Chapter XXII: In the Lunette St. Laurent

At first a kind of--shall we say it?--savage joy and exultation swelled up in the breast of Goring at the prospect of being face to face with Cadbury again, and already in fancy he was covering with his pistol the spectrum of the peer's thick-set, pudgy person, for he had at first serious doubts--though they were both on the Continent--that the latter would accept his challenge.

'Well, I have faced much in my short time, and figured in many things; but I never thought to do so in such an old-fashioned affair as a duel!' he said, with a grim smile, to his new friend Gabion.

And he wondered what Tony Dalton, Jerry Wilmot, and others of the battalion now far away beyond the equator, would think of the event, when tidings would reach them that he had been shot by Lord Cadbury, or had shot the latter--and in a duel!

How strange it sounded to English ears now!

He wrote to his solicitors to settle a sum stated--a handsome annuity on Alison, if she was found--one that would keep her every way independent alike of her father and Lord Cadbury, if he fell by the hand of the latter--instructions which made those quiet and very acute legal practitioners, Messrs. Taype, Shawrpe, and Scrawly, open their eyes very wide indeed, when the letter reached them at Gray's Inn Square.

His reveries were not very rose-coloured, as he might be a dead man long before _this_ time to-morrow, he thought, while looking at the clock; however, it did not impair his appetite, and he and Victor Gabion spent the evening at the Café Grisor, in the Rue Von Shoonhoven, listening to the grand organ which is played by machinery, while enjoying their wine and cigars, far into the small hours of the morning.

Yet we may be sure that there are few men, if they told truth, but would acknowledge that they felt a very unpleasant emotion when thinking that when another round of the clock was achieved their part in this world might be over--ended and done with!

In the morning he was in a brighter mood, and, though infuriated against Cadbury, had no desire to kill, but only to wound him, to the end that he might wring from him the secret of what he had done with Alison. He was a good marksman--had been a musketry instructor--and with rifle and revolver had done some great things among the big game and hill tribes in India.

A revelation was all he wanted. On his own life, save in so far as Alison Cheyne was concerned, he set little store. How short seemed the minutes he used to spend with her under the old beeches at Chilcote, or when in Laura Dalton's at the Grange. Short and few, and how much alone he used to feel when not with her!

Now how much more alone he felt, when he seemed to have so mysteriously and painfully lost her!

After some coffee, backed by a _chasse_--_i.e._, dashed with cognac--he and Gabion--with the latter's case of pistols--departed before sunrise in a voiture for the citadel--a pretty long drive, through winding and tortuous streets, crossing between the great shipping basins at the Quai Hambourg, and ere long the houses were left behind, and the great grassy embankments of the fortress rose before them.

Every feature of the scenery, every detail of what he saw, however petty and trivial, impressed itself curiously upon the mind of Bevil Goring on this eventful morning.

A group of old peasant women, with wide dark-blue or black cloaks and coal-scuttle bonnets, gossiping in the roadway; children at cottage doors; Flemish labourers, with hard and earnest types of face, leisurely filling their huge pipes with tobacco; a boy sitting on a gate, munching a straw, and dreaming perhaps of the future; the view of the vast Scheldt, curving in a mighty sweep round the flat green Tête de Flandres, with all its steamers and other shipping.

The mighty cathedral spire, and all the thousands of high-peaked roofs and masses of the quaint city, thrown forward in dark outline against the lurid and vapoury red of the winter morning sky, all seen like a vast panorama from the green heights of the citadel. Goring recalled the first morning he had seen the latter from the deck of the _Rotterdam_, and had looked at its great gaping embrasures and lunettes, well flanked out, with the leisurely interest it cannot fail to have in a soldier's eye.

He was now perhaps looking upon Nature, with all her beauties, for the last time, and the coming spring and summer might be as nought to him, even after the wealth that had come upon him so unexpectedly; but if he was fated to fall by Cadbury's pistol his chief regret was not for these things, but the fear that, unless those in another world are cognisant of what passes in this, he would never know the fate of Alison Cheyne, or penetrate the veil that hid her whereabouts in mystery now!

