The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander Part 7

I called on the dealer, but he was not to be seen. I found that I was shadowed by officers of the law. I wrote to the dealer, but received no answer. One evening, when I returned to my lodgings, I found that they had been thoroughly searched. I became alarmed, and the conviction forced itself upon me that the sooner I should escape from Madrid, the better for me."

"What!" exclaimed Mrs. Crowder, "and leave thy jewels behind? Thee certainly did not do that!"

"Ah, my dear," replied her husband, "you do not comprehend the situation.

It was very plain that the authorities of the museum did not believe that a private individual, a stranger, was likely to be the legitimate owner of these treasures. Had my case been an ordinary one I should have courted investigation; but how could I prove that I had been an honest man three hundred years before? A legal examination, not so much on account of the jewels, but because of the necessary a.s.sertion of my age, would have been a terrible ordeal.

"I hurried to the dealer's shop, but found it closed. Inquiring of a woman in a neighboring door-step, I was informed that the dealer had been arrested. I asked no more. I did not return to my lodgings, and that night I left Madrid."

I could not repress an exclamation of distress, and Mrs. Crowder cried: "Did thee really go away and leave thy jewels? Such a thing is too dreadful to think of. But perhaps thee got them again?"

"No," said Mr. Crowder; "I never saw them again, nor ever heard of them.

But now that it is impossible for any one to be living who might recognize me, I hope to go to Madrid and see those gems. I have no doubt that they are in the museum."

"And I," exclaimed Mrs. Crowder--"I shall go with thee; I shall see them."

"Indeed you shall," said her husband, taking her affectionately by the hand. And then he turned to me. "You may think," said he, "that I was too timid, that I was too ready to run away from danger; but it is hard for any one but myself readily to appreciate my horror of a sentence to imprisonment or convict labor for life."

"Oh, horrible!" said his wife, with tears in her eyes. "Then thee would have despaired indeed."

"No," said he; "I should not even have had that consolation. Despair is a welcome to death. A man who cannot die cannot truly despair. But do not let us talk upon such a melancholy subject."

"No, no," cried Mrs. Crowder; "I am glad thee left those wretched jewels behind thee. And thee got away safely?"

"Oh, yes; I had some money left. I traveled by night and concealed myself by day, and so got out of Spain. Soon after I crossed the Pyrenees I found myself penniless, and was obliged to work my way."

"Poverty again!" exclaimed Mrs. Crowder. "It is dreadful to hear so much of it. If thee could only have carried away with thee one of thy diamonds, thee might have cracked it up into little pieces, and thee might have sold these, one at a time, without suspicion."

"I never thought of being a vender of broken diamonds, and there is nothing suspicious about honest labor. The object of my present endeavors was to reach England, and I journeyed northward. It was nearly a month after I had entered France that I was at a little village on the Garonne, repairing a stone wall which divided a field from the road, and I a.s.sure you I was very glad to get this job.

"It was here that I heard of the near approach of Napoleon's army on its march into Spain; that the news was true was quickly proved, for very soon after I had begun my work on the wall the country to the north seemed to be filled with cavalry, infantry, artillery, baggage-wagons, and everything that pertained to an army. About noon there was a general halt, and in the field the wall of which I was repairing a body of officers made a temporary encampment.

"I paid as little apparent attention as possible to what was going on around me, but proceeded steadily with my work, although I a.s.sure you I had my eyes wide open all the time. I was thinking of stopping work in order to eat my dinner, which I had with me, when a party of officers approached me on their way to a little hill in the field. One of them stopped and spoke to me, and as he did so the others halted and stood together a little way off. The moment I looked at the person who addressed me I knew him. It was Napoleon Bonaparte."

"Then thee has seen the great Napoleon," almost whispered Mrs. Crowder.

"And very much disappointed I was when I beheld him," remarked her husband. "I had seen portraits of him, I had read and heard of his great achievements, and I had pictured to myself a hero. Perhaps my experience should have taught me that heroes seldom look like heroes, but for all that I had had my ideal, and in appearance this man fell below it. His face was of an olive color which was unequally distributed over his features; he was inclined to be pudgy, and his clothes did not appear to fit him; but for all that he had the air of a man who with piercing eyes saw his way before him and did not flinch from taking it, rough as it might be. 'You seem an old man for such work,' said he, 'but if you are strong enough to lift those stones why are you not in the army?' As he spoke I noticed that he had not the intonation of a true Frenchman. He had the accent of the foreigner that he was.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'WHY ARE YOU NOT IN THE ARMY?'"]

"'Sire,' said I, 'I am too old for the army, but in spite of my age I must earn my bread.' I may state here that my hair and beard had been growing since I left Madrid. For a moment the emperor regarded me in silence. 'Are you a Frenchman?' said he. 'You speak too well for a stone-mason, and, moreover, your speech is that of a foreigner who has studied French.' It was odd that each of us should have remarked the accent of the other, but I was not amused at this; I was becoming very nervous. 'Sire,' said I, 'I come from Italy.' 'Were you born there?' asked he. My nervousness increased. This man was too keen a questioner. 'Sire,' I replied, 'I was born in the country southeast of Rome.' This was true enough, but it was a long way southeast. 'Do you speak Spanish?' he abruptly asked.

