It was nightfall when Roland Cashel entered Dublin. The stir and movement of the day were over, and that brief interval which separates the life of business from that of pleasure had succeeded. Few were stirring in the streets, and they were hastening to the dinner-parties whose hour had now arrived. It was little more than a year since Cashel had entered that same capital, and what a change had come over him within that period! Then he was buoyant in all the enjoyment of youth, health, and affluence; now, although still young, sorrow and care had worn him into premature age. His native frankness had become distrust; his generous reliance on the world's good faith had changed into a cold and cautious reserve which made him detestable to himself.
Although he passed several of his former acquaintance without being recognized, he could not persuade himself but that their avoidance of him was intentional, and he thought he saw a purpose-like insolence in the pressing entreaties with which the news-vendors persecuted him to buy “The Full and True Report of the Trial of Roland Cashel for Murder.”
And thus it was that he, whose fastidious modesty had shrunk from everything like the notoriety of fashion, now saw himself exposed to that more terrible ordeal, the notoriety of crime. The consciousness of innocence could not harden him against the poignant suffering the late exposure had inflicted. His whole life laid bare! Not even to gratify the morbid curiosity of gossips; not to amuse the languid listlessness of a world devoured by its own ennui; but far worse! to furnish motives for an imputed crime! to give the clew to a murder! In the bitterness of his torn heart, he asked himself: “Have I deserved all this? Is this the just requital for my conduct towards others? Have the hospitality I have extended, the generous assistance I have proffered—have the thousand extravagances I have committed to gratify others—no other fruits than these?” Alas! the answer of his enlightened intelligence could no longer blind him by its flatteries. He recognized, at last, that to his abuse of fortune were owing all his reverses; that the capricious extravagance of the rich man—his misplaced generosity, his pompous display—can create enemies far more dangerous than all the straits and appliances of rebellious poverty; that the tie of an obligation which can ennoble a generous nature, may, in a bad heart, develop the very darkest elements of iniquity; and that he who refuses to be bound by gratitude is enslaved by hate!
He stopped for an instant before Kennyfeck's house; the closed shutters and close-drawn blinds bespoke it still the abode of mourning. He passed the residence of the Kilgoffs, and there the grass-grown steps and rusted knocker spoke of absence. They had left the country. He next came to his own mansion,—that spacious building which, at the same hour, was wont to be brilliant with wax-lights and besieged by fast-arriving guests, where the throng of carriages pressed forward in eager haste, and where, as each step descended, some form or figure moved by, great in fame or more illustrious still by beauty. Now, all was dark, gloomy, and deserted. A single gleam of light issued from the kitchen, which was speedily removed as Roland knocked at the door.
The female servant who opened the door nearly dropped the candle as she recognized the features of her master, who, without speaking, passed on, and, without even removing his hat, entered the library. Profuse in apologies for the disorder of the furniture, and excuses for the absence of the other servants, she followed him into the room, and stood, half in shame and half in terror, gazing at the wan and worn countenance of him she remembered the very ideal of health and youth.
“If we only knew your honor was coming home tonight—”
“I did not know it myself, good woman, at this hour yesterday. Let me have something to eat—well, a crust of bread and a glass of wine—there's surely so much in the house?”
“I can give your honor some bread, but all the wine is packed up and gone.”
“Gone! whither, and by whose order?” said Roland, calmly.
“Mr. Phillis, sir, sent it off about ten days ago, with the plate, and I hear both are off to America!”
“The bread alone, then, with a glass of water, will do,” said he, without any emotion or the least evidence of surprise in his manner.
“The fare smacks of the prison still,” said Roland, as he sat at his humble meal; “and truly the house itself is almost as gloomy.”
The aspect of everything was sad and depressing; neglect and disorder pervaded wherever he turned his steps. In some of the rooms the remains of past orgies still littered the tables. Smashed vases of rare porcelain, broken mirrors, torn pictures—all the work, in fact, which ruffian intemperance in its most savage mood accomplishes—told who were they who replaced his fashionable society; while, as if to show the unfeeling spirit of the revellers, several of the pasquinades against himself, the libellous calumnies of the low press, the disgusting caricatures of infamous prints, were scattered about amid the wrecks of the debauch.
Roland saw these things with sorrow, but without anger. “I must have fallen low indeed,” muttered he, “when it is by such men I am judged.”
