Chapter XII: Part 12

Several bright green chameleons from Alexandria, which were perpetually crawling about this altar, and turning from their natural colour to red, blue, and white, according to the hue of anything they approached, added to the _diablerie_ of this scene, which soon became rather exciting.

My own share in this adventure was so remarkable, that I came away with but a slight recollection of the part borne in it by my companions.

Indeed, I was the second person on whom he attempted to impose, if his singular mode of summoning, or spirit rapping, could be termed an imposition.

The first to whom he addressed himself was the Turkish soldier with whom we had found him in conversation.

The onbashi wished to know if his mother, Ayesha, widow of Abdallah Ebn Said, who dwelt at Adramyt, was well, and gave the hakim his fee--ten piastres--a large sum, no doubt, for the poor Osmanli warrior, who gazed about with considerable uneasiness, though the unabashed bearing of the Frenchmen might have reassured him; and I heard Jolicoeur whispering to Baudeuf that he had a dozen times seen just such a magical tableau at the Mabille and Porte St. Martin--_diable--oui!_--and had hissed it off, that he might have Mogador or Fleur d'Amour on with their dances.

"Ayesha, widow of Abdallah Ebn Said," muttered the hakim. "A lucky name--it was borne by one of the four perfect women who are now in Paradise."

Opening a gilt door in his little cabinet or altar, the hakim brought forth a large clam-shell and two phials of a dark liquid.

He wrote that verse of the Koran which I have quoted from chapter xvii., concerning the spirit, on a strip of parchment; then, pouring pure water over it, he washed it into the hollow of the shell; thus its sentiment and spirit were supposed to become a component part of the charm about to be wrought.

He then desired the onbashi to turn to the east, and pray (for religion evidently bore a great part in all his mummery), and next he summoned me to look into the shell, which he held in his left hand, while waving over it his bronze rod seven times--the mystical number.

I steadily gazed into the liquid, which a few drops from the phial had turned to a pale purple tint, but saw--nothing.

She did not appear. Thrice she was summoned, but in vain.

The hakim tugged his beard, frowned, and reddened with vexation, and emptied his shell, pouring the liquid carefully through a hole in the floor.

"My poor mother, then, is dead?" said the corporal, sadly, crossing his hands on his breast.

"Stafferillah! nay, do not think so," said the hakim, kindly.

"Why, effendi?"

"Because, in that case, the liquid would become as black as the holy Kaaba."

"But she did not appear?"

"This is an unlucky day, my son."

"Why so for me, if not for others? I never omit to wash and pray; and yesterday, O hakim, you showed strange things to the Franks, filling all their khans and coffee-houses with wonder."

"True; but go. Thou art one of the faithful. To the infidels all days are alike," replied the hakim, with a very unmistakable scowl at Jolicoeur and Baudeuf. "Doth not the Prophet say, 'Their works are like unto vapour in a plain, which the traveller thinketh to be water, until when he cometh thereto he findeth it to be nothing?'"

"Allah kerim!" said the onbashi, putting his right hand to his forehead, his mouth, and his heart, and stalking solemnly away.

Jolicoeur was pressing forward to summon his friend Sophie, no doubt, or perhaps some other gay damsel, when the hakim, who evidently disliked his scoffing smile and general bearing, ignored his presence, and said to me--

"Effendi, in what can I serve you?"

I felt the blood rush to my head, and in a whisper I mentioned to him Louisa Loftus. I was loth that my fast companions should hear her name, and make, perhaps, a jest of it. The hakim's fee was, I have said, ten piastres; but as I gave him above a hundred--or equal to a guinea sterling--there were no words to express his thanks in Egyptian or Turkish; he could only mutter, again and again--

"Shookier Allah! May God reward you!"

Again he produced his clam-shell, the surface of which I carefully surveyed, while with great alacrity he wrote a verse from the Koran. The shell was clear and pure; no picture, line, or drawing could be detected on its pearly surface. Again he went through his mummery with the phials, and washed off the ink into the shell; again, as before, the liquid grew purple, and again he waved his rod of bronze.

"You wish to see her you love?" he whispered, with something of a licentious leer in his keen black eyes; "she who is to be your hanoum (wife or lady)?"

