I stooped as I spoke, and gathered together the shreds of the

document, folded them in a great sheet of paper, and tied it with

ribbon into a neat parcel.

“Not a word,” I went on; “I will hear no more! When you have rested and

partaken of refreshment, one of my carriages will be at your disposal

for whatever point you may desire to reach to-day. Stay, you will want

some evidence to show that you have fulfilled your embassy.”

Sitting down to my writing-table, I hastily addressed the packet to

“Madame Basil de Jennico,” adding thereafter her distinctive title

as maid of honour. This done, I sealed it with my great seal, M. de

Schreckendorf meanwhile uttering uncouth little groans.

“Here, sir,” said I, holding out the packet with its bold inscription,

“they will no longer, it is evident, deny the existence at the Court of

Lusatia of the person I have here addressed. Here, sir. Take this to my

wife, and tell her that her husband has more respect than she has for

the holy sacrament he received with her. Here, sir!”

At every “Here, sir,” I advanced a step upon him, holding out the

bundle, and at every step I took he retreated, till impatiently I flung

it on the table nearest him, and making him a low ironical bow of

farewell, turned to leave him.

I paused a moment on the threshold of the room, however, and had the

satisfaction of seeing him, after throwing his hands heavenwards, as if

in despairing protest, bring them down again on the packet and proceed

to stuff it into the recesses of his coat.

I turned once more to go, when to my surprise he called after me in

tones unexpectedly stern and loud:

“Young man, young man, this is a grave mistake; have a care!”

I shrugged my shoulders and slammed the door upon his warning cry. Nor,

though he subsequently sent twice by my servants—first to demand, then

to supplicate, a further interview—would I consent to parley with him

again.

I passed a couple of restless hours, until, at length, from an upper

window I saw him depart from my house in far greater state and comfort

than he had come.

Now, as I write, I know that he is being whirled along the Yarmouth

road at the best pace of my fine horses, speeding back to Lausitz to

take my wife my eloquent answer.

CHAPTER IV

NARRATIVE OF AN EPISODE AT WHITE’S CLUB, IN WHICH CAPTAIN JENNICO WAS

CONCERNED, SET FORTH FROM CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTS

THE tenth hour of an October night had rung out over a fog-swathed

London; yet, despite the time of year, unfashionable for town life,

despite the unpropitious weather, the long card-room at White’s was

rapidly filling. The tables, each lit by its own set of candles, shone

dimly like a little green archipelago in a sea of mist. Groups were

gathering round sundry of these boards; the dice had begun to rattle,

voices to ring out. The nightly scene was being repeated, wherein all

were actors, down to the waiters, who had their private bets, and lost

and won with their patrons.

Somewhat apart in the seclusion of a window-recess, cosily ensconced

so as to profit of the warmth of the great yellow fire, sat three

gentlemen. A fourth chair remained vacant at their table; and from

the impatient glances which two of the party now and again turned

upon the different doors, it was evident that the arrival of its

expected occupant was overdue. The third gentleman, who bore the stamp

of a distinctly foreign race,—although his hair, which he wore but

slightly powdered, was of a fair hue, and his face rather sanguine

than dark,—seemed to endure the delay with complete indifference.

His attention was wholly given to the shuffling of a pack of cards,

which he manipulated with extreme dexterity, while he listened to his

companions’ remarks with impassive countenance. He was a handsome

man, despite a bulk of frame and feature which almost amounted to

coarseness; hardly yet in the prime of life, with full blue eyes

and full red lips, which took, when he spoke or smiled, a curious

curve, baring the canine in almost sinister fashion. The Chevalier

de Ville-Rouge, introduced at White’s by the Prussian Ambassador, as

a distinguished officer of the great Frederick visiting England for

his pleasure, had shown himself so daring a player as to be welcomed

among the most noted gamblers. He had lost and won large sums with

great breeding, and had in his six weeks’ stay contrived to improve

an imperfect knowledge of an alien tongue in such fashion as to make

intercourse with his English companions quite sufficiently easy.

The youngest of the trio at the table in the corner, this foggy

night, was naturally the one to display his feelings most openly. A

clean-faced, square-built English lad, fresh it would seem from the

playing fields of school, yet master of his title and fortune, and

cornet in the Life Guards, Sir John Beddoes was already a familiar

figure in the club, as indeed his finances could bear doleful

testimony. The green cuff-guards adjusted over his delicate ruffles,

the tablets and pencil ready at his elbow, it was clear he was itching

to put another slice of his patrimony to the hazard. His opposite

neighbour, Beau Carew (as he dearly loved to hear himself dubbed), was

a man of another kidney, and fifteen years of nights, systematically

turned into days, had left their stamp upon features once noted for

their beauty. Though ready now with a sneer or jest for his companion’s

youthful eagerness, his eyes wandering restlessly from the clock to the

doors betrayed an almost equal anxiety to begin the business of the

evening.

“Devil take Jennico!” cried the Baronet at last, striking the table

so that the dice leaped in their box; “‘pon my soul it’s too bad! He

gave me an appointment here at ten to-night, and it wants now but six

minutes to eleven.”

“Bet he comes before the clock strikes,” interposed Mr. Carew; “ten

guineas?”

“Done with you, Dick,” said Sir John promptly.

The bet was registered, and five minutes passed in watching the

timepiece on the mantel-shelf: all the young Baronet’s eagerness being

now against the event he had been burning to hasten. The strokes rang

out. With a smile he held out his broad palm, into which Carew duly

dropped ten pieces.

“‘Tis the first bit of luck the fellow has brought me yet. Gad, I

believe my luck has turned! Why the devil don’t he come, that I may

ease him of a little of that superfluous wealth of his? I swear he gets

more swollen day by day, while we grow lean—eh, Carew?—like the kine

in the Bible. D—— him!”

“The water goes to the river, as the French say, in spite of all our

dams,” sniggered Carew; “but as for me I am content that you should go

on playing with Jennico so that I may back him; my purse has not been

in such good condition for many a long day. Poor devil! How monstrous

unfortunate his amours must still be! I only wish,” with a conscious

wriggle, “he could give me the recipe.”

“Yet you have lost on him now,” retorted Beddoes, tapping his breast

pocket, “and if you back him to-night, you lose on him again, I warn

you. I am in the vein, I tell ye! But there is the quarter! Rot him,

I believe he is going to rat after all! Bet you he don’t come till

half-past, Carew. Fifty?”

“Done,” said Carew quietly, noting down the entry. “He _is_ erratic, I

grant you—he, he, he!—did you note me, Chevalier? But he has a taste

for the table, though I believe he’d as soon lose as win, were it only

for the sake of change. ’Tis about all he cares for—the dullest dog!

Bet you there is not a man in the room has heard him laugh.”

“You won’t find any fool to take up that bet, Carew. Heigh-ho! I’d

willingly accommodate myself with a little of his melancholy at the

price.”

“Better look up a princess for yourself then, Jack,” said Carew;

“perhaps the Chevalier here can give you an introduction to some other

fascinating German Highness.”

“Won’t it do over here?” asked Beddoes, with a grin. “D’ye think I’d

have a chance with Augusta? Twenty past! Let him keep away till the

half-hour now. Zounds! ’twould be a mean trick if he failed me on my

lucky night; though I don’t want him for ten minutes yet. He has fairly

cleared me out; the team will have to go next if I don’t get back some

of my I O U’s.”

“Why, it would be a very good thing for thee, Jack, if he played thee

false. I say so though I should lose most damnably by it. Thy team

will go, thy coaches will go, thy carts, thy grooms, thy dog, thy cat.

Why, man, thou must lose—’tis as plain as the nose on Lady Maria’s

face. And he must win, poor wretch, and I too, since I back him. Ask

the Chevalier if it is not a text of truth all the world over: lucky

at cards, unlucky in love. Never look so sulky, boy; ’tis providential

compensation.”

“You surprise _me_, gentlemen,” said the Chevalier, with a strong

guttural accent, lifting as he spoke his heavy lids for the first

time. “I was not aware that Captain Jennico was so afflicted in his

affections.”

“You surprise _me_, Chevalier,” returned Carew gaily. “I deemed you

and he such friends. Why, I won a hundred from my Lord Ullswater but

yestereven by wagering him that you would be the only man in the room

to whom Jennico would speak more than ten words within the hour. The

counting was not difficult. He said sixty-four to you and five to Jack.”

“Mr. Jennico has certainly shown me both kindness and sympathy,” said

the Chevalier, who had now folded his strong white hands over the pack

of cards, and sat the very embodiment of repose. “Doubtless our having

both served in the same part of the world, though under different

standards, has somewhat drawn us together: but he has not made me his

confidant.”

“And so you don’t know the tale of Jennico and the Princess? ’Tis a

dashed fine tale. Carew, you are a wit, or think you are—it comes to

much the same thing: tune up, man, give your version; for,” turning to

the Chevalier again, “there are now as many versions current as days in

the month. ’Tis twenty-five minutes past; you had better get your I O U

ready, Master Carew.”

“I have three hundred chances yet,” said Carew. Then turning to the

foreigner, “Would you really, sir, care to hear the true story of our

friend’s discomfiture? I am about the only man in town that knows the

_true_ one; but all that’s old scandal now—town talk of last year, as

stale as Lady Villiers’s nine virgin daughters. There are a dozen new

ones since. Would you not rather hear the last of his Royal Highness

the Duke of C. and Lady W.? That is choice if you like, and as fresh as

Rosalinda’s last admirer—eh, John?”

