The Son of Clemenceau Part 6

"You, who know everything, my officer, must at least have heard of the peerless Iza, the original of the most beautiful statue which--reproduced in the precious and the mean metals, in clay, in parian, in plaster--made the round of the civilized world? 'The Bather!'

That was my daughter! She had her faults--even the truly lovely have mental flaws, though bodily they are perfect--but whilst she lived, her poor old mother dressed in silks and velvets--not in rags; she ate and drank delicately, not sour crusts and sourer wine; she slept on down and not in a cellar!"

Von Sendlingen shook his head; he was of the new generation and he preserved but a dim remembrance of the noted beauties--the stars of the living galaxy decorating the first cycle of the Bonapartist Restoration.

"I foresaw it all and I warned her; but she was so perverse! It is my duty to avenge her, and to see that the same blunder is not made by--no matter! Enough that my science--at which you smile, I see--points out to me that your greatest enemies and mine are in that house." She gestured toward the hotel, which the major had been studying.

"Do you say enemies in the plural?" he said, ceasing to curl his lip in mocking of the witch.

"In that house are the Jewish couple, father and daughter, who played at the Harmonista, La Belle Stamboulane and the Turkophonist Daniel, and the young man who belabored your excellency so that he almost died of the drubbing."

"Hang you for being so profuse in your explanations! How do you know all this?"

"The servant-maid is a customer of mine. I tell her fortune and she tells me all that goes on in her master's house. The young man has been cared for there these five or six days, and they only await the chance to smuggle him out of the city. Have him seized and secure him in prison, where he shall rot--for I declare to you, as surely as there are stars above, these letters of the divine volume in which soothsayers read, he will be your death in the end unless you are his."

"I would not be contented with that. I want to return him blow for blow--and yet you say I cannot fight him in duello."

"Listen, my officer. He has been brought up in ignorance of his name and origin, in my country Poland. He is French by birth, and his name is Felix Clemenceau. It was his father, a celebrated sculptor, who married my daughter Iza, after decoying her to Paris from her mother's side, and he murdered her on some frivolous pretext when they were living separated and he, heaven knows, had no farther claim upon her--his existence was pure indifference to her. I answer for it! They tried his father for the atrocity. Even a French jury could not find extenuating circ.u.mstances for that kind of cold-blooded a.s.sa.s.sin who slays in the small hours the wife of his bosom--after having cast her off and driven her to evil ways, poor, spotless angel! They brought him in guilty of a foul murder and he was guillotined--gentleman and artist of merit though he was. They were kind to his young son; his friends made up a purse and sent him afar to be educated and reared in ignorance. But the shadow of the guillotine is projected afar, and I saw its red finger point to the a.s.sa.s.sin's offspring. I have found him. If my hand is not too feeble to strike, it may antic.i.p.ate yours."

"I cannot measure swords with a felon's son!" muttered Von Sendlingen.

"But I shall not cease aching in the heart until he is in the shameful grave he imprudently s.n.a.t.c.hed me from."

"You are a man after my own liking," said the hag, chuckling. "I can foresee that you will go far and perish in a blaze of glory! Listen!

There are troublous times when an unscrupulous and ambitious soldier may make his mark and carve a good slice out of the great, rich cake called Europe. Aid me, and I will aid you. Yes, Herr Major, it is one potentate speaking with another," the singular woman went on with sinister pride, and trying to draw her shrunken form into straightness; "I rule an army of my own, camped by cohorts in the capitals of Europe--dating farther back than your own, and, perhaps, as formidable. It is we who spy out the weak spots in great cities. The next time, we shall swarm into the doomed city in a ma.s.s and we shall devour its wealth and luxuries until we are gorged. But for the day, it will be glut enough for me to have the life's blood of this man. You cannot honor him with single combat, it appears. Then, let me propose another mode to finish him."

