Читать книгу: «Roland Cashel, Volume II (of II)», страница 26

The epidemic character of enthusiasm is well known. It is a fervor to which none can remain insensible. Cashel was soon to experience this. How could he preserve a cold indifference to the emotions which swayed thousands around him? How maintain his calm amid that host, which surged and fretted like the sea in a storm? La Ninetta was the one word repeated on every side; even to have seen her once was a distinction, and they who had already felt her fascinations were listened to as oracles.

She was to give but three representations at Venice, and ere Cashel’s party had arrived all the tickets were already disposed of. By unceasing efforts, and considerable bribery, they contrived at last to obtain places for the first night, and early in the forenoon were admitted among a privileged number to take their seats. They who were thus, at a heavy cost, permitted to anticipate the general public, seemed – at least to Cashel’s eyes – to fill the house; and so, in the dim indistinctness, they appeared. Wherever the eye turned, from the dark parterre below, to the highest boxes above, seemed filled with people. There was something almost solemn in that vast concourse, who sat subdued and silent in the misty half light of the theatre. The intense anxiety of expectation, the dreary gloom of the scene, contributed to spread a kind of awestruck influence around, and brought up to Roland’s memory a very different place and occasion – when, himself the observed of all observers, he stood in the felons’ dock. Lost in the gloomy revery these sad thoughts suggested, he took no note of time, nor marked the lagging hours which stole heavily past.

Suddenly the full glare of light burst forth, and displayed the great theatre crowded in every part. That glittering spectacle, into which beauty, splendor of dress, jewels, and rich uniforms enter, broke upon the sight, while a kind of magnetic sense of expectancy seemed to pervade all, and make conversation a mere murmur. The opera – a well-known one of a favorite composer, aud admirably sustained – attracted little attention. The thrilling cadences, the brilliant passages, all fell upon senses that had no relish for their excellence; and even the conventional good-breeding of the spectators was not proof against the signs of impatience that every now and then were manifested.

The third act at last began, and the scene represented a Spanish village of the New World, which, had it been even less correct and true to nature, had yet possessed no common attraction for Roland, – recalling by a hundred little traits a long unvisited but well-remembered land. The usual troops of villagers paraded about in all that mock grace which characterizes the peasant of the ballet. There were the same active mountaineers, the same venerable fathers, the comely matrons with little baskets of nothing carefully covered by snowy napkins, and the young maidens, who want only beauty to make them what they affect to be. Roland gazed at all this with the indifference a stupid prelude ever excites, and would rapidly have been wearied, when a sudden pause in the music ensued, and then a deathlike stillness reigned through the house. The orchestra again opened, and with a melody which thrilled through every fibre of Roland’s heart. It was a favorite Mexican air; one to which, in happier times, he had often danced. What myriads of old memories came flocking to his mind as he listened! What fancies came thronging around him! Every bar of the measure beat responsively with some association of the past. He leaned his head downwards, and, covering his face with his hands, all thought of the present was lost, and in imagination he was back again on the greensward before the “Villa de las Noches;” the mocking-bird and the nightingale were filling the air with their warblings; the sounds of gay voices, the plash of fountains, the meteor-like flashes of the fireflies, were all before him. He knew not that a thousand voices were shouting around him in wildest enthusiasm, – that bouquets of rarest flowers strewed the stage, – that every form adulation can take was assumed towards one on whom every eye save his own was bent; and that before her rank, beauty, riches – all that the world makes its idols – were now bending in deepest homage. He knew nothing of all this, as he sat with bent-down head, lost in his own bright dreamings. At length he looked up, but, instead of his fancy being dissipated by reality, it now assumed form and substance. There was the very scenery of that far-off land; the music was the national air of Mexico; the dance was the haughty manolo; and, oh! was it that his brain was wandering, – had reason, shaken by many a rude shock, given way at last? The dancer – she on whose witching graces every glance was bent – was Maritaña! There she stood, more beautiful than he had ever seen her before; her dark hair encircled with brilliants, her black eyes flashing in all the animation of triumph, and her fairly rounded limbs the perfection of symmetry.

