of the Rajah’s Diamond was
+welcome in the most exclusive circles; and he had found a lady, young,
+beautiful, and well-born, who was willing to call the diamond hers even
+at the price of marriage with Sir Thomas Vandeleur. It was commonly
+said at the time that, as like draws to like, one jewel had attracted
+another; certainly Lady Vandeleur was not only a gem of the finest
+water in her own person, but she showed herself to the world in a very
+costly setting; and she was considered by many respectable authorities,
+as one among the three or four best dressed women in England.
+
+Harry’s duty as secretary was not particularly onerous; but he had a
+dislike for all prolonged work; it gave him pain to ink his fingers;
+and the charms of Lady Vandeleur and her toilettes drew him often from
+the library to the boudoir. He had the prettiest ways among women,
+could talk fashions with enjoyment, and was never more happy than when
+criticising a shade of ribbon, or running on an errand to the
+milliner’s. In short, Sir Thomas’s correspondence fell into pitiful
+arrears, and my Lady had another lady’s maid.
+
+At last the General, who was one of the least patient of military
+commanders, arose from his place in a violent access of passion, and
+indicated to his secretary that he had no further need for his
+services, with one of those explanatory gestures which are most rarely
+employed between gentlemen. The door being unfortunately open, Mr.
+Hartley fell downstairs head foremost.
+
+He arose somewhat hurt and very deeply aggrieved. The life in the
+General’s house precisely suited him; he moved, on a more or less
+doubtful footing, in very genteel company, he did little, he ate of the
+best, and he had a lukewarm satisfaction in the presence of Lady
+Vandeleur, which, in his own heart, he dubbed by a more emphatic name.
+
+Immediately after he had been outraged by the military foot, he hurried
+to the boudoir and recounted his sorrows.
+
+“You know very well, my dear Harry,” replied Lady Vandeleur, for she
+called him by name like a child or a domestic servant, “that you never
+by any chance do what the General tells you. No more do I, you may say.
+But that is different. A woman can earn her pardon for a good year of
+disobedience by a single adroit submission; and, besides, no one is
+married to his private secretary. I shall be sorry to lose you; but
+since you cannot stay longer in a house where you have been insulted, I
+shall wish you good-bye, and I promise you to make the General smart
+for his behaviour.”
+
+Harry’s countenance fell; tears came into his eyes, and he gazed on
+Lady Vandeleur with a tender reproach.
+
+“My Lady,” said he, “what is an insult? I should think little indeed of
+any one who could not forgive them by the score. But to leave one’s
+friends; to tear up the bonds of affection—”
+
+He was unable to continue, for his emotion choked him, and he began to
+weep.
+
+Lady Vandeleur looked at him with a curious expression. “This little
+fool,” she thought, “imagines himself to be in love with me. Why should
+he not become my servant instead of the General’s? He is good-natured,
+obliging, and understands dress; and besides it will keep him out of
+mischief. He is positively too pretty to be unattached.” That night she
+talked over the General, who was already somewhat ashamed of his
+vivacity; and Harry was transferred to the feminine department, where
+his life was little short of heavenly. He was always dressed with
+uncommon nicety, wore delicate flowers in his button-hole, and could
+entertain a visitor with tact and pleasantry. He took a pride in
+servility to a beautiful woman; received Lady Vandeleur’s commands as
+so many marks of favour; and was pleased to exhibit himself before
+other men, who derided and despised him, in his character of male
+lady’s-maid and man milliner. Nor could he think enough of his
+existence from a moral point of view. Wickedness seemed to him an
+essentially male attribute, and to pass one’s days with a delicate
+woman, and principally occupied about trimmings, was to inhabit an
+enchanted isle among the storms of life.
+
+One fine morning he came into the drawing-room and began to arrange
+some music on the top of the piano. Lady Vandeleur, at the other end of
+the apartment, was speaking somewhat eagerly with her brother, Charlie
+Pendragon, an elderly young man, much broken with dissipation, and very
+lame of one foot. The private secretary, to whose entrance they paid no
+regard, could not avoid overhearing a part of their conversation.
+
+“To-day or never,” said the lady. “Once and for all, it shall be done
+to-day.”
+
+“To-day, if it must be,” replied the brother, with a sigh. “But it is a
+false step, a ruinous step, Clara; and we shall live to repent it
+dismally.”
+
+Lady Vandeleur looked her brother steadily and somewhat strangely in
+the face.
+
+“You forget,” she said; “the man must die at last.”
+
+“Upon my word, Clara,” said Pendragon, “I believe you are the most
+heartless rascal in England.”
+
+“You men,” she returned, “are so coarsely built, that you can never
+appreciate a shade of meaning. You are yourselves rapacious, violent,
+immodest, careless of distinction; and yet the least thought for the
+future shocks you in a woman. I have no patience with such stuff. You
+would despise in a common banker the imbecility that you expect to find
+in us.”
+
+“You are very likely right,” replied her brother; “you were always
+cleverer than I. And, anyway, you know my motto: The family before
+all.”
+
+“Yes, Charlie,” she returned, taking his hand in hers, “I know your
+motto better than you know it yourself. ‘And Clara before the family!’
+Is not that the second part of it? Indeed, you are the best of
+brothers, and I love you dearly.”
+
+Mr. Pendragon got up, looking a little confused by these family
+endearments.
+
+“I had better not be seen,” said he. “I understand my part to a
+miracle, and I’ll keep an eye on the Tame Cat.”
+
+“Do,” she replied. “He is an abject creature, and might ruin all.”
+
+She kissed the tips of her fingers to him daintily; and the brother
+withdrew by the boudoir and the back stair.
+
+“Harry,” said Lady Vandeleur, turning towards the secretary as soon as
+they were alone, “I have a commission for you this morning. But you
+shall take a cab; I cannot have my secretary freckled.”
+
+She spoke the last words with emphasis and a look of half-motherly
+pride that caused great contentment to poor Harry; and he professed
+himself charmed to find an opportunity of serving her.
+
+“It is another of our great secrets,” she went on archly, “and no one
+must know of it but my secretary and me. Sir Thomas would make the
+saddest disturbance; and if you only knew how weary I am of these
+scenes! Oh, Harry, Harry, can you explain to me what makes you men so
+violent and unjust? But, indeed, I know you cannot; you are the only
+man in the world who knows nothing of these shameful passions; you are
+so good, Harry, and so kind; you, at least, can be a woman’s friend;
+and, do you know? I think you make the others more ugly by comparison.”
+
+“It is you,” said Harry gallantly, “who are so kind to me. You treat me
+like—”
+
+“Like a mother,” interposed Lady Vandeleur; “I try to be a mother to
+you. Or, at least,” she corrected herself with a smile, “almost a
+mother. I am afraid I am too young to be your mother really. Let us say
+a friend—a dear friend.”
+
+She paused long enough to let her words take effect in Harry’s
+sentimental quarters, but not long enough to allow him a reply.
+
+“But all this is beside our purpose,” she resumed. “You will find a
+bandbox in the left-hand side of the oak wardrobe; it is underneath the
+pink slip that I wore on Wednesday with my Mechlin. You will take it
+immediately to this address,” and she gave him a paper, “but do not, on
+any account, let it out of your hands until you have received a receipt
+written by myself. Do you understand? Answer, if you please—answer!
+This is extremely important, and I must ask you to pay some attention.”
+
+Harry pacified her by repeating her instructions perfectly; and she was
+just going to tell him more when General Vandeleur flung into the
+apartment, scarlet with anger, and holding a long and elaborate
+milliner’s bill in his hand.
+
+“Will you look at this, madam?” cried he. “Will you have the goodness
+to look at this document? I know well enough you married me for my
+money, and I hope I can make as great allowances as any other man in
+the service; but, as sure as God made me, I mean to put a period to
+this disreputable prodigality.”
+
+“Mr. Hartley,” said Lady Vandeleur, “I think you understand what you
+have to do. May I ask you to see to it at once?”
+
+“Stop,” said the General, addressing Harry, “one word before you go.”
+And then, turning again to Lady Vandeleur, “What is this precious
+fellow’s errand?” he demanded. “I trust him no further than I do
+yourself, let me tell you. If he had as much as the rudiments of
+honesty, he would scorn to stay in this house; and what he does for his
+wages is a mystery to all the world. What is his errand, madam? and why
+are you hurrying him away?”
+
+“I supposed you had something to say to me in private,” replied the
+lady.
+
+“You spoke about an errand,” insisted the General. “Do not attempt to
+deceive me in my present state of temper. You certainly spoke about an
+errand.”
+
+“If you insist on making your servants privy to our humiliating
+dissensions,” replied Lady Vandeleur, “perhaps I had better ask Mr.
+Hartley to sit down. No?” she continued; “then you may go, Mr. Hartley.
+I trust you may remember all that you have heard in this room; it may
+be useful to you.”
+
+Harry at once made his escape from the drawing-room; and as he ran
+upstairs he could hear the General’s voice upraised in declamation, and
+the thin tones of Lady Vandeleur planting icy repartees at every
+opening. How cordially he admired the wife! How skilfully she could
+evade an awkward question! with what secure effrontery she repeated her
+instructions under the very guns of the enemy! and on the other hand,
+how he detested the husband!
+
+There had been nothing unfamiliar in the morning’s events, for he was
+continually in the habit of serving Lady Vandeleur on secret missions,
+principally connected with millinery. There was a skeleton in the
+house, as he well knew. The bottomless extravagance and the unknown
+liabilities of the wife had long since swallowed her own fortune, and
+threatened day by day to engulph that of the husband. Once or twice in
+every year exposure and ruin seemed imminent, and Harry kept trotting
+round to all sorts of furnishers’ shops, telling small fibs, and paying
+small advances on the gross amount, until another term was tided over,
+and the lady and her faithful secretary breathed again. For Harry, in a
+double capacity, was heart and soul upon that side of the war: not only
+did he adore Lady Vandeleur and fear and dislike her husband, but he
+naturally sympathised with the love of finery, and his own single
+extravagance was at the tailor’s.
+
+He found the bandbox where it had been described, arranged his toilette
+with care, and left the house. The sun shone brightly; the distance he
+had to travel was considerable, and he remembered with dismay that the
+General’s sudden irruption had prevented Lady Vandeleur from giving him
+money for a cab. On this sultry day there was every chance that his
+complexion would suffer severely; and to walk through so much of London
+with a bandbox on his arm was a humiliation almost insupportable to a
+youth of his character. He paused, and took counsel with himself. The
+Vandeleurs lived in Eaton Place; his destination was near Notting Hill;
+plainly, he might cross the Park by keeping well in the open and
+avoiding populous alleys; and he thanked his stars when he reflected
+that it was still comparatively early in the day.
+
+Anxious to be rid of his incubus, he walked somewhat faster than his
+ordinary, and he was already some way through Kensington Gardens when,
+in a solitary spot among trees, he found himself confronted by the
+General.
+
+“I beg your pardon, Sir Thomas,” observed Harry, politely falling on
+one side; for the other stood directly in his path.
+
+“Where are you going, sir?” asked the General.
+
+“I am taking a little walk among the trees,” replied the lad.
+
+The General struck the bandbox with his cane.
+
+“With that thing?” he cried; “you lie, sir, and you know you lie!”
+
+“Indeed, Sir Thomas,” returned Harry, “I am not accustomed to be
+questioned in so high a key.”
+
+“You do not understand your position,” said the General. “You are my
+servant, and a servant of whom I have conceived the most serious
+suspicions. How do I know but that your box is full of teaspoons?”
+
+“It contains a silk hat belonging to a friend,” said Harry.
+
+“Very well,” replied General Vandeleur. “Then I want to see your
+friend’s silk hat. I have,” he added grimly, “a singular curiosity for
+hats; and I believe you know me to be somewhat positive.”
+
+“I beg your pardon, Sir Thomas, I am exceedingly grieved,” Harry
+apologised; “but indeed this is a private affair.”
+
+The General caught him roughly by the shoulder with one hand, while he
+raised his cane in the most menacing manner with the other. Harry gave
+himself up for lost; but at the same moment Heaven vouchsafed him an
+unexpected defender in the person of Charlie Pendragon, who now strode
+forward from behind the trees.
+
+“Come, come, General, hold your hand,” said he, “this is neither
+courteous nor manly.”
+
+“Aha!” cried the General, wheeling round upon his new antagonist, “Mr.
+Pendragon! And do you suppose, Mr. Pendragon, that because I have had
+the misfortune to marry your sister, I shall suffer myself to be dogged
+and thwarted by a discredited and bankrupt libertine like you? My
+acquaintance with Lady Vandeleur, sir, has taken away all my appetite
+for the other members of her family.”
+
+“And do you fancy, General Vandeleur,” retorted Charlie, “that because
+my sister has had the misfortune to marry you, she there and then
+forfeited her rights and privileges as a lady? I own, sir, that by that
+action she did as much as anybody could to derogate from her position;
+but to me she is still a Pendragon. I make it my business to protect
+her from ungentlemanly outrage, and if you were ten times her husband I
+would not permit her liberty to be restrained, nor her private
+messengers to be violently arrested.”
+
+“How is that, Mr. Hartley?” interrogated the General. “Mr. Pendragon is
+of my opinion, it appears. He too suspects that Lady Vandeleur has
+something to do with your friend’s silk hat.”
+
+Charlie saw that he had committed an unpardonable blunder, which he
+hastened to repair.
+
+“How, sir?” he cried; “I suspect, do you say? I suspect nothing. Only
+where I find strength abused and a man brutalising his inferiors, I
+take the liberty to interfere.”
+
+As he said these words he made a sign to Harry, which the latter was
+too dull or too much troubled to understand.
+
+“In what way am I to construe your attitude, sir?” demanded Vandeleur.
+
+“Why, sir, as you please,” returned Pendragon.
+
+The General once more raised his cane, and made a cut for Charlie’s
+head; but the latter, lame foot and all, evaded the blow with his
+umbrella, ran in, and immediately closed with his formidable adversary.
+
+“Run, Harry, run!” he cried; “run, you dolt!”
+
+Harry stood petrified for a moment, watching the two men sway together
+in this fierce embrace; then he turned and took to his heels. When he
+cast a glance over his shoulder he saw the General prostrate under
+Charlie’s knee, but still making desperate efforts to reverse the
+situation; and the Gardens seemed to have filled with people, who were
+running from all directions towards the scene of fight. This spectacle
+lent the secretary wings; and he did not relax his pace until he had
+gained the Bayswater road, and plunged at random into an unfrequented
+by-street.
+
+To see two gentlemen of his acquaintance thus brutally mauling each
+other was deeply shocking to Harry. He desired to forget the sight; he
+desired, above all, to put as great a distance as possible between
+himself and General Vandeleur; and in his eagerness for this he forgot
+everything about his destination, and hurried before him headlong and
+trembling. When he remembered that Lady Vandeleur was the wife of one
+and the sister of the other of these gladiators, his heart was touched
+with sympathy for a woman so distressingly misplaced in life. Even his
+own situation in the General’s household looked hardly so pleasing as
+usual in the light of these violent transactions.
+
+He had walked some little distance, busied with these meditations,
+before a slight collision with another passenger reminded him of the
+bandbox on his arm.
+
+“Heavens!” cried he, “where was my head? and whither have I wandered?”
+
+Thereupon he consulted the envelope which Lady Vandeleur had given him.
+The address was there, but without a name. Harry was simply directed to
+ask for “the gentleman who expected a parcel from Lady Vandeleur,” and
+if he were not at home to await his return. The gentleman, added the
+note, should present a receipt in the handwriting of the lady herself.
+All this seemed mightily mysterious, and Harry was above all astonished
+at the omission of the name and the formality of the receipt. He had
+thought little of this last when he heard it dropped in conversation;
+but reading it in cold blood, and taking it in connection with the
+other strange particulars, he became convinced that he was engaged in
+perilous affairs. For half a moment he had a doubt of Lady Vandeleur
+herself; for he found these obscure proceedings somewhat unworthy of so
+high a lady, and became more critical when her secrets were preserved
+against himself. But her empire over his spirit was too complete, he
+dismissed his suspicions, and blamed himself roundly for having so much
+as entertained them.
+
+In one thing, however, his duty and interest, his generosity and his
+terrors, coincided—to get rid of the bandbox with the greatest possible
+despatch.
+
+He accosted the first policeman and courteously inquired his way. It
+turned out that he was already not far from his destination, and a walk
+of a few minutes brought him to a small house in a lane, freshly
+painted, and kept with the most scrupulous attention. The knocker and
+bell-pull were highly polished; flowering pot-herbs garnished the sills
+of the different windows; and curtains of some rich material concealed
+the interior from the eyes of curious passengers. The place had an air
+of repose and secrecy; and Harry was so far caught with this spirit
+that he knocked with more than usual discretion, and was more than
+usually careful to remove all impurity from his boots.
+
+A servant-maid of some personal attractions immediately opened the
+door, and seemed to regard the secretary with no unkind eyes.
+
+“This is the parcel from Lady Vandeleur,” said Harry.
+
+“I know,” replied the maid, with a nod. “But the gentleman is from
+home. Will you leave it with me?”
+
+“I cannot,” answered Harry. “I am directed not to part with it but upon
+a certain condition, and I must ask you, I am afraid, to let me wait.”
+
+“Well,” said she, “I suppose I may let you wait. I am lonely enough, I
+can tell you, and you do not look as though you would eat a girl. But
+be sure and do not ask the gentleman’s name, for that I am not to tell
+you.”
+
+“Do you say so?” cried Harry. “Why, how strange! But indeed for some
+time back I walk among surprises. One question I think I may surely ask
+without indiscretion: Is he the master of this house?”
+
+“He is a lodger, and not eight days old at that,” returned the maid.
+“And now a question for a question: Do you know lady Vandeleur?”
+
+“I am her private secretary,” replied Harry with a glow of modest
+pride.
+
+“She is pretty, is she not?” pursued the servant.
+
+“Oh, beautiful!” cried Harry; “wonderfully lovely, and not less good
+and kind!”
+
+“You look kind enough yourself,” she retorted; “and I wager you are
+worth a dozen Lady Vandeleurs.”
+
+Harry was properly scandalised.
+
+“I!” he cried. “I am only a secretary!”
+
+“Do you mean that for me?” said the girl. “Because I am only a
+housemaid, if you please.” And then, relenting at the sight of Harry’s
+obvious confusion, “I know you mean nothing of the sort,” she added;
+“and I like your looks; but I think nothing of your Lady Vandeleur. Oh,
+these mistresses!” she cried. “To send out a real gentleman like
+you—with a bandbox—in broad day!”
+
+During this talk they had remained in their original positions—she on
+the doorstep, he on the side-walk, bareheaded for the sake of coolness,
+and with the bandbox on his arm. But upon this last speech Harry, who
+was unable to support such point-blank compliments to his appearance,
+nor the encouraging look with which they were accompanied, began to
+change his attitude, and glance from left to right in perturbation. In
+so doing he turned his face towards the lower end of the lane, and
+there, to his indescribable dismay, his eyes encountered those of
+General Vandeleur. The General, in a prodigious fluster of heat, hurry,
+and indignation, had been scouring the streets in chase of his
+brother-in-law; but so soon as he caught a glimpse of the delinquent
+secretary, his purpose changed, his anger flowed into a new channel,
+and he turned on his heel and came tearing up the lane with truculent
+gestures and vociferations.
+
+Harry made but one bolt of it into the house, driving the maid before
+him; and the door was slammed in his pursuer’s countenance.
+
+“Is there a bar? Will it lock?” asked Harry, while a salvo on the
+knocker made the house echo from wall to wall.
+
+“Why, what is wrong with you?” asked the maid. “Is it this old
+gentleman?”
+
+“If he gets hold of me,” whispered Harry, “I am as good as dead. He has
+been pursuing me all day, carries a sword-stick, and is an Indian
+military officer.”
+
+“These are fine manners,” cried the maid. “And what, if you please, may
+be his name?”
+
+“It is the General, my master,” answered Harry. “He is after this
+bandbox.”
+
+“Did not I tell you?” cried the maid in triumph. “I told you I thought
+worse than nothing of your Lady Vandeleur; and if you had an eye in
+your head you might see what she is for yourself. An ungrateful minx, I
+will be bound for that!”
+
+The General renewed his attack upon the knocker, and his passion
+growing with delay, began to kick and beat upon the panels of the door.
+
+“It is lucky,” observed the girl, “that I am alone in the house; your
+General may hammer until he is weary, and there is none to open for
+him. Follow me!”
+
+So saying she led Harry into the kitchen, where she made him sit down,
+and stood by him herself in an affectionate attitude, with a hand upon
+his shoulder. The din at the door, so far from abating, continued to
+increase in volume, and at each blow the unhappy secretary was shaken
+to the heart.
+
+“What is your name?” asked the girl.
+
+“Harry Hartley,” he replied.
+
+“Mine,” she went on, “is Prudence. Do you like it?”
+
+“Very much,” said Harry. “But hear for a moment how the General beats
+upon the door. He will certainly break it in, and then, in heaven’s
+name, what have I to look for but death?”
+
+“You put yourself very much about with no occasion,” answered Prudence.
+“Let your General knock, he will do no more than blister his hands. Do
+you think I would keep you here if I were not sure to save you? Oh, no,
+I am a good friend to those that please me! and we have a back door
+upon another lane. But,” she added, checking him, for he had got upon
+his feet immediately on this welcome news, “but I will not show where
+it is unless you kiss me. Will you, Harry?”
+
+“That I will,” he cried, remembering his gallantry, “not for your back
+door, but because you are good and pretty.”
+
+And he administered two or three cordial salutes, which were returned
+to him in kind.
+
+Then Prudence led him to the back gate, and put her hand upon the key.
+
+“Will you come and see me?” she asked.
+
+“I will indeed,” said Harry. “Do not I owe you my life?”
+
+“And now,” she added, opening the door, “run as hard as you can, for I
+shall let in the General.”
+
+Harry scarcely required this advice; fear had him by the forelock; and
+he addressed himself diligently to flight. A few steps, and he believed
+he would escape from his trials, and return to Lady Vandeleur in honour
+and safety. But these few steps had not been taken before he heard a
+man’s voice hailing him by name with many execrations, and, looking
+over his shoulder, he beheld Charlie Pendragon waving him with both
+arms to return. The shock of this new incident was so sudden and
+profound, and Harry was already worked into so high a state of nervous
+tension, that he could think of nothing better than to accelerate his
+pace, and continue running. He should certainly have remembered the
+scene in Kensington Gardens; he should certainly have concluded that,
+where the General was his enemy, Charlie Pendragon could be no other
+than a friend. But such was the fever and perturbation of his mind that
+he was struck by none of these considerations, and only continued to
+run the faster up the lane.
+
+Charlie, by the sound of his voice and the vile terms that he hurled
+after the secretary, was obviously beside himself with rage. He, too,
+ran his very best; but, try as he might, the physical advantages were
+not upon his side, and his outcries and the fall of his lame foot on
+the macadam began to fall farther and farther into the wake.
+
+Harry’s hopes began once more to arise. The lane was both steep and
+narrow, but it was exceedingly solitary, bordered on either hand by
+garden walls, overhung with foliage; and, for as far as the fugitive
+could see in front of him, there was neither a creature moving nor an
+open door. Providence, weary of persecution, was now offering him an
+open field for his escape.
+
+Alas! as he came abreast of a garden door under a tuft of chestnuts, it
+was suddenly drawn back, and he could see inside, upon a garden path,
+the figure of a butcher’s boy with his tray upon his arm. He had hardly
+recognised the fact before he was some steps beyond upon the other
+side. But the fellow had had time to observe him; he was evidently much
+surprised to see a gentleman go by at so unusual a pace; and he came
+out into the lane and began to call after Harry with shouts of ironical
+encouragement.
+
+His appearance gave a new idea to Charlie Pendragon, who, although he
+was now sadly out of breath, once more upraised his voice.
+
+“Stop, thief!” he cried.
+
+And immediately the butcher’s boy had taken up the cry and joined in
+the pursuit.
+
+This was a bitter moment for the hunted secretary. It is true that his
+terror enabled him once more to improve his pace, and gain with every
+step on his pursuers; but he was well aware that he was near the end of
+his resources, and should he meet any one coming the other way, his
+predicament in the narrow lane would be desperate indeed.
+
+“I must find a place of concealment,” he thought, “and that within the
+next few seconds, or all is over with me in this world.”
+
+Scarcely had the thought crossed his mind than the lane took a sudden
+turning; and he found himself hidden from his enemies. There are
+circumstances in which even the least energetic of mankind learn to
+behave with vigour and decision; and the most cautious forget their
+prudence and embrace foolhardy resolutions. This was one of those
+occasions for Harry Hartley; and those who knew him best would have
+been the most astonished at the lad’s audacity. He stopped dead, flung
+the bandbox over a garden wall, and leaping upward with incredible
+agility and seizing the copestone with his hands, he tumbled headlong
+after it into the garden.
+
+He came to himself a moment afterwards, seated in a border of small
+rosebushes. His hands and knees were cut and bleeding, for the wall had
+been protected against such an escalade by a liberal provision of old
+bottles; and he was conscious of a general dislocation and a painful
+swimming in the head. Facing him across the garden, which was in
+admirable order, and set with flowers of the most delicious perfume, he
+beheld the back of a house. It was of considerable extent, and plainly
+habitable; but, in odd contrast to the grounds, it was crazy, ill-kept,
+and of a mean appearance. On all other sides the circuit of the garden
+wall appeared unbroken.
+
+He took in these features of the scene with mechanical glances, but his
+mind was still unable to piece together or draw a rational conclusion
+from what he saw. And when he heard footsteps advancing on the gravel,
+although he turned his eyes in that direction, it was with no thought
+either for defence or flight.
+
+The new-comer was a large, coarse, and very sordid personage, in
+gardening clothes, and with a watering-pot in his left hand. One less
+confused would have been affected with some alarm at the sight of this
+man’s huge proportions and black and lowering eyes. But Harry was too
+gravely shaken by his fall to be so much as terrified; and if he was
+unable to divert his glances from the gardener, he remained absolutely
+passive, and suffered him to draw near, to take him by the shoulder,
+and to plant him roughly on his feet, without a motion of resistance.
+
+For a moment the two stared into each other’s eyes, Harry fascinated,
+the man filled with wrath and a cruel, sneering humour.
+
+“Who are you?” he demanded at last. “Who are you to come flying over my
+wall and break my _Gloire de Dijons_! What is your name?” he added,
+shaking him; “and what may be your business here?”
+
+Harry could not as much as proffer a word in explanation.
+
+But just at that moment Pendragon and the butcher’s boy went clumping
+past, and the sound of their feet and their hoarse cries echoed loudly
+in the narrow lane. The gardener had received his answer; and he looked
+down into Harry’s face with an obnoxious smile.
+
+“A thief!” he said. “Upon my word, and a very good thing you must make
+of it; for I see you dressed like a gentleman from top to toe. Are you
+not ashamed to go about the world in such a trim, with honest folk, I
+dare say, glad to buy your cast-off finery second hand? Speak up, you
+dog,” the man went on; “you can understand English, I suppose; and I
+mean to have a bit of talk with you before I march you to the station.”
+
+“Indeed, sir,” said Harry, “this is all a dreadful misconception; and
+if you will go with me to Sir Thomas Vandeleur’s in Eaton Place, I can
+promise that all will be made plain. The most upright person, as I now
+perceive, can be led into suspicious positions.”
+
+“My little man,” replied the gardener, “I will go with you no farther
+than the station-house in the next street. The inspector, no doubt,
+will be glad to take a stroll with you as far as Eaton Place, and have
+a bit of afternoon tea with your great acquaintances. Or would you
+prefer to go direct to the Home Secretary? Sir Thomas Vandeleur,
+indeed! Perhaps you think I don’t know a gentleman when I see one, from
+a common run-the-hedge like you? Clothes or no clothes, I can read you
+like a book. Here is a shirt that maybe cost as much as my Sunday hat;
+and that coat, I take it, has never seen the inside of Rag-fair, and
+then your boots—”
+
+The man, whose eyes had fallen upon the ground, stopped short in his
+insulting commentary, and remained for a moment looking intently upon
+something at his feet. When he spoke his voice was strangely altered.
+
+“What, in God’s name,” said he, “is all this?”
+
+Harry, following the direction of the man’s eyes, beheld a spectacle
+that struck him dumb with terror and amazement. In his fall he had
+descended vertically upon the bandbox and burst it open from end to
+end; thence a great treasure of diamonds had poured forth, and now lay
+abroad, part trodden in the soil, part scattered on the surface in
+regal and glittering profusion. There was a magnificent coronet which
+he had often admired on Lady Vandeleur; there were rings and brooches,
+ear-drops and bracelets, and even unset brilliants rolling here and
+there among the rosebushes like drops of morning dew. A princely
+fortune lay between the two men upon the ground—a fortune in the most
+inviting, solid, and durable form, capable of being carried in an
+apron, beautiful in itself, and scattering the sunlight in a million
+rainbow flashes.
+
+“Good God!” said Harry, “I am lost!”
+
+His mind raced backwards into the past with the incalculable velocity
+of thought, and he began to comprehend his day’s adventures, to
+conceive them as a whole, and to recognise the sad imbroglio in which
+his own character and fortunes had become involved. He looked round him
+as if for help, but he was alone in the garden, with his scattered
+diamonds and his redoubtable interlocutor; and when he gave ear, there
+was no sound but the rustle of the leaves and the hurried pulsation of
+his heart. It was little wonder if the young man felt himself deserted
+by his spirits, and with a broken voice repeated his last
+ejaculation—“I am lost!”
+
+The gardener peered in all directions with an air of guilt; but there
+was no face at any of the windows, and he seemed to breathe again.
+
+“Pick up a heart,” he said, “you fool! The worst of it is done. Why
+could you not say at first there was enough for two? Two?” he repeated,
+“aye, and for two hundred! But come away from here, where we may be
+observed; and, for the love of wisdom, straighten out your hat and
+brush your clothes. You could not travel two steps the figure of fun
+you look just now.”
+
+While Harry mechanically adopted these suggestions, the gardener,
+getting upon his knees, hastily drew together the scattered jewels and
+returned them to the bandbox. The touch of these costly crystals sent a
+shiver of emotion through the man’s stalwart frame; his face was
+transfigured, and his eyes shone with concupiscence; indeed it seemed
+as if he luxuriously prolonged his occupation, and dallied with every
+diamond that he handled. At last, however, it was done; and, concealing
+the bandbox in his smock, the gardener beckoned to Harry and preceded
+him in the direction of the house.
+
+Near the door they were met by a young man evidently in holy orders,
+dark and strikingly handsome, with a look of mingled weakness and
+resolution, and very neatly attired after the manner of his caste. The
+gardener was plainly annoyed by this encounter; but he put as good a
+face upon it as he could, and accosted the clergyman with an obsequious
+and smiling air.
+
+“Here is a fine afternoon, Mr. Rolles,” said he: “a fine afternoon, as
+sure as God made it! And here is a young friend of mine who had a fancy
+to look at my roses. I took the liberty to bring him in, for I thought
+none of the lodgers would object.”
+
+“Speaking for myself,” replied the Reverend Mr. Rolles, “I do not; nor
+do I fancy any of the rest of us would be more difficult upon so small
+a matter. The garden is your own, Mr. Raeburn; we must none of us
+forget that; and because you give us liberty to walk there we should be
+indeed ungracious if we so far presumed upon your politeness as to
+interfere with the convenience of your friends. But, on second
+thoughts,” he added, “I believe that this gentleman and I have met
+before. Mr. Hartley, I think. I regret to observe that you have had a
+fall.”
+
+And he offered his hand.
+
+A sort of maiden dignity and a desire to delay as long as possible the
+necessity for explanation moved Harry to refuse this chance of help,
+and to deny his own identity. He chose the tender mercies of the
+gardener, who was at least unknown to him, rather than the curiosity
+and perhaps the doubts of an acquaintance.
+
+“I fear there is some mistake,” said he. “My name is Thomlinson and I
+am a friend of Mr. Raeburn’s.”
+
+“Indeed?” said Mr. Rolles. “The likeness is amazing.”
+
+Mr. Raeburn, who had been upon thorns throughout this colloquy, now
+felt it high time to bring it to a period.
+
+“I wish you a pleasant saunter, sir,” said he.
+
+And with that he dragged Harry after him into the house, and then into
+a chamber on the garden. His first care was to draw down the blind, for
+Mr. Rolles still remained where they had left him, in an attitude of
+perplexity and thought. Then he emptied the broken bandbox on the
+table, and stood before the treasure, thus fully displayed, with an
+expression of rapturous greed, and rubbing his hands upon his thighs.
+For Harry, the sight of the man’s face under the influence of this base
+emotion, added another pang to those he was already suffering. It
+seemed incredible that, from his life of pure and delicate trifling, he
+should be plunged in a breath among sordid and criminal relations. He
+could reproach his conscience with no sinful act; and yet he was now
+suffering the punishment of sin in its most acute and cruel forms—the
+dread of punishment, the suspicions of the good, and the companionship
+and contamination of vile and brutal natures. He felt he could lay his
+life down with gladness to escape from the room and the society of Mr.
+Raeburn.
+
+“And now,” said the latter, after he had separated the jewels into two
+nearly equal parts, and drawn one of them nearer to himself; “and now,”
+said he, “everything in this world has to be paid for, and some things
+sweetly. You must know, Mr. Hartley, if such be your name, that I am a
+man of a very easy temper, and good nature has been my stumbling-block
+from first to last. I could pocket the whole of these pretty pebbles,
+if I chose, and I should like to see you dare to say a word; but I
+think I must have taken a liking to you; for I declare I have not the
+heart to shave you so close. So, do you see, in pure kind feeling, I
+propose that we divide; and these,” indicating the two heaps, “are the
+proportions that seem to me just and friendly. Do you see any
+objection, Mr. Hartley, may I ask? I am not the man to stick upon a
+brooch.”
+
+“But, sir,” cried Harry, “what you propose to me is impossible. The
+jewels are not mine, and I cannot share what is another’s, no matter
+with whom, nor in what proportions.”
+
+“They are not yours, are they not?” returned Raeburn. “And you could
+not share them with anybody, couldn’t you? Well now, that is what I
+call a pity; for here am I obliged to take you to the station. The
+police—think of that,” he continued; “think of the disgrace for your
+respectable parents; think,” he went on, taking Harry by the wrist;
+“think of the Colonies and the Day of Judgment.”
+
+“I cannot help it,” wailed Harry. “It is not my fault. You will not
+come with me to Eaton Place?”
+
+“No,” replied the man, “I will not, that is certain. And I mean to
+divide these playthings with you here.”
+
+And so saying he applied a sudden and severe torsion to the lad’s
+wrist.
+
+Harry could not suppress a scream, and the perspiration burst forth
+upon his face. Perhaps pain and terror quickened his intelligence, but
+certainly at that moment the whole business flashed across him in
+another light; and he saw that there was nothing for it but to accede
+to the ruffian’s proposal, and trust to find the house and force him to
+disgorge, under more favourable circumstances, and when he himself was
+clear from all suspicion.
+
+“I agree,” he said.
+
+“There is a lamb,” sneered the gardener. “I thought you would recognise
+your interests at last. This bandbox,” he continued, “I shall burn with
+my rubbish; it is a thing that curious folk might recognise; and as for
+you, scrape up your gaieties and put them in your pocket.”
+
+Harry proceeded to obey, Raeburn watching him, and every now and again
+his greed rekindled by some bright scintillation, abstracting another
+jewel from the secretary’s share, and adding it to his own.
+
+When this was finished, both proceeded to the front door, which Raeburn
+cautiously opened to observe the street. This was apparently clear of
+passengers; for he suddenly seized Harry by the nape of the neck, and
+holding his face downward so that he could see nothing but the roadway
+and the doorsteps of the houses, pushed him violently before him down
+one street and up another for the space of perhaps a minute and a half.
+Harry had counted three corners before the bully relaxed his grasp, and
+crying, “Now be off with you!” sent the lad flying head foremost with a
+well-directed and athletic kick.
+
+When Harry gathered himself up, half-stunned and bleeding freely at the
+nose, Mr. Raeburn had entirely disappeared. For the first time, anger
+and pain so completely overcame the lad’s spirits that he burst into a
+fit of tears and remained sobbing in the middle of the road.
+
+After he had thus somewhat assuaged his emotion, he began to look about
+him and read the names of the streets at whose intersection he had been
+deserted by the gardener. He was still in an unfrequented portion of
+West London, among villas and large gardens; but he could see some
+persons at a window who had evidently witnessed his misfortune; and
+almost immediately after a servant came running from the house and
+offered him a glass of water. At the same time, a dirty rogue, who had
+been slouching somewhere in the neighbourhood, drew near him from the
+other side.
+
+“Poor fellow,” said the maid, “how vilely you have been handled, to be
+sure! Why, your knees are all cut, and your clothes ruined! Do you know
+the wretch who used you so?”
+
+“That I do!” cried Harry, who was somewhat refreshed by the water; “and
+shall run him home in spite of his precautions. He shall pay dearly for
+this day’s work, I promise you.”
+
+“You had better come into the house and have yourself washed and
+brushed,” continued the maid. “My mistress will make you welcome, never
+fear. And see, I will pick up your hat. Why, love of mercy!” she
+screamed, “if you have not dropped diamonds all over the street!”
+
+Such was the case; a good half of what remained to him after the
+depredations of Mr. Raeburn, had been shaken out of his pockets by the
+summersault and once more lay glittering on the ground. He blessed his
+fortune that the maid had been so quick of eye; “there is nothing so
+bad but it might be worse,” thought he; and the recovery of these few
+seemed to him almost as great an affair as the loss of all the rest.
+But, alas! as he stooped to pick up his treasures, the loiterer made a
+rapid onslaught, overset both Harry and the maid with a movement of his
+arms, swept up a double handful of the diamonds, and made off along the
+street with an amazing swiftness.
+
+Harry, as soon as he could get upon his feet, gave chase to the
+miscreant with many cries, but the latter was too fleet of foot, and
+probably too well acquainted with the locality; for turn where the
+pursuer would he could find no traces of the fugitive.
+
+In the deepest despondency, Harry revisited the scene of his mishap,
+where the maid, who was still waiting, very honestly returned him his
+hat and the remainder of the fallen diamonds. Harry thanked her from
+his heart, and being now in no humour for economy, made his way to the
+nearest cab-stand and set off for Eaton Place by coach.
+
+The house, on his arrival, seemed in some confusion, as if a
+catastrophe had happened in the family; and the servants clustered
+together in the hall, and were unable, or perhaps not altogether
+anxious, to suppress their merriment at the tatterdemalion figure of
+the secretary. He passed them with as good an air of dignity as he
+could assume, and made directly for the boudoir. When he opened the
+door an astonishing and even menacing spectacle presented itself to his
+eyes; for he beheld the General and his wife and, of all people,
+Charlie Pendragon, closeted together and speaking with earnestness and
+gravity on some important subject. Harry saw at once that there was
+little left for him to explain—plenary confession had plainly been made
+to the General of the intended fraud upon his pocket, and the
+unfortunate miscarriage of the scheme; and they had all made common
+cause against a common danger.
+
+“Thank Heaven!” cried Lady Vandeleur, “here he is! The bandbox,
+Harry—the bandbox!”
+
+But Harry stood before them silent and downcast.
+
+“Speak!” she cried. “Speak! Where is the bandbox?”
+
+And the men, with threatening gestures, repeated the demand.
+
+Harry drew a handful of jewels from his pocket. He was very white.
+
+“This is all that remains,” said he. “I declare before Heaven it was
+through no fault of mine; and if you will have patience, although some
+are lost, I am afraid, for ever, others, I am sure, may be still
+recovered.”
+
+“Alas!” cried Lady Vandeleur, “all our diamonds are gone, and I owe
+ninety thousand pounds for dress!”
+
+“Madam,” said the General, “you might have paved the gutter with your
+own trash; you might have made debts to fifty times the sum you
+mention; you might have robbed me of my mother’s coronet and ring; and
+Nature might have still so far prevailed that I could have forgiven you
+at last. But, madam, you have taken the Rajah’s Diamond—the Eye of
+Light, as the Orientals poetically termed it—the Pride of Kashgar! You
+have taken from me the Rajah’s Diamond,” he cried, raising his hands,
+“and all, madam, all is at an end between us!”
+
+“Believe me, General Vandeleur,” she replied, “that is one of the most
+agreeable speeches that ever I heard from your lips; and since we are
+to be ruined, I could almost welcome the change, if it delivers me from
+you. You have told me often enough that I married you for your money;
+let me tell you now that I always bitterly repented the bargain; and if
+you were still marriageable, and had a diamond bigger than your head, I
+should counsel even my maid against a union so uninviting and
+disastrous. As for you, Mr. Hartley,” she continued, turning on the
+secretary, “you have sufficiently exhibited your valuable qualities in
+this house; we are now persuaded that you equally lack manhood, sense,
+and self-respect; and I can see only one course open for you—to
+withdraw instanter, and, if possible, return no more. For your wages
+you may rank as a creditor in my late husband’s bankruptcy.”
+
+Harry had scarcely comprehended this insulting address before the
+General was down upon him with another.
+
+“And in the meantime,” said that personage, “follow me before the
+nearest Inspector of Police. You may impose upon a simple-minded
+soldier, sir, but the eye of the law will read your disreputable
+secret. If I must spend my old age in poverty through your underhand
+intriguing with my wife, I mean at least that you shall not remain
+unpunished for your pains; and God, sir, will deny me a very
+considerable satisfaction if you do not pick oakum from now until your
+dying day.”
+
+With that, the General dragged Harry from the apartment, and hurried
+him downstairs and along the street to the police-station of the
+district.
+
+
+_Here_ (says my Arabian author) _ended this deplorable business of the
+bandbox_. _But to the unfortunate Secretary the whole affair was the
+beginning of a new and manlier life_. _The police were easily persuaded
+of his innocence_; _and_, _after he had given what help he could in the
+subsequent investigations_, _he was even complemented by one of the
+chiefs of the detective department on the probity and simplicity of his
+behaviour_. _Several persons interested themselves in one so
+unfortunate_; _and soon after he inherited a sum of money from a maiden
+aunt in Worcestershire_. _With this he married Prudence_, _and set sail
+for Bendigo_, _or according to another account_, _for Trincomalee_,
+_exceedingly content_, _and will the best of prospects_.
+
+
+
+
+STORY OF THE YOUNG MAN IN HOLY ORDERS
+
+
+The Reverend Mr. Simon Rolles had distinguished himself in the Moral
+Sciences, and was more than usually proficient in the study of
+Divinity. His essay “On the Christian Doctrine of the Social
+Obligations” obtained for him, at the moment of its production, a
+certain celebrity in the University of Oxford; and it was understood in
+clerical and learned circles that young Mr. Rolles had in contemplation
+a considerable work—a folio, it was said—on the authority of the
+Fathers of the Church. These attainments, these ambitious designs,
+however, were far from helping him to any preferment; and he was still
+in quest of his first curacy when a chance ramble in that part of
+London, the peaceful and rich aspect of the garden, a desire for
+solitude and study, and the cheapness of the lodging, led him to take
+up his abode with Mr. Raeburn, the nurseryman of Stockdove Lane.
+
+It was his habit every afternoon, after he had worked seven or eight
+hours on St. Ambrose or St. Chrysostom, to walk for a while in
+meditation among the roses. And this was usually one of the most
+productive moments of his day. But even a sincere appetite for thought,
+and the excitement of grave problems awaiting solution, are not always
+sufficient to preserve the mind of the philosopher against the petty
+shocks and contacts of the world. And when Mr. Rolles found General
+Vandeleur’s secretary, ragged and bleeding, in the company of his
+landlord; when he saw both change colour and seek to avoid his
+questions; and, above all, when the former denied his own identity with
+the most unmoved assurance, he speedily forgot the Saints and Fathers
+in the vulgar interest of curiosity.
+
+“I cannot be mistaken,” thought he. “That is Mr. Hartley beyond a
+doubt. How comes he in such a pickle? why does he deny his name? and
+what can be his business with that black-looking ruffian, my landlord?”
+
+As he was thus reflecting, another peculiar circumstance attracted his
+attention. The face of Mr. Raeburn appeared at a low window next the
+door; and, as chance directed, his eyes met those of Mr. Rolles. The
+nurseryman seemed disconcerted, and even alarmed; and immediately after
+the blind of the apartment was pulled sharply down.
+
+“This may all be very well,” reflected Mr. Rolles; “it may be all
+excellently well; but I confess freely that I do not think so.
+Suspicious, underhand, untruthful, fearful of observation—I believe
+upon my soul,” he thought, “the pair are plotting some disgraceful
+action.”
+
+The detective that there is in all of us awoke and became clamant in
+the bosom of Mr. Rolles; and with a brisk, eager step, that bore no
+resemblance to his usual gait, he proceeded to make the circuit of the
+garden. When he came to the scene of Harry’s escalade, his eye was at
+once arrested by a broken rosebush and marks of trampling on the mould.
+He looked up, and saw scratches on the brick, and a rag of trouser
+floating from a broken bottle. This, then, was the mode of entrance
+chosen by Mr. Raeburn’s particular friend! It was thus that General
+Vandeleur’s secretary came to admire a flower-garden! The young
+clergyman whistled softly to himself as he stooped to examine the
+ground. He could make out where Harry had landed from his perilous
+leap; he recognised the flat foot of Mr. Raeburn where it had sunk
+deeply in the soil as he pulled up the Secretary by the collar; nay, on
+a closer inspection, he seemed to distinguish the marks of groping
+fingers, as though something had been spilt abroad and eagerly
+collected.
