by Eugène Sue
“But, my brother, so far I see only success for our plans. Everything seems to favour them.”
“Yes, my sister; but you are counting without the love of Dolores, and the resolute character of this damned captain.”
“What audacity!”
“He followed on horseback, relay after relay, the carriage of the canon, galloping from Bordeaux to Paris like a state messenger. He must have a constitution of iron. He stopped at every inn where Dom Diégo stopped, and during the journey Dolores and the captain were ogling each other, in spite of the rage and resistance of Dom Diégo. Could he prevent this love-sick girl looking out of the window? Could he prevent this miscreant riding on the highway by the side of his carriage?”
“Such audacity seems incredible, does it not, my brother?”
“Which is the reason I tell you we must be on guard everywhere from this madman. He is not alone; one of his sailors, a veritable blackguard, accompanied him, riding behind in his train, and holding on to his horse like a monkey on a donkey, so the majordomo told me. But that did not matter, this demon of a sailor is capable of anything to help his captain, to whom he is devoted. And that is not all. Twenty times on the route Dolores positively told her uncle that she did not wish to become a religious, that she wished to marry the captain, and that he would know how to come to her if they constrained her, — he and his sailor would deliver her if they had to set fire to the convent.”
“What a bandit!” cried Sister Prudence. “What a desperate villain!”
“You see, dear sister, how things were yesterday, when Dom Diégo took possession of the apartment I had previously engaged for him. This morning he desired me to visit him. I found him in bed and very much depressed. He told me that a sudden revolution had taken place in the mind of his niece; that now she seemed as submissive and resigned as she had been rebellious, that she had at last consented to go to the convent, and to-day if it was required.”
“My brother, my brother, this is a very sudden and timely change.”
“Such is my opinion, my sister, and, if I am not mistaken, this sudden change hides some snare. I have told you we must play a sure game. It is a great deal, no doubt, to have this love-sick girl in our hands; but we must not forget the enemy, this detestable Captain Horace, who, accompanied by his sailor, will no doubt be prowling around the house, like the ravening wolf spoken of in the Scriptures.”
“Quærens quem devoret,” said Sister Prudence, who prided herself upon her Latin.
“Just so, my sister, seeking whom he may devour, but, fortunately, there’s a good watch-dog for every good wolf, and we have intelligent and courageous servants. The strictest watchfulness must be established without and within. We will soon know where this miscreant of a captain lives; he will not take a step without being followed by one of our men. He will be very clever and very brave if he accomplishes anything.”
“This watchfulness seems to me very necessary, my dear brother.”
“Now my carriage is below, let us go to the canon’s apartments, and in an hour his niece will be here.”
“Never to go out of this house, if it pleases Heaven, my brother, because it is for the eternal happiness of this poor foolish girl.”
Two hours after this conversation Senora Dolores Salcedo entered the Convent of Ste. Rosalie.
CHAPTER II.
A FEW DAYS after the entrance of Senora Dolores Salcedo in the house of Ste. Rosalie, and just at the close of the day, two men were slowly walking along the Boulevard de l’Hopital, one of the most deserted places in Paris.
The younger of these two individuals seemed to be about twenty-five or thirty years old. His face was frank and resolute, his complexion sunburnt, his figure tall and robust, his step decided, and his dress simple and of military severity.
His companion, a little shorter, but unusually square and thick-set, seemed to be about fifty-five years old, and presented that type of the sailor familiar to the eyes of Parisians. An oilcloth hat, low in shape, with a wide brim, placed on the back of his head, revealed a brow ornamented with five or six corkscrew curls, known as heart-catchers, while the rest of his hair was cut very close. This manner of wearing the hair, called the sailor style, was, if traditions are true, quite popular in 1825 among crews of the line sailing from the port of Brest.
A white shirt with a blue collar, embroidered in red, falling over his broad shoulders, permitted a view of the bull like neck of our sailor, whose skin was tanned until it resembled parchment, the colour of brick. A round vest of blue cloth, with buttons marked with an anchor, and wide trousers bound to his hips by a red woollen girdle, completed our man’s apparel. Side-whiskers of brown, shaded with fawn colour, encased his square face, which expressed both good humour and decision of character. A superficial observer might have supposed the left cheek of the sailor to be considerably inflamed, but a more attentive examination would have disclosed the fact that an enormous quid of tobacco produced this one-sided tumefaction. Let us add, lastly, that the sailor carried on his back a bag, whose contents seemed quite bulky.
The two men had just reached a place in front of a high wall surrounding a garden. The top of the trees could scarcely be distinguished, for the night had fallen.
The young man said to his companion, as he stopped and turned his ear eastward:
“Sans-Plume, listen.”
“Please God, what is it, captain?” said the man with the tobacco quid, in reply to this singular surname.
“I am not mistaken, it is certainly here.”
“Yes, captain, it is in this made land between these two large trees. Here is the place where the wall is a little damaged. I noticed it yesterday evening at dusk, when we picked up the stone and the letter.”
