Early the next morning (the 12th of April) a rumour went through
the town that an English fleet was signalled as in sight. The news
roused the starving people like electricity. The pale spectres of
men that, on the previous day, had stalked so gauntly through the
dreary streets--the wretched, sinking women, and children careworn
as grandfathers--poured forth, with something like a natural light
in their hollow eyes, to witness the joyful spectacle. The sea-wall
of the city was, like the margin of a vast pool of Bethesda,
thronged with hopeful wretches awaiting the coming of the angel.
The streets were instantly deserted. Those who could not leave their
homes got on the housetops, but the great mass of the population
spread itself along the line-wall, the Grand Parade and Alameda,
and the heights skirting the chief slopes of the Rock. Moors and
Jews, Spaniards and English, citizens and soldiers, men, women,
and children, of all ages, grades, and nations, ranged themselves
indiscriminately wherever they could obtain a view of the sea.
For some time the wished-for sight was delayed by a thick fog that
spread itself across the Straits and the entrance of the bay. A
murmur rose from each successive rank of people that forced itself
into a front place on the line-wall. Terrible doubts flew about,
originating no one knew where, but gaining strength and confirmation
as they passed from mouth to mouth. On the summit of the Rock behind
them the signal for a fleet flew steadily from the mast at Middle
Hill; but still in this, as in all crowds, were some of little
faith, who were full of misgivings. Many rushed up to the signal
station, unable to bear the pain of the delay. My grandfather
noticed the Jew Lazaro among the throng, watching the event with an
anxious eye, though his anxiety was from the opposite cause to that
of most of the spectators. The arrival of supplies would at once
bring down the price of provisions, and rob him, for the present,
of his expected profits; and as each successive rumour obtained
credence with the crowd, his countenance brightened as their hopes
fell, and sank as they again emerged from despondency.
Not far from him was an old Genoese woman, wearing the quaint red
cloak, trimmed with black velvet, that old Genoese women usually
wear in Gibraltar. She hovered round the skirts of the crowd,
occasionally peering beneath an uplifted arm, or thrusting it
between two obstructing figures, to catch a glimpse, though it was
evident that her dim eyes would fail to discern the fleet when
it should come in view. Her thin shrivelled features, relieved
against her black hood, were positively wolfish from starvation.
She frequently drew one hand from beneath her cloak, and gazed at
something she held in it--then, muttering, she would again conceal
it. My grandfather's curiosity was roused. He drew near and watched
for the reappearance of the object that so engrossed her. It was a
blue mouldy crust of bread.
The wished-for spectacle was at length revealed. "As the sun became
more powerful," says Drinkwater, rising into positive poetry
with the occasion, "the fog gradually rose, _like the curtain of
a vast theatre_, discovering to the anxious garrison one of the
most beautiful and pleasing scenes it is possible to conceive. The
convoy, consisting of near a hundred vessels, were in a compact
body, led by several men-of-war--their sails just filled enough for
steerage, while the majority of the line-of-battle ships lay to
under the Barbary shore, having orders not to enter the bay, lest
the enemy should molest them with their fireships."
Then rose a great shout--at once the casting-off of long-pressing
anxiety and the utterance of delight. Happy tears streamed down
haggard faces overgrown with hair, and presently men turned to one
another, smiling in the face of a stranger neighbour as in that of
an old friend, while a joyful murmur, distilled from many languages,
rose upward. Assuredly, if blessings are of any avail, the soul of
Admiral Darby, who commanded the relieving fleet, is at this moment
in Paradise.
Friends and relations now began to search for one another in
the crowd, which broke quickly into knots, each contriving how
to enjoy together the plenty that was to descend upon them. My
grandfather's eye at this juncture was again attracted by the old
Genoese woman. When the crowd shouted, she screened her eyes with
her withered hand, and, with her nostril spread, her chin fallen, in
her eagerness gazed towards the sea--but presently shook her head,
discerning nothing. Then she plucked by the arm a joyful Spaniard.
