The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 31, 1902, Page 2

THE SUNDAY OCALL. Bowen-Merrill Co.) , by The him mine must be the preced- ing volume, because I did not know was any continuation. The ayers of the church had not been id you get yours, Lazarre?” . de Ferrier gave it to me. When I remembered, as if my head lit open to show the picture, that d read from that very book I cannot explain it, but so it I saw surprised she believes. r's evidence, that you ar. rance bring my book and show-it to We compared the volumes after supper, &nd one was the mate ot the other. The inn dining-room had one long table down its entire length, heaped ¥ meats and honey and pastries 1 fish in abundance. General Jackson nd and at the other sat the laining to all his guests what and urging good appetit Philippe, whose qualit ly to self, with Dr. L try o the other Side fretting for to which Jean had used nce My master was 8o tired that I put him 1o bed: and then sat talking nearly ht with the gracious gentleman to t bound by gratitude and by IIL. h and glaring white above lways symbolize to me nce. The nobility of that when half versed. and see it as I thouse stable. of the grenier Even respecta~ of the country were then built with few or no windows; at @elicious masses-of grayness they roofed with thick and overhanging dscape. part France are nothing but ngh Doctor _ Chantry > when I crept with the In- gs over the cattle one of e house was hired for the ster. Even at inns there were ree beds in a room where they >, dine nglish _innkeeper would threw the fire!” he cried in e fortunately not understood. ave two good rooms on the nd another for Skenedonk, ted with him, “at sixpence a day, in iture int these kinds of with tape th spiders paper, the try moth- And what board laid on cross- n chairs are rush- ) straight the backs are ! for there s went who got so much out of on, Skenedonk and 1 must all our travels that r we were full of en- at the country peo- the women’s caps and quiet fair roads which themselves untll we often paused enchanted in a fairy world of sameness; at market-towns, where foun- tains in the squares were often older than America, the country out. of which we arrived heard without shifting a Doctor Chantry’s grievances him we ought to cherish them, were views of life we could ves. Few people are made hey lose color and rail v tripe brought in by o show her resources t a chicken coming upon its head tucked beneath h_ poulet, poulet, noth- said Doctor Chantry, ‘un- themselves are ashamed to_look us in the face.” We fared well e was though it proved his t march as Skenedonk marched. We hired a and our knapsacks from ge, with a_ driver who to Paris. When the dis- g we sometimes mounted . 1 noticed that the soil of y had not the chalk look of vhich I afterward saw to north; but Napoleon was al- ready making good the ancient thorough- hipboard he n the free ; for while st an eve about and approve thing under- the sky—perhaps a t color of a thatch joy—he could not ard a ship. In- ve no delight 'n in the far-off nothing of a es in undulations. y part, 1 loved even tht creaking ship and the uncertainty of ever coming to port and the anxiety lest a black flag should show above every sail we passed. The slow progress of man from point to point in his experience, while it sometimes enrages, on the whole interests me; and the monotony of a voy- 2 o sweetness like the monotony rea I lool upon the h su; the of the grenier window h road and upon the June act of setting, for we had supped and gone early to rest after a -d Y. Post horses were stamping y for some noble to make another s journey before midnight. Small obtrusive cares, such as the de- gire that my shoes should last well into Paris, mingled with joy in the smell of t earth at sunset and the looking for- d to seeing Madame de Ferrier again, rapped myself every night in the cong viction that 1 should see her, and moré {reely than I had ever seen her in Amer- ca. There was a nolse of horses galloping and the expected noble count arrived, being no other than De Chaumont with s post coaches. He stepped out of the first and Ernestine stepped out of the second, carrying Paul. She took him to his mother. The door flew open and the woman 1 adored received her child and —— walked bac bel leaned k and forth with him." Anna- out while the horses were I saw Miss Chantry, and my heart misgave me, remembering her brother’s proldnged lament at'separatior from her. He was, I trusted, already shut Intr one of those public ‘heds which are like cupboards, for the dfly had begun for us at 3 in the morning. But if he chose to show himself, and fall upon De Chaumont for luxurious con- veyance to Paris, I. was ~determined that Skenedonk and I should not ap- pear. I wronged my poor master, told me afterward <he watched through a crack of the cupboard bed ~with h heart in his mouth. Tr. pause was a very short one, for horses are scon changed. Madame le Fer- rier threw a searching eye over the land- scape. It was a mercy she d'd not see the hole ir the grenier, through which I devoured her ing for the first time to call her sec —Eagle—the name