The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims Volume 1 Part 4

'Nothing but his blood can wipe out the wrong he has done me,' she rejoined. 'Challenge him to a duel--a mortal duel. If he survives, by my soul, I will give myself to him.'

'Margaret!' exclaimed Disbrowe.

'I swear it,' she rejoined,' and you know my pa.s.sionate nature too well to doubt I will keep my word.'

'But you have the plague!'

'What does that matter? I may recover.'

'Not so,' muttered Disbrowe. 'If I fall, I will take care you do not recover.... I will fight him to-morrow,' he added aloud.

About noon on the following day Disbrowe proceeded to the Smyrna Coffee-house, where, as he expected, he found Parravicin and his companions. The knight instantly advanced towards him, and laying aside for the moment his reckless air, inquired, with a look of commiseration, after his wife.

'She is better,' replied Disbrowe, fiercely. 'I am come to settle accounts with you.'

'I thought they were settled long ago,' returned Parravicin, instantly resuming his wonted manner. 'But I am glad to find you consider the debt unpaid.'

Disbrowe lifted the cane he held in his hand, and struck the knight with it forcibly on the shoulder. 'Be that my answer,' he said.

'I will have your life first, and your wife afterwards,' replied Parravicin fiercely.

'You shall have her if you slay me, but not otherwise,' retorted Disbrowe. 'It must be a mortal duel.'

'It must,' replied Parravicin. 'I will not spare you this time. I shall instantly proceed to the west side of Hyde Park, beneath the trees. I shall expect you there. On my return I shall call on your wife.'

'I pray you do so, sir,' replied Disbrowe, disdainfully.

Both then quitted the Coffee-house, Parravicin attended by his companions, and Disbrowe accompanied by a military friend, whom he accidentally encountered. Each party taking a coach, they soon reached the ground, a retired spot completely screened from observation by trees. The preliminaries were soon arranged, for neither would admit of delay. The conflict then commenced with great fury on both sides; but Parravicin, in spite of his pa.s.sion, observed far more caution than his antagonist; and taking advantage of an unguarded movement, occasioned by the other's impetuosity, pa.s.sed his sword through his body. Disbrowe fell.

'You are again successful,' he groaned, 'but save my wife--save her!'

'What mean you?' cried Parravicin, leaning over him, as he wiped his sword.

But Disbrowe could make no answer. His utterance was choked by a sudden effusion of blood on the lungs, and he instantly expired.

Leaving the body in care of the second, Parravicin and his friends returned to the coach, his friends congratulating him on the issue of the conflict; but the knight looked grave, and pondered upon the words of the dying man. After a time, however, he recovered his spirits, and dined with his friends at the Smyrna; but they observed that he drank more deeply than usual. His excesses did not, however, prevent him from playing with his usual skill, and he won a large sum from one of his companions at Hazard.

Flushed with success, and heated with wine, he walked up to Disbrowe's residence about an hour after midnight. As he approached the house, he observed a strangely-shaped cart at the door, and, halting for a moment, saw a body, wrapped in a shroud, brought out. Could it be Mrs Disbrowe?

Rushing forward to one of the a.s.sistants in black cloaks, he asked whom he was about to inter.

'It is a Mrs Disbrowe,' replied the coffin-maker. 'She died of grief, because her husband was killed this morning in a duel; but as she had the plague, it must be put down to that. We are not particular in such matters, and shall bury her and her husband together; and as there is no money left to pay for coffins, they must go to the grave without them.'

And as the body of his victim also was brought forth, Parravicin fell against the wall in a state of stupefaction. At this moment, Solomon Eagle, the weird plague-prophet, with his burning brazier on his head, suddenly turned the corner of the street, and, stationing himself before the dead-cart, cried in a voice of thunder--'Woe to the libertine! Woe to the homicide! for he shall perish in everlasting fire! Woe! woe!'

Such is this English legend, as related by Ainsworth, but which I have condensed into its main elements. I think it bids fair to equal in interest that of the Hindoo epic; and if it be not true in every particular, so much the better for the sake of human nature.

CHAPTER III. GAMBLING AMONG THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS, PERSIANS, AND GREEKS.

Concerning the ancient Egyptians we have no particular facts to detail in the matter of gambling; but it is sufficient to determine the existence of any special vice in a nation to find that there are severe laws prohibiting and punishing its practice. Now, this testimony not only exists, but the penalty is of the utmost severity, from which may be inferred both the horror conceived of the practice by the rulers of the Egyptians, and the strong propensity which required that severity to suppress or hold it in check. In Egypt, 'every man was easily admitted to the accusation of a gamester or dice-player; and if the person was convicted, he was sent to work in the quarries.'(19) Gambling was, therefore, prevalent in Egypt in the earliest times.

(19) Taylor, _Ductor Dubitantium_, B. iv. c. 1.

That gaming with dice was a usual and fashionable species of diversion at the Persian court in the times of the younger Cyrus (about 400 years before the Christian era), to go no higher, is evident from the anecdote related by some historians of those days concerning Queen Parysatis, the mother of Cyrus, who used all her art and skill in gambling to satiate her revenge, and to accomplish her bloodthirsty projects against the murderers of her favourite son. She played for the life or death of an unfortunate slave, who had only executed the commands of his master.