The major was silent. Standing high in the ranks of the police, he was not sure how closely he might ally himself with this avowed leader of the evil-doers, who announced the pillage of a metropolis. She took his silence for consent or approval, for she jauntily continued:

"The house-maid has told me all they are hatching. They have a chaise always ready and pa.s.sports to mask the departure of the young man as a clerk going abroad. But for precaution, they will not have him go to the train at the depot; he might be questioned and the discrepancies in the pa.s.sport be perceived. The chaise is to convey him down the line, and he will get on the cars at a rural depot where the gendarme and ticket-seller will be dull and easily hoodwinked."

"Very neat," said Von Sendlingen, appreciating the plan at its due value. "I always said old Daniels was no fool."

"What more easy than to post a couple of the horse patrol on the road--young, hot-headed fellows with restless fingers on the triggers?

The youth will certainly refuse to surrender, whereupon, bang, bang! he falls into the ditch with a brace of bullets in his body. You and I will have an enemy the less. This is not the way I planned it in my dreams, but we must take our revenge with the sauce fate serves it up to us 'on the table of Fact.'"

"The scheme is plausible."

"Feasible! especially will it work like well-oiled machinery if you play your part of lure creditably."

"My part?" questioned the major.

"Yes, yours. With a sorrowful eye and a smooth face, I confess I could not confront the man I hate as strongly as his father. You are different--you are an arch-villain--a born diplomatist who wears the very mask for this task and has no face, no compunction, no pity of his own. Go into that house, ask for Herr Daniels--that is the Jew player's non-professional name--and see him and his daughter, perhaps, the young student, too. Boldly proclaim your position as the Secret Intelligence Agent, by which you learned their whereabouts, and that they harbor the charitable young man who saved your life. Touch lightly on his thumping you within an inch of it, and enlarge on your undying grat.i.tude.

Apologize to the young lady--lay all blame on her irresistible charms and abuse a little the fair and fickle Fraulein von Vieradlers who has eloped without so much as an adieu to you! Depend upon it, Jews though they are, they will applaud your Christian forgiveness, and, I do not doubt, Frenchman though he is, young Clemenceau will give you his hand.

Dilate not at all, but urge him to leave the town without delay. From the maid I will get to know the hour of the chaise's starting and the route so that you can plant your men. I grant that this has the air of a highwayman's attack, but, after all, the uniform covers a host of civil sins, and, really, I do not see a better way to have done with the youth. It will never do to have him strut about Paris boasting that he s.n.a.t.c.hed the sword away from an officer and drubbed him with a cane into the bargain."

Sullen fire burned in the hearer's eyes. He stamped his foot, suppressed an oath, and when he looked up, had a serene countenance.

"You have said enough. A willing steed does not need the spur. I will lay the train and prepare the match. Let each look to himself lest he suffer by the explosion."

Successful though the old woman had been in her arrangement to convert an offended employer into a vigorous ally, she shuddered as if he were, in these ominous words, as good a soothsayer as he pretended to be.

CHAPTER VII.

ONE GOOD TURN DESERVES--A BAD ONE.

Probably no more terrifying a figure could have presented itself at the Persepolitan Hotel than the major of cavalry, and he looked the type of his cla.s.s, insolent with aristocratic hauteur, martial to the point of arrogance, and domineering and as bl.u.s.tering toward inferiors as he would have been bland and meek to his superiors. The landlord, one of the hybrid Levantines in whose blood that of a dozen races flowed, was as alarmed as the maid, whom he sent up the stairs to announce the visitor to Herr Daniels. Strange to say, the officer, who had taken a seat in the sitting-room, unasked, with his heavy sabre held upright between his knees, bore the somewhat lengthy delay with patience. The girl returned to say that Herr Daniels would be honored with the visit, although, he had said, he had not a pleasant remembrance of the gentleman. In fact, before his a.s.sault in the street upon La Belle Stamboulane, the major had persecuted her and deserved the reproof from her father which it was too dangerous, as Munich society was ruled, for him to utter.

But, contrary to all precedent, the military Lovelace quietly walked into the room where Claudius was restored to health and whence he had been removed to the inmost chamber vacated by the young singer. The major's accident might account for his meekness, but his manners and voice accorded with his speech so that one attributed the change to an altogether different cause than a purely physical one.

