"But perhaps you do not want to say your prayers, my Amati. Other people
generally do that when Frenchmen are fiddling. Here is your violin, I
see. Let us play it together."
The trooper returned while he spoke, carrying the frayed black leather
case which stood for all that life could give to Sadi Descourcelles.
When the lieutenant seized upon it with rough hands it was as though
someone had struck Sadi a blow.
"Gently, for Heaven's sake, sir," he cried. "Do you know that my fiddle
is worth five thousand francs?"
"To us possibly a good deal more," retorted the lieutenant,
uncompassionately. "The captain shall read your music, my little
Paganini. This way, if you please, and mind your precious neck if you
prefer pistols."
It was the lieutenant's evident idea that the violin-case contained the
private papers of a common spy, who had fallen by some lucky chance into
the hands of the very men he would have betrayed to the French. Proud at
the capture, and confident of applause from his superior officers, he
now pushed Sadi across the cellar in which they stood to a door upon the
far side of it, whence a flight of steps led downward to a second
cellar, more spacious and less encumbered. Here candles burned upon a
rude table, a fire flickered upon a tiled hearth, and burly figures
moved about a copper, whence a fragrant smell diffused itself. Sadi
perceived at once that he had been conducted into a very nest of
Prussians. He had no doubt whatever that these were the men who had been
carrying news of Strasburg to the Red Prince since the siege began;
their startled exclamations when the door opened, the quick exchange of
sign and counter-sign, left no other conclusion possible. And he
understood what he had to hope from them--he, who knew their secret and
could, by a word, bring a rabble there which would tear them limb from
limb.
The trooper thrust Sadi forward toward the fire, while coarse, stubbly
faces peered into his own, and more than one hand reached out for a
candle to examine him more closely. To the hurried questions: "Whom have
you here; what cattle is this?" the lieutenant answered, simply: "I must
see the captain; please to wake him." In a tense interval, during which
someone entered a lunette of the cellar and touched a sleeping figure
upon the shoulder, the ruffian by the copper asked Sadi if he were
hungry, and, being answered "Yes," he took a ladleful of the boiling
soup and poured it over the prisoner's fingers. Sadi cried out sharply;
but before the act could be repeated a burly man strode out of the
alcove and gave the fellow a box on the ear which sounded like a
pistol-shot.
"What do you mean by that, sergeant?" the new-comer asked.
"A spy from the ramparts. I was keeping him warm, Herr Captain," was the
answer.
"But this is no spy; this is Sadi the fiddler."
Sadi turned with a cry of joy.
"Ludenmayer! You, my friend!" he exclaimed.
"Sadi! Old Sadi the fiddler! Impossible!"
"Indeed, it is possible. Old Sadi, as you say, and so hungry that he
could eat the bones off your dishes."
"Then he shall sup with us. A hungry man makes friends with strange
company, and we are that, as you guess, Maître Sadi. Come, sergeant,
fill our friend a bowl of soup. Let him spy out that to begin with. Eh,
Sadi, you will not refuse a bowl of soup even from the Prussians? Then
let us see you fall to. We can talk of old friends afterwards."
There were some murmurs at this from the men about the table, but the
sergeant obeyed the order sullenly, and a bowl of the hot soup was set
before the astonished Sadi almost before he had realized that a lucky
accident had saved his life--for the moment, at any rate. Ludenmayer,
honestly glad to see an old acquaintance, even under such circumstances,
began to assure the rest that they had nothing to fear from Sadi; but at
this the fiddler put down his spoon and flatly contradicted his friend.
"Not so," he said, blandly; "if it were in my power I would hang the lot
of you!"
They laughed at him now--laughed at him for a foolish crank, airing his
absurd patriotism even at the pistol's mouth. While some of them said
that he would soon have Prussians enough for his neighbours in
Strasburg, others promised the city twenty, thirty, forty hours of her
freedom.
