Confession; Or, The Blind Heart Part 21

"Allons!" I replied indifferently. The truth is, my bosom was full of a recklessness of a far more sweeping character than his own. I was in the mood for strife. It promised only the more thoroughly to prepare me for the darker trial which was before me, and which my secret soul was meditating all the while with an intense and gloomy tenacity of purpose.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

MORALS OF ENTERPRISE.

I got him the money he required; and we were about to set forth, when he exclaimed abruptly:--

"Put money in thy own purse, Clifford. It may be necessary to practise a little ruse de guerre. In playing my game, it may be important that you should deem to play one also. You have no scruples to fling the dice or flirt the cards for the nonce."

"None! But I should like to know your plans. Tell me, in the first place, your precise object."

"Simply to detect certain knaves, and save certain fools. The knaves have ruined me, and I make no lamentations; but there are others in their clutches still, quite as ignorant as myself, who may be saved before they are stripped entirely. The object is not a bad one; for the rest, trust to me. I mean no harm; a little mischief only; and, at most, a tweak of one proboscis or more. There's risk, of a certainty, as there is in sucking an egg; but you are a man! Not like that d--d milksop, who gives up his friend as soon as he gets poor, and proffers him a sermon by way of telling him--precious information, truly--that he's in a fair way to the devil. The toss of a copper for such friendship."

The humor of Kingsley tallied somewhat with my own. It had in it a spice of recklessness which pleased me. Perhaps, too, it tended somewhat to relieve and qualify the intenseness of that excitement in my brain, which sometimes rose to such a pitch as led me to apprehend madness.

That I was a monomaniac has been admitted, perhaps not a moment too soon for the author's candor. The sagacity of the reader made him independent of the admission.

"Your beggar," said he, somewhat abruptly, "has the only true feeling of independence. Absolutely, I never knew till now what it was to be thoroughly indifferent to what might come to-morrow. I positively care for nothing. I am the first prince Sans Souci. That shall be my t.i.tle when I get among the c.u.manches. I will have a code of laws and const.i.tution to suit my particular humor, and my chief penalties shall be inflicted upon your fellows who grunt. A sigh shall incur a week's solitary confinement; a sour look, pillory; and for a groan, the hypochondriac shall lose his head! My prime minister shall be the fellow who can longest use his tongue without losing his temper; and the man who can laugh and jest shall always have his plate at my table.

Good-humored people shall have peculiar privileges. It shall be a certificate in one's favor, ent.i.tling him to so many acres, that he takes the world kindly. Such a man shall have two wives, provided he can keep them peacefully in the same house. His daughters shall have dowries from government. The prince of Sans Souci will himself provide for them."

I made some answer, half jest, half earnest, in a mood of mocking bitterness, which, perhaps, more truly accorded with the temper of both of us. He did not perceive the bitterness, however.

"You jest, but mine is not altogether jest. Half-serious glimpses of what I tell you float certainly before my eyes. Such things may happen yet, and the southwest is the world in which you are yet to see many wondrous things. The time must come when Texas shall stretch to Mexico.

These miserable slaves and reptiles--mongrel Spaniards and mongrel Indians--can not very long bedevil that great country. It must fall into other hands. It must be ours; and who, when that time comes, will carry into the field more thorough claims than mine. Master of myself, fearing nothing, caring for nothing; with a gallant steed that knows my voice, and answers with whinny and p.r.i.c.ked ears to my encouragement; with a rifle that can clip a Mexican--dollar or man--at a hundred yards, and a heart that can defy the devil over his own dish, and with but one spoon between us--and who so likely to win his princ.i.p.ality as myself? Look to see it, Clifford, I shall be a prince in Mexico; and when you hear of the prince Sans Souci be a.s.sured you know the man. Seek me then, and ask what you will. You have CARTE BLANCHE from this moment."

"I shall certainly keep it in mind, prince."

"Do so: laugh as you please; it is only becoming that you should laugh in the presence of Sans Souci; but do not laugh in token of irreverence.

You must not be too skeptical. It does not follow because I am a dare-devil that I am a thoughtless one. I have been so, perhaps, but from this moment I go to work! I shall be fettered by fortune no longer. Thank Heaven, that is now done--gone--lost; I am free from its inc.u.mbrance! I feel myself a prince, indeed; a man, every inch of me.