“I am not fond,” said the Chevalier drily, “of hearing those discussed

who, being High Born, have the right to claim respect and homage. But

I confess to some interest in my friend Mr. Jennico.”

“Begad, then,” responded Mr. Carew, flicking a grain of snuff from the

ruffles of his pouting bosom, “I cannot promise to spare your scruples

concerning scandal in high quarters, for the heroine of the romance

is, it would appear, one of your own German royalties; but since you

wish the story, you shall have it. There is then a certain Dorothea

Maria Augusta Carolina Sophia, etc., etc., daughter of some Duke of

Alsatia, Swabia, Dalmatia—no, stay, Lusatia, wherever that may be;

ay, that’s the name—one of your two hundred odd principalities—you

know all about it, I don’t—and Jennico, who, as you are aware, was in

the Imperial service, met this wondrously beautiful Princess at some

Court function somewhere. They danced, they conversed, she was fair and

he was fond—fill it in for yourself. He thought himself a tremendous

cock of the walk; to be brief, he aspired to act King Cophetua and

the beggar maid, turned the other way, with the exception that he is

as rich as Crœsus. He made so sure of the lady’s favour that he wrote

over to his mother to announce the marriage as a settled thing. A royal

alliance, with the prospect of speedily mounting to the throne on the

strength of his wife’s pretensions! Ha, ha!”

“‘Tis a droll story,” said the Chevalier gravely; “and then?”

“Oh, then!—Zounds! you can conceive the flutter in the dovecot over

him. My Lady Jennico, his mother, was blown out with pride, swimming in

the higher regions, a perfect balloon! Gad, she would no longer bow to

any one less than a Duke! She ran hither and thither cackling the news

like the hen that has laid an egg. She sent—I was told on the best

authority—to the Lord Chamberlain to know what precedence the young

couple would be given at the next Birthday. She called at the College

of Arms to inquire about the exact marshalling of the coat of Lusatia

with that of Jennico. He, he! And whether the resultant monstrosity

would comport a royal crown!”

“Faith, that’s a good one,” said Sir John, with a guffaw; “I had not

heard _that_, Carew.”

“Fact, fact, I assure you,” smiled the wit.

“Very droll,” repeated M. de Ville-Rouge, with impassive muscles.

“When,” continued Carew, “lo and behold, what a falling off was there,

as young Roscius says! What a come down! Humpty-Dumpty was nothing to

it—poor Lady Jennico’s egg! Ah! well, we all know pride must have a

fall. Your fair compatriot, sir, had but amused herself with the fine

Englishman, for which I would be loath to blame her. She gave him,

it is said, indeed, every pledge of her affection. But when he began

to prate of rings and marriage lines, and pressed her to become Mrs.

Jennico, she found him a little too presumptuous—at least, I take it

so; and being, it would seem, of a merry turn of mind, devised a little

joke to play upon him. Pretending to yield at last to his urgency, she

gave her consent to a secret marriage, and in the dark chapel palmed

off her chambermaid upon him! Ha, ha! So the poor devil, carrying off

his bride by night in high glee, thinking himself a very fine fellow

indeed, never discovered till he had brought her home that he had given

his hand and name to a squinting, sausage-nosed, carroty maid, daughter

of the Court confectioner, called in baptism by the Princess’s names,

like half the girls in the town. The story goes that the Princess with

all the Court were waiting at his house to see the happy pair arrive,

and I have had secret, but absolutely incontestable, information that

the Princess laughed till she had to be bled.”

M. de Ville-Rouge smiled at last in evident appreciation of the humour

of the situation.

“It is, on my honour, a most comic story,” he said. “But how come you

so well acquainted with the matter? Surely my poor friend Jennico has

ill-chosen his confidant.”

“Devil a word have I heard from Jennico,” said Carew. “Faith, he has

ever been the same cheerful, conversational fellow you wot of, and

it would take a bold man to question him. But truth, you know, will

out—truth will out in time.”

“Ay,” said the Chevalier, and was shaken with silent merriment.

“Half-past eleven,” roared the Baronet, suddenly, stretching out a

great paw and snapping his fingers under the beau’s face.

“Zounds!” cried the wit, turning to look at the clock with some

discomposure; “no, Jack, no, there is still a fraction of a minute—the

half-hour has not struck. And, by Heaven, here’s our man! Had you not

better sup with Rosalinda to-night?”

Sir John, in the act of looking round pettishly—he had not yet

reached that enviable state of mind in which a gambler declares that

the greatest delight after winning is that of losing—found his

attention unexpectedly arrested by the countenance of the Chevalier

de Ville-Rouge, which presented at that moment such an extraordinary

appearance that the young man forgot his irritation, and remained

gazing at it in open-mouthed astonishment.

The features, usually remarkable for their set, rather heavy composure,

were perturbed to the verge of distortion. The whole face was stained

with angry purple, the veins of the forehead swollen like whipcord.

Sir John Beddoes’s wits were none of the sharpest, but it was clear

even to him that the emotion thus expressed was one of furious

disappointment.

But while he cudgelled his brains for an explanation of this sudden

humour in a man who was neither winner nor loser by Basil Jennico’s

appearance, the face of the Chevalier resumed its wonted indifferent

expression and dulness of hue with a rapidity that altogether

confounded the observer.

By this time the tall figure of the new-comer had wended its way down

the room and was close upon them. All turned to greet him, and poor Sir

John found his feelings once more subjected to a shock.

The acquaintances of Basil Jennico were accustomed to find his brow

charged with gloom, to see his cheek wear the pallor of one who sleeps

little and thinks much. But in his demeanour to-night was more than

the usual sombreness, on his countenance other than natural pallor.

As he stood for a moment responding absently to the Chevalier’s hearty

greeting, and Carew’s bantering salutation of “All hail!” it became

further apparent that his dress was disordered, that his ruffles were

torn and blood-stained, that his brocade jacket was jaggedly rent upon

the left side, and also ominously stained here and there.

“Gadzooks, man!” exclaimed Carew, his bleared grey eyes lighting at

the prospect of a new wholesale scandal for his little retail shop.

“What has happened thee? Wounded? How? Ah, best not inquire perhaps!

Beddoes, lad, see you he has got reasons for his delay. Who knows but

that you may have a chance to-night after all. A deadly dig, well

aimed under the fifth rib, a true Benedick’s pinking; or shall we say

goring?—ahem! Have a care, Jennico, these wounds from horned beasts

are reputed ill to heal. Ah, sad dog, sad dog! I will warrant thou hast

had the balance nevertheless to thy credit. Now do I remember a little

lady was casting very curious looks at you at Almack’s last night.”

Basil had flung himself into the chair that had so long awaited him,

and seemed to lend but a half-apprehending ear to the prattler on his

left, who, as he leant towards him, was hardly able to restrain his

eager hand from fingering the hurt so unmistakably evidenced. On the

right the Chevalier as unsuccessfully pressed him with earnest queries,

manifesting, it would seem, a genuine anxiety.

“Great God, my friend! what has happened?”

The stentorian tones of Sir John Beddoes, who saw an opportunity of

retrieving his fortunes, here broke in hastily upon Carew’s flow of

words: “Bet you double or quits it was _not_ Lady Sue,” and aroused Mr.

Jennico’s attention.

“I should be loath to spoil sport,” he said, “but I advise no one to

bet on my bonnes fortunes. This scratch—for it is nothing more, Mr.

Carew, and I would show it to you with pleasure in reward for your

flattering interest, but the surgeon has just bound it up very neatly,

and it would be a pity to disturb his handiwork—is but the sixth of

a series of attempts on my life, made within the last six weeks, by

persons unknown, for purposes likewise unknown.”

“Dash it, Jennico, you might have let me enter the bet,” said the

Baronet sulkily, while Carew, sniffing a choicer titbit of gossip than

he had expected, wriggled with pleasure, and the Chevalier expressed

unbounded amazement that such a state of things could exist, above all

in England.

“It is even so,” resumed Basil, turning to the last speaker as if glad

to give vent to some of his pent-up irritation. “I confess that when I

returned to my native land I did expect to find at least a quiet life.

Why, in my house at Tollendhal, where those who surrounded me were

half savages, ruled by the stick and the halter, where it was deemed

imprudent for the master to walk the roads without his body-guard,

there was never so much as a stone thrown after me. But here, in old

England, my life, I believe, would not be worth backing for a week.” He

looked round with a smile in which melancholy and disdain were blended.

“Now, d—— me!” cried Sir John, struck in his easy good nature into

sudden warmth and sympathy, “nay, now d—— me, Jennico! I will take

any man a hundred guineas that you are alive this day month.”

“Done!” said the Chevalier, with such unexpected energy that all three

turned round to look at him with surprise; perceiving which he went on,

laughing to conceal an evident embarrassment: “Your betting habits here

are infectious, but while I will not withdraw, I am prepared to be glad

to lose rather than gain for once.” He fixed Basil across the table

with his brooding eye as he spoke, and bowed to him, then turned to

the Baronet. “No, Sir Beddoes, I am not going to recede from the wager.”

This, as a wager worth recording, was forthwith entered into the club

book. Basil looked on, half in amusement, half in bitterness.