He approached the Jew with open countenance, wearing a chastened and subdued expression, and extended his hand as to a brother officer.

Daniels accepted it, struck by the unexpected mien, although he could not, in his astonishment and inveterate prudence, return the pressure.

The major spoke an apology for his outrageous conduct, in a faltering voice and with moist eyes, s.p.a.cing the apparently unstudied phrases with a cough as if to master tearfulness unbecoming even an invalid soldier.

He laid the blame on the surpa.s.sing charms of the songstress who had enflamed him beyond his self-control and, partly, on the infernal French wine in which he had imprudently over-indulged at the evening's garrison officer's dinner. Had he but patriotically stuck to the beer! But that was not worth lamenting now. He tendered his regrets to the father of the young lady and promised to use his poor influence--here he smiled at the disparagement as if he knew his power and that his hearer was sure of it--for her professional advancement as long as she rejoiced Munich with her beauty and accomplishments.

The night in the dead-house, on the very brink of the deathpit, had transformed him, he freely acknowledged. He hardly recognized his own voice in communicating the sentiments that carried him into new directions, so strange was it all, but he was eager to show by deeds that his conversion was great and sincere. He had engaged his protection for the distinguished turkophone-player and his unparalleled daughter, but he felt that was enough.

"Ample," said Daniels, at last able to speak a word on the torrent of glib language momentarily pausing; "but we are going away to fulfill an engagement in Paris."

"One moment," said the major, politely lifting his hand from which he kept the buckskin gauntlet as if he meant again to shake hands with the Ishmael at their farewell. "Perhaps I cannot, then, be of service to you, but there is another to whom my a.s.sistance is of other value--nay, of the highest consequence. I am not referring to the young lady--whom Munich will be so sorry to part with and whom I do not expect to see again even to accept my excuses--but the student from the Polish University who deservedly corrected me and brought me to my sober senses--although, perhaps, he had a heavy hand." He spoke with an a.s.sumption of manly regret, which enchanted the hearer and completed his revocation of the bad opinion of the rough suitor of his daughter. Still the Jew had not laid aside all his habitual caution and he did not by word or movement betray that he had an acquaintance with his champion.

"I see that I must drop all flourishes and speak unfettered," went on the major, bluntly. "In two words, our brawl has got to the ears of the provost-marshal as well as those of the town guardians, and the search is going to be thorough for that young gentleman. I know it is absurd, and I protested against it, but the idea has penetrated their wooden heads that he is one of those tramp-students who are permeating the ma.s.ses--worse, the dangerous cla.s.ses--with seditious ideas, and they think he and Baboushka's gang too long lording it in the poor quarter, are hand and glove. In fact, in a day or two--perhaps now--the forces will be a-foot in uniform and in disguise to make a keen and searching inspection of the dwellings suspected of harboring the liberal-minded; and G.o.d knows that you have, Herr Daniels, chosen a veritable hot-bed!

Two months ago, we arrested a Nihilist with a portmanteau full of gla.s.s bombs, luckily uncharged, in the attic upstairs; not three weeks since, two Hungarian malcontents were stopped at the door--but why enter into these details, fitter for the police than a soldier to relate? You, of course, were not told of these blots on this hotel's fame or you would have selected it as the last roof to shelter your talented daughter. It is one thing to cross swords--I mean staves--with a man, and another to guide the watchmen to clap their coa.r.s.e paws on his shoulder. I have made honorable amends, I hope, to the lady and yourself, for my rudeness; as for the gallant fellow, I bear him no ill will--on the contrary! since I could wish to meet with him again, and tell him that the Great Prison of Munich is not badly constructed and promises little chance of an escape. I beg you to convey the warning to him that he must lose not one instant if he can escape beyond the walls."

Still Daniels believed it prudent, if not polite, to make no compromising admission. But the speaker was not offended. He smiled wisely, not without good humor, and offered his hand so frankly that the Jew again took it and this time slightly returned the generous pressure.

