A Day's Ride Part 54

"The Governor has got wind of our s.h.i.+ndy, and put all the red-coats in arrest, and ordered the police to nab us too."

"Bless him! bless him!" muttered I.

"Ay, so say I. He be blessed!" cried he, catching up my words. "But let us make off through the garden; my gig is down in the offing, and they 'll pull in when they hear my whistle. Ain't it provoking,--ain't it enough to make a man swear?"

"I have no words for what I feel, Rogers," said I, bustling about to collect my stray articles through the room. "If I ever chance upon that Governor--he has only five years of it--I believe--"

"Come along! I see the boat coming round the point yonder." And with this we slipped noiselessly down the stairs, down the street, and gained the Jetty.

"Steam up?" asked the skipper, as he jumped into the gig.

"Ay, ay, sir; and we're short on the anchor too." In less than half an hour we were under weigh, and I don't think I ever admired a land prospect receding from view with more intense delight than I did that, my last glimpse of Malta.

CHAPTER XLVIII. FINAL ADVENTURES AND SETTLEMENT

Our voyage had nothing remarkable to record; we reached Constantinople in due course, and during the few days the "Cyclops" remained, I had abundant time to discover that there was no trace of any one resembling him I sought for. By the advice of Rogers, I accompanied him to Odessa.

There, too, I was not more fortunate; and though I inst.i.tuted the most persevering inquiries, all I could learn was that some Americans were employed by the Russian Government in raising the frigates sunk at Sebastopol, and that it was not impossible an Englishman, such as I described, might have met an engagement amongst them. At all events, one of the coasting craft was already at Odessa, and I went on board of her to make my inquiry. I learned from the mate, who was a German, that they had come over on rather a strange errand, which was to convey a corps of circus people to Balaklava. The American contractor at that place, being in want of some amus.e.m.e.nt, had arranged with these people to give some weeks' performances there, but that, from an incident that had just occurred, the project had failed. This was no less than the elopement of the chief dancer, a young girl of great beauty, with a young prince of Bavaria. It was rumored that he had married her, but my informant gave little credence to this version, and averred that he had bought, not only herself, but a favorite Old Arab horse she rode, for thirty thousand piastres. I asked eagerly where the others of the corps were to be found, and heard they had crossed over to Simoom, all broken up and disjointed, the chief clown having died of grief after the girl's flight.

If I heard this tale rudely narrated, and not always with the sort of comment that went with my sympathies, I sorrowed sincerely over it, for I guessed upon whom these events had fallen, and recognized poor old Vaterchen and the dark-eyed Tintefleck.

"You 've fallen into the black melancholies these some days back," said Rogers to me. "Rouse up, and take a cruise with me. I 'm going over to Balaklava with these steam-boilers, and then to Sinope, and so back to the Bosphorus. Come aboard to-night, it will do you good."

I took his counsel, and at noon next day we dropped anchor at Balaklava.

We had scarcely pa.s.sed our "health papers," when a boat came out with a message to inquire if we had a doctor on board who could speak English, for the American contractor had fallen from one of the scaffolds that morning, and was lying dreadfully injured up at Sebastopol, but unable to explain himself to the Russian surgeons. I was not without some small skill in medicine; and, besides, out of common humanity, I felt it my duty to set out, and at about sunset I reached Sebastopol.

Being supposed to be a physician of great skill and eminence, I was treated by all the persons about with much deference, and, after very few minutes' delay, introduced into the room where the sick man lay.

He had ordered that when an English doctor could be found, they were to leave them perfectly alone together; so that, as I entered, the door was closed immediately, and I found myself alone by the bedside of the sufferer. The curtain was closely drawn across the windows, and it was already dusk, so that all I could discover was the figure of a man, who lay breathing very heavily, and with the irregular action that implies great pain.

"Are you English?" said he, in a strong, full voice. "Well, feel that pulse, and tell me if it means sinking; I suspect it does."

I took his hand and laid my finger on the artery. It was beating furiously,--far too fast to count, but not weakly nor faintly.

"No," said I; "this is fever, but not debility."

"I don't want subtleties," rejoined he, roughly. "I want to know am I dying? Draw the curtain there, open the window full, and have a look at me."

I did as he bade me, and returned to the bedside. It was all I could do not to cry out with astonishment; for, though terribly disfigured by his wounds, his eyes actually covered by the torn scalp that hung over them, I saw that it was Harpar lay before me, his large reddish beard now matted and clotted with blood.

"Well, what's the verdict?" cried he, sternly; "don't keep me in suspense."

"I do not perceive any grave symptoms so far--"

"No cant, my good friend, no cant! It's out of place just now. Be honest, and say what is it to be,--live or die?"

"So far as I can judge, I say, live."

"Well, then, set about the repairs at once. Ask for what you want,--they 'll bring it."

Deeming it better not to occasion any shock whatever to a man in his state, I forbore declaring who I was, and set about my office with what skill I could.