“‘Tis likely, after all,” he said, addressing Sir John, “that you may

win and that the Chevalier may be afforded the pleasure of losing, for

I seem to bear a charmed life. Perhaps,” he added with a sigh, “because

I care so little for it. Though to be sure there is something galling

to a man in being shot at from behind a hedge and set on in the dark;

in not knowing where the murderer may be lying in wait for him, at what

street corner, at what turn of the road, behind what hayrick. If I have

not kept my appointment over punctually to-night, it is because a rogue

has had me by the Park gateway in Piccadilly. There is more here than

mere accidental villainy. The next will be that I shall see murder in

my own servant’s eyes. Or, who knows, find it lying at the bottom of my

cup. Pah! I am as bold as most men; I would welcome death more readily

than most; but, by Heaven! it is unfair treatment, and I have had more

than my share of it.”

“Why, Jennico,” said Carew, “you never spoke a word of this before. A

fellow has no right to keep such doings dark. Tell us the details.”

“Ay, tell us all about it,” said Sir John, with round eyes ready to

start from their orbits.

“True,” said Basil, “you have now an interest, Jack, in knowing what

sort of odds are against you. Well, you shall learn all you wish; but

let us to supper, gentlemen, meanwhile, that we may lose no further

time and start better fortified upon the evening’s business, if Beddoes

is still anxious for his revenge.”

CHAPTER V

NARRATIVE OF AN EPISODE AT WHITE’S CONTINUED

IT was over a dish of devilled kidneys and a couple of bottles of

Burgundy that—pressed by the eager curiosity of his English friends,

no less than by the interest M. de Ville-Rouge continued to profess

in his concerns with all Teutonic earnestness—Basil Jennico began to

narrate his misadventures in the same tone of ironical resentment with

which he had already alluded to them.

“It began at Farringdon Dane,” he said, “on the little property in

Suffolk which my mother has placed at my disposal. ’Twas some six weeks

gone, walking through the wood at sundown, I was shot at from behind a

tree. The charge passed within an inch of my face, to embed itself in a

sapling behind me. I was, according to my wont—an evil habit—deeply

absorbed in thought, and was alone; consequently, although I searched

the copse from end to end, I could find no trace of my well-wisher.

That was number one. I gave very little heed to the occurrence at

first, believing it to be some poacher’s trick, or maybe the unwitting

act of what you call in your country, Chevalier, a Sunday sportsman,

who mistook my brown beaver for the hide of a nobler quarry. But the

next attempt gave me more serious food for reflection. This time I

was shot at while sitting reading in my study at night, when all the

household had retired. It was close weather, and I had drawn the

curtains and opened the windows. The bullet again whizzed by my ear,

and this time shattered the lamp beside me. No doubt the total darkness

which ensued saved me from a second and better aim.”

“You are a fortunate young man,” said the Chevalier gravely.

“Do you think so, Chevalier?” answered Jennico, with a smile which all

the bitterness of his thoughts could not altogether rob of sweetness.

“I do not think any one need envy my fate. Well, gentlemen, you can

conceive the uproar which ensued upon the event I have just described.

The best efforts of myself, my servants, and my dogs failed, however,

to track the fugitive, although the marks of what seemed a very neat

pair of shoes were imprinted on my mother’s most choice flowerbeds.

After this adventure I received a couple more of such tokens of

good-will in the country. Once I was shot at crossing a ford in full

daylight, and my poor nag was struck; this time I did catch a glimpse

of the scoundrel, but he was mounted too, and poor Bess, though she

did her utmost, fell dead after the first twenty strides in pursuit.

Thereupon my mother grew so morbidly nervous, and the mystery resisting

all our attempts at elucidation, I gave way to her entreaties and

returned to London, where she deemed I would find myself in greater

safety.”

“And has your friend followed you up here?” exclaimed Sir John,

forgetting his supper in his interest. “By George, this is a good

story!”

“I was stopped on the road by a highwayman,” answered Mr. Jennico

quietly. “Nothing unusual in that, you will say; but there was

something a little out of the common nevertheless in the fact that he

fired his pistol at me without the formality of bidding me stand and

deliver; which formality, I believe, is according to the etiquette of

the road. I am glad to tell you that I think we left our mark on the

gentleman this time, for as he rode away he bent over his saddle, we

thought, like one who will not ride very far. But, faith! the brood is

not extirpated, and the worthy folk who display such an interest in me,

finding hot lead so unsuccessful, have now taken to cold steel.”

Sir John Beddoes damned his immortal soul with great fervour.

“Pray, sir,” remarked Mr. Carew with an insinuating smile, “may not the

identity of the murderer be of easier solution than you deem? Are there

no heirs to your money?”

“I might pretend to misunderstand you, Mr. Carew,” said Basil,

flushing, “although your meaning is plain. Permit me to say, however,

that I fail to find a point to the jest.”

“‘Twas hardly likely you would find humour in a point so inconveniently

aimed against yourself,” answered Carew airily. “But ’tis a rarity,

Jennico, to find a man ready to take up the cudgels for his heirs and

successors. Nevertheless, I crave your pardon, the more so because I am

fain to know what befell you to-night.”

“To-night was an ill night to choose for so evil an attempt,” said

the Chevalier, rousing himself from a fit of musing and looking

reflectively round upon the fog, which hung ever closer even in the

warm and well-lit room.

“It was the very night for their purpose, my dear Chevalier,” returned

the young man with artificial gaiety. “Faith, it was like to have

succeeded with them, and I make sure mine enemy, whoever he may be,

is pluming himself even now upon the world well rid of my cumbersome

existence. I was on foot, too, and what with the darkness and emptiness

of the streets I was, I may say, delivered into their hands. But they

are sad bunglers. One of my pretty fellows in Moravia would have done

such a job for me, were I in the way to require it, as cleanly and with

as little ado as you pick your first pheasant in October, Jack. And yet

it may be that I am providentially preserved—preserved for a better

fate.” Here he tossed off his glass as if to a silent toast.

“But why on foot, my dear Jennico? On foot—fie, fie, and in this

weather! What could you expect?” cried Carew with a shiver of horror.

“If you were not so fond of interruption, Mr. Carew,” said the

Chevalier with a sinister smile, “perhaps we might sooner get to the

end of Mr. Jennico’s story. We are all eagerness to hear about this

last miraculous preservation.”

“I hardly know myself how I come to be alive! I could get no sedan,

my dear Carew, and that was just the rub. What with Lady Bedford’s

card-party and the fog, there was not one to be had within a mile, and

I had given my stablemen a holiday. I sent my servant upon the quest

for a chair, but got tired of waiting, mindful of my appointment with

my friend and neighbour here, and so it was that I set forth, as I

said, on foot and alone. The mist was none so thick but that I could

find my way, and I was pursuing it at a round pace when, opposite

Devonshire House, some fellow bearing a link crossed from over the

road, came straight upon me without a word, raised his torch, and

peered intently into my face. I halted, but before I could demand the

meaning of his insolence down went his fire-brand fizzing into the

mud, out came his sword, and I was struck with such extreme violence

that, in the very attempt to recover my balance, I fell backwards all

my length upon the pavement, skewered like a chicken, and carrying

the skewer with me. Some gentlemen happened to reach the spot at that

moment, there was a cry for the watch, but the rogue had made good use

of his heels and the fog, and was out of sight and hearing in a moment.”

“Verdammt villain!” cried M. de Ville-Rouge, whose brow had grown ever

blacker during this account. “Say, my amiable friend, did you not get

even a lunge at him?”

“Lunge, man! I was skewered, I tell you; I could not even draw! His

sword—’twas as sharp as a razor, a fine sword, I have had it brought

to my chambers—had gone clean through innumerable folds of cloak

and cape, back and front, only to graze my ribs after all. It was

bent double by the fall, and it took the strength of the watchman and

the two gentlemen to draw it out again. By George! they thought I was

spitted beyond hope.”

“A foul affair altogether,” murmured Carew absently; but the sorry jest

was lost in the strident tones of the Chevalier, who now anxiously

plied Basil as to the surgeon’s opinion of the wound, and expressed

himself relieved beyond measure by the reply.

At this juncture Sir John Beddoes, who had drunk enough to inflame his

gambler’s ardour to boisterous pitch, began to clamour for his promised

revenge, and the whole party once more adjourned to the card-room.

In his heart, Basil Jennico would have been genuinely glad to be

unsuccessful at the hazard that night; partly from a good-natured

dislike to be the cause of the foolish young man’s complete ruin,

partly from a more personal feeling of superstition. But the luck ran

as persistently in his favour as ever.

Carew, with drawn tablets, began loudly to back the winner, challenging

all his acquaintance to wager against him. But although the high play

and Sir John’s increasing excitement and restlessness, as well as the

extraordinary good fortune which cleaved to Jennico, soon attracted

a circle of watchers, men were chary of courting what seemed certain

loss, and Carew found his easy gains not likely further to accrue.

Suddenly the Chevalier, who, with his cheek resting upon his hand,

had seemed plunged in deep reflection ever since they had left the

supper-room, rose, and with an air of geniality which sat awkwardly

enough upon him, cried out to the surprise of all—for he had not been

wont to back any player in the club:

“And there is really no one to side with my good friend Beddoes

to-night? Why then, Mr. Carew, I will be the man. Thunder-weather,

Beddoes,” clapping him on the shoulder—“I believe the luck will turn

yet; so brave a heart must needs force fortune! What shall it be, Mr.

Carew? Something substantial to encourage our friend.”

Jennico looked down at the pile of vouchers which lay at his elbow. It

amounted already to a terrible sum. Then he looked across at the boy’s

face, drawn, almost haggard in spite of its youth and chubbiness, and

sighed impatiently. He could not advise the fool to go home to bed;

yet for himself he was heartily sick of these winnings. The dice were

thrown again, Sir John’s hand trembling like a leaf; and again Basil

won, and again vouchers were added to the heap.

