CHAPTER XXVI.THE PURSUIT.
The distant danger greater still appears;Less fears he, who is near the thing he fears.
The distant danger greater still appears;Less fears he, who is near the thing he fears.
The distant danger greater still appears;Less fears he, who is near the thing he fears.
The distant danger greater still appears;
Less fears he, who is near the thing he fears.
With many imprecations on the rashness and folly of young men in general and of his own nephew in particular, the veteran accompanied by Dick, took his seat in the three o’clock train for Southampton.
He did not consider it necessary to take a whole first-class carriage for himself and his companion, so the presence of several other travelers in the same compartment with him, restrained his growling.
And soon after the train started, the motion of the carriages rocked him to sleep, and he slept soundly until they reached their journey’s end.
Dick, who had alternately read the morning’s papers, and dozed through the journey, woke his uncle up as the train entered the Southampton station, where the duelists had passed about ten hours before.
It was nearly seven o’clock.
“Here we are,” said Dick, gathering up his light luggage, while his uncle slowly rubbed his eyes and looked about him.
“Eh? well! yes! I suppose we had better call a cab and drive to a hotel and engage rooms first of all,” said the General, still rubbing his eyes, and being only half awake.
“I suppose we had better call a cab and drive immediately down to the docks and see if we can hire a yacht or steamboat to take us to Guernsey,” suggested Dick.
“Oh! aye! yes! certainly! to be sure! I had forgotten,” exclaimed the General.
The guard unlocked the door to let them out.
As they appeared upon the platform, the two detectives who had come down with them joined company.
“Call a cab, Willet, if you please. We will go at once to the docks and try to engage a vessel of some kind to take us to Guernsey.”
“Yes, sir; but if you please, I think we had better call first at police head-quarters to make inquiries. They may have some later and better intelligence,” suggested the detective.
“Exactly! yes! to be sure! You are quite right. We will go there first,” agreed the General.
The detective beckoned the cab and gave the order, and they all got into it and drove to police head-quarters.
Willet, who had ridden beside the cabman, got down and went in to seek farther information.
He was gone but a few moments, and then he returned and opened the door of the cab and spoke to the General.
“It is very lucky we called here first, sir; else we might have been fatally misled.”
“Why? what’s the matter?” inquired the General.
“There was a mistake in the telegram, sir. It was not to Guernsey they went, but to Jersey.”
“Tut, tut, that was a very unlucky mistake, and might have proved to be a fatal one, as you said. Are you certainnowof your information?”
“Quite certain, sir. The duelists took the St. Aubins steamer and sailed for that port at eleven this morning. As soon as the office here discovered their mistake, they telegraphed the correction to London. But of course we had left before that second telegram arrived.”
“Have you any farther information?” inquired Dick.
“None whatever.”
“Then we must drive to the docks immediately,” ordered the General.
The detective mounted the box beside the cabman and transmitted the order.
And they were driven rapidly down to the docks.
They alighted and went about making diligent inquiries for a vessel.
Fortune favored them, or rather Money did. Money is a great magician. No wonder it is sometimes fatally mistaken for a god, and more fatally worshiped as one.
In answer to their inquiries, they were told of a swift-sailing, schooner-rigged yacht, owned by a company that were in the habit of letting it out to parties of pleasure for excursions to the Channel Isles or along the coast. And they were directed to the spot where the “Flying Foam”lay idly at anchor, and were told that the master of the crew was also the agent of the company.
Encouraged by this information, our party engaged a row-boat, and went out into the harbor, and boarded the “Flying Foam.”
The master happened to be on deck. He came forward to meet the boarding-party.
“Is this yacht disengaged?” inquired the General.
“Yes, sir.”
“Can we engage it for immediate service?”
“For immediate service—that is very sudden, sir?” remarked the master, looking suspiciously at the speaker.
“I know it is, but so is our business sudden, being a matter of life and death. We cannot wait for the sailing of the steamer. But we are willing to pay extra price for extra haste,” replied the General.
And there was that about his stately form and fine face, and martial manner which rebuked the suspicion, while the words, and particularly the promise of extra pay appealed to the interest of the agent.
