The Serapion Brethren Volume Ii Part 40

"What is the matter here?" cried Edgar loudly. "Come on, come on, brethren, down into the glen, to avenge our comrades, and s.n.a.t.c.h the booty from the teeth of these pigs."

"The good German is right," cried Isidor Mirr. "The good German is right," re-echoed all around, and away they rushed down into the ravine like a bursting thunderstorm.

There were only a few Guerillas left, and they were fighting with the courage of despair. With a cry of "Valenzia," Edgar rushed into the thickest ma.s.s of the enemy, and with the death-announcing roar of thirsting tigers the Guerillas dashed after him, planted their daggers in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the foemen, and felled them with the b.u.t.ts of their muskets. Well-directed bullets. .h.i.t them in their headlong flight. These were the Valenzia men who had overtaken General Moncey's Cuira.s.siers in their march, dashed upon their flank, cut them down before they gathered how they were situated, and retired into their lurking-places masters of the arms and horses.

All this was over and done when Edgar heard a piercing scream from the densest part of the thicket. He made haste to the spot, and found a little man struggling with a Frenchman, and holding the bridle of the mule he was in charge of in his teeth. Just as Edgar came on the scene the Frenchman struck down the little man with a dagger, which he seemed to have taken from him, and was trying to drive the mule further into the thicket. Edgar gave a loud shout; the Frenchman fired at him, missed him, and Edgar ran him through with his bayonet. The little fellow was whimpering. Edgar raised him up, undid with some difficulty the bridle, which he had been convulsively biting, and noticed for the first time as he was helping him on to the mule that there was a shrouded form upon it already clinging to the creature's neck with its arms, and softly lamenting. Behind this girl, for such, judging by her voice, was the shrouded form, Edgar deposited the little wounded man, took the mule by the bridle, and thus made his way back to the little Place d'Armes, where, as no more of the enemy was visible, Isidor Mirr and his men had again taken up their positions.

The little man, who had fainted from loss of blood, though his wounds did not seem to be dangerous, and the girl, were lifted from the mule.

At this moment Don Rafaele in a state of the most wild excitement darted forward with cries of "My child, my sweet child!" and was in the act to clasp the young creature, who did not seem to be more than about eight or ten in years, in his arms, when, suddenly seeing the bright torchlight shining on Edgar's face, he threw himself at his feet, crying, "Oh Don Edgar, Don Edgar! this knee has never bent to mortal man till now; but you are no mortal--you are an angel of light sent to save me from deadly anxiety and inconsolable despair! Oh, Don Edgar, fiendish mistrust was deeply rooted in my bosom, ever brooding upon evil. It was an undertaking deserving the bitterest execration to plan the destruction of one such as you with your true heart all honour and valour---to devote you to a shameful death. Strike me down, Don Edgar--execute a b.l.o.o.d.y vengeance upon me, vile wretch that I am! Never can you forgive what I have done."

Edgar, fully conscious that he had done nothing more than his duty and honour demanded of him, was pained by Don Rafaele's behaviour, and tried by all means to calm and silence him, at length with difficulty succeeding.

Don Rafaele said Colonel la Combe had been greatly distressed at Edgar's disappearance, and suspecting foul play, he had been on the point of ransacking the house and having him, Don Rafaele, arrested.

This was why it had been necessary for him to escape, and it had been entirely owing to the Franciscan's help that he had been able to bring away his daughter, his servant, and many things which he required.

Meanwhile the wounded servant and Don Rafaele's daughter had been taken on some distance in advance, whilst Don Rafaele, too old to share in the exploits of the Guerillas, was to follow them. At his sorrowful parting with Edgar he gave him a certain talisman, which brought him deliverance in many a serious danger.

Here Euchar ended his story, which had been listened to by the company with the keenest interest.

The Poet, who had got over his coughing fit and returned to the room, expressed the opinion that in Edgar's Spanish adventures there was fine material for a tragedy, all that he thought wanting being a due spice of love-making and an effective _finale_, such as a striking case of insanity, a good apoplexy, or something of the kind.

"Oh, yes, love," said a young lady blushing at her own temerity. "The only thing your delightful story wanted was some charmingly interesting love affair!"

"Dear Lady," said Euchar laughing, "I was not telling you the story of a novel, but the adventures of my friend Edgar. His life amongst the wild Spanish mountains was unfortunately poor in experiences of that kind."

