Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 193 — page 30: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

~ SS nao aa et eer at wound overcame everything else, and he groaned aloud; ‘Water, water.” ‘Then he tried to rise, Lut a great weakness ~wason him. Hecould not even lift his arm. He lay on his back as if nailed to the ground, It seemed to him he must die there, and in that terrible loneliness amid the dead, the in- conceivable pettiness of human ambition seemed \ to come to him with overwhelming force, and ine groaned: ‘** Fool, fool, to come hcre; rnd Inez, and lit- tle Gabriel all alone in t:e w rid.” Then he raised his voice egain in a hoarse whisper, calling for water, and this time tae ery was heard. here was a rattle of armor near him, and some one sat up, with a dismal groan of pain: ** Ab, tete Dieu! how it hurts, that leg!” It was the well known voice of his old com- trade, Casse Tete, and Gabriel called: *“Casse Tete, help me, if you can.” “Eh, mon Dieu, my general, I will try, but ‘the cursed British have broken my leg. Where are you? Thanks be to God, 1 thought you "were dead, my general.” ‘Here lam. Have you any water?’ “Water, my general? Tete Dieu, I wish I ‘had; but I can find some in these dead British- ers’ canteens. Eh, but they needn’t grudge it ‘to us after to-day.” * What’s happened?” gasped Gabriel. “We're beaten, general, beaten, destroyed; the old Death’s Heads gone, and I’m glad of it. ee didn’t live to see our disgrace. It’s no use fighting oy Mcp now, my general. The Prus- sians and English joined together, and they ‘were two to one. The emperor has fled wit the rest. All is over.” And all this conversation was interspersed with s and curses, as Casse Tete dragged hi along with a broken leg, till he found @ Highlander’s canteen and brought it to his ter. Then he unlaced Gabriel’s cuirass, took it off, ' raised the young general so that his head rested on a dead body, and observed quietly: “Now, my general, let us wait for the thieves. Wy aes for them.” | “*What thieves, Casse Tete?” ay “The camp-followers. ay | after field is deserted, to st if they find a wounded man they are very apt to finish him.” “Let them finish us, Casse Tete. It’s hardly worth while to live much longer.” **On the contrary, my general, I intend to live, if 1 have to use a wooden leg, and your hhonor has a wife and child. I have been in this before. I lay three days on the fleld after Hohentinden linden, with the snow on the ground, and I tell you it was tough. Hola! Here is some one coming now, I think.” The dancing light of a lantern could be seen ata little alkitte moving over the field; and three or four dark figures round it, creeping M4 forward, Casse Tete deliberately reached imto the hol- sters of all the dead horses round, and fished = pov aw 3 wincing with pain as he moved, vering. Then he handed a pair of pistols to his gen- ‘eral, saying: “T know you’re weak, my general, but one can always pull a trigger, and those fellows don’t understand politeness.” Presently the midnight prowlers came near, and one of them said to another: ‘“ We're coming to the place where the Guard ‘was beaten. Look out for watches. Those high officers are fond of jewelry.” _Casse Tete remained motionless till they were ‘within a few feet, when he cocked both pistols, and said y: ‘* Halt! The plunderers started and seemed half-in- lined to turn and run, when he went on: ~“*T don’t want to interfere with your little amusemenis; but keep to dead men. Here is General, the Count of Friedland, wounded badly. If you will go get us a cart, and take him and me to a house, you shall have a hand- some reward.” ‘*How much?” asked one of the men, coolly. Casse Tete looked at his master. ** A thousand francs,” whispered Gabriel. ‘‘My master will pay a thousand frances to the man who takes him to the house where there is a doctor,” said Casse Tete, and a short consultation between the men ended in one say- ing: B Yon can have our cart, but the only hos- pital belongs to the English. They are cutting off legs and arms at a great rate.’ BK Are they treating French? asked Casse “English, French, Prussians, it makes no difference to them, so long as a man’s hit bad enough. They won’t touch men that can walk. Say they’ve not time.” ** Well, we'll go,” said another man, and then they went off, and, true to their promises, came back with a cart, into which they lifted Gabriel and Casse Tete and carried them off to the ruined village of La Haye Sainte, where they feund the Huglish dectors, assisted by more nm ee ee - ee all come out the dead, and th many rings _—_- — — —— — “ —> = : - — —_— » The Man in Red. than one French surgeon, hard at work by can- dle-light, and nearly worn out with the inces- sant labors of dressing wounds and amputating shattered limbs, after such a tremendous battle. One of them groaned as the cart stopped, and ejaculated, as if in despair: ‘Good heavens! More? unless they’re urgent.” He spoke English, so that neither Gabriel nor Casse Ne te understood him; but presently he re- lented and observed: * Well, Pll look at’em anyway.” He came out and peered at them by the light of a lantern, and Casse Tete said: ‘Well, routs you’ve got the best of us now, haven’t you? Take a look at the general, and give bim some brandy, or he will not live till morning.” The English surgeon understood him. ‘* A general here? Who is it?’ ‘General the Count of Friedland, titular Colonel of the Death’s Head Cuirassiers,” re- turned Casse Tete, proudly. Then the surgeon became more attentive, ex- amined Gabriel, who had again become uncon- scious, with great care, and finally shook his head, saying: ' “ By Jove, it looks ticklish. Lucky the ball went through him, and cidn’t lodge. Here, Harris, bring some brandy.” Then, with that gentleness which always dis- tinguishes the true surgeon when he comes across a desperate case, oddly contrasted with his habitual brutality to the slightly wounded, he ordered the insensible man to be taken to the only empty bed and fed with brandy and milk every five minutes. ‘* Tt’s no use doing anything else, Harris,” he said. ‘‘He’sso far gone that all he wante is rest and helping nature.” Then he turned to Casse Tete gruffly. ‘* Well, what’s the matter with you?’ Can’t attend to ’em Casse Tete , for the question was in English, but he understood the drift of it. So he pointed to his leg. “ Jambe casse,” he said, as gruffly as the other. The doctor looked at it, felt it, moved it. Casse Tete growled out a curse. ‘* Tete de cochon, let it alone, beast!” The doctor blew his nose and mustered up his French so far as to say: ‘*Oette jambe—ah—coupe—eh?—vous com- prenny—cou ” And Casse Tete rave another curse and said aloud in his voluble French: “These English are all swine. He wants to cut off my leg. Ah, Casse Tete, thy riding days are over, and it is just as well for thee, per- ha Eb, doctor, if it must be, for heaven’s ake ete me a light for my pipe while you’re cutting ” . CHAPTER XLIIL CONCLUSION. Srx years after the battle of Waterloo, a gen- tleman and his wife, sitting in a handsome saloon in a house facing the Newsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg, were admonished, by the entrance of a servant with letters, that it was 4en o'clock in the morning, the time for post de- livery, and the gentleman observed: ‘Inez, ma belle, shallI order the sleigh when you have read your letters?” “Thanks, mon cher, but I have promised to take Gabriel on a walk to the ice-bills, and the sleigh cannot stand there so long. ere are one, two, three, letters for you, mon cher ; and —yes—actually a Moniteur, Who can have sent it?” Her husband took the paper curiously. He had not seen a Moniteur for years, since he cut loose from France forever and entered the Russian °° The uve. c vi the paper was written in red ink, but ne did not know the handwriting, though it read: ** A Monsieur, ** Monsieur le Comte de Friedland, ** Colonel des aie y/: 4 bs , * St. Petersburg, * Russie.” Then he opened it. He found, surrounded with red lines, a column with boid heading, and on the margin was written, in red ink still, the one word: sé Fy fin.” (“At last”) Gabriel Lenoir, Colonel of the Black Dragoons in the Imperial service of Russia, stared at the headings, and then let the paper fall with a low ery: ‘ En at last.”) ~, What is it?’ asked his wife anxiously. Gabriel raised his face to hers, with the tears running down his cheeks, and said very simply: ““The emperor is dead in his prison. Inez, I thank God he can no longer be tortured by those pees that gloried in calling him General onaparte.” His wife riicxed up the paper and wept un- eecet nh tar the news, which told them that; “7 fo) — apheresis ———— ag ee “'The usurper Boneparte departed this life at St. Helena on the fifth day of May in the present year, 1821, of cancer of the stomach, after much lingering suffering. He was delirious at the close, and his last andible words were: * Zele d’ armee—head of thearmy.’ Thus Europe gains peace and the great disturber is gone forever. ** (Official) TALLEYRAND. ” Minister.” ‘“‘Talleyrand, minister,” echoed Inez in a bit- ter tone. ‘‘It is fitting for him who was the emperor’s tool in prosperity to call him usurper and disturber now. Ah, Gabriel, it ail seems like a dream, does it not, mon cher? Those days of glory, so rapid, so exciting; then the fall, so swift and sudden. And then the return from Eiba, the four days’ campaign and then—all, all over and France a slave again, with her best men exiled and executed. Ah, how can I ever forgive those Bourbons?” “Their turn will come, Inez. Thank God, the world does not stand still and the nations are counting the cost of their wars now. Lcck here, ma belle, what the Moniteur says.” He read aloud: “The stringency of the money market in England and at Amsterdam and Frankfort increases daily. The bank of England has been compelled to sus- pend specie payments; money commands ten per cent., and the Jews are the only happy people in Europe. The house of Rothschild has orders for loans for Austria, Spain, Russia, Prussia and the Sardinians, and cannot get more than 68 or 64 per cent. of the face of the bonds. Our own finances, thanks to the patriotism of our people, have recov- ered from the losses of war and France is tranquil.”’ Then after a hasty glance over the rest of the paper he handed it to her. ‘I see nothing else worthy notice. -I wonder who sent it to me?” “ Perhaps a letter may tell you. But I have a suspicion.” ay have I. It is The Man in Red. Ah, what a deathless hatred.” He opened his letters. The first was from the old Baron de Belleville, who said: **My Dear FRIEND: You will see from the Moniteur the sad news. Ah, how we long to puton the mourning that is rohibited. All over France there are hearts throb- ing with sorrow for that-«man who made us the head of Europe, and whom we deserted in the hour of his trial. But it is all over at last. how must have apened! By-the-by, another person has just gone—the eld Marquise de St. Jean, At one time I was nearly mar her, but I was did not when I found out afterward what I di e died in the Tuileries, my friend, and her last attend- ant was that mysterious man about whom you were so puzzled once. I suppose you know now who he was. He has had a strange life, dead and yet alive, unwilling to admit his identity, and yet proud of At in secret. Isaw him 6n the day the news came of the ee death, and what think you he said? We met in the forest of Fontainebleau by the en- trance to the secret passa By-the-by, the king has ordered them to be filled in next year. There is no more mystery about them now, and they have served as a lurking place for thieves. Well, I met him there, and he said to me, with a sneer: ‘ are your violets now, baron?’ I answered sadly, for I confess I felt wretched: ‘General, I trust they are blooming in heaven,’ He scowled at me and re- torted: ‘I dragged him down at last, didn’t 1? Lit- tle Bonaparte, no higher than my boot! Baron, I am going to St. Helena now.’ ‘ What for?’ I asked. I shall never forget the glitter of his eyes and the devilish smile that curled his lip as he answered: ‘To dance on his Brave, curse him!’ Then I knew what I had before—that the man’s tro-- bles had turned his brain. He is no longer a respon- I am sorry for him after all, more so @ poor emperor, The one had a great and name in history. Men will talk of him in future with Alexander, Cesar and Hannibal. The other succeeded in his aims, but at what a price, Eternal infamy as a traitor to his country who aided a foreign foe to bring back a detestable tyranny. You see my friend. Iam no longer a legitimist, or I should not talk thus. Fare- well. Give my best to your amiable wife and to the young count, who must be now twelve years old, by-the-by, and believe me “Your all-devoted “HENRI DE BELLEVILLE.” There was another letter, dated three weeks after the first, which had evidently been with- held from the post for some cause. It contained only these words, in the Hand- writing of the baror: ‘* See how God punishes hatred. sible being. than for fall, but he leaves a “HH pr B.” These words were written on the margin of a newspaper cli ping taken from an English paper, which Gabriel had lately learned to de- ae with some difficulty. t was headed. “ AWFUL SHIPWRECK AND LOSS OF UD#.” It went on to describe a great temrest which had lately raged in the Bay of Biseay and on the En channel in which two ships of the line in the Channel Fleet had foundered at sea, while over two hundred vessels of all sizes and nationalities had suffered shipwreck on the coasts of Cornwall and France. It went on; ‘‘Among other strange incidents to which the storm gave rise, was the revelation of a mystery to which a good deal of attention was at one time directed during the heyday of the late French usurper’s power. Rumors reached us, even in time of war, that a real ghost story had been going on in France, the subject of the comicbooksxco