Harris Dickson

“ At that date the great central tower alone stood erect amid the universal destruction. A black wolf's head reared itself high above the portcullis. The moat was filled with drift of crumbling years, and the walls, fallen in many places, ran hither and thither in aimless curves and angles, much as they do to-day.
Up to this hour my chronicle has been only of such adventures as might befall a soldier upon any enterprise, but now a strange thing happened. Until that moment I had never seen the Chateau Cartillon, still there was not a corner or a passage which did not seem well known to me. ”

“ He chose the way of the darkness, and avoided the path of the shine. To follow him Said must pass that blaze of light which streamed through the door. Naked and brown, Said leaped across it, like the flitting of a bat, and darkness swallowed him. Old Reliable hurried on, intent upon his affair, while Said slunk behind, close enough to hear him mumble, as a man of stricken conscience mutters in his sleep. Once the Black Effendi jostled against a palm, and again Said caught the pleasant jingle of metal, a clink that put his teeth on edge and set every nerve to quivering. ”

“ De la Mora glanced at this silent tribute to the Spaniard's prowess; his face lighted up with a soldier's joy. He planted one foot staunchly across a prostrate corpse, and right jauntily rang out the hissing music of their steel. Instinctively I paused to watch, and as instinctively understood that though pressed to his best, de la Mora desired to be left alone. Verily it was a gentleman's fight, and no odds, for love and glory's sake, though the Spaniard might have had a whit the better. As I fought on, I heard the swift hurtle of a flying knife, and saw the Spaniard drop his sword. ”

“ She thought to astonish Paris to-night by a lavish display of sweet simplicity—did Monsieur see it? That big dark place back there, behind the glass partition, was arranged as a meadow, with a stream winding through it, and rocks and trees, and what not. She had a flock of sheep washed clean and white, penned up and in waiting. At a signal from her during the ball, lights were to have been turned on, and Mademoiselle, the pretty opera singer, was to come gracefully down a curving pathway, dressed as a shepherdess, singing and leading her sheep. Oh, it was to be too pure for this earth. ”

“ A widening crevasse yawned between deck and dock. The jagged skyline of New York became visible, a vague and spectral city against a vague and spectral sky. Miss Stanton wormed her small self away from the rail, got clear, and fled with her precious violin. On the way to her modest cabin she passed an open door; the odor of flowers stopped her. She paused and stared inside, at a wilderness of roses, masses of carnations, beds of violets—a profusion of orchids, silk hangings, silver trappings. The singer's maids were setting things to rights. ”

“ The solitude of vast untrodden forests breeds not that vacant sense of desolation which we children of nature feel in the crowded haunts of men. Face after face, form after form, voice after voice, yet not one familiar countenance, not one remembered tone, not the glance of a kindly eye; all is new, all is strange, all at seeming enmity. The defection of Jerome, my only comrade, was indeed a cup of bitterness. ”

“ In the very forefront, shoulder to shoulder, with a laugh and a parry, a lunge and a jest, fought the Chevalier de la Mora. Merry as a lad at play, resolute and quick, I could but stop betimes to wonder at the fellow. Gallant, gay and debonnair, he sang a rippling little air from soft Provence, and whirled his blade with such dainty skill that even the stoical Indians gazed in awe upon the laughing cavalier. Fighting through a bye-street, he met, steel to steel, a Spanish gentleman, within the sweep of whose sword lay half a dozen of our good fellows. ”

“ Lyttleton agreed with Zack. It might save an awkward situation for the strangers to travel at once. When the boat took them away, the Sheikh Tabira and his tribe gathered on the bank, howling at the departure of their long Expected One.
From Wadi Haifa to Khartum the lean Sudan flattens like a famished tiger, with lips against the Nile, sucking greedily at the chocolate colored water that is meat as well as drink. Gaunt from a million years of sun, the starveling creature falls prone at the river's brink. Yonder a knoll uprises; on the far horizon lies a reddish ridge. ”

“ Sleep evaded my bed. What with my own restless desires, my chiding sense of ill-doing, and the d'Ortez story I had read, I tossed and tumbled through the remaining hours of darkness. Tumbled and tossed, whilst the sins and sufferings of men long dead passed and repassed with their spectral admonitions.
Early on the morrow, while the day was yet cool, I crossed the Bay, and climbed the slope of sand before the lonely house. It looked more deserted and desolate than I had ever seen it. The stillness of solitary death clung as a pall about the place. ”

“ A white-hot sun slanted across the narrow, dusty gardens when Old Reliable emerged from the great front door of the hotel, and the wind immediately began to flirt with speckled streamers on his helmet. There was never a helmet so white, nor streamers so long and blue, with such a dancing of polka-dots upon them. ”

“ The white sails of our boats will fleck every lake and sea and river with their rich burdens of trade, pouring a fabulous and a willing wealth into the coffers of the king. Gold and silver mines will yield their precious stores, while from these niggard natives we will wrest with mighty arm the tribute they so contemptuously deny the weakling curs who snap and snarl at my heels. Grey tower and fortress will guard every inlet, and watch this sheltered coast. In every vale the low chant of holy nuns will breathe their benediction upon a happy people. ”

