Under the Red Dragon: A Novel
time ever return to us again? I sent Evans, in uniform and not in my
livery, to Whitchurch with the locket, after extracting my likeness
therefrom; but he returned with it, saying that the lady had left the
inn for London, having no doubt followed her husband. I knew not
exactly of what I was accused--a _liaison_ of some kind apparently, of
which the strongest proofs had been put before the Cressinghams. If,
when able, I wrote to explain that the two meetings with Mrs.
Guilfoyle were quite fortuitous, would Estelle believe me? Without
inquiry or explanation, she had coldly and abruptly cast me off; and
it was terrible that one I loved so well should think evil or with
scorn of me. What would honest old Sir Madoc's view of the matter be,
and what the kind and noble-hearted Winifred's, who loved me as a
sister, if they heard of this story, whatever it was?
Vengeance--swift, sudden, and sure--was what I panted for; and moments
there were when I writhed under the laws that prevented me from
discovering and beating to a jelly this fellow Guilfoyle, or even
shooting him down like a mad dog, though I would gladly have risked my
own life to punish him in the mode that was no longer approved of now
in England; and I pictured to myself views of having him over in
France, in the Bois de Boulogne, or on the level sands of Dunkirk, the
spire of St. Eloi in the distance, the gray sky above us, the sea for
a background, no sound in our ears but its chafing on the long strip
of beach, and his villainous face covered by my levelled pistol at ten
paces, or less--yea, even after I had let him have the first shot, by
tossing or otherwise. And as these fierce thoughts burned within me,
all the deeper and fiercer that they were futile and found no
utterance, I glanced longingly at my sword, which hung on the wall, or
handled my pistols with grim anticipative joy; and reflected on how
many there are in this world who, in the wild sense of justice, or the
longing for a just revenge on felons whom the laws protect, fear the
police while they have no fear of God, even in this boasted age of
civilisation; and I remembered a terrible _duel à la mort_ in which I
had once borne a part in Germany.
A July evening was closing in Altona, when I found myself in the
garden of Rainville's Hotel, which overlooks the Elbe. The windows of
the house, an edifice of quaint aspect, occupied successively in years
past by General Dumourier and gossiping old Bourienne, were open, and
lights and music, the din of many voices--Germans are always loud and
noisy--and the odour of many cigars and meerschaums, came forth, to
mingle with the fragrance of the summer flowers that decked the
tea-garden, the trees of which were hung with garlands of coloured
lanterns. A golden haze from the quarter where the sun had set
enveloped all the lazy Elbe, and strings of orange-tinted lights
showed here and there the gas-lamps of Hamburg reflected in its bosom.
In dark outline against that western flush were seen the masts and
hulls of the countless vessels that covered the basin of the river and
the Brandenburger Hafen. Waiters were hurrying about with coffee,
ices, and confectionery, lager-beer in tankards, and cognac in crystal
cruets; pretty Vierlander girls, in their grotesque costume, the
bodice a mass of golden embroidery, were tripping about coyly,
offering their bouquets for sale; and to the music of a fine German
band, the dancing had begun on a prepared platform. There were
mingling lovely Jewesses of half-Teutonic blood, covered with jewels;
spruce clerks from the Admiralit-strasse, and stout citizens from the
Neuer-wall; officers and soldiers from the Prussian garrison; girls of
good style from the fashionable streets about the Alsterdamm, and
others that were questionable from the quarter about the Grosse
Theater Strasse.
I was seated in an arbour with a young Russian officer named
Paulovitch Count Volhonski, who was travelling like myself, and whom I
had met at the table-d'hôte of the Rolandsburg, in the Breitestrasse.
As an Englishman, apt at all times to undervalue the Russian
character, I was agreeably surprised to find that this young captain
of the Imperial Guard could speak several European, and at least two
of the dead, languages with equal facility. He was a good musician,
sang well, and was moreover remarkably handsome, though his keen dark
eyes and strongly marked brows, with a most decided aquiline nose,
required all the softness that a mouth well curved and as delicately
cut as that of a woman could be, to relieve them, and something of
pride and hauteur, if not of sternness, that formed the normal
expression of his face. His complexion was remarkably pure and clear,
his hair was dark and shorn very short, and he had a handsome
moustache, well pointed up. We had frequented several places of
amusement together, and had agreed to travel in company so far as
Berlin, and this was to be our last night in Altona. The waiter had
barely placed our wine upon the table and poured it out, when there
entered our arbour, and seated himself uninvited beside us, a great
burly German officer in undress uniform, and who in a stentorian voice
ordered a bottle of lager-beer, and lighting his huge meerschaum
without a word or glance of courtesy or apology, surveyed us boldly
with a cool defiant stare. This was so offensive, that Volhonski's
usually pale face flushed crimson, and we instinctively looked at each
other inquiringly.