M. de Ville-Rouge threw a dark glance at the winner as he stepped up to

Carew to settle his own debt.

“You should not have backed me,” said Sir John ruefully, lifting his

eyes from the contemplation of the paper that meant for him another

step towards ruin. “The devil’s in it; I will play no more to-night!”

“Nay, then,” cried the Chevalier, “by your leave I will take your

place. I for one am no such believer in the continuance of Mr.

Jennico’s good luck.”

There was something harsh, almost offensive, in the tone of the last

words, and Basil turned in surprise towards the speaker.

“The Chevalier,” he said, “is very ready to risk his gold against me

to-night.”

“‘Tis so, sir,” returned the Chevalier, with such singular arrogance

that the watchers looked at each other significantly, and Carew

whispered to a young man behind his chair, “Faith, our foreign friend

is a bad loser after all!”

Basil had flushed, but he made no reply, and contented himself with

raising his eyebrows somewhat contemptuously, while he languidly pushed

his own dice-box across the table towards his new opponent.

“Come,” said the Chevalier, seizing it and shaking it fiercely, “I will

not mince the stake. A hundred guineas on the main.”

He threw, and the result of all his rattling being after all the lowest

cast of the evening, there was an ill-suppressed titter round the

table. Basil made no attempt to hide his smile as he lazily turned over

his dice and threw just one higher.

The German’s face had grown suffused with dark angry crimson; the veins

of his throat and his temples began to swell.

“Double or quits,” he cried huskily. He threw and lost; doubled his

stake, threw and lost again.

There was something about the scene that aroused the audience to more

potent interest than the ordinary nightly repeated spectacle of loss

and gain.

The extraordinary passion displayed by the foreigner, not only in his

inflamed countenance, but in the very motion of his hands, in the rigid

tension of his whole body, presented a strange contrast to the languor

of his opponent. It was, moreover, a revelation in one who had been

known hitherto as courteous and composed to formality.

“It is to be hoped some one has a lancet,” said Carew, “for I believe

the gentleman will have an apoplexy unless a little blood be let soon.”

“I fear me,” answered his companion, “that there will be more blood let

than you think for. Did you mark that look?”

At the same instant the Chevalier flung down his box with such

violence that the dice, rebounding, flew about the room, and gazed

across at Basil with open hatred, as one glad to give vent at last to

long-pent-up fury.

“By Heaven, Mr. Jennico!” he cried, “were it not that I have been told

how well you have qualified for this success, I should think there was

more in such marvellous throwing of dice than met the eye. But your

love affairs, I hear,—and I should have borne it in mind,—have been

so disastrous, so more than usually disastrous,” here his voice broke

into a sort of snarl, “as to afford sufficient explanation for the

marvel.”

There was a cold silence. Then Jennico rose, white as death.

“If you know so much about me, sir,” he said in tones that for all

the anger that vibrated in them fell harmoniously upon the ear after

the Chevalier’s savage outburst, “you should know too that there

is a subject upon which I never allow any one to touch. Your first

insinuation I pass over with the contempt it deserves, but as regards

your observation on what you are pleased to call my love affairs, I can

only consider it as an intentional insult. And this is my answer.”

The German in his turn had sprung to his feet, but Basil Jennico leant

across the table, and before he could guard himself struck him lightly

but deliberately across the mouth.

PART III

CHAPTER I

MEMOIR OF CAPTAIN BASIL JENNICO (RESUMED IN THE SPRING OF THE YEAR 1773)

IN MY CASTLE OF TOLLENDHAL, _March, 1773_.

IT is the will of one whose wishes are law to me that I should proceed

with these pages, begun under such stress of mental trouble, until I

bring the tangled story of Basil Jennico’s marriage to its singular

settlement.

Without, as I now write, all over the land, the ice-bound brooks are

melting, and our fields and roads are deep in impassable mud. The whole

air is full of the breath of spring, as grateful to the nostrils as it

is stirring to the blood of man, to the sap of trees.

But it is ill getting about, for all that the springtime is so

sweet—as sweet and as capricious as a woman wooed—and thus there is

time for this occupation of scribe; yet it is a curious task for one

bred to so vastly different a trade; neither, God knows, do I find time

heavy on my hands just now! Nevertheless, I must even end this preface

as I have begun it, and say that I am fain to do as I am bidden.

The last line I traced upon these sheets (I am filled with a good deal

of wonder at, and no little admiration of myself, when I view what a

goodly mass I have already blackened) was penned at one of the darkest

moments of that dark year.

M. de Schreckendorf—little messenger of such ill omen—had but just

departed, and in the month that followed his visit the courage had

failed me to resume my melancholy record, though truly I had things

to relate that a man might consider like to form a more than usually

thrilling chapter of autobiography.

Towards the beginning of September, I, still a dweller upon my mother’s

little property—most peaceful haunt, it would seem, in the heart of

our peaceful land—began to find myself the object of a series of

murderous attacks—these, so repeated and inveterate, that it was

evident that they were dictated by the most deliberate purpose, and

the more alarming, perhaps, that I could give then no guess from what

quarter they proceeded.

Suspicion fell on a poaching gang, on a dishonest groom, on a

discharged bailiff. At length, seeing my mother like to fall ill of the

anxiety, I consented to return to London, although the country life

and the wholesome excitement of sport had afforded me a relief from my

restlessness which existence in the town was far from providing.

No sooner, however, was I fully installed in my London chambers, than

the persecution began afresh. I had fallen into an idle habit of going

night after night to White’s, there to bet and gamble with my modish

acquaintances. ’Twas not that the dice had any special attraction for

me, but that my nights were so long.

On my way thither one mid-October foggy evening, my life was once more

attempted, and this time with a deliberation and ferocity which might

well have proved successful at last.

As it was, however, I again providentially escaped, and was able to

proceed to the club, where I had an appointment with a poor youth—our

Norfolk neighbour, Sir John Beddoes—who had already lost a great deal

of money to me, and would not be content until he had lost a great deal

more: I had the most insupportable good luck.

I little knew that I should find awaiting me there the greatest danger

I had yet to run; that the head which had directed all these blows in

the dark was, de guerre lasse, preparing to attack me in the open, and

push its malice to a certain climax. A foreign gentleman—one Chevalier

de Ville-Rouge, as I knew him then—had sedulously sought first my

acquaintance, and thereupon my company, for some weeks past. And though

I had not found him very entertaining—I was not in the mood to be

entertained by any one—I had no reason to deny him either the one or

the other.

But this night, after first addressing me with looks and tones which

began to strike me as unwarrantable, he sat a round of hazard with me,

for the sole and determined purpose, as I even then saw, of grossly

insulting me. As a reply, I struck him across the face, for, however

transparent was the trap laid for me, the provocation before witnesses

was of a kind I could not pass over. And, ’fore Heaven, I believe I was

in my heart glad of the diversion!

The meeting was fixed for the next morning. Neither of us would consent

to delay, and indeed the German’s whole demeanour, once he had given

a loose rein to his fury, was more that of a wild beast thirsting for

blood than of a being endowed with reason.

Both Sir John Beddoes and Mr. Carew, who had formed our party,

indignant at the coarseness of the foreigner’s behaviour, volunteered

on the spot to be my seconds, and Carew, who has a subtle knowledge of

the etiquette of honour, arranged the details of our meeting. It was to

take place in Chelsea Gardens half an hour after sunrise. The weapons

chosen by M. de Ville-Rouge were swords, for although the quarrel had

been of his own seeking, my blow had given him the right of choice.

It was two o’clock before I found myself again alone in my rooms that

night, my friends having conducted me home, and seeming somewhat loath

to retire. I was longing for a couple of hours’ solitude before the

dawn of the day which might be my last. I felt that my career had

reached its turning-point, that this was an event otherwise serious

than any of the quarrels in which I had been hitherto embroiled, and

that the conduct of affairs was not in my hands.

Carew was anxious about me—he had never yet seen a duellist of my

kidney, I believe—and my very quietness puzzled him.

“Make that nutcracker attendant of yours prepare you a hot drink, man,”

cried he, as at last, with honest Beddoes, he withdrew, “and get to

bed. Nothing will steady your hand like a spell of sleep.”

But there was no sleep for me. Besides that the pain of the slight

wound which I had received in the night’s guet-apens was stiffening to

great soreness, there was an excitement in my brain—partially due to

the fever incident on the hurt—which would not permit the thought of

rest.

I had but little business to transact. In view of the present

uncertainty of my life, I had recently drawn up a will in which, after

certain fitting legacies, I left my great fortune to my wife. Now I

merely gathered together the whole of this accumulated narrative of

mine into a weighty packet, and after addressing it, deposited it in

János’s hands with the strict injunction, in the event of my demise, to

deliver it personally to Ottilie.

No farewell message would be so eloquent as these pages in which I had

laid bare the innermost thoughts of my soul since I first knew her. She

should receive no other message from me. I next tore up poor Beddoes’s

litter of I O U’s, and making a parcel of the fragments directed it to

him. János received my instructions with his usual taciturn docility,

yet if anything could have roused me from the curious state of apathy

in which I found myself, it would have been the sight of the dumb

concern on the faithful fellow’s countenance.

Having thus put all my worldly affairs in order, I sat me down in

my armchair, awaiting the dawn, and viewed the past as one who has

done with life. I had a strong presentiment upon me that I should not

survive the meeting.