+
+“Upon my word,” he thought, “the thing grows vastly interesting.”
+
+And just then he caught sight of something almost entirely buried in
+the earth. In an instant he had disinterred a dainty morocco case,
+ornamented and clasped in gilt. It had been trodden heavily underfoot,
+and thus escaped the hurried search of Mr. Raeburn. Mr. Rolles opened
+the case, and drew a long breath of almost horrified astonishment; for
+there lay before him, in a cradle of green velvet, a diamond of
+prodigious magnitude and of the finest water. It was of the bigness of
+a duck’s egg; beautifully shaped, and without a flaw; and as the sun
+shone upon it, it gave forth a lustre like that of electricity, and
+seemed to burn in his hand with a thousand internal fires.
+
+He knew little of precious stones; but the Rajah’s Diamond was a wonder
+that explained itself; a village child, if he found it, would run
+screaming for the nearest cottage; and a savage would prostrate himself
+in adoration before so imposing a fetish. The beauty of the stone
+flattered the young clergyman’s eyes; the thought of its incalculable
+value overpowered his intellect. He knew that what he held in his hand
+was worth more than many years’ purchase of an archiepiscopal see; that
+it would build cathedrals more stately than Ely or Cologne; that he who
+possessed it was set free for ever from the primal curse, and might
+follow his own inclinations without concern or hurry, without let or
+hindrance. And as he suddenly turned it, the rays leaped forth again
+with renewed brilliancy, and seemed to pierce his very heart.
+
+Decisive actions are often taken in a moment and without any conscious
+deliverance from the rational parts of man. So it was now with Mr.
+Rolles. He glanced hurriedly round; beheld, like Mr. Raeburn before
+him, nothing but the sunlit flower-garden, the tall tree-tops, and the
+house with blinded windows; and in a trice he had shut the case, thrust
+it into his pocket, and was hastening to his study with the speed of
+guilt.
+
+The Reverend Simon Rolles had stolen the Rajah’s Diamond.
+
+Early in the afternoon the police arrived with Harry Hartley. The
+nurseryman, who was beside himself with terror, readily discovered his
+hoard; and the jewels were identified and inventoried in the presence
+of the Secretary. As for Mr. Rolles, he showed himself in a most
+obliging temper, communicated what he knew with freedom, and professed
+regret that he could do no more to help the officers in their duty.
+
+“Still,” he added, “I suppose your business is nearly at an end.”
+
+“By no means,” replied the man from Scotland Yard; and he narrated the
+second robbery of which Harry had been the immediate victim, and gave
+the young clergyman a description of the more important jewels that
+were still not found, dilating particularly on the Rajah’s Diamond.
+
+“It must be worth a fortune,” observed Mr. Rolles.
+
+“Ten fortunes—twenty fortunes,” cried the officer.
+
+“The more it is worth,” remarked Simon shrewdly, “the more difficult it
+must be to sell. Such a thing has a physiognomy not to be disguised,
+and I should fancy a man might as easily negotiate St. Paul’s
+Cathedral.”
+
+“Oh, truly!” said the officer; “but if the thief be a man of any
+intelligence, he will cut it into three or four, and there will be
+still enough to make him rich.”
+
+“Thank you,” said the clergyman. “You cannot imagine how much your
+conversation interests me.”
+
+Whereupon the functionary admitted that they knew many strange things
+in his profession, and immediately after took his leave.
+
+Mr. Rolles regained his apartment. It seemed smaller and barer than
+usual; the materials for his great work had never presented so little
+interest; and he looked upon his library with the eye of scorn. He took
+down, volume by volume, several Fathers of the Church, and glanced them
+through; but they contained nothing to his purpose.
+
+“These old gentlemen,” thought he, “are no doubt very valuable writers,
+but they seem to me conspicuously ignorant of life. Here am I, with
+learning enough to be a Bishop, and I positively do not know how to
+dispose of a stolen diamond. I glean a hint from a common policeman,
+and, with all my folios, I cannot so much as put it into execution.
+This inspires me with very low ideas of University training.”
+
+Herewith he kicked over his book-shelf and, putting on his hat,
+hastened from the house to the club of which he was a member. In such a
+place of mundane resort he hoped to find some man of good counsel and a
+shrewd experience in life. In the reading-room he saw many of the
+country clergy and an Archdeacon; there were three journalists and a
+writer upon the Higher Metaphysic, playing pool; and at dinner only the
+raff of ordinary club frequenters showed their commonplace and
+obliterated countenances. None of these, thought Mr. Rolles, would know
+more on dangerous topics than he knew himself; none of them were fit to
+give him guidance in his present strait. At length in the smoking-room,
+up many weary stairs, he hit upon a gentleman of somewhat portly build
+and dressed with conspicuous plainness. He was smoking a cigar and
+reading the _Fortnightly Review_; his face was singularly free from all
+sign of preoccupation or fatigue; and there was something in his air
+which seemed to invite confidence and to expect submission. The more
+the young clergyman scrutinised his features, the more he was convinced
+that he had fallen on one capable of giving pertinent advice.
+
+“Sir,” said he, “you will excuse my abruptness; but I judge you from
+your appearance to be pre-eminently a man of the world.”
+
+“I have indeed considerable claims to that distinction,” replied the
+stranger, laying aside his magazine with a look of mingled amusement
+and surprise.
+
+“I, sir,” continued the Curate, “am a recluse, a student, a creature of
+ink-bottles and patristic folios. A recent event has brought my folly
+vividly before my eyes, and I desire to instruct myself in life. By
+life,” he added, “I do not mean Thackeray’s novels; but the crimes and
+secret possibilities of our society, and the principles of wise conduct
+among exceptional events. I am a patient reader; can the thing be
+learnt in books?”
+
+“You put me in a difficulty,” said the stranger. “I confess I have no
+great notion of the use of books, except to amuse a railway journey;
+although, I believe, there are some very exact treatises on astronomy,
+the use of the globes, agriculture, and the art of making paper
+flowers. Upon the less apparent provinces of life I fear you will find
+nothing truthful. Yet stay,” he added, “have you read Gaboriau?”
+
+Mr. Rolles admitted he had never even heard the name.
+
+“You may gather some notions from Gaboriau,” resumed the stranger. “He
+is at least suggestive; and as he is an author much studied by Prince
+Bismarck, you will, at the worst, lose your time in good society.”
+
+“Sir,” said the Curate, “I am infinitely obliged by your politeness.”
+
+“You have already more than repaid me,” returned the other.
+
+“How?” inquired Simon.
+
+“By the novelty of your request,” replied the gentleman; and with a
+polite gesture, as though to ask permission, he resumed the study of
+the _Fortnightly Review_.
+
+On his way home Mr. Rolles purchased a work on precious stones and
+several of Gaboriau’s novels. These last he eagerly skimmed until an
+advanced hour in the morning; but although they introduced him to many
+new ideas, he could nowhere discover what to do with a stolen diamond.
+He was annoyed, moreover, to find the information scattered amongst
+romantic story-telling, instead of soberly set forth after the manner
+of a manual; and he concluded that, even if the writer had thought much
+upon these subjects, he was totally lacking in educational method. For
+the character and attainments of Lecoq, however, he was unable to
+contain his admiration.
+
+“He was truly a great creature,” ruminated Mr. Rolles. “He knew the
+world as I know Paley’s Evidences. There was nothing that he could not
+carry to a termination with his own hand, and against the largest odds.
+Heavens!” he broke out suddenly, “is not this the lesson? Must I not
+learn to cut diamonds for myself?”
+
+It seemed to him as if he had sailed at once out of his perplexities;
+he remembered that he knew a jeweller, one B. Macculloch, in Edinburgh,
+who would be glad to put him in the way of the necessary training; a
+few months, perhaps a few years, of sordid toil, and he would be
+sufficiently expert to divide and sufficiently cunning to dispose with
+advantage of the Rajah’s Diamond. That done, he might return to pursue
+his researches at leisure, a wealthy and luxurious student, envied and
+respected by all. Golden visions attended him through his slumber, and
+he awoke refreshed and light-hearted with the morning sun.
+
+Mr. Raeburn’s house was on that day to be closed by the police, and
+this afforded a pretext for his departure. He cheerfully prepared his
+baggage, transported it to King’s Cross, where he left it in the
+cloak-room, and returned to the club to while away the afternoon and
+dine.
+
+“If you dine here to-day, Rolles,” observed an acquaintance, “you may
+see two of the most remarkable men in England—Prince Florizel of
+Bohemia, and old Jack Vandeleur.”
+
+“I have heard of the Prince,” replied Mr. Rolles; “and General
+Vandeleur I have even met in society.”
+
+“General Vandeleur is an ass!” returned the other. “This is his brother
+John, the biggest adventurer, the best judge of precious stones, and
+one of the most acute diplomatists in Europe. Have you never heard of
+his duel with the Duc de Val d’Orge? of his exploits and atrocities
+when he was Dictator of Paraguay? of his dexterity in recovering Sir
+Samuel Levi’s jewellery? nor of his services in the Indian
+Mutiny—services by which the Government profited, but which the
+Government dared not recognise? You make me wonder what we mean by
+fame, or even by infamy; for Jack Vandeleur has prodigious claims to
+both. Run downstairs,” he continued, “take a table near them, and keep
+your ears open. You will hear some strange talk, or I am much misled.”
+
+“But how shall I know them?” inquired the clergyman.
+
+“Know them!” cried his friend; “why, the Prince is the finest gentleman
+in Europe, the only living creature who looks like a king; and as for
+Jack Vandeleur, if you can imagine Ulysses at seventy years of age, and
+with a sabre-cut across his face, you have the man before you! Know
+them, indeed! Why, you could pick either of them out of a Derby day!”
+
+Rolles eagerly hurried to the dining-room. It was as his friend had
+asserted; it was impossible to mistake the pair in question. Old John
+Vandeleur was of a remarkable force of body, and obviously broken to
+the most difficult exercises. He had neither the carriage of a
+swordsman, nor of a sailor, nor yet of one much inured to the saddle;
+but something made up of all these, and the result and expression of
+many different habits and dexterities. His features were bold and
+aquiline; his expression arrogant and predatory; his whole appearance
+that of a swift, violent, unscrupulous man of action; and his copious
+white hair and the deep sabre-cut that traversed his nose and temple
+added a note of savagery to a head already remarkable and menacing in
+itself.
+
+In his companion, the Prince of Bohemia, Mr. Rolles was astonished to
+recognise the gentleman who had recommended him the study of Gaboriau.
+Doubtless Prince Florizel, who rarely visited the club, of which, as of
+most others, he was an honorary member, had been waiting for John
+Vandeleur when Simon accosted him on the previous evening.
+
+The other diners had modestly retired into the angles of the room, and
+left the distinguished pair in a certain isolation, but the young
+clergyman was unrestrained by any sentiment of awe, and, marching
+boldly up, took his place at the nearest table.
+
+The conversation was, indeed, new to the student’s ears. The
+ex-Dictator of Paraguay stated many extraordinary experiences in
+different quarters of the world; and the Prince supplied a commentary
+which, to a man of thought, was even more interesting than the events
+themselves. Two forms of experience were thus brought together and laid
+before the young clergyman; and he did not know which to admire the
+most—the desperate actor or the skilled expert in life; the man who
+spoke boldly of his own deeds and perils, or the man who seemed, like a
+god, to know all things and to have suffered nothing. The manner of
+each aptly fitted with his part in the discourse. The Dictator indulged
+in brutalities alike of speech and gesture; his hand opened and shut
+and fell roughly on the table; and his voice was loud and heavy. The
+Prince, on the other hand, seemed the very type of urbane docility and
+quiet; the least movement, the least inflection, had with him a
+weightier significance than all the shouts and pantomime of his
+companion; and if ever, as must frequently have been the case, he
+described some experience personal to himself, it was so aptly
+dissimulated as to pass unnoticed with the rest.
+
+At length the talk wandered on to the late robberies and the Rajah’s
+Diamond.
+
+“That diamond would be better in the sea,” observed Prince Florizel.
+
+“As a Vandeleur,” replied the Dictator, “your Highness may imagine my
+dissent.”
+
+“I speak on grounds of public policy,” pursued the Prince. “Jewels so
+valuable should be reserved for the collection of a Prince or the
+treasury of a great nation. To hand them about among the common sort of
+men is to set a price on Virtue’s head; and if the Rajah of Kashgar—a
+Prince, I understand, of great enlightenment—desired vengeance upon the
+men of Europe, he could hardly have gone more efficaciously about his
+purpose than by sending us this apple of discord. There is no honesty
+too robust for such a trial. I myself, who have many duties and many
+privileges of my own—I myself, Mr. Vandeleur, could scarce handle the
+intoxicating crystal and be safe. As for you, who are a diamond hunter
+by taste and profession, I do not believe there is a crime in the
+calendar you would not perpetrate—I do not believe you have a friend in
+the world whom you would not eagerly betray—I do not know if you have a
+family, but if you have I declare you would sacrifice your children—and
+all this for what? Not to be richer, nor to have more comforts or more
+respect, but simply to call this diamond yours for a year or two until
+you die, and now and again to open a safe and look at it as one looks
+at a picture.”
+
+“It is true,” replied Vandeleur. “I have hunted most things, from men
+and women down to mosquitos; I have dived for coral; I have followed
+both whales and tigers; and a diamond is the tallest quarry of the lot.
+It has beauty and worth; it alone can properly reward the ardours of
+the chase. At this moment, as your Highness may fancy, I am upon the
+trail; I have a sure knack, a wide experience; I know every stone of
+price in my brother’s collection as a shepherd knows his sheep; and I
+wish I may die if I do not recover them every one!”
+
+“Sir Thomas Vandeleur will have great cause to thank you,” said the
+Prince.
+
+“I am not so sure,” returned the Dictator, with a laugh. “One of the
+Vandeleurs will. Thomas or John—Peter or Paul—we are all apostles.”
+
+“I did not catch your observation,” said the Prince with some disgust.
+
+And at the same moment the waiter informed Mr. Vandeleur that his cab
+was at the door.
+
+Mr. Rolles glanced at the clock, and saw that he also must be moving;
+and the coincidence struck him sharply and unpleasantly, for he desired
+to see no more of the diamond hunter.
+
+Much study having somewhat shaken the young man’s nerves, he was in the
+habit of travelling in the most luxurious manner; and for the present
+journey he had taken a sofa in the sleeping carriage.
+
+“You will be very comfortable,” said the guard; “there is no one in
+your compartment, and only one old gentleman in the other end.”
+
+It was close upon the hour, and the tickets were being examined, when
+Mr. Rolles beheld this other fellow-passenger ushered by several
+porters into his place; certainly, there was not another man in the
+world whom he would not have preferred—for it was old John Vandeleur,
+the ex-Dictator.
+
+The sleeping carriages on the Great Northern line were divided into
+three compartments—one at each end for travellers, and one in the
+centre fitted with the conveniences of a lavatory. A door running in
+grooves separated each of the others from the lavatory; but as there
+were neither bolts nor locks, the whole suite was practically common
+ground.
+
+When Mr. Rolles had studied his position, he perceived himself without
+defence. If the Dictator chose to pay him a visit in the course of the
+night, he could do no less than receive it; he had no means of
+fortification, and lay open to attack as if he had been lying in the
+fields. This situation caused him some agony of mind. He recalled with
+alarm the boastful statements of his fellow-traveller across the
+dining-table, and the professions of immorality which he had heard him
+offering to the disgusted Prince. Some persons, he remembered to have
+read, are endowed with a singular quickness of perception for the
+neighbourhood of precious metals; through walls and even at
+considerable distances they are said to divine the presence of gold.
+Might it not be the same with diamonds? he wondered; and if so, who was
+more likely to enjoy this transcendental sense than the person who
+gloried in the appellation of the Diamond Hunter? From such a man he
+recognised that he had everything to fear, and longed eagerly for the
+arrival of the day.
+
+In the meantime he neglected no precaution, concealed his diamond in
+the most internal pocket of a system of great-coats, and devoutly
+recommended himself to the care of Providence.
+
+The train pursued its usual even and rapid course; and nearly half the
+journey had been accomplished before slumber began to triumph over
+uneasiness in the breast of Mr. Rolles. For some time he resisted its
+influence; but it grew upon him more and more, and a little before York
+he was fain to stretch himself upon one of the couches and suffer his
+eyes to close; and almost at the same instant consciousness deserted
+the young clergyman. His last thought was of his terrifying neighbour.
+
+When he awoke it was still pitch dark, except for the flicker of the
+veiled lamp; and the continual roaring and oscillation testified to the
+unrelaxed velocity of the train. He sat upright in a panic, for he had
+been tormented by the most uneasy dreams; it was some seconds before he
+recovered his self-command; and even after he had resumed a recumbent
+attitude sleep continued to flee him, and he lay awake with his brain
+in a state of violent agitation, and his eyes fixed upon the lavatory
+door. He pulled his clerical felt hat over his brow still farther to
+shield him from the light; and he adopted the usual expedients, such as
+counting a thousand or banishing thought, by which experienced invalids
+are accustomed to woo the approach of sleep. In the case of Mr. Rolles
+they proved one and all vain; he was harassed by a dozen different
+anxieties—the old man in the other end of the carriage haunted him in
+the most alarming shapes; and in whatever attitude he chose to lie the
+diamond in his pocket occasioned him a sensible physical distress. It
+burned, it was too large, it bruised his ribs; and there were
+infinitesimal fractions of a second in which he had half a mind to
+throw it from the window.
+
+While he was thus lying, a strange incident took place.
+
+The sliding-door into the lavatory stirred a little, and then a little
+more, and was finally drawn back for the space of about twenty inches.
+The lamp in the lavatory was unshaded, and in the lighted aperture thus
+disclosed, Mr. Rolles could see the head of Mr. Vandeleur in an
+attitude of deep attention. He was conscious that the gaze of the
+Dictator rested intently on his own face; and the instinct of
+self-preservation moved him to hold his breath, to refrain from the
+least movement, and keeping his eyes lowered, to watch his visitor from
+underneath the lashes. After about a moment, the head was withdrawn and
+the door of the lavatory replaced.
+
+The Dictator had not come to attack, but to observe; his action was not
+that of a man threatening another, but that of a man who was himself
+threatened; if Mr. Rolles was afraid of him, it appeared that he, in
+his turn, was not quite easy on the score of Mr. Rolles. He had come,
+it would seem, to make sure that his only fellow-traveller was asleep;
+and, when satisfied on that point, he had at once withdrawn.
+
+The clergyman leaped to his feet. The extreme of terror had given place
+to a reaction of foolhardy daring. He reflected that the rattle of the
+flying train concealed all other sounds, and determined, come what
+might, to return the visit he had just received. Divesting himself of
+his cloak, which might have interfered with the freedom of his action,
+he entered the lavatory and paused to listen. As he had expected, there
+was nothing to be heard above the roar of the train’s progress; and
+laying his hand on the door at the farther side, he proceeded
+cautiously to draw it back for about six inches. Then he stopped, and
+could not contain an ejaculation of surprise.
+
+John Vandeleur wore a fur travelling cap with lappets to protect his
+ears; and this may have combined with the sound of the express to keep
+him in ignorance of what was going forward. It is certain, at least,
+that he did not raise his head, but continued without interruption to
+pursue his strange employment. Between his feet stood an open hat-box;
+in one hand he held the sleeve of his sealskin great-coat; in the other
+a formidable knife, with which he had just slit up the lining of the
+sleeve. Mr. Rolles had read of persons carrying money in a belt; and as
+he had no acquaintance with any but cricket-belts, he had never been
+able rightly to conceive how this was managed. But here was a stranger
+thing before his eyes; for John Vandeleur, it appeared, carried
+diamonds in the lining of his sleeve; and even as the young clergyman
+gazed, he could see one glittering brilliant drop after another into
+the hat-box.
+
+He stood riveted to the spot, following this unusual business with his
+eyes. The diamonds were, for the most part, small, and not easily
+distinguishable either in shape or fire. Suddenly the Dictator appeared
+to find a difficulty; he employed both hands and stooped over his task;
+but it was not until after considerable manoeuvring that he extricated
+a large tiara of diamonds from the lining, and held it up for some
+seconds’ examination before he placed it with the others in the
+hat-box. The tiara was a ray of light to Mr. Rolles; he immediately
+recognised it for a part of the treasure stolen from Harry Hartley by
+the loiterer. There was no room for mistake; it was exactly as the
+detective had described it; there were the ruby stars, with a great
+emerald in the centre; there were the interlacing crescents; and there
+were the pear-shaped pendants, each a single stone, which gave a
+special value to Lady Vandeleur’s tiara.
+
+Mr. Rolles was hugely relieved. The Dictator was as deeply in the
+affair as he was; neither could tell tales upon the other. In the first
+glow of happiness, the clergyman suffered a deep sigh to escape him;
+and as his bosom had become choked and his throat dry during his
+previous suspense, the sigh was followed by a cough.
+
+Mr. Vandeleur looked up; his face contracted with the blackest and most
+deadly passion; his eyes opened widely, and his under jaw dropped in an
+astonishment that was upon the brink of fury. By an instinctive
+movement he had covered the hat-box with the coat. For half a minute
+the two men stared upon each other in silence. It was not a long
+interval, but it sufficed for Mr. Rolles; he was one of those who think
+swiftly on dangerous occasions; he decided on a course of action of a
+singularly daring nature; and although he felt he was setting his life
+upon the hazard, he was the first to break silence.
+
+“I beg your pardon,” said he.
+
+The Dictator shivered slightly, and when he spoke his voice was hoarse.
+
+“What do you want here?” he asked.
+
+“I take a particular interest in diamonds,” replied Mr. Rolles, with an
+air of perfect self-possession. “Two connoisseurs should be acquainted.
+I have here a trifle of my own which may perhaps serve for an
+introduction.”
+
+And so saying, he quietly took the case from his pocket, showed the
+Rajah’s Diamond to the Dictator for an instant, and replaced it in
+security.
+
+“It was once your brother’s,” he added.
+
+John Vandeleur continued to regard him with a look of almost painful
+amazement; but he neither spoke nor moved.
+
+“I was pleased to observe,” resumed the young man, “that we have gems
+from the same collection.”
+
+The Dictator’s surprise overpowered him.
+
+“I beg your pardon,” he said; “I begin to perceive that I am growing
+old! I am positively not prepared for little incidents like this. But
+set my mind at rest upon one point: do my eyes deceive me, or are you
+indeed a parson?”
+
+“I am in holy orders,” answered Mr. Rolles.
+
+“Well,” cried the other, “as long as I live I will never hear another
+word against the cloth!”
+
+“You flatter me,” said Mr. Rolles.
+
+“Pardon me,” replied Vandeleur; “pardon me, young man. You are no
+coward, but it still remains to be seen whether you are not the worst
+of fools. Perhaps,” he continued, leaning back upon his seat, “perhaps
+you would oblige me with a few particulars. I must suppose you had some
+object in the stupefying impudence of your proceedings, and I confess I
+have a curiosity to know it.”
+
+“It is very simple,” replied the clergyman; “it proceeds from my great
+inexperience of life.”
+
+“I shall be glad to be persuaded,” answered Vandeleur.
+
+Whereupon Mr. Rolles told him the whole story of his connection with
+the Rajah’s Diamond, from the time he found it in Raeburn’s garden to
+the time when he left London in the Flying Scotchman. He added a brief
+sketch of his feelings and thoughts during the journey, and concluded
+in these words:—
+
+“When I recognised the tiara I knew we were in the same attitude
+towards Society, and this inspired me with a hope, which I trust you
+will say was not ill-founded, that you might become in some sense my
+partner in the difficulties and, of course, the profits of my
+situation. To one of your special knowledge and obviously great
+experience the negotiation of the diamond would give but little
+trouble, while to me it was a matter of impossibility. On the other
+part, I judged that I might lose nearly as much by cutting the diamond,
+and that not improbably with an unskilful hand, as might enable me to
+pay you with proper generosity for your assistance. The subject was a
+delicate one to broach; and perhaps I fell short in delicacy. But I
+must ask you to remember that for me the situation was a new one, and I
+was entirely unacquainted with the etiquette in use. I believe without
+vanity that I could have married or baptized you in a very acceptable
+manner; but every man has his own aptitudes, and this sort of bargain
+was not among the list of my accomplishments.”
+
+“I do not wish to flatter you,” replied Vandeleur; “but upon my word,
+you have an unusual disposition for a life of crime. You have more
+accomplishments than you imagine; and though I have encountered a
+number of rogues in different quarters of the world, I never met with
+one so unblushing as yourself. Cheer up, Mr. Rolles, you are in the
+right profession at last! As for helping you, you may command me as you
+will. I have only a day’s business in Edinburgh on a little matter for
+my brother; and once that is concluded, I return to Paris, where I
+usually reside. If you please, you may accompany me thither. And before
+the end of a month I believe I shall have brought your little business
+to a satisfactory conclusion.”
+
+
+(_At this point_, _contrary to all the canons of his art_, _our Arabian
+author breaks off the_ Story of the Young Man in Holy Orders. _I regret
+and condemn such practices_; _but I must follow my original_, _and
+refer the reader for the conclusion of Mr. Rolles’ adventures to the
+next number of the cycle_, _the_ Story of the House with the Green
+Blinds.)
+
+
+
+
+STORY OF THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN BLINDS
+
+
+Francis Scrymgeour, a clerk in the Bank of Scotland at Edinburgh, had
+attained the age of twenty-five in a sphere of quiet, creditable, and
+domestic life. His mother died while he was young; but his father, a
+man of sense and probity, had given him an excellent education at
+school, and brought him up at home to orderly and frugal habits.
+Francis, who was of a docile and affectionate disposition, profited by
+these advantages with zeal, and devoted himself heart and soul to his
+employment. A walk upon Saturday afternoon, an occasional dinner with
+members of his family, and a yearly tour of a fortnight in the
+Highlands or even on the continent of Europe, were his principal
+distractions, and, he grew rapidly in favour with his superiors, and
+enjoyed already a salary of nearly two hundred pounds a year, with the
+prospect of an ultimate advance to almost double that amount. Few young
+men were more contented, few more willing and laborious than Francis
+Scrymgeour. Sometimes at night, when he had read the daily paper, he
+would play upon the flute to amuse his father, for whose qualities he
+entertained a great respect.
+
+One day he received a note from a well-known firm of Writers to the
+Signet, requesting the favour of an immediate interview with him. The
+letter was marked “Private and Confidential,” and had been addressed to
+him at the bank, instead of at home—two unusual circumstances which
+made him obey the summons with the more alacrity. The senior member of
+the firm, a man of much austerity of manner, made him gravely welcome,
+requested him to take a seat, and proceeded to explain the matter in
+hand in the picked expressions of a veteran man of business. A person,
+who must remain nameless, but of whom the lawyer had every reason to
+think well—a man, in short, of some station in the country—desired to
+make Francis an annual allowance of five hundred pounds. The capital
+was to be placed under the control of the lawyer’s firm and two
+trustees who must also remain anonymous. There were conditions annexed
+to this liberality, but he was of opinion that his new client would
+find nothing either excessive or dishonourable in the terms; and he
+repeated these two words with emphasis, as though he desired to commit
+himself to nothing more.
+
+Francis asked their nature.
+
+“The conditions,” said the Writer to the Signet, “are, as I have twice
+remarked, neither dishonourable nor excessive. At the same time I
+cannot conceal from you that they are most unusual. Indeed, the whole
+case is very much out of our way; and I should certainly have refused
+it had it not been for the reputation of the gentleman who entrusted it
+to my care, and, let me add, Mr. Scrymgeour, the interest I have been
+led to take in yourself by many complimentary and, I have no doubt,
+well-deserved reports.”
+
+Francis entreated him to be more specific.
+
+“You cannot picture my uneasiness as to these conditions,” he said.
+
+“They are two,” replied the lawyer, “only two; and the sum, as you will
+remember, is five hundred a-year—and unburdened, I forgot to add,
+unburdened.”
+
+And the lawyer raised his eyebrows at him with solemn gusto.
+
+“The first,” he resumed, “is of remarkable simplicity. You must be in
+Paris by the afternoon of Sunday, the 15th; there you will find, at the
+box-office of the Comédie Française, a ticket for admission taken in
+your name and waiting you. You are requested to sit out the whole
+performance in the seat provided, and that is all.”
+
+“I should certainly have preferred a week-day,” replied Francis. “ But,
+after all, once in a way—”
+
+“And in Paris, my dear sir,” added the lawyer soothingly. “I believe I
+am something of a precisian myself, but upon such a consideration, and
+in Paris, I should not hesitate an instant.”
+
+And the pair laughed pleasantly together.
+
+“The other is of more importance,” continued the Writer to the Signet.
+“It regards your marriage. My client, taking a deep interest in your
+welfare, desires to advise you absolutely in the choice of a wife.
+Absolutely, you understand,” he repeated.
+
+“Let us be more explicit, if you please,” returned Francis. “Am I to
+marry any one, maid or widow, black or white, whom this invisible
+person chooses to propose?”
+
+“I was to assure you that suitability of age and position should be a
+principle with your benefactor,” replied the lawyer. “As to race, I
+confess the difficulty had not occurred to me, and I failed to inquire;
+but if you like I will make a note of it at once, and advise you on the
+earliest opportunity.”
+
+“Sir,” said Francis, “it remains to be seen whether this whole affair
+is not a most unworthy fraud. The circumstances are inexplicable—I had
+almost said incredible; and until I see a little more daylight, and
+some plausible motive, I confess I should be very sorry to put a hand
+to the transaction. I appeal to you in this difficulty for information.
+I must learn what is at the bottom of it all. If you do not know,
+cannot guess, or are not at liberty to tell me, I shall take my hat and
+go back to my bank as came.”
+
+“I do not know,” answered the lawyer, “but I have an excellent guess.
+Your father, and no one else, is at the root of this apparently
+unnatural business.”
+
+“My father!” cried Francis, in extreme disdain. “Worthy man, I know
+every thought of his mind, every penny of his fortune!”
+
+“You misinterpret my words,” said the lawyer. “I do not refer to Mr.
+Scrymgeour, senior; for he is not your father. When he and his wife
+came to Edinburgh, you were already nearly one year old, and you had
+not yet been three months in their care. The secret has been well kept;
+but such is the fact. Your father is unknown, and I say again that I
+believe him to be the original of the offers I am charged at present to
+transmit to you.”
+
+It would be impossible to exaggerate the astonishment of Francis
+Scrymgeour at this unexpected information. He pled this confusion to
+the lawyer.
+
+“Sir,” said he, “after a piece of news so startling, you must grant me
+some hours for thought. You shall know this evening what conclusion I
+have reached.”
+
+The lawyer commended his prudence; and Francis, excusing himself upon
+some pretext at the bank, took a long walk into the country, and fully
+considered the different steps and aspects of the case. A pleasant
+sense of his own importance rendered him the more deliberate: but the
+issue was from the first not doubtful. His whole carnal man leaned
+irresistibly towards the five hundred a year, and the strange
+conditions with which it was burdened; he discovered in his heart an
+invincible repugnance to the name of Scrymgeour, which he had never
+hitherto disliked; he began to despise the narrow and unromantic
+interests of his former life; and when once his mind was fairly made
+up, he walked with a new feeling of strength and freedom, and nourished
+himself with the gayest anticipations.
+
+He said but a word to the lawyer, and immediately received a cheque for
+two quarters’ arrears; for the allowance was ante-dated from the first
+of January. With this in his pocket, he walked home. The flat in
+Scotland Street looked mean in his eyes; his nostrils, for the first
+time, rebelled against the odour of broth; and he observed little
+defects of manner in his adoptive father which filled him with surprise
+and almost with disgust. The next day, he determined, should see him on
+his way to Paris.
+
+In that city, where he arrived long before the appointed date, he put
+up at a modest hotel frequented by English and Italians, and devoted
+himself to improvement in the French tongue; for this purpose he had a
+master twice a week, entered into conversation with loiterers in the
+Champs Elysées, and nightly frequented the theatre. He had his whole
+toilette fashionably renewed; and was shaved and had his hair dressed
+every morning by a barber in a neighbouring street. This gave him
+something of a foreign air, and seemed to wipe off the reproach of his
+past years.
+
+At length, on the Saturday afternoon, he betook himself to the
+box-office of the theatre in the Rue Richelieu. No sooner had he
+mentioned his name than the clerk produced the order in an envelope of
+which the address was scarcely dry.
+
+“It has been taken this moment,” said the clerk.
+
+“Indeed!” said Francis. “May I ask what the gentleman was like?”
+
+“Your friend is easy to describe,” replied the official. “He is old and
+strong and beautiful, with white hair and a sabre-cut across his face.
+You cannot fail to recognise so marked a person.”
+
+“No, indeed,” returned Francis; “and I thank you for your politeness.”
+
+“He cannot yet be far distant,” added the clerk. “If you make haste you
+might still overtake him.”
+
+Francis did not wait to be twice told; he ran precipitately from the
+theatre into the middle of the street and looked in all directions.
+More than one white-haired man was within sight; but though he overtook
+each of them in succession, all wanted the sabre-cut. For nearly
+half-an-hour he tried one street after another in the neighbourhood,
+until at length, recognising the folly of continued search, he started
+on a walk to compose his agitated feelings; for this proximity of an
+encounter with him to whom he could not doubt he owed the day had
+profoundly moved the young man.
+
+It chanced that his way lay up the Rue Drouot and thence up the Rue des
+Martyrs; and chance, in this case, served him better than all the
+forethought in the world. For on the outer boulevard he saw two men in
+earnest colloquy upon a seat. One was dark, young, and handsome,
+secularly dressed, but with an indelible clerical stamp; the other
+answered in every particular to the description given him by the clerk.
+Francis felt his heart beat high in his bosom; he knew he was now about
+to hear the voice of his father; and making a wide circuit, he
+noiselessly took his place behind the couple in question, who were too
+much interested in their talk to observe much else. As Francis had
+expected, the conversation was conducted in the English language.
+
+“Your suspicions begin to annoy me, Rolles,” said the older man. “I
+tell you I am doing my utmost; a man cannot lay his hand on millions in
+a moment. Have I not taken you up, a mere stranger, out of pure
+good-will? Are you not living largely on my bounty?”
+
+“On your advances, Mr. Vandeleur,” corrected the other.
+
+“Advances, if you choose; and interest instead of goodwill, if you
+prefer it,” returned Vandeleur angrily. “I am not here to pick
+expressions. Business is business; and your business, let me remind
+you, is too muddy for such airs. Trust me, or leave me alone and find
+some one else; but let us have an end, for God’s sake, of your
+jeremiads.”
+
+“I am beginning to learn the world,” replied the other, “and I see that
+you have every reason to play me false, and not one to deal honestly. I
+am not here to pick expressions either; you wish the diamond for
+yourself; you know you do—you dare not deny it. Have you not already
+forged my name, and searched my lodging in my absence? I understand the
+cause of your delays; you are lying in wait; you are the diamond
+hunter, forsooth; and sooner or later, by fair means or foul, you’ll
+lay your hands upon it. I tell you, it must stop; push me much further
+and I promise you a surprise.”
+
+“It does not become you to use threats,” returned Vandeleur. “Two can
+play at that. My brother is here in Paris; the police are on the alert;
+and if you persist in wearying me with your caterwauling, I will
+arrange a little astonishment for you, Mr. Rolles. But mine shall be
+once and for all. Do you understand, or would you prefer me to tell it
+you in Hebrew? There is an end to all things, and you have come to the
+end of my patience. Tuesday, at seven; not a day, not an hour sooner,
+not the least part of a second, if it were to save your life. And if
+you do not choose to wait, you may go to the bottomless pit for me, and
+welcome.”
+
+And so saying, the Dictator arose from the bench, and marched off in
+the direction of Montmartre, shaking his head and swinging his cane
+with a most furious air; while his companion remained where he was, in
+an attitude of great dejection.
+
+Francis was at the pitch of surprise and horror; his sentiments had
+been shocked to the last degree; the hopeful tenderness with which he
+had taken his place upon the bench was transformed into repulsion and
+despair; old Mr. Scrymgeour, he reflected, was a far more kindly and
+creditable parent than this dangerous and violent intriguer; but he
+retained his presence of mind, and suffered not a moment to elapse
+before he was on the trail of the Dictator.
+
+That gentleman’s fury carried him forward at a brisk pace, and he was
+so completely occupied in his angry thoughts that he never so much as
+cast a look behind him till he reached his own door.
+
+His house stood high up in the Rue Lepic, commanding a view of all
+Paris and enjoying the pure air of the heights. It was two storeys
+high, with green blinds and shutters; and all the windows looking on
+the street were hermetically closed. Tops of trees showed over the high
+garden wall, and the wall was protected by _chevaux-de-frise_. The
+Dictator paused a moment while he searched his pocket for a key; and
+then, opening a gate, disappeared within the enclosure.
+
+Francis looked about him; the neighbourhood was very lonely, the house
+isolated in its garden. It seemed as if his observation must here come
+to an abrupt end. A second glance, however, showed him a tall house
+next door presenting a gable to the garden, and in this gable a single
+window. He passed to the front and saw a ticket offering unfurnished
+lodgings by the month; and, on inquiry, the room which commanded the
+Dictator’s garden proved to be one of those to let. Francis did not
+hesitate a moment; he took the room, paid an advance upon the rent, and
+returned to his hotel to seek his baggage.
+
+The old man with the sabre-cut might or might not be his father; he
+might or he might not be upon the true scent; but he was certainly on
+the edge of an exciting mystery, and he promised himself that he would
+not relax his observation until he had got to the bottom of the secret.
+
+From the window of his new apartment Francis Scrymgeour commanded a
+complete view into the garden of the house with the green blinds.
+Immediately below him a very comely chestnut with wide boughs sheltered
+a pair of rustic tables where people might dine in the height of
+summer. On all sides save one a dense vegetation concealed the soil;
+but there, between the tables and the house, he saw a patch of gravel
+walk leading from the verandah to the garden-gate. Studying the place
+from between the boards of the Venetian shutters, which he durst not
+open for fear of attracting attention, Francis observed but little to
+indicate the manners of the inhabitants, and that little argued no more
+than a close reserve and a taste for solitude. The garden was
+conventual, the house had the air of a prison. The green blinds were
+all drawn down upon the outside; the door into the verandah was closed;
+the garden, as far as he could see it, was left entirely to itself in
+the evening sunshine. A modest curl of smoke from a single chimney
+alone testified to the presence of living people.
+
+In order that he might not be entirely idle, and to give a certain
+colour to his way of life, Francis had purchased Euclid’s Geometry in
+French, which he set himself to copy and translate on the top of his
+portmanteau and seated on the floor against the wall; for he was
+equally without chair or table. From time to time he would rise and
+cast a glance into the enclosure of the house with the green blinds;
+but the windows remained obstinately closed and the garden empty.
+
+Only late in the evening did anything occur to reward his continued
+attention. Between nine and ten the sharp tinkle of a bell aroused him
+from a fit of dozing; and he sprang to his observatory in time to hear
+an important noise of locks being opened and bars removed, and to see
+Mr. Vandeleur, carrying a lantern and clothed in a flowing robe of
+black velvet with a skull-cap to match, issue from under the verandah
+and proceed leisurely towards the garden gate. The sound of bolts and
+bars was then repeated; and a moment after Francis perceived the
+Dictator escorting into the house, in the mobile light of the lantern,
+an individual of the lowest and most despicable appearance.
+
+Half-an-hour afterwards the visitor was reconducted to the street; and
+Mr. Vandeleur, setting his light upon one of the rustic tables,
+finished a cigar with great deliberation under the foliage of the
+chestnut. Francis, peering through a clear space among the leaves, was
+able to follow his gestures as he threw away the ash or enjoyed a
+copious inhalation; and beheld a cloud upon the old man’s brow and a
+forcible action of the lips, which testified to some deep and probably
+painful train of thought. The cigar was already almost at an end, when
+the voice of a young girl was heard suddenly crying the hour from the
+interior of the house.
+
+“In a moment,” replied John Vandeleur.
+
+And, with that, he threw away the stump and, taking up the lantern,
+sailed away under the verandah for the night. As soon as the door was
+closed, absolute darkness fell upon the house; Francis might try his
+eyesight as much as he pleased, he could not detect so much as a single
+chink of light below a blind; and he concluded, with great good sense,
+that the bed-chambers were all upon the other side.
+
+Early the next morning (for he was early awake after an uncomfortable
+night upon the floor), he saw cause to adopt a different explanation.
+The blinds rose, one after another, by means of a spring in the
+interior, and disclosed steel shutters such as we see on the front of
+shops; these in their turn were rolled up by a similar contrivance; and
+for the space of about an hour, the chambers were left open to the
+morning air. At the end of that time Mr. Vandeleur, with his own hand,
+once more closed the shutters and replaced the blinds from within.
+
+While Francis was still marvelling at these precautions, the door
+opened and a young girl came forth to look about her in the garden. It
+was not two minutes before she re-entered the house, but even in that
+short time he saw enough to convince him that she possessed the most
+unusual attractions. His curiosity was not only highly excited by this
+incident, but his spirits were improved to a still more notable degree.
+The alarming manners and more than equivocal life of his father ceased
+from that moment to prey upon his mind; from that moment he embraced
+his new family with ardour; and whether the young lady should prove his
+sister or his wife, he felt convinced she was an angel in disguise. So
+much was this the case that he was seized with a sudden horror when he
+reflected how little he really knew, and how possible it was that he
+had followed the wrong person when he followed Mr. Vandeleur.
+
+The porter, whom he consulted, could afford him little information;
+but, such as it was, it had a mysterious and questionable sound. The
+person next door was an English gentleman of extraordinary wealth, and
+proportionately eccentric in his tastes and habits. He possessed great
+collections, which he kept in the house beside him; and it was to
+protect these that he had fitted the place with steel shutters,
+elaborate fastenings, and _chevaux-de-frise_ along the garden wall. He
+lived much alone, in spite of some strange visitors with whom, it
+seemed, he had business to transact; and there was no one else in the
+house, except Mademoiselle and an old woman servant.
+
+“Is Mademoiselle his daughter?” inquired Francis.
+
+“Certainly,” replied the porter. “Mademoiselle is the daughter of the
+house; and strange it is to see how she is made to work. For all his
+riches, it is she who goes to market; and every day in the week you may
+see her going by with a basket on her arm.”
+
+“And the collections?” asked the other.
+
+“Sir,” said the man, “they are immensely valuable. More I cannot tell
+you. Since M. de Vandeleur’s arrival no one in the quarter has so much
+as passed the door.”
+
+“Suppose not,” returned Francis, “you must surely have some notion what
+these famous galleries contain. Is it pictures, silks, statues, jewels,
+or what?”
+
+“My faith, sir,” said the fellow with a shrug, “it might be carrots,
+and still I could not tell you. How should I know? The house is kept
+like a garrison, as you perceive.”
+
+And then as Francis was returning disappointed to his room, the porter
+called him back.
+
+“I have just remembered, sir,” said he. “M. de Vandeleur has been in
+all parts of the world, and I once heard the old woman declare that he
+had brought many diamonds back with him. If that be the truth, there
+must be a fine show behind those shutters.”
+
+By an early hour on Sunday Francis was in his place at the theatre. The
+seat which had been taken for him was only two or three numbers from
+the left-hand side, and directly opposite one of the lower boxes. As
+the seat had been specially chosen there was doubtless something to be
+learned from its position; and he judged by an instinct that the box
+upon his right was, in some way or other, to be connected with the
+drama in which he ignorantly played a part. Indeed, it was so situated
+that its occupants could safely observe him from beginning to end of
+the piece, if they were so minded; while, profiting by the depth, they
+could screen themselves sufficiently well from any counter-examination
+on his side. He promised himself not to leave it for a moment out of
+sight; and whilst he scanned the rest of the theatre, or made a show of
+attending to the business of the stage, he always kept a corner of an
+eye upon the empty box.
+
+The second act had been some time in progress, and was even drawing
+towards a close, when the door opened and two persons entered and
+ensconced themselves in the darkest of the shade. Francis could hardly
+control his emotion. It was Mr. Vandeleur and his daughter. The blood
+came and went in his arteries and veins with stunning activity; his
+ears sang; his head turned. He dared not look lest he should awake
+suspicion; his play-bill, which he kept reading from end to end and
+over and over again, turned from white to red before his eyes; and when
+he cast a glance upon the stage, it seemed incalculably far away, and
+he found the voices and gestures of the actors to the last degree
+impertinent and absurd.
+
+From time to time he risked a momentary look in the direction which
+principally interested him; and once at least he felt certain that his
+eyes encountered those of the young girl. A shock passed over his body,
+and he saw all the colours of the rainbow. What would he not have given
+to overhear what passed between the Vandeleurs? What would he not have
+given for the courage to take up his opera-glass and steadily inspect
+their attitude and expression? There, for aught he knew, his whole life
+was being decided—and he not able to interfere, not able even to follow
+the debate, but condemned to sit and suffer where he was, in impotent
+anxiety.
+
+At last the act came to an end. The curtain fell, and the people around
+him began to leave their places, for the interval. It was only natural
+that he should follow their example; and if he did so, it was not only
+natural but necessary that he should pass immediately in front of the
+box in question. Summoning all his courage, but keeping his eyes
+lowered, Francis drew near the spot. His progress was slow, for the old
+gentleman before him moved with incredible deliberation, wheezing as he
+went. What was he to do? Should he address the Vandeleurs by name as he
+went by? Should he take the flower from his button-hole and throw it
+into the box? Should he raise his face and direct one long and
+affectionate look upon the lady who was either his sister or his
+betrothed? As he found himself thus struggling among so many
+alternatives, he had a vision of his old equable existence in the bank,
+and was assailed by a thought of regret for the past.