But on the way to the door, he was stopped by the entrance of Rebecca.

Although she was clad in the plain garments affected by the Jewess in ordinary days, and they were in the most striking contrast with the stage flippery in which the officer had previously seen her, her loveliness was as manifest as the stars when even a fleecy cloud veils them on an autumnal eve. In her anxiety as regarded her father--or, perhaps, the student, who can tell?--she must have stooped to listening to some portion of the singular and one-sided dialogue. For she said, without any prelude:

"Herr Officer, you have acted a n.o.ble part and it would be a grief if I had not taken the occasion to accept your apology and thank you for the warning which may save the life of one who--believe me--is no longer your foe, if he had been one. I am not able to judge the greatness and loftiness of your act from your people's point of view, but I shall no longer have a mean opinion of the creed which can perform such a conversion as yours--that is, making you a true gentleman instead of leading one to believe you a heartless libertine."

She held out her hand and he took it so reverently, without haste and with tenderness, and kissed it so respectfully that her last doubt vanished--although she scarcely had the ghost of one.

He had triumphed completely, and he retired with an airy step and a heart replete with gratification.

"If he is dragged into the prison and locked up to rot in the dungeon, they will blame me the last of all," he muttered. "Heavens, how supernally beautiful she is! There are times when I think that if she and her rival occupied the scales of the balance, a b.u.t.terfly's wing would turn them. My heart would be divided in their mutual favor."

With the same aerial step, he pa.s.sed two or three men in threadbare suits and shabby hats, who were hovering about the Persepolitan, and who carefully exchanged glances of understanding with him. He went straight to the superintendent-inspector of police, and sat down in his cabinet to concert with him on the best way to suppress, without scandal, the dangerous emissary from ever-restless Poland, lodged in consultation with the Jew, the bugbear of the monarchies of Europe.

"Tut, tut! tell not the official that Daniels and his daughter, for the paltry lucre of the drink-halls or for artistic satisfaction, made the tour of the capitals!"

In the meantime, the "suspects," not themselves suspicious, commenced, with Rebecca a listener, upon the move counseled by the chivalrous major. It was one they had almost settled upon and they determined to put it all the sooner into execution. The post chaise was kept in a state of readiness, alike with the horse that drew it on these important occasions, a surefooted nag whose pace was better than her appearance.

Claudius, to be sure, rested under the disadvantage of being a stranger to the roads, as he had traveled only upon one to enter this city--commonly accounted dull, but so far crammed with serious adventures. This blank in his topographical lore was easily filled: the bright-eyed Hedwig was to meet him at the first corner, mount into the vehicle of which the capacious hood of enameled cloth would hide her, and there pilot him in steering to the Sendling _Thur_ or gate. Once in the open country, the road was plainer--in fact, he could be guided by the locomotive's smoke and whistle till he reached the little station. Even twenty miles out, the Persepolitan's landlord had acquaintances--perhaps they were brothers in some occult league--and the vehicle could be left without misgivings at any of the inns which he named.

There was nothing in this plan, so simple as to promise success, to trouble the brain, but, all the same, Claudius had a sleepless night, though he retired early to be prepared for the probably eventful morrow.

He wished to think only of Rebecca, who had added sound hints to her father's and the host's experienced advice; but, do what he could, it was another's image that haunted him. It was the winning one of the aristocratic singer. Again he beheld her matchless shape, her caressing and enthralling eyes, her supple undulations in the waltz and her shimmering golden curls. And whatever the sounds in the street, where there seemed more footfalls than before that evening, all though actual, were overpowered and formed the burden to the ghostly but delightful strains from that silvery voice. He was not only at the age to be impressionable, but he had not known one of those college amorettes which may be as innocent as a page of a scientific text-book. No woman even in the poetry had caused him to vibrate in the untouched heart-chords like this unexpected star in the firmament of beer fumes and tobacco smoke! But it was not joyous to muse upon this vision for he had no doubt that she marked a new starting-point in his life.