At times, the vision of my wife sleeping, at that very moment, as I

had so often watched her sleep, lightly and easily as a child, little

wotting, little caring, perhaps, if she had wotted, of her husband’s

solemn vigil, would rise up before me with a vividness so cruel as

well-nigh to rouse me. But the new calmness of my soul defied these

assaults; an unknown philosophy had succeeded to the violence of my

emotions.

When my seconds called for me in the first greyness of the morning

they found me ready for them. They themselves were shivering from the

raw cold, with arms thrust to the elbows into the depths of their

muffs; Carew, all yellow and shrivelled,—an old man of a sudden,—and

Beddoes, blue and purple, the sleep still in his swollen eyes, hardly

able to keep his teeth from chattering—a very schoolboy! They could

scarce conceal their amazement at my placidity. It was not, indeed,

that I found myself bodily fit for the contest, for the whole of my

left side was stiff, and I could hardly move that arm without pain; yet

placid I was, I scarcely now know why.

Thus we set forth in Sir John Beddoes’s coach, János on the box, and

a civil, shy young man on the back seat beside Beddoes: this was, the

latter informed me, the best surgeon he had been able to secure at such

short notice.

The fog disappeared, and when the mists evaporated it promised to be a

fine, bright, frosty morning.

Now, it may be after all that I was a little light-headed with the heat

of the wound in my blood, for I have no very clear recollections of

that morning. It remains in my mind rather as a bright-coloured fantasy

than a series of events I have actually lived through.

I remember, as a man may remember a scene in a play, a garden running

down to the river-side, very bare and desolate, and the figure and

face of my bulky antagonist as he conferred excitedly with two

outlandish-looking men, his seconds. These had fierce moustaches, and

reminded me vaguely of the cravat captains I had known in the Empire.

Then the scene shifts: we stand facing each other. I am glad of the

chill of the air, with nothing between it and my fevered breast but the

thinness of my shirt. But my opponent stamps like a menacing bull, as

if furious at the benumbing blasts. Now I am fighting—fighting for my

life—as never in battle or in single combat have I had need to fight

before. This is no courteous duel between gentlemen, no honourable

meeting, but the struggle of a man with his murderer. Physically at a

disadvantage from my hurt, I am moreover conscious that against this

brute fury all my skill at arms is of no avail and my strength is

rapidly failing. Then, as he drives me by the sheer weight of his mass,

I see his face thrust forward into mine, distorted with such a frenzy

that I wonder in a sort of unformed way why this man should thus thirst

to kill me. The next moment, with an extraordinary sense of universal

failure and disorganisation which is yet not pain, I realise that I am

hit—badly hit.

Upon that instant I find my brain cleared to a lucidity I have never

felt before. I see my opponent’s sword flash ruby red with my own blood

in the sun rays; I see him smile, a smile of glorious triumph, which

cuts a deep dimple beside his lip; I hear him pant at me the strange

words, “Ha! Ottilie!” and then I am again seared, rent once more, and

to the sound of a howl of many voices my world falls into chaos and

exists no more.

* * * * *

It is sometimes but a short and easy way up to the gates of death, but

a long and weary journey back to life. It was a long and weary journey

to me.

I was like to a man who travels in the dead of night over rough ways,

and now and again slumbers uneasily with troubled dreams, and now

looks out upon a glimmer of light in some house or village, and now on

nothing but the pitchy darkness; and yet he is always travelling on

and on till he is weary with madness of fatigue. And then, as the dawn

breaks upon the wanderer, and he sees a strange land around him, so the

dawn of what seemed a new existence began to break for me, and I looked

upon life anew with wondering eyes.

At first I looked as the traveller may, with eyes so tired and drowsy

as scarce to care to notice. But in yet a little while I warmed and

quickened to the sun of returning health. I began to be something more

than a mere tortured mass of humanity; each breath was no longer misery

to draw; the mind was able to re-assert authority over the flesh. That

dark, watchful figure that seemed to have been sitting at the foot of

my bed for centuries, that was János! Poor old fellow! I could not

yet speak to him, but I could smile. My next thought was amaze that

I should be in a strange room; it had a very teasing tapestry; its

figures had worried me long before I could notice them. In a little

while I began to understand that I was not in my own chambers, and to

feel such irritation at the liberty which had been taken with me that I

should have demanded instant explanation had my strength been equal to

the task.

But I come of too vigorous stock, the blood that runs in my veins is

too sweet—because I have not, like so many young fools of my day,

poisoned it with endless potations and dissoluteness—for me, when once

on the broad high road to recovery (to continue my travelling simile),

to dally over the ground.

Moreover I was too well nursed. János, it seems, after the first couple

of visits, in each of which I was wisely bled of the diminished store

the Chevalier’s sword had left in my veins—János had had a great

quarrel with the surgeon, vowing he would not see his master’s murder

completed before his eyes and never a chance of hanging the murderer.

It had ended in the old soldier taking the law into his own hands,

dismissing the man of medicine, and treating me after his own lights.

He had had a fairly good apprenticeship, having attended my uncle

through all his campaigns. As far as I am concerned I am convinced that

in this, as well as in another matter which I am about to relate, he

saved my life.

The other matter has reference to the very change of quarters which

had excited my ire, the true explanation of which, however, I did not

receive until I was strong enough to entertain visitors. János would

give me little or no satisfaction.

“I thought in myself it would be more wholesome for your honour

than your other house,” was the utmost I could extract. Indeed, he

strenuously discouraged all conversation. But the day when this

stern guardian first consented to admit Carew and Beddoes to my

presence,—and that was not till I could sit up in bed and converse

freely,—all that I had been curious about was made clear to me.

Carew, indeed, had the virtue of being an excellent gossip. I had at

one time deemed it his only quality, but I learned better then. Both

the gentlemen, each in his own fashion, displayed a certain emotion at

seeing me again, in which pleasure at the fact of my being still in

the land of the living, and likely to remain so, was qualified by the

painful impression produced by my altered appearance.

Sir John, the boy, sat himself down on the edge of my bed and squeezed

my hand in silence, with something like tears in his eyes. Carew, the

roué, was very deliberate in his choice of a chair, took snuff with a

vast deal of elegant gesture, and fired off, with it might be an excess

of merriment, such jocularities as he had gathered ready against the

occasion. Both of them seemed to deem it incumbent upon them to avoid

any reference to the duel. I, however, very promptly brought up the

subject.

“Now, for God’s sake,” I said, “let a poor man who has been kept

like a child with a cross nurse—take your pap, go to sleep, ask no

questions—learn at last a little about himself. In the first place,

where am I? In the second, what has become of the red devil who brought

me to this pass?”

“In the first place, Jennico,” said Carew, “you are at the house

of Lady Beddoes, mother to our friend here, a very pleasing little

residence situate on Richmond Hill. Secondly, that red devil, as you

call him, that most damnable villain, has fled the country, as well he

might, for if ever a knave deserved stringing up as high as Haman—but

of that anon. There is a good deal to tell you if you think you can

bear the excitement.

“Well,” he pursued, upon my somewhat pettish asseveration, “I myself

think a little pleasant conversation will do you more good than harm.

To begin with, you are doubtless not aware that you are a dead man.”

“How?” cried I, a little startled, for my nerve was yet none of the

strongest.

“Nay, nay, dash you, Carew,” interposed Sir John, “don’t ye make those

jokes. Gruesome, I call ’em: it makes me creep! No, Basil, lad, thou

art alive, and wilt live to set that Chevalier, whoever he may be,

swinging for it yet.” And here in his eager partisanship he broke into

a volley of execrations which would have run my poor great-uncle’s

performances pretty close.

“Why,” said I impatiently, “‘tis enigma to me still why I am here; why

I am dead; why the Chevalier should hang. I think you have all sworn to

drive me mad among you.”

I was so evidently exasperated that Beddoes, all of a tremble, besought

Carew to explain the situation.

“He’ll do himself a mischief,” he cried pathetically; “do you tell him,

Carew,—you know what a fool I am!”

Carew was nothing loath to set about what was indeed the chief pleasure

of his life, the retailing of scandal; and it seems that the Jennico

duel was a very pretty scandal indeed.

“I will take your last question first,” said he, settling himself to

his task with gusto. “Why the Chevalier should hang? Who he really is,

where he comes from, why he hates you with such deadly hatred, Jennico,

are all mysteries which I confess myself unable to fathom—doubtless

you can furnish us with the clue by-and-by.”

As he spoke his pale eye kindled with a most devouring curiosity.

Nevertheless as I showed no desire to interrupt him by any little

confidence, he proceeded glibly:

“But why the Chevalier should hang is another matter. Gadzooks, I’d run

him down myself were it but for his impudence in getting gentlemen like

myself to come and see foul play. Why, Jennico, man, don’t you know

that after charging you like a bull, and running you once through the

body, the scoundrel stabbed you again as you were sinking down and the

sword had dropped from your hand. I doubt me he would have spitted you

a third time to make quite sure, had not Beddoes and I fallen upon him.”

“I’d have run him through,” here interposed Sir John excitedly; “I had

drawn for it, had I not, Dick?—and I’d have run him through, but that

the surgeon called out that you were dead; and dash me, between the

turn I got and the way those queer seconds of his hustled him away,

I lost the chance! And the three of them ran, they ran like rats, to

the river. Gad, I’d have left my mark on them even then, but Carew, be

hanged to him, held on by my coat-tails.”

“‘Tis just as Jack told you,” said Carew. “No sooner had they heard you

were dead, my friend, than they ran for it, and it is quite true that I

restrained Jack here from sticking them in the back as they skedaddled.

