[Illustration:
CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART
Fifth Series
ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832
CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)
NO. 144.—VOL. III. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1886. PRICE 1½_d._]
TRUTH IN THE MARVELLOUS.
Antiquarian research, conducted in the prosaic spirit of the present
day, has dealt cruel blows at many time-honoured traditions. We are
taught that the story of the siege of Troy was a mere romance—that
Troy itself never existed; that Arthur’s Round Table was a myth; that
the accidental appearance of a Countess’s garter at a ball was not
responsible for the institution of the highest order of knighthood;
that a certain other Countess never freed the citizens of Coventry by
riding through their streets with innocence for her only dress; that
the Maid of Orleans was never burned, but married, and lived happy ever
afterwards. We hardly know what historic relation we are to be allowed
to believe. While, however, historical inquiry has discredited many
pleasant stories, hard science has come to the aid of romance, and
has testified to the veracity of some narrators who have been accused
of imposing on the credulity of the ignorant and superstitious by the
relation of wonders unworthy of credence in enlightened times. The
stories of the appearance in the heavens of blazing sceptres, fiery
serpents, and swords of fire dipped in blood, when read in the light of
the calm and unbiased observations of some meteors in recent times, are
descriptions of physical phenomena sufficiently rare to be accounted
supernatural by nations whose acquaintance with the heavenly bodies
did not extend beyond the regular movements of the sun, moon, and
planets. There is no doubt that the authors of these accounts related
truthfully what they saw, employing the language which best conveyed
their impressions.
With what awe the visit of a meteorite may be regarded, even in this
nineteenth century, by unlearned country-folk, may be gathered from the
account of one which fell at Juvenas, in Ardèche, on the 15th of June
1821, and which formed the subject of a curious _procès verbal_ drawn
up by the mayor of the commune. It was first seen at three P.M. as a
fireball, in a clear sky, while the sun was shining brightly; and it
sunk five feet into the ground. The inhabitants were so alarmed, that
it was more than a week before they could make up their minds to search
for this strange visitant. ‘They deliberated for a long time whether
they should go armed to undertake this operation, which appeared so
dangerous; but Claude Serre, the sexton, justly observed that if it was
the Evil One, neither powder nor arms would prevail against him—that
holy-water would be more effectual; and that he would undertake to make
the evil spirit fly;’ after which reassuring speech, they set to work
and dug up the aërolite, which weighed over two hundred pounds.
We read in the classic poets that on certain momentous occasions,
statues have been so affected as to perspire, as if they were living
human beings. These stories have been passed over as mere poetic
fictions; but probably they rest on a substantial foundation. The
phenomenon is doubtless that which is observed when a fire has been
lighted for the first time in a room which has for a lengthened
period been allowed to remain cold: the walls and other objects are
seen to run down with moisture, which appears as if exuded from their
surface. The same thing occurs when a long-continued frost is succeeded
by mild weather. The appearance is familiar enough to us, who are
accustomed to sudden variations of temperature; but in warmer and more
equable climates, the requisite conditions are probably rare; and the
appearance of copious moisture on statues composed of substances on
which dew is not commonly found, may well have been accounted a prodigy.
We may not be disposed to admit that the fiery cross seen by
Constantine was a miraculous intimation; but we cannot set aside the
account as necessarily apocryphal; for a celestial cross was seen
in Migné, near Poitiers, in December 1826. It was observed during a
religious service, and the preacher in his sermon had referred to the
cross of Constantine. The awe-struck congregation, on perceiving
the visible cross in the sky, of shining silver, edged with red,
immediately fell upon their knees, accepting the sign as a divine
testimony to the truth of what had just been told them. The source of
the phenomenon was afterwards found in a wooden cross which had been
erected near the chapel, the shadow of which had been cast by the
declining sun on a rising mist.
The Flying Dutchman was obviously another instance of atmospheric
reflection, and similar phantom ships have been described by modern
travellers. The Enchanted Island, or Isle of Ghosts, which had its
place in old charts in the mid-Atlantic, and so perplexed the mariners
of the middle ages by its varying appearance, defying all attempts to
reach its shores, has since been recognised as a fogbank.
Among the wonders recorded in the reign of William Rufus, it is said
that on a night in 1095, the stars seemed falling like a shower of rain
from heaven to earth, or, according to the Chronicle of Reims, were
driven like dust before the wind. A tradition is recorded as prevailing
in Thessaly that on a certain night in August the heavens were opened
and burning torches were seen through the aperture. These are clearly
but highly coloured accounts, by persons of limited knowledge of
natural phenomena, of specially brilliant displays of shooting-stars.
The last corresponds with the August meteors.