"And we shall have you for our guest, friend Sadi," Ludenmayer said,
affably. "We like you so much that we cannot part with you. No, we must
certainly keep you until the Red Prince comes in; after that we will
send you to Munich to fiddle at the opera. Eh, my boy, there's a
career--to scrape this new Wagner stuff and hear the madmen say that you
are a genius. Will you come to Munich and see little Lucy again? I know
that you will, Sadi."
Sadi sighed, but did not answer his friend. If the name of Lucy were a
sweet remembrance to him, this promise of Strasburg's surrender and of
the humiliation it must put upon France cut him to the quick. These men
about him, jesting in the face of death, defiant of all risks--how much,
perchance, they had done in the terrible weeks of the siege to bring
about this inevitable cataclysm and the ruin and death which attended
it! Their reward would be promotion and applause from those who had
contrived France's misfortunes. None would punish them, none bring them
to account, Sadi reflected bitterly; and, reflecting, he asked himself
of a sudden if he were not the appointed agent--he, the humble fiddler,
sent there by the chances of the night to discover and, it might be, to
betray them.
[Illustration: "IF IT WERE IN MY POWER I WOULD HANG THE LOT OF YOU."]
The idea came to him quite unexpectedly while the Prussians were at
their supper. In another he would have scoffed at it, but Sadi had long
been fretting upon his own uselessness and the poor part he had played
at the time of his country's need; and now it came to him as in a flash
that this was the appointed hour. That he would lose his own life in the
endeavour to give these men up to France he was quite convinced; but
this contemplation of sacrifice pleased him, and there was but one
regret--that he could do nothing which would not wound the father of her
he had so greatly loved. Yes, if he could call Frenchmen to this
hiding-place they would spare none, and Ludenmayer would perish with the
others. Sadi said that many a daughter mourned a father in Strasburg
that day--why should little Lucy be spared? And yet he could not bring
himself to harm his old friend. Did he not owe his life to him?
It was a strange scene--the big cellar lighted by guttering candles, the
red fire flickering upon the hearth, and the sombre figures of the burly
Prussians lolling over their dishes or their pipes. From time to time
one or other would quit the place stealthily, returning anon with news
from the ramparts or the streets. The young lieutenant disappeared
altogether toward midnight, and Sadi knew that he had re-crossed the
lines while his friends were pledging him in giant bumpers of champagne.
As the hours went on the hilarity became reckless and, as it seemed to
Sadi, even dangerous. Ludenmayer called for silence more than once, but
the men, warmed with the wine, obeyed him reluctantly, and were soon
talking and laughing again. It was at the height of such an outburst
that Sadi touched his friend upon the shoulder and bethought him of the
very first lie he had told in all his life.
"Did you say good-bye to the Herr Lieutenant?" he asked, in a low voice;
and then continued, "I hope so, for you will never see him again, friend
Ludenmayer."
The captain, who had been squatting upon a heap of straw by Sadi's side,
laughed a little incredulously, but his nervousness was evident when he
asked:--
"And why should we not see him again, Sadi?"
"Because they know where he will recross to-night."
"They know! Who knows, then?"
[Illustration: "I CAME HERE TO WARN YOU."]
"Levoire and the staff. It is rumoured that you are hiding in the ruins.
I came here to warn you--you alone, mind, not the others."
He raised a finger as much as to say, "This is the compact between us."
The Prussians round about were playing cards and dominoes, and
quarrelling over their games. Ludenmayer, fallen serious in a moment,
seemed to be turning over Sadi's words in his mind. Presently he said:--
"Levoire was a friend of yours, I think?"
"I had the honour to be instructor to his wife."
"Then she was your informant?"
He had put the idea into Sadi's head, and the fiddler seized upon it
with avidity.
"We need not go into that. If you doubt her information, prove it for
yourself. Your friends here are scarcely capable."
"That is true, the cattle. They think that their work is over. I must
certainly go, Sadi--and take you with me."
