Caron

“ Streets were thronged with citizens rushing frenziedly to and fro shouting,—"Death to the Convention!" "Down with the Two-thirds!" Crowds of soldiers forced their way through the excited mobs, and skirmishing between the opposing parties could be heard in every quarter. But worse was yet to come!
Jean, compelled to pass the day at his duties in the Tower, was as restive as an imprisoned war-horse, and at eleven that night, Caron could no longer restrain him. Like a shot from a cannon, he was off in the driving rain, straight to the lodging of his friend and councillor, Bonaparte. ”

“ LE CARON, HENRI (whose real name was Thomas Miller Beach) (1841–1894) , British secret service agent, was born at Colchester, on the 26th of September 1841. He was of an adventurous character, and when nineteen years old went to Paris, where he found employment in business connected with America. Infected with the excitement of the American Civil War, he crossed the Atlantic in 1861 and enlisted in the Northern army, taking the name of Henri Le Caron. In 1864 he married a young lady who had helped him to escape from some Confederate marauders; and by the end of the war he rose to be major. ”

“ Here were Barelle, Meunier, Gagnié, a former cook at the Tower, Debièrne the commissary who never failed to bring Louis Charles a toy whenever he visited him, and a host of others whom he knew but slightly. Most surprising of all, however, was the Baron de Batz seated directly across the table, who nodded an affectionate greeting and welcome to the boy. The masked leader looked about him, and his glance fell on Jean.
"There is a strange face among us! Who [Pg 263] is responsible for the stranger?" Caron rose. ”

“ Carron, as I have said, puzzled me. He had not the pensive air of one who has seen better days. He was more than cheerful in his present life: he was full of spirits; and yet it was plain that he had been brought up for something different. I asked him once to tell me, for French lessons, the story of his life. With the most charming complaisance, he at once consented; but he proceeded in such endless detail, the first time, in an account of his early boyhood in a strict Benedictine monastery school, in the south of France, as to suggest that he was talking against time. ”

“ Dwell, thou mist of gloomy Crona, dwell on the path of the king! Hide his steps from mine eyes, let me remember my friend no more. The bands of battle are scattered, no crowding tread is round the noise of his steel. O Carun! roll thy streams of blood, the chief of the people is low.
COMALA.
Who fell on Carun’s sounding banks, son of the cloudy night? Was he white as the snow of Ardven? Blooming as the bow of the shower? Was his hair like the mist of the hill, soft and curling in the day of the sun? Was he like the thunder of heaven in battle? Fleet as the roe of the desert? ”

“ At breakfast on the following morning, when Carolan sang and played his composition, Baron Dawson, to the astonishment of all present, and of the bard in particular, stoutly denied the claim of Carolan to the melody, charged him with audacious piracy, both musical and poetical, and, to prove the fact, sang the melody to his own words amidst the joyous shouts of approbation of all his hearers,—the enraged bard excepted, who vented his execrations on the judge in curses both loud and deep.—Dublin University Magazine. ”

“ Karain walked fast, and with firm long strides; he answered greetings right and left by quick piercing glances. Children ran forward between the houses, peeped fearfully round corners; young boys kept up with him, gliding between bushes: their eyes gleamed through the dark leaves. The old sword-bearer, shouldering the silver scabbard, shuffled hastily at his heels with bowed head, and his eyes on the ground. And in the midst of a great stir they passed swift and absorbed, like two men hurrying through a great solitude. ”

“ Then, just as we were thinking of repose, the watchmen of the schooner would hail a splash of paddles away in the starlit gloom of the bay; a voice would respond in cautious tones, and our serang, putting his head down the open skylight, would inform us without surprise, “That Rajah, he coming. He here now.” Karain appeared noiselessly in the doorway of the little cabin. He was simplicity itself then; all in white; muffled about his head; for arms only a kriss with a plain buffalo-horn handle, which he would politely conceal within a fold of his sarong before stepping over the threshold. ”

