Читать книгу Roland Cashel, Volume I (of II) - Lever Charles James - Страница 5

When Roland Cashel rejoined Mr. Simms, he found that worthy individual solacing himself for the privations of prairie travel, by such a breakfast as only Don Pedro’s larder would produce. Surrounded by various dishes whose appetizing qualities might have suffered some impairment from a more accurate knowledge of their contents, – sucking monkeys and young squirrels among the number, – he tasted and sipped, and sipped again, till between the seductions of sangaree and Curaçoa punch, he had produced that pleasing frame of mind when even a less gorgeous scene than the windows of the villa displayed before him would have appeared delightful. Whether poor Mr. Simms’s excess – and such we are compelled to confess it was – could be excused on the score of long fasting, or the consciousness that he had a right to some indulgence in the hour of victory, he assuredly revelled in the fullest enjoyment of this luxurious banquet, and, as Cashel entered the room, had reached the delicious dreamland of misty consciousness, where his late adventures and his former life became most pleasingly commingled, and jaguars, alligators, gambusinos, and rancheros, danced through his brain in company with Barons of the Exchequer and Masters in Chancery.

Elevated by the scenes of danger he had passed through, – some real, the far greater number imaginary, – into the dignity of a hero, he preferred rather to discuss prairie life and scenes in the Havannah, to dwelling on the topics so nearly interesting to Cashel. Nor was Roland a very patient listener to digressions, which, at every moment, left the high-road, and wandered into every absurd by-path of personal history.

“I always thought, sir,” said Simms, “and used to say it everywhere, too, what a splendid change for you this piece of good fortune would be, springing at a bound, as a body might say, from a powder-monkey into the wealth of a peer of the realm; but, egad, when I see the glorious life you lead hereabouts, such grog, such tipple, capital house, magnificent country, and, if I may pronounce from the view beneath my window, no lack of company, too! I begin to feel doubts about it.”

If Cashel was scarcely pleased at the allusions to himself in this speech, he speedily forgave them in his amusement at the commentary Simms passed on life at the villa; but yet would willingly have turned from either theme to that most engrossing one, – the circumstances of his altered fortune. Simms, however, was above such grovelling subjects; and, as he sat, glass in hand, gazing out upon the garden, where strolling parties came and went, and loitering groups lingered in the shade, he really fancied the scene a perfect paradise.

“Very hard to leave this, you’ll find it!” exclaimed Simms. “I can well imagine life here must be rare fun. How jolly they do seem down there!” said he, with a half-longing look at the strange figures, who now and then favored him with a salute or a gesture of the hand, as they passed.

“Come, let us join them,” said Cashel, who, despairing of recalling him to the wished-for topic, was fain to consent to indulge the stranger’s humor.

“All naval men?” asked Simms, as they issued forth into the lawn.

“Most of them are sailors!” said Cashel, equivocating.

“That’s a fine-looking old fellow beneath the beech-tree, with the long Turkish pipe in his mouth. He’s captain of a seventy-four, I take it.”

“He’s a Greek merchantman,” whispered Cashel; “don’t look so hard at him, for he observes you, and is somewhat irascible in temper, if stared at.”

“Indeed! I should n’t have thought – ”

“No matter, do as I tell you; he stabbed a travelling artist the other day, who fancied he was a fine study, and wished to make a drawing of his head.”

Simms’s jaw dropped suddenly, and a sickly faintness stole over him, that even all his late potations could not supply courage enough to hear such a story unmoved.

“And who is he, sir, yonder?” asked he, as a youth, with no other clothing than a shirt and trousers, was fencing against a tree, practising, by bounds and springs, every imaginable species of attack and assault.

“A young Spaniard from the Basque,” said Cashel, coolly; “he has a duel to-morrow with some fellow in Barcelonetta, and he ‘s getting his wrist into play.” Then calling out, he said, “Ah, José, you mean to let blood, I see!”

“He’s only a student,” said the youth, with an insolent toss of his head. “But who have we here?”

“A friend and countryman of mine, Mr. Simms,” said Cashel, introducing the little man, who performed a whole circuit round the young Spaniard in salutations.

“Come to join us?” asked the youth, surveying him with cool impertinence. “What in the devil’s name hast thou done that thou shouldst leave the Old World at thy time of life? Virtuous living or hypocrisy ought to have become a habit with thee ere now, old boy, eh?”

“He’s only on a visit,” said Cashel, laughing; “he can return to good society, not like all of us here.”

“Would you infer from that, sir – ”

“Keep your temper, José,” said Cashel, with an indescribable assumption of insolent superiority; “or, if you cannot, keep your courage for the students, whose broils best suit you.”

“You presume somewhat too far on your skill with the rapier, Senhor Cashel,” said the other, but in a voice far less elevated than before.

“You can test the presumption at any moment,” said Cashel, insolently; “now, if you like it.”

