The Tiger-Slayer: A Tale of the Indian Desert. Aimard Gustave
said. "I am about to set out, and I know nothing."
"Patience!" the baron replied. "Take leave of your friends, and we will start."
Yielding, in spite of himself, to the influence of this singular man, the count obeyed, without dreaming of offering the slightest opposition. He rose, embraced each of his old friends, exchanged with them hearty hand-shakings, received their auguries of success, and left the room, followed by the baron.
The post-chaise was waiting in front of the house. The young men had opened the windows, and were waving fresh adieux to their friend. The count turned a long look on the Boulevard. The night was gloomy, though the rain no longer fell; the sky was black; and the gas-jets glinted feebly in the distance like stars lost in a fog.
"Farewell," he said in a stifled voice, "farewell! Who knows whether I shall ever return?"
"Courage!" a stern voice whispered in his ear.
The young man shuddered: the baron was at his side.
"Come, my friend," he said, as he helped him to enter the carriage, "I will accompany you to the barrier."
The count got in and fell back on a cushion.
"The Normandy road," the baron shouted to the postilion, as he shut the door.
The driver cracked his whip, and the chaise started at a gallop.
"Good-by, good-by!" the young men loudly shouted as they leant out of the windows of the Café Anglais.
For a long time the two remained silent. At length the baron took the word.
"Gaëtan!" he said.
"What would you?" the latter replied.
"I have not yet finished my narrative."
"It is true," he muttered distractedly.
"Do you not wish me to end it?"
"Speak, my friend."
"In what a tone you say that, my good fellow! Your mind is wandering in imaginary space; you are doubtlessly dreaming of those you are leaving.
"Alas!" murmured the count with a sigh, "I am alone in the world. What have I to regret? I possess neither friends nor relations."
"Ungrateful man!" The baron said in a reproachful tone.
"It is true: Pardon me, my dear fellow; I did not think of what I was saying."
"I pardon you, but on condition that you listen to me."
"I promise it."
"My friend, it you desire success, the friendship and protection of those Dauph'yeers I mentioned are indispensable for you."
"How can I obtain them – I, a wretched stranger? How I tremble on thinking of the country in which I dreamed of creating such a glorious future! The veil that covered my eyes is fallen. I see the extravagance of my projects, and all hope abandons me."
"Already?" exclaimed the baron sternly. "Child without energy, to abandon a contest even before having engaged in it! Man without strength and courage! I will give you the means, if you like, of obtaining the friendship and protection so necessary for you."
"You!" the count said, quivering with excitement.
"Yes, I! Do you fancy I have been amusing myself with torturing your mind for the last two hours, like the jaguar plays with the lamb, for the mere pleasure of deriding you? No, Gaëtan. If you had that thought, you were wrong, for I am fond of you. When I learned your scheme I applauded, from the bottom of my heart, that resolution which restored you to your proper place in my mind. When you this night frankly avowed to us your position, and explained your plans, I found myself again in you; my heart beat; for a moment I was happy: and then I vowed to open to you that path so wide, so great, and so noble, that if you do not succeed, it will be because you do not desire to do so."
"Oh!" the count said energetically, "I may succumb in the contest which begins this day between myself and humanity at large, but fear nothing, my friend; I will fall nobly like a man of courage."
"I am persuaded of it, my friend. I have only a few more words to say to you. I, too, was a Dauph'yeer, and am so still. Thanks to my brethren, I gained the fortune I now possess. Take this portfolio: put round your neck this chain, from which a medallion hangs; then, when you are alone, read these instructions contained in the portfolio, and act as they prescribe. If you follow them point for point, I guarantee your success. That is the present I reserved for you, and which I would not give you till we were alone."
"O heavens!" the count said with effusion.
"Here we are at the barrier," the baron remarked, as he stopped the carriage. "It is time for us to separate. Farewell, my friend! Courage and good will! Embrace me. Above all, remember the portfolio and the medallion."
The two men remained for a long time in each other's arms. At length the baron freed himself by a vigorous effort, opened the door, and leaped out on the pavement.
"Farewell!" he cried for the last time; "Farewell, Gaëtan, remember me."
The post-chaise was bowling along the high road at full speed. Strange to say, both men muttered the same word, shaking heads with discouragement, when they found themselves alone – one walking at full speed along the footpath, the other buried in the cushions.
That word was "Perhaps!"
The reason was that, despite all their efforts to deceive each other, neither of them hoped.
CHAPTER V
THE DAUPH'YEERS
Now let us quit the old world, and, taking an immense stride, transport ourselves to the new one at a single leap.
There is in America a city which possibly cannot be compared to any other in the whole world. That city is Valparaiso!
Valparaiso! The word resounds in the enchanted ear like the gentle soft notes of a love song.
A coquettish, smiling, and mad city, softly reclining like a careless Creole, round a delicious bay, at the foot of three majestic mountains, lazily bathing her rosy and dainty feet in the azure waves of the Pacific, and veiling her dreamy brow in the storm-laden clouds which escape from Cape Horn, and roll with a sinister sound round the peaks of the Cordilleras, to form a splendid glory for them.
Although built on the Chilean coast, this strange city belongs, in fact, to no country, and recognises no nationality: or to speak more correctly, it admits all into its bosom.
At Valparaiso the adventurer of every clime have given each other the meeting. All tongues are spoken there, every branch of trade is carried on. The population is the quaintest amalgam of the most eccentric personalities, who have rushed from the most remote parts of the four quarters of the old world, to attack fortune in this city, the advanced sentinel of Transatlantic civilisation, and whose occult influence governs the Hispano-American republic.
Valparaiso, like nearly all the commercial centres of South America, is a pile of shapeless dens and magnificent palaces jostling each other, and hanging in abrupt clusters on the abrupt flanks of the three mountains.
At the period the event occurred which we are about to describe, the streets were narrow, dirty, deprived of air and sun. The paving, being perfectly ignored, rendered them perfect morasses, in which the wayfarer sank to the knee when the winter's rains had loosened the soil. This rendered the use of a horse indispensable, even for the shortest passage.
Deleterious exhalations incessantly escaped from these mud holes, heightened by the filth of every description which the daily cleaning of the inhabitants accumulated, while no one dreamed of draining these permanent abodes of pernicious fevers.
At the present day, we are told, this state of things has been altered, and Valparaiso no longer resembles itself. We should like to believe it; but the carelessness of the South American, so well known to us, compels us to be very circumspect in such a matter.
In one of the dirtiest and worst-famed streets of Valparaiso was a house which we ask the reader's permission to describe in a few words.
We are compelled at the outset, to confess