THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE IN MEMORY OF Bon Adams and Don Adams PRESENTED BY Mrs* Bon Adams and Mrs. Ray B. McCarty <>0 ! Too late he feels, by look, and deed, and word. How often he has crucified his Lord. The Wanuerlng Jew, Vol. 1. THE Wandering Jew CONTAINING THE DORE ILLUSTRATIONS Jn -fioe ttolwnes bolume PETEK FENELON COLLIER, PUBLISHER NEW YORK J8G v.l LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. VOLUME ONE. Since thou art pitiless, thy weary way Thou'rt doom'd to wander till the Judgment Day. Spellbound they gather, far and near to scan The weird senescence of that wondrous man. Too late he feels, by look, and deed, and word, How often he has crucified his Lord. In vain they offer wine, with drunken jest; He may not enter for a moment's rest. On through morass and slough he strives to fly From hateful memories of days gone by. The end releases other men from strife; His fate is ceaseless toil and deathless life. THE WANDERING JEW. PART FIRST. THE TRANSGRESSION. PROLOGUE. THE LAND'S END OF TWO WORLDS. THE Arctic Ocean encircles with a belt of eternal ice the desert confines of Siberia and North America the uttermost limits of the Old and New worlds, separated by the narrow channel known as Behring's Straits. The last days of September have ar- rived. The equinox has brought with it dark- (3) 4 THE WANDERING JEW. ness and Northern storms, and night will quickly close the short and dismal polar day. The sky of a dull and leaden blue is faintly lighted by a sun without warmth, whose white disk, scarcely seen above the horizon, pales before the dazzling- bril- liancy of the snow that covers, as far as the eyes can reach, the boundless steppes. To the North, this desert is bounded by a ragged coast, bristling with huge black rocks. At the base of this Titanic mass lies enchained the petrified ocean, whose spell- bound waves appear fixed as vast ranges of ice mountains, their blue peaks fading away in the far-off frost smoke, or snow vapor. Between the twin-peaks of Cape East, the termination of Siberia, the sullen sea is seen to drive tall icebergs across a streak of dead green. There lie Behring's Straits. Opposite, and towering over the chan- nel, rise the granite masses of Cape Prince of Wales, the headland of North America. These lonely latitudes do not belong to the habitable world ; for the piercing cold shivers the stones, splits the trees, and THB WANDERING JEW. 5 causes the earth to burst asunder, which, throwing forth showers of icy spangles, seems capable of enduring 1 this solitude of frost and tempest, of famine and death. And yet, strange to say, footprints may be traced on the snow, covering these headlands on either side of Behring's Straits. On the American shore the footprints are small and light, thus betraying the passage of a woman. She has been hastening up the rocky peak, whence the drifts of Siberia are visible. On the latter ground, footprints larger and deeper betoken the passing of a man. He also was on his way to the Straits. It would seem that this man and wo- man had arrived here from opposite directions, in hope of catching a glimpse of one another across the arm of the sea dividing the two worlds the Old and the New. More strange still ! the man and the woman have crossed the solitudes during a terrific storm ! Black pines, the growth of centuries, pointing their bent heads in different parts of the solitude like crosses in a churchyard, have been uprooted, rent, and hurled aside by the blasts THE WANDERING JEW. Yet the two travelers face this furious tempest, which has plucked up trees, and pounded the frozen masses into splinters, with the roar of thunder. They face it, without for one single instant deviating from the straight line hitherto followed by them. Who, then, are these two beings who advance thus calmly amid the storms and convulsions of nature? Is it by chance, or design, or destiny, that the seven nails in the sole of the man's shoe form a cross thus : * * * * * * Everywhere he leaves this impress be- hind him. On the smooth and polished snow these footmarks seem imprinted by a foot of brass on a marble floor. Night without twilight has soon suc- ceeded day a night of foreboding gloom. The brilliant reflection of the snow ren- ders the white steppes still visible beneath the azure darkness of the sky ; and the pale stars glimmer on the obscure and frozen dome. Solemn silence reigns. THE WANDEK1NQ JEW. 7 But, toward the Straits, a faint light appears. At first, a gentle, bluish light, such as precedes moonrise ; it increases in bright- ness, and assumes a ruddy hue. Darkness thickens in every other direc- tion ; the white wilds of the desert are now scarcely visible under the black vault of the firmament. Strange and confused noises are heard amid this obscurity. They sound like the flight of large night-birds now flapping now heavily skimming over the steppes now de- scending. But no cry is heard. This silent terror heralds the approach of one of those imposing phenomena that awe alike the most ferocious and the most harmless of animated beings. An Aurora Borealis (magnificent sight !), common in the polar regions, suddenly beams forth. A half circle of dazzling whiteness be- comes visible in the horizon. Immense columns of light stream forth from this dazzling center, rising to a great height, illuminating earth, sea, and sky. Then a brilliant reflection, like the blaze of a conflagration, steals over the snow of the desert, purples the summits of the moun- tains of ice, and imparts a dark red hue to the black rocks of both continents. 8 THE WANDERING JEW. After attaining this magnificent bril- liancy, the Northern Lights faded away gradually, and their vivid glow was lost in a luminous fog. Just then, by a wondrous mirage, an effect very common in high latitudes, the American Coast, though separated from Siberia by a broad arm of the sea, loomed so close that a bridge might seemingty be thrown from one world to the other. Then human forms appeared in the transparent azure haze overspreading both forelands. On the Siberian Cape, a man, on his knees, stretched his arms toward Amer- ica, with an expression of inconceivable despair. On the American promontory, a young" and handsome woman replied to the man's despairing gesture by pointing to heaven. For some seconds, these two tall figures stood out, pale and shadowy, in the fare- well gleams of the Aurora. But the fog thickens, and all is lost in darkness. Whence came the two beings who met thus amid polar glaciers, at the extremi- ties of the old and new worlds ? Who were the two creatures, brought near for a moment by a deceitful mirage, but who seemed eternally separated ? THE WANDERING JfiW. CHAPTER I. MOROK. THE month of October, 1831, draws to its close. Though it is still day, a brass lamp, with four burners, illumines the cracked walls of a large loft, whose solitary window is closed against outer light. A ladder, with its top rungs coming up through an open trap, leads to it. Here and there at random on the floor lie iron chains, spiked collars, saw-toothed snaffles, muzzles bristling with nails, and long iron rods set in wooden handles. In one corner stands a portable furnace, such as tinkers use to melt their spelter ; char- coal and dry chips fill it, so that a spark would suffice to kindle this furnace in a minute. Not far from this collection of ugly instruments, putting one in mind of a torturer's kit of tools, there are some articles of defense and otfense of a bygone age. A coat of mail, with links so flex- ible, close, and light, that it resembled steel tissue, hangs from a box, beside 10 THB WANDERING JBW. iron cuishes and arm-pieces, in good con- dition, even to being properly fitted with straps. A mace, and two long three- corner-headed pikes, with ash handles, strong, and light at the same time, spotted with lately-shed blood, complete the armory, modernized somewhat by the presence of two Tyrolese rifles, loaded and primed. Along with this arsenal of murderous weapons and out-of-date instruments is strangely mingled a collection of very different objects, being small glass-lidded boxes, full of rosaries, chaplets, medals, AGNUS DEI, holy-water bottles, framed pictures of saints, etc., not to forget a goodly number of those chap-books, struck off in Friburg on coarse bluish paper, in which you can hear about miracles of our own time, or " Jesus Christ's Letter to a true believer," containing awful predic- tions, as for the years 1831 and '32, about impious revolutionary France. One of those canvas daubs, with which strolling showmen adorn their booths, hangs from a rafter, no doubt to prevent its being spoiled by too long rolling up. It bore the following legend : "THE DOWNRIGHT TRUE AND MOST MEMORABLE CONVERSION OF IGNATIUS MOROK, KNOWN AS THE' PROPHET, HAP- THE WANDERING JEW. U PENING IN FRIBURG, 1828TH YEAR OF GRACE." This picture, of a size larger than natural, of gaudy color, and in bad taste, is divided into three parts, each presenting an important phase in the life of the convert, surnamed " The Prophet.." In the first, behold a long-bearded man, the hair almost white, with uncouth face, and clad in reindeer skin, like the Siberian savage. His black foreskin cap is topped with a raven's head ; his features express terror. Bent forward in his sledge, which half-a-dozen huge tawny dogs draw over the snow, he is fleeing from the pursuit of a pack of foxes, wolves, and big bears, whose gaping jaws and formidable teeth seem quite capable of devouring man, sledge, and dogs, a hundred times over. Beneath this section, read : " IN 1810, MOROK, THE IDOLATER, FLED FROM WILD BEASTS." In the second picture, Morok, decently clad in a catechumen's white gown, kneels, with clasped hands, to a man who wears a white neckcloth and flowing black robe. In a corner, a tall angel, of repulsive aspect, holds a trumpet in one hand, and flourishes a flaming sword with the other, while the words which follow flow out 18 THE WANDERING JEW. of his mouth, in red letters on a black ground : "MOROK, THE IDOLATER, FLED FROM WILD BEASTS ; BUT WILD BEASTS WILL FLEE FROM IGNATIUS MOROK, CONVERTED AND BAPTIZED IN FRIBURG." Thus, in the last compartment, the new convert proudly, boastfulty, and triumph- antly parades himself in a flowing- robe of blue ; head up, left arm akimbo, rig-ht hand outstretched, he seems to scare the wits out of a multitude of lions, tigers, hyenas, and bears, who, with sheathed claws and masked teeth, crouch at his feet, awe-stricken and submissive. Under this is the concluding- moral : "IGNATIUS MOROK BEING CONVERTED, WILD BEASTS CROUCH BEFORE HIM." Not far from this canvas are several parcels of halfpenny books, likewise from the Friburg press, which relate by what astounding miracle Morok, the Idolater, acquired a supernatural power almost divine, the moment he was converted a power which the wildest animal could not resist, and which was testified to every day by the lion-tamer's performances, "given less to display his courage than to show his praise unto the Lord." Through the trap-door which opens into the loft reek up puffs of a rank, sour, THE WANDERING JEW. 18 penetrating- odor. From time to time are heard sonorous growls and deep breath- ing's, followed by a dull sound, as of great bodies stretching- themselves heavily along the floor. A man is alone in this loft. It is Morok, the tamer of wild beasts, surnamed the Prophet. He is forty years old, of middle height, with lank limbs, and an exceedingly spare frame ; he is wrapped in a long, blood-red pelisse, lined with black fur; his com- plexion, fair by nature, is bronzed by the wandering life he has led from childhood ; his hair, of that dead yellow peculiar to certain races of the polar countries, falls straight and stiff down his shoulders ; and his thin, sharp, hooked nose, and promi- nent cheek-bones, surmount a long beard, bleached almost to whiteness. Peculiarly marking the physiognomy of this man is the wide open eye, with its tawny pupil ever encircled by a rim of white. This fixed, extraordinary look, exercises a real fascination over animals which, how- ever, does not prevent the Prophet from also employing, to tame them, the terrible arsenal around him. Seated at a table, he has just opened the false bottom of a box, filled with chaplets and other toys, for the use of the 14 THE WANDERING JEW. devout. Beneath this false bottom, se- cured by a secret lock, are several sealed envelopes, with no other address than a number, combined with a letter of the alphabet. The Prophet takes one of these packets, conceals it in the pocket of his pelisse, and, closing- the secret fastening of the false bottom, replaces the box upon a shelf. This scene occurs about four o'clock in the afternoon, in the White Falcon, the only hostelry in the little village of Mock- ern, situated near Leipsic, as you come from the north toward France. After a few moments the loft is shaken by a hoarse roaring from below. "Judas! be quiet!" exclaims the Prophet, in a menacing tone, as he turns his head toward the trap-door. Another deep growl is heard, formidable as distant thunder. " Lie down, Cain ! " cries Morok, start- ing from his seat. A third roar, of inexpressible ferocity, bursts suddenly on the ear. "Death! will you have done?" cries the Prophet, rushing toward the trap- door, and addressing a third invisible animal, which bears this ghastly name. Notwithstanding the habitual authority of his voice notwithstanding his reiter- THE WANDERING JEW. J5 ated threats the brute-tamer cannot ob-, tain silence ; on the contrary, the barking of several dog's is soon added to the roar- ing of the wild beasts. Morok seizes a pike, and approaches the ladder; he is about to descend, when he sees some one issuing from the aperture. The new comer has a brown, sun-burnt face ; he wears a gray hat, bell-crowned and broad-brimmed, with a short jacket, and wide trousers of green cloth; his dusty leathern gaiters show that he has walked some distance ; a game-bag is fastened by straps to his back. "The devil take the brutes ! " cried he, as he set foot on the floor; "one would think they'd forgotten me in three days. Judas thrust his paw through the bars of his cage, and Death danced like a fury. They don't know me any more, it seems ! " This was said in German. Morok an- swered in the same language, but with a slightly foreign accent. " Good or bad news, Karl ? " he in- quired, with some uneasiness. " Good news." " You've met them ! " " Yesterday ; two leagues from Wit- tenberg." "Heaven be praised!" cried Morok, 16 THE WANDERING JEW. clasping his hands with intense satisfac- tion. " Oh, of course, 'tis the direct road from Russia to France ; 'twas a thousand to one that we should find them some- where between Wittenberg- and Leipsic." " And the description ? " ' ' Ver3 r close : two young girls in mourn- ing ; horse, white ; the old man has long mustache, blue forage-cap, gray top-coat, and a Siberian dog at his heels." " And where did you leave them ? " " A league hence. They will be here within the hour." "And in this inn since it is the only one in the village," said Morok, with a pensive air. " And night drawing on," added Karl. " Did you get the old man to talk ? " " Him ! you don't suppose it I " " Why not ? " "Go, and try yourself." " And for what reason ? " "Impossible." " Impossible why ? " " You shall know all about it. Yester- day, as if I had fallen in with them by chance, I followed them to the place where they stopped for the night. I spoke in German to the tall old man, accosting him, as is usual with wayfarers, ' Good THE WANDERING 3EW. 17 day, and a pleasant journey, comrade!' But, for an answer, he looked askant at me, and pointed with the end of his stick to the other side of the road." " He is a Frenchman, and, perhaps, does not understand German." " He speaks it, at least, as well as you ; for at the- inn I heard him ask the host for whatever he and the young girls wanted." " And did you not again attempt to en- gage him in conversation ? " " Once only ; but I met with such a rough reception, that, for fear of making- mischief, I did not try again. Besides, between ourselves, I can tell you this man has a devilish ugly look ; believe me, in spite of his gray mustache, he looks so vigorous and resolute, though with no more flesh on him than a carcass, that I don't know whether he or my mate, Giant Goliath, would have the best of it in a struggle. I know not your plans; only take care, master take care ! " " My black panther of Java was also very vigorous and very vicious," said Morok, with a grim, disdainful smile. " What, Death ? Yes, in truth ; and she is vigorous and vicious as ever. Only to you she is almost mild." " And thus I will break in this tall old 18 THE WANDERING JEW. man, notwithstanding' his strength and surliness." " Humph ! humph ! be on your guard, master. You are clever : you are as brave as any one ; but, believe me, you will never make a lamb out of the old wolf that will be here presently." "Does not my lion, Cain does not my tiger, Judas, crouch in terror before me ? " " Yes, I believe you there but because you have means " " Because I have faith : that is all and it is all," said Morok, imperiously inter- rupting Karl, and accompanying these words with such a look that the other hung his head and was silent. "Why should not he whom the Lord upholds in his struggle with wild beasts be also upheld in his struggle with men, when those men are perverse and im- pious ? " added the Prophet, with a tri- umphant, inspired air. Whether from belief in his master's conviction, or from inability to engage in a controversy with him on so delicate a subject, Karl answered the Prophet, humbly : " You are wiser than I am, master ; what you do must be well done." " Did you follow this old man and these two young girls all day long ? " resumed the Prophet, after a moment's silence. THE WANDERLUTG JEW. jg " Tes ; but at a distance. As I know the country well, I sometimes cut across a valley, sometimes over a hill, keeping my eye upon the road, where they were always to be seen. The last time I saw them, I was hid behind the water-mill by the potteries. As they were on the highway for this place, and night was drawing- on, I quickened my pace to get here before them, and be the bearer of what you call good news." " Very good yes very good : and you shall be rewarded ; for if these people had escaped me " The Prophet started, and did not con- clude the sentence. The expression of his face, and the tones of his voice, indi- cated the importance of the intelligence which had just been brought him. " In truth," rejoined Karl, "it may be worth attending to; for that Russian courier, all plastered with lace, who came, without slacking bridle, from St. Petersburg to Leipsic, only to see you, rode so fast, perhaps, for the purpose " Morok abruptly interrupted Karl, and said : " Who told you that the arrival of the courier had anything to do with these travelers ? You are mistaken j you gO THE WANDERING JEW. should only know what I choose to tell you." "Well, master, forgive me, and let's say no more about it. So ! I will get rid of my game-bag, and so help Goliath to feed the brutes, for their supper time draws near, if it is not already past. Does our big giant grow lazy, master ? " " Goliath is gone out; he must not know that you are returned ; above all, the tall old man and the maidens must not see you here it will make them sus- pect something." " Where do you wish me to go, then ? " " Into the loft, at the end of the stable, and wait my orders ; you may this night have to set out for Leipsic." " As you please ; I have some pro- visions left in my pouch, and can sup in the loft while I rest myself." " Go." "Master, remember what I told you. Beware of that old fellow with the gray mustache ; I think he's devilish tough ; I'm up to these things he's an ugly customer be on your guard ! " " Be quite easy ! I am always on my guard," said Morok. "Then good luck to you, master!" and Karl, having reached the ladder, suddenly disappeared. THE WANDERING JEW. 28 After making 1 a friendly farew ure to his servant, the Prophet and down for some time, with a deep meditation ; then, approac 11 an box which contained the paper** an( * out a pretty long 1 letter, and re and over with profound attentk a time to time, he rose and wet-* closed window, which looked inner court of the inn, and appt listen anxiously ; for he waited wiV es patience the arrival of the three pek,_ whose approach had just been announce,. to him. CHAPTER II. THE TRAVELERS. WHILE the above scene was passing in the White Falcon at Mockern, the three persons whose arrival Morok was so anxiously expecting- traveled on lei- surely in the midst of smiling- meadows, bounded on one side by a river, the cur- rent of which turned a mill ; and on -the other by the highway leading- to the vil- lage, which was situated on an eminence, at about a league's distance. 