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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Set of Six, by Joseph Conrad
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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
+
+
+Title: A Set of Six
+
+Author: Joseph Conrad
+
+Release Date: January 9, 2006 [EBook #2305]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SET OF SIX ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Judy Boss and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+A SET OF SIX
+
+By Joseph Conrad
+
+
+
+_Les petites marionnettes
+Font, font, font,
+Trois petits tours
+Et puis s'en vont_.
+--NURSERY RHYME
+
+
+
+
+TO MISS M. H. M. CAPES
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S NOTE
+
+
+THE six stories in this volume are the result of some three or four
+years of occasional work. The dates of their writing are far apart,
+their origins are various. None of them are connected directly with
+personal experiences. In all of them the facts are inherently true, by
+which I mean that they are not only possible but that they have actually
+happened. For instance, the last story in the volume, the one I call
+Pathetic, whose first title is Il Conde (misspelt by-the-by) is an
+almost verbatim transcript of the tale told me by a very charming old
+gentleman whom I met in Italy. I don't mean to say it is only that.
+Anybody can see that it is something more than a verbatim report,
+but where he left off and where I began must be left to the acute
+discrimination of the reader who may be interested in the problem.
+I don't mean to say that the problem is worth the trouble. What I am
+certain of, however, is that it is not to be solved, for I am not at
+all clear about it myself by this time. All I can say is that the
+personality of the narrator was extremely suggestive quite apart from
+the story he was telling me. I heard a few years ago that he had died
+far away from his beloved Naples where that "abominable adventure" did
+really happen to him.
+
+Thus the genealogy of Il Conde is simple. It is not the case with the
+other stories. Various strains contributed to their composition, and the
+nature of many of those I have forgotten, not having the habit of making
+notes either before or after the fact. I mean the fact of writing a
+story. What I remember best about Gaspar Ruiz is that it was written, or
+at any rate begun, within a month of finishing Nostromo; but apart
+from the locality, and that a pretty wide one (all the South American
+Continent), the novel and the story have nothing in common, neither
+mood, nor intention and, certainly, not the style. The manner for the
+most part is that of General Santierra, and that old warrior, I note
+with satisfaction, is very true to himself all through. Looking now
+dispassionately at the various ways in which this story could have been
+presented I can't honestly think the General superfluous. It is he, an
+old man talking of the days of his youth, who characterizes the whole
+narrative and gives it an air of actuality which I doubt whether I could
+have achieved without his help. In the mere writing his existence
+of course was of no help at all, because the whole thing had to be
+carefully kept within the frame of his simple mind. But all this is but
+a laborious searching of memories. My present feeling is that the story
+could not have been told otherwise. The hint for Gaspar Ruiz the man
+I found in a book by Captain Basil Hall, R.N., who was for some time,
+between the years 1824 and 1828, senior officer of a small British
+Squadron on the West Coast of South America. His book published in the
+thirties obtained a certain celebrity and I suppose is to be found still
+in some libraries. The curious who may be mistrusting my imagination are
+referred to that printed document, Vol. II, I forget the page, but it
+is somewhere not far from the end. Another document connected with this
+story is a letter of a biting and ironic kind from a friend then in
+Burma, passing certain strictures upon "the gentleman with the gun on
+his back" which I do not intend to make accessible to the public. Yet
+the gun episode did really happen, or at least I am bound to believe it
+because I remember it, described in an extremely matter-of-fact tone,
+in some book I read in my boyhood; and I am not going to discard the
+beliefs of my boyhood for anybody on earth.
+
+The Brute, which is the only sea-story in the volume, is, like Il Conde,
+associated with a direct narrative and based on a suggestion gathered on
+warm human lips. I will not disclose the real name of the criminal ship
+but the first I heard of her homicidal habits was from the late Captain
+Blake, commanding a London ship in which I served in 1884 as Second
+Officer. Captain Blake was, of all my commanders, the one I remember
+with the greatest affection. I have sketched in his personality, without
+however mentioning his name, in the first paper of The Mirror of the
+Sea. In his young days he had had a personal experience of the brute and
+it is perhaps for that reason that I have put the story into the mouth
+of a young man and made of it what the reader will see. The existence
+of the brute was a fact. The end of the brute as related in the story is
+also a fact, well-known at the time though it really happened to
+another ship, of great beauty of form and of blameless character, which
+certainly deserved a better fate. I have unscrupulously adapted it to
+the needs of my story thinking that I had there something in the nature
+of poetical justice. I hope that little villainy will not cast a shadow
+upon the general honesty of my proceedings as a writer of tales.
+
+Of The Informer and An Anarchist I will say next to nothing. The
+pedigree of these tales is hopelessly complicated and not worth
+disentangling at this distance of time. I found them and here they are.
+The discriminating reader will guess that I have found them within my
+mind; but how they or their elements came in there I have forgotten for
+the most part; and for the rest I really don't see why I should give
+myself away more than I have done already.
+
+It remains for me only now to mention The Duel, the longest story in the
+book. That story attained the dignity of publication all by itself in a
+small illustrated volume, under the title, "The Point of Honour." That
+was many years ago. It has been since reinstated in its proper place,
+which is the place it occupies in this volume, in all the subsequent
+editions of my work. Its pedigree is extremely simple. It springs from a
+ten-line paragraph in a small provincial paper published in the South of
+France. That paragraph, occasioned by a duel with a fatal ending between
+two well-known Parisian personalities, referred for some reason or other
+to the "well-known fact" of two officers in Napoleon's Grand Army having
+fought a series of duels in the midst of great wars and on some futile
+pretext. The pretext was never disclosed. I had therefore to invent it;
+and I think that, given the character of the two officers which I had to
+invent, too, I have made it sufficiently convincing by the mere force of
+its absurdity. The truth is that in my mind the story is nothing but a
+serious and even earnest attempt at a bit of historical fiction. I had
+heard in my boyhood a good deal of the great Napoleonic legend. I had a
+genuine feeling that I would find myself at home in it, and The Duel
+is the result of that feeling, or, if the reader prefers, of that
+presumption. Personally I have no qualms of conscience about this piece
+of work. The story might have been better told of course. All one's work
+might have been better done; but this is the sort of reflection a
+worker must put aside courageously if he doesn't mean every one of his
+conceptions to remain for ever a private vision, an evanescent reverie.
+How many of those visions have I seen vanish in my time! This one,
+however, has remained, a testimony, if you like, to my courage or a
+proof of my rashness. What I care to remember best is the testimony of
+some French readers who volunteered the opinion that in those hundred
+pages or so I had managed to render "wonderfully" the spirit of the
+whole epoch. Exaggeration of kindness no doubt; but even so I hug it
+still to my breast, because in truth that is exactly what I was trying
+to capture in my small net: the Spirit of the Epoch--never purely
+militarist in the long clash of arms, youthful, almost childlike in its
+exaltation of sentiment--naively heroic in its faith.
+
+
+1920. J. C.
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+GASPAR RUIZ
+
+THE INFORMER
+
+THE BRUTE
+
+AN ANARCHIST
+
+THE DUEL
+
+IL CONDE
+
+
+
+
+
+A SET OF SIX
+
+
+
+
+GASPAR RUIZ
+
+
+I
+
+
+A revolutionary war raises many strange characters out of the obscurity
+which is the common lot of humble lives in an undisturbed state of
+society.
+
+Certain individualities grow into fame through their vices and their
+virtues, or simply by their actions, which may have a temporary
+importance; and then they become forgotten. The names of a few leaders
+alone survive the end of armed strife and are further preserved in
+history; so that, vanishing from men's active memories, they still exist
+in books.
+
+The name of General Santierra attained that cold paper-and-ink
+immortality. He was a South American of good family, and the books
+published in his lifetime numbered him amongst the liberators of that
+continent from the oppressive rule of Spain.
+
+That long contest, waged for independence on one side and for dominion
+on the other, developed in the course of years and the vicissitudes of
+changing fortune the fierceness and inhumanity of a struggle for
+life. All feelings of pity and compassion disappeared in the growth of
+political hatred. And, as is usual in war, the mass of the people,
+who had the least to gain by the issue, suffered most in their obscure
+persons and their humble fortunes.
+
+General Santierra began his service as lieutenant in the patriot army
+raised and commanded by the famous San Martin, afterwards conqueror of
+Lima and liberator of Peru. A great battle had just been fought on the
+banks of the river Bio-Bio. Amongst the prisoners made upon the routed
+Royalist troops there was a soldier called Gaspar Ruiz. His powerful
+build and his big head rendered him remarkable amongst his
+fellow-captives. The personality of the man was unmistakable. Some
+months before he had been missed from the ranks of Republican troops
+after one of the many skirmishes which preceded the great battle. And
+now, having been captured arms in hand amongst Royalists, he could
+expect no other fate but to be shot as a deserter.
+
+Gaspar Ruiz, however, was not a deserter; his mind was hardly active
+enough to take a discriminating view of the advantages or perils
+of treachery. Why should he change sides? He had really been made a
+prisoner, had suffered ill-usage and many privations. Neither side
+showed tenderness to its adversaries. There came a day when he was
+ordered, together with some other captured rebels, to march in the front
+rank of the Royal troops. A musket had been thrust into his hands.
+He had taken it. He had marched. He did not want to be killed with
+circumstances of peculiar atrocity for refusing to march. He did not
+understand heroism but it was his intention to throw his musket away at
+the first opportunity. Meantime he had gone on loading and firing, from
+fear of having his brains blown out at the first sign of unwillingness,
+by some non-commissioned officer of the King of Spain. He tried to set
+forth these elementary considerations before the sergeant of the
+guard set over him and some twenty other such deserters, who had been
+condemned summarily to be shot.
+
+It was in the quadrangle of the fort at the back of the batteries which
+command the roadstead of Valparaiso. The officer who had identified him
+had gone on without listening to his protestations. His doom was sealed;
+his hands were tied very tightly together behind his back; his body was
+sore all over from the many blows with sticks and butts of muskets which
+had hurried him along on the painful road from the place of his capture
+to the gate of the fort. This was the only kind of systematic attention
+the prisoners had received from their escort during a four days' journey
+across a scantily watered tract of country. At the crossings of rare
+streams they were permitted to quench their thirst by lapping hurriedly
+like dogs. In the evening a few scraps of meat were thrown amongst
+them as they dropped down dead-beat upon the stony ground of the
+halting-place.
+
+As he stood in the courtyard of the castle in the early morning, after
+having been driven hard all night, Gaspar Ruiz's throat was parched, and
+his tongue felt very large and dry in his mouth.
+
+And Gaspar Ruiz, besides being very thirsty, was stirred by a feeling
+of sluggish anger, which he could not very well express, as though the
+vigour of his spirit were by no means equal to the strength of his body.
+
+The other prisoners in the batch of the condemned hung their heads,
+looking obstinately on the ground. But Gaspar Ruiz kept on repeating:
+"What should I desert for to the Royalists? Why should I desert? Tell
+me, Estaban!"
+
+He addressed himself to the sergeant, who happened to belong to the same
+part of the country as himself. But the sergeant, after shrugging his
+meagre shoulders once, paid no further attention to the deep murmuring
+voice at his back. It was indeed strange that Gaspar Ruiz should desert.
+His people were in too humble a station to feel much the disadvantages
+of any form of government. There was no reason why Gaspar Ruiz should
+wish to uphold in his own person the rule of the King of Spain. Neither
+had he been anxious to exert himself for its subversion. He had joined
+the side of Independence in an extremely reasonable and natural manner.
+A band of patriots appeared one morning early, surrounding his father's
+ranche, spearing the watch-dogs and ham-stringing a fat cow all in the
+twinkling of an eye, to the cries of "Viva la Libertad!" Their officer
+discoursed of Liberty with enthusiasm and eloquence after a long and
+refreshing sleep. When they left in the evening, taking with them some
+of Ruiz, the father's, best horses to replace their own lamed animals,
+Gaspar Ruiz went away with them, having been invited pressingly to do so
+by the eloquent officer.
+
+Shortly afterwards a detachment of Royalist troops coming to pacify the
+district, burnt the ranche, carried off the remaining horses and
+cattle, and having thus deprived the old people of all their worldly
+possessions, left them sitting under a bush in the enjoyment of the
+inestimable boon of life.
+
+
+II
+
+
+Gaspar Ruiz, condemned to death as a deserter, was not thinking either
+of his native place or of his parents, to whom he had been a good son on
+account of the mildness of his character and the great strength of his
+limbs. The practical advantage of this last was made still more
+valuable to his father by his obedient disposition. Gaspar Ruiz had an
+acquiescent soul.
+
+But it was stirred now to a sort of dim revolt by his dislike to die the
+death of a traitor. He was not a traitor. He said again to the sergeant:
+"You know I did not desert, Estaban. You know I remained behind amongst
+the trees with three others to keep the enemy back while the detachment
+was running away!"
+
+Lieutenant Santierra, little more than a boy at the time, and unused as
+yet to the sanguinary imbecilities of a state of war, had lingered
+near by, as if fascinated by the sight of these men who were to be shot
+presently--"for an example"--as the Commandante had said.
+
+The sergeant, without deigning to look at the prisoner, addressed
+himself to the young officer with a superior smile.
+
+"Ten men would not have been enough to make him a prisoner, mi teniente.
+Moreover, the other three rejoined the detachment after dark. Why should
+he, unwounded and the strongest of them all, have failed to do so?"
+
+"My strength is as nothing against a mounted man with a lasso," Gaspar
+Ruiz protested, eagerly. "He dragged me behind his horse for half a
+mile."
+
+At this excellent reason the sergeant only laughed contemptuously. The
+young officer hurried away after the Commandante.
+
+Presently the adjutant of the castle came by. He was a truculent,
+raw-boned man in a ragged uniform. His spluttering voice issued out of
+a flat yellow face. The sergeant learned from him that the condemned men
+would not be shot till sunset. He begged then to know what he was to do
+with them meantime.
+
+The adjutant looked savagely round the courtyard and, pointing to the
+door of a small dungeon-like guardroom, receiving light and air through
+one heavily barred window, said: "Drive the scoundrels in there."
+
+The sergeant, tightening his grip upon the stick he carried in virtue
+of his rank, executed this order with alacrity and zeal. He hit Gaspar
+Ruiz, whose movements were slow, over his head and shoulders. Gaspar
+Ruiz stood still for a moment under the shower of blows, biting his
+lip thoughtfully as if absorbed by a perplexing mental process--then
+followed the others without haste. The door was locked, and the adjutant
+carried off the key.
+
+By noon the heat of that vaulted place crammed to suffocation had become
+unbearable. The prisoners crowded towards the window, begging their
+guards for a drop of water; but the soldiers remained lying in indolent
+attitudes wherever there was a little shade under a wall, while the
+sentry sat with his back against the door smoking a cigarette, and
+raising his eyebrows philosophically from time to time. Gaspar Ruiz
+had pushed his way to the window with irresistible force. His capacious
+chest needed more air than the others; his big face, resting with its
+chin on the ledge, pressed close to the bars, seemed to support the
+other faces crowding up for breath. From moaned entreaties they had
+passed to desperate cries, and the tumultuous howling of those thirsty
+men obliged a young officer who was just then crossing the courtyard to
+shout in order to make himself heard.
+
+"Why don't you give some water to these prisoners?"
+
+The sergeant, with an air of surprised innocence, excused himself by the
+remark that all those men were condemned to die in a very few hours.
+
+Lieutenant Santierra stamped his foot. "They are condemned to death, not
+to torture," he shouted. "Give them some water at once."
+
+Impressed by this appearance of anger, the soldiers bestirred
+themselves, and the sentry, snatching up his musket, stood to attention.
+
+But when a couple of buckets were found and filled from the well, it was
+discovered that they could not be passed through the bars, which were
+set too close. At the prospect of quenching their thirst, the shrieks of
+those trampled down in the struggle to get near the opening became very
+heartrending. But when the soldiers who had lifted the buckets towards
+the window put them to the ground again helplessly, the yell of
+disappointment was still more terrible.
+
+The soldiers of the army of Independence were not equipped with
+canteens. A small tin cup was found, but its approach to the opening
+caused such a commotion, such yells of rage and pain in the vague mass
+of limbs behind the straining faces at the window, that Lieutenant
+Santierra cried out hurriedly, "No, no--you must open the door,
+sergeant."
+
+The sergeant, shrugging his shoulders, explained that he had no right
+to open the door even if he had had the key. But he had not the key.
+The adjutant of the garrison kept the key. Those men were giving much
+unnecessary trouble, since they had to die at sunset in any case.
+Why they had not been shot at once early in the morning he could not
+understand.
+
+Lieutenant Santierra kept his back studiously to the window. It was
+at his earnest solicitations that the Commandante had delayed the
+execution. This favour had been granted to him in consideration of
+his distinguished family and of his father's high position amongst the
+chiefs of the Republican party. Lieutenant Santierra believed that the
+General commanding would visit the fort some time in the afternoon,
+and he ingenuously hoped that his naive intercession would induce
+that severe man to pardon some, at least, of those criminals. In the
+revulsion of his feeling his interference stood revealed now as guilty
+and futile meddling. It appeared to him obvious that the general would
+never even consent to listen to his petition. He could never save those
+men, and he had only made himself responsible for the sufferings added
+to the cruelty of their fate.
+
+"Then go at once and get the key from the adjutant," said Lieutenant
+Santierra.
+
+The sergeant shook his head with a sort of bashful smile, while his eyes
+glanced sideways at Gaspar Ruiz's face, motionless and silent, staring
+through the bars at the bottom of a heap of other haggard, distorted,
+yelling faces.
+
+His worship the adjutant de Plaza, the sergeant murmured, was having his
+siesta; and supposing that he, the sergeant, would be allowed access to
+him, the only result he expected would be to have his soul flogged out
+of his body for presuming to disturb his worship's repose. He made a
+deprecatory movement with his hands, and stood stock-still, looking down
+modestly upon his brown toes.
+
+Lieutenant Santierra glared with indignation, but hesitated. His
+handsome oval face, as smooth as a girl's, flushed with the shame of
+his perplexity. Its nature humiliated his spirit. His hairless upper lip
+trembled; he seemed on the point of either bursting into a fit of rage
+or into tears of dismay.
+
+Fifty years later, General Santierra, the venerable relic of
+revolutionary times, was well able to remember the feelings of the
+young lieutenant. Since he had given up riding altogether, and found
+it difficult to walk beyond the limits of his garden, the general's
+greatest delight was to entertain in his house the officers of the
+foreign men-of-war visiting the harbour. For Englishmen he had a
+preference, as for old companions in arms. English naval men of all
+ranks accepted his hospitality with curiosity, because he had known Lord
+Cochrane and had taken part, on board the patriot squadron commanded
+by that marvellous seaman, in the cutting out and blockading operations
+before Callao--an episode of unalloyed glory in the wars of Independence
+and of endless honour in the fighting tradition of Englishmen. He was a
+fair linguist, this ancient survivor of the Liberating armies. A trick
+of smoothing his long white beard whenever he was short of a word in
+French or English imparted an air of leisurely dignity to the tone of
+his reminiscences.
+
+
+III
+
+
+"Yes, my friends," he used to say to his guests, "what would you have?
+A youth of seventeen summers, without worldly experience, and owing
+my rank only to the glorious patriotism of my father, may God rest his
+soul. I suffered immense humiliation, not so much from the disobedience
+of that subordinate, who, after all, was responsible for those
+prisoners; but I suffered because, like the boy I was, I myself dreaded
+going to the adjutant for the key. I had felt, before, his rough and
+cutting tongue. Being quite a common fellow, with no merit except his
+savage valour, he made me feel his contempt and dislike from the
+first day I joined my battalion in garrison at the fort. It was only
+a fortnight before! I would have confronted him sword in hand, but I
+shrank from the mocking brutality of his sneers.
+
+"I don't remember having been so miserable in my life before or since.
+The torment of my sensibility was so great that I wished the sergeant to
+fall dead at my feet, and the stupid soldiers who stared at me to
+turn into corpses; and even those wretches for whom my entreaties had
+procured a reprieve I wished dead also, because I could not face them
+without shame. A mephitic heat like a whiff of air from hell came out of
+that dark place in which they were confined. Those at the window who had
+heard what was going on jeered at me in very desperation: one of these
+fellows, gone mad no doubt, kept on urging me volubly to order the
+soldiers to fire through the window. His insane loquacity made my heart
+turn faint. And my feet were like lead. There was no higher officer to
+whom I could appeal. I had not even the firmness of spirit to simply go
+away.
+
+"Benumbed by my remorse, I stood with my back to the window. You must
+not suppose that all this lasted a long time. How long could it have
+been? A minute? If you measured by mental suffering it was like a
+hundred years; a longer time than all my life has been since. No,
+certainly, it was not so much as a minute. The hoarse screaming of those
+miserable wretches died out in their dry throats, and then suddenly a
+voice spoke, a deep voice muttering calmly. It called upon me to turn
+round.
+
+"That voice, senores, proceeded from the head of Gaspar Ruiz. Of his
+body I could see nothing. Some of his fellow-captives had clambered upon
+his back. He was holding them up. His eyes blinked without looking at
+me. That and the moving of his lips was all he seemed able to manage in
+his overloaded state. And when I turned round, this head, that seemed
+more than human size resting on its chin under a multitude of other
+heads, asked me whether I really desired to quench the thirst of the
+captives.
+
+"I said, 'Yes, yes!' eagerly, and came up quite close to the window. I
+was like a child, and did not know what would happen. I was anxious to
+be comforted in my helplessness and remorse.
+
+"'Have you the authority, Senor teniente, to release my wrists from
+their bonds?' Gaspar Ruiz's head asked me.
+
+"His features expressed no anxiety, no hope; his heavy eyelids blinked
+upon his eyes that looked past me straight into the courtyard.
+
+"As if in an ugly dream, I spoke, stammering: 'What do you mean? And how
+can I reach the bonds on your wrists?'
+
+"'I will try what I can do,' he said; and then that large staring
+head moved at last, and all the wild faces piled up in that window
+disappeared, tumbling down. He had shaken his load off with one
+movement, so strong he was.
+
+"And he had not only shaken it off, but he got free of the crush and
+vanished from my sight. For a moment there was no one at all to be seen
+at the window. He had swung about, butting and shouldering, clearing
+a space for himself in the only way he could do it with his hands tied
+behind his back.
+
+"Finally, backing to the opening, he pushed out to me between the bars
+his wrists, lashed with many turns of rope. His hands, very swollen,
+with knotted veins, looked enormous and unwieldy. I saw his bent back.
+It was very broad. His voice was like the muttering of a bull.
+
+"'Cut, Senor teniente. Cut!'
+
+"I drew my sword, my new unblunted sword that had seen no service as
+yet, and severed the many turns of the hide rope. I did this without
+knowing the why and the wherefore of my action, but as it were compelled
+by my faith in that man. The sergeant made as if to cry out, but
+astonishment deprived him of his voice, and he remained standing with
+his mouth open as if overtaken by sudden imbecility.
+
+"I sheathed my sword and faced the soldiers. An air of awestruck
+expectation had replaced their usual listless apathy. I heard the voice
+of Gaspar Ruiz shouting inside, but the words I could not make out
+plainly. I suppose that to see him with his arms free augmented the
+influence of his strength: I mean by this, the spiritual influence that
+with ignorant people attaches to an exceptional degree of bodily vigour.
+In fact, he was no more to be feared than before, on account of the
+numbness of his arms and hands, which lasted for some time.
+
+"The sergeant had recovered his power of speech. 'By all the saints!'
+he cried, 'we shall have to get a cavalry man with a lasso to secure him
+again, if he is to be led to the place of execution. Nothing less than a
+good enlazador on a good horse can subdue him. Your worship was pleased
+to perform a very mad thing.'
+
+"I had nothing to say. I was surprised myself, and I felt a childish
+curiosity to see what would happen next. But the sergeant was thinking
+of the difficulty of controlling Gaspar Ruiz when the time for making an
+example would come.
+
+"'Or perhaps,' the sergeant pursued, vexedly, 'we shall be obliged to
+shoot him down as he dashes out when the door is opened.' He was going
+to give further vent to his anxieties as to the proper carrying out
+of the sentence; but he interrupted himself with a sudden exclamation,
+snatched a musket from a soldier, and stood watchful with his eyes fixed
+on the window."
+
+
+IV
+
+
+"Gaspar Ruiz had clambered up on the sill, and sat down there with his
+feet against the thickness of the wall and his knees slightly bent.
+The window was not quite broad enough for the length of his legs. It
+appeared to my crestfallen perception that he meant to keep the window
+all to himself. He seemed to be taking up a comfortable position. Nobody
+inside dared to approach him now he could strike with his hands.
+
+"'Por Dios!' I heard the sergeant muttering at my elbow, 'I shall shoot
+him through the head now, and get rid of that trouble. He is a condemned
+man.'
+
+"At that I looked at him angrily. 'The general has not confirmed the
+sentence,' I said--though I knew well in my heart that these were but
+vain words. The sentence required no confirmation. 'You have no right to
+shoot him unless he tries to escape,' I added, firmly.
+
+"'But sangre de Dios!' the sergeant yelled out, bringing his musket up
+to the shoulder, 'he is escaping now. Look!'
+
+"But I, as if that Gaspar Ruiz had cast a spell upon me, struck the
+musket upward, and the bullet flew over the roofs somewhere. The
+sergeant dashed his arm to the ground and stared. He might have
+commanded the soldiers to fire, but he did not. And if he had he would
+not have been obeyed, I think, just then.
+
+"With his feet against the thickness of the wall and his hairy hands
+grasping the iron bar, Gaspar sat still. It was an attitude. Nothing
+happened for a time. And suddenly it dawned upon us that he was
+straightening his bowed back and contracting his arms. His lips were
+twisted into a snarl. Next thing we perceived was that the bar of forged
+iron was being bent slowly by the mightiness of his pull. The sun
+was beating full upon his cramped, unquivering figure. A shower of
+sweat-drops burst out of his forehead. Watching the bar grow crooked, I
+saw a little blood ooze from under his finger-nails. Then he let go.
+For a moment he remained all huddled up, with a hanging head, looking
+drowsily into the upturned palms of his mighty hands. Indeed he seemed
+to have dozed off. Suddenly he flung himself backwards on the sill, and
+setting the soles of his bare feet against the other middle bar, he bent
+that one, too, but in the opposite direction from the first.
+
+"Such was his strength, which in this case relieved my painful feelings.
+And the man seemed to have done nothing. Except for the change of
+position in order to use his feet, which made us all start by its
+swiftness, my recollection is that of immobility. But he had bent the
+bars wide apart. And now he could get out if he liked; but he dropped
+his legs inwards, and looking over his shoulder beckoned to the
+soldiers. 'Hand up the water,' he said. 'I will give them all a drink.'
+
+"He was obeyed. For a moment I expected man and bucket to disappear,
+overwhelmed by the rush of eagerness; I thought they would pull him down
+with their teeth. There was a rush, but holding the bucket on his lap he
+repulsed the assault of those wretches by the mere swinging of his feet.
+They flew backwards at every kick, yelling with pain; and the soldiers
+laughed, gazing at the window.
+
+"They all laughed, holding their sides, except the sergeant, who was
+gloomy and morose. He was afraid the prisoners would rise and break
+out--which would have been a bad example. But there was no fear of
+that, and I stood myself before the window with my drawn sword. When
+sufficiently tamed by the strength of Gaspar Ruiz they came up one by
+one, stretching their necks and presenting their lips to the edge of the
+bucket which the strong man tilted towards them from his knees with
+an extraordinary air of charity, gentleness, and compassion. That
+benevolent appearance was of course the effect of his care in not
+spilling the water and of his attitude as he sat on the sill; for, if a
+man lingered with his lips glued to the rim of the bucket after Gaspar
+Ruiz had said 'You have had enough,' there would be no tenderness or
+mercy in the shove of the foot which would send him groaning and doubled
+up far into the interior of the prison, where he would knock down two
+or three others before he fell himself. They came up to him again and
+again; it looked as if they meant to drink the well dry before going to
+their death; but the soldiers were so amused by Gaspar Ruiz's systematic
+proceedings that they carried the water up to the window cheerfully.
+
+"When the adjutant came out after his siesta there was some trouble over
+this affair, I can assure you. And the worst of it was that the general
+whom we expected never came to the castle that day."
+
+The guests of General Santierra unanimously expressed their regret that
+the man of such strength and patience had not been saved.
+
+"He was not saved by my interference," said the General. "The prisoners
+were led to execution half an hour before sunset. Gaspar Ruiz, contrary
+to the sergeant's apprehensions, gave no trouble. There was no necessity
+to get a cavalry man with a lasso in order to subdue him, as if he were
+a wild bull of the campo. I believe he marched out with his arms free
+amongst the others who were bound. I did not see. I was not there. I had
+been put under arrest for interfering with the prisoner's guard. About
+dusk, sitting dismally in my quarters, I heard three volleys fired, and
+thought that I should never hear of Gaspar Ruiz again. He fell with the
+others. But we were to hear of him nevertheless, though the sergeant
+boasted that as he lay on his face expiring or dead in the heap of the
+slain, he had slashed his neck with a sword. He had done this, he said,
+to make sure of ridding the world of a dangerous traitor.
+
+"I confess to you, senores, that I thought of that strong man with a
+sort of gratitude, and with some admiration. He had used his strength
+honourably. There dwelt, then, in his soul no fierceness corresponding
+to the vigour of his body."
+
+
+V
+
+
+Gaspar Ruiz, who could with ease bend apart the heavy iron bars of the
+prison, was led out with others to summary execution. "Every bullet has
+its billet," runs the proverb. All the merit of proverbs consists in
+the concise and picturesque expression. In the surprise of our minds is
+found their persuasiveness. In other words, we are struck and convinced
+by the shock.
+
+What surprises us is the form, not the substance. Proverbs are
+art--cheap art. As a general rule they are not true; unless indeed they
+happen to be mere platitudes, as for instance the proverb, "Half a
+loaf is better than no bread," or "A miss is as good as a mile." Some
+proverbs are simply imbecile, others are immoral. That one evolved out
+of the naive heart of the great Russian people, "Man discharges the
+piece, but God carries the bullet," is piously atrocious, and at bitter
+variance with the accepted conception of a compassionate God. It would
+indeed be an inconsistent occupation for the Guardian of the poor, the
+innocent, and the helpless, to carry the bullet, for instance, into the
+heart of a father.
+
+Gaspar Ruiz was childless, he had no wife, he had never been in love.
+He had hardly ever spoken to a woman, beyond his mother and the ancient
+negress of the household, whose wrinkled skin was the colour of cinders,
+and whose lean body was bent double from age. If some bullets from those
+muskets fired off at fifteen paces were specifically destined for
+the heart of Gaspar Ruiz, they all missed their billet. One, however,
+carried away a small piece of his ear, and another a fragment of flesh
+from his shoulder.
+
+A red and unclouded sun setting into a purple ocean looked with a fiery
+stare upon the enormous wall of the Cordilleras, worthy witnesses of his
+glorious extinction. But it is inconceivable that it should have seen
+the ant-like men busy with their absurd and insignificant trials of
+killing and dying for reasons that, apart from being generally childish,
+were also imperfectly understood. It did light up, however, the backs
+of the firing party and the faces of the condemned men. Some of them
+had fallen on their knees, others remained standing, a few averted their
+heads from the levelled barrels of muskets. Gaspar Ruiz, upright, the
+burliest of them all, hung his big shock head. The low sun dazzled him a
+little, and he counted himself a dead man already.
+
+He fell at the first discharge. He fell because he thought he was a dead
+man. He struck the ground heavily. The jar of the fall surprised him.
+"I am not dead apparently," he thought to himself, when he heard the
+execution platoon reloading its arms at the word of command. It was then
+that the hope of escape dawned upon him for the first time. He remained
+lying stretched out with rigid limbs under the weight of two bodies
+collapsed crosswise upon his back.
+
+By the time the soldiers had fired a third volley into the slightly
+stirring heaps of the slain, the sun had gone out of sight, and almost
+immediately with the darkening of the ocean dusk fell upon the coasts of
+the young Republic. Above the gloom of the lowlands the snowy peaks
+of the Cordilleras remained luminous and crimson for a long time. The
+soldiers before marching back to the fort sat down to smoke.
+
+The sergeant with a naked sword in his hand strolled away by himself
+along the heap of the dead. He was a humane man, and watched for any
+stir or twitch of limb in the merciful idea of plunging the point of his
+blade into any body giving the slightest sign of life. But none of the
+bodies afforded him an opportunity for the display of this charitable
+intention. Not a muscle twitched amongst them, not even the powerful
+muscles of Gaspar Ruiz, who, deluged with the blood of his neighbours
+and shamming death, strove to appear more lifeless than the others.
+
+He was lying face down. The sergeant recognized him by his stature, and
+being himself a very small man, looked with envy and contempt at the
+prostration of so much strength. He had always disliked that particular
+soldier. Moved by an obscure animosity, he inflicted a long gash across
+the neck of Gaspar Ruiz, with some vague notion of making sure of that
+strong man's death, as if a powerful physique were more able to resist
+the bullets. For the sergeant had no doubt that Gaspar Ruiz had been
+shot through in many places. Then he passed on, and shortly afterwards
+marched off with his men, leaving the bodies to the care of crows and
+vultures.
+
+Gaspar Ruiz had restrained a cry, though it had seemed to him that his
+head was cut off at a blow; and when darkness came, shaking off the
+dead, whose weight had oppressed him, he crawled away over the plain on
+his hands and knees. After drinking deeply, like a wounded beast, at
+a shallow stream, he assumed an upright posture, and staggered on
+light-headed and aimless, as if lost amongst the stars of the clear
+night. A small house seemed to rise out of the ground before him. He
+stumbled into the porch and struck at the door with his fist. There
+was not a gleam of light. Gaspar Ruiz might have thought that the
+inhabitants had fled from it, as from many others in the neighbourhood,
+had it not been for the shouts of abuse that answered his thumping. In
+his feverish and enfeebled state the angry screaming seemed to him part
+of a hallucination belonging to the weird, dreamlike feeling of his
+unexpected condemnation to death, of the thirst suffered, of the volleys
+fired at him within fifteen paces, of his head being cut off at a blow.
+"Open the door!" he cried. "Open in the name of God!"
+
+An infuriated voice from within jeered at him: "Come in, come in. This
+house belongs to you. All this land belongs to you. Come and take it."
+
+"For the love of God," Gaspar Ruiz murmured.
+
+"Does not all the land belong to you patriots?" the voice on the other
+side of the door screamed on. "Are you not a patriot?"
+
+Gaspar Ruiz did not know. "I am a wounded man," he said, apathetically.
+
+All became still inside. Gaspar Ruiz lost the hope of being admitted,
+and lay down under the porch just outside the door. He was utterly
+careless of what was going to happen to him. All his consciousness
+seemed to be concentrated in his neck, where he felt a severe pain. His
+indifference as to his fate was genuine. The day was breaking when he
+awoke from a feverish doze; the door at which he had knocked in the dark
+stood wide open now, and a girl, steadying herself with her outspread
+arms, leaned over the threshold. Lying on his back, he stared up at her.
+Her face was pale and her eyes were very dark; her hair hung down black
+as ebony against her white cheeks; her lips were full and red. Beyond
+her he saw another head with long grey hair, and a thin old face with a
+pair of anxiously clasped hands under the chin.
+
+
+VI
+
+
+"I knew those people by sight," General Santierra would tell his guests
+at the dining-table. "I mean the people with whom Gaspar Ruiz found
+shelter. The father was an old Spaniard, a man of property ruined by the
+revolution. His estates, his house in town, his money, everything he had
+in the world had been confiscated by proclamation, for he was a bitter
+foe of our independence. From a position of great dignity and influence
+on the Viceroy's Council he became of less importance than his own negro
+slaves made free by our glorious revolution. He had not even the means
+to flee the country, as other Spaniards had managed to do. It may be
+that, wandering ruined and houseless, and burdened with nothing but
+his life, which was left to him by the clemency of the Provisional
+Government, he had simply walked under that broken roof of old tiles. It
+was a lonely spot. There did not seem to be even a dog belonging to the
+place. But though the roof had holes, as if a cannon-ball or two had
+dropped through it, the wooden shutters were thick and tight-closed all
+the time.
+
+"My way took me frequently along the path in front of that miserable
+rancho. I rode from the fort to the town almost every evening, to sigh
+at the window of a lady I was in love with, then. When one is young, you
+understand. . . . She was a good patriot, you may believe. Caballeros,
+credit me or not, political feeling ran so high in those days that I
+do not believe I could have been fascinated by the charms of a woman of
+Royalist opinions. . . ."
+
+Murmurs of amused incredulity all round the table interrupted the
+General; and while they lasted he stroked his white beard gravely.
+
+"Senores," he protested, "a Royalist was a monster to our overwrought
+feelings. I am telling you this in order not to be suspected of the
+slightest tenderness towards that old Royalist's daughter. Moreover,
+as you know, my affections were engaged elsewhere. But I could not help
+noticing her on rare occasions when with the front door open she stood
+in the porch.
+
+"You must know that this old Royalist was as crazy as a man can be. His
+political misfortunes, his total downfall and ruin, had disordered his
+mind. To show his contempt for what we patriots could do, he affected to
+laugh at his imprisonment, at the confiscation of his lands, the burning
+of his houses, and at the misery to which he and his womenfolk were
+reduced. This habit of laughing had grown upon him, so that he would
+begin to laugh and shout directly he caught sight of any stranger. That
+was the form of his madness.
+
+"I, of course, disregarded the noise of that madman with that feeling of
+superiority the success of our cause inspired in us Americans. I suppose
+I really despised him because he was an old Castilian, a Spaniard born,
+and a Royalist. Those were certainly no reasons to scorn a man; but for
+centuries Spaniards born had shown their contempt of us Americans, men
+as well descended as themselves, simply because we were what they
+called colonists. We had been kept in abasement and made to feel our
+inferiority in social intercourse. And now it was our turn. It was safe
+for us patriots to display the same sentiments; and I being a young
+patriot, son of a patriot, despised that old Spaniard, and despising
+him I naturally disregarded his abuse, though it was annoying to my
+feelings. Others perhaps would not have been so forbearing.
+
+"He would begin with a great yell--'I see a patriot. Another of them!'
+long before I came abreast of the house. The tone of his senseless
+revilings, mingled with bursts of laughter, was sometimes piercingly
+shrill and sometimes grave. It was all very mad; but I felt it incumbent
+upon my dignity to check my horse to a walk without even glancing
+towards the house, as if that man's abusive clamour in the porch
+were less than the barking of a cur. Always I rode by preserving an
+expression of haughty indifference on my face.
+
+"It was no doubt very dignified; but I should have done better if I
+had kept my eyes open. A military man in war time should never consider
+himself off duty; and especially so if the war is a revolutionary war,
+when the enemy is not at the door, but within your very house. At such
+times the heat of passionate convictions passing into hatred, removes
+the restraints of honour and humanity from many men and of delicacy and
+fear from some women. These last, when once they throw off the timidity
+and reserve of their sex, become by the vivacity of their intelligence
+and the violence of their merciless resentment more dangerous than so
+many armed giants."
+
+The General's voice rose, but his big hand stroked his white beard twice
+with an effect of venerable calmness. "Si, Senores! Women are ready to
+rise to the heights of devotion unattainable by us men, or to sink into
+the depths of abasement which amazes our masculine prejudices. I am
+speaking now of exceptional women, you understand. . . ."
+
+Here one of the guests observed that he had never met a woman yet who
+was not capable of turning out quite exceptional under circumstances
+that would engage her feelings strongly. "That sort of superiority in
+recklessness they have over us," he concluded, "makes of them the more
+interesting half of mankind."
+
+The General, who bore the interruption with gravity, nodded courteous
+assent. "Si. Si. Under circumstances. . . . Precisely. They can do an
+infinite deal of mischief sometimes in quite unexpected ways. For who
+could have imagined that a young girl, daughter of a ruined Royalist
+whose life was held only by the contempt of his enemies, would have had
+the power to bring death and devastation upon two flourishing provinces
+and cause serious anxiety to the leaders of the revolution in the very
+hour of its success!" He paused to let the wonder of it penetrate our
+minds.
+
+"Death and devastation," somebody murmured in surprise: "how shocking!"
+
+The old General gave a glance in the direction of the murmur and went
+on. "Yes. That is, war--calamity. But the means by which she obtained
+the power to work this havoc on our southern frontier seem to me, who
+have seen her and spoken to her, still more shocking. That particular
+thing left on my mind a dreadful amazement which the further experience
+of life, of more than fifty years, has done nothing to diminish." He
+looked round as if to make sure of our attention, and, in a changed
+voice: "I am, as you know, a republican, son of a Liberator," he
+declared. "My incomparable mother, God rest her soul, was a Frenchwoman,
+the daughter of an ardent republican. As a boy I fought for liberty;
+I've always believed in the equality of men; and as to their
+brotherhood, that, to my mind, is even more certain. Look at the fierce
+animosity they display in their differences. And what in the world do
+you know that is more bitterly fierce than brothers' quarrels?"
+
+All absence of cynicism checked an inclination to smile at this view of
+human brotherhood. On the contrary, there was in the tone the melancholy
+natural to a man profoundly humane at heart who from duty, from
+conviction, and from necessity, had played his part in scenes of
+ruthless violence.
+
+The General had seen much of fratricidal strife. "Certainly. There is no
+doubt of their brotherhood," he insisted. "All men are brothers, and
+as such know almost too much of each other. But"--and here in the
+old patriarchal head, white as silver, the black eyes humorously
+twinkled--"if we are all brothers, all the women are not our sisters."
+
+One of the younger guests was heard murmuring his satisfaction at the
+fact. But the General continued, with deliberate earnestness: "They are
+so different! The tale of a king who took a beggar-maid for a partner of
+his throne may be pretty enough as we men look upon ourselves and upon
+love. But that a young girl, famous for her haughty beauty and, only
+a short time before, the admired of all at the balls in the Viceroy's
+palace, should take by the hand a guasso, a common peasant, is
+intolerable to our sentiment of women and their love. It is madness.
+Nevertheless it happened. But it must be said that in her case it was
+the madness of hate--not of love."
+
+After presenting this excuse in a spirit of chivalrous justice, the
+General remained silent for a time. "I rode past the house every day
+almost," he began again, "and this was what was going on within. But how
+it was going on no mind of man can conceive. Her desperation must
+have been extreme, and Gaspar Ruiz was a docile fellow. He had been an
+obedient soldier. His strength was like an enormous stone lying on the
+ground, ready to be hurled this way or that by the hand that picks it
+up.
+
+"It is clear that he would tell his story to the people who gave him
+the shelter he needed. And he needed assistance badly. His wound was not
+dangerous, but his life was forfeited. The old Royalist being wrapped up
+in his laughing madness, the two women arranged a hiding-place for the
+wounded man in one of the huts amongst the fruit trees at the back of
+the house. That hovel, an abundance of clear water while the fever was
+on him, and some words of pity were all they could give. I suppose
+he had a share of what food there was. And it would be but little: a
+handful of roasted corn, perhaps a dish of beans, or a piece of bread
+with a few figs. To such misery were those proud and once wealthy people
+reduced."
+
+
+VII
+
+
+General Santierra was right in his surmise. Such was the exact nature of
+the assistance which Gaspar Ruiz, peasant son of peasants, received
+from the Royalist family whose daughter had opened the door of their
+miserable refuge to his extreme distress. Her sombre resolution ruled
+the madness of her father and the trembling bewilderment of her mother.
+
+She had asked the strange man on the doorstep, "Who wounded you?"
+
+"The soldiers, senora," Gaspar Ruiz had answered, in a faint voice.
+
+"Patriots?"
+
+"Si."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Deserter," he gasped, leaning against the wall under the scrutiny of
+her black eyes. "I was left for dead over there."
+
+She led him through the house out to a small hut of clay and reeds, lost
+in the long grass of the overgrown orchard. He sank on a heap of maize
+straw in a corner, and sighed profoundly.
+
+"No one will look for you here," she said, looking down at him. "Nobody
+comes near us. We, too, have been left for dead--here."
+
+He stirred uneasily on his heap of dirty straw, and the pain in his neck
+made him groan deliriously.
+
+"I shall show Estaban some day that I am alive yet," he mumbled.
+
+He accepted her assistance in silence, and the many days of pain went
+by. Her appearances in the hut brought him relief and became connected
+with the feverish dreams of angels which visited his couch; for Gaspar
+Ruiz was instructed in the mysteries of his religion, and had even
+been taught to read and write a little by the priest of his village. He
+waited for her with impatience, and saw her pass out of the dark hut and
+disappear in the brilliant sunshine with poignant regret. He discovered
+that, while he lay there feeling so very weak, he could, by closing his
+eyes, evoke her face with considerable distinctness. And this discovered
+faculty charmed the long, solitary hours of his convalescence. Later on,
+when he began to regain his strength, he would creep at dusk from his
+hut to the house and sit on the step of the garden door.
+
+In one of the rooms the mad father paced to and fro, muttering to
+himself with short, abrupt laughs. In the passage, sitting on a
+stool, the mother sighed and moaned. The daughter, in rough threadbare
+clothing, and her white haggard face half hidden by a coarse manta,
+stood leaning against the side of the door. Gaspar Ruiz, with his elbows
+propped on his knees and his head resting in his hands, talked to the
+two women in an undertone.
+
+The common misery of destitution would have made a bitter mockery of a
+marked insistence on social differences. Gaspar Ruiz understood this in
+his simplicity. From his captivity amongst the Royalists he could give
+them news of people they knew. He described their appearance; and when
+he related the story of the battle in which he was recaptured the two
+women lamented the blow to their cause and the ruin of their secret
+hopes.
+
+He had no feeling either way. But he felt a great devotion for that
+young girl. In his desire to appear worthy of her condescension, he
+boasted a little of his bodily strength. He had nothing else to boast
+of. Because of that quality his comrades treated him with as great a
+deference, he explained, as though he had been a sergeant, both in camp
+and in battle.
+
+"I could always get as many as I wanted to follow me anywhere, senorita.
+I ought to have been made an officer, because I can read and write."
+
+Behind him the silent old lady fetched a moaning sigh from time to time;
+the distracted father muttered to himself, pacing the sala; and Gaspar
+Ruiz would raise his eyes now and then to look at the daughter of these
+people.
+
+He would look at her with curiosity because she was alive, and also with
+that feeling of familiarity and awe with which he had contemplated
+in churches the inanimate and powerful statues of the saints, whose
+protection is invoked in dangers and difficulties. His difficulty was
+very great.
+
+He could not remain hiding in an orchard for ever and ever. He knew also
+very well that before he had gone half a day's journey in any direction,
+he would be picked up by one of the cavalry patrols scouring the
+country, and brought into one or another of the camps where the patriot
+army destined for the liberation of Peru was collected. There he
+would in the end be recognized as Gaspar Ruiz--the deserter to the
+Royalists--and no doubt shot very effectually this time. There did not
+seem any place in the world for the innocent Gaspar Ruiz anywhere.
+And at this thought his simple soul surrendered itself to gloom and
+resentment as black as night.
+
+They had made him a soldier forcibly. He did not mind being a soldier.
+And he had been a good soldier as he had been a good son, because of his
+docility and his strength. But now there was no use for either. They had
+taken him from his parents, and he could no longer be a soldier--not a
+good soldier at any rate. Nobody would listen to his explanations. What
+injustice it was! What injustice!
+
+And in a mournful murmur he would go over the story of his capture and
+recapture for the twentieth time. Then, raising his eyes to the silent
+girl in the doorway, "Si, senorita," he would say with a deep sigh,
+"injustice has made this poor breath in my body quite worthless to me
+and to anybody else. And I do not care who robs me of it."
+
+One evening, as he exhaled thus the plaint of his wounded soul, she
+condescended to say that, if she were a man, she would consider no life
+worthless which held the possibility of revenge.
+
+She seemed to be speaking to herself. Her voice was low. He drank in the
+gentle, as if dreamy sound with a consciousness of peculiar delight of
+something warming his breast like a draught of generous wine.
+
+"True, Senorita," he said, raising his face up to hers slowly: "there is
+Estaban, who must be shown that I am not dead after all."
+
+The mutterings of the mad father had ceased long before; the sighing
+mother had withdrawn somewhere into one of the empty rooms. All was
+still within as well as without, in the moonlight bright as day on the
+wild orchard full of inky shadows. Gaspar Ruiz saw the dark eyes of Dona
+Erminia look down at him.
+
+"Ah! The sergeant," she muttered, disdainfully.
+
+"Why! He has wounded me with his sword," he protested, bewildered by the
+contempt that seemed to shine livid on her pale face.
+
+She crushed him with her glance. The power of her will to be understood
+was so strong that it kindled in him the intelligence of unexpressed
+things.
+
+"What else did you expect me to do?" he cried, as if suddenly driven to
+despair. "Have I the power to do more? Am I a general with an army at my
+back?--miserable sinner that I am to be despised by you at last."
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+"Senores," related the General to his guests, "though my thoughts were
+of love then, and therefore enchanting, the sight of that house always
+affected me disagreeably, especially in the moonlight, when its close
+shutters and its air of lonely neglect appeared sinister. Still I went
+on using the bridle-path by the ravine, because it was a short cut.
+The mad Royalist howled and laughed at me every evening to his complete
+satisfaction; but after a time, as if wearied with my indifference, he
+ceased to appear in the porch. How they persuaded him to leave off I do
+not know. However, with Gaspar Ruiz in the house there would have been
+no difficulty in restraining him by force. It was now part of their
+policy in there to avoid anything which could provoke me. At least, so I
+suppose.
+
+"Notwithstanding my infatuation with the brightest pair of eyes in
+Chile, I noticed the absence of the old man after a week or so. A few
+more days passed. I began to think that perhaps these Royalists had gone
+away somewhere else. But one evening, as I was hastening towards the
+city, I saw again somebody in the porch. It was not the madman; it was
+the girl. She stood holding on to one of the wooden columns, tall and
+white-faced, her big eyes sunk deep with privation and sorrow. I looked
+hard at her, and she met my stare with a strange, inquisitive look.
+Then, as I turned my head after riding past, she seemed to gather
+courage for the act, and absolutely beckoned me back.
+
+"I obeyed, senores, almost without thinking, so great was my
+astonishment. It was greater still when I heard what she had to say. She
+began by thanking me for my forbearance of her father's infirmity,
+so that I felt ashamed of myself. I had meant to show disdain, not
+forbearance! Every word must have burnt her lips, but she never departed
+from a gentle and melancholy dignity which filled me with respect
+against my will. Senores, we are no match for women. But I could hardly
+believe my ears when she began her tale. Providence, she concluded,
+seemed to have preserved the life of that wronged soldier, who now
+trusted to my honour as a caballero and to my compassion for his
+sufferings.
+
+"'Wronged man,' I observed, coldly. 'Well, I think so, too: and you have
+been harbouring an enemy of your cause.'
+
+"'He was a poor Christian crying for help at our door in the name of
+God, senor,' she answered, simply.
+
+"I began to admire her. 'Where is he now?' I asked, stiffly.
+
+"But she would not answer that question. With extreme cunning, and an
+almost fiendish delicacy, she managed to remind me of my failure in
+saving the lives of the prisoners in the guardroom, without wounding
+my pride. She knew, of course, the whole story. Gaspar Ruiz, she said,
+entreated me to procure for him a safe-conduct from General San
+Martin himself. He had an important communication to make to the
+commander-in-chief.
+
+"Por Dios, senores, she made me swallow all that, pretending to be only
+the mouthpiece of that poor man. Overcome by injustice, he expected to
+find, she said, as much generosity in me as had been shown to him by the
+Royalist family which had given him a refuge.
+
+"Ha! It was well and nobly said to a youngster like me. I thought her
+great. Alas! she was only implacable.
+
+"In the end I rode away very enthusiastic about the business, without
+demanding even to see Gaspar Ruiz, who I was confident was in the house.
+
+"But on calm reflection I began to see some difficulties which I had not
+confidence enough in myself to encounter. It was not easy to approach a
+commander-in-chief with such a story. I feared failure. At last I thought
+it better to lay the matter before my general-of-division, Robles, a
+friend of my family, who had appointed me his aide-de-camp lately.