"I have a strong belief," said Victorine in a low tone, "that I know this same Edgar, who has remained in poverty, because he has despised the most precious of gifts."

But no one's enthusiasm equalled that of Ludwig, who cried out most excitedly, "I know that mysterious Profecia del Pirineo by the glorious Don Juan Baptista de Arriaza. Oh, it fired my very veins! I wanted to be off to Spain to fight for that glorious cause--had it only been comprehended in the system of the mutual interdependence of things. I can quite put myself in Edgar's place. How I should have spoken to that terrible Empecinado in that awful situation in the Franciscan monastery!" And he began a harangue, which was so pathetic that everybody was astonished, and could not sufficiently marvel at his brave and heroic resolution.

"But it was not a part of the mutual interdependence of things," said the lady of the house, "although, perhaps, it does form a part of that interdependence--or, at all events, fits into it--that, as it happens, I have provided an entertainment for my visitors which forms a suitable pendant to Euchar's story."

The doors opened, and Emanuela came in followed by the stunted little Biagio Cubas with his guitar in his hands, making all manner of quaint obeisances and salutations. But Emanuela, with that indescribable charm of manner which had so fascinated Euchar and Ludwig in the Park, came into the circle curtseying, and said in a gentle voice that she was going to exhibit a little piece of skilfulness, which would not have much to recommend it except its being a little out of the common.

During the short time which had elapsed since our two friends had seen the girl she seemed to have grown taller, more beautiful, and more developed in figure--moreover, she was admirably, almost expensively dressed. "Now," Ludwig whispered into his friend's ear, as Cubas with quaint and comical features was getting things ready for the egg-fandago, "now is your chance to get back your ring."

"My dear goose," said Euchar, "don't you see it is on my finger? I found I had taken it off along with my glove; I discovered that on the same evening when I thought I had lost it."

Emanuela's dancing took everybody by storm, no one having ever seen such a thing before. Euchar kept his gaze fixed upon her earnestly.

Ludwig broke out into exclamations of the utmost rapture. Victorine, close to whom he was sitting, whispered to him, "Hypocrite! You dare to pretend to speak of love to me while you are devoted to this brazen little wretch of a Spanish egg-dancer! Don't dare to look at her again, sir!"

Ludwig was considerably discomposed on the whole by Victorine's pa.s.sion for him, with its tendency to flame out into jealousy without any rational cause. He said to himself, "I really am one of the luckiest fellows in the world; but all the same, this sort of thing rather bores a man."

When she had ended her dance Emanuela took the guitar and began singing Spanish ballads of cheerful, happy character. Ludwig begged her to sing that splendid thing which had so greatly delighted Euchar. She at once began--

"Laurel immortal al gran Palafox," etc.

Her enthusiastic delivery of these lines waxed in fervour as she went on, her voice swelled into greater power, the chords of the instrument clanged louder and louder. When she came to the Strophe, which speaks of the liberation of the Fatherland, she fixed her beaming eyes on Euchar, a river of tears rushed down her cheeks, and she fell on her knees. The hostess hurried to her, raised her up, and said, "No more, no more, sweet darling child," and, taking her to a sofa, kissed her on the brow and stroked her cheeks.

"She's out of her mind," Victorine whispered excitedly to Ludwig. "You can't be in love with a mad creature! No, no. Tell me at once--on the spot--that you can't possibly be in love with a maniac!"

"Good gracious, no! Of course not," Ludwig cried, considerably alarmed.

He found the greatest possible difficulty in properly adapting himself to the excessively pa.s.sionate manifestation which Victorine's affection had taken to displaying.

While the hostess was refreshing Emanuela with sweet wine and biscuits the valiant little guitarist, Biagio Cubas, who had sunk down in a corner and was sobbing profusely, was served with a gla.s.s of genuine Xeres, which he drained to the last drop with a gladsome "Donna, viva hasta mil annos."

It may readily be supposed that the ladies attacked Emanuela with a string of enquiries as to her country, circ.u.mstances, and so forth. The hostess felt the painfulness of her position too keenly not to so contrive that the firmly-closed circle should disperse itself into several subsidiary eddies, in which every one, the piquet players included, soon began to revolve. The consistorial president considered the little Spanish girl a delightful, natty little creature; the only thing was that somehow her dancing got into his own legs and made his head feel as giddy as if he were waltzing with the devil in person. The singing struck him as something quite out of the common; it delighted him immensely.