+
+By this time he had arrived directly opposite the box; and although he
+was still undetermined what to do or whether to do anything, he turned
+his head and lifted his eyes. No sooner had he done so than he uttered
+a cry of disappointment and remained rooted to the spot. The box was
+empty. During his slow advance Mr. Vandeleur and his daughter had
+quietly slipped away.
+
+A polite person in his rear reminded him that he was stopping the path;
+and he moved on again with mechanical footsteps, and suffered the crowd
+to carry him unresisting out of the theatre. Once in the street, the
+pressure ceasing, he came to a halt, and the cool night air speedily
+restored him to the possession of his faculties. He was surprised to
+find that his head ached violently, and that he remembered not one word
+of the two acts which he had witnessed. As the excitement wore away, it
+was succeeded by an overweening appetite for sleep, and he hailed a cab
+and drove to his lodging in a state of extreme exhaustion and some
+disgust of life.
+
+Next morning he lay in wait for Miss Vandeleur on her road to market,
+and by eight o’clock beheld her stepping down a lane. She was simply,
+and even poorly, attired; but in the carriage of her head and body
+there was something flexible and noble that would have lent distinction
+to the meanest toilette. Even her basket, so aptly did she carry it,
+became her like an ornament. It seemed to Francis, as he slipped into a
+doorway, that the sunshine followed and the shadows fled before her as
+she walked; and he was conscious, for the first time, of a bird singing
+in a cage above the lane.
+
+He suffered her to pass the doorway, and then, coming forth once more,
+addressed her by name from behind. “Miss Vandeleur,” said he.
+
+She turned and, when she saw who he was, became deadly pale.
+
+“Pardon me,” he continued; “Heaven knows I had no will to startle you;
+and, indeed, there should be nothing startling in the presence of one
+who wishes you so well as I do. And, believe me, I am acting rather
+from necessity than choice. We have many things in common, and I am
+sadly in the dark. There is much that I should be doing, and my hands
+are tied. I do not know even what to feel, nor who are my friends and
+enemies.”
+
+She found her voice with an effort.
+
+“I do not know who you are,” she said.
+
+“Ah, yes! Miss Vandeleur, you do,” returned Francis “better than I do
+myself. Indeed, it is on that, above all, that I seek light. Tell me
+what you know,” he pleaded. “Tell me who I am, who you are, and how our
+destinies are intermixed. Give me a little help with my life, Miss
+Vandeleur—only a word or two to guide me, only the name of my father,
+if you will—and I shall be grateful and content.”
+
+“I will not attempt to deceive you,” she replied. “I know who you are,
+but I am not at liberty to say.”
+
+“Tell me, at least, that you have forgiven my presumption, and I shall
+wait with all the patience I have,” he said. “If I am not to know, I
+must do without. It is cruel, but I can bear more upon a push. Only do
+not add to my troubles the thought that I have made an enemy of you.”
+
+“You did only what was natural,” she said, “and I have nothing to
+forgive you. Farewell.”
+
+“Is it to be _farewell_?” he asked.
+
+“Nay, that I do not know myself,” she answered. “Farewell for the
+present, if you like.”
+
+And with these words she was gone.
+
+Francis returned to his lodging in a state of considerable commotion of
+mind. He made the most trifling progress with his Euclid for that
+forenoon, and was more often at the window than at his improvised
+writing-table. But beyond seeing the return of Miss Vandeleur, and the
+meeting between her and her father, who was smoking a Trichinopoli
+cigar in the verandah, there was nothing notable in the neighbourhood
+of the house with the green blinds before the time of the mid-day meal.
+The young man hastily allayed his appetite in a neighbouring
+restaurant, and returned with the speed of unallayed curiosity to the
+house in the Rue Lepic. A mounted servant was leading a saddle-horse to
+and fro before the garden wall; and the porter of Francis’s lodging was
+smoking a pipe against the door-post, absorbed in contemplation of the
+livery and the steeds.
+
+“Look!” he cried to the young man, “what fine cattle! what an elegant
+costume! They belong to the brother of M. de Vandeleur, who is now
+within upon a visit. He is a great man, a general, in your country; and
+you doubtless know him well by reputation.”
+
+“I confess,” returned Francis, “that I have never heard of General
+Vandeleur before. We have many officers of that grade, and my pursuits
+have been exclusively civil.”
+
+“It is he,” replied the porter, “who lost the great diamond of the
+Indies. Of that at least you must have read often in the papers.”
+
+As soon as Francis could disengage himself from the porter he ran
+upstairs and hurried to the window. Immediately below the clear space
+in the chestnut leaves, the two gentlemen were seated in conversation
+over a cigar. The General, a red, military-looking man, offered some
+traces of a family resemblance to his brother; he had something of the
+same features, something, although very little, of the same free and
+powerful carriage; but he was older, smaller, and more common in air;
+his likeness was that of a caricature, and he seemed altogether a poor
+and debile being by the side of the Dictator.
+
+They spoke in tones so low, leaning over the table with every
+appearance of interest, that Francis could catch no more than a word or
+two on an occasion. For as little as he heard, he was convinced that
+the conversation turned upon himself and his own career; several times
+the name of Scrymgeour reached his ear, for it was easy to distinguish,
+and still more frequently he fancied he could distinguish the name
+Francis.
+
+At length the General, as if in a hot anger, broke forth into several
+violent exclamations.
+
+“Francis Vandeleur!” he cried, accentuating the last word. “Francis
+Vandeleur, I tell you.”
+
+The Dictator made a movement of his whole body, half affirmative, half
+contemptuous, but his answer was inaudible to the young man.
+
+Was he the Francis Vandeleur in question? he wondered. Were they
+discussing the name under which he was to be married? Or was the whole
+affair a dream and a delusion of his own conceit and self-absorption?
+
+After another interval of inaudible talk, dissension seemed again to
+arise between the couple underneath the chestnut, and again the General
+raised his voice angrily so as to be audible to Francis.
+
+“My wife?” he cried. “I have done with my wife for good. I will not
+hear her name. I am sick of her very name.”
+
+And he swore aloud and beat the table with his fist.
+
+The Dictator appeared, by his gestures, to pacify him after a paternal
+fashion; and a little after he conducted him to the garden-gate. The
+pair shook hands affectionately enough; but as soon as the door had
+closed behind his visitor, John Vandeleur fell into a fit of laughter
+which sounded unkindly and even devilish in the ears of Francis
+Scrymgeour.
+
+So another day had passed, and little more learnt. But the young man
+remembered that the morrow was Tuesday, and promised himself some
+curious discoveries; all might be well, or all might be ill; he was
+sure, at least, to glean some curious information, and, perhaps, by
+good luck, get at the heart of the mystery which surrounded his father
+and his family.
+
+As the hour of the dinner drew near many preparations were made in the
+garden of the house with the green blinds. That table which was partly
+visible to Francis through the chestnut leaves was destined to serve as
+a sideboard, and carried relays of plates and the materials for salad:
+the other, which was almost entirely concealed, had been set apart for
+the diners, and Francis could catch glimpses of white cloth and silver
+plate.
+
+Mr. Rolles arrived, punctual to the minute; he looked like a man upon
+his guard, and spoke low and sparingly. The Dictator, on the other
+hand, appeared to enjoy an unusual flow of spirits; his laugh, which
+was youthful and pleasant to hear, sounded frequently from the garden;
+by the modulation and the changes of his voice it was obvious that he
+told many droll stories and imitated the accents of a variety of
+different nations; and before he and the young clergyman had finished
+their vermouth all feeling of distrust was at an end, and they were
+talking together like a pair of school companions.
+
+At length Miss Vandeleur made her appearance, carrying the soup-tureen.
+Mr. Rolles ran to offer her assistance which she laughingly refused;
+and there was an interchange of pleasantries among the trio which
+seemed to have reference to this primitive manner of waiting by one of
+the company.
+
+“One is more at one’s ease,” Mr. Vandeleur was heard to declare.
+
+Next moment they were all three in their places, and Francis could see
+as little as he could hear of what passed. But the dinner seemed to go
+merrily; there was a perpetual babble of voices and sound of knives and
+forks below the chestnut; and Francis, who had no more than a roll to
+gnaw, was affected with envy by the comfort and deliberation of the
+meal. The party lingered over one dish after another, and then over a
+delicate dessert, with a bottle of old wine carefully uncorked by the
+hand of the Dictator himself. As it began to grow dark a lamp was set
+upon the table and a couple of candles on the sideboard; for the night
+was perfectly pure, starry, and windless. Light overflowed besides from
+the door and window in the verandah, so that the garden was fairly
+illuminated and the leaves twinkled in the darkness.
+
+For perhaps the tenth time Miss Vandeleur entered the house; and on
+this occasion she returned with the coffee-tray, which she placed upon
+the sideboard. At the same moment her father rose from his seat.
+
+“The coffee is my province,” Francis heard him say.
+
+And next moment he saw his supposed father standing by the sideboard in
+the light of the candles.
+
+Talking over his shoulder all the while, Mr. Vandeleur poured out two
+cups of the brown stimulant, and then, by a rapid act of
+prestidigitation, emptied the contents of a tiny phial into the smaller
+of the two. The thing was so swiftly done that even Francis, who looked
+straight into his face, had hardly time to perceive the movement before
+it was completed. And next instant, and still laughing, Mr. Vandeleur
+had turned again towards the table with a cup in either hand.
+
+“Ere we have done with this,” said he, “we may expect our famous
+Hebrew.”
+
+It would be impossible to depict the confusion and distress of Francis
+Scrymgeour. He saw foul play going forward before his eyes, and he felt
+bound to interfere, but knew not how. It might be a mere pleasantry,
+and then how should he look if he were to offer an unnecessary warning?
+Or again, if it were serious, the criminal might be his own father, and
+then how should he not lament if he were to bring ruin on the author of
+his days? For the first time he became conscious of his own position as
+a spy. To wait inactive at such a juncture and with such a conflict of
+sentiments in his bosom was to suffer the most acute torture; he clung
+to the bars of the shutters, his heart beat fast and with irregularity,
+and he felt a strong sweat break forth upon his body.
+
+Several minutes passed.
+
+He seemed to perceive the conversation die away and grow less and less
+in vivacity and volume; but still no sign of any alarming or even
+notable event.
+
+Suddenly the ring of a glass breaking was followed by a faint and dull
+sound, as of a person who should have fallen forward with his head upon
+the table. At the same moment a piercing scream rose from the garden.
+
+“What have you done?” cried Miss Vandeleur. “He is dead!”
+
+The Dictator replied in a violent whisper, so strong and sibilant that
+every word was audible to the watcher at the window.
+
+“Silence!” said Mr. Vandeleur; “the man is as well as I am. Take him by
+the heels whilst I carry him by the shoulders.”
+
+Francis heard Miss Vandeleur break forth into a passion of tears.
+
+“Do you hear what I say?” resumed the Dictator, in the same tones. “Or
+do you wish to quarrel with me? I give you your choice, Miss
+Vandeleur.”
+
+There was another pause, and the Dictator spoke again.
+
+“Take that man by the heels,” he said. “I must have him brought into
+the house. If I were a little younger, I could help myself against the
+world. But now that years and dangers are upon me and my hands are
+weakened, I must turn to you for aid.”
+
+“It is a crime,” replied the girl.
+
+“I am your father,” said Mr. Vandeleur.
+
+This appeal seemed to produce its effect. A scuffling noise followed
+upon the gravel, a chair was overset, and then Francis saw the father
+and daughter stagger across the walk and disappear under the verandah,
+bearing the inanimate body of Mr. Rolles embraced about the knees and
+shoulders. The young clergyman was limp and pallid, and his head rolled
+upon his shoulders at every step.
+
+Was he alive or dead? Francis, in spite of the Dictator’s declaration,
+inclined to the latter view. A great crime had been committed; a great
+calamity had fallen upon the inhabitants of the house with the green
+blinds. To his surprise, Francis found all horror for the deed
+swallowed up in sorrow for a girl and an old man whom he judged to be
+in the height of peril. A tide of generous feeling swept into his
+heart; he, too, would help his father against man and mankind, against
+fate and justice; and casting open the shutters he closed his eyes and
+threw himself with out-stretched arms into the foliage of the chestnut.
+
+Branch after branch slipped from his grasp or broke under his weight;
+then he caught a stalwart bough under his armpit, and hung suspended
+for a second; and then he let himself drop and fell heavily against the
+table. A cry of alarm from the house warned him that his entrance had
+not been effected unobserved. He recovered himself with a stagger, and
+in three bounds crossed the intervening space and stood before the door
+in the verandah.
+
+In a small apartment, carpeted with matting and surrounded by glazed
+cabinets full of rare and costly curios, Mr. Vandeleur was stooping
+over the body of Mr. Rolles. He raised himself as Francis entered, and
+there was an instantaneous passage of hands. It was the business of a
+second; as fast as an eye can wink the thing was done; the young man
+had not the time to be sure, but it seemed to him as if the Dictator
+had taken something from the curate’s breast, looked at it for the
+least fraction of time as it lay in his hand, and then suddenly and
+swiftly passed it to his daughter.
+
+All this was over while Francis had still one foot upon the threshold,
+and the other raised in air. The next instant he was on his knees to
+Mr. Vandeleur.
+
+“Father!” he cried. “Let me too help you. I will do what you wish and
+ask no questions; I will obey you with my life; treat me as a son, and
+you will find I have a son’s devotion.”
+
+A deplorable explosion of oaths was the Dictator’s first reply.
+
+“Son and father?” he cried. “Father and son? What d—d unnatural comedy
+is all this? How do you come in my garden? What do you want? And who,
+in God’s name, are you?”
+
+Francis, with a stunned and shamefaced aspect, got upon his feet again,
+and stood in silence.
+
+Then a light seemed to break upon Mr. Vandeleur, and he laughed aloud
+
+“I see,” cried he. “It is the Scrymgeour. Very well, Mr. Scrymgeour.
+Let me tell you in a few words how you stand. You have entered my
+private residence by force, or perhaps by fraud, but certainly with no
+encouragement from me; and you come at a moment of some annoyance, a
+guest having fainted at my table, to besiege me with your
+protestations. You are no son of mine. You are my brother’s bastard by
+a fishwife, if you want to know. I regard you with an indifference
+closely bordering on aversion; and from what I now see of your conduct,
+I judge your mind to be exactly suitable to your exterior. I recommend
+you these mortifying reflections for your leisure; and, in the
+meantime, let me beseech you to rid us of your presence. If I were not
+occupied,” added the Dictator, with a terrifying oath, “I should give
+you the unholiest drubbing ere you went!”
+
+Francis listened in profound humiliation. He would have fled had it
+been possible; but as he had no means of leaving the residence into
+which he had so unfortunately penetrated, he could do no more than
+stand foolishly where he was.
+
+It was Miss Vandeleur who broke the silence.
+
+“Father,” she said, “you speak in anger. Mr. Scrymgeour may have been
+mistaken, but he meant well and kindly.”
+
+“Thank you for speaking,” returned the Dictator. “You remind me of some
+other observations which I hold it a point of honour to make to Mr.
+Scrymgeour. My brother,” he continued, addressing the young man, “has
+been foolish enough to give you an allowance; he was foolish enough and
+presumptuous enough to propose a match between you and this young lady.
+You were exhibited to her two nights ago; and I rejoice to tell you
+that she rejected the idea with disgust. Let me add that I have
+considerable influence with your father; and it shall not be my fault
+if you are not beggared of your allowance and sent back to your
+scrivening ere the week be out.”
+
+The tones of the old man’s voice were, if possible, more wounding than
+his language; Francis felt himself exposed to the most cruel,
+blighting, and unbearable contempt; his head turned, and he covered his
+face with his hands, uttering at the same time a tearless sob of agony.
+But Miss Vandeleur once again interfered in his behalf.
+
+“Mr. Scrymgeour,” she said, speaking in clear and even tones, “you must
+not be concerned at my father’s harsh expressions. I felt no disgust
+for you; on the contrary, I asked an opportunity to make your better
+acquaintance. As for what has passed to-night, believe me it has filled
+my mind with both pity and esteem.”
+
+Just then Mr. Rolles made a convulsive movement with his arm, which
+convinced Francis that he was only drugged, and was beginning to throw
+off the influence of the opiate. Mr. Vandeleur stooped over him and
+examined his face for an instant.
+
+“Come, come!” cried he, raising his head. “Let there be an end of this.
+And since you are so pleased with his conduct, Miss Vandeleur, take a
+candle and show the bastard out.”
+
+The young lady hastened to obey.
+
+“Thank you,” said Francis, as soon as he was alone with her in the
+garden. “I thank you from my soul. This has been the bitterest evening
+of my life, but it will have always one pleasant recollection.”
+
+“I spoke as I felt,” she replied, “and in justice to you. It made my
+heart sorry that you should be so unkindly used.”
+
+By this time they had reached the garden gate; and Miss Vandeleur,
+having set the candle on the ground, was already unfastening the bolts.
+
+“One word more,” said Francis. “This is not for the last time—I shall
+see you again, shall I not?”
+
+“Alas!” she answered. “You have heard my father. What can I do but
+obey?”
+
+“Tell me at least that it is not with your consent,” returned Francis;
+“tell me that you have no wish to see the last of me.”
+
+“Indeed,” replied she, “I have none. You seem to me both brave and
+honest.”
+
+“Then,” said Francis, “give me a keepsake.”
+
+She paused for a moment, with her hand upon the key; for the various
+bars and bolts were all undone, and there was nothing left but to open
+the lock.
+
+“If I agree,” she said, “will you promise to do as I tell you from
+point to point?”
+
+“Can you ask?” replied Francis. “I would do so willingly on your bare
+word.”
+
+She turned the key and threw open the door.
+
+“Be it so,” said she. “You do not know what you ask, but be it so.
+Whatever you hear,” she continued, “whatever happens, do not return to
+this house; hurry fast until you reach the lighted and populous
+quarters of the city; even there be upon your guard. You are in a
+greater danger than you fancy. Promise me you will not so much as look
+at my keepsake until you are in a place of safety.”
+
+“I promise,” replied Francis.
+
+She put something loosely wrapped in a handkerchief into the young
+man’s hand; and at the same time, with more strength than he could have
+anticipated, she pushed him into the street.
+
+“Now, run!” she cried.
+
+He heard the door close behind him, and the noise of the bolts being
+replaced.
+
+“My faith,” said he, “since I have promised!”
+
+And he took to his heels down the lane that leads into the Rue
+Ravignan.
+
+He was not fifty paces from the house with the green blinds when the
+most diabolical outcry suddenly arose out of the stillness of the
+night. Mechanically he stood still; another passenger followed his
+example; in the neighbouring floors he saw people crowding to the
+windows; a conflagration could not have produced more disturbance in
+this empty quarter. And yet it seemed to be all the work of a single
+man, roaring between grief and rage, like a lioness robbed of her
+whelps; and Francis was surprised and alarmed to hear his own name
+shouted with English imprecations to the wind.
+
+His first movement was to return to the house; his second, as he
+remembered Miss Vandeleur’s advice, to continue his flight with greater
+expedition than before; and he was in the act of turning to put his
+thought in action, when the Dictator, bareheaded, bawling aloud, his
+white hair blowing about his head, shot past him like a ball out of the
+cannon’s mouth, and went careering down the street.
+
+“That was a close shave,” thought Francis to himself. “What he wants
+with me, and why he should be so disturbed, I cannot think; but he is
+plainly not good company for the moment, and I cannot do better than
+follow Miss Vandeleur’s advice.”
+
+So saying, he turned to retrace his steps, thinking to double and
+descend by the Rue Lepic itself while his pursuer should continue to
+follow after him on the other line of street. The plan was ill-devised:
+as a matter of fact, he should have taken his seat in the nearest café,
+and waited there until the first heat of the pursuit was over. But
+besides that Francis had no experience and little natural aptitude for
+the small war of private life, he was so unconscious of any evil on his
+part, that he saw nothing to fear beyond a disagreeable interview. And
+to disagreeable interviews he felt he had already served his
+apprenticeship that evening; nor could he suppose that Miss Vandeleur
+had left anything unsaid. Indeed, the young man was sore both in body
+and mind—the one was all bruised, the other was full of smarting
+arrows; and he owned to himself that Mr. Vandeleur was master of a very
+deadly tongue.
+
+The thought of his bruises reminded him that he had not only come
+without a hat, but that his clothes had considerably suffered in his
+descent through the chestnut. At the first magazine he purchased a
+cheap wideawake, and had the disorder of his toilet summarily repaired.
+The keepsake, still rolled in the handkerchief, he thrust in the
+meanwhile into his trousers pocket.
+
+Not many steps beyond the shop he was conscious of a sudden shock, a
+hand upon his throat, an infuriated face close to his own, and an open
+mouth bawling curses in his ear. The Dictator, having found no trace of
+his quarry, was returning by the other way. Francis was a stalwart
+young fellow; but he was no match for his adversary whether in strength
+or skill; and after a few ineffectual struggles he resigned himself
+entirely to his captor.
+
+“What do you want with me?” said he.
+
+“We will talk of that at home,” returned the Dictator grimly.
+
+And he continued to march the young man up hill in the direction of the
+house with the green blinds.
+
+But Francis, although he no longer struggled, was only waiting an
+opportunity to make a bold push for freedom. With a sudden jerk he left
+the collar of his coat in the hands of Mr. Vandeleur, and once more
+made off at his best speed in the direction of the Boulevards.
+
+The tables were now turned. If the Dictator was the stronger, Francis,
+in the top of his youth, was the more fleet of foot, and he had soon
+effected his escape among the crowds. Relieved for a moment, but with a
+growing sentiment of alarm and wonder in his mind, he walked briskly
+until he debouched upon the Place de l’Opéra, lit up like day with
+electric lamps.
+
+“This, at least,” thought he, “should satisfy Miss Vandeleur.”
+
+And turning to his right along the Boulevards, he entered the Café
+Américain and ordered some beer. It was both late and early for the
+majority of the frequenters of the establishment. Only two or three
+persons, all men, were dotted here and there at separate tables in the
+hall; and Francis was too much occupied by his own thoughts to observe
+their presence.
+
+He drew the handkerchief from his pocket. The object wrapped in it
+proved to be a morocco case, clasped and ornamented in gilt, which
+opened by means of a spring, and disclosed to the horrified young man a
+diamond of monstrous bigness and extraordinary brilliancy. The
+circumstance was so inexplicable, the value of the stone was plainly so
+enormous, that Francis sat staring into the open casket without
+movement, without conscious thought, like a man stricken suddenly with
+idiocy.
+
+A hand was laid upon his shoulder, lightly but firmly, and a quiet
+voice, which yet had in it the ring of command, uttered these words in
+his ear—
+
+“Close the casket, and compose your face.”
+
+Looking up, he beheld a man, still young, of an urbane and tranquil
+presence, and dressed with rich simplicity. This personage had risen
+from a neighbouring table, and, bringing his glass with him, had taken
+a seat beside Francis.
+
+“Close the casket,” repeated the stranger, “and put it quietly back
+into your pocket, where I feel persuaded it should never have been.
+Try, if you please, to throw off your bewildered air, and act as though
+I were one of your acquaintances whom you had met by chance. So! Touch
+glasses with me. That is better. I fear, sir, you must be an amateur.”
+
+And the stranger pronounced these last words with a smile of peculiar
+meaning, leaned back in his seat and enjoyed a deep inhalation of
+tobacco.
+
+“For God’s sake,” said Francis, “tell me who you are and what this
+means? Why I should obey your most unusual suggestions I am sure I know
+not; but the truth is, I have fallen this evening into so many
+perplexing adventures, and all I meet conduct themselves so strangely,
+that I think I must either have gone mad or wandered into another
+planet. Your face inspires me with confidence; you seem wise, good, and
+experienced; tell me, for heaven’s sake, why you accost me in so odd a
+fashion?”
+
+“All in due time,” replied the stranger. “But I have the first hand,
+and you must begin by telling me how the Rajah’s Diamond is in your
+possession.”
+
+“The Rajah’s Diamond!” echoed Francis.
+
+“I would not speak so loud, if I were you,” returned the other. “But
+most certainly you have the Rajah’s Diamond in your pocket. I have seen
+and handled it a score of times in Sir Thomas Vandeleur’s collection.”
+
+“Sir Thomas Vandeleur! The General! My father!” cried Francis.
+
+“Your father?” repeated the stranger. “I was not aware the General had
+any family.”
+
+“I am illegitimate, sir,” replied Francis, with a flush.
+
+The other bowed with gravity. It was a respectful bow, as of a man
+silently apologising to his equal; and Francis felt relieved and
+comforted, he scarce knew why. The society of this person did him good;
+he seemed to touch firm ground; a strong feeling of respect grew up in
+his bosom, and mechanically he removed his wideawake as though in the
+presence of a superior.
+
+“I perceive,” said the stranger, “that your adventures have not all
+been peaceful. Your collar is torn, your face is scratched, you have a
+cut upon your temple; you will, perhaps, pardon my curiosity when I ask
+you to explain how you came by these injuries, and how you happen to
+have stolen property to an enormous value in your pocket.”
+
+“I must differ from you!” returned Francis hotly. “I possess no stolen
+property. And if you refer to the diamond, it was given to me not an
+hour ago by Miss Vandeleur in the Rue Lepic.”
+
+“By Miss Vandeleur of the Rue Lepic!” repeated the other. “You interest
+me more than you suppose. Pray continue.”
+
+“Heavens!” cried Francis.
+
+His memory had made a sudden bound. He had seen Mr. Vandeleur take an
+article from the breast of his drugged visitor, and that article, he
+was now persuaded, was a morocco case.
+
+“You have a light?” inquired the stranger.
+
+“Listen,” replied Francis. “I know not who you are, but I believe you
+to be worthy of confidence and helpful; I find myself in strange
+waters; I must have counsel and support, and since you invite me I
+shall tell you all.”
+
+And he briefly recounted his experiences since the day when he was
+summoned from the bank by his lawyer.
+
+“Yours is indeed a remarkable history,” said the stranger, after the
+young man had made an end of his narrative; “and your position is full
+of difficulty and peril. Many would counsel you to seek out your
+father, and give the diamond to him; but I have other views. Waiter!”
+he cried.
+
+The waiter drew near.
+
+“Will you ask the manager to speak with me a moment?” said he; and
+Francis observed once more, both in his tone and manner, the evidence
+of a habit of command.
+
+The waiter withdrew, and returned in a moment with manager, who bowed
+with obsequious respect.
+
+“What,” said he, “can I do to serve you?”
+
+“Have the goodness,” replied the stranger, indicating Francis, “to tell
+this gentleman my name.”
+
+“You have the honour, sir,” said the functionary, addressing young
+Scrymgeour, “to occupy the same table with His Highness Prince Florizel
+of Bohemia.”
+
+Francis rose with precipitation, and made a grateful reverence to the
+Prince, who bade him resume his seat.
+
+“I thank you,” said Florizel, once more addressing the functionary; “I
+am sorry to have deranged you for so small a matter.”
+
+And he dismissed him with a movement of his hand.
+
+“And now,” added the Prince, turning to Francis, “give me the diamond.”
+
+Without a word the casket was handed over.
+
+“You have done right,” said Florizel, “your sentiments have properly
+inspired you, and you will live to be grateful for the misfortunes of
+to-night. A man, Mr. Scrymgeour, may fall into a thousand perplexities,
+but if his heart be upright and his intelligence unclouded, he will
+issue from them all without dishonour. Let your mind be at rest; your
+affairs are in my hand; and with the aid of heaven I am strong enough
+to bring them to a good end. Follow me, if you please, to my carriage.”
+
+So saying the Prince arose and, having left a piece of gold for the
+waiter, conducted the young man from the café and along the Boulevard
+to where an unpretentious brougham and a couple of servants out of
+livery awaited his arrival.
+
+“This carriage,” said he, “is at your disposal; collect your baggage as
+rapidly as you can make it convenient, and my servants will conduct you
+to a villa in the neighbourhood of Paris where you can wait in some
+degree of comfort until I have had time to arrange your situation. You
+will find there a pleasant garden, a library of good authors, a cook, a
+cellar, and some good cigars, which I recommend to your attention.
+Jérome,” he added, turning to one of the servants, “you have heard what
+I say; I leave Mr. Scrymgeour in your charge; you will, I know, be
+careful of my friend.”
+
+Francis uttered some broken phrases of gratitude.
+
+“It will be time enough to thank me,” said the Prince, “when you are
+acknowledged by your father and married to Miss Vandeleur.”
+
+And with that the Prince turned away and strolled leisurely in the
+direction of Montmartre. He hailed the first passing cab, gave an
+address, and a quarter of an hour afterwards, having discharged the
+driver some distance lower, he was knocking at Mr. Vandeleur’s garden
+gate.
+
+It was opened with singular precautions by the Dictator in person.
+
+“Who are you?” he demanded.
+
+“You must pardon me this late visit, Mr. Vandeleur,” replied the
+Prince.
+
+“Your Highness is always welcome,” returned Mr. Vandeleur, stepping
+back.
+
+The Prince profited by the open space, and without waiting for his host
+walked right into the house and opened the door of the _salon_. Two
+people were seated there; one was Miss Vandeleur, who bore the marks of
+weeping about her eyes, and was still shaken from time to time by a
+sob; in the other the Prince recognised the young man who had consulted
+him on literary matters about a month before, in a club smoking-room.
+
+“Good evening, Miss Vandeleur,” said Florizel; “you look fatigued. Mr.
+Rolles, I believe? I hope you have profited by the study of Gaboriau,
+Mr. Rolles.”
+
+But the young clergyman’s temper was too much embittered for speech;
+and he contented himself with bowing stiffly, and continued to gnaw his
+lip.
+
+“To what good wind,” said Mr. Vandeleur, following his guest, “am I to
+attribute the honour of your Highness’s presence?”
+
+“I am come on business,” returned the Prince; “on business with you; as
+soon as that is settled I shall request Mr. Rolles to accompany me for
+a walk. Mr. Rolles,” he added with severity, “let me remind you that I
+have not yet sat down.”
+
+The clergyman sprang to his feet with an apology; whereupon the Prince
+took an armchair beside the table, handed his hat to Mr. Vandeleur, his
+cane to Mr. Rolles, and, leaving them standing and thus menially
+employed upon his service, spoke as follows:—
+
+“I have come here, as I said, upon business; but, had I come looking
+for pleasure, I could not have been more displeased with my reception
+nor more dissatisfied with my company. You, sir,” addressing Mr.
+Rolles, “you have treated your superior in station with discourtesy;
+you, Vandeleur, receive me with a smile, but you know right well that
+your hands are not yet cleansed from misconduct. I do not desire to be
+interrupted, sir,” he added imperiously; “I am here to speak, and not
+to listen; and I have to ask you to hear me with respect, and to obey
+punctiliously. At the earliest possible date your daughter shall be
+married at the Embassy to my friend, Francis Scrymgeour, your brother’s
+acknowledged son. You will oblige me by offering not less than ten
+thousand pounds dowry. For yourself, I will indicate to you in writing
+a mission of some importance in Siam which I destine to your care. And
+now, sir, you will answer me in two words whether or not you agree to
+these conditions.”
+
+“Your Highness will pardon me,” said Mr. Vandeleur, “and permit me,
+with all respect, to submit to him two queries?”
+
+“The permission is granted,” replied the Prince.
+
+“Your Highness,” resumed the Dictator, “has called Mr. Scrymgeour his
+friend. Believe me, had I known he was thus honoured, I should have
+treated him with proportional respect.”
+
+“You interrogate adroitly,” said the Prince; “but it will not serve
+your turn. You have my commands; if I had never seen that gentleman
+before to-night, it would not render them less absolute.”
+
+“Your Highness interprets my meaning with his usual subtlety,” returned
+Vandeleur. “Once more: I have, unfortunately, put the police upon the
+track of Mr. Scrymgeour on a charge of theft; am I to withdraw or to
+uphold the accusation?”
+
+“You will please yourself,” replied Florizel. “The question is one
+between your conscience and the laws of this land. Give me my hat; and
+you, Mr. Rolles, give me my cane and follow me. Miss Vandeleur, I wish
+you good evening. I judge,” he added to Vandeleur, “that your silence
+means unqualified assent.”
+
+“If I can do no better,” replied the old man, “I shall submit; but I
+warn you openly it shall not be without a struggle.”
+
+“You are old,” said the Prince; “but years are disgraceful to the
+wicked. Your age is more unwise than the youth of others. Do not
+provoke me, or you may find me harder than you dream. This is the first
+time that I have fallen across your path in anger; take care that it be
+the last.”
+
+With these words, motioning the clergyman to follow, Florizel left the
+apartment and directed his steps towards the garden gate; and the
+Dictator, following with a candle, gave them light, and once more undid
+the elaborate fastenings with which he sought to protect himself from
+intrusion.
+
+“Your daughter is no longer present,” said the Prince, turning on the
+threshold. “Let me tell you that I understand your threats; and you
+have only to lift your hand to bring upon yourself sudden and
+irremediable ruin.”
+
+The Dictator made no reply; but as the Prince turned his back upon him
+in the lamplight he made a gesture full of menace and insane fury; and
+the next moment, slipping round a corner, he was running at full speed
+for the nearest cab-stand.
+
+
+(_Here_, says my Arabian, _the thread of events is finally diverted
+from_ The House with the Green Blinds. _One more adventure_, he adds,
+_and we have done with_ The Rajah’s Diamond. _That last link in the
+chain is known among the inhabitants of Bagdad by the name of_ The
+Adventure of Prince Florizel and a Detective.)
+
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF PRINCE FLORIZEL AND A DETECTIVE
+
+
+Prince Florizel walked with Mr. Rolles to the door of a small hotel
+where the latter resided. They spoke much together, and the clergyman
+was more than once affected to tears by the mingled severity and
+tenderness of Florizel’s reproaches.
+
+“I have made ruin of my life,” he said at last. “Help me; tell me what
+I am to do; I have, alas! neither the virtues of a priest nor the
+dexterity of a rogue.”
+
+“Now that you are humbled,” said the Prince, “I command no longer; the
+repentant have to do with God and not with princes. But if you will let
+me advise you, go to Australia as a colonist, seek menial labour in the
+open air, and try to forget that you have ever been a clergyman, or
+that you ever set eyes on that accursed stone.”
+
+“Accurst indeed!” replied Mr. Rolles. “Where is it now? What further
+hurt is it not working for mankind?”
+
+“It will do no more evil,” returned the Prince. “It is here in my
+pocket. And this,” he added kindly, “will show that I place some faith
+in your penitence, young as it is.”
+
+“Suffer me to touch your hand,” pleaded Mr. Rolles.
+
+“No,” replied Prince Florizel, “not yet.”
+
+The tone in which he uttered these last words was eloquent in the ears
+of the young clergyman; and for some minutes after the Prince had
+turned away he stood on the threshold following with his eyes the
+retreating figure and invoking the blessing of heaven upon a man so
+excellent in counsel.
+
+For several hours the Prince walked alone in unfrequented streets. His
+mind was full of concern; what to do with the diamond, whether to
+return it to its owner, whom he judged unworthy of this rare
+possession, or to take some sweeping and courageous measure and put it
+out of the reach of all mankind at once and for ever, was a problem too
+grave to be decided in a moment. The manner in which it had come into
+his hands appeared manifestly providential; and as he took out the
+jewel and looked at it under the street lamps, its size and surprising
+brilliancy inclined him more and more to think of it as of an unmixed
+and dangerous evil for the world.
+
+“God help me!” he thought; “if I look at it much oftener, I shall begin
+to grow covetous myself.”
+
+At last, though still uncertain in his mind, he turned his steps
+towards the small but elegant mansion on the river-side which had
+belonged for centuries to his royal family. The arms of Bohemia are
+deeply graved over the door and upon the tall chimneys; passengers have
+a look into a green court set with the most costly flowers, and a
+stork, the only one in Paris, perches on the gable all day long and
+keeps a crowd before the house. Grave servants are seen passing to and
+fro within; and from time to time the great gate is thrown open and a
+carriage rolls below the arch. For many reasons this residence was
+especially dear to the heart of Prince Florizel; he never drew near to
+it without enjoying that sentiment of home-coming so rare in the lives
+of the great; and on the present evening he beheld its tall roof and
+mildly illuminated windows with unfeigned relief and satisfaction.
+
+As he was approaching the postern door by which he always entered when
+alone, a man stepped forth from the shadow and presented himself with
+an obeisance in the Prince’s path.
+
+“I have the honour of addressing Prince Florizel of Bohemia?” said he.
+
+“Such is my title,” replied the Prince. “What do you want with me?”
+
+“I am,” said the man, “a detective, and I have to present your Highness
+with this billet from the Prefect of Police.”
+
+The Prince took the letter and glanced it through by the light of the
+street lamp. It was highly apologetic, but requested him to follow the
+bearer to the Prefecture without delay.
+
+“In short,” said Florizel, “I am arrested.”
+
+“Your Highness,” replied the officer, “nothing, I am certain, could be
+further from the intention of the Prefect. You will observe that he has
+not granted a warrant. It is mere formality, or call it, if you prefer,
+an obligation that your Highness lays on the authorities.”
+
+“At the same time,” asked the Prince, “if I were to refuse to follow
+you?”
+
+“I will not conceal from your Highness that a considerable discretion
+has been granted me,” replied the detective with a bow.
+
+“Upon my word,” cried Florizel, “your effrontery astounds me! Yourself,
+as an agent, I must pardon; but your superiors shall dearly smart for
+their misconduct. What, have you any idea, is the cause of this
+impolitic and unconstitutional act? You will observe that I have as yet
+neither refused nor consented, and much may depend on your prompt and
+ingenuous answer. Let me remind you, officer, that this is an affair of
+some gravity.”
+
+“Your Highness,” said the detective humbly, “General Vandeleur and his
+brother have had the incredible presumption to accuse you of theft. The
+famous diamond, they declare, is in your hands. A word from you in
+denial will most amply satisfy the Prefect; nay, I go farther: if your
+Highness would so far honour a subaltern as to declare his ignorance of
+the matter even to myself, I should ask permission to retire upon the
+spot.”
+
+Florizel, up to the last moment, had regarded his adventure in the
+light of a trifle, only serious upon international considerations. At
+the name of Vandeleur the horrible truth broke upon him in a moment; he
+was not only arrested, but he was guilty. This was not only an annoying
+incident—it was a peril to his honour. What was he to say? What was he
+to do? The Rajah’s Diamond was indeed an accursed stone; and it seemed
+as if he were to be the last victim to its influence.
+
+One thing was certain. He could not give the required assurance to the
+detective. He must gain time.
+
+His hesitation had not lasted a second.
+
+“Be it so,” said he, “let us walk together to the Prefecture.”
+
+The man once more bowed, and proceeded to follow Florizel at a
+respectful distance in the rear.
+
+“Approach,” said the Prince. “I am in a humour to talk, and, if I
+mistake not, now I look at you again, this is not the first time that
+we have met.”
+
+“I count it an honour,” replied the officer, “that your Highness should
+recollect my face. It is eight years since I had the pleasure of an
+interview.”
+
+“To remember faces,” returned Florizel, “is as much a part of my
+profession as it is of yours. Indeed, rightly looked upon, a Prince and
+a detective serve in the same corps. We are both combatants against
+crime; only mine is the more lucrative and yours the more dangerous
+rank, and there is a sense in which both may be made equally honourable
+to a good man. I had rather, strange as you may think it, be a
+detective of character and parts than a weak and ignoble sovereign.”
+
+The officer was overwhelmed.
+
+“Your Highness returns good for evil,” said he. “To an act of
+presumption he replies by the most amiable condescension.”
+
+“How do you know,” replied Florizel, “that I am not seeking to corrupt
+you?”
+
+“Heaven preserve me from the temptation!” cried the detective.
+
+“I applaud your answer,” returned the Prince. “It is that of a wise and
+honest man. The world is a great place and stocked with wealth and
+beauty, and there is no limit to the rewards that may be offered. Such
+an one who would refuse a million of money may sell his honour for an
+empire or the love of a woman; and I myself, who speak to you, have
+seen occasions so tempting, provocations so irresistible to the
+strength of human virtue, that I have been glad to tread in your steps
+and recommend myself to the grace of God. It is thus, thanks to that
+modest and becoming habit alone,” he added, “that you and I can walk
+this town together with untarnished hearts.”
+
+“I had always heard that you were brave,” replied the officer, “but I
+was not aware that you were wise and pious. You speak the truth, and
+you speak it with an accent that moves me to the heart. This world is
+indeed a place of trial.”
+
+“We are now,” said Florizel, “in the middle of the bridge. Lean your
+elbows on the parapet and look over. As the water rushing below, so the
+passions and complications of life carry away the honesty of weak men.
+Let me tell you a story.”
+
+“I receive your Highness’s commands,” replied the man.
+
+And, imitating the Prince, he leaned against the parapet, and disposed
+himself to listen. The city was already sunk in slumber; had it not
+been for the infinity of lights and the outline of buildings on the
+starry sky, they might have been alone beside some country river.
+
+“An officer,” began Prince Florizel, “a man of courage and conduct, who
+had already risen by merit to an eminent rank, and won not only
+admiration but respect, visited, in an unfortunate hour for his peace
+of mind, the collections of an Indian Prince. Here he beheld a diamond
+so extraordinary for size and beauty that from that instant he had only
+one desire in life: honour, reputation, friendship, the love of
+country, he was ready to sacrifice all for this lump of sparkling
+crystal. For three years he served this semi-barbarian potentate as
+Jacob served Laban; he falsified frontiers, he connived at murders, he
+unjustly condemned and executed a brother-officer who had the
+misfortune to displease the Rajah by some honest freedoms; lastly, at a
+time of great danger to his native land, he betrayed a body of his
+fellow-soldiers, and suffered them to be defeated and massacred by
+thousands. In the end, he had amassed a magnificent fortune, and
+brought home with him the coveted diamond.
+
+“Years passed,” continued the Prince, “and at length the diamond is
+accidentally lost. It falls into the hands of a simple and laborious
+youth, a student, a minister of God, just entering on a career of
+usefulness and even distinction. Upon him also the spell is cast; he
+deserts everything, his holy calling, his studies, and flees with the
+gem into a foreign country. The officer has a brother, an astute,
+daring, unscrupulous man, who learns the clergyman’s secret. What does
+he do? Tell his brother, inform the police? No; upon this man also the
+Satanic charm has fallen; he must have the stone for himself. At the
+risk of murder, he drugs the young priest and seizes the prey. And now,
+by an accident which is not important to my moral, the jewel passes out
+of his custody into that of another, who, terrified at what he sees,
+gives it into the keeping of a man in high station and above reproach.
+
+“The officer’s name is Thomas Vandeleur,” continued Florizel. “The
+stone is called the Rajah’s Diamond. And”—suddenly opening his
+hand—“you behold it here before your eyes.”
+
+The officer started back with a cry.
+
+“We have spoken of corruption,” said the Prince. “To me this nugget of
+bright crystal is as loathsome as though it were crawling with the
+worms of death; it is as shocking as though it were compacted out of
+innocent blood. I see it here in my hand, and I know it is shining with
+hell-fire. I have told you but a hundredth part of its story; what
+passed in former ages, to what crimes and treacheries it incited men of
+yore, the imagination trembles to conceive; for years and years it has
+faithfully served the powers of hell; enough, I say, of blood, enough
+of disgrace, enough of broken lives and friendships; all things come to
+an end, the evil like the good; pestilence as well as beautiful music;
+and as for this diamond, God forgive me if I do wrong, but its empire
+ends to-night.”
+
+The Prince made a sudden movement with his hand, and the jewel,
+describing an arc of light, dived with a splash into the flowing river.
+
+“Amen,” said Florizel with gravity. “I have slain a cockatrice!”
+
+“God pardon me!” cried the detective. “What have you done? I am a
+ruined man.”
+
+“I think,” returned the Prince with a smile, “that many well-to-do
+people in this city might envy you your ruin.”
+
+“Alas! your Highness!” said the officer, “and you corrupt me after
+all?”
+
+“It seems there was no help for it,” replied Florizel. “And now let us
+go forward to the Prefecture.”
+
+
+Not long after, the marriage of Francis Scrymgeour and Miss Vandeleur
+was celebrated in great privacy; and the Prince acted on that occasion
+as groomsman. The two Vandeleurs surprised some rumour of what had
+happened to the diamond; and their vast diving operations on the River
+Seine are the wonder and amusement of the idle. It is true that through
+some miscalculation they have chosen the wrong branch of the river. As
+for the Prince, that sublime person, having now served his turn, may
+go, along with the _Arabian Author_, topsy-turvy into space. But if the
+reader insists on more specific information, I am happy to say that a
+recent revolution hurled him from the throne of Bohemia, in consequence
+of his continued absence and edifying neglect of public business; and
+that his Highness now keeps a cigar store in Rupert Street, much
+frequented by other foreign refugees. I go there from time to time to
+smoke and have a chat, and find him as great a creature as in the days
+of his prosperity; he has an Olympian air behind the counter; and
+although a sedentary life is beginning to tell upon his waistcoat, he
+is probably, take him for all in all, the handsomest tobacconist in
+London.