20 THE WANDERING JEW. should *y was beautifully serene ; the you." f tne river, beaten by the mill- \y ej id sparkling 1 with foam, alone say no i n the silence of an evening pro- rid of my } m - Thick willows, bending to feed th'i ver > covered it with their draws nesparent shadow ; while, fur- Does our* 8 stream reflected so splendidly Qoli'ieavens and the glowing tints know t ist > that, but for the hills which the t/'ween it and the sky, the gold and no * of the water would have mingled -' lie dazzling sheet with the gold and ./ure of the firmament. The tall reeds on the bank bent their black velvet heads beneath the light breath of the breeze that rises at the close of day for the sun was gradually sinking behind a broad streak of purple clouds, fringed with fire. The tinkling bells of a flock of sheep sounded from afar in the clear and sonor- ous air. Along a path trodden in the grass of the meadow, two girls, almost children for they had but just completed their fifteenth year were riding on a white horse of medium size, seated upon a large saddle with a back to it, which easily took them both in, for their figures were slight and delicate. A man of tall stature, with a sun-burnt THE WANDERING JEW. gg face and long- gray mustache, was leading- the horse by the bridle, and ever and anon turned toward the girls, with an air of solicitude at once respectful and paternal. He leaned upon a long- staff ; his still robust shoulders carried a sol- dier's knapsack ; his dusty shoes, and step that began to drag- a little, showed that he had walked a long- way. One of those dogs which the tribes of Northern Siberia harness to their sledg-es a sturdy animal, nearly of the size, form, and hairy coat of the wolf followed closely in the steps of the leader of this little caravan, never quitting 1 , as it is commonly said, the heels of his mas- ter. Nothing- could be more charming- than the group formed by the girls. One held with her left hand the flowing- reins, and with her rig-ht encircled the waist of her sleeping- sister, whosa head reposed on her shoulder. Each step of the horse g-ave a graceful swaying- to these pliant forms, and swung- their little feet, which rested on a wooden ledge in lieu of a stirrup. These twin sisters, by a sweet mater- nal caprice, had been called Rose and Blanche ; they were now orphans, as might be seen by their sad mourning- 34 THE WANDERING JEW. vestments, already much worn. Ex- tremely like in feature, and of the same size, it was necessar3 T to be in the con- stant habit of seeing 1 them to distinguish one from the other. The portrait of her who slept not, might serve then for both of them ; the only difference at the mo- ment being, that Rose was awake, and discharging for that day the duties of elder sister duties thus divided between them, according to the fancy of their guide, who, being an old soldier of the empire, and a martinet, had judged fit thus to alter- nate obedience and command between the orphans. Greuze would have been inspired by the sight of those sweet faces, coifed hi close caps of black velvet, from beneath which straj^ed a profusion of thick ring- lets of a light chestnut color, floating down their necks and shoulders, and set- ting, as in a frame, their round, firm, rosy, satin-like cheeks. A carnation, bathed in dew, is of no richer softness than their blooming lips ; the wood vio- let's tender blue would appear dark be- side the limpid azure of their large eyes, in which are depicted the sweetness of their characters, and the innocence of their age ; a pure and white forehead, small nose, dimpled chin, complete these THE WANDERING JEW. 5 graceful countenances, which present a delightful blending of candor and gentle- ness. You should have seen them too, when, on the threatening of rain or storm, the old soldier carefully wrapped them both in a large pelisse of reindeer fur, and pulled over their heads the ample hood of th.is impervious garment; then nothing could be more ^lovely than those fresh and smiling little faces, sheltered beneath the dark-colored cowl. But now the evening was fine and calm; the heavy cloak hung in folds about the knees of the sisters, and the hood rested on the back of their saddle. Rose, still encircling with her right arm the waist of her sleeping sister, contem- plated her with an expression of ineffable tenderness, akin to maternal; for Rose was the eldest for the day, and an elder sister is almost a mother. Not only did the orphans idolize each other ; but, by a psychological phenom- enon, frequent with twins, they were al- most always simultaneously affected ; the emotion of one was reflected instantly in the countenance of the other ; the same cause would make both of them start or blush, so closely did their young hearts beat in unison j all ingenuous joys, all Vui,. A * 25 THE WANDERING JBW. bitter griefs, were mutually felt, and shared in a moment between them. In their infancy, simultaneously at- tacked by a severe illness, like two flowers on the same stem, they had drooped, grown pale, and languished to- gether ; but together also had they again found the pure, fresh hues of health. Xeed it be said, that those mysterious, indissoluble links which united the twins, could not have been broken without strik- ing a mortal blow at the existence of the poor children? Thus the sweet birds called love-birds, only living in pairs, as if endowed with a common life, pine, despond, and die, when parted by a barbarous hand. The guide of the orphans, a man of about fifty-five, distinguished by his mili- tary air and gait, preserved the immortal type of the warriors of the republic and the empire some heroic of the people, who became, in one campaign, the first soldiers in the world to prove what the people can do, have done, and will renew, when the rulers of their choice place in them confidence, strength and their hope. This soldier, guide of the sisters, and formerly a horstl-grenadier of the Impe- rial Guard, had been nicknamed Dag-o- bert. His grave, stern countenance was THE WANDERING JBW. 27 strongly marked; his long, gray, and thick mustache completely concealed his upper lip, and united with a large impe- rial, which almost covered his chin ; his meager cheeks, brick-colored and tanned as parchment, were carefully shaven ; thick eyebrows, still black, overhung and shaded his light blue eyes ; gold ear-rings reached down to his white-edged military stock ; his top-coat, of coarse gray cloth, was confined at the waist by a leathern belt ; and a blue foraging cap, with a red tuft falling on his left shoulder, covered his bald head. Once endowed with the strength of Hercules, and having still the heart of a lion kind and patient, because he was courageous and strong Dagobert, not- withstanding his rough exterior, evinced for his orphan charges an exquisite solici- tude, a watchful kindness, and a tender- ness almost maternal. Yes, motherly ; for the heroism of affection dwells alike in the mother's heart and the soldier's. Stoically calm, and repressing all emo- tion, the unchangeable coolness of Dago- bert never failed him ; and, though few were less given to drollery, he was now and then highly comic, by reason of the imperturbable gravity with which he did everything. 28 THE WANDERING JEW. From time to time, as they journeyed on, Dagobert would turn to bestow a caress or friendly word on the good white horse upon which the orphans were mounted. Its furrowed sides and long 1 teeth be- trayed a venerable age. Two deep scars, one on the flank and the other on the chest, proved that his horse had been present in hot battles ; nor was it without an act of pride that he sometimes shook his old military bridle, the brass stud of which was still adorned with an embossed eagle. His pace was regular, careful, and steady; his cpat sleek, and his bulk mod- erate ; the abundant foam which covered his bit bore witness to that health which horses acquire by the constant, but not excessive, labor of a long journey, per- formed by short stages. Although he had been more than six months on the road, this excellent animal carried the orphans, with a tolerably heavy portman- teau fastened to the saddle, as freely as on the day they started. If we have spoken of the excessive length of the horse's teeth the unques- tionable evidence of great ag-e it is chief- ly because he often displayed them, for the sole purpose of acting- up to his name (he was called Jovial), by playing a mis- THE WANDERING JEW. 29 chievous trick, of which the dog- was the victim. This latter, who, doubtless, for the sake of contrast, was called Spoilsport (Rdbat- joie), being 1 always at his master's heels, foun'd himself within the reach of Jovial, who from time to time nipped him deli- cately by the nape of the neck, lifted him from the ground, and carried him thus for a moment. The dog, protected by his thick coat, and no doubt long accustomed to the practical jokes of his companion, submitted to all this with stoical com- placency ; save that, when he thought the jest had lasted long enough, he would turn his head and growl. Jovial under- stood him at the first hint, and hastened to set him down again, At other times, just to avoid monotony, Jovial would gent- ly bite the knapsack of the soldier, who seemed, as well as the dog, to be perfectly accustomed to his pleasantries. These details will give a notion of the excellent understanding that existed be- tween the twin sisters, the older soldier, the horse, and the dog. The little caravan proceeded on its way, anxious to reach, before night, the village of Mockern, which was now visible on the summit of a hill. Ever and anon, Dago- bert looked around him, and seemed to be 30 THB WANDERING JEW. gathering- up old recollections; by degrees, his countenance became clouded, and when he was at a little distance from the mill, the noise of which had arrested his atten- tion, he stopped, and drew his long 1 mus- tache several times between his finger and thumb, the only sign which revealed in him any strong and concentrated feeling. Jovial having stopped short behind his master, Blanche, awaked suddenly by the shock, raised her head ; her first look sought her sister, on whom she smiled sweetly; then both exchanged glances of surprise, on seeing Dagobert motionless, with his hands clasped and resting on his long staff, apparently affected by some painful and deep emotion. The orphans just chanced to be at the foot of a little mound,, the summit of which was buried in the thick foliage of a huge oak, planted half way down the slope. Perceiving that Dagobert continued motionless and absorbed in thought, Rose leaned over her saddle, and, placing her . little white hand on the shoulder of their guide, whose back was turned toward her, said to him, in a soft voice : " Whatever is the matter with you, Dagobert ? " The veteran turned ; to the great as- tonishment of the sisters, they perceived THE WANDERING JEW. 81 a large tear, which traced its humid fur- row down his tanned cheek, and lost itself in his thick mustache. " You weeping you ! " cried Rose and Blanche together, deeply moved. "Tell us, we beseech, what is the matter ? " After a moment's hesitation, the sol- dier brushed his horny hand across his eyes, and said to the orphans in a falter- ing voice, while he pointed to the old oak beside them : "I shall make you sad, my poor children ; and yet what I'm going to tell you has something sacred in it. Well, eighteen years ago, on the eve of the great battle of Leipsic, I carried your father to this very tree. He had two saber-cuts on the head, a musket-ball in his shoulder ; and it was here that he and I w ho had got two thrusts of a lance for my share were taken prisoners ; and by whom, worse luck ? why, a renegado! By a Frenchman an emigrant marquis, then colonel in the service of Russia and who afterward but one day you shall know all." The veteran paused; then, pointing with his staff to the village of Mockern, he added: "Yes, yes, I can recognize the spot. Yonder are the heights where your brave father who commanded us and the Poles of the Guard overthrew the Rus- 32 THE WANDERING JEW. sian Cuirassiers, after having- carried the battery. Ah, my children ! " continued the soldier, with the utmost simplicity, " I wish you had seen your brave father, at the head of our brigade of horse, rush- ing on in a desperate charge in the thick of a shower of shells ! there was noth- ing like it not a soul so grand as he ! " While Dagobert thus expressed, in his own way, his regrets and recollections, the two orphans by a spontaneous move- ment, glided gently from the horse, and holding each other by the hand, went to- gether to kneel at the foot of the old oak. And there, closely pressed in each other's arms, they began to weep ; while the sol- dier, standing behind them, with his hands crossed on his long staff, rested his bald front upon it. " Come, come, you must not fret," said he softly, when, after a pause of a few minutes, he saw tears run down the blooming cheeks of Rose and Blanche, still on their knees. "Perhaps we may find General Simon in Paris," added he; " I will explain all that to you this even- ing at the inn. I purposely waited for this day, to tell you many things about your father ; it was an idea of mine, be- cause this day is a sort of anniversary." THE WANDERING JEW. 88 " We weep because we think also of our mother," said Rose. "Of our mother, whom we shall only see again in heaven," added Blanche. The soldier raised the orphans, took each by the hand, and gazing- from one to the other with ineffable affection, ren- dered still the more touching by the con- trast of his rude features, " You must not give way thus, my children," said he ; " it is true j^our mother was the best of women. When she lived in Poland, they called her the Pearl of Warsaw it ought to have been the Pearl of the Whole World for in the whole world you could not have found her match. No no ! " The voice of Dagobert faltered ; he paused, and drew his long gray mustache between his finger and thumb, as was his habit. " Listen, my girls," he resumed, when he had mastered his emotion ; "your mother could give you none but the best advice, eh ? " " Yes, Dagobert. " " Well, what instructions did she give you before she died? To think often of her, but without grieving? " " It is true; she told us that our Father in heaven, always good to poor mothers whose children are left on earth, would permit her to hear us from above," said Blanche. 84 THE WANDERING JEW. " And that her eyes would be ever fixed upon us," added Rose. And the two by a spontaneous impulse, replete with the most touching 1 grace, joined hands, raised their innocent looks to heaven, and exclaimed, with that beau- tiful faith natural to their age: "Is it not so, mother? thou seest us? thou hearest us? " " Since your mother sees and hears you," said Dagobert, much moved, "do not grieve her by fretting. She forbade you to do so." "You are right, Dagobert. We will not cry any more." And the orphans dried their eyes. Dagobert, in the opinion of the devout, would have passed for a very heathen. In Spain, he had found pleasure in cutting down those monks of all orders and colors, who, bearing the crucifix in one hand, and poniard in the other, fought not for liberty the Inquisition had strangled her centuries ago but for their mon- strous privileges. Yet, in forty years, Dagobert had witnessed so many sublime and awful scenes he had been so many times face to face with death that the instinct of natural religion, common to every simple, honest heart, had always remained uppermost in his soul. There- THE WANDERING JEW. 85 fore, though he did not share in the con- soling- faith of the two sisters, he would have held as criminal any attempt to weaken its influence. Seeing them less downcast, he thus resumed : " That's right, my pretty ones: I prefer to hear you chat as you did this morning and yesterday laughing at times, and answering me when I speak, instead of being so much engrossed with your own talk. Yes, yes, my little ladies ! you seem to have had famous secrets together these last two days so much the better, if it amuses you." The sisters colored, and exchanged a subdued smile, which contrasted with the tears that yet filled their eyes, and Rose said to the soldier, with a little embar- rassment : " No, I assure you, Dagobert, we talk of nothing in particular." " Well, well, I don't wish to know it. Come, rest yourselves a few moments more, and then we must start again ; for it grows late, and we have to reach Mock- ern before night, so that we may be early on the road to-morrow." " Have we still a long, long way to go ?" asked Rose. " What, to reach Paris ? Yes, my chil- dren ; some hundred days' march. We don't travel quick, but we get on ; and we 86 THE WANDERING JEW. travel cheap, because we have a light purse. A closet for 3 r ou, a straw mattress and a blanket at your door for me, with Spoilsport on my feet, and a clean litter for old Jovial, these are our whole travel- ing expenses. I say nothing- about food, because you two tog-ether don't eat more than a mouse, and I have learned in Egypt and Spain to be hungry only when it suits." "Not forgetting that, to save still more, you do all the cooking for us, and will not even let us assist. " "And to think, good Dagobert, that you wash almost every evening at our resting place. As if it were not for us to" " You ! " said the soldier, interrupting Blanche, " I allow you to chap your pretty little hands in soap-suds ! Pooh ! don't a soldier on a campaign always wash his own linen ? Clumsy as you see me, I was the best washerwoman in my squadron and what a hand at ironing ! Not to make a brag of it." " Yes, yes you can iron well very well." " Only sometimes there will be a little singe," said Rose, smiling. " Bah ! when the iron is too hot. Zounds ! I may bring it as near my cheek THE WANDERING JEW. 87 as I please ; my skin is so tough that I don't feel the heat," said Dagobert, with imperturbable gravity. " We are only jesting, good Dagobert." " Then, children, if you think that I know my trade as a washerwoman, let me continue to have your custom ; it is cheaper; and, on a journey, poor people like us should save where we can, for we must, at all events, keep enough to reach Paris. Once there, our papers and the medal you wear will do the rest I hope so, at least." " This medal is sacred to us ; mother gave it to us on her deathbed." " Therefore, take care that you do not lose it : see, from time to time, that you have it safe." " Here it is," said Blanche, as she drew from her bosom a small bronze medal, which she wore suspended from her neck by a chain of the same material. The medal bore on its faces the following inscriptions : VICTIM of L. C. D. J. Pray for me ! February the 13th, 1682. AT PARIS, No. 3 Rue St. Francois, In a century and a half vou will be. February the 13th, 1832. PARIS, PRAY FOR ME ! " What does it mean, Dagobert ?" re- sumed Blanche, as she examined the 38 THE WANDERING JEW. mournful inscriptions. " Mother was not able to tell us." " We will discuss all that this evening, at the place where we sleep," answered Dagobert. " It grows late : let us be moving. Put up the medal carefully, and away ! We have yet nearly an hour's march to arrive at quarters. Come, my poor pets, once more look at the mound where your brave father fell and then to horse ! to horse ! " The orphans gave a last pious glance at the spot which had recalled to their guide such painful recollections, and, with his aid, remounted Jovial. This venerable animal had not for one moment dreamed of moving; but, with the consummate forethought of a veteran, he had made the best use of his time, by taking from that foreign soil a large con- tribution of green and tender grass, be- fore the somewhat envious eyes of Spoil- sport, who had comfortably established himself in the meadow, with his snout protruding between his forepaws. On the signal of departure, the dog resumed his post behind his master, and Dagobert, trying the ground with the end of his long staff, led the horse carefully along by the bridle, for the meadow was growing more and more marshy ; indeed, after advanc- THE WANDERING JEW. 89 ing a few steps, he was obliged to turn off to the left, in order to regain the high road. On reaching Mockern, Dagobert asked for the least expensive inn, and was told there was only one in the village the White Falcon. "Let us go then to the White Falcon/' observed the soldier. CHAPTER ILL THE ARRIVAL. ALREADY had Morok several times opened with impatience the window shut- ter of the loft to look out upon the inn yard, watching- for the arrival of the orphans and the soldier. Not seeing them, he began once more to walk slowly up and down, with his head bent forward, and his arms folded on his bosom, medi- tating on the best means to carry out the plan he had conceived. The ideas which possessed his mind, were, doubtless, of a painful character, for his countenance grew even more gloomy than usual. Notwithstanding his ferocious appear- ance, he was Toy no means deficient in intelligence. The courage displayed in his taming exercises (which he gravely attributed to his recent conversion), a 40 THE WANDERING JEW. solemn and mystical style of speech, and a hypocritical affectation of austerity, had given him a species of influence over the people he visited in his travels. Long 1 before his conversion, as may well be supposed, Morok had been familiar with the habits of wild beasts. In fact, born in the north of Siberia, he had been, from his boyhood, one of the boldest hunters of bears and reindeer; later, in 1810, he had abandoned this profession to serve as guide to a Russian engineer, who was charged with an exploring expedition to the Polar regions. He afterward fol- lowed him to St. Petersburg, and there, after some vicissitudes of fortune, Morok became one of the imperial couriers those iron automata, that the least caprice of the despot hurls in a frail sledge through the immensity of the empire, from Persia to the Frozen Sea. For these men, who travel night and day, with the rapidity of lightning, there are neither seasons nor obstacles, fatigues nor dangers ; living projectiles, they must either be broken to pieces, or reach the intended mark. One may conceive the boldness, the vigor, and the resignation, of men accustomed to such a life. It is useless to relate here by what series of singular circumstances Morok THE WANDERING JEW. 41 was induced to exchange this rough pur- suit for another profession, and at last to enter, as catechumen, a religious house at Friburg ; after which, being duly and properly converted, he began his nomadic excursions, with his menagerie of un- known origin. Morok continued to walk up and down the loft. Night had come. The three persons whose arrival he so impatiently expected had not yet made their appear- ance. His walk became more and more nervous and irregular. On a sudden he stopped abruptly, leaned his head toward the window, and listened. His ear was quick as a savage's. " They are here ! " he exclaimed, and his fox-like eye shone with diabolic joy. He had caught the sound of footsteps a man's and a horse's. Hastening to the window-shutter of the loft, he opened it cautiously, and saw the two young girls on horseback, and the old soldier who served them as a guide, enter the inn- yard together. The night had set in dark and cloudy ; a high wind made the light flicker in the lanterns which were used to receive the new guests. But the description given to Morok had been so exact that it was im- 42 THE WANDERING JEW. possible to mistake them. Sure of his prey, he closed the window. Having remained in meditation for an- other quarter of an hour for the purpose, no doubt, of thoroughly digesting his pro- jects he leaned over the aperture from which projected the ladder, and called, " Goliath ! " " Master ! " replied a hoarse voice. " Come up to me." "Here I am just come from the slaughter-house with the meat." The steps of the ladder creaked as an enormous head appeared on a level with the floor. The new comer, who was more than six feet high, and gifted with hercu- lean proportions, had been well named Goliath. He was hideous. His squinting eyes were deep set beneath a low and projecting forehead ; his reddish hair and beard, thick and coarse as horse- hair, gave his features a stamp of bestial ferocity ; between his broad jaws, armed with teeth which resembled fangs, he held by one corner a piece of raw beef weigh- ing ten or twelve pounds, finding it, no doubt, easier to carry in that fashion, while he used his hands to ascend the ladder, which bent beneath his weight. At length the whole of this tall and huge body issued from the aperture. THE WANDBKING JEW. 48 Judging by his bull neck, the astonish- ing- breadth of his chest and shoulders, and the vast bulk of his arms and legs, this giant need not have, feared to wrestle single-handed with a bear. He wore an old pair of blue trousers with red stripes, faced with tanned sheep's-skin, and a vest, or rather cuirass, of thick leather, which was here and there slashed by the sharp claws of the animals. When he was fairly on the floor, Go- liath unclasped his fangs, opened hia mouth, and let fall the great piece of beef, licking his blood-stained lips with greedi- ness. Like many other mountebanks, this species of monster had begun by eating raw meat at fairs for the amuse- ment of the public. Thence having grad- ually acquired a taste for this barbarous food, and uniting pleasure with profit, he engaged himself to perform the prelude to the exercises of Morok, by devouring, in the presence of the crowd, several pounds of raw flesh. " My share and Death's are below stairs, and here are those of Cain and Judas," said Goliath, pointing to the chunk of beef. " Where is the cleaver, that I may cut it in two ? No preference here beast or man every gullet must have its own." 44 THE WANDERING JEW. Then, rolling up one of the sleeves of his vest, he exhibited a forearm hairy as the skin of a wolf, and knotted with veins as large as one's thumb. " I say, master, where's the cleaver? " he again began, as he cast round his eyes in search of that instrument. But in- stead of replying to this inquiry, the Prophet put many questions to his dis- ciple. " Were you below when just now some new travelers arrived at the inn ? " " Yes, master ; I was coming from the slaughter-house . ' ' " Who are these travelers ? " "Two young lasses mounted on a white horse, and an old fellow with a big mustache. But the cleaver ? My beasts are hungry and so am I the cleaver ? " " Do you know where they have lodged these travelers ? " " The host took them to the far end of the court-yard." " The building which overlooks the fields?" "Yes, master but the cleaver " A burst of frightful roaring shook the loft, and interrupted Goliath. " Hark to them ! " he exclaimed ; " hun- ger has driven the beasts wild. If I could THE WANDERING JEW. 45 roar, I should do as they do. I have never seen Judas and Cain as they are to-night ; they leap in their cages as if they'd knock all to pieces. As for Death, her eyes shine more than usual like candles. Poor Death ! " " So these girls are lodged in the build- ing at the end of the court-yard," re- sumed Morok, without attending to the observances of Goliath. " Yes, yes but, in the devil's name, where is the cleaver ? Since Karl went away I have to do all the work, and that makes our meals very late." "Did the old man remain with the "young- girls ? " asked Morok. Goliath, amazed that, notwithstanding 1 his importunities, his master should still appear to neglect the animals' supper, re- garded the Prophet with an increase of stupid astonishment. " Answer, you brute ! " " If I am a brute, I have a brute's strength," said Goliath, in a surly tone, " and brute against brute, I have not al- ways come the worst off." " I ask if the old man remained with the girls," repeated Morok. " Well then no ! " returned the giant. " The old man, after leading his horse to the stable, asked for a tub and some wa- 45 THE WANDERING JEW. ter, took his stand under the porch and there by the light of a lantern he is washing out clothes. A man with a gray mustache ! paddling in soapsuds like a washerwoman it ? s as if I were to feed canaries ! " added Goliath, shrugging his shoulders with disdain. '"'But now I've answered you, master, let me attend to the beasts* supper " and, looking round for something, he added, " where is the cleaver?" After a moment of thoughtful silence, the Prophet said to Goliath, " You will give no food to the beasts this evening." At first the giant could not understand these words, the idea was so incomprehen- sible to him. " What is your pleasure, master ? " said he. ' ' I forbid you to give any food to the beasts this evening." Goliath did not answer, but he opened wide his squinting eyes, folded his hands, and drew back a couple of steps. "Well, dost hear me? 7 * said Morok, with impatience. " Is it plain enough ? " " Not feed ? when our meat is there, and supper is already three hours after time ! " cried Goliath, with ever-increas- ing amazement. " Obey, and hold your tongue." THE WANDERING JEW. 47 "You must wish something- bad to hap- pen this evening 1 . Hunger makes the beasts furious and me also." " So much the better." "It'll drive 'em mad." " So much the better ! " " How, so much the better ? But " "It is enough ! " " But, devil take me, I am as hungry as the beasts ! " " Eat then who prevents it ? Your supper is ready, as you devour it raw." "I never eat without my beasts, nor they without me." " I tell you again, that, if you dare give any food to the beasts I will turn you away." Goliath uttered a low growl as hoarse as a bear's, and looked at the Prophet with a mixture of anger and stupefac- tion. Morok, having given his orders, walked up and down the loft appearing to reflect. Then, addressing himself to Goliath, who was still plunged in deep perplexity, he said to him : " Do you remember the burgomaster's, where I went to get my passport signed ? to-day his wife bought some books and a chaplet." "Yes," answered the giant, shortly. 48 THE WANDERING JEW. " Go and ask his servant if I may be sure to find the burgomaster early to-mor- row morning." " What for ? " " I may, perhaps, have something im- portant to communicate ; at all events say that I beg him not to leave home without seeing me." " Good ! but may I not feed the beasts before I go to the burgomaster's ? only the panther, who is most hungry ? Come, master ; only poor Death ? just a little morsel to satisfy *her ; Cain and I and Judas can wait." " It is the panther, above all, that I for- bid you to feed. Yes, her above all the rest." " By the horns of the devil ! " cried Go- liath, " what is the matter with you to- day ? I can make nothing of it. It is a pity that Karl's not here ; he, being cun- ning, would help me to understand whj' you prevent the beasts from eating when they are hungry." "You have no need to understand it." " Will not Karl soon come back ? " " He has already come back." " Where is he, then ? " "Off again." " What can be going on here ? There Since thou art pitiless, thy weary way Thou'rt doom'd to wander till the Judgment Day. The Wandering Jew, Vol. 1. THE WANDERING JEW. 49 is something- in the wind. Karl goes and returns, and goes again, and " "We are not talking of Karl, but of you ; though hungry as a wolf you are cunning as a fox, and, when it suits you, as cunning as Karl." And, changing on the sudden his tone and manner, Morok slapped the giant cordially on the shoulder. " What ! am I cunning ? " " The proof is, that there are ten florins to earn to-night- and you will be keen enough to earn them, I am sure." " Why, on those terms, yes I am awake," said the giant, smiling with a stupid, self-satisfied air. " What must I do for ten florins ? " " You shall see." " Is it hard work ? " "You shall see. Begin by going to the burgomaster's but first light the fire in that stove." He pointed to it with his finger. " Yes, master," said Goliath, somewhat consoled for the delay of his supper by the hope of gaining ten florins. " Put that iron bar in the stove," added the Prophet, " to make it red-hot." "Yes, master." " You will leave it there ; go to the bur- gomaster's, and return hero to wait for me." ^ o .1-3 50 THE WANDERING JEW. "Yes, master." " You will keep the -fire up in the stove." "Yes, master." Morok took a step away, but, recollect- ing 1 himself, he resumed : " You say the old man is busy washing- under the porch ? " "Yes, master." " Forget nothing : the iron bar in the fire the burgomaster and return here to wait my orders." So saying, Morok de- scended by the trap-door and disappeared. CHAPTER IV. MOROK AND DAGOBERT. GOLIATH had not been mistaken, for Dagobert was washing with that imper- turbable gravity with which he did every- thing 1 else. When we remember the habits of a soldier a-field, we need not be astonished at this apparent eccentricity. Dagobert only thoug-ht of sparing the scanty purse of the orphans, and of saving- them all care and trouble ; so every evening when they came to a halt he devoted himself to all sorts of feminine occupations. But he was not now serving his apprenticeship in these matters ; many times, during 1 his THE WANDERING JEW. 61 campaigns, he had industriously repaired the damage and disorder which a day of battle always brings to the garments of the soldier ; for it is not enough to receive a saber-cut the soldier has also to mend his uniform ; for the stroke which grazes the skin makes likewise a corresponding fissure in the cloth. Therefore, in the evening or on the morrow of a hard-fought engagement, you will see the best soldiers (always distinguished by their fine military ap- pearance) take from their cartridge-box or knapsack a housewife, furnished with needles, thread, scissors, buttons, and other such gear, and apply themselves to all kinds of mending and darning, with a zeal that the most industrious work- woman might envy. We could not find a better opportunity to explain the name of Dagobert, given to Francis Baudoin (the guide of the orphans) at a time when he was con- sidered one of the handsomest and brav- est horse grenadiers of the Imperial Guard . They had been fighting hard all day, without any decisive advantage. In the evening, the company to which our hero belonged was sent as outliers to occupy the ruins of a deserted village. Vedettes 52 THE WANDERING JEW. being- posted, half the troopers remained in saddle, while the others, having 1 pick- eted their horses, were able to take a little rest. Our hero had charged valiantly that day without receiving 1 any wound for he counted as a mere memento the deep scratch on his thigh which a kaiser- litz had inflicted in awkwardly attempting- an upward thrust with the bayonet. " You donkey : my new breeches ! " the grenadier had exclaimed, when he saw the wide yawning rent, which he instantly avenged by running the AUST trian through with a thrust scientifically administered. For if he showed a stoical indifference on the subject of injury to his skin, it was not so with regard to the rip- ping up of his best parade uniform. He undertook, therefore, the same evening, at the bivouac, to repair this accident. Selecting his best needle and thread from the stores of his housewife, and arming his finger with a thimble, he began to play the tailor by the light of the watch-fire, having first drawn off his cavalry-boots, and also (if it must be confessed) the injured garment itself, which he turned the wrong side out the better to conceal the stitches. This partial undress was certainly a breach of discipline : but the captain, as THE WANDERING JEW. 63 he went his round, could not forbear laughing- at the sight of the veteran sol- dier, who, gravely seated, in a squatting position, with his grenadier cap on, his regimental coat on his hack, his boots by his side, and his galligaskins in his lap, was sewing with all the coolness of a tailor upon his own shop-board. Suddenly, a musket-shot is heard, and the vedettes fall back upon the detach- ment, calling to arms. " To horse ! " cries the captain, in a voice of thunder. In a moment, the troopers are in their saddles, the unfortunate clothes-mender having to lead the first rank : there is no time to turn the unlucky garment, so he slips it on, as well as he can, wrong side out, and leaps upon his horse, without even stopping to put on his boots. A party of Cossacks, profiting by the cover of a neighboring wood, had at- tempted to surprise the detachment : the fight was bloody, and our hero foamed with rage, for he set much value on his equipments, and the day had been fatal to him. Thinking of his torn clothes and lost boots, he hacked away with more fury than ever ; a bright moon illumined the scene of action, and his comrades were able to appreciate the brilliant valor of our grenadier, who killed two Cossacks, 54 THE WANDERING JEW. and took an officer prisoner, with his own hand. After this skirmish, in which the de- tachment had maintained its position, the captain drew up his men to compliment them on their success, and ordered the clothes-mender to advance from the ranks, that he might thank him publicly for his gallant behavior. Our hero could have dispensed with this ovation, hut he was not the less obliged to obe}^. Judge of the surprise of both captain and troopers, when they saw this tall and stern-looking- figure ride forward at a slow pace, with his naked feet in the stirrups, and naked legs pressing the sides of his charger. The captain drew near in astonishment ; but recalling the occupation of the sol- dier at the moment when the alarm was given, he understood the whole mystery. " Ha, my old comrade ! " he exclaimed, " thou art like King Dagobert wearing thy breeches inside out." In spite of discipline, this joke of the captain's was received with peals of ill- repressed laughter. But our friend, sit- ting upright in his saddle, with his left thumb pressing the well-adjusted reins, and his sword-hilt carried close to his right thigh, made a half-wheel, and re- turned to his place in the ranks without THE WANDERING JEW. 55 changing 1 countenance, after he had duly received the congratulations of his cap- tain. From that day, Francis Baudoin re- ceived and kept the nickname of Dag-obert. Now Dagobert was under the porch of the inn, occupied in washing 1 , to the great amazement of sundry beer-drinkers, who observed him with curious eyes from the large common room in which they were assembled. In truth, it was a curious spectacle. Dag-obert had laid aside his gray top- coat, and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt ; with a vigorous hand, and good supply of soap, he was rubbing- away at a wet handkerchief, spread out on the board, the end of which rested in a tub full of water. Upon his right arm, tat- tooed with warlike emblems in red and blue colors, two scars, deep enough to ad- mit the finger, were distinctly visible. No wonder, then, that, while smoking their pipes, and emptying their pots of beer, the Germans should display some surprise at the singular occupation of this tall, mus- tached, bald-headed old man, with the forbidding- countenance for the features of Dagobert assumed a harsh and grim expression when he was no longer in pres- ence of the two girls. The sustained attention, of which he saw 56 THE WANDERING JEW. himself the object, began to put him out of patience, for his employment appeared to him quite natural. At this moment, the Prophet entered the porch, and, per- ceiving" the soldier, eyed him attentively for several seconds ; then approaching, he said to him in French, in a rather sly tone : " It would seem, comrade, that you have not much confidence in the washerwomen of Mockern ? " Dagobert, without discontinuing his work, half turned his head with a frown, looked askant at the Prophet, and made him no answer. Astonished at this silence, Morok re- sumed : " If I do not deceive myself, you are French, my fine fellow. The words on your arm prove it, and your military air stamps you as an old soldier of the empire. Therefore I find, that, for a hero, you have taken rather late to wear petticoats." Dagobert remained mute, but he gnawed his mustache, and plied the soap, with which he was rubbing the linen, in a most hurried, not to say angry, style ; for the face and words of the beast-tamer dis- pleased him more than he cared to show. Far from being discouraged, the Prophet continued : " I am sure, my fine fellow, that you are neither deaf nor dumb ; why, then, will you not answer me ? " THE WANDERING JEW. 57 Losing 1 all patience, Dagobert turned abruptly round, looked Morok full in the face, and said to him, in a rough voice : " I don't know you : I don't wish to know you ! Chain up your curb ! " And he betook himself again to his washing. " But we may make acquaintance. We can drink a glass of Rhine wine together, and talk of our campaigns. I also have seen some service, I assure you ; and that, perhaps, will induce you to be more civil " The veins on the bald forehead of Dago- bert swelled perceptibly ; he saw in the look and accent of the man, who thus ob- stinately addressed him, something de- signedly provoking ; still he contained himself. " I ask you, why should you not drink a glass of wine with me we could talk about France. I lived there a long time ; it is a fine country ; and when I meet Frenchmen abroad, I feel sociable par- ticularly when they know how to use the soap as well as you do. If I had a house- wife I'd send her to your school." The sarcastic meaning was no longer disguised; impudence and bravado were legible in the Prophet's looks. Thinking that, with such an adversary, the dispute might become serious, Dagobert, who wished to avoid a quarrel at any price, 58 THE WANDERING JEW. carried off his tub to the other end of the porch, hoping 1 thus to put an end to the scene which was a sore trial of his tem- per. A flash of joy lighted up the tawny eyes of the brute-tamer. The white circle which surrounded the pupil seemed to dilate. He ran his crooked fingers two or three times through his yellow 'beard, in token of satisfaction; then he advanced slowly toward the soldier, accompanied by several idlers from the common- room. Notwithstanding his coolness, Dago- bert, amazed and incensed at the impu- dent pertinacit}^ of the Prophet, was at first disposed to break the washing-board on his head ; but, remembering the or- phans, he thought better of it. Folding his arms upon his breast, Morok said to him, in a dry and insolent tone : " It is very certain you are not civil, my man of suds ! " Then, turning to the spectators, he continued in German: "I tell this Frenchman, with his long mus- tache, that he is not civil. We shall see what answer he'll make. Perhaps it will be necessary to give him a lesson. Heaven preserve me from quarrels ! " he added, with mock compunction; "but the Lord has enlightened me I am his creature, and I ought to make his work respected." THE WANDERING JEW. 59 The mystical effrontery of this perora- tion was quite to the taste of the idlers : the fame of the Prophet had reached Mock- ern, and, as a performance was expected on the morrow, this prelude much amused the company. On hearing the insults of his adversary, Dagobert could not help saying in the German language : " I know Ger- man. Speak in German the rest will understand you." New spectators now arrived and joined the first comers; the adventure had be- come exciting, and a ring was formed around the two persons most concerned. The Prophet resumed in German : " I said that you were not civil, and I now say you are grossly rude. What do you answer to that? " " Nothing! " said Dagobert, coldly, as he proceeded to rinse out another piece of linen. "Nothing!" returned Morok; "that is, very little. I will be less brief, and tell you, that, when an honest man offers a glass of wine civilly to a stranger, that stranger has no right to answer with inso- lence, and deserves to be taught manners if he does so." Great drops of sweat ran down Dago- bert's forehead and cheeks, his large im- perial was incessantly agitated by nervous 60 THE WANDERING JEW. trembling 1 but he restrained himself. Taking-, by two of the corners, the hand- kerchief which he had just dipped in the water, he shook it, wrung- it, and began to hum to himself the burden of the old camp ditty : " Out of Tirlemont's flea-haunted den, We ride forth next day of the sen, With saber in hand, ah ! Good-by to Amanda," etc. The silence to which Dagobert had con- demned himself almost choked him ; this song- afforded him some relief. Morok, turning toward the spectators, said to them, with an air of hypocritical restraint : " We knew that the soldiers of Napoleon were pagans, who stabled their horses in churches, and offended the Lord a hundred times a day, and who, for their sins, were justly drowned in the Beresina like so many Pharaohs ; but we did not know that the Lord, to punish these mis- creants, had deprived them of courage their single gift. Here is a man, who has insulted, in me, a creature favored by divine grace, and who affects not to un- derstand that I require an apology ; or else--" " What ? " said Dagobert, without look- ing at the Prophet. " Or you must give me satisfaction ! I THE WANDERING JEW. 61 have already told you that I have seen service. We shall easily find somewhere a couple of swords, and to-morrow morn- ing-, at peep of day, we can meet behind a wall, and show the color of our blood that is, if you have any in your veins.? " This challenge began to frighten the spectators, who were not prepared for so tragical a conclusion. "What, fight? a very fine idea!'