This night I devote as a fitting finish to my old lifeless existence.

"Hear me!" he continued; "you laugh again, Clifford--very good! Laugh on, but hear me. You shall hear more of me in time to come. I fancy I shall be a fellow of considerable importance, not in Texas simply, or in Mexico, but here--here in your own self-opinionated United States.

Suppose a few things, and go along with me while I speak them. That Texas must stretch to Mexico I hold to be certain. A very few years will do that. It needs only thirty thousand more men from our southern and southwestern States, and the brave old English tongue shall arouse the best echoes in the city of Montezuma! That done, and floods of people pour in from all quarters. It needs nothing but a feeling of security and peace--a conviction that property will be tolerably safe, under a tolerably stable government--in other words, an Anglo-Saxon government--to tempt millions of discontented emigrants from all quarters of the world. Will this result have no results of its own, think you? Will the immense resources of Mexico and Texas, represented, as they then will be, by a stern, pressing, performing people, have no effect upon these states of yours? They will have the greatest; nay, they will become essential to balance your own federal weight, and keep you all in equilibrio. For look you, the first hubbub with Great Britain gives you Canada, at the expense of some of your coast-towns, a few millions of treasure, and the loss of fifty thousand men. A bad exchange for the south; for Canada will make six ponderous states, the policy and character of which will be New England all over. To balance this you will have your Florida territory, [Footnote: Florida, since admitted, but unhappily, as a single state.] of which two feeble states may be made. Not enough for your purposes. But the same war with England will render it necessary that your fleet should take possession of Cuba; which, after a civil apology to Spain for taking such a liberty with her possessions, and, perhaps, a few million by way of hush money, you carve into two more states, and, in this manner, try to bolster up your federal relations. How many of her West India islands Great Britain will be able to keep after such a war, is another problem, the solution of which will depend upon the relative strength of fleets and success of seamanship. These islands, which should of right be ours, and without which we can never be sure against any maritime power so great and so arrogant as England, once conquered by our arms, find their natural, moral, and social affinities in the southern states entirely; and, so far, contribute to strengthen you in your congressional conflicts.

But these are not enough, for the simple reason that the population of states, purely agricultural, never makes that progress which is made in this respect by a commercial and manufacturing people. With the command of the gulf, the possession of an independent fleet by the Texans, the political characteristics of the states of Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas, must undergo certain marked changes, which can only be neutralized by the adoption, on the part of these states, of a new policy corresponding with their change of interests. How far the cultivation of cotton by Texas will lead to its abandonment in Carolina and Georgia, is a question which the next ten years must solve. That they will be compelled to abandon it is inevitable, unless they can succeed in raising the article at six cents; a probability which no cotton-planter in either of these states will be willing to contemplate now for an instant. Meanwhile, Texas is spreading herself right and left. She conquers the c.u.manches, subdues the native mongrel Mexicans. Her Hoestons and Lamars are succeeded by other and abler men, under whose control the evils of government, which followed the sway of such small animals as the Guerreros, and the Bolivars, the Bustamentes, and Sant' Annas, are very soon eradicated; and the country, the n.o.blest that G.o.d ever gave to man in the hands of men, becomes a country!--a great and glorious country--stretching from the gulf to the Pacific, and providing the natural balance, which, in a few years, the southern state of this Union will inevitably need, by which alone your great confederacy will be kept together. You see, therefore, why I speed to Texas. Should I not, with my philosophy, my horse and my rifle--not to speak of stout heart and hand--reasonably aspire to the princ.i.p.ality of Sans Souci? Laugh, if you please, but be not irreverent. You shall have carte blanche then if you will have a becoming faith now, on the word of a prince. I say it, It is written--Sans Souci." [Footnote: All these speculations were written in 1840-'41. I need not remark upon those which have since been verified.]

"Altissimo, excellentissimo, serenissimo!"

"Bravissimo, you improve; you will make a courtier--but mum now about my projects. We must suppress our dignities here. We are at the entrance of our h.e.l.l!"

We had reached the door of a low habitation in a secluded street.