+
+"He took it out of my hands at once without any ceremony.
+
+"'In the house! of course he is in the house,' he said contemptuously.
+'You ought to have gone sword in hand inside and demanded his surrender,
+instead of chatting with a Royalist girl in the porch. Those people
+should have been hunted out of that long ago. Who knows how many spies
+they have harboured right in the very midst of our camps? A safe-conduct
+from the Commander-in-Chief! The audacity of the fellow! Ha! ha! Now
+we shall catch him to-night, and then we shall find out, without any
+safe-conduct, what he has got to say, that is so very important. Ha! ha!
+ha!'
+
+"General Robles, peace to his soul, was a short, thick man, with round,
+staring eyes, fierce and jovial. Seeing my distress he added:
+
+"'Come, come, chico. I promise you his life if he does not resist. And
+that is not likely. We are not going to break up a good soldier if it
+can be helped. I tell you what! I am curious to see your strong man.
+Nothing but a general will do for the picaro--well, he shall have a
+general to talk to. Ha! ha! I shall go myself to the catching, and you
+are coming with me, of course.'
+
+"And it was done that same night. Early in the evening the house and the
+orchard were surrounded quietly. Later on the General and I left a ball
+we were attending in town and rode out at an easy gallop. At some little
+distance from the house we pulled up. A mounted orderly held our horses.
+A low whistle warned the men watching all along the ravine, and we
+walked up to the porch softly. The barricaded house in the moonlight
+seemed empty.
+
+"The General knocked at the door. After a time a woman's voice within
+asked who was there. My chief nudged me hard. I gasped.
+
+"'It is I, Lieutenant Santierra,' I stammered out, as if choked. 'Open
+the door.'
+
+"It came open slowly. The girl, holding a thin taper in her hand, seeing
+another man with me, began to back away before us slowly, shading the
+light with her hand. Her impassive white face looked ghostly. I followed
+behind General Robles. Her eyes were fixed on mine. I made a gesture of
+helplessness behind my chief's back, trying at the same time to give a
+reassuring expression to my face. None of us three uttered a sound.
+
+"We found ourselves in a room with bare floor and walls. There was a
+rough table and a couple of stools in it, nothing else whatever. An old
+woman with her grey hair hanging loose wrung her hands when we appeared.
+A peal of loud laughter resounded through the empty house, very amazing
+and weird. At this the old woman tried to get past us.
+
+"'Nobody to leave the room,' said General Robles to me.
+
+"I swung the door to, heard the latch click, and the laughter became
+faint in our ears.
+
+"Before another word could be spoken in that room I was amazed by
+hearing the sound of distant thunder.
+
+"I had carried in with me into the house a vivid impression of a
+beautiful clear moonlight night, without a speck of cloud in the sky. I
+could not believe my ears. Sent early abroad for my education, I was not
+familiar with the most dreaded natural phenomenon of my native land.
+I saw, with inexpressible astonishment, a look of terror in my chief's
+eyes. Suddenly I felt giddy. The General staggered against me heavily;
+the girl seemed to reel in the middle of the room, the taper fell out
+of her hand and the light went out; a shrill cry of 'Misericordia!'
+from the old woman pierced my ears. In the pitchy darkness I heard the
+plaster off the walls falling on the floor. It is a mercy there was no
+ceiling. Holding on to the latch of the door, I heard the grinding of
+the roof-tiles cease above my head. The shock was over.
+
+"'Out of the house! The door! Fly, Santierra, fly!' howled the General.
+You know, senores, in our country the bravest are not ashamed of the
+fear an earthquake strikes into all the senses of man. One never gets
+used to it. Repeated experience only augments the mastery of that
+nameless terror.
+
+"It was my first earthquake, and I was the calmest of them all. I
+understood that the crash outside was caused by the porch, with its
+wooden pillars and tiled roof projection, falling down. The next
+shock would destroy the house, maybe. That rumble as of thunder was
+approaching again. The General was rushing round the room, to find the
+door perhaps. He made a noise as though he were trying to climb the
+walls, and I heard him distinctly invoke the names of several saints.
+'Out, out, Santierra!' he yelled.
+
+"The girl's voice was the only one I did not hear.
+
+"'General,' I cried, I cannot move the door. We must be locked in.'
+
+"I did not recognize his voice in the shout of malediction and despair
+he let out. Senores, I know many men in my country, especially in the
+provinces most subject to earthquakes, who will neither eat, sleep,
+pray, nor even sit down to cards with closed doors. The danger is not
+in the loss of time, but in this--that the movement of the walls may
+prevent a door being opened at all. This was what had happened to us. We
+were trapped, and we had no help to expect from anybody. There is no man
+in my country who will go into a house when the earth trembles. There
+never was--except one: Gaspar Ruiz.
+
+"He had come out of whatever hole he had been hiding in outside, and
+had clambered over the timbers of the destroyed porch. Above the awful
+subterranean groan of coming destruction I heard a mighty voice shouting
+the word 'Erminia!' with the lungs of a giant. An earthquake is a great
+leveller of distinctions. I collected all my resolution against the
+terror of the scene. 'She is here,' I shouted back. A roar as of a
+furious wild beast answered me--while my head swam, my heart sank, and
+the sweat of anguish streamed like rain off my brow.
+
+"He had the strength to pick up one of the heavy posts of the porch.
+Holding it under his armpit like a lance, but with both hands, he
+charged madly the rocking house with the force of a battering-ram,
+bursting open the door and rushing in, headlong, over our prostrate
+bodies. I and the General picking ourselves up, bolted out together,
+without looking round once till we got across the road. Then, clinging
+to each other, we beheld the house change suddenly into a heap of
+formless rubbish behind the back of a man, who staggered towards us
+bearing the form of a woman clasped in his arms. Her long black hair
+hung nearly to his feet. He laid her down reverently on the heaving
+earth, and the moonlight shone on her closed eyes.
+
+"Senores, we mounted with difficulty. Our horses getting up plunged
+madly, held by the soldiers who had come running from all sides. Nobody
+thought of catching Gaspar Ruiz then. The eyes of men and animals shone
+with wild fear. My general approached Gaspar Ruiz, who stood motionless
+as a statue above the girl. He let himself be shaken by the shoulder
+without detaching his eyes from her face.
+
+"'Que guape!' shouted the General in his ear. 'You are the bravest man
+living. You have saved my life. I am General Robles. Come to my quarters
+to-morrow if God gives us the grace to see another day.'
+
+"He never stirred--as if deaf, without feeling, insensible.
+
+"We rode away for the town, full of our relations, of our friends, of
+whose fate we hardly dared to think. The soldiers ran by the side of
+our horses. Everything was forgotten in the immensity of the catastrophe
+overtaking a whole country."
+
+. . . . . . .
+
+Gaspar Ruiz saw the girl open her eyes. The raising of her eyelids
+seemed to recall him from a trance. They were alone; the cries of terror
+and distress from homeless people filled the plains of the coast remote
+and immense, coming like a whisper into their loneliness.
+
+She rose swiftly to her feet, darting fearful glances on all sides.
+"What is it?" she cried out low, and peering into his face. "Where am
+I?"
+
+He bowed his head sadly, without a word.
+
+". . . Who are you?"
+
+He knelt down slowly before her, and touched the hem of her coarse black
+baize skirt. "Your slave," he said.
+
+She caught sight then of the heap of rubbish that had been the house,
+all misty in the cloud of dust. "Ah!" she cried, pressing her hand to
+her forehead.
+
+"I carried you out from there," he whispered at her feet.
+
+"And they?" she asked in a great sob.
+
+He rose, and taking her by the arms, led her gently towards the
+shapeless ruin half overwhelmed by a landslide. "Come and listen," he
+said.
+
+The serene moon saw them clambering over that heap of stones, joists and
+tiles, which was a grave. They pressed their ears to the interstices,
+listening for the sound of a groan, for a sigh of pain.
+
+At last he said, "They died swiftly. You are alone."
+
+She sat down on a piece of broken timber and put one arm across her
+face. He waited--then approaching his lips to her ear: "Let us go," he
+whispered.
+
+"Never--never from here," she cried out, flinging her arms above her
+head.
+
+He stooped over her, and her raised arms fell upon his shoulders. He
+lifted her up, steadied himself and began to walk, looking straight
+before him.
+
+"What are you doing?" she asked, feebly.
+
+"I am escaping from my enemies," he said, never once glancing at his
+light burden.
+
+"With me?" she sighed, helplessly.
+
+"Never without you," he said. "You are my strength."
+
+He pressed her close to him. His face was grave and his footsteps
+steady. The conflagrations bursting out in the ruins of destroyed
+villages dotted the plain with red fires; and the sounds of distant
+lamentations, the cries of Misericordia! Misericordia! made a desolate
+murmur in his ears. He walked on, solemn and collected, as if carrying
+something holy, fragile, and precious.
+
+The earth rocked at times under his feet.
+
+
+IX
+
+
+With movements of mechanical care and an air of abstraction old General
+Santierra lighted a long and thick cigar.
+
+"It was a good many hours before we could send a party back to the
+ravine," he said to his guests. "We had found one-third of the town laid
+low, the rest shaken up; and the inhabitants, rich and poor, reduced to
+the same state of distraction by the universal disaster. The affected
+cheerfulness of some contrasted with the despair of others. In the
+general confusion a number of reckless thieves, without fear of God or
+man, became a danger to those who from the downfall of their homes had
+managed to save some valuables. Crying 'Misericordia' louder than any at
+every tremor, and beating their breast with one hand, these scoundrels
+robbed the poor victims with the other, not even stopping short of
+murder.
+
+"General Robles' division was occupied entirely in guarding the
+destroyed quarters of the town from the depredations of these inhuman
+monsters. Taken up with my duties of orderly officer, it was only in the
+morning that I could assure myself of the safety of my own family. My
+mother and my sisters had escaped with their lives from that ballroom,
+where I had left them early in the evening. I remember those two
+beautiful young women--God rest their souls--as if I saw them this
+moment, in the garden of our destroyed house, pale but active, assisting
+some of our poor neighbours, in their soiled ball-dresses and with the
+dust of fallen walls on their hair. As to my mother, she had a stoical
+soul in her frail body. Half-covered by a costly shawl, she was lying
+on a rustic seat by the side of an ornamental basin whose fountain had
+ceased to play for ever on that night.
+
+"I had hardly had time to embrace them all with transports of joy when
+my chief, coming along, dispatched me to the ravine with a few soldiers,
+to bring in my strong man, as he called him, and that pale girl.
+
+"But there was no one for us to bring in. A landslide had covered the
+ruins of the house; and it was like a large mound of earth with only the
+ends of some timbers visible here and there--nothing more.
+
+"Thus were the tribulations of the old Royalist couple ended. An
+enormous and unconsecrated grave had swallowed them up alive, in their
+unhappy obstinacy against the will of a people to be free. And their
+daughter was gone.
+
+"That Gaspar Ruiz had carried her off I understood very well. But as
+the case was not foreseen, I had no instructions to pursue them. And
+certainly I had no desire to do so. I had grown mistrustful of my
+interference. It had never been successful, and had not even appeared
+creditable. He was gone. Well, let him go. And he had carried off the
+Royalist girl! Nothing better. Vaya con Dios. This was not the time
+to bother about a deserter who, justly or unjustly, ought to have been
+dead, and a girl for whom it would have been better to have never been
+born.
+
+"So I marched my men back to the town.
+
+"After a few days, order having been re-established, all the principal
+families, including my own, left for Santiago. We had a fine house
+there. At the same time the division of Robles was moved to new
+cantonments near the capital. This change suited very well the state of
+my domestic and amorous feelings.
+
+"One night, rather late, I was called to my chief. I found General
+Robles in his quarters, at ease, with his uniform off, drinking neat
+brandy out of a tumbler--as a precaution, he used to say, against the
+sleeplessness induced by the bites of mosquitoes. He was a good soldier,
+and he taught me the art and practice of war. No doubt God has been
+merciful to his soul; for his motives were never other than patriotic,
+if his character was irascible. As to the use of mosquito nets, he
+considered it effeminate, shameful--unworthy of a soldier. I noticed at
+the first glance that his face, already very red, wore an expression of
+high good-humour.
+
+"'Aha! Senor teniente,' he cried, loudly, as I saluted at the door.
+'Behold! Your strong man has turned up again.'
+
+"He extended to me a folded letter, which I saw was superscribed 'To the
+Commander-in-Chief of the Republican Armies.'
+
+"'This,' General Robles went on in his loud voice, 'was thrust by a boy
+into the hand of a sentry at the Quartel General, while the fellow stood
+there thinking of his girl, no doubt--for before he could gather his
+wits together the boy had disappeared amongst the market people, and he
+protests he could not recognize him to save his life.'
+
+"'My chief told me further that the soldier had given the letter to the
+sergeant of the guard, and that ultimately it had reached the hands of
+our generalissimo. His Excellency had deigned to take cognizance of it
+with his own eyes. After that he had referred the matter in confidence
+to General Robles.
+
+"The letter, senores, I cannot now recollect textually. I saw the
+signature of Gaspar Ruiz. He was an audacious fellow. He had snatched a
+soul for himself out of a cataclysm, remember. And now it was that
+soul which had dictated the terms of his letter. Its tone was very
+independent. I remember it struck me at the time as noble--dignified. It
+was, no doubt, her letter. Now I shudder at the depth of its duplicity.
+Gaspar Ruiz was made to complain of the injustice of which he had been
+a victim. He invoked his previous record of fidelity and courage. Having
+been saved from death by the miraculous interposition of Providence, he
+could think of nothing but of retrieving his character. This, he wrote,
+he could not hope to do in the ranks as a discredited soldier still
+under suspicion. He had the means to give a striking proof of his
+fidelity. He had ended by proposing to the General-in-Chief a meeting at
+midnight in the middle of the Plaza before the Moneta. The signal would
+be to strike fire with flint and steel three times, which was not too
+conspicuous and yet distinctive enough for recognition.
+
+"San Martin, the great Liberator, loved men of audacity and courage.
+Besides, he was just and compassionate. I told him as much of the man's
+story as I knew, and was ordered to accompany him on the appointed
+night. The signals were duly exchanged. It was midnight, and the whole
+town was dark and silent. Their two cloaked figures came together in
+the centre of the vast Plaza, and, keeping discreetly at a distance,
+I listened for an hour or more to the murmur of their voices. Then the
+General motioned me to approach; and as I did so I heard San Martin,
+who was courteous to gentle and simple alike, offer Gaspar Ruiz the
+hospitality of the headquarters for the night. But the soldier refused,
+saying that he would be not worthy of that honour till he had done
+something.
+
+"'You cannot have a common deserter for your guest, Excellency,' he
+protested with a low laugh, and stepping backwards merged slowly into
+the night.
+
+"The Commander-in-Chief observed to me, as we turned away: 'He had
+somebody with him, our friend Ruiz. I saw two figures for a moment. It
+was an unobtrusive companion.'
+
+"I, too, had observed another figure join the vanishing form of Gaspar
+Ruiz. It had the appearance of a short fellow in a poncho and a big
+hat. And I wondered stupidly who it could be he had dared take into
+his confidence. I might have guessed it could be no one but that fatal
+girl--alas!
+
+"Where he kept her concealed I do not know. He had--it was known
+afterwards--an uncle, his mother's brother, a small shopkeeper in
+Santiago. Perhaps it was there that she found a roof and food. Whatever
+she found, it was poor enough to exasperate her pride and keep up her
+anger and hate. It is certain she did not accompany him on the feat
+he undertook to accomplish first of all. It was nothing less than the
+destruction of a store of war material collected secretly by the Spanish
+authorities in the south, in a town called Linares. Gaspar Ruiz was
+entrusted with a small party only, but they proved themselves worthy of
+San Martin's confidence. The season was not propitious. They had to swim
+swollen rivers. They seemed, however, to have galloped night and day
+out-riding the news of their foray, and holding straight for the town,
+a hundred miles into the enemy's country, till at break of day they rode
+into it sword in hand, surprising the little garrison. It fled without
+making a stand, leaving most of its officers in Gaspar Ruiz' hands.
+
+"A great explosion of gunpowder ended the conflagration of the magazines
+the raiders had set on fire without loss of time. In less than six
+hours they were riding away at the same mad speed, without the loss of a
+single man. Good as they were, such an exploit is not performed without
+a still better leadership.
+
+"I was dining at the headquarters when Gaspar Ruiz himself brought the
+news of his success. And it was a great blow to the Royalist troops. For
+a proof he displayed to us the garrison's flag. He took it from under
+his poncho and flung it on the table. The man was transfigured; there
+was something exulting and menacing in the expression of his face. He
+stood behind General San Martin's chair and looked proudly at us all.
+He had a round blue cap edged with silver braid on his head, and we all
+could see a large white scar on the nape of his sunburnt neck.
+
+"Somebody asked him what he had done with the captured Spanish officers.
+
+"He shrugged his shoulders scornfully. 'What a question to ask! In
+a partisan war you do not burden yourself with prisoners. I let them
+go--and here are their sword-knots.'
+
+"He flung a bunch of them on the table upon the flag. Then General
+Robles, whom I was attending there, spoke up in his loud, thick voice:
+'You did! Then, my brave friend, you do not know yet how a war like ours
+ought to be conducted. You should have done--this.' And he passed the
+edge of his hand across his own throat.
+
+"Alas, senores! It was only too true that on both sides this contest, in
+its nature so heroic, was stained by ferocity. The murmurs that arose
+at General Robles' words were by no means unanimous in tone. But the
+generous and brave San Martin praised the humane action, and pointed
+out to Ruiz a place on his right hand. Then rising with a full glass
+he proposed a toast: 'Caballeros and comrades-in-arms, let us drink the
+health of Captain Gaspar Ruiz.' And when we had emptied our glasses:
+'I intend,' the Commander-in-Chief continued, 'to entrust him with the
+guardianship of our southern frontier, while we go afar to liberate our
+brethren in Peru. He whom the enemy could not stop from striking a blow
+at his very heart will know how to protect the peaceful populations we
+leave behind us to pursue our sacred task.' And he embraced the silent
+Gaspar Ruiz by his side.
+
+"Later on, when we all rose from table, I approached the latest officer
+of the army with my congratulations. 'And, Captain Ruiz,' I added,
+'perhaps you do not mind telling a man who has always believed in
+the uprightness of your character what became of Dona Erminia on that
+night?'
+
+"At this friendly question his aspect changed. He looked at me from
+under his eyebrows with the heavy, dull glance of a guasso--of a
+peasant. 'Senor teniente,' he said, thickly, and as if very much cast
+down, 'do not ask me about the senorita, for I prefer not to think about
+her at all when I am amongst you."
+
+"He looked, with a frown, all about the room, full of smoking and
+talking officers. Of course I did not insist.
+
+"These, senores, were the last words I was to hear him utter for a long,
+long time. The very next day we embarked for our arduous expedition to
+Peru, and we only heard of Gaspar Ruiz' doings in the midst of battles
+of our own. He had been appointed military guardian of our southern
+province. He raised a partida. But his leniency to the conquered foe
+displeased the Civil Governor, who was a formal, uneasy man, full of
+suspicions. He forwarded reports against Gaspar Ruiz to the Supreme
+Government; one of them being that he had married publicly, with great
+pomp, a woman of Royalist tendencies. Quarrels were sure to arise
+between these two men of very different character. At last the Civil
+Governor began to complain of his inactivity and to hint at treachery,
+which, he wrote, would be not surprising in a man of such antecedents.
+Gaspar Ruiz heard of it. His rage flamed up, and the woman ever by his
+side knew how to feed it with perfidious words. I do not know
+whether really the Supreme Government ever did--as he complained
+afterwards--send orders for his arrest. It seems certain that the
+Civil Governor began to tamper with his officers, and that Gaspar Ruiz
+discovered the fact.
+
+"One evening, when the Governor was giving a tertullia, Gaspar Ruiz,
+followed by six men he could trust, appeared riding through the town to
+the door of the Government House, and entered the sala armed, his hat on
+his head. As the Governor, displeased, advanced to meet him, he seized
+the wretched man round the body, carried him off from the midst of the
+appalled guests, as though he were a child, and flung him down the outer
+steps into the street. An angry hug from Gaspar Ruiz was enough to crush
+the life out of a giant; but in addition Gaspar Ruiz' horsemen fired
+their pistols at the body of the Governor as it lay motionless at the
+bottom of the stairs."
+
+
+X
+
+
+"After this--as he called it--act of justice, Ruiz crossed the Rio
+Blanco, followed by the greater part of his band, and entrenched himself
+upon a hill. A company of regular troops sent out foolishly against him
+was surrounded, and destroyed almost to a man. Other expeditions, though
+better organized, were equally unsuccessful.
+
+"It was during these sanguinary skirmishes that his wife first began to
+appear on horseback at his right hand. Rendered proud and self-confident
+by his successes, Ruiz no longer charged at the head of his partida, but
+presumptuously, like a general directing the movements of an army,
+he remained in the rear, well mounted and motionless on an eminence,
+sending out his orders. She was seen repeatedly at his side, and for
+a long time was mistaken for a man. There was much talk then of a
+mysterious white-faced chief, to whom the defeats of our troops were
+ascribed. She rode like an Indian woman, astride, wearing a broad-rimmed
+man's hat and a dark poncho. Afterwards, in the day of their greatest
+prosperity, this poncho was embroidered in gold, and she wore then,
+also, the sword of poor Don Antonio de Leyva. This veteran Chilian
+officer, having the misfortune to be surrounded with his small force,
+and running short of ammunition, found his death at the hands of the
+Arauco Indians, the allies and auxiliaries of Gaspar Ruiz. This was the
+fatal affair long remembered afterwards as the 'Massacre of the Island.'
+The sword of the unhappy officer was presented to her by Peneleo, the
+Araucanian chief; for these Indians, struck by her aspect, the deathly
+pallor of her face, which no exposure to the weather seemed to affect,
+and her calm indifference under fire, looked upon her as a supernatural
+being, or at least as a witch. By this superstition the prestige and
+authority of Gaspar Ruiz amongst these ignorant people were greatly
+augmented. She must have savoured her vengeance to the full on that day
+when she buckled on the sword of Don Antonio de Leyva. It never left her
+side, unless she put on her woman's clothes--not that she would or
+could ever use it, but she loved to feel it beating upon her thigh as
+a perpetual reminder and symbol of the dishonour to the arms of the
+Republic. She was insatiable. Moreover, on the path she had led Gaspar
+Ruiz upon, there is no stopping. Escaped prisoners--and they were not
+many--used to relate how with a few whispered words she could change the
+expression of his face and revive his flagging animosity. They told how
+after every skirmish, after every raid, after every successful action,
+he would ride up to her and look into her face. Its haughty calm was
+never relaxed. Her embrace, senores, must have been as cold as the
+embrace of a statue. He tried to melt her icy heart in a stream of warm
+blood. Some English naval officers who visited him at that time noticed
+the strange character of his infatuation."
+
+At the movement of surprise and curiosity in his audience General
+Santierra paused for a moment.
+
+"Yes--English naval officers," he repeated. "Ruiz had consented to
+receive them to arrange for the liberation of some prisoners of your
+nationality. In the territory upon which he ranged, from sea coast to
+the Cordillera, there was a bay where the ships of that time, after
+rounding Cape Horn, used to resort for wood and water. There, decoying
+the crew on shore, he captured first the whaling brig Hersalia, and
+afterwards made himself master by surprise of two more ships, one
+English and one American.
+
+"It was rumoured at the time that he dreamed of setting up a navy of his
+own. But that, of course, was impossible. Still, manning the brig with
+part of her own crew, and putting an officer and a good many men of his
+own on board, he sent her off to the Spanish Governor of the island of
+Chiloe with a report of his exploits, and a demand for assistance in the
+war against the rebels. The Governor could not do much for him; but he
+sent in return two light field-pieces, a letter of compliments, with a
+colonel's commission in the royal forces, and a great Spanish flag. This
+standard with much ceremony was hoisted over his house in the heart of
+the Arauco country. Surely on that day she may have smiled on her guasso
+husband with a less haughty reserve.
+
+"The senior officer of the English squadron on our coast made
+representations to our Government as to these captures. But Gaspar Ruiz
+refused to treat with us. Then an English frigate proceeded to the bay,
+and her captain, doctor, and two lieutenants travelled inland under a
+safe-conduct. They were well received, and spent three days as guests of
+the partisan chief. A sort of military barbaric state was kept up at the
+residence. It was furnished with the loot of frontier towns. When first
+admitted to the principal sala, they saw his wife lying down (she was
+not in good health then), with Gaspar Ruiz sitting at the foot of the
+couch. His hat was lying on the floor, and his hands reposed on the hilt
+of his sword.
+
+"During that first conversation he never removed his big hands from
+the sword-hilt, except once, to arrange the coverings about her, with
+gentle, careful touches. They noticed that whenever she spoke he would
+fix his eyes upon her in a kind of expectant, breathless attention, and
+seemingly forget the existence of the world and his own existence,
+too. In the course of the farewell banquet, at which she was present
+reclining on her couch, he burst forth into complaints of the treatment
+he had received. After General San Martin's departure he had been
+beset by spies, slandered by civil officials, his services ignored, his
+liberty and even his life threatened by the Chilian Government. He got
+up from the table, thundered execrations pacing the room wildly, then
+sat down on the couch at his wife's feet, his breast heaving, his eyes
+fixed on the floor. She reclined on her back, her head on the cushions,
+her eyes nearly closed.
+
+"'And now I am an honoured Spanish officer,' he added in a calm voice.
+
+"The captain of the English frigate then took the opportunity to inform
+him gently that Lima had fallen, and that by the terms of a convention
+the Spaniards were withdrawing from the whole continent.
+
+"Gaspar Ruiz raised his head, and without hesitation, speaking with
+suppressed vehemence, declared that if not a single Spanish soldier were
+left in the whole of South America he would persist in carrying on the
+contest against Chile to the last drop of blood. When he finished that
+mad tirade his wife's long white hand was raised, and she just caressed
+his knee with the tips of her fingers for a fraction of a second.
+
+"For the rest of the officers' stay, which did not extend for more than
+half an hour after the banquet, that ferocious chieftain of a desperate
+partida overflowed with amiability and kindness. He had been hospitable
+before, but now it seemed as though he could not do enough for the
+comfort and safety of his visitors' journey back to their ship.
+
+"Nothing, I have been told, could have presented a greater contrast to
+his late violence or the habitual taciturn reserve of his manner. Like a
+man elated beyond measure by an unexpected happiness, he overflowed with
+good-will, amiability, and attentions. He embraced the officers like
+brothers, almost with tears in his eyes. The released prisoners were
+presented each with a piece of gold. At the last moment, suddenly, he
+declared he could do no less than restore to the masters of the merchant
+vessels all their private property. This unexpected generosity caused
+some delay in the departure of the party, and their first march was very
+short.
+
+"Late in the evening Gaspar Ruiz rode up with an escort, to their camp
+fires, bringing along with him a mule loaded with cases of wine. He had
+come, he said, to drink a stirrup cup with his English friends, whom he
+would never see again. He was mellow and joyous in his temper. He told
+stories of his own exploits, laughed like a boy, borrowed a guitar
+from the Englishmen's chief muleteer, and sitting cross-legged on his
+superfine poncho spread before the glow of the embers, sang a guasso
+love-song in a tender voice. Then his head dropped on his breast, his
+hands fell to the ground; the guitar rolled off his knees--and a great
+hush fell over the camp after the love-song of the implacable partisan
+who had made so many of our people weep for destroyed homes and for
+loves cut short.
+
+"Before anybody could make a sound he sprang up from the ground and
+called for his horse.
+
+"'Adios, my friends!' he cried. 'Go with God. I love you. And tell them
+well in Santiago that between Gaspar Ruiz, colonel of the King of Spain,
+and the republican carrion-crows of Chile there is war to the last
+breath--war! war! war!'
+
+"With a great yell of 'War! war! war!' which his escort took up, they
+rode away, and the sound of hoofs and of voices died out in the distance
+between the slopes of the hills.
+
+"The two young English officers were convinced that Ruiz was mad. How
+do you say that?--tile loose--eh? But the doctor, an observant Scotsman
+with much shrewdness and philosophy in his character, told me that it
+was a very curious case of possession. I met him many years afterwards,
+but he remembered the experience very well. He told me, too, that in
+his opinion that woman did not lead Gaspar Ruiz into the practice of
+sanguinary treachery by direct persuasion, but by the subtle way of
+awakening and keeping alive in his simple mind a burning sense of an
+irreparable wrong. Maybe, maybe. But I would say that she poured half
+of her vengeful soul into the strong clay of that man, as you may pour
+intoxication, madness, poison into an empty cup.
+
+"If he wanted war he got it in earnest when our victorious army began to
+return from Peru. Systematic operations were planned against this blot
+on the honour and prosperity of our hardly won independence. General
+Robles commanded, with his well-known ruthless severity. Savage
+reprisals were exercised on both sides and no quarter was given in the
+field. Having won my promotion in the Peru campaign, I was a captain on
+the staff. Gaspar Ruiz found himself hard pressed; at the same time we
+heard by means of a fugitive priest who had been carried off from his
+village presbytery and galloped eighty miles into the hills to perform
+the christening ceremony, that a daughter was born to them. To celebrate
+the event, I suppose, Ruiz executed one or two brilliant forays clear
+away at the rear of our forces, and defeated the detachments sent out to
+cut off his retreat. General Robles nearly had a stroke of apoplexy from
+rage. He found another cause of insomnia than the bites of mosquitoes;
+but against this one, senores, tumblers of raw brandy had no more effect
+than so much water. He took to railing and storming at me about my
+strong man. And from our impatience to end this inglorious campaign I am
+afraid that all we young officers became reckless and apt to take undue
+risks on service.
+
+"Nevertheless, slowly, inch by inch as it were, our columns were closing
+upon Gaspar Ruiz, though he had managed to raise all the Araucanian
+nation of wild Indians against us. Then a year or more later our
+Government became aware through its agents and spies that he had
+actually entered into alliance with Carreras, the so-called dictator of
+the so-called republic of Mendoza, on the other side of the mountains.
+Whether Gaspar Ruiz had a deep political intention, or whether he wished
+only to secure a safe retreat for his wife and child while he pursued
+remorselessly against us his war of surprises and massacres, I cannot
+tell. The alliance, however, was a fact. Defeated in his attempt to
+check our advance from the sea, he retreated with his usual swiftness,
+and preparing for another hard and hazardous tussle, began by sending
+his wife with the little girl across the Pequena range of mountains, on
+the frontier of Mendoza."
+
+
+XI
+
+
+"Now Carreras, under the guise of politics and liberalism, was a
+scoundrel of the deepest dye, and the unhappy state of Mendoza was the
+prey of thieves, robbers, traitors, and murderers, who formed his party.
+He was under a noble exterior a man without heart, pity, honour, or
+conscience. He aspired to nothing but tyranny, and though he would have
+made use of Gaspar Ruiz for his nefarious designs, yet he soon became
+aware that to propitiate the Chilian Government would answer his purpose
+better. I blush to say that he made proposals to our Government to
+deliver up on certain conditions the wife and child of the man who had
+trusted to his honour, and that this offer was accepted.
+
+"While on her way to Mendoza over the Pequena Pass she was betrayed by
+her escort of Carreras' men, and given up to the officer in command of
+a Chilian fort on the upland at the foot of the main Cordillera range.
+This atrocious transaction might have cost me dear, for as a matter of
+fact I was a prisoner in Gaspar Ruiz' camp when he received the news. I
+had been captured during a reconnaissance, my escort of a few troopers
+being speared by the Indians of his bodyguard. I was saved from the same
+fate because he recognized my features just in time. No doubt my friends
+thought I was dead, and I would not have given much for my life at any
+time. But the strong man treated me very well, because, he said, I had
+always believed in his innocence and had tried to serve him when he was
+a victim of injustice.
+
+"'And now,' was his speech to me, 'you shall see that I always speak the
+truth. You are safe.'
+
+"I did not think I was very safe when I was called up to go to him one
+night. He paced up and down like a wild beast, exclaiming, 'Betrayed!
+Betrayed!'
+
+"He walked up to me clenching his fists. 'I could cut your throat.'
+
+"'Will that give your wife back to you?' I said as quietly as I could.
+
+"'And the child!' he yelled out, as if mad. He fell into a chair and
+laughed in a frightful, boisterous manner. 'Oh, no, you are safe.'
+
+"I assured him that his wife's life was safe, too; but I did not say
+what I was convinced of--that he would never see her again. He wanted
+war to the death, and the war could only end with his death.
+
+"He gave me a strange, inexplicable look, and sat muttering blankly, 'In
+their hands. In their hands.'
+
+"I kept as still as a mouse before a cat.
+
+"Suddenly he jumped up. 'What am I doing here?' he cried; and opening
+the door, he yelled out orders to saddle and mount. 'What is it?' he
+stammered, coming up to me. 'The Pequena fort; a fort of palisades!
+Nothing. I would get her back if she were hidden in the very heart of
+the mountain.' He amazed me by adding, with an effort: 'I carried her
+off in my two arms while the earth trembled. And the child at least is
+mine. She at least is mine!'
+
+"Those were bizarre words; but I had no time for wonder.
+
+"'You shall go with me,' he said, violently. 'I may want to parley, and
+any other messenger from Ruiz, the outlaw, would have his throat cut.'
+
+"This was true enough. Between him and the rest of incensed mankind
+there could be no communication, according to the customs of honourable
+warfare.
+
+"In less than half an hour we were in the saddle, flying wildly through
+the night. He had only an escort of twenty men at his quarters, but
+would not wait for more. He sent, however, messengers to Peneleo, the
+Indian chief then ranging in the foothills, directing him to bring
+his warriors to the uplands and meet him at the lake called the Eye of
+Water, near whose shores the frontier fort of Pequena was built.
+
+"We crossed the lowlands with that untired rapidity of movement which
+had made Gaspar Ruiz' raids so famous. We followed the lower valleys
+up to their precipitous heads. The ride was not without its dangers.
+A cornice road on a perpendicular wall of basalt wound itself around a
+buttressing rock, and at last we emerged from the gloom of a deep gorge
+upon the upland of Pequena.
+
+"It was a plain of green wiry grass and thin flowering bushes; but high
+above our heads patches of snow hung in the folds and crevices of the
+great walls of rock. The little lake was as round as a staring eye. The
+garrison of the fort were just driving in their small herd of cattle
+when we appeared. Then the great wooden gates swung to, and that
+four-square enclosure of broad blackened stakes pointed at the top and
+barely hiding the grass roofs of the huts inside seemed deserted, empty,
+without a single soul.
+
+"But when summoned to surrender, by a man who at Gaspar Ruiz' order rode
+fearlessly forward those inside answered by a volley which rolled him
+and his horse over. I heard Ruiz by my side grind his teeth. 'It does
+not matter,' he said. 'Now you go.'
+
+"Torn and faded as its rags were, the vestiges of my uniform were
+recognized, and I was allowed to approach within speaking distance; and
+then I had to wait, because a voice clamouring through a loophole with
+joy and astonishment would not allow me to place a word. It was the
+voice of Major Pajol, an old friend. He, like my other comrades, had
+thought me killed a long time ago.
+
+"'Put spurs to your horse, man!' he yelled, in the greatest excitement;
+'we will swing the gate open for you.'
+
+"I let the reins fall out of my hand and shook my head. 'I am on my
+honour,' I cried.
+
+"'To him!' he shouted, with infinite disgust.
+
+"'He promises you your life.'
+
+"'Our life is our own. And do you, Santierra, advise us to surrender to
+that rastrero?'
+
+"'No!' I shouted. 'But he wants his wife and child, and he can cut you
+off from water.'
+
+"'Then she would be the first to suffer. You may tell him that. Look
+here--this is all nonsense: we shall dash out and capture you.'
+
+"'You shall not catch me alive,' I said, firmly.
+
+"'Imbecile!'
+
+"'For God's sake,' I continued, hastily, 'do not open the gate.' And I
+pointed at the multitude of Peneleo's Indians who covered the shores of
+the lake.
+
+"I had never seen so many of these savages together. Their lances
+seemed as numerous as stalks of grass. Their hoarse voices made a vast,
+inarticulate sound like the murmur of the sea.
+
+"My friend Pajol was swearing to himself. 'Well, then--go to the devil!'
+he shouted, exasperated. But as I swung round he repented, for I heard
+him say hurriedly, 'Shoot the fool's horse before he gets away.'
+
+"He had good marksmen. Two shots rang out, and in the very act
+of turning my horse staggered, fell and lay still as if struck by
+lightning. I had my feet out of the stirrups and rolled clear of him;
+but I did not attempt to rise. Neither dared they rush out to drag me
+in.
+
+"The masses of Indians had begun to move upon the fort. They rode up
+in squadrons, trailing their long chusos; then dismounted out of
+musket-shot, and, throwing off their fur mantles, advanced naked to the
+attack, stamping their feet and shouting in cadence. A sheet of flame
+ran three times along the face of the fort without checking their steady
+march. They crowded right up to the very stakes, flourishing their broad
+knives. But this palisade was not fastened together with hide lashings
+in the usual way, but with long iron nails, which they could not cut.
+Dismayed at the failure of their usual method of forcing an entrance,
+the heathen, who had marched so steadily against the musketry fire,
+broke and fled under the volleys of the besieged.
+
+"Directly they had passed me on their advance I got up and rejoined
+Gaspar Ruiz on a low ridge which jutted out upon the plain. The musketry
+of his own men had covered the attack, but now at a sign from him a
+trumpet sounded the 'Cease fire.' Together we looked in silence at the
+hopeless rout of the savages.
+
+"'It must be a siege, then,' he muttered. And I detected him wringing
+his hands stealthily.
+
+"But what sort of siege could it be? Without any need for me to repeat
+my friend Pajol's message, he dared not cut the water off from the
+besieged. They had plenty of meat. And, indeed, if they had been short
+he would have been too anxious to send food into the stockade had he
+been able. But, as a matter of fact, it was we on the plain who were
+beginning to feel the pinch of hunger.
+
+"Peneleo, the Indian chief, sat by our fire folded in his ample mantle
+of guanaco skins. He was an athletic savage, with an enormous square
+shock head of hair resembling a straw beehive in shape and size,
+and with grave, surly, much-lined features. In his broken Spanish he
+repeated, growling like a bad-tempered wild beast, that if an opening
+ever so small were made in the stockade his men would march in and get
+the senora--not otherwise.
+
+"Gaspar Ruiz, sitting opposite him, kept his eyes fixed on the fort
+night and day as it were, in awful silence and immobility. Meantime, by
+runners from the lowlands that arrived nearly every day, we heard of the
+defeat of one of his lieutenants in the Maipu valley. Scouts sent afar
+brought news of a column of infantry advancing through distant passes to
+the relief of the fort. They were slow, but we could trace their toilful
+progress up the lower valleys. I wondered why Ruiz did not march to
+attack and destroy this threatening force, in some wild gorge fit for an
+ambuscade, in accordance with his genius for guerilla warfare. But his
+genius seemed to have abandoned him to his despair.
+
+"It was obvious to me that he could not tear himself away from the sight
+of the fort. I protest to you, senores, that I was moved almost to
+pity by the sight of this powerless strong man sitting on the ridge,
+indifferent to sun, to rain, to cold, to wind; with his hands
+clasped round his legs and his chin resting on his knees,
+gazing--gazing--gazing.
+
+"And the fort he kept his eyes fastened on was as still and silent as
+himself. The garrison gave no sign of life. They did not even answer the
+desultory fire directed at the loopholes.
+
+"One night, as I strolled past him, he, without changing his attitude,
+spoke to me unexpectedly. 'I have sent for a gun,' he said. 'I shall
+have time to get her back and retreat before your Robles manages to
+crawl up here.'
+
+"He had sent for a gun to the plains.
+
+"It was long in coming, but at last it came. It was a seven-pounder
+field gun. Dismounted and lashed crosswise to two long poles, it had
+been carried up the narrow paths between two mules with ease. His wild
+cry of exultation at daybreak when he saw the gun escort emerge from the
+valley rings in my ears now.
+
+"But, senores, I have no words to depict his amazement, his fury, his
+despair and distraction, when he heard that the animal loaded with the
+gun-carriage had, during the last night march, somehow or other tumbled
+down a precipice. He broke into menaces of death and torture against the
+escort. I kept out of his way all that day, lying behind some bushes,
+and wondering what he would do now. Retreat was left for him, but he
+could not retreat.
+
+"I saw below me his artillerist, Jorge, an old Spanish soldier, building
+up a sort of structure with heaped-up saddles. The gun, ready loaded,
+was lifted on to that, but in the act of firing the whole thing
+collapsed and the shot flew high above the stockade.
+
+"Nothing more was attempted. One of the ammunition mules had been lost,
+too, and they had no more than six shots to fire; ample enough to batter
+down the gate providing the gun was well laid. This was impossible
+without it being properly mounted. There was no time nor means to
+construct a carriage. Already every moment I expected to hear Robles'
+bugle-calls echo amongst the crags.
+
+"Peneleo, wandering about uneasily, draped in his skins, sat down for a
+moment near me growling his usual tale.
+
+"'Make an entrada--a hole. If make a hole, bueno. If not make a hole,
+then vamos--we must go away.'
+
+"After sunset I observed with surprise the Indians making preparations
+as if for another assault. Their lines stood ranged in the shadows of
+the mountains. On the plain in front of the fort gate I saw a group of
+men swaying about in the same place.
+
+"I walked down the ridge disregarded. The moonlight in the clear air
+of the uplands was bright as day, but the intense shadows confused my
+sight, and I could not make out what they were doing. I heard the voice
+of Jorge, the artillerist, say in a queer, doubtful tone, 'It is loaded,
+senor.'
+
+"Then another voice in that group pronounced firmly the words, 'Bring
+the riata here.' It was the voice of Gaspar Ruiz.
+
+"A silence fell, in which the popping shots of the besieged garrison
+rang out sharply. They, too, had observed the group. But the distance
+was too great and in the spatter of spent musket-balls cutting up the
+ground, the group opened, closed, swayed, giving me a glimpse of busy
+stooping figures in its midst. I drew nearer, doubting whether this was
+a weird vision, a suggestive and insensate dream.
+
+"A strangely stifled voice commanded, 'Haul the hitches tighter.'
+
+"'Si, senor,' several other voices answered in tones of awed alacrity.
+
+"Then the stifled voice said: 'Like this. I must be free to breathe.'
+
+"Then there was a concerned noise of many men together. 'Help him up,
+hombres. Steady! Under the other arm.'
+
+"That deadened voice ordered: 'Bueno! Stand away from me, men.'
+
+"I pushed my way through the recoiling circle, and heard once more that
+same oppressed voice saying earnestly: 'Forget that I am a living man,
+Jorge. Forget me altogether, and think of what you have to do.'
+
+"'Be without fear, senor. You are nothing to me but a gun-carriage, and
+I shall not waste a shot.'
+
+"I heard the spluttering of a port-fire, and smelt the saltpetre of the
+match. I saw suddenly before me a nondescript shape on all fours like
+a beast, but with a man's head drooping below a tubular projection over
+the nape of the neck, and the gleam of a rounded mass of bronze on its
+back.
+
+"In front of a silent semicircle of men it squatted alone, with Jorge
+behind it and a trumpeter motionless, his trumpet in his hand, by its
+side.
+
+"Jorge, bent double, muttered, port-fire in hand: 'An inch to the left,
+senor. Too much. So. Now, if you let yourself down a little by letting
+your elbows bend, I will . . .'
+
+"He leaped aside, lowering his port-fire, and a burst of flame darted
+out of the muzzle of the gun lashed on the man's back.
+
+"Then Gaspar Ruiz lowered himself slowly. 'Good shot?' he asked.
+
+"'Full on, senor.'
+
+"'Then load again.'
+
+"He lay there before me on his breast under the darkly glittering bronze
+of his monstrous burden, such as no love or strength of man had ever
+had to bear in the lamentable history of the world. His arms were spread
+out, and he resembled a prostrate penitent on the moonlit ground.
+
+"Again I saw him raised to his hands and knees and the men stand away
+from him, and old Jorge stoop glancing along the gun.
+
+"'Left a little. Right an inch. Por Dios, senor, stop this trembling.
+Where is your strength?'
+
+"The old gunner's voice was cracked with emotion. He stepped aside, and
+quick as lightning brought the spark to the touch-hole.
+
+"'Excellent!' he cried, tearfully; but Gaspar Ruiz lay for a long time
+silent, flattened on the ground.
+
+"'I am tired,' he murmured at last. 'Will another shot do it?'
+
+"'Without doubt,' said Jorge, bending down to his ear.
+
+"'Then--load,' I heard him utter distinctly. 'Trumpeter!'
+
+"'I am here, senor, ready for your word.'
+
+"'Blow a blast at this word that shall be heard from one end of Chile to
+the other,' he said, in an extraordinarily strong voice. 'And you others
+stand ready to cut this accursed riata, for then will be the time for me
+to lead you in your rush. Now raise me up, and you, Jorge--be quick with
+your aim.'
+
+"The rattle of musketry from the fort nearly drowned his voice. The
+palisade was wreathed in smoke and flame.
+
+"'Exert your force forward against the recoil, mi amo,' said the old
+gunner, shakily. 'Dig your fingers into the ground. So. Now!'
+
+"A cry of exultation escaped him after the shot. The trumpeter raised
+his trumpet nearly to his lips and waited. But no word came from the
+prostrate man. I fell on one knee, and heard all he had to say then.
+
+"'Something broken,' he whispered, lifting his head a little, and
+turning his eyes towards me in his hopelessly crushed attitude.
+
+"'The gate hangs only by the splinters,' yelled Jorge.
+
+"Gaspar Ruiz tried to speak, but his voice died out in his throat, and I
+helped to roll the gun off his broken back. He was insensible.
+
+"I kept my lips shut, of course. The signal for the Indians to attack
+was never given. Instead, the bugle-calls of the relieving force for
+which my ears had thirsted so long, burst out, terrifying like the call
+of the Last Day to our surprised enemies.
+
+"A tornado, senores, a real hurricane of stampeded men, wild horses,
+mounted Indians, swept over me as I cowered on the ground by the side
+of Gaspar Ruiz, still stretched out on his face in the shape of a
+cross. Peneleo, galloping for life, jabbed at me with his long chuso in
+passing--for the sake of old acquaintance, I suppose. How I escaped the
+flying lead is more difficult to explain. Venturing to rise on my knees
+too soon some soldiers of the 17th Taltal regiment, in their hurry to
+get at something alive, nearly bayoneted me on the spot. They looked
+very disappointed, too, when, some officers galloping up drove them away
+with the flat of their swords.
+
+"It was General Robles with his staff. He wanted badly to make some
+prisoners. He, too, seemed disappointed for a moment. 'What! Is it you?'
+he cried. But he dismounted at once to embrace me, for he was an old
+friend of my family. I pointed to the body at our feet, and said only
+these two words:
+
+"'Gaspar Ruiz.'
+
+"He threw his arms up in astonishment.
+
+"'Aha! Your strong man! Always to the last with your strong man. No
+matter. He saved our lives when the earth trembled enough to make the
+bravest faint with fear. I was frightened out of my wits. But he--no!
+Que guape! Where's the hero who got the best of him? ha! ha! ha! What
+killed him, chico?'
+
+"'His own strength, General,' I answered."
+
+
+XII
+
+
+"But Gaspar Ruiz breathed yet. I had him carried in his poncho under the
+shelter of some bushes on the very ridge from which he had been gazing
+so fixedly at the fort while unseen death was hovering already over his
+head.
+
+"Our troops had bivouacked round the fort. Towards daybreak I was not
+surprised to hear that I was designated to command the escort of a
+prisoner who was to be sent down at once to Santiago. Of course the
+prisoner was Gaspar Ruiz' wife.
+
+"'I have named you out of regard for your feelings,' General Robles
+remarked. 'Though the woman really ought to be shot for all the harm she
+has done to the Republic.'
+
+"And as I made a movement of shocked protest, he continued:
+
+"'Now he is as well as dead, she is of no importance. Nobody will know
+what to do with her. However, the Government wants her.' He shrugged his
+shoulders. 'I suppose he must have buried large quantities of his loot
+in places that she alone knows of.'
+
+"At dawn I saw her coming up the ridge, guarded by two soldiers, and
+carrying her child on her arm.
+
+"I walked to meet her.
+
+"'Is he living yet?' she asked, confronting me with that white,
+impassive face he used to look at in an adoring way.
+
+"I bent my head, and led her round a clump of bushes without a word. His
+eyes were open. He breathed with difficulty, and uttered her name with a
+great effort.
+
+"'Erminia!'
+
+"She knelt at his head. The little girl, unconscious of him, and with
+her big eyes looking about, began to chatter suddenly, in a joyous, thin
+voice. She pointed a tiny finger at the rosy glow of sunrise behind the
+black shapes of the peaks. And while that child-talk, incomprehensible
+and sweet to the ear, lasted, those two, the dying man and the kneeling
+woman, remained silent, looking into each other's eyes, listening to the
+frail sound. Then the prattle stopped. The child laid its head against
+its mother's breast and was still.
+
+"'It was for you,' he began. 'Forgive.' His voice failed him. Presently
+I heard a mutter and caught the pitiful words: 'Not strong enough.'
+
+"She looked at him with an extraordinary intensity. He tried to smile,
+and in a humble tone, 'Forgive me,' he repeated. 'Leaving you . . .'
+
+"She bent down, dry-eyed and in a steady voice: 'On all the earth I have
+loved nothing but you, Gaspar,' she said.
+
+"His head made a movement. His eyes revived. 'At last!' he sighed out.
+Then, anxiously, 'But is this true . . . is this true?'
+
+"'As true as that there is no mercy and justice in this world,' she
+answered him, passionately. She stooped over his face. He tried to raise
+his head, but it fell back, and when she kissed his lips he was already
+dead. His glazed eyes stared at the sky, on which pink clouds floated
+very high. But I noticed the eyelids of the child, pressed to its
+mother's breast, droop and close slowly. She had gone to sleep.
+
+"The widow of Gaspar Ruiz, the strong man, allowed me to lead her away
+without shedding a tear.
+
+"For travelling we had arranged for her a sidesaddle very much like a
+chair, with a board swung beneath to rest her feet on. And the first day
+she rode without uttering a word, and hardly for one moment turning her
+eyes away from the little girl, whom she held on her knees. At our first
+camp I saw her during the night walking about, rocking the child in
+her arms and gazing down at it by the light of the moon. After we had
+started on our second day's march she asked me how soon we should come
+to the first village of the inhabited country.
+
+"I said we should be there about noon.
+
+"'And will there be women there?' she inquired.
+
+"I told her that it was a large village. 'There will be men and women
+there, senora,' I said, 'whose hearts shall be made glad by the news
+that all the unrest and war is over now.'
+
+"'Yes, it is all over now,' she repeated. Then, after a time: 'Senor
+officer, what will your Government do with me?'
+
+"'I do not know, senora,' I said. 'They will treat you well, no doubt.
+We republicans are not savages and take no vengeance on women.'
+
+"She gave me a look at the word 'republicans' which I imagined full of
+undying hate. But an hour or so afterwards, as we drew up to let the
+baggage mules go first along a narrow path skirting a precipice, she
+looked at me with such a white, troubled face that I felt a great pity
+for her.
+
+"'Senor officer,' she said, 'I am weak, I tremble. It is an insensate
+fear.' And indeed her lips did tremble while she tried to smile,
+glancing at the beginning of the narrow path which was not so dangerous
+after all. 'I am afraid I shall drop the child. Gaspar saved your life,
+you remember. . . . Take her from me.'
+
+"I took the child out of her extended arms. 'Shut your eyes, senora, and
+trust to your mule,' I recommended.
+
+"She did so, and with her pallor and her wasted, thin face she looked
+deathlike. At a turn of the path where a great crag of purple porphyry
+closes the view of the lowlands, I saw her open her eyes. I rode just
+behind her holding the little girl with my right arm. 'The child is all
+right,' I cried encouragingly.
