The Companions of Jehu - Alexandre Dumas (best biographies to read txt) 📗

“You are too noisily gay not to be profoundly melancholy.”

“And that anomaly astonishes you?”

“Nothing astonishes me, because I know that it has always its reason for existing.”

“True, and it’s all in knowing the secret. Well, I’m going to enlighten you.”

“Oh! I don’t want to force you.”

“You’re too polite to do that; still, you must admit you would be glad to have your mind set at rest about me.”

“Because I’m interested in you.”

“Well, Sir John, I am going to tell you the secret of the enigma, something I have never done with any one before. For all my seeming good health, I am suffering from a horrible aneurism that causes me spasms of weakness and faintness so frequent as to shame even a woman. I spend my life taking the most ridiculous precautions, and yet Larrey warns me that I am liable to die any moment, as the diseased artery in my breast may burst at the least exertion. Judge for yourself how pleasant for a soldier! You can understand that, once I understood my condition, I determined incontinently to die with all the glory possible. Another more fortunate than I would have succeeded a hundred times already. But I’m bewitched; I am impervious alike to bullets and balls; even the swords seem to fear to shatter themselves upon my skin. Yet I never miss an opportunity; that you must see, after what occurred at dinner. Well, we are going to fight. I’ll expose myself like a maniac, giving my adversary all the advantages, but it will avail me nothing. Though he shoot at fifteen paces, or even ten or five, at his very pistol’ s point, he will miss me, or his pistol will miss fire. And all this wonderful luck that some fine day when I least expect it, I may die pulling on my boots! But hush I here comes my adversary.”

As he spoke the upper half of three people could be seen ascending the same rough and rocky path that Roland and Sir John had followed, growing larger as they approached. Roland counted them.

“Three!” he exclaimed. “Why three, when we are only two?”

“Ah! I had forgotten,” replied the Englishman. “M. de Barjols, as much in your interest as in his own, asked permission to bring a surgeon, one of his friends.”

“What for?” harshly demanded Roland, frowning.

“Why, in case either one of you was wounded. A man’s life can often be saved by bleeding him promptly.”

“Sir John,” exclaimed Roland, ferociously, “I don’t understand these delicacies in the matter of a duel. When men fight they fight to kill. That they exchange all sorts of courtesies beforehand, as your ancestors did at Fontenoy, is all right; but, once the swords are unsheathed or the pistols loaded, one life must pay for the trouble they have taken and the heart beats they have lost. I ask you, on your word of honor, Sir John, to promise that, wounded or dying, M. de Barjols’ surgeon shall not be allowed to touch me.”

“But suppose, M. Roland—”

“Take it or leave it. Your word of honor, my lord, or devil take me if I fight at all.”

The Englishman again looked curiously at the young man. His face was livid, and his limbs quivered as though in extreme terror. Sir John, without understanding this strange dread, passed his word.

“Good!” exclaimed Roland. “This, you see, is one of the effects of my charming malady. The mere thought of surgical instruments, a bistoury or a lance, makes me dizzy. Didn’t I grow very pale?”

“I did think for an instant you were going to faint.”

“What a stunning climax!” exclaimed Roland with a laugh. “Our adversaries arrive and you are dosing me with smelling salts like a hysterical woman. Do you know what they, and you, first of all, would have said? That I was afraid.”

Meantime, the three new-comers having approached within earshot, Sir John was unable to answer Roland. They bowed, and Roland, with a smile that revealed his beautiful teeth, returned their greeting. Sir John whispered in his ear:

“You are still a trifle pale. Go on toward the fountain; I will fetch you when we are ready.”

“Ah! that’s the idea,” said Roland. “I have always wanted to see that famous fountain of Vaucluse, the Hippocrene of Petrarch. You know his sonnet?

“‘Chiari, fresche e dolci acque Ove le belle membra Pose colei, che sola a me perdona.’

This opportunity lost, I may never have another. Where is your fountain?”

“Not a hundred feet off. Follow the path; you’ll find it at the turn of the road, at the foot of that enormous bowlder you see.”

“My lord,” said Roland, “you are the best guide I know; thanks!”

And, with a friendly wave of the hand, he went off in the direction of the fountain, humming the charming pastoral of Philippe Desportes beneath his breath:

“‘Rosette, a little absence Has turned thine heart from me; I, knowing that inconstance, Have turned my heart from thee. No wayward beauty o’er me Such power shall obtain; We’ll see, my fickle lassie, Who first will turn again.’”

Sir John turned as he heard the modulations of that fresh sweet voice, whose higher notes had something at a feminine quality. His cold methodical mind understood nothing of that nervous impulsive nature, save that he had under his eyes one of the most amazing organisms one could possibly meet.