Bartholin, in his _History of Anatomy_, speaks of a patrician lady of
Verona, Catherine, wife of J. Franciscus Rambaldus, whose skin sparkled
with fire when slightly touched. ‘This noble lady,’ he says, ‘the
Creator endued with so stupendous a dignity and prerogative of nature,
that as oft as her body was but lightly touched with linen, sparks flew
out plentifully from her limbs, apparent to her domestic servants, as
if they had been struck out of a flint, accompanied also with a noise
that was to be heard by all. Oftentimes, when she rubbed her hands
upon the sleeve of her smock that contained the sparks within it, she
observed a flame with a tailed ray running about, as fired exhalations
are wont to do.... This fire was not to be seen but in the dark or in
the night, nor did it burn without itself, though combustible matter
was applied to it.’ This description of electric sparks is such as
would be given by a person who saw the phenomenon for the first time
and was ignorant of its cause. The same appearance is sometimes seen
by persons of the present generation when divesting themselves of
tight-fitting underclothing, and especially when combing their hair
with a vulcanite comb; but probably it shows itself only with persons
of peculiar constitution.
It is hardly necessary to advert to the part which comets have played
in the annals of supernatural manifestations. In classic times, however
low the state of knowledge may have been in other departments of
physical science, the celestial bodies were never without intelligent
observers, and the ancient astronomers no doubt acknowledged comets
as having their place in the planetary or sidereal economy. But this
knowledge was confined to the learned; to the common people, comets
were chariots of fire conveying departed heroes to the abode of
demigods. A splendid comet luckily appeared after the death of Julius
Cæsar, and confirmed his title to divine honours. In the dark ages,
comets were celestial portents, presages of revolution or pestilence.
Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was accounted
profane scepticism to attribute their appearance to natural causes;
and even as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century, we find
an intelligent writer on the natural curiosities of the world adopting
the view that these bodies are not allowed to appear except with the
special permission of Divine providence, for a specific purpose,
in opposition to the theories of astronomers, who are twitted with
assigning long periods to the orbits of comets in order that the
predictions of their reappearance may not be falsified in the lifetime
of the persons making them.
Whether it was owing to the improved means of spreading intelligence
afforded by the invention of printing, or to the excitement of men’s
minds consequent upon the political and social events of the time,
the sixteenth century was prolific in stories of wonderful sights in
the heavens and on the earth. Of the many marvellous accounts then
circulated, we select the following, which forms the subject of a tract
by Abraham Fleming, and purports to have been taken from the evidence
of eye-witnesses. The account is titled, ‘A Straunge and Terrible
Wunder wrought very late in the Parish Church of Bungay—namely, the
fourth of this August in the yeere of Our Lord 1577 ... with the
appearance of an horrible shaped thing sensibly perceived of the people
then and there assembled.’ The account is couched in terms appropriate
to the solemnity of a special manifestation from the spiritual
world, and is interspersed with ejaculations expressive of the awe
which filled the people’s minds at their witnessing the occurrences
described; but the incidents, briefly told, are as follows: A storm of
extraordinary fury was raging while the congregation were assembled at
divine service; rain came down like a deluge, lightning flashed, and
thunder pealed, so that not only dumb creatures were disquieted, but
‘senseless things void of all life and feeling shook and trembled;’
in other words, the fabric and furniture of the building were shaken
by the violence of the storm. While the tempest was at its height, a
visitor from the lower regions (as the narrator evidently believed)
made his appearance in the midst of the congregation, in the form,
‘as they might discerne it,’ of a dog, of a black colour; ‘the sight
whereof, together with the fearful flashes of fire which then were
seene, moved such admiration in the mindes of the assemblie that
they thought doome’s day was already come.’ The ‘Evil One in such a
likenesse’ ran with extraordinary speed down the body of the church
among the people. Passing between two persons who were on their knees
apparently engaged in prayer, he wrung the necks of both of them
in an instant, so that they died where they knelt. As he passed by
another man he ‘gave him such a gripe on the back that therewithal
he was presently drawen togither and shrunk up as it were a piece of
lether scorched in a hot fire; or as the mouth of a purse or bag drawn
togither with a string.’ This man, however, did not die. Meanwhile,
the parish clerk, who was cleaning out the gutter of the church, also
saw the ‘horrible shaped thing,’ and was struck to the ground with
a violent clap of thunder, but beyond his fall, was not harmed. The
stones of the church and the church door, on being afterwards examined,
bore evidence of the power of the demon in the marks of his claws or
talons; and all the wires, the wheels, and other things belonging to
the clock, were wrung in sunder and broken in pieces.
A similar occurrence is stated to have been witnessed the same day at
Blibery, a village seven miles from Bungay. In this case, the demon
planted himself upon the rood-loft, from which he flung himself down
into the church, and after killing two men and a lad, and burning the
hand of another person, flew out of the church ‘in a hideous likeness.’
Before dismissing this story as a fable, bred of the imagination of
people terror-stricken by the storm, let us compare it with the account
of an occurrence which took place on Malvern Hills on the 1st of July
1826. A party had taken refuge in an iron-roofed hut from an impending
storm, and were about to partake of refreshment when the storm came on.
A gentleman who was standing at the eastern entrance—the storm had come
from the west—saw what seemed to him to be a ball of fire moving along
the surface of the ground. It came up and entered the hut, forcing him,
as it did so, several paces forward from the doorway. An explosion
followed, described by the inhabitants of the village at the foot of
the hill (Great Malvern) as terrific. On going in, as soon as he had
recovered from the shock, to look after his sisters, he found them on
the floor, fainting, as he thought, from terror. Two of them had died
instantly; and a third lady, with others of the party, were injured.