+
+
+
+
+THE PAVILION ON THE LINKS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+TELLS HOW I CAMPED IN GRADEN SEA-WOOD, AND BEHELD A LIGHT IN THE
+PAVILION
+
+
+I was a great solitary when I was young. I made it my pride to keep
+aloof and suffice for my own entertainment; and I may say that I had
+neither friends nor acquaintances until I met that friend who became my
+wife and the mother of my children. With one man only was I on private
+terms; this was R. Northmour, Esquire, of Graden Easter, in Scotland.
+We had met at college; and though there was not much liking between us,
+nor even much intimacy, we were so nearly of a humour that we could
+associate with ease to both. Misanthropes, we believed ourselves to be;
+but I have thought since that we were only sulky fellows. It was
+scarcely a companionship, but a coexistence in unsociability.
+Northmour’s exceptional violence of temper made it no easy affair for
+him to keep the peace with any one but me; and as he respected my
+silent ways, and let me come and go as I pleased, I could tolerate his
+presence without concern. I think we called each other friends.
+
+When Northmour took his degree and I decided to leave the university
+without one, he invited me on a long visit to Graden Easter; and it was
+thus that I first became acquainted with the scene of my adventures.
+The mansion-house of Graden stood in a bleak stretch of country some
+three miles from the shore of the German Ocean. It was as large as a
+barrack; and as it had been built of a soft stone, liable to consume in
+the eager air of the seaside, it was damp and draughty within and half
+ruinous without. It was impossible for two young men to lodge with
+comfort in such a dwelling. But there stood in the northern part of the
+estate, in a wilderness of links and blowing sand-hills, and between a
+plantation and the sea, a small Pavilion or Belvidere, of modern
+design, which was exactly suited to our wants; and in this hermitage,
+speaking little, reading much, and rarely associating except at meals,
+Northmour and I spent four tempestuous winter months. I might have
+stayed longer; but one March night there sprang up between us a
+dispute, which rendered my departure necessary. Northmour spoke hotly,
+I remember, and I suppose I must have made some tart rejoinder. He
+leaped from his chair and grappled me; I had to fight, without
+exaggeration, for my life; and it was only with a great effort that I
+mastered him, for he was near as strong in body as myself, and seemed
+filled with the devil. The next morning, we met on our usual terms; but
+I judged it more delicate to withdraw; nor did he attempt to dissuade
+me.
+
+It was nine years before I revisited the neighbourhood. I travelled at
+that time with a tilt cart, a tent, and a cooking-stove, tramping all
+day beside the waggon, and at night, whenever it was possible, gipsying
+in a cove of the hills, or by the side of a wood. I believe I visited
+in this manner most of the wild and desolate regions both in England
+and Scotland; and, as I had neither friends nor relations, I was
+troubled with no correspondence, and had nothing in the nature of
+headquarters, unless it was the office of my solicitors, from whom I
+drew my income twice a year. It was a life in which I delighted; and I
+fully thought to have grown old upon the march, and at last died in a
+ditch.
+
+It was my whole business to find desolate corners, where I could camp
+without the fear of interruption; and hence, being in another part of
+the same shire, I bethought me suddenly of the Pavilion on the Links.
+No thoroughfare passed within three miles of it. The nearest town, and
+that was but a fisher village, was at a distance of six or seven. For
+ten miles of length, and from a depth varying from three miles to half
+a mile, this belt of barren country lay along the sea. The beach, which
+was the natural approach, was full of quicksands. Indeed I may say
+there is hardly a better place of concealment in the United Kingdom. I
+determined to pass a week in the Sea-Wood of Graden Easter, and making
+a long stage, reached it about sundown on a wild September day.
+
+The country, I have said, was mixed sand-hill and links; _links_ being
+a Scottish name for sand which has ceased drifting and become more or
+less solidly covered with turf. The Pavilion stood on an even space; a
+little behind it, the wood began in a hedge of elders huddled together
+by the wind; in front, a few tumbled sand-hills stood between it and
+the sea. An outcropping of rock had formed a bastion for the sand, so
+that there was here a promontory in the coast-line between two shallow
+bays; and just beyond the tides, the rock again cropped out and formed
+an islet of small dimensions but strikingly designed. The quicksands
+were of great extent at low water, and had an infamous reputation in
+the country. Close in shore, between the islet and the promontory, it
+was said they would swallow a man in four minutes and a half; but there
+may have been little ground for this precision. The district was alive
+with rabbits, and haunted by gulls which made a continual piping about
+the pavilion. On summer days the outlook was bright and even gladsome;
+but at sundown in September, with a high wind, and a heavy surf rolling
+in close along the links, the place told of nothing but dead mariners
+and sea disaster. A ship beating to windward on the horizon, and a huge
+truncheon of wreck half buried in the sands at my feet, completed the
+innuendo of the scene.
+
+The pavilion—it had been built by the last proprietor, Northmour’s
+uncle, a silly and prodigal virtuoso—presented little signs of age. It
+was two storeys in height, Italian in design, surrounded by a patch of
+garden in which nothing had prospered but a few coarse flowers; and
+looked, with its shuttered windows, not like a house that had been
+deserted, but like one that had never been tenanted by man. Northmour
+was plainly from home; whether, as usual, sulking in the cabin of his
+yacht, or in one of his fitful and extravagant appearances in the world
+of society, I had, of course, no means of guessing. The place had an
+air of solitude that daunted even a solitary like myself; the wind
+cried in the chimneys with a strange and wailing note; and it was with
+a sense of escape, as if I were going indoors, that I turned away and,
+driving my cart before me, entered the skirts of the wood.
+
+The Sea-Wood of Graden had been planted to shelter the cultivated
+fields behind, and check the encroachments of the blowing sand. As you
+advanced into it from coastward, elders were succeeded by other hardy
+shrubs; but the timber was all stunted and bushy; it led a life of
+conflict; the trees were accustomed to swing there all night long in
+fierce winter tempests; and even in early spring, the leaves were
+already flying, and autumn was beginning, in this exposed plantation.
+Inland the ground rose into a little hill, which, along with the islet,
+served as a sailing mark for seamen. When the hill was open of the
+islet to the north, vessels must bear well to the eastward to clear
+Graden Ness and the Graden Bullers. In the lower ground, a streamlet
+ran among the trees, and, being dammed with dead leaves and clay of its
+own carrying, spread out every here and there, and lay in stagnant
+pools. One or two ruined cottages were dotted about the wood; and,
+according to Northmour, these were ecclesiastical foundations, and in
+their time had sheltered pious hermits.
+
+I found a den, or small hollow, where there was a spring of pure water;
+and there, clearing away the brambles, I pitched the tent, and made a
+fire to cook my supper. My horse I picketed farther in the wood where
+there was a patch of sward. The banks of the den not only concealed the
+light of my fire, but sheltered me from the wind, which was cold as
+well as high.
+
+The life I was leading made me both hardy and frugal. I never drank but
+water, and rarely ate anything more costly than oatmeal; and I required
+so little sleep, that, although I rose with the peep of day, I would
+often lie long awake in the dark or starry watches of the night. Thus
+in Graden Sea-Wood, although I fell thankfully asleep by eight in the
+evening I was awake again before eleven with a full possession of my
+faculties, and no sense of drowsiness or fatigue. I rose and sat by the
+fire, watching the trees and clouds tumultuously tossing and fleeing
+overhead, and hearkening to the wind and the rollers along the shore;
+till at length, growing weary of inaction, I quitted the den, and
+strolled towards the borders of the wood. A young moon, buried in mist,
+gave a faint illumination to my steps; and the light grew brighter as I
+walked forth into the links. At the same moment, the wind, smelling
+salt of the open ocean and carrying particles of sand, struck me with
+its full force, so that I had to bow my head.
+
+When I raised it again to look about me, I was aware of a light in the
+pavilion. It was not stationary; but passed from one window to another,
+as though some one were reviewing the different apartments with a lamp
+or candle.
+
+I watched it for some seconds in great surprise. When I had arrived in
+the afternoon the house had been plainly deserted; now it was as
+plainly occupied. It was my first idea that a gang of thieves might
+have broken in and be now ransacking Northmour’s cupboards, which were
+many and not ill supplied. But what should bring thieves to Graden
+Easter? And, again, all the shutters had been thrown open, and it would
+have been more in the character of such gentry to close them. I
+dismissed the notion, and fell back upon another. Northmour himself
+must have arrived, and was now airing and inspecting the pavilion.
+
+I have said that there was no real affection between this man and me;
+but, had I loved him like a brother, I was then so much more in love
+with solitude that I should none the less have shunned his company. As
+it was, I turned and ran for it; and it was with genuine satisfaction
+that I found myself safely back beside the fire. I had escaped an
+acquaintance; I should have one more night in comfort. In the morning,
+I might either slip away before Northmour was abroad, or pay him as
+short a visit as I chose.
+
+But when morning came, I thought the situation so diverting that I
+forgot my shyness. Northmour was at my mercy; I arranged a good
+practical jest, though I knew well that my neighbour was not the man to
+jest with in security; and, chuckling beforehand over its success, took
+my place among the elders at the edge of the wood, whence I could
+command the door of the pavilion. The shutters were all once more
+closed, which I remember thinking odd; and the house, with its white
+walls and green venetians, looked spruce and habitable in the morning
+light. Hour after hour passed, and still no sign of Northmour. I knew
+him for a sluggard in the morning; but, as it drew on towards noon, I
+lost my patience. To say the truth, I had promised myself to break my
+fast in the pavilion, and hunger began to prick me sharply. It was a
+pity to let the opportunity go by without some cause for mirth; but the
+grosser appetite prevailed, and I relinquished my jest with regret, and
+sallied from the wood.
+
+The appearance of the house affected me, as I drew near, with
+disquietude. It seemed unchanged since last evening; and I had expected
+it, I scarce knew why, to wear some external signs of habitation. But
+no: the windows were all closely shuttered, the chimneys breathed no
+smoke, and the front door itself was closely padlocked. Northmour,
+therefore, had entered by the back; this was the natural and, indeed,
+the necessary conclusion; and you may judge of my surprise when, on
+turning the house, I found the back door similarly secured.
+
+My mind at once reverted to the original theory of thieves; and I
+blamed myself sharply for my last night’s inaction. I examined all the
+windows on the lower storey, but none of them had been tampered with; I
+tried the padlocks, but they were both secure. It thus became a problem
+how the thieves, if thieves they were, had managed to enter the house.
+They must have got, I reasoned, upon the roof of the outhouse where
+Northmour used to keep his photographic battery; and from thence,
+either by the window of the study or that of my old bedroom, completed
+their burglarious entry.
+
+I followed what I supposed was their example; and, getting on the roof,
+tried the shutters of each room. Both were secure; but I was not to be
+beaten; and, with a little force, one of them flew open, grazing, as it
+did so, the back of my hand. I remember, I put the wound to my mouth,
+and stood for perhaps half a minute licking it like a dog, and
+mechanically gazing behind me over the waste links and the sea; and, in
+that space of time, my eye made note of a large schooner yacht some
+miles to the north-east. Then I threw up the window and climbed in.
+
+I went over the house, and nothing can express my mystification. There
+was no sign of disorder, but, on the contrary, the rooms were unusually
+clean and pleasant. I found fires laid, ready for lighting; three
+bedrooms prepared with a luxury quite foreign to Northmour’s habits,
+and with water in the ewers and the beds turned down; a table set for
+three in the dining-room; and an ample supply of cold meats, game, and
+vegetables on the pantry shelves. There were guests expected, that was
+plain; but why guests, when Northmour hated society? And, above all,
+why was the house thus stealthily prepared at dead of night? and why
+were the shutters closed and the doors padlocked?
+
+I effaced all traces of my visit, and came forth from the window
+feeling sobered and concerned.
+
+The schooner yacht was still in the same place; and it flashed for a
+moment through my mind that this might be the _Red Earl_ bringing the
+owner of the pavilion and his guests. But the vessel’s head was set the
+other way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+TELLS OF THE NOCTURNAL LANDING FROM THE YACHT
+
+
+I returned to the den to cook myself a meal, of which I stood in great
+need, as well as to care for my horse, whom I had somewhat neglected in
+the morning. From time to time I went down to the edge of the wood; but
+there was no change in the pavilion, and not a human creature was seen
+all day upon the links. The schooner in the offing was the one touch of
+life within my range of vision. She, apparently with no set object,
+stood off and on or lay to, hour after hour; but as the evening
+deepened, she drew steadily nearer. I became more convinced that she
+carried Northmour and his friends, and that they would probably come
+ashore after dark; not only because that was of a piece with the
+secrecy of the preparations, but because the tide would not have flowed
+sufficiently before eleven to cover Graden Floe and the other sea quags
+that fortified the shore against invaders.
+
+All day the wind had been going down, and the sea along with it; but
+there was a return towards sunset of the heavy weather of the day
+before. The night set in pitch dark. The wind came off the sea in
+squalls, like the firing of a battery of cannon; now and then there was
+a flaw of rain, and the surf rolled heavier with the rising tide. I was
+down at my observatory among the elders, when a light was run up to the
+masthead of the schooner, and showed she was closer in than when I had
+last seen her by the dying daylight. I concluded that this must be a
+signal to Northmour’s associates on shore; and, stepping forth into the
+links, looked around me for something in response.
+
+A small footpath ran along the margin of the wood, and formed the most
+direct communication between the pavilion and the mansion-house; and,
+as I cast my eyes to that side, I saw a spark of light, not a quarter
+of a mile away, and rapidly approaching. From its uneven course it
+appeared to be the light of a lantern carried by a person who followed
+the windings of the path, and was often staggered and taken aback by
+the more violent squalls. I concealed myself once more among the
+elders, and waited eagerly for the new-comer’s advance. It proved to be
+a woman; and, as she passed within half a rod of my ambush, I was able
+to recognise the features. The deaf and silent old dame, who had nursed
+Northmour in his childhood, was his associate in this underhand affair.
+
+I followed her at a little distance, taking advantage of the
+innumerable heights and hollows, concealed by the darkness, and
+favoured not only by the nurse’s deafness, but by the uproar of the
+wind and surf. She entered the pavilion, and, going at once to the
+upper storey, opened and set a light in one of the windows that looked
+towards the sea. Immediately afterwards the light at the schooner’s
+masthead was run down and extinguished. Its purpose had been attained,
+and those on board were sure that they were expected. The old woman
+resumed her preparations; although the other shutters remained closed,
+I could see a glimmer going to and fro about the house; and a gush of
+sparks from one chimney after another soon told me that the fires were
+being kindled.
+
+Northmour and his guests, I was now persuaded, would come ashore as
+soon as there was water on the floe. It was a wild night for boat
+service; and I felt some alarm mingle with my curiosity as I reflected
+on the danger of the landing. My old acquaintance, it was true, was the
+most eccentric of men; but the present eccentricity was both
+disquieting and lugubrious to consider. A variety of feelings thus led
+me towards the beach, where I lay flat on my face in a hollow within
+six feet of the track that led to the pavilion. Thence, I should have
+the satisfaction of recognising the arrivals, and, if they should prove
+to be acquaintances, greeting them as soon as they had landed.
+
+Some time before eleven, while the tide was still dangerously low, a
+boat’s lantern appeared close in shore; and, my attention being thus
+awakened, I could perceive another still far to seaward, violently
+tossed, and sometimes hidden by the billows. The weather, which was
+getting dirtier as the night went on, and the perilous situation of the
+yacht upon a lee shore, had probably driven them to attempt a landing
+at the earliest possible moment.
+
+A little afterwards, four yachtsmen carrying a very heavy chest, and
+guided by a fifth with a lantern, passed close in front of me as I lay,
+and were admitted to the pavilion by the nurse. They returned to the
+beach, and passed me a second time with another chest, larger but
+apparently not so heavy as the first. A third time they made the
+transit; and on this occasion one of the yachtsmen carried a leather
+portmanteau, and the others a lady’s trunk and carriage bag. My
+curiosity was sharply excited. If a woman were among the guests of
+Northmour, it would show a change in his habits and an apostasy from
+his pet theories of life, well calculated to fill me with surprise.
+When he and I dwelt there together, the pavilion had been a temple of
+misogyny. And now, one of the detested sex was to be installed under
+its roof. I remembered one or two particulars, a few notes of
+daintiness and almost of coquetry which had struck me the day before as
+I surveyed the preparations in the house; their purpose was now clear,
+and I thought myself dull not to have perceived it from the first.
+
+While I was thus reflecting, a second lantern drew near me from the
+beach. It was carried by a yachtsman whom I had not yet seen, and who
+was conducting two other persons to the pavilion. These two persons
+were unquestionably the guests for whom the house was made ready; and,
+straining eye and ear, I set myself to watch them as they passed. One
+was an unusually tall man, in a travelling hat slouched over his eyes,
+and a highland cape closely buttoned and turned up so as to conceal his
+face. You could make out no more of him than that he was, as I have
+said, unusually tall, and walked feebly with a heavy stoop. By his
+side, and either clinging to him or giving him support—I could not make
+out which—was a young, tall, and slender figure of a woman. She was
+extremely pale; but in the light of the lantern her face was so marred
+by strong and changing shadows, that she might equally well have been
+as ugly as sin or as beautiful as I afterwards found her to be.
+
+When they were just abreast of me, the girl made some remark which was
+drowned by the noise of the wind.
+
+“Hush!” said her companion; and there was something in the tone with
+which the word was uttered that thrilled and rather shook my spirits.
+It seemed to breathe from a bosom labouring under the deadliest terror;
+I have never heard another syllable so expressive; and I still hear it
+again when I am feverish at night, and my mind runs upon old times. The
+man turned towards the girl as he spoke; I had a glimpse of much red
+beard and a nose which seemed to have been broken in youth; and his
+light eyes seemed shining in his face with some strong and unpleasant
+emotion.
+
+But these two passed on and were admitted in their turn to the
+pavilion.
+
+One by one, or in groups, the seamen returned to the beach. The wind
+brought me the sound of a rough voice crying, “Shove off!” Then, after
+a pause, another lantern drew near. It was Northmour alone.
+
+My wife and I, a man and a woman, have often agreed to wonder how a
+person could be, at the same time, so handsome and so repulsive as
+Northmour. He had the appearance of a finished gentleman; his face bore
+every mark of intelligence and courage; but you had only to look at
+him, even in his most amiable moment, to see that he had the temper of
+a slaver captain. I never knew a character that was both explosive and
+revengeful to the same degree; he combined the vivacity of the south
+with the sustained and deadly hatreds of the north; and both traits
+were plainly written on his face, which was a sort of danger signal. In
+person he was tall, strong, and active; his hair and complexion very
+dark; his features handsomely designed, but spoiled by a menacing
+expression.
+
+At that moment he was somewhat paler than by nature; he wore a heavy
+frown; and his lips worked, and he looked sharply round him as he
+walked, like a man besieged with apprehensions. And yet I thought he
+had a look of triumph underlying all, as though he had already done
+much, and was near the end of an achievement.
+
+Partly from a scruple of delicacy—which I dare say came too late—partly
+from the pleasure of startling an acquaintance, I desired to make my
+presence known to him without delay.
+
+I got suddenly to my feet, and stepped forward. “Northmour!” said I.
+
+I have never had so shocking a surprise in all my days. He leaped on me
+without a word; something shone in his hand; and he struck for my heart
+with a dagger. At the same moment I knocked him head over heels.
+Whether it was my quickness, or his own uncertainty, I know not; but
+the blade only grazed my shoulder, while the hilt and his fist struck
+me violently on the mouth.
+
+I fled, but not far. I had often and often observed the capabilities of
+the sand-hills for protracted ambush or stealthy advances and retreats;
+and, not ten yards from the scene of the scuffle, plumped down again
+upon the grass. The lantern had fallen and gone out. But what was my
+astonishment to see Northmour slip at a bound into the pavilion, and
+hear him bar the door behind him with a clang of iron!
+
+He had not pursued me. He had run away. Northmour, whom I knew for the
+most implacable and daring of men, had run away! I could scarce believe
+my reason; and yet in this strange business, where all was incredible,
+there was nothing to make a work about in an incredibility more or
+less. For why was the pavilion secretly prepared? Why had Northmour
+landed with his guests at dead of night, in half a gale of wind, and
+with the floe scarce covered? Why had he sought to kill me? Had he not
+recognised my voice? I wondered. And, above all, how had he come to
+have a dagger ready in his hand? A dagger, or even a sharp knife,
+seemed out of keeping with the age in which we lived; and a gentleman
+landing from his yacht on the shore of his own estate, even although it
+was at night and with some mysterious circumstances, does not usually,
+as a matter of fact, walk thus prepared for deadly onslaught. The more
+I reflected, the further I felt at sea. I recapitulated the elements of
+mystery, counting them on my fingers: the pavilion secretly prepared
+for guests; the guests landed at the risk of their lives and to the
+imminent peril of the yacht; the guests, or at least one of them, in
+undisguised and seemingly causeless terror; Northmour with a naked
+weapon; Northmour stabbing his most intimate acquaintance at a word;
+last, and not least strange, Northmour fleeing from the man whom he had
+sought to murder, and barricading himself, like a hunted creature,
+behind the door of the pavilion. Here were at least six separate causes
+for extreme surprise; each part and parcel with the others, and forming
+all together one consistent story. I felt almost ashamed to believe my
+own senses.
+
+As I thus stood, transfixed with wonder, I began to grow painfully
+conscious of the injuries I had received in the scuffle; skulked round
+among the sand-hills; and, by a devious path, regained the shelter of
+the wood. On the way, the old nurse passed again within several yards
+of me, still carrying her lantern, on the return journey to the
+mansion-house of Graden. This made a seventh suspicious feature in the
+case—Northmour and his guests, it appeared, were to cook and do the
+cleaning for themselves, while the old woman continued to inhabit the
+big empty barrack among the policies. There must surely be great cause
+for secrecy, when so many inconveniences were confronted to preserve
+it.
+
+So thinking, I made my way to the den. For greater security, I trod out
+the embers of the fire, and lit my lantern to examine the wound upon my
+shoulder. It was a trifling hurt, although it bled somewhat freely, and
+I dressed it as well as I could (for its position made it difficult to
+reach) with some rag and cold water from the spring. While I was thus
+busied, I mentally declared war against Northmour and his mystery. I am
+not an angry man by nature, and I believe there was more curiosity than
+resentment in my heart. But war I certainly declared; and, by way of
+preparation, I got out my revolver, and, having drawn the charges,
+cleaned and reloaded it with scrupulous care. Next I became preoccupied
+about my horse. It might break loose, or fall to neighing, and so
+betray my camp in the Sea-Wood. I determined to rid myself of its
+neighbourhood; and long before dawn I was leading it over the links in
+the direction of the fisher village.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+TELLS HOW I BECAME ACQUAINTED WITH MY WIFE
+
+
+For two days I skulked round the pavilion, profiting by the uneven
+surface of the links. I became an adept in the necessary tactics. These
+low hillocks and shallow dells, running one into another, became a kind
+of cloak of darkness for my enthralling, but perhaps dishonourable,
+pursuit. Yet, in spite of this advantage, I could learn but little of
+Northmour or his guests.
+
+Fresh provisions were brought under cover of darkness by the old woman
+from the mansion-house. Northmour, and the young lady, sometimes
+together, but more often singly, would walk for an hour or two at a
+time on the beach beside the quicksand. I could not but conclude that
+this promenade was chosen with an eye to secrecy; for the spot was open
+only to the seaward. But it suited me not less excellently; the highest
+and most accidented of the sand-hills immediately adjoined; and from
+these, lying flat in a hollow, I could overlook Northmour or the young
+lady as they walked.
+
+The tall man seemed to have disappeared. Not only did he never cross
+the threshold, but he never so much as showed face at a window; or, at
+least, not so far as I could see; for I dared not creep forward beyond
+a certain distance in the day, since the upper floor commanded the
+bottoms of the links; and at night, when I could venture farther, the
+lower windows were barricaded as if to stand a siege. Sometimes I
+thought the tall man must be confined to bed, for I remembered the
+feebleness of his gait; and sometimes I thought he must have gone clear
+away, and that Northmour and the young lady remained alone together in
+the pavilion. The idea, even then, displeased me.
+
+Whether or not this pair were man and wife, I had seen abundant reason
+to doubt the friendliness of their relation. Although I could hear
+nothing of what they said, and rarely so much as glean a decided
+expression on the face of either, there was a distance, almost a
+stiffness, in their bearing which showed them to be either unfamiliar
+or at enmity. The girl walked faster when she was with Northmour than
+when she was alone; and I conceived that any inclination between a man
+and a woman would rather delay than accelerate the step. Moreover, she
+kept a good yard free of him, and trailed her umbrella, as if it were a
+barrier, on the side between them. Northmour kept sidling closer; and,
+as the girl retired from his advance, their course lay at a sort of
+diagonal across the beach, and would have landed them in the surf had
+it been long enough continued. But, when this was imminent, the girl
+would unostentatiously change sides and put Northmour between her and
+the sea. I watched these manœuvres, for my part, with high enjoyment
+and approval, and chuckled to myself at every move.
+
+On the morning of the third day, she walked alone for some time, and I
+perceived, to my great concern, that she was more than once in tears.
+You will see that my heart was already interested more than I supposed.
+She had a firm yet airy motion of the body, and carried her head with
+unimaginable grace; every step was a thing to look at, and she seemed
+in my eyes to breathe sweetness and distinction.
+
+The day was so agreeable, being calm and sunshiny, with a tranquil sea,
+and yet with a healthful piquancy and vigour in the air, that, contrary
+to custom, she was tempted forth a second time to walk. On this
+occasion she was accompanied by Northmour, and they had been but a
+short while on the beach, when I saw him take forcible possession of
+her hand. She struggled, and uttered a cry that was almost a scream. I
+sprang to my feet, unmindful of my strange position; but, ere I had
+taken a step, I saw Northmour bareheaded and bowing very low, as if to
+apologise; and dropped again at once into my ambush. A few words were
+interchanged; and then, with another bow, he left the beach to return
+to the pavilion. He passed not far from me, and I could see him,
+flushed and lowering, and cutting savagely with his cane among the
+grass. It was not without satisfaction that I recognised my own
+handiwork in a great cut under his right eye, and a considerable
+discolouration round the socket.
+
+For some time the girl remained where he had left her, looking out past
+the islet and over the bright sea. Then with a start, as one who throws
+off preoccupation and puts energy again upon its mettle, she broke into
+a rapid and decisive walk. She also was much incensed by what had
+passed. She had forgotten where she was. And I beheld her walk straight
+into the borders of the quicksand where it is most abrupt and
+dangerous. Two or three steps farther and her life would have been in
+serious jeopardy, when I slid down the face of the sand-hill, which is
+there precipitous, and, running half-way forward, called to her to
+stop.
+
+She did so, and turned round. There was not a tremor of fear in her
+behaviour, and she marched directly up to me like a queen. I was
+barefoot, and clad like a common sailor, save for an Egyptian scarf
+round my waist; and she probably took me at first for some one from the
+fisher village, straying after bait. As for her, when I thus saw her
+face to face, her eyes set steadily and imperiously upon mine, I was
+filled with admiration and astonishment, and thought her even more
+beautiful than I had looked to find her. Nor could I think enough of
+one who, acting with so much boldness, yet preserved a maidenly air
+that was both quaint and engaging; for my wife kept an old-fashioned
+precision of manner through all her admirable life—an excellent thing
+in woman, since it sets another value on her sweet familiarities.
+
+“What does this mean?” she asked.
+
+“You were walking,” I told her, “directly into Graden Floe.”
+
+“You do not belong to these parts,” she said again. “You speak like an
+educated man.”
+
+“I believe I have right to that name,” said I, “although in this
+disguise.”
+
+But her woman’s eye had already detected the sash. “Oh!” she said;
+“your sash betrays you.”
+
+“You have said the word _betray_,” I resumed. “May I ask you not to
+betray me? I was obliged to disclose myself in your interest; but if
+Northmour learned my presence it might be worse than disagreeable for
+me.”
+
+“Do you know,” she asked, “to whom you are speaking?”
+
+“Not to Mr. Northmour’s wife?” I asked, by way of answer.
+
+She shook her head. All this while she was studying my face with an
+embarrassing intentness. Then she broke out—
+
+“You have an honest face. Be honest like your face, sir, and tell me
+what you want and what you are afraid of. Do you think I could hurt
+you? I believe you have far more power to injure me! And yet you do not
+look unkind. What do you mean—you, a gentleman—by skulking like a spy
+about this desolate place? Tell me,” she said, “who is it you hate?”
+
+“I hate no one,” I answered; “and I fear no one face to face. My name
+is Cassilis—Frank Cassilis. I lead the life of a vagabond for my own
+good pleasure. I am one of Northmour’s oldest friends; and three nights
+ago, when I addressed him on these links, he stabbed me in the shoulder
+with a knife.”
+
+“It was you!” she said.
+
+“Why he did so,” I continued, disregarding the interruption, “is more
+than I can guess, and more than I care to know. I have not many
+friends, nor am I very susceptible to friendship; but no man shall
+drive me from a place by terror. I had camped in Graden Sea-Wood ere he
+came; I camp in it still. If you think I mean harm to you or yours,
+madam, the remedy is in your hand. Tell him that my camp is in the
+Hemlock Den, and to-night he can stab me in safety while I sleep.”
+
+With this I doffed my cap to her, and scrambled up once more among the
+sand-hills. I do not know why, but I felt a prodigious sense of
+injustice, and felt like a hero and a martyr; while, as a matter of
+fact, I had not a word to say in my defence, nor so much as one
+plausible reason to offer for my conduct. I had stayed at Graden out of
+a curiosity natural enough, but undignified; and though there was
+another motive growing in along with the first, it was not one which,
+at that period, I could have properly explained to the lady of my
+heart.
+
+Certainly, that night, I thought of no one else; and, though her whole
+conduct and position seemed suspicious, I could not find it in my heart
+to entertain a doubt of her integrity. I could have staked my life that
+she was clear of blame, and, though all was dark at the present, that
+the explanation of the mystery would show her part in these events to
+be both right and needful. It was true, let me cudgel my imagination as
+I pleased, that I could invent no theory of her relations to Northmour;
+but I felt none the less sure of my conclusion because it was founded
+on instinct in place of reason, and, as I may say, went to sleep that
+night with the thought of her under my pillow.
+
+Next day she came out about the same hour alone, and, as soon as the
+sand-hills concealed her from the pavilion, drew nearer to the edge,
+and called me by name in guarded tones. I was astonished to observe
+that she was deadly pale, and seemingly under the influence of strong
+emotion.
+
+“Mr. Cassilis!” she cried; “Mr. Cassilis!”
+
+I appeared at once, and leaped down upon the beach. A remarkable air of
+relief overspread her countenance as soon as she saw me.
+
+“Oh!” she cried, with a hoarse sound, like one whose bosom has been
+lightened of a weight. And then, “Thank God you are still safe!” she
+added; “I knew, if you were, you would be here.” (Was not this strange?
+So swiftly and wisely does Nature prepare our hearts for these great
+life-long intimacies, that both my wife and I had been given a
+presentiment on this the second day of our acquaintance. I had even
+then hoped that she would seek me; she had felt sure that she would
+find me.) “Do not,” she went, on swiftly, “do not stay in this place.
+Promise me that you will sleep no longer in that wood. You do not know
+how I suffer; all last night I could not sleep for thinking of your
+peril.”
+
+“Peril?” I repeated. “Peril from whom? From Northmour?”
+
+“Not so,” she said. “Did you think I would tell him after what you
+said?”
+
+“Not from Northmour?” I repeated. “Then how? From whom? I see none to
+be afraid of.”
+
+“You must not ask me,” was her reply, “for I am not free to tell you.
+Only believe me, and go hence—believe me, and go away quickly, quickly,
+for your life!”
+
+An appeal to his alarm is never a good plan to rid oneself of a
+spirited young man. My obstinacy was but increased by what she said,
+and I made it a point of honour to remain. And her solicitude for my
+safety still more confirmed me in the resolve.
+
+“You must not think me inquisitive, madam,” I replied; “but, if Graden
+is so dangerous a place, you yourself perhaps remain here at some
+risk.”
+
+She only looked at me reproachfully.
+
+“You and your father—” I resumed; but she interrupted me almost with a
+gasp.
+
+“My father! How do you know that?” she cried.
+
+“I saw you together when you landed,” was my answer; and I do not know
+why, but it seemed satisfactory to both of us, as indeed it was the
+truth. “But,” I continued, “you need have no fear from me. I see you
+have some reason to be secret, and, you may believe me, your secret is
+as safe with me as if I were in Graden Floe. I have scarce spoken to
+any one for years; my horse is my only companion, and even he, poor
+beast, is not beside me. You see, then, you may count on me for
+silence. So tell me the truth, my dear young lady, are you not in
+danger?”
+
+“Mr. Northmour says you are an honourable man,” she returned, “and I
+believe it when I see you. I will tell you so much; you are right; we
+are in dreadful, dreadful danger, and you share it by remaining where
+you are.”
+
+“Ah!” said I; “you have heard of me from Northmour? And he gives me a
+good character?”
+
+“I asked him about you last night,” was her reply. “I pretended,” she
+hesitated, “I pretended to have met you long ago, and spoken to you of
+him. It was not true; but I could not help myself without betraying
+you, and you had put me in a difficulty. He praised you highly.”
+
+“And—you may permit me one question—does this danger come from
+Northmour?” I asked.
+
+“From Mr. Northmour?” she cried. “Oh no; he stays with us to share it.”
+
+“While you propose that I should run away?” I said. “You do not rate me
+very high.”
+
+“Why should you stay?” she asked. “You are no friend of ours.”
+
+I know not what came over me, for I had not been conscious of a similar
+weakness since I was a child, but I was so mortified by this retort
+that my eyes pricked and filled with tears, as I continued to gaze upon
+her face.
+
+“No, no,” she said, in a changed voice; “I did not mean the words
+unkindly.”
+
+“It was I who offended,” I said; and I held out my hand with a look of
+appeal that somehow touched her, for she gave me hers at once, and even
+eagerly. I held it for awhile in mine, and gazed into her eyes. It was
+she who first tore her hand away, and, forgetting all about her request
+and the promise she had sought to extort, ran at the top of her speed,
+and without turning, till she was out of sight.
+
+And then I knew that I loved her, and thought in my glad heart that
+she—she herself—was not indifferent to my suit. Many a time she has
+denied it in after days, but it was with a smiling and not a serious
+denial. For my part, I am sure our hands would not have lain so closely
+in each other if she had not begun to melt to me already. And, when all
+is said, it is no great contention, since, by her own avowal, she began
+to love me on the morrow.
+
+And yet on the morrow very little took place. She came and called me
+down as on the day before, upbraided me for lingering at Graden, and,
+when she found I was still obdurate, began to ask me more particularly
+as to my arrival. I told her by what series of accidents I had come to
+witness their disembarkation, and how I had determined to remain,
+partly from the interest which had been wakened in me by Northmour’s
+guests, and partly because of his own murderous attack. As to the
+former, I fear I was disingenuous, and led her to regard herself as
+having been an attraction to me from the first moment that I saw her on
+the links. It relieves my heart to make this confession even now, when
+my wife is with God, and already knows all things, and the honesty of
+my purpose even in this; for while she lived, although it often pricked
+my conscience, I had never the hardihood to undeceive her. Even a
+little secret, in such a married life as ours, is like the rose-leaf
+which kept the Princess from her sleep.
+
+From this the talk branched into other subjects, and I told her much
+about my lonely and wandering existence; she, for her part, giving ear,
+and saying little. Although we spoke very naturally, and latterly on
+topics that might seem indifferent, we were both sweetly agitated. Too
+soon it was time for her to go; and we separated, as if by mutual
+consent, without shaking hands, for both knew that, between us, it was
+no idle ceremony.
+
+The next, and that was the fourth day of our acquaintance, we met in
+the same spot, but early in the morning, with much familiarity and yet
+much timidity on either side. When she had once more spoken about my
+danger—and that, I understood, was her excuse for coming—I, who had
+prepared a great deal of talk during the night, began to tell her how
+highly I valued her kind interest, and how no one had ever cared to
+hear about my life, nor had I ever cared to relate it, before
+yesterday. Suddenly she interrupted me, saying with vehemence—
+
+“And yet, if you knew who I was, you would not so much as speak to me!”
+
+I told her such a thought was madness, and, little as we had met, I
+counted her already a dear friend; but my protestations seemed only to
+make her more desperate.
+
+“My father is in hiding!” she cried.
+
+“My dear,” I said, forgetting for the first time to add “young lady,”
+“what do I care? If he were in hiding twenty times over, would it make
+one thought of change in you?”
+
+“Ah, but the cause!” she cried, “the cause! It is—” she faltered for a
+second—“it is disgraceful to us!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+TELLS IN WHAT A STARTLING MANNER I LEARNED THAT I WAS NOT ALONE IN
+GRADEN SEA-WOOD
+
+
+This was my wife’s story, as I drew it from her among tears and sobs.
+Her name was Clara Huddlestone: it sounded very beautiful in my ears;
+but not so beautiful as that other name of Clara Cassilis, which she
+wore during the longer and, I thank God, the happier portion of her
+life. Her father, Bernard Huddlestone, had been a private banker in a
+very large way of business. Many years before, his affairs becoming
+disordered, he had been led to try dangerous, and at last criminal,
+expedients to retrieve himself from ruin. All was in vain; he became
+more and more cruelly involved, and found his honour lost at the same
+moment with his fortune. About this period, Northmour had been courting
+his daughter with great assiduity, though with small encouragement; and
+to him, knowing him thus disposed in his favour, Bernard Huddlestone
+turned for help in his extremity. It was not merely ruin and dishonour,
+nor merely a legal condemnation, that the unhappy man had brought upon
+his head. It seems he could have gone to prison with a light heart.
+What he feared, what kept him awake at night or recalled him from
+slumber into frenzy, was some secret, sudden, and unlawful attempt upon
+his life. Hence, he desired to bury his existence and escape to one of
+the islands in the South Pacific, and it was in Northmour’s yacht, the
+_Red Earl_, that he designed to go. The yacht picked them up
+clandestinely upon the coast of Wales, and had once more deposited them
+at Graden, till she could be refitted and provisioned for the longer
+voyage. Nor could Clara doubt that her hand had been stipulated as the
+price of passage. For, although Northmour was neither unkind nor even
+discourteous, he had shown himself in several instances somewhat
+overbold in speech and manner.
+
+I listened, I need not say, with fixed attention, and put many
+questions as to the more mysterious part. It was in vain. She had no
+clear idea of what the blow was, nor of how it was expected to fall.
+Her father’s alarm was unfeigned and physically prostrating, and he had
+thought more than once of making an unconditional surrender to the
+police. But the scheme was finally abandoned, for he was convinced that
+not even the strength of our English prisons could shelter him from his
+pursuers. He had had many affairs with Italy, and with Italians
+resident in London, in the later years of his business; and these last,
+as Clara fancied, were somehow connected with the doom that threatened
+him. He had shown great terror at the presence of an Italian seaman on
+board the _Red Earl_, and had bitterly and repeatedly accused Northmour
+in consequence. The latter had protested that Beppo (that was the
+seaman’s name) was a capital fellow, and could be trusted to the death;
+but Mr. Huddlestone had continued ever since to declare that all was
+lost, that it was only a question of days, and that Beppo would be the
+ruin of him yet.
+
+I regarded the whole story as the hallucination of a mind shaken by
+calamity. He had suffered heavy loss by his Italian transactions; and
+hence the sight of an Italian was hateful to him, and the principal
+part in his nightmare would naturally enough be played by one of that
+nation.
+
+“What your father wants,” I said, “is a good doctor and some calming
+medicine.”
+
+“But Mr. Northmour?” objected your mother. “He is untroubled by losses,
+and yet he shares in this terror.”
+
+I could not help laughing at what I considered her simplicity.
+
+“My dear,” said I, “you have told me yourself what reward he has to
+look for. All is fair in love, you must remember; and if Northmour
+foments your father’s terrors, it is not at all because he is afraid of
+any Italian man, but simply because he is infatuated with a charming
+English woman.”
+
+She reminded me of his attack upon myself on the night of the
+disembarkation, and this I was unable to explain. In short, and from
+one thing to another, it was agreed between us, that I should set out
+at once for the fisher village, Graden Wester, as it was called, look
+up all the newspapers I could find, and see for myself if there seemed
+any basis of fact for these continued alarms. The next morning, at the
+same hour and place, I was to make my report to Clara. She said no more
+on that occasion about my departure; nor, indeed, did she make it a
+secret that she clung to the thought of my proximity as something
+helpful and pleasant; and, for my part, I could not have left her, if
+she had gone upon her knees to ask it.
+
+I reached Graden Wester before ten in the forenoon; for in those days I
+was an excellent pedestrian, and the distance, as I think I have said,
+was little over seven miles; fine walking all the way upon the springy
+turf. The village is one of the bleakest on that coast, which is saying
+much: there is a church in a hollow; a miserable haven in the rocks,
+where many boats have been lost as they returned from fishing; two or
+three score of stone houses arranged along the beach and in two
+streets, one leading from the harbour, and another striking out from it
+at right angles; and, at the corner of these two, a very dark and
+cheerless tavern, by way of principal hotel.
+
+I had dressed myself somewhat more suitably to my station in life, and
+at once called upon the minister in his little manse beside the
+graveyard. He knew me, although it was more than nine years since we
+had met; and when I told him that I had been long upon a walking tour,
+and was behind with the news, readily lent me an armful of newspapers,
+dating from a month back to the day before. With these I sought the
+tavern, and, ordering some breakfast, sat down to study the
+“Huddlestone Failure.”
+
+It had been, it appeared, a very flagrant case. Thousands of persons
+were reduced to poverty; and one in particular had blown out his brains
+as soon as payment was suspended. It was strange to myself that, while
+I read these details, I continued rather to sympathise with Mr.
+Huddlestone than with his victims; so complete already was the empire
+of my love for my wife. A price was naturally set upon the banker’s
+head; and, as the case was inexcusable and the public indignation
+thoroughly aroused, the unusual figure of £750 was offered for his
+capture. He was reported to have large sums of money in his possession.
+One day, he had been heard of in Spain; the next, there was sure
+intelligence that he was still lurking between Manchester and
+Liverpool, or along the border of Wales; and the day after, a telegram
+would announce his arrival in Cuba or Yucatan. But in all this there
+was no word of an Italian, nor any sign of mystery.
+
+In the very last paper, however, there was one item not so clear. The
+accountants who were charged to verify the failure had, it seemed, come
+upon the traces of a very large number of thousands, which figured for
+some time in the transactions of the house of Huddlestone; but which
+came from nowhere, and disappeared in the same mysterious fashion. It
+was only once referred to by name, and then under the initials “X. X.”;
+but it had plainly been floated for the first time into the business at
+a period of great depression some six years ago. The name of a
+distinguished Royal personage had been mentioned by rumour in
+connection with this sum. “The cowardly desperado”—such, I remember,
+was the editorial expression—was supposed to have escaped with a large
+part of this mysterious fund still in his possession.
+
+I was still brooding over the fact, and trying to torture it into some
+connection with Mr. Huddlestone’s danger, when a man entered the tavern
+and asked for some bread and cheese with a decided foreign accent.
+
+“_Siete Italiano_?” said I.
+
+“_Sì_, _signor_,” was his reply.
+
+I said it was unusually far north to find one of his compatriots; at
+which he shrugged his shoulders, and replied that a man would go
+anywhere to find work. What work he could hope to find at Graden
+Wester, I was totally unable to conceive; and the incident struck so
+unpleasantly upon my mind, that I asked the landlord, while he was
+counting me some change, whether he had ever before seen an Italian in
+the village. He said he had once seen some Norwegians, who had been
+shipwrecked on the other side of Graden Ness and rescued by the
+lifeboat from Cauldhaven.
+
+“No!” said I; “but an Italian, like the man who has just had bread and
+cheese.”
+
+“What?” cried he, “yon black-avised fellow wi’ the teeth? Was he an
+I-talian? Weel, yon’s the first that ever I saw, an’ I dare say he’s
+like to be the last.”
+
+Even as he was speaking, I raised my eyes, and, casting a glance into
+the street, beheld three men in earnest conversation together, and not
+thirty yards away. One of them was my recent companion in the tavern
+parlour; the other two, by their handsome, sallow features and soft
+hats, should evidently belong to the same race. A crowd of village
+children stood around them, gesticulating and talking gibberish in
+imitation. The trio looked singularly foreign to the bleak dirty street
+in which they were standing, and the dark grey heaven that overspread
+them; and I confess my incredulity received at that moment a shock from
+which it never recovered. I might reason with myself as I pleased, but
+I could not argue down the effect of what I had seen, and I began to
+share in the Italian terror.
+
+It was already drawing towards the close of the day before I had
+returned the newspapers at the manse, and got well forward on to the
+links on my way home. I shall never forget that walk. It grew very cold
+and boisterous; the wind sang in the short grass about my feet; thin
+rain showers came running on the gusts; and an immense mountain range
+of clouds began to arise out of the bosom of the sea. It would be hard
+to imagine a more dismal evening; and whether it was from these
+external influences, or because my nerves were already affected by what
+I had heard and seen, my thoughts were as gloomy as the weather.