A pretty affair of honour, indeed!”

I lay back on my pillows awhile, musing. I had had time to reflect on

many things these days, and—God knows—there were enigmas enough in my

life to give me food for reflection. What I had just heard caused me no

surprise, tallying as it did with conclusions I had previously reached.

After a moment Carew cleared his throat, edged his chair a foot nearer,

and queried confidentially: “Did it never strike you that the Chevalier

must have been part and parcel, if not the moving spirit, of those

attacks upon your life which you told us of that night at the club? You

did not appear to have a notion of it then. Yet there was not a man of

us there who did not see but the quarrel was deliberately got up.”

“And d’ye mind,” cried Sir John, “how he bet me you would not live a

month?”

“Ay,” said Carew, “and Jennico knows best himself if in his gay youth,

in foreign parts, he has not given good cause for this mortal enmity,

though to be sure the mystery thickens when we remember how friendly

you were with each other. Jennico is such a close dog; he keeps such a

dashed tight counsel!”

I smiled. Jennico would keep his counsel still. I meant these good

fellows should expound my riddles for me, not I theirs.

“But since I am dead,” said I, “I fear, Jack, thou hast lost on me

again.”

“The gentleman did not leave his address,” said Sir John with a grin;

and he furtively squeezed my hand to express his secret sense of the

little transaction of the I O U’s.

“We made some clamour at the Embassy, I promise you,” interposed Carew;

“we were anxious to pay him all his due, you may be sure. But devil a

bit of satisfaction could we get, save indeed that the Ambassador took

to his bed with a fit of gout, and you being dead, Jennico,—you are

dead still, remember,—to bury you was the best thing your friends

could do for you, till you were able to take fit measures to protect

yourself. And indeed it was that queer old Tartar of yours, your János,

or whatever you call him, who loudly insisted upon your demise, when we

found the first alarm was unfounded and that you still breathed. Gad, I

believe you have as many lives as a cat! This fellow then says to us in

his queer jargon: ’My master lives, but he must all the same be thought

dead.’ And faith he besought us with such urgency, that, what with

seeing you lying there, and knowing what we knew of the foul play that

had been practised upon you, we were ready enough to fall in with his

desires. Sir John bethought him of his mother’s house at Richmond, and

offered to accompany you there,—or rather your body: you were little

less just then. Next the surgeon swore the journey would kill you, and

your servant swore you should not be harboured in the town. The fellow

knew you: ’Good breed,’ he said, ’not easily killed!’ And so he won

the day, and Miles the surgeon gave in; but indeed he told me apart,

’twas waste of time disputing, for anyhow you could not see the noon.

But here you are at my Lady Beddoes’s house at Richmond, alive and like

to live, though you have ceased to exist for most men. There was a

charming, really a most touching, obituary notice in the Gazettes; you

have been duly lamented at the clubs—and forgotten within the usual

nine days. Rumours will soon begin to get about of course, but nobody

knows anything positive. The secret is still kept. János, I believe,

has contrived to assuage the anxiety of your relatives.”

Here the speaker took so copious a pinch to refresh himself after his

long speech that he set me off sneezing, whereupon my special Cerberus

promptly made his appearance and bundled the visitors forth without

more ado.

* * * * *

I have said that my friend’s belief in the Chevalier’s implication in

the divers murderous onsets that had been made upon me, previous to his

own, did not surprise me. The memory of M. de Ville-Rouge’s cry, as he

dealt me what he believed my death stroke,—a cry in which it would

be hard to say whether savage triumph or sheer vindictiveness most

predominated,—had come back on me, as soon as I could think at all,

with most revealing force.

His arrival in England had coincided with the beginning of the

persecution. The look on his face as I had last seen it, that smile and

that dimple, had haunted me during long hours of delirium with a most

maddening, grotesque, and horrible likeness to the face of her I had

so loved. Coupling these things in later sanity of mind with the other

evidence, I could not doubt but that here had been some relative of

Ottilie, who had interest to put an end to her husband’s existence. Had

not her pock-marked Mercury at the close of our interview uttered words

of earnest warning? ay, I minded them now:

“The matter will not end here.... Have a care, young man....”

As I thought of all this, as the whole meaning of what had seemed so

mysterious now lay clear before me, I would be seized with a sort of

deadly anguish, compared to which all my previous sufferings, whether

of body or mind, had been but trivial. Could she, could Ottilie, have

_known_ of this work? Could she—have _inspired_ it?

The sweat that would break out upon me at such a thought was more

than all my fever had wrung from my body, and my faithful leech would

wonder to find me faint and reeking, and would puzzle his poor brains

in vain upon the cause, and decoct me new teas of dreadful compounds,

febrifuges which he vowed had never failed.

But then at other times the vision of my wife would rise before me and

shame me. I would see again her noble brow, her clear eye, her arched

and innocent lip, and in my weakness and the passion of my longing I

would turn and weep upon my pillow to think that, having to my sorrow

lost her, I should come now to lose even my faith in her, and yet

should love her still with such mad love.

Now there must be, as János would have it, something remarkably tough

in the breed of Jennico for me to recover from such wounds both bodily

and mental. Recover I did, however, in spite of all odds; and a resolve

I made with returning strength did a good deal to ease my mind, tossed

between such torturing fluctuations.

This resolve was no less than to leave the country some fine morning,

in secret, so soon as I could undertake the journey with any likelihood

of being able to persevere in it, to speed to Budissin, and discover

for myself the real attitude of Ottilie towards me. I was determined

that, according as I found her,—either what my heart would still deem

her, or yet so base a thing as the fiend whispered,—that I would try

to win her back, were I to die in the attempt, or thrust her from my

life for ever.

Thus when I heard that my enemy and the world believed me dead, when I

realised that she too must probably share in the delusion, I was glad,

for not only would it materially facilitate my re-entering the Duchy,

but it would afford me an excellent opportunity of judging her real

feelings. I had no doubt but that, if I set to work in a proper manner

and duly preserved my incognito, I should be able, now that all pretext

for quarantine had disappeared, to secure an interview without too much

difficulty.

So all my desires hastening towards that goal, I set myself to become

a whole man again with so much energy that even János was surprised at

the rapidity of my progress.

CHAPTER II

IT was towards the middle of December that we started upon the

journey—a little sooner indeed than my surgeon and mentor approved of,

but his power over me dwindled as my own strength returned.

Being chiefly anxious to preserve my incognito, I hesitated some time

before permitting János to accompany me, his personal appearance

unfortunately being of a kind unlikely to be forgotten when once seen.

But, besides the fact that I could not find it in me to inflict such

pain upon that excellent fellow, there was an undoubted advantage to

myself in the presence of one upon whose fidelity and courage I could

so absolutely reckon in an expedition likely to prove of extreme

difficulty and perhaps of peril. Moreover, the man would have followed

me in spite of me. I insisted, however, upon his shaving off his great

pandour moustaches—a process which though it altered did not improve

his appearance; his aspect, indeed, being now so fantastically ugly as

to drive me, despite my preoccupation, into inextinguishable paroxysms

of laughter every time I unexpectedly got a glimpse of his visage,

until habit wore away the impression.

As to myself, my long illness had, as I thought, sufficiently changed

me. Besides, the news of my resurrection was too recently and too

vaguely rumoured in London to have reached, or to be likely to reach,

the Continent for many a long day.

Under the humble style, therefore, of a Munich gentleman returning

from his travels,—one Theodor Desberger, with his attendant (now

dubbed Johann), a character which my Austrian-German fitly enabled me

to sustain,—I set sail from London to Hamburg, and after a favourable

sea-passage, which did much to invigorate me, we landed in the free

city and proceeded towards Budissin by easy stages; for, despite

the ardour of my impatience, I felt the importance of husbanding my

newly-acquired strength. At Budissin we put up of course at a different

hostelry from that chosen upon our first venture—one much farther away

from the palace.

The little town presented now a very different aspect. Indeed, its

gay and cheery bustle, and the crisp frosty weather which greeted

us there, might have raised inspiriting thoughts. But it was with a

heart very full of anxiety, with the determination rather to face ill

fortune bravely than the hope of good, that I passed the night. I got

but little sleep, for, having reached my goal, I scarcely knew how to

begin. Nor in the morning had I arrived at any definite conclusion.

The risk of presenting myself in person at the palace after my former

fashion was too great to be entertained for a moment. I had therefore

to content myself with despatching János to make cautious inquiries

as to one Fräulein Pahlen and her relatives, not forgetting a bulky

gentleman he knew of, recently returned from England.

I myself, in my plainest suit, and with my cloak disposed as a muffler,

partly concealing my face, set forth upon my side to gather what crumbs

of information I might.

At the very outset I had a most singular meeting. Traversing the little

town in the brisk morning air under a dome of palest blue, I naturally

directed my steps towards the castle, seated on its terrace and

towering above the citizens’ brown roofs.

I had taken a somewhat circuitous route to avoid passing in front of

the main guard, and found myself presently in a quiet street, one side

of which was bound by the castle garden walls, and the other—that

upon which I walked—by a row of private houses seemingly of some

importance. Now, as I walked, engaged in gazing upwards at the long

row of escutcheoned windows which I could just see above the wall, and

foolishly wondering through which of them my cruel little wife might be

wont to look forth into the outer world, I nearly collided with a woman

who was hurrying out of one of the houses.

As I drew back to recover myself, and to apologise, something in the

dark figure struck me with poignant reminiscence. The next instant, as

she would have passed me, I caught her by the shoulder.