In the room which once had been his study a great pile of unsettled bills covered the table, the greater number of which he remembered to have given the money for; there were no letters, however, nor even one card of an acquaintance, so that, save to his creditors, his very existence seemed to be forgotten.
Wearied of his sad pilgrimage from room to room, he sat down at last in a small boudoir, which it had been his caprice once to adorn with the portraits of “his friends!” sketched by a fashionable artist. There they were, all smiling blandly, as he left them. What a commentary on their desertion of him were the looks so full of benevolence and affection! There was Frobisher, lounging in all the ease of fashionable indifference, but still with a smile upon his languid features; there was Upton, the very picture of straightforward good feeling and frankness; there was Jennings, all beaming with generosity; and Linton, too, occupying the chief place, seemed to stare with the very expression of resolute attachment that so often had imposed on Cashel, and made him think him a most devoted but perhaps an indiscreet friend. Roland's own portrait had been turned to the wall, while on the reverse was written, in large characters, the words “To be hung, or hanged, elsewhere.” The brutal jest brought the color for an instant to his cheek, but the next moment he was calm and tranquil as before.
Lost in musings, the time stole by; and it was late in the night ere he betook himself to rest His sleep was the heavy slumber of an overworked mind; but he awoke refreshed and with a calm courage to breast the tide of fortune, however it might run.
Life seemed to present to him two objects of paramount interest. One of these was the discovery of Kennyfeck's murderer; the second was the payment of his debt of vengeance to Linton. Some secret instinct induced him to couple the two together; and although neither reason nor reflection afforded a clew to link them, they came ever in company before his mind, and rose like one fact before him.
Mr. Hammond, the eminent lawyer, to whom he had written a few lines, came punctually at ten o'clock to confer with him. Roland had determined to reveal no more of his secret to the ears of counsel than he had done before the Court, when an accidental circumstance totally changed the course of his proceeding.
“I have sent for you, Mr. Hammond,” said Cashel, as soon as they were seated, “to enlist your skilful services in tracing out the real authors of a crime of which I narrowly escaped the penalty. I will first, however, entreat your attention to another matter, for this may be the last opportunity ever afforded me of personally consulting you.”
“You purpose to live abroad, sir?” asked Hammond.
“I shall return to Mexico,” said Roland, briefly; and then resumed: “Here is a document, sir, of whose tenor and meaning I am ignorant, but of whose importance I cannot entertain a doubt: will you peruse it?”
Hammond opened the parchment, but scarcely had his eyes glanced over it, when he laid it down before him and said,—
“I have seen this before, Mr. Cashel. You are aware that I already gave you my opinion as to its value?”
“I am not aware of that,” said Roland, calmly. “Fray, in whose possession did you see it, and what does it mean?”
Hammond seemed confused for a few seconds; and then, as if overcoming a scruple, said,—
“We must both be explicit here, sir. This document was shown to me by Mr. Linton, at Limerick, he alleging that it was at your desire and by your request. As to its import, it simply means that you hold your present estates without a title; that document being a full pardon, revoking the penalty of confiscation against the heirs of Miles Corrigan, and reinstating them and theirs in their ancient possessions. Now, sir, may I ask, do you hear this for the first time?”
Roland nodded in acquiescence; his heart was too full for utterance, and the sudden revulsion of his feeling had brought a sickly sensation over him.
“Mr. Linton,” resumed Hammond, “in showing me this deed, spoke of a probable alliance between you and the granddaughter of Mr. Corrigan; and I freely concurred in the propriety of a union which might at once settle the difficulty of a very painful litigation. He promised me more full information on the subject, and engaged me to make searches for a registry, if such existed, of the pardon; but I heard nothing more from him, and the matter escaped my memory till this moment.”
“So that all this while I have been dissipating that which was not mine,” said Roland, with a bitterness of voice and manner that bespoke what he suffered.
“You have done what some thousands have done, are doing, and will do hereafter,—enjoyed possession of that which the law gave you, and which a deeper research into the same law may take away.”
“And Linton knew this?”
“He certainly knew my opinion of this document; but am I to suppose that you were ignorant of it up to this moment?”
“You shall hear all,” said Cashel, passing his hand across his brow, which now ached with the torture of intense emotion. “To save myself from all the ignominy of a felon's death, I did not reveal this before. It was with me as a point of honor, that I would reserve this man for a personal vengeance; but now a glimmering light is breaking on my brain, that darker deeds than all he worked against me lie at his door, and that in following up my revenge I may be but robbing the scaffold of its due. Listen to me attentively.” So saying, Cashel narrated every event of the memorable day of Kennyfeck's death, detailing his meeting with Enrique in the glen, and his last interview with Linton in his dressing-room.