“You want the yacht immediately, you say, sir?” he inquired.
“Immediately, or as soon as the tide will serve.”
“The tide will serve in half an hour, sir.”
“Can she be got ready?”
“For what port, sir?”
“St. Aubins.”
The master rubbed his forehead and looked down at his shoes, as if in deep cogitation.
“My friend, while you are deliberating, time is flying,” said the General impatiently.
“She can be got ready fast enough, sir. It isn’t that. Why, sir, you are strangers to us, and we don’t know anything of what you are in such a hurry for.”
“We go to arrest a party, and prevent a duel, if you must know!” exclaimed the General, impatiently disregarding the signals of the detective, who would have cautioned him.
“Oh! beg pardon, sir; but this is—is going to cost a pretty penny—and——”
“And you don’t feel safe as to the payment, eh? If that is all, you may weigh anchor and hoist sail at once,for I have not come unprovided,” said General Lyon, taking out his pocket-book and displaying a large roll of hundred pound Bank of England notes.
“You do not suspect them to be counterfeits, I hope?” laughed the General.
“Oh, no! beg pardon, sir. It is all right now, I am only an agent, sir, and held responsible by my employers.”
“To be sure. And now I hope you can set your crew to work.”
“Are you going just as you are, sir? Would you like to go on shore first?”
“We have no time to lose in going on shore. We shall go to St. Aubins just as we are. I suppose there are shops in that town where one may procure the necessaries of life?”
“Oh, certainly, sir.”
And the captain of the yacht went aft and called all hands on deck, and gave his orders, and, by dint of loud hallooing and hard swearing, got them so promptly executed that when the tide turned the yacht sailed.
They had a very fine run under the starlit sky over the calm sea; but for the painful errand they would have been a party of pleasure. Even as it was, they enjoyed the trip. There was nothing on General Lyon’s conscience, or on Dick’s mind, to deaden either of them to the heavenly beauty of the night. They had slept on the train, and so now they were wide awake on the yacht.
They walked up and down the deck talking sociably with each other, admiring the elegant form and the swift-sailing of the yacht, delighting in the fresh breezes of the ocean, and almost worshiping the glory of the star-spangled heavens.
They walked up and down fore and aft, while the yacht sped over the waters, until they became hungry, and then they remembered for the first time that they had had neither dinner nor tea, nor had brought any provisions for a meal on board.
“It is usual for parties who hire a yacht to find their own grub, I believe, and we never thought of doing it,” said Dick.
“We had no time for doing it,” said the General.
“Well, I fancy the master does not keep a black fastHe must have a secret store somewhere, so I will just step and see.”
And Dick went in search of the master, who undertook to be their host for the voyage.
In twenty minutes after the voyagers were called to supper in the captain’s cabin—and to such a supper for hungry men! There were pickled salmon, cold ham, cold chicken, an excellent salad, light bread Stilton cheese, pastry, fruits native and tropical, and such fine wines as can only be procured—or couldthenonly be procured, duty free, at the Channel Isles.
They made an excellent meal and then returned to the deck and sat down to enjoy the lovely night and the pure sea-breezes, until twelve midnight, when feeling a little tired, they went down into the cabin and turned in.
Rocked by the motion of the vessel they fell asleep, and slept soundly until the “Flying Foam” entered the harbor of St. Aubins.
Then they were awakened by the captain’s steward, who came down to tell them the yacht was in port. The sun was just rising.
The pretty little maritime town lay gleaming in the earliest beams of the morning. Behind it arose the dark background of Noirmont Heights. On the right and left, rolled a richly-wooded landscape of hill and dell.
Even the gravity of the errand upon which they had come could not quite make our friends insensible to the novelty and beauty of the scene.
“Will you choose to have breakfast before you go on shore?” inquired the master, coming to the side of the two gentlemen, as they stood on deck looking out upon the harbor, with its little shipping, and the town, with its quaint Anglo-French streets and houses, while they waited for the boat to be got ready.
“Breakfast? No, thank you, not even if it was on the table; for there, I think our boat is ready now,” answered the General.