* said one. " To get yourselves both locked up in prison : the laws against dueling are strict." " Particularly with relation to strangers or nondescripts," added another. "If they were to find you with arms in your hands, the burgomaster would shut you up in jail, and keep you there two or three months before the trial." " Would you be so mean as to denounce us ? " asked Morok. "No, certainly not," cried several; " do as you like. We are only giving you a friendly piece of advice, by which you may profit, if you think fit." " What care I for prison ? " exclaimed the Prophet. "Only give me a couple of swords, and you shall see to-morrow morning if I heed what the burgomaster can do or say." "What would you do with two so difficult to choose." "We are so much like one another." " So, to save himself that trouble," said Rose, laughing, " he has chosen us both." " And is it not the best way ? He is alone to love us ; we are two together to think of him. Only he must not leave us till we reach Paris." "And in Paris, too we must see him there also." " Oh, above all at Paris ; it will be good to have him with us and Dagobert, too in that great city. Only think, Blanche, how beautiful it must be." " Paris ! it must be like a city all of gold." " A city where every one must be happy, since it is so beautiful." " But ought we, poor orphans, dare so much as to enter it ? How people will look at us ! " " Yes but every one there is happy, every one must be good also." " They will love us." " And, besides, we shall be with our friend with the fair hair and blue eyes." " He has yet told us nothing of Paris." " He has not thought of it ; we must THE WANDERING JEW. 77 speak to him about it this very night." ' ' If he is in the mood for talking. Often, 3^011 know, he likes best to gaze on us in silence his eyes on our eyes." " Yes. In those moments, his look re- calls to me the gaze of our dear mother." " And, as she sees it all, how pleased she must be at what has happened to us!" " Because, when we are so much be- loved, we must, I hope, deserve it." " See what a vain thing it is ! " said Blanche, smoothing with her slender fin- gers the parting of the hair on her sister's forehead. After a moment's reflection, Rose said to her : " Don't you think we should re- late all this to Dagobert ? " " If you think so, let us do it." " We tell him every thing, as we told everything to mother. Why should we conceal this from him ? " " Especially as it is something which gives us so much pleasure." "Do you not find that, since we have known our friend, our hearts beat quicker and stronger ? " " Yes, they seem to be more full." " The reason why is plain enough ; our friend fills up a good space in them." " Well, we will do best to tell Dagobert what a lucky star ours is." 78 THE WANDERING JEW. "You are right " At this moment the dog gave another deep growl. "Sister," said Rose, as she pressed closer to Blanche, '' there is the dog- growling again. What can be the mat- ter with him ? " " Spoilsport, do not growl ! Come hither,'* said Blanche, striking with her little hand on the side of the bed. The dog rose, again growled deeply, and came to lay his great, intelligent- looking head on the counterpane, still obstinately casting a sidelong glance at the window ; the sisters bent over him to pat his broad forehead, in the center of which was a remarkable bump, the cer- tain sign of extreme purity of race. "What makes you growl so, Spoil- sport?" said Blanche, pulling him gent- ly by the ears " eh, my good dog ? " " Poor beast ! he is always so uneasy when Dagobert is away." " It is true ; one would think he knows that he then has a double charge over us." " Sister, it seems to me Dagobert is late in coming to say good-night." "No doubt he is attending to Jovial." " That makes me think that we did not bid good-night to dear old Jovial." " I am sorry for it." THE WANDERING JEW. 79 " Poor beast ! he seems so glad when he licks our hands. One would think that he thanked us for our visit." "Luckily, Dagobert will have wished him good-night for us." " Good Dagobert ! he is always think- ing- of us. How he spoils us ! We re- main idle, and he has all the trouble." " How can we prevent it ? " " What a pity that we are not rich, to give him a little rest." " We rich ! Alas, my sister ! we shall never be anything- but poor orphans." " Oh, there's the medal ! " " Doubtless, there is some hope at- tached to it, else we should not have made this long- journey." " Dag-obert has promised to tell us all, this evening." She was prevented from continuing, for two of the window-panes flew to pieces with a loud crash. The orphans, with a cry of terror, threw themselves into each other's arms, while the dog rushed toward the window, bark- ing furiously. Pale, trembling, motionless with af- fright, clasping each other in a close em- brace, the two sisters held their breath ; in their extreme fear they durst not even cast their eyes in the direction of the win- 80 THE WANDERING JEW. dow. The dog-, with his forepaws resting on the sill, continued to bark with vio- lence. " Alas ! what can it be? " murmured the orphans. " And Dagobert not here!" " Hark ! " cried Rose, suddenly seizing 1 Blanche by the arm; "hark! some one coming- up the stairs ! " " Good heaven ! it does not sound like the tread of Dagobert. Do you not hear what heavy footsteps ? " " Quick ! come, Spoilsport, and defend us ! " cried the two sisters at once, in an agony of alarm . The boards of the wooden , staircase really creaked beneath the weig-ht of un- usually heavy footsteps, and a singular kind of rustling- was heard along- the thin partition that divided the chamber from the landing-place. Then a ponderous mass, falling against the door of the room, shook it violently; and the girls, at the very height of terror, looked at each other without the power to speak. The door opened. It was Dagobert. At the sight of him Rose and Blanche joyfully exchanged a kiss, as if they had just escaped from a great danger. "What is the matter? why are you afraid ? " asked the soldier in surprise. "Oh, if you only knew !" said Rose, THE WANDERING JEW. 81 panting as she spoke, for both her own heart and her sister's beat with violence. " If you knew what has just happened ! We did not recognize your footsteps they seemed so heavy and then that noise behind the partition ! " " Little frightened doves that you are ! I could not run up the stairs like a boy of fifteen, seeing- that I carried my bed upon my back a straw mattress that I have just flung down before your door, to sleep there as usual." " Bless me ! how foolish we must be, sister, not to have thought of that ! " said Rose, looking at Blanche. And their pretty faces, which had together grown pale, together resumed their natural color. During this scene the dog, still resting against the window, did not cease bark- ing a moment. " What makes Spoilsport bark in that direction, my children ? " said the soldier. " We do not know. Two of our window- panes have just been broken. That is what first frightened us so much." Without answering a word Dagobert flew to the window, opened it quickly, pushed back the shutter, and leaned out. He saw nothing; it was dark night. He listened ; but heard only the moan- ing of the wind, 83 THE WANDERING JEW. " Spoilsport," said he to his dog, point ing" to the open window, "leap out, old fellow, and search ! " The faithful animal took one mighty spring and disappeared by" the window, raised only about eight feet above the ground. Dagobert, still leaning over, encour- aged his dog with voice and gesture : " Search, old fellow, search ! If there is any one there, pin him your fangs are strong and hold him fast till I come." But Spoilsport found no one. They heard him go backward and forward, snuffing on every side, and now and then uttering a low cry like a hound at fault. " There is no one, my good dog, that's clear, or you would have had him by the throat ere this." Then, turning to the maidens, who listened to his words and watched his movements with uneasiness : "My girls," said he, "how were these panes broken? Did you not remark?" " No, Dagobert ; we were talking to- gether when we heard a great crash, and then the glass fell into the room." "It seemed to me," added Rose, "as if a shutter had struck suddenly against the window." Dagobert examined the shutter, and observed a long movable hook, designed to fasten it on the inside. THE WANDERING JEW. 83 "It blows hard," said he; "the wind must have swung round the shutter, and this hook broke the window. Yes, yes ; that is it. What interest could anybody have to play such a sorry trick ?" Then, speaking- to Spoilsport, he asked : " Well, my good fellow, is there no one ?" The dog answered by a bark, which the soldier no doubt understood as a negative, for he continued : " Well, then, come back ! Make the round you will find some door open you are never at a loss." The animal followed this advice. After growling for a few seconds beneath the window, he set off at a gallop to make the circuit of the buildings, and come back by the court-yard. " Be quite easy, my children !" said the soldier, as he again drew near the or- phans ; "it was only the wind." " We were a good deal frightened," said Rose. " I believe you. But now I think of it, this draught is likely to give you cold." And seeking to remed}' this inconvenience, he took from a chair the reindeer pelisse, and suspended it from the spring-catch of the curtainless window, using the skirts to stop up as closely as possible the two 84 THE WANDERING JEW. opening's made by the breaking 1 of the panes. "Thanks, Dagobert, how good you are ! We were very uneasy at not seeing 1 you." "Yes, you rvere absent longer than usual. But what is the matter with you ? " added Hose, only just then per- ceiving" that his countenance was dis- turbed and pallid, for he was still under the painful influence of the brawl with Morok ; "how pale you are !" "Me, my pets ? Oh, nothing." "Yes, I assure you, your countenance is quite changed. Rose is right." "I tell you there is nothing the mat- ter," answered the soldier, not without some embarrassment, for he was little used to deceive ; till, finding an excellent excuse for his emotion, he added : " If I do look at all uncomfortable, it is your fright that has made me so, for indeed it was my fault." "Your fault !" " Yes ; for if I had not lost so much time at supper, I should have been here when the window was broken, and have spared you the fright." "Anyhow, you are here now, and we think no more of it." " Why don't you sit down ?" THE WANDERING JEW. 95 " I will, my children, for we have to talk together," said Dagobert, as he drew a chair close to the head of the bed. "Now tell me, are you quite awake?" he added, trying 1 to smile in order to re- assure them. " Are those large eyes properly open ?" "Look, Dag-obert!" cried the two girls, smiling in their turn, and opening their blue eyes to the utmost extent. "Well, well," said the soldier; "they are yet far enough from shutting; be- sides, it is only nine o'clock." " We also have something to tell, Dag- obert," resumed Rose, after exchanging- glances with her sister. " Indeed ! " " A secret to tell you." " A secret ? " "Yes, to be sure." "Ah, and a very great secret ! " added Rose, quite seri- ously. "A secret which concerns us both," resumed Blanche. " Faith ! I should think so. What concerns the one always concerns the other. Are you not always, as the say- ing goes, ' two faces under one hood ' ?" " Truly, how can it be otherwise, when you put our heads under the great hood of your pelisse ? " said Rose, laughing. gQ TUB WANDERING JEW. " There they are again, mocking-birds One never has the last word with them. Come, ladies, your secret, since a secret there is." "Speak, sister," said Rose. " No, miss, it is for you to speak. You are to-da} r on duty, as eldest, and such an important thing- as telling a secret like that you talk of belongs of right to the elder sister. Come, I am listening to you," added the soldier, as he forced a smile, the better to conceal from the maidens how much he still felt the un- punished affronts of the brute-tamer. It was Rose (who, as Dagobert said, was doing duty as eldest) that spoke for herself and for her sister. CHAPTER VI. THE SECRET. " FIRST of all, good Dagobert," said Rose, in a gracefully caressing manner, "as we are going to tell our secret you must promise not to scold us." "You wall not scold 3 r our darlings, will you ?" added Blanche, in a no less coax- ing voice. " Granted ! " replied Dagobert, gravely; "particularly as I should not well know how to set about it but why should I scold you ? " THE WANDERING JEW. 87 "Because we ought perhaps to have told you sooner what we are going- to tell you." "Listen, my children," said Dagobert sententiously, after reflecting a moment on this case of conscience ; " one of two things must be. Either you were right, or else 3 r ou were wrong to hide this from me ; if you were right, very well ; if you were wrong, it is done : so let's say no more about it. Go on I am all attention." Completely reassured by this luminous decision, Rose resumed, while she ex- changed a smile with her sister : " Only think, Dagobert ; for two successive nights we have had a visitor." " A visitor ! " cried the soldier, draw- ing himself up suddenly in his chair. "Yes, a charming visitor he is so very fair." "Fair! the devil!" cried Dagobert, with a start. " Yes, fair and with blue eyes," added Blanche. "Blue eyes blue devils !" and Dago- bert again bounded on his seat. " Yes, blue eyes as long as that," resumed Rose, placing the tip of one forefinger about the middle of the other. " Zounds ! they might belong as that," said the veteran, indicating the whole 88 THE WANDERING JEW. length of his arm from the elbow "they might be as long as that, and it would have nothing to do with it. Fair, and with blue eyes. Pray what may this mean, young ladies ? " and Dagobert rose from his seat with a severe and painfully unquiet look. " There now, Dagobert, you have begun to scold us already ! " "Just at the very commencement," added Blanche. " Commencement ! what, is there to be a sequel ? a finish ? " "A finish? we hope not," said Rose, laughing like mad. " All we ask is, that it should last for- ever," added Blanche, sharing in the hilarity of her sister. Dagobert looked gravely from one to the other of the two maidens, as if try- ing to guess this enigma ; but when he saw their sweet, innocent faces gracefully animated by a frank, ingenuous laugh, he reflected that they would not be so gay if they had any serious matter for self-re- proach, and he felt pleased at seeing them so merry in the midst of their precarious position. " Laugh on, my children ! " he said. " I like so much to see you laugh." Then, thinking that was not precisely THE WANDERING JEW. 89 the way in which he ought to treat the singular confession of the young- girls, he added in a gruff voice : " Yes, I like to see you laugh but not when you receive fair visitors with blue eyes, young ladies ! Come, acknowledge that I'm an old fool to listen to such nonsense you are only making game of me." "Nay, what we tell you is quite true." " You know we never tell stories," added Rose. " They are right they never fib," said the soldier, in renewed perplexity. " But how the devil is such a visit possible ? I sleep before your door Spoilsport sleeps under your window and all the blue eyes and fafr locks in the world must come in by one of those two ways and, if they had tried it, the dog and I, who have both of us quick ears, would have received their visits after our fashion. But come, children ! pray, speak to the purpose. Explain yourselves ! " The two sisters, who saw by the ex- pression of Dagobert's countenance that he felt really uneasy, determined no longer to trifle with his kindness. They exchanged a glance, and Rose, taking in her little hand the coarse, broad palm of the veteran, said to him : " Come, do not plague yourself ! We will tell you all 90 THE WANDERING JEW. about the visit of our friend Gabriel." " There 3'ou are again I He has a name, then ? " " Certainly, he has a name. It is Gabriel." "Is it not a pretty name, Dagobert ? Oh, you will see and love, as we do, our beautiful Gabriel ! " "I'll love your beautiful Gabriel, will I? " said the veteran, shaking his head " Love your beautiful Gabriel ? that's as it may be. I must first know " Then, interrupting" himself, he added : "It is queer. That reminds me of something." " Of what, Dagobert ? " " Fifteen years ago, in the last letter that your father, on his return from France, brought me from my wife, she told me that, poor as she was, and with our little growing Agricola on her hands, she had taken in a poor deserted child, with the face of a cherub, and the name of Gabriel and only a short time since I heard of him again." " And from whom, then ? " " You shall know that by and by." " Well, then since you have a Gabriel of your own there is the more reason that you should love ours." "Yours !" but who is yours ? I am on thorns till you tell me." THE WANDERING JEW. 91 " You know, Dagobert," resumed Rose, " that Blanche and I are accustomed to fall asleep, holding- each other by the hand." "Yes, yes, I have often seen you in your cradle. I was never tired of looking at you : it was so pretty." " Well, then two nights ago, we had just fallen asleep, when we beheld " " Oh, it was in a dream ! " cried Dago- bert. " Since you were asleep, it was in a dream ! " " Certainly, in a dream how else would you have it ? " "Pray let my sister go on with her tale ! " " Ah, well and good ! " said the soldier with a sigh of satisfaction ; " well and good ! To be sure, I was tranquil enough in any case because but still I like it better to be a dream. Continue, my little Rose." " Once asleep, we both dreamed the same thing." " What ! both the same ? " " Yes,. Dagobert ; for the next morning when we awoke we related our two dreams to each other." " And_they were exactly alike." " That's odd enough, my children ; and what was this dream all about ? " 92 THE WANDERING JEW. "In our dream Blanche and I were seated together, when we saw enter a beautiful angel, with a long white robe, fair locks, blue eyes, and so handsome and benign a countenance that we clasped our hands as if to pray to him. Then he told us, in a soft voice, that he was called Gabriel ; that our mother had sent him to be our guardian angel, and that he would never abandon us." "And then," added Blanche, "he took us each by the hand, and, bending his fair face over us, looked at us for a long time in silence, with so much goodness with so much goodness, that we could not with- draw our eyes from his." "Yes," resumed Rose, "and his look seemed, by turns, to attract us, or to go to our hearts. At length, to our great sorrow, Gabriel quitted us, having told us that we should see him again the fol- lowing night." " And did he make his appearance ? " " Certainly. Judge with what impa- tience we waited the moment of sleep, to see if our friend would return, and visit us in our slumbers." " Humph ! " said Dagobert, scratching his forehead ; " this reminds me, 3 r oung ladies, that you kept on rubbing your eyes last evening, and pretending to be half THE WANDERING JBW. 98 asleep. I wager, it was all to send me away the sooner and to get to your dream as fast as possible." "Yes, Dagobert." " The reason being, you could not say to me, as you would to Spoilsport : ' Lie down, Dagobert ! ' Well so your friend Gabriel came back ? " " Yes, and this time he talked to us a great deal, and gave us, in the name of our mother, such touching, such noble counsels, -that the next day, Rose and I spent our whole time in recalling every word of our guardian angel and his face, and his look " " This reminds me again, young ladies, that you were whispering all along the road this morning ; and that when I spoke of white, you answered black." " Yes, Dagobert, we were thinking of Gabriel." " And, ever since, we love him as well as he loves us." " But he is only one between both of you ! " "Was not our mother one between us?" " And you, Dagobert are you not also one for us both? " " True, true ! And yet, do you know, 94 THE WANDERING JEW. I shall finish by being- jealous of that Gabriel ! " " You are our friend by day he is our friend by night." " Let's understand it clearly. If you talk of him all day, and dream of him all night, what will there remain for me ? " " There will remain for you your two orphans, whom you love so much," said Rose. " And who have only you left upon earth," added Blanche, in a caressing tone. " Humph ! humph ! that's right, coax the old man over ! Nay, believe me, my children," added the soldier tenderly, " I am quite satisfied with my lot. I can af- ford to let you have your Gabriel. I felt sure that Spoilsport and myself could take our rest in quiet. After all, there is noth- ing so astonishing in what you tell me ; your first dream struck your fancy, and you talked so much about it that you had a second ; nor should I be surprised if you were to see this fine fellow a third time." " Oh, Dagobert ! do not make a jest of it ! They are only dreams, but we think our mother sends them to us. Did she not tell us that orphan children were watched over by guardian angels ? Well, Gabriel is our guardian angel ; he will protect us, and he will protect 3 r ou also." THE WANDERING JEW. 96 " Very kind of him to think of me ; but you see, my dear children, for the matter of defense, I prefer the dog ; he is less fair than your angel, but he has better teeth, and that is more to be depended on." " How provoking you are, Dagobert always jesting ! " "It is true ; you can laugh at every- thing." " Yes, I am astonishingly gay ; I laugh with my teeth shut, in the style of old Jovial. Come, children, don't scold me : I know I am wrong. The remembrance of your dear mother is mixed with this dream, and you do well to speak of it seri- ously. Besides," added he, with a grave air, " dreams will sometimes come true. In Spain, two of the Empress's dragoons, comrades of mine, dreamed, the night be- fore their death, that they would be poi- soned by the monks and so it happened. If you continue to dream of this fair angel Gabriel, it is it is why, it is, because you are amused by it ; and, as you have none too many pleasures in the daytime, you may as well get an agreeable sleep at night. But, now, my children, I have also much to tell you; it will concern your mother ; promise me not to be sad." " Be satisfied ! when we think of her we are not sad, though serious." 