Hammond heard all with deepest interest, only interrupting at times to ask such questions as might throw light upon the story. The whole body of the circumstantial evidence against Roland not only became easily explicable, but the shrewd perception of the lawyer also saw the consummate skill with which the details had been worked into regular order, and what consistency had been imparted to them. The great difficulty of the case lay in the fact that, supposing Kennyfeck's death had been planned by others, with the intention of imputing the crime to Cashel, yet all the circumstances, or nearly all, which seemed to imply his guilt, were matters of perfect accident, for which they never could have provided, nor even ever foreseen,—such as his entrance by the window, his torn dress, the wound of his hand, and the blood upon his clothes.
“I see but one clew to this mystery,” said Hammond, thoughtfully; “but the more I reflect upon it, the more likely does it seem. Kennyfeck's fate was intended for you,—he fell by a mistake.”
Roland started with astonishment, but listened with deep attention as Hammond recapitulated everything which accorded with this assumption.
“But why was one of my own pistols taken for the deed?”
“Perhaps to suggest the notion of suicide.”
“How could my death have been turned to profit? Was I not better as the living dupe than as the dead enemy?”
“Do you not see how your death legalized the deed with a forged signature? Who was to dispute its authenticity? Besides, how know we what ambitions Linton may not have cherished when holding in his hands the only title to the estate. We may go too fast with these suspicions, but let us not reject them as inconsistent Who is this same witness, Keane? What motives had he for the gratitude he evinced on the trial?”
“None whatever; on the contrary, I never showed him any favor; it was even my intention to dismiss him from the gate-lodge!”
“And he was aware of this?”
“Perfectly. He had besought several people to intercede for him, Linton among the rest.”
“So that he was known to Linton? And what has become of him since the trial?”
“That is the strangest of all; my wish was to have done something for the poor fellow. I could not readily forget the feeling he showed, at a moment, too, when none seemed to remember me; so that when I reached Tubbermore, I at once repaired to the lodge, but he was gone.”
“And in what direction?”
“His wife could not tell. The poor creature was distracted at being deserted, and seemed to think, from what cause I know not, that he would not return. He had come back after the trial in company with another, who remained on the roadside while Keane hastily packed up some clothes, after which they departed together.”
“This must be thought of,” said Hammond, gravely, while he wrote some lines in his note-book.
“It is somewhat strange, indeed,” said Cashel, “that the very men to whom my gratitude is most due are those who seem to avoid me. Thus—Jones, who gave me his aid upon the trial—”
“Do not speak of him, sir,” said Hammond, in a voice of agitation; “he is one who has sullied an order that has hitherto been almost without a stain. There is but too much reason to think that he was bribed to destroy you. His whole line of cross-examination on the trial was artfully devised to develop whatever might injure you; but the treachery turned upon the men who planned it. The Attorney General saw it, and the Court also; it was this saved you.”
Cashel sat powerless and speechless at this disclosure. It seemed to fill up in his mind the cup of iniquity, and he never moved nor uttered a word as he listened.
“Jones you will never see again. The bar of some other land across the sea may receive him, but there is not one here would stoop to be his colleague. But now for others more important. I will this day obtain the judge's notes of the trial, and give the whole case the deepest consideration. Inquiry shall be set on foot as to Keane, with whom he has gone, and in what direction. Linton, too, must be watched; the report is that he lies dangerously ill at his country house, but that story may be invented to gain time.”
Cashel could scarcely avoid a smile at the rapidity with which the lawyer detailed his plan of operation, and threw out, as he went, the signs of distrust so characteristic of his craft As for himself, he was enjoined to remain in the very strictest privacy,—to see no one, nor even to leave the house, except after nightfall.
“Rely upon it,” said Hammond, “your every movement is watched; and our object will be to ascertain by whom. This will be our first clew; and when we obtain one, others will soon follow.”
It was no privation for Cashel to follow a course so much in accordance with his wishes. Solitude—even that which consigned him to the saddest reveries—was far more pleasurable than any intercourse; so that he never ventured beyond the walls of his house for weeks, nor exchanged a word, except with Hammond, who regularly visited him each day, to report the progress of his investigation.