And he went to the side of the yacht, and followed by Dick and the two detectives, descended into the boat.
They were rapidly rowed to the shore.
There were no cabs in sight.
“What is to be done now?” inquired the General.
“There is nothing for it, but to walk up into the town, and over it, if necessary,” answered Dick.
“Luckily for us all, that may be done without much bodily fatigue. It is not a very large place,” remarked the General.
“If you please, gentlemen, I think we had better look for our men at the hotels. It is still so early that they can scarcely have started on their dueling adventure,” suggested one of the detectives.
“Lead the way, then. You know the town, I think you told me,” said the General.
“Oh, yes, sir,” answered the detective, bending his steps towards the principal hotel.
While they were yet at some distance from the house, they saw a carriage drive off from before it. Slight as the circumstance was in itself, when considered in relation to the hour and other circumstances, it seemed very significant. So they hurried on.
Before they reached the house however, they saw another carriage draw up before the entrance, and a party come out and enter it; and then they saw the carriage drive off, but not in the same direction taken by the first.
“There are our duelists!” exclaimed the detective in triumph, “one party is in the first carriage, and the other in the second.”
“But they took opposite directions,” gasped the General, out of breath with his rapid walk.
“That was to mislead people. They have taken opposite, but each will make a half circle and meet on the appointed ground unless we stop them,” said Willet, striding onwards at a rate that made it difficult for his companions to keep up with him.
“I do not see how we are to stop it now,” groaned the General.
“We must take a cab from the hotel, and make what inquiries as to the route taken by the others that we have time for.”
While talking they had hurried on with all their might, and now they were at the hotel.
“Is Prince Ernest of Hohenlinden stopping here?” inquired the General, stepping at once up to the office.
“There is a foreigner of rank who arrived here late last night by the Southampton steamer.”
“Where is he now?”
“Gone out for a morning ride by the sea, I think.”
“Ah! you have other travelers here who arrived by the Southampton boat?”
“Yes; an American gentleman, I think, a scientific man, who has gone out with his servant to hunt for minerals in the Noirmont Heights.”
“Ah! a scientific man in search of minerals!” grunted the General.
“By the way, there were two of them, they——”
“Oh, two of them, were they! Master and pupil, very likely; or principal and second.”
“They took with them a servant carrying a box of tools.”
“Ah! hum! yes! a box of tools! Bless my life, I wonder when that cab will be ready! Ah, here he comes,” impatiently exclaimed General Lyon, as Willet, who had gone after the cab, entered and reported it was ready.
The whole party entered the cab except one of the detectives, who, as usual, rode on the box beside the driver. This officer gave, as a general direction, the nearest route to Noirmont Heights. And the cabman took it.
As they left town the detective farther ordered:
“When we reach the foot of the heights, inquire for a cab that passed some twenty minutes before us; and then follow the road taken by that cab until you come up with it.”
The cabman touched his hat in acquiescence as they went on.
Just at that instant the report of fire-arms startled their ears, reverberating through the heights and echoed and re-echoed back from rock to rock.
“My——! we are too late!” exclaimed the General, in despair.
“Indeed I fear we are too late to prevent the duel, but we may be in time to succor the wounded,” added Dick.
“Can you see the smoke from that discharge of pistols?” inquired the detective on the box of the cabman beside him.
“No, sir, and if I could it would be hard to tell it nowfrom the smoke of the hutters’ chimneys, or even from the mist of the morning.”
“Drive then in the direction from which the report came.”
“But, sir, it echoes so through the crags, it’s a’most impossible to tell which way it did come from. All we can know now is, as how it came from among the rocks.”
Willet knew that the cabman was right, since he was sure that he himself could get no correct clue to the route from either the sound or the smoke of the firing.
“Look out for the cab then and do the best you can. We wish to come up with that firing party.”
“All right, sir,” said the cabman.
But in fact it seemed all wrong. They kept a bright lookout for the cab, hoping, though it was now probably empty, to be directed by its driver to the dueling ground. But many roads traversed these mountain solitudes, and their number and intricacies were confusing. Our party drove on to some distance farther, but saw no cab and heard no more firing.