that De Chaumont used with common free- dom! Now how strange is this—that one woman should be to a_man the sum of things! And what was her charm I could not tell, for I began to understand there were many beautiful women in the world, of all favors, and shapely perhaps as the one of my love. Only her I found draw- ing the soul out of my body; and none of the others did more than please the eye like pictures. The carriages were gone with the sun, and it was no wonder all fell gray over the world. De Chaumont had sailed behind us, and he would he in Paris long before us. I had first felt some uneasiness and dread of being arrested on our journey; though our Breton captain—who was a man of gold, that I would travel far to see this day if T could, even beneath the Atlantic, where he and_his ship now float—obtained for us at Dieppe, on his own pledge, a kind of substitute for pass- ports. We were a marked party. by reas son of the doctor’'s Jameness and Skene- donk’s appearance. The Oneida, during his. former sofourn in France, had been encouraged to preserve the novelty of his’ Indlan dress. As'I had nothing to give him in its place it did not become me to find fault. And he would have been more conspicuous with a cocked hat on his bare Ted scalp and knee-breeches instead of buckskins. Peasants ran out to look him, and in with a good will. We reached the very barriers of Paris, however, without falling into trouble. And in the streets were so many men of s0 many nations that Skenedonk’s attire emed no more bizarre than the tur. bans of the east or the whitg burnous ot the Arab. It was here that Skeneflonk took his role as guide, and stalked through nar- row crooked streets, which by compari- =on made New York, my first experience of a city, appear a plain and open village, do not pretend to know anything about Paris. Some spots in the mystic labyrinth stand out to memory, such as that open srace where the gulilotine had done its work, the site of the Bastile, and a long street leading from the place at of the tile, parallel with the river; and th have good reason to remem- ber. called Rue St. Antoine. 1 learned well, also, a certain prison, and a part of the ancient city calledf Faubourg St. Germain. One who can strike obscure tralls in the wilderness of nature may blunt his fine instincts on the wilderness of man. This did not befall the Indlan. He tock a bee line upon his old tracks, and = when the place was sighted we threaded what seemed to be a between cliffs, for a moist street-center kept us straddling some- thing like a gutter, while. with out- stretched hands we could brace the oppo- site walls. We entered a small court where a gruff man, called a conclerge, having a dirty received us kerchief around his head, doubtfully. He was not the concierge of day. We showed him coin; rivulet depressed Skenedonk’s and Doctor Chantry sat down in his chair and looked at him with such contempt that his respect increased. - ' ouse was clean, and all the stairs The h we climbed to the roof were well scoured. From the mansard there was a beautiful view of Parls, with forest growth draw- ing close to the heart of the city. For on lélal side o:’ the world men dare not murder trees, but are obliged to respe and cherish them, % e 1 My poor master stretched himself on a bed by the stooping wall, and in disgust of life and great pain of feet, begged us to order a pan of charcoal and let him die the true Parisian death wnen that is not met on the scaffold. Skenedonk said to me in Iroquois that Doctor Chantry was a sick ¢ld woman who ought to be hidden some place to die, and it was his opinion that the blessing of the church would absolve us. We could then make use of the pouch of cbin to carry on my plans. return we looked at.them THZ GRANDP ITILITARY SFPECTACLE My plans were more ridiculous than Skenedonk’s. His at least took sober shape, while mine were still the wild emotions of a young man’'s mind. Many ap hour I had spent on the ship, watch- ing the foam speed past her side, trying to foresee my course like ners in a track- less world. But it seemed I must walit alertly for what destiny was making mine. ‘We pald for our lodgings, three com- modious rooms, though in the mansard; my secretary dragging himself to sit erect with groans and record the increas- ing debt of myself and my servant. “‘Come, Skenedonk,” I then sald. ‘“Let us go down to the earth and buy some- thing that Doctor Chantry can eat. That benevolent Indian was quite as ready to go to market as to abate human nuisances: And Doctor Chantry said he could almost seg English beef and ale across the channel; but translated into French they would, of course, be noth- ing but poulet and sour wine. I pillowed his feet with a bag of down which he had kicked off his bed, and Skenedonk and I lingered along the paving as we had many a time lingered through the woods. There were book stalls a few feet square where a man seemed smothered in his own volumes; and victual shops where you could. almost feed yourself for two or three sous; and people sitting outdoors drinking wine, as if at a general festival. I thought Paris had comfort and