+
+The upper windows of the pavilion commanded a considerable spread of
+links in the direction of Graden Wester. To avoid observation, it was
+necessary to hug the beach until I had gained cover from the higher
+sand-hills on the little headland, when I might strike across, through
+the hollows, for the margin of the wood. The sun was about setting; the
+tide was low, and all the quicksands uncovered; and I was moving along,
+lost in unpleasant thought, when I was suddenly thunderstruck to
+perceive the prints of human feet. They ran parallel to my own course,
+but low down upon the beach instead of along the border of the turf;
+and, when I examined them, I saw at once, by the size and coarseness of
+the impression, that it was a stranger to me and to those in the
+pavilion who had recently passed that way. Not only so; but from the
+recklessness of the course which he had followed, steering near to the
+most formidable portions of the sand, he was as evidently a stranger to
+the country and to the ill-repute of Graden beach.
+
+Step by step I followed the prints; until, a quarter of a mile farther,
+I beheld them die away into the south-eastern boundary of Graden Floe.
+There, whoever he was, the miserable man had perished. One or two
+gulls, who had, perhaps, seen him disappear, wheeled over his sepulchre
+with their usual melancholy piping. The sun had broken through the
+clouds by a last effort, and coloured the wide level of quicksands with
+a dusky purple. I stood for some time gazing at the spot, chilled and
+disheartened by my own reflections, and with a strong and commanding
+consciousness of death. I remember wondering how long the tragedy had
+taken, and whether his screams had been audible at the pavilion. And
+then, making a strong resolution, I was about to tear myself away, when
+a gust fiercer than usual fell upon this quarter of the beach, and I
+saw now, whirling high in air, now skimming lightly across the surface
+of the sands, a soft, black, felt hat, somewhat conical in shape, such
+as I had remarked already on the heads of the Italians.
+
+I believe, but I am not sure, that I uttered a cry. The wind was
+driving the hat shoreward, and I ran round the border of the floe to be
+ready against its arrival. The gust fell, dropping the hat for a while
+upon the quicksand, and then, once more freshening, landed it a few
+yards from where I stood. I seized it with the interest you may
+imagine. It had seen some service; indeed, it was rustier than either
+of those I had seen that day upon the street. The lining was red,
+stamped with the name of the maker, which I have forgotten, and that of
+the place of manufacture, _Venedig_. This (it is not yet forgotten) was
+the name given by the Austrians to the beautiful city of Venice, then,
+and for long after, a part of their dominions.
+
+The shock was complete. I saw imaginary Italians upon every side; and
+for the first, and, I may say, for the last time in my experience,
+became overpowered by what is called a panic terror. I knew nothing,
+that is, to be afraid of, and yet I admit that I was heartily afraid;
+and it was with a sensible reluctance that I returned to my exposed and
+solitary camp in the Sea-Wood.
+
+There I ate some cold porridge which had been left over from the night
+before, for I was disinclined to make a fire; and, feeling strengthened
+and reassured, dismissed all these fanciful terrors from my mind, and
+lay down to sleep with composure.
+
+How long I may have slept it is impossible for me to guess; but I was
+awakened at last by a sudden, blinding flash of light into my face. It
+woke me like a blow. In an instant I was upon my knees. But the light
+had gone as suddenly as it came. The darkness was intense. And, as it
+was blowing great guns from the sea and pouring with rain, the noises
+of the storm effectually concealed all others.
+
+It was, I dare say, half a minute before I regained my self-possession.
+But for two circumstances, I should have thought I had been awakened by
+some new and vivid form of nightmare. First, the flap of my tent, which
+I had shut carefully when I retired, was now unfastened; and, second, I
+could still perceive, with a sharpness that excluded any theory of
+hallucination, the smell of hot metal and of burning oil. The
+conclusion was obvious. I had been wakened by some one flashing a
+bull’s-eye lantern in my face. It had been but a flash, and away. He
+had seen my face, and then gone. I asked myself the object of so
+strange a proceeding, and the answer came pat. The man, whoever he was,
+had thought to recognise me, and he had not. There was yet another
+question unresolved; and to this, I may say, I feared to give an
+answer; if he had recognised me, what would he have done?
+
+My fears were immediately diverted from myself, for I saw that I had
+been visited in a mistake; and I became persuaded that some dreadful
+danger threatened the pavilion. It required some nerve to issue forth
+into the black and intricate thicket which surrounded and overhung the
+den; but I groped my way to the links, drenched with rain, beaten upon
+and deafened by the gusts, and fearing at every step to lay my hand
+upon some lurking adversary. The darkness was so complete that I might
+have been surrounded by an army and yet none the wiser, and the uproar
+of the gale so loud that my hearing was as useless as my sight.
+
+For the rest of that night, which seemed interminably long, I patrolled
+the vicinity of the pavilion, without seeing a living creature or
+hearing any noise but the concert of the wind, the sea, and the rain. A
+light in the upper story filtered through a cranny of the shutter, and
+kept me company till the approach of dawn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+TELLS OF AN INTERVIEW BETWEEN NORTHMOUR, CLARA, AND MYSELF
+
+
+With the first peep of day, I retired from the open to my old lair
+among the sand-hills, there to await the coming of my wife. The morning
+was grey, wild, and melancholy; the wind moderated before sunrise, and
+then went about, and blew in puffs from the shore; the sea began to go
+down, but the rain still fell without mercy. Over all the wilderness of
+links there was not a creature to be seen. Yet I felt sure the
+neighbourhood was alive with skulking foes. The light that had been so
+suddenly and surprisingly flashed upon my face as I lay sleeping, and
+the hat that had been blown ashore by the wind from over Graden Floe,
+were two speaking signals of the peril that environed Clara and the
+party in the pavilion.
+
+It was, perhaps, half-past seven, or nearer eight, before I saw the
+door open, and that dear figure come towards me in the rain. I was
+waiting for her on the beach before she had crossed the sand-hills.
+
+“I have had such trouble to come!” she cried. “They did not wish me to
+go walking in the rain.”
+
+“Clara,” I said, “you are not frightened!”
+
+“No,” said she, with a simplicity that filled my heart with confidence.
+For my wife was the bravest as well as the best of women; in my
+experience, I have not found the two go always together, but with her
+they did; and she combined the extreme of fortitude with the most
+endearing and beautiful virtues.
+
+I told her what had happened; and, though her cheek grew visibly paler,
+she retained perfect control over her senses.
+
+“You see now that I am safe,” said I, in conclusion. “They do not mean
+to harm me; for, had they chosen, I was a dead man last night.”
+
+She laid her hand upon my arm.
+
+“And I had no presentiment!” she cried.
+
+Her accent thrilled me with delight. I put my arm about her, and
+strained her to my side; and, before either of us was aware, her hands
+were on my shoulders and my lips upon her mouth. Yet up to that moment
+no word of love had passed between us. To this day I remember the touch
+of her cheek, which was wet and cold with the rain; and many a time
+since, when she has been washing her face, I have kissed it again for
+the sake of that morning on the beach. Now that she is taken from me,
+and I finish my pilgrimage alone, I recall our old lovingkindnesses and
+the deep honesty and affection which united us, and my present loss
+seems but a trifle in comparison.
+
+We may have thus stood for some seconds—for time passes quickly with
+lovers—before we were startled by a peal of laughter close at hand. It
+was not natural mirth, but seemed to be affected in order to conceal an
+angrier feeling. We both turned, though I still kept my left arm about
+Clara’s waist; nor did she seek to withdraw herself; and there, a few
+paces off upon the beach, stood Northmour, his head lowered, his hands
+behind his back, his nostrils white with passion.
+
+“Ah! Cassilis!” he said, as I disclosed my face.
+
+“That same,” said I; for I was not at all put about.
+
+“And so, Miss Huddlestone,” he continued slowly but savagely, “this is
+how you keep your faith to your father and to me? This is the value you
+set upon your father’s life? And you are so infatuated with this young
+gentleman that you must brave ruin, and decency, and common human
+caution—”
+
+“Miss Huddlestone—” I was beginning to interrupt him, when he, in his
+turn, cut in brutally—
+
+“You hold your tongue,” said he; “I am speaking to that girl.”
+
+“That girl, as you call her, is my wife,” said I; and my wife only
+leaned a little nearer, so that I knew she had affirmed my words.
+
+“Your what?” he cried. “You lie!”
+
+“Northmour,” I said, “we all know you have a bad temper, and I am the
+last man to be irritated by words. For all that, I propose that you
+speak lower, for I am convinced that we are not alone.”
+
+He looked round him, and it was plain my remark had in some degree
+sobered his passion. “What do you mean?” he asked.
+
+I only said one word: “Italians.”
+
+He swore a round oath, and looked at us, from one to the other.
+
+“Mr. Cassilis knows all that I know,” said my wife.
+
+“What I want to know,” he broke out, “is where the devil Mr. Cassilis
+comes from, and what the devil Mr. Cassilis is doing here. You say you
+are married; that I do not believe. If you were, Graden Floe would soon
+divorce you; four minutes and a half, Cassilis. I keep my private
+cemetery for my friends.”
+
+“It took somewhat longer,” said I, “for that Italian.”
+
+He looked at me for a moment half daunted, and then, almost civilly,
+asked me to tell my story. “You have too much the advantage of me,
+Cassilis,” he added. I complied of course; and he listened, with
+several ejaculations, while I told him how I had come to Graden: that
+it was I whom he had tried to murder on the night of landing; and what
+I had subsequently seen and heard of the Italians.
+
+“Well,” said he, when I had done, “it is here at last; there is no
+mistake about that. And what, may I ask, do you propose to do?”
+
+“I propose to stay with you and lend a hand,” said I.
+
+“You are a brave man,” he returned, with a peculiar intonation.
+
+“I am not afraid,” said I.
+
+“And so,” he continued, “I am to understand that you two are married?
+And you stand up to it before my face, Miss Huddlestone?”
+
+“We are not yet married,” said Clara; “but we shall be as soon as we
+can.”
+
+“Bravo!” cried Northmour. “And the bargain? D—n it, you’re not a fool,
+young woman; I may call a spade a spade with you. How about the
+bargain? You know as well as I do what your father’s life depends upon.
+I have only to put my hands under my coat-tails and walk away, and his
+throat would he cut before the evening.”
+
+“Yes, Mr. Northmour,” returned Clara, with great spirit; “but that is
+what you will never do. You made a bargain that was unworthy of a
+gentleman; but you are a gentleman for all that, and you will never
+desert a man whom you have begun to help.”
+
+“Aha!” said he. “You think I will give my yacht for nothing? You think
+I will risk my life and liberty for love of the old gentleman; and
+then, I suppose, be best man at the wedding, to wind up? Well,” he
+added, with an odd smile, “perhaps you are not altogether wrong. But
+ask Cassilis here. _He_ knows me. Am I a man to trust? Am I safe and
+scrupulous? Am I kind?”
+
+“I know you talk a great deal, and sometimes, I think, very foolishly,”
+replied Clara, “but I know you are a gentleman, and I am not the least
+afraid.”
+
+He looked at her with a peculiar approval and admiration; then, turning
+to me, “Do you think I would give her up without a struggle, Frank?”
+said he. “I tell you plainly, you look out. The next time we come to
+blows—”
+
+“Will make the third,” I interrupted, smiling.
+
+“Aye, true; so it will,” he said. “I had forgotten. Well, the third
+time’s lucky.”
+
+“The third time, you mean, you will have the crew of the _Red Earl_ to
+help,” I said.
+
+“Do you hear him?” he asked, turning to my wife.
+
+“I hear two men speaking like cowards,” said she. “I should despise
+myself either to think or speak like that. And neither of you believe
+one word that you are saying, which makes it the more wicked and
+silly.”
+
+“She’s a trump!” cried Northmour. “But she’s not yet Mrs. Cassilis. I
+say no more. The present is not for me.” Then my wife surprised me.
+
+“I leave you here,” she said suddenly. “My father has been too long
+alone. But remember this: you are to be friends, for you are both good
+friends to me.”
+
+She has since told me her reason for this step. As long as she
+remained, she declares that we two would have continued to quarrel; and
+I suppose that she was right, for when she was gone we fell at once
+into a sort of confidentiality.
+
+Northmour stared after her as she went away over the sand-hill
+
+“She is the only woman in the world!” he exclaimed with an oath. “Look
+at her action.”
+
+I, for my part, leaped at this opportunity for a little further light.
+
+“See here, Northmour,” said I; “we are all in a tight place, are we
+not?”
+
+“I believe you, my boy,” he answered, looking me in the eyes, and with
+great emphasis. “We have all hell upon us, that’s the truth. You may
+believe me or not, but I’m afraid of my life.”
+
+“Tell me one thing,” said I. “What are they after, these Italians? What
+do they want with Mr. Huddlestone?”
+
+“Don’t you know?” he cried. “The black old scamp had_ carbonaro_ funds
+on a deposit—two hundred and eighty thousand; and of course he gambled
+it away on stocks. There was to have been a revolution in the
+Tridentino, or Parma; but the revolution is off, and the whole wasp’s
+nest is after Huddlestone. We shall all be lucky if we can save our
+skins.”
+
+“The _carbonari_!” I exclaimed; “God help him indeed!”
+
+“Amen!” said Northmour. “And now, look here: I have said that we are in
+a fix; and, frankly, I shall be glad of your help. If I can’t save
+Huddlestone, I want at least to save the girl. Come and stay in the
+pavilion; and, there’s my hand on it, I shall act as your friend until
+the old man is either clear or dead. But,” he added, “once that is
+settled, you become my rival once again, and I warn you—mind yourself.”
+
+“Done!” said I; and we shook hands.
+
+“And now let us go directly to the fort,” said Northmour; and he began
+to lead the way through the rain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+TELLS OF MY INTRODUCTION TO THE TALL MAN
+
+
+We were admitted to the pavilion by Clara, and I was surprised by the
+completeness and security of the defences. A barricade of great
+strength, and yet easy to displace, supported the door against Any
+violence from without; and the shutters of the dining-room, into which
+I was led directly, and which was feebly illuminated by a lamp, were
+even more elaborately fortified. The panels were strengthened by bars
+and cross-bars; and these, in their turn, were kept in position by a
+system of braces and struts, some abutting on the floor, some on the
+roof, and others, in fine, against the opposite wall of the apartment.
+It was at once a solid and well-designed piece of carpentry; and I did
+not seek to conceal my admiration.
+
+“I am the engineer,” said Northmour. “You remember the planks in the
+garden? Behold them?”
+
+“I did not know you had so many talents,” said I.
+
+“Are you armed?” he continued, pointing to an array of guns and
+pistols, all in admirable order, which stood in line against the wall
+or were displayed upon the sideboard.
+
+“Thank you,” I returned; “I have gone armed since our last encounter.
+But, to tell you the truth, I have had nothing to eat since early
+yesterday evening.”
+
+Northmour produced some cold meat, to which I eagerly set myself, and a
+bottle of good Burgundy, by which, wet as I was, I did not scruple to
+profit. I have always been an extreme temperance man on principle; but
+it is useless to push principle to excess, and on this occasion I
+believe that I finished three-quarters of the bottle. As I ate, I still
+continued to admire the preparations for defence.
+
+“We could stand a siege,” I said at length.
+
+“Ye-es,” drawled Northmour; “a very little one, per-haps. It is not so
+much the strength of the pavilion I misdoubt; it is the doubled anger
+that kills me. If we get to shooting, wild as the country is some one
+is sure to hear it, and then—why then it’s the same thing, only
+different, as they say: caged by law, or killed by _carbonari_. There’s
+the choice. It is a devilish bad thing to have the law against you in
+this world, and so I tell the old gentleman upstairs. He is quite of my
+way of thinking.”
+
+“Speaking of that,” said I, “what kind of person is he?”
+
+“Oh, he!” cried the other; “he’s a rancid fellow, as far as he goes. I
+should like to have his neck wrung to-morrow by all the devils in
+Italy. I am not in this affair for him. You take me? I made a bargain
+for Missy’s hand, and I mean to have it too.”
+
+“That by the way,” said I. “I understand. But how will Mr. Huddlestone
+take my intrusion?”
+
+“Leave that to Clara,” returned Northmour.
+
+I could have struck him in the face for this coarse familiarity; but I
+respected the truce, as, I am bound to say, did Northmour, and so long
+as the danger continued not a cloud arose in our relation. I bear him
+this testimony with the most unfeigned satisfaction; nor am I without
+pride when I look back upon my own behaviour. For surely no two men
+were ever left in a position so invidious and irritating.
+
+As soon as I had done eating, we proceeded to inspect the lower floor.
+Window by window we tried the different supports, now and then making
+an inconsiderable change; and the strokes of the hammer sounded with
+startling loudness through the house. I proposed, I remember, to make
+loop-holes; but he told me they were already made in the windows of the
+upper story. It was an anxious business this inspection, and left me
+down-hearted. There were two doors and five windows to protect, and,
+counting Clara, only four of us to defend them against an unknown
+number of foes. I communicated my doubts to Northmour, who assured me,
+with unmoved composure, that he entirely shared them.
+
+“Before morning,” said he, “we shall all be butchered and buried in
+Graden Floe. For me, that is written.”
+
+I could not help shuddering at the mention of the quicksand, but
+reminded Northmour that our enemies had spared me in the wood.
+
+“Do not flatter yourself,” said he. “Then you were not in the same boat
+with the old gentleman; now you are. It’s the floe for all of us, mark
+my words.”
+
+I trembled for Clara; and just then her dear voice was heard calling us
+to come upstairs. Northmour showed me the way, and, when he had reached
+the landing, knocked at the door of what used to be called _My Uncle’s
+Bedroom_, as the founder of the pavilion had designed it especially for
+himself.
+
+“Come in, Northmour; come in, dear Mr. Cassilis,” said a voice from
+within.
+
+Pushing open the door, Northmour admitted me before him into the
+apartment. As I came in I could see the daughter slipping out by the
+side door into the study, which had been prepared as her bedroom. In
+the bed, which was drawn back against the wall, instead of standing, as
+I had last seen it, boldly across the window, sat Bernard Huddlestone,
+the defaulting banker. Little as I had seen of him by the shifting
+light of the lantern on the links, I had no difficulty in recognising
+him for the same. He had a long and sallow countenance, surrounded by a
+long red beard and side whiskers. His broken nose and high cheekbones
+gave him somewhat the air of a Kalmuck, and his light eyes shone with
+the excitement of a high fever. He wore a skull-cap of black silk; a
+huge Bible lay open before him on the bed, with a pair of gold
+spectacles in the place, and a pile of other books lay on the stand by
+his side. The green curtains lent a cadaverous shade to his cheek; and,
+as he sat propped on pillows, his great stature was painfully hunched,
+and his head protruded till it overhung his knees. I believe if he had
+not died otherwise, he must have fallen a victim to consumption in the
+course of but a very few weeks.
+
+He held out to me a hand, long, thin, and disagreeably hairy.
+
+“Come in, come in, Mr. Cassilis,” said he. “Another
+protector—ahem!—another protector. Always welcome as a friend of my
+daughter’s, Mr. Cassilis. How they have rallied about me, my daughter’s
+friends! May God in heaven bless and reward them for it!”
+
+I gave him my hand, of course, because I could not help it; but the
+sympathy I had been prepared to feel for Clara’s father was immediately
+soured by his appearance, and the wheedling, unreal tones in which he
+spoke.
+
+“Cassilis is a good man,” said Northmour; “worth ten.”
+
+“So I hear,” cried Mr. Huddlestone eagerly “so my girl tells me. Ah,
+Mr. Cassilis, my sin has found me out, you see! I am very low, very
+low; but I hope equally penitent. We must all come to the throne of
+grace at last, Mr. Cassilis. For my part, I come late indeed; but with
+unfeigned humility, I trust.”
+
+“Fiddle-de-dee!” said Northmour roughly.
+
+“No, no, dear Northmour!” cried the banker. “You must not say that; you
+must not try to shake me. You forget, my dear, good boy, you forget I
+may be called this very night before my Maker.”
+
+His excitement was pitiful to behold; and I felt myself grow indignant
+with Northmour, whose infidel opinions I well knew, and heartily
+derided, as he continued to taunt the poor sinner out of his humour of
+repentance.
+
+“Pooh, my dear Huddlestone!” said he. “You do yourself injustice. You
+are a man of the world inside and out, and were up to all kinds of
+mischief before I was born. Your conscience is tanned like South
+American leather—only you forgot to tan your liver, and that, if you
+will believe me, is the seat of the annoyance.”
+
+“Rogue, rogue! bad boy!” said Mr. Huddlestone, shaking his finger. “I
+am no precisian, if you come to that; I always hated a precisian; but I
+never lost hold of something better through it all. I have been a bad
+boy, Mr. Cassilis; I do not seek to deny that; but it was after my
+wife’s death, and you know, with a widower, it’s a different thing:
+sinful—I won’t say no; but there is a gradation, we shall hope. And
+talking of that—Hark!” he broke out suddenly, his hand raised, his
+fingers spread, his face racked with interest and terror. “Only the
+rain, bless God!” he added, after a pause, and with indescribable
+relief.
+
+For some seconds he lay back among the pillows like a man near to
+fainting; then he gathered himself together, and, in somewhat tremulous
+tones, began once more to thank me for the share I was prepared to take
+in his defence.
+
+“One question, sir,” said I, when he had paused. “Is it true that you
+have money with you?”
+
+He seemed annoyed by the question, but admitted with reluctance that he
+had a little.
+
+“Well,” I continued, “it is their money they are after, is it not? Why
+not give it up to them?”
+
+“Ah!” replied he, shaking his head, “I have tried that already, Mr.
+Cassilis; and alas that it should be so! but it is blood they want.”
+
+“Huddlestone, that’s a little less than fair,” said Northmour. “You
+should mention that what you offered them was upwards of two hundred
+thousand short. The deficit is worth a reference; it is for what they
+call a cool sum, Frank. Then, you see, the fellows reason in their
+clear Italian way; and it seems to them, as indeed it seems to me, that
+they may just as well have both while they’re about it—money and blood
+together, by George, and no more trouble for the extra pleasure.”
+
+“Is it in the pavilion?” I asked.
+
+“It is; and I wish it were in the bottom of the sea instead,” said
+Northmour; and then suddenly—“What are you making faces at me for?” he
+cried to Mr. Huddlestone, on whom I had unconsciously turned my back.
+“Do you think Cassilis would sell you?”
+
+Mr. Huddlestone protested that nothing had been further from his mind.
+
+“It is a good thing,” retorted Northmour in his ugliest manner. “You
+might end by wearying us. What were you going to say?” he added,
+turning to me.
+
+“I was going to propose an occupation for the afternoon,” said I. “Let
+us carry that money out, piece by piece, and lay it down before the
+pavilion door. If the _carbonari_ come, why, it’s theirs at any rate.”
+
+“No, no,” cried Mr. Huddlestone; “it does not, it cannot belong to
+them! It should be distributed _pro rata_ among all my creditors.”
+
+“Come now, Huddlestone,” said Northmour, “none of that.”
+
+“Well, but my daughter,” moaned the wretched man.
+
+“Your daughter will do well enough. Here are two suitors, Cassilis and
+I, neither of us beggars, between whom she has to choose. And as for
+yourself, to make an end of arguments, you have no right to a farthing,
+and, unless I’m much mistaken, you are going to die.”
+
+It was certainly very cruelly said; but Mr. Huddlestone was a man who
+attracted little sympathy; and, although I saw him wince and shudder, I
+mentally endorsed the rebuke; nay, I added a contribution of my own.
+
+“Northmour and I,” I said, “are willing enough to help you to save your
+life, but not to escape with stolen property.”
+
+He struggled for a while with himself, as though he were on the point
+of giving way to anger, but prudence had the best of the controversy.
+
+“My dear boys,” he said, “do with me or my money what you will. I leave
+all in your hands. Let me compose myself.”
+
+And so we left him, gladly enough I am sure. The last that I saw, he
+had once more taken up his great Bible, and with tremulous hands was
+adjusting his spectacles to read.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+TELLS HOW A WORD WAS CRIED THROUGH THE PAVILION WINDOW
+
+
+The recollection of that afternoon will always be graven on my mind.
+Northmour and I were persuaded that an attack was imminent; and if it
+had been in our power to alter in any way the order of events, that
+power would have been used to precipitate rather than delay the
+critical moment. The worst was to be anticipated; yet we could conceive
+no extremity so miserable as the suspense we were now suffering. I have
+never been an eager, though always a great, reader; but I never knew
+books so insipid as those which I took up and cast aside that afternoon
+in the pavilion. Even talk became impossible, as the hours went on. One
+or other was always listening for some sound, or peering from an
+upstairs window over the links. And yet not a sign indicated the
+presence of our foes.
+
+We debated over and over again my proposal with regard to the money;
+and had we been in complete possession of our faculties, I am sure we
+should have condemned it as unwise; but we were flustered with alarm,
+grasped at a straw, and determined, although it was as much as
+advertising Mr. Huddlestone’s presence in the pavilion, to carry my
+proposal into effect.
+
+The sum was part in specie, part in bank paper, and part in circular
+notes payable to the name of James Gregory. We took it out, counted it,
+enclosed it once more in a despatch-box belonging to Northmour, and
+prepared a letter in Italian which he tied to the handle. It was signed
+by both of us under oath, and declared that this was all the money
+which had escaped the failure of the house of Huddlestone. This was,
+perhaps, the maddest action ever perpetrated by two persons professing
+to be sane. Had the despatch-box fallen into other hands than those for
+which it was intended, we stood criminally convicted on our own written
+testimony; but, as I have said, we were neither of us in a condition to
+judge soberly, and had a thirst for action that drove us to do
+something, right or wrong, rather than endure the agony of waiting.
+Moreover, as we were both convinced that the hollows of the links were
+alive with hidden spies upon our movements, we hoped that our
+appearance with the box might lead to a parley, and, perhaps, a
+compromise.
+
+It was nearly three when we issued from the pavilion. The rain had
+taken off; the sun shone quite cheerfully.
+
+I have never seen the gulls fly so close about the house or approach so
+fearlessly to human beings. On the very doorstep one flapped heavily
+past our heads, and uttered its wild cry in my very ear.
+
+“There is an omen for you,” said Northmour, who like all freethinkers
+was much under the influence of superstition. “They think we are
+already dead.”
+
+I made some light rejoinder, but it was with half my heart; for the
+circumstance had impressed me.
+
+A yard or two before the gate, on a patch of smooth turf, we set down
+the despatch-box; and Northmour waved a white handkerchief over his
+head. Nothing replied. We raised our voices, and cried aloud in Italian
+that we were there as ambassadors to arrange the quarrel; but the
+stillness remained unbroken save by the sea-gulls and the surf. I had a
+weight at my heart when we desisted; and I saw that even Northmour was
+unusually pale. He looked over his shoulder nervously, as though he
+feared that some one had crept between him and the pavilion door.
+
+“By God,” he said in a whisper, “this is too much for me!”
+
+I replied in the same key: “Suppose there should be none, after all!”
+
+“Look there,” he returned, nodding with his head, as though he had been
+afraid to point.
+
+I glanced in the direction indicated; and there, from the northern
+quarter of the Sea-Wood, beheld a thin column of smoke rising steadily
+against the now cloudless sky.
+
+“Northmour,” I said (we still continued to talk in whispers), “it is
+not possible to endure this suspense. I prefer death fifty times over.
+Stay you here to watch the pavilion; I will go forward and make sure,
+if I have to walk right into their camp.”
+
+He looked once again all round him with puckered eyes, and then nodded
+assentingly to my proposal.
+
+My heart beat like a sledge-hammer as I set out walking rapidly in the
+direction of the smoke; and, though up to that moment I had felt chill
+and shivering, I was suddenly conscious of a glow of heat over all my
+body. The ground in this direction was very uneven; a hundred men might
+have lain hidden in as many square yards about my path. But I had not
+practised the business in vain, chose such routes as cut at the very
+root of concealment, and, by keeping along the most convenient ridges,
+commanded several hollows at a time. It was not long before I was
+rewarded for my caution. Coming suddenly on to a mound somewhat more
+elevated than the surrounding hummocks, I saw, not thirty yards away, a
+man bent almost double, and running as fast as his attitude permitted,
+along the bottom of a gully. I had dislodged one of the spies from his
+ambush. As soon as I sighted him, I called loudly both in English and
+Italian; and he, seeing concealment was no longer possible,
+straightened himself out, leaped from the gully, and made off as
+straight as an arrow for the borders of the wood.
+
+It was none of my business to pursue; I had learned what I wanted—that
+we were beleaguered and watched in the pavilion; and I returned at
+once, and walking as nearly as possible in my old footsteps, to where
+Northmour awaited me beside the despatch-box. He was even paler than
+when I had left him, and his voice shook a little.
+
+“Could you see what he was like?” he asked.
+
+“He kept his back turned,” I replied.
+
+“Let us get into the house, Frank. I don’t think I’m a coward, but I
+can stand no more of this,” he whispered.
+
+All was still and sunshiny about the pavilion as we turned to re-enter
+it; even the gulls had flown in a wider circuit, and were seen
+flickering along the beach and sand-hills; and this loneliness
+terrified me more than a regiment under arms. It was not until the door
+was barricaded that I could draw a full inspiration and relieve the
+weight that lay upon my bosom. Northmour and I exchanged a steady
+glance; and I suppose each made his own reflections on the white and
+startled aspect of the other.
+
+“You were right,” I said. “All is over. Shake hands, old man, for the
+last time.”
+
+“Yes,” replied he, “I will shake hands; for, as sure as I am here, I
+bear no malice. But, remember, if, by some impossible accident, we
+should give the slip to these blackguards, I’ll take the upper hand of
+you by fair or foul.”
+
+“Oh,” said I, “you weary me!”
+
+He seemed hurt, and walked away in silence to the foot of the stairs,
+where he paused.
+
+“You do not understand,” said he. “I am not a swindler, and I guard
+myself; that is all. It may weary you or not, Mr. Cassilis, I do not
+care a rush; I speak for my own satisfaction, and not for your
+amusement. You had better go upstairs and court the girl; for my part,
+I stay here.”
+
+“And I stay with you,” I returned. “Do you think I would steal a march,
+even with your permission?”
+
+“Frank,” he said, smiling, “it’s a pity you are an ass, for you have
+the makings of a man. I think I must be _fey_ to-day; you cannot
+irritate me even when you try. Do you know,” he continued softly, “I
+think we are the two most miserable men in England, you and I? we have
+got on to thirty without wife or child, or so much as a shop to look
+after—poor, pitiful, lost devils, both! And now we clash about a girl!
+As if there were not several millions in the United Kingdom! Ah, Frank,
+Frank, the one who loses this throw, be it you or me, he has my pity!
+It were better for him—how does the Bible say?—that a millstone were
+hanged about his neck and he were cast into the depth of the sea. Let
+us take a drink,” he concluded suddenly, but without any levity of
+tone.
+
+I was touched by his words, and consented. He sat down on the table in
+the dining-room, and held up the glass of sherry to his eye.
+
+“If you beat me, Frank,” he said, “I shall take to drink. What will you
+do, if it goes the other way?”
+
+“God knows,” I returned.
+
+“Well,” said he, “here is a toast in the meantime: ‘_Italia
+irredenta_!’”
+
+The remainder of the day was passed in the same dreadful tedium and
+suspense. I laid the table for dinner, while Northmour and Clara
+prepared the meal together in the kitchen. I could hear their talk as I
+went to and fro, and was surprised to find it ran all the time upon
+myself. Northmour again bracketed us together, and rallied Clara on a
+choice of husbands; but he continued to speak of me with some feeling,
+and uttered nothing to my prejudice unless he included himself in the
+condemnation. This awakened a sense of gratitude in my heart, which
+combined with the immediateness of our peril to fill my eyes with
+tears. After all, I thought—and perhaps the thought was laughably
+vain—we were here three very noble human beings to perish in defence of
+a thieving banker.
+
+Before we sat down to table, I looked forth from an upstairs window.
+The day was beginning to decline; the links were utterly deserted; the
+despatch-box still lay untouched where we had left it hours before.
+
+Mr. Huddlestone, in a long yellow dressing-gown, took one end of the
+table, Clara the other; while Northmour and I faced each other from the
+sides. The lamp was brightly trimmed; the wine was good; the viands,
+although mostly cold, excellent of their sort. We seemed to have agreed
+tacitly; all reference to the impending catastrophe was carefully
+avoided; and, considering our tragic circumstances, we made a merrier
+party than could have been expected. From time to time, it is true,
+Northmour or I would rise from table and make a round of the defences;
+and, on each of these occasions, Mr. Huddlestone was recalled to a
+sense of his tragic predicament, glanced up with ghastly eyes, and bore
+for an instant on his countenance the stamp of terror. But he hastened
+to empty his glass, wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, and
+joined again in the conversation.
+
+I was astonished at the wit and information he displayed. Mr.
+Huddlestone’s was certainly no ordinary character; he had read and
+observed for himself; his gifts were sound; and, though I could never
+have learned to love the man, I began to understand his success in
+business, and the great respect in which he had been held before his
+failure. He had, above all, the talent of society; and though I never
+heard him speak but on this one and most unfavourable occasion, I set
+him down among the most brilliant conversationalists I ever met.
+
+He was relating with great gusto, and seemingly no feeling of shame,
+the manœuvres of a scoundrelly commission merchant whom he had known
+and studied in his youth, and we were all listening with an odd mixture
+of mirth and embarrassment when our little party was brought abruptly
+to an end in the most startling manner.
+
+A noise like that of a wet finger on the window-pane interrupted Mr.
+Huddlestone’s tale; and in an instant we were all four as white as
+paper, and sat tongue-tied and motionless round the table.
+
+“A snail,” I said at last; for I had heard that these animals make a
+noise somewhat similar in character.
+
+“Snail be d—d!” said Northmour. “Hush!”
+
+The same sound was repeated twice at regular intervals; and then a
+formidable voice shouted through the shutters the Italian word
+“_Traditore_!”
+
+Mr. Huddlestone threw his head in the air; his eyelids quivered; next
+moment he fell insensible below the table. Northmour and I had each run
+to the armoury and seized a gun. Clara was on her feet with her hand at
+her throat.
+
+So we stood waiting, for we thought the hour of attack was certainly
+come; but second passed after second, and all but the surf remained
+silent in the neighbourhood of the pavilion.
+
+“Quick,” said Northmour; “upstairs with him before they come.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+TELLS THE LAST OF THE TALL MAN
+
+
+Somehow or other, by hook and crook, and between the three of us, we
+got Bernard Huddlestone bundled upstairs and laid upon the bed in _My
+Uncle’s Room_. During the whole process, which was rough enough, he
+gave no sign of consciousness, and he remained, as we had thrown him,
+without changing the position of a finger. His daughter opened his
+shirt and began to wet his head and bosom; while Northmour and I ran to
+the window. The weather continued clear; the moon, which was now about
+full, had risen and shed a very clear light upon the links; yet, strain
+our eyes as we might, we could distinguish nothing moving. A few dark
+spots, more or less, on the uneven expanse were not to be identified;
+they might be crouching men, they might be shadows; it was impossible
+to be sure.
+
+“Thank God,” said Northmour, “Aggie is not coming to-night.”
+
+Aggie was the name of the old nurse; he had not thought of her till
+now; but that he should think of her at all, was a trait that surprised
+me in the man.
+
+We were again reduced to waiting. Northmour went to the fireplace and
+spread his hands before the red embers, as if he were cold. I followed
+him mechanically with my eyes, and in so doing turned my back upon the
+window. At that moment a very faint report was audible from without,
+and a ball shivered a pane of glass, and buried itself in the shutter
+two inches from my head. I heard Clara scream; and though I whipped
+instantly out of range and into a corner, she was there, so to speak,
+before me, beseeching to know if I were hurt. I felt that I could stand
+to be shot at every day and all day long, with such marks of solicitude
+for a reward; and I continued to reassure her, with the tenderest
+caresses and in complete forgetfulness of our situation, till the voice
+of Northmour recalled me to myself.
+
+“An air-gun,” he said. “They wish to make no noise.”
+
+I put Clara aside, and looked at him. He was standing with his back to
+the fire and his hands clasped behind him; and I knew by the black look
+on his face, that passion was boiling within. I had seen just such a
+look before he attacked me, that March night, in the adjoining chamber;
+and, though I could make every allowance for his anger, I confess I
+trembled for the consequences. He gazed straight before him; but he
+could see us with the tail of his eye, and his temper kept rising like
+a gale of wind. With regular battle awaiting us outside, this prospect
+of an internecine strife within the walls began to daunt me.
+
+Suddenly, as I was thus closely watching his expression and prepared
+against the worst, I saw a change, a flash, a look of relief, upon his
+face. He took up the lamp which stood beside him on the table, and
+turned to us with an air of some excitement.
+
+“There is one point that we must know,” said he. “Are they going to
+butcher the lot of us, or only Huddlestone? Did they take you for him,
+or fire at you for your own _beaux yeux_?”
+
+“They took me for him, for certain,” I replied. “I am near as tall, and
+my head is fair.”
+
+“I am going to make sure,” returned Northmour; and he stepped up to the
+window, holding the lamp above his head, and stood there, quietly
+affronting death, for half a minute.
+
+Clara sought to rush forward and pull him from the place of danger; but
+I had the pardonable selfishness to hold her back by force.
+
+“Yes,” said Northmour, turning coolly from the window; “it’s only
+Huddlestone they want.”
+
+“Oh, Mr. Northmour!” cried Clara; but found no more to add; the
+temerity she had just witnessed seeming beyond the reach of words.
+
+He, on his part, looked at me, cocking his head, with a fire of triumph
+in his eyes; and I understood at once that he had thus hazarded his
+life, merely to attract Clara’s notice, and depose me from my position
+as the hero of the hour. He snapped his fingers.
+
+“The fire is only beginning,” said he. “When they warm up to their
+work, they won’t be so particular.”
+
+A voice was now heard hailing us from the entrance. From the window we
+could see the figure of a man in the moonlight; he stood motionless,
+his face uplifted to ours, and a rag of something white on his extended
+arm; and as we looked right down upon him, though he was a good many
+yards distant on the links, we could see the moonlight glitter on his
+eyes.
+
+He opened his lips again, and spoke for some minutes on end, in a key
+so loud that he might have been heard in every corner of the pavilion,
+and as far away as the borders of the wood. It was the same voice that
+had already shouted “_Traditore_!” through the shutters of the
+dining-room; this time it made a complete and clear statement. If the
+traitor “Oddlestone” were given up, all others should be spared; if
+not, no one should escape to tell the tale.
+
+“Well, Huddlestone, what do you say to that?” asked Northmour, turning
+to the bed.
+
+Up to that moment the banker had given no sign of life, and I, at
+least, had supposed him to be still lying in a faint; but he replied at
+once, and in such tones as I have never heard elsewhere, save from a
+delirious patient, adjured and besought us not to desert him. It was
+the most hideous and abject performance that my imagination can
+conceive.
+
+“Enough,” cried Northmour; and then he threw open the window, leaned
+out into the night, and in a tone of exultation, and with a total
+forgetfulness of what was due to the presence of a lady, poured out
+upon the ambassador a string of the most abominable raillery both in
+English and Italian, and bade him be gone where he had come from. I
+believe that nothing so delighted Northmour at that moment as the
+thought that we must all infallibly perish before the night was out.
+
+Meantime the Italian put his flag of truce into his pocket, and
+disappeared, at a leisurely pace, among the sand-hills.
+
+“They make honourable war,” said Northmour. “They are all gentlemen and
+soldiers. For the credit of the thing, I wish we could change sides—you
+and I, Frank, and you too, Missy, my darling—and leave that being on
+the bed to some one else. Tut! Don’t look shocked! We are all going
+post to what they call eternity, and may as well be above-board while
+there’s time. As far as I’m concerned, if I could first strangle
+Huddlestone and then get Clara in my arms, I could die with some pride
+and satisfaction. And as it is, by God, I’ll have a kiss!”
+
+Before I could do anything to interfere, he had rudely embraced and
+repeatedly kissed the resisting girl. Next moment I had pulled him away
+with fury, and flung him heavily against the wall. He laughed loud and
+long, and I feared his wits had given way under the strain; for even in
+the best of days he had been a sparing and a quiet laugher.
+
+“Now, Frank,” said he, when his mirth was somewhat appeased, “it’s your
+turn. Here’s my hand. Good-bye; farewell!” Then, seeing me stand rigid
+and indignant, and holding Clara to my side—“Man!” he broke out, “are
+you angry? Did you think we were going to die with all the airs and
+graces of society? I took a kiss; I’m glad I had it; and now you can
+take another if you like, and square accounts.”
+
+I turned from him with a feeling of contempt which I did not seek to
+dissemble.
+
+“As you please,” said he. “You’ve been a prig in life; a prig you’ll
+die.”
+
+And with that he sat down in a chair, a rifle over his knee, and amused
+himself with snapping the lock; but I could see that his ebullition of
+light spirits (the only one I ever knew him to display) had already
+come to an end, and was succeeded by a sullen, scowling humour.
+
+All this time our assailants might have been entering the house, and we
+been none the wiser; we had in truth almost forgotten the danger that
+so imminently overhung our days. But just then Mr. Huddlestone uttered
+a cry, and leaped from the bed.
+
+I asked him what was wrong.
+
+“Fire!” he cried. “They have set the house on fire!”
+
+Northmour was on his feet in an instant, and he and I ran through the
+door of communication with the study. The room was illuminated by a red
+and angry light. Almost at the moment of our entrance, a tower of flame
+arose in front of the window, and, with a tingling report, a pane fell
+inwards on the carpet. They had set fire to the lean-to outhouse, where
+Northmour used to nurse his negatives.
+
+“Hot work,” said Northmour. “Let us try in your old room.”
+
+We ran thither in a breath, threw up the casement, and looked forth.
+Along the whole back wall of the pavilion piles of fuel had been
+arranged and kindled; and it is probable they had been drenched with
+mineral oil, for, in spite of the morning’s rain, they all burned
+bravely. The fire had taken a firm hold already on the outhouse, which
+blazed higher and higher every moment; the back door was in the centre
+of a red-hot bonfire; the eaves we could see, as we looked upward, were
+already smouldering, for the roof overhung, and was supported by
+considerable beams of wood. At the same time, hot, pungent, and choking
+volumes of smoke began to fill the house. There was not a human being
+to be seen to right or left.
+
+“Ah, well!” said Northmour, “here’s the end, thank God.”
+
+And we returned to _My Uncle’s Room_. Mr. Huddlestone was putting on
+his boots, still violently trembling, but with an air of determination
+such as I had not hitherto observed. Clara stood close by him, with her
+cloak in both hands ready to throw about her shoulders, and a strange
+look in her eyes, as if she were half hopeful, half doubtful of her
+father.
+
+“Well, boys and girls,” said Northmour, “how about a sally? The oven is
+heating; it is not good to stay here and be baked; and, for my part, I
+want to come to my hands with them, and be done.”
+
+“There is nothing else left,” I replied.
+
+And both Clara and Mr. Huddlestone, though with a very different
+intonation, added, “Nothing.”
+
+As we went downstairs the heat was excessive, and the roaring of the
+fire filled our ears; and we had scarce reached the passage before the
+stairs window fell in, a branch of flame shot brandishing through the
+aperture, and the interior of the pavilion became lit up with that
+dreadful and fluctuating glare. At the same moment we heard the fall of
+something heavy and inelastic in the upper story. The whole pavilion,
+it was plain, had gone alight like a box of matches, and now not only
+flamed sky-high to land and sea, but threatened with every moment to
+crumble and fall in about our ears.
+
+Northmour and I cocked our revolvers. Mr. Huddlestone, who had already
+refused a firearm, put us behind him with a manner of command.
+
+“Let Clara open the door,” said he. “So, if they fire a volley, she
+will be protected. And in the meantime stand behind me. I am the
+scapegoat; my sins have found me out.”
+
+I heard him, as I stood breathless by his shoulder, with my pistol
+ready, pattering off prayers in a tremulous, rapid whisper; and I
+confess, horrid as the thought may seem, I despised him for thinking of
+supplications in a moment so critical and thrilling. In the meantime,
+Clara, who was dead white but still possessed her faculties, had
+displaced the barricade from the front door. Another moment, and she
+had pulled it open. Firelight and moonlight illuminated the links with
+confused and changeful lustre, and far away against the sky we could
+see a long trail of glowing smoke.
+
+Mr. Huddlestone, filled for the moment with a strength greater than his
+own, struck Northmour and myself a back-hander in the chest; and while
+we were thus for the moment incapacitated from action, lifting his arms
+above his head like one about to dive, he ran straight forward out of
+the pavilion.
+
+“Here am I!” he cried—“Huddlestone! Kill me, and spare the others!”
+
+His sudden appearance daunted, I suppose, our hidden enemies; for
+Northmour and I had time to recover, to seize Clara between us, one by
+each arm, and to rush forth to his assistance, ere anything further had
+taken place. But scarce had we passed the threshold when there came
+near a dozen reports and flashes from every direction among the hollows
+of the links. Mr. Huddlestone staggered, uttered a weird and freezing
+cry, threw up his arms over his head, and fell backward on the turf.
+
+“_Traditore_! _Traditore_!” cried the invisible avengers.
+
+And just then, a part of the roof of the pavilion fell in, so rapid was
+the progress of the fire. A loud, vague, and horrible noise accompanied
+the collapse, and a vast volume of flame went soaring up to heaven. It
+must have been visible at that moment from twenty miles out at sea,
+from the shore at Graden Wester, and far inland from the peak of
+Graystiel, the most eastern summit of the Caulder Hills. Bernard
+Huddlestone, although God knows what were his obsequies, had a fine
+pyre at the moment of his death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+TELLS HOW NORTHMOUR CARRIED OUT HIS THREAT
+
+
+I should have the greatest difficulty to tell you what followed next
+after this tragic circumstance. It is all to me, as I look back upon
+it, mixed, strenuous, and ineffectual, like the struggles of a sleeper
+in a nightmare. Clara, I remember, uttered a broken sigh and would have
+fallen forward to earth, had not Northmour and I supported her
+insensible body. I do not think we were attacked; I do not remember
+even to have seen an assailant; and I believe we deserted Mr.
