_Fab._ . . . Elle est----.
_Sev._ Quoi?
_Fab._ Mariee!
_Sev._ . . . . . Ce coup de foudre est grand!--_Polyeucte_.
The world's my oyster, which I with sword will open.--_Henry IV_.
Put money in thy purse; follow these wars.--_Othello_.
Morton walked down Broadway at a rapid pace, entered his hotel,
mounted to his room, seated himself, rested his forehead on his hand,
and, with fixed eyes and compressed lips, remained in this position
for some minutes, motionless as if carved out of oak. Then, rising, he
paced the room, buried his face in his hands, and groaned with
irrepressible anguish. Suddenly the door was burst open, and an Irish
servant, apparently in a great hurry, bolted in, and tossed a card on
the table, saying at the same time,--"Gen'lman down stairs wants to
see you."
Morton broke into a rage, to hide the traces of a different passion.
"Why do you come in without knocking? Learn better manners, or I shall
teach them to you."
"I beg pardon, sir," said the servant, reduced at once to the depth of
obsequiousness, "there's a gentleman, sir--an officer, sir,--would
like to see you, sir."
"An officer!--I don't know any officers. There's some mistake."
"He _said_ Mr. Morton, sir. This is his card, sir."
Morton looked at the card, and read the name of his classmate Rosny.
"Very well. Ask the gentleman to come up.--No,--here,"--as the servant
was retreating along the passage,--"where is he?"
"In the reading room, sir."
"Tell him I will come down in a moment."
"Yes, sir, I will, sir."
Morton adjusted his dress, strove to banish from his features all
traces of the emotion which had just overwhelmed him, went down
stairs, and met Rosny with an air of as much cordiality as if there
were nothing in his mind but the pleasure of seeing an old friend.
Rosny, his first welcome over, surveyed him from head to foot.
"A good deal changed! Thinner,--darker complexioned, decidedly older.
And yet you've weathered it well. It's a thing that I could never
stand,--to be boxed up in four stone walls. I would throttle the
jailer first, and then knock my brains out against the stones."
"Did Shingles tell you of my being here?"
"Yes, I met him just now, with his eyes bigger than ever. When I saw
him making a dive at me across the street, among the omnibuses and
carriages, I knew that something extraordinary was to pay."
"_You_ have changed your outward man, too, since I saw you last," said
Morton, looking at his companion's costume, which consisted of a gray
volunteer uniform.
"Yes, I'm in Uncle Sam's pay now.--Off for Mexico in a day or
two;--revel in the Halls of the Montezumas, you know."
"What rank do you hold in the service, Dick?"
"You'll please to address me as Major Rosny; that is, till good luck
and the Mexican bullets make a colonel of me.--I have just dropped in
to shake hands with you. I have an appointment to keep in five
minutes. You have nothing particular to do to-day--have you?"
"Nothing very particular," said Morton, hesitating.
"Then come and dine with me at Delmonico's at four o'clock. What!--you
don't mean to say no, do you?--Is that the way you treat your friends?
Come, I shall be here at four, precisely. _Au revoir._"
And, with his usual celerity of motion, Rosny left the hotel.
Morton slowly remounted to his room, locked the door this time, to
keep out intruders, seated himself, and gave himself up to his dark
and morbid reveries.
"God! of what is this world made! Villany thrives, and innocent men
are racked with the pangs of hell. Poverty starving its
victims,--luxury poisoning them;--the passions of tigers and the mean
vices of reptiles;--treacherous hatred, faithless love;--deceitful
hope, vain struggles, endless suffering,--a hell of misery and
darkness. A fair sunrise, to cheat the eye;--then clouds and storms,
blackness and desolation! To look back over the last five years! Then
I was basking in sunshine; and out of that brightness what a doom is
fallen on me! My life--my guiding star quenched in a vile morass--lost
forever in the arms of this accursed villain!"
Morton rose abruptly, went to the window, and stood looking out with a
fixed gaze, wholly unconscious of what was before him. In a moment he
turned again, and there was a wild and deadly light in his eyes. A
thought had struck him, shooting an electric life through all his
veins, and kindling him into a kind of fierce ecstasy. He would go to
Vinal, charge him with his perfidy, challenge him, and put him to
death. He paced the room in great disorder. A resistless power seemed
to have seized upon him, sweeping him forward with the force of a
torrent. He clinched his teeth and breathed deeply. The thought of
action and of vengeance lighted up his perturbed and gloomy mind as
the baleful glare of a conflagration lights up a stormy midnight.
Suddenly he stopped, seated himself again, and remained for some
minutes in violent mental conflict. "I thank God," he murmured at
length, apostrophizing his enemy, "that you were not just now within
my reach. You have ruined me for this life; you shall not ruin me for
the next. Live, and work out your own destruction."
He walked the room again, calmly enough, but in great dejection. "It
may be," he thought, "that I am not his only victim. Perhaps the same
art that snared me, has, by some infernal machination, entrapped her
also. I believe it;--at least, I will try to believe it."