Then they turned back and struck into a cross-road and pursued it for some distance with no better success. Again they turned from their course, came back upon the main road and took the opposite branch of the cross-road and followed it some distance, but in vain. Finally in despair they turned their horses’ heads towards the town, the General saying:
“It is all over by this time; and dead or alive, they have left the ground, and we shall have a better chance of hearing of them at the hotel than elsewhere.”
As they drove rapidly towards the town they came upon a group of laborers eagerly talking together by the roadside.
“What is the matter? What has happened? Where was that firing?” inquired General Lyon, putting his head out of the window, as the cab drew up.
“Why, your honor, there have been a row on the heights back there, among some gents, and one of um have been shot and carried to the hotel down yonder in the town; and t’other one is took and locked up,” answered one of the laborers, with the usual mixture of truth and falsehood.
“Which was shot?” inquired the detective.
“Why, that I can’t say; but any ways it wasoneof um as was shot and brought home on a door, and t’other one was took and locked up.”
“Was the man who was shot killed?” anxiously inquired General Lyon.
“Well, your honor, ‘when the brains is out the man is dead,’” replied the peasant, unconsciously quoting Shakespeare.
General Lyon sank back in his chair with a deep groan. One of the duelists was killed. Whether it was Prince Ernest or Alexander Lyon, whether his nephew was the murderer or the murdered man, the event was fatal.
“Drive as rapidly as possible back to the hotel,” said the detective on the box to the driver by his side.
And they were whirled swiftly as horses could go, to the St. Aubins hotel.
There all was bustle. A duel was not such a common event as to be passed over lightly.
General Lyon sprang out of his cab with almost the agility of youth, and hurried into the office to make inquiries of the clerk.
“What man was that who was shot?” he shortly asked.
“The American, sir; but it is hoped he will do well yet.”
“He is not dead?”
“No, sir, surely not.”
“Thank Heaven for that! And the other one?”
“The prince? He was not hurt, sir.”
“Thank Heaven for that also!”
“They were the parties you were looking for this morning, were they not?”
“Certainly. I had ascertained their object in coming here, and hoped to be in time to stop them. Where have they put my nephew?”
“Beg pardon, sir?”
“The wounded man; where have they put him?”
“In his own room, sir.”
“Send a waiter to show me to his bedside. I am his uncle.”
“Indeed, sir? Certainly, sir. Come here, John. Show this gentleman to Number 10.”
A waiter stepped forward at the order, bowed and led the way followed by the General, up one flight of stairs, along a corridor, and to a chamber door.
“This is Number 10, sir,” John said, opening the door.
The veteran entered the room, and found himself face to face with Francis Tredegar, who had risen to see who the intruder might be.
“General Lyon!”
“Mr. Tredegar!”
Such were the simultaneous exclamations of the friends on so unexpectedly meeting.
“You here?”
“I came with Lord Killcrichtoun.”
“How is he?”
“The surgeon reports favorably of his wounds, but he must be kept very quiet. Will you pass with me into the sitting-room?—Simms, do not leave your master’s side until I return.—This way, General,” said Francis Tredegar, rising and opening a door leading into their private parlor.
There the friends sat down together,—the General heated and anxious, Francis Tredegar surprised and curious.
“I followed as quickly as I could after hearing of my nephew’s mad purpose. I hired a yacht and pursued him, hoping to be in time to save him. I wish now that I had hired a special train from London. It would have given me three hours in advance, and I should then have been in time,” groaned the General, wiping his face.
“Take comfort, sir. It might have had a fatal termination. As it is, we have reason to thank Heaven for an unmerited mercy. Prince Ernest has escaped unhurt, and has returned to England. Lord Killcrichtoun is wounded, but not fatally. ‘All’s well that ends well.’”
“‘That ends well!’ Yes, but who can say that this will end well? Oh, Heaven, how much trouble that young man has caused me and all who are dear to me! But he is my only brother’s only son! my dead brother’s only child! and in spite of all I have said and sworn I must try to save him.”
