Two Years Ago Volume Ii Part 57

Tom sat down upon the mountain-side, and burst into inextinguishable laughter, while the gendarme came charging up, right toward his very nose.

But up to his nose he charged not; for his wind was short, and the noise of his roaring went before him. Moreover, he knew that Tom had a revolver, and was a "mad Englishman." Now, he was not afraid of Tom, or of a whole army: but he was a man of drills and of orders, of rules and of precedents, as a Prussian gendarme ought to be; and for the modes of attacking infantry, cavalry, and artillery, man, woman, and child, thief and poacher, stray pig, or even stray wolf, he had drill and orders sufficient: but for attacking a Colt's revolver, none.

Moreover, for arresting all manner of riotous Burschen, drunken boors, French red Republicans, Mazzini-hatted Italian refugees, suspect Polish incendiaries, or other feras naturse, he had precedent and regulation: but for arresting a mad Englishman, none. He held fully the opinion of his superiors, that there was no saying what an Englishman might not, could not, and would not do. He was a sphinx, a chimera, a lunatic broke loose, who took unintelligible delight in getting wet, and dirty, and tired, and starved, and all but lolled; and called the same "taking exercise:" who would see everything that n.o.body ever cared to see, and who knew mysteriously everything about everywhere; whose deeds were like his opinions, utterly subversive of all const.i.tuted order in heaven and earth; being, probably, the inhabitant of another planet; possibly the man in the moon himself, who had been turned out, having made his native satellite too hot to hold him. All that was to be done with him was to inquire whether his pa.s.sport was correct, and then (with a due regard to self-preservation) to endure his vagaries in pitying wonder.

So the gendarme paused panting; and not daring to approach, walked slowly and solemnly round Tom, keeping the point of his bayonet carefully towards him, and roaring at intervals--

"You have murdered the young man!"

"But I have not!" said Tom. "Look and see."

"But I saw him fall!"

"But he has got up again, and run away."

"So! Then where is your pa.s.sport?"

That one other fact cognisable by the mind of a Prussian gendarme, remained as an anchor for his brains under the new and trying circ.u.mstances, and he used it. "Here!" quoth Tom, pulling it out.

The gendarme stepped cautiously forward.

"Don't be frightened. I'll stick it on your bayonet-point;" and suiting the action to the word, Tom caught the bayonet-point, put the pa.s.sport on it, and pulled out his cigar-case.

"Mad Englishman!" murmured the gendarme. "So! The pa.s.sport is correct.

But der Herr must consider himself under arrest. Der Herr will give up his death-instrument."

"By all means," says Tom: and gives up the revolver.

The gendarme takes it very cautiously; meditates awhile how to carry it; sticks the point of his bayonet into its muzzle, and lifts it aloft.

"Schon! Das kriegt! Has der Herr any more death-instruments?"

"Dozens!" says Tom, and begins fumbling in his pockets; from whence he pulls a case of surgical instruments, another of mathematical ones, another of lancets, and a knife with innumerable blades, saws, and pickers, every one of which he opens carefully, and then spreads the whole fearful array upon the gra.s.s before him.

The gendarme scratches his head over those too plain proofs of some tremendous conspiracy.

"So! Man must have a dozen hands! He is surely Palmerston himself; or at least Hecker, or Mazzini!" murmurs he, as he meditates how to stow them all.

He thinks now that the revolver may be safe elsewhere; and that the knife will do best on the bayonet-point So he uns.h.i.+ps the revolver.

Bang goes barrel number two, and the ball goes into the turf between his feet.

"You will shoot yourself soon, at that rate," says Tom.

"So? Der Herr speaks German like a native," says the gendarme, growing complimentary in his perplexity. "Perhaps der Herr would be so good as to carry his death-instruments himself, and attend on the Herr Polizeirath, who is waiting to see him."

"By all means!" And Tom picks up his tackle, while the prudent gendarme reloads; and Tom marches down the hill, the gendarme following, with his bayonet disagreeably near the small of Tom's back.

"Don't stumble! Look out for the stones, or you'll have that skewer through me!"

"So! Der Herr speaks German like a native," says the gendarme, civilly.

"It is certainly der Palmerston," thinks he, "his manners are so polite."

