For Love of a Bedouin Maid
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Suddenly there was a lull in the laughter and conversation, and all eyes were turned to the most beautiful and most extravagantly dressed woman present. She was robed in a gown of white satin, cut, with an audacity that bordered on immodesty, so as to display as much as she durst of the voluptuous charms with which Nature had endowed her—her beautifully rounded arms, which were bare to the shoulder, where a narrow band, gem-studded, crossed them, and the exquisite curves of her neck and swelling bosom, on which a diamond necklace reflected a thousand sparkles from the wax-lights about the room. Her blue black eyes were like two gleaming stars as she flashed them round the company; her face was flushed with excitement, in part due to wine, and her expression and whole bearing testified to a feeling of triumphant joy at the consciousness of her rare outward gifts and their power to sway the other sex and mold all men to her will.
The eyes of the man with the sallow face, de Guichard, no longer roved about the room, but fixed themselves on her with a hungry lust that was almost brutal.
Halima sprang quickly to her feet and raised aloft a glass filled almost to the brim with foaming wine. Instantly the talk and laughter, that had been lessening, in expectation of her action, became completely hushed. Not only so, but all sat immovable.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," she began, "before we part, I have a toast to give you. Most of you were present at our meeting before supper, and know what was resolved on, but, for the information of those who were not in time for it, I will repeat that our plans are at last complete for restoring to France her rightful King. A messenger goes to-night to make them known to our faithful friends in Paris, and to encourage them to keep up their hearts. Courage, my friends, for the blow will soon be struck that shall hurl the bragging upstart from the height he has had the temerity to mount. This is the toast I ask you to join me in: 'Success to the White Rosette and the cause it typifies, our King's.' Also to our next meeting in Paris, fixed for the 25th of March. Vive le Roi!"
She swung the glass about her head, sprinkling, unintentionally, drops of wine on those about her; then she brought it to her lips and emptied it at a draught; then flung it down, and it splintered into fragments on the floor.
Instantly all present sprang to their feet, and the cry went up "Success to the White Rosette! Vive le Roi!" the shriller notes of the women mingling with the rougher tones of the men. The glasses were clinked together then drained to the bottom and, finally like Halima's shattered to atoms on the ground. Employed in a cause deemed almost sacred, they should be put to no common use again. Then deafening shouts and cheers went up, and the enthusiasm became intense, the gentlemen drawing and brandishing their swords, and the ladies waving their pocket-handkerchiefs, and fluttering their fans. "Vive le Roi! Vive Louis XVIII" again and again they cried.
Gradually the excitement wore itself away, and the party began to separate, some taking their departure, others making their way to the drawing-room, whence soon the strains of music could be heard. Some of the gentlemen, inveterate topers, following the custom of the times, lingered in the dining-room over their wine, but others, votaries of Venus, rather than of Bacchus, followed the ladies into the drawing-room. Amongst them was Mons. de Guichard, whose eye quickly singled out their hostess, who flitted about from group to group, dropping sugared words, varied according to the taste and sex of the recipients, among ladies and gentlemen alike. He made several efforts to gain her side, but each time, almost before he had reached her, she had moved away.
But, at last, he saw his opportunity. He had seated himself near the door, and Halima had just taken leave of some of her guests, and was passing him on her return. He rose to his feet, and bowing courteously, "Madame," he said, "may I beg the favor of five minutes' conversation with you privately on a matter of great moment?"
His manner was so confused, he hesitated and was so ill at ease, his face contorted and twitching with emotion she failed to comprehend, that her first sentiment was of alarm.
"Alone?" she asked, her tone and face expressing her surprise.
He made no verbal answer, but merely bowed assent.
Halima had no lack of courage, and her first emotion had been but momentary. "If you will follow me, Monsieur," she said. "But I trust our interview will not take long. Indeed, I cannot for more than a few minutes neglect my duties as a hostess."
She passed out of the room and led the way along the hall—throwing a dark cloak over her shoulders on the way—to a glass door that, by a short flight of steps, gave access to the garden, he following her. With rapid strides, they threaded several winding paths, coming out at last in front of a small pavilion, which she entered, inviting him to follow.
