Читать книгу A servant of Satan: Romantic career of Prado the assassin - Louis Berard - Страница 4

Table of Contents

A SHOCKED FATHER.

The sun was just rising from behind Vesuvius when one of those hideous and awkward-looking cabs which infest the streets of Naples crawled up to the park gates of a handsome villa on the road to Posilipo. Carelessly tossing a five-lire note to the driver, a young man whose travel-stained appearance showed traces of a long journey jumped to the ground and violently rang the bell. Some minutes elapsed before the porter was sufficiently aroused from his sleep to realize the fact that a stranger was waiting for admittance, and when he finally issued forth to unlock the gates, his face bore manifest evidence of the intense disgust with which he regarded the premature disturbance of his ordinarily peaceful slumbers.

“Is this the Count von Waldberg's villa?” inquired the stranger.

“Yes,” replied the porter in a gruff voice. “What of that?”

“I want to speak to him at once. Unlock the gate.”

“Indeed! You want to see his excellency?”

“At once!”

“At this hour? Per Bacco! Who has ever heard of such a thing? You will have to come back later in the day, my young friend—very much later in the day—if you wish to be granted the honor of an audience,” and with that he turned away and was about to leave the stranger standing in the road, when suddenly steps were heard approaching along the gravel path which led up to the villa, and a tall, soldierly figure appeared in view.

“Good morning, Beppo; what brings you out of bed at this unearthly hour of the morning? This is rather unusual, is it not?”

“It is, indeed, Sig. Franz. It is a young fellow outside there who actually insists on seeing his excellency at once.”

On hearing this Franz, who was the general's confidential valet, took a cursory glance at the stranger, and suddenly seizing the pompous porter by the shoulder, caused him to wheel round with such violence as to almost destroy his equilibrium.

“Open, you fool! It is the young count! What do you mean by keeping him waiting out in the road? Are you bereft of your senses?”

Snatching the keys from the hands of the astonished Italian he brushed past him, threw open the gates and admitted Frederick, for it was he.

“Herr Graf, Herr Graf, what an unexpected pleasure is this. How delighted his excellency will be!”

“I don't know so much about that, Franz, but I want to speak to my father at once. Let him know that I am here, and ask him to receive me as soon as possible.”

After conducting Frederick to a room on the first floor of the villa and attending to his wants the old servant left him to notify the general of his son's arrival.

The young man had meanwhile dragged a low arm-chair to the open window, and sat gazing with a tired and troubled expression at the magnificent landscape stretched out before him.

Four days had elapsed since the exciting scene described in the last chapter. The violence of the blow inflicted by Frederick had caused the colonel to fall heavily against the brass corner of a ponderous writing-table, cutting a deep gash across his forehead, and the blood trickled freely from the wound as he lay unconscious on the ground. The sight of the prostrate figure of his commanding officer recalled the young lieutenant to his senses, and he realized in a moment the terrible consequences of his act. Visions of court-martial, life-long incarceration in a fortress, or even death, flashed like lightning through his brain and, rushing from the room, he hastened to his stables. Hastily saddling the fleetest of the three horses which he had brought from Berlin, he galloped at break-neck speed to the nearest point of the frontier, and within an hour after the incident was out of German territory, and for the moment, at any rate, safe from pursuit. Four hours after passing the border line he rode into the Austrian town of Cracow, and alighted at the Hotel de Saxe. Having but little money about him at the moment of his flight, he disposed of his horse to the innkeeper, and with the proceeds of the sale purchased an outfit of civilian clothes in lieu of his uniform, and a ticket to Naples, where his father was spending the winter.

Before his departure for Cracow, Frederick posted a letter to Rose instructing her to lose no time in leaving the neighbourhood of Biala and to proceed to Berlin, where she was to remain until he wrote to her from Naples.