“Anna!” I cried wildly, “God be thanked, Anna!” For upon this very

first morning of my quest Heaven had brought me face to face with no

less a person than Ottilie’s old nurse.

The recognition on her side was almost simultaneous. No sooner had the

muffling cloak fallen from my mouth, than the dull and rather surly

countenance that she had turned upon me became convulsed by the most

extraordinary emotion. She gave a stifled cry. Then she clapped her

hands together, pressed them clasped against her cheek, and stared at

me with piercing intensity, crying again and again:

“God in heaven—you! God in heaven—you!” The black eyes were as hard

to read as those of a shepherd’s dog, who fixes with the same earnest

look the master he loves or the enemy he suspects. And as we stood

thus, the space of a few seconds, my mind misgave me as to whether

I had not already jeopardised all my prospects by this impulsive

disclosure. It was evident that the woman had heard the story of my

death, which in this hostile place was my chief security. But the

die was cast, and the chance of information was too precious not

to be seized even at greater risks. I laid hold of her cloak, then

passionately grasped her hands. “Oh, Anna!” I cried again, and the bare

thought that I was once more so near the beloved of my heart brought in

my weakness the heat of tears to my eyes. “Where is she? Where is my

wife? What does she? Anna, I must see her. My life is in danger in this

place; they have tried to kill me because I love her, but I had rather

risk death again a thousand times than give her up. Take me to her,

Anna!”

The woman had never ceased regarding me with the same enigmatic

earnestness; all at once her eyes lightened, she looked from side to

side with the cautiousness of some animal conscious of danger, then

wrenched her hands out of mine:

“Follow me, sir,” she said in a whisper, so urgent in its apprehension

as to strike a colder chill into my veins than the wildest scream

could have done. Without another glance at me she started off in front,

and I as hastily followed, almost mechanically flinging my cloak once

more across my mouth as I moved on.

Whither was she leading me? Into the hands of my enemies, whoever they

were?—she had always, I had thought, hated me—or into the arms of my

wife?

She turned away from the palace, down a bye-street, and then took

another turn which brought us into a poor alley where the houses became

almost cottages, and where the gutters ran among the cobbles with

liquid filth.

My wild hope gave place to sinister foreboding; and as I plodded

carefully after her unwavering figure, I loosened the hilt of my sword

in its scabbard, and settled the folds of my cloak around my left arm

so that at a pinch I might doff it and use it for defence.

Suddenly my guide halted for a second, looked at me over her shoulder,

and disappeared down some steps into the open door of a mean little

shop. I entered after her, at once disappointed in all my expectations

and reassured by the humble vulgarity of the place. Anna, as I had ever

known her, was chary of speech. Even, as stooping I made my way into

the low, gloomy, and evil-smelling narrow room, I saw her imperiously

motion an ugly sallow young woman out of her presence; and, still in

silence, I watched her, wondering, as she made fast the doors and bent

her dark face to listen if all were still. Then she produced from a

counter, paper, ink, and pen, and spreading them out turned to me with

a single word: “Write.”

So small was the result of all these preliminaries.

“You mean,” said I, “that if I write to your mistress, you will convey

the letter? Alas! I have written before and she would not even receive

my writing. Oh! can you not get me speech of her? I conjure you by the

love you bear her, let me see her but for a few minutes.”

The woman fixed me for a second with a startled wondering eye, opened

her mouth as if to speak, but immediately clapped her hand to it as if

to restrain the words. Then, with a passion of entreaty that it was

impossible to withstand, she pointed to the paper and cried once more,

“Write.”

And so I seemed ever destined to communicate with my wife from strange

places and by strange messengers.

With a trembling hand and a brain in a whirl I wrote—I hardly know

what: a wild, passionate, reproachful appeal, setting forth in

incoherent words all I had done and suffered, all my desire, all my

faithful love. When I looked up at length I found the black eyes still

watching me with the same inscrutable fierceness. I was going to trust

my life and its hopes to this woman, and for a moment I hesitated.

But at the same instant there was some noise without, and snatching

the letter unfinished from before me, she thrust it into her bosom,

folded her cloak across it, and stooping close to me demanded in her

breathless undertone:

“Where do you live?”

Mechanically I told her, adding: “Ask for M. Desberger.”

She nodded with swift comprehension, unbolted the barred front door of

the little shop, and drew me hastily out by the back, along a close,

flagged passage, leaving an irate customer hammering and clamouring for

admittance.

We proceeded through a small yard into another alley, and here she

halted a second, still detaining me by my cloak.

“Go home,” she said then; “keep close. There is danger—danger. You

will hear.”

She suddenly caught my hand, kissed it, and was gone. I stood awhile

bewildered, astonished, staring, hardly able to grasp the meaning

of what had passed, for this last scene in the drama of my life had

been acted hurriedly and was full of mysterious significance. Then,

unobtrusively, I sought the shelter of my own inn, resolving to obey

to the letter the injunctions laid upon me; but fate had willed it

otherwise.

Determined not to interfere with the course of fortune by any least

indocility, I retired into the seclusion of my chambers, and pretexting

a slight indisposition, to rouse no undue suspicion by an air of

mystery, gave orders for my dinner to be served there.

A stout red-cheeked wench with rough bare arms had just, grinning,

clattered the first greasy dish before me, when I heard János’s foot

upon the stairs. I had learnt to know the sound of his step pretty well

in my recent weeks of sickness, but I had not been wont to hear it come

so laggingly, and the fact that it halted altogether outside the door

for a second or two, as if its owner hesitated to enter, filled me with

such a furious impatience that I got up and flung it open to wrest his

news from him. Not even when he had held up my poor great-uncle in his

arms to let him draw his last breath on earth, had I seen the fellow

wear a countenance of such discomposure.

“In Heaven’s name, János,” cried I, and the sturdy house-wench turned

and stared at him more agoggle and agrin than before.

“Get out of that, you ——” cried my servitor, snapping at her with

such sourness, and so forgetful of the decorum he usually displayed in

my presence, that it was clear he was mightily moved.

She fled as if some savage old watch-dog had nipped at her heel, and we

were alone.

I had returned from my own exploration full of hope, and at the same

time of wonder, so that I was at once ill and well prepared for any

tidings, however extraordinary. But János’s tidings seemed difficult of

telling.

“Let us go home, honoured sir” he stammered again and again, surveying

me with a compassion and an anxiety he had not vouchsafed upon me at

the worst of my illness. I had to drag the words from him piecemeal, as

the torturer forces out the unwilling confession.

Yes, he had news—bad news. This was no place for me. It was not

wholesome for us here. Let us return to Tollendhal, or Vienna, or even

England. Let us start before further mischief overtook us.

I believe I fell upon him at last and shook him. What had he heard.

What had he heard of her? I vowed he was driving me mad, vowed that

if he did not instantly tell me all I would throw caution to the wind

and go to the palace and demand my wife in person, were it of the Duke

himself. This threat extorted at length the terrible thing that even

the rough old soldier feared to utter.

“The lady,” he stammered, “the lady can no longer be spoken of as your

honour’s wife. She is married.”

“Married!” I cried. “What do you mean, you scoundrel? No longer my

wife! Married! You are raving—this is stark lunacy.”

He shook his grey head under the shower of my fury.

“Married. Does your honour forget that they think here that they have

at last succeeded in killing you?”

I looked at him aghast, unwilling to admit the awful illumination that

flashed upon my mind. He, believing me still incredulous, proceeded:

“Married she is. Fräulein Pahlen, the lady-in-waiting,—Fräulein

Pahlen, as your honour bade me call her, and as it seems she called

herself until ...” and then with a significant emphasis, “until six

weeks ago.”

“And who is the man?” said I. The words sounded in my ears as if some

one else had spoken, but I believe I was astoundingly calm.

Misled no doubt by this appearance of composure, János seemed to take

more confidence, and continued in easier tones, while I held myself

still to listen.

“It is the Court physician, one privy counsellor Lothner. I was shown

his house, a big one in the Schloss Graben, number ten, opposite the

palace walls. Ay, yes, they were married six weeks ago, and the Duke

was present at the marriage ... and the Princess too! They say it was

made up by their wishes. Oh! honoured sir, let us hence. You are well

quit of it all; this is a bad place!”

Yet I stood without moving. Chasm after chasm, horror after horror,

seemed to be opening before my mind; chasms so black that I scarce

ventured to look into their depths; horrors so unspeakable that I could

put no word-shape to them. After Ottilie’s messenger had failed to

induce me to give up my rights, had come the attempts upon my life,

then the duel. The mysterious stranger who had sought to slay me with

such rancorous hate, and had called “_Ottilie_” into my dying ears, had

returned to claim his bride, and they had wedded in their blood-guilt.

Well might the nurse cry and repeat the cry of “God in heaven! God in

heaven!”

What new ambush would they now contrive?

“Your honour——” said János, and he put his hand respectfully upon my

sleeve. I caught sight of his frightened face and burst into a fit of

rasping laughter.

“Look at your master, János, and see the greatest fool in Christendom!

The fool of the play, that is tricked and mocked and beaten from one

act to another. Tricked into marrying a serving-maid instead of a

princess; tricked into loving her when he should have repudiated her

with scorn; abandoned by her when he could no longer live without her;

mocked when he sought his wife; driven away by lackeys; stabbed by a

murdering hound, a skulking thief in the night!... But the last act is

only about to begin—every one has had his laugh at the fool, but we

shall see, János, we shall see! He laughs best who laughs last, they

say. Ten, Schloss Graben, did you say?”