The anecdote is as follows, as related by Plutarch, in the Life of Artaxerxes.

'There only remained for the final execution of Queen Parysatis's projects, and fully to satiate her vengeance, the punishment of the king's slave Mesabetes, who by his master's order had cut off the head and hand of the young Cyrus, who was beloved by Parysatis (their common mother) above Artaxerses, his elder brother and the reigning monarch.

But as there was nothing to take hold of in his conduct, the queen laid this snare for him. She was a woman of good address, had abundance of wit, and _EXCELLED AT PLAYING A CERTAIN GAME WITH DICE_. She had been apparently reconciled to the king after the death of Cyrus, and was present at all his parties of pleasure and gambling. One day, seeing the king totally unemployed, she proposed playing with him for a thousand _darics_ (about L500), to which he readily consented. She suffered him to win, and paid down the money. But, affecting regret and vexation, she pressed him to begin again, and to play with her--_FOR A SLAVE_. The king, who suspected nothing, complied, and the stipulation was that the winner was to choose the slave.

'The queen was now all attention to the game, and made use of her utmost skill and address, which as easily procured her victory, as her studied neglect before had caused her defeat. She won--and chose Mesabetes--the slayer of her son--who, being delivered into her hands, was put to the most cruel tortures and to death by her command.

'When the king would have interfered, she only replied with a smile of contempt--"Surely you must be a great loser, to be so much out of temper for giving up a decrepit old slave, when I, who lost a thousand good _darics_, and paid them down on the spot, do not say a word, and am satisfied."'

Thus early were dice made subservient to the purposes of cruelty and murder. The modern Persians, being Mohammedans, are restrained from the open practice of gambling. Yet evasions are contrived in favour of games in the tables, which, as they are only liable to chance on the 'throw of the dice,' but totally dependent on the 'skill' in 'the management of the game,' cannot (they argue) be meant to be prohibited by their prophet any more than chess, which is universally allowed to his followers; and, moreover, to evade the difficulty of being forbidden to play for money, they make an alms of their winnings, distributing them to the poor. This may be done by the more scrupulous; but no doubt there are numbers whose consciences do not prevent the disposal of their gambling profits nearer home. All excess of gaming, however, is absolutely prohibited in Persia; and any place wherein it is much exercised is called 'a habitation of corrupted carcases or carrion house.'(20)

(20) Hyde, _De Ludis Oriental_.

In ancient Greece gambling prevailed to a vast extent. Of this there can be no doubt whatever; and it is equally certain that it had an influence, together with other modes of dissipation and corruption, towards subjugating its civil liberties to the power of Macedon.

So shamelessly were the Athenians addicted to this vice, that they forgot all public spirit in their continued habits of gaming, and entered into convivial a.s.sociations, or formed 'clubs,' for the purposes of dicing, at the very time when Philip of Macedon was making one grand 'throw' for their liberties at the Battle of Chaeronea.

This politic monarch well knew the power of depravity in enervating and enslaving the human mind; he therefore encouraged profusion, dissipation, and gambling, as being sure of meeting with little opposition from those who possessed such characters, in his projects of ambition--as Demosthenes declared in one of his orations.(21) Indeed, gambling had arrived at such a height in Greece, that Aristotle scruples not to rank gamblers 'with thieves and plunderers, who for the sake of gain do not scruple to despoil their best friends;'(22) and his pupil Alexander set a fine upon some of his courtiers because he did not perceive they made a sport or pastime of dice, but seemed to be employed as in a most serious business.(23)

(21) First Olynthia. See also Athenaeus, lib. vi. 260.

(22) Ethic. Ad Nicomachum, lib. iv.

(23) Plutarch, _in Reg. et Imp. Apothegm_

The Greeks gambled not only with dice, and at their equivalent for _Cross and Pile_, but also at c.o.c.k-fighting, as will appear in the sequel.

From a remark made by the Athenian orator Callistratus, it is evident that desperate gambling was in vogue; he says that the games in which the losers go on doubling their stakes resemble ever-recurring wars, which terminate only with the extinction of the combatants.(24)

(24) Xenophon, _Hist. Graec_. lib. VI. c. iii.

CHAPTER IV. GAMING AMONG THE ANCIENT ROMAN EMPERORS.

In spite of the laws enacted against gaming, the court of the Emperor Augustus was greatly addicted to that vice, and gave it additional stimulus among the nation. Although, however, he was pa.s.sionately fond of gambling, and made light of the imputation on his character,(25) it appears that in frequenting the gambling table he had other motives besides mere cupidity. Writing to his daughter he said, 'I send you a sum with which I should have gratified my companions, if they had wished to play at dice or _odds and evens_.' On another occasion he wrote to Tiberius:--'If I had exacted my winnings during the festival of Minerva; if I had not lavished my money on all sides; instead of losing twenty thousand sestercii (about L1000), I should have gained one hundred and fifty thousand (L7500). I prefer it thus, however; for my bounty should win me immense glory.'(26)