Sir Jasper Carew Part 66

"Should you like to see him?" said he, in a kind tone.

"Of all things," replied I, eagerly; "tell him to come to me."

I conclude that this question was asked simply to amuse my mind, and turn it from other painful thoughts, for he shortly after retired, without further allusion to it; but from that hour my mind was riveted on the one idea; and to everybody that approached my sick bed, my first demand was, "Where was Count Ysaffich, and when was he coming to see me?"

I had been again conveyed back to the military hospital, in which I was lying when the Emperor came to make his customary visit. The prisoners'

ward was, however, one exempted from the honor he bestowed on the rest; and one could only hear the distant sounds of the procession as it pa.s.sed from room to room.

I was lying, with my eyes half closed, lethargic and dull, when I heard a voice say,--

"Yes, Colonel, he has spoken of you constantly, and asks every day when you mean to come and see him."

"He never served in the Legion, notwithstanding," replied another voice, "nor do I remember ever to have seen him before."

The tones of the speaker recalled me suddenly to myself. I looked up, and beheld Count Ysaffich before me. Though dressed in the lancer uniform of the Garde, his features were too marked to be forgotten, and I accosted him at once.

"Have you forgotten your old colleague, Paul Gervois?" said I, trying to appear calm and at ease.

"What!--is this--can you be my old friend Gervois?" cried be, laying a hand on my shoulder, and staring hard at my face. But I could not utter a word; shame and sorrow overcame me, and I covered my face with both my hands.

Ysaffich was not permitted to speak more with me at the time; but he returned soon, and pa.s.sed hours with me every day to the end of my illness. He was intimate with the officer I had insulted; and, by immense efforts, and the kind a.s.sistance of the medical authorities, succeeded in establishing a plea of temporary insanity for my offence, by which I escaped punishment, and was dismissed the service. This was a period of much suffering to me, mentally as well as bodily. I felt all the humiliation at which my life had been purchased, and more than once did the price appear far too great a one.

CHAPTER XLVI. YSAFFICH

I was now domesticated with Ysaffich, who occupied good quarters in Kehl, where the Polish Legion, as it was called, was garrisoned. He treated me with every kindness, and presented me to his comrades as an old and valued friend. I was not sorry to find myself at once amongst total strangers,--men of a country quite new to me, and who themselves had seen reverses and misfortunes enough to make them lenient in their judgments of narrow fortune. They were, besides, a fine, soldier-like race of fellows,--good hors.e.m.e.n, excellent swordsmen, reckless as all men who have neither home nor country, and ready for any deed of daring or danger. There was a jealousy between them and the French officers which prevented any social intercourse; and duels were by no means a rare event whenever they had occasion to meet. The Imperial laws were tremendously severe on this offence; and he who killed his adversary in a duel was certain of death by the law. To evade the consequences of such a penalty, the most extravagant devices were practised, and many a deadly quarrel was decided in a pretended fencing-match. It was in one of these mock trials of skill that Colonel le Brun was killed, an officer of great merit, and younger brother of the general of that name.

From that time the attention of the military authorities was more closely drawn to this practice; and such meetings were for the future always attended by several gendarmes, who narrowly scrutinized every detail of the proceeding. With such perfect good faith, however, was the secret maintained on both sides that discovery was almost impossible.

Not only was every etiquette of familiar intimacy strictly observed on these occasions, but a most honorable secrecy by all concerned.

I was soon to be a witness of one of these adventures. Ysaffich, whose duties required him to repair frequently to Strasburg, had been grossly and, as I heard, wantonly outraged by a young captain of the Imperial staff who, seeing his name on a slip of paper on a military table d'hote, added with his pencil the words _Espion Musse_ after it.

Of course a meeting was at once arranged, and it was planned that Challendrouze, the captain, and four of his brother officers were to come over and visit the fortifications at Kehl, breakfasting with us, and being our guests for the morning. Two only of Ysaffich's friends were intrusted with the project, and invited to meet the others.

