Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “I love you,” she faltered, her lips scarcely moving. Then the color surged over brow and throat; she laid her hands on her hot cheeks; I took her in my arms, holding her imprisoned. At my touch the color faded from her face, leaving it white as a flower.

  “I fear you — maid spiritual, maid militant — Maid-at-Arms!” I stammered.

  “And I fear you,” she murmured, looking at me. “What lover does the whole world hold like you? What hero can compare with you? And who am I that I should take you away from the whole world? Sweetheart, I am afraid.”

  “Then fear no more,” I whispered, and bent my head. She raised her pale face; her arms crept up around my neck and tightened, clinging closer as her closing lips met mine.

  There came a tapping at the door, a shuffle of felt-shod feet —

  “Mars’ Gawge, suh, yo’ hoss done saddle’, suh.”

  THE END

  THE MAIDS OF PARADISE

  CONTENTS

  PREFACE

  PART FIRST

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  PART SECOND

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  PART THIRD

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  XXI

  XXII

  PREFACE

  As far as the writer knows, no treasure-trains were actually sent to the port of Lorient from the arsenal at Brest. The treasures remained at Brest.

  Concerning the German armored cruiser Augusta, the following are the facts: About the middle of December she forced the blockade at Wilhelmshafen and ran for Ireland, where, owing to the complaisance of the British authorities, she was permitted to coal.

  From there she steamed towards Brest, capturing a French merchant craft off that port, another near Rochefort, and finally a third. That ended her active career during the war; a French frigate chased her into the port of Vigo and kept her there.

  To conclude, certain localities and certain characters have been sufficiently disguised to render recognition improbable. This is proper because “The Lizard” is possibly alive to-day, as are also the mayor of Paradise, Sylvia Elven, Jacqueline, and Speed, the latter having barely escaped death in the Virginius expedition. The original of Buckhurst now lives in New York, and remains a type whose rarity is its only recommendation.

  Those who believe they recognize the Countess de Vassart are doubtless in error. Mornac, long dead, is safe in his disguise; Tric-Trac was executed on the Place de la Roquette, and celebrated in doggerel by an unspeakable ballad writer. There remains Scarlett; dead or alive, I wish him well.

  Robert W. Chambers.

  Ormond, Florida, Feb. 7, 1902.

  PART FIRST

  THE MAIDS OF PARADISE

  I

  AT THE TELEGRAPH

  On the third day of August, 1870, I left Paris in search of John Buckhurst.

  On the 4th of August I lost all traces of Mr. Buckhurst near the frontier, in the village of Morsbronn. The remainder of the day I spent in acquiring that “general information” so dear to the officials in Paris whose flimsy systems of intelligence had already begun to break down.

  On August 5th, about eight o’clock in the morning, the military telegraph instrument in the operator’s room over the temporary barracks of the Third Hussars clicked out the call for urgency, not the usual military signal, but a secret sequence understood only by certain officers of the Imperial Military Police. The operator on duty therefore stepped into my room and waited while I took his place at the wire.

  I had been using the code-book that morning, preparing despatches for Paris, and now, at the first series of significant clicks, I dropped my left middle finger on the key and repeated the signal to Paris, using the required variations. Then I rose, locked the door, and returned to the table.

  “Who is this?” came over the wire in the secret code; and I answered at once: “Inspector of Foreign Division, Imperial Military Police, on duty at Morsbronn, Alsace.”

  After considerable delay the next message arrived in the Morse code: “Is that you, Scarlett?”

  And I replied: “Yes. Who are you? Why do you not use the code? Repeat the code signal and your number.”

  The signal was repeated, then came the message: “This is the Tuileries. You have my authority to use the Morse code for the sake of brevity. Do you understand? I am Jarras. The Empress is here.” Instantly reassured by the message from Colonel Jarras, head of the bureau to which I was attached, I answered that I understood. Then the telegrams began to fly, all in the Morse code:

  Jarras. “Have you caught Buckhurst?”

  I. “No.”

  Jarras. “How did he get away?”