“Oh, Mr. Cashel! oh, Mr. Roland! for mercy’s sake, don’t!” exclaimed Simms.

“Never fear,” interposed Cashel; “that excellent young man has better principles than you fancy, and never neglects, though he sometimes forgets, himself.”

So saying, he leisurely passed his arm beneath Simms’s, and led him forward.

“Good day, Senhor Cashel,” said a tall and well-dressed man, who made his salutations with a certain air of distinction that induced Simms to inquire who and what he was.

“A general in the service of one of the minor States of Germany,” said Cashel; “a man of great professional skill, and, it is said, of great personal bravery.”

“And in what capacity is he here?”

“A refugee. His sentence to be shot was commuted to imprisonment for life. He made his escape from Spandau, and came here.”

“What was his crime?”

“Treachery, – the very basest one can well conceive; he commanded the fort of Bergstein, which the French attacked on their advance in the second Austrian campaign. The assailants had no heavy artillery, nor any material for escalade; but they had money, and gold proved a better battering-train than lead. Plittersdorf – that’s the general’s name – fired over their heads till he had expended all his ammunition, and then surrendered, with the garrison, as prisoners of war. The French, however, exchanged him afterwards, and he very nearly paid the penalty of his false faith.”

“And now is he shunned, – do people avoid him?”

“How should they? How many here are privileged to look down on a traitor? Is it the runaway merchant, the defaulting bank clerk, the filching commissary, that can say shame to one whose crime stands higher in the scale of offence? The best we can know of any one here is, that his rascality took an aspiring turn; and yet there are some fellows one would not like to think ill of. Here comes one such; and as I have something like business to treat of with him, I ‘ll ask you to wait for me, on this bench, till I join you.”

Without waiting for any reply, Cashel hastened forward, and taking off his hat, saluted a sallow-looking man of some eight-and-forty or fifty years of age, who, in a loose morning-gown, and with a book in his hand, was strolling along in one of the alleys.

“Ha, lieutenant,” said the other, as, lifting up his eyes, he recognized Cashel, – “making the most of these short hours of pleasure, eh? You ‘ve heard the news, I suppose; we shall be soon afloat again.”

“So I’ve heard, captain!” replied Cashel; “but I believe we have taken our last cruise together.”

“How so, lad? You look well, and in spirits; and as for myself, I never felt in better humor than to try a bout with our friends on the western coast.”

“You have no friend, captain, can better like to hear you say so; and as for me, the chances of fortune have changed. I have discovered that I need neither risk head nor limbs for gold; a worthy man has arrived here to-day with tidings that I am the owner of a large estate, and more money than I shall well know how to squander, and so – ”

“And so you ‘ll leave us for the land where men have learned that art? Quite right, Cashel. At your age a man can accustom himself to any and everything; at mine – a little later – at mine, for instance, the task is harder. I remember myself, some years ago, fancying that I should enjoy prodigiously that life of voluptuous civilization they possess in the Old World, where men’s wants are met ere they are well felt, and hundreds – ay, thousands – are toiling and thinking to minister to the rich man’s pleasures. It so chanced that I took a prize a few weeks after; she was a Portuguese barque with specie, broad doubloons and gold bars for the mint at Lisbon, and so I threw up my command and went over to France and to Paris. The first dash was glorious; all was new, glittering, and splendid; every sense steeped in a voluptuous entrancement; thought was out of the question, and one only could wonder at the barbarism that before seemed to represent life, and sorrow for years lost and wasted in grosser enjoyment. Then came a reaction, at first slight, but each day stronger; the headache of the debauch, the doubt of your mistress’s fidelity, your friend’s truth, your own enduring good fortune, – all these lie in wait together, and spring out on you in some gloomy hour, like Malays boarding a vessel at night, and crowding down from maintop and mizen! There is no withstanding; you must strike or fly. I took the last alternative, and, leaving my splendid quarters one morning at daybreak, hastened to Havre. Not a thought of regret crossed me; so quiet a life seemed to sap my very courage, and prey upon my vitals; that same night I swung once more in a hammock, with the rushing water beside my ear, and never again tried those dissipations that pall from their very excess; for, after all, no pleasure is lasting which is not dashed with the sense of danger.”

While he was yet speaking, a female figure, closely veiled, passed close to where they stood, and, without attracting any notice, slipped into Cashel’s hand a slip of paper. Few as the words it contained were, they seemed to excite his very deepest emotion, and it was with a faltering voice he asked the captain by what step he could most speedily obtain his release from the service?

A tiresome statement of official forms was the answer; but Roland’s impatience did not hear it out, as he said, —

“And is there no other way, – by gold, for instance?”

A cold shrug of the shoulders met this sally, and the captain said, —

“To corrupt the officials of the Government is called treason by our laws, and is punishable by death, just like desertion.” \

“Therefore is desertion the better course, as it involves none but one,” said Cashel, laughing, as he turned away.