“Is he so near of kin to you, sir? I had not suspected it.”
“No; his new ridiculous title, together with theestrangement that has been between us, would naturally mislead any one who had not known us previously as to the facts of our kinship. You came with him on this Quixotic adventure?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Francis Tredegar, blushing and beginning to defend himself before the Christian soldier, “Yes, sir; after having tried in vain to dissuade my friend from the duel, I resolved to see him through it.”
“I am not intending to blame you, my young friend. To me, certainly, you meant no wrong; and to my unhappy nephew only kindness. For the rest, it is a matter between yourself and your own conscience. As for me, in the way of a soldier’s duty, I have been in some battles; but I would not, nor do I remember any period of my youth in which I would have engaged, either as principal or second, in any duel for any cause whatever,” said the brave old veteran.
“Oh, sir—but that is a rebuke; and coming from you, a very severe one,” said the young culprit, sorrowfully.
“It is not intended as such, Francis. Men, I know, have different ideas upon these subjects. For instance, I do not believe it lawful in a man, for the gratification of his selfish passions or the ‘satisfaction’ of his imaginary ‘honor,’ to risk his life or seek the life of another. I believe it to be a high offence against the Author of all life. Nor could I engage in any adventure upon which I could not invoke the blessing of Heaven.”
“Which we could not do on our adventure, certainly. But I do most humbly and thankfully acknowledge Heaven’s undeserved great mercy on its issue.”
“I am glad to hear you say so, Francis. And now will you kindly touch the bell—it is at your elbow, I see—and tell the waiter when he comes to show Mr. Hammond up into this room.”
“Dick is with you?” inquired Francis, as he complied with the General’s request.
“Certainly. Did I not tell you so? But I left him to settle with the cabman while I ran in to make inquiries of the clerk.”
As the General spoke the waiter entered the room.
“Go down and find out Mr. Hammond and show him up into this room,” said Mr. Tredegar.
The waiter bowed and disappeared; but soon came back and ushered in Dick.
There was a start of surprise from Dick at seeing Mr. Tredegar, and then a grave hand-shaking between them.
“Well, my boy, I suppose you have heard matters are not so bad as we feared?” said the General, turning to Dick.
“Yes, sir; thank Heaven. Can I see Alexander?”
“Why, I have not seen him myself yet, except at a distance and covered up in swaddling bands. Tredegar here turned me out of the room before I could get near the bedside.”
“Invited you out; brought you here, General,” said Francis, deprecatingly.
“It amounts to the same thing, my dear fellow,” said the General, good-humoredly. “Tredegar was Alexander’s second in this mad affair,” he added, turning to Dick.
“So I supposed on seeing him here,” answered Mr. Hammond.
“Gentlemen,” said Francis Tredegar, “if you will excuse me for a moment, I will go in and see my patient, and then come back and let you know whether you also can see him with safety.”
“Go, Francis,” said the General, waving his hand.
Tredegar went out, and after a few moments returned and said:
“He seems to be sleeping soundly, or else to be sunk into a deep stupor; indeed I am not physician enough to say which. But in either case, I think, if you come in quietly, you can do him no harm.”
Then they all went into the wounded man’s chamber and stood at his bedside, and looked at him.
There he lay, less like a sick or wounded patient than the laid-out corpse of a dead man. His hair was cut short and his head bandaged with wet linen cloths. His face was deadly pallid, with a greenish white hue; his eyes were closed and sunken; his lips compressed; and his features still and stiff. His chest was also bandaged with wet linen cloths, and his shoulders and chest wrapped in a sheet instead of a shirt, for the convenience offrequently changing the dressings of his wound. His form was still and stiff as his features.
On seeing this ghastly sight, Dick uttered an irrepressible exclamation of horror. Even the veteran-soldier groaned.
“It is not half as bad as it looks,” said Francis encouragingly. “There is nothing in the world makes a man look so death-like as these white swaddling-clothes, that put us in mind of winding-sheets. The surgeon says he will do well.”
“Ah? who is attending him?” inquired the General.