"_Es verdad? Por Dios, es verdad?_" she cried; "_jura! jura!_"--(Is
it true? Swear by Heaven it is true.)
"_Si, si,_" said the Spaniard, pointing; "_es verdad_," ('tis true.)
"You may see them yourself."
Instantly the old woman, for the last time, drew forth her
treasured crust, and began to devour it, muttering, as she tore
away each mouthful, "_Mas mañana! mas mañana!_" (I shall have more
to-morrow--more to-morrow!)
After the crowd had partially dispersed, Owen was returning to
his quarters to breakfast, when, as he paused to open the door,
he heard a voice he thought he knew crying out in affright in the
rooms opposite, where Von Dessel resided. Presently the door of the
quarters was opened, and the flushed and frightened face of Esther
Lazaro appeared, as she struggled to escape from Von Dessel, who
held her arm.
"Señor, señor, speak to the gentleman!" she cried to Owen.
"Leetle foolish girl," said Von Dessel, grinning a smile on seeing
him; "she frightens at nothing. Come in, child"--trying to shut the
door.
"Why don't you let her alone?" said Owen; "don't you see she doesn't
like you?"
"Pouf!" said the captain. "We all have trouble with them
sometimes--you must know that well."
"No, by Jupiter!" cried Frank Owen. "If I couldn't gain them
willingly, they might go to the devil for me. But you hurt her--pray
let her go--you must indeed."
"Do you mind your own affair," said the captain, "and don't meddle;"
and, exerting his strength, he drew Esther in, and partially
succeeded in shutting the door--she calling the while again on Owen
to help her. Frank stepped forward, and, putting his foot against
the door, sent it into the room, causing Captain Von Dessel, who was
behind it, to stagger back with some violence, and to quit his hold
of Esther, who ran down stairs.
"Very good, sir," said the captain, stalking grimly out of his room,
pale with rage. "You have thought right to interfere with me, and to
insult me. By Gott! I will teach you better, young man. Shall we say
in one hour, sir, in the Fives' Court?"
Owen nodded. "At your pleasure," said he, and, entering his own
quarters, shut the door.
Meanwhile my grandfather walked about with the telescope he had
brought with him to look after the fleet under his arm, enjoying the
unusual sight of happy faces around him. And he has remarked it as
a singular feature of humanity, that this prospect of relief from
physical want inspired a far more deep and universal joy than he
had witnessed in any public rejoicings arising from such causes as
loyalty or patriotism evinced at a coronation or the news of a great
victory; and hence my grandfather takes occasion to express a fear
that human nature, as well as other nature, is, except among the
rarer class of souls, more powerfully and generally influenced by
its animal propensities than by more refined causes.
He was so engrossed with the philanthropic pursuit of enjoying the
joy of the multitude, and the philosophic one of extracting moral
reflections therefrom, that he quite forgot he had not breakfasted.
He was just beginning to be reminded of the circumstance by a
feeling of hollowness in the region of the stomach, and to turn
his steps homeward, when a light hand was laid on his arm. My
grandfather turned, and beheld the face of the young Jewess looking
wistfully in his.
She began at first to address him in Spanish--the language she spoke
most naturally; but, quickly perceiving her mistake on hearing the
extraordinary jargon in which he replied, (for it is a singular
fact that nobody but Carlota, who taught him, could understand my
grandfather's Spanish,) she exchanged it for his own tongue. She
told him in a few hurried words of the quarrel Owen had incurred on
her account with Von Dessel, and of the challenge she had overheard
given by the latter, beseeching the major to hasten to prevent the
result.
"In the Fives' Court! in an hour!" said my grandfather. "When did
this happen?"
Esther thought nearly an hour ago--she had been almost so long
seeking my grandfather.
"I'll go, child--I'll go at once," said the Major. "With Von Dessel,
too, as if he could find nobody else to quarrel with but the best
swordsman in the garrison. 'Souls and bodies' quoted my grandfather,
'hath he divorced three.'"