The other two young men were waiting for him; the surgeon stood a little apart. Sir John carried his box of pistols in his hands. Laying it upon a table-shaped rock, he drew a little key from his pocket, apparently fashioned by a goldsmith rather than a locksmith, and opened the box. The weapons were magnificent, although of great simplicity. They came from Manton’s workshop, the grandfather of the man who is still considered one of the best gunsmiths in London. He handed them to M. de Barjols’ second to examine. The latter tried the triggers and played with the lock, examining to see if they were double-barrelled. They were single-barrelled. M. de Barjols cast a glance at them but did not even touch them.

“Our opponent does not know these weapons?” queried M. Valensolle.

“He has not even seen them,” replied Sir John, “I give you my word of honor.”

“Oh!” exclaimed M. de Valensolle, “a simple denial suffices.”

The conditions of the duel were gone over a second time to avoid possible misunderstanding. Then, these conditions determined, the pistols were loaded. They were then placed, loaded, in the box, the box left in the surgeon’s charge, and Sir John, with the key in his pocket, went after Roland.

He found him chatting with a little shepherd boy who was herding three goats on the steep rocky slope of the mountain, and throwing pebbles into the fountain. Sir John opened his lips to tell Roland that all was ready; but the latter, without giving the Englishman time to speak, exclaimed:

“You don’t know what this child has been telling me, my lord! A perfect legend of the Rhine. He says that this pool, whose depth is unknown, extends six or eight miles under the mountain, and a fairy, half woman half serpent, dwells here. Calm summer nights she glides over the surface of water calling to the shepherds of the mountains, showing them, of course, nothing more than her head with its long locks and her beautiful bare shoulders and arms. The fools, caught by this semblance of a woman, draw nearer, beckoning to her to come to them, while she on her side signs to them to go to her. The unwary spirits advance unwittingly, giving no heed to their steps. Suddenly the earth fails them, the fairy reaches out her arms, and plunges down into her dripping palaces, to reappear the next day alone. Where the devil did these idiots of shepherds get the tale that Virgil related in such noble verse to Augustus and Mecænas?”

He remained pensive an instant, his eyes bent upon the azure depths, then turning to Sir John:

“They say that, no matter how vigorous the swimmer, none has ever returned from this abyss. Perhaps were I to try it, my lord, it might be surer than M. de Barjols’ bullet. However, it always remains as a last resort; in the meantime let us try the bullet. Come, my lord, come.”

Then turning to the Englishman, who listened, amazed by this mobility of mind, he led him back to the others who awaited them. They in the meantime had found a suitable place.

It was a little plateau, perched as it were on a rocky proclivity, jutting from the mountain side, exposed to the setting sun, on which stood a ruined castle where the shepherds were wont to seek shelter when the mistral overtook them. A flat space, some hundred and fifty feet long, and sixty wide, which might once have been the castle platform, was now to be the scene of the drama which was fast approaching its close.

“Here we are, gentlemen,” said Sir John.

“We are ready, gentlemen,” replied M. de Valensolle.

“Will the principals kindly listen to the conditions of the duel?” said Sir John. Then addressing M. de Valensolle, he added: “Repeat them, monsieur; you are French and I am a foreigner, you will explain them more clearly than I.”

“You belong to those foreigners, my lord, who teach us poor Provençals the purity of our language; but since you so courteously make me spokesman, I obey you.” Then exchanging bows with Sir John, he continued: “Gentlemen, it is agreed that you stand at forty paces, that you advance toward each other, that each will fire at will, and wounded or not will have the right to advance after your adversary’s fire.”

The two combatants bowed in sign of assent, and with one voice, and almost at the same moment, they said:

“The pistols!”

Sir John drew the little key from his pocket and opened the box. Then approaching M. de Barjols he offered it to him open. The latter wished to yield the choice of weapons to his opponent; but with a wave of his hand Roland refused, saying in a tone almost feminine in its sweetness:

“After you, M. de Barjols. Although you are the insulted party, you have, I am told, renounced your advantages. The least I can do is to yield you this one, if for that matter it is an advantage.”

M. de Barjols no longer insisted. He took one of the two pistols at random. Sir John offered the other to Roland, who took it, and, without even examining its mechanism, cocked the trigger, then let it fall at arm’s-length at his side.

During this time M. de Valensolle had measured forty paces, staking a cane as a point of departure.

“Will you measure after me?” he asked Sir John.

“Needless, sir,” replied the latter: “M. de Montrevel and myself rely entirely upon you.”

M. de Valensolle staked a second cane at the fortieth pace.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “when you are ready.”

Roland’s adversary was already at his post, hat and cloak removed. The surgeon and the two seconds stood aside. The spot had been so well chosen that neither had any advantage of sun or ground. Roland tossed off hat and coat, stationed himself forty paces from M. de Barjols, facing him. Both, one to right the other to the left, cast a glance at the same horizon. The aspect harmonized with the terrible solemnity of the scene about to take place.

Nothing was visible to Roland’s right and to M. de Barjols’ left, except the mountain’s swift incline and gigantic peak. But on the other side, that is to say, to M. de Barjols’ right and Roland’s left, it was a far different thing.

The horizon stretched