  I. “There’s confusion enough on the frontier to cover the escape of a hundred thieves.”

  Jarras. “Your reply alarms the Empress. State briefly the present position of the First Corps.”

  I. “The First Corps still occupies the heights in a straight line about seven kilometres long; the plateau is covered with vineyards. Two small rivers are in front of us; the Vosges are behind us; the right flank pivots on Morsbronn, the left on Neehwiller; the centre covers Wörth. We have had forty-eight hours’ heavy rain.”

  Jarras. “Where are the Germans?”

  I. “Precise information not obtainable at headquarters of the First Corps.”

  Jarras. “Does the Marshal not know where the Germans are?”

  I. “Marshal MacMahon does not know definitely.”

  Jarras. “Does the Marshal not employ his cavalry? Where are they?”

  I. “Septeuil’s cavalry of the second division lie between Elsasshausen and the Grosserwald; Michel’s brigade of heavy cavalry camps at Eberbach; the second division of cavalry of the reserve, General Vicomte de Bonnemain, should arrive to-night and go into bivouac between Reichshofen and the Grosserwald.”

  There was a long pause; I lighted a cigar and waited. After a while the instrument began again:

  Jarras. “The Empress desires to know where the château called La Trappe is.”

  I. “La Trappe is about four kilometres from Morsbronn, near the hamlet of Trois-Feuilles.”

  Jarras. “It is understood that Madame de Vassart’s group of socialists are about to leave La Trappe for Paradise, in Morbihan. It is possible that Buckhurst has taken refuge among them. Therefore you will proceed to La Trappe. Do you understand?”

  I. “Perfectly.”

  Jarras. “If Buckhurst is found you will bring him to Paris at once. Shoot him if he resists arrest. If the community at La Trappe has not been warned of a possible visit from us, you will find and arrest the following individuals:

  “Claude Tavernier, late professor of law, Paris School of Law;

  “Achille Bazard, ex-instructor in mathematics, Fontainebleau Artillery School;

  “Dr. Leo Delmont, ex-interne, Charity Hospital, Paris;

  “Mlle. Sylvia Elven, lately of the Odéon;

  “The Countess de Vassart, well known for her eccentricities.

  “You will affix the government seals to the house as usual; you will then escort the people named to the nearest point on the Belgian frontier. The Countess de Vassart usually dresses like a common peasant. Look out that she does not slip through your fingers. Repeat your instructions.” I repeated them from my memoranda.

  There was a pause, then click! click! the instrument gave the code signal that the matter was ended, and I repeated the signal, opened my code-book, and began to translate the instructions into cipher for safety’s sake.

  When I had finished and had carefully destroyed my first pencilled memoranda, the steady bumping of artillery passing through the street under the windows drew my attention.

  It proved to be the expected batteri
es of the reserve going into park, between the two brigades of Raoult’s division of infantry. I telegraphed the news to the observatory on the Col du Pigeonnier, then walked back to the window and looked out.

  It had begun to rain again; down the solitary street of Morsbronn the artillery rolled, jolting; cannoneers, wrapped in their wet, gray overcoats, limbers, caissons, and horses plastered with mud. The slim cannon, with canvas-wrapped breeches uptilted, dripped from their depressed muzzles, like lank monsters slavering and discouraged.

  A battery of Montigny mitrailleuses passed, grotesque, hump-backed little engines of destruction. To me there was always something repulsive in the shape of these stunted cannon, these malicious metal cripples with their heavy bodies and sinister, filthy mouths.

  Before the drenched artillery had rattled out of Morsbronn the rain once more fell in floods, pouring a perpendicular torrent from the transparent, gray heavens, and the roar of the downpour on slate roofs and ancient gables drowned the pounding of the passing cannon.

  Where the Vosges mountains towered in obscurity a curtain of rain joined earth and sky. The rivers ran yellow, brimful, foaming at the fords. The semaphore on the mountain of the Pigeonnier was not visible; but across the bridge, where the Gunstett highway spanned the Sauer, gray masses of the Niederwald loomed through the rain.