96 THE WANDERING JEW. " That is well. For fear of grieving you, I have always delayed the moment of telling- what your poor mother would have confided to you as soon as you were no longer children. But she died before she had time to do so, and that which I have to tell broke her heart as it nearly did mine. I put off this communication as long- as I could, taking- for pretext that I would say nothing till we came to the field of battle where your father was made pris- oner. That gave me time ; but the mo- ment is now come ; I can shuffle it off ^10 longer." " We listen, Dagobert," responded the two maidens, with an attentive and mel- ancholy air. After a moment's silence, during which he appeared to reflect, the veteran thus addressed the young girls : "Your father, General Simon, was the son of a workman, who remained a work- man ; for, notwithstanding all that the general could say or do, the oid man was obstinate in not quitting his trade. He had a heart of gold and a head of iron, just like his son. You may suppose, my children, that when your father, who had enlisted as a private soldier, became a general and a count of the Empire, it was not without toil or without glory." - In vain they offer wine, with drunken jest; He may not enter for a moment's rest. TUe Wandering Jew, Vol. 1. THE WANDERING JEW. 97 " A count of the Empire ? what is that, Dagobert ? " "Flummery a title which the Emperor gave over and above the promotion, just for the sake of saying" to the people, whom he loved because he was one of them : ' Here, children ! you wish to play at nobility ! you shall be nobles. You wish to play at royalty ! you shall be king's. Take what you like nothing is too good for you enjoy yourselves ! ' ''Kings!" said the two girls, joining their hands in admiration. " Kings of the first water. Oh, he was no niggard of his crowns, our Emperor ! I had a bed-fellow of mine, a brave sol- dier, who was afterward promoted to be king. This flattered us ; for, if it was not one, it was the other. And so, at this game, your father became count; but, count or not, he was one of the best and bravest generals of the army." " He was handsome, was he not, Dago- bert ? mother always said so." " Oh, yes ! indeed he was but quite another thing from your fair guardian angel. Picture to yourself a fine, dark man, who looked splendid in his full uni- form, and could put fire into the soldiers' hearts. With him to lead, we would have charged up into heaven itself that is, if VOL. 15 98 THE WANDERING JEW heaven had permitted it," added Dago- bert, not wishing 1 to wound in any way the religious beliefs of the orphans. "And father was as good as he was brave, Dagobert ? " " Good> my children ? Yes, I should say so ! He could bend a horse-shoe in his hand as you would bend a card, and the day he was taken prisoner he had cut down the Prussian artillerymen on their very cannon. With strength and courage like that, how could he be otherwise than good ? It is then about nineteen years ago, not far from this place on the spot I showed you before we arrived at the village that the general, dangerously wounded, fell from his horse. I was fol- lowing him at the time, and ran to his assistance. Five minutes after we were made prisoners and by whom, think you ? by a Frenchman." " A Frenchman ? " " Yes, an emigrant marquis, a colonel in the service of Russia," answered Dago- bert, with bitterness. "And so, when this marquis advanced toward us, and said to the general : ' Surrender, sir, to a coun- tryman ! ' ' A Frenchman, who fights against France,' replied the general, -'is no longer my countryman ; he is a traitor, and I'd never surrender to a traitor ! ' THE WANDERING JEW. 99 And, wounded though he was, he dragged himself up to a Russian grenadier, and delivered him his saber, saying : ' I sur- render to you, my brave fellow ! ' The marquis became pale with rage at it." The orphans looked at each other with pride, and a rich crimson mantled their cheeks, as they exclaimed : " Oh, our brave father ! " "Ah, those children," said Dagobert as he proudly twirled his mustache. "One sees they have soldier's blood in their veins! Well," he continued, "we were now prisoners. The general's last horse had been killed under him ; and, to per- form the journey, he mounted Jovial, who had not been wounded that day. We arrived at Warsaw, and there it was that the general first saw your mother. She was called the Pearl of Warsaw ; that is saying everything. Now he, who admired all that is good and beautiful, fell in love with her almost immediately; and she loved him in return ; but her parents had promised her to another and that other was the same " Dagobert was unable to proceed. Rose uttered a piercing cry and pointed in ter- ror to the window. 100 THE WANDERING JEW. CHAPTER VII. THE TRAVELER. UPON the cry of the young- girl Dago- bert rose abruptly. "What is the matter, Rose ? " " There there !" she said, pointing to the window. "I thought I saw a hand move the pelisse." She had not concluded these words be- fore Dagobert rushed to the window and opened it, tearing 1 down the mantle which had been suspended from the fastening 1 . It was still dark nig-ht and the wind was blowing hard. The soldier listened, but could hear nothing. Returning 1 to fetch the lamp from the table, he shaded the flame with his hand and strove to throw the light outside. Still he saw nothing. Persuaded that a gust of wind had disturbed and shaken the pelisse, and that Rose had been de- ceived by her own fears, he again shut the window. " Be satisfied, children ! The wind is very high ; it is that which lifted the cor- ner of the pelisse.'* " Yet methought I saw plainly the fin- THE WANDERING JEW. 101 gers which had hold of it," said Rose, still trembling 1 . "I was looking at Dagobert," said Blanche, " and I saw nothing." " There was nothing to see, my chil- dren : the thing is clear enough. Tue window is at least eight feet above the ground ; none but a giant could reach it without a ladder. Now, had any one used a ladder, there would not have been time to remove it ; for, as soon as Rose cried out, I ran to the window, and, when I held out the light, I could see nothing." " I must have been deceived," said Rose. " You may be sure, sister, it was only the wind," added Blanche. " Then I beg pardon for having dis- turbed you, my good Dagobert." " Never mind ! " replied the soldier mus- ingly ; " I am only sorry that Spoilsport is not come back. He would have watched the window, and that would have quite tranquilized you. But he no doubt scent- ed the stable of his comrade, Jovial, and will have called in to bid him good-night on the road. I have half a mind to go and fetch him." " Oh, no, Dagobert ! do not leave us alone," cried the maidens ; " we are too much afraid." " Well, the dog is not likely to remain LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CAli r PRNIA 103 THE WANDERING JEW. away much longer, and 1 am sure we shall soon hear him scratching- at the door, so we will continue our story," said Dagobert, as he again seated himself near the head of the bed, but this time with his face toward the window. "Now the general was prisoner at Warsaw," continued he, " and in love with your mother, whom they wished to marry to another. In 1814, we learned the finish of the war, the banishment of the Emperor to the Isle of Elba, and the return of the Bourbons. In concert with the Prussians and Russians, who had brought them back, they had exiled the Emperor. Learning all this, your mother said to the general : ' The war is finished ; you are free, but your Em- peror is in trouble. You owe everything to him ; go and join him in his misfort- unes. I know not when we shall meet again, but I will- never marry any one but you. I am yours till death ! ' Be- fore he set out the general called me to him, and said : ' Dagobert, remain here ; Mademoiselle Eva may have need of you to fly from her family, if they should press too hard upon her ; our corre- spondence will have to pass through your hands; at Paris I shall see your THE WANRKKINO JEW 10$ wife and son ; I will comfort them, and tell them you are my friend. ' ' "Always the same," said Rose, with emotion, as she looked affectionately at Dagobert. " As faithful to the father and mother as to their children," added Blanche. " To love one was to love them all," replied the soldier. " Well, the general joined the Emperor at Elba; I remained at Warsaw, concealed in the neighbor- hood of your mother's house ; I received the letters, and conveyed them to her clandestinely. In one of those letters I feel proud to tell you of it, my children the general informed me that the Emperor himself had remembered me." " What, did he know you ? " "A little, I flatter myself' Oh ! Dago- bert ! ' said he to your father, who was talking to him about me ; ' a horse grenadier of my old guard a soldier of Egypt and Italy, battered with wounds an old dare-devil, whom I decorated with my own hand at Wagram I have not forgotten him ! ' I vow, children, when your mother read that to me, I cried like a fool." " The Emperor what a fine golden face he has on the silver cross with the red ribbon that you would some- 104 THE WANDERING JEW. times show us when we behaved well !" "That cross given by him is my relic. It is there in my knapsack, with whatever we have of value our little purse and papers. But, to return to your mother ; it was a great consola- tion to her, when I took her letters from the general, or talked with her about him for she suffered much oh, so much ! In vain her parents tormented and persecuted her ; she always an- swered : ' I will never marry any one but General Simon.' A spirited woman, I can tell you resigned, but wonderfully courageous. One day she received a let- ter from the general ; he had left the Isle of Elba with the Emperor ; the war had again broken out, a short campaign, but as fierce as ever, and heightened by sol- diers' devotion. In that campaign of France, my children, especially at Mont- mirail, your father fought like a lion, and his division followed his example. It was no longer valor it was frenz} 7 . He told me that, in Champagne, the peasants killed so many of those Prus- sians that their fields were manured with them for years. Men, women, children, all rushed upon them. Pitchforks, stones, mattocks, all served for the slaughter. It was a true wolf-hunt I " THE WANDERING JEW. 105 The veins swelled on the soldier's fore- head, and his cheeks flushed as he spoke, for this popular heroism recalled to his memory the sublime enthusiasm of the wars of the republic those armed risings of a whole people, from which dated the first steps of his military career, as the triumphs of the Empire were the last days of his service. The orphans, too, daughters of a sol- dier and a brave woman, did not shrink from the rough energy of these words, but felt their cheeks glow and their hearts beat tumultuously. " How happy we are to be the children of so brave a father ! " cried Blanche. "It is a happiness and an honor, too, my children for the evening of the battle of Montmirail, the Emperor, to the joy of the whole army, made your father Duke of Ligny and Marshal of France." " Marshal of France ! " said Rose in astonishment, without understanding the exact meaning of the words. " Duke of Ligny ! " added Blanche, with equal surprise. " Yes ; Peter Simon, the son of a work- man, became duke and marshal there is nothing higher except a king ! " resumed Dagobert, proudly. " That's how the Emperor treated the sons of the people, 106 THE WANDERING JEW. and, therefore, the people were devoted to him. It was all very fine to tell them : * Your Emperor makes you food for can- non.' 'Stuff!' replied the people, who are no fools, 'another would make us food for misery. We prefer the cannon, with the chance of becoming- captain or colonel, marshal, king 1 or invalid ; that's better than to perish with hung-er, cold and age, on straw in a g-arret, after toil- ing forty years for others.' ' "Even in France even in Paris, that beautiful city do you mean to say there are poor people who die of hunger and misery, Dagobert ? " " Even in Paris ? Yes, my children ; therefore, I come back to .the point the cannon is better. With it, one has the chance of becoming 1 , like your father, duke and marshal : when I say duke and marshal, I am partly right and partly wrong, for the title and the rank were not recognized in the end ; because, after Montmirail, came a day of gloom, a day of great mourning, when, as the g-eneral has told me, old soldiers like myself wept yes, wept ! on the evening- of a battle. That day, my children, was Waterloo ! " There was in these simple words of Dag-obert an expression of such deep THE WANDERING JEW. 1Q7 sorrow that it thrilled the hearts of the orphans. "Alas!" resumed the soldier, with a sigh, " there are days which seem to have a curse on them. That same day, at Waterloo, the general fell, covered with wounds, at the head of a division of the Guards. When he was nearly cured, which was not for a long time after, he solicited permission to go to St. Helena another island at the far end of the world, to which the English had carried the Emperor, to torture him at their leisure ; for if he was very fortu- nate in the first instance, he had to go through a deal of hard rubs at last, my poor children." " If you talk in that way, you will make us cry, Dagobert." " There is cause enough for it the Emperor suffered so much ! He bled cruelly at the heart, believe me. Unfort- unately, the general was not with him at St. Helena ; he would have been one more to console him ; but they would not allow him to go. Then, exasperated, like so many others, against the Bourbons, the general engaged in a conspiracy to recall the son of the Emperor. He relied especially on one regiment, nearly all composed of his old soldiers, and he went 108 THE WANDERING JEW. down to a place in Picardy, where they were then in garrison ; but the conspiracy had already been divulged. Arrested the moment of his arrival, the general was taken before the colonel of the regi- ment. And this colonel," said the sol- dier, after a brief pause, " who do you think it was again ? Bah ! it would be too long to tell you all, and would only make you more sad ; but it was a man whom your father had many reasons to hate. When he found himself face to face with him, he said : ' If you are not a coward, you will give me one hour's liberty, and we will fight to the death ; I hate you for this, I despise you for that ' and so on. The colonel accepted the challenge, and gave your father his lib- erty till the morrow. The duel was a desperate one ; the colonel was left for dead on the spot." " Merciful heaven ! " " The general was yet wiping his sword, when a faithful friend came to him, and told him he had only just time to save himself. In fact, he happily suc- ceeded in leaving France yes, happily for, a fortnight after, he was condemned to death as a conspirator." " What misfortunes, good heaven ! " " There was some luck, however, in THE WANDERING JEW. JQ9 the midst of his troubles. Your mother had kept her promise bravely, and was still waiting- for him. She had written to him : ' The Emperor first, and me next ! ' Not able to do anything- more for the Emperor, nor even for his son, the g-eneral, banished from France, set out for Warsaw. Your mother had lost her parents, and was now free ; they were married and I am one of the witnesses to the marriag-e." " You are right, Dag-obert ; that was great happiness in the midst of great misfortunes ! " . " Yes, they were very happy ; but, as it happens with all g-ood hearts, the happier they were themselves, the more they felt for the sorrows of others and there was quite enough to grieve them at Warsaw. The Russians had ag-ain beg-un to treat the Poles as their slaves ; your brave mother, though of French origin, was a Pole in heart and soul ; she spoke out boldly what others did not dare speak in a whisper, and all the unfortunate called her their protect- ing- angel. That was enough to excite the suspicions of the Russian governor. One day, a friend of the general's, form- erly a colonel in the lancers, a brave and worthy man, was condemned to be exiled 110 THE WANDERING JEW. to Siberia, for a military plot against the Russians. He took refuge in your father's house, and lay hid there ; but his retreat was discovered. During the next night, a party of Cossacks, commanded by an officer and followed by a traveling-car- riage, arrive at our door ; they rouse- the general from his sleep, and take him away with them." " Oh, heaven ! what did they mean to do with him ? " " Conduct him out of the Russian dominions, with a charge never to return, on pain of perpetual imprisonment. His last words were : * Dagobert, I intrust to thee my wife and child ! ' for it wanted yet some months of the time when you were to be born. Well, notwithstanding that, they exiled your mother to Siberia ; it was an opportunity to get rid of her ; she did too much good at Warsaw, and they feared her accordingly. Not content with banishing her, they confiscated all her property ; the only favor she could obtain was, that I should accompany her, and, had it not been for Jovial, whom the general had given to me, she would have had to make the journey on foot. It was thus, with her on horseback, and I leading her as I lead you, my children, that we arrived at the poverty-stricken THE WANDERING JEW. HI village, where, three months after, you poor little things were born ! " " And our father ? " " It was impossible for him to return to Russia ; impossible for your mother to think of flight, with two children; im- possible for the general to write to her, as he knew not where she was." "So, since that time, you have had no news of him? " "Yes, my children once we had news." "And by whom?" After a moment's silence, Dagobert resumed, with a singular expression of countenance : " By whom ? by one who is not like other men. Yes that you may understand me better, I will relate to you an extraordinary adventure, which happened to your father during his last French campaign. He had been ordered by the Emperor to carry a battery which was playing heavily on our army ; after several unsuccessful efforts, the general put himself at the head of a regiment of cuirassiers, and charged the battery, in- tending, as was his custom, to cut down the men at their guns. He was on horse- back, just before the mouth of a cannon, where all the artillerymen had been either killed or wounded, when one of them still 113 THE WANDKKING JEW. found strength to raise himself upon one knee, and to apply the lighted match to the touch-hole and that when your father was about ten paces in front of the loaded piece." " Oh .' what a peril for our father ! " "Never, he told me, had he run such imminent danger for he saw the artil- leryman apply the match, and the gun go off hut, at the very nick, a man of tall stature, dressed as a peasant, and whom he had not before remarked, threw himself in front of the cannon." " Unfortunate creature ! what a horri- ble death ! " "Yes," said Dagobert, thoughtfully; " it should have been so. He ought by rights to have been blown into a thou- sand pieces. But no nothing of the kind ! " " What do you tell us ? " "What the general told me. 