I cannot say that I ever felt what could be called a sincere friendship for Ysaffich. He was one of those men who neither inspire such attachments, nor need them in return. It was not that he was cold and distant, repelling familiarity and refusing sympathy. It was exactly the opposite. He revealed everything, even to the minutest particle of his history, and told you of himself every emotion and every feeling that moved him. He was frankness and candor itself; but it was a frankness that spoke of utter indifference,--perfect recklessness as to your judgment on him, and what opinion you should form of his character.

He told you of actions that reflected on his good faith, and uttered sentiments that arraigned his sense of honor, not only without hesitation, but with an air of a.s.sumed superiority to all the prejudices that sway other men in similar cases. Even in the instance of the approaching duel, he avowed that Challendrouze's offence was in the manner, and not the matter, of the insult. His whole theory of life was that every one was false, not only to others, but to himself; that no man really felt love, patriotism, or religion in his heart, but that he a.s.sumed one or more of these affections as a cloak to whatever vices were most easily practised under such a disguise. It was a code to stifle every generous feeling of the heart, and make a man's nature barren as a desert.

He never fully disclosed these sentiments until the evening before the duel. It was then, in the midst of preparations for the morrow, that he revealed to me all that he felt and thought. There was, throughout these confessions, a tone of indifference that shocked me more, perhaps, than actual levity; and I own I regarded him with a sense of terror, and as one whose very contact was perilous.

"I have married since I saw you last," said he to me, after a long interval of silence. "My wife was a former acquaintance of yours.

You must go and see her, if this event turn out ill, and 'break the tidings,' as they call it,--not that the task will demand any extraordinary display of skill at your hands," said he, laughing.

"Madame the Countess will bear her loss with becoming dignity; and as I have nothing to bequeath, the disposition of my property cannot offend her. If, however," added he, with more energy of manner, "if, however, the Captain should fall, we must take measures to fly. I 'll not risk a _cour militaire_ in such a cause, so that we must escape."

All his arrangements had been already made for this casualty; and I found that relays of horses had been provided to within a short distance of Mannheim, where we were to cross the Rhine, and trust to chances to guide us through the Luxembourg territory down to Namur, at a little village in the neighborhood of which town his wife was then living. My part in the plan was to repair by daybreak to Erlauch, a small village on the Rhine, three leagues from Kehl, and await his arrival, or such tidings as might recall me to Kehl.

"If I be not with you by seven o'clock at the latest," said he, "it is because Challendrouze has _vised_ my pa.s.sports for another route."

These were his last words to me ere I started, with, it is not too much to say, a far heavier heart than he had who uttered them.

It was drawing towards evening, and I was standing watching the lazy drift of a timber-raft as it floated down the river, when I heard the clattering of a horse's hoofs approaching at a full gallop. I turned, and saw Ysaffich, who was coming at full speed, waving his handkerchief by way of signal.

I hurried back to the inn to order out the horses at once, and ere many minutes we were in the saddle, side by side, not a word having pa.s.sed between us till, as we pa.s.sed out into the open country, Ysaffich said,--

"We must ride for it, Gervois."

"It's all over, then?" said I.

"Yes, all over," said he while, pressing his horse to speed, he dashed on in front of me; nor was I sorry that even so much of s.p.a.ce separated us at that moment.

Through that long, bright, starry night we rode at the top speed of our horses, and, as day was breaking, entered Rostadt, where we ate a hasty breakfast, and again set out. Ysaffich reported himself at each military station as the bearer of despatches, till, on the second morning, we arrived at h.e.l.lsheim, on the Bergstra.s.se, where we left our horses, and proceeded on foot to the Rhine by a little pathway across the fields. We crossed the river, and, hiring a wagon, drove on to Erz, a hamlet on the Moselle, at which place we found horses again ready for us. I was terribly fatigued by this time, but Ysaffich seemed fresh as when we started. Seeing, however, my exhaustion, he proposed to halt for a couple of hours,--a favor I gladly accepted. The interval over, we remounted, and so on to Namur, where we arrived on the sixth day, having scarcely interchanged as many words with each other from the moment of our setting out.

CHAPTER XLVII. TOWARDS HOME

Ysaffich's retreat was a small cottage about two miles from Dinant, and on the verge of the Ardennes forest. He had purchased it from a retired "Garde Cha.s.se" some years before, "seeing," as he said, "it was exactly the kind of place a man may lie concealed in, whenever the time comes, as it invariably does come, that one wants to escape from recognition."