+
+"'Yes,' she answered, faintly; and then, to my intense terror, I saw her
+stand up on the foot-rest, staring horribly, and throw herself forward
+into the chasm on our right.
+
+"I cannot describe to you the sudden and abject fear that came over me
+at that dreadful sight. It was a dread of the abyss, the dread of the
+crags which seemed to nod upon me. My head swam. I pressed the child to
+my side and sat my horse as still as a statue. I was speechless and cold
+all over. Her mule staggered, sidling close to the rock, and then went
+on. My horse only pricked up his ears with a slight snort. My heart
+stood still, and from the depths of the precipice the stones rattling in
+the bed of the furious stream made me almost insane with their sound.
+
+"Next moment we were round the turn and on a broad and grassy slope. And
+then I yelled. My men came running back to me in great alarm. It seems
+that at first I did nothing but shout, 'She has given the child into my
+hands! She has given the child into my hands!' The escort thought I had
+gone mad."
+
+General Santierra ceased and got up from the table. "And that is all,
+senores," he concluded, with a courteous glance at his rising guests.
+
+"But what became of the child. General?" we asked.
+
+"Ah, the child, the child."
+
+He walked to one of the windows opening on his beautiful garden, the
+refuge of his old days. Its fame was great in the land. Keeping us back
+with a raised arm, he called out, "Erminia, Erminia!" and waited. Then
+his cautioning arm dropped, and we crowded to the windows.
+
+From a clump of trees a woman had come upon the broad walk bordered
+with flowers. We could hear the rustle of her starched petticoats and
+observed the ample spread of her old-fashioned black silk skirt. She
+looked up, and seeing all these eyes staring at her stopped, frowned,
+smiled, shook her finger at the General, who was laughing boisterously,
+and drawing the black lace on her head so as to partly conceal her
+haughty profile, passed out of our sight, walking with stiff dignity.
+
+"You have beheld the guardian angel of the old man--and her to whom
+you owe all that is seemly and comfortable in my hospitality. Somehow,
+senores, though the flame of love has been kindled early in my breast, I
+have never married. And because of that perhaps the sparks of the sacred
+fire are not yet extinct here." He struck his broad chest. "Still alive,
+still alive," he said, with serio-comic emphasis. "But I shall not marry
+now. She is General Santierra's adopted daughter and heiress."
+
+One of our fellow-guests, a young naval officer, described her
+afterwards as a "short, stout, old girl of forty or thereabouts." We had
+all noticed that her hair was turning grey, and that she had very fine
+black eyes.
+
+"And," General Santierra continued, "neither would she ever hear of
+marrying any one. A real calamity! Good, patient, devoted to the old
+man. A simple soul. But I would not advise any of you to ask for her
+hand, for if she took yours into hers it would be only to crush your
+bones. Ah! she does not jest on that subject. And she is the own
+daughter of her father, the strong man who perished through his own
+strength: the strength of his body, of his simplicity--of his love!"
+
+
+
+
+AN IRONIC TALE
+
+
+
+
+THE INFORMER
+
+
+Mr. X came to me, preceded by a letter of introduction from a good
+friend of mine in Paris, specifically to see my collection of Chinese
+bronzes and porcelain.
+
+"My friend in Paris is a collector, too. He collects neither porcelain,
+nor bronzes, nor pictures, nor medals, nor stamps, nor anything that
+could be profitably dispersed under an auctioneer's hammer. He would
+reject, with genuine surprise, the name of a collector. Nevertheless,
+that's what he is by temperament. He collects acquaintances. It
+is delicate work. He brings to it the patience, the passion, the
+determination of a true collector of curiosities. His collection does
+not contain any royal personages. I don't think he considers them
+sufficiently rare and interesting; but, with that exception, he has met
+with and talked to everyone worth knowing on any conceivable ground. He
+observes them, listens to them, penetrates them, measures them, and puts
+the memory away in the galleries of his mind. He has schemed, plotted,
+and travelled all over Europe in order to add to his collection of
+distinguished personal acquaintances.
+
+"As he is wealthy, well connected, and unprejudiced, his collection is
+pretty complete, including objects (or should I say subjects?) whose
+value is unappreciated by the vulgar, and often unknown to popular fame.
+Of trevolte of modern times. The world knows him as a revolutionary
+writer whose savage irony has laid bare the rottenness of the most
+respectable institutions. He has scalped every venerated head, and
+has mangled at the stake of his wit every received opinion and every
+recognized principle of conduct and policy. Who does not remember his
+flaming red revolutionary pamphlets? Their sudden swarmings used to
+overwhelm the powers of every Continental police like a plague of
+crimson gadflies. But this extreme writer has been also the active
+inspirer of secret societies, the mysterious unknown Number One of
+desperate conspiracies suspected and unsuspected, matured or baffled.
+And the world at large has never had an inkling of that fact! This
+accounts for him going about amongst us to this day, a veteran of many
+subterranean campaigns, standing aside now, safe within his reputation
+of merely the greatest destructive publicist that ever lived."
+
+Thus wrote my friend, adding that Mr. X was an enlightened connoisseur
+of bronzes and china, and asking me to show him my collection.
+
+X turned up in due course. My treasures are disposed in three large
+rooms without carpets and curtains. There is no other furniture than the
+etagres and the glass cases whose contents shall be worth a fortune to
+my heirs. I allow no fires to be lighted, for fear of accidents, and a
+fire-proof door separates them from the rest of the house.
+
+It was a bitter cold day. We kept on our overcoats and hats.
+Middle-sized and spare, his eyes alert in a long, Roman-nosed
+countenance, X walked on his neat little feet, with short steps,
+and looked at my collection intelligently. I hope I looked at him
+intelligently, too. A snow-white moustache and imperial made his
+nutbrown complexion appear darker than it really was. In his fur coat
+and shiny tall hat that terrible man looked fashionable. I believe he
+belonged to a noble family, and could have called himself Vicomte X de
+la Z if he chose. We talked nothing but bronzes and porcelain. He was
+remarkably appreciative. We parted on cordial terms.
+
+Where he was staying I don't know. I imagine he must have been a lonely
+man. Anarchists, I suppose, have no families--not, at any rate, as we
+understand that social relation. Organization into families may answer
+to a need of human nature, but in the last instance it is based on law,
+and therefore must be something odious and impossible to an anarchist.
+But, indeed, I don't understand anarchists. Does a man of that--of
+that--persuasion still remain an anarchist when alone, quite alone and
+going to bed, for instance? Does he lay his head on the pillow, pull
+his bedclothes over him, and go to sleep with the necessity of the
+chambardement general, as the French slang has it, of the general
+blow-up, always present to his mind? And if so how can he? I am sure
+that if such a faith (or such a fanaticism) once mastered my thoughts
+I would never be able to compose myself sufficiently to sleep or eat or
+perform any of the routine acts of daily life. I would want no wife, no
+children; I could have no friends, it seems to me; and as to collecting
+bronzes or china, that, I should say, would be quite out of the
+question. But I don't know. All I know is that Mr. X took his meals in a
+very good restaurant which I frequented also.
+
+With his head uncovered, the silver top-knot of his brushed-up hair
+completed the character of his physiognomy, all bony ridges and sunken
+hollows, clothed in a perfect impassiveness of expression. His meagre
+brown hands emerging from large white cuffs came and went breaking
+bread, pouring wine, and so on, with quiet mechanical precision.
+His head and body above the tablecloth had a rigid immobility. This
+firebrand, this great agitator, exhibited the least possible amount of
+warmth and animation. His voice was rasping, cold, and monotonous in a
+low key. He could not be called a talkative personality; but with his
+detached calm manner he appeared as ready to keep the conversation going
+as to drop it at any moment.
+
+And his conversation was by no means commonplace. To me, I own, there
+was some excitement in talking quietly across a dinner-table with a
+man whose venomous pen-stabs had sapped the vitality of at least one
+monarchy. That much was a matter of public knowledge. But I knew more. I
+knew of him--from my friend--as a certainty what the guardians of social
+order in Europe had at most only suspected, or dimly guessed at.
+
+He had had what I may call his underground life. And as I sat, evening
+after evening, facing him at dinner, a curiosity in that direction
+would naturally arise in my mind. I am a quiet and peaceable product of
+civilization, and know no passion other than the passion for collecting
+things which are rare, and must remain exquisite even if approaching to
+the monstrous. Some Chinese bronzes are monstrously precious. And here
+(out of my friend's collection), here I had before me a kind of rare
+monster. It is true that this monster was polished and in a sense even
+exquisite. His beautiful unruffled manner was that. But then he was
+not of bronze. He was not even Chinese, which would have enabled one
+to contemplate him calmly across the gulf of racial difference. He was
+alive and European; he had the manner of good society, wore a coat and
+hat like mine, and had pretty near the same taste in cooking. It was too
+frightful to think of.
+
+One evening he remarked, casually, in the course of conversation,
+"There's no amendment to be got out of mankind except by terror and
+violence."
+
+You can imagine the effect of such a phrase out of such a man's mouth
+upon a person like myself, whose whole scheme of life had been based
+upon a suave and delicate discrimination of social and artistic values.
+Just imagine! Upon me, to whom all sorts and forms of violence appeared
+as unreal as the giants, ogres, and seven-headed hydras whose activities
+affect, fantastically, the course of legends and fairy-tales!
+
+I seemed suddenly to hear above the festive bustle and clatter of the
+brilliant restaurant the mutter of a hungry and seditious multitude.
+
+I suppose I am impressionable and imaginative. I had a disturbing
+vision of darkness, full of lean jaws and wild eyes, amongst the hundred
+electric lights of the place. But somehow this vision made me angry,
+too. The sight of that man, so calm, breaking bits of white bread,
+exasperated me. And I had the audacity to ask him how it was that the
+starving proletariat of Europe to whom he had been preaching revolt and
+violence had not been made indignant by his openly luxurious life. "At
+all this," I said, pointedly, with a glance round the room and at the
+bottle of champagne we generally shared between us at dinner.
+
+He remained unmoved.
+
+"Do I feed on their toil and their heart's blood? Am I a speculator or a
+capitalist? Did I steal my fortune from a starving people? No! They
+know this very well. And they envy me nothing. The miserable mass of the
+people is generous to its leaders. What I have acquired has come to
+me through my writings; not from the millions of pamphlets distributed
+gratis to the hungry and the oppressed, but from the hundreds of
+thousands of copies sold to the well-fed bourgeoisie. You know that my
+writings were at one time the rage, the fashion--the thing to read with
+wonder and horror, to turn your eyes up at my pathos . . . or else, to
+laugh in ecstasies at my wit."
+
+"Yes," I admitted. "I remember, of course; and I confess frankly that I
+could never understand that infatuation."
+
+"Don't you know yet," he said, "that an idle and selfish class loves to
+see mischief being made, even if it is made at its own expense? Its own
+life being all a matter of pose and gesture, it is unable to realize the
+power and the danger of a real movement and of words that have no sham
+meaning. It is all fun and sentiment. It is sufficient, for instance,
+to point out the attitude of the old French aristocracy towards the
+philosophers whose words were preparing the Great Revolution. Even in
+England, where you have some common-sense, a demagogue has only to shout
+loud enough and long enough to find some backing in the very class he
+is shouting at. You, too, like to see mischief being made. The demagogue
+carries the amateurs of emotion with him. Amateurism in this, that, and
+the other thing is a delightfully easy way of killing time, and feeding
+one's own vanity--the silly vanity of being abreast with the ideas of
+the day after to-morrow. Just as good and otherwise harmless people will
+join you in ecstasies over your collection without having the slightest
+notion in what its marvellousness really consists."
+
+I hung my head. It was a crushing illustration of the sad truth he
+advanced. The world is full of such people. And that instance of the
+French aristocracy before the Revolution was extremely telling, too.
+I could not traverse his statement, though its cynicism--always a
+distasteful trait--took off much of its value to my mind. However, I
+admit I was impressed. I felt the need to say something which would not
+be in the nature of assent and yet would not invite discussion.
+
+"You don't mean to say," I observed, airily, "that extreme
+revolutionists have ever been actively assisted by the infatuation of
+such people?"
+
+"I did not mean exactly that by what I said just now. I generalized.
+But since you ask me, I may tell you that such help has been given
+to revolutionary activities, more or less consciously, in various
+countries. And even in this country."
+
+"Impossible!" I protested with firmness. "We don't play with fire to
+that extent."
+
+"And yet you can better afford it than others, perhaps. But let me
+observe that most women, if not always ready to play with fire, are
+generally eager to play with a loose spark or so."
+
+"Is this a joke?" I asked, smiling.
+
+"If it is, I am not aware of it," he said, woodenly. "I was thinking of
+an instance. Oh! mild enough in a way . . ."
+
+I became all expectation at this. I had tried many times to approach him
+on his underground side, so to speak. The very word had been pronounced
+between us. But he had always met me with his impenetrable calm.
+
+"And at the same time," Mr. X continued, "it will give you a notion
+of the difficulties that may arise in what you are pleased to call
+underground work. It is sometimes difficult to deal with them. Of course
+there is no hierarchy amongst the affiliated. No rigid system."
+
+My surprise was great, but short-lived. Clearly, amongst extreme
+anarchists there could be no hierarchy; nothing in the nature of a
+law of precedence. The idea of anarchy ruling among anarchists was
+comforting, too. It could not possibly make for efficiency.
+
+Mr. X startled me by asking, abruptly, "You know Hermione Street?"
+
+I nodded doubtful assent. Hermione Street has been, within the last
+three years, improved out of any man's knowledge. The name exists still,
+but not one brick or stone of the old Hermione Street is left now. It
+was the old street he meant, for he said:
+
+"There was a row of two-storied brick houses on the left, with their
+backs against the wing of a great public building--you remember. Would
+it surprise you very much to hear that one of these houses was for
+a time the centre of anarchist propaganda and of what you would call
+underground action?"
+
+"Not at all," I declared. Hermione Street had never been particularly
+respectable, as I remembered it.
+
+"The house was the property of a distinguished government official," he
+added, sipping his champagne.
+
+"Oh, indeed!" I said, this time not believing a word of it.
+
+"Of course he was not living there," Mr. X continued. "But from ten till
+four he sat next door to it, the dear man, in his well-appointed private
+room in the wing of the public building I've mentioned. To be strictly
+accurate, I must explain that the house in Hermione Street did not
+really belong to him. It belonged to his grown-up children--a daughter
+and a son. The girl, a fine figure, was by no means vulgarly pretty.
+To more personal charm than mere youth could account for, she added
+the seductive appearance of enthusiasm, of independence, of courageous
+thought. I suppose she put on these appearances as she put on her
+picturesque dresses and for the same reason: to assert her individuality
+at any cost. You know, women would go to any length almost for such
+a purpose. She went to a great length. She had acquired all the
+appropriate gestures of revolutionary convictions--the gestures of pity,
+of anger, of indignation against the anti-humanitarian vices of the
+social class to which she belonged herself. All this sat on her striking
+personality as well as her slightly original costumes. Very slightly
+original; just enough to mark a protest against the philistinism of the
+overfed taskmasters of the poor. Just enough, and no more. It would not
+have done to go too far in that direction--you understand. But she was
+of age, and nothing stood in the way of her offering her house to the
+revolutionary workers."
+
+"You don't mean it!" I cried.
+
+"I assure you," he affirmed, "that she made that very practical gesture.
+How else could they have got hold of it? The cause is not rich.
+And, moreover, there would have been difficulties with any ordinary
+house-agent, who would have wanted references and so on. The group she
+came in contact with while exploring the poor quarters of the town
+(you know the gesture of charity and personal service which was so
+fashionable some years ago) accepted with gratitude. The first advantage
+was that Hermione Street is, as you know, well away from the suspect
+part of the town, specially watched by the police.
+
+"The ground floor consisted of a little Italian restaurant, of the
+flyblown sort. There was no difficulty in buying the proprietor out. A
+woman and a man belonging to the group took it on. The man had been a
+cook. The comrades could get their meals there, unnoticed amongst
+the other customers. This was another advantage. The first floor was
+occupied by a shabby Variety Artists' Agency--an agency for performers
+in inferior music-halls, you know. A fellow called Bomm, I remember. He
+was not disturbed. It was rather favourable than otherwise to have a lot
+of foreign-looking people, jugglers, acrobats, singers of both sexes,
+and so on, going in and out all day long. The police paid no attention
+to new faces, you see. The top floor happened, most conveniently, to
+stand empty then."
+
+X interrupted himself to attack impassively, with measured movements,
+a bombe glacee which the waiter had just set down on the table. He
+swallowed carefully a few spoonfuls of the iced sweet, and asked me,
+"Did you ever hear of Stone's Dried Soup?"
+
+"Hear of what?"
+
+"It was," X pursued, evenly, "a comestible article once rather
+prominently advertised in the dailies, but which never, somehow, gained
+the favour of the public. The enterprise fizzled out, as you say here.
+Parcels of their stock could be picked up at auctions at considerably
+less than a penny a pound. The group bought some of it, and an agency
+for Stone's Dried Soup was started on the top floor. A perfectly
+respectable business. The stuff, a yellow powder of extremely
+unappetizing aspect, was put up in large square tins, of which six went
+to a case. If anybody ever came to give an order, it was, of course,
+executed. But the advantage of the powder was this, that things could be
+concealed in it very conveniently. Now and then a special case got put
+on a van and sent off to be exported abroad under the very nose of the
+policeman on duty at the corner. You understand?"
+
+"I think I do," I said, with an expressive nod at the remnants of the
+bombe melting slowly in the dish.
+
+"Exactly. But the cases were useful in another way, too. In the
+basement, or in the cellar at the back, rather, two printing-presses
+were established. A lot of revolutionary literature of the most
+inflammatory kind was got away from the house in Stone's Dried Soup
+cases. The brother of our anarchist young lady found some occupation
+there. He wrote articles, helped to set up type and pull off the sheets,
+and generally assisted the man in charge, a very able young fellow
+called Sevrin.
+
+"The guiding spirit of that group was a fanatic of social revolution. He
+is dead now. He was an engraver and etcher of genius. You must have seen
+his work. It is much sought after by certain amateurs now. He began by
+being revolutionary in his art, and ended by becoming a revolutionist,
+after his wife and child had died in want and misery. He used to say
+that the bourgeoisie, the smug, overfed lot, had killed them. That was
+his real belief. He still worked at his art and led a double life. He
+was tall, gaunt, and swarthy, with a long, brown beard and deep-set
+eyes. You must have seen him. His name was Horne."
+
+At this I was really startled. Of course years ago I used to meet Horne
+about. He looked like a powerful, rough gipsy, in an old top hat, with a
+red muffler round his throat and buttoned up in a long, shabby overcoat.
+He talked of his art with exaltation, and gave one the impression of
+being strung up to the verge of insanity. A small group of connoisseurs
+appreciated his work. Who would have thought that this man. . . .
+Amazing! And yet it was not, after all, so difficult to believe.
+
+"As you see," X went on, "this group was in a position to pursue
+its work of propaganda, and the other kind of work, too, under very
+advantageous conditions. They were all resolute, experienced men of
+a superior stamp. And yet we became struck at length by the fact that
+plans prepared in Hermione Street almost invariably failed."
+
+"Who were 'we'?" I asked, pointedly.
+
+"Some of us in Brussels--at the centre," he said, hastily. "Whatever
+vigorous action originated in Hermione Street seemed doomed to failure.
+Something always happened to baffle the best planned manifestations in
+every part of Europe. It was a time of general activity. You must not
+imagine that all our failures are of a loud sort, with arrests and
+trials. That is not so. Often the police work quietly, almost secretly,
+defeating our combinations by clever counter-plotting. No arrests, no
+noise, no alarming of the public mind and inflaming the passions. It
+is a wise procedure. But at that time the police were too uniformly
+successful from the Mediterranean to the Baltic. It was annoying and
+began to look dangerous. At last we came to the conclusion that there
+must be some untrustworthy elements amongst the London groups. And I
+came over to see what could be done quietly.
+
+"My first step was to call upon our young Lady Amateur of anarchism at
+her private house. She received me in a flattering way. I judged that
+she knew nothing of the chemical and other operations going on at
+the top of the house in Hermione Street. The printing of anarchist
+literature was the only 'activity' she seemed to be aware of there. She
+was displaying very strikingly the usual signs of severe enthusiasm,
+and had already written many sentimental articles with ferocious
+conclusions. I could see she was enjoying herself hugely, with all the
+gestures and grimaces of deadly earnestness. They suited her big-eyed,
+broad-browed face and the good carriage of her shapely head, crowned by
+a magnificent lot of brown hair done in an unusual and becoming style.
+Her brother was in the room, too, a serious youth, with arched eyebrows
+and wearing a red necktie, who struck me as being absolutely in the dark
+about everything in the world, including himself. By and by a tall young
+man came in. He was clean-shaved with a strong bluish jaw and something
+of the air of a taciturn actor or of a fanatical priest: the type with
+thick black eyebrows--you know. But he was very presentable indeed. He
+shook hands at once vigorously with each of us. The young lady came up
+to me and murmured sweetly, 'Comrade Sevrin.'
+
+"I had never seen him before. He had little to say to us, but sat
+down by the side of the girl, and they fell at once into earnest
+conversation. She leaned forward in her deep armchair, and took her
+nicely rounded chin in her beautiful white hand. He looked attentively
+into her eyes. It was the attitude of love-making, serious, intense, as
+if on the brink of the grave. I suppose she felt it necessary to
+round and complete her assumption of advanced ideas, of revolutionary
+lawlessness, by making believe to be in love with an anarchist. And this
+one, I repeat, was extremely presentable, notwithstanding his fanatical
+black-browed aspect. After a few stolen glances in their direction, I
+had no doubt that he was in earnest. As to the lady, her gestures
+were unapproachable, better than the very thing itself in the blended
+suggestion of dignity, sweetness, condescension, fascination, surrender,
+and reserve. She interpreted her conception of what that precise sort
+of love-making should be with consummate art. And so far, she, too, no
+doubt, was in earnest. Gestures--but so perfect!
+
+"After I had been left alone with our Lady Amateur I informed her
+guardedly of the object of my visit. I hinted at our suspicions. I
+wanted to hear what she would have to say, and half expected some
+perhaps unconscious revelation. All she said was, 'That's serious,'
+looking delightfully concerned and grave. But there was a sparkle in her
+eyes which meant plainly, 'How exciting!' After all, she knew little
+of anything except of words. Still, she undertook to put me in
+communication with Horne, who was not easy to find unless in Hermione
+Street, where I did not wish to show myself just then.
+
+"I met Horne. This was another kind of a fanatic altogether. I exposed
+to him the conclusion we in Brussels had arrived at, and pointed out
+the significant series of failures. To this he answered with irrelevant
+exaltation:
+
+"'I have something in hand that shall strike terror into the heart of
+these gorged brutes.'
+
+"And then I learned that, by excavating in one of the cellars of the
+house, he and some companions had made their way into the vaults under
+the great public building I have mentioned before. The blowing up of a
+whole wing was a certainty as soon as the materials were ready.
+
+"I was not so appalled at the stupidity of that move as I might have
+been had not the usefulness of our centre in Hermione Street become
+already very problematical. In fact, in my opinion it was much more of a
+police trap by this time than anything else.
+
+"What was necessary now was to discover what, or rather who, was wrong,
+and I managed at last to get that idea into Horne's head. He glared,
+perplexed, his nostrils working as if he were sniffing treachery in the
+air.
+
+"And here comes a piece of work which will no doubt strike you as a sort
+of theatrical expedient. And yet what else could have been done? The
+problem was to find out the untrustworthy member of the group. But no
+suspicion could be fastened on one more than another. To set a watch
+upon them all was not very practicable. Besides, that proceeding often
+fails. In any case, it takes time, and the danger was pressing. I felt
+certain that the premises in Hermione Street would be ultimately raided,
+though the police had evidently such confidence in the informer that the
+house, for the time being, was not even watched. Horne was positive
+on that point. Under the circumstances it was an unfavourable symptom.
+Something had to be done quickly.
+
+"I decided to organize a raid myself upon the group. Do you understand?
+A raid of other trusty comrades personating the police. A conspiracy
+within a conspiracy. You see the object of it, of course. When
+apparently about to be arrested I hoped the informer would betray
+himself in some way or other; either by some unguarded act or simply by
+his unconcerned demeanour, for instance. Of coarse there was the risk
+of complete failure and the no lesser risk of some fatal accident in the
+course of resistance, perhaps, or in the efforts at escape. For, as
+you will easily see, the Hermione Street group had to be actually and
+completely taken unawares, as I was sure they would be by the real
+police before very long. The informer was amongst them, and Horne alone
+could be let into the secret of my plan.
+
+"I will not enter into the detail of my preparations. It was not very
+easy to arrange, but it was done very well, with a really convincing
+effect. The sham police invaded the restaurant, whose shutters were
+immediately put up. The surprise was perfect. Most of the Hermione
+Street party were found in the second cellar, enlarging the hole
+communicating with the vaults of the great public building. At the first
+alarm, several comrades bolted through impulsively into the aforesaid
+vault, where, of course, had this been a genuine raid, they would have
+been hopelessly trapped. We did not bother about them for the moment.
+They were harmless enough. The top floor caused considerable anxiety
+to Horne and myself. There, surrounded by tins of Stone's Dried Soup,
+a comrade, nick-named the Professor (he was an ex-science student)
+was engaged in perfecting some new detonators. He was an abstracted,
+self-confident, sallow little man, armed with large round spectacles,
+and we were afraid that under a mistaken impression he would blow
+himself up and wreck the house about our ears. I rushed upstairs and
+found him already at the door, on the alert, listening, as he said, to
+'suspicious noises down below.' Before I had quite finished explaining
+to him what was going on he shrugged his shoulders disdainfully and
+turned away to his balances and test-tubes. His was the true spirit
+of an extreme revolutionist. Explosives were his faith, his hope, his
+weapon, and his shield. He perished a couple of years afterwards in a
+secret laboratory through the premature explosion of one of his improved
+detonators.
+
+"Hurrying down again, I found an impressive scene in the gloom of the
+big cellar. The man who personated the inspector (he was no stranger
+to the part) was speaking harshly, and giving bogus orders to his
+bogus subordinates for the removal of his prisoners. Evidently nothing
+enlightening had happened so far. Horne, saturnine and swarthy, waited
+with folded arms, and his patient, moody expectation had an air of
+stoicism well in keeping with the situation. I detected in the shadows
+one of the Hermione Street group surreptitiously chewing up and
+swallowing a small piece of paper. Some compromising scrap, I suppose;
+perhaps just a note of a few names and addresses. He was a true and
+faithful 'companion.' But the fund of secret malice which lurks at the
+bottom of our sympathies caused me to feel amused at that perfectly
+uncalled-for performance.
+
+"In every other respect the risky experiment, the theatrical coup, if you
+like to call it so, seemed to have failed. The deception could not
+be kept up much longer; the explanation would bring about a very
+embarrassing and even grave situation. The man who had eaten the paper
+would be furious. The fellows who had bolted away would be angry, too.
+
+"To add to my vexation, the door communicating with the other cellar,
+where the printing-presses were, flew open, and our young lady
+revolutionist appeared, a black silhouette in a close-fitting dress and
+a large hat, with the blaze of gas flaring in there at her back. Over
+her shoulder I perceived the arched eyebrows and the red necktie of her
+brother.
+
+"The last people in the world I wanted to see then! They had gone that
+evening to some amateur concert for the delectation of the poor people,
+you know; but she had insisted on leaving early, on purpose to call in
+Hermione Street on the way home, under the pretext of having some work
+to do. Her usual task was to correct the proofs of the Italian and
+French editions of the Alarm Bell and the Firebrand." . . .
+
+"Heavens!" I murmured. I had been shown once a few copies of these
+publications. Nothing, in my opinion, could have been less fit for the
+eyes of a young lady. They were the most advanced things of the sort;
+advanced, I mean, beyond all bounds of reason and decency. One of them
+preached the dissolution of all social and domestic ties; the other
+advocated systematic murder. To think of a young girl calmly tracking
+printers' errors all along the sort of abominable sentences I remembered
+was intolerable to my sentiment of womanhood. Mr. X, after giving me a
+glance, pursued steadily.
+
+"I think, however, that she came mostly to exercise her fascinations
+upon Sevrin, and to receive his homage in her queenly and condescending
+way. She was aware of both--her power and his homage--and enjoyed them
+with, I dare say, complete innocence. We have no ground in expediency
+or morals to quarrel with her on that account. Charm in woman and
+exceptional intelligence in man are a law unto themselves. Is it not
+so?"
+
+I refrained from expressing my abhorrence of that licentious doctrine
+because of my curiosity.
+
+"But what happened then?" I hastened to ask.
+
+X went on crumbling slowly a small piece of bread with a careless left
+hand.
+
+"What happened, in effect," he confessed, "is that she saved the
+situation."
+
+"She gave you an opportunity to end your rather sinister farce," I
+suggested.
+
+"Yes," he said, preserving his impassive bearing. "The farce was bound
+to end soon. And it ended in a very few minutes. And it ended well. Had
+she not come in, it might have ended badly. Her brother, of course, did
+not count. They had slipped into the house quietly some time before. The
+printing-cellar had an entrance of its own. Not finding any one there,
+she sat down to her proofs, expecting Sevrin to return to his work at
+any moment. He did not do so. She grew impatient, heard through the door
+the sounds of a disturbance in the other cellar and naturally came in to
+see what was the matter.
+
+"Sevrin had been with us. At first he had seemed to me the most amazed
+of the whole raided lot. He appeared for an instant as if paralyzed
+with astonishment. He stood rooted to the spot. He never moved a limb. A
+solitary gas-jet flared near his head; all the other lights had been put
+out at the first alarm. And presently, from my dark corner, I observed
+on his shaven actor's face an expression of puzzled, vexed watchfulness.
+He knitted his heavy eyebrows. The corners of his mouth dropped
+scornfully. He was angry. Most likely he had seen through the game,
+and I regretted I had not taken him from the first into my complete
+confidence.
+
+"But with the appearance of the girl he became obviously alarmed. It was
+plain. I could see it grow. The change of his expression was swift and
+startling. And I did not know why. The reason never occurred to me. I
+was merely astonished at the extreme alteration of the man's face. Of
+course he had not been aware of her presence in the other cellar; but
+that did not explain the shock her advent had given him. For a moment he
+seemed to have been reduced to imbecility. He opened his mouth as if to
+shout, or perhaps only to gasp. At any rate, it was somebody else who
+shouted. This somebody else was the heroic comrade whom I had detected
+swallowing a piece of paper. With laudable presence of mind he let out a
+warning yell.
+
+"'It's the police! Back! Back! Run back, and bolt the door behind you.'
+
+"It was an excellent hint; but instead of retreating the girl continued
+to advance, followed by her long-faced brother in his knickerbocker suit,
+in which he had been singing comic songs for the entertainment of
+a joyless proletariat. She advanced not as if she had failed to
+understand--the word 'police' has an unmistakable sound--but rather as
+if she could not help herself. She did not advance with the free gait
+and expanding presence of a distinguished amateur anarchist amongst
+poor, struggling professionals, but with slightly raised shoulders,
+and her elbows pressed close to her body, as if trying to shrink within
+herself. Her eyes were fixed immovably upon Sevrin. Sevrin the man, I
+fancy; not Sevrin the anarchist. But she advanced. And that was natural.
+For all their assumption of independence, girls of that class are used
+to the feeling of being specially protected, as, in fact, they are. This
+feeling accounts for nine tenths of their audacious gestures. Her face
+had gone completely colourless. Ghastly. Fancy having it brought home to
+her so brutally that she was the sort of person who must run away from
+the police! I believe she was pale with indignation, mostly, though
+there was, of course, also the concern for her intact personality, a
+vague dread of some sort of rudeness. And, naturally, she turned to a
+man, to the man on whom she had a claim of fascination and homage--the
+man who could not conceivably fail her at any juncture."
+
+"But," I cried, amazed at this analysis, "if it had been serious, real,
+I mean--as she thought it was--what could she expect him to do for her?"
+
+X never moved a muscle of his face.
+
+"Goodness knows. I imagine that this charming, generous, and independent
+creature had never known in her life a single genuine thought; I mean a
+single thought detached from small human vanities, or whose source was
+not in some conventional perception. All I know is that after advancing
+a few steps she extended her hand towards the motionless Sevrin. And
+that at least was no gesture. It was a natural movement. As to what
+she expected him to do, who can tell? The impossible. But whatever she
+expected, it could not have come up, I am safe to say, to what he had
+made up his mind to do, even before that entreating hand had appealed to
+him so directly. It had not been necessary. From the moment he had seen
+her enter that cellar, he had made up his mind to sacrifice his future
+usefulness, to throw off the impenetrable, solidly fastened mask it had
+been his pride to wear--"
+
+"What do you mean?" I interrupted, puzzled. "Was it Sevrin, then, who
+was--"
+
+"He was. The most persistent, the most dangerous, the craftiest, the
+most systematic of informers. A genius amongst betrayers. Fortunately
+for us, he was unique. The man was a fanatic, I have told you.
+Fortunately, again, for us, he had fallen in love with the accomplished
+and innocent gestures of that girl. An actor in desperate earnest
+himself, he must have believed in the absolute value of conventional
+signs. As to the grossness of the trap into which he fell, the
+explanation must be that two sentiments of such absorbing magnitude
+cannot exist simultaneously in one heart. The danger of that other and
+unconscious comedian robbed him of his vision, of his perspicacity, of
+his judgment. Indeed, it did at first rob him of his self-possession.
+But he regained that through the necessity--as it appeared to him
+imperiously--to do something at once. To do what? Why, to get her out of
+the house as quickly as possible. He was desperately anxious to do that.
+I have told you he was terrified. It could not be about himself. He had
+been surprised and annoyed at a move quite unforeseen and premature. I
+may even say he had been furious. He was accustomed to arrange the
+last scene of his betrayals with a deep, subtle art which left his
+revolutionist reputation untouched. But it seems clear to me that at
+the same time he had resolved to make the best of it, to keep his mask
+resolutely on. It was only with the discovery of her being in the house
+that everything--the forced calm, the restraint of his fanaticism, the
+mask--all came off together in a kind of panic. Why panic, do you ask?
+The answer is very simple. He remembered--or, I dare say, he had never
+forgotten--the Professor alone at the top of the house, pursuing his
+researches, surrounded by tins upon tins of Stone's Dried Soup. There
+was enough in some few of them to bury us all where we stood under
+a heap of bricks. Sevrin, of course, was aware of that. And we must
+believe, also, that he knew the exact character of the man. He had
+gauged so many such characters! Or perhaps he only gave the Professor
+credit for what he himself was capable of. But, in any case, the effect
+was produced. And suddenly he raised his voice in authority.
+
+"'Get the lady away at once.'
+
+"It turned out that he was as hoarse as a crow; result, no doubt, of
+the intense emotion. It passed off in a moment. But these fateful words
+issued forth from his contracted throat in a discordant, ridiculous
+croak. They required no answer. The thing was done. However, the man
+personating the inspector judged it expedient to say roughly:
+
+"'She shall go soon enough, together with the rest of you.'
+
+"These were the last words belonging to the comedy part of this affair.
+
+"Oblivious of everything and everybody, Sevrin strode towards him and
+seized the lapels of his coat. Under his thin bluish cheeks one could
+see his jaws working with passion.
+
+"'You have men posted outside. Get the lady taken home at once. Do you
+hear? Now. Before you try to get hold of the man upstairs.'
+
+"'Oh! There is a man upstairs,' scoffed the other, openly. 'Well, he
+shall be brought down in time to see the end of this.'
+
+"But Sevrin, beside himself, took no heed of the tone.
+
+"'Who's the imbecile meddler who sent you blundering here? Didn't you
+understand your instructions? Don't you know anything? It's incredible.
+Here--'
+
+"He dropped the lapels of the coat and, plunging his hand into his
+breast, jerked feverishly at something under his shirt. At last he
+produced a small square pocket of soft leather, which must have been
+hanging like a scapulary from his neck by the tape whose broken ends
+dangled from his fist.
+
+"'Look inside,' he spluttered, flinging it in the other's face. And
+instantly he turned round towards the girl. She stood just behind him,
+perfectly still and silent. Her set, white face gave an illusion of
+placidity. Only her staring eyes seemed bigger and darker.
+
+"He spoke rapidly, with nervous assurance. I heard him distinctly
+promise her to make everything as clear as daylight presently. But that
+was all I caught. He stood close to her, never attempting to touch her
+even with the tip of his little finger--and she stared at him stupidly.
+For a moment, however, her eyelids descended slowly, pathetically,
+and then, with the long black eyelashes lying on her white cheeks, she
+looked ready to fall down in a swoon. But she never even swayed where
+she stood. He urged her loudly to follow him at once, and walked towards
+the door at the bottom of the cellar stairs without looking behind him.
+And, as a matter of fact, she did move after him a pace or two. But,
+of course, he was not allowed to reach the door. There were angry
+exclamations, a short, fierce scuffle. Flung away violently, he came
+flying backwards upon her, and fell. She threw out her arms in a gesture
+of dismay and stepped aside, just clear of his head, which struck the
+ground heavily near her shoe.
+
+"He grunted with the shock. By the time he had picked himself up,
+slowly, dazedly, he was awake to the reality of things. The man into
+whose hands he had thrust the leather case had extracted therefrom a
+narrow strip of bluish paper. He held it up above his head, and, as
+after the scuffle an expectant uneasy stillness reigned once more, he
+threw it down disdainfully with the words, 'I think, comrades, that this
+proof was hardly necessary.'
+
+"Quick as thought, the girl stooped after the fluttering slip. Holding
+it spread out in both hands, she looked at it; then, without raising her
+eyes, opened her fingers slowly and let it fall.
+
+"I examined that curious document afterwards. It was signed by a very
+high personage, and stamped and countersigned by other high officials
+in various countries of Europe. In his trade--or shall I say, in his
+mission?--that sort of talisman might have been necessary, no doubt.
+Even to the police itself--all but the heads--he had been known only as
+Sevrin the noted anarchist.
+
+"He hung his head, biting his lower lip. A change had come over him,
+a sort of thoughtful, absorbed calmness. Nevertheless, he panted. His
+sides worked visibly, and his nostrils expanded and collapsed in weird
+contrast with his sombre aspect of a fanatical monk in a meditative
+attitude, but with something, too, in his face of an actor intent upon
+the terrible exigencies of his part. Before him Horne declaimed, haggard
+and bearded, like an inspired denunciatory prophet from a wilderness.
+Two fanatics. They were made to understand each other. Does this
+surprise you? I suppose you think that such people would be foaming at
+the mouth and snarling at each other?"
+
+I protested hastily that I was not surprised in the least; that I
+thought nothing of the kind; that anarchists in general were simply
+inconceivable to me mentally, morally, logically, sentimentally, and
+even physically. X received this declaration with his usual woodenness
+and went on.
+
+"Horne had burst out into eloquence. While pouring out scornful
+invective, he let tears escape from his eyes and roll down his black
+beard unheeded. Sevrin panted quicker and quicker. When he opened his
+mouth to speak, everyone hung on his words.
+
+"'Don't be a fool, Horne,' he began. 'You know very well that I have
+done this for none of the reasons you are throwing at me.' And in a
+moment he became outwardly as steady as a rock under the other's lurid
+stare. 'I have been thwarting, deceiving, and betraying you--from
+conviction.'
+
+"He turned his back on Horne, and addressing the girl, repeated the
+words: 'From conviction.'
+
+"It's extraordinary how cold she looked. I suppose she could not think
+of any appropriate gesture. There can have been few precedents indeed
+for such a situation.
+
+"'Clear as daylight,' he added. 'Do you understand what that means? From
+conviction.'
+
+"And still she did not stir. She did not know what to do. But the
+luckless wretch was about to give her the opportunity for a beautiful
+and correct gesture.
+
+"'I have felt in me the power to make you share this conviction,' he
+protested, ardently. He had forgotten himself; he made a step towards
+her--perhaps he stumbled. To me he seemed to be stooping low as if to
+touch the hem of her garment. And then the appropriate gesture came. She
+snatched her skirt away from his polluting contact and averted her
+head with an upward tilt. It was magnificently done, this gesture of
+conventionally unstained honour, of an unblemished high-minded amateur.
+
+"Nothing could have been better. And he seemed to think so, too, for
+once more he turned away. But this time he faced no one. He was again
+panting frightfully, while he fumbled hurriedly in his waistcoat pocket,
+and then raised his hand to his lips. There was something furtive in
+this movement, but directly afterwards his bearing changed. His laboured
+breathing gave him a resemblance to a man who had just run a desperate
+race; but a curious air of detachment, of sudden and profound
+indifference, replaced the strain of the striving effort. The race was
+over. I did not want to see what would happen next. I was only too well
+aware. I tucked the young lady's arm under mine without a word, and made
+my way with her to the stairs.
+
+"Her brother walked behind us. Half-way up the short flight she seemed
+unable to lift her feet high enough for the steps, and we had to pull
+and push to get her to the top. In the passage she dragged herself
+along, hanging on my arm, helplessly bent like an old woman. We issued
+into an empty street through a half-open door, staggering like besotted
+revellers. At the corner we stopped a four-wheeler, and the ancient
+driver looked round from his box with morose scorn at our efforts to get
+her in. Twice during the drive I felt her collapse on my shoulder in a
+half faint. Facing us, the youth in knickerbockers remained as mute as a
+fish, and, till he jumped out with the latch-key, sat more still than I
+would have believed it possible.
+
+"At the door of their drawing-room she left my arm and walked in first,
+catching at the chairs and tables. She unpinned her hat, then, exhausted
+with the effort, her cloak still hanging from her shoulders, flung
+herself into a deep armchair, sideways, her face half buried in a
+cushion. The good brother appeared silently before her with a glass of
+water. She motioned it away. He drank it himself and walked off to a
+distant corner--behind the grand piano, somewhere. All was still in this
+room where I had seen, for the first time, Sevrin, the anti-anarchist,
+captivated and spellbound by the consummate and hereditary grimaces that
+in a certain sphere of life take the place of feelings with an excellent
+effect. I suppose her thoughts were busy with the same memory. Her
+shoulders shook violently. A pure attack of nerves. When it quieted down
+she affected firmness, 'What is done to a man of that sort? What will
+they do to him?'
+
+"'Nothing. They can do nothing to him,' I assured her, with perfect
+truth. I was pretty certain he had died in less than twenty minutes
+from the moment his hand had gone to his lips. For if his fanatical
+anti-anarchism went even as far as carrying poison in his pocket, only to
+rob his adversaries of legitimate vengeance, I knew he would take care
+to provide something that would not fail him when required.
+
+"She drew an angry breath. There were red spots on her cheeks and a
+feverish brilliance in her eyes.
+
+"'Has ever any one been exposed to such a terrible experience? To think
+that he had held my hand! That man!' Her face twitched, she gulped down
+a pathetic sob. 'If I ever felt sure of anything, it was of Sevrin's
+high-minded motives.'
+
+"Then she began to weep quietly, which was good for her. Then through
+her flood of tears, half resentful, 'What was it he said to me?--"From
+conviction!" It seemed a vile mockery. What could he mean by it?'
+
+"'That, my dear young lady,' I said, gently, 'is more than I or anybody
+else can ever explain to you.'"
+
+Mr. X flicked a crumb off the front of his coat.
+
+"And that was strictly true as to her. Though Horne, for instance,
+understood very well; and so did I, especially after we had been to
+Sevrin's lodging in a dismal back street of an intensely respectable
+quarter. Horne was known there as a friend, and we had no difficulty in
+being admitted, the slatternly maid merely remarking, as she let us in,
+that 'Mr Sevrin had not been home that night.' We forced open a couple
+of drawers in the way of duty, and found a little useful information.
+The most interesting part was his diary; for this man, engaged in such
+deadly work, had the weakness to keep a record of the most damnatory
+kind. There were his acts and also his thoughts laid bare to us. But the
+dead don't mind that. They don't mind anything.
+
+"'From conviction.' Yes. A vague but ardent humanitarianism had urged
+him in his first youth into the bitterest extremity of negation and
+revolt. Afterwards his optimism flinched. He doubted and became lost.
+You have heard of converted atheists. These turn often into dangerous
+fanatics, but the soul remains the same. After he had got acquainted
+with the girl, there are to be met in that diary of his very queer
+politico-amorous rhapsodies. He took her sovereign grimaces with deadly
+seriousness. He longed to convert her. But all this cannot interest you.
+For the rest, I don't know if you remember--it is a good many years ago
+now--the journalistic sensation of the 'Hermione Street Mystery'; the
+finding of a man's body in the cellar of an empty house; the inquest;
+some arrests; many surmises--then silence--the usual end for many
+obscure martyrs and confessors. The fact is, he was not enough of an
+optimist. You must be a savage, tyrannical, pitiless, thick-and-thin
+optimist, like Horne, for instance, to make a good social rebel of the
+extreme type.
+
+"He rose from the table. A waiter hurried up with his overcoat; another
+held his hat in readiness.
+
+"But what became of the young lady?" I asked.
+
+"Do you really want to know?" he said, buttoning himself in his fur coat
+carefully. "I confess to the small malice of sending her Sevrin's diary.
+She went into retirement; then she went to Florence; then she went into
+retreat in a convent. I can't tell where she will go next. What does it
+matter? Gestures! Gestures! Mere gestures of her class."
+
+"He fitted on his glossy high hat with extreme precision, and casting
+a rapid glance round the room, full of well-dressed people, innocently
+dining, muttered between his teeth:
+
+"And nothing else! That is why their kind is fated to perish."
+
+"I never met Mr. X again after that evening. I took to dining at my club.
+On my next visit to Paris I found my friend all impatience to hear of
+the effect produced on me by this rare item of his collection. I
+told him all the story, and he beamed on me with the pride of his
+distinguished specimen.
+
+"'Isn't X well worth knowing?' he bubbled over in great delight. 'He's
+unique, amazing, absolutely terrific.'
+
+"His enthusiasm grated upon my finer feelings. I told him curtly that the
+man's cynicism was simply abominable.
+
+"'Oh, abominable! abominable!' assented my friend, effusively. 'And then,
+you know, he likes to have his little joke sometimes,' he added in a
+confidential tone.
+
+"I fail to understand the connection of this last remark. I have been
+utterly unable to discover where in all this the joke comes in."
+
+
+
+
+AN INDIGNANT TALE
+
+
+THE BRUTE
+
+
+Dodging in from the rain-swept street, I exchanged a smile and a
+glance with Miss Blank in the bar of the Three Crows. This exchange was
+effected with extreme propriety. It is a shock to think that, if still
+alive, Miss Blank must be something over sixty now. How time passes!
+
+Noticing my gaze directed inquiringly at the partition of glass and
+varnished wood, Miss Blank was good enough to say, encouragingly:
+
+"Only Mr. Jermyn and Mr. Stonor in the parlour with another gentleman
+I've never seen before."
+
+I moved towards the parlour door. A voice discoursing on the other side
+(it was but a matchboard partition), rose so loudly that the concluding
+words became quite plain in all their atrocity.
+
+"That fellow Wilmot fairly dashed her brains out, and a good job, too!"
+
+This inhuman sentiment, since there was nothing profane or improper
+in it, failed to do as much as to check the slight yawn Miss Blank
+was achieving behind her hand. And she remained gazing fixedly at the
+window-panes, which streamed with rain.
+
+As I opened the parlour door the same voice went on in the same cruel
+strain:
+
+"I was glad when I heard she got the knock from somebody at last. Sorry
+enough for poor Wilmot, though. That man and I used to be chums at one
+time. Of course that was the end of him. A clear case if there ever was
+one. No way out of it. None at all."
+
+The voice belonged to the gentleman Miss Blank had never seen before. He
+straddled his long legs on the hearthrug. Jermyn, leaning forward,
+held his pocket-handkerchief spread out before the grate. He looked back
+dismally over his shoulder, and as I slipped behind one of the
+little wooden tables, I nodded to him. On the other side of the fire,
+imposingly calm and large, sat Mr. Stonor, jammed tight into a capacious
+Windsor armchair. There was nothing small about him but his short, white
+side-whiskers. Yards and yards of extra superfine blue cloth (made up
+into an overcoat) reposed on a chair by his side. And he must just have
+brought some liner from sea, because another chair was smothered under
+his black waterproof, ample as a pall, and made of three-fold oiled
+silk, double-stitched throughout. A man's hand-bag of the usual size
+looked like a child's toy on the floor near his feet.
+
+I did not nod to him. He was too big to be nodded to in that parlour.
+He was a senior Trinity pilot and condescended to take his turn in the
+cutter only during the summer months. He had been many times in charge
+of royal yachts in and out of Port Victoria. Besides, it's no use
+nodding to a monument. And he was like one. He didn't speak, he didn't
+budge. He just sat there, holding his handsome old head up, immovable,
+and almost bigger than life. It was extremely fine. Mr. Stonor's
+presence reduced poor old Jermyn to a mere shabby wisp of a man, and
+made the talkative stranger in tweeds on the hearthrug look absurdly
+boyish. The latter must have been a few years over thirty, and was
+certainly not the sort of individual that gets abashed at the sound
+of his own voice, because gathering me in, as it were, by a friendly
+glance, he kept it going without a check.
+
+"I was glad of it," he repeated, emphatically. "You may be surprised at
+it, but then you haven't gone through the experience I've had of her.
+I can tell you, it was something to remember. Of course, I got off scot
+free myself--as you can see. She did her best to break up my pluck for
+me tho'. She jolly near drove as fine a fellow as ever lived into a
+madhouse. What do you say to that--eh?"
+
+Not an eyelid twitched in Mr. Stonor's enormous face. Monumental! The
+speaker looked straight into my eyes.
+
+"It used to make me sick to think of her going about the world murdering
+people."
+
+Jermyn approached the handkerchief a little nearer to the grate and
+groaned. It was simply a habit he had.
+
+"I've seen her once," he declared, with mournful indifference. "She had
+a house--"
+
+The stranger in tweeds turned to stare down at him, surprised.
+
+"She had three houses," he corrected, authoritatively. But Jermyn was
+not to be contradicted.
+
+"She had a house, I say," he repeated, with dismal obstinacy. "A great,
+big, ugly, white thing. You could see it from miles away--sticking up."
+
+"So you could," assented the other readily. "It was old Colchester's
+notion, though he was always threatening to give her up. He couldn't
+stand her racket any more, he declared; it was too much of a good
+thing for him; he would wash his hands of her, if he never got hold of
+another--and so on. I daresay he would have chucked her, only--it may
+surprise you--his missus wouldn't hear of it. Funny, eh? But with women,
+you never know how they will take a thing, and Mrs. Colchester, with her
+moustaches and big eyebrows, set up for being as strong-minded as they
+make them. She used to walk about in a brown silk dress, with a great
+gold cable flopping about her bosom. You should have heard her snapping
+out: 'Rubbish!' or 'Stuff and nonsense!' I daresay she knew when she was
+well off. They had no children, and had never set up a home anywhere.
+When in England she just made shift to hang out anyhow in some cheap
+hotel or boarding-house. I daresay she liked to get back to the comforts
+she was used to. She knew very well she couldn't gain by any change.
+And, moreover, Colchester, though a first-rate man, was not what you
+may call in his first youth, and, perhaps, she may have thought that he
+wouldn't be able to get hold of another (as he used to say) so easily.
+Anyhow, for one reason or another, it was 'Rubbish' and 'Stuff and
+nonsense' for the good lady. I overheard once young Mr. Apse himself say
+to her confidentially: 'I assure you, Mrs. Colchester, I am beginning to
+feel quite unhappy about the name she's getting for herself.' 'Oh,' says
+she, with her deep little hoarse laugh, 'if one took notice of all the
+silly talk,' and she showed Apse all her ugly false teeth at once. 'It
+would take more than that to make me lose my confidence in her, I assure
+you,' says she."
+
+At this point, without any change of facial expression, Mr. Stonor
+emitted a short, sardonic laugh. It was very impressive, but I didn't
+see the fun. I looked from one to another. The stranger on the hearthrug
+had an ugly smile.