“That is so. Come quick, my old seaman,” said the captain to his sailor, indicating with his eye one of the large trees of the boulevard, several of whose branches hung over the garden wall. “Up, Sans-Plume, while we are waiting the hour let us see if we can rig the thing.”
“Captain, there is still a bit of twilight, and I see below a man who is coming this way.”
“Then let us wait. Hide first your bag behind the trunk of this tree, — you have forgotten nothing?”
“No, captain, all my rigging is in there.”
“Come, then, let us go. This man is coming; we must not look as if we were lying to before these walls.”
“That’s it, captain, we’ll stand upon another tack so as to put him out of his way.”
And the two sailors began, as Sans-Plume had said in his picturesque language, to stand the other tack in the path parallel to the public walk, after the sailor had prudently picked up the bag he had hidden between the trees of the boulevard and the wall.
“Sans-Plume,” said the young man, as they walked along, “are you sure you recognise the spot where the hackney-coach awaits us?”
“Yes, captain — But, I say, captain.”
“What?”
“That man looks as if he were following us.”
“Bah!”
“And spying on us.”
“Come along, Sans-Plume, you are foolish!”
“Captain, let us set the prow larboard and you go and see.”
“So be it,” replied the captain.
And, followed by his sailor, he left the walk on the right of the boulevard, crossed the pavement, and took the walk on the left.
“Well, captain,” said Sans-Plume, in a low voice, “you see this lascar navigates in our waters.”
“That is true, we are followed.”
“It is not the first time it has happened to me,” said Sans-Plume, with a shade of conceit, hiding one-half of his mouth with the back of his hand in order to eject the excess of tobacco juice produced by the mastication of his enormous quid. “One day, in Senegal, Gorée, I was followed a whole league, bowsprit on stern, captain, till I came to a plantation of sugar-cane, and—”
“The devil! that man is surely following us,” said the
captain, interrupting the indiscreet confidences of the sailor. “That annoys me!”
“Captain, do you wish me to drop my bag and flank this lascar with tobacco, in order to teach him to ply to our windward in spite of us?”
“Fine thing! but do you keep still and follow me.”
The captain and his sailor, again crossing the pavement, regained the walk on the right.
“See, captain,” said Sans-Plume, “he turns tack with us.”
“Let him go, and let us watch his steps.”
The man who followed the two sailors, a large, jolly-looking fellow in a blue blouse and cap, went beyond them a few steps, then stopped and looked up at the stars, for the night had fully come.
The captain, after saying a few words in a low tone to the sailor who had hidden himself behind the trunk of one of the large trees of the boulevard, advanced alone to meet his disagreeable observer, and said to him:
“Comrade, it is a fine evening.”
“Very fine.”
“You are waiting for some one here?”
“Yes.”
“I, also.”
“Ah!”
“Comrade, have you been waiting long?”
“For three hours at least.”
“Comrade,” replied the captain, after a moment’s silence, “would you like to make double the sum they give you for following me and spying me?”
“I do not know what you mean. I do not follow you, sir. I am not spying you.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Let us end this. I will give you what you want if you will go on your way, — stop, I have the gold in my pocket.”
And the captain tingled the gold in his vest pocket, and said:
“I have twenty-five or thirty louis—”
“Hein!” said the man, with a singularly insinuating manner, “twenty-five or thirty louis?”
At this moment a distant clock sounded half-past seven o’clock. Almost at the same instant a guttural cry, resembling a call or a signal, was heard in the direction that the man in the blouse had first taken to join the two sailors. The spy made a movement as if he understood the significance of this cry, and for a moment seemed undecided.
“Half-past seven o’clock,” said the captain to himself. “That beggar there is not alone.”
Having made this reflection, he coughed.
Scarcely had the captain coughed, when the spy felt himself seized vigorously at the ankles by some one who had thrown himself suddenly between his legs. He fell backwards, but in falling he had time to cry with a loud voice:
“Here, John, run to the—”
He was not able to finish. Sans-Plume, after having thrown him down, had unceremoniously taken a seat on the breast of the spy, and, holding him by the throat, prevented his speaking.
“The devil! do not strangle him,” said the captain, who, kneeling down, was binding securely with his silk handkerchief the two legs of the indiscreet busybody.
“The bag, captain,” said Sans-Plume, keeping his grip on the throat of the spy, “the bag! it is large enough to wrap his head and arms; we will bind him tight around the loins and he will not budge any more than a roll of old canvas.”
No sooner said than done. In a few seconds the spy, cowled like a monk in the bag to the middle of his body, with his legs bound, found himself unable to move. Sans-Plume had the courtesy to push his victim into one of the wide verdant slopes which separated the trees, and nothing more was heard from that quarter but an interrupted series of smothered bellowings.
“The alarm will be given at the convent! Half-past seven has just struck,” said the captain to his sailor. “We must risk all now or all is lost!”
“In twice three movements the thing is ready, captain,” replied Sans-Plume, running with his companion toward the large trees which hung over the wall near which they had at first stood.