"Not so, Ludenmayer; I must have nothing to do with it. Besides, I am
very comfortable here."
"For the time being, yes. But if anything should happen to me, they
would assuredly hang you, friend Sadi."
"I will take my chances, Ludenmayer. Remember, it is you alone that I
wish to serve. They will at least respect your orders."
"Give them your word to be silent, and they will let you go away at
once. There is nothing easier, Sadi."
"For a Prussian, perhaps--for me, no. We have been comrades--let that
suffice, Ludenmayer. A wise man would go at once."
The eyes of the two met, and the Prussian seemed to read something of
this odd fellow's purpose in his dilated pupils and the stern, set
expression of his mouth. It came to Ludenmayer that he and the
gregarious dozen of spies with him were already in a trap from which
haste alone would save them. This simple old fiddler knew much more than
he would tell. Ludenmayer, trained to selfishness by his occupation,
cared nothing for that which happened to the others if he could save his
own skin. He was grateful to Sadi, and he wrung his hand.
"Well," he said, in a louder voice, for all to hear, "I must certainly
be off, but I shall not be away long. Do not spare the bottle, Sadi. And
mind you treat him well," he added, turning to the company, "for he is
my guest."
The men stood to the salute mechanically, and the sentry in the passage
whispering that the road was clear, Ludenmayer left the cellar with a
last word in Sadi's ear.
"Take care of yourself," he said; "they are in an ugly mood."
Sadi nodded his head confidently, but his heart beat quicker when the
door was shut, and he looked a little eagerly into the faces of the crew
as though he would learn their purpose now that the captain was gone. It
could not be very long, he argued, before Ludenmayer discovered the
trick which had been played upon him and returned to charge him with it.
As to the Prussians about him, some were already steeped with wine, and
they lay sprawling like animals in the straw; others, and the cook was
among the number of these, eyed their captain's guest suspiciously and
discussed him in low voices. Sadi knew that his life hung upon a thread;
but when a great ruffian drew a revolver and loaded it deliberately the
fiddler was not afraid. "They will not shoot me," he said to himself;
"they would be afraid of the noise." What he feared was the rope and the
hook in the beam above, but he did not confess it by his looks; and
turning from them with a laugh he buried his head in the straw and
pretended to sleep. Soon the others imitated him, and the heavy
breathing of tired men echoed through the cellar.
Sadi lay for a long while without any other idea than that of his own
danger and the fate which awaited him if Ludenmayer did not come back.
He had caught up the precious fiddle which the captain returned to him,
and he hugged it to him as the one possession left to him in the world.
Silent as the place was, the broken roof admitted sounds of the later
night, the blare of bugles, and the booming of the shells. Sadi wondered
what those distant troops would say if a man should go to them and cry,
"The cellars by the old church of St. Gervais are full of Prussian
spies; you will find them sleeping there." Could he but send that
message, at least one of the wrongs of those bitter days would be
avenged. And yet how impotent he was! The desert waste of land above
would be without one living soul at such an hour; and he knew that any
attempt to quit the cellar would bring instant death upon him. Sadi,
convinced of the hopelessness of his idea, lay very still and counted
the dreary hours. For a time he slept; and when he awoke it was the
sentry's voice which aroused him. The man had come down to warn his
comrades. A regiment of the line marched out to the assistance of the
gunners at Lunette 53--you could hear their heavy tramping as they
crossed the old road, now lumbered over with stones and the rubble of
the tumbled houses. There would be many, very many of them, the ear
said. Sadi alone amongst those who listened to the footsteps did not
tremble or turn pale. He was unloosing his fiddle in its case. None saw
him or thought of him in that tragic moment. "For France!" he said, and
he believed it was the last word he would ever utter.