+
+"And Mr. Apse shook both Mrs. Colchester's hands, he was so pleased to
+hear a good word said for their favourite. All these Apses, young
+and old you know, were perfectly infatuated with that abominable,
+dangerous--"
+
+"I beg your pardon," I interrupted, for he seemed to be addressing
+himself exclusively to me; "but who on earth are you talking about?"
+
+"I am talking of the Apse family," he answered, courteously.
+
+I nearly let out a damn at this. But just then the respected Miss Blank
+put her head in, and said that the cab was at the door, if Mr. Stonor
+wanted to catch the eleven three up.
+
+At once the senior pilot arose in his mighty bulk and began to struggle
+into his coat, with awe-inspiring upheavals. The stranger and I hurried
+impulsively to his assistance, and directly we laid our hands on him he
+became perfectly quiescent. We had to raise our arms very high, and
+to make efforts. It was like caparisoning a docile elephant. With a
+"Thanks, gentlemen," he dived under and squeezed himself through the
+door in a great hurry.
+
+We smiled at each other in a friendly way.
+
+"I wonder how he manages to hoist himself up a ship's side-ladder,"
+said the man in tweeds; and poor Jermyn, who was a mere North Sea
+pilot, without official status or recognition of any sort, pilot only by
+courtesy, groaned.
+
+"He makes eight hundred a year."
+
+"Are you a sailor?" I asked the stranger, who had gone back to his
+position on the rug.
+
+"I used to be till a couple of years ago, when I got married," answered
+this communicative individual. "I even went to sea first in that very
+ship we were speaking of when you came in."
+
+"What ship?" I asked, puzzled. "I never heard you mention a ship."
+
+"I've just told you her name, my dear sir," he replied. "The Apse
+Family. Surely you've heard of the great firm of Apse & Sons,
+shipowners. They had a pretty big fleet. There was the Lucy Apse, and
+the Harold Apse, and Anne, John, Malcolm, Clara, Juliet, and so
+on--no end of Apses. Every brother, sister, aunt, cousin, wife--and
+grandmother, too, for all I know--of the firm had a ship named after
+them. Good, solid, old-fashioned craft they were, too, built to carry
+and to last. None of your new-fangled, labour-saving appliances in
+them, but plenty of men and plenty of good salt beef and hard tack put
+aboard--and off you go to fight your way out and home again."
+
+The miserable Jermyn made a sound of approval, which sounded like a
+groan of pain. Those were the ships for him. He pointed out in doleful
+tones that you couldn't say to labour-saving appliances: "Jump lively
+now, my hearties." No labour-saving appliance would go aloft on a dirty
+night with the sands under your lee.
+
+"No," assented the stranger, with a wink at me. "The Apses didn't
+believe in them either, apparently. They treated their people well--as
+people don't get treated nowadays, and they were awfully proud of their
+ships. Nothing ever happened to them. This last one, the Apse Family,
+was to be like the others, only she was to be still stronger, still
+safer, still more roomy and comfortable. I believe they meant her
+to last for ever. They had her built composite--iron, teak-wood, and
+greenheart, and her scantling was something fabulous. If ever an order
+was given for a ship in a spirit of pride this one was. Everything of
+the best. The commodore captain of the employ was to command her, and
+they planned the accommodation for him like a house on shore under
+a big, tall poop that went nearly to the mainmast. No wonder Mrs.
+Colchester wouldn't let the old man give her up. Why, it was the best
+home she ever had in all her married days. She had a nerve, that woman.
+
+"The fuss that was made while that ship was building! Let's have this a
+little stronger, and that a little heavier; and hadn't that other thing
+better be changed for something a little thicker. The builders entered
+into the spirit of the game, and there she was, growing into the
+clumsiest, heaviest ship of her size right before all their eyes,
+without anybody becoming aware of it somehow. She was to be 2,000
+tons register, or a little over; no less on any account. But see what
+happens. When they came to measure her she turned out 1,999 tons and
+a fraction. General consternation! And they say old Mr. Apse was so
+annoyed when they told him that he took to his bed and died. The old
+gentleman had retired from the firm twenty-five years before, and
+was ninety-six years old if a day, so his death wasn't, perhaps, so
+surprising. Still Mr. Lucian Apse was convinced that his father would
+have lived to a hundred. So we may put him at the head of the list. Next
+comes the poor devil of a shipwright that brute caught and squashed as
+she went off the ways. They called it the launch of a ship, but I've
+heard people say that, from the wailing and yelling and scrambling out
+of the way, it was more like letting a devil loose upon the river.
+She snapped all her checks like pack-thread, and went for the tugs in
+attendance like a fury. Before anybody could see what she was up to she
+sent one of them to the bottom, and laid up another for three months'
+repairs. One of her cables parted, and then, suddenly--you couldn't tell
+why--she let herself be brought up with the other as quiet as a lamb.
+
+"That's how she was. You could never be sure what she would be up to
+next. There are ships difficult to handle, but generally you can depend
+on them behaving rationally. With that ship, whatever you did with her
+you never knew how it would end. She was a wicked beast. Or, perhaps,
+she was only just insane."
+
+He uttered this supposition in so earnest a tone that I could not
+refrain from smiling. He left off biting his lower lip to apostrophize
+me.
+
+"Eh! Why not? Why couldn't there be something in her build, in her lines
+corresponding to--What's madness? Only something just a tiny bit wrong
+in the make of your brain. Why shouldn't there be a mad ship--I mean mad
+in a ship-like way, so that under no circumstances could you be sure she
+would do what any other sensible ship would naturally do for you. There
+are ships that steer wildly, and ships that can't be quite trusted
+always to stay; others want careful watching when running in a gale;
+and, again, there may be a ship that will make heavy weather of it in
+every little blow. But then you expect her to be always so. You take it
+as part of her character, as a ship, just as you take account of a
+man's peculiarities of temper when you deal with him. But with her you
+couldn't. She was unaccountable. If she wasn't mad, then she was the
+most evil-minded, underhand, savage brute that ever went afloat. I've
+seen her run in a heavy gale beautifully for two days, and on the third
+broach to twice in the same afternoon. The first time she flung the
+helmsman clean over the wheel, but as she didn't quite manage to kill
+him she had another try about three hours afterwards. She swamped
+herself fore and aft, burst all the canvas we had set, scared all hands
+into a panic, and even frightened Mrs. Colchester down there in these
+beautiful stern cabins that she was so proud of. When we mustered the
+crew there was one man missing. Swept overboard, of course, without
+being either seen or heard, poor devil! and I only wonder more of us
+didn't go.
+
+"Always something like that. Always. I heard an old mate tell Captain
+Colchester once that it had come to this with him, that he was afraid to
+open his mouth to give any sort of order. She was as much of a terror
+in harbour as at sea. You could never be certain what would hold her. On
+the slightest provocation she would start snapping ropes, cables, wire
+hawsers, like carrots. She was heavy, clumsy, unhandy--but that does not
+quite explain that power for mischief she had. You know, somehow, when I
+think of her I can't help remembering what we hear of incurable lunatics
+breaking loose now and then."
+
+He looked at me inquisitively. But, of course, I couldn't admit that a
+ship could be mad.
+
+"In the ports where she was known," he went on,' "they dreaded the sight
+of her. She thought nothing of knocking away twenty feet or so of solid
+stone facing off a quay or wiping off the end of a wooden wharf. She
+must have lost miles of chain and hundreds of tons of anchors in her
+time. When she fell aboard some poor unoffending ship it was the
+very devil of a job to haul her off again. And she never got hurt
+herself--just a few scratches or so, perhaps. They had wanted to have
+her strong. And so she was. Strong enough to ram Polar ice with. And as
+she began so she went on. From the day she was launched she never let
+a year pass without murdering somebody. I think the owners got very
+worried about it. But they were a stiff-necked generation all these
+Apses; they wouldn't admit there could be anything wrong with the Apse
+Family. They wouldn't even change her name. 'Stuff and nonsense,' as
+Mrs. Colchester used to say. They ought at least to have shut her up
+for life in some dry dock or other, away up the river, and never let her
+smell salt water again. I assure you, my dear sir, that she invariably
+did kill someone every voyage she made. It was perfectly well-known. She
+got a name for it, far and wide."
+
+I expressed my surprise that a ship with such a deadly reputation could
+ever get a crew.
+
+"Then, you don't know what sailors are, my dear sir. Let me just show
+you by an instance. One day in dock at home, while loafing on the
+forecastle head, I noticed two respectable salts come along, one a
+middle-aged, competent, steady man, evidently, the other a smart,
+youngish chap. They read the name on the bows and stopped to look at
+her. Says the elder man: 'Apse Family. That's the sanguinary female dog'
+(I'm putting it in that way) 'of a ship, Jack, that kills a man every
+voyage. I wouldn't sign in her--not for Joe, I wouldn't.' And the other
+says: 'If she were mine, I'd have her towed on the mud and set on fire,
+blame if I wouldn't.' Then the first man chimes in: 'Much do they care!
+Men are cheap, God knows.' The younger one spat in the water alongside.
+'They won't have me--not for double wages.'
+
+"They hung about for some time and then walked up the dock. Half an
+hour later I saw them both on our deck looking about for the mate, and
+apparently very anxious to be taken on. And they were."
+
+"How do you account for this?" I asked.
+
+"What would you say?" he retorted. "Recklessness! The vanity of
+boasting in the evening to all their chums: 'We've just shipped in
+that there Apse Family. Blow her. She ain't going to scare us.' Sheer
+sailorlike perversity! A sort of curiosity. Well--a little of all that,
+no doubt. I put the question to them in the course of the voyage. The
+answer of the elderly chap was:
+
+"'A man can die but once.' The younger assured me in a mocking tone that
+he wanted to see 'how she would do it this time.' But I tell you what;
+there was a sort of fascination about the brute."
+
+Jermyn, who seemed to have seen every ship in the world, broke in
+sulkily:
+
+"I saw her once out of this very window towing up the river; a great
+black ugly thing, going along like a big hearse."
+
+"Something sinister about her looks, wasn't there?" said the man in
+tweeds, looking down at old Jermyn with a friendly eye. "I always had
+a sort of horror of her. She gave me a beastly shock when I was no more
+than fourteen, the very first day--nay, hour--I joined her. Father came
+up to see me off, and was to go down to Gravesend with us. I was his
+second boy to go to sea. My big brother was already an officer then. We.
+got on board about eleven in the morning, and found the ship ready to
+drop out of the basin, stern first. She had not moved three times her
+own length when, at a little pluck the tug gave her to enter the dock
+gates, she made one of her rampaging starts, and put such a weight on
+the check rope--a new six-inch hawser--that forward there they had no
+chance to ease it round in time, and it parted. I saw the broken end fly
+up high in the air, and the next moment that brute brought her quarter
+against the pier-head with a jar that staggered everybody about her
+decks. She didn't hurt herself. Not she! But one of the boys the
+mate had sent aloft on the mizzen to do something, came down on the
+poop-deck--thump--right in front of me. He was not much older than
+myself. We had been grinning at each other only a few minutes before. He
+must have been handling himself carelessly, not expecting to get such a
+jerk. I heard his startled cry--Oh!--in a high treble as he felt himself
+going, and looked up in time to see him go limp all over as he fell.
+Ough! Poor father was remarkably white about the gills when we shook
+hands in Gravesend. 'Are you all right?' he says, looking hard at me.
+'Yes, father.' 'Quite sure?' 'Yes, father.' 'Well, then good-bye, my
+boy.' He told me afterwards that for half a word he would have carried
+me off home with him there and then. I am the baby of the family--you
+know," added the man in tweeds, stroking his moustache with an ingenuous
+smile.
+
+I acknowledged this interesting communication by a sympathetic murmur.
+He waved his hand carelessly.
+
+"This might have utterly spoiled a chap's nerve for going aloft, you
+know--utterly. He fell within two feet of me, cracking his head on a
+mooring-bitt. Never moved. Stone dead. Nice looking little fellow, he
+was. I had just been thinking we would be great chums. However, that
+wasn't yet the worst that brute of a ship could do. I served in her
+three years of my time, and then I got transferred to the Lucy Apse, for
+a year. The sailmaker we had in the Apse Family turned up there, too,
+and I remember him saying to me one evening, after we had been a week at
+sea: Isn't she a meek little ship?' No wonder we thought the Lucy Apse
+a dear, meek, little ship after getting clear of that big, rampaging
+savage brute. It was like heaven. Her officers seemed to me the
+restfullest lot of men on earth. To me who had known no ship but the
+Apse Family, the Lucy was like a sort of magic craft that did what you
+wanted her to do of her own accord. One evening we got caught aback
+pretty sharply from right ahead. In about ten minutes we had her full
+again, sheets aft, tacks down, decks cleared, and the officer of the
+watch leaning against the weather rail peacefully. It seemed simply
+marvellous to me. The other would have stuck for half-an-hour in irons,
+rolling her decks full of water, knocking the men about--spars cracking,
+braces snapping, yards taking charge, and a confounded scare going on
+aft because of her beastly rudder, which she had a way of flapping about
+fit to raise your hair on end. I couldn't get over my wonder for days.
+
+"Well, I finished my last year of apprenticeship in that jolly little
+ship--she wasn't so little either, but after that other heavy devil she
+seemed but a plaything to handle. I finished my time and passed; and
+then just as I was thinking of having three weeks of real good time on
+shore I got at breakfast a letter asking me the earliest day I could
+be ready to join the Apse Family as third mate. I gave my plate a shove
+that shot it into the middle of the table; dad looked up over his paper;
+mother raised her hands in astonishment, and I went out bare-headed into
+our bit of garden, where I walked round and round for an hour.
+
+"When I came in again mother was out of the dining-room, and dad
+had shifted berth into his big armchair. The letter was lying on the
+mantelpiece.
+
+"'It's very creditable to you to get the offer, and very kind of them to
+make it,' he said. 'And I see also that Charles has been appointed chief
+mate of that ship for one voyage.'
+
+"There was, over leaf, a P.S. to that effect in Mr. Apse's own
+handwriting, which I had overlooked. Charley was my big brother.
+
+"I don't like very much to have two of my boys together in one ship,'
+father goes on, in his deliberate, solemn way. 'And I may tell you that
+I would not mind writing Mr. Apse a letter to that effect.'
+
+"Dear old dad! He was a wonderful father. What would you have done? The
+mere notion of going back (and as an officer, too), to be worried and
+bothered, and kept on the jump night and day by that brute, made me feel
+sick. But she wasn't a ship you could afford to fight shy of. Besides,
+the most genuine excuse could not be given without mortally offending
+Apse & Sons. The firm, and I believe the whole family down to the old
+unmarried aunts in Lancashire, had grown desperately touchy about that
+accursed ship's character. This was the case for answering 'Ready now'
+from your very death-bed if you wished to die in their good graces. And
+that's precisely what I did answer--by wire, to have it over and done
+with at once.
+
+"The prospect of being shipmates with my big brother cheered me up
+considerably, though it made me a bit anxious, too. Ever since I
+remember myself as a little chap he had been very good to me, and I
+looked upon him as the finest fellow in the world. And so he was. No
+better officer ever walked the deck of a merchant ship. And that's a
+fact. He was a fine, strong, upstanding, sun-tanned, young fellow, with
+his brown hair curling a little, and an eye like a hawk. He was just
+splendid. We hadn't seen each other for many years, and even this time,
+though he had been in England three weeks already, he hadn't showed up
+at home yet, but had spent his spare time in Surrey somewhere making
+up to Maggie Colchester, old Captain Colchester's niece. Her father, a
+great friend of dad's, was in the sugar-broking business, and Charley
+made a sort of second home of their house. I wondered what my big
+brother would think of me. There was a sort of sternness about Charley's
+face which never left it, not even when he was larking in his rather
+wild fashion.
+
+"He received me with a great shout of laughter. He seemed to think
+my joining as an officer the greatest joke in the world. There was a
+difference of ten years between us, and I suppose he remembered me
+best in pinafores. I was a kid of four when he first went to sea. It
+surprised me to find how boisterous he could be.
+
+"'Now we shall see what you are made of,' he cried. And he held me off
+by the shoulders, and punched my ribs, and hustled me into his berth.
+'Sit down, Ned. I am glad of the chance of having you with me. I'll put
+the finishing touch to you, my young officer, providing you're worth the
+trouble. And, first of all, get it well into your head that we are
+not going to let this brute kill anybody this voyage. We'll stop her
+racket.'
+
+"I perceived he was in dead earnest about it. He talked grimly of the
+ship, and how we must be careful and never allow this ugly beast to
+catch us napping with any of her damned tricks.
+
+"He gave me a regular lecture on special seamanship for the use of the
+Apse Family; then changing his tone, he began to talk at large, rattling
+off the wildest, funniest nonsense, till my sides ached with laughing.
+I could see very well he was a bit above himself with high spirits. It
+couldn't be because of my coming. Not to that extent. But, of course,
+I wouldn't have dreamt of asking what was the matter. I had a proper
+respect for my big brother, I can tell you. But it was all made plain
+enough a day or two afterwards, when I heard that Miss Maggie Colchester
+was coming for the voyage. Uncle was giving her a sea-trip for the
+benefit of her health.
+
+"I don't know what could have been wrong with her health. She had a
+beautiful colour, and a deuce of a lot of fair hair. She didn't care a
+rap for wind, or rain, or spray, or sun, or green seas, or anything.
+She was a blue-eyed, jolly girl of the very best sort, but the way she
+cheeked my big brother used to frighten me. I always expected it to end
+in an awful row. However, nothing decisive happened till after we had
+been in Sydney for a week. One day, in the men's dinner hour, Charley
+sticks his head into my cabin. I was stretched out on my back on the
+settee, smoking in peace.
+
+"'Come ashore with me, Ned,' he says, in his curt way.
+
+"I jumped up, of course, and away after him down the gangway and
+up George Street. He strode along like a giant, and I at his elbow,
+panting. It was confoundedly hot. 'Where on earth are you rushing me to,
+Charley?' I made bold to ask.
+
+"'Here,' he says.
+
+"'Here' was a jeweller's shop. I couldn't imagine what he could want
+there. It seemed a sort of mad freak. He thrusts under my nose three
+rings, which looked very tiny on his big, brown palm, growling out--
+
+"'For Maggie! Which?'
+
+"I got a kind of scare at this. I couldn't make a sound, but I pointed
+at the one that sparkled white and blue. He put it in his waistcoat
+pocket, paid for it with a lot of sovereigns, and bolted out. When
+we got on board I was quite out of breath. 'Shake hands, old chap,' I
+gasped out. He gave me a thump on the back. 'Give what orders you like
+to the boatswain when the hands turn-to,' says he; 'I am off duty this
+afternoon.'
+
+"Then he vanished from the deck for a while, but presently he came out
+of the cabin with Maggie, and these two went over the gangway publicly,
+before all hands, going for a walk together on that awful, blazing hot
+day, with clouds of dust flying about. They came back after a few hours
+looking very staid, but didn't seem to have the slightest idea where
+they had been. Anyway, that's the answer they both made to Mrs.
+Colchester's question at tea-time.
+
+"And didn't she turn on Charley, with her voice like an old night
+cabman's! 'Rubbish. Don't know where you've been! Stuff and nonsense.
+You've walked the girl off her legs. Don't do it again.'
+
+"It's surprising how meek Charley could be with that old woman. Only
+on one occasion he whispered to me, 'I'm jolly glad she isn't Maggie's
+aunt, except by marriage. That's no sort of relationship.' But I think
+he let Maggie have too much of her own way. She was hopping all over
+that ship in her yachting skirt and a red tam o' shanter like a bright
+bird on a dead black tree. The old salts used to grin to themselves when
+they saw her coming along, and offered to teach her knots or splices. I
+believe she liked the men, for Charley's sake, I suppose.
+
+"As you may imagine, the fiendish propensities of that cursed ship were
+never spoken of on board. Not in the cabin, at any rate. Only once
+on the homeward passage Charley said, incautiously, something about
+bringing all her crew home this time. Captain Colchester began to look
+uncomfortable at once, and that silly, hard-bitten old woman flew out at
+Charley as though he had said something indecent. I was quite confounded
+myself; as to Maggie, she sat completely mystified, opening her blue
+eyes very wide. Of course, before she was a day older she wormed it all
+out of me. She was a very difficult person to lie to.
+
+"'How awful,' she said, quite solemn. 'So many poor fellows. I am glad
+the voyage is nearly over. I won't have a moment's peace about Charley
+now.'
+
+"I assured her Charley was all right. It took more than that ship knew
+to get over a seaman like Charley. And she agreed with me.
+
+"Next day we got the tug off Dungeness; and when the tow-rope was fast
+Charley rubbed his hands and said to me in an undertone--
+
+"'We've baffled her, Ned.'
+
+"'Looks like it,' I said, with a grin at him. It was beautiful weather,
+and the sea as smooth as a millpond. We went up the river without a
+shadow of trouble except once, when off Hole Haven, the brute took a
+sudden sheer and nearly had a barge anchored just clear of the fairway.
+But I was aft, looking after the steering, and she did not catch me
+napping that time. Charley came up on the poop, looking very concerned.
+'Close shave,' says he.
+
+"'Never mind, Charley,' I answered, cheerily. 'You've tamed her.'
+
+"We were to tow right up to the dock. The river pilot boarded us below
+Gravesend, and the first words I heard him say were: 'You may just as
+well take your port anchor inboard at once, Mr. Mate.'
+
+"This had been done when I went forward. I saw Maggie on the forecastle
+head enjoying the bustle and I begged her to go aft, but she took no
+notice of me, of course. Then Charley, who was very busy with the head
+gear, caught sight of her and shouted in his biggest voice: 'Get off
+the forecastle head, Maggie. You're in the way here.' For all answer
+she made a funny face at him, and I saw poor Charley turn away, hiding
+a smile. She was flushed with the excitement of getting home again, and
+her blue eyes seemed to snap electric sparks as she looked at the river.
+A collier brig had gone round just ahead of us, and our tug had to stop
+her engines in a hurry to avoid running into her.
+
+"In a moment, as is usually the case, all the shipping in the reach
+seemed to get into a hopeless tangle. A schooner and a ketch got up a
+small collision all to themselves right in the middle of the river.
+It was exciting to watch, and, meantime, our tug remained stopped. Any
+other ship than that brute could have been coaxed to keep straight for a
+couple of minutes--but not she! Her head fell off at once, and she began
+to drift down, taking her tug along with her. I noticed a cluster of
+coasters at anchor within a quarter of a mile of us, and I thought I
+had better speak to the pilot. 'If you let her get amongst that lot,'
+I said, quietly, 'she will grind some of them to bits before we get her
+out again.'
+
+"'Don't I know her!' cries he, stamping his foot in a perfect fury. And
+he out with his whistle to make that bothered tug get the ship's head
+up again as quick as possible. He blew like mad, waving his arm to port,
+and presently we could see that the tug's engines had been set going
+ahead. Her paddles churned the water, but it was as if she had been
+trying to tow a rock--she couldn't get an inch out of that ship. Again
+the pilot blew his whistle, and waved his arm to port. We could see the
+tug's paddles turning faster and faster away, broad on our bow.
+
+"For a moment tug and ship hung motionless in a crowd of moving
+shipping, and then the terrific strain that evil, stony-hearted brute
+would always put on everything, tore the towing-chock clean out. The
+tow-rope surged over, snapping the iron stanchions of the head-rail one
+after another as if they had been sticks of sealing-wax. It was only
+then I noticed that in order to have a better view over our heads,
+Maggie had stepped upon the port anchor as it lay flat on the forecastle
+deck.
+
+"It had been lowered properly into its hardwood beds, but there had been
+no time to take a turn with it. Anyway, it was quite secure as it was,
+for going into dock; but I could see directly that the tow-rope would
+sweep under the fluke in another second. My heart flew up right into
+my throat, but not before I had time to yell out: 'Jump clear of that
+anchor!'
+
+"But I hadn't time to shriek out her name. I don't suppose she heard me
+at all. The first touch of the hawser against the fluke threw her down;
+she was up on her feet again quick as lightning, but she was up on the
+wrong side. I heard a horrid, scraping sound, and then that anchor,
+tipping over, rose up like something alive; its great, rough iron arm
+caught Maggie round the waist, seemed to clasp her close with a dreadful
+hug, and flung itself with her over and down in a terrific clang of
+iron, followed by heavy ringing blows that shook the ship from stem to
+stern--because the ring stopper held!"
+
+"How horrible!" I exclaimed.
+
+"I used to dream for years afterwards of anchors catching hold of
+girls," said the man in tweeds, a little wildly. He shuddered. "With a
+most pitiful howl Charley was over after her almost on the instant. But,
+Lord! he didn't see as much as a gleam of her red tam o' shanter in the
+water. Nothing! nothing whatever! In a moment there were half-a-dozen
+boats around us, and he got pulled into one. I, with the boatswain and
+the carpenter, let go the other anchor in a hurry and brought the
+ship up somehow. The pilot had gone silly. He walked up and down the
+forecastle head wringing his hands and muttering to himself: 'Killing
+women, now! Killing women, now!' Not another word could you get out of
+him.
+
+"Dusk fell, then a night black as pitch; and peering upon the river I
+heard a low, mournful hail, 'Ship, ahoy!' Two Gravesend watermen came
+alongside. They had a lantern in their wherry, and looked up the ship's
+side, holding on to the ladder without a word. I saw in the patch of
+light a lot of loose, fair hair down there."
+
+He shuddered again.
+
+"After the tide turned poor Maggie's body had floated clear of one of
+them big mooring buoys," he explained. "I crept aft, feeling half-dead,
+and managed to send a rocket up--to let the other searchers know, on
+the river. And then I slunk away forward like a cur, and spent the night
+sitting on the heel of the bowsprit so as to be as far as possible out
+of Charley's way."
+
+"Poor fellow!" I murmured.
+
+"Yes. Poor fellow," he repeated, musingly. "That brute wouldn't let
+him--not even him--cheat her of her prey. But he made her fast in dock
+next morning. He did. We hadn't exchanged a word--not a single look for
+that matter. I didn't want to look at him. When the last rope was fast
+he put his hands to his head and stood gazing down at his feet as if
+trying to remember something. The men waited on the main deck for
+the words that end the voyage. Perhaps that is what he was trying to
+remember. I spoke for him. 'That'll do, men.'
+
+"I never saw a crew leave a ship so quietly. They sneaked over the rail
+one after another, taking care not to bang their sea chests too heavily.
+They looked our way, but not one had the stomach to come up and offer to
+shake hands with the mate as is usual.
+
+"I followed him all over the empty ship to and fro, here and there, with
+no living soul about but the two of us, because the old ship-keeper
+had locked himself up in the galley--both doors. Suddenly poor Charley
+mutters, in a crazy voice: 'I'm done here,' and strides down the gangway
+with me at his heels, up the dock, out at the gate, on towards Tower
+Hill. He used to take rooms with a decent old landlady in America
+Square, to be near his work.
+
+"All at once he stops short, turns round, and comes back straight at
+me. 'Ned,' says he, I am going home.' I had the good luck to sight a
+four-wheeler and got him in just in time. His legs were beginning to
+give way. In our hall he fell down on a chair, and I'll never forget
+father's and mother's amazed, perfectly still faces as they stood over
+him. They couldn't understand what had happened to him till I blubbered
+out, 'Maggie got drowned, yesterday, in the river.'
+
+"Mother let out a little cry. Father looks from him to me, and from me
+to him, as if comparing our faces--for, upon my soul, Charley did not
+resemble himself at all. Nobody moved; and the poor fellow raises his
+big brown hands slowly to his throat, and with one single tug rips
+everything open--collar, shirt, waistcoat--a perfect wreck and ruin of
+a man. Father and I got him upstairs somehow, and mother pretty nearly
+killed herself nursing him through a brain fever."
+
+The man in tweeds nodded at me significantly.
+
+"Ah! there was nothing that could be done with that brute. She had a
+devil in her."
+
+"Where's your brother?" I asked, expecting to hear he was dead. But he
+was commanding a smart steamer on the China coast, and never came home
+now.
+
+Jermyn fetched a heavy sigh, and the handkerchief being now sufficiently
+dry, put it up tenderly to his red and lamentable nose.
+
+"She was a ravening beast," the man in tweeds started again. "Old
+Colchester put his foot down and resigned. And would you believe it?
+Apse & Sons wrote to ask whether he wouldn't reconsider his decision!
+Anything to save the good name of the Apse Family.' Old Colchester went
+to the office then and said that he would take charge again but only to
+sail her out into the North Sea and scuttle her there. He was nearly off
+his chump. He used to be darkish iron-grey, but his hair went snow-white
+in a fortnight. And Mr. Lucian Apse (they had known each other as young
+men) pretended not to notice it. Eh? Here's infatuation if you like!
+Here's pride for you!
+
+"They jumped at the first man they could get to take her, for fear of
+the scandal of the Apse Family not being able to find a skipper. He was
+a festive soul, I believe, but he stuck to her grim and hard. Wilmot was
+his second mate. A harum-scarum fellow, and pretending to a great scorn
+for all the girls. The fact is he was really timid. But let only one of
+them do as much as lift her little finger in encouragement, and there
+was nothing that could hold the beggar. As apprentice, once, he deserted
+abroad after a petticoat, and would have gone to the dogs then, if his
+skipper hadn't taken the trouble to find him and lug him by the ears out
+of some house of perdition or other.
+
+"It was said that one of the firm had been heard once to express a hope
+that this brute of a ship would get lost soon. I can hardly credit the
+tale, unless it might have been Mr. Alfred Apse, whom the family didn't
+think much of. They had him in the office, but he was considered a
+bad egg altogether, always flying off to race meetings and coming home
+drunk. You would have thought that a ship so full of deadly tricks would
+run herself ashore some day out of sheer cussedness. But not she! She
+was going to last for ever. She had a nose to keep off the bottom."
+
+Jermyn made a grunt of approval.
+
+"A ship after a pilot's own heart, eh?" jeered the man in tweeds. "Well,
+Wilmot managed it. He was the man for it, but even he, perhaps, couldn't
+have done the trick without the green-eyed governess, or nurse, or
+whatever she was to the children of Mr. and Mrs. Pamphilius.
+
+"Those people were passengers in her from Port Adelaide to the
+Cape. Well, the ship went out and anchored outside for the day. The
+skipper--hospitable soul--had a lot of guests from town to a farewell
+lunch--as usual with him. It was five in the evening before the last
+shore boat left the side, and the weather looked ugly and dark in the
+gulf. There was no reason for him to get under way. However, as he had
+told everybody he was going that day, he imagined it was proper to do so
+anyhow. But as he had no mind after all these festivities to tackle the
+straits in the dark, with a scant wind, he gave orders to keep the ship
+under lower topsails and foresail as close as she would lie, dodging
+along the land till the morning. Then he sought his virtuous couch.
+The mate was on deck, having his face washed very clean with hard rain
+squalls. Wilmot relieved him at midnight.
+
+"The Apse Family had, as you observed, a house on her poop . . ."
+
+"A big, ugly white thing, sticking up," Jermyn murmured, sadly, at the
+fire.
+
+"That's it: a companion for the cabin stairs and a sort of chart-room
+combined. The rain drove in gusts on the sleepy Wilmot. The ship was
+then surging slowly to the southward, close hauled, with the coast
+within three miles or so to windward. There was nothing to look out for
+in that part of the gulf, and Wilmot went round to dodge the squalls
+under the lee of that chart-room, whose door on that side was open. The
+night was black, like a barrel of coal-tar. And then he heard a woman's
+voice whispering to him.
+
+"That confounded green-eyed girl of the Pamphilius people had put the
+kids to bed a long time ago, of course, but it seems couldn't get to
+sleep herself. She heard eight bells struck, and the chief mate come
+below to turn in. She waited a bit, then got into her dressing-gown and
+stole across the empty saloon and up the stairs into the chart-room. She
+sat down on the settee near the open door to cool herself, I daresay.
+
+"I suppose when she whispered to Wilmot it was as if somebody had struck
+a match in the fellow's brain. I don't know how it was they had got so
+very thick. I fancy he had met her ashore a few times before. I couldn't
+make it out, because, when telling the story, Wilmot would break off to
+swear something awful at every second word. We had met on the quay in
+Sydney, and he had an apron of sacking up to his chin, a big whip in his
+hand. A wagon-driver. Glad to do anything not to starve. That's what he
+had come down to.
+
+"However, there he was, with his head inside the door, on the girl's
+shoulder as likely as not--officer of the watch! The helmsman, on giving
+his evidence afterwards, said that he shouted several times that the
+binnacle lamp had gone out. It didn't matter to him, because his orders
+were to 'sail her close.' 'I thought it funny,' he said, 'that the ship
+should keep on falling off in squalls, but I luffed her up every time
+as close as I was able. It was so dark I couldn't see my hand before my
+face, and the rain came in bucketfuls on my head.'
+
+"The truth was that at every squall the wind hauled aft a little, till
+gradually the ship came to be heading straight for the coast, without a
+single soul in her being aware of it. Wilmot himself confessed that he
+had not been near the standard compass for an hour. He might well have
+confessed! The first thing he knew was the man on the look-out shouting
+blue murder forward there.
+
+"He tore his neck free, he says, and yelled back at him: 'What do you
+say?'
+
+"'I think I hear breakers ahead, sir,' howled the man, and came rushing
+aft with the rest of the watch, in the 'awfullest blinding deluge that
+ever fell from the sky,' Wilmot says. For a second or so he was so
+scared and bewildered that he could not remember on which side of the
+gulf the ship was. He wasn't a good officer, but he was a seaman all
+the same. He pulled himself together in a second, and the right orders
+sprang to his lips without thinking. They were to hard up with the helm
+and shiver the main and mizzen-topsails.
+
+"It seems that the sails actually fluttered. He couldn't see them, but
+he heard them rattling and banging above his head. 'No use! She was too
+slow in going off,' he went on, his dirty face twitching, and the damn'd
+carter's whip shaking in his hand. 'She seemed to stick fast.' And then
+the flutter of the canvas above his head ceased. At this critical moment
+the wind hauled aft again with a gust, filling the sails and sending the
+ship with a great way upon the rocks on her lee bow. She had overreached
+herself in her last little game. Her time had come--the hour, the man,
+the black night, the treacherous gust of wind--the right woman to put
+an end to her. The brute deserved nothing better. Strange are the
+instruments of Providence. There's a sort of poetical justice--"
+
+The man in tweeds looked hard at me.
+
+"The first ledge she went over stripped the false keel off her. Rip! The
+skipper, rushing out of his berth, found a crazy woman, in a red flannel
+dressing-gown, flying round and round the cuddy, screeching like a
+cockatoo.
+
+"The next bump knocked her clean under the cabin table. It also started
+the stern-post and carried away the rudder, and then that brute ran up a
+shelving, rocky shore, tearing her bottom out, till she stopped short,
+and the foremast dropped over the bows like a gangway."
+
+"Anybody lost?" I asked.
+
+"No one, unless that fellow, Wilmot," answered the gentleman, unknown
+to Miss Blank, looking round for his cap. "And his case was worse than
+drowning for a man. Everybody got ashore all right. Gale didn't come
+on till next day, dead from the West, and broke up that brute in a
+surprisingly short time. It was as though she had been rotten at heart."
+. . . He changed his tone, "Rain left off? I must get my bike and rush
+home to dinner. I live in Herne Bay--came out for a spin this morning."
+
+He nodded at me in a friendly way, and went out with a swagger.
+
+"Do you know who he is, Jermyn?" I asked.
+
+The North Sea pilot shook his head, dismally. "Fancy losing a ship in
+that silly fashion! Oh, dear! oh dear!" he groaned in lugubrious tones,
+spreading his damp handkerchief again like a curtain before the glowing
+grate.
+
+On going out I exchanged a glance and a smile (strictly proper) with the
+respectable Miss Blank, barmaid of the Three Crows.
+
+
+
+
+
+A DESPERATE TALE
+
+
+
+AN ANARCHIST
+
+That year I spent the best two months of the dry season on one of
+the estates--in fact, on the principal cattle estate--of a famous
+meat-extract manufacturing company.
+
+B.O.S. Bos. You have seen the three magic letters on the advertisement
+pages of magazines and newspapers, in the windows of provision
+merchants, and on calendars for next year you receive by post in the
+month of November. They scatter pamphlets also, written in a sickly
+enthusiastic style and in several languages, giving statistics of
+slaughter and bloodshed enough to make a Turk turn faint. The "art"
+illustrating that "literature" represents in vivid and shining colours
+a large and enraged black bull stamping upon a yellow snake writhing
+in emerald-green grass, with a cobalt-blue sky for a background. It
+is atrocious and it is an allegory. The snake symbolizes disease,
+weakness--perhaps mere hunger, which last is the chronic disease of the
+majority of mankind. Of course everybody knows the B. O. S. Ltd., with
+its unrivalled products: Vinobos, Jellybos, and the latest unequalled
+perfection, Tribos, whose nourishment is offered to you not only highly
+concentrated, but already half digested. Such apparently is the love
+that Limited Company bears to its fellowmen--even as the love of the
+father and mother penguin for their hungry fledglings.
+
+Of course the capital of a country must be productively employed. I
+have nothing to say against the company. But being myself animated by
+feelings of affection towards my fellow-men, I am saddened by the
+modern system of advertising. Whatever evidence it offers of enterprise,
+ingenuity, impudence, and resource in certain individuals, it proves to
+my mind the wide prevalence of that form of mental degradation which is
+called gullibility.
+
+In various parts of the civilized and uncivilized world I have had to
+swallow B. O. S. with more or less benefit to myself, though without
+great pleasure. Prepared with hot water and abundantly peppered to bring
+out the taste, this extract is not really unpalatable. But I have never
+swallowed its advertisements. Perhaps they have not gone far enough. As
+far as I can remember they make no promise of everlasting youth to the
+users of B. O. S., nor yet have they claimed the power of raising the
+dead for their estimable products. Why this austere reserve, I wonder?
+But I don't think they would have had me even on these terms. Whatever
+form of mental degradation I may (being but human) be suffering from, it
+is not the popular form. I am not gullible.
+
+I have been at some pains to bring out distinctly this statement about
+myself in view of the story which follows. I have checked the facts as
+far as possible. I have turned up the files of French newspapers, and I
+have also talked with the officer who commands the military guard on
+the Ile Royale, when in the course of my travels I reached Cayenne. I
+believe the story to be in the main true. It is the sort of story that
+no man, I think, would ever invent about himself, for it is neither
+grandiose nor flattering, nor yet funny enough to gratify a perverted
+vanity.
+
+It concerns the engineer of the steam-launch belonging to the Maranon
+cattle estate of the B. O. S. Co., Ltd. This estate is also an
+island--an island as big as a small province, lying in the estuary of a
+great South American river. It is wild and not beautiful, but the grass
+growing on its low plains seems to possess exceptionally nourishing
+and flavouring qualities. It resounds with the lowing of innumerable
+herds--a deep and distressing sound under the open sky, rising like
+a monstrous protest of prisoners condemned to death. On the mainland,
+across twenty miles of discoloured muddy water, there stands a city
+whose name, let us say, is Horta.
+
+But the most interesting characteristic of this island (which seems like
+a sort of penal settlement for condemned cattle) consists in its being
+the only known habitat of an extremely rare and gorgeous butterfly.
+The species is even more rare than it is beautiful, which is not saying
+little. I have already alluded to my travels. I travelled at that time,
+but strictly for myself and with a moderation unknown in our days of
+round-the-world tickets. I even travelled with a purpose. As a matter of
+fact, I am--"Ha, ha, ha!--a desperate butterfly-slayer. Ha, ha, ha!"
+
+This was the tone in which Mr. Harry Gee, the manager of the cattle
+station, alluded to my pursuits. He seemed to consider me the greatest
+absurdity in the world. On the other hand, the B. O. S. Co., Ltd.,
+represented to him the acme of the nineteenth century's achievement. I
+believe that he slept in his leggings and spurs. His days he spent in
+the saddle flying over the plains, followed by a train of half-wild
+horsemen, who called him Don Enrique, and who had no definite idea of
+the B. O. S. Co., Ltd., which paid their wages. He was an excellent
+manager, but I don't see why, when we met at meals, he should have
+thumped me on the back, with loud, derisive inquiries: "How's the deadly
+sport to-day? Butterflies going strong? Ha, ha, ha!"--especially as he
+charged me two dollars per diem for the hospitality of the B. O. S. Co.,
+Ltd., (capital L1,500,000, fully paid up), in whose balance-sheet for
+that year those monies are no doubt included. "I don't think I can
+make it anything less in justice to my company," he had remarked, with
+extreme gravity, when I was arranging with him the terms of my stay on
+the island.
+
+His chaff would have been harmless enough if intimacy of intercourse
+in the absence of all friendly feeling were not a thing detestable in
+itself. Moreover, his facetiousness was not very amusing. It consisted
+in the wearisome repetition of descriptive phrases applied to people
+with a burst of laughter. "Desperate butterfly-slayer. Ha, ha, ha!" was
+one sample of his peculiar wit which he himself enjoyed so much. And in
+the same vein of exquisite humour he called my attention to the engineer
+of the steam-launch, one day, as we strolled on the path by the side of
+the creek.
+
+The man's head and shoulders emerged above the deck, over which were
+scattered various tools of his trade and a few pieces of machinery. He
+was doing some repairs to the engines. At the sound of our footsteps
+he raised anxiously a grimy face with a pointed chin and a tiny fair
+moustache. What could be seen of his delicate features under the black
+smudges appeared to me wasted and livid in the greenish shade of the
+enormous tree spreading its foliage over the launch moored close to the
+bank.
+
+To my great surprise, Harry Gee addressed him as "Crocodile," in
+that half-jeering, half-bullying tone which is characteristic of
+self-satisfaction in his delectable kind:
+
+"How does the work get on, Crocodile?"
+
+I should have said before that the amiable Harry had picked up French
+of a sort somewhere--in some colony or other--and that he pronounced
+it with a disagreeable forced precision as though he meant to guy the
+language. The man in the launch answered him quickly in a pleasant
+voice. His eyes had a liquid softness and his teeth flashed dazzlingly
+white between his thin, drooping lips. The manager turned to me, very
+cheerful and loud, explaining:
+
+"I call him Crocodile because he lives half in, half out of the creek.
+Amphibious--see? There's nothing else amphibious living on the island
+except crocodiles; so he must belong to the species--eh? But in reality
+he's nothing less than un citoyen anarchiste de Barcelone."
+
+"A citizen anarchist from Barcelona?" I repeated, stupidly, looking down
+at the man. He had turned to his work in the engine-well of the launch
+and presented his bowed back to us. In that attitude I heard him
+protest, very audibly:
+
+"I do not even know Spanish."
+
+"Hey? What? You dare to deny you come from over there?" the accomplished
+manager was down on him truculently.
+
+At this the man straightened himself up, dropping a spanner he had been
+using, and faced us; but he trembled in all his limbs.
+
+"I deny nothing, nothing, nothing!" he said, excitedly.
+
+He picked up the spanner and went to work again without paying any
+further attention to us. After looking at him for a minute or so, we
+went away.
+
+"Is he really an anarchist?" I asked, when out of ear-shot.
+
+"I don't care a hang what he is," answered the humorous official of the
+B. O. S. Co. "I gave him the name because it suited me to label him in
+that way, It's good for the company."
+
+"For the company!" I exclaimed, stopping short.
+
+"Aha!" he triumphed, tilting up his hairless pug face and straddling his
+thin, long legs. "That surprises you. I am bound to do my best for my
+company. They have enormous expenses. Why--our agent in Horta tells me
+they spend fifty thousand pounds every year in advertising all over the
+world! One can't be too economical in working the show. Well, just you
+listen. When I took charge here the estate had no steam-launch. I asked
+for one, and kept on asking by every mail till I got it; but the man
+they sent out with it chucked his job at the end of two months, leaving
+the launch moored at the pontoon in Horta. Got a better screw at a
+sawmill up the river--blast him! And ever since it has been the same
+thing. Any Scotch or Yankee vagabond that likes to call himself a
+mechanic out here gets eighteen pounds a month, and the next you know
+he's cleared out, after smashing something as likely as not. I give you
+my word that some of the objects I've had for engine-drivers couldn't
+tell the boiler from the funnel. But this fellow understands his trade,
+and I don't mean him to clear out. See?"
+
+And he struck me lightly on the chest for emphasis. Disregarding his
+peculiarities of manner, I wanted to know what all this had to do with
+the man being an anarchist.
+
+"Come!" jeered the manager. "If you saw suddenly a barefooted, unkempt
+chap slinking amongst the bushes on the sea face of the island, and at
+the same time observed less than a mile from the beach, a small schooner
+full of niggers hauling off in a hurry, you wouldn't think the man fell
+there from the sky, would you? And it could be nothing else but either
+that or Cayenne. I've got my wits about me. Directly I sighted this
+queer game I said to myself--'Escaped Convict.' I was as certain of
+it as I am of seeing you standing here this minute. So I spurred on
+straight at him. He stood his ground for a bit on a sand hillock crying
+out: 'Monsieur! Monsieur! Arretez!' then at the last moment broke and
+ran for life. Says I to myself, 'I'll tame you before I'm done with
+you.' So without a single word I kept on, heading him off here and
+there. I rounded him up towards the shore, and at last I had him
+corralled on a spit, his heels in the water and nothing but sea and sky
+at his back, with my horse pawing the sand and shaking his head within a
+yard of him.
+
+"He folded his arms on his breast then and stuck his chin up in a
+sort of desperate way; but I wasn't to be impressed by the beggar's
+posturing.
+
+"Says I, 'You're a runaway convict.'
+
+"When he heard French, his chin went down and his face changed.
+
+"'I deny nothing,' says he, panting yet, for I had kept him skipping
+about in front of my horse pretty smartly. I asked him what he was doing
+there. He had got his breath by then, and explained that he had meant to
+make his way to a farm which he understood (from the schooner's people,
+I suppose) was to be found in the neighbourhood. At that I laughed
+aloud and he got uneasy. Had he been deceived? Was there no farm within
+walking distance?
+
+"I laughed more and more. He was on foot, and of course the first bunch
+of cattle he came across would have stamped him to rags under their
+hoofs. A dismounted man caught on the feeding-grounds hasn't got the
+ghost of a chance.
+
+"'My coming upon you like this has certainly saved your life,' I
+said. He remarked that perhaps it was so; but that for his part he had
+imagined I had wanted to kill him under the hoofs of my horse. I assured
+him that nothing would have been easier had I meant it. And then we came
+to a sort of dead stop. For the life of me I didn't know what to do with
+this convict, unless I chucked him into the sea. It occurred to me to
+ask him what he had been transported for. He hung his head.
+
+"'What is it?' says I. 'Theft, murder, rape, or what?' I wanted to hear
+what he would have to say for himself, though of course I expected it
+would be some sort of lie. But all he said was--
+
+"'Make it what you like. I deny nothing. It is no good denying
+anything.'
+
+"I looked him over carefully and a thought struck me.
+
+"'They've got anarchists there, too,' I said. 'Perhaps you're one of
+them.'
+
+"'I deny nothing whatever, monsieur,' he repeats.
+
+"This answer made me think that perhaps he was not an anarchist. I
+believe those damned lunatics are rather proud of themselves. If he had
+been one, he would have probably confessed straight out.
+
+"'What were you before you became a convict?'
+
+"'Ouvrier,' he says. 'And a good workman, too.'
+
+"At that I began to think he must be an anarchist, after all. That's the
+class they come mostly from, isn't it? I hate the cowardly bomb-throwing
+brutes. I almost made up my mind to turn my horse short round and leave
+him to starve or drown where he was, whichever he liked best. As to
+crossing the island to bother me again, the cattle would see to that. I
+don't know what induced me to ask--
+
+"'What sort of workman?'
+
+"I didn't care a hang whether he answered me or not. But when he said
+at once, 'Mecanicien, monsieur,' I nearly jumped out of the saddle with
+excitement. The launch had been lying disabled and idle in the creek for
+three weeks. My duty to the company was clear. He noticed my start,
+too, and there we were for a minute or so staring at each other as if
+bewitched.
+
+"'Get up on my horse behind me,' I told him. 'You shall put my
+steam-launch to rights.'"
+
+
+These are the words in which the worthy manager of the Maranon estate
+related to me the coming of the supposed anarchist. He meant to keep
+him--out of a sense of duty to the company--and the name he had given
+him would prevent the fellow from obtaining employment anywhere in
+Horta. The vaqueros of the estate, when they went on leave, spread it
+all over the town. They did not know what an anarchist was, nor yet what
+Barcelona meant. They called him Anarchisto de Barcelona, as if it were
+his Christian name and surname. But the people in town had been reading
+in their papers about the anarchists in Europe and were very much
+impressed. Over the jocular addition of "de Barcelona" Mr. Harry
+Gee chuckled with immense satisfaction. "That breed is particularly
+murderous, isn't it? It makes the sawmills crowd still more afraid of
+having anything to do with him--see?" he exulted, candidly. "I hold him
+by that name better than if I had him chained up by the leg to the deck
+of the steam-launch.
+
+"And mark," he added, after a pause, "he does not deny it. I am not
+wronging him in any way. He is a convict of some sort, anyhow."
+
+"But I suppose you pay him some wages, don't you?" I asked.
+
+"Wages! What does he want with money here? He gets his food from
+my kitchen and his clothing from the store. Of course I'll give him
+something at the end of the year, but you don't think I'd employ a
+convict and give him the same money I would give an honest man? I am
+looking after the interests of my company first and last."
+
+I admitted that, for a company spending fifty thousand pounds every
+year in advertising, the strictest economy was obviously necessary. The
+manager of the Maranon Estancia grunted approvingly.
+
+"And I'll tell you what," he continued: "if I were certain he's an
+anarchist and he had the cheek to ask me for money, I would give him
+the toe of my boot. However, let him have the benefit of the doubt. I
+am perfectly willing to take it that he has done nothing worse than
+to stick a knife into somebody--with extenuating circumstances--French
+fashion, don't you know. But that subversive sanguinary rot of doing
+away with all law and order in the world makes my blood boil. It's
+simply cutting the ground from under the feet of every decent,
+respectable, hard-working person. I tell you that the consciences of
+people who have them, like you or I, must be protected in some way; or
+else the first low scoundrel that came along would in every respect be
+just as good as myself. Wouldn't he, now? And that's absurd!"
+
+He glared at me. I nodded slightly and murmured that doubtless there was
+much subtle truth in his view.
+
+
+The principal truth discoverable in the views of Paul the engineer was
+that a little thing may bring about the undoing of a man.
+
+"_Il ne faut pas beaucoup pour perdre un homme_," he said to me,
+thoughtfully, one evening.
+
+I report this reflection in French, since the man was of Paris, not of
+Barcelona at all. At the Maranon he lived apart from the station, in
+a small shed with a metal roof and straw walls, which he called
+mon atelier. He had a work-bench there. They had given him several
+horse-blankets and a saddle--not that he ever had occasion to ride, but
+because no other bedding was used by the working-hands, who were all
+vaqueros--cattlemen. And on this horseman's gear, like a son of the
+plains, he used to sleep amongst the tools of his trade, in a litter
+of rusty scrap-iron, with a portable forge at his head, under the
+work-bench sustaining his grimy mosquito-net.
+
+Now and then I would bring him a few candle ends saved from the scant
+supply of the manager's house. He was very thankful for these. He did
+not like to lie awake in the dark, he confessed. He complained that
+sleep fled from him. "Le sommeil me fuit," he declared, with his
+habitual air of subdued stoicism, which made him sympathetic and
+touching. I made it clear to him that I did not attach undue importance
+to the fact of his having been a convict.
+
+Thus it came about that one evening he was led to talk about himself.
+As one of the bits of candle on the edge of the bench burned down to the
+end, he hastened to light another.
+
+He had done his military service in a provincial garrison and returned
+to Paris to follow his trade. It was a well-paid one. He told me with
+some pride that in a short time he was earning no less than ten francs a
+day. He was thinking of setting up for himself by and by and of getting
+married.
+
+Here he sighed deeply and paused. Then with a return to his stoical
+note:
+
+"It seems I did not know enough about myself."