CHAPTER III.
WHILE THESE EVENTS were transpiring on the boulevard, and a little before half after seven had sounded, another scene was taking place in the interior of the convent garden. Sister Prudence, the mother superior, and Dolores Salcedo were walking in the garden, notwithstanding the advanced hour of the evening.
Dolores, a brunette of charming appearance, united in herself the rare and bewitching perfections of Spanish beauty. Hair of a blue black, which, when uncoiled, dragged upon the floor; a pale complexion warmed by the sun of the South; large eyes, by turns full of fire and languid sweetness; a little mouth as red as the bud of the pomegranate steeped in dew; a delicate and voluptuous form, tapering fingers, and an Andalusian foot and ankle, completed her list of charms. As to the exquisite grace of her figure and gait, one must, to have any idea of it, have seen the undulating movements of the beautiful senoras of Seville or Cadiz, when, speaking with their eyes or playing with their fans, they slowly promenade, a beautiful summer evening, on the marble floor of the Alameda.
Dolores accompanied Sister Prudence. Walking and talking, the two women approached the wall behind which Captain Horace and his sailor had stopped.
“You see, my dear daughter,” said the mother superior to Dolores, “I grant you all you desire, and, although the rules of the house forbid promenades in the garden after nightfall, I have consented to stay here until half-past seven o’clock, our supper hour, which will soon sound.”
“I thank you, madame,” said Dolores, with a slight Spanish accent, and in a voice deliciously resonant. “I feel that this promenade will do me good.”
“You must call me mother and not madame, my dear daughter, I have already told you that it is the custom here.”
“I will conform to it, if I can, madame.”
“Again!”
“It is difficult to call a person mother who is not your mother,” said Dolores, with a sigh.
“I am your spiritual mother, my dear daughter; your mother in God, as you are, as you will be, my daughter in God; because you will leave us no more, you will renounce the deceitful pleasures of a perverse and corrupt world, you will have here a heavenly foretaste of eternal peace.”
“I begin to discover it, madame.”
“You will live in prayer, silence, and meditation.”
“I have no other desire, madame.”
“Well, well, my dear daughter, after all, what will you sacrifice?”
“Oh, nothing, absolutely nothing!”
“I like that response, my dear daughter; really, it is nothing, less than nothing, these wicked and worldly passions which cause us so much sorrow and throw us in the way of perdition.”
“Just Heaven! it makes me tremble to think of it, madame.”
“The Lord inspires you to answer thus, my dear daughter, and I am sure now that you can hardly understand how you have been able to love this miscreant captain.”
“It is true, madame, I was stupid enough to dream of happiness and the joys of family affection; criminal enough to find this happiness in mutual love and hope to become, like many others, a devoted wife and tender mother; it was, as you have told me, an offence to Heaven. I repent my impious vows, I comprehend all that is odious in them; you must pardon me, madame, for having been wicked and silly to such a degree.”
“It is not necessary to exaggerate, my dear daughter,” said Sister Prudence, struck with the slightly ironical accent with which Dolores had uttered these last words. “But,” added she, observing the direction taken by the young girl, “what is the good of returning to this walk? It will soon be the hour for supper; come, my dear daughter, let us go back to the house.”
“Oh, madame, do you not perceive that sweet odour on this side of the grove?”
“Those are a few clusters of mignonette. But come, it is getting cool; I am not sixteen like you, my dear daughter, and I am afraid of catching cold.”
“Just one moment, please, that I may gather a few of these flowers.”
“Go on, then, you must do everything you wish, my dear daughter; stop, the night is clear enough f
or you to see this mignonette ten steps away; go and gather a few sprigs and return.”
Dolores, letting go the arm of the mother superior, went rapidly toward the clusters of flowers.
At this moment half-past seven o’clock sounded.
“Half-past seven,” murmured Dolores, trembling and turning her ear to listen, “he is there, he will come!”
“My dear daughter, it is the hour for supper,” said the mother superior, walking on ahead of the canon’s niece. “Stop, do you not hear the clock? Quick! quick! come, it will take ten minutes to reach the house, for we are at the bottom of the garden.”
“Here I am, madame,” replied the young girl, running before the mother superior, who said to her, with affected sweetness:
“Oh, you foolish little thing, you run like a frightened fawn.”
Suddenly Dolores shrieked, and fell on her knees.
“Great God!” cried Sister Prudence, running up to her, “what is the matter, dear daughter? Why did you scream? What are you on your knees for?”
“Ah, madame!”
“But what is it?”
“What pain!”
“Where?”
“In my foot, madame, I have sprained my ankle. Oh, how I suffer! My God, how I suffer!”
“Try to get up, my dear child,” said the mother, approaching Dolores with a vague distrust, for this sprain seemed to her quite unnatural.
“Oh, impossible, madame, I cannot make a movement.”
“But try, at least.”
“I wish I could.”
And the young girl made a show of wishing to stand up, but she fell again on her knees, with a shriek that could be heard on the other side of the garden wall.