Halima closed the door, then, tapping the floor impatiently with her foot, she said, "I hope our business will not occupy us for more than a brief space, and that its importance will justify my seeming rudeness to my guests. Besides," and here she stifled a yawn behind her fan, "the hour grows late, and I am tired."
For a moment, the man stood silent, then, with gleaming eyes, their brightness scintillating even in the semi-darkness of the chamber, his words rushed out in a torrent.
"Oh! Madame, can you not see what I would say to you? You are a woman, does not your heart tell you of the fire that is consuming me? Madame, no words of mine—nay, it is not in the power of language to express it—can make you know the depth of my devotion to you. I love you, I adore you, I could kiss the very ground your foot has pressed. My peace of mind is gone, a tempest rages furiously within me. Every word you say to another stings me, every look, every smile bestowed on others is gall and wormwood to me. I live only in your presence. Without you, death is to be desired. Why think you I have put my life in peril and joined this conspiracy? 'Tis for love of you. Kings, countries, statesmen, all else in this world, count to me for nothing when weighed with you. With you I feel it in me to achieve great things, to dare all dangers. Your society is eagerly desired, you are admired, beloved, you hold an important position in this enterprise to reinstate the King; but, supported by your love, I can secure for you even a higher place than you have yet attained, or ever will without me. Madame, does not my fervor melt you? Will you bid me hope?"
He ceased speaking, and gazed down into her face, searching anxiously for some sign that he had moved her. His face was deathly white, and his breath came throbbingly in the intensity of his suspense.
But she remained unmoved. For one thing, she did not like the man; had never felt assured that he was trustworthy. Had almost any other man evinced such passion for her, even had it awakened no responsive chord in her, would have felt touched, and, to spare him would have checked him at the outset. But this man she felt she hated.
"I don't know which amazes me the most, Sir," she replied; "your temerity, or your vanity. What have I ever said or done to warrant your addressing me in terms of love? I can charge myself with nothing that should have prompted it. It must be that you have too liberally indulged in wine, and that your wits have gone awandering. I will leave you to regain your scattered senses."
The measured incisiveness of her tone, and the contemptuous expression of her face would have silenced most men, but he was mad with passion. When she moved to go, he placed himself before her. "If I am drunk," he said, "'tis not with wine, but love. Oh! how can so fair a form, that glows with life, and warmth, enshrine so cold a heart? An icicle shut up within a jeweled casket. You heed not that my heart is lacerated, and for love of you. But have a care, for passion makes one desperate. Oh! Madame," and his voice changed suddenly to a wail, "forgive me and relent." He reached out his hand and clutched her dress.
"Unhand me, Sir." She spoke quietly enough, but rage was gathering in her face, and some little trepidation. They were some distance from the house and, for aught she knew, no one was within call.
But his passion had passed beyond his power. A salacious glare was in his eye, and his lips twitched lustfully. The next moment he had caught her to him and almost stifled her in his embrace. She felt his hot breath on her face, his kisses on her lips. Oh! how she loathed the man. A piercing shriek went up. There was a sound of rushing feet outside, the door of the pavilion was flung open, and two men burst in.
One wore a plain traveling suit, the other was dressed in the height of fashion; but both were shrouded in long cloaks.
At their entrance, de Guichard loosed his hold on Halima, who was panting and almost speechless with rage and shame, at the insult put upon her.
The first of the newcomers—he was St. Just—turned savagely on de Guichard. "Explain your presence here, Sir," he exclaimed.
But the man stood tongue-tied. The change in the position had been so rapid and unlooked for, that he was at a loss for words.
"This man has insulted me, Henri," Halima broke in, speaking in gasps; "I came here with him, believing he had political secrets to impart; but he took the opportunity of forcing his attentions on me, and when I repelled him, he seized me in his arms and kissed me. Then I screamed."
"Hah! is it so, Sir?" exclaimed St. Just. "I will teach you a lesson, you will not easily forget. If you received what you deserve, I would thrash you like a cur; but, since you have the appearance of a gentleman and wear a sword. I will give you the opportunity of using it. Draw, Sir!"