An examination of the hut showed a large crack in the side opposite to
that at which the fireball had entered, leading up to a window, and the
iron roof above this was indented.
The correspondence of the leading circumstances of this account with
Fleming’s story is remarkable; and had the Malvern incident occurred
in the superstitious sixteenth century instead of the scientific
nineteenth, it would no doubt have been regarded as a supernatural
visitation, and have furnished just such a marvellous story as that of
Bungay. In both cases, something was seen to enter a building during
a thunderstorm, killing two persons instantly and injuring others,
disappearing with a noise described in the one case as a violent clap
of thunder, and in the other as a terrific explosion, and leaving
behind visible marks of its progress in the material of the building.
In each instance, too, a person stationed outside saw something which
drove him from his place, but otherwise did not harm him; and in both
cases the body, whatever it was, which seemed to be the immediate
source of the mischief had a progressive motion, which, though swift,
could be followed by the eye. The chief point of difference is in
the appearance presented by the vehicle of the destructive agent.
In the one case it is likened to a black dog, and in the other to a
ball of fire, and it may be said that no two things could be more
unlike. As to the form of the so-called dog, little need be said.
It is admitted that the church at the time was in such a state of
‘palpable darknesse’ that one person could not perceive another; and
in the dark, any ill-defined object that can be perceived at all has a
tendency to assume a fantastic shape. It was accompanied by ‘fearful
flashes of fire,’ which seem to be distinguished from the lightning,
and the effect on those who were touched by it was that of scorching or
burning. Whether the vehicle which brought the destructive force into
the church, and which was thought to be a fiend, was a mass of highly
charged smoke or dust, or a miniature cloud of the kind which, on a
grand scale, passed over Malta on the 29th of October 1757, the effects
described correspond so entirely with those known to result from a
particular kind of thunderstroke, that we cannot accuse the author of
writing otherwise than in good faith. The supernatural colouring may
fairly be ascribed to want of knowledge in regard to a subject which,
even now, is but imperfectly understood. The Malta storm-cloud, which
destroyed nearly two hundred lives, and laid in ruins almost everything
in its way, is described by Brydone as being at first black, afterwards
changing its colour till it became like a flame of fire mixed with
black smoke; but he reports that despite the scientific explanations
of this extraordinary storm-cloud, the people declared with one voice
that it was a legion of demons let loose to punish them for their sins.
There were, says he, a thousand people in Malta that were ready to take
their oath that they saw the fiends within the cloud, ‘all as black as
pitch, and breathing out fire and brimstone.’
Besides those mentioned above, many other strange stories might be
instanced which, at the time, were accepted as true accounts of
supernatural appearances; and afterwards, when the general belief in
spiritual manifestations declined, were denounced as false, because
contrary to nature, but have since been recognised as consistent with
natural laws. By taking into account the surrounding circumstances,
the state of knowledge at the time, the customary modes of expression,
&c., we may, from many stories at first sight incredible, arrive at
a substratum of truth which may form a valuable addition to the sum
of human knowledge. Imbued with a sense of their own superior wisdom,
learned men, and others who have thought themselves learned, have
sometimes rashly pronounced as impossible, and therefore untrue,
phenomena which have since been accepted as facts. In Arago’s _Popular
Astronomy_ is an account of a meteorite which struck the earth at Lucé,
in the year 1769. It was perceived in the sky by several persons, who
watched its progress until it reached the surface of the earth, when
it was at once picked up and preserved; but the Academy of Sciences
pronounced it impossible for a solid body to have fallen from the
heavens. On the 24th of July 1790, a quantity of these stones fell at
St Juliac—in the fields, on the roofs of the houses, and in the streets
of the village. The fall was preceded by what is described as the
passing of a great fire, after which was heard in the air a very loud
and extraordinary noise. The facts were certified by the municipality
of the place and by some hundreds of the inhabitants; but the affair
was treated in the public journals as a ridiculous tale, calculated
to excite the compassion not merely of savants, but of all reasonable
persons.
Modern scientific research, while continually giving us fresh
revelations of that order in nature which is its supreme law, is at the
same time constantly narrowing the domain of the impossible. Even the
wild dreams of the alchemist appear, to the chemist and physicist of
to-day, less groundless than they did eighty or a hundred years ago.
The present century, the age of the railway, the electric light, the
telegraph and telephone, is certainly not less replete with marvels
than any of its predecessors. Many of the achievements of applied
science, to which we have now become habituated, if they could have
been related to a person living in the middle ages, would make as
great demands upon his credulity as the most wonderful stories of past
times do upon ours, and problems which have baffled the genius of all
past ages, and the insolvability of which had come to be regarded as
a matter of faith, have been solved in our own time. And yet we have
no ground for assuming that we have approached a limit in the field of
discovery, or for claiming finality in our interpretations of nature.
We have lifted a corner of the curtain, and are enabled to peep at some
of the machinery by which her operations are effected, but much more
remains concealed, and we know not what marvels may yet in course of
time be made clear to us. There are doubtless more things in heaven and
earth than are dreamt of—even in our philosophy.