Oh, no! this was some mind-drawn picture; this was the shadowy image that failing intellect creates ere all is lost in chaos and confusion! Such was the conflict in his brain as, with staring eyeballs, he tracked her as she moved, and followed each graceful bend, each proud commanding attitude. Nor was it till the loud thunder-roll of applause had drawn her to the front of the stage, to acknowledge the favor by a deep reverence, that he became assured beyond all question. Then, when he saw the long dark lashes fall upon the rounded cheek, when he beheld the crossed arm upon her bosom, and marked the taper fingers he had so often held within his own, in a transport of feeling where pride and joy and shame and sorrow had each their share. He cried aloud, —

“Oh, Maritaña! Maritaña! Shame! shame!” Scarcely had the wild cry re-echoed through the house than, with a scream, whose terror pierced every heart, the girl started from her studied attitude, and rushed forward towards the footlights, her frighted looks and pale cheeks seeming ghastly with emotion.

“Where? – where?” cried she. “Speak again – I know the voice!” But already a scene of uproar and confusion had arisen in the parterre around Cashel, whose interruption of the piece called down universal reprobation; and cries of “Out with him!” “Away with him!” rose on every side.

Struggling madly and fiercely against his assailants, Cashel for a brief space seemed likely to find his way to the stage; but overcome by numbers, he was subdued at last, and consigned to the hands of the guard. His last look, still turned to the “scene,” showed him Maritaña, as she was carried away senseless and fainting.

CHAPTER XXXIV. THE FATE OF KEANE – HIS DEPOSITION

 
The laughing Seine, whose midnight flood
Shrouds many a deed of crime and blood!
 

Warren.

They alone who have passed much of their lives on the Continent of Europe can estimate the amount of excitement caused by such an incident as that we have just related. So much of life is centred in the theatre, so many interests revolve around it, engrossing, as it does, so much of the passions and the prejudices of those whose existence seldom rises above the pursuit of pleasure, that anything which might interrupt “the scene,” which should disturb its progress, or mar its effect, is sure to evoke the loudest evidence of public indignation. Where a high cultivation of the arts is employed to gloss over the corruptions of a vicious system, it may be easily conceived how men would be judged more leniently for crimes than for those minor offences which rebel against the usages of good society.

The “Ballet interrupted in its most interesting moment,” “La Ninetta carried away fainting at the very commencement of her most attractive movement,” insulted – so it was rumored – “by some offensive epithet of a Spaniard,” were enough to carry indignation to the highest pitch, and it needed the protection of the guard to screen him from the popular vengeance.

After a night of feverish anxiety, where hopes and fears warred and conflicted with each other, Cashel was early on the following morning conducted before the chief commissary of the police. His passport represented him as a Spaniard, and he adhered to the pretended nationality to avoid the dreaded notoriety of his name.

While he answered the usual questions as to age, religion, and profession, an officer deposited a sealed paper in the hands of the prefetto; who, opening it, appeared to study the contents with much care.

“You have called yourself Il Señor Roland da Castel, sir?” said the official, staring fixedly upon him. “Have you always gone by this name?”

“In Mexico and the New World I was ever known as such. In England men called me Roland Cashel.”

“Which is your more fitting appellation – is it not?”

“Yes.”

“You are then an English, and not a Spanish subject?”

He nodded assent.

“You were, however, in a South American service?” said the prefetto, reading from his paper.

Roland bowed again.

“In which service, or pretended service, you commanded a slaver?”

“This is untrue,” said Cashel, calmly.

“I have it asserted here, however, by those of whose statements you have already acknowledged the accuracy.”

“It is not the less a falsehood.”

“Perhaps you will allow more correctness to the next allegation? It is said that, under the pretended right to a large inheritance, you visited England, and succeeded in preferring a claim to a vast estate?”

Roland bent his head in assent.

“And that to this property you possessed neither right nor title?”

Roland started: the charge involved a secret he believed unknown, save to himself, Hammond, and Linton, and he could not master his surprise enough to reply.

“But a weightier allegation is yet behind, sir,” said the prefetto, sternly. “Are you the same Roland Cashel whose trial for murder occupied the assizes of Ennis in the spring of the year 18 – ?”

“I am,” said Cashel, faintly.

“Your escape of conviction depended on the absence of a material witness for the prosecution, I believe?”

“I was acquitted because I was not guilty, sir.”