The mystery did not seem to clear away, even by the skilful contrivances of the lawyer. Of Keane not a trace could be discovered; nor could any clew be obtained as to his companion. All that Hammond knew was that although a doctor's carriage daily drove to Linton's house, Linton himself had long since left the country,—it was believed for the Continent.
Disappointed by continual failures, and wearied by a life whose only excitement lay in anxieties and cares, Cashel grew each day sadder and more depressed. The desire for vengeance, too, that first had filled his mind, grew weaker as time rolled on. The wish to reinstate himself fully in the world's esteem diminished, as he lived apart from all its intercourse, and he sank into a low and gloomy despondency, which soon showed its ravages upon his face and figure.
One object alone remained for him,—this was to seek out Corrigan and place in his hand the document of his ancestor's pardon; this done, Roland resolved to betake himself to Mexico, and again, among the haunts of his youth, to try and forget that life of civilization which had cost him so dearly.
Some years passed over, and the name of Roland Cashel ceased to be uttered, or his memory even evoked, in that capital where once his wealth, his eccentricities, and his notoriety had been the theme of every tongue. A large neglected-looking house, with closed shutters and grass-grown steps, would attract the attention of some passing stranger to ask whom it belonged to, but the name of Mr. Cashel was almost all that many knew of him, and a vague impression that he was travelling in some remote and faraway land.
Tubbermore, too, fell back into its former condition of ruin and decay. No one seemed to know into whose hands the estate had fallen, but the talismanic word “Chancery” appeared to satisfy every inquiry, and account for a desolation that brooded over the property and all who dwelt on it. The very “Cottage” had yielded to the course of time, and little remained of it save a few damp discolored walls and blackened chimneys; while here and there a rare shrub, or a tree of foreign growth, rose among the rank weeds and thistles, to speak of the culture which once had been the pride of this lovely spot.
Had there been a “curse upon the place” it could not have been more dreary and sad-looking!
Of the gate-lodge, where Keane lived, a few straggling ruins alone remained, in a corner of which a miserable family was herded together, their wan looks and tattered clothing showing that they were dependent for existence on the charity of the very poor. These were Keane's wife and children, to whom he never again returned. There was a blight over everything. The tenantry themselves, no longer subject to the visits of the agent, the stimulus to all industry withdrawn, would scarcely labor for their own support, but passed their lives in brawls and quarrels, which more than once had led to a felon's sentence. The land lay untilled; the cattle, untended, strayed at will through the unfenced fields. The villages on the property were crammed by a host of runaway wretches whose crimes had driven them from their homes, till at length the district became the plague-spot of the country, where, even at noonday, few strangers were bold enough to enter, and the word “Tub-bermore” had a terrible significance in the neighborhood round about.
Let us now turn for the last time to him whose fortune had so powerfully influenced his property, and whose dark destiny seemed to throw its shadow over all that once was his. For years Roland Cashel had been a wanderer. He travelled every country of the Old World and the New; his appearance and familiarity with the language enabling him to assume the nationality of a Spaniard, and thus screen him from that painful notoriety to which his story was certain to expose him. Journeying alone, and in the least expensive manner,—for he no longer considered himself entitled to any of the property he once enjoyed,—he made few acquaintances and contracted no friendships. One object alone gave a zest to existence,—to discover Mr. Cor-rigan, and place within his hands the title-deeds of Tubber-more. With this intention he had searched through more than half of Europe, visiting the least frequented towns, and pursuing inquiries in every possible direction; at one moment cheered by some glimmering prospect of success, at another dashed by disappointment and failure. If a thought of Linton did occasionally cross him, he struggled manfully to overcome the temptings of a passion which should thwart the dearest object of his life, and make vengeance predominate over truth and honesty. As time rolled on, the spirit of his hatred became gradually weaker; and if he did not forgive all the ills his treachery had worked, his memory of them was less frequent and less painful.
His was a cheerless, for it was a friendless, existence. Avoiding his own countrymen from the repugnance he felt to sustain his disguise by falsehood, he wandered from land to land and city to city like some penitent in the accomplishment of a vow. The unbroken monotony of this life, the continued pressure of disappointment, at last began to tell upon him, and in his moody abstractions—his fits of absence and melancholy—might be seen the change which had come over him. He might have been a long time ignorant of an alteration which not only impressed his mind, but even his “outward man,” when his attention was drawn to the fact by overhearing the observations of some young Englishmen upon his appearance, as he sat one evening in a café at Naples. Conversing in all that careless freedom of our young countrymen, which never supposes that their language can be understood by others, they criticised his dress, his sombre look, and his manner; and, after an animated discussion as to whether he were a refugee political offender, a courier, or a spy, they wound up by a wager that he was at least forty years of age; one of the party dissenting on the ground that, although he looked it, it was rather from something on the fellow's mind than years.