BY ORDER OF THE LEAGUE.
BY FRED. M. WHITE.
IN TWENTY CHAPTERS.—CHAP. IV.
Five years have passed away, bringing strange changes and startling
revolutions—years, to some, fraught with misery and regret; years,
to others, which have been pregnant with fame and honour; but to the
suffering, patient world, only another step nearer to eternity. Five
years later, and night in the small German town where honour is wrecked
and lives are lost on the hazard of a die. The Kursaal at Homburg
sparkling with the glitter of ten thousand lights. Men of all nations
were gathered there, drawn together by the strongest cords which
bind human destiny—the power of gold. No type of face was wanting;
no passion, no emotion that the human visage is capable of, but had
its being there: rage, despair, misery, exultation—the whole gamut of
man’s passions and triumphs. Women were there too. The bluest-blood
recorded in the _Almanach de Gotha_ did not disdain to rub elbows with
the last fancy from the Comédie Française; my lord, cold, indifferent,
and smiling, sat side by side with the reckless plunger who would have
bartered his honour, had that commodity remained to him, for the gold
to place upon the colour. On the long green tables, the glittering
coins fell with a subdued chink sweeter than the finest music to the
hungry ears; a republic the most perfect in the universe, where rich
and poor alike are welcomed, with one great destiny—to lose or to gain.
There were no wild lamentations there; such vulgar exhibitions were out
of place, though feeling cannot be disguised under the deepest mask,
for a tremor of the eyelid, a flash of the eye, a convulsive movement
of the fingers, betray poor human nature. As the game proceeded
with the monotonous cry of the croupier, it was awful to watch the
intentness of the faces, how they deepened in interest as the game was
made, bending forward till at length ‘Rouge perd et couleur’ came from
the level voice again.
The croupiers raked in the glittering stacks of gold, silently,
swiftly, but with as much emotion as a child would gather cowslips, and
threw the winning on each stake as calmly, knowing full well that in
the flight of time it must return. The piles were raked up, and then
arose a murmur, a confusion of tongues, reminding the spectator of what
the bewilderment at Babel must have been, a clamour which died away to
silence at the inthralling ‘Faites votre jeu.’
How the hands clawed at the sparkling treasure; eager, trembling
avarice in every finger-tip; from the long, lean, yellow claw of the
old withered gamester, to the plump little hand of the bride, who is
trying her fortune with silver, fearful lest, driven by despair, some
less fortunate player should lay felonious fingers upon the piled-up
treasure.
Standing behind the all-absorbed group was a young man with pale,
almost ghostly features, and a heavy dark moustache. From his attitude
and smile, it was hard to say how fortune had served him, for his face
was void of any emotion. He held one piece of gold in his hand, placed
it on a colour, waited, and lost. A trifling movement of his lips,
pressed tightly together under the dark moustache—that was all. Then
for a moment he hesitated, pondered, and suddenly, as if to settle
the matter quickly, he detached a coin from his watchchain and leaned
forward again. Under him, seated at the table, was a woman winning
steadily. A pile of gold was before her; she was evidently in the
luckiest vein. The man, with all a gambler’s superstition, placed the
coin in her hand. ‘Stake for me,’ he whispered; ‘you have the luck.’
Mechanically, she took the proffered coin, and turned it in her hand;
then suddenly a wave of crimson, succeeded by a deathly whiteness, came
across her face. She held the coin, then put it carefully aside, and
staked another in its place. Then, apparently forgetting her emotion
in the all-absorbing interest of the game, she looked at the table.
‘Rouge gagne, et couleur perd,’ came the chant of the croupier. The
stakes were raked in, and the money lost. Under his breath, the man
uttered a fervent imprecation, slightly shrugged his shoulders, and
turned to watch the game again. From that moment the woman lost; her
pile dwindled away to one coin beyond the piece of metal tendered her
to stake, but still she played on, the man behind watching her play
intently. A little varying luck, at one moment a handful of napoleons,
at another, reduced to one, the game proceeded. At length the last but
one was gone, save the piece tendered to her by the man behind the
chair; that she never parted with. As she sat there, words came to her
ears vaguely—the voice of the man behind her, and every time he spoke
she shivered, as if a cold breath were passing through her heart. A
temporary run of luck came to her aid, and so she sat, listening and
playing.
The new-comer was another man, evidently an Italian, fine, strong, with
an open face and dark passionate eyes. He touched the first man upon
the shoulder lightly, speaking in excellent English.
There were four actors there, playing, had they but known it, a ghastly
tragedy. The two men were players; the listening woman was another; and
across the table, behind the spectators, stood a girl. She had a dark
southern face of great beauty—a face cleanly chiselled, and lighted by
a pair of wondrous black eyes—eyes bent upon the two men and the woman,
playing now with the keenest interest. She shrank back a little as the
new-comer entered, and her breath came a little quicker; but there she
stayed, watching and waiting for some opportunity. Her look boded ill
for some one. Meanwhile, the unconscious actors fixed their attention
on the game. The last arrival touched the other man upon the elbow
again, a little roughly this time.
‘You have been playing again, Hector?’ he said.