“On that point we are not agreed,” said the prefetto, sarcastically; “but you have admitted enough to warrant me in the course I shall pursue respecting you – the fact of a false name and passport, the identity with a well-known character admitted – I have now to detain you in custody until such time as the consul of your country may take steps for your conveyance to England, where already new evidence of your criminality awaits you. Yes, prisoner, the mystery which involved your guilt is at length about to be dissipated, and the day of expiation draws nigh.”

Roland did not speak. Shame at the degraded position he occupied, even in the eyes of those with whom he had associated, overwhelmed him, and he suffered himself to be led away without a word.

Alone in the darkness and silence of a prison, he sat indifferent to what might befall him, wearied of himself and all the world.

Days, even weeks passed on, and none inquired after him; he seemed forgotten of all, when the consul, who had been absent, having returned, it was discovered that the allegations respecting the murder were not sufficient to warrant his being transmitted to England, and that the only charge against him lay in the assumed nationality, – an offence it was deemed sufficiently expiated by his imprisonment. He was free then once more, – free to wander forth into the world where his notoriety had been already proclaimed, and where, if not his guilt, his shame was published.

Of Maritaña all that he could learn was that she had left Venice without again appearing in public; but in what direction none knew accurately. Cashel justly surmised that she had not gone without seeing him once more had it not been from the compulsion of others; and if he grieved to think they were never to meet more, he felt a secret consolation on reflecting how much of mutual shame and sorrow was spared them. Shame was indeed the predominant emotion of his mind; shame for his now sullied name – his character tarnished by the allegations of crime; and shame for her, degraded to a ballarina.

Had fortune another reverse in store for him? Was there one cherished hope still remaining? Had life one solitary spot to which he could now direct his weary steps, and be at rest? The publicity which late events had given to his name rendered him more timid and retiring than ever. A morbid sense of modesty – a shrinking dread of the slights to which he would be exposed in the world – made him shun all intercourse, and live a life of utter seclusion.

Like all men who desire solitude, he soon discovered that it is alone attainable in great cities. Where the great human tide runs full and strong, the scattered wrecks are scarcely noticeable.

To Paris, therefore, he repaired; not to that brilliant Paris where sensuality and vice costume themselves in all the brilliant hues derived from the highest intellectual culture, but to the dark and gloomy Paris which lies between the arms of the Seine, – “the Ile St. Louis.” There, amid the vestiges of an extinct feudalism, and the trials of a present wretchedness, he passed his life in strict solitude. In a mean apartment, whose only solace was the view of the river, with a few books picked up on a neighboring stall, and the moving crowd beneath his window to attract his wandering thoughts, he lived his lonely life. The past alone occupied his mind; for the future he had neither care nor interest, but of his bygone life he could dream for hours. These memories he used to indulge each evening in a particular spot; it was an old and ruinous stair which descended to the river, from a little wooden platform, near where he lived. It had been long disused, and suffered to fall into rot and decay. Here he sat, each night, watching the twinkling lights that glittered along the river, and listening to the distant hum of that great hive of pleasure that lay beyond it.

That the neighborhood about was one of evil repute and danger, mattered little to one who set small store by his life, and whose stalwart figure and signs of personal prowess were not unknown in the quarter. The unbroken solitude of the spot was its attraction to him, and truly none ever ventured near it after nightfall.

There he was sitting one night, as usual, musing, as was his wont. It was a period when men’s minds were stirred by the expectation of some great but unknown event; a long political stagnation – the dead sea of hopeless apathy – was beginning to be ruffled by short and fitful blasts that told of a coming hurricane. Vague rumors of a change – scattered sentences of some convulsion, whence proceeding, or whither tending, none could guess – were abroad. The long-sleeping terrors of a past time of blood were once more remembered, and men talked of the guillotine and the scaffold, as household themes. It was the summer of 1830 – that memorable year, whose deeds were to form but the prologue of the great drama we are to-day the spectators at. Roland heard these things as he who wanders along the shore at night may hear the brooding signs of a gathering storm, but has no “venture on the sea.” He thought of them with a certain interest, too – but it was with that interest into which no personal feeling enters; for how could great convulsions of states affect him How could the turn of fortune raise or depress him?