He listened somewhat as one in a dream to Victor Gabion, who was drawing his attention, with no small pride and enthusiasm, to the features of the mighty model citadel, which is now so deserted in aspect, and the streets in the immediate vicinity of which consist chiefly of the ruins of the arsenals and magazines, that were destroyed in the great siege of 1832, when only 4,500 Dutchmen, under old General Chassé, defended themselves with such desperation against 55,000 Frenchmen, under Marshal Gerard.

'My grandfather commanded a regiment on that occasion,' said Gabion, 'and opened the ball by attacking this part--the Lunette St. Laurent, which lies nearest to the town. The trenches were nine English miles long, and sixty-three thousand shot and shell were fired into the place before Chassé hauled down his colours. _Sapristi!_ but that was something like fighting! _Diable!_' he added, 'we are not first on the ground.'

Bevil Goring was much mortified to think that in that matter he had been anticipated by Lord Cadbury, when some dark figures appeared hurrying towards them along the _terre pleine_ of the ramparts; but it was not so, for those who approached proved to be brother-officers of Gabion's, who, having been informed by him of the affair, had come forth, as one said, to see 'le sport.'

All touched their caps, and, after a few passing remarks, looked round for the appearance of Cadbury and his second, but no one, save themselves, seemed to be in the misty space, or amid the wet grassy works of the citadel, and no voiture from the town was as yet seen approaching the entrance to it. All these Belgian officers, to Goring's eye, seemed very square-shouldered, as they wore blue cloaks over their gold epaulettes. All were chatting and laughing merrily, while smoking as if their lives depended upon it.

'_Sapristi! Sacré Dieu!_' muttered Victor Gabion, looking at his watch, 'ten minutes past eight, and no appearance of milord.'

Time passed on. The cathedral clock struck half-past eight, and eventually nine; but there was no appearance of Cadbury.

'Can he have fallen ill?' was the last of many surmises as to this most unexpected turn in the matter.

'Not likely; he would surely have had the courtesy to send a message, and not keep us loitering here,' said Captain Gabion.

The Belgians twirled their moustaches, and exchanged glances of derision.

Bevil Goring felt keen shame that any Englishman should act as Cadbury had done, and at last they all left the citadel and drove back to the city.

'_Sapristi!_' was of course muttered by everyone; 'what is to be done now?'

Goring thought, if he could meet his lordship, he would certainly attack him rearward with his foot, and, as Hudibras has it:

'Because a kick in that place more
Hurts honour than deep wounds before.'

At the very time that Goring and his companions were cooling their heels on the Lunette St. Laurent, the _Firefly_ was steering close-hauled against a head wind, mid-way between the city and Flushing, with Lord Cadbury on board! Since coming there he had imbibed in his wrath and tribulation of spirit so many of Pemmican's brandies and sodas that Tom Llanyard was puzzled what to think, and his temper was horrible.

On the preceding afternoon, immediately after the departure of Victor Gabion, he had gone to the telegraph-office near the Bourse, and telegraphed a message to _himself_ that he might confidently open it in the presence of Sir Ranald Cheyne. This he accordingly did, and, saying nothing of his recent visitor's purpose, he suddenly announced that he must instantly depart for London by steamer and train, but he hoped that Sir Ranald, whom he left alone in his misery, would telegraph to his club the moment he heard tidings of Alison, on which he, Lord Cadbury, would instantly return to Antwerp. And, after this, the hereditary legislator (by one descent) took his hurried departure.

Goring and his new friend Gabion, by making inquiries, were not long in discovering that he had sailed in his yacht. Could Alison, under any circumstances, be on board that yacht too?

His departure so suddenly, if no puzzle to Goring, was certainly one to Sir Ranald, upon whose acceptance the peer pressed a little cheque for any present necessities, and he was just then sick of the whole affair.

Bevil Goring could go near Sir Ranald no more, but, as he loitered near the hotel, could he have looked in upon him just then he would have forgiven him, and more than forgiven him all, his passion and fury.

'A letter for you, Sir Cheyne,' the concierge had said.

It was in a lady's hand, foreign in style, and addressed to 'Sir Ranald Cheyne, Hôtel St. Antoine, E.L.V.' He opened it, and read the contents in tremulous haste.

'Ailie--my own bird Ailie--it is about her, but _what_?' he exclaimed, as his old eyes filled with salt tears. Then he covered his face with his hands, and added, hoarsely, 'Oh, my child, my darling Ailie!'

He strove to rise from his chair, but fell faintly into the arms of the startled concierge.