‘I have been playing my friend—yes. It is not in my nature to be in
such a place without. What would you have me do, Luigi? I am dying of
ennui from this inaction—kicking up my heels here waiting for orders.’
‘I should have thought you could have found something better to occupy
your time,’ the man addressed as Luigi returned. ‘Our work is too
stern, too holy, to be shared with such frivolity as this. Gold, gold,
with no thoughts of anything but this maddening scramble!’
‘My dear Luigi, pray, control yourself. Are you not aware that this
sort of thing has been done to death? Do not, as you love me, descend
to the level of the descriptive journalist, who comes over here to coin
his superlative condemnatory adjectives into money—to lose at this very
interesting game. John Bull holds up his hands in horror as he reads
the description in his _Telegraph_, and then he comes to try his luck
himself. I, Hector le Gautier, have seen a bishop here.’
‘How fond you are of the sound of your own voice,’ Luigi Salvarini
returned. ‘Come outside; I have something important to say to you.’
‘Something connected with the League, I suppose,’ Le Gautier yawned.
‘If it was not yourself I was talking to, I should say, confusion to
the League.’
‘How rash you are!’ Salvarini returned in a low tone, accompanied by
an admiring glance at his companion. ‘Consider what one word spoken
lightly might mean to you. The attendants here, the croupier even,
might be a Number in the League.’
‘Very likely,’ Le Gautier replied carelessly; ‘but it is not probable
that, if I should whisper the magic words in his ear, he would give
me credit for a few napoleons. I am in no mood for business to-night,
Luigi; and if you are the good fellow I take you for, you will lend
me’——
‘One Brother must always aid another according to his means, says the
decree. But, alas! I have nothing.—I came to you with the intention’——
‘Oh, did you?’ Le Gautier asked sardonically. ‘Then, in that case, I
must look elsewhere; a few francs is all my available capital.’
‘Hector,’ the Italian exclaimed suddenly, in a hoarse whisper,
‘where is the?’—— He did not finish his sentence, but pointed to the
watchchain the other was idly twirling in his fingers.
Le Gautier smiled sarcastically. ‘It is gone,’ he said lightly—‘gone
to swell the bloated coffers of the bank. Fortune, alas! had no favour
even for that mystic coin. Sacred as it should have been, I am its
proud possessor no more.’
‘You are mad, utterly mad!’ Salvarini exclaimed. ‘If it were but
known—if it has fallen into the hands of the bank, or a croupier
happens to have a Number, think of what it means to you! The coin would
be forwarded to the Central Council; the signs would be called in;
yours missing’——
‘And one of these admirable German daggers would make acquaintance with
my estimable person, with no consolation but the fact of knowing what a
handsome corpse I shall make. Bah! A man can only die once, and so long
as they do not make me the posthumous hero of a horrible tragedy, I do
not care. It is not so very serious, my Luigi.’
‘It _is_ serious; you know it is,’ Luigi retorted. ‘No Brother of the
League would have had the sublime audacity, the reckless courage’——
‘L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace,’ Le Gautier returned. ‘I sigh
for new temptations; the sight of the gaming-table is to me what the
smell of battle afar off is to the war-horse. I came here intending to
risk a louis; I have lost everything. There is nothing like courage at
the tables; and as it had a spice of danger in it, I risked’——
‘Your life! You do not seem to comprehend the danger.’
‘But, my dear friend, it is exactly that spice of danger that gives the
thing its nameless charm. Come, you are hipped, out of sorts. You see
the duties of the Order in every action; you see the uplifting of the
avenging dagger in every shadow that trembles on the wall. Be a man!’
‘I am all the more disturbed,’ Salvarini observed with moody, uneasy
face, ‘that the orders have come. That is the principal reason I am
here to look for you. We are translated to London.’
‘That is good news, at anyrate,’ Le Gautier exclaimed briskly. ‘I have
been literally dying to get back there. By the bright eyes of Enid——
What is that?’
Above the clamour of tongues and the rattle of the gold pieces, a low
laugh was heard distinctly close to the speaker’s elbow. He turned
sharply round; but there was no one within a few feet of them.
Apparently, it had not disturbed the inthralled players, though the
croupier swept his cold eye around to discover the author of this
unseemly mirth.
‘Strange!’ Le Gautier observed. ‘I seem to have heard that laugh
before, though I cannot remember where.’
‘And so have I,’ Salvarini whispered hoarsely—‘only once, and I hope
that I may never hear it again. It is horrible!’
Le Gautier looked at his companion, amazed to see the agitation
pictured on his face. It was white and drawn, as if with some inward
pain. Salvarini wiped his damp brow as he met the other’s piercing
gaze, and tried to still the trembling of his limbs.
‘A passing fancy,’ he explained—‘a fancy which called up a remembrance
of my boyhood, the recollection of a vengeance as yet unpaid.—But I am
idling; let us get outside. The orders have come, as I tell you, for
London. We are to meet the Head Centre at the old address.’
‘And how did the orders come?’ Le Gautier asked.