  Somewhere in that spectral forest Prussian cavalry were hidden, watching the heights where our drenched divisions lay. Behind that forest a German army was massing, fresh from the combat in the north, where the tragedy of Wissembourg had been enacted only the day before, in the presence of the entire French army — the awful spectacle of a single division of seven thousand men suddenly enveloped and crushed by seventy thousand Germans.

  The rain fell steadily but less heavily. I went back to my instrument and called up the station on the Col du Pigeonnier, asking for information, but got no reply, the storm doubtless interfering.

  Officers of the Third Hussars were continually tramping up and down the muddy stairway, laughing, joking, swearing at the rain, or shouting for their horses, when the trumpets sounded in the street below.

  I watched the departing squadron, splashing away down the street, which was now running water like a river; then I changed my civilian clothes for a hussar uniform, sent a trooper to find me a horse, and sat down by the window to stare at the downpour and think how best I might carry out my instructions to a successful finish.

  The colony at La Trappe was, as far as I could judge, 8 a product of conditions which had, a hundred years before, culminated in the French Revolution. Now, in 1870, but under different circumstances, all France was once more disintegrating socially. Opposition to the Empire, to the dynasty, to the government, had been seething for years; now the separate crystals which formed on the edges of the boiling under-currents began to grow into masses which, adhering to other masses, interfered with the healthy functions of national life.

  Until recently, however, while among the dissatisfied there existed a certain tendency towards cohesion, and while, moreover, adhesive forces mutually impelled separate groups of malcontents to closer union, the government found nothing alarming in the menaces of individuals or of isolated groups. The Emperor always counted on such opposition in Paris; the palace of the Tuileries was practically a besieged place, menaced always by the faubourgs — a castle before which lay eternally the sullen, unorganized multitude over which the municipal police kept watch.

  That opposition, hatred, and treason existed never worried the government, but that this opposition should remain unorganized occupied the authorities constantly.

  Groups of individuals who proclaimed themselves devotees of social theories interested us only when the groups grew large or exhibited tendencies to unite with similar groups.

  Clubs formed to discuss social questions were usually watched by the police; violent organizations were not observed very closely, but clubs founded upon moderate principles were always closely surveyed.

  In the faubourgs, where every street had its bawling orator, and where the red flag was waved when the community had become sufficiently drunk, the government was quietly content to ignore proceedings, wisely understanding that the mouths of street orators were the safety-valves of the faubourgs, and that through them the ebullitions of the under-world escaped with nothing more serious than a few vinous shrieks. There were, however, certain secret and semi-secret organizations which caused the government concern. First among these came the International Society of Workingmen, with all its affiliations — the “Internationale,” as it was called. In its wake trailed minor societies, some mild and harmless, some dangerous and secret, some violent, advocating openly the destruction of all existing conditions. Small groups of anarchists had already attracted groups of moderate socialistic tendencies to them, and had absorbed them or tainted them with doctrines dangerous to the state.

  In time these groups began to adhere even more closely to the large bodies of the people; a party was born, small at first, embodying conflicting communistic principles.

  The government watched it. Presently it split, as do all parties; yet here the paradox was revealed of a small party splitting into two larger halves. To one of these halves adhered the Red Republicans, the government opposition of the Extreme Left, the Opportunists, the Anarchists, certain Socialists, the so-called Communards, and finally the vast mass of the sullen, teeming faubourgs. It became a party closely affiliated with the Internationale, a colossal, restless, unorganized menace, harmless only because unorganized.

  And the police were expected to keep it harmless. The other remaining half of the original party began to dwindle almost immediately, until it became only a group. With one exception, all those whom the police and the government regarded as inclined to violence left the group. There remained, with this one exception, a nucleus of earnest, thoughtful people whose creed was in part the creed of the Internationale, the creed of universal brotherhood, equality before the law, purity of individual living as an example and an incentive to a national purity.

