SOLDIER'S SWORD AND WANDER-STAFF.
The place was historically favored for adventures. In 1543, the riot of
Knights and Knaves had begun here. On the bridge which preceded this
structure, a band of young noblemen had taken possession of the passage
more important then, as this now foul and noisome channel, into which
the effluvia of the breweries and tanneries was discharged, was a strong
and pellucid tributary of the Isar. They levied tribute on the
burghers, kissing the comely women and not scrupling to cut the purses
of the master-tradesmen; in this, imitating the mode of operation of
their country cousins, the robber barons in the mountains to the south,
or over the river in the opposite direction.
But, as for the third or fourth time, the student was on the verge of
quitting his haven, another interrupter arose. Pausing at the head of
the bridge, prompted by natural caution or instinct, for the officer
remained prudently invisible to her, the girl, with the violin-case,
looked over her shoulder and beckoned to some one on the further side of
the astonished student.
The desert was becoming animated, indeed, as he had wished, for, in the
hazy opening, a man appeared, carrying under one arm what seemed a
musket or blunderbuss, while leaning the other hand on a staff which
might be the one to rest the firearm on. He had a flat felt hat on, with
wide shaggy margins, ornamented with a yellow cord in contrast with its
inky dye, and a dingy, often mended old cavalry-soldier's russet cloak,
covering him from a long, full grey beard to the feet, encased in
patched shoes. The aspect of a Jew peddler in the pictures of the Dutch
school, who had armed himself to defend his pack of thread and needles
on the highway.
But, as before, nearness dispelled the romantic conceit: the supposed
gun resolved itself into a Turko-phone, or Oriental flute, while, on the
other hand, the bright eye and well-shaped features, with the venerable
impression suggested by the beard, lifted the wearer into a high place
for reverence. Just as the girl was unrivaled for beauty, this man, a
near relative, perhaps her father, would have few equals in the councils
of his tribe.
While not old, spite of the grey in his beard, illness had enfeebled
him, for he needed the walking-staff. The brisk pace of his daughter had
left him far behind and it cost him an effort to make up for the delay.
But in parental love he found the force, and quite nimbly he passed the
student without observing him in his haste to join his daughter.
At the sight of him coming, she had not waited for his arm, but retaken
her course. She was half way over the bridge when he began to ascend the
gentle slope, and when he was arduously following with the summit well
before him, the officer emerged abruptly from his covert. He must have
been calculating on this moment and this separation to which Baboushka
had no doubt contributed. She now loomed into view. Repulsed by the Jew
in his detestation of beggars--for while the Christian accepts poverty
as a misfortune to which resignation is one remedy, he regards it as an
affliction to be violently removed--she hesitated to continue her
annoyance. The bridge was so narrow that he had no difficulty, thanks to
the length of his arms, in placing a hand on each rail, so that, as he
bent his broad, smiling face forward between them, he effectively barred
the way. With a tone which he intended to be winning and tender, but
which nature had not allowed him to modulate very sweetly, he said:
"Divine songstress of Freyer Brothers' Brewery Harmonista Cellars!" She
stopped quickly and faced half round, so as to be in a better position
for retreat if he made an advance toward her. "In the hall on
Thursday--when you made the circuit with the cup for the collection
after your delightful ballad--you refused me even a reply to my request
for an interview. That was for the favor of a salute from those
somewhat thin but honeyed lips! Now, there is nobody by and I mean to be
rewarded for the bouquets I have nightly sent you!"
"Father!" cried the Jewess, too frightened by the position of her
assailant to flee.
"Your father? Bah!" with a contemptuous glance at the old man
approaching only too slowly. "I repeat, there is no one by! _That_ I
arranged for."
The speaker had red curly hair like his whiskers; his brow was not
narrow but his eyebrows overhung; his face was flushed with animation
and carnal desire--perhaps by potations, though his large lower jaw
denoted ample animal courage. He was powerful enough in the long arms
and strong hands to have mastered the girl and her father, but it was
not the dread of his prowess physically which awed the daughter of the
race still proscribed in this part of Germany.
Frederick von Sendlingen, Baron of ancient creation, enjoyed a wide fame
among the knot of noble carousers who strove to make one corner of
Munich a pale reflection of the "fast" end of Paris and Vienna. A major
in a crack heavy cavalry regiment, allowed for family reasons to remain
in the garrison after it had been removed elsewhere, he enjoyed enviable
esteem from his superiors and the hatred and dislike of all others.
Though inclined to court after the manner of the pillager who has
captured a city, his boisterous addresses pleased the wanton matrons
and, more naturally, the facile Cythereans of the music halls and
dance-houses.
At an early hour, he had cast his handkerchief, like an irresistible
sultan, at the chief attraction of the beer cellar, which he named--the
so-called "La Belle Stamboulane," and baffled in all his less brutal
modes of attack, he had recourse to one which better suited his custom.
It looked as though he had lost time in not putting it into operation
before, since the girl, around whom, taking one stride, he threw his
arms, could not, by her feeble resistance, prevent him snatching a kiss.