+
+On his twenty-fifth birthday two of his friends in the repairing shop
+where he worked proposed to stand him a dinner. He was immensely touched
+by this attention.
+
+"I was a steady man," he remarked, "but I am not less sociable than any
+other body."
+
+The entertainment came off in a little cafe on the Boulevard de la
+Chapelle. At dinner they drank some special wine. It was excellent.
+Everything was excellent; and the world--in his own words--seemed a very
+good place to live in. He had good prospects, some little money laid by,
+and the affection of two excellent friends. He offered to pay for all
+the drinks after dinner, which was only proper on his part.
+
+They drank more wine; they drank liqueurs, cognac, beer, then more
+liqueurs and more cognac. Two strangers sitting at the next table looked
+at him, he said, with so much friendliness, that he invited them to join
+the party.
+
+He had never drunk so much in his life. His elation was extreme, and so
+pleasurable that whenever it flagged he hastened to order more drinks.
+
+"It seemed to me," he said, in his quiet tone and looking on the ground
+in the gloomy shed full of shadows, "that I was on the point of just
+attaining a great and wonderful felicity. Another drink, I felt, would
+do it. The others were holding out well with me, glass for glass."
+
+But an extraordinary thing happened. At something the strangers said his
+elation fell. Gloomy ideas--des idees noires--rushed into his head. All
+the world outside the cafe; appeared to him as a dismal evil place where
+a multitude of poor wretches had to work and slave to the sole end
+that a few individuals should ride in carriages and live riotously in
+palaces. He became ashamed of his happiness. The pity of mankind's cruel
+lot wrung his heart. In a voice choked with sorrow he tried to express
+these sentiments. He thinks he wept and swore in turns.
+
+The two new acquaintances hastened to applaud his humane indignation.
+Yes. The amount of injustice in the world was indeed scandalous. There
+was only one way of dealing with the rotten state of society. Demolish
+the whole sacree boutique. Blow up the whole iniquitous show.
+
+Their heads hovered over the table. They whispered to him eloquently; I
+don't think they quite expected the result. He was extremely drunk--mad
+drunk. With a howl of rage he leaped suddenly upon the table. Kicking
+over the bottles and glasses, he yelled: "Vive l'anarchie! Death to the
+capitalists!" He yelled this again and again. All round him broken glass
+was falling, chairs were being swung in the air, people were taking each
+other by the throat. The police dashed in. He hit, bit, scratched and
+struggled, till something crashed down upon his head. . . .
+
+He came to himself in a police cell, locked up on a charge of assault,
+seditious cries, and anarchist propaganda.
+
+He looked at me fixedly with his liquid, shining eyes, that seemed very
+big in the dim light.
+
+"That was bad. But even then I might have got off somehow, perhaps," he
+said, slowly.
+
+I doubt it. But whatever chance he had was done away with by a young
+socialist lawyer who volunteered to undertake his defence. In vain he
+assured him that he was no anarchist; that he was a quiet, respectable
+mechanic, only too anxious to work ten hours per day at his trade. He
+was represented at the trial as the victim of society and his drunken
+shoutings as the expression of infinite suffering. The young lawyer had
+his way to make, and this case was just what he wanted for a start. The
+speech for the defence was pronounced magnificent.
+
+The poor fellow paused, swallowed, and brought out the statement:
+
+"I got the maximum penalty applicable to a first offence."
+
+I made an appropriate murmur. He hung his head and folded his arms.
+
+"When they let me out of prison," he began, gently, "I made tracks, of
+course, for my old workshop. My patron had a particular liking for me
+before; but when he saw me he turned green with fright and showed me the
+door with a shaking hand."
+
+While he stood in the street, uneasy and disconcerted, he was accosted
+by a middle-aged man who introduced himself as an engineer's fitter,
+too. "I know who you are," he said. "I have attended your trial. You are
+a good comrade and your ideas are sound. But the devil of it is that you
+won't be able to get work anywhere now. These bourgeois'll conspire to
+starve you. That's their way. Expect no mercy from the rich."
+
+To be spoken to so kindly in the street had comforted him very much. His
+seemed to be the sort of nature needing support and sympathy. The idea
+of not being able to find work had knocked him over completely. If his
+patron, who knew him so well for a quiet, orderly, competent workman,
+would have nothing to do with him now--then surely nobody else would.
+That was clear. The police, keeping their eye on him, would hasten to
+warn every employer inclined to give him a chance. He felt suddenly very
+helpless, alarmed and idle; and he followed the middle-aged man to the
+estaminet round the corner where he met some other good companions. They
+assured him that he would not be allowed to starve, work or no work.
+They had drinks all round to the discomfiture of all employers of labour
+and to the destruction of society.
+
+He sat biting his lower lip.
+
+"That is, monsieur, how I became a compagnon," he said. The hand he
+passed over his forehead was trembling. "All the same, there's something
+wrong in a world where a man can get lost for a glass more or less."
+
+He never looked up, though I could see he was getting excited under his
+dejection. He slapped the bench with his open palm.
+
+"No!" he cried. "It was an impossible existence! Watched by the police,
+watched by the comrades, I did not belong to myself any more! Why, I
+could not even go to draw a few francs from my savings-bank without a
+comrade hanging about the door to see that I didn't bolt! And most of
+them were neither more nor less than housebreakers. The intelligent, I
+mean. They robbed the rich; they were only getting back their own, they
+said. When I had had some drink I believed them. There were also the
+fools and the mad. Des exaltes--quoi! When I was drunk I loved them.
+When I got more drink I was angry with the world. That was the best
+time. I found refuge from misery in rage. But one can't be always
+drunk--n'est-ce pas, monsieur? And when I was sober I was afraid to
+break away. They would have stuck me like a pig."
+
+He folded his arms again and raised his sharp chin with a bitter smile.
+
+"By and by they told me it was time to go to work. The work was to rob
+a bank. Afterwards a bomb would be thrown to wreck the place. My
+beginner's part would be to keep watch in a street at the back and to
+take care of a black bag with the bomb inside till it was wanted. After
+the meeting at which the affair was arranged a trusty comrade did not
+leave me an inch. I had not dared to protest; I was afraid of being
+done away with quietly in that room; only, as we were walking together I
+wondered whether it would not be better for me to throw myself suddenly
+into the Seine. But while I was turning it over in my mind we had
+crossed the bridge, and afterwards I had not the opportunity."
+
+In the light of the candle end, with his sharp features, fluffy little
+moustache, and oval face, he looked at times delicately and gaily young,
+and then appeared quite old, decrepit, full of sorrow, pressing his
+folded arms to his breast.
+
+As he remained silent I felt bound to ask:
+
+"Well! And how did it end?"
+
+"Deportation to Cayenne," he answered.
+
+He seemed to think that somebody had given the plot away. As he was
+keeping watch in the back street, bag in hand, he was set upon by the
+police. "These imbeciles," had knocked him down without noticing what he
+had in his hand. He wondered how the bomb failed to explode as he fell.
+But it didn't explode.
+
+"I tried to tell my story in court," he continued. "The president was
+amused. There were in the audience some idiots who laughed."
+
+I expressed the hope that some of his companions had been caught, too.
+He shuddered slightly before he told me that there were two--Simon,
+called also Biscuit, the middle-aged fitter who spoke to him in the
+street, and a fellow of the name of Mafile, one of the sympathetic
+strangers who had applauded his sentiments and consoled his humanitarian
+sorrows when he got drunk in the cafe.
+
+"Yes," he went on, with an effort, "I had the advantage of their company
+over there on St. Joseph's Island, amongst some eighty or ninety other
+convicts. We were all classed as dangerous."
+
+St. Joseph's Island is the prettiest of the Iles de Salut. It is
+rocky and green, with shallow ravines, bushes, thickets, groves of
+mango-trees, and many feathery palms. Six warders armed with revolvers
+and carbines are in charge of the convicts kept there.
+
+An eight-oared galley keeps up the communication in the daytime, across
+a channel a quarter of a mile wide, with the Ile Royale, where there is
+a military post. She makes the first trip at six in the morning. At four
+in the afternoon her service is over, and she is then hauled up into
+a little dock on the Ile Royale and a sentry put over her and a few
+smaller boats. From that time till next morning the island of St. Joseph
+remains cut off from the rest of the world, with the warders patrolling
+in turn the path from the warders' house to the convict huts, and a
+multitude of sharks patrolling the waters all round.
+
+Under these circumstances the convicts planned a mutiny. Such a thing
+had never been known in the penitentiary's history before. But their
+plan was not without some possibility of success. The warders were to be
+taken by surprise and murdered during the night. Their arms would
+enable the convicts to shoot down the people in the galley as she came
+alongside in the morning. The galley once in their possession, other
+boats were to be captured, and the whole company was to row away up the
+coast.
+
+At dusk the two warders on duty mustered the convicts as usual. Then
+they proceeded to inspect the huts to ascertain that everything was
+in order. In the second they entered they were set upon and absolutely
+smothered under the numbers of their assailants. The twilight faded
+rapidly. It was a new moon; and a heavy black squall gathering over
+the coast increased the profound darkness of the night. The convicts
+assembled in the open space, deliberating upon the next step to be
+taken, argued amongst themselves in low voices.
+
+"You took part in all this?" I asked.
+
+"No. I knew what was going to be done, of course. But why should I
+kill these warders? I had nothing against them. But I was afraid of the
+others. Whatever happened, I could not escape from them. I sat alone
+on the stump of a tree with my head in my hands, sick at heart at the
+thought of a freedom that could be nothing but a mockery to me. Suddenly
+I was startled to perceive the shape of a man on the path near by. He
+stood perfectly still, then his form became effaced in the night. It
+must have been the chief warder coming to see what had become of his
+two men. No one noticed him. The convicts kept on quarrelling over
+their plans. The leaders could not get themselves obeyed. The fierce
+whispering of that dark mass of men was very horrible.
+
+"At last they divided into two parties and moved off. When they had
+passed me I rose, weary and hopeless. The path to the warders' house was
+dark and silent, but on each side the bushes rustled slightly. Presently
+I saw a faint thread of light before me. The chief warder, followed by
+his three men, was approaching cautiously. But he had failed to close
+his dark lantern properly. The convicts had seen that faint gleam, too.
+There was an awful savage yell, a turmoil on the dark path, shots fired,
+blows, groans: and with the sound of smashed bushes, the shouts of the
+pursuers and the screams of the pursued, the man-hunt, the warder-hunt,
+passed by me into the interior of the island. I was alone. And I assure
+you, monsieur, I was indifferent to everything. After standing still
+for a while, I walked on along the path till I kicked something hard. I
+stooped and picked up a warder's revolver. I felt with my fingers
+that it was loaded in five chambers. In the gusts of wind I heard the
+convicts calling to each other far away, and then a roll of thunder
+would cover the soughing and rustling of the trees. Suddenly, a big
+light ran across my path very low along the ground. And it showed a
+woman's skirt with the edge of an apron.
+
+"I knew that the person who carried it must be the wife of the head
+warder. They had forgotten all about her, it seems. A shot rang out in
+the interior of the island, and she cried out to herself as she ran. She
+passed on. I followed, and presently I saw her again. She was pulling
+at the cord of the big bell which hangs at the end of the landing-pier,
+with one hand, and with the other she was swinging the heavy lantern to
+and fro. This is the agreed signal for the Ile Royale should assistance
+be required at night. The wind carried the sound away from our island
+and the light she swung was hidden on the shore side by the few trees
+that grow near the warders' house.
+
+"I came up quite close to her from behind. She went on without stopping,
+without looking aside, as though she had been all alone on the island.
+A brave woman, monsieur. I put the revolver inside the breast of my blue
+blouse and waited. A flash of lightning and a clap of thunder destroyed
+both the sound and the light of the signal for an instant, but she never
+faltered, pulling at the cord and swinging the lantern as regularly as a
+machine. She was a comely woman of thirty--no more. I thought to myself,
+'All that's no good on a night like this.' And I made up my mind that
+if a body of my fellow-convicts came down to the pier--which was sure to
+happen soon--I would shoot her through the head before I shot myself. I
+knew the 'comrades' well. This idea of mine gave me quite an interest
+in life, monsieur; and at once, instead of remaining stupidly exposed on
+the pier, I retreated a little way and crouched behind a bush. I did not
+intend to let myself be pounced upon unawares and be prevented perhaps
+from rendering a supreme service to at least one human creature before I
+died myself.
+
+"But we must believe the signal was seen, for the galley from Ile Royale
+came over in an astonishingly short time. The woman kept right on till
+the light of her lantern flashed upon the officer in command and the
+bayonets of the soldiers in the boat. Then she sat down and began to
+cry.
+
+"She didn't need me any more. I did not budge. Some soldiers were only
+in their shirt-sleeves, others without boots, just as the call to arms
+had found them. They passed by my bush at the double. The galley had
+been sent away for more; and the woman sat all alone crying at the end
+of the pier, with the lantern standing on the ground near her.
+
+"Then suddenly I saw in the light at the end of the pier the red
+pantaloons of two more men. I was overcome with astonishment. They,
+too, started off at a run. Their tunics flapped unbuttoned and they were
+bare-headed. One of them panted out to the other, 'Straight on, straight
+on!'
+
+"Where on earth did they spring from, I wondered. Slowly I walked down
+the short pier. I saw the woman's form shaken by sobs and heard her
+moaning more and more distinctly, 'Oh, my man! my poor man! my poor
+man!' I stole on quietly. She could neither hear nor see anything. She
+had thrown her apron over her head and was rocking herself to and fro in
+her grief. But I remarked a small boat fastened to the end of the pier.
+
+"Those two men--they looked like sous-officiers--must have come in it,
+after being too late, I suppose, for the galley. It is incredible that
+they should have thus broken the regulations from a sense of duty. And
+it was a stupid thing to do. I could not believe my eyes in the very
+moment I was stepping into that boat.
+
+"I pulled along the shore slowly. A black cloud hung over the Iles de
+Salut. I heard firing, shouts. Another hunt had begun--the convict-hunt.
+The oars were too long to pull comfortably. I managed them with
+difficulty, though the boat herself was light. But when I got round to
+the other side of the island the squall broke in rain and wind. I was
+unable to make head against it. I let the boat drift ashore and secured
+her.
+
+"I knew the spot. There was a tumbledown old hovel standing near the
+water. Cowering in there I heard through the noises of the wind and the
+falling downpour some people tearing through the bushes. They came out
+on the strand. Soldiers perhaps. A flash of lightning threw everything
+near me into violent relief. Two convicts!
+
+"And directly an amazed voice exclaimed. 'It's a miracle!' It was the
+voice of Simon, otherwise Biscuit.
+
+"And another voice growled, 'What's a miracle?'
+
+"'Why, there's a boat lying here!'
+
+"'You must be mad, Simon! But there is, after all. . . . A boat.'
+
+"They seemed awed into complete silence. The other man was Mafile. He
+spoke again, cautiously.
+
+"'It is fastened up. There must be somebody here.'
+
+"I spoke to them from within the hovel: 'I am here.'
+
+"They came in then, and soon gave me to understand that the boat was
+theirs, not mine. 'There are two of us,' said Mafile, 'against you
+alone.'
+
+"I got out into the open to keep clear of them for fear of getting a
+treacherous blow on the head. I could have shot them both where they
+stood. But I said nothing. I kept down the laughter rising in my throat.
+I made myself very humble and begged to be allowed to go. They consulted
+in low tones about my fate, while with my hand on the revolver in the
+bosom of my blouse I had their lives in my power. I let them live. I
+meant them to pull that boat. I represented to them with abject humility
+that I understood the management of a boat, and that, being three to
+pull, we could get a rest in turns. That decided them at last. It was
+time. A little more and I would have gone into screaming fits at the
+drollness of it."
+
+At this point his excitement broke out. He jumped off the bench and
+gesticulated. The great shadows of his arms darting over roof and walls
+made the shed appear too small to contain his agitation.
+
+"I deny nothing," he burst out. "I was elated, monsieur. I tasted a
+sort of felicity. But I kept very quiet. I took my turns at pulling
+all through the night. We made for the open sea, putting our trust in
+a passing ship. It was a foolhardy action. I persuaded them to it. When
+the sun rose the immensity of water was calm, and the Iles de Salut
+appeared only like dark specks from the top of each swell. I was
+steering then. Mafile, who was pulling bow, let out an oath and said,
+'We must rest.'
+
+"The time to laugh had come at last. And I took my fill of it, I can
+tell you. I held my sides and rolled in my seat, they had such startled
+faces. 'What's got into him, the animal?' cries Mafile.
+
+"And Simon, who was nearest to me, says over his shoulder to him, 'Devil
+take me if I don't think he's gone mad!'
+
+"Then I produced the revolver. Aha! In a moment they both got the
+stoniest eyes you can imagine. Ha, ha! They were frightened. But
+they pulled. Oh, yes, they pulled all day, sometimes looking wild and
+sometimes looking faint. I lost nothing of it because I had to keep my
+eyes on them all the time, or else--crack!--they would have been on top
+of me in a second. I rested my revolver hand on my knee all ready and
+steered with the other. Their faces began to blister. Sky and sea
+seemed on fire round us and the sea steamed in the sun. The boat made a
+sizzling sound as she went through the water. Sometimes Mafile foamed
+at the mouth and sometimes he groaned. But he pulled. He dared not stop.
+His eyes became blood-shot all over, and he had bitten his lower lip to
+pieces. Simon was as hoarse as a crow.
+
+"'Comrade--' he begins.
+
+"'There are no comrades here. I am your patron.'
+
+"'Patron, then,' he says, 'in the name of humanity let us rest.'
+
+"I let them. There was a little rainwater washing about the bottom of
+the boat. I permitted them to snatch some of it in the hollow of their
+palms. But as I gave the command, 'En route!' I caught them exchanging
+significant glances. They thought I would have to go to sleep sometime!
+Aha! But I did not want to go to sleep. I was more awake than ever. It
+is they who went to sleep as they pulled, tumbling off the thwarts head
+over heels suddenly, one after another. I let them lie. All the stars
+were out. It was a quiet world. The sun rose. Another day. Allez! En
+route!
+
+"They pulled badly. Their eyes rolled about and their tongues hung out.
+In the middle of the forenoon Mafile croaks out: 'Let us make a rush at
+him, Simon. I would just as soon be shot at once as to die of thirst,
+hunger, and fatigue at the oar.'
+
+"But while he spoke he pulled; and Simon kept on pulling too. It made
+me smile. Ah! They loved their life these two, in this evil world of
+theirs, just as I used to love my life, too, before they spoiled it for
+me with their phrases. I let them go on to the point of exhaustion, and
+only then I pointed at the sails of a ship on the horizon.
+
+"Aha! You should have seen them revive and buckle to their work! For
+I kept them at it to pull right across that ship's path. They were
+changed. The sort of pity I had felt for them left me. They looked
+more like themselves every minute. They looked at me with the glances I
+remembered so well. They were happy. They smiled.
+
+"'Well,' says Simon, 'the energy of that youngster has saved our lives.
+If he hadn't made us, we could never have pulled so far out into the
+track of ships. Comrade, I forgive you. I admire you.'
+
+"And Mafile growls from forward: 'We owe you a famous debt of gratitude,
+comrade. You are cut out for a chief.'
+
+"Comrade! Monsieur! Ah, what a good word! And they, such men as these
+two, had made it accursed. I looked at them. I remembered their lies,
+their promises, their menaces, and all my days of misery. Why could they
+not have left me alone after I came out of prison? I looked at them and
+thought that while they lived I could never be free. Never. Neither I
+nor others like me with warm hearts and weak heads. For I know I have
+not a strong head, monsieur. A black rage came upon me--the rage of
+extreme intoxication--but not against the injustice of society. Oh, no!
+
+"'I must be free!' I cried, furiously.
+
+"'Vive la liberte!" yells that ruffian Mafile. 'Mort aux bourgeois who
+send us to Cayenne! They shall soon know that we are free.'
+
+"The sky, the sea, the whole horizon, seemed to turn red, blood red all
+round the boat. My temples were beating so loud that I wondered they
+did not hear. How is it that they did not? How is it they did not
+understand?
+
+"I heard Simon ask, 'Have we not pulled far enough out now?'
+
+"'Yes. Far enough,' I said. I was sorry for him; it was the other I
+hated. He hauled in his oar with a loud sigh, and as he was raising his
+hand to wipe his forehead with the air of a man who has done his work,
+I pulled the trigger of my revolver and shot him like this off the knee,
+right through the heart.
+
+"He tumbled down, with his head hanging over the side of the boat. I did
+not give him a second glance. The other cried out piercingly. Only one
+shriek of horror. Then all was still.
+
+"He slipped off the thwart on to his knees and raised his clasped hands
+before his face in an attitude of supplication. 'Mercy,' he whispered,
+faintly. 'Mercy for me!--comrade.'
+
+"'Ah, comrade,' I said, in a low tone. 'Yes, comrade, of course. Well,
+then, shout Vive l'anarchie.'
+
+"He flung up his arms, his face up to the sky and his mouth wide open in
+a great yell of despair. 'Vive l'anarchie! Vive--'
+
+"He collapsed all in a heap, with a bullet through his head.
+
+"I flung them both overboard. I threw away the revolver, too. Then I sat
+down quietly. I was free at last! At last. I did not even look towards
+the ship; I did not care; indeed, I think I must have gone to sleep,
+because all of a sudden there were shouts and I found the ship almost
+on top of me. They hauled me on board and secured the boat astern. They
+were all blacks, except the captain, who was a mulatto. He alone knew a
+few words of French. I could not find out where they were going nor who
+they were. They gave me something to eat every day; but I did not like
+the way they used to discuss me in their language. Perhaps they were
+deliberating about throwing me overboard in order to keep possession of
+the boat. How do I know? As we were passing this island I asked whether
+it was inhabited. I understood from the mulatto that there was a house
+on it. A farm, I fancied, they meant. So I asked them to put me ashore
+on the beach and keep the boat for their trouble. This, I imagine, was
+just what they wanted. The rest you know."
+
+After pronouncing these words he lost suddenly all control over himself.
+He paced to and fro rapidly, till at last he broke into a run; his arms
+went like a windmill and his ejaculations became very much like raving.
+The burden of them was that he "denied nothing, nothing!" I could only
+let him go on, and sat out of his way, repeating, "Calmez vous, calmez
+vous," at intervals, till his agitation exhausted itself.
+
+I must confess, too, that I remained there long after he had crawled
+under his mosquito-net. He had entreated me not to leave him; so, as
+one sits up with a nervous child, I sat up with him--in the name of
+humanity--till he fell asleep.
+
+On the whole, my idea is that he was much more of an anarchist than he
+confessed to me or to himself; and that, the special features of his
+case apart, he was very much like many other anarchists. Warm heart and
+weak head--that is the word of the riddle; and it is a fact that the
+bitterest contradictions and the deadliest conflicts of the world are
+carried on in every individual breast capable of feeling and passion.
+
+From personal inquiry I can vouch that the story of the convict mutiny
+was in every particular as stated by him.
+
+When I got back to Horta from Cayenne and saw the "Anarchist" again, he
+did not look well. He was more worn, still more frail, and very livid
+indeed under the grimy smudges of his calling. Evidently the meat of the
+company's main herd (in its unconcentrated form) did not agree with him
+at all.
+
+It was on the pontoon in Horta that we met; and I tried to induce him to
+leave the launch moored where she was and follow me to Europe there and
+then. It would have been delightful to think of the excellent manager's
+surprise and disgust at the poor fellow's escape. But he refused with
+unconquerable obstinacy.
+
+"Surely you don't mean to live always here!" I cried. He shook his head.
+
+"I shall die here," he said. Then added moodily, "Away from them."
+
+Sometimes I think of him lying open-eyed on his horseman's gear in the
+low shed full of tools and scraps of iron--the anarchist slave of the
+Maranon estate, waiting with resignation for that sleep which "fled"
+from him, as he used to say, in such an unaccountable manner.
+
+
+
+
+A MILITARY TALE
+
+
+THE DUEL
+
+I
+
+Napoleon I., whose career had the quality of a duel against the whole
+of Europe, disliked duelling between the officers of his army. The great
+military emperor was not a swashbuckler, and had little respect for
+tradition.
+
+Nevertheless, a story of duelling, which became a legend in the army,
+runs through the epic of imperial wars. To the surprise and admiration
+of their fellows, two officers, like insane artists trying to gild
+refined gold or paint the lily, pursued a private contest through the
+years of universal carnage. They were officers of cavalry, and their
+connection with the high-spirited but fanciful animal which carries men
+into battle seems particularly appropriate. It would be difficult to
+imagine for heroes of this legend two officers of infantry of the line,
+for example, whose fantasy is tamed by much walking exercise, and whose
+valour necessarily must be of a more plodding kind. As to gunners or
+engineers, whose heads are kept cool on a diet of mathematics, it is
+simply unthinkable.
+
+The names of the two officers were Feraud and D'Hubert, and they were
+both lieutenants in a regiment of hussars, but not in the same regiment.
+
+Feraud was doing regimental work, but Lieut. D'Hubert had the good
+fortune to be attached to the person of the general commanding the
+division, as officier d'ordonnance. It was in Strasbourg, and in this
+agreeable and important garrison they were enjoying greatly a short
+interval of peace. They were enjoying it, though both intensely warlike,
+because it was a sword-sharpening, firelock-cleaning peace, dear to a
+military heart and undamaging to military prestige, inasmuch that no one
+believed in its sincerity or duration.
+
+Under those historical circumstances, so favourable to the proper
+appreciation of military leisure, Lieut. D'Hubert, one fine afternoon,
+made his way along a quiet street of a cheerful suburb towards Lieut.
+Feraud's quarters, which were in a private house with a garden at the
+back, belonging to an old maiden lady.
+
+His knock at the door was answered instantly by a young maid in Alsatian
+costume. Her fresh complexion and her long eyelashes, lowered demurely
+at the sight of the tall officer, caused Lieut. D'Hubert, who was
+accessible to esthetic impressions, to relax the cold, severe gravity of
+his face. At the same time he observed that the girl had over her arm a
+pair of hussar's breeches, blue with a red stripe.
+
+"Lieut. Feraud in?" he inquired, benevolently.
+
+"Oh, no, sir! He went out at six this morning."
+
+The pretty maid tried to close the door. Lieut. D'Hubert, opposing this
+move with gentle firmness, stepped into the ante-room, jingling his
+spurs.
+
+"Come, my dear! You don't mean to say he has not been home since six
+o'clock this morning?"
+
+Saying these words, Lieut. D'Hubert opened without ceremony the door
+of a room so comfortably and neatly ordered that only from internal
+evidence in the shape of boots, uniforms, and military accoutrements did
+he acquire the conviction that it was Lieut. Feraud's room. And he saw
+also that Lieut. Feraud was not at home. The truthful maid had followed
+him, and raised her candid eyes to his face.
+
+"H'm!" said Lieut. D'Hubert, greatly disappointed, for he had already
+visited all the haunts where a lieutenant of hussars could be found of a
+fine afternoon. "So he's out? And do you happen to know, my dear, why he
+went out at six this morning?"
+
+"No," she answered, readily. "He came home late last night, and snored.
+I heard him when I got up at five. Then he dressed himself in his oldest
+uniform and went out. Service, I suppose."
+
+"Service? Not a bit of it!" cried Lieut. D'Hubert. "Learn, my angel,
+that he went out thus early to fight a duel with a civilian."
+
+She heard this news without a quiver of her dark eyelashes. It was
+very obvious that the actions of Lieut. Feraud were generally above
+criticism. She only looked up for a moment in mute surprise, and Lieut.
+D'Hubert concluded from this absence of emotion that she must have seen
+Lieut. Feraud since the morning. He looked around the room.
+
+"Come!" he insisted, with confidential familiarity. "He's perhaps
+somewhere in the house now?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"So much the worse for him!" continued Lieut. D'Hubert, in a tone of
+anxious conviction. "But he has been home this morning."
+
+This time the pretty maid nodded slightly.
+
+"He has!" cried Lieut. D'Hubert. "And went out again? What for? Couldn't
+he keep quietly indoors! What a lunatic! My dear girl--"
+
+Lieut. D'Hubert's natural kindness of disposition and strong sense of
+comradeship helped his powers of observation. He changed his tone to a
+most insinuating softness, and, gazing at the hussar's breeches hanging
+over the arm of the girl, he appealed to the interest she took in Lieut.
+Feraud's comfort and happiness. He was pressing and persuasive. He used
+his eyes, which were kind and fine, with excellent effect. His anxiety
+to get hold at once of Lieut. Feraud, for Lieut. Feraud's own good,
+seemed so genuine that at last it overcame the girl's unwillingness to
+speak. Unluckily she had not much to tell. Lieut. Feraud had returned
+home shortly before ten, had walked straight into his room, and had
+thrown himself on his bed to resume his slumbers. She had heard him
+snore rather louder than before far into the afternoon. Then he got up,
+put on his best uniform, and went out. That was all she knew.
+
+She raised her eyes, and Lieut. D'Hubert stared into them incredulously.
+
+"It's incredible. Gone parading the town in his best uniform! My dear
+child, don't you know he ran that civilian through this morning? Clean
+through, as you spit a hare."
+
+The pretty maid heard the gruesome intelligence without any signs of
+distress. But she pressed her lips together thoughtfully.
+
+"He isn't parading the town," she remarked in a low tone. "Far from it."
+
+"The civilian's family is making an awful row," continued Lieut.
+D'Hubert, pursuing his train of thought. "And the general is very angry.
+It's one of the best families in the town. Feraud ought to have kept
+close at least--"
+
+"What will the general do to him?" inquired the girl, anxiously.
+
+"He won't have his head cut off, to be sure," grumbled Lieut. D'Hubert.
+"His conduct is positively indecent. He's making no end of trouble for
+himself by this sort of bravado."
+
+"But he isn't parading the town," the maid insisted in a shy murmur.
+
+"Why, yes! Now I think of it, I haven't seen him anywhere about. What on
+earth has he done with himself?"
+
+"He's gone to pay a call," suggested the maid, after a moment of
+silence.
+
+Lieut. D'Hubert started.
+
+"A call! Do you mean a call on a lady? The cheek of the man! And how do
+you know this, my dear?"
+
+Without concealing her woman's scorn for the denseness of the masculine
+mind, the pretty maid reminded him that Lieut. Feraud had arrayed
+himself in his best uniform before going out. He had also put on his
+newest dolman, she added, in a tone as if this conversation were getting
+on her nerves, and turned away brusquely.
+
+Lieut. D'Hubert, without questioning the accuracy of the deduction, did
+not see that it advanced him much on his official quest. For his quest
+after Lieut. Feraud had an official character. He did not know any of
+the women this fellow, who had run a man through in the morning, was
+likely to visit in the afternoon. The two young men knew each other but
+slightly. He bit his gloved finger in perplexity.
+
+"Call!" he exclaimed. "Call on the devil!"
+
+The girl, with her back to him, and folding the hussars breeches on a
+chair, protested with a vexed little laugh:
+
+"Oh, dear, no! On Madame de Lionne."
+
+Lieut. D'Hubert whistled softly. Madame de Lionne was the wife of a high
+official who had a well-known salon and some pretensions to sensibility
+and elegance. The husband was a civilian, and old; but the society of
+the salon was young and military. Lieut. D'Hubert had whistled, not
+because the idea of pursuing Lieut. Feraud into that very salon was
+disagreeable to him, but because, having arrived in Strasbourg only
+lately, he had not had the time as yet to get an introduction to
+Madame de Lionne. And what was that swashbuckler Feraud doing there, he
+wondered. He did not seem the sort of man who--
+
+"Are you certain of what you say?" asked Lieut. D'Hubert.
+
+The girl was perfectly certain. Without turning round to look at him,
+she explained that the coachman of their next door neighbours knew the
+maitre-d'hotel of Madame de Lionne. In this way she had her information.
+And she was perfectly certain. In giving this assurance she sighed.
+Lieut. Feraud called there nearly every afternoon, she added.
+
+"Ah, bah!" exclaimed D'Hubert, ironically. His opinion of Madame de
+Lionne went down several degrees. Lieut. Feraud did not seem to him
+specially worthy of attention on the part of a woman with a reputation
+for sensibility and elegance. But there was no saying. At bottom they
+were all alike--very practical rather than idealistic. Lieut. D'Hubert,
+however, did not allow his mind to dwell on these considerations.
+
+"By thunder!" he reflected aloud. "The general goes there sometimes. If
+he happens to find the fellow making eyes at the lady there will be the
+devil to pay! Our general is not a very accommodating person, I can tell
+you."
+
+"Go quickly, then! Don't stand here now I've told you where he is!"
+cried the girl, colouring to the eyes.
+
+"Thanks, my dear! I don't know what I would have done without you."
+
+After manifesting his gratitude in an aggressive way, which at first was
+repulsed violently, and then submitted to with a sudden and still more
+repellent indifference, Lieut. D'Hubert took his departure.
+
+He clanked and jingled along the streets with a martial swagger. To
+run a comrade to earth in a drawing-room where he was not known did
+not trouble him in the least. A uniform is a passport. His position as
+officier d'ordonnance of the general added to his assurance. Moreover,
+now that he knew where to find Lieut. Feraud, he had no option. It was a
+service matter.
+
+Madame de Lionne's house had an excellent appearance. A man in livery,
+opening the door of a large drawing-room with a waxed floor, shouted his
+name and stood aside to let him pass. It was a reception day. The ladies
+wore big hats surcharged with a profusion of feathers; their bodies
+sheathed in clinging white gowns, from the armpits to the tips of the
+low satin shoes, looked sylph-like and cool in a great display of bare
+necks and arms. The men who talked with them, on the contrary, were
+arrayed heavily in multi-coloured garments with collars up to their ears
+and thick sashes round their waists. Lieut. D'Hubert made his unabashed
+way across the room and, bowing low before a sylph-like form reclining
+on a couch, offered his apologies for this intrusion, which nothing
+could excuse but the extreme urgency of the service order he had to
+communicate to his comrade Feraud. He proposed to himself to return
+presently in a more regular manner and beg forgiveness for interrupting
+the interesting conversation . . .
+
+A bare arm was extended towards him with gracious nonchalance even
+before he had finished speaking. He pressed the hand respectfully to his
+lips, and made the mental remark that it was bony. Madame de Lionne was
+a blonde, with too fine a skin and a long face.
+
+"C'est ca!" she said, with an ethereal smile, disclosing a set of large
+teeth. "Come this evening to plead for your forgiveness."
+
+"I will not fail, madame."
+
+Meantime, Lieut. Feraud, splendid in his new dolman and the extremely
+polished boots of his calling, sat on a chair within a foot of the
+couch, one hand resting on his thigh, the other twirling his moustache
+to a point. At a significant glance from D'Hubert he rose without
+alacrity, and followed him into the recess of a window.
+
+"What is it you want with me?" he asked, with astonishing indifference.
+Lieut. D'Hubert could not imagine that in the innocence of his heart and
+simplicity of his conscience Lieut. Feraud took a view of his duel in
+which neither remorse nor yet a rational apprehension of consequences
+had any place. Though he had no clear recollection how the quarrel had
+originated (it was begun in an establishment where beer and wine are
+drunk late at night), he had not the slightest doubt of being himself
+the outraged party. He had had two experienced friends for his seconds.
+Everything had been done according to the rules governing that sort of
+adventures. And a duel is obviously fought for the purpose of someone
+being at least hurt, if not killed outright. The civilian got hurt.
+That also was in order. Lieut. Feraud was perfectly tranquil; but Lieut.
+D'Hubert took it for affectation, and spoke with a certain vivacity.
+
+"I am directed by the general to give you the order to go at once to
+your quarters, and remain there under close arrest."
+
+It was now the turn of Lieut. Feraud to be astonished. "What the devil
+are you telling me there?" he murmured, faintly, and fell into such
+profound wonder that he could only follow mechanically the motions of
+Lieut. D'Hubert. The two officers, one tall, with an interesting face
+and a moustache the colour of ripe corn, the other, short and sturdy,
+with a hooked nose and a thick crop of black curly hair, approached the
+mistress of the house to take their leave. Madame de Lionne, a woman
+of eclectic taste, smiled upon these armed young men with impartial
+sensibility and an equal share of interest. Madame de Lionne took her
+delight in the infinite variety of the human species. All the other eyes
+in the drawing-room followed the departing officers; and when they had
+gone out one or two men, who had already heard of the duel, imparted the
+information to the sylph-like ladies, who received it with faint shrieks
+of humane concern.
+
+Meantime, the two hussars walked side by side, Lieut. Feraud trying to
+master the hidden reason of things which in this instance eluded the
+grasp of his intellect, Lieut. D'Hubert feeling annoyed at the part he
+had to play, because the general's instructions were that he should see
+personally that Lieut. Feraud carried out his orders to the letter, and
+at once.
+
+"The chief seems to know this animal," he thought, eyeing his companion,
+whose round face, the round eyes, and even the twisted-up jet black
+little moustache seemed animated by a mental exasperation against the
+incomprehensible. And aloud he observed rather reproachfully, "The
+general is in a devilish fury with you!"
+
+Lieut. Feraud stopped short on the edge of the pavement, and cried in
+accents of unmistakable sincerity, "What on earth for?" The innocence of
+the fiery Gascon soul was depicted in the manner in which he seized his
+head in both hands as if to prevent it bursting with perplexity.
+
+"For the duel," said Lieut. D'Hubert, curtly. He was annoyed greatly by
+this sort of perverse fooling.
+
+"The duel! The . . ."
+
+
+Lieut. Feraud passed from one paroxysm of astonishment into another.
+He dropped his hands and walked on slowly, trying to reconcile this
+information with the state of his own feelings. It was impossible. He
+burst out indignantly, "Was I to let that sauerkraut-eating civilian
+wipe his boots on the uniform of the 7th Hussars?"
+
+Lieut. D'Hubert could not remain altogether unmoved by that simple
+sentiment. This little fellow was a lunatic, he thought to himself, but
+there was something in what he said.
+
+"Of course, I don't know how far you were justified," he began,
+soothingly. "And the general himself may not be exactly informed. Those
+people have been deafening him with their lamentations."
+
+"Ah! the general is not exactly informed," mumbled Lieut. Feraud,
+walking faster and faster as his choler at the injustice of his fate
+began to rise. "He is not exactly . . . And he orders me under close
+arrest, with God knows what afterwards!"
+
+"Don't excite yourself like this," remonstrated the other. "Your
+adversary's people are very influential, you know, and it looks bad
+enough on the face of it. The general had to take notice of their
+complaint at once. I don't think he means to be over-severe with you.
+It's the best thing for you to be kept out of sight for a while."
+
+"I am very much obliged to the general," muttered Lieut. Feraud through
+his teeth. "And perhaps you would say I ought to be grateful to you,
+too, for the trouble you have taken to hunt me up in the drawing-room of
+a lady who--"
+
+"Frankly," interrupted Lieut. D'Hubert, with an innocent laugh, "I think
+you ought to be. I had no end of trouble to find out where you were.
+It wasn't exactly the place for you to disport yourself in under the
+circumstances. If the general had caught you there making eyes at the
+goddess of the temple . . . oh, my word! . . . He hates to be bothered
+with complaints against his officers, you know. And it looked uncommonly
+like sheer bravado."
+
+The two officers had arrived now at the street door of Lieut. Feraud's
+lodgings. The latter turned towards his companion. "Lieut. D'Hubert," he
+said, "I have something to say to you, which can't be said very well in
+the street. You can't refuse to come up."
+
+The pretty maid had opened the door. Lieut. Feraud brushed past her
+brusquely, and she raised her scared and questioning eyes to Lieut.
+D'Hubert, who could do nothing but shrug his shoulders slightly as he
+followed with marked reluctance.
+
+In his room Lieut. Feraud unhooked the clasp, flung his new dolman on
+the bed, and, folding his arms across his chest, turned to the other
+hussar.
+
+"Do you imagine I am a man to submit tamely to injustice?" he inquired,
+in a boisterous voice.
+
+"Oh, do be reasonable!" remonstrated Lieut. D'Hubert.
+
+"I am reasonable! I am perfectly reasonable!" retorted the other
+with ominous restraint. "I can't call the general to account for his
+behaviour, but you are going to answer me for yours."
+
+"I can't listen to this nonsense," murmured Lieut. D'Hubert, making a
+slightly contemptuous grimace.
+
+"You call this nonsense? It seems to me a perfectly plain statement.
+Unless you don't understand French."
+
+"What on earth do you mean?"
+
+"I mean," screamed suddenly Lieut. Feraud, "to cut off your ears to
+teach you to disturb me with the general's orders when I am talking to a
+lady!"
+
+A profound silence followed this mad declaration; and through the open
+window Lieut. D'Hubert heard the little birds singing sanely in the
+garden. He said, preserving his calm, "Why! If you take that tone,
+of course I shall hold myself at your disposition whenever you are at
+liberty to attend to this affair; but I don't think you will cut my ears
+off."
+
+"I am going to attend to it at once," declared Lieut. Feraud, with
+extreme truculence. "If you are thinking of displaying your airs and
+graces to-night in Madame de Lionne's salon you are very much mistaken."
+
+"Really!" said Lieut. D'Hubert, who was beginning to feel irritated,
+"you are an impracticable sort of fellow. The general's orders to
+me were to put you under arrest, not to carve you into small pieces.
+Good-morning!" And turning his back on the little Gascon, who, always
+sober in his potations, was as though born intoxicated with the sunshine
+of his vine-ripening country, the Northman, who could drink hard on
+occasion, but was born sober under the watery skies of Picardy, made for
+the door. Hearing, however, the unmistakable sound behind his back of a
+sword drawn from the scabbard, he had no option but to stop.
+
+"Devil take this mad Southerner!" he thought, spinning round and
+surveying with composure the warlike posture of Lieut. Feraud, with a
+bare sword in his hand.
+
+"At once!--at once!" stuttered Feraud, beside himself.
+
+"You had my answer," said the other, keeping his temper very well.
+
+At first he had been only vexed, and somewhat amused; but now his face
+got clouded. He was asking himself seriously how he could manage to
+get away. It was impossible to run from a man with a sword, and as
+to fighting him, it seemed completely out of the question. He waited
+awhile, then said exactly what was in his heart.
+
+"Drop this! I won't fight with you. I won't be made ridiculous."
+
+"Ah, you won't?" hissed the Gascon. "I suppose you prefer to be made
+infamous. Do you hear what I say? . . . Infamous! Infamous! Infamous!"
+he shrieked, rising and falling on his toes and getting very red in the
+face.
+
+Lieut. D'Hubert, on the contrary, became very pale at the sound of the
+unsavoury word for a moment, then flushed pink to the roots of his
+fair hair. "But you can't go out to fight; you are under arrest, you
+lunatic!" he objected, with angry scorn.
+
+"There's the garden: it's big enough to lay out your long carcass in,"
+spluttered the other with such ardour that somehow the anger of the
+cooler man subsided.
+
+"This is perfectly absurd," he said, glad enough to think he had found a
+way out of it for the moment. "We shall never get any of our comrades to
+serve as seconds. It's preposterous."
+
+"Seconds! Damn the seconds! We don't want any seconds. Don't you worry
+about any seconds. I shall send word to your friends to come and bury
+you when I am done. And if you want any witnesses, I'll send word to the
+old girl to put her head out of a window at the back. Stay! There's the
+gardener. He'll do. He's as deaf as a post, but he has two eyes in his
+head. Come along! I will teach you, my staff officer, that the carrying
+about of a general's orders is not always child's play."
+
+While thus discoursing he had unbuckled his empty scabbard. He sent it
+flying under the bed, and, lowering the point of the sword, brushed past
+the perplexed Lieut. D'Hubert, exclaiming, "Follow me!" Directly he had
+flung open the door a faint shriek was heard and the pretty maid, who
+had been listening at the keyhole, staggered away, putting the backs
+of her hands over her eyes. Feraud did not seem to see her, but she ran
+after him and seized his left arm. He shook her off, and then she rushed
+towards Lieut. D'Hubert and clawed at the sleeve of his uniform.
+
+"Wretched man!" she sobbed. "Is this what you wanted to find him for?"
+
+"Let me go," entreated Lieut. D'Hubert, trying to disengage
+himself gently. "It's like being in a madhouse," he protested, with
+exasperation. "Do let me go! I won't do him any harm."
+
+A fiendish laugh from Lieut. Feraud commented that assurance. "Come
+along!" he shouted, with a stamp of his foot.
+
+And Lieut. D'Hubert did follow. He could do nothing else. Yet in
+vindication of his sanity it must be recorded that as he passed through
+the ante-room the notion of opening the street door and bolting out
+presented itself to this brave youth, only of course to be instantly
+dismissed, for he felt sure that the other would pursue him without
+shame or compunction. And the prospect of an officer of hussars being
+chased along the street by another officer of hussars with a naked sword
+could not be for a moment entertained. Therefore he followed into the
+garden. Behind them the girl tottered out, too. With ashy lips and wild,
+scared eyes, she surrendered herself to a dreadful curiosity. She had
+also the notion of rushing if need be between Lieut. Feraud and death.
+
+The deaf gardener, utterly unconscious of approaching footsteps, went
+on watering his flowers till Lieut. Feraud thumped him on the back.
+Beholding suddenly an enraged man flourishing a big sabre, the old chap
+trembling in all his limbs dropped the watering-pot. At once Lieut.
+Feraud kicked it away with great animosity, and, seizing the gardener
+by the throat, backed him against a tree. He held him there, shouting in
+his ear, "Stay here, and look on! You understand? You've got to look on!
+Don't dare budge from the spot!"
+
+Lieut. D'Hubert came slowly down the walk, unclasping his dolman with
+unconcealed disgust. Even then, with his hand already on the hilt of his
+sword, he hesitated to draw till a roar, "En garde, fichtre! What do you
+think you came here for?" and the rush of his adversary forced him to
+put himself as quickly as possible in a posture of defence.
+
+The clash of arms filled that prim garden, which hitherto had known no
+more warlike sound than the click of clipping shears; and presently the
+upper part of an old lady's body was projected out of a window upstairs.
+She tossed her arms above her white cap, scolding in a cracked voice.
+The gardener remained glued to the tree, his toothless mouth open in
+idiotic astonishment, and a little farther up the path the pretty girl,
+as if spellbound to a small grass plot, ran a few steps this way and
+that, wringing her hands and muttering crazily. She did not rush between
+the combatants: the onslaughts of Lieut. Feraud were so fierce that
+her heart failed her. Lieut. D'Hubert, his faculties concentrated upon
+defence, needed all his skill and science of the sword to stop the
+rushes of his adversary. Twice already he had to break ground. It
+bothered him to feel his foothold made insecure by the round, dry gravel
+of the path rolling under the hard soles of his boots. This was most
+unsuitable ground, he thought, keeping a watchful, narrowed gaze, shaded
+by long eyelashes, upon the fiery stare of his thick-set adversary. This
+absurd affair would ruin his reputation of a sensible, well-behaved,
+promising young officer. It would damage, at any rate, his immediate
+prospects, and lose him the good-will of his general. These worldly
+preoccupations were no doubt misplaced in view of the solemnity of the
+moment. A duel, whether regarded as a ceremony in the cult of honour, or
+even when reduced in its moral essence to a form of manly sport, demands
+a perfect singleness of intention, a homicidal austerity of mood. On
+the other hand, this vivid concern for his future had not a bad effect
+inasmuch as it began to rouse the anger of Lieut. D'Hubert. Some seventy
+seconds had elapsed since they had crossed blades, and Lieut. D'Hubert
+had to break ground again in order to avoid impaling his reckless
+adversary like a beetle for a cabinet of specimens. The result was that
+misapprehending the motive, Lieut. Feraud with a triumphant sort of
+snarl pressed his attack.
+
+"This enraged animal will have me against the wall directly," thought
+Lieut. D'Hubert. He imagined himself much closer to the house than
+he was, and he dared not turn his head; it seemed to him that he was
+keeping his adversary off with his eyes rather more than with his point.
+Lieut. Feraud crouched and bounded with a fierce tigerish agility fit to
+trouble the stoutest heart. But what was more appalling than the fury
+of a wild beast, accomplishing in all innocence of heart a natural
+function, was the fixity of savage purpose man alone is capable of
+displaying. Lieut. D 'Hubert in the midst of his worldly preoccupations
+perceived it at last. It was an absurd and damaging affair to be drawn
+into, but whatever silly intention the fellow had started with, it was
+clear enough that by this time he meant to kill--nothing less. He meant
+it with an intensity of will utterly beyond the inferior faculties of a
+tiger.
+
+As is the case with constitutionally brave men, the full view of
+the danger interested Lieut. D'Hubert. And directly he got properly
+interested, the length of his arm and the coolness of his head told
+in his favour. It was the turn of Lieut. Feraud to recoil, with a
+bloodcurdling grunt of baffled rage. He made a swift feint, and then
+rushed straight forward.
+
+"Ah! you would, would you?" Lieut. D'Hubert exclaimed, mentally. The
+combat had lasted nearly two minutes, time enough for any man to get
+embittered, apart from the merits of the quarrel. And all at once it
+was over. Trying to close breast to breast under his adversary's guard
+Lieut. Feraud received a slash on his shortened arm. He did not feel
+it in the least, but it checked his rush, and his feet slipping on
+the gravel he fell backwards with great violence. The shock jarred his
+boiling brain into the perfect quietude of insensibility. Simultaneously
+with his fall the pretty servant-girl shrieked; but the old maiden lady
+at the window ceased her scolding, and began to cross herself piously.
+
+Beholding his adversary stretched out perfectly still, his face to the
+sky, Lieut. D'Hubert thought he had killed him outright. The impression
+of having slashed hard enough to cut his man clean in two abode with him
+for a while in an exaggerated memory of the right good-will he had
+put into the blow. He dropped on his knees hastily by the side of the
+prostrate body. Discovering that not even the arm was severed, a slight
+sense of disappointment mingled with the feeling of relief. The fellow
+deserved the worst. But truly he did not want the death of that sinner.
+The affair was ugly enough as it stood, and Lieut. D'Hubert addressed
+himself at once to the task of stopping the bleeding. In this task it
+was his fate to be ridiculously impeded by the pretty maid. Rending the
+air with screams of horror, she attacked him from behind and, twining
+her fingers in his hair, tugged back at his head. Why she should
+choose to hinder him at this precise moment he could not in the least
+understand. He did not try. It was all like a very wicked and harassing
+dream. Twice to save himself from being pulled over he had to rise and
+fling her off. He did this stoically, without a word, kneeling down
+again at once to go on with his work. But the third time, his work being
+done, he seized her and held her arms pinned to her body. Her cap was
+half off, her face was red, her eyes blazed with crazy boldness. He
+looked mildly into them while she called him a wretch, a traitor, and a
+murderer many times in succession. This did not annoy him so much as the
+conviction that she had managed to scratch his face abundantly. Ridicule
+would be added to the scandal of the story. He imagined the adorned tale
+making its way through the garrison of the town, through the whole army
+on the frontier, with every possible distortion of motive and sentiment
+and circumstance, spreading a doubt upon the sanity of his conduct and
+the distinction of his taste even to the very ears of his honourable
+family. It was all very well for that fellow Feraud, who had no
+connections, no family to speak of, and no quality but courage, which,
+anyhow, was a matter of course, and possessed by every single trooper
+in the whole mass of French cavalry. Still holding down the arms of the
+girl in a strong grip, Lieut. D'Hubert glanced over his shoulder. Lieut.
+Feraud had opened his eyes. He did not move. Like a man just waking from
+a deep sleep he stared without any expression at the evening sky.
+
+Lieut. D'Hubert's urgent shouts to the old gardener produced no
+effect--not so much as to make him shut his toothless mouth. Then
+he remembered that the man was stone deaf. All that time the girl
+struggled, not with maidenly coyness, but like a pretty, dumb fury,
+kicking his shins now and then. He continued to hold her as if in a
+vice, his instinct telling him that were he to let her go she would fly
+at his eyes. But he was greatly humiliated by his position. At last she
+gave up. She was more exhausted than appeased, he feared. Nevertheless,
+he attempted to get out of this wicked dream by way of negotiation.
+
+"Listen to me," he said, as calmly as he could. "Will you promise to run
+for a surgeon if I let you go?"
