From the time of the hack's departure, till the moment when the valet
was so hastily sent out of the room, Mr Swinton had been acting as a
man in full possession of his senses. The drink taken during the day
had but restored his intellect to its usual strength; and with a clear
brain he had written the note inviting Mr Louis Lucas to an interview.
He had solicited this interview in his own apartment--accompanying the
request with an apology for not going to that of Mr Lucas. The excuse
was that he was "laid up."
All this he could have done in a steady hand, and with choice diction;
for Richard Swinton was neither dunce nor ignoramus.
Instead, the note was written in scribble, and with a chaotic confusion
of phraseology--apparently the production of one suffering from the
"trembles."
In this there was a design; as also, in the behaviour of Mr Swinton,
when he heard the footfall of his expected visitor coming along the
corridor in the direction of his room. His action was of the most
eccentric kind--as much so as any of his movements during the day.
It might have been expected that the _ci-devant_ habitue of the Horse
Guards, in conformity with past habits, would have made some attempt to
arrange his toilet for the reception of a stranger. Instead, he took
the opposite course; and while the footsteps of Mr Lucas were
resounding through the gallery, the hands of Mr Swinton were busy in
making himself as unpresentable as possible.
Whipping off the dress-coat he had worn at the ball, and which in his
distraction he had all day carried on his shoulders; flinging the
waistcoat after, and then slipping his arms out of the braces; in
shirt-sleeves and with hair dishevelled, he stood to await the incoming
of his visitor. His look was that of one just awakened from the slumber
of intoxication.
And this character--which had been no counterfeit in the morning--he
sustained during the whole time that the stranger remained in his room.
Mr Lucas had no suspicion that the Englishman was acting. He was
himself in just that condition to believe in its reality; feeling, and
as he confessed, "seedy as the devil." This was his speech, in return
to the salutations of Swinton.
"Yas, ba Jawve! I suppose yaw do. I feel just the same way. Aw--aw--I
must have been asleep for a week?"
"Well, you've missed three meals at least, and I two of them. I was
only able to show myself at the supper-table."
"Suppaw! Yaw don't mean to say it's so late as that?"
"I do indeed. Supper we call it in this country; though I believe in
England it's the hour at which you dine. It's after eight o'clock."
"Ba heavins! This is bad. I wemembaw something that occurred last
night. Yaw were with me, were you not?"
"Certainly I was. I gave you my card."
"Yas--yas. I have it. A fellaw insulted me--a Mr Maynard. If I
wemembaw awight, he stwuck me in the face."
"That's true; he did."
"Am I wight too in my wecollection that yaw, sir, were so vewy obliging
as to say yaw would act for me as--as--a fwend?"
"Quite right," replied the willing Lucas, delighted with the prospect of
obtaining satisfaction for his own little private wrong, and without
danger to himself. "Quite right. I'm ready to do as I said, sir."
"Thanks, Mr Lucas! a world of thanks! And now there's no time left faw
fawther talking. By Jawve! I've slept so long as to be in danger of
having committed myself! Shall I wite out the challenge, or would yaw
pwefer to do it yawself? Yaw know all that passed, and may word it as
yaw wish."
"There need be no difficulty about the wording of it," said the chosen
second, who, from having acted in like capacity before, was fairly
acquainted with the "code."
"In your case, the thing's exceedingly simple. This Mr or Captain
Maynard, as he's called, insulted you very grossly. I hear it's the
talk of the hotel. You must call upon him to go out, or apologise."
"Aw, sawtingly. I shall do that. Wite faw me, and I shall sign."
"Hadn't you better write yourself? The challenge should be in your own
hand. I am only the bearer of it."
"Twue--twue! Confound this dwink. It makes one obwivious of
everything. Of cawse I should wite it."
Sitting down before the table, with a hand that showed no trembling, Mr
Swinton wrote:
"Sir--Referring to our interview of last night, I demand from you the
satisfaction due to a gentleman, whose honour you have outraged. That
satisfaction must be either a meeting, or an ample apology. I leave
you to take your choice. My friend, Mr Louis Lucas, will await your
answer.
"Richard Swinton."
"Will that do, think you?" asked the ex-guardsman, handing the sheet to
his second.