The house was of wood--an ordinary hovel of two stories. A cl.u.s.ter of similar fabrics surrounded it, most of which I afterward discovered--though this fact could not be conjectured by an observer from the street--were connected by blind alleys, inner courts, and chambers and pa.s.sages running along the ground floors. We stopped an instant, Kingsley having his hand upon the little iron knocker, a single black ring, that worked against an ordinary iron k.n.o.b.

"Before I knock," said he, in a whisper, "before I knock, Clifford, let me say that if you have any reluctance--"

"None! none! knock!"

"You will meet with some dirty rascals, and you must not only meet them with seeming civility, but as if you shared in their tastes--sought the same objects only--the getting of money--the only object which alone is clearly comprehensible by their understanding."

"Go ahead! I will see you through."

"A word more! Get yourself in play at a different table from me. You will find rogues enough around, ready to relieve you of your Mexicans.

Leave me to my particular enemy; you will soon see whose shield I touch--but keep an occasional eye upon us; and all that I ask farther at your hands, should you see us by the ears, is to keep other fingers from taking hold of mine."

A heavy stroke of the knocker, followed by three light ones and a second heavy stroke, produced us an answer from within. The door unclosed, and by the light of a dim lamp, I discovered before me, as a sort of warden, a little yellow, weather-beaten, skin-dried Frenchman, whom I had frequently before seen at a fruit-shop in another part of the city. He looked at me, however, without any sign of recognition--with a blank, dull, indifferent countenance; motioned us forward in silence, and reclosing the door, sunk into a chair immediately behind it. I followed my companion through a pa.s.sage which was unfathomably dark, up a flight of stairs, which led us into a sort of refreshment room. Tables were spread, with decanters, gla.s.ses, and tumblers upon them, that appeared to be in continual use. In a recess, stood that evil convenience of most American establishments, whether on land or sea, a liquor bar; its shelves crowded with bottles, all of which seemed amply full, and ready to complete the overthrow of the victim, which the other appliances of such a dwelling must already have actively begun.

"Here you may take in the Dutch courage, Clifford, should you lack the native. This, I know, is not the case with you, and yet the novelty of one's situation frequently overcomes a sensitive mind like fear. Perhaps a julep may be of use."

"None for me. I need no farther stimulant than the mere sense of movement. I take fire, like a wheel, by my own progress."

"Pretty much the same case with myself. But I have been in the habit of drinking here, of late, and too deeply. To-night, however, as I said before, ends all these habits. If there is honey in the carca.s.s, and strength from the sleep, there is wisdom from the folly, and virtue from the vice. There is a moral as well as a physical recoil, that most certainly follows the overcharge; and really, speaking according to my sincere conviction I never felt myself to be a better man, than just at this moment when I am about to do that which my own sense of morality fails altogether to justify. I do not know that I make you understand my feelings; I scarcely understand them myself; but of this sort they are, and I am really persuaded that I never felt in a better disposition to be a good man and a working man than just at the close of a career which has been equally profligate and idle."

I think my companion can be understood. There seems, in fact very little mystery in his moral progress. I understood him, but did not answer. I was not anxious to keep up the ball of conversation which he had begun with a spirit so mixed up of contradictions--so earnest yet so playful.

A deep sense of shame unquestionably lurked beneath his levity; and yet I make no question that he felt in truth, and for the first time, that degree of mental hardihood of which he boasted.

He advanced through the refreshment-room, to a door which led to an apartment in an adjoining tenement. It was closed, but unfastened. The sound of voices, an occasional buzz, or a slight murmur, came to our ears from within; that of rattling dice and rolling b.a.l.l.s was more regular and more intelligible. Kingsley laid his hand upon the latch, and looked round to me. His eye was kindled with a playful sort of malicious light. A smile of pleasant bitterness was on his lips. He said to me in a whisper:--

"Stake your money slowly. A Mexican is the lowest stake. Keep to that, and lose as little as possible. You will soon see me sufficiently busy, and I will endeavor to urge my labors forward, so as to make your purgatory a short one. I shall only wait till I feel myself cheated in the game, to begin that which I came for. See that I have fair play in THAT, MON AMI, and I care very little about the other."