“ I touched upon these matters to Jerome, but he only laughed immoderately. He was ever a light-headed young spark who gave no contemplation to deeper questions than present enjoyment.
Of a sudden my wits almost left me at a terrible outcry from one end of the great hall, a cry not of human beings but of wild beasts, muffled and menacing. The dancing, the music, the hum of voices ceased, and a thick silence as of direst fear fell upon them all. Then there came a loud crackling and shattering of glass, a woman's scream, the first of very many. ”

“ Men may long look forward to a crushing calamity, and when it comes be surprised and unprepared. So, though I well knew I must leave France with all speed, and possibly never see her shores again, I put it from me as persistently as men do the certainty of death. Every day did I ride to Sceaux, by the old wall, and catch a glimpse of her I loved. When war was at last declared there was no time for parleying with duty. My path lay straight and clear before me; yet for once a soldier's duty and a soldier's adventure gave me no pleasure. ”

“ What is this, Captain de Mouret, surely you are above a young man's jealousy?"
Jerome gave me no time to explain.
"Softly, softly, sir. The Captain has good cause. Give me heed, my friends. To you, M. de Serigny, I will say upon my honor, which until this day was never stained by thought or deed, I will say,—this day I would have betrayed you. Nay, do not look so pained and unbelieving; all men are mortal, and passions stronger even than duty, stronger than loyalty, yea, stronger than honor itself, may tyrannize over the best of us. ”

“ Thoroughly frenzied, warrior after warrior now began to join him in the ring; voice after voice caught up the dread refrain which terrorized the trained soldiery of Europe and filled their imaginations with the nameless horrors of unrelenting war.
High above the din Tuskahoma lifted now his ferocious battle cry; advancing upon the blazed sapling he sank his tomahawk deep into the soft white wood, then moved swiftly out of the circle to his own fire. ”

“ His hands closed over mine as bars of steel to tear them from his throat. Even in our mortal strife I marked the eternal harmony of the scene. Truly death had never stage more fitting whereon to play its last stern drama of dissolution. Hemmed in by four massive walls of granite, ghastly grim and desolately gray, we wrestled in a stifling stillness, while hell stood umpire at the game. No sound of trumpet, no warlike cry, no strains of martial music were there to thrill the nerves and taunt men on to glory. ”

“ Verily, men are happier for a gentle frenzy. Then, indeed, are all things leveled, all barriers removed. Gone were all my pigmy troubles, vanished into nothingness. Engulfed in a common ruin lay all fragments of desire; the search for reward, the dread of punishment—all petty figments of the imagination were powerful now no more. The fall of reason crushed every human hope and dulled the edge of every human fear. What cared I now for food, for water; for honor or for shame? ”

“ I was playing for time, time to think, time to get away.
"But I will go with you to Serigny," he insisted, "tell the lie and make him to believe. 'Pshaw, man, you know not the ways of the world, at least not at the Court of France."
"Think, Jerome, of the war, of our people in the colonies, of our honour?"
"I care not for it all," the wild passion in his voice made me almost fear him. "All that is as nothing to me where Celeste is concerned. Oh, Placide, think of it! I love her, love her, love her—do you comprehend what that means to such a man as I? ”

“ Your harness of the wilderness but ill befits a gay gallant in Paris—for such you must now appear. You visit the capital to see the sights, understand; a country gentleman—Greville will instruct you, the rascal has naturally a turn for intrigue and masquerading. A dress like yours would mark you apart from the throng and perchance draw upon you the scathe of idle tongue. Here is gold to array yourself as becomes a well-to-do gentleman, and gold to spend at wine and on the games withal—for, thank Providence, the ancient House of Lemoyne is not yet bankrupt. ”

“ It was Wednesday night when Jerome and I went to the ball.
I looked about me. The lodgings were those I had taken at the Austrian Arms, yet much changed in little things. The vase of flowers there in the window, the neat-swept hearth, the cheerful fire, and that indefinable something which gives a touch of womanliness to a room. Florine, perhaps.
"Ugh! I'm so glad to be here," and I shuddered at the remembrance of my prison and suffering.
"Poor dear," said the older woman in a voice full of sympathy, "don't worry; you are in comfort now, and will soon be strong again." ”

“ Then she looked at her husband with great wide-open eyes; she was now calm, and as quiet as he.
"Truly, Charles, I know nothing of this."
"It was always said, Madame, at Sceaux, you could take the stage and play the parts of distressed and virtuous damosels," he answered her, coldly curling his lip.
"Tell me, Madame, as you value your soul, what is this Captain de Mouret to you?"
"As I value my soul," my lady answered him direct and steadily, looking straight into his eye, her own hands folded across her heaving breast. "As I value my soul, Charles, I know nothing of him." ”

“ Who is that fiery soldier, recking nothing save his duty, who seeth without a tremor that beloved brother lying mangled at his post, where the storms of hell do rage, and flames consume the dead? Who, when the enemy lay dismantled, their hulks afire, their colors struck, their best ships sunk, when the glorious standard of France triumphant dallied with the breeze—who is that dauntless gentleman who kneels upon his battle-riven but victorious deck and sobs aloud in agony above his writhing brother? ”