Stephen F. Austin

“ The watchers turned to the entranced woman as though involuntarily expecting a reply through her from that mysterious region where her soul was in touch with the long-past tragedy she had revealed. She still wept silently in that awful sleep which was no sleep. But no word passed her lips. Only the clock she held upon her lap struck one silvery note, marking the half-hour.
At the sound the doctor turned from the fireplace and took up the clock. He gazed, with a passionate intensity, upon the inscription on the back.
“Marcelle!” he murmured. “Our love ceases not when time itself shall cease! ”

“ Captain Sergeantson lit himself another cigar by way of showing how cold-blooded he could be in the possible presence of a spectre.
Jimmy shuddered. “It’s uncanny,” he said. “I don’t like it.”
“But why?” puzzled Hetty, wrinkling her brows. She turned to her father. “Poppa——!”
Forsdyke shook his head smilingly.
“I’m out of this deal. Ask the Professor. He’s the authority on spooks. What does it all mean, Lomax? Can you give an explanation that doesn’t outrage commonsense?” ”

“ He turned toward where his daughter sat in the shade of the trees. “Here, Pauline!” he called to her. “Come and see—your friend the pirate and the knife that killed him!”
The girl jumped up and ran across to us, all excitement.
“How wonderful!” she said. “It’s like a dream come true!”
At the time, excited as we all were, I did not notice the strangeness of that spontaneous phrase. She stood upon the edge of the excavation and took the stiletto with eager curiosity from her father. She held it in both hands, breast-high, the point toward her, to read the name upon the hilt.
“Lucia!” ”

“ Suddenly she turned round upon us with a startled cry.
“Look, Mamma!—I have scrawled all over my diary without knowing that I did it!—Isn’t that strange!”
We all of us looked up languidly. The mother made some banal remark, but did not withdraw her attention from her cards. The father glanced affectionately toward her without ceasing to count up the score he was about to peg on the board. Geoffrey and I continued our reading.
But the girl had been puzzling over the scrawl and all at once she jumped up from her seat and came across to us.
“Look!” she said. “Isn’t it funny? ”

“ AUSTIN, STEPHEN FULLER (1793-1836) , American pioneer, was born in Austinville, Wythe county, Virginia, on the 3rd of November 1793. He was the son of Moses Austin (1767-1821) , a native of Durham, Connecticut, who in 1820 obtained from Mexico a grant of land for an American colony in Texas, but died before he could carry out his project. The son was educated in New London, Connecticut, and at Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky, and settled in Missouri, where he was a member of the territorial legislature from 1813 to 1819. ”

“ Her voice was perfidiously honeyed, her eyes glistened, as she caressed that uncanny empty air.
“What is she talking about?” muttered Geoffrey in a low, excited voice. “Who are these people—Mansvelt and Simon? Have you heard of them, doctor?”
I shook my head. They were utterly unknown to me. For a moment I hesitated, fascinated by the little drama, curious to hear more.
The mother moaned.
“Oh, do something, doctor! do something!—Save her! Save her! Oh, God, deliver her from the evil one!”
Her agony recalled me to my professional duty. ”

“ He’s always been successful in his fighting, to date.”
The year 1834 opened with a terrific “norther” or cold, sleety storm, sweeping struggling Texas almost from border to border. The people of Gonzales were only beginning to thaw out in the welcome sunshine, when from Stephen Austin arrived bad news at last. He had had the cholera. The petition was unanswered, and congress kept postponing any action on it. He finally had told Vice-president Farias that unless something was done for Texas very soon, the settlers would be likely to take matters into their own hands. ”

“ He looked white and ill, thoroughly shaken. His friend, contemplating him, was impressed by his appearance. Could such a shock be produced by a merely imagined resemblance? He felt that it could not—and then those three moles! His mind reverted to the young woman, to her indubitably genuine non-recognition, and he felt more than ever puzzled. With a quiet deliberation he drew up a chair and seated himself close to his comrade. ”