With the aid of a Russian surgeon, who spoke German well, I managed to dress the wounds and bandage the fractured arm, during which the patient never spoke once, nor, indeed, seemed to be at all concerned in what was going on.

"You can stay here, I hope," said he to me, when all was finished. "At least, you 'll see me through the worst of it I can afford to pay, and pay well."

"I 'll stay," said I, imitating his own laconic way; and no more was said.

Now, though it was not my intention to pa.s.s myself off for a physician, or derive any, even the smallest advantage from the a.s.sumption of such a character, I saw that, remote as the poor sufferer was from his friends and country, and totally dest.i.tute of even companions.h.i.+p, it would have been cruel to desert him until he was sufficiently recovered to be left with servants.

From his calm composure, and the self-control he was able to exercise, I had formed a far too favorable opinion of his case. When I saw him first the inflammatory symptoms had not yet set in; so that at my next visit I found him in a high fever, raving wildly. In his wanderings he imagined himself ever directing some gigantic enterprise, with hundreds of men at his command, whose efforts he was cheering or chiding alternately. The indomitable will of a most resolute nature was displayed in all he said; and though his bodily sufferings must have been intense, he only alluded to them to show how little power they had to arrest his activity. His ever-recurring cry was, "It can be done, men! It can be done! See that we do it!"

I own that, even though stretched on a sick-bed and raving madly, this man's unquenchable energy impressed me greatly; and I often fancied to myself what must have been the resources of such a bold spirit in sad contrast to a nature pliant and yielding like mine. To the violence of the first access, there soon succeeded the far more dangerous state of low fever, through which I never left him. Care and incessant watching could alone save him, and I devoted myself to the last with the resolve to make this effort the first of a new and changed existence.

Day and night in the sick-room, I lost appet.i.te and strength, while an unceasing care preyed upon me and deprived me even of rest. The very vacillations of the sick man's malady had affected my nerves, rendering me overanxious, so that just as he had pa.s.sed the great crisis of the malady, I was stricken down with it myself.

My first day of convalescence, after seven weeks of fever, found me sitting at a little window that looked upon the sea, or rather the harbor of Sebastopol, where two frigates and some smaller vessels were at anchor. A group of lighters and such unpicturesque craft occupied another part of the scene, engaged, as it seemed, in operations for raising other vessels. It was in gazing for a long while at these, and guessing their occupation, that I learned to trace out the past, and why and how I had come to be sitting there. Every morning the German servant who tended me through my illness used to bring me the "Herr Baron's"

compliments to know how I was, and now he came to say that as the "Herr Baron" was able to walk so far, he begged that he might be permitted to come and pay me a visit I was aware of the Russian custom of giving t.i.tles to all who served the Government in positions of high trust, and was therefore not astonished when the announcement of the "Herr Baron"

was followed by the entrance of Harpar, who, sadly reduced, and leaning on a crutch, made his way slowly to where I sat. I attempted to rise to receive him, but he cried out, half sternly,--"Sit still! we are neither of us in good trim for ceremony."

He motioned to the servants to leave us alone; then laying his wasted hand in mine, for we were each too weak to' grasp the other, he said,--

"I know all about it It was you saved my life, and risked your own to do it."

I muttered out some unmeaning words--I know not well what--about duty and the like.

"I don't care a bra.s.s b.u.t.ton for the motive. You stood to me like a man." As he said this, he looked hard at me, and, shading the light with his hand, peered into my face. "Have n't we met before this? Is not your name Potts?"

"Yes, and you're Harpar."

He reddened, but so slightly that but for the previous paleness of his sickly cheek it would not have been noticeable.

"I have often thought about _you_." said he, musingly. "This is not the only service you have done me; the first was at Lindau,--mayhap you have forgotten it. You lent me two hundred florins, and, if I 'm not much mistaken, when you were far from being rich yourself."

He leaned his head on his hand, and seemed to have fallen into a musing fit.

"And, after all," said I, "of the best turn I ever did you, you have never heard in your life, and, what is more, might never hear, if not from myself. Do you remember an altercation on the road to Feldkirch, with a man called Rigges?"

"To be sure I do; he smashed the small-bone of this arm for me; but I gave worse than I got. They never could find that bullet I sent into his side, and he died of it at Palermo. But what share in this did you bear?"

"Not the worst nor the best; but I was imprisoned for a twelvemonth in your place."

"Imprisoned for _me?_"

"Yes; they a.s.sumed that I was Harpar, and as I took no steps to undeceive them, there I remained till they seemed to have forgotten all about me."

Harpar questioned me closely and keenly as to the reasons that prompted this act of mine,--an act all the more remarkable, as, to use his own words, "We were men who had no friends.h.i.+p for each other, actually strangers; and," added he, significantly, "the sort of fellows who, somehow, do not usually 'hit it off' together. You a man of leisure, with your own dreamy mode of life; I, a hard worker, who could not enjoy idleness; and in this sense, far more likely to hold each other cheaply than otherwise."