"At this question my blood ran cold. I had had enough of speaking Spanish.

I was trying to get away from Spain and everything that belonged to that country; but I thought it safest to speak the truth, and I answered that I understood the language. The emperor now beckoned to one of his officers, and ordered him to talk with me in Spanish. I had been in Spain in the early part of the preceding century, and I had there learned to speak the pure Castilian tongue, so that when the officer talked with me I could see that he was surprised, and presently he told the emperor that he had never heard any one who spoke such excellent Spanish. The emperor fixed his eyes upon me. 'You must have traveled a great deal,' he said.

'You should not be wasting your time with stones and mortar.' Then, turning to the officer who had spoken to me, he said, 'He understands Spanish so well that we may make him useful.' He was about to address me again, but was interrupted by the arrival of an orderly with a despatch.

This he read hastily, and walked toward the officers who were waiting for him; but before he left me he ordered me to report myself at his tent, which was not far off in the field. He then walked away, evidently discussing the despatch, which he still held open in his hand.

"Now I was again plunged into the deepest apprehension and fear. I did not want to go back to Spain, not knowing what might happen to me there. Every evil thing was possible. I might be recognized, and the emperor might not care to shield any one claimed by the law as an escaped thief. In an instant I saw all sorts of dreadful possibilities. I determined to take no chances. The moment the emperor's back was turned upon me I got over the broken part of the wall and, interfered with by no one, pa.s.sed quietly along the road to the house of the man who had employed me to do his mason-work, and seeing no one there,--for every window and door was tightly closed,--I walked into the yard and went to the well, which was concealed from the road by some shrubbery. I looked quickly about, and perceiving that I was not in sight of any one, I got into the well and went down to the bottom, a.s.sisting my descent by the well-rope. The water was about five feet deep, and when I first entered it, it chilled me; but nothing could chill me so much as the thought that I might be taken back into Spain, no matter by whom or for what. I must admit that I was doing then, and often had done, that which seemed very much like cowardice; but people who can die cannot understand the fear which may come upon a person who has not that refuge from misfortune.

"For the rest of the day I remained in the well, and when people came to draw water--and this happened many times in the course of the afternoon --I crouched down as much as I could; but at such times I would have been concealed by the descending bucket, even if any one had chosen to look down the well. This bucket was a heavy one with iron hoops, and I had a great deal of trouble sometimes to shield my head from it."

"I should think thee would have taken thy death of cold," said Mrs.

Crowder, "staying in that cold well the whole afternoon."

"No," said her husband, with a smile; "I was not afraid of that. If I should have taken cold I knew it would not be fatal, and although the water chilled me at first, I became used to it. An hour or two after nightfall I clambered up the well-rope,--and it was not an easy thing, for although not stout, I am a heavy man,--and I got away over the fields with all the rapidity possible. I did not look back to see if the army were still on the road, nor did I ever know whether I had been searched for or had been forgotten.

"I shall not describe the rest of my journey. There is nothing remarkable about it except that it was beset with many hardships. I made my way into Switzerland and so on down the Rhine, and it was nearly seven months after I left Madrid before I reached England.

"I remained many years in Great Britain, living here and there, and was greatly interested in the changes and improvements I saw around me. You can easily understand this when I tell you it was in 1512, twenty years after the discovery of America, that I had last been in England. I do not believe that in any other part of the world the changes in three hundred years could have been more marked and impressive.

"I had never visited Ireland, and as I had a great desire to see that country, I made my way there as soon as possible, and after visiting the most noted spots of the island I settled down to work as a gardener."

"Always poor," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Crowder, with a sigh.

"No, not always," answered her husband. "But wandering sight-seers cannot be expected to make much money. At this time I was very glad indeed to cease from roving and enjoy the comforts of a home, even though it were a humble one. The family with whom I took service was that of Maria Edgeworth, who lived with her father in Edgeworthstown."

"What!" cried Mrs. Crowder, "'Lazy Lawrence,' 'Simple Susan,' and all the rest of them? Was it that Miss Edgeworth?"

"Certainly," said he; "there never was but one Maria Edgeworth, and I don't think there ever will be another. I soon became very well acquainted with Miss Edgeworth. Her father was a studious man and a magistrate. He paid very little attention to the house and garden, the latter of which was almost entirely under the charge of his daughter Maria. She used to come out among the flower-beds and talk to me, and as my varied experience enabled me to tell her a great deal about fruits, flowers, and vegetables, she became more and more interested in what I had to tell her. She was a plain, sensible woman, anxious for information, and she lived in a very quiet neighborhood where she did not often have opportunities of meeting persons of intelligence and information. But when she found out that I could tell her so many things, not only about plants but about the countries where I had known them, she would sometimes spend an hour or two with me, taking notes of what I said.