‘The old mysterious way,’ was the impatient reply; ‘secrecy and
darkness; no trust in any one, however worthy he may have proved—the
old suspicion, which drags us down, and holds our hands even in the
act of striking. I found them on my table when I got in. You and I are
to get to London, and there await orders. Our instructions bear the
crossed daggers, indicating extreme secrecy and a mission of great
danger.’
In spite of his _sang froid_, Le Gautier could not repress a slight
start; and a smile of covert sarcasm, pity almost, rose to his lips as
he looked in his companion’s eager, enthusiastic face; the same sort
of pity the sharper feels for his unconscious victim when he has him
within the toils. Not that the younger man noticed this; his eyes were
full of some far-away project, something noble, by their expression.
‘The old story of the monkey and the chestnuts,’ Le Gautier observed
with his most sinister smile; ‘the puppets run the risk, and the Head
Centres get the glory. If we fall, it is in freedom’s name. That is
sufficient epitaph for us poor, silly, fluttering moths.’
‘But the glory of it!’ Salvarini cried—‘think of that!’
‘The glory, yes—the glory of a felon’s grave! The glory lies in the
uncertainty. What do we gain, you and I, by the removal of crowned
heads? When the last tyrant fell at our leader’s dictate, how much did
we benefit by the blow? He was not a bad man; for a king, he was just.’
‘You are in a bitter mood, to-night, Hector,’ Salvarini answered.
‘What will you say when I tell you the appointment has come with your
nomination as a Deputy, with a seat at the Council of the Crimson Nine?’
‘My appointment at last! You are joking, Luigi. Surely they had need of
better men than I. What of La Fontaine?’
‘Dead,’ Salvarini responded grimly. ‘Treachery was suspected, and it
was necessary to remove him.—But what I tell you is true; you are
ordered to be present at the next Council at Warsaw, two months hence,
when you will give up your badge as an Avenger, and take the premier
order.’
‘And I have staked it to-night on the hazard of a die!’ Le Gautier
exclaimed, pallid even beyond his usual deathly whiteness. ‘Fool, fool
that I was! How can I prevent it becoming known? I am undone!’
‘You do not know the worst,’ Salvarini replied. ‘Come closer, and let
me whisper in your ears; even the walls carry such tidings. The Supreme
Director is here!’
Le Gautier turned faint and sick as he looked furtively round the room,
with its long mirrors and barbaric splendour.
‘Suppose you lend me yours?’ he suggested. ‘You will not want it now.
What a mad fool I have been! I wonder if there is any way of recovering
it? for I must have it, come what will. With a penalty of’——
‘Death!’
The word, abruptly, sternly uttered, was followed by the same low
mocking laugh they had heard before. They looked around in alarm, but
no trace of any one could be seen. Standing in the recess of a window,
they looked out; but no sign of the mysterious warning, so strangely
given.
‘Let us get away from this,’ Le Gautier groaned. ‘I am stifled! Come
outside into the open air. My nerves must be unstrung to-night.’
They walked out through the high folding-doors, and disappeared in
the darkness. As they left, the woman who had been playing rose from
her seat and followed them. Apparently, she was too late, for they
had vanished; and with a sigh, she abandoned her evident intention,
turning into the Kursaal gardens and throwing herself into a seat.
Directly she quitted the saloon, the woman with the dark eyes followed,
and tracked the other to the quiet retreat. For some time she stood
behind the shadow of a tree, watching her. It was a brilliant moonlight
night—clear, calm, and peaceful. Without there, the lighted windows of
the gambling saloon could be seen; and ever and anon the murmur of the
croupier, the scrape of the rakes, and the subdued clink of the gold,
might be heard. But the figure on the seat did not heed these things;
she was looking at a coin in her hand, making out as she best could the
devices that it bore, strange and puzzling to her.
It was merely a gold coin, in fine a moidore of Portugal; and upon the
reverse side, the figure had been rubbed down, and an emblem engraved
in its place. There was a figure of Liberty gazing at a rising sun,
her foot upon a prostrate dead body, and underneath the words, ‘I
strike.’ Over the rising sun, in tiny letters, was the device, ‘In
Freedom’s name;’ and at the top, two letters in a monogram. The seated
figure noted these things, but, from the expression on her face, they
represented nothing to her. Behind the shadow of the tree, the watcher
crept closer and closer, trying in vain to get a glimpse of the golden
coin. As the seated figure bent over it, tears began to gather in
her eyes, overflowing at last, and the passion of sorrow seemed to
rise, till her frame was shaken with the sobs she did not strive to
master. The woman looking on stepped out from her shelter and crossed
the open grass to the other’s side. Her face, on the contrary, was
eager, almost hopeful, as she bent forward and touched the weeper on
the shoulder. She looked up, surprise mastering her grief for a brief
moment.
ARMY PANICS: BY ONE WHO HAS BEEN IN THEM.
Few men have gone through a campaign of any duration without having
experienced some one or more of those strange incidents of warfare
which are known under the name of Panics. Those who have been in them
know but too well their peculiarity—how a sudden access of fear seizing
upon a body of troops, and communicating itself from man to man with
a rapidity that can only be compared to a conflagration in a city
built of wood, spreads so quickly that it is impossible to detect its
cause, and the coolest observer cannot tell whence the contagion had
its origin. Amongst raw levies or young and inexperienced soldiery,
such panics are naturally more frequent than amongst tried troops; but
history tells us that even the oldest veterans are not proof against
their attack.