The alarm cried softly in the cellar found stupid ears and men but
half-awakened from a drunken sleep. Some of the Prussians sat up with
hush words upon their lips; others simply lay and listened--a regiment
was marching past certainly, but what of that? They had but to lie close
and to douse the lights (which they were quick to do) and their safety
was assured. This they believed when sudden music, loud and distinct,
sent them leaping to their feet and crying for their swords. Someone
played the "Wacht am Rhein" at their very elbows--a voice roared "Shoot
the fiddler down"--another voice cried out for a light. It was the
supreme moment in the life of Sadi the fiddler. Never had he played so
wildly or with such delight of his notes. And the darkness, he said,
might yet save him. Dodging here, ducking there, he plunged into the
passage and went on headlong toward the light. But he never ceased to
play the "Wacht am Rhein" when he could stand a moment to breathe, and
the bullets singing by him, the sword-thrusts aimed at him, did but make
him play the louder.
[Illustration: "HE NEVER CEASED TO PLAY THE 'WACHT AM RHEIN.'"]
Sadi gained the ruins above with a great gash upon his cheek and his
precious fiddle cleaved in half by a cut from a Prussian sword. Up in
the open his eyes beheld a glad sight. A regiment of infantry stood at
the halt not twenty paces from him. Its officers were moving about as
though in quest of some mystery, and when they perceived him they
advanced a little curiously and bade the fiddler halt. He answered them
in words which were almost incoherent. "The ruins are full of
Prussians," he said, and pointed downwards to the cellars he had left.
No other word was spoken or needed. Savagely, silently, as beasts of
prey that have found quarry, the soldiers fixed their bayonets and began
to go down. And Sadi stood entranced, listening to the cries of men in
their death agony, to their prayers for mercy; and he said, "This wrong
at least is avenged."
And so he turned from the scene, with his poor broken fiddle, and the
long day of loneliness before him.
"I shall not play in Munich; I shall never see little Lucy again," he
said. But he knew that he had done his duty, and his step was firmer
when he set out again for the terrible streets of a city about to open
its gates to the enemy.
_Prince Henry's Beast Book._
The many thousands who have laughed over the inimitable Artemus Ward's
essays in natural history, such as "The elephant has four legs--one on
each corner; he eats hay and cakes," might little suspect the analogy
which exists between these humorous trifles and the serious works of the
zoological pundits of the seventeenth century. If anything, far greater
is the humour to be extracted from the older writers; especially when we
recollect that their books and treatises on animal creation were
regarded with infinite respect--veneration even--by young and old, wise
and unwise, noble and plebeian, who diligently consulted them.
Unhappily, most of these productions are in Latin, and even Artemus Ward
in Latin would probably lose the fine savour of merriment by which his
good things are distinguished unless the translator relied upon puns, as
they do in the Westminster plays. But the pictures in Aldrovandus, in
Albertus Magnus, in Johannes Jonstonus, and in Conrad Gesner
speak--shall we not rather say, shriek?--for themselves; and we were
recently fortunate in coming across a large volume in which the best in
all these books is gathered together, with English letterpress, for the
benefit of a young English prince who lived and died early in the
seventeenth century. It was in 1607 that Edward Topsell published his
version of "Four-footed Beastes." Gesner's _chef d'oeuvre_ and those
of the other writers named had been on the bookshelves for many years.
The volume in question belonged to the eldest son and heir of James I.,
and has his coat of arms on the cover. Next, it enjoys the distinction
of having some of the plates coloured by the Royal hand, its owner being
then in his thirteenth year. But, best of all, its pictures and
letterpress describe for us beyond the possibility of error, and in the
clearest and most perspicuous way, the wonderful quadrupeds which
flourished on the face of the earth in Prince Henry's boyhood.
Beside this curious volume how tame are even the most interesting of
modern natural history books! Let us begin with the king of beasts.
"Lyons bones have no marrow in them and are so hard that they will
strike fire. Their neck is made of one stiffe bone, without any
vertebras. They have five claws on the hinder feet and the balls of
their eyes are black. Lyons eat but once in two days and drink in like
manner. Formerly in England a Lyon could tell noble blood from base."
