A Splendid Hazard, Harold MacGrath [websites to read books for free txt] 📗

throat with a sharp ahem and proceeded to burnish his crystals. Specks and motes were ever adhering to them. He held them up to the light and pretended to look through them: he saw nothing but the secretary's abstraction.

"We were talking about treasures the other night," began the Frenchman, "and I came near telling it then. It is a story of Napoleon."

"Never a better moment to tell it," said the admiral, rubbing his hands in pleasurable anticipation.

"I say to you at once that the tale is known to few, and has never had any publicity, and must never have any. Remember that, if you please, Mr. Fitzgerald, and you also, Mr. Breitmann."

"I beg your pardon," said Breitmann. "I was not listening."

M. Ferraud repeated his request clearly.

"I am no longer a newspaper writer," Breitmann affirmed, clearing the fog out of his head. "A story about Napoleon; will it be true?"

"Every word of it." M. Ferraud folded his arms and sat back.

During the pause Hildegarde shivered. Something made her desire madly to thrust a hand out and cover M. Ferraud's mouth.

"We have all read much about Napoleon. I can not recall how many lives range shoulder to shoulder on the booksellers' shelves. There have been letters and memoirs, anecdotes by celebrated men and women who were his contemporaries. But there is one thing upon which we shall all agree, and that is that the emperor was in private life something of a beast. As a soldier he was the peer of all the Caesars; as a husband he was vastly inferior to any of them. This story does not concern him as emperor. If in my narrative there occurs anything offensive, correct me instantly. I speak English fluently, but there are still some idioms I trip on."

"I'll trust you to steer straight enough," said the admiral.

"Thank you. Well, then, once upon a time Napoleon was in Bavaria. The country was at that time his ablest ally. There was a pretty peasant girl."

A knife clattered to the floor. "Pardon!" whispered Hildegarde to Cathewe. "I am clumsy." She was as white as the linen.

Breitmann went on with his crumbs.

"I believe," continued M. Ferraud, "that it was in the year 1813 that the emperor received a peculiar letter. It begged that a title be conferred upon a pretty little peasant boy. The emperor was a grim humorist, I may say in passing; and for this infant he created a baronetcy, threw in a parcel of land, and a purse. That was the end of it, as far as it related to the emperor. Waterloo came and with it vanished the empire; and it would be a long time before a baron of the empire returned to any degree of popularity. For years the matter was forgotten. The documents in the case, the letters of patent, the deeds and titles to the land, and a single Napoleonic scrawl, these gathered dust in the loft. When I heard this tale the thing which appealed to me most keenly was the thought that over in Bavaria there exists the only real direct strain of Napoleonic blood: a Teuton, one of those who had brought about the downfall of the empire."

"You say exists?" interjected Cathewe.

"Exists," laconically.

"You have proofs?" demanded Fitzgerald.

"The very best in the world. I have not only seen those patents, but I have seen the man."

"Very interesting," agreed Breitmann, brushing the crumbs into his hand and dropping them on his plate. "But, go on."

"What a man!" breathed Fitzgerald, who began to see the drift of things.

"I proceed, then. Two generations passed. I doubt if the third generation of this family has ever heard of the affair. One day the last of his race, in clearing up the salable things in his house-for he had decided to lease it-stumbled on the scant history of his forebears. He was at school then; a promising youngster, brave, cheerful, full of adventure and curiosity. Contrary to the natural sequence of events, he chose the navy, where he did very well. But in some way Germany found out what France already knew. Here was a fine chance for a stroke of politics. France had always watched; without fear, however, but with half-formed wonder. Germany considered the case: why not turn this young fellow loose on France, to worry and to harry her? So, quietly Germany bore on the youth in that cold-blooded, Teutonic way she has, and forced him out of the navy.

"He was poor, and poverty among German officers, in either branch, is a bad thing. Our young friend did not penetrate the cause of this at first; for he had no intention of utilizing his papers, save to dream over them. The blood of his great forebear refused to let him bow under this unjust stroke. He sought a craft, an interesting one. The net again closed in on him. He began to grow desperate, and desperation was what Germany desired. Desperation would make a tool of the young fellow. But our young Napoleon was not without wit. He plotted, but so cleverly and secretly that never a hand could reach out to stay him. Germany finally offered him an immense bribe. He threw it back, for now he hated Germany more than he hated France. You wonder why he hated France? If France had not discarded her empire-I do not refer to the second empire-he would have been a great personage to-day. At least this must be one of his ideas.

