world, to crave pardon from that
murdered angel; and so I went yesterday to the coffee-house with my
old friend the abbé, whom I knew ever since he was field-preacher to
the Chouans, in the hope of finding a victim for the sacrifice among the
readers of the liberal journals. The confounded waiters, however,
betray my intention; and when I am there, nobody will ask for a radical
paper. When you appeared, my worthy friend, I at first thought I had
found the right man, and I was impatient--for I had been waiting for
more than three hours for a reader of the National or of Figaro. How
glad I am that I at once discovered you to be no friend of such infamous
papers! How grieved should I be, if I had had to do with you instead of
with that young fellow!' For my part, I was in no mood even for
self-felicitations. At that time, I was a reckless young fellow, going
through the conventionalisms of society without a thought; but the
event of the morning had made even me reflect.
'Do you think he will die, captain?' I asked: 'is the wound mortal?'
'For certain!' he replied with a slight smile. 'I have a knack--of course
for Jacobins and Bonapartists only--when I thrust en quarte, to draw
out the sword by an imperceptible movement of the hand, en tierce, or
vice versâ, according to circumstances; and thus the blade turns in the
wound--and that kills; for the lung is injured, and mortification is sure
to follow.'
On returning to my hotel, where L---- also was staying, I met the
physician, who had just visited him. He gave up all hope. The captain
spoke truly, for the slight movement of the hand and the turn of the
blade had accomplished their aim, and the lung was injured beyond the
power of cure. The next morning early L---- died. I went to the captain,
who was returning home with the abbé. 'The abbé has just been to read
a mass for him,' he said; 'it is a benefit which, on such occasions, I am
willing he should enjoy--more, however, from friendship for him, than
out of pity for the accursed soul of a Jacobin, which in my eyes is
worth less than a dog's! But walk in, sir.'
The picture, a wonderfully lovely maidenly face, with rich curls falling
around it, and in the costume of the last ten years of the preceding
century, was now unveiled. A good breakfast, like that of yesterday,
stood on the table. With a moistened eye, and turning to the portrait, he
said: 'Thérèse, to thy memory!' and emptied his glass at a draught.
Surprised and moved, I quitted the strange man. On the stairs of the
hotel I met the coffin, which was just being carried up for L----; and I
thought to myself: 'Poor Clotilde! you will not be able to weep over his
grave.'
THE TREE OF SOLOMON.
Wide forests, deep beneath Maldivia's tide, From withering air the
wondrous fruitage hide; There green-haired nereids tend the bowery
dells, Whose healing produce poison's rage expels.
The Lusiad.
If Japan be still a sealed book, the interior of China almost unknown,
the palatial temple of the Grand Lama unvisited by scientific or
diplomatic European--to say nothing of Madagascar, the steppes of
Central Asia, and some of the islands of the Eastern Archipelago--how
great an amount of marvel and mystery must have enveloped the
countries of the East during the period that we now term the middle
ages! By a long and toilsome overland journey, the rich gold and
sparkling gems, the fine muslins and rustling silks, the pungent spices
and healing drugs of the Morning Land, found their way to the
merchant princes of the Mediterranean. These were not all. The
enterprising traversers of the Desert brought with them, also, those tales
of extravagant fiction which seem to have ever had their birthplace in
the prolific East. Long after the time that doubt--in not a few instances
the parent of knowledge--had, by throwing cold water on it,
extinguished the last funeral pyre of the ultimate Phoenix, and laughed
to scorn the gigantic, gold-grubbing pismires of Pliny; the Roc, the
Valley of Diamonds, the mountain island of Loadstone, the potentiality
of the Talisman, the miraculous virtues of certain drugs, and countless
other fables, were accepted and believed by all the nations of the West.
One of those drugs, seldom brought to Europe on account of its great
demand among the rulers of the East, and its extreme rarity, was a nut
of alleged extraordinary curative properties--of such great value, that
the Hindoo traders named it Trevanchere, or the Treasure--of such
potent virtue, that Christians united with Mussulmen in terming it the
Nut of
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