Napier, in his _Peninsular War_, devotes but some eight or nine lines
to an account of the most remarkable recorded incident of this nature,
in which Robert Crauford’s celebrated Light Division—consisting
of those three distinguished regiments, the 43d, the 52d, and the
95th—were seized and put to flight by an attack of fear so sudden and
causeless that the historian makes no attempt whatever to ascribe
a reason for it. ‘The Light Division,’ he writes, ‘encamped in a
pinewood, where happened one of those extraordinary panics attributed
in ancient times to the influence of a god. No enemy was near, no alarm
given, when suddenly the troops, as if seized with a frenzy, started
from sleep and disappeared in every direction; nor was there any
possibility of allaying this strange terror, until some persons called
out that the enemy’s cavalry were amongst them, when the soldiers
mechanically ran together, and the illusion was dissipated.’ It seems
odd that so diffuse a writer should have seen fit to say so little of
so extraordinary an occurrence, more especially when we remember that
this same Light Division was the flower of the British army in the
Peninsula, and that he writes of it not many pages before as ‘composed
of three regiments singularly fitted for difficult service. Long and
carefully disciplined by Sir John Moore, they came to the field with
such a knowledge of arms, that six years of warfare could not detect
a flaw in their system, nor were they ever overmatched in courage and
skill.’
The public has been made acquainted with a goodly number of panics
during the last few years, the military annals of which have been
so replete with the warlike operations of the British arms. Many of
us have thrown up our hands and sighed over the decadence of the
pristine virtue of our soldiers, or prophesied darkly the downfall
of the whole British race. The reason why the world nowadays is more
familiar with many of the shortcomings and failings of our troops is
not very difficult to find. As, before Agamemnon, lived many brave
men whose virtues have not been handed down, so too, perhaps, many
little indiscretions on the part of the soldiers of Marlborough and
Wellington have passed into oblivion through want of a ‘special war
correspondent.’ In spite of press censorship on the part of military
officers, sooner or later these lynx-eyed gentlemen, being in the midst
of the fighting-men, have seen and recorded in the columns of the
daily press very many incidents, the seriousness of which has not been
lessened in the telling. Amongst soldiers themselves, a natural pride
would make them reticent in such matters; and _l’esprit de corps_ has
probably caused more than we know of to be buried in the bosoms of the
members of some particular corps.
This reminds us of an unrecorded case of ‘panic’ pure and simple, which
was communicated to us, years after its occurrence, by an officer in
the regiment concerned. When he spoke of it, he did so with the air of
a man fearful of breaking a sacred trust, which even then he seemed to
feel hardly justified in betraying, though the regiment had changed
its title, and scarcely one of the members in it at the time still
remained. Suffice it to say that the regiment was a distinguished
infantry one, composed almost entirely of veterans, who had added
lustre to their former glories by the courage and bravery with which
they had behaved throughout the trying times of the Indian Mutiny.
It was shortly after this terrible outbreak had been quelled that
the regiment in question was marching from the scene of some of the
bloodiest outrages to a new station in a comparatively undisturbed
portion of India. Then, as now, marches in that country were usually
carried out at night, the sun in the hot season rendering exposure to
its influence more or less unsafe to Europeans. They had almost reached
the spot where they were to halt for the night—which, by-the-bye,
was an exceptionally dark one—in fact, the advance-party had already
arrived, when suddenly some sort of commotion and press of men from the
rear was noticed by the officers. Before they could divine the cause,
the confusion increased, and the regiment, without paying any heed to
the commands of the officers, broke its ranks, and fled precipitately
into the jungle on either side of the road. As usual, the officers, and
even the senior non-commissioned officers, had not shared the general
terror, and some few of the privates had at first called upon their
comrades to remain steady—but all to no avail. They were regularly
broken, and scarcely a man remained. Very soon, an explanation was
forthcoming. A number of loose horses came galloping down the road.
It was the noise of their hoofs over the hard ground, breaking the
stillness of the Indian night, that had mysteriously magnified itself
into a vague but all-mastering terror. How complete the panic was may
be imagined from the fact that many of the men had fled so far into
the jungle that they did not return till the following morning. Every
inquiry was made by the colonel into the case; but no one was ever made
responsible as the originator; and the regiment mutually agreed to keep
the whole affair a profound secret. So well did they do so, that it
never leaked out till years afterwards, when time had blunted the sting
of publicity.
In South Africa, the disaster of Isandlhwana gave the soldiers’ nerves
a severe shaking, and it often happened that false alarms at night
led to the rousing of whole camps, and sometimes even to a reckless
discharge of firearms. In some cases, friendly natives or even comrades
were taken by the excited imagination of a sentry for enemies; in
others, unoffending cattle, even a bush or a shrub, became the innocent
cause of a fusilade sufficient to have dealt widespread destruction to
a host of Zulus.