“ We remember the faces, the eyes, the voices, we see again the gleam of silk and metal; the murmuring stir of that crowd, brilliant, festive, and martial; and we seem to feel the touch of friendly brown hands that, after one short grasp, return to rest on a chased hilt. They were Karain's people—a devoted following. ”

“ Carney's gray eyes looked out over the room full of angry men with a quiet thoughtful steadiness that forced home the conviction that he was wording a logic he would demonstrate. No other man in that room could have stood up against that plank bar and declared himself without being called quick. ”

“ It was only on board the schooner, when surrounded by white faces, by unfamiliar sights and sounds, that Karain seemed to forget the strange obsession that wound like a black thread through the gorgeous pomp of his public life. At night we treated him in a free and easy manner, which just stopped short of slapping him on the back, for there are liberties one must not take with a Malay. He said himself that on such occasions he was only a private gentleman coming to see other gentlemen whom he supposed as well born as himself. ”

“ Carew stood on deck, and under the joyous influences of that bright morning a calm fell on his soul, and his conscience ceased to trouble him. There is a sort of magnetic relation between a man and his surroundings. Out at sea, far away from land, with nothing but pure air and pure water near, even a great villain is wont to forget that he himself is not pure as well. In London, as he walked through the crowded streets, Carew knew that he was constantly jostling against men as bad as himself. ”

“ Yet they weep and lament, forgetting that they have been mere sojourners for a brief space upon earth and are only losing the pleasures of a dream.1808 To Charon the bubbles in a fountain are the truest image of their phantom [pg 339] life—some forming and bursting speedily, others swelling out for a little longer and more showy life, but all bursting at the last. Charon is so moved by the pathos of it all, that, from his mountain peaks, he would fain preach a sermon to the silly crowd and warn them of the doom which is in store for all. ”

“ Voices were crying: figures shifting. The barred door seemed ready to crack under assault. One fat and snuffy priest had come chattering like a parrot. One gaunt and iron priest had gone sweeping forward to kneel by the dead and his duty. Two sad-robed sisters looked on with the placidity of canvas saints. Mother Carron was roaring. Carron himself flitted about with a lantern like a will o' the wisp whose tremulous flare shot the firelight with pallid citrine. It served at least to show the singular tableau at the foot of the stairs where Bibi-Ri had picked himself up. ”

“ When Carney met her, she was adrift on the life of the city in a sort of unambitious isolation, working stolidly, lonely among the younger girls with whom she had no sympathy, and bruskly repelling any flippant advances from the men. She had lost track of all her girlhood acquaintances. "Dublin Row" had long since been torn down. When she saw Carney with his truck, it was like meeting an old friend in a world of strangers. ”

“ In the mean time Carew and his stags swept up the park like a whirlwind, and presently, coming to a coppice, the frightened creatures dashed into it, doubtless for covert, where wheel and rein and antler, tangling with trunk and branch, soon brought them to a full stop.
"Good lad!" exclaimed Carew, as Yorke hurried up to help him; "you are a good plucked one, you are; you shall keep the lodge, if you will, instead of that lily-livered scoundrel who was too frightened to move. Oh, I ask pardon; you are a gentleman, are you?" ”

“ It was hardly a noise, it was a great oppression, a manifestation of turmoil, of the turmoil of God's majesty, His creation in travail.
Carney quaffed the scalding tea, and raced with the buckskin in the eating of his food. He became a living thermometer; his chilling blood told him that the temperature was going down, down, down. The day before he had ridden with his coat hung to the horn of his saddle; now a vagrant thought flashed to his buffalo coat in his room at the Gold Nugget. ”

“ The gardener of Balladhoo fell an easier prey to the plot than the harbor-master, and a carol was selected. It was to be the ancient carol on the bad women mentioned in the Bible as having (from Eve downward) brought evil on mankind. This was accounted an appropriate ditty for these notable illustrations of bachelordom.
Now, Tommy-Bill-beg always kept his carols where Danny saw them—pinned against the walls of his cottage. The "Bad Women" was the carol which was pinned above the mantelpiece. ”