The German next lay back in his seat, coughed loudly, expectorated in
all directions in that abominable manner peculiar to his country,
placed his heavy military boots with a thundering crash upon two
vacant chairs, drank his beer, and threw down the metal flagon roughly
on the table, eyeing us from time to time with a sneering glance that
was alike insulting and unwarrantable. But this man, whom we
afterwards learned to be a noted bully and duellist, Captain Ludwig
Schwartz, of the Prussian 95th or Thuringians, evidently wished to
provoke a quarrel with either or both of us, as some Prussian officers
and Hamburg girls, who were watching his proceedings from an alley of
the garden, seemed to think, and to enjoy the situation. But for their
presence and mocking bearing, Volhonski and I would probably, for the
sake of peace, have retired and gone elsewhere; however, their
laughter and remarks rendered the intrusive insolence of their friend
the more intolerable. It chanced that a little puff of wind blew the
ashes of Volhonski's cigar all over the face and big brown beard of
the German, who, while eyeing him fiercely, slowly extricated the pipe
from his heavy dense moustache, and striking his clenched hand on the
table so as to make everything thereon dance, he said, imperiously,
"The Herr Graf will apologise?"
"For what?" asked Volhonski, haughtily.
"For what!--der Teufel!--do you ask for what?"
"Ja, Herr Captain."
"For permitting those cigar ashes to go over all my person."
"In the first place, your precious person had no right to be there; in
the second, appeal to the wind, and fight with it."
"I shall not fight with _it!_" thundered the German; "and I demand an
instant apology."
"Absurd!" replied Volhonski, coolly; "I have no apology to make,
fellow. Apologise to another I might; but certainly not to such as
you."
"You dare to jest--to--to--to trifle with me?" spluttered the German,
gasping and swelling with rage.
"I never jest or trifle with strangers; do you wish to quarrel?"
"No, Herr Graf," sneered the German; "do you?"
"Then how am I to construe your conduct and words?"
"As you please. But know this, Herr Graf: that though I ever avoid
quarrelling, I instantly crush or repel the slightest appearance of
insult, and you have _insulted_ me."
"Ja, ja!" muttered the German officers, in blue surtouts and brass
shoulder-scales, who now crowded about us.
Volhonski smiled disdainfully, and drew from his pocket a
richly-inlaid card-case; then taking from it an enamelled card, with a
bow that was marked and formal, yet haughty, he presented it to
Captain Ludwig Schwartz, who deliberately tore it in two, and said, in
a low fierce voice,
"Bah! I challenge you, Schelm, to meet me with pistols, or hand to
hand without masks, and without seconds, if you choose."
"Agreed," replied Volhonski, now pale with passion, knowing well that
after such a defiance as that, and before such company, it would be a
duel without cessation, a combat _à la mort_. "Where?" he asked,
briefly.
"The Heiligengeist Feld."
"When?"
"To-morrow at daybreak"
"Agreed; till then adieu, Herr Captain;" and touching their caps to
each other in salute, they separated.
Next morning, when the dense mists, as yet unexhaled by the sun, lay
heavy and frouzy about the margin of the Elbe, and were curling up
from the deep moats and wooded ramparts of the Holstein Thor of
Hamburg, we met on the plain which lies between that city and Altona;
it is open, grassy, interspersed with trees, and is named the Field of
the Holy Ghost. A sequestered place was chosen; Volhonski was attended
by me, Captain Schwartz by another captain of his regiment; but
several of his brother officers were present as spectators, and all
these wore the tight blue surtout, buttoned to the throat, with the
shoulder-scales, adopted by the Prussians before Waterloo; and they
wore through their left skirt a sword of the same straight and spring
shell-hilted fashion, used in the British service at Fontenoy and
Culloden, and retained by the Prussians still. The morning was chill,
and above the gray wreaths of mists enveloping the plain rose, on one
side, the red brick towers and green coppered spires of St. Michael,
St. Nicolai, and other churches. Opposite were the pointed roofs of
Altona, and many a tall poplar tree. Volhonski, being brave, polite,
and scrupulous in all his transactions, was naturally exasperated on
finding himself in this dangerous and unsought-for predicament, after
being so grossly and unwarrantably insulted on the preceding night. He
was pale, but assumed a smiling expression, as if he thought it as
good a joke as any one else to be paraded thus at daybreak, when we
quitted our hackney droski at the corner of the great cemetery and
traversed the field, luckily reaching the appointed spot the same
moment as our antagonists.
We gravely saluted each other. While I was examining and preparing the
pistols, Volhonski gave me a sealed letter, saying, quite calmly, "I
have but one relation in the world--my little sister Valérie, now at
St. Petersburg. See," he added, giving me the miniature of a beautiful
young girl, golden-haired and dark-eyed; "if I am butchered by this
beer-bloated Teuton, you will write to her, enclosing this miniature,
my letter, and all my rings."
I pressed his hand in silence, and handed our pistols for inspection
to the other second, a captain, named Leopold Döpke, of the Thuringian
Infantry.
"Now, Herr Graf, we fight till one, at least, is killed," said
Schwartz, grimly.
Volhonski bowed in assent.
"Be quick, gentlemen," said the German officers; "already the rising
sun is gilding the vane of St. Michael's."
Volhonski glanced at it earnestly, and his fine dark eyes clouded for
a moment. Perhaps he was thinking of his sister, or of how and where
he might be lying when the sun's rays were lower down that lofty brick
spire, which is a hundred feet higher than the cross of St. Paul's in
London. In the German fashion a circle was drawn upon the greensward,
on which the diamond dew of a lovely summer morning glittered.
Volhonski and Schwartz were placed within that circle, from which they
were not permitted to retire; neither were they to fire until the
signal was given.