St. Just's words and Halima's had given de Guichard time to regain his self-possession.
"And pray, Sir," he said, "what right have you to interfere in another's love affair? I came here by this lady's invitation. Doubtless, but for you and your companion, we should have arranged our little difference, for 'the quarrels of lovers are the renewal of love.'"
"We waste time, Sir," St. Just broke out. "Draw, before I buffet you in the face. I might prove a special right to make this lady's quarrel mine; but I am content to assert that by which every honorable man is moved to avenge a woman's injuries."
"I do not fight before women," returned de Guichard sullenly. "And there is no light here; we cannot fight in the dark."
"As to fighting before a woman, Sir," Halima interposed, "for that you have my full permission; further, it would afford me satisfaction; the wrong is mine, I should like to witness its avenging. And, for light, that soon can be procured. Oblige me with your tinder box, Sir." The last words were spoken to her husband.
He gave her what she asked for, and soon she had set a light to several wax candles about the room. While she was thus engaged, no word was spoken aloud, but St. Just stepped up to his companion and whispered in his ear. The other nodded in reply, and then St. Just removed his cloak.
Her task performed, Halima took her stand beside her husband, a joyous, cruel glow of expectation on her face. She sprang from a race of warriors, and the din of battle was music to her ears; her eyes were like two dancing sparks, as they flashed impatiently at the prospect of a struggle between two men with hatred in their breasts; and her nostrils were distended, as though, in anticipation, they sniffed the scent of blood. The animal bulked largely in her nature. She seemed to have no fear as to the result of the encounter; indeed she had not thought of that, and if she had, she would not have been greatly troubled; for she knew her husband was a skillful swordsman; of the other's prowess she knew nothing.
Both men were very pale, St. Just with rage, de Guichard with that and baffled lust.
"Are you ready, Gentlemen?" cried Halima, who seemed to have taken the whole management upon herself. "Then draw."
She stepped back and placed herself midway between the combatants, the stranger taking up a like position facing her.
Then the two men advanced, and drew their weapons. There was the clash of steel opposed to steel; the duel had begun.
It was soon apparent that science would play but a small part in the encounter; the temper of both men forbade it; St. Just fought furiously, de Guichard desperately; the exchanges were made rapidly and with a will: there was no attempt at feinting—only the cut and dried attacks, parried in the ordinary way. So far as skill went, there was not much to choose between the combatants; their strength also seemed well-matched. Spite of the vigorous nature of their onslaughts, for some minutes there was no palpable result; all that happened was that they began to labor more in breathing. Suddenly St. Just, in making a furious lunge, slipped on the polished floor and fell, his blade, in the fall, snapping short off at the hilt.
De Guichard, desiring only to escape, now thought he saw his chance. Making a cut at the candle held by St. Just's companion, he sliced off the lighted end: then, in the comparative darkness and confusion, he bounded to the door and rushed out into the darkness, brushing against a man who was advancing. Meanwhile, St. Just had regained his feet and, seeing his late opponent's retreating back, had hurled his sword hilt after him.
The next moment, preceded by a torrent of strong oaths in Breton French, a man entered the pavilion. He looked from one to the other in surprise; then, recognizing St. Just, "Confound it, man, do you want to break my shins? Am I Goliath and you David that you sling things at me?"
At this the man who had accompanied St. Just threw himself into a chair and laughed heartily.
But Halima and St. Just exclaimed together, "Cadoudal! How come you here? We thought you were in Paris?"
"No," replied Cadoudal, "I landed in England this morning and came on here at once in the hope of meeting His Royal Highness; and I am fortunate in doing so." He bowed low to the man who had entered with St. Just, the Comte d'Artois. "The time for our rising is close at hand. 'Tis now, or never with us. We must start for Paris at once. The Jacobins wait but a signal from us to light the torch of revolution."
"Bravo! Vive le Roi!" cried Halima, almost before Cadoudal had ceased speaking. "Down with the oppressor. To Paris, gentlemen, to Paris." She sprang to her feet and began to chant a Royalist hymn.