'At the moment when the gun went off,' as he often repeated to me, ' I shut my eyes by an involuntarj' movement, that I might not see the mutilated body of the poor wretch who had sacrificed himself in my place. When I again opened them, the first thing I saw in the midst of the smoke was the tall figure of this man, standing erect and calm on the same THE WANDERING JEW. Hg spot, and casting 1 a sad, mild look on the artilleryman, who, with one knee on the ground, and his body thrown backward, gazed on him with as much terror as if he had been the devil in person. After- ward, in the tumult of the battle, I lost sight of this man,' added your father." " Bless me, Dagobert ! how can this be possible ? " "That is just what I said to the gen- eral. He answered me, that he ha^d never been able to explain to himself this event, which seemed as incredible as it was true. Moreover, your father must have been greatly struck with the coun- tenance of this man, who appeared, he said, about thirty years of age for he remarked that his extremely black eye- brows were joined together, and formed, as it were, one line from temple to tem- ple, so that he seemed to have a black streak across his forehead. Remember this, my children ; you will soon see why." " Oh, Dagobert ! we shall not forget it," said the orphans, becoming- more and more astonished as he proceeded. "Is it not strang-e this man with a black seam on his forehead ? " " Well, you shall hear. The general had, as I told you, been left for dead at Waterloo. During the night, which he 114 THE WANDERING JEW. passed on the field of battle, in a S9rt of delirium brought on by the fever of his wounds, he saw, or fancied he saw, this same man bending over him, with a look of great mildness and deep melancholy, stanching- his wounds, and using every effort to revive him. But as your father, whose senses were still wandering, re- pulsed his kindness saying, that after such a defeat, it only remained to die it appeared as if this man replied to him : * Y ou must live for Eva ! ' meaning your mother, whom the general had left at Warsaw, to join the Emperor, and make this campaign of France." " How strange, Dagobert ! And since then, did our father never see this man ? " " Yes, he saw him for it is he who brought news of the general to your poor mother." " When was that ? We never heard of it." " You remember that, on the day your mother died, you went to the pine-forest with old Fedora ? " " Yes," answered Rose, mournfully ; " to fetch some heath, of which our mo- ther was so fond." " Poor mother ! " added Blanche ; " she appeared so well that morning that we THE WANDERING JEW. H5 could not dream of the calamity which awaited us before night." " True, my children ; I sung- and worked that morning- in the garden, expecting, no more than you did, what was to happen. Well, as I was singing at my work, on a sudden I heard a voice ask me in French : ' Is this the village of Milosk ? ' I turned round, and saw before me a stranger ; I looked at him attentively, and, instead of replying, fell back two steps, quite stupe- fied." " Ah, why ? " " He was of tall stature, very pale, with a high and open forehead ; but his eyebrows met, and seemed to form one black streak across it." " Then it was the same man who had twice been with our father in battle ? " " Yes it was he." "But, Dagobert," said Rose, thought- fully, "is it not a long time since these battles ? " " About sixteen years." " And of what age was this stranger? " " Hardly more than thirty." " Then how can it be the same man, who, sixteen years before, had been with our father in the wars ? " " You are right," said Dagobert, after a moment's silence, and shrugging his 116 THE WANDERING JEW. shoulders : " I may have been deceived hy a chance likeness and yet " " Oh, if it were the same, he could not have got older all that while." " But did you ask him if he had not formerly relieved our father ? " " At first I was so surprised that I did not think of it ; and afterward, he re- mained so short a time that I had no opportunity. Well, he asked me for the village of Milosk. ' You are there, sir/ said I, ' but how do you know that I am a Frenchman ? ' 'I heard you singing as I passed,' replied he ; ' could you tell me the house of Madame Simon, the gen- eral's wife ? ' ' She lives here, sir.' Then, looking at me for some seconds in silence, he took me by the hand and said : ' You are the friend of General Simon his best friend ! ' Judge of my astonishment, as I answered : ' But, sir, how do you know ? ' ' He has often spoken of you with gratitude.' 'You have seen the general then ? ' ' Yes, some time ago, in India. I am also his friend : I bring news of him to his wife, whom I knew to be exiled in Siberia. At Tobolsk, whence I come, I learned that she inhabits this village. Conduct me to her ! ' "The good traveler I love him al- ready," said Rose. THE WANDERING JEW. H7 "Yes, being- father's friend." "I begged him to wait an instant while I went to inform your mother, so that the surprise might not do her harm : five minutes after, he was beside her." " And what kind of man was this trav- eler, Dagobert ? " " He was very tall ; he wore a dark pelisse and a fur cap, and had long black hair." " Was he handsome ? " " Yes, my children very handsome ; but with so mild and melancholy an air that it pained my heart to see him." " Poor man ! he had doubtless known some great sorrow." " Your mother had been closeted with him for some minutes, when she called me to her and said that she had just received good news of the general. She was in tears, and had before her a large packet of papers ; it was a kind of journal, which your father had written every evening to console himself ; not being able to speak to her, he told the paper all that he would have told her." " Oh ! where are these papers, Dago- bert ? " " There, in the knapsack, with my cross and our purse. One day I will give them to you ; but I have picked out a few leaves 118 THE WANDERING JEW. here and there for you to read presently. You will see why." " Had our father been long 1 in India ? " " I gathered from the few words which your mother said, that the general had gone to that country, after fighting for the Greeks against the Turks for he al- ways liked to side with the weak against the strong. In India he made fierce war against the English : they had murdered our prisoners in pontoons, and tortured the Emperor at St. Helena, and the war was a doubly good one, for in harming them he served a just cause." " What cause did he serve then ? " "That of one of the poor native princes, whose territories the English lay waste, till the day when they can take possession of them against law and right. You see, my children, it was once more the weak against the strong, and your father did not miss this opportunity. In a few months he had so well trained and disci- plined the twelve or fifteen thousand men of the prince, that, in two encounters, they cut to pieces the English sent against them, and who, no doubt, had in their reckoning left out your brave father, my children. But come, you shall read some pages of his journal, which will tell you more and better than I can. Moreover, THE WANDERING JEW. HJ you will find in them a name which you ought always to remember ; that's why I chose this passage." " Oh, what happiness ! To read the pages written by our father is almost to hear him speak," said Rose. "It is as if he were close beside us," added Blanche. And the girls stretched out their hands with eagerness, to catch hold of the leaves that Dagobert J'-id taken from his pocket. Then, by a simultaneous movement, full of touching grace, they pressed the writ- ing of their father in silence to their lips. " You will see also, my children, at the end of this letter, why I was surprised that your guardian angel, as you say, should be called Gabriel. Read, read," added the soldier, observing the puzzled air of the orphans. " Only I ought to tell you, that, when he wrote this, the general had not yet fallen in with the traveler who brought the papers." Rose, sitting up in her bed, took the leaves, and began to read in a soft trem- bling voice ; Blanche, with her head rest- ing on her sister's shoulder, followed attentively every word. One could even see, by the slight motion of her lips, that she too was reading, but only to herself. 130 THE WANDERING JEW. CHAPTER VIII. EXTRACTS FROM GENERAL SIMON'S DIARY. " ' Bivouac on the Mountains of Ava, " ' February the 20th, 1830. " 'EACH time I add some pages to this journal, written now in the heart of India, where the fortune of my wandering 1 and proscribed existence has thrown me a journal which, alas ! my beloved Eva, you may never read I experience a sweet, yet painful emotion ; for, although to converse thus with you is a consolation, it brings back the bitter thought that I am unable to see or speak to you. " 'Still, if these pages should ever meet your eyes, your generous heart will throb at the name of the intrepid being to whom I am this day indebted for my life, and to whom I may thus perhaps owe the hap- piness of seeing 3^ou again you and my child for of course our child lives. Yes, it must be for else, poor wife, what an existence would be yours amid the horrors of exile ! Dear sotil ! he must now be fourteen. Whom does he resemble ? Is he like .you ? Has he your large and beautiful blue eyes? Madman that I am ! how many times, in this long day- On, through morass and slough, he strives to fly From hateful memories of days gone by. The Wandering Jew, Vol. 1. THE WANDERING JEW. 121 book, have I already asked the same idle question, to which you can return no an- swer ! How many times shall I continue to ask it ? But you will teach our child to speak and love the somewhat savage name of Djalma.' ' " Djalma ! " said Rose, as with moist eyes she left off reading 1 . " Djalma ! " repeated Blanche, who shared the emotion of her sister. " Oh, we shall never forget that name." "And you will do well, my children; for it seems to be the name of a famous soldier, though a very young one. But on, my little Rose ! " " ' I have told you in the preceding pages, my dear Eva, of the two glorious days we had this month. The troops of my old friend the prince, which daily make fresh advances in European disci- pline, have performed wonders. We have beaten the English, and obliged them to abandon a portion of this un- happy country, which they had invaded in contempt of all the rights of justice, and which thej 7 continue to ravage with- out mercy ; for, in these parts, warfare is another name for treachery, pillage, and massacre. This morning, after a toilsome march through a rocky and mountainous district, we received infor- VOL. 16 132 THE WANDERING JEW. mation from our scouts that the enemy had been re-enforced, and was preparing .to act on the offensive ; and, as we were separated from them by a distance of a few leagues only, an engagement became inevitable. My old friend the prince, the father of my deliverer, was impatient to march to the attack. The action began about three o'clock ; it was very bloody and furious. Seeing that our men wav- ered for a moment, for they were inferior in number, and the English re-enforce- ments consisted of fresh troops, I charged at the head of our weak reserve of cav- alry. The old prince was in the center, fighting, j_s he always fights, intrepidly ; his son, Djalma, scarcely eighteen, as brave as his father, did not leave my side. In the hottest part of the engagement, my horse was killed under me, and roll- ing over into a ravine, along the edge of which I was* riding, I found myself so awkwardly entangled beneath him that for an instant I thought my thigh was broken.'" "Poor father ! " said BL.nchc. " This time, happily, nothing more dan- gerous ensued thanks to J)jahna ! You see, Dagobert," added Rose, " that I remember the name." And she con- tinued to read : THE WANDERING JEW. 128 " ' The English thought and a very flattering opinion it was that, if they could kill me, they would make short work of the prince's army. So a Sepoy officer, with five or six irregulars cow- ardly, ferocious plunderers seeing me roll down the ravine, threw themselves into it to dispatch me. Surrounded by fire and smoke, and carried away by their ardor, our mountaineers had not seen me fall ; but Djalma never left me. He leaped into the ravine to my .assistance, and his cool intrepidity saved my life. He had held the fire of his double-barreled carbine ; with one load he killed the of- ficer on the spot ; with the other he broke the arm of an irregular, who had already pierced my left hand with his bayonet. But do not be alarmed, dear Eva ; it is nothing only a scratch.' ' " Wounded again wounded alas ! " cried Blanche, clasping her hands to- gether and interrupting her sister. " Take courage ! " said Dagobert ; "I dare say it was only a scratch, as the general calls it. Formerly, he used to call wounds which did not disable a man from fighting, blank wounds. There was no one like him for such sayings." "' Djalma, seeing me wounded,"' re- sumed Rose, wiping her eyes, "'made 134 THE WANDERING JEW. use of his heavy carbine as a club, and drove back the soldiers. At that instant, I perceived a new assailant who, sheltered behind a clump of bamboos which com- manded the ravine, slowly lowered his long- grin, placed the barrel between two branches, and took deliberate aim at Djalma. Before my shouts could apprise him of his danger, the brave youth had received a ball in his breast. Feeling himself hit, he fell back involuntarily two paces, and -dropped upon one knee; but he remained firm, endeavoring- to cover me with his body. You may conceive my rage and despair, while all n^ efforts to disengage myself were paralyzed by the excruciating pain in my thigh. Powerless and disarmed, I witnessed for some mo- ments this unequal struggle. "' Djalma was losing blood rapidly; his strength of arm began to fail him ; already one of the irregulars, inciting his comrades with his voice, drew from his belt a huge, heavy kind of bill-hook, when a dozen of our mountaineers made their appearance, borne toward the spot by the irresistible current of the battle. Djalma was rescued in his turn, I was released, and, in a quarter of an hour, I was able to mount a horse. The fortune of the day is ours, though with severe loss ; but the THE WANDERING JBW. 125 fires of the English camp are still visible, and to-morrow the conflict will be decisive. Thus, my beloved Eva, I owe my life to this youth. Happily, his wound occasions us no uneasiness; the ball only glanced along the ribs in a slanting direction." "The brave boy might have said : 'A blank wound,' like the general." observed Dagobert. " ' Now, my dear Eva,' " continued Rose, " ' you must become acquainted, by means of this narrative at least, with the intrepid Djalma. He is but just eighteen. With one word I will paint for you his noble and valiant nature; it is a custom of this country to give sur- names, and, when only fifteen, he was called " The Generous " by which was, of course, meant generous in heart and mind. By another custom, no less touch- ing than whimsical, this name has reverted to his parent, who is called " The Father of the Generous," and who might, with equal propriety, be called "The Just," for this old Indian is a rare example of chivalrous honor and proud independence. He might, like so many other poor princes of this country, have humbled himself be- fore the execrable despotism of the English, bargained for the relinquishment of sover- eign power, and submitted to brute force 126 THE WANDERING JEW. but it was not in his nature. " My whole rights, or a grave in my native moun- tains ! " such is his motto. And this is no empty boast : it springs from the con- viction of what is right and just. " But you will be crushed in the struggle," I have said to him. " My friend/' he an- swered, "what if, to force you to a disgraceful act, you were told to yield or die ? " From that day I understood him, and have devoted myself, mind and body, to the ever sacred cause of the weak against the strong. You see, my Eva, that Djalma shows himself worthy of such a father. This young Indian is so proud, so heroic in his bravery, that, like a young Greek of Leonidas' age, he fights with his breast bare ; while other warriors of his country (who, indeed, usually have arms, breast, and shoulders uncovered) wear, in time of battle, a thick, impenetrable vest. The rash daring of this youth reminds me of Murat, king of Naples, whom, I have so often told you, I have seen a hundred times leading the most desperate charges with nothing but a riding-whip in his hand.'" " ' That's another of those kings I was telling you of, whom the Emperor set up for his amusement," said Dagobert. " I once saw a Prussian officer prisoner, THE WANDERING JEW. 137 whose face had been cut across by that madcap King 1 of Naples' riding-whip ; the mark was there, a black and blue stripe. The Prussian swore he was dishonored, and that a saber-cut would have been preferable. I should rather think so ! That devil of a king; he had only one idea : ' Forward, on to the cannon ! ' As soon as they began to cannonade, one would have thought the grins were calling him with all their mig-ht, for he was soon up to them with his ' Here I am ! ' If I speak to you about him, my children, it's because he was fond of repeating; 'No one can break through a square of in- fantry if General Simon or I can't do it.' ' Rose continued : "'I have observed with pain, that, not- withstanding- his youth, Djalma is often subject to fits of deep melancholy. At times, I have seen him exchange with his father looks of singular import. In spite of our mutual attachment, I believe that both conceal from me some sad family secret, in so far as I can judg-e from ex- pressions which have dropped from them by chance. " ' It relates to some strange event, which their vivid imaginations have in- vested with a supernatural character. " ' And yet, my love, you and I have 138 THE WANDERING JEW. no longer the right to smile at the credulity of others. I, since the French campaign, when I met with that extraordinary ad- venture, which, to this day, I am quite unable to understand ' ' " This refers to the man who threw him- self before the mouth of the cannon," said Dagobert. '"And you/" continued the maiden, still reading, " 'you, my dear Eva, since the visits of that young and beautiful woman, whom, as your mother asserted, she had seen at her mother's house forty years before.' ' The orphans, in amazement, looked at the soldier. " Your mother never spoke to me of that, nor the general either, my children ; this is as strange to me as it is to you." With increasing excitement and curios- ity, Rose continued : " ' After all, my dear Eva, things which appear very extraordinary may often be explained by a chance resemblance or a freak of nature. Marvels being always the result of optical illusion or heated fancy, a time must come when that which appeared to be superhuman or super- natural will prove to be the most simple and natural event in the world. I doubt not, therefore, that the things which we THE WANDERING JEW. 129 denominate our prodigies will one day re- ceive this commonplace solution.' ' "You see, my children thing's appear marvelous, which at bottom are quite simple though for a long time we under- stand nothing about them." "As our father relates this, we must believe it, and not be astonished eh, sister ? " "Yes, truty since it will be explained one day." "For example," said Dagobert, after a moment's reflection, " you two are so much alike that any one, who was nob in the habit of seeing you daily, might easily take one for the other. Well ! if they did not know that you are, so to speak, 'doubles,' they might think an imp was at work instead of such good little angels as you are." " You are right, Dagobert ; in this way many things may be explained, even as our father says." And Rose continued to read : " * Not without pride, my gentle Eva, have I learned that Djalma has French biood in his veins. His father married, some years ago, a young girl whose fam- ily, of French origin, had long been settled at Batavia in the island of Java. This similarity of circumstances between my 130 THE WANDERING JEW. old friend and myself for your family also, my Eva, is of French origin, and long- settled in a foreign land has only served to augment my sympathy for him. Unfortunately, he has long had to mourn the loss of the wife whom he adored. " ' See, my beloved Eva ! my hand trembles as I write these words. I am weak I am foolish but, alas ! my heart sinks within me. If such a misfortune were to happen to me Oh, my God ! what would become of our child without thee without his father in that barbar- ous country ? But no ! the very fear is madness ; and yet what a horrible torture is uncertainty ! Where may 3 T ou now be ? What are you doing ? What has become of you ? Pardon these black thoughts, which are sometimes too much for me. They are the cause of my worst moments ; for, when free from them, I can at least say to myself : I am proscribed, I am every way unfortunate but, at the other end of the world, two hearts still beat for me with affection yours, my Eva, and our child's ! "' Rose could hardly finish this passage ; for some seconds her voice was broken by sobs. There was, indeed, a fatal coinci- dence between the fears of General Simon and the sad reality ; and what could be THE WANDEKING JEW. 131 more touching- than these outpourings of the heart, written by the light of a watch-fire, on the eve of battle, by a sol- dier who thus sought to soothe the pangs of a separation which he felt bitterly, but knew not would be eternal ? " Poor general ! he is unaware of our misfortune," said Dagobert, after a mo- ment's silence ; "but neither has he heard that he has two children, instead of one. That will be at least some consolation. But come, Blanche ; do go on reading : I fear that this dwelling on grief fatigues your sister, and she is too much affected by it. Beside, after all, it is only just that you should take your share of its pleasure and its sorrow." Blanche took the letter, and Rose, hav- ing dried her eyes, laid in her turn her sweet head on the shoulder of her sister, who thus continued : " ' I am calmer now, my dear Eva ; I left off writing for a moment, and strove to banish those black presentiments. Let us resume our conversation ! After dis- coursing so long about India, I will talk to you a little of Europe. Yesterday even- ing one of our people (a trusty fellow) rejoined our outposts. He brought me a letter, which had arrived from France at Calcutta ; at length, I have news of my 182 THE WANDERING JEW. father, and am no longer anxious on his account. This letter is dated in August of last year. I see by its contents that several other letters, to which he alludes, have either been delayed or lost ; for I had not received any for two years before, and was extremely uneasy about him. But my excellent father is the same as ever ! Age has not weakened him ; his character is as energetic, his health as robust, as in times past still a workman, still proud of his order, still faithful to his austere republican ideas, still hoping much. " ' For he says to me, " the time is at hand," and he underlines those words. He gives me also, as you will see, good news of the family of old Dagobert, our friend for in truth, my dear Eva, it soothes my grief to think that this excel- lent man is with you, that he will have accompanied you in your exile for I know him a kernel of gold beneath the rude rind of a soldier ! How he must love our child ! ' " Here Dagobert coughed two or three times, stooped down, and appeared to be seeking on the ground the little red and blue check-handkerchief spread over his knees. He remained thus bent for some seconds, and, when he raised himself, he drew his hand across his mustache. THE WANDERING JEW. 133 " How well our father knows you ! " "How rightly has he guessed that you would love us ! " " Well, well, children ; pass over that I Let's come to the part where the general speaks of my little Agricola, and of Ga- briel, my wife's adopted child. Poor wo- man ! when I think that in three months perhaps But come, child ; read, read," added the old soldier, wishing to conceal his emotion. " * I still hope against hope, my dear Eva, that these pages will one day reach you, and therefore I wish to insert in them all that can be interesting to Dagobert. It will be a consolation to him to have some news of his family. My father, who is still foreman at Mr. Hardy's, tells me that worthy man has also taken into his house the son of old Dagobert. Agricola works under my father, who is enchanted with him. He is, he tells me, a tall and vigorous lad, who wields the heavy forge- hammer as if it were a feather, and is light-spirited as he is intelligent and labo- rious. He is the best workman in the establishment ; and this does not prevent him in the evening, after his hard day's work, when he returns home to his mother, whom he truly loves, from making songs and writing excellent patriotic verses. 