THE TWO CARRIAGES.
It is the evening of the day on which Mdlle. de Cardoville prevented the
sewing-girl's suicide. It strikes eleven; the night is dark; the wind
blows with violence, and drives along great black clouds, which
completely hide the pale lustre of the moon. A hackney-coach, drawn by
two broken-winded horses, ascends slowly and with difficulty the slope of
the Rue Blanche, which is pretty steep near the barrier, in the part
where is situated the house occupied by Djalma.
The coach stops. The coachman, cursing the length of an interminable
drive "within the circuit," leading at last to this difficult ascent,
turns round on his box, leans over towards the front window of the
vehicle, and says in a gruff tone to the person he is driving: "Come! are
we almost there? From the Rue de Vaugirard to the Barriere Blanche, is a
pretty good stretch, I think, without reckoning that the night is so
dark, that one can hardly see two steps before one--and the street-lamps
not lighted because of the moon, which doesn't shine, after all!"
"Look out for a little door with a portico-drive on about twenty yards
beyond--and then stop close to the wall," answered a squeaking voice,
impatiently, and with an Italian accent.
"Here is a beggarly Dutchman, that will make me as savage as a bear?"
muttered the angry Jehu to himself. Then he added: "Thousand thunders! I
tell you that I can't see. How the devil can I find out your little
door?"
"Have you no sense? Follow the wall to the right, brush against it, and
you will easily find the little door. It is next to No. 50. If you do not
find it, you must be drunk," answered the Italian, with increased
bitterness.
The coachman only replied by swearing like a trooper, and whipping up his
jaded horses. Then, keeping close to the wall, he strained his eyes in
trying to read the numbers of the houses, by the aid of his carriage
lamps.
After some moments, the coach again stopped. "I have passed No. 50, and
here is a little door with a portico," said the coachman. "Is that the
one?"
"Yes," said the voice. "Now go forward some twenty yards, and then stop."
"Well! I never--"
"Then get down from your box, and give twice three knocks at the little
door we have just passed--you understand me?--twice three knocks."
"Is that all you give me to drink?" cried the exasperated coachman.
"When you have taken me back to the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where I live,
you shall have something handsome, if you do but manage matters well."
"Ha! now the Faubourg Saint-Germain! Only that little bit of distance!"
said the driver, with repressed rage. "And I who have winded my horses,
wanted to be on the boulevard by the time the play was out. Well, I'm
blowed!" Then, putting a good face on his bad luck, and consoling himself
with the thought of the promised drink-money, he resumed: "I am to give
twice three knocks at the little door?"
"Yes; three knocks first--then pause--then three other knocks. Do you
understand?"
"What next?"
"Tell the person who comes, that he is waited for, and bring him here to
the coach."
"The devil burn you!" said the coachman to himself, as he turned round on
the box, and whipped up his horses, adding: "this crusty old Dutchman has
something to do with Free-masons, or, perhaps, smugglers, seeing we are
so near the gates. He deserves my giving him in charge, for bringing me
all the way from the Rue de Vaugirard."
At twenty steps beyond the little door, the coach again stopped, and the
coachman descended from the box to execute the orders he had received.
Going to the little door, he knocked three times; then paused, as he had
been desired, and then knocked three times more. The clouds, which had
hitherto been so thick as entirely to conceal the disk of the moon, just
then withdrew sufficiently to afford a glimmering light, so that when the
door opened at the signal, the coachman saw a middle-sized person issue
from it, wrapped in a cloak, and wearing a colored cap.
This man carefully locked the door, and then advanced two steps into the
street. "They are waiting for you," said the coachman; "I am to take you
along with me to the coach."
Preceding the man with the cloak, who only answered him by a nod, he led
him to the coach-door, which he was about to open, and to let down the
step, when the voice exclaimed from the inside: "It is not necessary. The
gentleman may talk to me through the window. I will call you when it is
time to start."
"Which means that I shall be kept here long enough to send you to all the
devils!" murmured the driver. "However, I may as well walk about, just to
stretch my legs."
So saying, he began to walk up and down, by the side of the wall in which
was the little door. Presently he heard the distant sound of wheels,
which soon came nearer and nearer, and a carriage, rapidly ascending the
slope, stopped on the other side of the little garden-door.
"Come, I say! a private carriage!" said the coachman. "Good horses those,
to come up the Rue Blanche at a trot."
The coachman was just making this observation, when, by favor of a
momentary gleam of light, he saw a man step from the carriage, advance
rapidly to the little door, open it, and go in, closing it after him.
"It gets thicker and thicker!" said the coachman. "One comes out, and the
other goes in."
So saying, he walked up to the carriage. It was splendidly harnessed, and
drawn by two handsome and vigorous horses. The driver sat motionless, in
his great box-coat, with the handle of his whip resting on his right
knee.
"Here's weather to drive about in, with such tidy dukes as yours,
comrade!" said the humble hackney-coachman to this automaton, who
remained mute and impassible, without even appearing to know that he was
spoken to.
