IN THE LUNETTE ST. LAURENT.
At first a kind of--shall we say it?--savage joy and exultation
swelled up in the breast of Goring at the prospect of being face to
face with Cadbury again, and already in fancy he was covering with
his pistol the spectrum of the peer's thick-set, pudgy person, for he
had at first serious doubts--though they were both on the
Continent--that the latter would accept his challenge.
'Well, I have faced much in my short time, and figured in many
things; but I never thought to do so in such an old-fashioned affair
as a duel!' he said, with a grim smile, to his new friend Gabion.
And he wondered what Tony Dalton, Jerry Wilmot, and others of the
battalion now far away beyond the equator, would think of the event,
when tidings would reach them that he had been shot by Lord Cadbury,
or had shot the latter--and in a duel!
How strange it sounded to English ears now!
He wrote to his solicitors to settle a sum stated--a handsome annuity
on Alison, if she was found--one that would keep her every way
independent alike of her father and Lord Cadbury, if he fell by the
hand of the latter--instructions which made those quiet and very
acute legal practitioners, Messrs. Taype, Shawrpe, and Scrawly, open
their eyes very wide indeed, when the letter reached them at Gray's
Inn Square.
His reveries were not very rose-coloured, as he might be a dead man
long before _this_ time to-morrow, he thought, while looking at the
clock; however, it did not impair his appetite, and he and Victor
Gabion spent the evening at the Café Grisor, in the Rue Von
Shoonhoven, listening to the grand organ which is played by
machinery, while enjoying their wine and cigars, far into the small
hours of the morning.
Yet we may be sure that there are few men, if they told truth, but
would acknowledge that they felt a very unpleasant emotion when
thinking that when another round of the clock was achieved their part
in this world might be over--ended and done with!
In the morning he was in a brighter mood, and, though infuriated
against Cadbury, had no desire to kill, but only to wound him, to the
end that he might wring from him the secret of what he had done with
Alison. He was a good marksman--had been a musketry instructor--and
with rifle and revolver had done some great things among the big game
and hill tribes in India.
A revelation was all he wanted. On his own life, save in so far as
Alison Cheyne was concerned, he set little store. How short seemed
the minutes he used to spend with her under the old beeches at
Chilcote, or when in Laura Dalton's at the Grange. Short and few,
and how much alone he used to feel when not with her!
Now how much more alone he felt, when he seemed to have so
mysteriously and painfully lost her!
After some coffee, backed by a _chasse_--_i.e._, dashed with
cognac--he and Gabion--with the latter's case of pistols--departed
before sunrise in a voiture for the citadel--a pretty long drive,
through winding and tortuous streets, crossing between the great
shipping basins at the Quai Hambourg, and ere long the houses were
left behind, and the great grassy embankments of the fortress rose
before them.
Every feature of the scenery, every detail of what he saw, however
petty and trivial, impressed itself curiously upon the mind of Bevil
Goring on this eventful morning.
A group of old peasant women, with wide dark-blue or black cloaks and
coal-scuttle bonnets, gossiping in the roadway; children at cottage
doors; Flemish labourers, with hard and earnest types of face,
leisurely filling their huge pipes with tobacco; a boy sitting on a
gate, munching a straw, and dreaming perhaps of the future; the view
of the vast Scheldt, curving in a mighty sweep round the flat green
Tête de Flandres, with all its steamers and other shipping.
The mighty cathedral spire, and all the thousands of high-peaked
roofs and masses of the quaint city, thrown forward in dark outline
against the lurid and vapoury red of the winter morning sky, all seen
like a vast panorama from the green heights of the citadel. Goring
recalled the first morning he had seen the latter from the deck of
the _Rotterdam_, and had looked at its great gaping embrasures and
lunettes, well flanked out, with the leisurely interest it cannot
fail to have in a soldier's eye.
He was now perhaps looking upon Nature, with all her beauties, for
the last time, and the coming spring and summer might be as nought to
him, even after the wealth that had come upon him so unexpectedly;
but if he was fated to fall by Cadbury's pistol his chief regret was
not for these things, but the fear that, unless those in another
world are cognisant of what passes in this, he would never know the
fate of Alison Cheyne, or penetrate the veil that hid her whereabouts
in mystery now!
