Tales from Blackwood Volume Ii Part 3

She began at first to address him in Spanish--the language she spoke most naturally; but, quickly perceiving her mistake on hearing the extraordinary jargon in which he replied (for it is a singular fact that n.o.body but Carlota, who taught him, could understand my grandfather's Spanish), she exchanged it for his own tongue. She told him in a few hurried words of the quarrel Owen had incurred on her account with Von Dessel, and of the challenge she had overheard given by the latter, beseeching the Major to hasten to prevent the result.

"In the Fives' Court! in an hour!" said my grandfather. "When did this happen?"

Esther thought nearly an hour ago--she had been almost so long seeking my grandfather.

"I'll go, child--I'll go at once," said the Major. "With Von Dessel, too, as if he could find n.o.body else to quarrel with but the best swordsman in the garrison. 'Souls and bodies,' quoted my grandfather, 'hath he divorced three.'"

With every stride he took, the Major's uneasiness was augmented. At any time his anxiety would have been extreme while peril threatened Frank; but now, when he was calculating on him as a companion at many a well-spread table, when they might forget their past miseries, it peculiarly affected him.

"To think," muttered my grandfather, "that these two madmen should choose a time when everybody is going to be made so happy, by getting plenty to eat, to show their grat.i.tude to Providence by cutting one another's throats!"

The danger to Owen was really formidable; for, though a respectable swordsman, he was no unusual proficient in the graceful art, while his opponent was not only, as my grandfather had said, the best swordsman in the garrison, but perhaps the best at that time in the army. As a student in Germany he had distinguished himself in some sanguinary duels; and since his arrival in Gibraltar, a Spanish gentleman, a very able fencer, had fallen beneath his arm.

"G.o.d grant," said my grandfather to himself, as he neared the Fives'

Court, "that we may settle this without the perdition of souls. Frank, my dear boy, we could better spare a better man!"

On attempting to enter the Fives' Court he was stopped by the marker, posted at the door. "It was engaged," he said, "for a private match."

"Ay, ay," said my grandfather, pus.h.i.+ng past him; "a pretty match, indeed! Ay, ay--pray G.o.d we can stop it!"

Finding the inner door locked, the Major, who was well acquainted with the locality--for, when he had nothing else particular to do, he would sometimes mark for the players for a rubber or two--ascended the stairs to the gallery.

About the centre of the court stood the combatants. All preliminaries had been gone through--for they were stripped to their s.h.i.+rts--and the seconds (one a German, the adjutant of Hardenberg's regiment--the other, one Lieutenant Rushton, an old hand at these affairs, and himself a fire-eater) stood by, each with a spare sword in his hand. In a corner was the German regimental surgeon, his apparatus displayed on the floor, ready for an emergency. Rushton fully expected Owen to fall, and only hoped he might escape without a mortal wound. Von Dessel himself seemed of the same opinion, standing square and firm as a tower, scarcely troubling himself to a.s.sume an att.i.tude, but easy and masterly withal.

Both contempt and malice were expressed for his antagonist in his half-shut eyes and the sardonic twist of the corners of his mouth.

"Owen, Owen, my boy!" shouted my grandfather, rus.h.i.+ng to the front of the gallery, and leaning over, as the swords crossed--"stop, for G.o.d's sake. You mustn't fight that swash-buckler! They say he hath been fencer to the Sophy," roared the Major, in the words of Sir Toby Belch.

The combatants just turned their heads for a moment, to look at the interrupter, and again crossed swords.

Immediately on finding his remonstrance disregarded, the Major descended personally into the arena--not by the ordinary route of the stairs, but the shorter one of a perpendicular drop from the gallery, not effected with the lightness of a feathered Mercury. But the clatter of his descent was lost in the concussion of a discharge of artillery that shook the walls. Instantly the air was alive with shot and hissing sh.e.l.ls; and before the echoes of the first discharge had ceased, the successive explosion of the sh.e.l.ls in the air, and the cras.h.i.+ng of chimneys, shattered doors, and falling masonry, increased the uproar.

One sh.e.l.l burst in the court, filling it with smoke. My grandfather felt, for a minute, rather dizzy with the shock. When the smoke cleared, by which time he had partially recovered himself, the first object that caught his eye was Von Dessel lying on the pavement, and the doctor stooping over him. The only other person hurt was Rushton, a great piece of the skin of whose forehead, detached by a splinter, was hanging over his right eye. Von Dessel had sustained a compound fracture of the thigh, while the loss of two fingers from his right hand had spoiled his thrust in tierce for ever.