An odd incident, illustrative of the slightness of the cause—or even,
perhaps, of the absence of any cause at all—that gives rise to a
panic, occurred on the night of Tel-el-Kebir, amidst a small corner of
the force that was bivouacking on the battlefield. The narrator had
crawled into a marquee in which, with other commissariat stores, were
the rum casks from which the troops had received their liquor ration
after the fatigues and excitement of the day’s fight and previous
night-march. Besides one or two commissariat issuers in charge of the
stores, several ‘odds and ends’ of other corps had found their way into
the marquee, preferring to rest under its shelter amidst the casks
and biscuit-boxes, than under the open sky with the sand for a bed.
Suddenly, in the middle of the night when all were sleeping, a noise
and commotion began in the bivouac outside. Before the inhabitants of
the tent were sufficiently awake to understand its cause, the curtains
were thrust aside by a red-coated soldier, who shouted to us to get
up: ‘The Arabs are in the camp—they are upon us!’ Then he disappeared
as rapidly as he had come. Every one sprang to his arms, and probably
experienced that especially uncomfortable sensation that is caused by
a vague feeling of an unseen though imminent danger against which one
is ignorant how to guard. Outside, every one around was aroused and
up, eagerly striving to discover from what quarter attack was to be
expected. Nothing, however, more unpleasant occurred than the advent of
a staff-officer asking the cause of the confusion. Probably the truth
never did reach headquarters. Afterwards, however, a report gained
ground—no other or better reason was ever forthcoming—that the alarm
arose from the screams of a sleeping soldier, who, overwrought perhaps
by the horrors of the day, had been fighting his battle over again in
his dreams!
It is perhaps as well that all cases of panic should be brought forward
and investigated. Hushing them up may be satisfactory to those who feel
that the credit and reputation of their particular regiment or corps
are at stake; but, like all undeclared and secret evils, they are best
dealt with by being dragged to light. How else can the soldier learn
their absurdity—how else learn to recognise them and reason on the
moment whether he be in the presence of a causeless panic or a real
danger?
One lesson certainly the few lines of Napier quoted above teach us. The
cry of some one that the enemy’s cavalry were amongst them caused the
Light Division to rally—it was the dissipation of a vague terror by
the substitution for it of a substantial danger.
Enough has been said to show that panics will occur. It is easy to see
how fatal may be their results, and how detrimental they are to the
_morale_ of an army. A recognition of this fact must convince us of the
necessity that exists for neglecting no step that may tend to minimise
their occurrence, or, if they must occur, to most efficaciously and
speedily counteract their effects. Long since, sailors learnt by
experience that real or imagined outbreaks of fire on shipboard were
too apt to cause panic and confusion, and thereby increase tenfold
the horrors of the situation. To provide against this, the fire-alarm
is frequently sounded, with a view to accustoming the crew to take up
rapidly their allotted posts, when fire actually does occur, with the
calmness and despatch bred of familiarity. This system of accustoming
men to sudden alarms of attack was practised with success in the Marine
Camp round Suakim, and they probably owed the idea in some measure to
their naval training. At anyrate, their camp was particularly free from
needless night-alarms, and their sentries earned the somewhat rare
distinction of never having been forced throughout the whole campaign.
GEORGE HANNAY’S LOVE AFFAIR.
CHAPTER I.—TOO LATE!
There was a sharp but not unpleasant smell of frost in the air;
the small shrubbery around the way-side station of Lochenbreck was
covered with a slight coating of hoar-frost, which was being gradually
dissipated by the golden rays of the sun, now two or three degrees
above the horizon. The bustle of the Twelfth had passed. The ‘knowing
ones’ who prefer Wigtownshire moors to those of the West and North
Highlands, as being lower rented and yielding quite as good sport, had
come and gone, for it was now the latter end of September. It was about
eight o’clock A.M.; the South train was due, and it was timed to stop
here for five minutes; not so much on account of any passenger or goods
traffic it might deposit or receive, as to allow the iron horse to take
a huge drink, sufficient to carry it in comfort to Stranraer. That this
particular morning, however, there was some passenger traffic expected
was evident. Outside the station stood a wagonette, a pony-cart, and
a smart ostler in charge of both; inside was the station-master, a
porter, and a young lady. The two former were listening for the clang
of the signal-bell announcing the train; the latter, in prosaic truth,
was endeavouring to keep her feet warm, by pacing rapidly up and down
the limited platform. She was a very pretty girl, with a clear, pinky
freshness of complexion, a finely chiselled nose, and a small, sweet,
though firm mouth.
The signal-bell clanged, and the train came grandly sweeping in. There
was but one passenger, but that was the one the young lady was waiting
for. When he alighted, she ran forward and gave him her hand, which he
shook heartily.
‘Alone?’ she cried.
‘Yes, Nan, alone this time! You’re not sorry, are you?’
‘Oh, no, no! I’ll have you all to myself! And you’ll have such lots
of new London stories to tell, and none of your awfully clever city
friends to laugh at me.’
The new arrival’s portmanteau, fishing-rods, &c., were put in the
pony-cart, and assisting the young girl into the wagonette, he took the
reins and started at a smart trot towards Lochenbreck Inn, some eight
miles away over the purple moor.