"The very thing! Short, if not sweet. I like it all the better without
the `obedient servant.' It reads more defiant, and will be more likely
to extract the apology. Where am I to take it? You have his card, if I
mistake not. Does it tell the number of his room?"
"Twue--twue! I have his cawd. We shall see."
Taking up his coat from the floor, where he had flung it; Swinton fished
out the card. There was no number, only the name.
"No matter," said the second, clutching at the bit of pasteboard.
"Trust me to discover him. I'll be back with his answer before you've
smoked out that cigar."
With this promise, Mr Lucas left the room.
As Mr Swinton sat smoking the cigar, and reflecting upon it, there was
an expression upon his face that no man save himself could have
interpreted. It was a sardonic smile worthy of Machiavelli.
The cigar was about half burned out, when Mr Lucas was heard hurrying
back along the corridor.
In an instant after he burst into the room, his face showing him to be
the bearer of some strange intelligence.
"Well?" inquired Swinton, in a tone of affected coolness. "What says
our fellaw?"
"What says he? Nothing."
"He has pwomised to send the answer by a fwend, I pwesume?"
"He has promised me nothing: for the simple reason that I haven't seen
him!"
"Haven't seen him?"
"No--nor ain't likely neither. The coward has `swartouted.'"
"Swawtuated?"
"Yes; G.T.T.--gone to Texas!"
"Ba Jawve! Mr Lucas; I don't compwehend yaw?"
"You will, when I tell you that your antagonist has left Newport. Gone
off by the evening boat."
"Honaw bwight, Mr Lucas?" cried the Englishman, in feigned
astonishment. "Shawley you must be jawking."
"Not in the least, I assure you. The clerk tells me he paid his hotel
bill, and was taken off in one of their hacks. Besides, I've seen the
driver who took him, and who's just returned. He says that he set Mr
Maynard down, and helped to carry his baggage aboard the boat. There
was another man, some foreign-looking fellow, along with him. Be sure,
sir, he's gone."
"And left no message, no addwess, as to where I may find him?"
"Not a word, that I can hear of."
"Ba Gawd?"
The man who had called forth this impassioned speech was at that moment
upon the deck of the steamer, fast cleaving her track towards the ocean.
He was standing by the after-guards, looking back upon the lights of
Newport, that struggled against the twilight.
His eyes had become fixed on one that glimmered high up on the summit of
the hill, and which he knew to proceed from a window in the southern end
of the Ocean House.
He had little thought of the free use that was just then being made of
his name in that swarming hive of beauty and fashion--else he might have
repented the unceremonious haste of his departure.
Nor was he thinking of that which was carrying him away. His regrets
were of a more tender kind: for he had such. Regrets that even his
ardour in the sacred cause of Liberty did not prevent him from feeling.
Roseveldt, standing by his side, and observing the shadow on his face,
easily divined its character.
"Come, Maynard!" said he, in a tone of banter, "I hope you won't blame
me for bringing you with me. I see that you've left something behind
you!"
"Left something behind me!" returned Maynard, in astonishment, though
half-conscious of what was meant.
"Of course you have," jocularly rejoined the Count. "Where did you ever
stay six days without leaving a sweetheart behind you? It's true, you
scapegrace!"
"You wrong me, Count. I assure you I have none--"
"Well, well," interrupted the revolutionist, "even if you have, banish
the remembrance, and be a man! Let your sword now be your sweetheart.
Think of the splendid prospect before you. The moment your foot touches
European soil, you are to take command of the whole student army. The
Directory have so decided. Fine fellows, I assure you, these German
students: true sons of Liberty--_a la Schiller_, if you like. You may
do what you please with them, so long as you lead them against
despotism. I only wish I had your opportunity."
As he listened to these stirring words, Maynard's eyes were gradually
turned away from Newport--his thoughts from Julia Girdwood.
"It may be all for the best," reflected he, as he gazed down upon the
phosphoric track. "Even could I have won her, which is doubtful, she's
not the sort for a _wife_; and that's what I'm now wanting. Certain, I
shall never see her again. Perhaps the old adage will still prove
true," he continued, as if the situation had suggested it: "`Good fish
in the sea as ever were caught.' Scintillations ahead, yet unseen,
brilliant as those we are leaving behind us!"