"What can be the matter?" said my grandfather, looking upward, as a second flight of missiles hurtled overhead.

"Matter enough," quoth Rushton, mopping the blood from his eye with his handkerchief; "those cursed devils of Spaniards are bombarding the town."

The Major went up to Owen, and squeezed his hand. "We won't abuse the Spaniards for all that," said he--"they've saved your life, my boy."

CHAPTER IV.

Enraged at seeing their blockade evaded by the arrival of Darby's fleet, the Spaniards revenged themselves by directing such a fire upon Gibraltar, from their batteries in the Neutral Ground, as in a short time reduced the town to a ma.s.s of ruins. This misfortune was rendered the more intolerable to the besieged, as it came in the moment of exultation and general thanksgiving. While words of congratulation were pa.s.sing from mouth to mouth, the blow descended, and "turned to groans their roundelay."

The contrast between the elation of the inhabitants when my grandfather entered the Fives' Court, and their universal consternation and despair when he quitted it, was terrible. The crowd that had a few minutes before so smilingly and hopefully entered their homes, now fled from them in terror. Again the streets were thronged by the unhappy people, who began to believe themselves the sport of some powerful and malevolent demon. Whole families, parents, children, and servants, rushed together into the streets, making their way to the south to escape the missiles that pursued them. Some bore pieces of furniture s.n.a.t.c.hed up in haste, and apparently seized because they came first to hand; some took the chairs they had been sitting on; one man my grandfather noticed bearing away with difficulty the leaf of a mahogany table, leaving behind the legs which should have supported it; and a woman had a crying child in one hand, and in the other a gridiron, still reeking with the fat of some meat she had been cooking. Rubbish from the houses began to strew the streets; and here and there a ragged breach in a wall rent by the cannon afforded a strange incongruous glimpse of the room inside, with its mirrors, tables, and drapery, just as the inhabitants left them. Armed soldiers were hastening to their different points of a.s.sembly, summoned by bugles that resounded shrilly amid the din, and thrusting their way unceremoniously through the impeding ma.s.ses of fugitives.

The house of the Jew Lazaro was one of the first that was seriously injured. The blank wall of the great warehouse before mentioned, that faced the street, had, either from age or bad masonry, long before exhibited several cracks. A large segment, bounded by two of these cracks, had been knocked away by a shot, and the superinc.u.mbent ma.s.s falling in consequence, the great store, and all its h.o.a.rded treasures, appeared through the chasm.

The Jew's instincts had, at first, led him to save himself by flight.

But, on returning timorously to look after his property, the sight of the ruined wall, and the unprotected h.o.a.rds on which he had so securely reckoned as the source of wealth, obliterated in his mind, for the time, all sense of personal danger. Seeing a party of soldiers issuing from a wine-house near, he eagerly besought them to a.s.sist him in removing his property to a place of safety, promising to reward them largely for their risk and trouble.

One of the soldiers thus appealed to was Mr Bags.

"Ho, ho!" said Mr Bags; "here's a chance--here's a pleasure, comrades. We can help Mr Lazaro, who is always so good to us--this here Jewish gentleman, that gives such liberal prices for our things. Certainly--we'll remove 'em all, and not charge him nothing.

Oh--oh--ah!" And, to give point to his irony, Mr Bags distorted his face hideously, and winked upon his friends.

The idea of giving Lazaro any a.s.sistance was considered a capital joke, and caused a great deal of mirth as they walked towards the store, to which the Jew eagerly led the way.

"If there's anything good to eat or drink in the store, we may remove some of it, though it won't be on our backs--eh, boys?" said Bags, as he stept in advance, over a heap of rubbish, into the store.

"These first--these, my friends," cried the Jew, going up to a row of barrels, standing a little apart from the crowded ma.s.ses of articles.

"Oh, these first, eh?" said Bags; "they're the best, be they? Thank you, Mr Lazaro; we'll see what's in 'em;" and, taking up a gimlet that lay near, he proceeded to bore a hole in one of the barrels, desiring a friend, whom he addressed as Tim, to tap the next one.