His object in proceeding to the latter place was easy to understand. He knew that the general was the only man who possessed sufficient influence in the highest quarters to venture to intercede on his behalf, and although he was acquainted with his father's strict ideas on all questions pertaining to military discipline, yet he retained a faint hope that parental affection would overpower the former and would induce him to regard, with a certain amount of indulgence, his eldest son's conduct. Moreover, Frederick was at the time in great financial difficulties. The debts which he had contracted before leaving Berlin were enormous. His appeal to the trustees of the fortune left to him by his mother for an increase of his allowance, or, at any rate, for an advance sufficient to stave off the most pressing claims, had been met by a stern refusal, and the “cent per cent. gentry” of the capital proved equally obdurate in declining to loan any further sums on the strength of the inheritance due him at his majority. On the other hand, it was perfectly clear to Frederick that he would be obliged to remain absent from Germany for several years, until the incident with his colonel had blown over. But he could not hope to do this without money—especially now that he was married—and the only person from whom there was the slightest prospect of his obtaining any financial assistance was his father.

He was in no cheerful frame of mind as he thought of all this while awaiting his father's summons. Had the latter already received news of his son's conduct? That was hardly possible. It was too soon. How, then, was he to explain the events of the last ten days to the general, of whom he stood somewhat in awe?

His meditations were interrupted by Franz's return to tell him that General von Waldberg was ready to receive him.

“His excellency would hardly believe me when I told him of the Herr Graff's arrival,” said Franz, with a beaming smile, “but he is much delighted, as I knew he would be.”

Frederick's heart sank as he pictured to himself the grief and anger which the discovery of the true reason of his unexpected visit would cause his father.

His hesitating knock at the general's door was answered by a cheery “Come in;” and hardly had he entered the room when he found himself clasped in his father's arms. General Count von Waldberg was still at that time a remarkably handsome and young-looking man. Tall, and straight as a dart, his appearance was extremely aristocratic; his hair and mustache were tinged with gray, but his bright blue eyes were undimmed by age.

After the first greetings had been exchanged, the general sat down on a couch, and said, laughingly:

“Now, my dear boy, tell me by what trick you have managed to obtain from your new colonel a leave of absence after such a short service in his regiment. I know you of old. What fresh deviltry have you been up to? Come, make a clean breast of it at once, and let us have it over.”

FREDERICK CONFESSES TO HIS FATHER.

“My dear father,” murmured the young man, with downcast eyes, “I am afraid that the confession which I have to make will pain you very much. The fact is, I—I—took French leave.”

“Come, come, that is more serious than I thought,” exclaimed the general, whose genial smile had suddenly given way to a very stern expression. “Surely you are joking. You don't mean to tell me that you are here without the permission of your superiors?”

Frederick bent his head, and did not reply.

“But are you aware that this is nothing less than an act of desertion?” thundered the general, exasperated by his son's silence, and starting to his feet. “You must be bereft of your senses, sir, to dare to tell me that a Count von Waldberg has deserted from his regiment. Speak! Explain. I command you!”

“I was provoked beyond all endurance by my colonel,” replied Frederick, in short, broken sentences. “We quarrelled, and in a moment of blind passion I struck him a blow in the face which felled him to the ground. I was compelled to make my escape in order to avoid a court-martial.”

The general, now as pale as his son, advanced a step toward him, and, laying his hand heavily on the young man's shoulder, said, in a tone of voice which betrayed the most intense emotion:

“Do you mean to say that you actually struck your superior officer! and that, after committing this unpardonable crime, you made matters worse by deserting, like a coward, instead of at least displaying the courage to remain and face the consequences, whatever they might be? Great God, that I should live to see this day?”

Frederick, who by this time thoroughly realized that the only course to adopt lay in throwing himself entirely on his father's mercy, muttered, in a low voice:

“The colonel, who has always displayed the most marked dislike toward me ever since I joined his regiment, summoned me five days ago, to reprimand me concerning my relations with a lady who was staying at the inn of our village—in fact, who had come there on my account.”

“Ah!” exclaimed the general, “I was sure of it. Another of those insane scrapes into which you are always being led by some disreputable cocotte.”

“Stay, father,” interrupted Frederick. “Not a word more, I entreat you. It was just for such a remark that I struck my colonel. I will not hear a word against the woman who is my wife.”

“Your wife! your wife! Do you want me to believe that you have married without my consent—without the permission of the military authorities—without the approval of your family and of your king? Who, then, is the woman whom you were so ashamed to acknowledge?”

“A pure and noble-hearted girl, whose only sin is her humble birth,” retorted Frederick.

“Enough, sir! Tell me her name, and how you came to know her.”

“Her name was Rose Hartmann, and she——Well, she was a shop-girl at Louise's when I first made her acquaintance.”