“ In the shadow of the trees lurked a vague white figure. Toward it, across the moonlit open space, came another—a native girl. I could see her clearly. She was so daintily beautiful that I could not but suspect foreign blood in her. The best-looking Annamite girl I had seen was gross compared with her delicate charm. For all that, she was genuinely Oriental in type. Her lithe little figure, clad in a simple twisted robe, approached swiftly, her head turning from side to side in bird-like enquiry, peeping behind each bush she passed. ”

“ She still spoke with that curious foreign accent which lent a certain piquancy to her speech. “You love me, you John Dawson, you Englishman, you love me for ever, say?” She reminded me of Carmen sidling up to Don José. “You not deceive me—or——!” She looked up as into a tall [Pg 16] man’s face with a sudden expression of feline vindictiveness, her white teeth showing in an ugly little rictus of the mouth, and slid her hand down stealthily toward her stocking. “But no!” She smiled; her hand came up again as though to rest upon a man’s shoulder. ”

“ The young man [Pg 190] was obviously stirred to the depths. “I must make sure, Chassaigne.—I must get to know this woman—find out who she is!”
Both men turned at the sound of the door opening behind them. A young woman, tall, dark, strikingly handsome, stood timidly upon the threshold. It was the woman of the photograph.
“Doctor—Doctor Breidenbach?” she faltered, as though disconcerted by an unexpected meeting with strangers.
Vincent stared at her, held in a suspense of the faculties where he seemed not to breathe. At last he found his voice.
“Hélène!” he cried. “Hélène! It is you!” ”

“ The old man fumblingly produced a handkerchief and mopped at the perspiration on his brow. He hesitated for an appropriate remark.
“Why——?” he asked falteringly, and stopped.
The merry little laugh rang out again in the silent room.
“Why, Excellenz? Because in my earth-life I had only one passion—and it is as strong as ever it was. Stronger, for I owe our enemies a grudge for that little early-morning shooting party in the Tower. You’ve no idea how I long for a really good cigar, Excellenz,” he finished in a tone of jesting complaint. ”

“ He loved me too much. He never thought of any woman but me. I am sure of it. He was an ideal man, my Heinrich—always gentle, always loving, always faithful.” She paused a moment before continuing. “It is cruel of you to make me realize how much I love him!”
The doctor stood over her, contemplating her, his brows wrinkled in a puzzled frown. His comrades looked at him enquiringly. He ignored them. The young woman, having ceased to speak, remained motionless and upright on her chair. The only sound in the room was the ticking of the clock. ”

“ She smiled round on them.
“Meine Herren?” she said in her voice of timid enquiry. Then, fixing her eyes on the doctor, “You sent for me?”
The doctor looked at her gravely.
“The Commandant desired me to assure you, gnädige Frau, that you need be under no apprehensions during our stay here. We consider ourselves the guests of a charming lady and we hope to leave only a pleasant memory behind us.”
His companions marvelled at the strength of will which could enforce so complete a normality of voice and feature.
The German woman smiled up at him, a pathetic little smile. ”

“ Our baggage is already in, and dinner will be ready in half an hour. Tout ce qu’il y a de mieux, n’est-ce pas?” He finished with his young laugh.
The gray eyes of the battalion-commander twinkled at him.
“And the patronne, Jordan?—Old and ugly?”
The young man’s face lit up. He put one finger to his lips and blew an airy kiss.
“Ah, mon commandant!” he replied in a tone of assumed ecstasy. “You shall see her! A pearl, a jewel, une femme exquise!—That is to say,” he added, with a change of note, “she would be if she were not a femme boche. One almost forgets it, to look at her. ”

“ And he does not know where she is!”
“He has no idea, Fräulein,” replied Chassaigne. “But let us leave this painful subject. Will you not keep us company for a few minutes? We are strangers in a strange land.” With a gallant courtesy, which, however, omitted to wait for her assent, he took her right hand and led her to a chair. His quick eyes noted the three moles upon her wrist. She seated herself almost automatically. He registered, in support of his theory, her easy susceptibility to a quietly insistent suggestion. “Will you not tell us what is most worth seeing in Mainz?” ”