“How shall we find out?” cried the proposer of the bet. “I, for one, should n't like to ask him his age.”
“If I knew Spanish enough, I'd do it at once,” said another.
“It might cost you dearly, Harry, for all that; he looks marvellously like a fellow that wouldn't brook trifling.”
“He would n't call it trifling to lose me ten 'carlines,' and I 'm sure I should win my wager; so here goes at him in French.” Rising at the same moment, the young man crossed the room and stood before the table where Cashel sat, with folded arms and bent-down head, listening in utter indifference to all that passed. “Monsieur,” said the youth, bowing.
Cashel looked up, and his dark, heavily browed eyes seemed to abash the other, who stood, blushing, and uncertain what to do.
With faltering accents and downcast look he began to mutter excuses for his intrusion; when Cashel, in a mild and gentle voice, interrupted him, saying in English, “I am your countryman, young gentleman, and my age not six-and-twenty.”
The quiet courtesy of his manner as he spoke, as well as the surprise of his being English, seemed to increase the youth's shame for the liberty he had taken, and he was profuse in his apologies; but Cashel soon allayed this anxiety by adroitly turning to another part of the subject, and saying, “If I look much older than I am, it is that I have travelled and lived a good deal in southern climates, not to speak of other causes, which give premature age.”
A slight, a very slight touch of melancholy in the latter words gave them a deep interest to the youth, who, with a boyish frankness, far more fascinating than more finished courtesy, asked Roland if he would join their party. Had such a request been made half an hour before, or had it come in more formal fashion, Cashel would inevitably have declined it; but what between the generous candor of the youth's address, and a desire to show that he did not resent his intrusion, Cashel acceded good-naturedly, and took his seat amongst them.
As Roland listened to the joyous freshness of their boyish talk,—the high-hearted hope, the sanguine trustfulness with which they regarded life,—he remembered what but a few years back he had himself been. He saw in them the selfsame elements which had led him on to every calamity that he suffered,—the passionate pursuit of pleasure, the inexhaustible craving for excitement that makes life the feverish paroxysm of a malady.
They sat to a late hour together; and when they separated, the chance acquaintance had ripened into intimacy. Night after night they met in the same place; and while they were charmed with the gentle seriousness of one in whom they could recognize the most manly daring, he, on his side, was fascinated by the confiding warmth and the generous frankness of their youth.
One evening, as they assembled as usual, Roland remarked a something like unusual excitement amongst them; and learned that from a letter they had received that morning, they were about to leave Naples the next day. There seemed some mystery in the reason, and a kind of reserve in even alluding to it, which made Cashel half suspect that they had been told who he was, and that a dislike to further intercourse had suggested the departure. It was the feeling that never left him by day or night, that dogged his waking and haunted his dreams,—that he was one to be shunned and avoided by his fellow-men. His pride, long dormant, arose under the supposed slight, and he was about to say a cold farewell, when the elder of the party, whose name was Sidney, said,—
“How I wish you were going with us!”
“Whither to?” said Cashel, hurriedly.
“To Venice—say, is this possible?”
“I am free to turn my steps in any direction,—too free, for I have neither course to sail nor harbor to reach.”
“Come with us, then, Roland,” cried they all, “and our journey will be delightful.”
“But why do you start so hurriedly? What is there to draw you from this at the very brightest season of the year?”
“There is rather that which draws us to Venice,” said Sidney, coloring slightly? “but this is our secret, and you shall not hear it till we are on our way.”
Roland's curiosity was not exacting; he asked no more: nor was it till they had proceeded some days on their journey that Sidney confided to him the sudden cause of their journey, which he did in the few words.—
“La Ninetta is at Venice,—she is at the 'Fenice.'”
“But who is La Ninetta? You forgot that you are speaking to one who lives out of the world.”
“Not know La Ninetta!” exclaimed he; “never have seen her?”
“Never even heard of her.”
To the pause which the shock of the first astonishment imposed there now succeeded a burst of enthusiastic description, in which the three youths vied with each other who should be most eloquent in praise. Her beauty, her gracefulness, the witching fascination of her movements, the enchanting captivation of her smile, were themes they never wearied of. Nor was it till he had suffered the enthusiasm to take its course that they would listen to his calm question,—
“Is she an actress?”