pros- perity—with hereditary kings overthrown and an upstart in their place. Yet the streets were dirty, with a smell of an- cientness that sickened me. We got a loaf of bread as long as a staff, a pat of butter in a leaf and a bottle of wine. My servant, though un- used to squaw labor, took on himself the porterage of our goods and I pushed from street to street, keenly preased with the novelty, which held somewhere in its volatile ether the person of Mme. de Fer- rier. Skenedonk blazed our track with his observant eye and we told ourselves we were searching for Dr. Chantry’s beef. Being the unburdenéd hunter I under- took to scan cross places and so came unexpectedly upon the Rue St. Antoine, as a man told me it was called, and a great hurrahing that filled the mouths of a crowd blocking the thoroughfare. PART - *“Long live the Emperor!” they shouted. The man who told me the name of the street, a baker all in white, with his tray upon his head, objected contemptuously. “The Emperor is not in Paris; he is in Boulogne.” “You never know where he is—he i here—there—everywhere!” = declared an- other workman, in & long dark garment like a hunting shirt on the outside of his small clothes. “Long live the Emperori—long live the Emperor!"” 1 pushed forward as two or three heavy coaches checked their headlong speed and officers parted the crowd. “There he is!” admitted the baker be- bind me. Something struck me in the side and there was Bellenger, the potter, a man I thought beyond the seas in Amer- ica. Fis head as I saw it that moment put the Emperor's head out of my mind. He bad a knife, and though he had used the handle I foolishly caught it and took it from him. With all his strength he then pushed me so that staggered against the wheel of a coach. ““Assassin!” he screamed: and then Paris fell around my ears. If anybody had seen the act nobody refrained from joining In the cry. “Assassin! Assassin! To the lamp post with him!” I stood stupefled and astonished as an owl blinking in the sunshine, and two guards held my collar. The coaches lashed away carrying the man of destiny —as I haye since been told he called him- self—as rapjdly as possible, leaving the victim of destiny to be bayed at by that many-headed dog, the mongrel populace of Paris. Iv. The idiot boy somewhere upon the hills of Lake George, always In a world of fog which could not be discovered again, had often come to my mind during my jour- I had shed and left cell with me. BT Dt eliboter won: I 'come from a neighboring prisoner. behind. But Bellenger was a cipher. forgot him even at the campfire. Now Time was not e must speed as Doctor Chantry and Skenedonk and I. He may have spled upon us from the port, through the barriers, and even to our mansard. At any rate he had found me in a crowd, and made use of me to my downfall; and I could havs knocked my stupid head on the curb as I was haled away. One glimpse -of Skenedonk I caught while we marched along Rue St. Antoine, the gendarmes protecting me from the crowd. He thought I was going to the scaffold, where many a strapping fellow had gone in the Paris of his youth, and fought to reach me, laying about him with his loaf of bread. Skenedonk would certainly trail me, and find a way to be of use, unless he broke into trouble as readily as I had done. My guards crossed the river in the neighborhood of palaces, and came by muny windings to a huge pile rearing its back near a garden place, and there 1 was turned over to jallers and darkness. The entrance was unwholesome. A man at a table opened a tome which might have contained all the names in Paris. )}ileh?lfipefl his quill and wrote by candle- “Political offender or common crimi- nal?’ he inquired. “Political offender,” the ewered. “What is he charged with?” “Trying to assassinate the Emperor in his postchaise.” ‘La, 1a, la,” the recorder grunted, “An- ofher attempt! And gumpowder put fn the street to blow the Emperor up only last week. Good luck attends him—only & few windows broken and some com- mon people killed. Taken in the act, was this fellow?"” . “With the knife in his hand.” “What name?” the recorder inquired. I had thought on the answer, and told him merely that my name was Williams. “Eh, bien, Monsieur Veeleeum. Take him to the east side among the political offenders,” said the master-jailer to an assistant or turnkey. “But it's full,” responded the turnkey. “Shove him in some place.” They searched me- and the turnkey lilghled another candle. The meagerness of my output was beneath remark. When he had led me up a flight of stone steps he paused and inquired. “Have you any money?” officer an- anted my corner. ever had such terror for me as the un- have crossed the ocean with as good known thing that had been my cellmate By MARY HARTWEL CATHERWOOL *No.” o much the worse for you.” ““What is the name of this prison? I asked. . “‘Ste. Pelagle,” he answered. “If you have no money, and expect to eat here, you had better give me some trinket to sell for you.” “I have no trinkets to give you.” He laughed. Your shirt or breeches will do. “Are men shut up here to starve?” The jailer shrugged. ‘““The bread is very bad and the beans