Once at the crater edge, and able to see into the pit, the mystery is, in part at least, explained: for there stand not only Stangrave and Bursch number two, but a second gendarme, two elderly gentlemen, two ladies, and a black boy.

One is Lieutenant D----, by his white moustache. He is lecturing the Bursch, who looks sufficiently foolish. The other is a portly and awful-looking personage in uniform, evidently the Polizeirath of those parts, armed with the just terrors of the law: but Justice has, if not her eyes bandaged, at least her hands tied; for on his arm hangs Sabina, smiling, chatting, entreating. The Polizeirath smiles, bows, ogles, evidently a willing captive. Venus had disarmed Rhadamanthus, as she has Mars so often; and the sword of Justice must rust in its scabbard.

Some distance behind them is Stangrave, talking in a low voice, earnestly, pa.s.sionately,--to whom but to Marie?

And lastly, opposite each other, and like two dogs who are uncertain whether to make friends or fight, are a gendarme and Sabina's black boy: the gendarme, with shouldered musket, is trying to look as stiff and cross as possible, being scandalised by his superior officer's defection from the path of duty; and still more by the irreverence of the black boy, who is dancing, grinning, snapping his fingers, in delight at having discovered and prevented the coming tragedy.

Tom descends, bowing courteously, apologises for having been absent when the highly distinguished gentleman arrived; and turning to the Bursch, begs him to transmit to his friend who has run away his apologies for the absurd mistake which led him to, etc. etc.

The Polizeirath looks at him with much the same blank astonishment as the gendarme had done; and at last ends by lifting up his hands, and bursting into an enormous German laugh; and no one on earth can laugh as a German can, so genially and lovingly, and with such intense self-enjoyment.

"Oh, you Englis.h.!.+ you Englis.h.!.+ You are all mad, I think! Nothing can shame you, and nothing can frighten you! Potz! I believe when your Guards at Alma walked into that battery the other day, every one of them was whistling your Jim Crow, even after he was shot dead!" And the jolly Polizeirath laughed at his own joke, till the mountain rang. "But you must leave the country, sir; indeed you must. We cannot permit such conduct here--I am very sorry."

"I entreat you not to apologise, sir. In any case, I was going to Alf by eight o'clock, to meet the steamer for Treves. I am on my way to the war in the East, via Ma.r.s.eilles. If you would, therefore, be so kind as to allow the gendarme to return me that second revolver, which also belongs to me--"

"Give him his pistol!" shouted the magistrate.

"Potz! Let us be rid of him at any cost, and live in peace, like honest Germans. Ah, poor Queen Victoria! What a lot! To have the government of five-and-twenty million such!"

"Not five-and-twenty millions," says Sabina.

"That would include the ladies; and we are not mad too, surely, your Excellency?"

The Polizeirath likes to be called your Excellency, of course, or any other mighty t.i.tle which does or does not belong to him; and that Sabina knows full well.

"Ah, my dear madam, how do I know that? The English ladies do every day here what no other dames would dare or dream--what then, must you be at home? Ach! your poor husbands!"

"Mr. Thurnall!" calls Marie, from behind. "Mr. Thurnall!"

Tom comes, with a quaint, dogged smile on his face.

"You see him, Mr. Stangrave! You see the man who risked for me liberty, life,--who rescued me from slavery, shame, suicide,--who was to me a brother, a father, for years!--without whose disinterested heroism you would never have set eyes on the face which you pretend to love. And you repay him by suspicion--insult--Apologise to him, sir! Ask his pardon now, here, utterly, humbly: or never speak to Marie Lavington again!"

Tom looked first at her, and then at Stangrave. Marie was convulsed with excitement; her thin cheeks were crimson, her eyes flashed very flame.

Stangrave was pale--calm outwardly, but evidently not within. He was looking on the ground, in thought so intense that he hardly seemed to hear Marie. Poor fellow! he had heard enough in the last ten minutes to bewilder any brain.

At last he seemed to have strung himself for an effort, and spoke, without looking up.

"Mr. Thurnall!"

"Sir?"

"I have done you a great wrong!"

"We will say no more about it, sir. It was a mistake, and I do not wish to complicate the question. My true ground of quarrel with you is your conduct to Miss Lavington. She seems to have told you her true name, so I shall call her by it."