“ This is one place in the world where all are treated fair. Dreams don't count. Power don't count. There's no rich, no poor....
Caren. Shut up and get that flag.
Kraig. You're going to cover him ... but she.... Oh! [Both men disappear behind the curtains, cringing and bowing to people within. Caren, with his back to the curtains, does not realize that he is alone.] Even death can't level. No ... not even death. [For a second he stares ahead of him piercingly into space, standing taut and rigid. Then commences to laugh in pure hysteria as
[The Curtain Slowly Falls.] ”

“ When the fire was going Carney said: "Peel your coat and dry it; stand close to the fire so your pants dry too—I want that suit."
The Wolf was startled. Was retribution so hot on his trail? Was Carney about to set him afoot just as he had set afoot Sergeant Heath? His two hundred dollars and Lucy Black's five hundred were in the pocket of that coat also. As he took it off he turned it upside down, hoping for a chance to slip the parcel of money to the ground unnoticed of his captor.
"Throw the jacket here," Carney commanded; "seems to be papers in the pocket." ”

“ It wasn't Slimy Red—it was a tougher man.
Iron Jaw was leaning against the bar talking to Death-on-the-trail, and behind the bar Snaggle Tooth Boone stood listening to the conversation.
As Carney entered a quick look of apprehension showed for an instant in Iron Jaw's heavy-browned eyes; then a smile of greeting curled his coarse lips. He held out a hand, saying: "Glad to see you, Old Timer. You seem conditioned. Know Carson?" ”

“ Sal Karone, servant of the Master Dalls Ret Marthasa?"
Cameron introduced himself and cautiously explained that he and Joyce were on their honeymoon, but had a side interest in the history and customs of the Markovian Nucleus. "My people know so little about you," he said, "it would be a great privilege to be able to take back information that would increase our mutual understanding."
"All that the Idealists have belongs to every man and every race," said Sal Karone solemnly. "What we can give you may be had for the asking. But I would give you a word of warning about my Masters." ”

“ Sal Karone paused. "Were there things you had yet to say to him?" he asked.
"No—there were things Venor wanted to tell us. You heard him. He wanted us to come back. It is completely impossible for us to see him again before we go?"
Sal Karone straightened and set the utensils on the table. "No, it is not impossible. I have been instructed to bring you back to the village if it should be your request."
Cameron felt a surge of eager excitement within him. "When? Our deportation is scheduled for today. How can we get there? ”

“ Karain did not visit us in the afternoon as usual. A message of greeting and a present of fruit and vegetables came off for us before sunset. Our friend paid us like a banker, but treated us like a prince. We sat up for him till midnight. Under the stern awning bearded Jackson jingled an old guitar and sang, with an execrable accent, Spanish love-songs; while young Hollis and I, sprawling on the deck, had a game of chess by the light of a cargo lantern. Karain did not appear. ”

“ Carew being now advanced in years, and his strength beginning to fail, he was seized with a violent fever, which confined him to his bed for several weeks; on recovering he reflected how idly he had spent his life, and came to the resolution of resigning the Egyptian sceptre. The assembly finding him determined, reluctantly complied, and he departed amidst the applause, as well as the regrets of his subjects, who despaired of ever again having such a king. ”

“ Karain’s lips moved slightly. A vivid flash of lightning made the two round stern-ports facing him glimmer like a pair of cruel and phosphorescent eyes. The flame of the lamp seemed to wither into brown dust for an instant, and the looking-glass over the little sideboard leaped out behind his back in a smooth sheet of livid light. The roll of thunder came near, crashed over us; the schooner trembled, and the great voice went on, threatening terribly, into the distance. ”

“ Carney; I've been ridin' in the way of a cure."
Carney laughed. "You're a sure little bit of all right, kid; the horse first when it comes to grub—that's me; but I'll feed Pat when he's bedded for the night." ”