He sat, now pondering over his own destiny, now wondering whither the course of events to come was tending, when he heard the plash of oars, and the rushing sound of a boat moving through the water in the direction of the stair. The oars, which at some moments were plied vigorously, ceased to move at others; and, as well as Cashel could mark, the course of the boat seemed once or twice to be changed. Roland descended to the lowest step of the ladder, the better to see what this might portend. That terrible river, on whose smiling eddies the noonday sun dances so joyously, covers beneath the shadow of night crimes the most awful and appalling.

As Cashel listened, he perceived that the rowing had ceased, and two voices, whose accents sounded like altercation, could be heard.

The boat, drifting meanwhile downward on the fast current, was now nearly opposite to where he sat, but only perceptible as a dark speck upon the water. The night was calm, without a breath of wind, and on the vapor-charged atmosphere sounds floated dull and heavily; still Cashel could hear the harsh tones of men in angry dispute, and to his amazement they spoke in English.

“It’s the old story,” cried one, whose louder voice and coarser accents bespoke him the inferior in condition – “the old story that I am sick of listening to – when you have luck! when you have luck!”

“I used not to have a complaint against Fortune,” said the other. “Before we met, she had treated me well for many a year.”

“And ‘twas me that changed it, I suppose,” said the first, in the same insolent tone as before; “do you mean that?”

“The world has gone ill with me since that day.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“Partly yours,” said the other, in a slow, deliberate voice, every syllable of which thrilled through Cashers heart as he listened. “Had you secured the right man, it was beyond the power of Fortune to hurt either of us. That fatal, fatal mistake!”

“How could I help it?” cried the other, energetically; “the night was as dark as this – it was between two high banks – there was nothing to be seen but a figure of a man coming slowly along – you yourself told me who it would be – I did n’t wait for more; and troth!” – here he gave a fiendish laugh – “troth! you’ll allow the work was well done.”

“It was a most determined murder,” said the other, thoughtfully.

“Murder! murder!” screamed the first, in a voice of fierce passion; “and is it you that calls it a murder?”

“No matter how it is called. Let us speak of something else.”

“Very well. Let us talk about the price of it. It is n’t paid yet!”

“Is it nothing that I have taken you from abject, starving misery – from a life of cold, want, and wretchedness, to live at ease in the first city of the universe? Is it no part of the price that you spend your days in pleasure and your nights in debauch? – that, with the appetite of the peasant, you partake of the excesses of the gentleman? Is it no instalment of the debt, I say, that you, who might now be ground down to the very earth as a slave at home, dare to lift your head and speak thus to me?”

“And is it you dares to tell me this?” cried the other, in savage energy; “is it you, that made me a murderer, and then think that I can forget it because I’m a drunkard? But I don’t forget it! I ‘ll never forget it! I see him still, as he lay gasping before me, and trying to beg for mercy when he could n’t ask for it. I see him every day when I ‘m in a lonely place; and, oh! he’s never away from me at night, with his bloody hands on his head trying to save it, and screaming out for God to help him. And what did I get for it? answer me that,” yelled he, in accents shrill with passion. “Is it my wife begging from door to door – is it my children naked and hungry – is it my little place, a ruin and a curse over it – or is it myself trying to forget it in drink, not knowing the day nor the hour that it will rise up against me, and that I ‘ll be standing in the dock where I saw him that you tried to murder too?”

“There is no use in this passion,” said the other, calmly; “let us be friends, Tom; it is our interest to be so.”

“Them’s the very words you towld Mr. Phillis, and the next day he was taken up for robbery, and you had him transported.”

“Phillis was a fool, and paid the penalty of a fool; but you are a shrewd fellow, who can see to his own advantage. Now listen to me calmly: were it not for bad luck, we might all of us have had more money now than we could count or squander. Had Maritaña continued upon the stage, her gains would by this time have been enormous. The bank, too, would have prospered; her beauty would have drawn around us all that was wealthy and dissipated in the world of fashion; we could have played what stake we pleased. Princes, ambassadors, ministers of state would have been our game. Curses be on his head who spoiled this glorious plan! From that unhappy night at Venice she never would appear again, nor could she. The shock has been like a blight upon her. You have seen her yourself, and know what it has made her.”

The artifice by which the speaker contrived to change the topic, and withdraw the other from a painful subject to one of seeming confidence, was completely successful; and in the altered tone of voice might be read the change which had come over him.