As for her father, casting down his turkophone, and raising his staff in
both hands, his valorous approach went for little, as his blow would
have been as likely to fall upon his daughter as the ruffian.
While he was bewildered and his stick was raised in air, the latter,
perceiving his danger, did not scruple to show his contempt for one of
the despised race whom he likewise scorned for his weakness, by dealing
him a kick in the leg with his heavy boot which, fairly delivered, would
have broken an oaken post. Though avoiding its full force, the unhappy
father was so painfully struck that he staggered back to the opposite
rail of the bridge and, clapping both hands to the bruise on the shin,
groaned while he strove in vain to overcome the paralyzing agony. From
that moment he was compelled to remain as a stranger in action to the
outrage.
Still struggling, though with little hope, the girl saw the defeat of
her natural champion with sympathetic anguish. Though he had not spied
the student, she had regarded him with no faint opinion of his manliness
for--repelling the kind of proud self-reliance of her race to have no
recourse to strangers during persecution--she lifted her voice with a
confidence which startled her rude adorer.
"Help! help from this ruffian-gentleman!"
"Silence, you fool," rejoined Sendlingen. "I tell you, the coast is
clear--for I have arranged all that. It is simple strategy to secure
one's flanks--"
"Help!" repeated the songstress, redoubling her efforts--not to escape,
which was out of the question, but to shield her mouth from contact with
the red moustaches, hovering over it like the wings of a bloodstained
bird of rapine.
As this repetition of the appeal, steps clattered on the bridge, and the
officer lifted his head. He may have expected Baboushka or one of her
fraternity, and the tall, slender student, who had flung off his cloak
to run more swiftly, gave him a surprise. The agile and intelligent girl
took the opportunity with commendable speed, and glided out of the
major's relaxing grasp like a wasp from under the spider's claws. She
retreated as far as where her father tried to stand erect, and helping
him up, led him prudently down the bridge slope so that they might
continue their flight. It would have been the basest ingratitude to
depart without seeing the result of the interference, and the two
lingered, though it would have been wiser to let the two Christians bite
and tear each other without witnesses of another creed, and with the
witness of none.
It was a free spectacle, but, if it had cost their week's salary at the
casino, it would have been worth the money.
As the major had empty hands after the loss of his prize, the student
had the quixotic delicacy to make the offer in dumbshow to lay aside his
cane and undertake to chastise the insulter of womanhood with the naked
fist. But this is a weapon almost unknown in the sword-bearing class
which Von Sendlingen adorned, and, infuriated by the civilian
intervening at the culmination of his daring plan, to say nothing of
the annoying thought that his failure would be no secret from the old
hag, his accomplice, looking on at the extremity of the bridge, he
yielded to the worst devil in his heart. He inclined to the most
high-handed and hectoring measure. Whipping out his sabre with a rapid
gesture, and merely muttering a discourteous and grudging: "Be on your
guard!" he dealt a cut at the student which threatened to cleave him in
two.
The other was on the alert; he had suspected one capable of such an
outrage, likewise capable of worse, and he parried the coward's blow so
dexterously with his cane that it was the soldier who was thrown off his
balance. A second blow, with the tremendous sweep of the stick held at
arm's length, tested the metal of the blade to its utmost, and, as the
wielder's hand was thoroughly palsied, drove it out of the opening
fingers, and all heard it splash in the black and pestiferous waters
under the bridge.
Von Sendlingen would almost have preferred the blow falling on his head.
An officer, whose reputation in fencing was no mean one, to be disarmed
by a student who swung but his road-cane! This was not all: he had lost
his sabre, and, noble though he was, he had to pass the vigorous
inspection of his weapons like the humblest private soldier! The absence
of the regimental sword might cause degradation, ruin militarily and
socially! And all for a "music-hall squaller"--and a Jewess at that!
He ground his teeth, and his eyes were filled with angry fire. His face
bore a greater resemblance to a tiger's than a man's, and had not the
victor in this first bout possessed a stout heart, he might have
regretted that he had commenced so well, so terrible would be the
retaliation.
All the animal in the man being roused, he longed to throw himself on
his antagonist to grasp his throat, but the successful use of the cudgel
against the sword indicated that this was an adept at quarter-staff and
a man with naked hands would have easily been beaten if pitted with him.
Sendlingen, warily and rapidly surveying the limited field of combat,
caught sight of the Jew's walking-staff and sprang for it with an outcry
of savage glee and hope.
On perceiving this move, in spite of the pain still crippling him, the
old man started to retrace his steps to regain possession of his weapon,
but he was soon distanced by the younger one.
Armed with this staff, the officer, remembering his student days, when
he, too, was an expert swinger of the cane, a Bavarian mountaineer's
weapon with which duels to the death are not unseldom fought, he stood
before the student.
"Had you been a gentleman," began the major, with a sullen courtesy,
extorted from him by the gallantry of his antagonist.
