“There is no doubt,” he said “that as truly as some men are born
without a palate, so some men are born without luck. It is no use
trying to remedy the deficiency; it is well, rather, to study to
reconcile oneself to it.
“I was born in an English village, of naturalized Huguenot parents.
When I was nineteen, I fell passionately in love. I had for a rival a
youth very strong and unscrupulous. One day he persuaded me to bathe
with him in the river, then swollen with floods. In mid-stream he
pounced upon me, and strove to bear me under. I struggled
desperately—it was of no avail. Death thundered in my ears; the water
enwrapped and proceeded to swallow me. The last thing I saw was a
figure gesticulating and shouting on the bridge a little way above;
then consciousness fled, and I sank. I came to myself, stranded
somewhere in a dark channel. A mad face was bending over me. I knew
it—it was that of the miller. I had been carried into his race, and,
just short of the wheel, he had caught and dragged me to shore. He was
a drunkard, of that I was aware; and he was now quite demented.
“‘Mordieu!’ he said, ‘I see what you’ve come for, and the devil shan’t
call twice for his own.’
“I understood instantly. He meant himself to go with me into the
water—to join issues with the devil who had called for him, and have
a fine frolic into eternity with his visitor. Terror lent me strength.
I caught at a post, and, as he leaned down, shot my whole body at him
like a spring. He went over with a splash, and I heard the wheel
hitch, then begin to turn again, chewing its prey. O, my friends, what
a situation! I lay like one damned, a thousand dreadful reflections
mastering me. I should be accused, if caught, of murdering this man.
That terror quite devoured the other, and increased with every moment
that I lay. Darkness came upon me, and then I rose and fled. I thought
of nothing but to escape; and so, stealing always by night, I reached
London.
“Now, I will tell you the irony of this destiny. Many weeks later I
read, by chance, in a newspaper, how my rival had been granted your
Royal Humane Society’s testimonial, on the evidence of a casual
spectator, for a brave but unsuccessful attempt to _save me_ from
drowning; and how the little pretty romance had terminated with his
marriage to the admiring object of our two regards. So I was dead;
and, as long as I lay in my nameless grave—for my body, it appeared,
had never been recovered—the ghost of my fear was laid. I do not
complain, therefore. Yet—ah, mademoiselle, most condescending of
sympathizers!—_she_ had been very dear to me.”
Here Carabas found it necessary to console my Campaspe before he could
go on.
“I obtained work—under an assumed name, of course—and for many years
found at least a living in that immense capital. I had an aptitude for
languages, which was my great good fortune; yet prosperity never more
than looked at me through the window. What then? I could keep body and
soul together. Ill-luck is too mean a spirit for Death to patronize.
Many a time has the great Angel turned his back disdainfully on the
other’s spiteful hints. He will not claim me, I believe, until he sees
him asleep, or tired of persecuting me.
“One day I was travelling on your underground railway. I had for
companion in my compartment a single individual. He jumped out at the
Blackfriars station, leaving a handbag on the seat. At the moment the
train moved off I noticed this, seized it, and leaned with it out of
the window, with a purpose to shout to its owner. I saw him in the
distance, hurriedly returning. The train gathered speed; I saw he
could never reach me in time, and I flung the bag upon the platform.
Instantly I perceived him leap, and jerk his arm across his eyes; and
on the same moment a terrible explosion occurred.
“Stunned, but unhurt, I had fallen back, when, in a flash, the full
horror of my situation burst upon me. It was the time of the dynamite
scares, and—ah, mon Dieu, mam’selle! your quick wit has already
perceived my misfortune.
“The train had stopped; the place was full of smoke; the hubbub of a
great tumult sounded in my ears. The owner of the infernal machine was
certainly destroyed in his own trap; I, at the same time, had as
certainly thrown the bag. No evidence to exonerate me was now
possible. Without an instant’s consideration, I opened the door upon
the line, slipped out, closed it, and raced for my life through the
smoke to the next station. I was successful in gaining its platform
without exciting observation. News of the catastrophe had already been
passed on, so that I was able, mingling with a frenzied crowd, to make
my way to the streets. But panic was in my feet, and all reason had
fled from my brain. I felt only that to remain in London would be to
find myself, sooner or later, the most execrated of human
monstrosities, on the scaffold. There and then I effaced myself for
the second time, hurried to the docks, and procured a post as steward
on an out-going steamer. I have never been in England since. I now
give monsieur the explanation he once asked for, secure in the thought
that, as ill-luck has at last conceded to me the ministrations of this
dear angel of a mademoiselle, his persecution must be nearing its end
before the approach of the only foe he dreads. I leave it to monsieur,
if he likes, to vindicate my name.”
As he finished, Mr. G——, whose face had been wonderfully kindling
towards the end, bent over the bed.
“This must not be, Carabas,” he said. “The man, the dynamiter,
confessed the whole truth before he died.”
Carabas sprang up.
“Monsieur!” he cried.
“I am a lawyer,” said Mr. G——; “I was connected with the case. The
man confessed, I say. If I had only known that—Carabas! Carabas! you
were the one witness we wanted, and could not find!”
Campaspe knelt down, and put a pitiful young arm round the shoulders
of the unluckiest man in the world.
“Not only we now,” she said softly, “but others also, it seems, owe
you a great debt, dear Carabas. We shall all be unable to pay it if
you die. If—if I give you a kiss, will you live to return it to me on
my wedding day?”
“Mademoiselle!” cried Carabas, radiant. “You shame ill-luck; you shame
even Death. See how they turn and go out by the door! Vouchsafe me
that dear mascot, and I swear I will live for ever.”
He is now, and has been for long, our most loved and trusted servant,
with an iron constitution, and, what is best, an unshakable conviction
that the circumstances which led him on to his present position were,
after all, the kindest of luck in disguise.