The Mesmerist's Victim
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“You disturbed his dreams,” said Taverney; “he was not in my way.”
“No, captain, I just told him that it was freshening and the breeze was killing. The forward-deck passengers are not so warmly clad as you and I.”
“How are we getting along, captain?”
“To-morrow we shall be off the Azores, at one of which we shall stop to take fresh water, for it is pretty warm.”
After twenty days out, they were glad to see any land.
“Gentleman,” said the captain to the passengers, “you have five hours to have a run ashore. On this little island completely uninhabited, you will find some frozen springs to amuse the naturalists and good shooting if you are sportsmen.”
Philip took a gun and ammunition and went ashore in one of the two boats carrying the merry visitors, delighted to tread the earth.
But the noise was not to his taste, no more than the pursuit of game so tame as to run against his legs, and he stopped to lounge in a cool grotto which was not the natural icehouse indicated.
He was still in reverie when he saw a shadow at the mouth of the cave. It was one of his fellow passengers. Though he had not been intimate with them, even withholding his name, he felt that here he was bound to extend the honor of the cave by right of discoverer.
He rose and offered his hand to this timid, stumbling figure whose fingers closed on his own in acceptance of the courtesy.
At the same time as the stranger’s face was shone in the twilight, Philip drew back and uttered an outcry in horror.
“Gilbert?”
“Philip!”
The soldier gripped the other by the throat, and dragged him deeper into the cavern. Gilbert allowed it to be done without a remonstrance. Thrust with his back against the rocks, he could be pushed no farther.
“God is just,” said Philip, “He hath delivered you to me. You shall not escape.”
The prisoner let his hands swing by his side and turned livid.
“Oh, coward and villain,” said the victor, “he has not even the instinct of the beast to defend himself.”
“Why should I defend myself?” returned Gilbert. “I am willing to die and by your hand foremost.”
“I will strangle you,” cried Philip fiercely: “why do you not defend yourself? coward, coward!”
With an effort Gilbert tore himself loose and sent the assaillant a yard away. Then he folded his arms.
“You see I could defend myself. But get your gun and shoot me straight. I prefer that to being torn and mangled.”
Philip was reaching for his gun but at these words he repulsed it.
“No,” he said, “how come you here?”
“Like yourself, on the Adonis.”
“Oh, you are the skulking thing who did not dine with the other passengers but took the air at night?”
“I was not hiding from you, for I did not know you were aboard.”
“But you were hiding, not only yourself but the child whom you stole away.”
“Babes are not taken to sea.”
“With the nurse, whom you were forced to engage.”
“I tell you I have not brought my child, which I removed only that it should not be brought up to despise its father.”
“If I could believe this true,” said Philip, “I should deem you less of a rogue; but you are a thief, why not a liar?”
“A man cannot steal his own property. And the child is mine!”
“Wretch, do you flout me? will you tell me where my sister’s child is? will you restore it to me?”
“I do not wish to give up my boy.”
“Gilbert, listen, I speak to you quietly. Andrea loves the child, your child, with frenzy. She will be touched by your repentance, I promise you. But restore the child, Gilbert.”
“You would not believe me and I shall not trust you,” rejoined Gilbert, with dull fire in his eyes and folding his arms: “Not because I do not believe you an honorable man but because you have the prejudices of your caste. We are mortal enemies and as you are the stronger, enjoy your victory. But do not ask me to lay down my arm; it guards me against scorn, insult and ingratitude.”
“I do not want to butcher you,” said the officer, with froth at the mouth: “but you shall have the chance to kill Andrea’s brother. One crime more will not matter. Take one of these pistols and let us count three, turn and fire.”
“A duel is just what I refuse Andrea’s brother,” said the young man, not stooping for the firearm.
“Then God will absolve me if I kill you. Die, like a villain, of whom I clear the world, a sacrilegious bandit, a dog!”
He fired on Gilbert, who fell in the smoke as if by lightning. Philip felt the sand at his feet fall in from being wet with blood. He lost his reason and rushed from the grotto.
When he ran upon the strand the last boat was waiting. He made its tally right, and no one questioned him.
It was not till the subsequent day that Paul Jones noticed that a passenger was missing.
CHAPTER XLIII
THE LAST ABSOLUTE KING
AT eight at night, on the ninth day of May, 1774, Versailles presented the most curious and interesting of sights.
Since the first day of the month, Louis XV., stricken with a sickness of which the physicians dared not at the outset reveal the gravity, had kept his bed, and began look around him for truth or hope.
Two head physicians sided with the Dauphin and Dubarry severally; one said that the truth would kill the patient, and the other that he ought to know so as to make a Christian end.