"During the time that I was her gardener she wrote the story of 'The Little Merchants,' and as she did not know very much about Italy and Naples, I gave her most of the points for that highly moral story. She told me, in fact, that she did not believe she could have written it had it not been for my a.s.sistance. She thought well to begin the story by giving some explanatory 'Extracts from a Traveler's Journal' relative to Italian customs, but afterward she depended entirely on me for all points concerning distinctive national characteristics and the general Italian atmosphere. As she became aware that I was an educated man and had traveled in many countries, she was curious about my antecedents, but of course my remarks in that direction were very guarded.

"One day, as she was standing looking at me as I was pruning a rose-bush, she made a remark which startled me. I perfectly remember her words. 'It seems to me,' she said, 'that one who is so constantly engaged in observing and encouraging the growth and development of plants should himself grow and develop. Roses of one year are generally better than those of the year before. Then why is not the gardener better?' To these words she immediately added, being a woman of kind impulses, 'But in the case of a good gardener, such as you are, I've no doubt he does grow better, year by year.'"

"What was there startling in that little speech?" asked Mrs. Crowder.

"I don't think she could have said anything less."

"I will tell you why I was startled," said her husband. "Almost those very words--mark me, almost those very words--had been said to me when I was working in the wonderful gardens of Nebuchadnezzar, and he was standing by me watching me prune a rose-bush. That Maria Edgeworth and the great Nebuchadnezzar should have said the same thing to me was enough to startle me."

To this astounding statement Mrs. Crowder and I listened with wide-open eyes.

"Yes," said Mr. Crowder; "you may think it amazing that a very ordinary remark should connect 'The Parents' a.s.sistant' with the city of Babylon, but so it was. In the course of my life I have noticed coincidences quite as strange.

"I spent many years in the city of Babylon, but the wonderful Hanging Gardens interested me more than anything else the great city contained. At the time of which I have just spoken I was one of Nebuchadnezzar's gardeners, but not in the humble position which I afterward filled in Ireland. I had under my orders fifteen slaves, and my princ.i.p.al duty was to direct the labors of these poor men. These charming gardens, resting upon arches high above the surface of the ground, watered by means of pipes from the river Euphrates, and filled with the choicest flowers, shrubs, and plants known to the civilization of the time, were a ceaseless source of delight to me. Often, when I had finished the daily work a.s.signed to me and my men, I would wander over other parts of the garden and enjoy its rare beauties.

"I frequently met Nebuchadnezzar, who for the time enjoyed his gardens almost as much as I did. When relieved from the cares of state and his ambitious plans, and while walking in the winding paths among sparkling fountains and the fragrant flowerbeds, he seemed like a very ordinary man, quiet and reflective, with very good ideas concerning nature and architecture. The latter I learned from his frequent remarks to me.

I suppose it was because I appeared to be so much older and more experienced than most of those who composed his little army of gardeners that he often addressed me, asking questions and making suggestions; and it was one afternoon, standing by me as I was at work in a rose-bed, that he said the words which were spoken to me about twenty-four centuries afterward by Maria Edgeworth. Now, wasn't that enough to startle a man?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: NEBUCHADNEZZAR AND THE GARDENER.]

"Startle!" exclaimed Mrs. Crowder, "I should have screamed. I should have thought that some one had come from the dead to speak to me. But I suppose there was nothing about Maria Edgeworth which reminded thee of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon."

"Yes, there was," replied her husband: "there was the same meditative expression of the eyes; the same reflective mood as each one began to speak, as if he and she were merely thinking aloud; the same quick, kind reference to me, as if the speaker feared that my feelings might have been hurt by a presumption that I myself had not developed and improved.

"I had good reason to remember those words of Nebuchadnezzar, for they were the last I ever heard him speak. A few days afterward I was informed by the chief gardener that the king was about to make a journey across the mountains into Media, and that he intended to establish there what would now be called an experimental garden of horticulture, which was to be devoted to growing and improving certain ornamental trees which did not flourish in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. His expedition was not to be undertaken entirely for this purpose, but he was a man who did a great many things at once, and the establishment of these experimental grounds was only one of the objects of his journey.

"The chief gardener then went on to say that the king had spoken to him about me and had said that he would take me with him and perhaps put me in charge of the new gardens.

"This mark of royal favor did not please me at all. I had hoped that I might ultimately become the chief of the Babylonian gardens, and this would have suited me admirably. It was a position of profit and some honor, and when I thought that I had lived long enough in that part of the world it would have been easy for me to make a journey into the surrounding country on some errand connected with the business of the gardens, and then quietly to disappear? But if I were to be taken into Media it might not be easy for me to get away. Therefore I did not wait to see Nebuchadnezzar again and receive embarra.s.sing royal commands, but I went to my home that night, and returned no more to the wonderful Hanging Gardens of Babylon."