He looked from the window upon the keen and busy crowds passing below
in unbroken streams, to and from their places of business; and his
mind tinged them with its own moody coloring.
"You flight of human vultures! How many of you can show lives governed
by any generous purpose or noble thought? Behind how many of those
sharp and sallow features, furrowed with early wrinkles, lies the soul
of a man? Desperate chasers after wealth, which, when you have won it,
you have never been taught to use;--reckless pleasure hunters,
beguiling others that your victims may beguile in turn, and both sink
to perdition together. What you win with trickery, you throw away in
vanity or debauch. The counting room or the broker's board by
day;--brandy, billiards, and the rendezvous by night;--so you go,--a
short, quick road;--driving to your doom with a high-pressure power of
rapacity, vain glory, and lust. Man!--the thistledown of fortune, the
shuttlecock of passion;--whirled on to destruction by the wildfire in
his veins, unless by struggling and by prayer he can keep the narrow
adamantine track laid down for his career!"
In such distempered reflections he passed some time. Even in the
darkest passages of his imprisonment, his mind had scarcely been
shaken so far from its habitual poise. Growing weary at length of
solitude, he went out of the house; and, avoiding the great
thoroughfares, where he might perhaps meet an acquaintance, he
threaded at a rapid pace those meaner streets and lanes, where even
the best balanced mind may find abundant food for gloomy meditation.
From time to time, as the image of his enemy rose before him, the
desire for vengeance came upon him afresh, like a fever fit. He burned
to seize Vinal by the throat, and, at least, force him to unmask his
iniquity to the world.
As he was passing down Water Street, he recollected, with some
vexation, that Rosny had promised to call for him at four o'clock, and
retraced his steps to the hotel, where, true to the minute, that
punctual adventurer presently appeared.
"Come," said Rosny; "if you are ready, we will walk down street."
They repaired to Delmonico's, where, in a private room, a sumptuous
repast had been made ready. Morton, over his companion's claret, was
obliged to recount the circumstances of his imprisonment. Rosny, on
his part, gave an outline of his own fortunes since they had last met.
He had been once or twice on the point of very considerable success,
but his vaulting ambition had always overleaped itself, and by too
great eagerness and grasping at too much, he had repeatedly failed of
his prize, only, however, to rally after every reverse with
undiminished confidence and spirit. Such, at least, were the
conclusions which Morton drew from his companion's somewhat inflated
account of himself.
After the cloth had been removed, Rosny bit off the end of a cigar,
lighted it, puffed at it two or three times, and then, holding it
between his fingers, went on with an harangue which the operations of
the waiter had interrupted.
"I tell you, these are great times that we live in. The world has seen
nothing like them since the days of Columbus and Cortes. These are the
times and this is the country for a man of merit to thrive in. Let him
identify himself with the progressive movements of the age,--yes,
faith, let him be a leader of them,--and there's nothing too large for
him to hope for. Why, sir, the day is not far off, when the stars and
stripes will be seen from Hudson's Bay to Panama. Cuba will come next;
Brazil next. Lord knows where we shall stop. There's a field for a man
of ability and pluck!"
Morton smiled. Rosny relighted his cigar, which, in the fervor of his
declamation, he had allowed to go out, gave a vigorous whiff or two,
and proceeded.
"We have just lost a splendid chance. I _did_ flatter myself that
there was going to be a row with England, on the Oregon question; but
it was a flash in the pan; it all ended in smoke."
"Why do you want to fight with John Bull?" asked Morton.
"For two good reasons. In the first place, I hate him. I hate him in
right of my French ancestors, and I hate him as a true American
democrat. Then, over and above all that, a war with the English would
be the making of me. I should rise then. I would be their Hannibal.
But now we have nothing better to do than giving fits to these yellow
Mexican vagabonds."
"A shabby employment," said Morton, "and yet I think I should like
it."
"You would, ey?--then go with me to Mexico."
"It's a temptation," said Morton, his eyes lighted with a sudden
gleam,--"I am in a mood for any thing, I do not care what."
"I knew there was something ailing you," said Rosny; "why, you have
had no appetite. You've lost all your spirits. Has any thing happened?
Are you ill?"
"Nothing to speak of. I am well enough in health."
"Well, come with me to Mexico. When a man is under a cloud, he always
makes the better soldier for it. If you have had bad luck, why, you
can fight like a Trojan."
"I could storm Hell Gates to-day," exclaimed Morton, giving a
momentary vent to his long pent up emotion.
"Good! I always knew that there was stuff in you, though you _are_
worth half a million. It isn't that, though--is it? You haven't lost
property--have you?"
"Not that I know. Never mind, Dick; every man has his little
vexations, sometimes, and is entitled to the privilege of swearing at
them."
"Well, I am not the man to pry into your private affairs. Come with me
to Mexico. I can promise you a captain's commission,--perhaps I can
get you a major's. I am not a cipher in the democratic party, I'd have
you know, though I am not yet what I shall be soon. I helped Polk to
his election, and my word will go for something. But, pshaw!--what am
I talking about? With your money, and a little management, you can get
any thing you want."