I caught my cloak. I think the faithful fellow actually laid hands upon

me to arrest me, but I broke from him as if his clasp had been a straw.

“I’ll drive my sword,” I remember saying, “into the first man who

dares come between me and my purpose.”

And indeed as I fled along the street, scarce knowing what way I took,

yet going as straight as a die to my goal, I had no other thought but

how clean I would run my blade through the clumsy lumbering brute who

deemed he had so well widowed my wife. I had the strength of ten men in

me.

CHAPTER III

WHEN I reached the Schloss Graben I stood a moment to reconnoitre, and

found myself in the same still, cobble-paved road where I had met Anna

a few hours before. On my left rose the high garden-walls overtopped

by a web of bare interlacing branches, and over that again the palace

windows and its mansard roof; on my right the row of silent brown or

red stone houses, well-to-do and snugly private, with beaten iron bars

to the low windows and great scallop shells over the doors. This was

the house down the stone steps of which my wife’s servant had come

this morning, and this was number ten. Of course! How clear it was all

becoming to me! I dashed the sweat from my brow, for I had come like

a lamplighter. Then I tramped up the three steps and again halted a

second. How quiet the house was!

But I should soon put some bustle into it, I said to myself, and

smiled. I plied the knocker till the sleeping echoes awoke, and I hung

on the iron rope of the bell till the shrill protest of the jingling

peal rang out into the street. There came other sounds from within as

of a flutter in a dovecot. Doors were opened and shut precipitately.

A window was thrown back above my head; there was a vision of a

white-capped face thrust forward and withdrawn; and, indeed, like

rabbits from a warren, most, I believe, of the idle servants in the

street were popping out to see whence could proceed such unholy

clangour.

The door before me was at length cautiously and slowly opened, and

through the aperture the frightened, rose-red face of a maid looked out

at me.

I saw that I had been incautious, and therefore addressed her with a

suave mock courtesy. Indeed, now that the actual moment had come I felt

stealing over me a very deadly calm.

“Forgive me,” said I, “my wench, for disturbing you thus rudely. I see

I have alarmed you. These are, however, but old soldiers’ ways, which

I trust your good mistress will pardon to an old friend. Your mistress

is, if I mistake not, now the doctor’s lady. But when I knew her she

was Fräulein Ottilie Pahlen.”

The girl’s mouth had, during this long speech, which in my new mood

came glibly enough to my lips, become broadened into a grin. There are

very few girls in the Empire, I have been told, that will not feel

mollified towards a soldier.

“Is your mistress within?” I pursued.

She dropped a curtsey, and after a comprehensive glance over my person

threw open the door. Would the gentleman walk in? She brought me

through a brick-paved hall into a long low oak-panelled room, all dark

and yet all shining with polish. It was very hot from a high china

stove.

“What visitor shall I announce to the gracious lady?” she asked,

sidling towards me, and thrusting her apple face as forward as she

dared.

“I am so old a friend, in fact, I may say so near a connection, that I

should like to give your gracious lady a pleasant surprise,” said I; “I

will not therefore give my name.” As a propitiatory after-thought, I

pinched the hard red cheek and dropped a coin into her apron pocket. I

tried to make my smile very sweet, but it felt stiff upon my lips. She,

however, saw nought amiss, and pattered out well content.

Then followed a few minutes’ waiting; all had grown still again around

me. Through the deep recessed windows I looked forth into a little

courtyard with one bare tree. This, then, was the home Ottilie had

chosen instead of an English estate, instead of Tollendhal, instead of

all I could offer her in courtly Vienna or great London! How she must

love this man! Or was it only the plebeian instinct reasserting itself

in spite of all?... The Court doctor’s lady!

I heard a footfall on the bare-boarded stair, and with a smile that was

this time the natural expression of the complicated bitterness of my

soul, I moved a few steps so as to place myself in the best light.

My wife was, perhaps, still in ignorance of my escape from death.

Anna had not yet carried her grievous news of the failure of their

endeavours. Indeed, this was evident from the general placidity of the

household, as well as the staid regularity of the approaching steps. To

witness her joy at the discovery was sufficient revenge for the moment.

After that the reckoning would be with—well, with my successor.

Such was the state of my thoughts at the crucial moment of my strange

story.

I have said that I was calm, but during the little pause that took

place between the cessation of the footsteps and the turning of the

lock I could hear the beating of my own heart like the measured roar of

a drum in battle.

Then was the door opened, and before me stood—-not Ottilie, who had

been my Ottilie, but the other Ottilie, the Princess! She was advancing

upon me with the old well-remembered gracious smile, when all at once

she halted with much the same terror-stricken look with which Anna

earlier in the day had recognised me, and clasped her hands, crying:

“God be merciful to us, M. de Jennico!” and seemed the next instant

ready to burst into tears.

In the first confusion of my thoughts, in the rage created by this

eternal _quid pro quo_—that I should ever find the lady-in-waiting

when I wanted the Princess, and the Princess when I wanted the

lady-in-waiting,—I might have been inclined to think that Anna had

after all spread her tidings, and that my wife’s former mistress

had come to her aid at this awkward moment; but the surprise and

consternation on this woman’s countenance were too genuine to have been

counterfeit.

Whatever reason brought the Princess here I was in no humour to inquire.

“I came to see my wife, Madam,” said I, “and not to presume upon your

Highness’s condescension. I am determined to see my wife,” I insisted;

“that Ottilie Pahlen, who was your maid of honour, and lived with me

as my wife for a month, as your Highness well knows, and who was in

such haste to wed this Court doctor of yours at the first rumour of her

husband’s death.”

I spoke in a very uncourtier-like rage. But she whom I addressed

showed neither anger nor astonishment, but sank into the nearest

chair, a mere heap of soft distressed womanhood, wringing her plump

dimpled hands, while tears of extraordinary size suffused her eyes and

overflowed upon her cheeks.

At sight of this my heat fell away; I threw myself on my knees beside

her, and, all forgetful of the distance between us, took one of her

hands in mine and poured forth an appeal.

“You were always kind to me; be kind now. I must see my wife. I have

been cruelly treated; I am surrounded with enemies; be you my friend!”

She leant forward and looked at me earnestly with swimming eyes.

“Is it possible,” she exclaimed—“is it possible, M. de Jennico, that

you have not found out yet?... that you do not suspect?...”

Even as she spoke, and while I knelt looking up at her, the scales fell

from my eyes. I needed no further word. I knew. How was it possible,

indeed, that I should not have known before? I saw as in a flash that

this comely burgher woman was not, had never been, never could have

been, the Princess. I saw that the hand I still unconsciously held

bore marks of household toil, that on the third finger glittered a new

wedding ring. Then a thousand memories rushed into my mind, a thousand

confirmatory details. Oh, blind—blind—blind that I had been—fool,

and worse than fool! The mystery of my wife’s mocking smile; the secret

that had so often hung unspoken on her lips; her careless pretty ways;

the depth of her injured pride; and then the manner in which she

had been guarded from me, the force employed against me, the secret

diplomatic attempts to free her, followed, on their failure, by the

relentless determination to do away with me altogether! Before my

reeling brain it all rose into towering conviction—a joy, a sorrow,

both too keen for humanity to bear, seized upon my weakened frame. I

heard as if in the far distance the words the woman near me was saying:

“It all began by a freak of her Highness, ...” and with the echo of

them whirling as it were in a mad dance through my brain to the sound

of thundering cataracts, a whirlpool of flame spreading before my eyes,

I fell with a crash, as it seemed, into a yawning black abyss.

When I again came to myself the cold air was blowing in upon me through

the open casement, and I was stretched full length on a hard floor, in

what seemed a perfect deluge of the very strongest vinegar I have ever

smelt. At one side of me knelt my hostess, her healthy face blanched

almost beyond recognition. On the other, between my wandering gaze

and the window, swam the visage of the maid, eyes and mouth as round

as horror could make them, but with cheeks the ruddiness of which, it

seemed, no emotion could mitigate.

Both my kind attendants gave a cry as I opened my eyes.

“He is recovering, Trude,” said Madam Lothner (to call her now by her

proper name).

“Ah! gracious lady,” answered the wench in an unctuous tone of

importance; “his face is still as red as the beet I was pickling when I

heard you scream—would God the master were here to bleed him. Shall I

send into the town to seek him?”

“God forbid!” cried her mistress, in a hasty and peremptory tone. “No,

I tell you, Trude, he is recovering, and I have not been a doctor’s

wife these six weeks for nothing. The flush is fading even as I look at

him. See thee here, fetch me some of the cordial water.”

I do not know how far her six weeks’ association with the medical

luminary, her husband, had profited Madam Lothner. I have since been

told that her administration of cordial, immediately upon such a blood

stroke to the head as mine, ought really to have finished me off. But

as it happened it did me a vast deal of good, and I was soon able to

shake off the giddiness, the sickness, and the general confusion of my

system.

With recovered wits it gradually became apparent to me that while Madam

Lothner continued to ply me with every assistance she could think

of, regarding me with eyes in which shone most kindly and womanly

benevolence, her chief anxiety nevertheless was to get rid of me with

all possible despatch.

But I was not likely to give up such an opportunity. The chaos in my

mind consequent upon the unexpected revelation, and its disastrous

physical effect, was such as to render me no very coherent inquisitor.

Nevertheless, the determination to learn all that this woman could tell

me about my wife rose predominant above the seething of my thoughts.