too hard to eat. We do not furnish the rations; it is not our fault. The rule here i1s nothing buys nothing. But sleep in your breeches while you can. You will Soon be ready enough to eat them.” I was ready enough to eat them then, but forbore to let him know it. The whola place was damp and foul. We passed along a corridor less than four feet wide, and he unlocked a cell from which a re- volting odor came. There was no light except what strained through a loophols under the ceiling. He turned the key upon me, and I held my nose. Oh, for a deep draught of the wilderness. ere seemed to be an iron bed at one slde, with a heap of rags on top. I re- solved to stand up all night before trust- ing myself to that couch. The cell was soon explored. Two strides in each direc- tion measured it. The stone walls were marked or cut with names I could dimly see. I braced my back against the door and watched the loophole where a gray hint of daylight told that the sun must be still shining. This faded to a blotch in the thick stone and became obliterated. Tired by the day's march, and with a taste of clean outdoor air still in my lungs, I chose one of the two corners not occupied by the il odored bed, sat down and fell ‘asleep, dropping my cares. A grating of the lock disturbed me. The jailer pushed a jug of water into the room and replaced his bolts. Afterward 1 do not remember anything except that the stone was not warm, and my stomach craved, until a groan in my ear stabbed sleep. I sat up awake In every nerve. There was nobody in the Perhaps the groan had Then a faint stir of covering could. be here was this poor crazy potter on my heard upon the bed. track with vindictive intelligence, the day I set foot in Paris. even to set the lodging in order. I rose and pressed as far as I could into No beast of the wilderness AT TUILERIES ZAZARRES ANCESTRAL HOME FROM . half a night without my knowledge. Was a vampire—a demon—a witch—a ghost locked in there with me? It moaned again, so faintly that com- passion instantly got the better of super- stition. ““Who_is there?”” I demanded, as if the knowledge of a name would cure terror of the suffering thing naming itself. I got no answer, and taking my resolu- tion in hand, moved toward the bed, de- termined to know what housed with me. The jug of water stood in the way, and I lifted it with instinctive answer to the groan. The creature heard the splash, and I knew by its mutter what it wanted. Grop- ing darkly, to poise’ the jug for an un- seen rhouth, I realized that something helpless to the verge of extinction lay on the bed, and I would have to find the mouth myself orTisk drowning it, I heid the water on the bedrail with my right Land, groped with the other, and found a clammy, death-cold foreheadsa nose and cavernous. cheeks, an open. and fever- roughened mouth. I poured water on my handkerchief and bathed the face. That would have been my first desire in ex- treme moments. The poor wretch gave a reviving moan, so I felt emboldened to steady the jug and let drop by drop gurgle down its throat, Forgetting the horror of the bed I sat there, re; ‘at Intervals this poor ministration . u ‘the _porthole again dawned, and blagkness became the twi- light of day. . B 7 My cellmate could not ‘see me, I doubt if he ever knew that a hand gave him water. His eyes were meaningless, and he was so gaunt that his body scarcely mace a ridge an the bed. Some beans and moldy bread were put In for my rations. The turnkey asked me how I intended to wash myself without 1asin or ewcr or towels, and inquired fur- ther if he could be of service in disposing of my shirt or breeches. “What ails this man?’ He shrugged and said the prisoner had been wasting with fever. “You get fever in Ste. Pelagle,” he added, ‘“‘especially when you eat. the prison food. This man ought to be sent to the infirmary, but the Infirmary is overflowing. now.” - ot e 0 is he?” “A journalist, or poet, or some miser- able canaille of that sort. He will scon be out of your way.” Our guard craned over to lock at him. “Oui—da! He is & dying man! A priest must be sent to him soon. I remember he demanded one several days ago.” Byt that day and another & through before the priest a; I sent out my walstcoat, and got a wretched meal, and a few spoonfuls of wine that I used to moisten the dying man’s lips. His life may or may not have been prolonged; but out of collapse he opened his mouth repeatedly and took the drops. He was more my blessing than I was his. For I had an experlence which has ce given me to know the souls of pr r oners. “the first day, in spite of the cell's foul- ness, I laughed secretly at jailers and felt at peace, holding the world at bay. [ did not then know that Ste. Pelagie was the tomb of the accused, where more than one” prisoner dragged out years without learning why he was put there, and was not brought to any trial or examination. But gradually an uneasiness which can- not be imagined by one who has not feit it grew upon me. I wanted light. The abeence of it was torture! ght—to vivify the stifiing air, which dled as this man was dying—as I should die— in blind- ing mirk! Moisture broke