“She is the first Ballarina of the world,” cried one. “None ever did, nor ever will, dance like her.”
“They say she is a Prima Donna too; but how could such excellence be united in one creature?”
To their wild transports of praise Roland listened patiently, in the hope that he might glean something of her story; but they knew nothing, except that she was reputed to be a Sicilian, of a noble family, whose passion for the stage had excited the darkest enmity of her relatives; insomuch that it was said she was tracked from city to city by hired assassins. She remained two days at Naples; she appeared but once at Rome; in Genoa, though announced, she never came to the theatre. Such were the extravagant tales, heightened by all the color of romantic adventure,—how, at one time, she had escaped from a royal palace by leaping into the sea,—how, at another, she had ridden through a squadron of the Swiss Guard, sabre in hand, and got clean away from Bologna, where a cardinal's letter had arrested her. Incidents the strangest, the least probable, were recounted of her,—the high proffers of marriage she had rejected; the alliances, even with royal blood, she had refused. There was nothing, where her name figured, that seemed impossible; hers was a destiny above all the rules that guide humbler mortals.
Excellence, of whatever kind it be, has always this attraction,—that it forms a standard by which men measure with each other their capacities of enjoyment and their powers of appreciation. Roland's curiosity was stimulated, therefore, to behold with his own eyes the wonder which had excited these youthful heroics. He had long since ceased to be sanguine on any subject; and he felt that he could sustain disappointment on graver matters than this.
When they reached Venice, they found that city in a state of enthusiastic excitement fully equal to their own. All the excesses into which admiration for art can carry a people insensible to other emotions than those which minister to the senses, had been committed to welcome “La Regina de la Balla.” Her entrée had been like a triumph; garlands of flowers, bouquets, rich tapestries floating from balconies, gondolas with bands of music; the civic authorities even, in robes of state, met her as she entered; strangers flocked in crowds from the other cities of the north, and even from parts beyond the Alps. The hotels were crammed with visitors all eager to see one of whom every tongue was telling. A guard of honor stood before the palace in which she resided,—as much a measure of necessity to repel the pressure of the anxious crowd as it was a mark of distinction.
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.
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.
The insolent demeanor of the fellow; his ruffian assurance, the evidence of a power that he might wield at will—became at last intolerable. Linton saw this “shadow on his path” wherever he wandered. The evil was insupportable from the very fact that it occupied his thoughts when great and momentous events required them. It was like the paroxysm of some painful disease, that came at moments when health and calm of spirit were most wanted. To feel this, to recognize it thoroughly, and to resolve to overcome it, were, with Linton, the work of a moment. “His hour is come,” said he, at length; “the company at La Morgue to-morrow shall be graced by a guest of my inviting.”
Although to a mind prolific in schemes of villany the manner of the crime could offer no difficulty, strange enough, his nature revolted against being himself the agent of the guilt It was not fear, for he was a man of nerve and courage, and was, besides, certain to be better armed than his adversary. It was not pity, nor any feeling that bordered on pity, deterred him; it was some instinctive shrinking from an act of ruffianism; it was the blood of a man of birth that curdled at the thought of that which his mind associated with criminals of the lowest class,—the conventional feeling of Honor surpassing all the dictates of common Humanity.
Nothing short of the pressing emergency of the hour could have overcome these scruples, but Keane's insolence was now in itself enough to compromise him, and Linton saw that but one remedy remained, and that it could not be deferred. Constant habits of intercourse with men of a dangerous class in the Faubourgs and the Cite gave the excuse for the boating excursion at night. The skiff was hired by Keane himself, who took up Linton at a point remote from where he started, and thus no clew could be traced to the person who accompanied him. The remainder is in the reader's memory, and now we pursue our story.
The surgeon who examined Keane's wound not only pronounced it inevitably fatal, but that the result must rapidly ensue. No time was, therefore, to be lost in obtaining the fullest revelations of the dying man, and also in taking the promptest measures to secure the guilty party.
The authorities of the British Embassy lent a willing aid to Cashel in this matter, and an express was at once despatched to London for the assistance of a police force, with the necessary warrant for Linton's arrest Meanwhile Keane was watched with the narrowest vigilance; and so secretly was everything done, that his very existence was unknown beyond the precincts of the room he inhabited.