Count Walther Puck was of quite a different opinion. Of her singing he thought nothing at all; there was no such thing as a trillo in it all.

But he praised her dancing most warmly, and thought it quite delicious.

He said that his opinion on the subject was of some value, seeing that at one time he had been as good a performer as the most celebrated Maitres de ballet.

"Will you believe me, brother Consistorial-President," he said, "when I tell you that in my youthful days, when I was a perfect model specimen of nimbleness and vigour, I used to be able to spring the fiocco and knock down a tambourine hung up nine feet above the tip of my nose with my toe! And as for this egg-fandago, why I have often smashed more eggs in performing that dance than seven hens would lay in four-and-twenty hours."

"Bless my soul," said the Consistorial-President, "that was doing the thing in a most stupendous style!"

"Yes," said the Count. "And then I must tell you my good old Cochenille plays the flageolet really very nicely indeed. And now and then I get him to play for me in the dressing-room; and then I really give myself full swing in the dancing line--of course, only there quite in private.

You see what I mean?"

"Of course, of course," answered the Consistorial-President, "I quite understand."

Meanwhile Emanuela and her companion had disappeared.

As the company were about dispersing the hostess said, "Friend Euchar, I feel certain that you know a great deal more than you have told us about your friend Edgar, We should be deeply interested to hear a great deal more. "What you have told us was only a fragment of it, though it has so excited and interested us that none of us will sleep a wink to night. I can't accord you longer time than till to-morrow evening for satisfying our curiosity. "We must hear more of Don Rafaele, and Empecinado, and the Guerillas. And if it is possible that Edgar can get into a love affair, please don't deprive us of the satisfaction of that."

"That would be delightful!" sounded from all sides; and Euchar had to promise that he would be present with the matter necessary for the completing of his story.

As they were going home Ludwig could not say enough on the subject of Victorine's pa.s.sion for him, bordering, as it seemed to do, on insanity. "All the same," he said, "that jealousy of hers has had the effect of enabling me to read my own heart clearly. And I have read there that my love for Emanuela is a thing unutterable. I am going to find her out, declare my pa.s.sionate adoration for her--and clasp her to my heart."

"Exactly, my dear child," said Euchar imperturbably. "That is, of course, the proper thing for you to do."

On the next evening when the company were a.s.sembled again _chez Madame la Presidente_, she told them with much regret that Baron Euchar had written to say that he was unexpectedly obliged to start immediately on a journey, and must postpone the continuation of his story till he came back.

EUCHAR'S RETURN. SCENES IN A TRULY HAPPY MeNAGE. CONCLUSION OF THE STORY.

Two years had past away when one morning a handsome carriage well loaded with baggage drew up at the door of the Golden Angel (princ.i.p.al hotel in W----), and out of it got a young gentleman, a lady very closely shrouded in wraps, and an old man. Ludwig happened to be pa.s.sing at the time, and naturally he had a look at the arrivals through his eye-gla.s.s. The young gentleman happened to turn round, and he immediately embraced Ludwig, crying out, "My dear old fellow!"

The latter was not a little astonished to see his old friend Euchar, for it was he who had got out of the carriage. "My dear fellow," he said, "who is that terribly m.u.f.fled-up lady?--and the old gentleman?

And, bless my soul, here comes a fourgon with baggage, and sitting on the back of it--good gracious, do my eyes deceive me?"

Euchar took Ludwig by the arm, led him a step or two across the street, and said, "You shall hear all about everything in good time, dear friend; but, to begin with, how have things been going with you? You are terribly pale--the fire of your eyes has gone out. To tell you the honest truth, you look about ten years older than when I saw you last.

Have you been having a bad illness or some serious trouble?"

"Oh, dear no!" answered Ludwig. "Quite the contrary. I believe I am the very happiest fellow under the sun, for I am living a life of utterly ideal, Utopian love and bliss. The heavenly Victorine gave me that exquisite, tender hand of hers--bestowed it, my dear fellow, upon unworthy me rather more than a year ago! That pretty house which you see there with its windows shining in the sun is my home, and you must come there with me this moment and see that earthly paradise of mine.

How delighted my dear wife will be to see you again! Let us give her a surprise."

Euchar begged for a few minutes time just to change his dress, and promised to come then at once and see with his own eyes how all things had worked together for Ludwig's happiness.