"He doesn't understand French--he's an Englishman. One could tell that by
his horses," said the coachman, putting this interpretation on the
silence of his brother whip. Then, perceiving a tall footman at a little
distance, dressed in a long gray livery coat, with blue collar and silver
buttons, the coachman addressed himself to him, by way of compensation,
but without much varying his phrase: "Here's nice weather to stand about
in, comrade!" On the part of the footman, he was met with the same
imperturbable silence.
"They're both Englishmen," resumed the coachman, philosophically; and,
though somewhat astonished at the incident of the little door, he
recommenced his walk in the direction of his own vehicle.
While these facts were passing, the man in the cloak, and the man with
the Italian accent continued their conversation, the one still in the
coach, and the other leaning with his hand on the door. It had already
lasted for some time, and was carried on in Italian. They were evidently
talking of some absent person, as will appear from the following.
"So," said the voice from the coach, "that is agreed to?"
"Yes, my lord," answered the man in the cloak; "but only in case the
eagle should become a serpent."
"And, in the contrary event, you will receive the other half of the ivory
crucifix I gave you."
"I shall know what it means, my lord."
"Continue to merit and preserve his confidence."
"I will merit and preserve it, my lord, because I admire and respect this
man, who is stronger than the strongest, by craft, and courage, and will.
I have knelt before him with humility, as I would kneel before one of the
three black idols that stand between Bowanee and her worshippers; for his
religion, like mine, teaches to change life into nothingness."
"Humph!" said the voice, in a tone of some embarrassment; "these
comparisons are useless and inaccurate. Only think of obeying him,
without explaining your obedience."
"Let him speak, and I perform his will! I am in his hands like a corpse,
as he himself expresses it. He has seen, he sees every day, my devotion
to his interests with regard to Prince Djalma. He has only to say: 'Kill
him!'and this son of a king--"
"For heaven's salve, do not have such ideas!" cried the voice,
interrupting the man in the cloak. "Thank heaven, you will never be asked
for such proofs of your submission."
"What I am ordered I do. Bowanee sees me."
"I do not doubt your zeal. I know that you are a loving and intelligent
barrier, placed between the prince and many guilty interests; and it is
because I have heard of that zeal, of your skill in circumventing this
young Indian, and, above all, of the motives of your blind devotion, that
I have wished to inform you of everything. You are the fanatical
worshipper of him you serve. That is well; man should be the obedient
slave of the god he chooses for himself."
"Yes, my lord; so long as the god remains a god."
"We understand each other perfectly. As for your recompense, you know
what I have promised."
"My lord, I have my reward already."
"How so?"
"I know what I know."
"Very well. Then as for secrecy--"
"You have securities, my lord."
"Yes--and sufficient ones."
"The interest of the cause I serve, my lord, would alone be enough to
secure my zeal and discretion."
"True; you are a man of firm and ardent convictions."
"I strive to be so, my lord."
"And, after all, a very religious man in your way. It is very
praiseworthy, in these irreligious times, to have any views at all on
such matters--particularly when those views will just enable me to count
upon your aid."
"You may count upon it, my lord, for the same reason that the intrepid
hunter prefers a jackal to ten foxes, a tiger to ten jackals, a lion to
ten tigers, and the welmiss to ten lions."
"What is the welmiss?"
"It is what spirit is to matter, the blade to the scabbard, the perfume
to the flower, the head to the body."
"I understand. There never was a more just comparison. You are a man of
sound judgment. Always recollect what you have just told me, and make
yourself more and more worthy of the confidence of--your idol."
"Will he soon be in a state to hear me, my lord?"
"In two or three days, at most. Yesterday a providential crisis saved his
life; and he is endowed with so energetic a will, that his cure will be
very rapid."
"Shall you see him again to-morrow, my lord?"
"Yes, before my departure, to bid him farewell."
"Then tell him a strange circumstance, of which I have not been able to
inform him, but which happened yesterday."
"What was it?"
"I had gone to the garden of the dead. I saw funerals everywhere, and
lighted torches, in the midst of the black night, shining upon tombs.
Bowanee smiled in her ebon sky. As I thought of that divinity of
destruction, I beheld with joy the dead-cart emptied of its coffins. The
immense pit yawned like the mouth of hell; corpses were heaped upon
corpses, and still it yawned the same. Suddenly, by the light of a torch,
I saw an old man beside me. He wept. I had seen him before. He is a
Jew--the keeper of the house in the Rue Saint-Francois--you know what I
mean." Here the man in the cloak started.
"Yes, I know; but what is the matter? why do you stop short?"
"Because in that house there has been for a hundred and fifty years the
portrait of a man whom I once met in the centre of India, on the banks of
the Ganges." And the man in the cloak again paused and shuddered.
"A singular resemblance, no doubt."
"Yes, my lord, a singular resemblance--nothing more."
"But the Jew--the old Jew?"
