The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Splendid Hazard, by Harold MacGrath

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Title: A Splendid Hazard

Author: Harold MacGrath

Release Date: April 20, 2005 [EBook #15671]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SPLENDID HAZARD ***

Produced by Al Haines

SPLENDID HAZARD

By

HAROLD MACGRATH

AUTHOR OF

THE GOOSE GIRL, THE LURE OF THE MASK, THE MAN ON THE BOX, ETC.

With Illustrations by

HOWARD CHANDLER CHRISTY

[Transcriber's note: All illustrations were missing from book.]

NEW YORK

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT 1910

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I A MEMORABLE DATE II THE BUTTERFLY MAN III A PLASTER STATUETTE IV PIRATES AND SECRETARIES V NO FALSE PRETENSES VI SOME EXPLANATIONS VII A BIT OF ROMANTIC HISTORY VIII SOME BIRDS IN A CHIMNEY IX THEY DRESS FOR DINNER X THE GHOST OF AN OLD REGIME XI PREPARATIONS AND COGITATIONS XII M. FERRAUD INTRODUCES HIMSELF XIII THE WOMAN WHO KNEW XIV THE DRAMA BEGINS XV THEY GO A-SAILING XVI CROSS-PURPOSES XVII A QUESTION PROM KEATS XVIII CATHEWE ADVISES AND THE ADMIRAL DISCLOSES XIX BREITMANN MAKES HIS FIRST BLUNDER XX AN OLD SCANDAL XXI CAPTAIN FLANAGAN MEETS A DUKE XXII THE ADMIRAL BEGINS TO DOUBT XXIII CATHEWE ASKS QUESTIONS XXIV THE PINES OF AITONE XXV THE DUPE XXVI THE END OF THE DREAM

A SPLENDID HAZARD

CHAPTER I

A MEMORABLE DATE

A blurring rain fell upon Paris that day; a rain so fine and cold that it penetrated the soles of men's shoes and their hearts alike, a dispiriting drizzle through which the pale, acrid smoke of innumerable wood fires faltered upward from the clustering chimney-pots, only to be rent into fragments and beaten down upon the glistening tiles of the mansard roofs. The wide asphalts reflected the horses and carriages and trains and pedestrians in forms grotesque, zigzagging, flitting, amusing, like a shadow-play upon a wrinkled, wind-blown curtain. The sixteenth of June. To Fitzgerald there was something electric in the date, a tingle of that ecstasy which frequently comes into the blood of a man to whom the romance of a great battle is more than its history or its effect upon the destinies of human beings. Many years before, this date had marked the end to a certain hundred days, the eclipse of a sun more dazzling than Rome, in the heyday of her august Caesars, had ever known: Waterloo. A little corporal of artillery; from a cocked hat to a crown, from Corsica to St. Helena: Napoleon.

Fitzgerald, as he pressed his way along the Boulevard des Invalides, his umbrella swaying and snapping in the wind much like the sail of a derelict, could see in fancy that celebrated field whereon this eclipse had been supernally prearranged. He could hear the boom of cannon, the thunder of cavalry, the patter of musketry, now thick, now scattered, and again not unlike the subdued rattle of rain on the bulging silk careening before him. He held the handle of the umbrella under his arm, for the wind had a temper mawling and destructive, and veered into the Place Vauban. Another man, coming with equal haste from the opposite direction, from the entrance of the tomb itself, was also two parts hidden behind an umbrella. The two came together with a jolt as sounding as that of two old crusaders in a friendly joust. Instantly they retreated, lowering their shields.

"I beg your pardon," said Fitzgerald in French.

"It is of no consequence," replied the stranger, laughing. "This is always a devil of a corner on a windy day." His French had a slight German twist to it.

Briefly they inspected each other, as strangers will, carelessly, with annoyance and amusement interplaying in their eyes and on their lips, all in a trifling moment. Then each raised his hat and proceeded, as tranquilly and unconcernedly as though destiny had no ulterior motive in bringing them thus really together. And yet, when they had passed and disappeared from each other's view, both were struck with the fact that somewhere they had met before.

Fitzgerald went into the tomb, his head bared. The marble underfoot bore the imprint of many shoes and rubbers and hobnails, of all sizes and—mayhap—of all nations. He recollected, with a burn on his cheeks, a sacrilege of his raw and eager youth, some twelve years since; he had forgotten to take off his hat. Never would he forget the embarrassment of that moment when the attendant peremptorily bade him remove it. He, to have forgotten! He, who held Napoleon above all heroes! The shame of it!

To-day many old soldiers were gathered meditatively round the heavy circular railing. They were always drawn hither on memorable anniversaries. Their sires and grandsires had carried some of those tattered flags, had won them. The tides of time might ebb and flow, but down there, in his block of Siberian porphyry, slept the hero. There were some few tourists about this afternoon, muttering over their guide-books, when nothing is needed on this spot but the imagination; and that solemn quiet of which the tomb is ever jealous pressed down sadly upon the living. Through the yellow panes at the back of the high altar came a glow suggesting sunshine, baffling the drab of the sky outside; and down in the crypt itself the misty blue was as effective as moonshine.

Napoleon had always been Fitzgerald's ideal hero; but he did not worship him blindly, no. He knew him to have been a brutal, domineering man, unscrupulous in politics, to whom woman was either a temporary toy or a stepping-stone, not over-particular whether she was a dairy-maid or an Austrian princess; in fact, a rascal, but a great, incentive, splendid, courageous one, the kind which nature calls forth every score of years to purge her breast of the petty rascals, to the benefit of mankind in general. Notwithstanding that he was a rascal, there was an inextinguishable glamour about the man against which the bolts of truth, history, letters, biographers broke ineffectually. Oh, but he had shaken up all Europe; he had made precious kings rattle in their shoes; he had redrawn a hundred maps; and men had laughed as they died for him. It is something for a rascal to have evolved the Code Napoleon. What a queer satisfaction it must be, even at this late day, nearly a hundred years removed, to any Englishman, standing above this crypt, to recollect that upon English soil the Great Shadow had never set his iron heel!

Near to Fitzgerald stood an elderly man and a girl. The old fellow was a fine type of manhood; perhaps in the sixties, white-haired, and the ruddy enamel on his cheeks spoke eloquently of sea changes and many angles of the sun. There was a button in the lapel of his coat, and from this Fitzgerald assumed that he was a