He listened somewhat as one in a dream to Victor Gabion, who was
drawing his attention, with no small pride and enthusiasm, to the
features of the mighty model citadel, which is now so deserted in
aspect, and the streets in the immediate vicinity of which consist
chiefly of the ruins of the arsenals and magazines, that were
destroyed in the great siege of 1832, when only 4,500 Dutchmen, under
old General Chassé, defended themselves with such desperation against
55,000 Frenchmen, under Marshal Gerard.
'My grandfather commanded a regiment on that occasion,' said Gabion,
'and opened the ball by attacking this part--the Lunette St. Laurent,
which lies nearest to the town. The trenches were nine English miles
long, and sixty-three thousand shot and shell were fired into the
place before Chassé hauled down his colours. _Sapristi!_ but that
was something like fighting! _Diable!_' he added, 'we are not first
on the ground.'
Bevil Goring was much mortified to think that in that matter he had
been anticipated by Lord Cadbury, when some dark figures appeared
hurrying towards them along the _terre pleine_ of the ramparts; but
it was not so, for those who approached proved to be brother-officers
of Gabion's, who, having been informed by him of the affair, had come
forth, as one said, to see 'le sport.'
All touched their caps, and, after a few passing remarks, looked
round for the appearance of Cadbury and his second, but no one, save
themselves, seemed to be in the misty space, or amid the wet grassy
works of the citadel, and no voiture from the town was as yet seen
approaching the entrance to it. All these Belgian officers, to
Goring's eye, seemed very square-shouldered, as they wore blue cloaks
over their gold epaulettes. All were chatting and laughing merrily,
while smoking as if their lives depended upon it.
'_Sapristi! Sacré Dieu!_' muttered Victor Gabion, looking at his
watch, 'ten minutes past eight, and no appearance of milord.'
Time passed on. The cathedral clock struck half-past eight, and
eventually nine; but there was no appearance of Cadbury.
'Can he have fallen ill?' was the last of many surmises as to this
most unexpected turn in the matter.
'Not likely; he would surely have had the courtesy to send a message,
and not keep us loitering here,' said Captain Gabion.
The Belgians twirled their moustaches, and exchanged glances of
derision.
Bevil Goring felt keen shame that any Englishman should act as
Cadbury had done, and at last they all left the citadel and drove
back to the city.
'_Sapristi!_' was of course muttered by everyone; 'what is to be done
now?'
Goring thought, if he could meet his lordship, he would certainly
attack him rearward with his foot, and, as Hudibras has it:
'Because a kick in that place more
Hurts honour than deep wounds before.'
At the very time that Goring and his companions were cooling their
heels on the Lunette St. Laurent, the _Firefly_ was steering
close-hauled against a head wind, mid-way between the city and
Flushing, with Lord Cadbury on board! Since coming there he had
imbibed in his wrath and tribulation of spirit so many of Pemmican's
brandies and sodas that Tom Llanyard was puzzled what to think, and
his temper was horrible.
On the preceding afternoon, immediately after the departure of Victor
Gabion, he had gone to the telegraph-office near the Bourse, and
telegraphed a message to _himself_ that he might confidently open it
in the presence of Sir Ranald Cheyne. This he accordingly did, and,
saying nothing of his recent visitor's purpose, he suddenly announced
that he must instantly depart for London by steamer and train, but he
hoped that Sir Ranald, whom he left alone in his misery, would
telegraph to his club the moment he heard tidings of Alison, on which
he, Lord Cadbury, would instantly return to Antwerp. And, after
this, the hereditary legislator (by one descent) took his hurried
departure.
Goring and his new friend Gabion, by making inquiries, were not long
in discovering that he had sailed in his yacht. Could Alison, under
any circumstances, be on board that yacht too?
His departure so suddenly, if no puzzle to Goring, was certainly one
to Sir Ranald, upon whose acceptance the peer pressed a little cheque
for any present necessities, and he was just then sick of the whole
affair.
Bevil Goring could go near Sir Ranald no more, but, as he loitered
near the hotel, could he have looked in upon him just then he would
have forgiven him, and more than forgiven him all, his passion and
fury.
'A letter for you, Sir Cheyne,' the concierge had said.
It was in a lady's hand, foreign in style, and addressed to 'Sir
Ranald Cheyne, Hôtel St. Antoine, E.L.V.' He opened it, and read the
contents in tremulous haste.
'Ailie--my own bird Ailie--it is about her, but _what_?' he
exclaimed, as his old eyes filled with salt tears. Then he covered
his face with his hands, and added, hoarsely, 'Oh, my child, my
darling Ailie!'
He strove to rise from his chair, but fell faintly into the arms of
the startled concierge.