+Huddlestone without a glance. I only remember running like a man in a
+panic, now carrying Clara altogether in my own arms, now sharing her
+weight with Northmour, now scuffling confusedly for the possession of
+that dear burden. Why we should have made for my camp in the Hemlock
+Den, or how we reached it, are points lost for ever to my recollection.
+The first moment at which I became definitely sure, Clara had been
+suffered to fall against the outside of my little tent, Northmour and I
+were tumbling together on the ground, and he, with contained ferocity,
+was striking for my head with the butt of his revolver. He had already
+twice wounded me on the scalp; and it is to the consequent loss of
+blood that I am tempted to attribute the sudden clearness of my mind.
+
+I caught him by the wrist.
+
+“Northmour,” I remember saying, “you can kill me afterwards. Let us
+first attend to Clara.”
+
+He was at that moment uppermost. Scarcely had the words passed my lips,
+when he had leaped to his feet and ran towards the tent; and the next
+moment, he was straining Clara to his heart and covering her
+unconscious hands and face with his caresses.
+
+“Shame!” I cried. “Shame to you, Northmour!”
+
+And, giddy though I still was, I struck him repeatedly upon the head
+and shoulders.
+
+He relinquished his grasp, and faced me in the broken moonlight.
+
+“I had you under, and I let you go,” said he; “and now you strike me!
+Coward!”
+
+“You are the coward,” I retorted. “Did she wish your kisses while she
+was still sensible of what she wanted? Not she! And now she may be
+dying; and you waste this precious time, and abuse her helplessness.
+Stand aside, and let me help her.”
+
+He confronted me for a moment, white and menacing; then suddenly he
+stepped aside.
+
+“Help her then,” said he.
+
+I threw myself on my knees beside her, and loosened, as well as I was
+able, her dress and corset; but while I was thus engaged, a grasp
+descended on my shoulder.
+
+“Keep your hands off her,” said Northmour fiercely. “Do you think I
+have no blood in my veins?”
+
+“Northmour,” I cried, “if you will neither help her yourself, nor let
+me do so, do you know that I shall have to kill you?”
+
+“That is better!” he cried. “Let her die also, where’s the harm? Step
+aside from that girl! and stand up to fight”
+
+“You will observe,” said I, half rising, “that I have not kissed her
+yet.”
+
+“I dare you to,” he cried.
+
+I do not know what possessed me; it was one of the things I am most
+ashamed of in my life, though, as my wife used to say, I knew that my
+kisses would be always welcome were she dead or living; down I fell
+again upon my knees, parted the hair from her forehead, and, with the
+dearest respect, laid my lips for a moment on that cold brow. It was
+such a caress as a father might have given; it was such a one as was
+not unbecoming from a man soon to die to a woman already dead.
+
+“And now,” said I, “I am at your service, Mr. Northmour.”
+
+But I saw, to my surprise, that he had turned his back upon me.
+
+“Do you hear?” I asked.
+
+“Yes,” said he, “I do. If you wish to fight, I am ready. If not, go on
+and save Clara. All is one to me.”
+
+I did not wait to be twice bidden; but, stooping again over Clara,
+continued my efforts to revive her. She still lay white and lifeless; I
+began to fear that her sweet spirit had indeed fled beyond recall, and
+horror and a sense of utter desolation seized upon my heart. I called
+her by name with the most endearing inflections; I chafed and beat her
+hands; now I laid her head low, now supported it against my knee; but
+all seemed to be in vain, and the lids still lay heavy on her eyes.
+
+“Northmour,” I said, “there is my hat. For God’s sake bring some water
+from the spring.”
+
+Almost in a moment he was by my side with the water. “I have brought it
+in my own,” he said. “You do not grudge me the privilege?”
+
+“Northmour,” I was beginning to say, as I laved her head and breast;
+but he interrupted me savagely.
+
+“Oh, you hush up!” he said. “The best thing you can do is to say
+nothing.”
+
+I had certainly no desire to talk, my mind being swallowed up in
+concern for my dear love and her condition; so I continued in silence
+to do my best towards her recovery, and, when the hat was empty,
+returned it to him, with one word—“More.” He had, perhaps, gone several
+times upon this errand, when Clara reopened her eyes.
+
+“Now,” said he, “since she is better, you can spare me, can you not? I
+wish you a good night, Mr. Cassilis.”
+
+And with that he was gone among the thicket. I made a fire, for I had
+now no fear of the Italians, who had even spared all the little
+possessions left in my encampment; and, broken as she was by the
+excitement and the hideous catastrophe of the evening, I managed, in
+one way or another—by persuasion, encouragement, warmth, and such
+simple remedies as I could lay my hand on—to bring her back to some
+composure of mind and strength of body.
+
+Day had already come, when a sharp “Hist!” sounded from the thicket. I
+started from the ground; but the voice of Northmour was heard adding,
+in the most tranquil tones: “Come here, Cassilis, and alone; I want to
+show you something.”
+
+I consulted Clara with my eyes, and, receiving her tacit permission,
+left her alone, and clambered out of the den. At some distance of I saw
+Northmour leaning against an elder; and, as soon as he perceived me, he
+began walking seaward. I had almost overtaken him as he reached the
+outskirts of the wood.
+
+“Look,” said he, pausing.
+
+A couple of steps more brought me out of the foliage. The light of the
+morning lay cold and clear over that well-known scene. The pavilion was
+but a blackened wreck; the roof had fallen in, one of the gables had
+fallen out; and, far and near, the face of the links was cicatrised
+with little patches of burnt furze. Thick smoke still went straight
+upwards in the windless air of the morning, and a great pile of ardent
+cinders filled the bare walls of the house, like coals in an open
+grate. Close by the islet a schooner yacht lay to, and a well-manned
+boat was pulling vigorously for the shore.
+
+“The _Red Earl_!” I cried. “The _Red Earl_ twelve hours too late!”
+
+“Feel in your pocket, Frank. Are you armed?” asked Northmour.
+
+I obeyed him, and I think I must have become deadly pale. My revolver
+had been taken from me.
+
+“You see I have you in my power,” he continued. “I disarmed you last
+night while you were nursing Clara; but this morning—here—take your
+pistol. No thanks!” he cried, holding up his hand. “I do not like them;
+that is the only way you can annoy me now.”
+
+He began to walk forward across the links to meet the boat, and I
+followed a step or two behind. In front of the pavilion I paused to see
+where Mr. Huddlestone had fallen; but there was no sign of him, nor so
+much as a trace of blood.
+
+“Graden Floe,” said Northmour.
+
+He continued to advance till we had come to the head of the beach.
+
+“No farther, please,” said he. “Would you like to take her to Graden
+House?”
+
+“Thank you,” replied I; “I shall try to get her to the minister’s at
+Graden Wester.”
+
+The prow of the boat here grated on the beach, and a sailor jumped
+ashore with a line in his hand.
+
+“Wait a minute, lads!” cried Northmour; and then lower and to my
+private ear: “You had better say nothing of all this to her,” he added.
+
+“On the contrary!” I broke out, “she shall know everything that I can
+tell.”
+
+“You do not understand,” he returned, with an air of great dignity. “It
+will be nothing to her; she expects it of me. Good-bye!” he added, with
+a nod.
+
+I offered him my hand.
+
+“Excuse me,” said he. “It’s small, I know; but I can’t push things
+quite so far as that. I don’t wish any sentimental business, to sit by
+your hearth a white-haired wanderer, and all that. Quite the contrary:
+I hope to God I shall never again clap eyes on either one of you.”
+
+“Well, God bless you, Northmour!” I said heartily.
+
+“Oh, yes,” he returned.
+
+He walked down the beach; and the man who was ashore gave him an arm on
+board, and then shoved off and leaped into the bows himself. Northmour
+took the tiller; the boat rose to the waves, and the oars between the
+thole-pins sounded crisp and measured in the morning air.
+
+They were not yet half-way to the _Red Earl_, and I was still watching
+their progress, when the sun rose out of the sea.
+
+One word more, and my story is done. Years after, Northmour was killed
+fighting under the colours of Garibaldi for the liberation of the
+Tyrol.
+
+
+
+
+A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT
+A STORY OF FRANCIS VILLON
+
+
+It was late in November 1456. The snow fell over Paris with rigorous,
+relentless persistence; sometimes the wind made a sally and scattered
+it in flying vortices; sometimes there was a lull, and flake after
+flake descended out of the black night air, silent, circuitous,
+interminable. To poor people, looking up under moist eyebrows, it
+seemed a wonder where it all came from. Master Francis Villon had
+propounded an alternative that afternoon, at a tavern window: was it
+only Pagan Jupiter plucking geese upon Olympus? or were the holy angels
+moulting? He was only a poor Master of Arts, he went on; and as the
+question somewhat touched upon divinity, he durst not venture to
+conclude. A silly old priest from Montargis, who was among the company,
+treated the young rascal to a bottle of wine in honour of the jest and
+the grimaces with which it was accompanied, and swore on his own white
+beard that he had been just such another irreverent dog when he was
+Villon’s age.
+
+The air was raw and pointed, but not far below freezing; and the flakes
+were large, damp, and adhesive. The whole city was sheeted up. An army
+might have marched from end to end and not a footfall given the alarm.
+If there were any belated birds in heaven, they saw the island like a
+large white patch, and the bridges like slim white spars, on the black
+ground of the river. High up overhead the snow settled among the
+tracery of the cathedral towers. Many a niche was drifted full; many a
+statue wore a long white bonnet on its grotesque or sainted head. The
+gargoyles had been transformed into great false noses, drooping towards
+the point. The crockets were like upright pillows swollen on one side.
+In the intervals of the wind, there was a dull sound of dripping about
+the precincts of the church.
+
+The cemetery of St. John had taken its own share of the snow. All the
+graves were decently covered; tall white housetops stood around in
+grave array; worthy burghers were long ago in bed, benightcapped like
+their domiciles; there was no light in all the neighbourhood but a
+little peep from a lamp that hung swinging in the church choir, and
+tossed the shadows to and fro in time to its oscillations. The clock
+was hard on ten when the patrol went by with halberds and a lantern,
+beating their hands; and they saw nothing suspicious about the cemetery
+of St. John.
+
+Yet there was a small house, backed up against the cemetery wall, which
+was still awake, and awake to evil purpose, in that snoring district.
+There was not much to betray it from without; only a stream of warm
+vapour from the chimney-top, a patch where the snow melted on the roof,
+and a few half-obliterated footprints at the door. But within, behind
+the shuttered windows, Master Francis Villon the poet, and some of the
+thievish crew with whom he consorted, were keeping the night alive and
+passing round the bottle.
+
+A great pile of living embers diffused a strong and ruddy glow from the
+arched chimney. Before this straddled Dom Nicolas, the Picardy monk,
+with his skirts picked up and his fat legs bared to the comfortable
+warmth. His dilated shadow cut the room in half; and the firelight only
+escaped on either side of his broad person, and in a little pool
+between his outspread feet. His face had the beery, bruised appearance
+of the continual drinker’s; it was covered with a network of congested
+veins, purple in ordinary circumstances, but now pale violet, for even
+with his back to the fire the cold pinched him on the other side. His
+cowl had half fallen back, and made a strange excrescence on either
+side of his bull neck. So he straddled, grumbling, and cut the room in
+half with the shadow of his portly frame.
+
+On the right, Villon and Guy Tabary were huddled together over a scrap
+of parchment; Villon making a ballade which he was to call the “Ballade
+of Roast Fish,” and Tabary spluttering admiration at his shoulder. The
+poet was a rag of a man, dark, little, and lean, with hollow cheeks and
+thin black locks. He carried his four-and-twenty years with feverish
+animation. Greed had made folds about his eyes, evil smiles had
+puckered his mouth. The wolf and pig struggled together in his face. It
+was an eloquent, sharp, ugly, earthly countenance. His hands were small
+and prehensile, with fingers knotted like a cord; and they were
+continually flickering in front of him in violent and expressive
+pantomime. As for Tabary, a broad, complacent, admiring imbecility
+breathed from his squash nose and slobbering lips: he had become a
+thief, just as he might have become the most decent of burgesses, by
+the imperious chance that rules the lives of human geese and human
+donkeys.
+
+At the monk’s other hand, Montigny and Thevenin Pensete played a game
+of chance. About the first there clung some flavour of good birth and
+training, as about a fallen angel; something long, lithe, and courtly
+in the person; something aquiline and darkling in the face. Thevenin,
+poor soul, was in great feather: he had done a good stroke of knavery
+that afternoon in the Faubourg St. Jacques, and all night he had been
+gaining from Montigny. A flat smile illuminated his face; his bald head
+shone rosily in a garland of red curls; his little protuberant stomach
+shook with silent chucklings as he swept in his gains.
+
+“Doubles or quits?” said Thevenin. Montigny nodded grimly.
+
+“_Some may prefer to dine in state_,” wrote Villon, “_On bread and
+cheese on silver plate_. Or—or—help me out, Guido!”
+
+Tabary giggled.
+
+“_Or parsley on a golden dish_,” scribbled the poet.
+
+The wind was freshening without; it drove the snow before it, and
+sometimes raised its voice in a victorious whoop, and made sepulchral
+grumblings in the chimney. The cold was growing sharper as the night
+went on. Villon, protruding his lips, imitated the gust with something
+between a whistle and a groan. It was an eerie, uncomfortable talent of
+the poet’s, much detested by the Picardy monk.
+
+“Can’t you hear it rattle in the gibbet?” said Villon. “They are all
+dancing the devil’s jig on nothing, up there. You may dance, my
+gallants, you’ll be none the warmer! Whew! what a gust! Down went
+somebody just now! A medlar the fewer on the three-legged
+medlar-tree!—I say, Dom Nicolas, it’ll be cold to-night on the St.
+Denis Road?” he asked.
+
+Dom Nicolas winked both his big eyes, and seemed to choke upon his
+Adam’s apple. Montfaucon, the great grisly Paris gibbet, stood hard by
+the St. Denis Road, and the pleasantry touched him on the raw. As for
+Tabary, he laughed immoderately over the medlars; he had never heard
+anything more light-hearted; and he held his sides and crowed. Villon
+fetched him a fillip on the nose, which turned his mirth into an attack
+of coughing.
+
+“Oh, stop that row,” said Villon, “and think of rhymes to ‘fish’.”
+
+“Doubles or quits,” said Montigny doggedly.
+
+“With all my heart,” quoth Thevenin.
+
+“Is there any more in that bottle?” asked the monk.
+
+“Open another,” said Villon. “How do you ever hope to fill that big
+hogshead, your body, with little things like bottles? And how do you
+expect to get to heaven? How many angels, do you fancy, can be spared
+to carry up a single monk from Picardy? Or do you think yourself
+another Elias—and they’ll send the coach for you?”
+
+“_Hominibus impossibile_,” replied the monk, as he filled his glass.
+
+Tabary was in ecstasies.
+
+Villon filliped his nose again.
+
+“Laugh at my jokes, if you like,” he said.
+
+“It was very good,” objected Tabary.
+
+Villon made a face at him. “Think of rhymes to ‘fish’,” he said. “What
+have you to do with Latin? You’ll wish you knew none of it at the great
+assizes, when the devil calls for Guido Tabary, clericus—the devil with
+the hump-back and red-hot finger-nails. Talking of the devil,” he added
+in a whisper, “look at Montigny!”
+
+All three peered covertly at the gamester. He did not seem to be
+enjoying his luck. His mouth was a little to a side; one nostril nearly
+shut, and the other much inflated. The black dog was on his back, as
+people say, in terrifying nursery metaphor; and he breathed hard under
+the gruesome burden.
+
+“He looks as if he could knife him,” whispered Tabary, with round eyes.
+
+The monk shuddered, and turned his face and spread his open hands to
+the red embers. It was the cold that thus affected Dom Nicolas, and not
+any excess of moral sensibility.
+
+“Come now,” said Villon—“about this ballade. How does it run so far?”
+And beating time with his hand, he read it aloud to Tabary.
+
+They were interrupted at the fourth rhyme by a brief and fatal movement
+among the gamesters. The round was completed, and Thevenin was just
+opening his mouth to claim another victory, when Montigny leaped up,
+swift as an adder, and stabbed him to the heart. The blow took effect
+before he had time to utter a cry, before he had time to move. A tremor
+or two convulsed his frame; his hands opened and shut, his heels
+rattled on the floor; then his head rolled backward over one shoulder
+with the eyes wide open; and Thevenin Pensete’s spirit had returned to
+Him who made it.
+
+Everyone sprang to his feet; but the business was over in two twos. The
+four living fellows looked at each other in rather a ghastly fashion;
+the dead man contemplating a corner of the roof with a singular and
+ugly leer.
+
+“My God!” said Tabary; and he began to pray in Latin.
+
+Villon broke out into hysterical laughter. He came a step forward and
+ducked a ridiculous bow at Thevenin, and laughed still louder. Then he
+sat down suddenly, all of a heap, upon a stool, and continued laughing
+bitterly as though he would shake himself to pieces.
+
+Montigny recovered his composure first.
+
+“Let’s see what he has about him,” he remarked; and he picked the dead
+man’s pockets with a practised hand, and divided the money into four
+equal portions on the table. “There’s for you,” he said.
+
+The monk received his share with a deep sigh, and a single stealthy
+glance at the dead Thevenin, who was beginning to sink into himself and
+topple sideways of the chair.
+
+“We’re all in for it,” cried Villon, swallowing his mirth. “It’s a
+hanging job for every man jack of us that’s here—not to speak of those
+who aren’t.” He made a shocking gesture in the air with his raised
+right hand, and put out his tongue and threw his head on one side, so
+as to counterfeit the appearance of one who has been hanged. Then he
+pocketed his share of the spoil, and executed a shuffle with his feet
+as if to restore the circulation.
+
+Tabary was the last to help himself; he made a dash at the money, and
+retired to the other end of the apartment.
+
+Montigny stuck Thevenin upright in the chair, and drew out the dagger,
+which was followed by a jet of blood.
+
+“You fellows had better be moving,” he said, as he wiped the blade on
+his victim’s doublet.
+
+“I think we had,” returned Villon with a gulp. “Damn his fat head!” he
+broke out. “It sticks in my throat like phlegm. What right has a man to
+have red hair when he is dead?” And he fell all of a heap again upon
+the stool, and fairly covered his face with his hands.
+
+Montigny and Dom Nicolas laughed aloud, even Tabary feebly chiming in.
+
+“Cry baby,” said the monk.
+
+“I always said he was a woman,” added Montigny with a sneer. “Sit up,
+can’t you?” he went on, giving another shake to the murdered body.
+“Tread out that fire, Nick!”
+
+But Nick was better employed; he was quietly taking Villon’s purse, as
+the poet sat, limp and trembling, on the stool where he had been making
+a ballade not three minutes before. Montigny and Tabary dumbly demanded
+a share of the booty, which the monk silently promised as he passed the
+little bag into the bosom of his gown. In many ways an artistic nature
+unfits a man for practical existence.
+
+No sooner had the theft been accomplished than Villon shook himself,
+jumped to his feet, and began helping to scatter and extinguish the
+embers. Meanwhile Montigny opened the door and cautiously peered into
+the street. The coast was clear; there was no meddlesome patrol in
+sight. Still it was judged wiser to slip out severally; and as Villon
+was himself in a hurry to escape from the neighbourhood of the dead
+Thevenin, and the rest were in a still greater hurry to get rid of him
+before he should discover the loss of his money, he was the first by
+general consent to issue forth into the street.
+
+The wind had triumphed and swept all the clouds from heaven. Only a few
+vapours, as thin as moonlight, fleeting rapidly across the stars. It
+was bitter cold; and by a common optical effect, things seemed almost
+more definite than in the broadest daylight. The sleeping city was
+absolutely still: a company of white hoods, a field full of little
+Alps, below the twinkling stars. Villon cursed his fortune. Would it
+were still snowing! Now, wherever he went, he left an indelible trail
+behind him on the glittering streets; wherever he went he was still
+tethered to the house by the cemetery of St. John; wherever he went he
+must weave, with his own plodding feet, the rope that bound him to the
+crime and would bind him to the gallows. The leer of the dead man came
+back to him with a new significance. He snapped his fingers as if to
+pluck up his own spirits, and choosing a street at random, stepped
+boldly forward in the snow.
+
+Two things preoccupied him as he went: the aspect of the gallows at
+Montfaucon in this bright windy phase of the night’s existence, for
+one; and for another, the look of the dead man with his bald head and
+garland of red curls. Both struck cold upon his heart, and he kept
+quickening his pace as if he could escape from unpleasant thoughts by
+mere fleetness of foot. Sometimes he looked back over his shoulder with
+a sudden nervous jerk; but he was the only moving thing in the white
+streets, except when the wind swooped round a corner and threw up the
+snow, which was beginning to freeze, in spouts of glittering dust.
+
+Suddenly he saw, a long way before him, a black clump and a couple of
+lanterns. The clump was in motion, and the lanterns swung as though
+carried by men walking. It was a patrol. And though it was merely
+crossing his line of march, he judged it wiser to get out of eyeshot as
+speedily as he could. He was not in the humour to be challenged, and he
+was conscious of making a very conspicuous mark upon the snow. Just on
+his left hand there stood a great hotel, with some turrets and a large
+porch before the door; it was half-ruinous, he remembered, and had long
+stood empty; and so he made three steps of it and jumped into the
+shelter of the porch. It was pretty dark inside, after the glimmer of
+the snowy streets, and he was groping forward with outspread hands,
+when he stumbled over some substance which offered an indescribable
+mixture of resistances, hard and soft, firm and loose. His heart gave a
+leap, and he sprang two steps back and stared dreadfully at the
+obstacle. Then he gave a little laugh of relief. It was only a woman,
+and she dead. He knelt beside her to make sure upon this latter point.
+She was freezing cold, and rigid like a stick. A little ragged finery
+fluttered in the wind about her hair, and her cheeks had been heavily
+rouged that same afternoon. Her pockets were quite empty; but in her
+stocking, underneath the garter, Villon found two of the small coins
+that went by the name of whites. It was little enough; but it was
+always something; and the poet was moved with a deep sense of pathos
+that she should have died before she had spent her money. That seemed
+to him a dark and pitiable mystery; and he looked from the coins in his
+hand to the dead woman, and back again to the coins, shaking his head
+over the riddle of man’s life. Henry V. of England, dying at Vincennes
+just after he had conquered France, and this poor jade cut off by a
+cold draught in a great man’s doorway, before she had time to spend her
+couple of whites—it seemed a cruel way to carry on the world. Two
+whites would have taken such a little while to squander; and yet it
+would have been one more good taste in the mouth, one more smack of the
+lips, before the devil got the soul, and the body was left to birds and
+vermin. He would like to use all his tallow before the light was blown
+out and the lantern broken.
+
+While these thoughts were passing through his mind, he was feeling,
+half mechanically, for his purse. Suddenly his heart stopped beating; a
+feeling of cold scales passed up the back of his legs, and a cold blow
+seemed to fall upon his scalp. He stood petrified for a moment; then he
+felt again with one feverish movement; and then his loss burst upon
+him, and he was covered at once with perspiration. To spendthrifts
+money is so living and actual—it is such a thin veil between them and
+their pleasures! There is only one limit to their fortune—that of time;
+and a spendthrift with only a few crowns is the Emperor of Rome until
+they are spent. For such a person to lose his money is to suffer the
+most shocking reverse, and fall from heaven to hell, from all to
+nothing, in a breath. And all the more if he has put his head in the
+halter for it; if he may be hanged to-morrow for that same purse, so
+dearly earned, so foolishly departed! Villon stood and cursed; he threw
+the two whites into the street; he shook his fist at heaven; he
+stamped, and was not horrified to find himself trampling the poor
+corpse. Then he began rapidly to retrace his steps towards the house
+beside the cemetery. He had forgotten all fear of the patrol, which was
+long gone by at any rate, and had no idea but that of his lost purse.
+It was in vain that he looked right and left upon the snow: nothing was
+to be seen. He had not dropped it in the streets. Had it fallen in the
+house? He would have liked dearly to go in and see; but the idea of the
+grisly occupant unmanned him. And he saw besides, as he drew near, that
+their efforts to put out the fire had been unsuccessful; on the
+contrary, it had broken into a blaze, and a changeful light played in
+the chinks of door and window, and revived his terror for the
+authorities and Paris gibbet.
+
+He returned to the hotel with the porch, and groped about upon the snow
+for the money he had thrown away in his childish passion. But he could
+only find one white; the other had probably struck sideways and sunk
+deeply in. With a single white in his pocket, all his projects for a
+rousing night in some wild tavern vanished utterly away. And it was not
+only pleasure that fled laughing from his grasp; positive discomfort,
+positive pain, attacked him as he stood ruefully before the porch. His
+perspiration had dried upon him; and though the wind had now fallen, a
+binding frost was setting in stronger with every hour, and be felt
+benumbed and sick at heart. What was to be done? Late as was the hour,
+improbable as was success, he would try the house of his adopted
+father, the chaplain of St. Benoît.
+
+He ran there all the way, and knocked timidly. There was no answer. He
+knocked again and again, taking heart with every stroke; and at last
+steps were heard approaching from within. A barred wicket fell open in
+the iron-studded door, and emitted a gush of yellow light.
+
+“Hold up your face to the wicket,” said the chaplain from within.
+
+“It’s only me,” whimpered Villon.
+
+“Oh, it’s only you, is it?” returned the chaplain; and he cursed him
+with foul unpriestly oaths for disturbing him at such an hour, and bade
+him be off to hell, where he came from.
+
+“My hands are blue to the wrist,” pleaded Villon; “my feet are dead and
+full of twinges; my nose aches with the sharp air; the cold lies at my
+heart. I may be dead before morning. Only this once, father, and before
+God I will never ask again!”
+
+“You should have come earlier,” said the ecclesiastic coolly. “Young
+men require a lesson now and then.” He shut the wicket and retired
+deliberately into the interior of the house.
+
+Villon was beside himself; he beat upon the door with his hands and
+feet, and shouted hoarsely after the chaplain.
+
+“Wormy old fox!” he cried. “If I had my hand under your twist, I would
+send you flying headlong into the bottomless pit.”
+
+A door shut in the interior, faintly audible to the poet down long
+passages. He passed his hand over his mouth with an oath. And then the
+humour of the situation struck him, and he laughed and looked lightly
+up to heaven, where the stars seemed to be winking over his
+discomfiture.
+
+What was to be done? It looked very like a night in the frosty streets.
+The idea of the dead woman popped into his imagination, and gave him a
+hearty fright; what had happened to her in the early night might very
+well happen to him before morning. And he so young! and with such
+immense possibilities of disorderly amusement before him! He felt quite
+pathetic over the notion of his own fate, as if it had been some one
+else’s, and made a little imaginative vignette of the scene in the
+morning when they should find his body.
+
+He passed all his chances under review, turning the white between his
+thumb and forefinger. Unfortunately he was on bad terms with some old
+friends who would once have taken pity on him in such a plight. He had
+lampooned them in verses, he had beaten and cheated them; and yet now,
+when he was in so close a pinch, he thought there was at least one who
+might perhaps relent. It was a chance. It was worth trying at least,
+and he would go and see.
+
+On the way, two little accidents happened to him which coloured his
+musings in a very different manner. For, first, he fell in with the
+track of a patrol, and walked in it for some hundred yards, although it
+lay out of his direction. And this spirited him up; at least he had
+confused his trail; for he was still possessed with the idea of people
+tracking him all about Paris over the snow, and collaring him next
+morning before he was awake. The other matter affected him very
+differently. He passed a street corner, where, not so long before, a
+woman and her child had been devoured by wolves. This was just the kind
+of weather, he reflected, when wolves might take it into their heads to
+enter Paris again; and a lone man in these deserted streets would run
+the chance of something worse than a mere scare. He stopped and looked
+upon the place with an unpleasant interest—it was a centre where
+several lanes intersected each other; and he looked down them all one
+after another, and held his breath to listen, lest he should detect
+some galloping black things on the snow or hear the sound of howling
+between him and the river. He remembered his mother telling him the
+story and pointing out the spot, while he was yet a child. His mother!
+If he only knew where she lived, he might make sure at least of
+shelter. He determined he would inquire upon the morrow; nay, he would
+go and see her too, poor old girl! So thinking, he arrived at his
+destination—his last hope for the night.
+
+The house was quite dark, like its neighbours; and yet after a few
+taps, he heard a movement overhead, a door opening, and a cautious
+voice asking who was there. The poet named himself in a loud whisper,
+and waited, not without some trepidation, the result. Nor had he to
+wait long. A window was suddenly opened, and a pailful of slops
+splashed down upon the doorstep. Villon had not been unprepared for
+something of the sort, and had put himself as much in shelter as the
+nature of the porch admitted; but for all that, he was deplorably
+drenched below the waist. His hose began to freeze almost at once.
+Death from cold and exposure stared him in the face; he remembered he
+was of phthisical tendency, and began coughing tentatively. But the
+gravity of the danger steadied his nerves. He stopped a few hundred
+yards from the door where he had been so rudely used, and reflected
+with his finger to his nose. He could only see one way of getting a
+lodging, and that was to take it. He had noticed a house not far away,
+which looked as if it might be easily broken into, and thither he
+betook himself promptly, entertaining himself on the way with the idea
+of a room still hot, with a table still loaded with the remains of
+supper, where he might pass the rest of the black hours, and whence he
+should issue, on the morrow, with an armful of valuable plate. He even
+considered on what viands and what wines he should prefer; and as he
+was calling the roll of his favourite dainties, roast fish presented
+itself to his mind with an odd mixture of amusement and horror.
+
+“I shall never finish that ballade,” he thought to himself; and then,
+with another shudder at the recollection, “Oh, damn his fat head!” he
+repeated fervently, and spat upon the snow.
+
+The house in question looked dark at first sight; but as Villon made a
+preliminary inspection in search of the handiest point of attack, a
+little twinkle of light caught his eye from behind a curtained window.
+
+“The devil!” he thought. “People awake! Some student or some saint,
+confound the crew! Can’t they get drunk and lie in bed snoring like
+their neighbours? What’s the good of curfew, and poor devils of
+bell-ringers jumping at a rope’s end in bell-towers? What’s the use of
+day, if people sit up all night? The gripes to them!” He grinned as he
+saw where his logic was leading him. “Every man to his business, after
+all,” added he, “and if they’re awake, by the Lord, I may come by a
+supper honestly for this once, and cheat the devil.”
+
+He went boldly to the door and knocked with an assured hand. On both
+previous occasions, he had knocked timidly and with some dread of
+attracting notice; but now when he had just discarded the thought of a
+burglarious entry, knocking at a door seemed a mighty simple and
+innocent proceeding. The sound of his blows echoed through the house
+with thin, phantasmal reverberations, as though it were quite empty;
+but these had scarcely died away before a measured tread drew near, a
+couple of bolts were withdrawn, and one wing was opened broadly, as
+though no guile or fear of guile were known to those within. A tall
+figure of a man, muscular and spare, but a little bent, confronted
+Villon. The head was massive in bulk, but finely sculptured; the nose
+blunt at the bottom, but refining upward to where it joined a pair of
+strong and honest eyebrows; the mouth and eyes surrounded with delicate
+markings, and the whole face based upon a thick white beard, boldly and
+squarely trimmed. Seen as it was by the light of a flickering
+hand-lamp, it looked perhaps nobler than it had a right to do; but it
+was a fine face, honourable rather than intelligent, strong, simple,
+and righteous.
+
+“You knock late, sir,” said the old man in resonant, courteous tones.
+
+Villon cringed, and brought up many servile words of apology; at a
+crisis of this sort, the beggar was uppermost in him, and the man of
+genius hid his head with confusion.
+
+“You are cold,” repeated the old man, “and hungry? Well, step in.” And
+he ordered him into the house with a noble enough gesture.
+
+“Some great seigneur,” thought Villon, as his host, setting down the
+lamp on the flagged pavement of the entry, shot the bolts once more
+into their places.
+
+“You will pardon me if I go in front,” he said, when this was done; and
+he preceded the poet upstairs into a large apartment, warmed with a pan
+of charcoal and lit by a great lamp hanging from the roof. It was very
+bare of furniture: only some gold plate on a sideboard; some folios;
+and a stand of armour between the windows. Some smart tapestry hung
+upon the walls, representing the crucifixion of our Lord in one piece,
+and in another a scene of shepherds and shepherdesses by a running
+stream. Over the chimney was a shield of arms.
+
+“Will you seat yourself,” said the old man, “and forgive me if I leave
+you? I am alone in my house to-night, and if you are to eat I must
+forage for you myself.”
+
+No sooner was his host gone than Villon leaped from the chair on which
+he had just seated himself, and began examining the room, with the
+stealth and passion of a cat. He weighed the gold flagons in his hand,
+opened all the folios, and investigated the arms upon the shield, and
+the stuff with which the seats were lined. He raised the window
+curtains, and saw that the windows were set with rich stained glass in
+figures, so far as he could see, of martial import. Then he stood in
+the middle of the room, drew a long breath, and retaining it with
+puffed cheeks, looked round and round him, turning on his heels, as if
+to impress every feature of the apartment on his memory.
+
+“Seven pieces of plate,” he said. “If there had been ten, I would have
+risked it. A fine house, and a fine old master, so help me all the
+saints!”
+
+And just then, hearing the old man’s tread returning along the
+corridor, he stole back to his chair, and began humbly toasting his wet
+legs before the charcoal pan.
+
+His entertainer had a plate of meat in one hand and a jug of wine in
+the other. He set down the plate upon the table, motioning Villon to
+draw in his chair, and going to the sideboard, brought back two
+goblets, which he filled.
+
+“I drink to your better fortune,” he said, gravely touching Villon’s
+cup with his own.
+
+“To our better acquaintance,” said the poet, growing bold. A mere man
+of the people would have been awed by the courtesy of the old seigneur,
+but Villon was hardened in that matter; he had made mirth for great
+lords before now, and found them as black rascals as himself. And so he
+devoted himself to the viands with a ravenous gusto, while the old man,
+leaning backward, watched him with steady, curious eyes.
+
+“You have blood on your shoulder, my man,” he said. Montigny must have
+laid his wet right hand upon him as he left the house. He cursed
+Montigny in his heart.
+
+“It was none of my shedding,” he stammered.
+
+“I had not supposed so,” returned his host quietly.
+
+“A brawl?”
+
+“Well, something of that sort,” Villon admitted with a quaver.
+
+“Perhaps a fellow murdered?”
+
+“Oh no, not murdered,” said the poet, more and more confused. “It was
+all fair play—murdered by accident. I had no hand in it, God strike me
+dead!” he added fervently.
+
+“One rogue the fewer, I dare say,” observed the master of the house.
+
+“You may dare to say that,” agreed Villon, infinitely relieved. “As big
+a rogue as there is between here and Jerusalem. He turned up his toes
+like a lamb. But it was a nasty thing to look at. I dare say you’ve
+seen dead men in your time, my lord?” he added, glancing at the armour.
+
+“Many,” said the old man. “I have followed the wars, as you imagine.”
+
+Villon laid down his knife and fork, which he had just taken up again.
+
+“Were any of them bald?” he asked.
+
+“Oh yes, and with hair as white as mine.”
+
+“I don’t think I should mind the white so much,” said Villon. “His was
+red.” And he had a return of his shuddering and tendency to laughter,
+which he drowned with a great draught of wine. “I’m a little put out
+when I think of it,” he went on. “I knew him—damn him! And then the
+cold gives a man fancies—or the fancies give a man cold, I don’t know
+which.”
+
+“Have you any money?” asked the old man.
+
+“I have one white,” returned the poet, laughing. “I got it out of a
+dead jade’s stocking in a porch. She was as dead as Cæsar, poor wench,
+and as cold as a church, with bits of ribbon sticking in her hair. This
+is a hard world in winter for wolves and wenches and poor rogues like
+me.”
+
+“I,” said the old man, “am Enguerrand de la Feuillée, seigneur de
+Brisetout, bailly du Patatrac. Who and what may you be?”
+
+Villon rose and made a suitable reverence. “I am called Francis
+Villon,” he said, “a poor Master of Arts of this university. I know
+some Latin, and a deal of vice. I can make chansons, ballades, lais,
+virelais, and roundels, and I am very fond of wine. I was born in a
+garret, and I shall not improbably die upon the gallows. I may add, my
+lord, that from this night forward I am your lordship’s very obsequious
+servant to command.”
+
+“No servant of mine,” said the knight; “my guest for this evening, and
+no more.”
+
+“A very grateful guest,” said Villon politely; and he drank in dumb
+show to his entertainer.
+
+“You are shrewd,” began the old man, tapping his forehead, “very
+shrewd; you have learning; you are a clerk; and yet you take a small
+piece of money off a dead woman in the street. Is it not a kind of
+theft?”
+
+“It is a kind of theft much practised in the wars, my lord.”
+
+“The wars are the field of honour,” returned the old man proudly.
+“There a man plays his life upon the cast; he fights in the name of his
+lord the king, his Lord God, and all their lordships the holy saints
+and angels.”
+
+“Put it,” said Villon, “that I were really a thief, should I not play
+my life also, and against heavier odds?”
+
+“For gain, but not for honour.”
+
+“Gain?” repeated Villon with a shrug. “Gain! The poor fellow wants
+supper, and takes it. So does the soldier in a campaign. Why, what are
+all these requisitions we hear so much about? If they are not gain to
+those who take them, they are loss enough to the others. The
+men-at-arms drink by a good fire, while the burgher bites his nails to
+buy them wine and wood. I have seen a good many ploughmen swinging on
+trees about the country, ay, I have seen thirty on one elm, and a very
+poor figure they made; and when I asked some one how all these came to
+be hanged, I was told it was because they could not scrape together
+enough crowns to satisfy the men-at-arms.”
+
+“These things are a necessity of war, which the low-born must endure
+with constancy. It is true that some captains drive over hard; there
+are spirits in every rank not easily moved by pity; and indeed many
+follow arms who are no better than brigands.”
+
+“You see,” said the poet, “you cannot separate the soldier from the
+brigand; and what is a thief but an isolated brigand with circumspect
+manners? I steal a couple of mutton chops, without so much as
+disturbing people’s sleep; the farmer grumbles a bit, but sups none the
+less wholesomely on what remains. You come up blowing gloriously on a
+trumpet, take away the whole sheep, and beat the farmer pitifully into
+the bargain. I have no trumpet; I am only Tom, Dick, or Harry; I am a
+rogue and a dog, and hanging’s too good for me—with all my heart; but
+just you ask the farmer which of us he prefers, just find out which of
+us he lies awake to curse on cold nights.”
+
+“Look at us two,” said his lordship. “I am old, strong, and honoured.
+If I were turned from my house to-morrow, hundreds would be proud to
+shelter me. Poor people would go out and pass the night in the streets
+with their children, if I merely hinted that I wished to be alone. And
+I find you up, wandering homeless, and picking farthings off dead women
+by the wayside! I fear no man and nothing; I have seen you tremble and
+lose countenance at a word. I wait God’s summons contentedly in my own
+house, or, if it please the king to call me out again, upon the field
+of battle. You look for the gallows; a rough, swift death, without hope
+or honour. Is there no difference between these two?”
+
+“As far as to the moon,” Villon acquiesced. “But if I had been born
+lord of Brisetout, and you had been the poor scholar Francis, would the
+difference have been any the less? Should not I have been warming my
+knees at this charcoal pan, and would not you have been groping for
+farthings in the snow? Should not I have been the soldier, and you the
+thief?”
+
+“A thief!” cried the old man. “I a thief! If you understood your words,
+you would repent them.”
+
+Villon turned out his hands with a gesture of inimitable impudence. “If
+your lordship had done me the honour to follow my argument!” he said.
+
+“I do you too much honour in submitting to your presence,” said the
+knight. “Learn to curb your tongue when you speak with old and
+honourable men, or some one hastier than I may reprove you in a sharper
+fashion.” And he rose and paced the lower end of the apartment,
+struggling with anger and antipathy. Villon surreptitiously refilled
+his cup, and settled himself more comfortably in the chair, crossing
+his knees and leaning his head upon one hand and the elbow against the
+back of the chair. He was now replete and warm; and he was in nowise
+frightened for his host, having gauged him as justly as was possible
+between two such different characters. The night was far spent, and in
+a very comfortable fashion after all; and he felt morally certain of a
+safe departure on the morrow.
+
+“Tell me one thing,” said the old man, pausing in his walk. “Are you
+really a thief?”
+
+“I claim the sacred rights of hospitality,” returned the poet. “My
+lord, I am.”
+
+“You are very young,” the knight continued.
+
+“I should never have been so old,” replied Villon, showing his fingers,
+“if I had not helped myself with these ten talents. They have been my
+nursing mothers and my nursing fathers.”
+
+“You may still repent and change.”
+
+“I repent daily,” said the poet. “There are few people more given to
+repentance than poor Francis. As for change, let somebody change my
+circumstances. A man must continue to eat, if it were only that he may
+continue to repent.”
+
+“The change must begin in the heart,” returned the old man solemnly.
+
+“My dear lord,” answered Villon, “do you really fancy that I steal for
+pleasure? I hate stealing, like any other piece of work or of danger.
+My teeth chatter when I see a gallows. But I must eat, I must drink, I
+must mix in society of some sort. What the devil! Man is not a solitary
+animal—_Cui Deus fæminam tradit_. Make me king’s pantler—make me abbot
+of St. Denis; make me bailly of the Patatrac; and then I shall be
+changed indeed. But as long as you leave me the poor scholar Francis
+Villon, without a farthing, why, of course, I remain the same.”
+
+“The grace of God is all-powerful.”
+
+“I should be a heretic to question it,” said Francis. “It has made you
+lord of Brisetout and bailly of the Patatrac; it has given me nothing
+but the quick wits under my hat and these ten toes upon my hands. May I
+help myself to wine? I thank you respectfully. By God’s grace, you have
+a very superior vintage.”
+
+The lord of Brisetout walked to and fro with his hands behind his back.
+Perhaps he was not yet quite settled in his mind about the parallel
+between thieves and soldiers; perhaps Villon had interested him by some
+cross-thread of sympathy; perhaps his wits were simply muddled by so
+much unfamiliar reasoning; but whatever the cause, he somehow yearned
+to convert the young man to a better way of thinking, and could not
+make up his mind to drive him forth again into the street.
+
+“There is something more than I can understand in this,” he said at
+length. “Your mouth is full of subtleties, and the devil has led you
+very far astray; but the devil is only a very weak spirit before God’s
+truth, and all his subtleties vanish at a word of true honour, like
+darkness at morning. Listen to me once more. I learned long ago that a
+gentleman should live chivalrously and lovingly to God, and the king,
+and his lady; and though I have seen many strange things done, I have
+still striven to command my ways upon that rule. It is not only written
+in all noble histories, but in every man’s heart, if he will take care
+to read. You speak of food and wine, and I know very well that hunger
+is a difficult trial to endure; but you do not speak of other wants;
+you say nothing of honour, of faith to God and other men, of courtesy,
+of love without reproach. It may be that I am not very wise—and yet I
+think I am—but you seem to me like one who has lost his way and made a
+great error in life. You are attending to the little wants, and you
+have totally forgotten the great and only real ones, like a man who
+should be doctoring a toothache on the Judgment Day. For such things as
+honour and love and faith are not only nobler than food and drink, but
+indeed I think that we desire them more, and suffer more sharply for
+their absence. I speak to you as I think you will most easily
+understand me. Are you not, while careful to fill your belly,
+disregarding another appetite in your heart, which spoils the pleasure
+of your life and keeps you continually wretched?”
+
+Villon was sensibly nettled under all this sermonising. “You think I
+have no sense of honour!” he cried. “I’m poor enough, God knows! It’s
+hard to see rich people with their gloves, and you blowing in your
+hands. An empty belly is a bitter thing, although you speak so lightly
+of it. If you had had as many as I, perhaps you would change your tune.
+Any way I’m a thief—make the most of that—but I’m not a devil from
+hell, God strike me dead. I would have you to know I’ve an honour of my
+own, as good as yours, though I don’t prate about it all day long, as
+if it was a God’s miracle to have any. It seems quite natural to me; I
+keep it in its box till it’s wanted. Why now, look you here, how long
+have I been in this room with you? Did you not tell me you were alone
+in the house? Look at your gold plate! You’re strong, if you like, but
+you’re old and unarmed, and I have my knife. What did I want but a jerk
+of the elbow and here would have been you with the cold steel in your
+bowels, and there would have been me, linking in the streets, with an
+armful of gold cups! Did you suppose I hadn’t wit enough to see that?
+And I scorned the action. There are your damned goblets, as safe as in
+a church; there are you, with your heart ticking as good as new; and
+here am I, ready to go out again as poor as I came in, with my one
+white that you threw in my teeth! And you think I have no sense of
+honour—God strike me dead!”
+
+The old man stretched out his right arm. “I will tell you what you
+are,” he said. “You are a rogue, my man, an impudent and a
+black-hearted rogue and vagabond. I have passed an hour with you. Oh!