“ He smiled. “Very considerate of him to go out and leave us to ourselves! Now we will try and profit by the circumstance. I am going to find that young lady and bring her to you. You will maintain the attitude of a complete stranger who regrets an impulsive familiarity for which a mistake in identity is responsible. Master yourself!” He put the little mirror on the table and went out of the room.
A few moments later he returned, held the door wide open for the young woman to enter. He spoke in fluent German. ”

“ She thoroughly identified herself with her husband’s interests and discussed them, as was her wont, with intelligent sympathy. She was one of those women [Pg 145] who stimulate all the latent potentialities of their men. He—it was obvious from the clear-cut features—was both resolute and clever; a man who would go far. Already Satterthwaite was a name in the Courts for which clients would pay big fees.
They were discussing the important case of the day when suddenly she looked round, startled.
“Jack! Someone has come in—or gone out. ”

“ An indulgent smile played over his handsome features as he toyed with the unbraided hair of the beautiful girl who sat at his feet, in confident lassitude against his knee, and turned her head back to gaze up into his face with eyes voluptuously fond. She sighed with happiness—her face no longer expressionless as in the public dance, but charged with a yearning intensity of love. ”

“ The old man glanced toward the vacant air over the girl and grinned. He repeated the message into the telephone. He waited a moment—and then burst into chuckling laughter.
“Famos!—He’s smashed the receiver. Scared out of his life!—I heard him yell.” He put down the instrument and turned again to the chair. “Karl Wertheimer, I believe in your reality—I believe in your powers.” His voice was solemn. “The Fatherland has work for you to do.”
“That is why I am here, Excellenz.” The voice came jauntily through the expressionless lips of the unconscious girl. ”

“ Their eyes met, looked into each other with a sudden furious, unappeasable hatred—a hatred which flooded them with a passion that was bigger than themselves—that soul-devouring hatred, clutching instinctively at death for its expression, which is the other face of violent love. ”

“ Trenchard! A man of sixty-two owes it to himself to retire!”—and they haunted him, rang over and over again in his brain like the knell of his life.
At last he escaped, went stumbling blindly down the stairs, forgetting, for the first time for forty years, the elevator. Betty was waiting for him in the closed car, her head peering out of the window. He groped for the door, almost fell into it. She helped him to the seat.
“My dear! What is the matter?” she said, white with alarm. “Are you ill?”
He clenched his jaw in the agony of his humiliation. ”

“ Young Vancoutter uttered his name with a smile, murmured an apology, beckoned him in.
He entered, glanced round upon the familiar faces and the new ones gathered on each side of the long table. The new looked up at him with interest, the old bent over blotting-pads on which they scribbled idly. He seated himself.
Vancoutter spoke in his familiar crisp tones.
“Mr. Trenchard, I have to inform you that the board has come to very satisfactory terms with the syndicate who are, in fact, now the new proprietors of the Daily Rostrum.” The speaker paused for a moment, cleared his throat. ”

“ The only sounds were the crash and thud of green water that slid off in foaming cascades from the forecastle to the well, the harp-like moaning of the wind-tautened stays, and, in brief lulls, the sizzling of rain and spray upon the heated funnel and the creaking of boat-gear whose serviceable character in such a humble “tramp” was a phenomenon reminiscent of unwonted marine perils that had but recently ceased. No longer did her look-out scrutinize every flitting patch of foam in apprehension of the dreaded periscope. The violences of sea and sky were dangers as of yore. ”

“ The wistful smile on the beautiful face sweetened as in grateful recognition. The eyes softened in a tender fondness that had nevertheless a strange, remote dignity. Not now did she give herself up to the passionate abandonment of that moonlit garden. Love still yearned from her, but it was the eternal love of the soul that looks to the unimaginable realities beyond the body. ”

“ The old man stared speechlessly. His faculties seemed inhibited under the shock. The red faded out of his round face, left it ashen gray under the close-cropped white hair. Kranz, watching him narrowly, feared for his heart. He made a brusque little gesture as though seizing control of himself.
“Herr Gott! It’s—it’s his voice!” he gasped.
His eyes turned to Kranz and there was fear in them, a primitive fear of the supernatural. Trembling, he reeled rather than walked to the chair by the table with the telephone, dropped heavily into it. ”