  To this inoffensive group came one day a young widow, the Countess de Vassart, placing at their disposal her great wealth, asking only to be received among them as a comrade.

  Her history, as known to the police, was peculiar and rather sad: at sixteen she had been betrothed to an elderly, bull-necked colonel of cavalry, the notorious Count de Vassart, who needed what money she might bring him to maintain his reputation as the most brilliantly dissolute old rake in Paris.

  At sixteen, Éline de Trécourt was a thin, red-haired girl, with rather large, grayish eyes. Speed and I saw her once, sitting in her carriage before the Ministry of War a year after her marriage. There had been bad news from Mexico, and there were many handsome equipages standing at the gates of the war office, where lists of killed and wounded were posted every day.

  I noticed her particularly because of her reputed wealth and the evil reputation of her husband, who, it was said, was so open in his contempt for her that the very afternoon of their marriage he was seen publicly driving on the Champs-Élysées with a pretty and popular actress of the Odéon.

  As I passed, glancing up at her, the sadness of her face impressed me, and I remember wondering how much the death of her husband had to do with it — for his name had appeared in the evening papers under the heading, “Killed in Action.”

  It was several years later before the police began to take an interest in the Comtesse Éline de Vassart. She had withdrawn entirely from society, had founded a non-sectarian free school in Passy, was interested in certain charities and refuges for young working-girls, when on a visit to England, she met Karl Marx, then a fugitive and under sentence of death.

  From that moment social questions occupied her, and her doings interested the police, especially when she returned to Paris and took her place once more in Royalist circles, where every baby was bred from the cradle to renounce the Tuileries, the Emperor, and all his works.

  Serious, tender-
hearted, charitable, and intensely interested in all social reforms, she shocked the conservative society of the noble faubourg, aroused the distrust of the government, offended the Tuileries, and finally committed the mistake of receiving at her own house that notorious group of malcontents headed by Henri Rochefort, whose revolutionary newspaper, La Marseillaise, doubtless needed pecuniary support.

  Her dossier — for, alas! the young girl already had a dossier — was interesting, particularly in its summing-up of her personal character:

  “To the naive ignorance of a convent pensionnaire, she adds an innocence of mind, a purity of conduct, and a credulity which render her an easy prey to the adroit, who play upon her sympathies. She is dangerous only as a source of revenue for dangerous men.”

  It was from her salon that young Victor Noir went to his death at Auteuil on the 10th of January; and possibly the shock of the murder and the almost universal conviction that justice under the Empire was hopeless drove the young Countess to seek a refuge in the country where, at her house of La Trappe, she could quietly devote her life to helping the desperately wretched, and where she could, in security, hold council with those who also had chosen to give their lives to the noblest of all works — charity and the propaganda of universal brotherhood.

  And here, at La Trappe, the young aristocrat first donned the robe of democracy, dedicated her life and fortune to the cause, and worked with her own delicate hands for every morsel of bread that passed her lips.

  Now this was all very well while it lasted, for her father, the choleric old Comte de Trécourt, had died rich, and the young girl’s charities were doubled, and there was nobody to stay her hand or draw the generous purse-strings; nobody to advise her or to stop her. On the contrary, there were plenty of people standing around with outstretched, itching, and sometimes dirty hands, ready to snatch at the last centime.

  Who was there to administer her affairs, who among the generous, impetuous, ill-balanced friends that surrounded her? Not the noble-minded geographer, Elisée Réclus; not the fiery citizen-count, Rochefort; not the handsome, cultivated Gustave Flourens, already “fey” with the doom to which he had been born; not that kindly visionary, the Vicomte de Coursay-Delmont, now discarding his ancient title to be known only among his grateful, penniless patients as Doctor Delmont; and surely not Professor Tavernier, nor yet that militant hermit, the young Chevalier de Gray, calling himself plain Monsieur Bazard, who chose democracy instead of the brilliant career to which Grammont had destined him, and whose sensitive and perhaps diseased mind had never recovered from the shock of the murder of his comrade, Victor Noir.