+
+With real affliction he heard her declare that she would do nothing of
+the kind. On the contrary, her sobbed out intention was to remain in the
+garden, and fight tooth and nail for the protection of the vanquished
+man. This was shocking.
+
+"My dear child!" he cried in despair, "is it possible that you think
+me capable of murdering a wounded adversary? Is it. . . . Be quiet, you
+little wild cat, you!"
+
+They struggled. A thick, drowsy voice said behind him, "What are you
+after with that girl?"
+
+Lieut. Feraud had raised himself on his good arm. He was looking
+sleepily at his other arm, at the mess of blood on his uniform, at a
+small red pool on the ground, at his sabre lying a foot away on the
+path. Then he laid himself down gently again to think it all out, as far
+as a thundering headache would permit of mental operations.
+
+Lieut. D'Hubert released the girl who crouched at once by the side of
+the other lieutenant. The shades of night were falling on the little
+trim garden with this touching group, whence proceeded low murmurs
+of sorrow and compassion, with other feeble sounds of a different
+character, as if an imperfectly awake invalid were trying to swear.
+Lieut. D'Hubert went away.
+
+He passed through the silent house, and congratulated himself upon the
+dusk concealing his gory hands and scratched face from the passers-by.
+But this story could by no means be concealed. He dreaded the discredit
+and ridicule above everything, and was painfully aware of sneaking
+through the back streets in the manner of a murderer. Presently the
+sounds of a flute coming out of the open window of a lighted upstairs
+room in a modest house interrupted his dismal reflections. It was being
+played with a persevering virtuosity, and through the fioritures of the
+tune one could hear the regular thumping of the foot beating time on the
+floor.
+
+Lieut. D'Hubert shouted a name, which was that of an army surgeon whom
+he knew fairly well. The sounds of the flute ceased, and the musician
+appeared at the window, his instrument still in his hand, peering into
+the street.
+
+"Who calls? You, D'Hubert? What brings you this way?"
+
+He did not like to be disturbed at the hour when he was playing the
+flute. He was a man whose hair had turned grey already in the thankless
+task of tying up wounds on battlefields where others reaped advancement
+and glory.
+
+"I want you to go at once and see Feraud. You know Lieut. Feraud? He
+lives down the second street. It's but a step from here."
+
+"What's the matter with him?"
+
+"Wounded."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Sure!" cried D'Hubert. "I come from there."
+
+"That's amusing," said the elderly surgeon. Amusing was his favourite
+word; but the expression of his face when he pronounced it never
+corresponded. He was a stolid man. "Come in," he added. "I'll get ready
+in a moment."
+
+"Thanks! I will. I want to wash my hands in your room."
+
+Lieut. D'Hubert found the surgeon occupied in unscrewing his flute, and
+packing the pieces methodically in a case. He turned his head.
+
+"Water there--in the corner. Your hands do want washing."
+
+"I've stopped the bleeding," said Lieut. D'Hubert. "But you had better
+make haste. It's rather more than ten minutes ago, you know."
+
+The surgeon did not hurry his movements.
+
+"What's the matter? Dressing came off? That's amusing. I've been at work
+in the hospital all day but I've been told this morning by somebody that
+he had come off without a scratch."
+
+"Not the same duel probably," growled moodily Lieut. D'Hubert, wiping
+his hands on a coarse towel.
+
+"Not the same. . . . What? Another. It would take the very devil to
+make me go out twice in one day." The surgeon looked narrowly at Lieut.
+D'Hubert. "How did you come by that scratched face? Both sides, too--and
+symmetrical. It's amusing."
+
+"Very!" snarled Lieut. D'Hubert. "And you will find his slashed arm
+amusing, too. It will keep both of you amused for quite a long time."
+
+The doctor was mystified and impressed by the brusque bitterness of
+Lieut. D'Hubert's tone. They left the house together, and in the street
+he was still more mystified by his conduct.
+
+"Aren't you coming with me?" he asked.
+
+"No," said Lieut. D'Hubert. "You can find the house by yourself. The
+front door will be standing open very likely."
+
+"All right. Where's his room?"
+
+"Ground floor. But you had better go right through and look in the
+garden first."
+
+This astonishing piece of information made the surgeon go off without
+further parley. Lieut. D'Hubert regained his quarters nursing a hot and
+uneasy indignation. He dreaded the chaff of his comrades almost as much
+as the anger of his superiors. The truth was confoundedly grotesque and
+embarrassing, even putting aside the irregularity of the combat itself,
+which made it come abominably near a criminal offence. Like all
+men without much imagination, a faculty which helps the process of
+reflective thought, Lieut. D'Hubert became frightfully harassed by the
+obvious aspects of his predicament. He was certainly glad that he had
+not killed Lieut. Feraud outside all rules, and without the regular
+witnesses proper to such a transaction. Uncommonly glad. At the same
+time he felt as though he would have liked to wring his neck for him
+without ceremony.
+
+He was still under the sway of these contradictory sentiments when the
+surgeon amateur of the flute came to see him. More than three days had
+elapsed. Lieut. D'Hubert was no longer officier d'ordonnance to the
+general commanding the division. He had been sent back to his regiment.
+And he was resuming his connection with the soldiers' military family by
+being shut up in close confinement, not at his own quarters in town, but
+in a room in the barracks. Owing to the gravity of the incident, he was
+forbidden to see any one. He did not know what had happened, what was
+being said, or what was being thought. The arrival of the surgeon was a
+most unexpected thing to the worried captive. The amateur of the flute
+began by explaining that he was there only by a special favour of the
+colonel.
+
+"I represented to him that it would be only fair to let you have some
+authentic news of your adversary," he continued. "You'll be glad to hear
+he's getting better fast."
+
+Lieut. D'Hubert's face exhibited no conventional signs of gladness. He
+continued to walk the floor of the dusty bare room.
+
+"Take this chair, doctor," he mumbled.
+
+The doctor sat down.
+
+"This affair is variously appreciated--in town and in the army. In fact,
+the diversity of opinions is amusing."
+
+"Is it!" mumbled Lieut. D'Hubert, tramping steadily from wall to wall.
+But within himself he marvelled that there could be two opinions on the
+matter. The surgeon continued.
+
+"Of course, as the real facts are not known--"
+
+"I should have thought," interrupted D'Hubert, "that the fellow would
+have put you in possession of facts."
+
+"He said something," admitted the other, "the first time I saw him. And,
+by the by, I did find him in the garden. The thump on the back of his
+head had made him a little incoherent then. Afterwards he was rather
+reticent than otherwise."
+
+"Didn't think he would have the grace to be ashamed!" mumbled D'Hubert,
+resuming his pacing while the doctor murmured, "It's very amusing.
+Ashamed! Shame was not exactly his frame of mind. However, you may look
+at the matter otherwise."
+
+"What are you talking about? What matter?" asked D'Hubert, with a
+sidelong look at the heavy-faced, grey-haired figure seated on a wooden
+chair.
+
+"Whatever it is," said the surgeon a little impatiently, "I don't want
+to pronounce any opinion on your conduct--"
+
+"By heavens, you had better not!" burst out D'Hubert.
+
+"There!--there! Don't be so quick in flourishing the sword. It doesn't
+pay in the long run. Understand once for all that I would not carve any
+of you youngsters except with the tools of my trade. But my advice
+is good. If you go on like this you will make for yourself an ugly
+reputation."
+
+"Go on like what?" demanded Lieut. D'Hubert, stopping short, quite
+startled. "I!--I!--make for myself a reputation. . . . What do you
+imagine?"
+
+"I told you I don't wish to judge of the rights and wrongs of this
+incident. It's not my business. Nevertheless--"
+
+"What on earth has he been telling you?" interrupted Lieut. D'Hubert, in
+a sort of awed scare.
+
+"I told you already, that at first, when I picked him up in the garden,
+he was incoherent. Afterwards he was naturally reticent. But I gather at
+least that he could not help himself."
+
+"He couldn't?" shouted Lieut. D'Hubert in a great voice. Then, lowering
+his tone impressively, "And what about me? Could I help myself?"
+
+The surgeon stood up. His thoughts were running upon the flute, his
+constant companion with a consoling voice. In the vicinity of field
+ambulances, after twenty-four hours' hard work, he had been known to
+trouble with its sweet sounds the horrible stillness of battlefields,
+given over to silence and the dead. The solacing hour of his daily life
+was approaching, and in peace time he held on to the minutes as a miser
+to his hoard.
+
+"Of course!--of course!" he said, perfunctorily. "You would think so.
+It's amusing. However, being perfectly neutral and friendly to you both,
+I have consented to deliver his message to you. Say that I am humouring
+an invalid if you like. He wants you to know that this affair is by
+no means at an end. He intends to send you his seconds directly he has
+regained his strength--providing, of course, the army is not in the
+field at that time."
+
+"He intends, does he? Why, certainly," spluttered Lieut. D'Hubert in a
+passion.
+
+The secret of his exasperation was not apparent to the visitor; but this
+passion confirmed the surgeon in the belief which was gaining ground
+outside that some very serious difference had arisen between these two
+young men, something serious enough to wear an air of mystery, some
+fact of the utmost gravity. To settle their urgent difference about that
+fact, those two young men had risked being broken and disgraced at the
+outset almost of their career. The surgeon feared that the forthcoming
+inquiry would fail to satisfy the public curiosity. They would not take
+the public into their confidence as to that something which had passed
+between them of a nature so outrageous as to make them face a charge of
+murder--neither more nor less. But what could it be?
+
+The surgeon was not very curious by temperament; but that question
+haunting his mind caused him twice that evening to hold the instrument
+off his lips and sit silent for a whole minute--right in the middle of a
+tune--trying to form a plausible conjecture.
+
+
+II
+
+
+He succeeded in this object no better than the rest of the garrison and
+the whole of society. The two young officers, of no especial consequence
+till then, became distinguished by the universal curiosity as to the
+origin of their quarrel. Madame de Lionne's salon was the centre
+of ingenious surmises; that lady herself was for a time assailed by
+inquiries as being the last person known to have spoken to these unhappy
+and reckless young men before they went out together from her house to
+a savage encounter with swords, at dusk, in a private garden. She
+protested she had not observed anything unusual in their demeanour.
+Lieut. Feraud had been visibly annoyed at being called away. That was
+natural enough; no man likes to be disturbed in a conversation with a
+lady famed for her elegance and sensibility. But in truth the subject
+bored Madame de Lionne, since her personality could by no stretch of
+reckless gossip be connected with this affair. And it irritated her to
+hear it advanced that there might have been some woman in the case. This
+irritation arose, not from her elegance or sensibility, but from a more
+instinctive side of her nature. It became so great at last that she
+peremptorily forbade the subject to be mentioned under her roof. Near
+her couch the prohibition was obeyed, but farther off in the salon
+the pall of the imposed silence continued to be lifted more or less. A
+personage with a long, pale face, resembling the countenance of a
+sheep, opined, shaking his head, that it was a quarrel of long standing
+envenomed by time. It was objected to him that the men themselves were
+too young for such a theory. They belonged also to different and distant
+parts of France. There were other physical impossibilities, too. A
+sub-commissary of the Intendence, an agreeable and cultivated bachelor
+in kerseymere breeches, Hessian boots, and a blue coat embroidered with
+silver lace, who affected to believe in the transmigration of souls,
+suggested that the two had met perhaps in some previous existence.
+The feud was in the forgotten past. It might have been something quite
+inconceivable in the present state of their being; but their souls
+remembered the animosity, and manifested an instinctive antagonism. He
+developed this theme jocularly. Yet the affair was so absurd from the
+worldly, the military, the honourable, or the prudential point of view,
+that this weird explanation seemed rather more reasonable than any
+other.
+
+The two officers had confided nothing definite to any one. Humiliation
+at having been worsted arms in hand, and an uneasy feeling of having
+been involved in a scrape by the injustice of fate, kept Lieut. Feraud
+savagely dumb. He mistrusted the sympathy of mankind. That would, of
+course, go to that dandified staff officer. Lying in bed, he raved aloud
+to the pretty maid who administered to his needs with devotion, and
+listened to his horrible imprecations with alarm. That Lieut. D'Hubert
+should be made to "pay for it," seemed to her just and natural. Her
+principal care was that Lieut. Feraud should not excite himself. He
+appeared so wholly admirable and fascinating to the humility of her
+heart that her only concern was to see him get well quickly, even if it
+were only to resume his visits to Madame de Lionne's salon.
+
+Lieut. D'Hubert kept silent for the immediate reason that there was no
+one, except a stupid young soldier servant, to speak to. Further, he
+was aware that the episode, so grave professionally, had its comic
+side. When reflecting upon it, he still felt that he would like to wring
+Lieut. Feraud's neck for him. But this formula was figurative rather
+than precise, and expressed more a state of mind than an actual physical
+impulse. At the same time, there was in that young man a feeling of
+comradeship and kindness which made him unwilling to make the position
+of Lieut. Feraud worse than it was. He did not want to talk at large
+about this wretched affair. At the inquiry he would have, of course, to
+speak the truth in self-defence. This prospect vexed him.
+
+But no inquiry took place. The army took the field instead. Lieut.
+D'Hubert, liberated without remark, took up his regimental duties; and
+Lieut. Feraud, his arm just out of the sling, rode unquestioned with his
+squadron to complete his convalescence in the smoke of battlefields and
+the fresh air of night bivouacs. This bracing treatment suited him so
+well, that at the first rumour of an armistice being signed he could
+turn without misgivings to the thoughts of his private warfare.
+
+This time it was to be regular warfare. He sent two friends to Lieut.
+D'Hubert, whose regiment was stationed only a few miles away. Those
+friends had asked no questions of their principal. "I owe him one, that
+pretty staff officer," he had said, grimly, and they went away quite
+contentedly on their mission. Lieut. D'Hubert had no difficulty in
+finding two friends equally discreet and devoted to their principal.
+"There's a crazy fellow to whom I must give a lesson," he had declared
+curtly; and they asked for no better reasons.
+
+On these grounds an encounter with duelling-swords was arranged one
+early morning in a convenient field. At the third set-to Lieut. D'Hubert
+found himself lying on his back on the dewy grass with a hole in his
+side. A serene sun rising over a landscape of meadows and woods hung on
+his left. A surgeon--not the flute player, but another--was bending over
+him, feeling around the wound.
+
+"Narrow squeak. But it will be nothing," he pronounced.
+
+Lieut. D'Hubert heard these words with pleasure. One of his seconds,
+sitting on the wet grass, and sustaining his head on his lap, said, "The
+fortune of war, mon pauvre vieux. What will you have? You had better
+make it up like two good fellows. Do!"
+
+"You don't know what you ask," murmured Lieut. D'Hubert, in a feeble
+voice. "However, if he . . ."
+
+In another part of the meadow the seconds of Lieut. Feraud were urging
+him to go over and shake hands with his adversary.
+
+"You have paid him off now--que diable. It's the proper thing to do.
+This D'Hubert is a decent fellow."
+
+"I know the decency of these generals' pets," muttered Lieut. Feraud
+through his teeth, and the sombre expression of his face discouraged
+further efforts at reconciliation. The seconds, bowing from a distance,
+took their men off the field. In the afternoon Lieut. D'Hubert, very
+popular as a good comrade uniting great bravery with a frank and equable
+temper, had many visitors. It was remarked that Lieut. Feraud did not,
+as is customary, show himself much abroad to receive the felicitations
+of his friends. They would not have failed him, because he, too, was
+liked for the exuberance of his southern nature and the simplicity of
+his character. In all the places where officers were in the habit of
+assembling at the end of the day the duel of the morning was talked over
+from every point of view. Though Lieut. D'Hubert had got worsted this
+time, his sword play was commended. No one could deny that it was very
+close, very scientific. It was even whispered that if he got touched it
+was because he wished to spare his adversary. But by many the vigour and
+dash of Lieut. Feraud's attack were pronounced irresistible.
+
+The merits of the two officers as combatants were frankly discussed; but
+their attitude to each other after the duel was criticised lightly and
+with caution. It was irreconcilable, and that was to be regretted. But
+after all they knew best what the care of their honour dictated. It was
+not a matter for their comrades to pry into over-much. As to the origin
+of the quarrel, the general impression was that it dated from the time
+they were holding garrison in Strasbourg. The musical surgeon shook his
+head at that. It went much farther back, he thought.
+
+"Why, of course! You must know the whole story," cried several voices,
+eager with curiosity. "What was it?"
+
+He raised his eyes from his glass deliberately. "Even if I knew ever so
+well, you can't expect me to tell you, since both the principals choose
+to say nothing."
+
+He got up and went out, leaving the sense of mystery behind him. He
+could not stay any longer, because the witching hour of flute-playing
+was drawing near.
+
+After he had gone a very young officer observed solemnly, "Obviously,
+his lips are sealed!"
+
+Nobody questioned the high correctness of that remark. Somehow it added
+to the impressiveness of the affair. Several older officers of both
+regiments, prompted by nothing but sheer kindness and love of harmony,
+proposed to form a Court of Honour, to which the two young men would
+leave the task of their reconciliation. Unfortunately they began by
+approaching Lieut. Feraud, on the assumption that, having just scored
+heavily, he would be found placable and disposed to moderation.
+
+The reasoning was sound enough. Nevertheless, the move turned out
+unfortunate. In that relaxation of moral fibre, which is brought about
+by the ease of soothed vanity, Lieut. Feraud had condescended in the
+secret of his heart to review the case, and even had come to doubt not
+the justice of his cause, but the absolute sagacity of his conduct. This
+being so, he was disinclined to talk about it. The suggestion of the
+regimental wise men put him in a difficult position. He was disgusted at
+it, and this disgust, by a paradoxical logic, reawakened his animosity
+against Lieut. D'Hubert. Was he to be pestered with this fellow for
+ever--the fellow who had an infernal knack of getting round people
+somehow? And yet it was difficult to refuse point blank that mediation
+sanctioned by the code of honour.
+
+He met the difficulty by an attitude of grim reserve. He twisted his
+moustache and used vague words. His case was perfectly clear. He was
+not ashamed to state it before a proper Court of Honour, neither was he
+afraid to defend it on the ground. He did not see any reason to jump at
+the suggestion before ascertaining how his adversary was likely to take
+it.
+
+Later in the day, his exasperation growing upon him, he was heard in a
+public place saying sardonically, "that it would be the very luckiest
+thing for Lieut. D'Hubert, because the next time of meeting he need not
+hope to get off with the mere trifle of three weeks in bed."
+
+This boastful phrase might have been prompted by the most profound
+Machiavellism. Southern natures often hide, under the outward
+impulsiveness of action and speech, a certain amount of astuteness.
+
+Lieut. Feraud, mistrusting the justice of men, by no means desired
+a Court of Honour; and the above words, according so well with his
+temperament, had also the merit of serving his turn. Whether meant so or
+not, they found their way in less than four-and-twenty hours into Lieut.
+D'Hubert's bedroom. In consequence Lieut. D'Hubert, sitting propped
+up with pillows, received the overtures made to him next day by
+the statement that the affair was of a nature which could not bear
+discussion.
+
+The pale face of the wounded officer, his weak voice which he had yet to
+use cautiously, and the courteous dignity of his tone had a great effect
+on his hearers. Reported outside all this did more for deepening the
+mystery than the vapourings of Lieut. Feraud. This last was greatly
+relieved at the issue. He began to enjoy the state of general wonder,
+and was pleased to add to it by assuming an attitude of fierce
+discretion.
+
+The colonel of Lieut. D'Hubert's regiment was a grey-haired,
+weather-beaten warrior, who took a simple view of his responsibilities.
+"I can't," he said to himself, "let the best of my subalterns get
+damaged like this for nothing. I must get to the bottom of this affair
+privately. He must speak out if the devil were in it. The colonel should
+be more than a father to these youngsters." And indeed he loved all his
+men with as much affection as a father of a large family can feel
+for every individual member of it. If human beings by an oversight of
+Providence came into the world as mere civilians, they were born again
+into a regiment as infants are born into a family, and it was that
+military birth alone which counted.
+
+At the sight of Lieut. D'Hubert standing before him very bleached
+and hollow-eyed the heart of the old warrior felt a pang of genuine
+compassion. All his affection for the regiment--that body of men which
+he held in his hand to launch forward and draw back, who ministered to
+his pride and commanded all his thoughts--seemed centred for a moment on
+the person of the most promising subaltern. He cleared his throat in
+a threatening manner, and frowned terribly. "You must understand," he
+began, "that I don't care a rap for the life of a single man in the
+regiment. I would send the eight hundred and forty-three of you men and
+horses galloping into the pit of perdition with no more compunction than
+I would kill a fly!"
+
+"Yes, Colonel. You would be riding at our head," said Lieut. D'Hubert
+with a wan smile.
+
+The colonel, who felt the need of being very diplomatic, fairly roared
+at this. "I want you to know, Lieut. D'Hubert, that I could stand aside
+and see you all riding to Hades if need be. I am a man to do even that
+if the good of the service and my duty to my country required it from
+me. But that's unthinkable, so don't you even hint at such a thing." He
+glared awfully, but his tone softened. "There's some milk yet about that
+moustache of yours, my boy. You don't know what a man like me is capable
+of. I would hide behind a haystack if . . . Don't grin at me, sir! How
+dare you? If this were not a private conversation I would . . . Look
+here! I am responsible for the proper expenditure of lives under my
+command for the glory of our country and the honour of the regiment. Do
+you understand that? Well, then, what the devil do you mean by letting
+yourself be spitted like this by that fellow of the 7th Hussars? It's
+simply disgraceful!"
+
+Lieut. D'Hubert felt vexed beyond measure. His shoulders moved slightly.
+He made no other answer. He could not ignore his responsibility.
+
+The colonel veiled his glance and lowered his voice still more. "It's
+deplorable!" he murmured. And again he changed his tone. "Come!" he went
+on, persuasively, but with that note of authority which dwells in the
+throat of a good leader of men, "this affair must be settled. I desire
+to be told plainly what it is all about. I demand, as your best friend,
+to know."
+
+The compelling power of authority, the persuasive influence of kindness,
+affected powerfully a man just risen from a bed of sickness. Lieut.
+D'Hubert's hand, which grasped the knob of a stick, trembled
+slightly. But his northern temperament, sentimental yet cautious and
+clear-sighted, too, in its idealistic way, checked his impulse to make a
+clean breast of the whole deadly absurdity. According to the precept
+of transcendental wisdom, he turned his tongue seven times in his mouth
+before he spoke. He made then only a speech of thanks.
+
+The colonel listened, interested at first, then looked mystified. At
+last he frowned. "You hesitate?--mille tonnerres! Haven't I told you
+that I will condescend to argue with you--as a friend?"
+
+"Yes, Colonel!" answered Lieut. D'Hubert, gently. "But I am afraid
+that after you have heard me out as a friend you will take action as my
+superior officer."
+
+The attentive colonel snapped his jaws. "Well, what of that?" he said,
+frankly. "Is it so damnably disgraceful?"
+
+"It is not," negatived Lieut. D'Hubert, in a faint but firm voice.
+
+"Of course, I shall act for the good of the service. Nothing can prevent
+me doing that. What do you think I want to be told for?"
+
+"I know it is not from idle curiosity," protested Lieut. D'Hubert. "I
+know you will act wisely. But what about the good fame of the regiment?"
+
+"It cannot be affected by any youthful folly of a lieutenant," said the
+colonel, severely.
+
+"No. It cannot be. But it can be by evil tongues. It will be said that
+a lieutenant of the 4th Hussars, afraid of meeting his adversary, is
+hiding behind his colonel. And that would be worse than hiding behind
+a haystack--for the good of the service. I cannot afford to do that,
+Colonel."
+
+"Nobody would dare to say anything of the kind," began the colonel very
+fiercely, but ended the phrase on an uncertain note. The bravery of
+Lieut. D'Hubert was well known. But the colonel was well aware that
+the duelling courage, the single combat courage, is rightly or wrongly
+supposed to be courage of a special sort. And it was eminently
+necessary that an officer of his regiment should possess every kind of
+courage--and prove it, too. The colonel stuck out his lower lip, and
+looked far away with a peculiar glazed stare. This was the expression of
+his perplexity--an expression practically unknown to his regiment; for
+perplexity is a sentiment which is incompatible with the rank of colonel
+of cavalry. The colonel himself was overcome by the unpleasant
+novelty of the sensation. As he was not accustomed to think except on
+professional matters connected with the welfare of men and horses, and
+the proper use thereof on the field of glory, his intellectual efforts
+degenerated into mere mental repetitions of profane language. "Mille
+tonnerres! . . . Sacre nom de nom . . ." he thought.
+
+Lieut. D'Hubert coughed painfully, and added in a weary voice: "There
+will be plenty of evil tongues to say that I've been cowed. And I
+am sure you will not expect me to pass that over. I may find myself
+suddenly with a dozen duels on my hands instead of this one affair."
+
+The direct simplicity of this argument came home to the colonel's
+understanding. He looked at his subordinate fixedly. "Sit down,
+Lieutenant!" he said, gruffly. "This is the very devil of a . . . Sit
+down!"
+
+"Mon Colonel," D'Hubert began again, "I am not afraid of evil tongues.
+There's a way of silencing them. But there's my peace of mind, too.
+I wouldn't be able to shake off the notion that I've ruined a brother
+officer. Whatever action you take, it is bound to go farther. The
+inquiry has been dropped--let it rest now. It would have been absolutely
+fatal to Feraud."
+
+"Hey! What! Did he behave so badly?"
+
+"Yes. It was pretty bad," muttered Lieut. D'Hubert. Being still very
+weak, he felt a disposition to cry.
+
+As the other man did not belong to his own regiment the colonel had no
+difficulty in believing this. He began to pace up and down the room. He
+was a good chief, a man capable of discreet sympathy. But he was human
+in other ways, too, and this became apparent because he was not capable
+of artifice.
+
+"The very devil, Lieutenant," he blurted out, in the innocence of his
+heart, "is that I have declared my intention to get to the bottom of
+this affair. And when a colonel says something . . . you see . . ."
+
+Lieut. D'Hubert broke in earnestly: "Let me entreat you, Colonel, to be
+satisfied with taking my word of honour that I was put into a damnable
+position where I had no option; I had no choice whatever, consistent
+with my dignity as a man and an officer. . . . After all, Colonel, this
+fact is the very bottom of this affair. Here you've got it. The rest is
+mere detail. . . ."
+
+The colonel stopped short. The reputation of Lieut. D'Hubert for good
+sense and good temper weighed in the balance. A cool head, a warm heart,
+open as the day. Always correct in his behaviour. One had to trust him.
+The colonel repressed manfully an immense curiosity. "H'm! You affirm
+that as a man and an officer. . . . No option? Eh?"
+
+"As an officer--an officer of the 4th Hussars, too," insisted Lieut.
+D'Hubert, "I had not. And that is the bottom of the affair, Colonel."
+
+"Yes. But still I don't see why, to one's colonel. . . . A colonel is a
+father--que diable!"
+
+Lieut. D'Hubert ought not to have been allowed out as yet. He was
+becoming aware of his physical insufficiency with humiliation and
+despair. But the morbid obstinacy of an invalid possessed him, and at
+the same time he felt with dismay his eyes filling with water. This
+trouble seemed too big to handle. A tear fell down the thin, pale cheek
+of Lieut. D'Hubert.
+
+The colonel turned his back on him hastily. You could have heard a pin
+drop. "This is some silly woman story--is it not?"
+
+Saying these words the chief spun round to seize the truth, which is
+not a beautiful shape living in a well, but a shy bird best caught by
+stratagem. This was the last move of the colonel's diplomacy. He saw the
+truth shining unmistakably in the gesture of Lieut. D'Hubert raising his
+weak arms and his eyes to heaven in supreme protest.
+
+"Not a woman affair--eh?" growled the colonel, staring hard. "I don't
+ask you who or where. All I want to know is whether there is a woman in
+it?"
+
+Lieut. D'Hubert's arms dropped, and his weak voice was pathetically
+broken.
+
+"Nothing of the kind, mon Colonel."
+
+"On your honour?" insisted the old warrior.
+
+"On my honour."
+
+"Very well," said the colonel, thoughtfully, and bit his lip. The
+arguments of Lieut. D'Hubert, helped by his liking for the man, had
+convinced him. On the other hand, it was highly improper that his
+intervention, of which he had made no secret, should produce no visible
+effect. He kept Lieut. D'Hubert a few minutes longer, and dismissed him
+kindly.
+
+"Take a few days more in bed. Lieutenant. What the devil does the
+surgeon mean by reporting you fit for duty?"
+
+On coming out of the colonel's quarters, Lieut. D'Hubert said nothing to
+the friend who was waiting outside to take him home. He said nothing to
+anybody. Lieut. D'Hubert made no confidences. But on the evening of that
+day the colonel, strolling under the elms growing near his quarters, in
+the company of his second in command, opened his lips.
+
+"I've got to the bottom of this affair," he remarked. The
+lieut.-colonel, a dry, brown chip of a man with short side-whiskers,
+pricked up his ears at that without letting a sign of curiosity escape
+him.
+
+"It's no trifle," added the colonel, oracularly. The other waited for a
+long while before he murmured:
+
+"Indeed, sir!"
+
+"No trifle," repeated the colonel, looking straight before him. "I've,
+however, forbidden D'Hubert either to send to or receive a challenge
+from Feraud for the next twelve months."
+
+He had imagined this prohibition to save the prestige a colonel should
+have. The result of it was to give an official seal to the mystery
+surrounding this deadly quarrel. Lieut. D'Hubert repelled by an
+impassive silence all attempts to worm the truth out of him. Lieut.
+Feraud, secretly uneasy at first, regained his assurance as time went
+on. He disguised his ignorance of the meaning of the imposed truce by
+slight sardonic laughs, as though he were amused by what he intended to
+keep to himself. "But what will you do?" his chums used to ask him. He
+contented himself by replying "Qui vivra verra" with a little truculent
+air. And everybody admired his discretion.
+
+Before the end of the truce Lieut. D'Hubert got his troop. The promotion
+was well earned, but somehow no one seemed to expect the event. When
+Lieut. Feraud heard of it at a gathering of officers, he muttered
+through his teeth, "Is that so?" At once he unhooked his sabre from a
+peg near the door, buckled it on carefully, and left the company without
+another word. He walked home with measured steps, struck a light with
+his flint and steel, and lit his tallow candle. Then snatching an
+unlucky glass tumbler off the mantelpiece he dashed it violently on the
+floor.
+
+Now that D'Hubert was an officer of superior rank there could be no
+question of a duel. Neither of them could send or receive a challenge
+without rendering himself amenable to a court-martial. It was not to be
+thought of. Lieut. Feraud, who for many days now had experienced no
+real desire to meet Lieut. D'Hubert arms in hand, chafed again at the
+systematic injustice of fate. "Does he think he will escape me in that
+way?" he thought, indignantly. He saw in this promotion an intrigue, a
+conspiracy, a cowardly manoeuvre. That colonel knew what he was doing.
+He had hastened to recommend his favourite for a step. It was outrageous
+that a man should be able to avoid the consequences of his acts in such
+a dark and tortuous manner.
+
+Of a happy-go-lucky disposition, of a temperament more pugnacious than
+military, Lieut. Feraud had been content to give and receive blows for
+sheer love of armed strife, and without much thought of advancement; but
+now an urgent desire to get on sprang up in his breast. This fighter by
+vocation resolved in his mind to seize showy occasions and to court the
+favourable opinion of his chiefs like a mere worldling. He knew he was
+as brave as any one, and never doubted his personal charm. Nevertheless,
+neither the bravery nor the charm seemed to work very swiftly. Lieut.
+Feraud's engaging, careless truculence of a beau sabreur underwent a
+change. He began to make bitter allusions to "clever fellows who stick
+at nothing to get on." The army was full of them, he would say; you had
+only to look round. But all the time he had in view one person only, his
+adversary, D'Hubert. Once he confided to an appreciative friend: "You
+see, I don't know how to fawn on the right sort of people. It isn't in
+my character."
+
+He did not get his step till a week after Austerlitz. The Light Cavalry
+of the Grand Army had its hands very full of interesting work for a
+little while. Directly the pressure of professional occupation had been
+eased Captain Feraud took measures to arrange a meeting without loss of
+time. "I know my bird," he observed, grimly. "If I don't look sharp he
+will take care to get himself promoted over the heads of a dozen better
+men than himself. He's got the knack for that sort of thing."
+
+This duel was fought in Silesia. If not fought to a finish, it was, at
+any rate, fought to a standstill. The weapon was the cavalry sabre, and
+the skill, the science, the vigour, and the determination displayed by
+the adversaries compelled the admiration of the beholders. It became
+the subject of talk on both shores of the Danube, and as far as the
+garrisons of Gratz and Laybach. They crossed blades seven times. Both
+had many cuts which bled profusely. Both refused to have the combat
+stopped, time after time, with what appeared the most deadly animosity.
+This appearance was caused on the part of Captain D'Hubert by a rational
+desire to be done once for all with this worry; on the part of Captain
+Feraud by a tremendous exaltation of his pugnacious instincts and the
+incitement of wounded vanity. At last, dishevelled, their shirts in
+rags, covered with gore and hardly able to stand, they were led away
+forcibly by their marvelling and horrified seconds. Later on, besieged
+by comrades avid of details, these gentlemen declared that they could
+not have allowed that sort of hacking to go on indefinitely. Asked
+whether the quarrel was settled this time, they gave it out as their
+conviction that it was a difference which could only be settled by one
+of the parties remaining lifeless on the ground. The sensation spread
+from army corps to army corps, and penetrated at last to the smallest
+detachments of the troops cantoned between the Rhine and the Save. In
+the cafes in Vienna it was generally estimated, from details to hand,
+that the adversaries would be able to meet again in three weeks' time
+on the outside. Something really transcendent in the way of duelling was
+expected.
+
+These expectations were brought to naught by the necessities of the
+service which separated the two officers. No official notice had been
+taken of their quarrel. It was now the property of the army, and not
+to be meddled with lightly. But the story of the duel, or rather their
+duelling propensities, must have stood somewhat in the way of their
+advancement, because they were still captains when they came together
+again during the war with Prussia. Detached north after Jena, with
+the army commanded by Marshal Bernadotte, Prince of Ponte Corvo, they
+entered Lubeck together.
+
+It was only after the occupation of that town that Captain Feraud found
+leisure to consider his future conduct in view of the fact that Captain
+D'Hubert had been given the position of third aide-de-camp to the
+marshal. He considered it a great part of a night, and in the morning
+summoned two sympathetic friends.
+
+"I've been thinking it over calmly," he said, gazing at them with
+blood-shot, tired eyes. "I see that I must get rid of that intriguing
+personage. Here he's managed to sneak on to the personal staff of the
+marshal. It's a direct provocation to me. I can't tolerate a situation
+in which I am exposed any day to receive an order through him. And God
+knows what order, too! That sort of thing has happened once before--and
+that's once too often. He understands this perfectly, never fear. I
+can't tell you any more. Now you know what it is you have to do."
+
+This encounter took place outside the town of Lubeck, on very open
+ground, selected with special care in deference to the general sentiment
+of the cavalry division belonging to the army corps, that this time
+the two officers should meet on horseback. After all, this duel was a
+cavalry affair, and to persist in fighting on foot would look like a
+slight on one's own arm of the service. The seconds, startled by the
+unusual nature of the suggestion, hastened to refer to their principals.
+Captain Feraud jumped at it with alacrity. For some obscure reason,
+depending, no doubt, on his psychology, he imagined himself invincible
+on horseback. All alone within the four walls of his room he rubbed his
+hands and muttered triumphantly, "Aha! my pretty staff officer, I've got
+you now."
+
+Captain D'Hubert on his side, after staring hard for a considerable
+time at his friends, shrugged his shoulders slightly. This affair had
+hopelessly and unreasonably complicated his existence for him. One
+absurdity more or less in the development did not matter--all absurdity
+was distasteful to him; but, urbane as ever, he produced a faintly
+ironical smile, and said in his calm voice, "It certainly will do away
+to some extent with the monotony of the thing."
+
+When left alone, he sat down at a table and took his head into his
+hands. He had not spared himself of late and the marshal had been
+working all his aides-decamp particularly hard. The last three weeks of
+campaigning in horrible weather had affected his health. When over-tired
+he suffered from a stitch in his wounded side, and that uncomfortable
+sensation always depressed him. "It's that brute's doing, too," he
+thought bitterly.
+
+The day before he had received a letter from home, announcing that his
+only sister was going to be married. He reflected that from the time she
+was nineteen and he twenty-six, when he went away to garrison life in
+Strasbourg, he had had but two short glimpses of her. They had been
+great friends and confidants; and now she was going to be given away to
+a man whom he did not know--a very worthy fellow no doubt, but not half
+good enough for her. He would never see his old Leonie again. She had
+a capable little head, and plenty of tact; she would know how to manage
+the fellow, to be sure. He was easy in his mind about her happiness but
+he felt ousted from the first place in her thoughts which had been his
+ever since the girl could speak. A melancholy regret of the days of
+his childhood settled upon Captain D'Hubert, third aide-de-camp to the
+Prince of Ponte Corvo.
+
+He threw aside the letter of congratulation he had begun to write as in
+duty bound, but without enthusiasm. He took a fresh piece of paper, and
+traced on it the words: "This is my last will and testament." Looking at
+these words he gave himself up to unpleasant reflection; a presentiment
+that he would never see the scenes of his childhood weighed down the
+equable spirits of Captain D'Hubert. He jumped up, pushing his chair
+back, yawned elaborately in sign that he didn't care anything for
+presentiments, and throwing himself on the bed went to sleep. During the
+night he shivered from time to time without waking up. In the morning he
+rode out of town between his two seconds, talking of indifferent things,
+and looking right and left with apparent detachment into the heavy
+morning mists shrouding the flat green fields bordered by hedges. He
+leaped a ditch, and saw the forms of many mounted men moving in the fog.
+"We are to fight before a gallery, it seems," he muttered to himself,
+bitterly.
+
+His seconds were rather concerned at the state of the atmosphere, but
+presently a pale, sickly sun struggled out of the low vapours, and
+Captain D'Hubert made out, in the distance, three horsemen riding a
+little apart from the others. It was Captain Feraud and his seconds. He
+drew his sabre, and assured himself that it was properly fastened to his
+wrist. And now the seconds, who had been standing in close group with
+the heads of their horses together, separated at an easy canter, leaving
+a large, clear field between him and his adversary. Captain D'Hubert
+looked at the pale sun, at the dismal fields, and the imbecility of the
+impending fight filled him with desolation. From a distant part of
+the field a stentorian voice shouted commands at proper intervals: Au
+pas--Au trot--Charrrgez! . . . Presentiments of death don't come to
+a man for nothing, he thought at the very moment he put spurs to his
+horse.
+
+And therefore he was more than surprised when, at the very first set-to,
+Captain Feraud laid himself open to a cut over the forehead, which
+blinding him with blood, ended the combat almost before it had fairly
+begun. It was impossible to go on. Captain D'Hubert, leaving his enemy
+swearing horribly and reeling in the saddle between his two appalled
+friends, leaped the ditch again into the road and trotted home with his
+two seconds, who seemed rather awestruck at the speedy issue of that
+encounter. In the evening Captain D'Hubert finished the congratulatory
+letter on his sister's marriage.
+
+He finished it late. It was a long letter. Captain D'Hubert gave reins
+to his fancy. He told his sister that he would feel rather lonely after
+this great change in her life; but then the day would come for him, too,
+to get married. In fact, he was thinking already of the time when there
+would be no one left to fight with in Europe and the epoch of wars would
+be over. "I expect then," he wrote, "to be within measurable distance
+of a marshal's baton, and you will be an experienced married woman. You
+shall look out a wife for me. I will be, probably, bald by then, and a
+little blase. I shall require a young girl, pretty of course, and with
+a large fortune, which should help me to close my glorious career in the
+splendour befitting my exalted rank." He ended with the information
+that he had just given a lesson to a worrying, quarrelsome fellow who
+imagined he had a grievance against him. "But if you, in the depths of
+your province," he continued, "ever hear it said that your brother is of
+a quarrelsome disposition, don't you believe it on any account. There
+is no saying what gossip from the army may reach your innocent ears.
+Whatever you hear you may rest assured that your ever-loving brother is
+not a duellist." Then Captain D'Hubert crumpled up the blank sheet of
+paper headed with the words "This is my last will and testament," and
+threw it in the fire with a great laugh at himself. He didn't care
+a snap for what that lunatic could do. He had suddenly acquired the
+conviction that his adversary was utterly powerless to affect his life
+in any sort of way; except, perhaps, in the way of putting a special
+excitement into the delightful, gay intervals between the campaigns.
+
+From this on there were, however, to be no peaceful intervals in the
+career of Captain D'Hubert. He saw the fields of Eylau and Friedland,
+marched and countermarched in the snow, in the mud, in the dust of
+Polish plains, picking up distinction and advancement on all the roads
+of North-eastern Europe. Meantime, Captain Feraud, despatched southwards
+with his regiment, made unsatisfactory war in Spain. It was only when
+the preparations for the Russian campaign began that he was ordered
+north again. He left the country of mantillas and oranges without
+regret.
+
+The first signs of a not unbecoming baldness added to the lofty aspect
+of Colonel D'Hubert's forehead. This feature was no longer white and
+smooth as in the days of his youth; the kindly open glance of his blue
+eyes had grown a little hard as if from much peering through the smoke
+of battles. The ebony crop on Colonel Feraud's head, coarse and crinkly
+like a cap of horsehair, showed many silver threads about the temples. A
+detestable warfare of ambushes and inglorious surprises had not improved
+his temper. The beak-like curve of his nose was unpleasantly set off
+by a deep fold on each side of his mouth. The round orbits of his eyes
+radiated wrinkles. More than ever he recalled an irritable and staring
+bird--something like a cross between a parrot and an owl. He was still
+extremely outspoken in his dislike of "intriguing fellows." He seized
+every opportunity to state that he did not pick up his rank in the
+ante-rooms of marshals. The unlucky persons, civil or military, who,
+with an intention of being pleasant, begged Colonel Feraud to tell them
+how he came by that very apparent scar on the forehead, were astonished
+to find themselves snubbed in various ways, some of which were simply
+rude and others mysteriously sardonic. Young officers were warned kindly
+by their more experienced comrades not to stare openly at the colonel's
+scar. But indeed an officer need have been very young in his profession
+not to have heard the legendary tale of that duel originating in a
+mysterious, unforgivable offence.
+
+
+III
+
+
+The retreat from Moscow submerged all private feelings in a sea of
+disaster and misery. Colonels without regiments, D'Hubert and Feraud
+carried the musket in the ranks of the so-called sacred battalion--a
+battalion recruited from officers of all arms who had no longer any
+troops to lead.
+
+In that battalion promoted colonels did duty as sergeants; the generals
+captained the companies; a marshal of France, Prince of the Empire,
+commanded the whole. All had provided themselves with muskets picked
+up on the road, and with cartridges taken from the dead. In the general
+destruction of the bonds of discipline and duty holding together the
+companies, the battalions, the regiments, the brigades, and divisions
+of an armed host, this body of men put its pride in preserving some
+semblance of order and formation. The only stragglers were those who
+fell out to give up to the frost their exhausted souls. They plodded
+on, and their passage did not disturb the mortal silence of the plains,
+shining with the livid light of snows under a sky the colour of
+ashes. Whirlwinds ran along the fields, broke against the dark column,
+enveloped it in a turmoil of flying icicles, and subsided, disclosing it
+creeping on its tragic way without the swing and rhythm of the military
+pace. It struggled onwards, the men exchanging neither words nor looks;
+whole ranks marched touching elbow, day after day and never raising
+their eyes from the ground, as if lost in despairing reflections. In the
+dumb, black forests of pines the cracking of overloaded branches was the
+only sound they heard. Often from daybreak to dusk no one spoke in the
+whole column. It was like a macabre march of struggling corpses towards
+a distant grave. Only an alarm of Cossacks could restore to their eyes a
+semblance of martial resolution. The battalion faced about and deployed,
+or formed square under the endless fluttering of snowflakes. A cloud of
+horsemen with fur caps on their heads, levelled long lances, and yelled
+"Hurrah! Hurrah!" around their menacing immobility whence, with muffled
+detonations, hundreds of dark red flames darted through the air thick
+with falling snow. In a very few moments the horsemen would disappear,
+as if carried off yelling in the gale, and the sacred battalion standing
+still, alone in the blizzard, heard only the howling of the wind, whose
+blasts searched their very hearts. Then, with a cry or two of "Vive
+l'Empereur!" it would resume its march, leaving behind a few lifeless
+bodies lying huddled up, tiny black specks on the white immensity of the
+snows.
+
+Though often marching in the ranks, or skirmishing in the woods side
+by side, the two officers ignored each other; this not so much from
+inimical intention as from a very real indifference. All their store of
+moral energy was expended in resisting the terrific enmity of nature and
+the crushing sense of irretrievable disaster. To the last they counted
+among the most active, the least demoralized of the battalion; their
+vigorous vitality invested them both with the appearance of an heroic
+pair in the eyes of their comrades. And they never exchanged more than
+a casual word or two, except one day, when skirmishing in front of the
+battalion against a worrying attack of cavalry, they found themselves
+cut off in the woods by a small party of Cossacks. A score of
+fur-capped, hairy horsemen rode to and fro, brandishing their lances
+in ominous silence; but the two officers had no mind to lay down their
+arms, and Colonel Feraud suddenly spoke up in a hoarse, growling voice,
+bringing his firelock to the shoulder. "You take the nearest brute,
+Colonel D'Hubert; I'll settle the next one. I am a better shot than you
+are."
+
+Colonel D'Hubert nodded over his levelled musket. Their shoulders were
+pressed against the trunk of a large tree; on their front enormous
+snowdrifts protected them from a direct charge. Two carefully aimed
+shots rang out in the frosty air, two Cossacks reeled in their saddles.
+The rest, not thinking the game good enough, closed round their wounded
+comrades and galloped away out of range. The two officers managed to
+rejoin their battalion halted for the night. During that afternoon they
+had leaned upon each other more than once, and towards the end, Colonel
+D'Hubert, whose long legs gave him an advantage in walking through
+soft snow, peremptorily took the musket of Colonel Feraud from him and
+carried it on his shoulder, using his own as a staff.
+
+On the outskirts of a village half buried in the snow an old wooden
+barn burned with a clear and an immense flame. The sacred battalion
+of skeletons, muffled in rags, crowded greedily the windward side,
+stretching hundreds of numbed, bony hands to the blaze. Nobody had
+noted their approach. Before entering the circle of light playing on the
+sunken, glassy-eyed, starved faces, Colonel D'Hubert spoke in his turn:
+
+"Here's your musket, Colonel Feraud. I can walk better than you."
+
+Colonel Feraud nodded, and pushed on towards the warmth of the fierce
+flames. Colonel D'Hubert was more deliberate, but not the less bent on
+getting a place in the front rank. Those they shouldered aside tried
+to greet with a faint cheer the reappearance of the two indomitable
+companions in activity and endurance. Those manly qualities had never
+perhaps received a higher tribute than this feeble acclamation.
+
+This is the faithful record of speeches exchanged during the retreat
+from Moscow by Colonels Feraud and D'Hubert. Colonel Feraud's
+taciturnity was the outcome of concentrated rage. Short, hairy, black
+faced, with layers of grime and the thick sprouting of a wiry beard,
+a frost-bitten hand wrapped up in filthy rags carried in a sling, he
+accused fate of unparalleled perfidy towards the sublime Man of Destiny.
+Colonel D'Hubert, his long moustaches pendent in icicles on each side of
+his cracked blue lips, his eyelids inflamed with the glare of snows, the
+principal part of his costume consisting of a sheepskin coat looted
+with difficulty from the frozen corpse of a camp follower found in an
+abandoned cart, took a more thoughtful view of events. His regularly
+handsome features, now reduced to mere bony lines and fleshless hollows,
+looked out of a woman's black velvet hood, over which was rammed
+forcibly a cocked hat picked up under the wheels of an empty army
+fourgon, which must have contained at one time some general officer's
+luggage. The sheepskin coat being short for a man of his inches ended
+very high up, and the skin of his legs, blue with the cold, showed
+through the tatters of his nether garments. This under the circumstances
+provoked neither jeers nor pity. No one cared how the next man felt or
+looked. Colonel D'Hubert himself, hardened to exposure, suffered mainly
+in his self-respect from the lamentable indecency of his costume. A
+thoughtless person may think that with a whole host of inanimate bodies
+bestrewing the path of retreat there could not have been much difficulty
+in supplying the deficiency. But to loot a pair of breeches from a
+frozen corpse is not so easy as it may appear to a mere theorist. It
+requires time and labour. You must remain behind while your companions
+march on. Colonel D'Hubert had his scruples as to falling out. Once he
+had stepped aside he could not be sure of ever rejoining his battalion;
+and the ghastly intimacy of a wrestling match with the frozen dead
+opposing the unyielding rigidity of iron to your violence was repugnant
+to the delicacy of his feelings. Luckily, one day, grubbing in a mound
+of snow between the huts of a village in the hope of finding there a
+frozen potato or some vegetable garbage he could put between his long
+and shaky teeth, Colonel D'Hubert uncovered a couple of mats of the
+sort Russian peasants use to line the sides of their carts with. These,
+beaten free of frozen snow, bent about his elegant person and fastened
+solidly round his waist, made a bell-shaped nether garment, a sort of
+stiff petticoat, which rendered Colonel D'Hubert a perfectly decent, but
+a much more noticeable figure than before.
+
+Thus accoutred, he continued to retreat, never doubting of his personal
+escape, but full of other misgivings. The early buoyancy of his belief
+in the future was destroyed. If the road of glory led through such
+unforeseen passages, he asked himself--for he was reflective--whether
+the guide was altogether trustworthy. It was a patriotic sadness, not
+unmingled with some personal concern, and quite unlike the unreasoning
+indignation against men and things nursed by Colonel Feraud. Recruiting
+his strength in a little German town for three weeks, Colonel D'Hubert
+was surprised to discover within himself a love of repose. His returning
+vigour was strangely pacific in its aspirations. He meditated silently
+upon this bizarre change of mood. No doubt many of his brother officers
+of field rank went through the same moral experience. But these were
+not the times to talk of it. In one of his letters home Colonel D'Hubert
+wrote, "All your plans, my dear Leonie, for marrying me to the charming
+girl you have discovered in your neighbourhood, seem farther off than
+ever. Peace is not yet. Europe wants another lesson. It will be a hard
+task for us, but it shall be done, because the Emperor is invincible."
+
+Thus wrote Colonel D 'Hubert from Pomerania to his married sister
+Leonie, settled in the south of France. And so far the sentiments
+expressed would not have been disowned by Colonel Feraud, who wrote
+no letters to anybody, whose father had been in life an illiterate
+blacksmith, who had no sister or brother, and whom no one desired
+ardently to pair off for a life of peace with a charming young girl.
+But Colonel D 'Hubert's letter contained also some philosophical
+generalities upon the uncertainty of all personal hopes, when bound up
+entirely with the prestigious fortune of one incomparably great it is
+true, yet still remaining but a man in his greatness. This view would
+have appeared rank heresy to Colonel Feraud. Some melancholy forebodings
+of a military kind, expressed cautiously, would have been pronounced as
+nothing short of high treason by Colonel Feraud. But Leonie, the sister
+of Colonel D'Hubert, read them with profound satisfaction, and, folding
+the letter thoughtfully, remarked to herself that "Armand was likely to
+prove eventually a sensible fellow." Since her marriage into a Southern
+family she had become a convinced believer in the return of the
+legitimate king. Hopeful and anxious she offered prayers night and
+morning, and burnt candles in churches for the safety and prosperity of
+her brother.
+
+She had every reason to suppose that her prayers were heard. Colonel
+D'Hubert passed through Lutzen, Bautzen, and Leipsic losing no limb, and
+acquiring additional reputation. Adapting his conduct to the needs of
+that desperate time, he had never voiced his misgivings. He concealed
+them under a cheerful courtesy of such pleasant character that people
+were inclined to ask themselves with wonder whether Colonel D'Hubert
+was aware of any disasters. Not only his manners, but even his glances
+remained untroubled. The steady amenity of his blue eyes disconcerted
+all grumblers, and made despair itself pause.