The general had by this time become perfectly calm, but it was a calm that boded far worse than his former anger.

“Look here, Frederick,” said he, very coldly, “I have full reason to mistrust you now; and before I take any step in this unfortunate matter, I must write to Berlin, and to your regiment, for the purpose of discovering the full extent of your misconduct. You will be good enough to consider yourself as under arrest here. I forbid you to leave your room under any pretext whatever. I will tell your step-mother that you are ill, and can see nobody, not even her, and I shall take good care that all our friends are left in ignorance of your presence here. And now leave me. I want to be alone. I will send for you when I want you.”

Frederick, thoroughly cowed by his father's manner, murmured some words of regret and explanation, but the general pointed toward the door, and he left his presence with a heavy heart.

Returning to the rooms to which Franz had conducted him on his arrival, he gave himself up to the gloomiest forebodings, and spent hours in gazing abstractedly out of the windows. His meals were brought him by Franz, whose feelings can more easily be imagined than described.

On the third day after his interview with his father, one of the Italian servants knocked at the door, and handed him a letter, which bore the Biala postmark, and which evidently had escaped the vigilance of both the general and of Franz. It was from Rose, and its contents agitated him beyond all measure. She wrote him that she had been subjected to the greatest indignity after his flight—in fact, treated like a mere common camp-follower—and had been turned out of the inn and driven from the village by the orders of the colonel. She added that, having but little money, she had not been able to proceed any farther than Biala, where she was now awaiting his instructions and remittances. She concluded by declaring that if after all she had suffered for his sake, he did not at once send a sufficient sum to enable her to leave the place and to return to Berlin, she would put an end to her days, having no intention to continue to live as she was doing now.

Frederick was nearly heart-broken. He had no funds, beyond a few lire notes, and, in his present position, no means of obtaining any except through his father. He therefore immediately wrote a few lines, which he sent to the general by Franz, entreating him to let him have at once a check for a couple of hundred thalers.

The general's reply was a decided refusal, and couched in such terms as to leave no glimmer of hope that he would relent in the matter.

Driven to desperation, Frederick turned over in his mind a hundred different schemes for raising the money he required, but he was forced to acknowledge to himself that each was more hare-brained than the other; and in the bitterness of his heart he ended by cursing the day he was born.

That night, after all the inmates of the villa had retired to rest, they were startled by several pistol-shots, and the sound of a violent scuffle in the general's library, on the ground floor. The general himself and several of the men-servants rushed to the spot from which the noise proceeded, and discovered Frederick, who, in his dressing-gown, stood near a shattered window, with a smoking revolver in his hand.

HE HELD A SMOKING REVOLVER IN HIS HAND.

As they entered the room Frederick fired another shot through the window and shouting, “I have hit one of them, I am sure. I heard a scream!” jumped into the garden and rushed across the lawn and through the shrubbery, followed by the general and the more or less terrified servants. All their endeavors to capture the midnight intruders proved, however, fruitless, and whether wounded or not, the burglars had evidently succeeded in making good their escape.

On returning to the library it was ascertained that the general's desk had been forced open and that a considerable sum of money in gold and notes, together with several valuable bonds and railway shares, had been abstracted therefrom. Frederick related that he had been awakened shortly after midnight by a strange grating sound proceeding from the room immediately beneath his own. That, jumping out of bed, he had quickly put on his dressing-gown, and seizing a loaded revolver, had softly crept down stairs. Peeping through the keyhole he had seen two men who, by the light of a small taper, were ransacking his father's desk. His efforts in the dark to open the door must have evidently disturbed them, for by the time he managed to enter they had reached the window and were in the act of leaping into the gardens when he fired several shots at them in rapid succession. It was at this juncture that his father and the servants had appeared on the scene.

So gratified was the general by the courage and presence of mind displayed by Frederick in attacking the burglars single-handed that he forgot for the moment both the loss of his stolen property and the grave offenses of which the young man had been guilty. Grasping his son's hands he expressed his satisfaction to him in no measured terms, and indeed was on the point of releasing him from any further arrest or confinement to his room. On second thought, however, he decided to await the replies to his letters from Berlin before doing so, especially as he was extremely anxious that none of the visitors to the villa should become aware of Frederick's presence at Naples.