"I have more than half a mind," said Morton, hesitating; "but, no,--I
won't go."
"Pshaw, man! You don't know what you are saying. You don't know what
chances you are throwing away. Look at it. It isn't the military
fame,--the glorification in the newspapers,--seeing pictures of
yourself in the shop windows, charging full tilt among the Mexicans,
and all that. You can take that for what it's worth. Tastes differ in
such matters. But, I tell you, the men who distinguish themselves in
Mexico are going to carry all before them in the political world. The
people will go for them, neck or nothing. I know what our enlightened
democracy is made of."--Here a slight grin flickered for an instant
about the corners of his mouth; but he grew serious again at
once.--"Yes, sir, a new world is going to begin. The old
incumbents--Webster, Clay, Calhoun, and the rest--will pass off the
stage, before long, and make room for younger men--men who will keep
up with the times. Then will be our chance! Put brass in your
forehead,--you have money enough in your purse already,--get a halo of
Mexican glory round your head,--and you will shoot up like a rocket.
First go to the war, then dive into politics, and you and I will be
the biggest frogs in the puddle."
"There's a fallacy in your conclusions," said Morton; "the officers of
rank, the generals and colonels, will carry off the glory; and we
shall have nothing but the blows."
"The Mexican bullets will make that all right. I tell you, they are
going to fly like hail. They will dock off the heads above us, and
make a clear path for us to mount by."
"Suppose that they should hit the wrong man," suggested Morton.
"Pshaw!" exclaimed Rosny, "we won't look at the matter in that light."
There was a momentary pause.
"Now's your time," urged Rosny. "Come, say the word."
Morton paced the room with knit brows and lips pressed together.
"Glory,"--exclaimed his military friend, summing up the advantages of
a Mexican campaign,--"glory,--preferment,--life, of the fastest
kind,--what more would you have?"
Morton had a strong native thirst for adventure, and a _penchant_ for
military exploit. In his present frame of mind, he felt violently
impelled to cut loose from all his old ideas and scruples, and launch
at once upon a new life, fresh, unshackled, and reckless,--to plunge
headlong into the tumult of the active world; fight its battles, run
its races, give and take its blows, strain after its prizes,--forget
the past and all its associations in the fever of the present. Mexico
rose before his thoughts--snowy volcanoes, and tropical forests; the
cocoa, the palm, and the cactus; bastioned cities and intrenched
heights; the rush and din of battle; war with its fierce excitements
and unbounded license. To his disordered mood, the scene had
fascinations almost resistless, and he burned to play his part in the
fiery drama.
"And why not?"--so his thoughts ran,--"why not obey what fate and
nature dictate? Calm, and peace, and happiness,--farewell to them!
That stake is played and lost. I am no more fit now for domestic life
than a prairie wolf. I should answer better for an Ishmaelite or a
Pawnee. _Deus vult._ Why should I fly in the face of Providence?"
Rosny, his uniform coat half unbuttoned for the sake of ease, sat
lolling back in his chair, puffing wreaths of cigar smoke from his
lips, eying Morton as he paced the room, and throwing out, from time
to time, a word of encouragement to stimulate his resolution. He was
about to lose all patience at his companion's pertinacious silence,
when the latter stopped, and turned towards him with the air of one
whose mind is made up.
"Dick," said Morton, "when I was in college, I laid down my plan of
life, and adopted one maxim--to which I mean to hold fast."
"Well, what was that?" demanded the impatient Rosny.
"Never to abandon an enterprise once begun; to push on till the point
is gained, in spite of pain, delay, danger, disappointment,--any
thing."
"Good, so far. What next?"
"Some years ago, I entered upon certain plans, which have not yet been
accomplished. I have been interrupted, balked, kicked and cuffed by
fortune, till I am more than half disgusted with the world. But I mean
still to take up the broken thread where I left it, and carry it
forward as before."
"The moral of that is, I suppose, that you won't go to Mexico."
"Precisely."
"Well, I shan't try to debate the matter with you. I know you of old.
When your foot is once down, it's useless for me to try to make you
lift it up again. But remember what I say,--you will repent not taking
my advice."
Rosny finished his cigar, and they left the restaurant together. On
their way up the street, they stopped at a recruiting office. "Captain
Rumbold, my friend Mr. Morton," said Rosny, who soon after, however,
entered into an earnest conversation with the officer upon some affair
of business, leaving Morton at leisure to observe six or eight
volunteers, who were about to be sent to Governor's Island, in charge
of a sergeant.
"What do you think of our boys?" asked Rosny, casting a comical look
at Morton, as they went down stairs.
"I never saw such a gang of tobacco-chewing, soap-locked rascals."
"Food for powder," said Rosny, "they'll fill a ditch as well as
better. The country needs a little blood-letting. These fellows are
not like Falstaff's, though. They will fight. Not a man of them but
will whip his weight in wildcats."