"I am coming to that, my lord. Still weeping, he said to a gravedigger,
'Well! and the coffin?' 'You were right,' answered the man; 'I found it
in the second row of the other grave. It had the figure of a cross on it,
formed by seven black nails. But how could you know the place and the
mark?' 'Alas! it is no matter,' replied the old Jew, with bitter
melancholy. 'You see that I was but too well informed on the subject. But
where is the coffin?' 'Behind the great tomb of black marble; I have
hidden it there. So make haste; for, in the confusion, nothing will be
noticed. You have paid me well, and I wish you to succeed in what you
require.'"
"And what did the old Jew do with the coffin marked with the seven black
nails?"
"Two men accompanied him, my lord, bearing a covered litter, with
curtains drawn round it. He lighted a lantern, and, followed by these two
men, went towards the place pointed out by the gravedigger. A stoppage,
occasioned by the dead-carts, made me lose sight of the old Jew, whom I
was following amongst the tombs. Afterwards I was unable to find him."
"It is indeed a strange affair. What could this old Jew want with the
coffin?"
"It is said, my lord, that they use dead bodies in preparing their magic
charms."
"Those unbelievers are capable of anything--even of holding communication
with the Enemy of mankind. However, we will look after this: the
discovery may be of importance."
At this instant a clock struck twelve in the distance.
"Midnight! already?"
"Yes, my lord."
"I must be gone. Good-bye--but for the last time swear to me that, should
matters so turn out, as soon as you receive the other half of the ivory
crucifix I have just given you, you will keep your promise."
"I have sworn it by Bowanee, my lord."
"Don't forget that, to make all sure, the person who will deliver to you
the other half of the crucifix is to say--come, what is he to say?"
"He is to say, my lord: 'There is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the
lip.'"
"Very well. Adieu! secrecy and fidelity!"
"Secrecy and fidelity, my lord," answered the man in the cloak.
Some seconds after the hackney-coach started, carrying with it Cardinal
Malipieri, one of the speakers in the above dialogue. The other, whom the
reader has no doubt recognized as Faringhea, returned to the little
garden-door of the house occupied by Djalma. At the moment he was putting
the key into the lock, the door opened, to his great astonishment, and a
man came forth. Faringhea rushed upon the unknown, seized him violently
by the collar, and exclaimed: "Who are you? whence came you?"
The stranger evidently found the tone of this question anything but
satisfactory; for, instead of answering, he struggled to disengage
himself from Faringhea's hold, and cried out, in a loud voice: "Help!
Peter!"
Instantly the carriage, which had been standing a few yards off, dashed
up at full speed, and Peter, the tall footman, seizing the half-breed by
the shoulders, flung him back several paces, and thus made a seasonable
diversion in favor of the unknown.
"Now, sir," said the latter to Faringhea, shaking himself, and still
protected by the gigantic footman, "I am in a state to answer your
questions, though you certainly have a very rough way of receiving an old
acquaintance. I am Dupont, ex-bailiff of the estate of Cardoville, and it
was I who helped to fish you out of the water, when the ship was wrecked
in which you had embarked."
By the light of the carriage-lamps, indeed, the half-caste recognized the
good, honest face of Dupont, formerly bailiff, and now house-steward, to
Mdlle. de Cardoville. It must not be forgotten that Dupont had been the
first to write to Mdlle. de Cardoville, to ask her to interest herself
for Djalma, who was then detained at Cardoville Castle by the injuries he
had received during the shipwreck.
"But, sir, what is your business here? Why do you introduce yourself
clandestinely into this house?" said Faringhea, in an abrupt and
suspicious tone.
"I will--just observe to you that there is nothing clandestine in the
matter. I came here in a carriage, with servants in the livery of my
excellent mistress, Mdlle. de Cardoville, charged by her, without any
disguise or mystery, to deliver a letter to Prince Djalma, her cousin,"
replied Dupont, with dignity.
On these words, Faringhea trembled with mute rage, as he answered: "And
why, sir, come at this late hour, and introduce yourself by this little
door?"
"I came at this hour, my dear sir, because such was Mdlle. de
Cardoville's command, and I entered by this little gate because there is
every reason to believe that if I had gone around to the other I should
not have been permitted to see the prince."
"You are mistaken, sir," replied the half-caste.
"It is possible: but as we knew that the prince usually passed a good
portion of the night in the little saloon, which communicates with the
greenhouse, and as Mdlle. de Cardoville had kept a duplicate key of this
door, I was pretty certain, by taking this course, to be able to deliver
into the prince's own hands the letter from Mdlle. de Cardoville, his
cousin, which I have now had the honor of doing, my dear sir; and I have
been deeply touched by the kindness with which the prince deigned to
receive me and to remember our last interview."
"And who kept you so well informed, sir, of the prince's habits?" said
Faringhea, unable to control his vexation.
"If I have been well informed as to his habits, my dear sir, I have had
no such correct knowledge of yours," answered Dupont, with a mocking air;
"for I assure you that I had no more notion of seeing you than you had of
seeing me."
So saying, M. Dupont bowed with something like mock politeness to the
half-caste, and got into the carriage, which drove off rapidly, leaving
Faringhea in a state of the utmost surprise and anger.