134 THE WANDERING JEW. His poetry is full of fire and energy ; his fellow-workmen sing- nothing else, and his lays have the power to warm the coldest and the most timid hearts.' ' " How proud you must be of your son, Dagobert," said Rose, in admiration ; " he writes songs." " Certainly, it is all very fine but what pleases me best is, that he is good to his mother, and that he handles the hammer with a will. As for the songs, before he makes a ' Rising of the People,' or a ' Mar- seillaise/ he will have had to beat a good deal of iron ; but where can this rascally sweet Agricola have learned to make songs at all ? No doubt it was at school, where he went, as you will see, with his adopted brother Gabriel." At this name of Gabriel, which reminded them of the imaginary being whom they called their guardian angel, the curiosity of the young girls was greatly excited. With redoubled attention, Blanche con- tinued in these words : " ' The adopted brother of Agricola, the poor deserted child whom the wife of our good Dagobert so generously took in, forms, my father tells me, a great con- trast with Agricola ; not in heart, for they have both excellent hearts; but Gabriel is as thoughtful and melancholy THE WANDERING JEW. 186 as Agricola is lively, joyous, and active. Moreover, adds my father, each of them, so to speak, has the aspect which belongs to his character. Agricola is dark, tall, and strong, with a gay and bold air; Gabriel, on the contrary, is weak, fair, timid as a girl, and his face wears an ex- pression of angelic mildness.' ' The orphans looked at each other in surprise ; then, as they turned toward the soldier their ingenuous countenances, Rose said to him. "Have you heard, Dagobert ? Father says that your Ga- briel is fair and has the face of an angel. Why, 'tis exactly like ours ! " " Yes, yes, I heard very well ; it is that which surprised me in your dream." "I should like to know if he has also blue eyes," said Rose. " As for that, my children, thou'gh the general says nothing about it, I will an- swer for it : your fair boys have always blue eyes. But, blue or black, he will not use them to stare at young ladies ; go on, and you will see why." Blanche resumed : " ' His face wears an expression of an- gelic mildness. One of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, where he went with Agricola and other children of his quarter, struck with his intelligence and 136 THE WANDERING JEW. good disposition, spoke of him to a person of consequence, who, becoming 1 interested in the lad, placed him in a seminary for the clergy, and, since the last two years, Gabriel is a priest. He intends devoting himself to foreign missions, and will soon set out for America.' ' " Your Gabriel is a priest, it appears ? " said Rose, looking at Dagobert. " While ours is an angel," added Blanche. " Which only proves that yours is a step higher than mine. Well, every one to his taste ; there are good people in all trades; but I prefer that it should be Gabriel who has chosen the black gown. I'd rather see my boy with arms bare, hammer in hand, and a leathern apron round him, neither more nor less than your old grandfather, my children the father of Marshal Simon, Duke of Ligny for, after all, marshal and duke he is by the grace of the Emperor. Now finish your letter." " Soon, alas, yes ! " said Blanche ; "there are only a few lines left." And she proceeded : "'Thus, my dear, loving Eva, if this journal should ever reach its destination, you will be able to satisfy Dagobert as to the position of his wife and son, whom he THE WANDERING JEW. 187 left for our sakes. How can we ever re- pay such a sacrifice ? But I feel sure that your good and generous heart will have found some means of compensation. " 'Adieu ! Again adieu, for to-day, my beloved Eva ; I left off writing for a mo- ment, to visit the tent of Djalma. He slept peacefully, and his father watched beside him ; with a smile, he banished my fears. This intrepid young man is no longer in any danger. May he still be spared in the combat of to-morrow 1 Adieu, my gentle Eva ! the night is silent and calm; the fires of the bivouac are slowly dying out, and our poor mountain- eers repose after this bloody day ; I can hear, from hour to hour, the distant all's- well of our sentinels. Those foreign words bring back my grief ; they remind me of what I sometimes forget in writing that I am far away, separated from you and from my child ! Poor, beloved beings ! what will be your destiny ? Ah ! if I could only send you, in time, that medal, which, by a fatal accident, I carried away with me from Warsaw, you might, per- haps, obtain leave to visit France, or at least to send our child there with Dag- obert ; for you know of what importance But why add this sorrow to all the rest ? Unfortunately, the years are pass- 138 THE WANDERING JEW. ing- away, the fatal day will arrive, and this last hope, in which I live for you, will also be taken from me : but I will not close the evening 1 by so sad a thought. Adieu, my beloved Eva ! Clasp our child to your bosom, and cover it with all the kisses which 1 send to both of you from the depths of exile ! " ' Till to-morrowafter the battle ! '" The reading 1 of this touching- letter was followed by a long- silence. The tears of Rose and Blanche flowed together. Dag-o- bert, with his head resting- on his hand, was absorbed in painful reflections. Without doors the wind had now aug-- mented in violence ; a heavy rain began to beat on the sounding- panes ; the most profound silence reig-ned in the interior of the inn. But, while the daug-hters of General Simon were reading- with such deep emotion these frag-ments of their father's journal, a strang-e and mysterious scene transpired in the inenag-erie of the brute-tamer. THE WANDERING JEW. J89 CHAPTER IX. THE CAGES. MOROK had prepared himself. Over his deer-skin vest he had drawn the coat of mail that steel tissue, as pliable as cloth, as hard as diamonds ; next, cloth- ing 1 his arms and legs in their proper armor, and his feet in iron-bound buskins, and concealing- all this defensive equip- ment under loose trousers and an ample pelisse carefully buttoned, he took in his hand a long bar of iron, white hot, set in a wooden handle. Though long ago daunted by the skill and energy of the Prophet, his tiger Cain, his lion Judas, and his black panther Death, had sometimes attempted, in a moment of rebellion, to try their fangs and claws on his person ; but, thanks to the armor concealed beneath his pelisse, they blunted their claws upon a skin of steel, and notched their fangs upon arms or legs of iron, while a slight touch of their master's metallic wand left a deep furrow ift their smoking, shriveled flesh. Finding the inutility of their efforts, and endowed with strong memory, the beasts soon learned that their teeth and 140 THE WANDERING JEW. claws were powerless when directed against this invulnerable being 1 . Hence, their terrified submission reached to such a point that, in his public representations, their master could make them crouch and cower at his feet by the least movement of a little wand covered with flame- colored paper. The Prophet, thus armed with care, and holding 1 in his hand the iron made hot by Goliath, descended by the trap-door of the loft into the large shed beneath, in which were deposited the cages of his animals. A mere wooden partition sep- arated this shed from the stable that con- tained his horses. A lantern, with a reflector, threw a vivid light on the cages. They were four in number. A wide iron grating formed their sides, turning at one end upon hinges like a door, so as to give ingress to the animal ; the bottom of each den rested on two axletrees and four small iron castors, so that they could easily be removed to the large covered wagon in which they were placed during a journey. One of them was empty ; the other three con- tained, as already intimated, a panther, a tiger, and a lion. The panther, originally from Java, seemed to merit the gloomy name of THE WANDERING JEW. 141 Death, by her grim ferocious aspect. Completely black, she lay crouching- and rolled up in the bottom of her cage, and her dark hues mingling- with the obscurity which surrounded her, nothing- was dis- tinctly visible but fixed and glaring eyes yellow balls of phosphoric light, which only kindled, as it were, in the night time ; for it is the nature of all the animals of the feline species to enjoy entire clearness of vision but in darkness. The Prophet entered the stable in si- lence : the dark red of his long pelisse contrasted with the pale yellow of his straight hair and beard ; the lantern, placed at some height above the ground, threw its rays full upon this man, and the strong light, opposed to the deep shadows around it, gave effect to the sharp pro- portions of his bony and savage-looking figure. He approached the cage slowly. The white rim, which encircled his eyeball, ap- peared to dilate, and his look rivaled in motionless brilliancy the steadily spark- ling gaze of the panther. Still crouching in the shade, she felt already the fascina- tion of that glance ; two or three times she dropped her eyelids with a low, angry howl ; then, reopening her eyes, as if in spite of herself, she kept them fastened 143 THE WANDEEINQ JEW. immovably on those of the Prophet. And now her rounded ears clung 1 to her skull, which was flattened like a viper's; the skin of her forehead became convulsively wrinkled ; she drew in her bristling, but silky muzzle, and twice silently opened her jaws, garnished with formidable fangs. From that moment a kind of magnetic connection seemed to be established be- tween the man and the beast.* The Prophet extended his glowing- bar toward the cage, and said, in a sharp, imperious tone : "Death ! come here ! " The panther rose, but so dragged her- self along- that her belly and the bend of her legs touched the ground. She was three feet high, and nearly five in length ; her elastic and fleshy spine, the sinews of her thighs as well developed as those of a race horse, her deep chest, her enormous jutting shoulders, the nerve and muscle in her short, thick paws all announced that this terrible animal united vigor with sup- pleness, and strength with agilitj^. Morok, with his iron wand still ex- tended in the direction of the cage, made a step toward the panther. The panther made a stride tow T ard the Prophet. Mo- rok stopped ; Death stopped also. At this moment the tig-er, Judas, to whom Morok's back was turned, bounded THE WANDERING JEW. 143 violently in his cage, as if jealous of the attention which his master paid to the panther. He growled hoarsely, and, rais- ing his head, showed the under part of his redoubtable triangular jaw, and his broad chest of a dirty white, with which blended the copper color, streaked with black, of his sides; his tail, like a huge red serpent, with rings of ebony, now clung to his flanks, now lashed them with a slow and continuous movement ; his eyes, of a transparent, brilliant green, were fixed upon the Prophet. Such was the influence of this man over his animals, that Judas almost imme- diately ceased growling, as if frightened at his own temerity ; but his respiration continued loud and deep. Morok turned his face toward him, and examined him very attentively during some seconds. The panther, no longer subject to the influ- ence of his master's look, slunk back to crouch in the shade. A sharp cracking, in sudden breaks, like that which great animals make in gnawing hard substances, was now heard from the cage of the lion. It drew the attention of the Prophet, who, leaving the tiger, advanced toward the other den. Nothing could be seen of the lion but 144 THE WANDERING JEW. his monstrous croup of a reddish yellow. His thighs were gathered under him, and his thick mane served entirely to conceal his head. But by the tension and move- ment of the muscles of his loins, and the curving 1 of his backbone, it was easy to perceive that he was making violent efforts with his throat and his forepaws. The Prophet approached the cage with some uneasiness, fearing that, notwithstanding his orders, Goliath had given the lion some bones to gnaw. To assure himself of it, he said in a quick, and firm voice : "Cain!" The lion did not change his position. " Cain ! come here ! " repeated Morok in a louder tone. The appeal was useless ; the lion did not move, and the noise con- tinued. " Cain ! come here ! " said the Prophet a third time ; but, as he pronounced these words, he applied the end of. the glowing bar to the haunch of the lion. Scarcely did the light track of smoke appear on the reddish hide of Cain, when, with a spring of incredible agility, he turned and threw himself against the grating, not crouching, but at a single bound upright, superb, terrifying. The Prophet, being at the angle of the cage, Cain, in his fury, had raised himself side- The end releases other men from strife; His fate is ceaseless toil and deathless life. The Wandering Jew. Vol. 1. THE WANDERING JEW. 145 ways to face his master, and, leaning his huge flank against the bars, thrust be- tween them his enormous fore-leg, which, with his swollen muscles, was as large as Goliath's thigh. " Cain ! down ! " said the Prophet, ap- proaching briskly. " The lion did not obey immediately. His lips, curling with rage, displayed fangs as long, as large, and as pointed as the tusks of a wild boar. But Morok touched those lips with the end of the burning metal ; and, as he felt the smart, followed by an unexpected summons of his master, the lion, not daring to roar, uttered a hollow growl, and his great body sunk down at once in an attitude of submission and fear. The Prophet took the lantern to see what Cain had been gnawing. It was one of the planks from the floor of his den, which he had succeeded in tear- ing up, and was crunching between his teeth in the extremity of his hunger. For a few moments the most profound silence reigned in the menagerie. The prophet, with his hands behind his back, went from one cage to the other, observ- ing the animals with a restless, contem- plative look, as if he hesitated to make between them an important and difficult choice. VOL. 17 146 THE WANDEKING JEW. From time to time he listened at the great door of the shed, which opened on the courtyard of the inn. At length this door turned on its hinges, and Goliath appeared, his clothes dripping- with water. "Well ! Is it done ?" said the Prophet. "Not without trouble. Luckily, the night is dark, it blows hard, and it pours with rain." " Then there is no suspicion ? " " None, master. Your information was good. The door of the cellar opens on the fields, just under the window of the lasses. When you whistled to let me know it was time, I crept out with a stool I had pro- vided ; I put it up against the wall and mounted upon it ; with my six feet that made nine, and I could lean my elbows on the window-ledge ; I took the shutter in one hand, and the haft of my knife in the other, and, while I broke two of the panes, I pushed the shutter with all my might." " And they thought it was the wind ? " "Yes. They thought it was the wind. You see, the * brute ' is not such a brute, after all. That done, I crept back into my cellar, carrying my stool with me. In a little time, I heard the voice of the old man ; it was well I had made haste." " Yes ; when 1 whistled to you, he had THE WANDERING JEW. 147 just entered the supper-room. I thought he would have been longer." " That man's not built to remain long at supper," said the giant, contemptuous- ly. " Some moments after the panes had been broken, the old man opened the win- dow, and called his dog, saying : ' Jump out ! ' I went and hid myself at the fur- ther end of the cellar, or that infernal dog would have scented me through the door. " " The dog is now shut up in the stable with the old man's horse. Go on ! " "When I heard them close shutter and window, I came out of my cellar, replaced my stool, and again mounted upon it. Unfastening the shutter, I opened it with- out noise, but the two broken panes were stopped up with the skirts of a pelisse. I heard talking, but I could see nothing ; so I moved the pelisse a little, and then I could see the two lasses in bed opposite to me, and the old man sitting down with his back to where I stood." "But the knapsack the knapsack? That is the most important." " The knapsack was near the window, on a table, by the side of a lamp ; I could have reached it by stretching out my arm." " What did you har said ? " " As you told me to think only of the 148 THE WANDERING JEW. knapsack, I can only remember what con- cerns the knapsack. The old man said he had some papers in it the letters of a general his money his cross." " Good what next ? " " As it was difficult for me to keep the pelisse away from the hole, it slipped through my fingers. In trying to get hold of it again, I put my hand too much forward. One of the lasses saw it, and screamed out, pointing to the window." " Dolt ! " exclaimed the Prophet, be- coming pale with rage ; " you have ruined all." " Stop a bit ! there is nothing broken yet. When I heard the scream, I jumped down from my stool, and got back into the cellar; as the dog was no longer about, I left the door ajar, so that I could hear them open the window, and see, by the light, that the old man was looking out with the lamp ; but he could find no ladder, and the window was too high for any man of common size to reach it!" " He will have thought, like the first time, that it was the wind. You are less awkward than I imagined." " The wolf has become a fox, as you said. Knowing whre the knapsack was to be found with the money and the THE WANDERING JEW. 149 papers, and not being- able to do more for the moment, I came away and here I am." " Go upstairs and fetch me the longest pike." "Yes, master." "And the red blanket." "Yes, master." "Go!" Goliath began to mount the ladder; half-way up he stopped. " Master," said he, "may I not bring down a bit of meat for Death ? you will see that she'll bear me malice ; she puts it all down to my account; she never forgets, and on the first occasion " " The pike and the cloth ! " repeated the Prophet, in an imperious tone. And while Goliath, swearing to himself, pro- ceeded to execute his instructions, Morok opened the great door of the shed, looked out into the yard, and listened. "Here's the pike and the cloth," said the giant, as he descended the ladder with the articles. " Now, what must I do next? " "Return to the cellar, mount once more by the window, and when the old man leaves the room " " Who will make him leave the room?" " Never mind ! he will leave it." 150 THE WANDERING JEW. "What next? " " You say the lamp is near the win- dow?" " Quite near on the table next to the knapsack." " Well, then, as soon as the old man leaves the room, push open the window, thrown down the lamp, and if you accom- plish cleverly what remains to do the ten florins are yours you remember it all?" "Yes, yes." " The girls will be so frightened by the noise and darkness that they will remain dumb with terror." " Make yourself easy ! The wolf turned into a fox ; why not a serpent ? " " There is yet something." "Well, what now ? " " The roof of this shed is not very high, the window of the loft is easy of access, the night is dark instead of returning by the door " " I will come in at the window." "Ay, and without noise." " Like a regular snake ! " and the giant departed. "Yes!" said the Prophet to himself, after a long silence, " these means are sure. It was not for me to hesitate. A blind and obscure instrument, I know not THE WANDERING JEW. 151 the motives of the orders I have received; but from the recommendations which ac- company them from the position of him who sends them immense interests must be involved interests connected with all that is highest and greatest upon earth ! And yet how can these two girls, almost beggars, how can this wretched soldier represent such interests ?