He lifted the latch as he concluded, and I followed him into the apartment.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE h.e.l.l.

The scene that opened upon us was, to me, a painfully interesting one.

It was a mere h.e.l.l, without any of those attractive adjuncts which, in a diseased state of popular refinement, such as exists in the fashionable atmospheres of London and Paris, provides it with decorations, and conceals its more discouraging and offensive externals. The charms of music, lovely women, gay lights, and superb drapery and furniture, were here entirely wanting. No other arts beyond the single pa.s.sion for hazard, which exists, I am inclined to think, in a greater or less degree in every human breast, were here employed to beguile the young and unsuspecting mind into indulgence. The establishment into which I had fallen, seemed to presuppose an acquaintance, already formed, of the gamester with his fascinating vice. It was evidently no place to seduce the uninitiate. The pa.s.sion must have been already awakened--the guardianship of the good angel lulled into indifference or slumber--before the young mind could be soon reconciled to the moral atmosphere of such a scene.

The apartment was low and dimly lighted. Groups of small tables intended for two persons were all around. In the centre of the floor were tables of larger size, which were surrounded by the followers of Pharo.

Unoccupied tables, here and there, were sprinkled with cards and domino; while, as if to render the characteristics of the place complete, a vapor of smoke and a smell of beer a.s.sailed our senses as we entered.

There were not many persons present--I conjectured, at a glance, that there might be fifteen; but we heard occasional voices from an inner room, and a small door opening in the rear discovered a retreat like that we occupied, in the dim light of which I perceived moving faces and shadows, and Kingsley informed me that there were several rooms all similarly occupied with ours.

An examination of the persons around me, increased the unpleasant feelings which the place had inspired. With the exception of a few, the greater number were evidently superior to their employments. Several of them were young men like my companion--men not yet lost to sensibility, who looked up with some annoyance as they beheld Kingsley accompanied by a stranger. Two or three of the inmates were veteran gamesters.

You could see THAT in their business-like nonchalance--their rigid muscles--the manner at once demure and familiar. They were evidently "habitues del l'enfer"--men to whom cards and dice were as absolutely necessary now, as brandy and tobacco to the drunkard. These men were always at play. Even the smallest interval found them still shuffling the cards, and looking up at every opening of the door, as if in hungering antic.i.p.ation of the prey. At such periods alone might you behold any expression of anxiety in their faces. This disappeared entirely the moment that they were in possession of the victim.

That imperturbable composure which distinguished them was singularly contrasted with the fidgety eagerness and nervous rapidity by which you could discover the latter; and I glanced over the operations of the two parties, as they were fairly shown in several sets about the room, with a renewed feeling of wonder how a man so truly clever and strong, in some things, as Kingsley, should allow himself to be drawn so deeply into such low snares; the tricks of which seemed so apparent, and the attractions of which, in the present instance, were obviously so inferior and low. I little knew by what inoffensive and gradual changes the human mind, having once commenced its downward progress, can hurry to the base; nor did I sufficiently allow for that love of hazard itself, in games of chance, which I have already expressed the opinion, is natural to the proper heart of man, belongs to a rational curiosity, and arises, most probably, from that highest property of his intellect, namely, the love of art and intellectual ingenuity. It would be very important to know this fact, since then, instead of the blind hostility which is entertained for sports of this description, by certain cla.s.ses of moralists among us, we might so employ their ministry as to deprive them of their hurtfulness and make them permanently beneficial in the cause of good education.

Kingsley seemed to conjecture my thoughts. A smile of lofty significance expressing a feeling of mixed scorn and humility, rose upon his countenance--as if admitting his own feebleness, while insisting upon his recovered strength, A sentence which he uttered to me in a whisper, at this moment, was intended to convey some such meaning.

"It was only when thrown to the earth, Clifford, that the wrestler recovered his strength."

"That fable," I replied, "proves that he was no G.o.d, at least. Of the earth, earthy, he found strength only in his sphere. The moment he aspired above it the G.o.d crushed him. I doubt if Hercules could have derived any benefit from the same source."

"Ah! I am no Hercules, but you will also find that I am no Antaeus. I fall, but I rise again, and I am not crushed. This is peculiarly the source of HUMAN strength."