Early next morning Gen. Von Waldberg drove into Naples to inform the chief of police of the robbery committed at his residence and to request him to offer a reward for the capture of the thieves and the recovery of the stolen property. As he rode back to Posilipo he reflected, with feelings of much gratification, on the pluck shown by his son during the night, and determined to write at once an account of the whole occurrence to the king, in the hope that it might induce his majesty to regard with greater leniency the lad's misconduct. He was just in the act of entering his library for this purpose when he happened to catch sight of one of the Italian servants coming down stairs from Frederick's room with a bulky envelope in his hand. On perceiving the general the man attempted to conceal it, but the old count was too quick, and, ordering him into the library, exacted the surrender of the letter.

“Where are you going, and what is this?” demanded he of the frightened Neapolitan. The latter's eyes lowered before his master's stern gaze, and he confessed in faltering tones that the “young count” had told him to go and post the letter immediately and without letting any one know about it.

“You need not trouble yourself any further about the matter,” remarked the general, “Franz will attend to it, and see here, if you breathe a word about this either to Count Frederick or to any one else you will be turned out of the house at an hour's notice. Do you understand?”

“Si eccellenza, si eccellenza,” murmured the badly scared Italian, as with many low bows he backed out of the general's presence.

As soon as the door was closed the old count raised his glasses to his eyes for the purpose of discovering the destination of his son's letter. It was addressed to Rose Hartmann, at Biala, and judging by its bulk certainly contained something besides ordinary note-paper.

ROSE HARTMANN, COUNTESS VON WALDBERG.

Suddenly a terrible suspicion flashed through his mind. He remembered Frederick's urgent appeal for money on the previous day. But no! The idea was too horrible. It was impossible. The boy was certainly a thorough scapegrace, but not that! No, not that! The unhappy father dashed the letter down on the table and began pacing up and down the room in an agony of incertitude and doubt. Could his son be guilty? The solution of the mystery was contained in that envelope. Would he be justified in opening it? The whole honor of the ancient house of Waldberg was at stake. It was absolutely necessary that he, as its chief, should know whether or not one of the principal members thereof was a common thief. If so it was his duty to mercilessly lop off the rotten branch of the family tree. After long hesitation he finally seized the letter, and with one wrench tore open the envelope. As he did so an exclamation of horror and disgust escaped his blanched lips, for several Prussian bank-notes of considerable value, which he immediately recognized as his property, fell at his feet on the carpet.

It is impossible to describe the intense misery of the wretched father when he found that the thief who was being tracked by the Neapolitan police was no other than his first-born. For several hours he sat at his writing-table, his gray head bowed in grief and almost prostrated by this awful discovery. For a long time he was totally unable to decide what was to be done, and, indeed, had Frederick presented himself before him at that time he would have been almost capable of killing him with his own hand in his paroxysm of anger and shame.

Shortly after darkness had set in, Franz entered Frederick's room and handed him a sealed letter addressed in his father's hand. Glancing at its contents the young man uttered a cry of despair and terror, and springing to his feet was rushing toward the door, when Franz quietly placed himself with his back against it, saying:

“His excellency's orders are that the Herr Graf must not leave this room under any pretext until the hour of departure. I have his strict commands to remain with the Herr Graf and to prevent him from communicating with anybody in the house.

The old soldier's lips quivered as he spoke, and his eyes were full of tears. For it cut him to the very heart to see the suffering depicted on the lad's face, and what between his loyalty and devotion to his master and his affection for the young man whom he had carried about in his arms as a child, he was in great distress.

Frederick groaned, and picking up his father's letter read it over once more. It ran as follows:

“You have betrayed and robbed me! You are not only a deserter, but also a thief. I intercepted your letter to the woman you call your wife, and feeling myself justified under the circumstances to open it I found therein the proofs of your crime. You will leave my house to-night forever. The proceeds of your robbery will keep you for some time from want. It will be all that you will have to depend on, for having become an outlaw by your desertion, and your attack on your colonel, the Prussian Government will never permit you to enter into possession of your mother's fortune. You never need hope to see me again, or to hold any further communication with me or mine. You are no longer a child of mine. I solemnly renounce you as my son. May God Almighty keep you from further crime.

“Count H. von Waldberg.”

That night at 10 o'clock Frederick embarked at Naples on a Marseilles-bound steamer, being escorted to the wharf by Franz.

He never saw his father again.