> No matter," added he, with humility; "I am the arm which acts it is for the head, which thinks and orders, to answer for its work." Soon after the Prophet left the shed, carrying with him the red cloth, and directed his steps toward the little stable that contained Jovial. The crazy door, imperfectly secured by a latch, was easily opened. At sight of a stranger Spoil- sport threw himself upon him ; but his teeth encountered the iron leggings of the Prophet, who, in spite of the efforts of the dog, took Jovial by his halter, threw the blanket over his head to prevent his either seeing or smelling, and led him from the stable into the interior of the menagerie, of which he closed the door. 153 THE WANDERING JEW. CHAPTER X. THE SURPRISE. THE orphans, after reading" the journal of their father, remained for some mo- ments silent, sad and pensive, contem-. plating- the leaves, yellowed by time. Dagobert, also plung-ed in a reverie, thought of his Wife and son, from whom he had been so long- separated, and hoped soon to see ag-ain. The soldier was the first to break the silence, which had lasted for several min- utes. Taking- the leaves from the hand of Blanche, he folded them careful!}', put them into his pocket, and thus addressed the orphans : " Courage, my children ! You see what a brave father you have. Think only of the pleasure of greeting- him, and remem- ber always the name of the. g-allant youth to whom you will owe that pleasure for without him .your father would have been killed in India." " Djalma ! we shall never forget him," said Rose. ''And if our guardian ang-el Gabriel should return," added Blanche, " we will THE WANDERING JBW. 158 ask him to watch over Djalma as over ourselves." " Very well, my children ; I am sure that you will forget nothing- that concerns good feeling. But to return to the trav- eler who came to visit your poor mother in Siberia. He had seen the general a month after the events of which you have read, and at a moment when he was about to enter on a new campaign against the English. It was then that your father intrusted him with the papers and medal." " But of what use will this medal be to us, Dagobert ? " "And what is the meaning of these words engraved upon it ? " added Rose, as she drew it from her bosom. " Why, it means, my children, that on the 13th of February, 1832. -.ve must be at No. 3 Rue Saint Francois, Paris." " But what are we to do there ? " " Your poor mother was seized so quickly with her last illness that she was unable to tell me. All I know is, that this medal came to her from her par- ents, and that it had been a relic pre- served in her family for more than a century." " And how did our father get it ? " " Among the articles which had been 154 THE WANDERING JBW. hastily thrown into the coach, when he was removed by force from Warsaw, was a dressing-case of your mother's, in which was contained this medal. Since that time the general had been unable to send it back, having no means of communicat- ing" with us, and not even knowing where we were." " This medal is, then, of great impor- tance to us ?" " Unquestionably ; for never, during fifteen years, had I seen your mother so happy, as on the day the traveler brought it back to her. ' Now,' said she to me, in the presence of the stranger, and with tears of joy in her eyes, 'now may my children's future be brilliant as their life has hitherto been miserable. I will en- treat of the governor of Siberia permis- sion to go to France with my daughters ; it will perhaps be thought I have been sufficiently punished by fifteen years of exile, and the confiscation of my property. Should they refuse, I will remain here; and they will at least allow me to send my children to France, and you must ac- company them, Dagobert. You shall set out immediately, for much time has been already lost ; and if you were not to arrive before the 13th of next February this cruel separation and toilsome journey would have been all in vain." THE WANDERING JEW. 156 " Suppose we were one day after ? " " Your mother told me that if we arrived on the 14th instead of the 13th it would be too late. She also gave me a thick letter, to put inlo the post for France, in the first town we should pass through which I have done." " And do you think we shall be at Paris in time ? " "I hope so; still, if you are strong- enough, we must sometimes make forced marches for, if we only travel our five leagues a day, and that without accident, we shall scarcely reach Paris until the beginning of February, and it is better to be a little beforehand." "But as father is in India, ani con- demned to death if he return to France, then shall we see him ? " " And where shall we see him ? " " Poor children ! there are so many things you have yet to learn. When the traveler quitted him, the general could 'not return to France, but now he can do so." "And why is that?" "Because the Bourbons, who had ban- ished him, were themselves turned out last year. The news must reach India, and your father will certainly come to meet you at Paris, because he expects 106 THE WANDERING JEW. that you and your mother will be there on the 13th of next February." " Ah ! now I understand how we may hope to see him ! " said Rose with a sigh. . " Do you know the name of this trav* eler, Dagobert ? " " No, my children ; but whether called Jack or John, he is a good sort. When he left 3 r our mother, she thanked him with tears for all his kindness and de- votion to the general, herself and her children ; but he pressed her hands in his, and said to her, in so gentle a voice that 1 could not help being touched by it : Why do you thank me? Did He not say, " LOVE YE ONE ANOTHER " ' ? " " Who is that, Dagobert ? " " Yes, of whom did the traveler speak ?" " I know nothing about it ; only the manner in which he pronounced those words struck me, and they were the last he spoke." " Love one another ! " repeated Rose, thoughtfully. "How beautiful are those words!" added Blanche. "And whither was the traveler go- ing?" '* Far, very far into the North, as he told your mother. When she saw him depart, she said to me : ' His mild, sad THE WANDERING JEW. 157 talk has affected me even to tears ; while 1 listened to him, I seemed to be growing better I seemed to love my husband and my children more and yet, to judge by the expression of his countenance, one would think that this stranger had never either smiled or wept ! ' She and I watched him from the door as long as we could follow him with our eyes; he carried his head down, and his walk was slow, calm, and firm; one might fancy that he counted his steps. And, talk- ing of steps, 1 remarked yet another thing/' " What was it, Dagobert ? ' : "You know that the road which led to our house was always damp, because of the overflowing of the little spring." "Yes." " Well, then, the mark of the traveler's footsteps remained in the clay, and T s?w that he had nails under his shoe in the form of a cross." " How in the form of a cross ? " "Look!" said Dagobert, placing the tip of his finger seven times on the cov- erlet of the bed ; " they were arranged thus beneath his heel: 158 THE WANDERING JEW. * * * * You see it forms a cross." "What could it mean, Dagobert?" " Chance, perhaps 3 T es, chance and yet, in spite of myself, this confounded cross left behind him struck me as a bad omen, for hardly was he gone when misfortune after misfortune fell upon us." "Alas ! the death of our mother ! " "Yes but, before that, another piece of ill-luck. You had not yet returned, and she was writing 1 her petition to ask leave to go to France or to send you there, when I heard the gallop of a horse. It was a courier from the governor-gen- eral of Siberia. He brought us orders to change our residence ; within three days we were to join other condemned persons, and be removed with them four hundred leagues further north. Thus, after fifteen years of exile, they re- doubled in cruelty toward your mother." " Why did they thus torment her ? " " One would think that some evil genius was at work against her. A few days later, the traveler would no longer have found us at Milosk ; and if he had joined THE WANDERING JEW. jgp us further on, it would have been too far for the medal and papers to be of use since, having- set out almost immediately, we shall hardly arrive in time at Paris. ' If they had some interest to prevent me and my children from going to France/ said your mother, ' they would act just as they have done. To banish us four hundred leagues further is to render impossible this journey, of which the term is fixed.' And the idea over- whelmed her with grief." " Perhaps it was this unexpected sorrow that was the cause of her sudden illness." "Alas! no, my children; it was that infernal cholera, who arrives without giving you notice for he, too, is a great traveler and strikes you down like a thunderbolt. Three hours after the trav- eler had left us, when you returned quite pleased and gay from the forest, with your large bunches of wild-flowers for your mother, she was already in the last agony, and hardly to be recognized. The cholera had broken out in the village, and that evening five persons died of it. Your . mother had only time to hang the medal about your neck, my dear little Rose, to recommend you both to my care, and to beg that we should set out immediately. When she was gone, the new order of 160 THE WANDERING JEW. exile could not apply to you ; and I ob- tained permission from the governor to take my departure with you for France, according to the last wishes " The soldier could not finish the sentence: he covered his eyes with his hand, while the orphans embraced him, sobbing. 11 Oh ! but," resumed Dagobert, with pride, after a moment of painful silence, " it was then that you showed yourselves the brave daughters of the general. Not- withstanding the danger, it was impos- sible to tear you from your mother's bedside ; you remained with her to the last, you closed her eyes, you watched there all night, and you would not leave the village till you had seen me plant the little wooden cross over the grave I had dug for her." Dagobert paused abruptly. A strange, wild neighing, mingled with ferocious roarings, made the soldier start from his seat. He grew pale, and cried: '' It is Jovial ! my horse ! What are they doing to my horse ? " With that, open- ing the door, he rushed down the stairs precipitately. The two sisters clung together, so terri- fied at the sudden departure of the sol- dier, that they saw not an enormous hand pass through the broken panes, THE WANDERING JEW. 161 unfasten the catch of the window, push it violently open, and throw down the lamp placed on the little table, on which was the soldier's knapsack. The orphans thus found themselves plunged into com- plete darkness. CHAPTER XI. JOVIAL AND DEATH. MOROK had led Jovial into the middle of the menagerie, and then removed the cloth which prevented him from seeing and smelling. Scarcely had the tiger, lion, and panther cauerht a glimpse of him, than they threw themselves, half- famished, against the bars of their dens. The horse, struck with stupor, his neck stretched out, his eye fixed, and trem- bling through all hit limbs, appeared as if nailed to the ground ; an abundant icy sweat rolled suddenly down his flanks. The lion and the tiger uttered fearful roarings, and struggled violently in their dens. The panther did not roar, but her mute rage was terrific. With a tremendous bound, at the risk of breaking her skull, she sprung from the back of the cage against the bars; then, still mute, still furious, she crawled back to the extreme corner of the den, and with a new spring, as impetuous as 162 THE WANDERING JEW. it was blind, she again strove to force out the iron grating. Three times had she thus bounded silent, appalling- when the horse, passing- from the immobility of stupor to the wild agony of fear, neig-hed long- and loud, and rushed in desperation at the door by which he had entered. Finding- it closed he hung his head, bent his knees a little, and rubbed his nostrils against the opening left between the ground and the bottom of the door, as if he wished to inhale the air from the out- side ; then, more and more affrighted, he began to neigh with redoubled force, and struck out violently with his fore-feet. At the moment when Death was about once more to make her spring, the Prophet approached her cage. The heavy bolt which secured the grating was pushed from its staple by the pike of the brute- tamer, and, in another second, Morok was half way up the ladder that communicated with the loft. The roaring of the lion and tiger, min- gled with the neighing of Jovial, now resounded through all parts of the inn. The panther had again thrown herself furiously on the grating; and tins time yielding with one spring, she was in the middle of the shed. The light of the lantern was reflected THE WANDERING JEW. 168 from the glossy ebon of her hide, spotted with stains of a duller black. For an in- stant she remained motionless, crouching upon her thick-set limbs, with her head close to the floor, as if calculating- the dis- tance of the leap by which she was to reach the horse ; then suddenly she darted upon him. On seeing- her break from her cage Jovial had thrown himself violently against the door, which was made to open inwards, and leaned against it with all his might, as though he would force it down. Then, at the moment when Death took her leap, he reared up in almost an erect position ; but she, rapid as lightning, had fastened upon his throat and hung there, while at the same time she buried the sharp claws of her fore-feet in his chest. The jugular vein of the horse opened ; a torrent of bright red blood spouted forth beneath the teeth of the panther, who, now supporting- herself on her hind- legs, squeezed her victim up against the door, while she dug into his flank with her claws, and laid bare the palpitating flesh. Then his half-strangled neighing became awful. Suddenly these words resounded: "Cour- age, Jovial 1 I am at hand ! Courage !" It was the voice of Dagobert, who was 164 THE WANDERING JEW. exhausting himself in desperate exertions to force open the door that concealed this sanguinary struggle. "Jovial!'' cried the soldier, " I am here. Help ! help ! " At the sound of that friendly and well known voice, the poor animal, almost at its last gasp, strove to turn its head in the direction whence came the accents of his master, answered him with a plaintive neigh, and, sinking beneath the efforts of the panther, fell prostrate, first on its knees, then upon its flank, so that its back- bone lay right across the door, and still prevented its being opened. And now, all was finished. The panther, squatting down upon the horse, crushed him with all her paws, and, in spite of some last faint kicks, buried her bloody snout in his body. "Help ! help ! my horse ! " cried Dago- bert, as he vainly shook the door. "And no arms!" he added with rage; "no arms ! " " Take care ! " exclaimed the brute- tamer, who appeared at the window of the loft ; " do not attempt to enter it might cost you your life. My panther is furious." "But my horse! my horse!" cried Dagobert, in a voice of agony. "He must have strayed from his stable THE WANDERING JEW. 165 during- the night, and pushed open the door of the shed. At sight of him the panther must have broken out of her cage and seized him. You are answer- able for all the mischief that may ensue," added the brute-tamer, with a menacing air; "for I shall have to run the great- est danger to make Death return to her den." " But my horse ! only save my horse !" cried Dagobert, in a tone of hopeless supplication. The Prophet disappeared from the win- dow. The roaring of the animals and the shouts of Dagobert had roused from sleep every one in the White Falcon. Here and there lights were seen moving and windows were thrown open hur- riedly. The servants of the inn soon appeared in the yard with lanterns, and surrounding Dagobert, inquired of him what had happened. "My horse is there," cried the soldier, continuing to shake the door, " and one of that scoundrel's animals has escaped from its cage." At these words the people of the inn, already terrified by the frightful roaring, fled from the spot and ran to inform the host. The soldier's anguish may be 166 THE WANDERING JEW. conceived, as pale, breathless, with his ear close to the chink of the door, he stood listening. By degrees the roaring had ceased, and nothing was heard but low growls, accompanied by the stern voice of the Prophet, repeating in harsh, abrupt accents: "Death! come here! Death I" The night was profoundly dark, and Dagobert did not perceive Goliath, who, crawling carefully along the tiled roof, entered the loft by the attic window. And now the gate of the court-yard was again opened, and the landlord of the inn appeared, followed by a number of men. Armed with a carbine, he ad- vanced with precaution ; his people car- ried staves and pitchforks. "What is the row here?" said he, as he approached Dagobert. " What a hub- bub in my house ! The devil take wild- beast showmen, and negligent fellows who don't know how to tie a horse. to the man- ger ! If your beast is hurt, so much the worse for you ; you should have taken more care of it." Instead of replying to these reproaches, the soldier, who still listened attentively to what was going on in the shed, made a sign to entreat silence. Suddenly a ferocious roar was heard, followed by a THE WANDERING JEW. 167 loud scream from the Prophet ; and, almost immediately after, the panther howled piteously. " You are no doubt the cause of some great accident," said the frightened host to the soldier ; " did you not hear that cry ? Morok is, perhaps, dangerously wounded." Dagobert was about to answer, when the door opened, and Goliath appeared on the threshold. "You may enter now," said he; "the danger is over." The interior of the menagerie presented a singular spectacle. The Prophet, pale, and scarcely able to conceal his agitation beneath an apparent air of calmness, was kneeling some paces from the cage of the panther, in the attitude of one absorbed in himself ; the motion of his lips indicat- ing that he was praying. At sight of the host and the people of the inn, he rose, and said in a solemn voice: "I thank Thee, my Preserver, that I have been able to conquer, by the strength which Thou hast given me." Then, folding his arms, with haughty brow and imperious glance, he seemed to enjoy the triumph he had achieved over Death, who, stretched on the bottom of her den, continued to utter plaintive 168 THE WANDERING JEW. bowlings. The spectators of this scene, ignorant that the pelisse of a brute-tamer covered a complete suit of armor, and attributing the cries of the panther solely to fear, were struck with astonishment and admiration at the intrepidity and almost supernatural power of this man. A few steps behind him stood Goliath, leaning upon the ashen pikestaff. Final- ly, not far from the cage, in the midst of a pool of blood, lay the dead body of Jovial. At sight of the blood-stained and torn remains, Dagobert stood motionless, and his rough countenance assumed an expres- sion of the deepest grief : then, throwing himself on his knees, he lifted the head of Jovial; and when he saw those dull, glassy, and half-closed eyes, once so bright and intelligent, as they turned toward a much- loved master, the soldier could not sup- press an exclamation of bitter anguish. Forgetting his anger, forgetting the de- plorable consequences of this accident, so fatal to the interests of the two maidens, who would thus be prevented from con- tinuing their journey he thought only of the horrible death of his poor old horse, the ancient companion of his fatigues and wars, the faithful animal, twice wounded like himself, and from whom for so many THE WANDERING JEW. 169 years he had never been separated. This poignant emotion was so cruelly, so affect- ingly visible in the soldier's countenance, that the landlord and his people felt them- selves for a moment touched with pity, as they gazed on the tall veteran kneeling: beside his dead horse. But when, following; the course of his regrrets, he thought how Jovial had also been the companion of his exile ; how the mother of the orphans had formerly (like her daughters) undertaken a toilsome journey with the aid of this unfortunate animal, the fatal consequences of his loss presented themselves on a sudden to his mind. Then, fury succeeding to grief, lie rose, with anger flashing from his eyes, and threw himself on the Prophet; with one hand he seized him by the throat, and with the other administered five or six heavy blows, which fell harmlessly on the coat of mail. "Rascal! you shall answer to me for my horse's death !" said the soldier, as he continued his correction. Morok, light and sinewy, could not struggle with ad- vantage against Dagobert, who, aided by his tall stature, still displayed extraor- dinary vigor. It needed the intervention of Goliath and the landlord to rescue the Prophet from the hands of the old gren- Voi>. 18 170 THE WANDERING JEW. adier. After some moments, they suc- ceeded in separating- the two champions. Morok was white with rage. It needed new efforts to prevent his seizing- the pike to attack Dagobert. "It is abominable ! " cried the host, addressing the soldier, who pressed his clenched fists in despair against his bald forehead. "You expose this good man to be devoured by his beasts, and then you wish to beat him into the bargain. Is this fitting- conduct for a graybeard ? Shall we have to fetch the police ? You showed yourself more reasonable !n the early part of the evening-." These words recalled the soldier to Ljn- self. He regretted his impetuosity the more, as the fact of his being a strang-er might augrnent the difficulty of his posi- tion. It was necessary above all to ob- tain the price of tis horse, so as to be enabled to continue his journey, the suc- cess of which might be compromised by a single day's delay. With a violent effort, therefore, he succeeded in restraining- his wrath. " You are right I was too hasty," said he to the host, in an agitated voice, which he tried to make as calm as possible, " I had not the same patience as before. But ought not this man to be responsible for THE WANDERING JEW. 171 the loss of my horse ? I make you judge in the matter." " Well