+believe me, I feel myself disgraced! And you have eaten and drunk at my
+table. But now I am sick at your presence; the day has come, and the
+night-bird should be off to his roost. Will you go before, or after?”
+
+“Which you please,” returned the poet, rising. “I believe you to be
+strictly honourable.” He thoughtfully emptied his cup. “I wish I could
+add you were intelligent,” he went on, knocking on his head with his
+knuckles. “Age, age! the brains stiff and rheumatic.”
+
+The old man preceded him from a point of self-respect; Villon followed,
+whistling, with his thumbs in his girdle.
+
+“God pity you,” said the lord of Brisetout at the door.
+
+“Good-bye, papa,” returned Villon with a yawn. “Many thanks for the
+cold mutton.”
+
+The door closed behind him. The dawn was breaking over the white roofs.
+A chill, uncomfortable morning ushered in the day. Villon stood and
+heartily stretched himself in the middle of the road.
+
+“A very dull old gentleman,” he thought. “I wonder what his goblets may
+be worth.”
+
+
+
+
+THE SIRE DE MALÉTROIT’S DOOR
+
+
+Denis de Beaulieu was not yet two-and-twenty, but he counted himself a
+grown man, and a very accomplished cavalier into the bargain. Lads were
+early formed in that rough, warfaring epoch; and when one has been in a
+pitched battle and a dozen raids, has killed one’s man in an honourable
+fashion, and knows a thing or two of strategy and mankind, a certain
+swagger in the gait is surely to be pardoned. He had put up his horse
+with due care, and supped with due deliberation; and then, in a very
+agreeable frame of mind, went out to pay a visit in the grey of the
+evening. It was not a very wise proceeding on the young man’s part. He
+would have done better to remain beside the fire or go decently to bed.
+For the town was full of the troops of Burgundy and England under a
+mixed command; and though Denis was there on safe-conduct, his
+safe-conduct was like to serve him little on a chance encounter.
+
+It was September 1429; the weather had fallen sharp; a flighty piping
+wind, laden with showers, beat about the township; and the dead leaves
+ran riot along the streets. Here and there a window was already lighted
+up; and the noise of men-at-arms making merry over supper within, came
+forth in fits and was swallowed up and carried away by the wind. The
+night fell swiftly; the flag of England, fluttering on the spire-top,
+grew ever fainter and fainter against the flying clouds—a black speck
+like a swallow in the tumultuous, leaden chaos of the sky. As the night
+fell the wind rose, and began to hoot under archways and roar amid the
+tree-tops in the valley below the town.
+
+Denis de Beaulieu walked fast and was soon knocking at his friend’s
+door; but though he promised himself to stay only a little while and
+make an early return, his welcome was so pleasant, and he found so much
+to delay him, that it was already long past midnight before he said
+good-bye upon the threshold. The wind had fallen again in the
+meanwhile; the night was as black as the grave; not a star, nor a
+glimmer of moonshine, slipped through the canopy of cloud. Denis was
+ill-acquainted with the intricate lanes of Chateau Landon; even by
+daylight he had found some trouble in picking his way; and in this
+absolute darkness he soon lost it altogether. He was certain of one
+thing only—to keep mounting the hill; for his friend’s house lay at the
+lower end, or tail, of Chateau Landon, while the inn was up at the
+head, under the great church spire. With this clue to go upon he
+stumbled and groped forward, now breathing more freely in open places
+where there was a good slice of sky overhead, now feeling along the
+wall in stifling closes. It is an eerie and mysterious position to be
+thus submerged in opaque blackness in an almost unknown town. The
+silence is terrifying in its possibilities. The touch of cold window
+bars to the exploring hand startles the man like the touch of a toad;
+the inequalities of the pavement shake his heart into his mouth; a
+piece of denser darkness threatens an ambuscade or a chasm in the
+pathway; and where the air is brighter, the houses put on strange and
+bewildering appearances, as if to lead him farther from his way. For
+Denis, who had to regain his inn without attracting notice, there was
+real danger as well as mere discomfort in the walk; and he went warily
+and boldly at once, and at every corner paused to make an observation.
+
+He had been for some time threading a lane so narrow that he could
+touch a wall with either hand, when it began to open out and go sharply
+downward. Plainly this lay no longer in the direction of his inn; but
+the hope of a little more light tempted him forward to reconnoitre. The
+lane ended in a terrace with a bartizan wall, which gave an out-look
+between high houses, as out of an embrasure, into the valley lying dark
+and formless several hundred feet below. Denis looked down, and could
+discern a few tree-tops waving and a single speck of brightness where
+the river ran across a weir. The weather was clearing up, and the sky
+had lightened, so as to show the outline of the heavier clouds and the
+dark margin of the hills. By the uncertain glimmer, the house on his
+left hand should be a place of some pretensions; it was surmounted by
+several pinnacles and turret-tops; the round stern of a chapel, with a
+fringe of flying buttresses, projected boldly from the main block; and
+the door was sheltered under a deep porch carved with figures and
+overhung by two long gargoyles. The windows of the chapel gleamed
+through their intricate tracery with a light as of many tapers, and
+threw out the buttresses and the peaked roof in a more intense
+blackness against the sky. It was plainly the hotel of some great
+family of the neighbourhood; and as it reminded Denis of a town house
+of his own at Bourges, he stood for some time gazing up at it and
+mentally gauging the skill of the architects and the consideration of
+the two families.
+
+There seemed to be no issue to the terrace but the lane by which he had
+reached it; he could only retrace his steps, but he had gained some
+notion of his whereabouts, and hoped by this means to hit the main
+thoroughfare and speedily regain the inn. He was reckoning without that
+chapter of accidents which was to make this night memorable above all
+others in his career; for he had not gone back above a hundred yards
+before he saw a light coming to meet him, and heard loud voices
+speaking together in the echoing narrows of the lane. It was a party of
+men-at-arms going the night round with torches. Denis assured himself
+that they had all been making free with the wine-bowl, and were in no
+mood to be particular about safe-conducts or the niceties of chivalrous
+war. It was as like as not that they would kill him like a dog and
+leave him where he fell. The situation was inspiriting but nervous.
+Their own torches would conceal him from sight, he reflected; and he
+hoped that they would drown the noise of his footsteps with their own
+empty voices. If he were but fleet and silent, he might evade their
+notice altogether.
+
+Unfortunately, as he turned to beat a retreat, his foot rolled upon a
+pebble; he fell against the wall with an ejaculation, and his sword
+rang loudly on the stones. Two or three voices demanded who went
+there—some in French, some in English; but Denis made no reply, and ran
+the faster down the lane. Once upon the terrace, he paused to look
+back. They still kept calling after him, and just then began to double
+the pace in pursuit, with a considerable clank of armour, and great
+tossing of the torchlight to and fro in the narrow jaws of the passage.
+
+Denis cast a look around and darted into the porch. There he might
+escape observation, or—if that were too much to expect—was in a capital
+posture whether for parley or defence. So thinking, he drew his sword
+and tried to set his back against the door. To his surprise, it yielded
+behind his weight; and though he turned in a moment, continued to swing
+back on oiled and noiseless hinges, until it stood wide open on a black
+interior. When things fall out opportunely for the person concerned, he
+is not apt to be critical about the how or why, his own immediate
+personal convenience seeming a sufficient reason for the strangest
+oddities and resolutions in our sublunary things; and so Denis, without
+a moment’s hesitation, stepped within and partly closed the door behind
+him to conceal his place of refuge. Nothing was further from his
+thoughts than to close it altogether; but for some inexplicable
+reason—perhaps by a spring or a weight—the ponderous mass of oak
+whipped itself out of his fingers and clanked to, with a formidable
+rumble and a noise like the falling of an automatic bar.
+
+The round, at that very moment, debouched upon the terrace and
+proceeded to summon him with shouts and curses. He heard them ferreting
+in the dark corners; the stock of a lance even rattled along the outer
+surface of the door behind which he stood; but these gentlemen were in
+too high a humour to be long delayed, and soon made off down a
+corkscrew pathway which had escaped Denis’s observation, and passed out
+of sight and hearing along the battlements of the town.
+
+Denis breathed again. He gave them a few minutes’ grace for fear of
+accidents, and then groped about for some means of opening the door and
+slipping forth again. The inner surface was quite smooth, not a handle,
+not a moulding, not a projection of any sort. He got his finger-nails
+round the edges and pulled, but the mass was immovable. He shook it, it
+was as firm as a rock. Denis de Beaulieu frowned and gave vent to a
+little noiseless whistle. What ailed the door? he wondered. Why was it
+open? How came it to shut so easily and so effectually after him? There
+was something obscure and underhand about all this, that was little to
+the young man’s fancy. It looked like a snare; and yet who could
+suppose a snare in such a quiet by-street and in a house of so
+prosperous and even noble an exterior? And yet—snare or no snare,
+intentionally or unintentionally—here he was, prettily trapped; and for
+the life of him he could see no way out of it again. The darkness began
+to weigh upon him. He gave ear; all was silent without, but within and
+close by he seemed to catch a faint sighing, a faint sobbing rustle, a
+little stealthy creak—as though many persons were at his side, holding
+themselves quite still, and governing even their respiration with the
+extreme of slyness. The idea went to his vitals with a shock, and he
+faced about suddenly as if to defend his life. Then, for the first
+time, he became aware of a light about the level of his eyes and at
+some distance in the interior of the house—a vertical thread of light,
+widening towards the bottom, such as might escape between two wings of
+arras over a doorway. To see anything was a relief to Denis; it was
+like a piece of solid ground to a man labouring in a morass; his mind
+seized upon it with avidity; and he stood staring at it and trying to
+piece together some logical conception of his surroundings. Plainly
+there was a flight of steps ascending from his own level to that of
+this illuminated doorway; and indeed he thought he could make out
+another thread of light, as fine as a needle and as faint as
+phosphorescence, which might very well be reflected along the polished
+wood of a handrail. Since he had begun to suspect that he was not
+alone, his heart had continued to beat with smothering violence, and an
+intolerable desire for action of any sort had possessed itself of his
+spirit. He was in deadly peril, he believed. What could be more natural
+than to mount the staircase, lift the curtain, and confront his
+difficulty at once? At least he would be dealing with something
+tangible; at least he would be no longer in the dark. He stepped slowly
+forward with outstretched hands, until his foot struck the bottom step;
+then he rapidly scaled the stairs, stood for a moment to compose his
+expression, lifted the arras and went in.
+
+He found himself in a large apartment of polished stone. There were
+three doors; one on each of three sides; all similarly curtained with
+tapestry. The fourth side was occupied by two large windows and a great
+stone chimney-piece, carved with the arms of the Malétroits. Denis
+recognised the bearings, and was gratified to find himself in such good
+hands. The room was strongly illuminated; but it contained little
+furniture except a heavy table and a chair or two, the hearth was
+innocent of fire, and the pavement was but sparsely strewn with rushes
+clearly many days old.
+
+On a high chair beside the chimney, and directly facing Denis as he
+entered, sat a little old gentleman in a fur tippet. He sat with his
+legs crossed and his hands folded, and a cup of spiced wine stood by
+his elbow on a bracket on the wall. His countenance had a strongly
+masculine cast; not properly human, but such as we see in the bull, the
+goat, or the domestic boar; something equivocal and wheedling,
+something greedy, brutal, and dangerous. The upper lip was inordinately
+full, as though swollen by a blow or a toothache; and the smile, the
+peaked eyebrows, and the small, strong eyes were quaintly and almost
+comically evil in expression. Beautiful white hair hung straight all
+round his head, like a saint’s, and fell in a single curl upon the
+tippet. His beard and moustache were the pink of venerable sweetness.
+Age, probably in consequence of inordinate precautions, had left no
+mark upon his hands; and the Malétroit hand was famous. It would be
+difficult to imagine anything at once so fleshy and so delicate in
+design; the taper, sensual fingers were like those of one of Leonardo’s
+women; the fork of the thumb made a dimpled protuberance when closed;
+the nails were perfectly shaped, and of a dead, surprising whiteness.
+It rendered his aspect tenfold more redoubtable, that a man with hands
+like these should keep them devoutly folded in his lap like a virgin
+martyr—that a man with so intense and startling an expression of face
+should sit patiently on his seat and contemplate people with an
+unwinking stare, like a god, or a god’s statue. His quiescence seemed
+ironical and treacherous, it fitted so poorly with his looks.
+
+Such was Alain, Sire de Malétroit.
+
+Denis and he looked silently at each other for a second or two.
+
+“Pray step in,” said the Sire de Malétroit. “I have been expecting you
+all the evening.”
+
+He had not risen, but he accompanied his words with a smile and a
+slight but courteous inclination of the head. Partly from the smile,
+partly from the strange musical murmur with which the Sire prefaced his
+observation, Denis felt a strong shudder of disgust go through his
+marrow. And what with disgust and honest confusion of mind, he could
+scarcely get words together in reply.
+
+“I fear,” he said, “that this is a double accident. I am not the person
+you suppose me. It seems you were looking for a visit; but for my part,
+nothing was further from my thoughts—nothing could be more contrary to
+my wishes—than this intrusion.”
+
+“Well, well,” replied the old gentleman indulgently, “here you are,
+which is the main point. Seat yourself, my friend, and put yourself
+entirely at your ease. We shall arrange our little affairs presently.”
+
+Denis perceived that the matter was still complicated with some
+misconception, and he hastened to continue his explanations.
+
+“Your door . . . ” he began.
+
+“About my door?” asked the other, raising his peaked eyebrows. “A
+little piece of ingenuity.” And he shrugged his shoulders. “A
+hospitable fancy! By your own account, you were not desirous of making
+my acquaintance. We old people look for such reluctance now and then;
+and when it touches our honour, we cast about until we find some way of
+overcoming it. You arrive uninvited, but believe me, very welcome.”
+
+“You persist in error, sir,” said Denis. “There can be no question
+between you and me. I am a stranger in this countryside. My name is
+Denis, damoiseau de Beaulieu. If you see me in your house, it is only—”
+
+“My young friend,” interrupted the other, “you will permit me to have
+my own ideas on that subject. They probably differ from yours at the
+present moment,” he added with a leer, “but time will show which of us
+is in the right.”
+
+Denis was convinced he had to do with a lunatic. He seated himself with
+a shrug, content to wait the upshot; and a pause ensued, during which
+he thought he could distinguish a hurried gabbling as of prayer from
+behind the arras immediately opposite him. Sometimes there seemed to be
+but one person engaged, sometimes two; and the vehemence of the voice,
+low as it was, seemed to indicate either great haste or an agony of
+spirit. It occurred to him that this piece of tapestry covered the
+entrance to the chapel he had noticed from without.
+
+The old gentleman meanwhile surveyed Denis from head to foot with a
+smile, and from time to time emitted little noises like a bird or a
+mouse, which seemed to indicate a high degree of satisfaction. This
+state of matters became rapidly insupportable; and Denis, to put an end
+to it, remarked politely that the wind had gone down.
+
+The old gentleman fell into a fit of silent laughter, so prolonged and
+violent that he became quite red in the face. Denis got upon his feet
+at once, and put on his hat with a flourish.
+
+“Sir,” he said, “if you are in your wits, you have affronted me
+grossly. If you are out of them, I flatter myself I can find better
+employment for my brains than to talk with lunatics. My conscience is
+clear; you have made a fool of me from the first moment; you have
+refused to hear my explanations; and now there is no power under God
+will make me stay here any longer; and if I cannot make my way out in a
+more decent fashion, I will hack your door in pieces with my sword.”
+
+The Sire de Malétroit raised his right hand and wagged it at Denis with
+the fore and little fingers extended.
+
+“My dear nephew,” he said, “sit down.”
+
+“Nephew!” retorted Denis, “you lie in your throat;” and he snapped his
+fingers in his face.
+
+“Sit down, you rogue!” cried the old gentleman, in a sudden, harsh
+voice, like the barking of a dog. “Do you fancy,” he went on, “that
+when I had made my little contrivance for the door I had stopped short
+with that? If you prefer to be bound hand and foot till your bones
+ache, rise and try to go away. If you choose to remain a free young
+buck, agreeably conversing with an old gentleman—why, sit where you are
+in peace, and God be with you.”
+
+“Do you mean I am a prisoner?” demanded Denis.
+
+“I state the facts,” replied the other. “I would rather leave the
+conclusion to yourself.”
+
+Denis sat down again. Externally he managed to keep pretty calm; but
+within, he was now boiling with anger, now chilled with apprehension.
+He no longer felt convinced that he was dealing with a madman. And if
+the old gentleman was sane, what, in God’s name, had he to look for?
+What absurd or tragical adventure had befallen him? What countenance
+was he to assume?
+
+While he was thus unpleasantly reflecting, the arras that overhung the
+chapel door was raised, and a tall priest in his robes came forth and,
+giving a long, keen stare at Denis, said something in an undertone to
+Sire de Malétroit.
+
+“She is in a better frame of spirit?” asked the latter.
+
+“She is more resigned, messire,” replied the priest.
+
+“Now the Lord help her, she is hard to please!” sneered the old
+gentleman. “A likely stripling—not ill-born—and of her own choosing,
+too? Why, what more would the jade have?”
+
+“The situation is not usual for a young damsel,” said the other, “and
+somewhat trying to her blushes.”
+
+“She should have thought of that before she began the dance. It was
+none of my choosing, God knows that: but since she is in it, by our
+Lady, she shall carry it to the end.” And then addressing Denis,
+“Monsieur de Beaulieu,” he asked, “may I present you to my niece? She
+has been waiting your arrival, I may say, with even greater impatience
+than myself.”
+
+Denis had resigned himself with a good grace—all he desired was to know
+the worst of it as speedily as possible; so he rose at once, and bowed
+in acquiescence. The Sire de Malétroit followed his example and limped,
+with the assistance of the chaplain’s arm, towards the chapel door. The
+priest pulled aside the arras, and all three entered. The building had
+considerable architectural pretensions. A light groining sprang from
+six stout columns, and hung down in two rich pendants from the centre
+of the vault. The place terminated behind the altar in a round end,
+embossed and honeycombed with a superfluity of ornament in relief, and
+pierced by many little windows shaped like stars, trefoils, or wheels.
+These windows were imperfectly glazed, so that the night air circulated
+freely in the chapel. The tapers, of which there must have been half a
+hundred burning on the altar, were unmercifully blown about; and the
+light went through many different phases of brilliancy and
+semi-eclipse. On the steps in front of the altar knelt a young girl
+richly attired as a bride. A chill settled over Denis as he observed
+her costume; he fought with desperate energy against the conclusion
+that was being thrust upon his mind; it could not—it should not—be as
+he feared.
+
+“Blanche,” said the Sire, in his most flute-like tones, “I have brought
+a friend to see you, my little girl; turn round and give him your
+pretty hand. It is good to be devout; but it is necessary to be polite,
+my niece.”
+
+The girl rose to her feet and turned towards the new comers. She moved
+all of a piece; and shame and exhaustion were expressed in every line
+of her fresh young body; and she held her head down and kept her eyes
+upon the pavement, as she came slowly forward. In the course of her
+advance, her eyes fell upon Denis de Beaulieu’s feet—feet of which he
+was justly vain, be it remarked, and wore in the most elegant
+accoutrement even while travelling. She paused—started, as if his
+yellow boots had conveyed some shocking meaning—and glanced suddenly up
+into the wearer’s countenance. Their eyes met; shame gave place to
+horror and terror in her looks; the blood left her lips; with a
+piercing scream she covered her face with her hands and sank upon the
+chapel floor.
+
+“That is not the man!” she cried. “My uncle, that in not the man!”
+
+The Sire de Malétroit chirped agreeably. “Of course not,” he said; “I
+expected as much. It was so unfortunate you could not remember his
+name.”
+
+“Indeed,” she cried, “indeed, I have never seen this person till this
+moment—I have never so much as set eyes upon him—I never wish to see
+him again. Sir,” she said, turning to Denis, “if you are a gentleman,
+you will bear me out. Have I ever seen you—have you ever seen me—before
+this accursed hour?”
+
+“To speak for myself, I have never had that pleasure,” answered the
+young man. “This is the first time, messire, that I have met with your
+engaging niece.”
+
+The old gentleman shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“I am distressed to hear it,” he said. “But it is never too late to
+begin. I had little more acquaintance with my own late lady ere I
+married her; which proves,” he added with a grimace, “that these
+impromptu marriages may often produce an excellent understanding in the
+long-run. As the bridegroom is to have a voice in the matter, I will
+give him two hours to make up for lost time before we proceed with the
+ceremony.” And he turned towards the door, followed by the clergyman.
+
+The girl was on her feet in a moment. “My uncle, you cannot be in
+earnest,” she said. “I declare before God I will stab myself rather
+than be forced on that young man. The heart rises at it; God forbids
+such marriages; you dishonour your white hair. Oh, my uncle, pity me!
+There is not a woman in all the world but would prefer death to such a
+nuptial. Is it possible,” she added, faltering—“is it possible that you
+do not believe me—that you still think this”—and she pointed at Denis
+with a tremor of anger and contempt—“that you still think _this_ to be
+the man?”
+
+“Frankly,” said the old gentleman, pausing on the threshold, “I do. But
+let me explain to you once for all, Blanche de Malétroit, my way of
+thinking about this affair. When you took it into your head to
+dishonour my family and the name that I have borne, in peace and war,
+for more than three-score years, you forfeited, not only the right to
+question my designs, but that of looking me in the face. If your father
+had been alive, he would have spat on you and turned you out of doors.
+His was the hand of iron. You may bless your God you have only to deal
+with the hand of velvet, mademoiselle. It was my duty to get you
+married without delay. Out of pure goodwill, I have tried to find your
+own gallant for you. And I believe I have succeeded. But before God and
+all the holy angels, Blanche de Malétroit, if I have not, I care not
+one jack-straw. So let me recommend you to be polite to our young
+friend; for upon my word, your next groom may be less appetising.”
+
+And with that he went out, with the chaplain at his heels; and the
+arras fell behind the pair.
+
+The girl turned upon Denis with flashing eyes.
+
+“And what, sir,” she demanded, “may be the meaning of all this?”
+
+“God knows,” returned Denis gloomily. “I am a prisoner in this house,
+which seems full of mad people. More I know not; and nothing do I
+understand.”
+
+“And pray how came you here?” she asked.
+
+He told her as briefly as he could. “For the rest,” he added, “perhaps
+you will follow my example, and tell me the answer to all these
+riddles, and what, in God’s name, is like to be the end of it.”
+
+She stood silent for a little, and he could see her lips tremble and
+her tearless eyes burn with a feverish lustre. Then she pressed her
+forehead in both hands.
+
+“Alas, how my head aches!” she said wearily—“to say nothing of my poor
+heart! But it is due to you to know my story, unmaidenly as it must
+seem. I am called Blanche de Malétroit; I have been without father or
+mother for—oh! for as long as I can recollect, and indeed I have been
+most unhappy all my life. Three months ago a young captain began to
+stand near me every day in church. I could see that I pleased him; I am
+much to blame, but I was so glad that any one should love me; and when
+he passed me a letter, I took it home with me and read it with great
+pleasure. Since that time he has written many. He was so anxious to
+speak with me, poor fellow! and kept asking me to leave the door open
+some evening that we might have two words upon the stair. For he knew
+how much my uncle trusted me.” She gave something like a sob at that,
+and it was a moment before she could go on. “My uncle is a hard man,
+but he is very shrewd,” she said at last. “He has performed many feats
+in war, and was a great person at court, and much trusted by Queen
+Isabeau in old days. How he came to suspect me I cannot tell; but it is
+hard to keep anything from his knowledge; and this morning, as we came
+from mass, he took my hand in his, forced it open, and read my little
+billet, walking by my side all the while. When he had finished, he gave
+it back to me with great politeness. It contained another request to
+have the door left open; and this has been the ruin of us all. My uncle
+kept me strictly in my room until evening, and then ordered me to dress
+myself as you see me—a hard mockery for a young girl, do you not think
+so? I suppose, when he could not prevail with me to tell him the young
+captain’s name, he must have laid a trap for him: into which, alas! you
+have fallen in the anger of God. I looked for much confusion; for how
+could I tell whether he was willing to take me for his wife on these
+sharp terms? He might have been trifling with me from the first; or I
+might have made myself too cheap in his eyes. But truly I had not
+looked for such a shameful punishment as this! I could not think that
+God would let a girl be so disgraced before a young man. And now I have
+told you all; and I can scarcely hope that you will not despise me.”
+
+Denis made her a respectful inclination.
+
+“Madam,” he said, “you have honoured me by your confidence. It remains
+for me to prove that I am not unworthy of the honour. Is Messire de
+Malétroit at hand?”
+
+“I believe he is writing in the salle without,” she answered.
+
+“May I lead you thither, madam?” asked Denis, offering his hand with
+his most courtly bearing.
+
+She accepted it; and the pair passed out of the chapel, Blanche in a
+very drooping and shamefast condition, but Denis strutting and ruffling
+in the consciousness of a mission, and the boyish certainty of
+accomplishing it with honour.
+
+The Sire de Malétroit rose to meet them with an ironical obeisance.
+
+“Sir,” said Denis, with the grandest possible air, “I believe I am to
+have some say in the matter of this marriage; and let me tell you at
+once, I will be no party to forcing the inclination of this young lady.
+Had it been freely offered to me, I should have been proud to accept
+her hand, for I perceive she is as good as she is beautiful; but as
+things are, I have now the honour, messire, of refusing.”
+
+Blanche looked at him with gratitude in her eyes; but the old gentleman
+only smiled and smiled, until his smile grew positively sickening to
+Denis.
+
+“I am afraid,” he said, “Monsieur de Beaulieu, that you do not
+perfectly understand the choice I have to offer you. Follow me, I
+beseech you, to this window.” And he led the way to one of the large
+windows which stood open on the night. “You observe,” he went on,
+“there is an iron ring in the upper masonry, and reeved through that, a
+very efficacious rope. Now, mark my words; if you should find your
+disinclination to my niece’s person insurmountable, I shall have you
+hanged out of this window before sunrise. I shall only proceed to such
+an extremity with the greatest regret, you may believe me. For it is
+not at all your death that I desire, but my niece’s establishment in
+life. At the same time, it must come to that if you prove obstinate.
+Your family, Monsieur de Beaulieu, is very well in its way; but if you
+sprang from Charlemagne, you should not refuse the hand of a Malétroit
+with impunity—not if she had been as common as the Paris road—not if
+she were as hideous as the gargoyle over my door. Neither my niece nor
+you, nor my own private feelings, move me at all in this matter. The
+honour of my house has been compromised; I believe you to be the guilty
+person; at least you are now in the secret; and you can hardly wonder
+if I request you to wipe out the stain. If you will not, your blood be
+on your own head! It will be no great satisfaction to me to have your
+interesting relics kicking their heels in the breeze below my windows;
+but half a loaf is better than no bread, and if I cannot cure the
+dishonour, I shall at least stop the scandal.”
+
+There was a pause.
+
+“I believe there are other ways of settling such imbroglios among
+gentlemen,” said Denis. “You wear a sword, and I hear you have used it
+with distinction.”
+
+The Sire de Malétroit made a signal to the chaplain, who crossed the
+room with long silent strides and raised the arras over the third of
+the three doors. It was only a moment before he let it fall again; but
+Denis had time to see a dusky passage full of armed men.
+
+“When I was a little younger, I should have been delighted to honour
+you, Monsieur de Beaulieu,” said Sire Alain; “but I am now too old.
+Faithful retainers are the sinews of age, and I must employ the
+strength I have. This is one of the hardest things to swallow as a man
+grows up in years; but with a little patience, even this becomes
+habitual. You and the lady seem to prefer the salle for what remains of
+your two hours; and as I have no desire to cross your preference, I
+shall resign it to your use with all the pleasure in the world. No
+haste!” he added, holding up his hand, as he saw a dangerous look come
+into Denis de Beaulieu’s face. “If your mind revolts against hanging,
+it will be time enough two hours hence to throw yourself out of the
+window or upon the pikes of my retainers. Two hours of life are always
+two hours. A great many things may turn up in even as little a while as
+that. And, besides, if I understand her appearance, my niece has still
+something to say to you. You will not disfigure your last hours by a
+want of politeness to a lady?”
+
+Denis looked at Blanche, and she made him an imploring gesture.
+
+It is likely that the old gentleman was hugely pleased at this symptom
+of an understanding; for he smiled on both, and added sweetly: “If you
+will give me your word of honour, Monsieur de Beaulieu, to await my
+return at the end of the two hours before attempting anything
+desperate, I shall withdraw my retainers, and let you speak in greater
+privacy with mademoiselle.”
+
+Denis again glanced at the girl, who seemed to beseech him to agree.
+
+“I give you my word of honour,” he said.
+
+Messire de Malétroit bowed, and proceeded to limp about the apartment,
+clearing his throat the while with that odd musical chirp which had
+already grown so irritating in the ears of Denis de Beaulieu. He first
+possessed himself of some papers which lay upon the table; then he went
+to the mouth of the passage and appeared to give an order to the men
+behind the arras; and lastly he hobbled out through the door by which
+Denis had come in, turning upon the threshold to address a last smiling
+bow to the young couple, and followed by the chaplain with a hand-lamp.
+
+No sooner were they alone than Blanche advanced towards Denis with her
+hands extended. Her face was flushed and excited, and her eyes shone
+with tears.
+
+“You shall not die!” she cried, “you shall marry me after all.”
+
+“You seem to think, madam,” replied Denis, “that I stand much in fear
+of death.”
+
+“Oh no, no,” she said, “I see you are no poltroon. It is for my own
+sake—I could not bear to have you slain for such a scruple.”
+
+“I am afraid,” returned Denis, “that you underrate the difficulty,
+madam. What you may be too generous to refuse, I may be too proud to
+accept. In a moment of noble feeling towards me, you forgot what you
+perhaps owe to others.”
+
+He had the decency to keep his eyes upon the floor as he said this, and
+after he had finished, so as not to spy upon her confusion. She stood
+silent for a moment, then walked suddenly away, and falling on her
+uncle’s chair, fairly burst out sobbing. Denis was in the acme of
+embarrassment. He looked round, as if to seek for inspiration, and
+seeing a stool, plumped down upon it for something to do. There he sat,
+playing with the guard of his rapier, and wishing himself dead a
+thousand times over, and buried in the nastiest kitchen-heap in France.
+His eyes wandered round the apartment, but found nothing to arrest
+them. There were such wide spaces between the furniture, the light fell
+so baldly and cheerlessly over all, the dark outside air looked in so
+coldly through the windows, that he thought he had never seen a church
+so vast, nor a tomb so melancholy. The regular sobs of Blanche de
+Malétroit measured out the time like the ticking of a clock. He read
+the device upon the shield over and over again, until his eyes became
+obscured; he stared into shadowy corners until he imagined they were
+swarming with horrible animals; and every now and again he awoke with a
+start, to remember that his last two hours were running, and death was
+on the march.
+
+Oftener and oftener, as the time went on, did his glance settle on the
+girl herself. Her face was bowed forward and covered with her hands,
+and she was shaken at intervals by the convulsive hiccup of grief. Even
+thus she was not an unpleasant object to dwell upon, so plump and yet
+so fine, with a warm brown skin, and the most beautiful hair, Denis
+thought, in the whole world of womankind. Her hands were like her
+uncle’s; but they were more in place at the end of her young arms, and
+looked infinitely soft and caressing. He remembered how her blue eyes
+had shone upon him, full of anger, pity, and innocence. And the more he
+dwelt on her perfections, the uglier death looked, and the more deeply
+was he smitten with penitence at her continued tears. Now he felt that
+no man could have the courage to leave a world which contained so
+beautiful a creature; and now he would have given forty minutes of his
+last hour to have unsaid his cruel speech.
+
+Suddenly a hoarse and ragged peal of cockcrow rose to their ears from
+the dark valley below the windows. And this shattering noise in the
+silence of all around was like a light in a dark place, and shook them
+both out of their reflections.
+
+“Alas, can I do nothing to help you?” she said, looking up.
+
+“Madam,” replied Denis, with a fine irrelevancy, “if I have said
+anything to wound you, believe me, it was for your own sake and not for
+mine.”
+
+She thanked him with a tearful look.
+
+“I feel your position cruelly,” he went on. “The world has been bitter
+hard on you. Your uncle is a disgrace to mankind. Believe me, madam,
+there is no young gentleman in all France but would be glad of my
+opportunity, to die in doing you a momentary service.”
+
+“I know already that you can be very brave and generous,” she answered.
+“What I _want_ to know is whether I can serve you—now or afterwards,”
+she added, with a quaver.
+
+“Most certainly,” he answered with a smile. “Let me sit beside you as
+if I were a friend, instead of a foolish intruder; try to forget how
+awkwardly we are placed to one another; make my last moments go
+pleasantly; and you will do me the chief service possible.”
+
+“You are very gallant,” she added, with a yet deeper sadness . . .
+“very gallant . . . and it somehow pains me. But draw nearer, if you
+please; and if you find anything to say to me, you will at least make
+certain of a very friendly listener. Ah! Monsieur de Beaulieu,” she
+broke forth—“ah! Monsieur de Beaulieu, how can I look you in the face?”
+And she fell to weeping again with a renewed effusion.
+
+“Madam,” said Denis, taking her hand in both of his, “reflect on the
+little time I have before me, and the great bitterness into which I am
+cast by the sight of your distress. Spare me, in my last moments, the
+spectacle of what I cannot cure even with the sacrifice of my life.”
+
+“I am very selfish,” answered Blanche. “I will be braver, Monsieur de
+Beaulieu, for your sake. But think if I can do you no kindness in the
+future—if you have no friends to whom I could carry your adieux. Charge
+me as heavily as you can; every burden will lighten, by so little, the
+invaluable gratitude I owe you. Put it in my power to do something more
+for you than weep.”
+
+“My mother is married again, and has a young family to care for. My
+brother Guichard will inherit my fiefs; and if I am not in error, that
+will content him amply for my death. Life is a little vapour that
+passeth away, as we are told by those in holy orders. When a man is in
+a fair way and sees all life open in front of him, he seems to himself
+to make a very important figure in the world. His horse whinnies to
+him; the trumpets blow and the girls look out of window as he rides
+into town before his company; he receives many assurances of trust and
+regard—sometimes by express in a letter—sometimes face to face, with
+persons of great consequence falling on his neck. It is not wonderful
+if his head is turned for a time. But once he is dead, were he as brave
+as Hercules or as wise as Solomon, he is soon forgotten. It is not ten
+years since my father fell, with many other knights around him, in a
+very fierce encounter, and I do not think that any one of them, nor so
+much as the name of the fight, is now remembered. No, no, madam, the
+nearer you come to it, you see that death is a dark and dusty corner,
+where a man gets into his tomb and has the door shut after him till the
+judgment day. I have few friends just now, and once I am dead I shall
+have none.”
+
+“Ah, Monsieur de Beaulieu!” she exclaimed, “you forget Blanche de
+Malétroit.”
+
+“You have a sweet nature, madam, and you are pleased to estimate a
+little service far beyond its worth.”
+
+“It is not that,” she answered. “You mistake me if you think I am so
+easily touched by my own concerns. I say so, because you are the
+noblest man I have ever met; because I recognise in you a spirit that
+would have made even a common person famous in the land.”
+
+“And yet here I die in a mouse-trap—with no more noise about it than my
+own squeaking,” answered he.
+
+A look of pain crossed her face, and she was silent for a little while.
+Then a fight came into her eyes, and with a smile she spoke again.
+
+“I cannot have my champion think meanly of himself. Any one who gives
+his life for another will be met in Paradise by all the heralds and
+angels of the Lord God. And you have no such cause to hang your head.
+For . . . Pray, do you think me beautiful?” she asked, with a deep
+flush.
+
+“Indeed, madam, I do,” he said.
+
+“I am glad of that,” she answered heartily. “Do you think there are
+many men in France who have been asked in marriage by a beautiful
+maiden—with her own lips—and who have refused her to her face? I know
+you men would half despise such a triumph; but believe me, we women
+know more of what is precious in love. There is nothing that should set
+a person higher in his own esteem; and we women would prize nothing
+more dearly.”
+
+“You are very good,” he said; “but you cannot make me forget that I was
+asked in pity and not for love.”
+
+“I am not so sure of that,” she replied, holding down her head. “Hear
+me to an end, Monsieur de Beaulieu. I know how you must despise me; I
+feel you are right to do so; I am too poor a creature to occupy one
+thought of your mind, although, alas! you must die for me this morning.
+But when I asked you to marry me, indeed, and indeed, it was because I
+respected and admired you, and loved you with my whole soul, from the
+very moment that you took my part against my uncle. If you had seen
+yourself, and how noble you looked, you would pity rather than despise
+me. And now,” she went on, hurriedly checking him with her hand,
+“although I have laid aside all reserve and told you so much, remember
+that I know your sentiments towards me already. I would not, believe
+me, being nobly born, weary you with importunities into consent. I too
+have a pride of my own: and I declare before the holy mother of God, if
+you should now go back from your word already given, I would no more
+marry you than I would marry my uncle’s groom.”
+
+Denis smiled a little bitterly.
+
+“It is a small love,” he said, “that shies at a little pride.”
+
+She made no answer, although she probably had her own thoughts.
+
+“Come hither to the window,” he said, with a sigh. “Here is the dawn.”
+
+And indeed the dawn was already beginning. The hollow of the sky was
+full of essential daylight, colourless and clean; and the valley
+underneath was flooded with a grey reflection. A few thin vapours clung
+in the coves of the forest or lay along the winding course of the
+river. The scene disengaged a surprising effect of stillness, which was
+hardly interrupted when the cocks began once more to crow among the
+steadings. Perhaps the same fellow who had made so horrid a clangour in
+the darkness not half-an-hour before, now sent up the merriest cheer to
+greet the coming day. A little wind went bustling and eddying among the
+tree-tops underneath the windows. And still the daylight kept flooding
+insensibly out of the east, which was soon to grow incandescent and
+cast up that red-hot cannon-ball, the rising sun.
+
+Denis looked out over all this with a bit of a shiver. He had taken her
+hand, and retained it in his almost unconsciously.
+
+“Has the day begun already?” she said; and then, illogically enough:
+“the night has been so long! Alas, what shall we say to my uncle when
+he returns?”
+
+“What you will,” said Denis, and he pressed her fingers in his.
+
+She was silent.
+
+“Blanche,” he said, with a swift, uncertain, passionate utterance, “you
+have seen whether I fear death. You must know well enough that I would
+as gladly leap out of that window into the empty air as lay a finger on
+you without your free and full consent. But if you care for me at all
+do not let me lose my life in a misapprehension; for I love you better
+than the whole world; and though I will die for you blithely, it would
+be like all the joys of Paradise to live on and spend my life in your
+service.”
+
+As he stopped speaking, a bell began to ring loudly in the interior of
+the house; and a clatter of armour in the corridor showed that the
+retainers were returning to their post, and the two hours were at an
+end.
+
+“After all that you have heard?” she whispered, leaning towards him
+with her lips and eyes.
+
+“I have heard nothing,” he replied.
+
+“The captain’s name was Florimond de Champdivers,” she said in his ear.
+
+“I did not hear it,” he answered, taking her supple body in his arms
+and covering her wet face with kisses.
+
+A melodious chirping was audible behind, followed by a beautiful
+chuckle, and the voice of Messire de Malétroit wished his new nephew a
+good morning.
+
+
+
+
+PROVIDENCE AND THE GUITAR
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Monsieur Léon Berthelini had a great care of his appearance, and
+sedulously suited his deportment to the costume of the hour. He
+affected something Spanish in his air, and something of the bandit,
+with a flavour of Rembrandt at home. In person he was decidedly small
+and inclined to be stout; his face was the picture of good humour; his
+dark eyes, which were very expressive, told of a kind heart, a brisk,
+merry nature, and the most indefatigable spirits. If he had worn the
+clothes of the period you would have set him down for a hitherto
+undiscovered hybrid between the barber, the innkeeper, and the affable
+dispensing chemist. But in the outrageous bravery of velvet jacket and
+flapped hat, with trousers that were more accurately described as
+fleshings, a white handkerchief cavalierly knotted at his neck, a shock
+of Olympian curls upon his brow, and his feet shod through all weathers
+in the slenderest of Molière shoes—you had but to look at him and you
+knew you were in the presence of a Great Creature. When he wore an
+overcoat he scorned to pass the sleeves; a single button held it round
+his shoulders; it was tossed backwards after the manner of a cloak, and
+carried with the gait and presence of an Almaviva. I am of opinion that
+M. Berthelini was nearing forty. But he had a boy’s heart, gloried in
+his finery, and walked through life like a child in a perpetual
+dramatic performance. If he were not Almaviva after all, it was not for
+lack of making believe. And he enjoyed the artist’s compensation. If he
+were not really Almaviva, he was sometimes just as happy as though he
+were.
+
+I have seen him, at moments when he has fancied himself alone with his
+Maker, adopt so gay and chivalrous a bearing, and represent his own
+part with so much warmth and conscience, that the illusion became
+catching, and I believed implicitly in the Great Creature’s pose.
+
+But, alas! life cannot be entirely conducted on these principles; man
+cannot live by Almavivery alone; and the Great Creature, having failed
+upon several theatres, was obliged to step down every evening from his
+heights, and sing from half-a-dozen to a dozen comic songs, twang a
+guitar, keep a country audience in good humour, and preside finally
+over the mysteries of a tombola.
+
+Madame Berthelini, who was art and part with him in these undignified
+labours, had perhaps a higher position in the scale of beings, and
+enjoyed a natural dignity of her own. But her heart was not any more
+rightly placed, for that would have been impossible; and she had
+acquired a little air of melancholy, attractive enough in its way, but
+not good to see like the wholesome, sky-scraping, boyish spirits of her
+lord.
+
+He, indeed, swam like a kite on a fair wind, high above earthly
+troubles. Detonations of temper were not unfrequent in the zones he
+travelled; but sulky fogs and tearful depressions were there alike
+unknown. A well-delivered blow upon a table, or a noble attitude,
+imitated from Mélingne or Frederic, relieved his irritation like a
+vengeance. Though the heaven had fallen, if he had played his part with
+propriety, Berthelini had been content! And the man’s atmosphere, if
+not his example, reacted on his wife; for the couple doated on each
+other, and although you would have thought they walked in different
+worlds, yet continued to walk hand in hand.
+
+It chanced one day that Monsieur and Madame Berthelini descended with
+two boxes and a guitar in a fat case at the station of the little town
+of Castel-le-Gâchis, and the omnibus carried them with their effects to
+the Hotel of the Black Head. This was a dismal, conventual building in
+a narrow street, capable of standing siege when once the gates were
+shut, and smelling strangely in the interior of straw and chocolate and
+old feminine apparel. Berthelini paused upon the threshold with a
+painful premonition. In some former state, it seemed to him, he had
+visited a hostelry that smelt not otherwise, and been ill received.
+
+The landlord, a tragic person in a large felt hat, rose from a business
+table under the key-rack, and came forward, removing his hat with both
+hands as he did so.
+
+“Sir, I salute you. May I inquire what is your charge for artists?”
+inquired Berthelini, with a courtesy at once splendid and insinuating.
+
+“For artists?” said the landlord. His countenance fell and the smile of
+welcome disappeared. “Oh, artists!” he added brutally; “four francs a
+day.” And he turned his back upon these inconsiderable customers.
+
+A commercial traveller is received, he also, upon a reduction—yet is he
+welcome, yet can he command the fatted calf; but an artist, had he the
+manners of an Almaviva, were he dressed like Solomon in all his glory,
+is received like a dog and served like a timid lady travelling alone.
+
+Accustomed as he was to the rubs of his profession, Berthelini was
+unpleasantly affected by the landlord’s manner.
+
+“Elvira,” said he to his wife, “mark my words: Castel-le-Gâchis is a
+tragic folly.”
+
+“Wait till we see what we take,” replied Elvira.
+
+“We shall take nothing,” returned Berthelini; “we shall feed upon
+insults. I have an eye, Elvira: I have a spirit of divination; and this
+place is accursed. The landlord has been discourteous, the Commissary
+will be brutal, the audience will be sordid and uproarious, and you
+will take a cold upon your throat. We have been besotted enough to
+come; the die is cast—it will be a second Sédan.”
+
+Sédan was a town hateful to the Berthelinis, not only from patriotism
+(for they were French, and answered after the flesh to the somewhat
+homely name of Duval), but because it had been the scene of their most
+sad reverses. In that place they had lain three weeks in pawn for their
+hotel bill, and had it not been for a surprising stroke of fortune they
+might have been lying there in pawn until this day. To mention the name
+of Sédan was for the Berthelinis to dip the brush in earthquake and
+eclipse. Count Almaviva slouched his hat with a gesture expressive of
+despair, and even Elvira felt as if ill-fortune had been personally
+invoked.
+
+“Let us ask for breakfast,” said she, with a woman’s tact.
+
+The Commissary of Police of Castel-le-Gâchis was a large red
+Commissary, pimpled, and subject to a strong cutaneous transpiration. I
+have repeated the name of his office because he was so very much more a
+Commissary than a man. The spirit of his dignity had entered into him.
+He carried his corporation as if it were something official. Whenever
+he insulted a common citizen it seemed to him as if he were adroitly
+flattering the Government by a side wind; in default of dignity he was
+brutal from an overweening sense of duty. His office was a den, whence
+passers-by could hear rude accents laying down, not the law, but the
+good pleasure of the Commissary.