+
+This bearing was remarked favourably by the Emperor himself; for Colonel
+D'Hubert, attached now to the Major-General's staff, came on several
+occasions under the imperial eye. But it exasperated the higher strung
+nature of Colonel Feraud. Passing through Magdeburg on service,
+this last allowed himself, while seated gloomily at dinner with the
+Commandant de Place, to say of his life-long adversary: "This man does
+not love the Emperor," and his words were received by the other guests
+in profound silence. Colonel Feraud, troubled in his conscience at
+the atrocity of the aspersion, felt the need to back it up by a good
+argument. "I ought to know him," he cried, adding some oaths. "One
+studies one's adversary. I have met him on the ground half a dozen
+times, as all the army knows. What more do you want? If that isn't
+opportunity enough for any fool to size up his man, may the devil take
+me if I can tell what is." And he looked around the table, obstinate and
+sombre.
+
+Later on in Paris, while extremely busy reorganizing his regiment,
+Colonel Feraud learned that Colonel D'Hubert had been made a general. He
+glared at his informant incredulously, then folded his arms and turned
+away muttering, "Nothing surprises me on the part of that man."
+
+And aloud he added, speaking over his shoulder, "You would oblige me
+greatly by telling General D'Hubert at the first opportunity that his
+advancement saves him for a time from a pretty hot encounter. I was only
+waiting for him to turn up here."
+
+The other officer remonstrated.
+
+"Could you think of it, Colonel Feraud, at this time, when every life
+should be consecrated to the glory and safety of France?"
+
+But the strain of unhappiness caused by military reverses had spoiled
+Colonel Feraud's character. Like many other men, he was rendered wicked
+by misfortune.
+
+"I cannot consider General D'Hubert's existence of any account either
+for the glory or safety of France," he snapped viciously. "You don't
+pretend, perhaps, to know him better than I do--I who have met him half
+a dozen times on the ground--do you?"
+
+His interlocutor, a young man, was silenced. Colonel Feraud walked up
+and down the room.
+
+"This is not the time to mince matters," he said. "I can't believe that
+that man ever loved the Emperor. He picked up his general's stars under
+the boots of Marshal Berthier. Very well. I'll get mine in another
+fashion, and then we shall settle this business which has been dragging
+on too long."
+
+General D'Hubert, informed indirectly of Colonel Feraud's attitude, made
+a gesture as if to put aside an importunate person. His thoughts were
+solicited by graver cares. He had had no time to go and see his family.
+His sister, whose royalist hopes were rising higher every day, though
+proud of her brother, regretted his recent advancement in a measure,
+because it put on him a prominent mark of the usurper's favour, which
+later on could have an adverse influence upon his career. He wrote
+to her that no one but an inveterate enemy could say he had got his
+promotion by favour. As to his career, he assured her that he looked no
+farther forward into the future than the next battlefield.
+
+Beginning the campaign of France in this dogged spirit, General D'Hubert
+was wounded on the second day of the battle under Laon. While being
+carried off the field he heard that Colonel Feraud, promoted this moment
+to general, had been sent to replace him at the head of his brigade.
+He cursed his luck impulsively, not being able at the first glance to
+discern all the advantages of a nasty wound. And yet it was by this
+heroic method that Providence was shaping his future. Travelling slowly
+south to his sister's country home under the care of a trusty old
+servant, General D'Hubert was spared the humiliating contacts and the
+perplexities of conduct which assailed the men of Napoleonic empire at
+the moment of its downfall. Lying in his bed, with the windows of his
+room open wide to the sunshine of Provence, he perceived the undisguised
+aspect of the blessing conveyed by that jagged fragment of a Prussian
+shell, which, killing his horse and ripping open his thigh, saved him
+from an active conflict with his conscience. After the last fourteen
+years spent sword in hand in the saddle, and with the sense of his duty
+done to the very end, General D'Hubert found resignation an easy virtue.
+His sister was delighted with his reasonableness. "I leave myself
+altogether in your hands, my dear Leonie," he had said to her.
+
+He was still laid up when, the credit of his brother-in-law's family
+being exerted on his behalf, he received from the royal government not
+only the confirmation of his rank, but the assurance of being retained
+on the active list. To this was added an unlimited convalescent leave.
+The unfavourable opinion entertained of him in Bonapartist circles,
+though it rested on nothing more solid than the unsupported
+pronouncement of General Feraud, was directly responsible for General
+D'Hubert's retention on the active list. As to General Feraud, his rank
+was confirmed, too. It was more than he dared to expect; but Marshal
+Soult, then Minister of War to the restored king, was partial to
+officers who had served in Spain. Only not even the marshal's protection
+could secure for him active employment. He remained irreconcilable,
+idle, and sinister. He sought in obscure restaurants the company of
+other half-pay officers who cherished dingy but glorious old tricolour
+cockades in their breast-pockets, and buttoned with the forbidden eagle
+buttons their shabby uniforms, declaring themselves too poor to afford
+the expense of the prescribed change.
+
+The triumphant return from Elba, an historical fact as marvellous and
+incredible as the exploits of some mythological demi-god, found General
+D'Hubert still quite unable to sit a horse. Neither could he walk very
+well. These disabilities, which Madame Leonie accounted most lucky,
+helped to keep her brother out of all possible mischief. His frame
+of mind at that time, she noted with dismay, became very far from
+reasonable. This general officer, still menaced by the loss of a limb,
+was discovered one night in the stables of the chateau by a groom,
+who, seeing a light, raised an alarm of thieves. His crutch was lying
+half-buried in the straw of the litter, and the general was hopping on
+one leg in a loose box around a snorting horse he was trying to saddle.
+Such were the effects of imperial magic upon a calm temperament and
+a pondered mind. Beset in the light of stable lanterns, by the tears,
+entreaties, indignation, remonstrances and reproaches of his family, he
+got out of the difficult situation by fainting away there and then in
+the arms of his nearest relatives, and was carried off to bed. Before he
+got out of it again, the second reign of Napoleon, the Hundred Days of
+feverish agitation and supreme effort, passed away like a terrifying
+dream. The tragic year 1815, begun in the trouble and unrest of
+consciences, was ending in vengeful proscriptions.
+
+How General Feraud escaped the clutches of the Special Commission and
+the last offices of a firing squad he never knew himself. It was partly
+due to the subordinate position he was assigned during the Hundred Days.
+The Emperor had never given him active command, but had kept him busy
+at the cavalry depot in Paris, mounting and despatching hastily drilled
+troopers into the field. Considering this task as unworthy of his
+abilities, he had discharged it with no offensively noticeable zeal; but
+for the greater part he was saved from the excesses of Royalist reaction
+by the interference of General D'Hubert.
+
+This last, still on convalescent leave, but able now to travel, had been
+despatched by his sister to Paris to present himself to his legitimate
+sovereign. As no one in the capital could possibly know anything of the
+episode in the stable he was received there with distinction. Military
+to the very bottom of his soul, the prospect of rising in his profession
+consoled him from finding himself the butt of Bonapartist malevolence,
+which pursued him with a persistence he could not account for. All the
+rancour of that embittered and persecuted party pointed to him as the
+man who had never loved the Emperor--a sort of monster essentially worse
+than a mere betrayer.
+
+General D'Hubert shrugged his shoulders without anger at this ferocious
+prejudice. Rejected by his old friends, and mistrusting profoundly the
+advances of Royalist society, the young and handsome general (he was
+barely forty) adopted a manner of cold, punctilious courtesy, which
+at the merest shadow of an intended slight passed easily into harsh
+haughtiness. Thus prepared, General D'Hubert went about his affairs in
+Paris feeling inwardly very happy with the peculiar uplifting happiness
+of a man very much in love. The charming girl looked out by his sister
+had come upon the scene, and had conquered him in the thorough manner
+in which a young girl by merely existing in his sight can make a man of
+forty her own. They were going to be married as soon as General D'Hubert
+had obtained his official nomination to a promised command.
+
+One afternoon, sitting on the terrasse of the Cafe Tortoni, General
+D'Hubert learned from the conversation of two strangers occupying
+a table near his own, that General Feraud, included in the batch of
+superior officers arrested after the second return of the king, was in
+danger of passing before the Special Commission. Living all his spare
+moments, as is frequently the case with expectant lovers, a day in
+advance of reality, and in a state of bestarred hallucination, it
+required nothing less than the name of his perpetual antagonist
+pronounced in a loud voice to call the youngest of Napoleon's generals
+away from the mental contemplation of his betrothed. He looked round.
+The strangers wore civilian clothes. Lean and weather-beaten, lolling
+back in their chairs, they scowled at people with moody and defiant
+abstraction from under their hats pulled low over their eyes. It was not
+difficult to recognize them for two of the compulsorily retired officers
+of the Old Guard. As from bravado or carelessness they chose to speak in
+loud tones, General D'Hubert, who saw no reason why he should change his
+seat, heard every word. They did not seem to be the personal friends of
+General Feraud. His name came up amongst others. Hearing it repeated,
+General D'Hubert's tender anticipations of a domestic future adorned
+with a woman's grace were traversed by the harsh regret of his warlike
+past, of that one long, intoxicating clash of arms, unique in the
+magnitude of its glory and disaster--the marvellous work and the special
+possession of his own generation. He felt an irrational tenderness
+towards his old adversary and appreciated emotionally the murderous
+absurdity their encounter had introduced into his life. It was like an
+additional pinch of spice in a hot dish. He remembered the flavour with
+sudden melancholy. He would never taste it again. It was all over. "I
+fancy it was being left lying in the garden that had exasperated him so
+against me from the first," he thought, indulgently.
+
+
+The two strangers at the next table had fallen silent after the third
+mention of General Feraud's name. Presently the elder of the two,
+speaking again in a bitter tone, affirmed that General Feraud's account
+was settled. And why? Simply because he was not like some bigwigs who
+loved only themselves. The Royalists knew they could never make anything
+of him. He loved The Other too well.
+
+The Other was the Man of St. Helena. The two officers nodded and touched
+glasses before they drank to an impossible return. Then the same who
+had spoken before, remarked with a sardonic laugh, "His adversary showed
+more cleverness."
+
+"What adversary?" asked the younger, as if puzzled.
+
+"Don't you know? They were two hussars. At each promotion they fought a
+duel. Haven't you heard of the duel going on ever since 1801?"
+
+The other had heard of the duel, of course. Now he understood the
+allusion. General Baron D'Hubert would be able now to enjoy his fat
+king's favour in peace.
+
+"Much good may it do to him," mumbled the elder. "They were both brave
+men. I never saw this D'Hubert--a sort of intriguing dandy, I am told.
+But I can well believe what I've heard Feraud say of him--that he never
+loved the Emperor."
+
+They rose and went away.
+
+General D'Hubert experienced the horror of a somnambulist who wakes
+up from a complacent dream of activity to find himself walking on a
+quagmire. A profound disgust of the ground on which he was making his
+way overcame him. Even the image of the charming girl was swept from
+his view in the flood of moral distress. Everything he had ever been
+or hoped to be would taste of bitter ignominy unless he could manage to
+save General Feraud from the fate which threatened so many braves. Under
+the impulse of this almost morbid need to attend to the safety of his
+adversary, General D'Hubert worked so well with hands and feet (as the
+French saying is), that in less than twenty-four hours he found means of
+obtaining an extraordinary private audience from the Minister of Police.
+
+General Baron D'Hubert was shown in suddenly without preliminaries. In
+the dusk of the Minister's cabinet, behind the forms of writing-desk,
+chairs, and tables, between two bunches of wax candles blazing in
+sconces, he beheld a figure in a gorgeous coat posturing before a tall
+mirror. The old conventionnel Fouche, Senator of the Empire, traitor
+to every man, to every principle and motive of human conduct. Duke of
+Otranto, and the wily artizan of the second Restoration, was trying
+the fit of a court suit in which his young and accomplished fiancee had
+declared her intention to have his portrait painted on porcelain. It was
+a caprice, a charming fancy which the first Minister of Police of the
+second Restoration was anxious to gratify. For that man, often compared
+in wiliness of conduct to a fox, but whose ethical side could be
+worthily symbolized by nothing less emphatic than a skunk, was as much
+possessed by his love as General D'Hubert himself.
+
+Startled to be discovered thus by the blunder of a servant, he met this
+little vexation with the characteristic impudence which had served
+his turn so well in the endless intrigues of his self-seeking career.
+Without altering his attitude a hair's-breadth, one leg in a silk
+stocking advanced, his head twisted over his left shoulder, he
+called out calmly, "This way, General. Pray approach. Well? I am all
+attention."
+
+While General D'Hubert, ill at ease as if one of his own little
+weaknesses had been exposed, presented his request as shortly as
+possible, the Duke of Otranto went on feeling the fit of his collar,
+settling the lapels before the glass, and buckling his back in an effort
+to behold the set of the gold embroidered coat-skirts behind. His still
+face, his attentive eyes, could not have expressed a more complete
+interest in those matters if he had been alone.
+
+"Exclude from the operations of the Special Court a certain Feraud,
+Gabriel Florian, General of brigade of the promotion of 1814?" he
+repeated, in a slightly wondering tone, and then turned away from the
+glass. "Why exclude him precisely?"
+
+
+"I am surprised that your Excellency, so competent in the evaluation of
+men of his time, should have thought worth while to have that name put
+down on the list."
+
+"A rabid Bonapartist!"
+
+"So is every grenadier and every trooper of the army, as your Excellency
+well knows. And the individuality of General Feraud can have no more
+weight than that of any casual grenadier. He is a man of no mental
+grasp, of no capacity whatever. It is inconceivable that he should ever
+have any influence."
+
+"He has a well-hung tongue, though," interjected Fouche.
+
+"Noisy, I admit, but not dangerous."
+
+"I will not dispute with you. I know next to nothing of him. Hardly his
+name, in fact."
+
+"And yet your Excellency has the presidency of the Commission charged
+by the king to point out those who were to be tried," said General
+D'Hubert, with an emphasis which did not miss the minister's ear.
+
+"Yes, General," he said, walking away into the dark part of the vast
+room, and throwing himself into a deep armchair that swallowed him up,
+all but the soft gleam of gold embroideries and the pallid patch of the
+face--"yes, General. Take this chair there."
+
+General D'Hubert sat down.
+
+"Yes, General," continued the arch-master in the arts of intrigue
+and betrayals, whose duplicity, as if at times intolerable to his
+self-knowledge, found relief in bursts of cynical openness. "I did
+hurry on the formation of the proscribing Commission, and I took its
+presidency. And do you know why? Simply from fear that if I did not
+take it quickly into my hands my own name would head the list of the
+proscribed. Such are the times in which we live. But I am minister of
+the king yet, and I ask you plainly why I should take the name of this
+obscure Feraud off the list? You wonder how his name got there! Is it
+possible that you should know men so little? My dear General, at the
+very first sitting of the Commission names poured on us like rain off
+the roof of the Tuileries. Names! We had our choice of thousands. How do
+you know that the name of this Feraud, whose life or death don't matter
+to France, does not keep out some other name?"
+
+The voice out of the armchair stopped. Opposite General D'Hubert sat
+still, shadowy and silent. Only his sabre clinked slightly. The voice in
+the armchair began again. "And we must try to satisfy the exigencies
+of the Allied Sovereigns, too. The Prince de Talleyrand told me only
+yesterday that Nesselrode had informed him officially of His Majesty the
+Emperor Alexander's dissatisfaction at the small number of examples the
+Government of the king intends to make--especially amongst military men.
+I tell you this confidentially."
+
+"Upon my word!" broke out General D'Hubert, speaking through his teeth,
+"if your Excellency deigns to favour me with any more confidential
+information I don't know what I will do. It's enough to break one's
+sword over one's knee, and fling the pieces. . . ."
+
+"What government you imagined yourself to be serving?" interrupted the
+minister, sharply.
+
+After a short pause the crestfallen voice of General D'Hubert answered,
+"The Government of France."
+
+"That's paying your conscience off with mere words, General. The truth
+is that you are serving a government of returned exiles, of men who have
+been without country for twenty years. Of men also who have just got
+over a very bad and humiliating fright. . . . Have no illusions on that
+score."
+
+The Duke of Otranto ceased. He had relieved himself, and had attained
+his object of stripping some self-respect off that man who had
+inconveniently discovered him posturing in a gold-embroidered court
+costume before a mirror. But they were a hot-headed lot in the army; it
+occurred to him that it would be inconvenient if a well-disposed general
+officer, received in audience on the recommendation of one of the
+Princes, were to do something rashly scandalous directly after a private
+interview with the minister. In a changed tone he put a question to the
+point: "Your relation--this Feraud?"
+
+"No. No relation at all."
+
+"Intimate friend?"
+
+"Intimate . . . yes. There is between us an intimate connection of a
+nature which makes it a point of honour with me to try . . ."
+
+The minister rang a bell without waiting for the end of the phrase.
+When the servant had gone out, after bringing in a pair of heavy silver
+candelabra for the writing-desk, the Duke of Otranto rose, his breast
+glistening all over with gold in the strong light, and taking a piece of
+paper out of a drawer, held it in his hand ostentatiously while he said
+with persuasive gentleness: "You must not speak of breaking your sword
+across your knee, General. Perhaps you would never get another. The
+Emperor will not return this time. . . . Diable d'homme! There was just
+a moment, here in Paris, soon after Waterloo, when he frightened me.
+It looked as though he were ready to begin all over again. Luckily one
+never does begin all over again, really. You must not think of breaking
+your sword, General."
+
+General D'Hubert, looking on the ground, moved slightly his hand in a
+hopeless gesture of renunciation. The Minister of Police turned his eyes
+away from him, and scanned deliberately the paper he had been holding up
+all the time.
+
+"There are only twenty general officers selected to be made an example
+of. Twenty. A round number. And let's see, Feraud. . . . Ah, he's there.
+Gabriel Florian. Parfaitement. That's your man. Well, there will be only
+nineteen examples made now."
+
+General D'Hubert stood up feeling as though he had gone through an
+infectious illness. "I must beg your Excellency to keep my interference
+a profound secret. I attach the greatest importance to his never
+learning . . ."
+
+"Who is going to inform him, I should like to know?" said Fouche,
+raising his eyes curiously to General D'Hubert's tense, set face. "Take
+one of these pens, and run it through the name yourself. This is the
+only list in existence. If you are careful to take up enough ink no one
+will be able to tell what was the name struck out. But, par exemple, I
+am not responsible for what Clarke will do with him afterwards. If he
+persists in being rabid he will be ordered by the Minister of War to
+reside in some provincial town under the supervision of the police."
+
+A few days later General D'Hubert was saying to his sister, after the
+first greetings had been got over: "Ah, my dear Leonie! it seemed to me
+I couldn't get away from Paris quick enough."
+
+"Effect of love," she suggested, with a malicious smile.
+
+"And horror," added General D'Hubert, with profound seriousness. "I have
+nearly died there of . . . of nausea."
+
+His face was contracted with disgust. And as his sister looked at him
+attentively he continued, "I have had to see Fouche. I have had an
+audience. I have been in his cabinet. There remains with one, who had
+the misfortune to breathe the air of the same room with that man, a
+sense of diminished dignity, an uneasy feeling of being not so clean,
+after all, as one hoped one was. . . . But you can't understand."
+
+She nodded quickly several times. She understood very well, on the
+contrary. She knew her brother thoroughly, and liked him as he was.
+Moreover, the scorn and loathing of mankind were the lot of the Jacobin
+Fouche, who, exploiting for his own advantage every weakness, every
+virtue, every generous illusion of mankind, made dupes of his whole
+generation, and died obscurely as Duke of Otranto.
+
+"My dear Armand," she said, compassionately, "what could you want from
+that man?"
+
+"Nothing less than a life," answered General D'Hubert. "And I've got
+it. It had to be done. But I feel yet as if I could never forgive the
+necessity to the man I had to save."
+
+General Feraud, totally unable (as is the case with most of us) to
+comprehend what was happening to him, received the Minister of War's
+order to proceed at once to a small town of Central France with feelings
+whose natural expression consisted in a fierce rolling of the eye and
+savage grinding of the teeth. The passing away of the state of war,
+the only condition of society he had ever known, the horrible view of a
+world at peace, frightened him. He went away to his little town firmly
+convinced that this could not last. There he was informed of his
+retirement from the army, and that his pension (calculated on the
+scale of a colonel's rank) was made dependent on the correctness of his
+conduct, and on the good reports of the police. No longer in the army!
+He felt suddenly strange to the earth, like a disembodied spirit. It
+was impossible to exist. But at first he reacted from sheer incredulity.
+This could not be. He waited for thunder, earthquakes, natural
+cataclysms; but nothing happened. The leaden weight of an irremediable
+idleness descended upon General Feraud, who having no resources within
+himself sank into a state of awe-inspiring hebetude. He haunted the
+streets of the little town, gazing before him with lacklustre eyes,
+disregarding the hats raised on his passage; and people, nudging each
+other as he went by, whispered, "That's poor General Feraud. His heart
+is broken. Behold how he loved the Emperor."
+
+The other living wreckage of Napoleonic tempest clustered round General
+Feraud with infinite respect. He, himself, imagined his soul to be
+crushed by grief. He suffered from quickly succeeding impulses to weep,
+to howl, to bite his fists till blood came, to spend days on his bed
+with his head thrust under the pillow; but these arose from sheer ennui,
+from the anguish of an immense, indescribable, inconceivable boredom.
+His mental inability to grasp the hopeless nature of his case as a whole
+saved him from suicide. He never even thought of it once. He thought
+of nothing. But his appetite abandoned him, and the difficulty he
+experienced to express the overwhelming nature of his feelings (the most
+furious swearing could do no justice to it) induced gradually a habit of
+silence--a sort of death to a southern temperament.
+
+Great, therefore, was the sensation amongst the anciens militaires
+frequenting a certain little cafe; full of flies when one stuffy
+afternoon "that poor General Feraud" let out suddenly a volley of
+formidable curses.
+
+He had been sitting quietly in his own privileged corner looking through
+the Paris gazettes with just as much interest as a condemned man on the
+eve of execution could be expected to show in the news of the day. "I'll
+find out presently that I am alive yet," he declared, in a dogmatic
+tone. "However, this is a private affair. An old affair of honour. Bah!
+Our honour does not matter. Here we are driven off with a split ear like
+a lot of cast troop horses--good only for a knacker's yard. But it
+would be like striking a blow for the Emperor. . . . Messieurs, I shall
+require the assistance of two of you."
+
+Every man moved forward. General Feraud, deeply touched by this
+demonstration, called with visible emotion upon the one-eyed veteran
+cuirassier and the officer of the Chasseurs a Cheval who had left the
+tip of his nose in Russia. He excused his choice to the others.
+
+"A cavalry affair this--you know."
+
+He was answered with a varied chorus of "Parfaitement, mon General
+. . . . C'est juste. . . . Parbleu, c'est connu. . . ." Everybody was
+satisfied. The three left the cafe together, followed by cries of "Bonne
+chance."
+
+Outside they linked arms, the general in the middle. The three rusty
+cocked hats worn en bataille with a sinister forward slant barred the
+narrow street nearly right across. The overheated little town of grey
+stones and red tiles was drowsing away its provincial afternoon under
+a blue sky. The loud blows of a cooper hooping a cask reverberated
+regularly between the houses. The general dragged his left foot a little
+in the shade of the walls.
+
+"This damned winter of 1813 has got into my bones for good. Never
+mind. We must take pistols, that's all. A little lumbago. We must have
+pistols. He's game for my bag. My eyes are as keen as ever. You should
+have seen me in Russia picking off the dodging Cossacks with a beastly
+old infantry musket. I have a natural gift for firearms."
+
+In this strain General Feraud ran on, holding up his head, with owlish
+eyes and rapacious beak. A mere fighter all his life, a cavalry man, a
+sabreur, he conceived war with the utmost simplicity, as, in the main, a
+massed lot of personal contests, a sort of gregarious duelling. And here
+he had in hand a war of his own. He revived. The shadow of peace
+passed away from him like the shadow of death. It was the marvellous
+resurrection of the named Feraud, Gabriel Florian, engage volontaire
+of 1793, General of 1814, buried without ceremony by means of a service
+order signed by the War Minister of the Second Restoration.
+
+
+IV
+
+
+No man succeeds in everything he undertakes. In that sense we are all
+failures. The great point is not to fail in ordering and sustaining the
+effort of our life. In this matter vanity is what leads us astray. It
+hurries us into situations from which we must come out damaged; whereas
+pride is our safeguard, by the reserve it imposes on the choice of our
+endeavour as much as by the virtue of its sustaining power.
+
+General D'Hubert was proud and reserved. He had not been damaged by his
+casual love affairs, successful or otherwise. In his war-scarred body
+his heart at forty remained unscratched. Entering with reserve into his
+sister's matrimonial plans, he had felt himself falling irremediably in
+love as one falls off a roof. He was too proud to be frightened. Indeed,
+the sensation was too delightful to be alarming.
+
+The inexperience of a man of forty is a much more serious thing than
+the inexperience of a youth of twenty, for it is not helped out by the
+rashness of hot blood. The girl was mysterious, as young girls are
+by the mere effect of their guarded ingenuity; and to him the
+mysteriousness of that young girl appeared exceptional and fascinating.
+But there was nothing mysterious about the arrangements of the match
+which Madame Leonie had promoted. There was nothing peculiar, either. It
+was a very appropriate match, commending itself extremely to the young
+lady's mother (the father was dead) and tolerable to the young lady's
+uncle--an old emigre lately returned from Germany, and pervading, cane
+in hand, a lean ghost of the ancien regime, the garden walks of the
+young lady's ancestral home.
+
+General D'Hubert was not the man to be satisfied merely with the woman
+and the fortune--when it came to the point. His pride (and pride aims
+always at true success) would be satisfied with nothing short of love.
+But as true pride excludes vanity, he could not imagine any reason why
+this mysterious creature with deep and brilliant eyes of a violet colour
+should have any feeling for him warmer than indifference. The young lady
+(her name was Adele) baffled every attempt at a clear understanding on
+that point. It is true that the attempts were clumsy and made timidly,
+because by then General D'Hubert had become acutely aware of the number
+of his years, of his wounds, of his many moral imperfections, of his
+secret unworthiness--and had incidentally learned by experience the
+meaning of the word funk. As far as he could make out she seemed to
+imply that, with an unbounded confidence in her mother's affection and
+sagacity, she felt no unsurmountable dislike for the person of General
+D'Hubert; and that this was quite sufficient for a well-brought-up young
+lady to begin married life upon. This view hurt and tormented the pride
+of General D'Hubert. And yet he asked himself, with a sort of sweet
+despair, what more could he expect? She had a quiet and luminous
+forehead. Her violet eyes laughed while the lines of her lips and chin
+remained composed in admirable gravity. All this was set off by such
+a glorious mass of fair hair, by a complexion so marvellous, by such
+a grace of expression, that General D'Hubert really never found the
+opportunity to examine with sufficient detachment the lofty exigencies
+of his pride. In fact, he became shy of that line of inquiry since it
+had led once or twice to a crisis of solitary passion in which it was
+borne upon him that he loved her enough to kill her rather than lose
+her. From such passages, not unknown to men of forty, he would come out
+broken, exhausted, remorseful, a little dismayed. He derived, however,
+considerable comfort from the quietist practice of sitting now and then
+half the night by an open window and meditating upon the wonder of
+her existence, like a believer lost in the mystic contemplation of his
+faith.
+
+It must not be supposed that all these variations of his inward state
+were made manifest to the world. General D 'Hubert found no difficulty
+in appearing wreathed in smiles. Because, in fact, he was very happy.
+He followed the established rules of his condition, sending over flowers
+(from his sister's garden and hot-houses) early every morning, and a
+little later following himself to lunch with his intended, her mother,
+and her emigre uncle. The middle of the day was spent in strolling or
+sitting in the shade. A watchful deference, trembling on the verge of
+tenderness was the note of their intercourse on his side--with a playful
+turn of the phrase concealing the profound trouble of his whole being
+caused by her inaccessible nearness. Late in the afternoon General D
+'Hubert walked home between the fields of vines, sometimes intensely
+miserable, sometimes supremely happy, sometimes pensively sad; but
+always feeling a special intensity of existence, that elation common to
+artists, poets, and lovers--to men haunted by a great passion, a noble
+thought, or a new vision of plastic beauty.
+
+The outward world at that time did not exist with any special
+distinctness for General D'Hubert. One evening, however, crossing a
+ridge from which he could see both houses, General D'Hubert became aware
+of two figures far down the road. The day had been divine. The festal
+decoration of the inflamed sky lent a gentle glow to the sober tints
+of the southern land. The grey rocks, the brown fields, the purple,
+undulating distances harmonized in luminous accord, exhaled already
+the scents of the evening. The two figures down the road presented
+themselves like two rigid and wooden silhouettes all black on the ribbon
+of white dust. General D'Hubert made out the long, straight, military
+capotes buttoned closely right up to the black stocks, the cocked hats,
+the lean, carven, brown countenances--old soldiers--vieilles moustaches!
+The taller of the two had a black patch over one eye; the other's hard,
+dry countenance presented some bizarre, disquieting peculiarity, which
+on nearer approach proved to be the absence of the tip of the nose.
+Lifting their hands with one movement to salute the slightly lame
+civilian walking with a thick stick, they inquired for the house where
+the General Baron D'Hubert lived, and what was the best way to get
+speech with him quietly.
+
+"If you think this quiet enough," said General D'Hubert, looking round
+at the vine-fields, framed in purple lines, and dominated by the nest of
+grey and drab walls of a village clustering around the top of a conical
+hill, so that the blunt church tower seemed but the shape of a crowning
+rock--"if you think this spot quiet enough, you can speak to him
+at once. And I beg you, comrades, to speak openly, with perfect
+confidence."
+
+They stepped back at this, and raised again their hands to their
+hats with marked ceremoniousness. Then the one with the chipped nose,
+speaking for both, remarked that the matter was confidential enough, and
+to be arranged discreetly. Their general quarters were established in
+that village over there, where the infernal clodhoppers--damn their
+false, Royalist hearts!--looked remarkably cross-eyed at three
+unassuming military men. For the present he should only ask for the name
+of General D'Hubert's friends.
+
+"What friends?" said the astonished General D'Hubert, completely off the
+track. "I am staying with my brother-in-law over there."
+
+"Well, he will do for one," said the chipped veteran.
+
+"We're the friends of General Feraud," interjected the other, who had
+kept silent till then, only glowering with his one eye at the man who
+had never loved the Emperor. That was something to look at. For even
+the gold-laced Judases who had sold him to the English, the marshals
+and princes, had loved him at some time or other. But this man had never
+loved the Emperor. General Feraud had said so distinctly.
+
+General D'Hubert felt an inward blow in his chest. For an infinitesimal
+fraction of a second it was as if the spinning of the earth had become
+perceptible with an awful, slight rustle in the eternal stillness
+of space. But this noise of blood in his ears passed off at once.
+Involuntarily he murmured, "Feraud! I had forgotten his existence."
+
+"He's existing at present, very uncomfortably, it is true, in the
+infamous inn of that nest of savages up there," said the one-eyed
+cuirassier, drily. "We arrived in your parts an hour ago on post horses.
+He's awaiting our return with impatience. There is hurry, you know.
+The General has broken the ministerial order to obtain from you the
+satisfaction he's entitled to by the laws of honour, and naturally he's
+anxious to have it all over before the gendarmerie gets on his scent."
+
+The other elucidated the idea a little further. "Get back on the
+quiet--you understand? Phitt! No one the wiser. We have broken out, too.
+Your friend the king would be glad to cut off our scurvy pittances at
+the first chance. It's a risk. But honour before everything."
+
+General D'Hubert had recovered his powers of speech. "So you come here
+like this along the road to invite me to a throat-cutting match with
+that--that . . ." A laughing sort of rage took possession of him. "Ha!
+ha! ha! ha!"
+
+His fists on his hips, he roared without restraint, while they stood
+before him lank and straight, as though they had been shot up with a
+snap through a trap door in the ground. Only four-and-twenty months ago
+the masters of Europe, they had already the air of antique ghosts,
+they seemed less substantial in their faded coats than their own
+narrow shadows falling so black across the white road: the military
+and grotesque shadows of twenty years of war and conquests. They had an
+outlandish appearance of two imperturbable bonzes of the religion of
+the sword. And General D'Hubert, also one of the ex-masters of Europe,
+laughed at these serious phantoms standing in his way.
+
+Said one, indicating the laughing General with a jerk of the head: "A
+merry companion, that."
+
+"There are some of us that haven't smiled from the day The Other went
+away," remarked his comrade.
+
+A violent impulse to set upon and beat those unsubstantial wraiths to
+the ground frightened General D'Hubert. He ceased laughing suddenly.
+His desire now was to get rid of them, to get them away from his sight
+quickly before he lost control of himself. He wondered at the fury
+he felt rising in his breast. But he had no time to look into that
+peculiarity just then.
+
+"I understand your wish to be done with me as quickly as possible. Don't
+let us waste time in empty ceremonies. Do you see that wood there at the
+foot of that slope? Yes, the wood of pines. Let us meet there to-morrow
+at sunrise. I will bring with me my sword or my pistols, or both if you
+like."
+
+The seconds of General Feraud looked at each other.
+
+"Pistols, General," said the cuirassier.
+
+"So be it. Au revoir--to-morrow morning. Till then let me advise you to
+keep close if you don't want the gendarmerie making inquiries about you
+before it gets dark. Strangers are rare in this part of the country."
+
+They saluted in silence. General D'Hubert, turning his back on their
+retreating forms, stood still in the middle of the road for a long time,
+biting his lower lip and looking on the ground. Then he began to walk
+straight before him, thus retracing his steps till he found himself
+before the park gate of his intended's house. Dusk had fallen.
+Motionless he stared through the bars at the front of the house,
+gleaming clear beyond the thickets and trees. Footsteps scrunched on
+the gravel, and presently a tall stooping shape emerged from the lateral
+alley following the inner side of the park wall.
+
+Le Chevalier de Valmassigue, uncle of the adorable Adele, ex-brigadier
+in the army of the Princes, bookbinder in Altona, afterwards shoemaker
+(with a great reputation for elegance in the fit of ladies' shoes) in
+another small German town, wore silk stockings on his lean shanks, low
+shoes with silver buckles, a brocaded waistcoat. A long-skirted coat,
+a la francaise, covered loosely his thin, bowed back. A small
+three-cornered hat rested on a lot of powdered hair, tied in a queue.
+
+"Monsieur le Chevalier," called General D'Hubert, softly.
+
+"What? You here again, mon ami? Have you forgotten something?"
+
+"By heavens! that's just it. I have forgotten something. I am come to
+tell you of it. No--outside. Behind this wall. It's too ghastly a thing
+to be let in at all where she lives."
+
+The Chevalier came out at once with that benevolent resignation some
+old people display towards the fugue of youth. Older by a quarter of a
+century than General D'Hubert, he looked upon him in the secret of
+his heart as a rather troublesome youngster in love. He had heard his
+enigmatical words very well, but attached no undue importance to what a
+mere man of forty so hard hit was likely to do or say. The turn of mind
+of the generation of Frenchmen grown up during the years of his exile
+was almost unintelligible to him. Their sentiments appeared to him
+unduly violent, lacking fineness and measure, their language needlessly
+exaggerated. He joined calmly the General on the road, and they made a
+few steps in silence, the General trying to master his agitation, and
+get proper control of his voice.
+
+"It is perfectly true; I forgot something. I forgot till half an hour
+ago that I had an urgent affair of honour on my hands. It's incredible,
+but it is so!"
+
+All was still for a moment. Then in the profound evening silence of the
+countryside the clear, aged voice of the Chevalier was heard trembling
+slightly: "Monsieur! That's an indignity."
+
+It was his first thought. The girl born during his exile, the posthumous
+daughter of his poor brother murdered by a band of Jacobins, had grown
+since his return very dear to his old heart, which had been starving on
+mere memories of affection for so many years. "It is an inconceivable
+thing, I say! A man settles such affairs before he thinks of asking for
+a young girl's hand. Why! If you had forgotten for ten days longer, you
+would have been married before your memory returned to you. In my time
+men did not forget such things--nor yet what is due to the feelings
+of an innocent young woman. If I did not respect them myself, I would
+qualify your conduct in a way which you would not like."
+
+General D'Hubert relieved himself frankly by a groan. "Don't let that
+consideration prevent you. You run no risk of offending her mortally."
+
+But the old man paid no attention to this lover's nonsense. It's
+doubtful whether he even heard. "What is it?" he asked. "What's the
+nature of . . . ?" "Call it a youthful folly, Monsieur le Chevalier. An
+inconceivable, incredible result of . . ." He stopped short. "He will
+never believe the story," he thought. "He will only think I am taking
+him for a fool, and get offended." General D'Hubert spoke up again:
+"Yes, originating in youthful folly, it has become . . ."
+
+The Chevalier interrupted: "Well, then it must be arranged."
+
+"Arranged?"
+
+"Yes, no matter at what cost to your amour propre. You should have
+remembered you were engaged. You forgot that, too, I suppose. And then
+you go and forget your quarrel. It's the most hopeless exhibition of
+levity I ever heard of."
+
+"Good heavens, Monsieur! You don't imagine I have been picking up this
+quarrel last time I was in Paris, or anything of the sort, do you?"
+
+"Eh! What matters the precise date of your insane conduct," exclaimed
+the Chevalier, testily. "The principal thing is to arrange it."
+
+Noticing General D'Hubert getting restive and trying to place a word,
+the old emigre raised his hand, and added with dignity, "I've been a
+soldier, too. I would never dare suggest a doubtful step to the man
+whose name my niece is to bear. I tell you that entre galants hommes an
+affair can always be arranged."
+
+"But saperiotte, Monsieur le Chevalier, it's fifteen or sixteen years
+ago. I was a lieutenant of hussars then."
+
+The old Chevalier seemed confounded by the vehemently despairing tone of
+this information. "You were a lieutenant of hussars sixteen years ago,"
+he mumbled in a dazed manner.
+
+"Why, yes! You did not suppose I was made a general in my cradle like a
+royal prince."
+
+In the deepening purple twilight of the fields spread with vine leaves,
+backed by a low band of sombre crimson in the west, the voice of the old
+ex-officer in the army of the Princes sounded collected, punctiliously
+civil.
+
+"Do I dream? Is this a pleasantry? Or am I to understand that you have
+been hatching an affair of honour for sixteen years?"
+
+"It has clung to me for that length of time. That is my precise meaning.
+The quarrel itself is not to be explained easily. We met on the ground
+several times during that time, of course."
+
+"What manners! What horrible perversion of manliness! Nothing can
+account for such inhumanity but the sanguinary madness of the Revolution
+which has tainted a whole generation," mused the returned emigre in a
+low tone. "Who's your adversary?" he asked a little louder.
+
+"My adversary? His name is Feraud."
+
+Shadowy in his tricorne and old-fashioned clothes, like a bowed, thin
+ghost of the ancien regime, the Chevalier voiced a ghostly memory. "I
+can remember the feud about little Sophie Derval, between Monsieur de
+Brissac, Captain in the Bodyguards, and d'Anjorrant (not the pock-marked
+one, the other--the Beau d'Anjorrant, as they called him). They met
+three times in eighteen months in a most gallant manner. It was the
+fault of that little Sophie, too, who would keep on playing . . ."
+
+"This is nothing of the kind," interrupted General D'Hubert. He laughed
+a little sardonically. "Not at all so simple," he added. "Nor yet half
+so reasonable," he finished, inaudibly, between his teeth, and ground
+them with rage.
+
+After this sound nothing troubled the silence for a long time, till the
+Chevalier asked, without animation: "What is he--this Feraud?"
+
+"Lieutenant of hussars, too--I mean, he's a general. A Gascon. Son of a
+blacksmith, I believe."
+
+"There! I thought so. That Bonaparte had a special predilection for the
+canaille. I don't mean this for you, D'Hubert. You are one of us, though
+you have served this usurper, who . . ."
+
+"Let's leave him out of this," broke in General D'Hubert.
+
+The Chevalier shrugged his peaked shoulders. "Feraud of sorts. Offspring
+of a blacksmith and some village troll. See what comes of mixing
+yourself up with that sort of people."
+
+"You have made shoes yourself, Chevalier."
+
+"Yes. But I am not the son of a shoemaker. Neither are you, Monsieur
+D'Hubert. You and I have something that your Bonaparte's princes, dukes,
+and marshals have not, because there's no power on earth that could give
+it to them," retorted the emigre, with the rising animation of a man who
+has got hold of a hopeful argument. "Those people don't exist--all these
+Ferauds. Feraud! What is Feraud? A va-nu-pieds disguised into a general
+by a Corsican adventurer masquerading as an emperor. There is no earthly
+reason for a D'Hubert to s'encanailler by a duel with a person of that
+sort. You can make your excuses to him perfectly well. And if the manant
+takes into his head to decline them, you may simply refuse to meet him."
+
+"You say I may do that?"
+
+"I do. With the clearest conscience."
+
+"Monsieur le Chevalier! To what do you think you have returned from your
+emigration?"
+
+This was said in such a startling tone that the old man raised sharply
+his bowed head, glimmering silvery white under the points of the little
+tricorne. For a time he made no sound.
+
+"God knows!" he said at last, pointing with a slow and grave gesture at
+a tall roadside cross mounted on a block of stone, and stretching its
+arms of forged iron all black against the darkening red band in the
+sky--"God knows! If it were not for this emblem, which I remember seeing
+on this spot as a child, I would wonder to what we who remained faithful
+to God and our king have returned. The very voices of the people have
+changed."
+
+"Yes, it is a changed France," said General D'Hubert. He seemed to have
+regained his calm. His tone was slightly ironic. "Therefore I cannot
+take your advice. Besides, how is one to refuse to be bitten by a dog
+that means to bite? It's impracticable. Take my word for it--Feraud
+isn't a man to be stayed by apologies or refusals. But there are
+other ways. I could, for instance, send a messenger with a word to
+the brigadier of the gendarmerie in Senlac. He and his two friends are
+liable to arrest on my simple order. It would make some talk in the
+army, both the organized and the disbanded--especially the disbanded.
+All canaille! All once upon a time the companions in arms of Armand
+D'Hubert. But what need a D'Hubert care what people that don't exist may
+think? Or, better still, I might get my brother-in-law to send for the
+mayor of the village and give him a hint. No more would be needed to get
+the three 'brigands' set upon with flails and pitchforks and hunted into
+some nice, deep, wet ditch--and nobody the wiser! It has been done only
+ten miles from here to three poor devils of the disbanded Red Lancers
+of the Guard going to their homes. What says your conscience, Chevalier?
+Can a D'Hubert do that thing to three men who do not exist?"
+
+A few stars had come out on the blue obscurity, clear as crystal, of the
+sky. The dry, thin voice of the Chevalier spoke harshly: "Why are you
+telling me all this?"
+
+The General seized the withered old hand with a strong grip. "Because
+I owe you my fullest confidence. Who could tell Adele but you? You
+understand why I dare not trust my brother-in-law nor yet my own sister.
+Chevalier! I have been so near doing these things that I tremble yet.
+You don't know how terrible this duel appears to me. And there's no
+escape from it."
+
+He murmured after a pause, "It's a fatality," dropped the Chevalier's
+passive hand, and said in his ordinary conversational voice, "I shall
+have to go without seconds. If it is my lot to remain on the ground, you
+at least will know all that can be made known of this affair."
+
+The shadowy ghost of the ancien regime seemed to have become more bowed
+during the conversation. "How am I to keep an indifferent face this
+evening before these two women?" he groaned. "General! I find it very
+difficult to forgive you."
+
+General D 'Hubert made no answer.
+
+"Is your cause good, at least?"
+
+"I am innocent."
+
+This time he seized the Chevalier's ghostly arm above the elbow, and
+gave it a mighty squeeze. "I must kill him!" he hissed, and opening his
+hand strode away down the road.
+
+The delicate attentions of his adoring sister had secured for the
+General perfect liberty of movement in the house where he was a guest.
+He had even his own entrance through a small door in one corner of
+the orangery. Thus he was not exposed that evening to the necessity
+of dissembling his agitation before the calm ignorance of the other
+inmates. He was glad of it. It seemed to him that if he had to open his
+lips he would break out into horrible and aimless imprecations, start
+breaking furniture, smashing china and glass. From the moment he opened
+the private door and while ascending the twenty-eight steps of a winding
+staircase, giving access to the corridor on which his room opened, he
+went through a horrible and humiliating scene in which an infuriated
+madman with blood-shot eyes and a foaming mouth played inconceivable
+havoc with everything inanimate that may be found in a well-appointed
+dining-room. When he opened the door of his apartment the fit was over,
+and his bodily fatigue was so great that he had to catch at the backs
+of the chairs while crossing the room to reach a low and broad divan
+on which he let himself fall heavily. His moral prostration was still
+greater. That brutality of feeling which he had known only when
+charging the enemy, sabre in hand, amazed this man of forty, who did not
+recognize in it the instinctive fury of his menaced passion. But in
+his mental and bodily exhaustion this passion got cleared, distilled,
+refined into a sentiment of melancholy despair at having, perhaps, to
+die before he had taught this beautiful girl to love him.
+
+That night, General D'Hubert stretched out on his back with his hands
+over his eyes, or lying on his breast with his face buried in a
+cushion, made the full pilgrimage of emotions. Nauseating disgust at
+the absurdity of the situation, doubt of his own fitness to conduct his
+existence, and mistrust of his best sentiments (for what the devil did
+he want to go to Fouche for?)--he knew them all in turn. "I am an
+idiot, neither more nor less," he thought--"A sensitive idiot. Because
+I overheard two men talking in a cafe. . . . I am an idiot afraid of
+lies--whereas in life it is only truth that matters."
+
+Several times he got up and, walking in his socks in order not to be
+heard by anybody downstairs, drank all the water he could find in the
+dark. And he tasted the torments of jealousy, too. She would marry
+somebody else. His very soul writhed. The tenacity of that Feraud,
+the awful persistence of that imbecile brute, came to him with the
+tremendous force of a relentless destiny. General D'Hubert trembled as
+he put down the empty water ewer. "He will have me," he thought. General
+D'Hubert was tasting every emotion that life has to give. He had in
+his dry mouth the faint sickly flavour of fear, not the excusable fear
+before a young girl's candid and amused glance, but the fear of death
+and the honourable man's fear of cowardice.
+
+But if true courage consists in going out to meet an odious danger from
+which our body, soul, and heart recoil together, General D'Hubert had
+the opportunity to practise it for the first time in his life. He had
+charged exultingly at batteries and at infantry squares, and ridden with
+messages through a hail of bullets without thinking anything about
+it. His business now was to sneak out unheard, at break of day, to
+an obscure and revolting death. General D'Hubert never hesitated. He
+carried two pistols in a leather bag which he slung over his shoulder.
+Before he had crossed the garden his mouth was dry again. He picked two
+oranges. It was only after shutting the gate after him that he felt a
+slight faintness.
+
+He staggered on, disregarding it, and after going a few yards regained
+the command of his legs. In the colourless and pellucid dawn the wood
+of pines detached its columns of trunks and its dark green canopy very
+clearly against the rocks of the grey hillside. He kept his eyes fixed
+on it steadily, and sucked at an orange as he walked. That temperamental
+good-humoured coolness in the face of danger which had made him an
+officer liked by his men and appreciated by his superiors was gradually
+asserting itself. It was like going into battle. Arriving at the edge of
+the wood he sat down on a boulder, holding the other orange in his hand,
+and reproached himself for coming so ridiculously early on the ground.
+Before very long, however, he heard the swishing of bushes, footsteps
+on the hard ground, and the sounds of a disjointed, loud conversation. A
+voice somewhere behind him said boastfully, "He's game for my bag."
+
+He thought to himself, "Here they are. What's this about game? Are they
+talking of me?" And becoming aware of the other orange in his hand, he
+thought further, "These are very good oranges. Leonie's own tree. I may
+just as well eat this orange now instead of flinging it away."
+
+Emerging from a wilderness of rocks and bushes, General Feraud and his
+seconds discovered General D'Hubert engaged in peeling the orange. They
+stood still, waiting till he looked up. Then the seconds raised their
+hats, while General Feraud, putting his hands behind his back, walked
+aside a little way.
+
+"I am compelled to ask one of you, messieurs, to act for me. I have
+brought no friends. Will you?"
+
+The one-eyed cuirassier said judicially, "That cannot be refused."
+
+The other veteran remarked, "It's awkward all the same."
+
+"Owing to the state of the people's minds in this part of the country
+there was no one I could trust safely with the object of your presence
+here," explained General D'Hubert, urbanely.
+
+They saluted, looked round, and remarked both together:
+
+"Poor ground."
+
+"It's unfit."
+
+"Why bother about ground, measurements, and so on? Let us simplify
+matters. Load the two pairs of pistols. I will take those of General
+Feraud, and let him take mine. Or, better still, let us take a mixed
+pair. One of each pair. Then let us go into the wood and shoot at sight,
+while you remain outside. We did not come here for ceremonies, but for
+war--war to the death. Any ground is good enough for that. If I fall,
+you must leave me where I lie and clear out. It wouldn't be healthy for
+you to be found hanging about here after that."
+
+It appeared after a short parley that General Feraud was willing to
+accept these conditions. While the seconds were loading the pistols,
+he could be heard whistling, and was seen to rub his hands with perfect
+contentment. He flung off his coat briskly, and General D 'Hubert took
+off his own and folded it carefully on a stone.
+
+"Suppose you take your principal to the other side of the wood and let
+him enter exactly in ten minutes from now," suggested General D'Hubert,
+calmly, but feeling as if he were giving directions for his own
+execution. This, however, was his last moment of weakness. "Wait. Let us
+compare watches first."
+
+He pulled out his own. The officer with the chipped nose went over to
+borrow the watch of General Feraud. They bent their heads over them for
+a time.
+
+"That's it. At four minutes to six by yours. Seven to by mine."
+
+It was the cuirassier who remained by the side of General D'Hubert,
+keeping his one eye fixed immovably on the white face of the watch he
+held in the palm of his hand. He opened his mouth, waiting for the beat
+of the last second long before he snapped out the word, "Avancez."
+
+General D'Hubert moved on, passing from the glaring sunshine of the
+Provencal morning into the cool and aromatic shade of the pines. The
+ground was clear between the reddish trunks, whose multitude, leaning at
+slightly different angles, confused his eye at first. It was like going
+into battle. The commanding quality of confidence in himself woke up in
+his breast. He was all to his affair. The problem was how to kill the
+adversary. Nothing short of that would free him from this imbecile
+nightmare. "It's no use wounding that brute," thought General D'Hubert.
+He was known as a resourceful officer. His comrades years ago used also
+to call him The Strategist. And it was a fact that he could think in
+the presence of the enemy. Whereas Feraud had been always a mere
+fighter--but a dead shot, unluckily.
+
+"I must draw his fire at the greatest possible range," said General
+D'Hubert to himself.
+
+At that moment he saw something white moving far off between the
+trees--the shirt of his adversary. He stepped out at once between the
+trunks, exposing himself freely; then, quick as lightning, leaped
+back. It had been a risky move but it succeeded in its object. Almost
+simultaneously with the pop of a shot a small piece of bark chipped off
+by the bullet stung his ear painfully.
+
+General Feraud, with one shot expended, was getting cautious. Peeping
+round the tree, General D'Hubert could not see him at all. This
+ignorance of the foe's whereabouts carried with it a sense of
+insecurity. General D'Hubert felt himself abominably exposed on his
+flank and rear. Again something white fluttered in his sight. Ha! The
+enemy was still on his front, then. He had feared a turning movement.
+But apparently General Feraud was not thinking of it. General D'Hubert
+saw him pass without special haste from one tree to another in the
+straight line of approach. With great firmness of mind General D'Hubert
+stayed his hand. Too far yet. He knew he was no marksman. His must be a
+waiting game--to kill.