"A stick to a dog!" retorted the latter, falling into the position of
guard with an ease and accuracy which caused the other to begin his work
by feints and attacks not followed up too rashly, in order to test him.
This time, it was the stouter and more brutal man who played cautiously
and the younger and more refined who was spurred into recklessness by
the contiguity of the fair Helen--or, rather, Esther--who had caused the
fray.
The girl stood at the end of the bridge, opposite to Baboushka at hers,
there making them simple lookers-on. The old Jew seemed eager to join
in the struggle, but the staves were in continual swing, and he could
not draw near without the risk of having a shoulder dislocated, or, at
least, his knuckles severely rapped. In the gloom, his hovering about
the involved pair would have led an opera-goer to have seen in him the
demon who thus actively presides at the fatal duel of Faust and
Valentine.
But the conflict, whatever the major's wariness, could not be long
protracted, for canes of this sort are tiring to the arm, unlike
smallswords; he was still on the defensive when the student assailed him
with a shower of blows which taxed all his skill and nerve, and the
strength of the staff which he had borrowed from his foe. Well may one
suspect "the gifts of an enemy!" as the student might have cited:
"_Timeo danaos_," etc. At the very moment when the officer's head was
most in peril, while he guarded it with the staff held horizontally in
both hands separated widely for the critical juncture, it ominously
cracked at the reception of a vigorous blow--it parted as though a steel
blade had severed it, and the unresisted cane came down on his skull
with crushing force.
Out of the two cavities which the broken staff now presented, rattled
several gold coins. At the sight, the old hag scrambled toward where the
major had fallen senseless. The Jew, after picking up the broken pieces
of wood, would have lingered to recover those of the precious metal
though at cost of a scuffle with Baboushka. But his daughter rebuked him
in their language with an indignant tone, which brought him to his
senses in an instant. She seized him by the arm, and hurried him away at
last.
After a brief survey of the defeated man, wavering between the fear
that he had killed him and the prompting to see to his hurts, if the
case were not fatal, the student took to flight in the direction the
beautiful girl had chosen. He well knew that this was a grave matter,
and that he trod on burning ground. At twenty paces farther, he
remembered his cloak, but on the bridge were now clustered several
shadows vying with Baboushka in picking up the coin before raising the
unfortunate Von Sendlingen.
Not a light had appeared at the windows of the houses, not a window had
opened for a night-capped head to be thurst forth, not a voice had
echoed the Jewess's call for the watch. It was not to be doubted that
Footbridge street had allowed more murderous outrages to occur without
anyone running the risk of catching a cold or a slash of a sabre.
"A cut-throat quarter, that is it," remarked the student, still too
excited to feel the cold and want of his outer garment. "After all, one
cannot travel from Berlin to Paris without getting some soot on the
cheek and a cinder or two in the eye. In the same way it is not possible
to see life and go through this world without being smeared with a
little blood or smut."
While talking to himself, he smoothed his dress and curled his dark and
fine moustache, projecting horizontally and not drooping. He had walked
so fast that he had overtaken the Jews, delayed as the girl was by her
father's lameness, and having to carry the violin in its case which she
had recovered and preciously guarded.
"What an audacious bully that was," the student continued; "but even a
good cat loses a mouse now and then."
The pair seemed to expect him to join them, but as he was about to do
so, at the mouth of a narrow and unlighted alley, he heard the measured
tramp of feet indicating the patrol.
Already the character of the streets and houses changed: there were
vistas of those large buildings which give one the impression that
Munich is planned on too generous a scale for its population. Only here
and there was a roof or front suggestive of the Middle Ages, and they
may have been in imitation; the others were stately and were classical,
and the avenues became spacious.
All at once, while the student was watching the semi-military constables
approach, he heard an uproar toward the bridge. The major had been
discovered by quite another sort of folk than the allies of Baboushka,
and the alarm was given.
To advance was to invite an arrest which would result in no pleasant
investigation.
He had tarried too long as it was. The watchman's
horn--tute-horn--sounded at the bridge and the squad responded through
their commander; whistles also shrilled, being police signals. The
student was perceived. It was a critical moment. The next moment he
would be challenged, and at the next, have a carbine or sabre levelled
at his breast. He retired up the alley, precipitately, wondering where
the persons whom he befriended had disappeared so quickly.
A very faint light gleamed from deeply within, at the end of a crooked
passage through a lantern-like projection at a corner. A number of iron
hooks bristled over his head as if for carcasses at a butchers, although
their innocent use was to hang beds on them to air. On a tarnished plate
he deciphered "ARTISTES' ENTRANCE," and while perplexed, even as the
gendarmes appeared at the mouth of this blind-alley, a long and taper
hand was laid on his arm and a voice, very, very sweet, though in a mere
murmur, said irresistibly:
"Come! come in, or you will be lost!" He yielded, and was drawn into a
corridor under the oriel window, where the air was pungent with the reek
of beer, tobacco-smoke, orange-peel, cheese and caraway seeds.