out all over mx body, and cold dew stood on my fo! How could human lungs breathe the midnlz . of blackening walls? The place was hot with the hell of confinement. I sald over and over, “O God, thou art light—in thee is no darkness at ail!” This anguish seemed a repetition of something 1 had endured once before. The body and spirit remembered, though the mind had no registe: I clawed at the walls, If I slept it was to wake gasp- 1n%. fighting upward with both hands. he most singular phase was that I reproached myself for not soaking up more sun in the past. Oh, how much light was going to waste over wide flelds and sparkiing seas! The green woods, the green grass—they had their fill of sun, while we two perished! I remembered creeping out of glare under the shadow of rocks and wondered how I could have done it! If I ever came to the sun again I would stretch myself and roll from side to side, to let it burn me well! How blessed was the tan we got in summer from steeping in light! Looking at my cellmate I could have rent the walls. ‘“We are robbed,” I told his deaf ears. *“The light, poured freely all over the city, the light that belongs tv you and me as much as to anybody, would save you! I wish I could pick you up and carry you out where the sun would shine through your bones! But let us be glad, you and I, that there is a woman who is not buried like a whitening sprout under this weight of stone! She is free, 'to walk around and take_the light in her gray eyes and the wind in her brown hair. I swear to God if I ever come out of this I will never pass so much as a little plant prostrate in darkness without heiping it to the light.” ¥ It was night by the.loophole when our turnkey threw the door open. I heard the priest and his sacristan joking in the cor- ridor before they entered carrying their sacred parcels. The priest was a dodder- ing old fellow, almost deaf, for the turn- key shouted at his ear, and dim of sight, for he stooped close to look at the dying man, who was beyond confession, “Bring us.something for a temporary altar,” he commanded the turnkey, who stood -candle in hand. ‘The turnkey gave his light to the sac- ristan and taking care to lock us in, hurd ried to obey. 1 measured the I,nk. {ll-strung assist- ant, more an overgrown boy & man of brawn, but expanded around upper part by the fullness of a short white sur- plice. He had a face cheerful to siliiness, The turnkey brought a board supported by cross-pieces; and withdrew, taking his own candle, as soon as the church’s tapers were lighted. £ The sacristan placed the temporary tar beside the foot of the bed, arrayed, it, and recited the Confiteor, Then the priest mumbled the Misereatur and Indulgentiam. I had seen extreme unction administersd as I had seen many another office of the church in my dim days, with scarcely any attention. Now the words were terribly living. I knew every one before it rolled oft the celebrant's iips. Yet under that vivid surface knowledge I carried on as vivid a sequence of thought. The priest elevated the ciborfum, re- peating, “Ecce Agnus Del™ Then three times—'Domine, non sum WHICH HE ESCArED dignus.” heard and saw with exquisite keen- ness, yet 1 as thinking, “4f I do not gat of here he will hi Vel over e ave to say those e put the host in the part, of, the dying and spoke— ey “Corpus Domini nostrt Jesu animam tuam in vitam ae!ernafn“.’"mm“ I thought how easy it would be tg strip the loose surplice over the sacristan’s head. There was a swift clip of the arm around your opponent’s neck which I had learned 'in wrestling, that cut the breath off and dropped him as Hmp as a cloth It was an Indign trick. ' 1 said to my- self it would be Impossible to use that trick on the sacristan if he left the cell :ahé{ld' tgendehn‘l old priest. I did not aht to hu m. S v e mhe tll, he would have to hve' after I had squeezed his neck, th A T it - u an I 'should have i The priest took out of vessel of ofl, and a branch. '1}:’:,&?.1’:»3 holy water with the branch, upon the bed, the Walls, the sacristan and me, re- Ppeating, ‘Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo, et mundabor: lavabis me, et nivem deal- babor.” T e ‘While nt my head to th L I knew it was impossible to ohokn Nown the sacristan, strip off his surplice, In- vest myself with it and get out of the cell before priest or turnkey looked back, The sacrilege of such -an attack would take all the strength out of me, The priest said the Exaudi nos, exhorted tchr:dmsen;mt); figure, then recited the o and L. S e Litany, the sacristan re- Silence followed. knew the end was approaching. My hands were as cold as the nerveless one Which would soon receive. the candle. [ told myself I should be a fool to attempt it. _There was not ona chance in a hun- dred. T should not squeezs hard enough. The man would yell. If [ were swift a3 lightning and silent as force, they wou!d g&a :e‘:plm thhe act. It was impossible e who cannol poss! th’i_r;,gs h?ve to peris A B e priest dip h 4 with it crossed n‘:ideyhel:‘ 'u‘.‘:'b - ogo:r"h and hands of him who was leaving tho u3e,Of these five senses and instruments Then he placed a lighted candle in the