Can it be that this virtue was confined merely to the lions caged in the
Heralds' College? Our Beast Booke goes on to inform us that in certain
districts lions were killed, not with spears or cannon-balls, but "with
the _powder of decayed fish_." From whence may we not have a faint
glimmering of the reason why Jamrach's was originally situated so much
nearer to Billingsgate Market than to Piccadilly?
[Illustration: "THERE IS A VARIETY OF LYON WITH HUMAN FACES."]
"There is a variety of Lyon with human faces. As for the rest, the taile
of a Lyon is very long, which they shake oftentimes, and by beating
their sides therewith they provoke themselves to fight. The nether part
of this taile is full of hairs and gristles, and some are of opinion
that there is therein a little sting wherewithall the Lyon pricketh
itselfe."
"The Lamia is a wild Beast, having several parts outwardly resembling
an Oxe and inwardly a mule. The Lamia has a woman's face and very
beautifull, also very large and comely shapes such as cannot be imitated
by the art of any painter, having a very excellent colour in their
fore-parts without wings, and no other voice but hissing like Dragons;
but they are the swiftest of foot of all earthly beasts, so as none can
escape them by running."
[Illustration: "THE LAMIA HAS A WOMAN'S FACE AND VERY BEAUTIFULL."]
The chief prey of the Lamia was, it appears, members of the human
species, preferably males. By its passing beauty (or, to judge by the
pictorial illustration, one would say rather by its amazing novelty) it
would entice men, and when they had "come neare, devoure and kill them."
In fact, these lamias were so inordinately fond of their favourite
refreshment that in one district "a certain crooked place in Libia neare
the Sea-shore full of sand was like to a sandy Sea and all the neighbor
places thereunto are deserts." A painful and humiliating lack of men has
often been noticed at our modern seaside resorts.
"The hinder parts of this beast," concludes our author, "are like unto a
goate, his fore-legs like a Beares and his body scaled all over like a
Dragon."
Next is a contemporary picture of a Tiger.
[Illustration: A TIGER.]
And now we come to the Wolf. His custom in those halcyon days of natural
history was, as now, to go in troops. But we read: "Their necks are
pressed together, so that they cannot stir it, to look about, but they
must move their whole bodies. They fall upon their prey, devouring hair,
bones and all. When they are to fight in great herds they fill their
bellies with earth." But this is as nothing. "When they are to pass over
Rivers, they joyn tails; loaded with that weight they are not easily
thrown down and the floods can hardly carry them away, being joined
together. The breath of a Wolf is so fiery, that it will melt and
consume the hardest bone in his stomack."
We have all of us heard of the Harpy. Below is a likeness of one that
speaks for itself.
[Illustration: A HARPY.]
Lizards are always interesting. "There was a lizzard 8 cubits long
brought to Rome from Ætheopia by the command of a Cardinal of Lisbon and
the mouth of it was so wide that a child might be put into it.... Put
alive into a new earthen vessel and boyle'd with 3 Sextaryes of Wine and
one Cyathus, it is excellent food for one sick of the Pthisick, if he
drink of it in the morning fasting."
We must not suppose that this operation would kill the lizard; the
difficulty would be how to procure a vessel to stew so large a lizard.
Lizard-pots are made much smaller nowadays. We dare say that the worthy
Mrs. Beeton, in her most ingenious moments, never dreamt of one above
four, or at most six, cubits deep.
Writers of our own time who have never gone in for a course of logic
rarely condescend to complete perspicuity. They take things too often
for granted. This is not old Topsell's way. "The Arabian sheep have a
very broad tail," he says, "and the fatter it is the thicker it will
be." We learn, too, what we should never have suspected had the author
not plainly stated it, that some tails "have been seen above 150lbs. in
weight." Albertus Magnus saw "a Ram that had 4 great Horns growing on
his head and two long ones on his legges, that were like to Goat's
Horns."