“Prince Ernest left his own physician here to look after him. He is Doctor Dietz, a graduate of one of the medical colleges of Vienna—which, I am told, are now really the best, and are destined soon to be acknowledged as the best medical schools in the world.”
“And this eminent surgeon says that the wounded man will do well?”
“These were his very words.”
“That is satisfactory.”
“And now, General, that you have seen your nephew, I think we had better all adjourn to the parlor. Our patient wants all the air in this room for himself,” advised Mr. Tredegar.
When they went back to the parlor, Dick turned to Francis Tredegar, and said:
“You will let us have the use of this room for an hour or two, until we settle what we are to do next.”
“Why, certainly. The room is your own. At least it is Alick’s, which isnowexactly the same thing, since he is lying helpless and you are his next of kin. Shall I retire? Do you wish to be alone?”
“By no means. I only want to order breakfast up here. We have been up, walking or driving over the country in pursuit of the duelists, since six o’clock this morning, and it is now eleven, and we have had nothing to eat and are famished.”
“Oh, by the way, I ought to have thought of that! allow me!” exclaimed Francis Tredegar, starting up and ringing the bell.
“Breakfast for three, immediately. Serve it in thisroom, and bring the best you have that is ready,” he ordered, as soon as the waiter showed himself.
The cloth was soon laid and the table spread. And our friends sat down to an excellent meal of rich coffee and fragrant tea; milk, cream and butter of such excellence as can be found nowhere else in the world; fish just out of the sea, beefsteak, chickens, French rolls and English muffins.
“Dick, my dear fellow,” said the General, as they lingered over the delicious repast, “one of us must remain here to look after Alick, and the other must go back to London to take care of little Lenny and the young women.”
“Yes, sir; and I will be the one to go or to stay, whichever you shall decide. And pray think of your own ease and health, my dear sir, before you do decide,” answered Hammond.
“You are a very good fellow, Dick, a very good fellow. But I believe reason and judgment must settle the matter. I will remain here to look after my nephew. He will not be likely to quarrel with me when he sees me, as he might with you if he should find you by his side when he comes to himself. And, besides, I think this quiet, pretty seaside town will agree with me after the hurly-burly of London. And lastly and mostly—it isyouwho ought to go back to town for your wife’s sake.”
“All right, my dear sir; it shall be as you please. I confess I like this arrangement best; but if you had said, ‘Dick, go and I will stay,’ or ‘Dick, stay and I will go,’ I should have obeyed you without a moment’s hesitation, as a soldier obeys his commanding officer.”
“I know you would, my boy, therefore it behooves me to consider your interests before I make a decision.”
“And now let us see about the time of starting, I must return in the yacht, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Then it will depend upon the tide. I had better go down, and see the master.”
“Yes, I think you had.”
Dick Hammond took his hat and went down to the yacht.
Captain Wallace was not on board when Mr. Hammondreached the deck. The captain was taking a holiday by walking through the town, and probably solacing himself with a pipe and a bottle of brandy at some favorite resort where the old mariner was well known.
So Dick had to wait an hour or two for his return.
When Wallace came back Dick soon discovered that he was well posted up in regard to the event, which was then the one topic of conversation at every coffee room in the town.
“And so you were too late to stop the duel, sir?” were almost the first words the master of the yacht spoke to Dick.
“Yes; but the affair did not terminate so fatally as might have been apprehended.”
“No, so I hear—so I hear! And the wounded gentleman was your kinsman, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Shall you take him over to England?”
“Oh, no. He cannot be moved at present. My uncle will remain here to look after him; but I return at once, or as soon as the tide will serve.”
“That will be about nine o’clock.”
“Can you be ready to make sail by that time?”
“Yes, sir; the yacht is yours for the time it is hired.”
“Then we will sail at nine. I will be here punctually at that hour.”
“All right, sir.”
Dick Hammond returned to the hotel, where he arrived about one o’clock. He spent the day and dined with his uncle and his friend.
At half-past eight o’clock he paid his last visit to the bedside of his cousin, in whom, as yet, there appeared but little change.
And then he took leave of all and went down to the yacht; and at a few minutes after nine the “Flying Foam” made sail for England.