“You wish to go to America, Tom?” continued he, after a pause.

“Ay; I never feel safe here. I ‘m too near home.”

“Well, if everything prospers with us, you shall have the money by Tuesday – Wednesday at farthest. Rica has at last found a clew to old Corrigan, and, although he seems in great poverty, his name upon a bill will still raise some hundreds.”

“I don’t care who pays it, but I must get it,” said the other, whose savage mood seemed to have returned. “I ‘ll not stay here. ‘T is little profit or pleasure I have standin’ every night to see the crowds that are passing in, to be cheated out of their money, – to hear the clink of the goold I ‘m never to handle, – and to watch all the fine livin’ and coortin’ that I ‘ve no share in.”

“Be satisfied. You shall have the money; I pledge my word upon it.”

“I don’t care for your word. I have a better security than ever it was.”

“And what may that be?” said the other, cautiously.

“Your neck in a halter, Mr. Linton,” said he, laughing ironically. “Ay, ye don’t understand me, – poor innocent that ye are! but I know what I ‘m saying, and I have good advice about it besides.”

“How do you mean good advice, Tom?” said Linton, with seeming kindliness of manner. “Whom have you consulted?”

“One that knows the law well,” said Tom, with all the evasive shrewdness of his class.

“And he tells you – ”

“He tells me that the devil a bit betther off you’d be than myself, – that you are what they call an ‘accessory’ – that’s the word; I mind it well.”

“And what does that mean?”

“A chap that plans the work, but has n’t the courage to put hand to it.”

“That’s an accessory, is it?” said the other, slowly.

“Just so.” He paused for a few seconds, then added,

“Besides, if I was to turn ‘prover, he says that I’d only be transported, and ‘t is you would be hanged” – the last word was uttered in a harsh and grating tone, and followed by a laugh of insolent mockery – “so that you see ‘tis better be honest with me, and pay me my hire.”

“You shall have it, by G – !” said Linton, with a deep vehemence; and, drawing a pistol from his bosom, he fired. The other fell, with a loud cry, to the bottom of the boat. A brief pause ensued, and then Linton raised the body in his arms to throw it over. A faint struggle showed that life was not extinct, but all resistance was impossible. The lightness of the boat, however, made the effort difficult; and it was only by immense exertion that he could even lift the heavy weight half-way; and at last, when, by a great effort, he succeeded in laying the body over the gunwale, the boat lost its balance and upset. With a bold spring, Linton dashed into the current, and made for shore; but almost as he did so, another and a stronger swimmer, who had thrown off his clothes for the enterprise, had reached the spot, and, grasping the inert mass as it was about to sink, swam with the bleeding body to the bank.

When Casbel gained the stairs, he threw the wounded man upon his shoulder, for signs of life were still remaining, and hastened to a cabaret near. A surgeon was soon procured, and the bullet was discovered to have penetrated the chest, cutting in its passage some large blood-vessel, from which the blood flowed copiously. That the result must be fatal it was evident; but as the bleeding showed signs of abatement, it seemed possible life might be protracted some hours. No time was therefore to be lost in obtaining the dying man’s declaration, and a Juge d’Instruction, accompanied by a notary, was immediately on the spot. As the surgeon had surmised, a coagulum had formed in the wounded vessel, and, the bleeding being thus temporarily arrested, the man rallied into something like strength, and with a mind perfectly conscious and collected. To avoid the shock which the sight of Cashel might occasion, Roland did not appear at the bedside.

Nor need we linger either at such a scene, nor witness that fearful straggle between the hope of mercy and the dread consciousness of its all but impossibility. The dying confession has nothing new for the reader; the secret history of the crime is already before him, and it only remains to speak of those events which followed Keane’s flight from Ireland. As Linton’s servant he continued for years to travel about the Continent, constantly sustained by the hope that the price of his crime would one day be forthcoming, and as invariably put off by the excuse that play, on which he entirely depended for means, had been unlucky, but that better times were certainly in store for him. The struggles and difficulties of an existence thus maintained; the terrible consciousness of an unexpiated crime; the constant presence of one who knew the secret of the other, and might at any moment of anger, or in some access of dissipation, reveal it, made up a life of torture to which death would be a boon; added to this, that they frequently found themselves in the same city with Cashel, whom Linton never dared to confront. At Messina they fell in with Rica, as the proprietor of a gaming-table which Linton continually frequented. His consummate skill at play, his knowledge of life, and particularly the life of gamblers, his powers of agreeability, soon attracted Rica’s notice, and an intimacy sprang up which became a close friendship – if such a league can be called by such a name.