+
+Wishing to take advantage of the greater thickness of the trunk, he sank
+down to the ground. Extended at full length, head on to his enemy, he
+had his person completely protected. Exposing himself would not do now,
+because the other was too near by this time. A conviction that Feraud
+would presently do something rash was like balm to General D'Hubert's
+soul. But to keep his chin raised off the ground was irksome, and not
+much use either. He peeped round, exposing a fraction of his head with
+dread, but really with little risk. His enemy, as a matter of fact, did
+not expect to see anything of him so far down as that. General D'Hubert
+caught a fleeting view of General Feraud shifting trees again with
+deliberate caution. "He despises my shooting," he thought, displaying
+that insight into the mind of his antagonist which is of such great help
+in winning battles. He was confirmed in his tactics of immobility. "If
+I could only watch my rear as well as my front!" he thought anxiously,
+longing for the impossible.
+
+It required some force of character to lay his pistols down; but, on a
+sudden impulse, General D'Hubert did this very gently--one on each side
+of him. In the army he had been looked upon as a bit of a dandy because
+he used to shave and put on a clean shirt on the days of battle. As
+a matter of fact, he had always been very careful of his personal
+appearance. In a man of nearly forty, in love with a young and charming
+girl, this praiseworthy self-respect may run to such little weaknesses
+as, for instance, being provided with an elegant little leather
+folding-case containing a small ivory comb, and fitted with a piece of
+looking-glass on the outside. General D'Hubert, his hands being free,
+felt in his breeches' pockets for that implement of innocent vanity
+excusable in the possessor of long, silky moustaches. He drew it out,
+and then with the utmost coolness and promptitude turned himself over
+on his back. In this new attitude, his head a little raised, holding the
+little looking-glass just clear of his tree, he squinted into it with
+his left eye, while the right kept a direct watch on the rear of his
+position. Thus was proved Napoleon's saying, that "for a French soldier,
+the word impossible does not exist." He had the right tree nearly
+filling the field of his little mirror.
+
+"If he moves from behind it," he reflected with satisfaction, "I am
+bound to see his legs. But in any case he can't come upon me unawares."
+
+And sure enough he saw the boots of General Feraud flash in and out,
+eclipsing for an instant everything else reflected in the little mirror.
+He shifted its position accordingly. But having to form his judgment of
+the change from that indirect view he did not realize that now his feet
+and a portion of his legs were in plain sight of General Feraud.
+
+General Feraud had been getting gradually impressed by the amazing
+cleverness with which his enemy was keeping cover. He had spotted the
+right tree with bloodthirsty precision. He was absolutely certain of it.
+And yet he had not been able to glimpse as much as the tip of an ear. As
+he had been looking for it at the height of about five feet ten inches
+from the ground it was no great wonder--but it seemed very wonderful to
+General Feraud.
+
+The first view of these feet and legs determined a rush of blood to his
+head. He literally staggered behind his tree, and had to steady himself
+against it with his hand. The other was lying on the ground, then! On
+the ground! Perfectly still, too! Exposed! What could it mean? . . . The
+notion that he had knocked over his adversary at the first shot entered
+then General Feraud's head. Once there it grew with every second of
+attentive gazing, overshadowing every other supposition--irresistible,
+triumphant, ferocious.
+
+"What an ass I was to think I could have missed him," he muttered to
+himself. "He was exposed en plein--the fool!--for quite a couple of
+seconds."
+
+General Feraud gazed at the motionless limbs, the last vestiges of
+surprise fading before an unbounded admiration of his own deadly skill
+with the pistol.
+
+"Turned up his toes! By the god of war, that was a shot!" he exulted
+mentally. "Got it through the head, no doubt, just where I aimed,
+staggered behind that tree, rolled over on his back, and died."
+
+And he stared! He stared, forgetting to move, almost awed, almost
+sorry. But for nothing in the world would he have had it undone. Such a
+shot!--such a shot! Rolled over on his back and died!
+
+For it was this helpless position, lying on the back, that shouted its
+direct evidence at General Feraud! It never occurred to him that
+it might have been deliberately assumed by a living man. It was
+inconceivable. It was beyond the range of sane supposition. There was no
+possibility to guess the reason for it. And it must be said, too, that
+General D'Hubert's turned-up feet looked thoroughly dead. General Feraud
+expanded his lungs for a stentorian shout to his seconds, but, from what
+he felt to be an excessive scrupulousness, refrained for a while.
+
+"I will just go and see first whether he breathes yet," he mumbled
+to himself, leaving carelessly the shelter of his tree. This move was
+immediately perceived by the resourceful General D'Hubert. He concluded
+it to be another shift, but when he lost the boots out of the field of
+the mirror he became uneasy. General Feraud had only stepped a little
+out of the line, but his adversary could not possibly have supposed him
+walking up with perfect unconcern. General D'Hubert, beginning to wonder
+at what had become of the other, was taken unawares so completely that
+the first warning of danger consisted in the long, early-morning shadow
+of his enemy falling aslant on his outstretched legs. He had not even
+heard a footfall on the soft ground between the trees!
+
+It was too much even for his coolness. He jumped up thoughtlessly,
+leaving the pistols on the ground. The irresistible instinct of an
+average man (unless totally paralyzed by discomfiture) would have been
+to stoop for his weapons, exposing himself to the risk of being shot
+down in that position. Instinct, of course, is irreflective. It is its
+very definition. But it may be an inquiry worth pursuing whether
+in reflective mankind the mechanical promptings of instinct are not
+affected by the customary mode of thought. In his young days, Armand
+D'Hubert, the reflective, promising officer, had emitted the opinion
+that in warfare one should "never cast back on the lines of a mistake."
+This idea, defended and developed in many discussions, had settled into
+one of the stock notions of his brain, had become a part of his mental
+individuality. Whether it had gone so inconceivably deep as to affect
+the dictates of his instinct, or simply because, as he himself declared
+afterwards, he was "too scared to remember the confounded pistols," the
+fact is that General D'Hubert never attempted to stoop for them. Instead
+of going back on his mistake, he seized the rough trunk with both hands,
+and swung himself behind it with such impetuosity that, going right
+round in the very flash and report of the pistol-shot, he reappeared on
+the other side of the tree face to face with General Feraud. This last,
+completely unstrung by such a show of agility on the part of a dead man,
+was trembling yet. A very faint mist of smoke hung before his face which
+had an extraordinary aspect, as if the lower jaw had come unhinged.
+
+"Not missed!" he croaked, hoarsely, from the depths of a dry throat.
+
+This sinister sound loosened the spell that had fallen on General
+D'Hubert's senses. "Yes, missed--a bout portant," he heard himself
+saying, almost before he had recovered the full command of his
+faculties. The revulsion of feeling was accompanied by a gust of
+homicidal fury, resuming in its violence the accumulated resentment of
+a lifetime. For years General D 'Hubert had been exasperated and
+humiliated by an atrocious absurdity imposed upon him by this man's
+savage caprice. Besides, General D'Hubert had been in this last instance
+too unwilling to confront death for the reaction of his anguish not to
+take the shape of a desire to kill. "And I have my two shots to fire
+yet," he added, pitilessly.
+
+General Feraud snapped-to his teeth, and his face assumed an irate,
+undaunted expression. "Go on!" he said, grimly.
+
+These would have been his last words if General D'Hubert had been
+holding the pistols in his hands. But the pistols were lying on the
+ground at the foot of a pine. General D'Hubert had the second of leisure
+necessary to remember that he had dreaded death not as a man, but as a
+lover; not as a danger, but as a rival; not as a foe to life, but as an
+obstacle to marriage. And behold! there was the rival defeated!--utterly
+defeated, crushed, done for!
+
+He picked up the weapons mechanically, and, instead of firing them into
+General Feraud's breast, he gave expression to the thoughts uppermost in
+his mind, "You will fight no more duels now."
+
+His tone of leisurely, ineffable satisfaction was too much for General
+Feraud's stoicism. "Don't dawdle, then, damn you for a cold-blooded
+staff-coxcomb!" he roared out, suddenly, out of an impassive face held
+erect on a rigidly still body.
+
+General D'Hubert uncocked the pistols carefully. This proceeding was
+observed with mixed feelings by the other general. "You missed me
+twice," the victor said, coolly, shifting both pistols to one hand; "the
+last time within a foot or so. By every rule of single combat your life
+belongs to me. That does not mean that I want to take it now."
+
+"I have no use for your forbearance," muttered General Feraud, gloomily.
+
+"Allow me to point out that this is no concern of mine," said General
+D'Hubert, whose every word was dictated by a consummate delicacy of
+feeling. In anger he could have killed that man, but in cold blood he
+recoiled from humiliating by a show of generosity this unreasonable
+being--a fellow-soldier of the Grande Armee, a companion in the wonders
+and terrors of the great military epic. "You don't set up the pretension
+of dictating to me what I am to do with what's my own."
+
+General Feraud looked startled, and the other continued, "You've forced
+me on a point of honour to keep my life at your disposal, as it were,
+for fifteen years. Very well. Now that the matter is decided to my
+advantage, I am going to do what I like with your life on the same
+principle. You shall keep it at my disposal as long as I choose. Neither
+more nor less. You are on your honour till I say the word."
+
+"I am! But, sacrebleu! This is an absurd position for a General of the
+Empire to be placed in!" cried General Feraud, in accents of profound
+and dismayed conviction. "It amounts to sitting all the rest of my
+life with a loaded pistol in a drawer waiting for your word. It's--it's
+idiotic; I shall be an object of--of--derision."
+
+"Absurd?--idiotic? Do you think so?" queried General D'Hubert with sly
+gravity. "Perhaps. But I don't see how that can be helped. However, I
+am not likely to talk at large of this adventure. Nobody need ever know
+anything about it. Just as no one to this day, I believe, knows the
+origin of our quarrel. . . . Not a word more," he added, hastily.
+"I can't really discuss this question with a man who, as far as I am
+concerned, does not exist."
+
+When the two duellists came out into the open, General Feraud walking a
+little behind, and rather with the air of walking in a trance, the two
+seconds hurried towards them, each from his station at the edge of the
+wood. General D'Hubert addressed them, speaking loud and distinctly,
+"Messieurs, I make it a point of declaring to you solemnly, in the
+presence of General Feraud, that our difference is at last settled for
+good. You may inform all the world of that fact."
+
+"A reconciliation, after all!" they exclaimed together.
+
+"Reconciliation? Not that exactly. It is something much more binding. Is
+it not so, General?"
+
+General Feraud only lowered his head in sign of assent. The two veterans
+looked at each other. Later in the day, when they found themselves alone
+out of their moody friend's earshot, the cuirassier remarked suddenly,
+"Generally speaking, I can see with my one eye as far as most people;
+but this beats me. He won't say anything."
+
+"In this affair of honour I understand there has been from first to last
+always something that no one in the army could quite make out," declared
+the chasseur with the imperfect nose. "In mystery it began, in mystery
+it went on, in mystery it is to end, apparently."
+
+General D'Hubert walked home with long, hasty strides, by no means
+uplifted by a sense of triumph. He had conquered, yet it did not seem
+to him that he had gained very much by his conquest. The night before
+he had grudged the risk of his life which appeared to him magnificent,
+worthy of preservation as an opportunity to win a girl's love. He had
+known moments when, by a marvellous illusion, this love seemed to
+be already his, and his threatened life a still more magnificent
+opportunity of devotion. Now that his life was safe it had suddenly lost
+its special magnificence. It had acquired instead a specially alarming
+aspect as a snare for the exposure of unworthiness. As to the marvellous
+illusion of conquered love that had visited him for a moment in the
+agitated watches of the night, which might have been his last on earth,
+he comprehended now its true nature. It had been merely a paroxysm of
+delirious conceit. Thus to this man, sobered by the victorious issue
+of a duel, life appeared robbed of its charm, simply because it was no
+longer menaced.
+
+Approaching the house from the back, through the orchard and the kitchen
+garden, he could not notice the agitation which reigned in front. He
+never met a single soul. Only while walking softly along the corridor,
+he became aware that the house was awake and more noisy than usual.
+Names of servants were being called out down below in a confused noise
+of coming and going. With some concern he noticed that the door of his
+own room stood ajar, though the shutters had not been opened yet. He
+had hoped that his early excursion would have passed unperceived. He
+expected to find some servant just gone in; but the sunshine filtering
+through the usual cracks enabled him to see lying on the low divan
+something bulky, which had the appearance of two women clasped in each
+other's arms. Tearful and desolate murmurs issued mysteriously from that
+appearance. General D'Hubert pulled open the nearest pair of shutters
+violently. One of the women then jumped up. It was his sister. She stood
+for a moment with her hair hanging down and her arms raised straight up
+above her head, and then flung herself with a stifled cry into his arms.
+He returned her embrace, trying at the same time to disengage himself
+from it. The other woman had not risen. She seemed, on the contrary, to
+cling closer to the divan, hiding her face in the cushions. Her hair was
+also loose; it was admirably fair. General D'Hubert recognized it with
+staggering emotion. Mademoiselle de Valmassigue! Adele! In distress!
+
+He became greatly alarmed, and got rid of his sister's hug definitely.
+Madame Leonie then extended her shapely bare arm out of her peignoir,
+pointing dramatically at the divan. "This poor, terrified child has
+rushed here from home, on foot, two miles--running all the way."
+
+"What on earth has happened?" asked General D'Hubert in a low, agitated
+voice.
+
+But Madame Leonie was speaking loudly. "She rang the great bell at
+the gate and roused all the household--we were all asleep yet. You may
+imagine what a terrible shock. . . . Adele, my dear child, sit up."
+
+General D'Hubert's expression was not that of a man who "imagines" with
+facility. He did, however, fish out of the chaos of surmises the notion
+that his prospective mother-in-law had died suddenly, but only to
+dismiss it at once. He could not conceive the nature of the event or the
+catastrophe which would induce Mademoiselle de Valmassigue, living in a
+house full of servants, to bring the news over the fields herself, two
+miles, running all the way.
+
+"But why are you in this room?" he whispered, full of awe.
+
+"Of course, I ran up to see, and this child . . . I did not notice it
+. . . she followed me. It's that absurd Chevalier," went on Madame
+Leonie, looking towards the divan. . . . "Her hair is all come down. You
+may imagine she did not stop to call her maid to dress it before she
+started. . . Adele, my dear, sit up. . . . He blurted it all out to her
+at half-past five in the morning. She woke up early and opened her
+shutters to breathe the fresh air, and saw him sitting collapsed on a
+garden bench at the end of the great alley. At that hour--you may
+imagine! And the evening before he had declared himself indisposed. She
+hurried on some clothes and flew down to him. One would be anxious for
+less. He loves her, but not very intelligently. He had been up all
+night, fully dressed, the poor old man, perfectly exhausted. He wasn't
+in a state to invent a plausible story. . . . What a confidant you chose
+there! My husband was furious. He said, 'We can't interfere now.' So we
+sat down to wait. It was awful. And this poor child running with her
+hair loose over here publicly! She has been seen by some people in the
+fields. She has roused the whole household, too. It's awkward for her.
+Luckily you are to be married next week. . . . Adele, sit up. He has
+come home on his own legs. . . . We expected to see you coming on a
+stretcher, perhaps--what do I know? Go and see if the carriage is ready.
+I must take this child home at once. It isn't proper for her to stay
+here a minute longer."
+
+General D'Hubert did not move. It was as though he had heard nothing.
+Madame Leonie changed her mind. "I will go and see myself," she cried.
+"I want also my cloak.--Adele--" she began, but did not add "sit up."
+She went out saying, in a very loud and cheerful tone: "I leave the door
+open."
+
+General D'Hubert made a movement towards the divan, but then Adele
+sat up, and that checked him dead. He thought, "I haven't washed this
+morning. I must look like an old tramp. There's earth on the back of my
+coat and pine-needles in my hair." It occurred to him that the situation
+required a good deal of circumspection on his part.
+
+"I am greatly concerned, mademoiselle," he began, vaguely, and abandoned
+that line. She was sitting up on the divan with her cheeks
+unusually pink and her hair, brilliantly fair, falling all over her
+shoulders--which was a very novel sight to the general. He walked away
+up the room, and looking out of the window for safety said, "I fear you
+must think I behaved like a madman," in accents of sincere despair. Then
+he spun round, and noticed that she had followed him with her eyes. They
+were not cast down on meeting his glance. And the expression of her face
+was novel to him also. It was, one might have said, reversed. Those eyes
+looked at him with grave thoughtfulness, while the exquisite lines of
+her mouth seemed to suggest a restrained smile. This change made her
+transcendental beauty much less mysterious, much more accessible to a
+man's comprehension. An amazing ease of mind came to the general--and
+even some ease of manner. He walked down the room with as much
+pleasurable excitement as he would have found in walking up to a battery
+vomiting death, fire, and smoke; then stood looking down with smiling
+eyes at the girl whose marriage with him (next week) had been so
+carefully arranged by the wise, the good, the admirable Leonie.
+
+"Ah! mademoiselle," he said, in a tone of courtly regret, "if only I
+could be certain that you did not come here this morning, two miles,
+running all the way, merely from affection for your mother!"
+
+He waited for an answer imperturbable but inwardly elated. It came in a
+demure murmur, eyelashes lowered with fascinating effect. "You must not
+be mechant as well as mad."
+
+And then General D'Hubert made an aggressive movement towards the divan
+which nothing could check. That piece of furniture was not exactly in
+the line of the open door. But Madame Leonie, coming back wrapped up in
+a light cloak and carrying a lace shawl on her arm for Adele to hide her
+incriminating hair under, had a swift impression of her brother getting
+up from his knees.
+
+"Come along, my dear child," she cried from the doorway.
+
+The general, now himself again in the fullest sense, showed the
+readiness of a resourceful cavalry officer and the peremptoriness of a
+leader of men. "You don't expect her to walk to the carriage," he said,
+indignantly. "She isn't fit. I shall carry her downstairs."
+
+This he did slowly, followed by his awed and respectful sister; but he
+rushed back like a whirlwind to wash off all the signs of the night of
+anguish and the morning of war, and to put on the festive garments of a
+conqueror before hurrying over to the other house. Had it not been for
+that, General D 'Hubert felt capable of mounting a horse and pursuing
+his late adversary in order simply to embrace him from excess of
+happiness. "I owe it all to this stupid brute," he thought. "He has made
+plain in a morning what might have taken me years to find out--for I
+am a timid fool. No self-confidence whatever. Perfect coward. And the
+Chevalier! Delightful old man!" General D'Hubert longed to embrace him
+also.
+
+The Chevalier was in bed. For several days he was very unwell. The men
+of the Empire and the post-revolution young ladies were too much for
+him. He got up the day before the wedding, and, being curious by nature,
+took his niece aside for a quiet talk. He advised her to find out from
+her husband the true story of the affair of honour, whose claim, so
+imperative and so persistent, had led her to within an ace of tragedy.
+"It is right that his wife should be told. And next month or so will be
+your time to learn from him anything you want to know, my dear child."
+
+Later on, when the married couple came on a visit to the mother of the
+bride, Madame la Generale D'Hubert communicated to her beloved old uncle
+the true story she had obtained without any difficulty from her husband.
+
+The Chevalier listened with deep attention to the end, took a pinch
+of snuff, flicked the grains of tobacco from the frilled front of his
+shirt, and asked, calmly, "And that's all it was?"
+
+"Yes, uncle," replied Madame la Generale, opening her pretty eyes very
+wide. "Isn't it funny? C'est insense--to think what men are capable of!"
+
+"H'm!" commented the old emigre. "It depends what sort of men. That
+Bonaparte's soldiers were savages. It is insense. As a wife, my dear,
+you must believe implicitly what your husband says."
+
+But to Leonie's husband the Chevalier confided his true opinion.
+"If that's the tale the fellow made up for his wife, and during the
+honeymoon, too, you may depend on it that no one will ever know now the
+secret of this affair."
+
+Considerably later still, General D'Hubert judged the time come, and the
+opportunity propitious to write a letter to General Feraud. This letter
+began by disclaiming all animosity. "I've never," wrote the General
+Baron D'Hubert, "wished for your death during all the time of our
+deplorable quarrel. Allow me," he continued, "to give you back in
+all form your forfeited life. It is proper that we two, who have been
+partners in so much military glory, should be friendly to each other
+publicly."
+
+The same letter contained also an item of domestic information. It was
+in reference to this last that General Feraud answered from a little
+village on the banks of the Garonne, in the following words:
+
+"If one of your boy's names had been Napoleon--or Joseph--or even
+Joachim, I could congratulate you on the event with a better heart. As
+you have thought proper to give him the names of Charles Henri Armand,
+I am confirmed in my conviction that you never loved the Emperor. The
+thought of that sublime hero chained to a rock in the middle of a savage
+ocean makes life of so little value that I would receive with positive
+joy your instructions to blow my brains out. From suicide I consider
+myself in honour debarred. But I keep a loaded pistol in my drawer."
+
+Madame la Generale D'Hubert lifted up her hands in despair after
+perusing that answer.
+
+"You see? He won't be reconciled," said her husband. "He must never, by
+any chance, be allowed to guess where the money comes from. It wouldn't
+do. He couldn't bear it."
+
+"You are a brave homme, Armand," said Madame la Generale, appreciatively.
+
+"My dear, I had the right to blow his brains out; but as I didn't,
+we can't let him starve. He has lost his pension and he is utterly
+incapable of doing anything in the world for himself. We must take
+care of him, secretly, to the end of his days. Don't I owe him the
+most ecstatic moment of my life? . . . Ha! ha! ha! Over the fields, two
+miles, running all the way! I couldn't believe my ears! . . . But for
+his stupid ferocity, it would have taken me years to find you out. It's
+extraordinary how in one way or another this man has managed to fasten
+himself on my deeper feelings."
+
+
+
+
+A PATHETIC TALE
+
+
+IL CONDE
+
+"Vedi Napoli e poi mori."
+
+
+The first time we got into conversation was in the National Museum
+in Naples, in the rooms on the ground floor containing the famous
+collection of bronzes from Herculaneum and Pompeii: that marvellous
+legacy of antique art whose delicate perfection has been preserved for
+us by the catastrophic fury of a volcano.
+
+He addressed me first, over the celebrated Resting Hermes which we had
+been looking at side by side. He said the right things about that wholly
+admirable piece. Nothing profound. His taste was natural rather than
+cultivated. He had obviously seen many fine things in his life
+and appreciated them: but he had no jargon of a dilettante or the
+connoisseur. A hateful tribe. He spoke like a fairly intelligent man of
+the world, a perfectly unaffected gentleman.
+
+We had known each other by sight for some few days past. Staying in the
+same hotel--good, but not extravagantly up to date--I had noticed him
+in the vestibule going in and out. I judged he was an old and valued
+client. The bow of the hotel-keeper was cordial in its deference, and
+he acknowledged it with familiar courtesy. For the servants he was Il
+Conde. There was some squabble over a man's parasol--yellow silk with
+white lining sort of thing--the waiters had discovered abandoned outside
+the dining-room door. Our gold-laced door-keeper recognized it and I
+heard him directing one of the lift boys to run after Il Conde with it.
+Perhaps he was the only Count staying in the hotel, or perhaps he had
+the distinction of being the Count par excellence, conferred upon him
+because of his tried fidelity to the house.
+
+Having conversed at the Museo--(and by the by he had expressed his
+dislike of the busts and statues of Roman emperors in the gallery of
+marbles: their faces were too vigorous, too pronounced for him)--having
+conversed already in the morning I did not think I was intruding when in
+the evening, finding the dining-room very full, I proposed to share his
+little table. Judging by the quiet urbanity of his consent he did not
+think so either. His smile was very attractive.
+
+He dined in an evening waistcoat and a "smoking" (he called it so) with
+a black tie. All this of very good cut, not new--just as these things
+should be. He was, morning or evening, very correct in his dress. I have
+no doubt that his whole existence had been correct, well ordered and
+conventional, undisturbed by startling events. His white hair brushed
+upwards off a lofty forehead gave him the air of an idealist, of an
+imaginative man. His white moustache, heavy but carefully trimmed and
+arranged, was not unpleasantly tinted a golden yellow in the middle. The
+faint scent of some very good perfume, and of good cigars (that last
+an odour quite remarkable to come upon in Italy) reached me across the
+table. It was in his eyes that his age showed most. They were a little
+weary with creased eyelids. He must have been sixty or a couple of years
+more. And he was communicative. I would not go so far as to call it
+garrulous--but distinctly communicative.
+
+He had tried various climates, of Abbazia, of the Riviera, of other
+places, too, he told me, but the only one which suited him was the
+climate of the Gulf of Naples. The ancient Romans, who, he pointed out
+to me, were men expert in the art of living, knew very well what they
+were doing when they built their villas on these shores, in Baiae, in
+Vico, in Capri. They came down to this seaside in search of health,
+bringing with them their trains of mimes and flute-players to amuse
+their leisure. He thought it extremely probable that the Romans of
+the higher classes were specially predisposed to painful rheumatic
+affections.
+
+This was the only personal opinion I heard him express. It was based
+on no special erudition. He knew no more of the Romans than an average
+informed man of the world is expected to know. He argued from personal
+experience. He had suffered himself from a painful and dangerous
+rheumatic affection till he found relief in this particular spot of
+Southern Europe.
+
+This was three years ago, and ever since he had taken up his quarters
+on the shores of the gulf, either in one of the hotels in Sorrento or
+hiring a small villa in Capri. He had a piano, a few books: picked
+up transient acquaintances of a day, week, or month in the stream of
+travellers from all Europe. One can imagine him going out for his
+walks in the streets and lanes, becoming known to beggars, shopkeepers,
+children, country people; talking amiably over the walls to the
+contadini--and coming back to his rooms or his villa to sit before the
+piano, with his white hair brushed up and his thick orderly moustache,
+"to make a little music for myself." And, of course, for a change
+there was Naples near by--life, movement, animation, opera. A little
+amusement, as he said, is necessary for health. Mimes and flute-players,
+in fact. Only unlike the magnates of ancient Rome, he had no affairs
+of the city to call him away from these moderate delights. He had no
+affairs at all. Probably he had never had any grave affairs to attend
+to in his life. It was a kindly existence, with its joys and sorrows
+regulated by the course of Nature--marriages, births, deaths--ruled by
+the prescribed usages of good society and protected by the State.
+
+He was a widower; but in the months of July and August he ventured to
+cross the Alps for six weeks on a visit to his married daughter. He
+told me her name. It was that of a very aristocratic family. She had
+a castle--in Bohemia, I think. This is as near as I ever came to
+ascertaining his nationality. His own name, strangely enough, he never
+mentioned. Perhaps he thought I had seen it on the published list. Truth
+to say, I never looked. At any rate, he was a good European--he spoke
+four languages to my certain knowledge--and a man of fortune. Not
+of great fortune evidently and appropriately. I imagine that to be
+extremely rich would have appeared to him improper, outre--too blatant
+altogether. And obviously, too, the fortune was not of his making. The
+making of a fortune cannot be achieved without some roughness. It is
+a matter of temperament. His nature was too kindly for strife. In the
+course of conversation he mentioned his estate quite by the way, in
+reference to that painful and alarming rheumatic affection. One year,
+staying incautiously beyond the Alps as late as the middle of September,
+he had been laid up for three months in that lonely country house
+with no one but his valet and the caretaking couple to attend to him.
+Because, as he expressed it, he "kept no establishment there." He
+had only gone for a couple of days to confer with his land agent. He
+promised himself never to be so imprudent in the future. The first weeks
+of September would find him on the shores of his beloved gulf.
+
+Sometimes in travelling one comes upon such lonely men, whose only
+business is to wait for the unavoidable. Deaths and marriages have made
+a solitude round them, and one really cannot blame their endeavours to
+make the waiting as easy as possible. As he remarked to me, "At my time
+of life freedom from physical pain is a very important matter."
+
+It must not be imagined that he was a wearisome hypochondriac. He was
+really much too well-bred to be a nuisance. He had an eye for the
+small weaknesses of humanity. But it was a good-natured eye. He made
+a restful, easy, pleasant companion for the hours between dinner and
+bedtime. We spent three evenings together, and then I had to leave
+Naples in a hurry to look after a friend who had fallen seriously ill
+in Taormina. Having nothing to do, Il Conde came to see me off at the
+station. I was somewhat upset, and his idleness was always ready to take
+a kindly form. He was by no means an indolent man.
+
+He went along the train peering into the carriages for a good seat for
+me, and then remained talking cheerily from below. He declared he would
+miss me that evening very much and announced his intention of going
+after dinner to listen to the band in the public garden, the Villa
+Nazionale. He would amuse himself by hearing excellent music and looking
+at the best society. There would be a lot of people, as usual.
+
+I seem to see him yet--his raised face with a friendly smile under the
+thick moustaches, and his kind, fatigued eyes. As the train began to
+move, he addressed me in two languages: first in French, saying,
+"Bon voyage"; then, in his very good, somewhat emphatic
+English, encouragingly, because he could see my concern: "All
+will--be--well--yet!"
+
+My friend's illness having taken a decidedly favourable turn, I returned
+to Naples on the tenth day. I cannot say I had given much thought to Il
+Conde during my absence, but entering the dining-room I looked for him
+in his habitual place. I had an idea he might have gone back to Sorrento
+to his piano and his books and his fishing. He was great friends with
+all the boatmen, and fished a good deal with lines from a boat. But I
+made out his white head in the crowd of heads, and even from a distance
+noticed something unusual in his attitude. Instead of sitting erect,
+gazing all round with alert urbanity, he drooped over his plate. I stood
+opposite him for some time before he looked up, a little wildly, if such
+a strong word can be used in connection with his correct appearance.
+
+"Ah, my dear sir! Is it you?" he greeted me. "I hope all is well."
+
+He was very nice about my friend. Indeed, he was always nice, with the
+niceness of people whose hearts are genuinely humane. But this time it
+cost him an effort. His attempts at general conversation broke down into
+dullness. It occurred to me he might have been indisposed. But before I
+could frame the inquiry he muttered:
+
+"You find me here very sad."
+
+"I am sorry for that," I said. "You haven't had bad news, I hope?"
+
+It was very kind of me to take an interest. No. It was not that. No
+bad news, thank God. And he became very still as if holding his
+breath. Then, leaning forward a little, and in an odd tone of awed
+embarrassment, he took me into his confidence.
+
+"The truth is that I have had a very--a very--how shall I
+say?--abominable adventure happen to me."
+
+The energy of the epithet was sufficiently startling in that man of
+moderate feelings and toned-down vocabulary. The word unpleasant I
+should have thought would have fitted amply the worst experience likely
+to befall a man of his stamp. And an adventure, too. Incredible! But
+it is in human nature to believe the worst; and I confess I eyed him
+stealthily, wondering what he had been up to. In a moment, however,
+my unworthy suspicions vanished. There was a fundamental refinement of
+nature about the man which made me dismiss all idea of some more or less
+disreputable scrape.
+
+"It is very serious. Very serious." He went on, nervously. "I will tell
+you after dinner, if you will allow me."
+
+I expressed my perfect acquiescence by a little bow, nothing more.
+I wished him to understand that I was not likely to hold him to that
+offer, if he thought better of it later on. We talked of indifferent
+things, but with a sense of difficulty quite unlike our former easy,
+gossipy intercourse. The hand raising a piece of bread to his lips, I
+noticed, trembled slightly. This symptom, in regard to my reading of the
+man, was no less than startling.
+
+In the smoking-room he did not hang back at all. Directly we had taken
+our usual seats he leaned sideways over the arm of his chair and looked
+straight into my eyes earnestly.
+
+"You remember," he began, "that day you went away? I told you then I
+would go to the Villa Nazionale to hear some music in the evening."
+
+I remembered. His handsome old face, so fresh for his age, unmarked by
+any trying experience, appeared haggard for an instant. It was like the
+passing of a shadow. Returning his steadfast gaze, I took a sip of my
+black coffee. He was systematically minute in his narrative, simply in
+order, I think, not to let his excitement get the better of him.
+
+After leaving the railway station, he had an ice, and read the paper in
+a cafe. Then he went back to the hotel, dressed for dinner, and dined
+with a good appetite. After dinner he lingered in the hall (there were
+chairs and tables there) smoking his cigar; talked to the little girl
+of the Primo Tenore of the San Carlo theatre, and exchanged a few words
+with that "amiable lady," the wife of the Primo Tenore. There was no
+performance that evening, and these people were going to the Villa also.
+They went out of the hotel. Very well.
+
+At the moment of following their example--it was half-past nine
+already--he remembered he had a rather large sum of money in his
+pocket-book. He entered, therefore, the office and deposited the greater
+part of it with the book-keeper of the hotel. This done, he took a
+carozella and drove to the seashore. He got out of the cab and entered
+the Villa on foot from the Largo di Vittoria end.
+
+He stared at me very hard. And I understood then how really
+impressionable he was. Every small fact and event of that evening stood
+out in his memory as if endowed with mystic significance. If he did not
+mention to me the colour of the pony which drew the carozella, and the
+aspect of the man who drove, it was a mere oversight arising from his
+agitation, which he repressed manfully.
+
+He had then entered the Villa Nazionale from the Largo di Vittoria end.
+The Villa Nazionale is a public pleasure-ground laid out in grass plots,
+bushes, and flower-beds between the houses of the Riviera di Chiaja and
+the waters of the bay. Alleys of trees, more or less parallel, stretch
+its whole length--which is considerable. On the Riviera di Chiaja side
+the electric tramcars run close to the railings. Between the garden and
+the sea is the fashionable drive, a broad road bordered by a low wall,
+beyond which the Mediterranean splashes with gentle murmurs when the
+weather is fine.
+
+As life goes on late at night in Naples, the broad drive was all astir
+with a brilliant swarm of carriage lamps moving in pairs, some creeping
+slowly, others running rapidly under the thin, motionless line of
+electric lamps defining the shore. And a brilliant swarm of stars hung
+above the land humming with voices, piled up with houses, glittering
+with lights--and over the silent flat shadows of the sea.
+
+The gardens themselves are not very well lit. Our friend went forward in
+the warm gloom, his eyes fixed upon a distant luminous region extending
+nearly across the whole width of the Villa, as if the air had glowed
+there with its own cold, bluish, and dazzling light. This magic spot,
+behind the black trunks of trees and masses of inky foliage, breathed
+out sweet sounds mingled with bursts of brassy roar, sudden clashes of
+metal, and grave, vibrating thuds.
+
+As he walked on, all these noises combined together into a piece of
+elaborate music whose harmonious phrases came persuasively through a
+great disorderly murmur of voices and shuffling of feet on the gravel of
+that open space. An enormous crowd immersed in the electric light, as
+if in a bath of some radiant and tenuous fluid shed upon their heads by
+luminous globes, drifted in its hundreds round the band. Hundreds
+more sat on chairs in more or less concentric circles, receiving
+unflinchingly the great waves of sonority that ebbed out into the
+darkness. The Count penetrated the throng, drifted with it in tranquil
+enjoyment, listening and looking at the faces. All people of good
+society: mothers with their daughters, parents and children, young men
+and young women all talking, smiling, nodding to each other. Very many
+pretty faces, and very many pretty toilettes. There was, of course, a
+quantity of diverse types: showy old fellows with white moustaches, fat
+men, thin men, officers in uniform; but what predominated, he told
+me, was the South Italian type of young man, with a colourless, clear
+complexion, red lips, jet-black little moustache and liquid black eyes
+so wonderfully effective in leering or scowling.
+
+Withdrawing from the throng, the Count shared a little table in front
+of the cafe with a young man of just such a type. Our friend had some
+lemonade. The young man was sitting moodily before an empty glass.
+He looked up once, and then looked down again. He also tilted his hat
+forward. Like this--
+
+The Count made the gesture of a man pulling his hat down over his brow,
+and went on:
+
+"I think to myself: he is sad; something is wrong with him; young men
+have their troubles. I take no notice of him, of course. I pay for my
+lemonade, and go away."
+
+Strolling about in the neighbourhood of the band, the Count thinks he
+saw twice that young man wandering alone in the crowd. Once their eyes
+met. It must have been the same young man, but there were so many there
+of that type that he could not be certain. Moreover, he was not very
+much concerned except in so far that he had been struck by the marked,
+peevish discontent of that face.
+
+Presently, tired of the feeling of confinement one experiences in a
+crowd, the Count edged away from the band. An alley, very sombre by
+contrast, presented itself invitingly with its promise of solitude
+and coolness. He entered it, walking slowly on till the sound of the
+orchestra became distinctly deadened. Then he walked back and turned
+about once more. He did this several times before he noticed that there
+was somebody occupying one of the benches.
+
+The spot being midway between two lamp-posts the light was faint.
+
+The man lolled back in the corner of the seat, his legs stretched out,
+his arms folded and his head drooping on his breast. He never stirred,
+as though he had fallen asleep there, but when the Count passed by next
+time he had changed his attitude. He sat leaning forward. His elbows
+were propped on his knees, and his hands were rolling a cigarette. He
+never looked up from that occupation.
+
+The Count continued his stroll away from the band. He returned slowly,
+he said. I can imagine him enjoying to the full, but with his usual
+tranquillity, the balminess of this southern night and the sounds of
+music softened delightfully by the distance.
+
+Presently, he approached for the third time the man on the garden seat,
+still leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. It was a dejected
+pose. In the semi-obscurity of the alley his high shirt collar and his
+cuffs made small patches of vivid whiteness. The Count said that he had
+noticed him getting up brusquely as if to walk away, but almost before
+he was aware of it the man stood before him asking in a low, gentle tone
+whether the signore would have the kindness to oblige him with a light.
+
+The Count answered this request by a polite "Certainly," and dropped his
+hands with the intention of exploring both pockets of his trousers for
+the matches.
+
+"I dropped my hands," he said, "but I never put them in my pockets. I
+felt a pressure there--"
+
+He put the tip of his finger on a spot close under his breastbone,
+the very spot of the human body where a Japanese gentleman begins the
+operations of the Harakiri, which is a form of suicide following
+upon dishonour, upon an intolerable outrage to the delicacy of one's
+feelings.
+
+"I glance down," the Count continued in an awestruck voice, "and what do
+I see? A knife! A long knife--"
+
+"You don't mean to say," I exclaimed, amazed, "that you have been held
+up like this in the Villa at half-past ten o'clock, within a stone's
+throw of a thousand people!"
+
+He nodded several times, staring at me with all his might.
+
+"The clarionet," he declared, solemnly, "was finishing his solo, and I
+assure you I could hear every note. Then the band crashed fortissimo,
+and that creature rolled its eyes and gnashed its teeth hissing at me
+with the greatest ferocity, 'Be silent! No noise or--'"
+
+I could not get over my astonishment.
+
+"What sort of knife was it?" I asked, stupidly.
+
+"A long blade. A stiletto--perhaps a kitchen knife. A long narrow blade.
+It gleamed. And his eyes gleamed. His white teeth, too. I could see
+them. He was very ferocious. I thought to myself: 'If I hit him he
+will kill me.' How could I fight with him? He had the knife and I had
+nothing. I am nearly seventy, you know, and that was a young man. I
+seemed even to recognize him. The moody young man of the cafe. The young
+man I met in the crowd. But I could not tell. There are so many like him
+in this country."
+
+The distress of that moment was reflected in his face. I should think
+that physically he must have been paralyzed by surprise. His thoughts,
+however, remained extremely active. They ranged over every alarming
+possibility. The idea of setting up a vigorous shouting for help
+occurred to him, too. But he did nothing of the kind, and the reason why
+he refrained gave me a good opinion of his mental self-possession. He
+saw in a flash that nothing prevented the other from shouting, too.
+
+"That young man might in an instant have thrown away his knife and
+pretended I was the aggressor. Why not? He might have said I attacked
+him. Why not? It was one incredible story against another! He might
+have said anything--bring some dishonouring charge against me--what do
+I know? By his dress he was no common robber. He seemed to belong to the
+better classes. What could I say? He was an Italian--I am a foreigner.
+Of course, I have my passport, and there is our consul--but to be
+arrested, dragged at night to the police office like a criminal!"
+
+He shuddered. It was in his character to shrink from scandal, much more
+than from mere death. And certainly for many people this would have
+always remained--considering certain peculiarities of Neapolitan
+manners--a deucedly queer story. The Count was no fool. His belief in
+the respectable placidity of life having received this rude shock, he
+thought that now anything might happen. But also a notion came into his
+head that this young man was perhaps merely an infuriated lunatic.
+
+This was for me the first hint of his attitude towards this adventure.
+In his exaggerated delicacy of sentiment he felt that nobody's
+self-esteem need be affected by what a madman may choose to do to
+one. It became apparent, however, that the Count was to be denied that
+consolation. He enlarged upon the abominably savage way in which that
+young man rolled his glistening eyes and gnashed his white teeth. The
+band was going now through a slow movement of solemn braying by all the
+trombones, with deliberately repeated bangs of the big drum.
+
+"But what did you do?" I asked, greatly excited.
+
+"Nothing," answered the Count. "I let my hands hang down very still. I
+told him quietly I did not intend making a noise. He snarled like a dog,
+then said in an ordinary voice:
+
+"'Vostro portofolio.'"
+
+"So I naturally," continued the Count--and from this point acted the
+whole thing in pantomime. Holding me with his eyes, he went through
+all the motions of reaching into his inside breast pocket, taking out
+a pocket-book, and handing it over. But that young man, still bearing
+steadily on the knife, refused to touch it.
+
+He directed the Count to take the money out himself, received it into
+his left hand, motioned the pocketbook to be returned to the pocket,
+all this being done to the sweet thrilling of flutes and clarionets
+sustained by the emotional drone of the hautboys. And the "young man,"
+as the Count called him, said: "This seems very little."
+
+"It was, indeed, only 340 or 360 lire," the Count pursued. "I had left
+my money in the hotel, as you know. I told him this was all I had on me.
+He shook his head impatiently and said:
+
+"'Vostro orologio.'"
+
+The Count gave me the dumb show of pulling out his watch, detaching it.
+But, as it happened, the valuable gold half-chronometer he possessed had
+been left at a watch-maker's for cleaning. He wore that evening (on a
+leather guard) the Waterbury fifty-franc thing he used to take with him
+on his fishing expeditions. Perceiving the nature of this booty, the
+well-dressed robber made a contemptuous clicking sound with his tongue
+like this, "Tse-Ah!" and waved it away hastily. Then, as the Count
+was returning the disdained object to his pocket, he demanded with a
+threateningly increased pressure of the knife on the epigastrium, by way
+of reminder:
+
+"'Vostri anelli.'"
+
+"One of the rings," went on the Count, "was given me many years ago by
+my wife; the other is the signet ring of my father. I said, 'No. That
+you shall not have!'"
+
+Here the Count reproduced the gesture corresponding to that declaration
+by clapping one hand upon the other, and pressing both thus against his
+chest. It was touching in its resignation. "That you shall not have,"
+he repeated, firmly, and closed his eyes, fully expecting--I don't know
+whether I am right in recording that such an unpleasant word had passed
+his lips--fully expecting to feel himself being--I really hesitate to
+say--being disembowelled by the push of the long, sharp blade resting
+murderously against the pit of his stomach--the very seat, in all human
+beings, of anguishing sensations.
+
+Great waves of harmony went on flowing from the band.
+
+Suddenly the Count felt the nightmarish pressure removed from the
+sensitive spot. He opened his eyes. He was alone. He had heard nothing.
+It is probable that "the young man" had departed, with light steps,
+some time before, but the sense of the horrid pressure had lingered even
+after the knife had gone. A feeling of weakness came over him. He had
+just time to stagger to the garden seat. He felt as though he had held
+his breath for a long time. He sat all in a heap, panting with the shock
+of the reaction.
+
+The band was executing, with immense bravura, the complicated finale. It
+ended with a tremendous crash. He heard it unreal and remote, as if his
+ears had been stopped, and then the hard clapping of a thousand, more
+or less, pairs of hands, like a sudden hail-shower passing away. The
+profound silence which succeeded recalled him to himself.
+
+A tramcar resembling a long glass box wherein people sat with their
+heads strongly lighted, ran along swiftly within sixty yards of the spot
+where he had been robbed. Then another rustled by, and yet another
+going the other way. The audience about the band had broken up, and were
+entering the alley in small conversing groups. The Count sat up straight
+and tried to think calmly of what had happened to him. The vileness
+of it took his breath away again. As far as I can make it out he was
+disgusted with himself. I do not mean to say with his behaviour. Indeed,
+if his pantomimic rendering of it for my information was to be trusted,
+it was simply perfect. No, it was not that. He was not ashamed. He
+was shocked at being the selected victim, not of robbery so much as of
+contempt. His tranquillity had been wantonly desecrated. His lifelong,
+kindly nicety of outlook had been defaced.
+
+Nevertheless, at that stage, before the iron had time to sink deep, he
+was able to argue himself into comparative equanimity. As his agitation
+calmed down somewhat, he became aware that he was frightfully hungry.
+Yes, hungry. The sheer emotion had made him simply ravenous. He left the
+seat and, after walking for some time, found himself outside the gardens
+and before an arrested tramcar, without knowing very well how he came
+there. He got in as if in a dream, by a sort of instinct. Fortunately he
+found in his trouser pocket a copper to satisfy the conductor. Then
+the car stopped, and as everybody was getting out he got out, too. He
+recognized the Piazza San Ferdinando, but apparently it did not occur to
+him to take a cab and drive to the hotel. He remained in distress on
+the Piazza like a lost dog, thinking vaguely of the best way of getting
+something to eat at once.
+
+Suddenly he remembered his twenty-franc piece. He explained to me that
+he had that piece of French gold for something like three years. He used
+to carry it about with him as a sort of reserve in case of accident.
+Anybody is liable to have his pocket picked--a quite different thing
+from a brazen and insulting robbery.
+
+The monumental arch of the Galleria Umberto faced him at the top of
+a noble flight of stairs. He climbed these without loss of time, and
+directed his steps towards the Cafe Umberto. All the tables outside
+were occupied by a lot of people who were drinking. But as he wanted
+something to eat, he went inside into the cafe, which is divided into
+aisles by square pillars set all round with long looking-glasses.
+The Count sat down on a red plush bench against one of these pillars,
+waiting for his risotto. And his mind reverted to his abominable
+adventure.
+
+He thought of the moody, well-dressed young man, with whom he had
+exchanged glances in the crowd around the bandstand, and who, he felt
+confident, was the robber. Would he recognize him again? Doubtless. But
+he did not want ever to see him again. The best thing was to forget this
+humiliating episode.
+
+The Count looked round anxiously for the coming of his risotto, and,
+behold! to the left against the wall--there sat the young man. He was
+alone at a table, with a bottle of some sort of wine or syrup and a
+carafe of iced water before him. The smooth olive cheeks, the red lips,
+the little jet-black moustache turned up gallantly, the fine black eyes
+a little heavy and shaded by long eyelashes, that peculiar expression of
+cruel discontent to be seen only in the busts of some Roman emperors--it
+was he, no doubt at all. But that was a type. The Count looked away
+hastily. The young officer over there reading a paper was like that,
+too. Same type. Two young men farther away playing draughts also
+resembled--
+
+The Count lowered his head with the fear in his heart of being
+everlastingly haunted by the vision of that young man. He began to
+eat his risotto. Presently he heard the young man on his left call the
+waiter in a bad-tempered tone.
+
+At the call, not only his own waiter, but two other idle waiters
+belonging to a quite different row of tables, rushed towards him with
+obsequious alacrity, which is not the general characteristic of the
+waiters in the Cafe Umberto. The young man muttered something and one
+of the waiters walking rapidly to the nearest door called out into the
+Galleria: "Pasquale! O! Pasquale!"
+
+Everybody knows Pasquale, the shabby old fellow who, shuffling between
+the tables, offers for sale cigars, cigarettes, picture postcards, and
+matches to the clients of the cafe. He is in many respects an engaging
+scoundrel. The Count saw the grey-haired, unshaven ruffian enter the
+cafe, the glass case hanging from his neck by a leather strap, and, at a
+word from the waiter, make his shuffling way with a sudden spurt to
+the young man's table. The young man was in need of a cigar with which
+Pasquale served him fawningly. The old pedlar was going out, when the
+Count, on a sudden impulse, beckoned to him.
+
+Pasquale approached, the smile of deferential recognition combining
+oddly with the cynical searching expression of his eyes. Leaning his
+case on the table, he lifted the glass lid without a word. The Count
+took a box of cigarettes and urged by a fearful curiosity, asked as
+casually as he could--
+
+"Tell me, Pasquale, who is that young signore sitting over there?"
+
+The other bent over his box confidentially.
+
+"That, Signor Conde," he said, beginning to rearrange his wares busily
+and without looking up, "that is a young Cavaliere of a very good family
+from Bari. He studies in the University here, and is the chief, capo, of
+an association of young men--of very nice young men."
+
+He paused, and then, with mingled discretion and pride of knowledge,
+murmured the explanatory word "Camorra" and shut down the lid. "A very
+powerful Camorra," he breathed out. "The professors themselves respect
+it greatly . . . una lira e cinquanti centesimi, Signor Conde."
+
+Our friend paid with the gold piece. While Pasquale was making up the
+change, he observed that the young man, of whom he had heard so much
+in a few words, was watching the transaction covertly. After the old
+vagabond had withdrawn with a bow, the Count settled with the waiter and
+sat still. A numbness, he told me, had come over him.
+
+The young man paid, too, got up, and crossed over, apparently for the
+purpose of looking at himself in the mirror set in the pillar nearest to
+the Count's seat. He was dressed all in black with a dark green bow tie.
+The Count looked round, and was startled by meeting a vicious glance
+out of the corners of the other's eyes. The young Cavaliere from Bari
+(according to Pasquale; but Pasquale is, of course, an accomplished
+liar) went on arranging his tie, settling his hat before the glass, and
+meantime he spoke just loud enough to be heard by the Count. He spoke
+through his teeth with the most insulting venom of contempt and gazing
+straight into the mirror.
+
+"Ah! So you had some gold on you--you old liar--you old birba--you
+furfante! But you are not done with me yet."
+
+The fiendishness of his expression vanished like lightning, and he
+lounged out of the cafe with a moody, impassive face.
+
+The poor Count, after telling me this last episode, fell back trembling
+in his chair. His forehead broke into perspiration. There was a wanton
+insolence in the spirit of this outrage which appalled even me. What it
+was to the Count's delicacy I won't attempt to guess. I am sure that if
+he had been not too refined to do such a blatantly vulgar thing as dying
+from apoplexy in a cafe, he would have had a fatal stroke there and
+then. All irony apart, my difficulty was to keep him from seeing
+the full extent of my commiseration. He shrank from every excessive
+sentiment, and my commiseration was practically unbounded. It did not
+surprise me to hear that he had been in bed a week. He had got up to
+make his arrangements for leaving Southern Italy for good and all.
+
+And the man was convinced that he could not live through a whole year in
+any other climate!
+
+No argument of mine had any effect. It was not timidity, though he did
+say to me once: "You do not know what a Camorra is, my dear sir. I am
+a marked man." He was not afraid of what could be done to him.
+His delicate conception of his dignity was defiled by a degrading
+experience. He couldn't stand that. No Japanese gentleman, outraged in
+his exaggerated sense of honour, could have gone about his preparations
+for Hara-kiri with greater resolution. To go home really amounted to
+suicide for the poor Count.
+
+There is a saying of Neapolitan patriotism, intended for the information
+of foreigners, I presume: "See Naples and then die." Vedi Napoli e poi
+mori. It is a saying of excessive vanity, and everything excessive was
+abhorrent to the nice moderation of the poor Count. Yet, as I was seeing
+him off at the railway station, I thought he was behaving with singular
+fidelity to its conceited spirit. Vedi Napoli! . . . He had seen it!
+He had seen it with startling thoroughness--and now he was going to
+his grave. He was going to it by the train de luxe of the International
+Sleeping Car Company, via Trieste and Vienna. As the four long, sombre
+coaches pulled out of the station I raised my hat with the solemn
+feeling of paying the last tribute of respect to a funeral cortege.
+Il Conde's profile, much aged already, glided away from me in stony
+immobility, behind the lighted pane of glass--Vedi Napoli e poi mori!
+
+
+
+
+
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