With every stride he took, the Major's uneasiness was augmented. At
any time his anxiety would have been extreme while peril threatened
Frank; but now, when he was calculating on him as a companion
at many a well-spread table, when they might forget their past
miseries, it peculiarly affected him.
"To think," muttered my grandfather, "that these two madmen should
choose a time when everybody is going to be made so happy, by
getting plenty to eat, to show their gratitude to Providence by
cutting one another's throats!"
The danger to Owen was really formidable; for, though a respectable
swordsman, he was no unusual proficient in the graceful art, while
his opponent was not only, as my grandfather had said, the best
swordsman in the garrison, but perhaps the best at that time in the
army. As a student in Germany he had distinguished himself in some
sanguinary duels; and since his arrival in Gibraltar, a Spanish
gentleman, a very able fencer, had fallen beneath his arm.
"God grant," said my grandfather to himself, as he neared the Fives'
Court, "that we may settle this without the perdition of souls.
Frank, my dear boy, we could better spare a better man!"
On attempting to enter the Fives' Court he was stopped by the
master, posted at the door. "It was engaged," he said, "for a
private match."
"Ay, ay," said my grandfather, pushing past him; "a pretty match,
indeed! Ay, ay--pray God we can stop it!"
Finding the inner door locked, the Major, who was well acquainted
with the locality--for, when he had nothing else particular to
do, he would sometimes mark for the players for a rubber or
two--ascended the stairs to the gallery.
About the centre of the court stood the combatants. All
preliminaries had been gone through--for they were stripped to their
shirts--and the seconds (one a German, the adjutant of Hardenberg's
regiment--the other, one Lieutenant Rushton, an old hand at these
affairs, and himself a fire-eater) stood by, each with a spare sword
in his hand. In a corner was the German regimental surgeon, his
apparatus displayed on the floor, ready for an emergency. Rushton
fully expected Owen to fall, and only hoped he might escape without
a mortal wound. Von Dessel himself seemed of the same opinion,
standing square and firm as a tower, scarcely troubling himself to
assume an attitude, but easy and masterly withal. Both contempt and
malice were expressed for his antagonist in his half-shut eyes and
sardonic twist of the corners of his mouth.
"Owen, Owen, my boy!" shouted my grandfather, rushing to the front
of the gallery, and leaning over, as the swords crossed--"stop, for
God's sake. You mustn't fight that swashbuckler! They say he hath
been fencer to the Sophy," roared the Major, in the words of Sir
Toby Belch.
The combatants just turned their heads for a moment to look at the
interrupter, and again crossed swords.
Immediately on finding his remonstrance disregarded, the Major
descended personally into the arena--not by the ordinary route of
the stairs, but the shorter one of a perpendicular drop from the
gallery, not effected with the lightness of a feathered Mercury. But
the clatter of his descent was lost in the concussion of a discharge
of artillery that shook the walls. Instantly the air was alive
with shot and hissing shells; and before the echoes of the first
discharge had ceased, the successive explosion of the shells in the
air, and the crashing of chimneys, shattered doors, and falling
masonry, increased the uproar. One shell burst in the court, filling
it with smoke. My grandfather felt, for a minute, rather dizzy with
the shock. When the smoke cleared, by which time he had partially
recovered himself, the first object that caught his eye was Von
Dessel lying on the pavement, and the doctor stooping over him. The
only other person hurt was Rushton, a great piece of the skin of
whose forehead, detached by a splinter, was hanging over his right
eye. Von Dessel had sustained a compound fracture of the thigh,
while the loss of two fingers from his right hand had spoiled his
thrust in tierce for ever.
"What can be the matter?" said my grandfather, looking upward, as a
second flight of missiles hurtled overhead.
"Matter enough," quoth Rushton, mopping the blood from his eye with
his handkerchief; "those cursed devils of Spaniards are bombarding
the town."
The Major went up to Owen, and squeezed his hand. "We won't abuse
the Spaniards for all that," said he--"they've saved your life, my
boy."