"Thieves!" screamed the Jew, on witnessing this proceeding, seizing Bags' arm; "leave my store--go out--let my goods alone!" Bags lent him a shove that sent him into a corner, and perceiving liquor flowing from the hole he had drilled, applied his mouth to the orifice.

"Brandy," said he, as he paused for breath; "real Cognac. Comrades, here's luck to that 'ere shot that showed us the way in;" and he took another diligent pull at the hole.

Meantime his comrades had not been idle; other barrels were opened, and their contents submitted to a critical inspection.

The Jew tried various modes to induce them to relinquish their booty; first threats--then offers of reward--then cajolery; and, at last, attempted to interpose and thrust them from their spoil. He would probably have experienced rough treatment in addition to the spoliation of his goods, but for other interruption too potent to be disregarded. A shot from the enemy entering the store, enfiladed a long line of barrels, scattering the staves and their contents. The place was instantly flooded with liquor--wine, mola.s.ses, spirits, and oil, ran in a mingled stream, soaking the _debris_ of biscuit and salt provisions that strewed the floor. One soldier was struck dead, and Mr Bags only escaped destruction by the lucky accident of having his head at that moment apart from the barrel which had engrossed his attention, and which was knocked to pieces.

The Jew, partly stunned by a wound in the forehead from the splinter of a barrel, and partly in despair at the destruction of his property, came to the entrance of the store, seating himself among the rubbish. Other plunderers speedily followed the example of the marauding soldiers, but he made no attempt to stop them as they walked past him. My grandfather, pa.s.sing at the time on his way home, was horrified at the sight of him.

Flour from a splintered barrel had been scattered over his face, and blood from the wound in his forehead, trickling down, had clotted it on his cheeks and scanty beard, giving him an aspect at once appalling and disgusting. His daughter had waited at the door of the Fives' Court till she saw Owen come forth in safety, and had then availed herself of the protection of the Major as far as her own home. Shrieking at the dismal sight, she sprang forward and threw herself before the Jew, casting her arms around him. This seemed to rouse him. He arose--looked back into the store; and then, as if goaded by the sight of the wreck into intolerable anguish, he lifted his clenched hands above his head, uttering a sentence of such fearful blasphemy, that a devout Spaniard, who was emerging from the store with some plunder, struck him on the mouth. He never heeded the blow, but continued to rave, till, suddenly overcome by loss of blood and impotent rage, he dropt senseless on the ground.

My grandfather, calling some soldiers of his regiment who were pa.s.sing, desired them to convey him to the hospital at the South Barracks, and, again taking the terrified and weeping Esther under his protection, followed to see the unfortunate Jew cared for.

At the various parades that day Mr Bags was reported absent, being in fact engaged in pursuits of a much more interesting nature than his military duties. A vast field of enterprise was opened to him and other adventurous spirits, of which they did not fail to avail themselves, in the quant.i.ty of property of all kinds abandoned by the owners, in houses and shops where locks and bolts were no longer a protection; and although the firing, which ceased for an hour or two in the middle of the day, was renewed towards evening, and continued with great fury, the ardour of acquisition by no means abated.

About midnight a sentry on the heights of Rosia (the name given to a portion of the rugged cliffs towards the south and near the hospital) observed, in the gloom, a figure lurking about one of the batteries, and challenged it. Receiving no answer, he threatened to fire, when Bags came forward reluctantly, with a bundle in his hand.

"Hush, Bill," said Bags, on finding the sentry was a personal friend--"don't make a row: it's only me, Bags--Tongs, you know," he added, to insure his recognition.

"What the devil are you doing there, you fool?" asked his friend in a surly tone--"don't you know the picket's after you?"

"I've got some little things here that I want to lay by, where n.o.body won't see 'em, in case I'm catched," returned Bags. "Don't you take no notice of me, Bill, and I'll be off directly."

"What have ye got?" asked Bill, whose curiosity was awakened by the proceedings of his friend.

"Some little matters that I picked up in the town," returned Bags. "Pity you should be on guard to-day, Bill--there was some pretty pickings.

I'll save something for you, Bill," added Bags, in an unaccountable access of generosity.

The sentry, however, who was a person in every way worthy of the friends.h.i.+p of Mr Bags, expressed no grat.i.tude for the considerate offer, but began poking at the bundle with his bayonet.

"Hands off, Bill," said Bags; "they won't abear touching."

"Let's see 'em," said Bill.

"Not a bit on it," said Bags; "they ain't aworth looking at."