In the excitement that followed on the disclosure of the Chouan leader's news, de Guichard, now speeding citywards, was forgotten. And, on the morrow, while the other conspirators yet lingered, and St. Just was hastening to Ettenheim, with a letter for the ill-fated Duc d'Enghein, urging him to join the cause, the traitor de Guichard was being borne across the channel, as fast as ship could take him, to France and Buonaparte.
CHAPTER VIII
A long stretch of road wound its way along, until it was lost in the distance in a thin white thread. At intervals at both sides were wooden pillars painted in the national colors of Baden. Not far away, a broad river swept along, following the same course as the road.
Moving along the road in silence, was a squadron of dragoons, at their head a stern-faced officer; but between him and it, two closely-guarded carriages.
In the first was seated St. Just, and by his side an older man, whom the former had just addressed as General Dumouriez, opposite to them sat two soldiers, their guards. In the second carriage was a young man of refined appearance, whose countenance, at this moment, was racked with anguish.
"My wife, my poor wife!" he murmured.
The sun was rising on the 15th of March, 1804.
* * * * *Within the narrow walls of a square-chamber, which was bare of furniture, save for a common wooden table, a man was seated on a rudely constructed stool. His face could not be seen, for it was hidden in his hands, his elbows resting on his knees. His whole attitude bespoke despair—despair that was well-founded, for he was waiting, waiting hopelessly, for the death he felt was close at hand.
It was St. Just, and he was immured in the fortress of Vincennes.
Presently he started to his feet, and then could be seen the havoc wrought upon his countenance by grief and disappointment. The bloom of health was gone, and his cheeks were pale and sunken, the bones above them bulging over the cavities below; the flesh hung down in leathery folds; deep lines scored his forehead, and his eyes, dim and lusterless, were seated far back in their sockets. Nothing in his appearance recalled the gay lieutenant of the Directory.
He began to pace his narrow cell with rapid steps, as though he hoped thereby to thrust away from him the thought of his impending fate. Backwards and forwards, like a caged animal, he tramped the straitened chamber; but, though he speeded his footsteps till they approached a run, he could put no space between his thoughts and him; he knew that hope had flown; their plot had failed, and he was lost.
With a sigh, so deep and loud that it sounded like a groan, he checked his restless pacing, and sank once more wearily on to the wooden stool.
Then, like the fugitive figures in a kaleidoscope, the late occurrences, that had followed each other in a rush, arranged themselves in changing pictures before his mental eye, and thought moved with them.
The picture of his wife came first, standing in the pavilion in the garden of Hartford House, her lovely face glowing with excitement at Cadoudal's news and the prospect of the speedy success of their conspiracy. He had taken leave of her and the Comte d'Artois and Cadoudal there and then, and started forthwith on his mission to the heads of the conspiracy. What was she doing now? By her obstinacy and vindictiveness she had wrought his ruin. Not intentionally, but it had been the necessary sequence of her conduct. Despite his passion for her, the anger raged so fiercely in him, that, for the moment, he felt he almost hated her; that, if she then had stood before him, he could have struck her down. He cursed the mad infatuation that had merged his life in hers.
Then he followed in imagination his movements in that fateful journey, from the moment of his leaving her; his drive that night by poste chaise to the little town of Alfriston in Sussex, and the breakfast that followed at the Star Inn there. Then his embarkation, at the mouth of the Cuckmere River, upon Captain Wright's sloop, and the midnight landing below the cliff at Bévile. He could almost feel himself now being hauled up that cliff with a swinging him round and round and bruising him against protruding lumps of chalk; he could almost hear the screaming of the gulls disturbed by him in his ascent.
He recalled the days of terror that had followed, when each conspirator (traveling for the most part without papers) sometimes as a beggar, sometimes as a pedlar, secretly and swiftly as he could, tramped his way along the country that lay between the sea and Paris. He thought of the many perils of discovery he had undergone from barking dogs at country houses on his way, and the espionage, and suspicions of some of the Government officials; of his manner of getting into Paris, hidden, as he had been, under the tarpaulin of a hay-wagon, whose driver he had hoodwinked into the belief that he was a deserter.