By the power of an ascendancy acquired most artfully, and by persuasive flatteries of the most insidious kind, he induced Rica to bring Maritaña on the stage; where her immense success had replenished their coffers far more rapidly and abundantly than play. At Naples, however, an incident similar to what happened at Venice was nigh having occurred. She was recognized by a young Spaniard who had known her in Mexico; and as the whole assumed history of her noble birth and Sicilian origin was thus exposed to contradiction, they took measures to get rid of this unwelcome witness. They managed to hide among his effects some dies and moulds for coining, – an offence then, as ever, rife at Naples. A police investigation, in which bribery had its share, was followed by a mock-trial, and the young fellow was sentenced to the galleys for seven years, with hard labor.

Their career from this moment was one of unchanging success. Maritaña’s beauty attracted to the play-table all that every city contained of fashion, wealth, and dissipation. In her ignorance of the world she was made to believe that her position was one the most exalted and enviable. The homage she received, the devotion exhibited on every side, the splendor of her life, her dress, her jewels, her liveries, dazzled and delighted her. The very exercise of her abilities was a source of enthusiastic pleasure to one who loved admiration. Nor had she perhaps awoke from this delusion, had not the heart-uttered cry of Roland burst the spell that bound her, and evoked the maiden’s shame in her young heart. Then – with a revulsion that almost shook reason itself – she turned with abhorrence from a career associated with whatever could humiliate and disgrace. Entreaties, prayers, menaces – all were unavailing to induce her to appear again; and soon, indeed, her altered looks and failing health rendered it impossible. A vacant unmeaning smile, or a cold impassive stare, usurped the place of an expression that used to shine in joyous brilliancy. Her step, once bounding and elastic, became slow and uncertain. She seldom spoke; when she did, her accents were heavy, and her thoughts seemed languid, as though her mind was weary. None could have recognized in that wan and worn face, that frail and delicate figure, the proud and beautiful Maritaña.

She lived now in total seclusion. None ever saw her, save Rica, who used to come and sit beside her each day, watching, with Heaven alone knows what mixture of emotion! that wasting form and decaying cheek. What visions of ambition Linton might yet connect with her none knew or could guess; but he followed the changing fortunes of her health with an interest too deep and earnest to be mistaken for mere compassion. Such, then, was her sad condition when they repaired to Paris, and, in one of the most spacious hotels of the Rue Richelieu, established their “Bank of Rouge et Noir.” This costly establishment vied in luxury and splendor with the most extravagant of those existing in the time of the Empire. All that fastidious refinement and taste could assemble, in objects of art and virtu, graced the salons. The cookery, the wines, the service of the different menials, rivalled the proudest households of the nobility.

A difficult etiquette restricted the admission to persons of acknowledged rank and station, and even these were banded together by the secret tie of a political purpose, for it was now the eve of that great convulsion which was to open once more in Europe the dread conflict between the masses and the few.

While Linton engaged deep in play, and still deeper in politics, “making his book,” as he called it, “to win with whatever horse he pleased,” one dreadful heartsore never left him: this was Keane, whose presence continually reminded him of the past, and brought up besides many a dread for the future.

It would have been easy at any moment for Linton to have disembarrassed himself of the man by a sum of money; but then came the reflection, “What is to happen when, with exhausted means and dissolute habits, this fellow shall find himself in some foreign country? Is he not likely, in a moment of reckless despair, to reveal the whole story of our guilt? Can I even trust him in hours of convivial abandonment and debauch? Vengeance may, at any instant, overrule in such a nature the love of life, – remorse may seize upon him. He is a Romanist, and may confess the murder, and be moved by his priest to bring home the guilt to the Protestant.” Such were the motives which Linton never ceased to speculate on and think over, always reverting to the one same conviction, that he must keep the man close to his person, until the hour might come when he could rid himself of him forever.