+
+Six several times in the course of the day did M. Berthelini hurry
+thither in quest of the requisite permission for his evening’s
+entertainment; six several times he found the official was abroad. Léon
+Berthelini began to grow quite a familiar figure in the streets of
+Castel-le-Gâchis; he became a local celebrity, and was pointed out as
+“the man who was looking for the Commissary.” Idle children attached
+themselves to his footsteps, and trotted after him back and forward
+between the hotel and the office. Léon might try as he liked; he might
+roll cigarettes, he might straddle, he might cock his hat at a dozen
+different jaunty inclinations—the part of Almaviva was, under the
+circumstances, difficult to play.
+
+As he passed the market-place upon the seventh excursion the Commissary
+was pointed out to him, where he stood, with his waistcoat unbuttoned
+and his hands behind his back, to superintend the sale and measurement
+of butter. Berthelini threaded his way through the market stalls and
+baskets, and accosted the dignitary with a bow which was a triumph of
+the histrionic art.
+
+“I have the honour,” he asked, “of meeting M. le Commissaire?”
+
+The Commissary was affected by the nobility of his address. He excelled
+Léon in the depth if not in the airy grace of his salutation.
+
+“The honour,” said he, “is mine!”
+
+“I am,” continued the strolling-player, “I am, sir, an artist, and I
+have permitted myself to interrupt you on an affair of business.
+To-night I give a trifling musical entertainment at the Café of the
+Triumphs of the Plough—permit me to offer you this little programme—and
+I have come to ask you for the necessary authorisation.”
+
+At the word “artist,” the Commissary had replaced his hat with the air
+of a person who, having condescended too far, should suddenly remember
+the duties of his rank.
+
+“Go, go,” said he, “I am busy—I am measuring butter.”
+
+“Heathen Jew!” thought Léon. “Permit me, sir,” he resumed aloud. “I
+have gone six times already—”
+
+“Put up your bills if you choose,” interrupted the Commissary. “In an
+hour or so I will examine your papers at the office. But now go; I am
+busy.”
+
+“Measuring butter!” thought Berthelini. “Oh, France, and it is for this
+that we made ’93!”
+
+The preparations were soon made; the bills posted, programmes laid on
+the dinner-table of every hotel in the town, and a stage erected at one
+end of the Café of the Triumphs of the Plough; but when Léon returned
+to the office, the Commissary was once more abroad.
+
+“He is like Madame Benoîton,” thought Léon, “Fichu Commissaire!”
+
+And just then he met the man face to face.
+
+“Here, sir,” said he, “are my papers. Will you be pleased to verify?”
+
+But the Commissary was now intent upon dinner.
+
+“No use,” he replied, “no use; I am busy; I am quite satisfied. Give
+your entertainment.”
+
+And he hurried on.
+
+“Fichu Commissaire!” thought Léon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+The audience was pretty large; and the proprietor of the café made a
+good thing of it in beer. But the Berthelinis exerted themselves in
+vain.
+
+Léon was radiant in velveteen; he had a rakish way of smoking a
+cigarette between his songs that was worth money in itself; he
+underlined his comic points, so that the dullest numskull in
+Castel-le-Gâchis had a notion when to laugh; and he handled his guitar
+in a manner worthy of himself. Indeed his play with that instrument was
+as good as a whole romantic drama; it was so dashing, so florid, and so
+cavalier.
+
+Elvira, on the other hand, sang her patriotic and romantic songs with
+more than usual expression; her voice had charm and plangency; and as
+Léon looked at her, in her low-bodied maroon dress, with her arms bare
+to the shoulder, and a red flower set provocatively in her corset, he
+repeated to himself for the many hundredth time that she was one of the
+loveliest creatures in the world of women.
+
+Alas! when she went round with the tambourine, the golden youth of
+Castel-le-Gâchis turned from her coldly. Here and there a single
+halfpenny was forthcoming; the net result of a collection never
+exceeded half a franc; and the Maire himself, after seven different
+applications, had contributed exactly twopence. A certain chill began
+to settle upon the artists themselves; it seemed as if they were
+singing to slugs; Apollo himself might have lost heart with such an
+audience. The Berthelinis struggled against the impression; they put
+their back into their work, they sang loud and louder, the guitar
+twanged like a living thing; and at last Léon arose in his might, and
+burst with inimitable conviction into his great song, “Y a des honnêtes
+gens partout!” Never had he given more proof of his artistic mastery;
+it was his intimate, indefeasible conviction that Castel-le-Gâchis
+formed an exception to the law he was now lyrically proclaiming, and
+was peopled exclusively by thieves and bullies; and yet, as I say, he
+flung it down like a challenge, he trolled it forth like an article of
+faith; and his face so beamed the while that you would have thought he
+must make converts of the benches.
+
+He was at the top of his register, with his head thrown back and his
+mouth open, when the door was thrown violently open, and a pair of new
+comers marched noisily into the café. It was the Commissary, followed
+by the Garde Champêtre.
+
+The undaunted Berthelini still continued to proclaim, “Y a des honnêtes
+gens partout!” But now the sentiment produced an audible titter among
+the audience. Berthelini wondered why; he did not know the antecedents
+of the Garde Champêtre; he had never heard of a little story about
+postage stamps. But the public knew all about the postage stamps and
+enjoyed the coincidence hugely.
+
+The Commissary planted himself upon a vacant chair with somewhat the
+air of Cromwell visiting the Rump, and spoke in occasional whispers to
+the Garde Champêtre, who remained respectfully standing at his back.
+The eyes of both were directed upon Berthelini, who persisted in his
+statement.
+
+“Y a des honnêtes gens partout,” he was just chanting for the twentieth
+time; when up got the Commissary upon his feet and waved brutally to
+the singer with his cane.
+
+“Is it me you want?” inquired Léon, stopping in his song.
+
+“It is you,” replied the potentate.
+
+“Fichu Commissaire!” thought Léon, and he descended from the stage and
+made his way to the functionary.
+
+“How does it happen, sir,” said the Commissary, swelling in person,
+“that I find you mountebanking in a public café without my permission?”
+
+“Without?” cried the indignant Léon. “Permit me to remind you—”
+
+“Come, come, sir!” said the Commissary, “I desire no explanations.”
+
+“I care nothing about what you desire,” returned the singer. “I choose
+to give them, and I will not be gagged. I am an artist, sir, a
+distinction that you cannot comprehend. I received your permission and
+stand here upon the strength of it; interfere with me who dare.”
+
+“You have not got my signature, I tell you,” cried the Commissary.
+“Show me my signature! Where is my signature?”
+
+That was just the question; where was his signature? Léon recognised
+that he was in a hole; but his spirit rose with the occasion, and he
+blustered nobly, tossing back his curls. The Commissary played up to
+him in the character of tyrant; and as the one leaned farther forward,
+the other leaned farther back—majesty confronting fury. The audience
+had transferred their attention to this new performance, and listened
+with that silent gravity common to all Frenchmen in the neighbourhood
+of the Police. Elvira had sat down, she was used to these distractions,
+and it was rather melancholy than fear that now oppressed her.
+
+“Another word,” cried the Commissary, “and I arrest you.”
+
+“Arrest me?” shouted Léon. “I defy you!”
+
+“I am the Commissary of Police,” said the official.
+
+Léon commanded his feelings, and replied, with great delicacy of
+innuendo—
+
+“So it would appear.”
+
+The point was too refined for Castel-le-Gâchis; it did not raise a
+smile; and as for the Commissary, he simply bade the singer follow him
+to his office, and directed his proud footsteps towards the door. There
+was nothing for it but to obey. Léon did so with a proper pantomime of
+indifference, but it was a leek to eat, and there was no denying it.
+
+The Maire had slipped out and was already waiting at the Commissary’s
+door. Now the Maire, in France, is the refuge of the oppressed. He
+stands between his people and the boisterous rigours of the Police. He
+can sometimes understand what is said to him; he is not always puffed
+up beyond measure by his dignity. ’Tis a thing worth the knowledge of
+travellers. When all seems over, and a man has made up his mind to
+injustice, he has still, like the heroes of romance, a little bugle at
+his belt whereon to blow; and the Maire, a comfortable _deus ex
+machinâ_, may still descend to deliver him from the minions of the law.
+The Maire of Castel-le-Gâchis, although inaccessible to the charms of
+music as retailed by the Berthelinis, had no hesitation whatever as to
+the rights of the matter. He instantly fell foul of the Commissary in
+very high terms, and the Commissary, pricked by this humiliation,
+accepted battle on the point of fact. The argument lasted some little
+while with varying success, until at length victory inclined so plainly
+to the Commissary’s side that the Maire was fain to reassert himself by
+an exercise of authority. He had been out-argued, but he was still the
+Maire. And so, turning from his interlocutor, he briefly but kindly
+recommended Léon to get back instanter to his concert.
+
+“It is already growing late,” he added.
+
+Léon did not wait to be told twice. He returned to the Café of the
+Triumphs of the Plough with all expedition. Alas! the audience had
+melted away during his absence; Elvira was sitting in a very
+disconsolate attitude on the guitar-box; she had watched the company
+dispersing by twos and threes, and the prolonged spectacle had somewhat
+overwhelmed her spirits. Each man, she reflected, retired with a
+certain proportion of her earnings in his pocket, and she saw
+to-night’s board and to-morrow’s railway expenses, and finally even
+to-morrow’s dinner, walk one after another out of the café door and
+disappear into the night.
+
+“What was it?” she asked languidly. But Léon did not answer. He was
+looking round him on the scene of defeat. Scarce a score of listeners
+remained, and these of the least promising sort. The minute hand of the
+clock was already climbing upward towards eleven.
+
+“It’s a lost battle,” said he, and then taking up the money-box he
+turned it out. “Three francs seventy-five!” he cried, “as against four
+of board and six of railway fares; and no time for the tombola! Elvira,
+this is Waterloo.” And he sat down and passed both hands desperately
+among his curls. “O Fichu Commissaire!” he cried, “Fichu Commissaire!”
+
+“Let us get the things together and be off,” returned Elvira. “We might
+try another song, but there is not six halfpence in the room.”
+
+“Six halfpence?” cried Léon, “six hundred thousand devils! There is not
+a human creature in the town—nothing but pigs and dogs and
+commissaires! Pray heaven, we get safe to bed.”
+
+“Don’t imagine things!” exclaimed Elvira, with a shudder.
+
+And with that they set to work on their preparations. The tobacco-jar,
+the cigarette-holder, the three papers of shirt-studs, which were to
+have been the prices of the tombola had the tombola come off, were made
+into a bundle with the music; the guitar was stowed into the fat
+guitar-case; and Elvira having thrown a thin shawl about her neck and
+shoulders, the pair issued from the café and set off for the Black
+Head.
+
+As they crossed the market-place the church bell rang out eleven. It
+was a dark, mild night, and there was no one in the streets.
+
+“It is all very fine,” said Léon; “but I have a presentiment. The night
+is not yet done.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+The “Black Head” presented not a single chink of light upon the street,
+and the carriage gate was closed.
+
+“This is unprecedented,” observed Léon. “An inn closed by five minutes
+after eleven! And there were several commercial travellers in the café
+up to a late hour. Elvira, my heart misgives me. Let us ring the bell.”
+
+The bell had a potent note; and being swung under the arch it filled
+the house from top to bottom with surly, clanging reverberations. The
+sound accentuated the conventual appearance of the building; a wintry
+sentiment, a thought of prayer and mortification, took hold upon
+Elvira’s mind; and, as for Léon, he seemed to be reading the stage
+directions for a lugubrious fifth act.
+
+“This is your fault,” said Elvira: “this is what comes of fancying
+things!”
+
+Again Léon pulled the bell-rope; again the solemn tocsin awoke the
+echoes of the inn; and ere they had died away, a light glimmered in the
+carriage entrance, and a powerful voice was heard upraised and
+tremulous with wrath.
+
+“What’s all this?” cried the tragic host through the spars of the gate.
+“Hard upon twelve, and you come clamouring like Prussians at the door
+of a respectable hotel? Oh!” he cried, “I know you now! Common singers!
+People in trouble with the police! And you present yourselves at
+midnight like lords and ladies? Be off with you!”
+
+“You will permit me to remind you,” replied Léon, in thrilling tones,
+“that I am a guest in your house, that I am properly inscribed, and
+that I have deposited baggage to the value of four hundred francs.”
+
+“You cannot get in at this hour,” returned the man. “This is no
+thieves’ tavern, for mohocks and night rakes and organ-grinders.”
+
+“Brute!” cried Elvira, for the organ-grinders touched her home.
+
+“Then I demand my baggage,” said Léon, with unabated dignity.
+
+“I know nothing of your baggage,” replied the landlord.
+
+“You detain my baggage? You dare to detain my baggage?” cried the
+singer.
+
+“Who are you?” returned the landlord. “It is dark—I cannot recognise
+you.”
+
+“Very well, then—you detain my baggage,” concluded Léon. “You shall
+smart for this. I will weary out your life with persecutions; I will
+drag you from court to court; if there is justice to be had in France,
+it shall be rendered between you and me. And I will make you a
+by-word—I will put you in a song—a scurrilous song—an indecent song—a
+popular song—which the boys shall sing to you in the street, and come
+and howl through these spars at midnight!”
+
+He had gone on raising his voice at every phrase, for all the while the
+landlord was very placidly retiring; and now, when the last glimmer of
+light had vanished from the arch, and the last footstep died away in
+the interior, Léon turned to his wife with a heroic countenance.
+
+“Elvira,” said he, “I have now a duty in life. I shall destroy that man
+as Eugène Sue destroyed the concierge. Let us come at once to the
+Gendarmerie and begin our vengeance.”
+
+He picked up the guitar-case, which had been propped against the wall,
+and they set forth through the silent and ill-lighted town with burning
+hearts.
+
+The Gendarmerie was concealed beside the telegraph office at the bottom
+of a vast court, which was partly laid out in gardens; and here all the
+shepherds of the public lay locked in grateful sleep. It took a deal of
+knocking to waken one; and he, when he came at last to the door, could
+find no other remark but that “it was none of his business.” Léon
+reasoned with him, threatened him, besought him; “here,” he said, “was
+Madame Berthelini in evening dress—a delicate woman—in an interesting
+condition”—the last was thrown in, I fancy, for effect; and to all this
+the man-at-arms made the same answer:
+
+“It is none of my business,” said he.
+
+“Very well,” said Léon, “then we shall go to the Commissary.” Thither
+they went; the office was closed and dark; but the house was close by,
+and Léon was soon swinging the bell like a madman. The Commissary’s
+wife appeared at a window. She was a thread-paper creature, and
+informed them that the Commissary had not yet come home.
+
+“Is he at the Maire’s?” demanded Léon.
+
+She thought that was not unlikely.
+
+“Where is the Maire’s house?” he asked.
+
+And she gave him some rather vague information on that point.
+
+“Stay you here, Elvira,” said Léon, “lest I should miss him by the way.
+If, when I return, I find you here no longer, I shall follow at once to
+the Black Head.”
+
+And he set out to find the Maire’s. It took him some ten minutes
+wandering among blind lanes, and when he arrived it was already
+half-an-hour past midnight. A long white garden wall overhung by some
+thick chestnuts, a door with a letter-box, and an iron bell-pull, that
+was all that could be seen of the Maire’s domicile. Léon took the
+bell-pull in both hands, and danced furiously upon the side-walk. The
+bell itself was just upon the other side of the wall, it responded to
+his activity, and scattered an alarming clangour far and wide into the
+night.
+
+A window was thrown open in a house across the street, and a voice
+inquired the cause of this untimely uproar.
+
+“I wish the Maire,” said Léon.
+
+“He has been in bed this hour,” returned the voice.
+
+“He must get up again,” retorted Léon, and he was for tackling the
+bell-pull once more.
+
+“You will never make him hear,” responded the voice. “The garden is of
+great extent, the house is at the farther end, and both the Maire and
+his housekeeper are deaf.”
+
+“Aha!” said Léon, pausing. “The Maire is deaf, is he? That explains.”
+And he thought of the evening’s concert with a momentary feeling of
+relief. “Ah!” he continued, “and so the Maire is deaf, and the garden
+vast, and the house at the far end?”
+
+“And you might ring all night,” added the voice, “and be none the
+better for it. You would only keep me awake.”
+
+“Thank you, neighbour,” replied the singer. “You shall sleep.”
+
+And he made off again at his best pace for the Commissary’s. Elvira was
+still walking to and fro before the door.
+
+“He has not come?” asked Léon.
+
+“Not he,” she replied.
+
+“Good,” returned Léon. “I am sure our man’s inside. Let me see the
+guitar-case. I shall lay this siege in form, Elvira; I am angry; I am
+indignant; I am truculently inclined; but I thank my Maker I have still
+a sense of fun. The unjust judge shall be importuned in a serenade,
+Elvira. Set him up—and set him up.”
+
+He had the case opened by this time, struck a few chords, and fell into
+an attitude which was irresistibly Spanish.
+
+“Now,” he continued, “feel your voice. Are you ready? Follow me!”
+
+The guitar twanged, and the two voices upraised, in harmony and with a
+startling loudness, the chorus of a song of old Béranger’s:—
+
+“Commissaire! Commissaire!
+Colin bat sa ménagère.”
+
+
+The stones of Castel-le-Gâchis thrilled at this audacious innovation.
+Hitherto had the night been sacred to repose and nightcaps; and now
+what was this? Window after window was opened; matches scratched, and
+candles began to flicker; swollen sleepy faces peered forth into the
+starlight. There were the two figures before the Commissary’s house,
+each bolt upright, with head thrown back and eyes interrogating the
+starry heavens; the guitar wailed, shouted, and reverberated like half
+an orchestra; and the voices, with a crisp and spirited delivery,
+hurled the appropriate burden at the Commissary’s window. All the
+echoes repeated the functionary’s name. It was more like an entr’acte
+in a farce of Molière’s than a passage of real life in
+Castel-le-Gâchis.
+
+The Commissary, if he was not the first, was not the last of the
+neighbours to yield to the influence of music, and furiously throw open
+the window of his bedroom. He was beside himself with rage. He leaned
+far over the window-sill, raving and gesticulating; the tassel of his
+white night-cap danced like a thing of life: he opened his mouth to
+dimensions hitherto unprecedented, and yet his voice, instead of
+escaping from it in a roar, came forth shrill and choked and tottering.
+A little more serenading, and it was clear he would be better
+acquainted with the apoplexy.
+
+I scorn to reproduce his language; he touched upon too many serious
+topics by the way for a quiet story-teller. Although he was known for a
+man who was prompt with his tongue, and had a power of strong
+expression at command, he excelled himself so remarkably this night
+that one maiden lady, who had got out of bed like the rest to hear the
+serenade, was obliged to shut her window at the second clause. Even
+what she had heard disquieted her conscience; and next day she said she
+scarcely reckoned as a maiden lady any longer.
+
+Léon tried to explain his predicament, but he received nothing but
+threats of arrest by way of answer.
+
+“If I come down to you!” cried the Commissary.
+
+“Aye,” said Léon, “do!”
+
+“I will not!” cried the Commissary.
+
+“You dare not!” answered Léon.
+
+At that the Commissary closed his window.
+
+“All is over,” said the singer. “The serenade was perhaps ill-judged.
+These boors have no sense of humour.”
+
+“Let us get away from here,” said Elvira, with a shiver. “All these
+people looking—it is so rude and so brutal.” And then giving way once
+more to passion—“Brutes!” she cried aloud to the candle-lit
+spectators—“brutes! brutes! brutes!”
+
+“Sauve qui peut,” said Léon. “You have done it now!”
+
+And taking the guitar in one hand and the case in the other, he led the
+way with something too precipitate to be merely called precipitation
+from the scene of this absurd adventure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+To the west of Castel-le-Gâchis four rows of venerable lime-trees
+formed, in this starry night, a twilit avenue with two side aisles of
+pitch darkness. Here and there stone benches were disposed between the
+trunks. There was not a breath of wind; a heavy atmosphere of perfume
+hung about the alleys; and every leaf stood stock-still upon its twig.
+Hither, after vainly knocking at an inn or two, the Berthelinis came at
+length to pass the night. After an amiable contention, Léon insisted on
+giving his coat to Elvira, and they sat down together on the first
+bench in silence. Léon made a cigarette, which he smoked to an end,
+looking up into the trees, and, beyond them, at the constellations, of
+which he tried vainly to recall the names. The silence was broken by
+the church bell; it rang the four quarters on a light and tinkling
+measure; then followed a single deep stroke that died slowly away with
+a thrill; and stillness resumed its empire.
+
+“One,” said Léon. “Four hours till daylight. It is warm; it is starry;
+I have matches and tobacco. Do not let us exaggerate, Elvira—the
+experience is positively charming. I feel a glow within me; I am born
+again. This is the poetry of life. Think of Cooper’s novels, my dear.”
+
+“Léon,” she said fiercely, “how can you talk such wicked, infamous
+nonsense? To pass all night out-of-doors—it is like a nightmare! We
+shall die.”
+
+“You suffer yourself to be led away,” he replied soothingly. “It is not
+unpleasant here; only you brood. Come, now, let us repeat a scene.
+Shall we try Alceste and Célimène? No? Or a passage from the ‘Two
+Orphans’? Come, now, it will occupy your mind; I will play up to you as
+I never have played before; I feel art moving in my bones.”
+
+“Hold your tongue,” she cried, “or you will drive me mad! Will nothing
+solemnise you—not even this hideous situation?”
+
+“Oh, hideous!” objected Léon. “Hideous is not the word. Why, where
+would you be? ‘Dites, la jeune belle, où voulez-vous aller?’” he
+carolled. “Well, now,” he went on, opening the guitar-case, “there’s
+another idea for you—sing. Sing ‘Dites, la jeune belle!’ It will
+compose your spirits, Elvira, I am sure.”
+
+And without waiting an answer he began to strum the symphony. The first
+chords awoke a young man who was lying asleep upon a neighbouring
+bench.
+
+“Hullo!” cried the young man, “who are you?”
+
+“Under which king, Bezonian?” declaimed the artist. “Speak or die!”
+
+Or if it was not exactly that, it was something to much the same
+purpose from a French tragedy.
+
+The young man drew near in the twilight. He was a tall, powerful,
+gentlemanly fellow, with a somewhat puffy face, dressed in a grey tweed
+suit, with a deer-stalker hat of the same material; and as he now came
+forward he carried a knapsack slung upon one arm.
+
+“Are you camping out here too?” he asked, with a strong English accent.
+“I’m not sorry for company.”
+
+Léon explained their misadventure; and the other told them that he was
+a Cambridge undergraduate on a walking tour, that he had run short of
+money, could no longer pay for his night’s lodging, had already been
+camping out for two nights, and feared he should require to continue
+the same manœuvre for at least two nights more.
+
+“Luckily, it’s jolly weather,” he concluded.
+
+“You hear that, Elvira,” said Léon. “Madame Berthelini,” he went on,
+“is ridiculously affected by this trifling occurrence. For my part, I
+find it romantic and far from uncomfortable; or at least,” he added,
+shifting on the stone bench, “not quite so uncomfortable as might have
+been expected. But pray be seated.”
+
+“Yes,” returned the undergraduate, sitting down, “it’s rather nice than
+otherwise when once you’re used to it; only it’s devilish difficult to
+get washed. I like the fresh air and these stars and things.”
+
+“Aha!” said Léon, “Monsieur is an artist.”
+
+“An artist?” returned the other, with a blank stare. “Not if I know
+it!”
+
+“Pardon me,” said the actor. “What you said this moment about the orbs
+of heaven—”
+
+“Oh, nonsense!” cried the Englishman. “A fellow may admire the stars
+and be anything he likes.”
+
+“You have an artist’s nature, however, Mr.—I beg your pardon; may I,
+without indiscretion, inquire your name?” asked Léon.
+
+“My name is Stubbs,” replied the Englishman.
+
+“I thank you,” returned Léon. “Mine is Berthelini—Léon Berthelini,
+ex-artist of the theatres of Montrouge, Belleville, and Montmartre.
+Humble as you see me, I have created with applause more than one
+important _rôle_. The Press were unanimous in praise of my Howling
+Devil of the Mountains, in the piece of the same name. Madame, whom I
+now present to you, is herself an artist, and I must not omit to state,
+a better artist than her husband. She also is a creator; she created
+nearly twenty successful songs at one of the principal Parisian
+music-halls. But, to continue, I was saying you had an artist’s nature,
+Monsieur Stubbs, and you must permit me to be a judge in such a
+question. I trust you will not falsify your instincts; let me beseech
+you to follow the career of an artist.”
+
+“Thank you,” returned Stubbs, with a chuckle. “I’m going to be a
+banker.”
+
+“No,” said Léon, “do not say so. Not that. A man with such a nature as
+yours should not derogate so far. What are a few privations here and
+there, so long as you are working for a high and noble goal?”
+
+“This fellow’s mad,” thought Stubbs; “but the woman’s rather pretty,
+and he’s not bad fun himself, if you come to that.” What he said was
+different. “I thought you said you were an actor?”
+
+“I certainly did so,” replied Léon. “I am one, or, alas! I was.”
+
+“And so you want me to be an actor, do you?” continued the
+undergraduate. “Why, man, I could never so much as learn the stuff; my
+memory’s like a sieve; and as for acting, I’ve no more idea than a
+cat.”
+
+“The stage is not the only course,” said Léon. “Be a sculptor, be a
+dancer, be a poet or a novelist; follow your heart, in short, and do
+some thorough work before you die.”
+
+“And do you call all these things _art_?” inquired Stubbs.
+
+“Why, certainly!” returned Léon. “Are they not all branches?”
+
+“Oh! I didn’t know,” replied the Englishman. “I thought an artist meant
+a fellow who painted.”
+
+The singer stared at him in some surprise.
+
+“It is the difference of language,” he said at last. “This Tower of
+Babel, when shall we have paid for it? If I could speak English you
+would follow me more readily.”
+
+“Between you and me, I don’t believe I should,” replied the other. “You
+seem to have thought a devil of a lot about this business. For my part,
+I admire the stars, and like to have them shining—it’s so cheery—but
+hang me if I had an idea it had anything to do with art! It’s not in my
+line, you see. I’m not intellectual; I have no end of trouble to scrape
+through my exams., I can tell you! But I’m not a bad sort at bottom,”
+he added, seeing his interlocutor looked distressed even in the dim
+starshine, “and I rather like the play, and music, and guitars, and
+things.”
+
+Léon had a perception that the understanding was incomplete. He changed
+the subject.
+
+“And so you travel on foot?” he continued. “How romantic! How
+courageous! And how are you pleased with my land? How does the scenery
+affect you among these wild hills of ours?”
+
+“Well, the fact is,” began Stubbs—he was about to say that he didn’t
+care for scenery, which was not at all true, being, on the contrary,
+only an athletic undergraduate pretension; but he had begun to suspect
+that Berthelini liked a different sort of meat, and substituted
+something else—“The fact is, I think it jolly. They told me it was no
+good up here; even the guide-book said so; but I don’t know what they
+meant. I think it is deuced pretty—upon my word, I do.”
+
+At this moment, in the most unexpected manner, Elvira burst into tears.
+
+“My voice!” she cried. “Léon, if I stay here longer I shall lose my
+voice!”
+
+“You shall not stay another moment,” cried the actor. “If I have to
+beat in a door, if I have to burn the town, I shall find you shelter.”
+
+With that he replaced the guitar, and comforting her with some
+caresses, drew her arm through his.
+
+“Monsieur Stubbs,” said he, taking of his hat, “the reception I offer
+you is rather problematical; but let me beseech you to give us the
+pleasure of your society. You are a little embarrassed for the moment;
+you must, indeed, permit me to advance what may be necessary. I ask it
+as a favour; we must not part so soon after having met so strangely.”
+
+“Oh, come, you know,” said Stubbs, “I can’t let a fellow like you—” And
+there he paused, feeling somehow or other on a wrong tack.
+
+“I do not wish to employ menaces,” continued Léon, with a smile; “but
+if you refuse, indeed I shall not take it kindly.”
+
+“I don’t quite see my way out of it,” thought the undergraduate; and
+then, after a pause, he said, aloud and ungraciously enough, “All
+right. I—I’m very much obliged, of course.” And he proceeded to follow
+them, thinking in his heart, “But it’s bad form, all the same, to force
+an obligation on a fellow.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Léon strode ahead as if he knew exactly where he was going; the sobs of
+Madame were still faintly audible, and no one uttered a word. A dog
+barked furiously in a courtyard as they went by; then the church clock
+struck two, and many domestic clocks followed or preceded it in piping
+tones. And just then Berthelini spied a light. It burned in a small
+house on the outskirts of the town, and thither the party now directed
+their steps.
+
+“It is always a chance,” said Léon.
+
+The house in question stood back from the street behind an open space,
+part garden, part turnip-field; and several outhouses stood forward
+from either wing at right angles to the front. One of these had
+recently undergone some change. An enormous window, looking towards the
+north, had been effected in the wall and roof, and Léon began to hope
+it was a studio.
+
+“If it’s only a painter,” he said with a chuckle, “ten to one we get as
+good a welcome as we want.”
+
+“I thought painters were principally poor,” said Stubbs.
+
+“Ah!” cried Léon, “you do not know the world as I do. The poorer the
+better for us!”
+
+And the trio advanced into the turnip-field.
+
+The light was in the ground floor; as one window was brightly
+illuminated and two others more faintly, it might be supposed that
+there was a single lamp in one corner of a large apartment; and a
+certain tremulousness and temporary dwindling showed that a live fire
+contributed to the effect. The sound of a voice now became audible; and
+the trespassers paused to listen. It was pitched in a high, angry key,
+but had still a good, full, and masculine note in it. The utterance was
+voluble, too voluble even to be quite distinct; a stream of words,
+rising and falling, with ever and again a phrase thrown out by itself,
+as if the speaker reckoned on its virtue.
+
+Suddenly another voice joined in. This time it was a woman’s; and if
+the man were angry, the woman was incensed to the degree of fury. There
+was that absolutely blank composure known to suffering males; that
+colourless unnatural speech which shows a spirit accurately balanced
+between homicide and hysterics; the tone in which the best of women
+sometimes utter words worse than death to those most dear to them. If
+Abstract Bones-and-Sepulchre were to be endowed with the gift of
+speech, thus, and not otherwise, would it discourse. Léon was a brave
+man, and I fear he was somewhat sceptically given (he had been educated
+in a Papistical country), but the habit of childhood prevailed, and he
+crossed himself devoutly. He had met several women in his career. It
+was obvious that his instinct had not deceived him, for the male voice
+broke forth instantly in a towering passion.
+
+The undergraduate, who had not understood the significance of the
+woman’s contribution, pricked up his ears at the change upon the man.
+
+“There’s going to be a free fight,” he opined.
+
+There was another retort from the woman, still calm but a little
+higher.
+
+“Hysterics?” asked Léon of his wife. “Is that the stage direction?”
+
+“How should I know?” returned Elvira, somewhat tartly.
+
+“Oh, woman, woman!” said Léon, beginning to open the guitar-case. “It
+is one of the burdens of my life, Monsieur Stubbs; they support each
+other; they always pretend there is no system; they say it’s nature.
+Even Madame Berthelini, who is a dramatic artist!”
+
+“You are heartless, Léon,” said Elvira; “that woman is in trouble.”
+
+“And the man, my angel?” inquired Berthelini, passing the ribbon of his
+guitar. “And the man, _m’amour_?”
+
+“He is a man,” she answered.
+
+“You hear that?” said Léon to Stubbs. “It is not too late for you. Mark
+the intonation. And now,” he continued, “what are we to give them?”
+
+“Are you going to sing?” asked Stubbs.
+
+“I am a troubadour,” replied Léon. “I claim a welcome by and for my
+art. If I were a banker could I do as much?”
+
+“Well, you wouldn’t need, you know,” answered the undergraduate.
+
+“Egad,” said Léon, “but that’s true. Elvira, that is true.”
+
+“Of course it is,” she replied. “Did you not know it?”
+
+“My dear,” answered Léon impressively, “I know nothing but what is
+agreeable. Even my knowledge of life is a work of art superiorly
+composed. But what are we to give them? It should be something
+appropriate.”
+
+Visions of “Let dogs delight” passed through the undergraduate’s mind;
+but it occurred to him that the poetry was English and that he did not
+know the air. Hence he contributed no suggestion.
+
+“Something about our houselessness,” said Elvira.
+
+“I have it,” cried Léon. And he broke forth into a song of Pierre
+Dupont’s:—
+
+“Savez-vous où gite,
+Mai, ce joli mois?”
+
+
+Elvira joined in; so did Stubbs, with a good ear and voice, but an
+imperfect acquaintance with the music. Léon and the guitar were equal
+to the situation. The actor dispensed his throat-notes with prodigality
+and enthusiasm; and, as he looked up to heaven in his heroic way,
+tossing the black ringlets, it seemed to him that the very stars
+contributed a dumb applause to his efforts, and the universe lent him
+its silence for a chorus. That is one of the best features of the
+heavenly bodies, that they belong to everybody in particular; and a man
+like Léon, a chronic Endymion who managed to get along without
+encouragement, is always the world’s centre for himself.
+
+He alone—and it is to be noted, he was the worst singer of the
+three—took the music seriously to heart, and judged the serenade from a
+high artistic point of view. Elvira, on the other hand, was preoccupied
+about their reception; and, as for Stubbs, he considered the whole
+affair in the light of a broad joke.
+
+“Know you the lair of May, the lovely month?” went the three voices in
+the turnip-field.
+
+The inhabitants were plainly fluttered; the light moved to and fro,
+strengthening in one window, paling in another; and then the door was
+thrown open, and a man in a blouse appeared on the threshold carrying a
+lamp. He was a powerful young fellow, with bewildered hair and beard,
+wearing his neck open; his blouse was stained with oil-colours in a
+harlequinesque disorder; and there was something rural in the droop and
+bagginess of his belted trousers.
+
+From immediately behind him, and indeed over his shoulder, a woman’s
+face looked out into the darkness; it was pale and a little weary,
+although still young; it wore a dwindling, disappearing prettiness,
+soon to be quite gone, and the expression was both gentle and sour, and
+reminded one faintly of the taste of certain drugs. For all that, it
+was not a face to dislike; when the prettiness had vanished, it seemed
+as if a certain pale beauty might step in to take its place; and as
+both the mildness and the asperity were characters of youth, it might
+be hoped that, with years, both would merge into a constant, brave, and
+not unkindly temper.
+
+“What is all this?” cried the man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Léon had his hat in his hand at once. He came forward with his
+customary grace; it was a moment which would have earned him a round of
+cheering on the stage. Elvira and Stubbs advanced behind him, like a
+couple of Admetus’s sheep following the god Apollo.
+
+“Sir,” said Léon, “the hour is unpardonably late, and our little
+serenade has the air of an impertinence. Believe me, sir, it is an
+appeal. Monsieur is an artist, I perceive. We are here three artists
+benighted and without shelter, one a woman—a delicate woman—in evening
+dress—in an interesting situation. This will not fail to touch the
+woman’s heart of Madame, whom I perceive indistinctly behind Monsieur
+her husband, and whose face speaks eloquently of a well-regulated mind.
+Ah! Monsieur, Madame—one generous movement, and you make three people
+happy! Two or three hours beside your fire—I ask it of Monsieur in the
+name of Art—I ask it of Madame by the sanctity of womanhood.”
+
+The two, as by a tacit consent, drew back from the door.
+
+“Come in,” said the man.
+
+“Entrez, Madame,” said the woman.
+
+The door opened directly upon the kitchen of the house, which was to
+all appearance the only sitting-room. The furniture was both plain and
+scanty; but there were one or two landscapes on the wall handsomely
+framed, as if they had already visited the committee-rooms of an
+exhibition and been thence extruded. Léon walked up to the pictures and
+represented the part of a connoisseur before each in turn, with his
+usual dramatic insight and force. The master of the house, as if
+irresistibly attracted, followed him from canvas to canvas with the
+lamp. Elvira was led directly to the fire, where she proceeded to warm
+herself, while Stubbs stood in the middle of the floor and followed the
+proceedings of Léon with mild astonishment in his eyes.
+
+“You should see them by daylight,” said the artist.
+
+“I promise myself that pleasure,” said Léon. “You possess, sir, if you
+will permit me an observation, the art of composition to a T.”
+
+“You are very good,” returned the other. “But should you not draw
+nearer to the fire?”
+
+“With all my heart,” said Léon.
+
+And the whole party was soon gathered at the table over a hasty and not
+an elegant cold supper, washed down with the least of small wines.
+Nobody liked the meal, but nobody complained; they put a good face upon
+it, one and all, and made a great clattering of knives and forks. To
+see Léon eating a single cold sausage was to see a triumph; by the time
+he had done he had got through as much pantomime as would have sufficed
+for a baron of beef, and he had the relaxed expression of the
+over-eaten.
+
+As Elvira had naturally taken a place by the side of Léon, and Stubbs
+as naturally, although I believe unconsciously, by the side of Elvira,
+the host and hostess were left together. Yet it was to be noted that
+they never addressed a word to each other, nor so much as suffered
+their eyes to meet. The interrupted skirmish still survived in
+ill-feeling; and the instant the guests departed it would break forth
+again as bitterly as ever. The talk wandered from this to that
+subject—for with one accord the party had declared it was too late to
+go to bed; but those two never relaxed towards each other; Goneril and
+Regan in a sisterly tiff were not more bent on enmity.
+
+It chanced that Elvira was so much tired by all the little excitements
+of the night, that for once she laid aside her company manners, which
+were both easy and correct, and in the most natural manner in the world
+leaned her head on Léon’s shoulder. At the same time, fatigue
+suggesting tenderness, she locked the fingers of her right hand into
+those of her husband’s left; and, half closing her eyes, dozed off into
+a golden borderland between sleep and waking. But all the time she was
+not aware of what was passing, and saw the painter’s wife studying her
+with looks between contempt and envy.
+
+It occurred to Léon that his constitution demanded the use of some
+tobacco; and he undid his fingers from Elvira’s in order to roll a
+cigarette. It was gently done, and he took care that his indulgence
+should in no other way disturb his wife’s position. But it seemed to
+catch the eye of the painter’s wife with a special significancy. She
+looked straight before her for an instant, and then, with a swift and
+stealthy movement, took hold of her husband’s hand below the table.
+Alas! she might have spared herself the dexterity. For the poor fellow
+was so overcome by this caress that he stopped with his mouth open in
+the middle of a word, and by the expression of his face plainly
+declared to all the company that his thoughts had been diverted into
+softer channels.
+
+If it had not been rather amiable, it would have been absurdly droll.
+His wife at once withdrew her touch; but it was plain she had to exert
+some force. Thereupon the young man coloured and looked for a moment
+beautiful.
+
+Léon and Elvira both observed the byplay, and a shock passed from one
+to the other; for they were inveterate match-makers, especially between
+those who were already married.
+
+“I beg your pardon,” said Léon suddenly. “I see no use in pretending.
+Before we came in here we heard sounds indicating—if I may so express
+myself—an imperfect harmony.”
+
+“Sir—” began the man.
+
+But the woman was beforehand.
+
+“It is quite true,” she said. “I see no cause to be ashamed. If my
+husband is mad I shall at least do my utmost to prevent the
+consequences. Picture to yourself, Monsieur and Madame,” she went on,
+for she passed Stubbs over, “that this wretched person—a dauber, an
+incompetent, not fit to be a sign-painter—receives this morning an
+admirable offer from an uncle—an uncle of my own, my mother’s brother,
+and tenderly beloved—of a clerkship with nearly a hundred and fifty
+pounds a year, and that he—picture to yourself!—he refuses it! Why? For
+the sake of Art, he says. Look at his art, I say—look at it! Is it fit
+to be seen? Ask him—is it fit to be sold? And it is for this, Monsieur
+and Madame, that he condemns me to the most deplorable existence,
+without luxuries, without comforts, in a vile suburb of a country town.
+O non!” she cried, “non—je ne me tairai pas—c’est plus fort que moi! I
+take these gentlemen and this lady for judges—is this kind? is it
+decent? is it manly? Do I not deserve better at his hands after having
+married him and”—(a visible hitch)—“done everything in the world to
+please him.”
+
+I doubt if there were ever a more embarrassed company at a table; every
+one looked like a fool; and the husband like the biggest.
+
+“The art of Monsieur, however,” said Elvira, breaking the silence, “is
+not wanting in distinction.”
+
+“It has this distinction,” said the wife, “that nobody will buy it.”
+
+“I should have supposed a clerkship—” began Stubbs.
+
+“Art is Art,” swept in Léon. “I salute Art. It is the beautiful, the
+divine; it is the spirit of the world, and the pride of life. But—” And
+the actor paused.
+
+“A clerkship—” began Stubbs.
+
+“I’ll tell you what it is,” said the painter. “I am an artist, and as
+this gentleman says, Art is this and the other; but of course, if my
+wife is going to make my life a piece of perdition all day long, I
+prefer to go and drown myself out of hand.”
+
+“Go!” said his wife. “I should like to see you!”
+
+“I was going to say,” resumed Stubbs, “that a fellow may be a clerk and
+paint almost as much as he likes. I know a fellow in a bank who makes
+capital water-colour sketches; he even sold one for seven-and-six.”
+
+To both the women this seemed a plank of safety; each hopefully
+interrogated the countenance of her lord; even Elvira, an artist
+herself!—but indeed there must be something permanently mercantile in
+the female nature. The two men exchanged a glance; it was tragic; not
+otherwise might two philosophers salute, as at the end of a laborious
+life each recognised that he was still a mystery to his disciples.
+
+Léon arose.
+
+“Art is Art,” he repeated sadly. “It is not water-colour sketches, nor
+practising on a piano. It is a life to be lived.”
+
+“And in the meantime people starve!” observed the woman of the house.
+“If that’s a life, it is not one for me.”
+
+“I’ll tell you what,” burst forth Léon; “you, Madame, go into another
+room and talk it over with my wife; and I’ll stay here and talk it over
+with your husband. It may come to nothing, but let’s try.”
+
+“I am very willing,” replied the young woman; and she proceeded to
+light a candle. “This way if you please.” And she led Elvira upstairs
+into a bedroom. “The fact is,” said she, sitting down, “that my husband
+cannot paint.”
+
+“No more can mine act,” replied Elvira.
+
+“I should have thought he could,” returned the other; “he seems
+clever.”
+
+“He is so, and the best of men besides,” said Elvira; “but he cannot
+act.”
+
+“At least he is not a sheer humbug like mine; he can at least sing.”
+
+“You mistake Léon,” returned his wife warmly. “He does not even pretend
+to sing; he has too fine a taste; he does so for a living. And, believe
+me, neither of the men are humbugs. They are people with a
+mission—which they cannot carry out.”
+
+“Humbug or not,” replied the other, “you came very near passing the
+night in the fields; and, for my part, I live in terror of starvation.
+I should think it was a man’s mission to think twice about his wife.
+But it appears not. Nothing is their mission but to play the fool. Oh!”
+she broke out, “is it not something dreary to think of that man of
+mine? If he could only do it, who would care? But no—not he—no more
+than I can!”
+
+“Have you any children?” asked Elvira.
+
+“No; but then I may.”
+
+“Children change so much,” said Elvira, with a sigh.
+
+And just then from the room below there flew up a sudden snapping chord
+on the guitar; one followed after another; then the voice of Léon
+joined in; and there was an air being played and sung that stopped the
+speech of the two women. The wife of the painter stood like a person
+transfixed; Elvira, looking into her eyes, could see all manner of
+beautiful memories and kind thoughts that were passing in and out of
+her soul with every note; it was a piece of her youth that went before
+her; a green French plain, the smell of apple-flowers, the far and
+shining ringlets of a river, and the words and presence of love.
+
+“Léon has hit the nail,” thought Elvira to herself. “I wonder how.”
+
+The how was plain enough. Léon had asked the painter if there were no
+air connected with courtship and pleasant times; and having learnt what
+he wished, and allowed an interval to pass, he had soared forth into
+
+“O mon amante,
+O mon désir,
+Sachons cueillir
+L’heure charmante!”
+
+
+“Pardon me, Madame,” said the painter’s wife, “your husband sings
+admirably well.”
+
+“He sings that with some feeling,” replied Elvira, critically, although
+she was a little moved herself, for the song cut both ways in the upper
+chamber; “but it is as an actor and not as a musician.”
+
+“Life is very sad,” said the other; “it so wastes away under one’s
+fingers.”
+
+“I have not found it so,” replied Elvira. “I think the good parts of it
+last and grow greater every day.”
+
+“Frankly, how would you advise me?”
+
+“Frankly, I would let my husband do what he wished. He is obviously a
+very loving painter; you have not yet tried him as a clerk. And you
+know—if it were only as the possible father of your children—it is as
+well to keep him at his best.”
+
+“He is an excellent fellow,” said the wife.
+
+
+They kept it up till sunrise with music and all manner of good
+fellowship; and at sunrise, while the sky was still temperate and
+clear, they separated on the threshold with a thousand excellent wishes
+for each other’s welfare. Castel-le-Gâchis was beginning to send up its
+smoke against the golden East; and the church bell was ringing six.
+
+“My guitar is a familiar spirit,” said Léon, as he and Elvira took the
+nearest way towards the inn, “it resuscitated a Commissary, created an
+English tourist, and reconciled a man and wife.”
+
+Stubbs, on his part, went off into the morning with reflections of his
+own.
+
+“They are all mad,” thought he, “all mad—but wonderfully decent.”
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+Printed by Spottiswoode, Ballantyne & Co. Ltd.
+Colchester, London & Eton, England
+
+
+
+
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