Then onward marched his thoughts and he found himself at Ettenheim with the Duc d'Enghien. He remembered that that visit had been rendered futile by the Duc's mistress, who had besought her lover not to risk his life in France, but to abide where he then was; and that her arguments had prevailed.
At this, he had gone on to Paris to report the failure of his mission to the Duc; and there had been a period of awful waiting, of terrible suspense. Then, when everything had seemed ripe for action, still no active steps had been taken; everyone had seemed afraid to make the plunge into the whirlpool of revolt. And, while they had hesitated, whispers of treachery had been heard, at first vague and contradictory; gradually they had gathered strength, and, at last, the news had thundered on them that Moreau and Pichegru had been arrested, and that the Comte d'Artois had fled precipitately to the coast.
Their leaders gone, the others had feared to rise; and he himself had hurried again to Ettenheim to warn the Duc d'Enghien of his danger.
How vividly he recalled the interview in the library, the hurried burning of the compromising papers, and the scattering of their ashes in the moat; the tearful entreaties of the Duchesse (so called) that they should remain there just one more night; and then, last scene of all, the startling summons at the chateau, the tramp of the soldiers through the corridors, when they had gained admission, the rude awakening, the peremptory orders to rise and dress immediately, the journey, in the still, silent night, that had ended at Vincennes.
This was the final picture that was presented to his mind, and it brought him to the present. He was a prisoner in the gloomy fortress, from which death only would release him! Truly his heart was full of anguish and regret; he had sacrificed all for love of Halima, and, notwithstanding, had failed in gaining that for which he had made the sacrifice; for he could not doubt that he had seen her for the last time. The First Consul would not again forgive him; he had warned him on the last occasion.
He moved wearily to the window of his cell and gazed out on the inner moat, pressing his head against the iron bars; it was burning and racked with pain, and the cold was grateful to him.
It was close on dawn, and in the dim gray light, there came in view a party of soldiers with an officer. Some carried torches and lighted lanterns, and others spades and mattocks.
The officer looked around and, presently, pointed to a spot; then the men began to dig there, the watcher at the narrow window speculating, with half-listless curiosity, what could be their object; were they seeking a buried treasure?
Gradually the light of day crept up, and, at its approach, the torches' flare and the feeble glimmer from the lanterns began to wane, until, when the golden sheen, fast spreading over the Eastern sky, announced the birth of another day, they could no longer be discerned.
Then the meaning of what these men were doing flashed all at once upon St. Just, and he became sick with horror. The shape and size of the opening they were making proclaimed with fearful certainty its purpose. It was a grave.
For whom? For him? A great fear fell upon him; a deadly faintness overcame him for the moment, but, with a strong effort, he forced it back. He could not take his eyes away; a sort of fascination seemed to glue them to the scene.
At last the grave was finished and the diggers stood at ease, and began to wipe the sweat from off their foreheads, for the work had been both arduous and rapidly performed. Suddenly their officer gave the word of command, and caps were replaced and the men ranged themselves in a line and stood at attention.
The reason was soon apparent; a file of soldiers wheeled round the corner and were halted at some thirty paces from the grave. Then more soldiers came in sight, and in the midst of them—some before and some behind him—walked a man, wearing only his shirt and pantaloons. The prisoner was marched up to the newly opened grave and halted; his guards fell back and he stood there alone, awaiting death.
Then the full horror of the situation burst forth upon St. Just; the man who faced him was the Duc d'Enghien. Doubtless his own fate would be the same!
And now an officer approached the man whose course was all but run; and St. Just could see that the Duc was addressing him with vehemence; nay, in the clear still air, he could hear his very words.
"Sir, I protest against this outrage, in the face of God and man. Your ruler must be mad to do that which will raise all Europe against him."
But the officer shook his head and refused to allow him to proceed. Meanwhile, the firing party had been drawn up in line, their muskets in position. The officer in command stepped back, then raised his sword.
There was a sharp cry and, at the same moment, the crack of musketry. The murdered Royalist reeled, spun half round, clutching convulsively at his throat with both hands, in his death agony, and fell backward into the grave.