"And there you are," abruptly. "Here we have a Napoleon, indeed with all the patience of his great forebear. If Germany had left him alone he would to-day have been a good citizen, who would never have permitted futile dreams to enter his head, and who would have contemplated his greatness with the smile of a philosopher. And who can say where this will end? It is pitiful."

"Pitiful?" repeated Breitmann. "Why that?" calmly.

M. Ferraud repressed the admiration in his eyes. It was a singular duel. "When we see a madman rushing blindly over a precipice it is a human instinct to reach out a hand to save him."

"But how do you know he is rushing blindly?" Breitmann smiled this question.

Hildegarde sent him a terrified glance. But for the stiff back of her chair she must have fallen.

M. Ferraud demolished an olive before he answered the question. "He has allied himself with some of the noblest houses in France; that is to say, with the most heartless spendthrifts in Europe. Napoleon IV? They are laughing behind his back this very minute. They are making a cat's-paw of his really magnificent fight for their own ignoble ends, the Orleanist party. To wreak petty vengeance on France, for which none of them has any love; to embroil the government and the army that they may tell of it in the boudoirs. This is the aim they have in view. What is it to them that they break a strong man's heart? What is it to them if he be given over to perpetual imprisonment? Did a Bourbon ever love France as a country? Has not France always represented to them a purse into which they might thrust their dishonest hands to pay for their base pleasures? Oh, beware of the conspirator whose sole portion in life is that of pleasure! I wish that I could see this young man and tell him all I know. If I could only warn him."

Breitmann brushed his sleeve. "I am really disappointed in your climax, Mr. Ferraud."

"I said nothing about a climax," returned M. Ferraud. "That has yet to be enacted."

"Ah!"

"A descendant of Napoleon, direct! Poor devil!" The admiral was thunderstruck. "Why, the very spirit of Napoleon is dead. Nothing could ever revive it. It would not live even a hundred days."

"Less than that many hours," said M. Ferraud. "He will be arrested the moment he touches a French port."

"Father," cried Laura, with a burst of generosity which not only warmed her heart but her cheeks, "why not find this poor, deluded young man and give him the treasure?"

"What, and ruin him morally as well as politically? No, Laura; with money he might become a menace."

"On the contrary," put in M. Ferraud; "with money he might be made to put away his mad dream. But I'm afraid that my story has made you all gloomy."

"It has made me sad," Laura admitted. "Think of the struggle, the self-denial, and never a soul to tell him he is mad."

The scars faded a little, but Breitmann's eyes never wavered.

"The man hasn't a ghost of a chance." To Fitzgerald it was now no puzzle why Breitmann's resemblance to some one else had haunted him. He was rather bewildered, for he had not expected so large an order upon M. Ferraud's promise. "Fifty years ago. . ."

"Ah! Fifty years ago," interrupted M. Ferraud eagerly, "I should have thrown my little to the cause. Men and times were different then; the world was less sordid and more romantic."

"Well, I shall always hold that we have no right to that treasure."

"Fiddlesticks, Laura! This is no time for sentiment. The questions buzzing in my head are: Does this man know of the treasure's existence? Might he not already have put his hand upon it?"

"Your own papers discredit that supposition," replied Cathewe. "A stunning yarn, and rather hard to believe in these skeptical times. What is it?" he asked softly, noting the dead white on Hildegarde's cheeks.

"Perhaps it is the smoke," she answered with a brave attempt at a smile.

The admiral in his excitement had lighted a heavy cigar and was consuming it with jerky puffs, a bit of thoughtlessness rather pardonable under the stress of the moment. For he was beginning to entertain doubts. It was not impossible for this Napoleonic chap to have a chart, to know of the treasure's existence. He wished he had heard this story before. He would have left the women at home. Corsica was not wholly civilized, and who could tell what might happen there? Yes, the admiral had his doubts.

"I should like to know the end of the story," said Breitmann musingly.

"There is time," replied M. Ferraud; and of them all, only Fitzgerald caught the sinister undercurrent.

"So, Miss Killigrew, you believe that this treasure should be handed over to its legal owner?" Breitmann looked into her eyes for the first time that evening.

"I have some doubt about the legal ownership, but the sentimental and moral ownership is his. A romance should always have a pleasant ending."

"You are thinking of books," was Cathewe's comment. "In life there is more adventure than romance, and there is seldom anything more incomplete in every-day life than romance."

"That would be my own exposition, Mr. Cathewe," said Breitmann.

The two fenced briefly. They understood each other tolerably well; only,