I have already said that he was not very communicative as we went along; but as we drew nigh to Dinant he told me in a few words the chief events of his career since we had parted.

"I have made innumerable mistakes in life, Gervois, but my last was the worst of all. I married! Yes, I persuaded your old acquaintance Madame von Geysiger to accept me at last. She yielded, placed her millions and tens of millions at my disposal, and three months after we were beggared. Davoust found, or said he found, that I was a Russian spy; swore that I was carrying on a secret correspondence with Sweden; confiscated every sou we had in the world, and threw me into jail at Lubeck, from which I managed to escape, and made my way to Paris. There I preferred my claim against the marshal: at first before the _cour militaire_, then to the minister, then to the Emperor. They all agreed that Davoust was grossly unjust; that my case was one of the greatest hardship, and so on; that the money was gone, and there was no help for it. In fact, I was pitied by some, and laughed at by others; and out of sheer disgust at the deplorable spectacle I presented, a daily supplicant at some official antechamber, I agreed to take my indemnity in the only way that offered,--a commission in the newly raised Polish Legion, where I served for two years, and quitted three days ago in the manner you witnessed."

His narrative scarcely occupied more words than I have given it. He told me the story as we led our horses up a narrow bridle-path that ascended from the river's side to a little elevated terrace where a cottage stood.

"There," said he, pointing with his whip, "there is my _pied a terre_, all that I possess in the world, after twenty years of more persevering pursuit of wealth than any man in Europe. Ay, Gervois, for us who are not born to the high places in this world, there is but one road open to power, and that is money! It matters not whether the influence be exerted by a life of splendor or an existence of miserable privation,--money is power, and the only power that every faction acknowledges and bows down to. He who lends is the master, and he who borrows is the slave. That is a doctrine that monarchs and democrats all agree in. The best proof I can afford you that my opinion is sincere lies in the simple fact that he who utters the sentiment lives here;"

and with these words he tapped with the head of his riding-whip at the door of the cottage.

Although only an hour after the sun set, the windows were barred and shuttered for the night, and all within seemingly had retired to rest.

The Count repeated his summons louder; and at last the sounds of heavy _sabots_ were heard approaching the door. It was opened at length, and a st.u.r.dy-looking peasant woman, in the long-eared cap and woollen jacket of the country, asked what we wanted.

"Don't you know me, Lisette?" said the Count. "How is madame?"

The brown cheeks of the woman became suddenly pale, and she had to grasp the door for support before she could speak.

"Eh heu!" said he, accosting her familiarly in the patois of the land, "what is it? what has happened here?"

The woman looked at me and then at him, as though to say that she desired to speak to him apart. I understood the glance, and fell back to a little distance, occupying myself with my horse, ungirthing the saddle, and so on. The few minutes thus employed were pa.s.sed in close whispering by the others, at the end of which the Count said aloud,--

"Well, who is to look after the beasts? Is Louis not here?"

"He was at Dinant, but would return presently."

"Be it so," said the Count; "we 'll stable them ourselves. Meanwhile, Lisette, prepare something for our supper.--Lisette has not her equal for an omelet," said he to me, "and when the Meuse yields us fresh trout, you 'll acknowledge that her skill will not discredit them."

The woman's face, as he spoke these words in an easy, jocular tone, was actually ghastly. It seemed as if she were contending against some sickening sensation that was over-powering her, for her eyes lost all expression, and her ruddy lips grew livid. The only answer was a brief nod of her head as she turned away and re-entered the house. I watched the Count narrowly as we busied ourselves about our horses, but nothing could be possibly more calm, and to all seeming unconcerned, than his bearing and manner. The few words he spoke were in reference to objects around us, and uttered with careless ease.

When we entered the cottage we found Lisette had already spread a cloth, and was making preparations for our supper; and Ysaffich, with the readiness of an old campaigner, proceeded to aid her in these details.

At last she left the room, and, looking after her for a second or two in silence, he said compa.s.sionately,--