But to call in Religion was to expel the favorite. When the Church comes in at one door, Satan must fly out of the other.
While all the parties were wrangling, the disease easily rooted itself in the old, debauched body and so strengthened itself that medicine was not to put it to rout.
At the first, the King was seen between his two daughters, the favorite and the courtiers most liked. They laughed and made light of the affair.
Suddenly appeared at Versailles the stern and austere countenance of the eldest daughter, the Princess Louise, Lady Superior of St. Denis, come to console her father.
She stalked in, pale and cold as a statue of Fate. Long since she had ceased to be a daughter to her father and sister to his children. She resembled the prophets of woe who come in calamities to scatter ashes on the gold and jewels. She happened in at Versailles on a day when Louis was kissing the hands of Countess Dubarry and using them as soft brushes for his inflamed cheeks and aching head.
On seeing her, all fled. Her trembling sisters ran to their rooms; Lady Dubarry dropped a courtsey and hastened to her apartments; the privileged courtiers stole into the outer rooms; the two chief physicians alone stayed by the fireplace.
“My daughter,” muttered the monarch, opening his eyes which pain and fever had closed.
“Your daughter,” said the Lady Louise, “who comes from God, whom you have forgotten, to remind you. Pursuant to etiquette, your malady is one of the mortal ones which compels the Royal Family to gather around your bedside. When one of us has the small pox, he must have the Holy Sacrament at once administered.”
“Mortal?” echoed the King. “Doctors, is this true?”
The two medical attendants bowed.
“Break with the past,” continued the abbess, taking up his hand which she daringly covered with kisses. “And set the people an example. Had no one warned you, you ran the risk of being lost for eternity. Now, promise to live a Christian if you live: or die one, if die you must.”
She kissed the royal hand once more as she finished and stalked forth slowly.
That evening Lady Dubarry had to retire from the Town and suburbs.
This is why on the night in question, Versailles was in tribulation. Would the King mend and bring back Lady Dubarry, or would he die and his successor send her farther than where she paused?
On a stone bench at the corner of the street opposite the palace an old man was seated, leaning on his cane, with his eyes bent on the place. He was so buried in his contemplation among the crowds in groups, that he did not perceive a young man who crossed so as to stand by him.
This young man had a bald forehead, a hook nose, with a twist to it, high cheekbones and a sardonic smile.
“Taking the air?” he said as he gave a squint.
The old man looked up.
“Ah, my clever surgeon,” he said.
“Yes, illustrious master,” and he sat by his side. “It appears that the King is getting better? only the small pox, that so many people have. Besides, he has skillful doctors by him. I wager that Louis the Well-Beloved will scratch through; only, people will not cram the churches this time to sing Oh, be joyful! over his recov – ”
“Hush,” said the old man, starting: “Silence, for you are jesting at a man on whom the finger of God is even now laid.”
Surprised at this language, the younger man looked at the Palace.
“Do you see that window in which burns a shaded lamp? That represents the life of the King. A friend of mine, Dr. Jussieu, will put it out when the life goes out. His successor is watching that signal, behind a curtain. This signal, warning the ambitious when their era commences, tells the poor philosopher like me when the breath of heaven blasts an age and a monarchy. Look at this night, young man, how full of storms. No doubt I shall see the dawn, for I am not so old as not to see the morrow. But you are more likely to see the end of this new reign than I.”
“Ah!” cried the young man, as he pointed to the window shrouded in darkness.
“The King is dead!” said the old man, rising in dread.
Both were silent for a few instants.
Suddenly, a coach drawn by eight horses gallopped out of the palace courtyard, with two outriders carrying torches. In the vehicle sat the Dauphin, Marie Antoinette and the King’s sister, Lady Elizabeth. The torchlight flared ominously on their faces.
The equipage passed close to the two spectators.
“Long live King Louis the Sixteenth – Long live his Queen!” yelled the young man in a shrill voice as if he were insulting the new rulers rather than greeting them.
The Dauphin bowed, the new Queen showed a sad, stern face, and the coach disappeared.
“My dear Rousseau, Lady Dubarry is a widow,” jeeringly said the young man.
“She will be exiled to-morrow,” added the other. “Farewell, Dr. Marat.”
How Marat, chief among the Paris revolutionists, fared, we have to tell in following pages. His career will be traced, as well as those of Andrea, of Gilbert and their son, while we are to behold under another phase the remarkable figure of the arch-conspirator, Balsamo, carrying on his gigantic mission of overturning the throne of the Bourbons. The work is entitled: “THE QUEEN’S NECKLACE.”
THE END