"Yes, effendi," said I, blushing like a great schoolboy, in spite of myself, all the more that I saw Jack Studhome's handkerchief at his mouth.

Fixing his keen eyes with something of sternness upon Jules Jolicoeur, whom he had suddenly detected in the act of mimicking him, the bearded hakim summoned him forward, and desired him to look into the shell, and tell us what he saw.

Abd-el-Rasig then turned to the east, and proceeded to pray and invoke in an inaudible voice.

I was four paces from the Zouave lieutenant, whose eyes, as he gazed into the shell, became dilated and fixed with astonishment, while his whole features, which were handsome, expressed something akin to fear.

"_Merveilleuse! mon Dieu! merveilleuse!_" he exclaimed.

"Do you see anything, monsieur?" I asked, with growing excitement.

"Yes--yes--_oui, peste_!"

"In heaven's name what do you see?"

"A lady!"

"A lady?"

"Yes; the face of a lady, young, and very gentle. It is pale; her eyes are dark, her hair thick and jetty--it seems almost blue in this purple shell. Her eyebrows and lashes are thick," he continued, speaking very fast. "She has an expression of intense sadness--ban Dieu!--she is like a sorrowing angel."

"Her nose is aquiline?" I suggested.

"On the contrary, it is neat and small, but not quite _retrousse_. She moves--_merveilleuse!_--tears--she is weeping! On her breast there is a silver crescent; and now--now--the whole thing fades away!"

I was springing forward, when the hakim waved me imperiously back with his bronze rod, and instantly poured the contents of the shell on the tiled floor, from which a strange mephitic odour rose.

This was not the case on the previous unsuccessful occasion. Jules, who had become quite grave, now turned eagerly, and full of interest, to me.

"Is this the lady whose face you saw?" I asked, showing him the miniature of Louisa.

"No, monsieur; there is not the least resemblance."

"Indeed!"

"I am somewhat of an artist, and know."

"You are sure?"

"Sure as I now address you, monsieur."

I began to smile.

"I have said that her eyes seemed dark, nearly as these. Her hair was black, thick, and wavy, but her nose and features were all smaller--more (pardon me, monsieur) feminine, perhaps--less decided in character, certainly; and on her breast she had a crescent of silver."

"A crescent!"

"Yes, monsieur, with a lion above it. The ornament seemed to fasten or adorn the dress, and I saw it distinctly till she placed her hand upon it, and then the water in the shell rippled. It is positively miraculous," he added, turning to Captain Baudeuf, who was twirling his moustache and smiling with obstinate incredulity.

The latter details petrified me.

Jolicoeur's description was completely that of my cousin, Cora Calderwood. The crescent and lion was a gift I had sent her from India--a double ornament I had picked up in the great pagoda at Rangoon, and which she always wore, preferring it to her father's crest and every other brooch.

"Are you satisfied, effendi?" asked the hakim, quietly, for he seemed used to astonishment on such occasions.

"I am bewildered, at all events, hakim," said I.

"Why so?"

"It was not she I asked for or whom I named."

"How do you know? You did not see. Another looked with your eyes."

"True--but what does the vision portend?"

"You asked to see her----"

"I loved, hakim," said I, emphatically.

"Nay, she who--if Allah and the Muscovite dogs spare you--is to be your wife, your _hanoum_. Do you not remember? Go! _Allah Kerim_! it is _kismet_--your destiny. The destinies of all, and the hour in which we are to die--yea, the very moment--are written by the finger of Azrael on our foreheads at our birth--on yours also, although you believe neither in Azrael[*] nor the Prophet. Go! the mark is there, although we see it not."

[*] The Mahommedan Angel of Death.

With those rather solemn words ringing in my ears, bewildered and thoroughly startled, I found myself traversing the streets of Varna with Studhome, while the French drummers were beating _la retraite_ as the sun went down beyond those mountains that were then echoing with the cannon of Silistria, and while the shrill voices of the muezzins proclaimed the hour of evening prayer from the minarets of the mosques, into which the Moslems were pouring, with bowed heads and bare feet, to count their beads.

*CHAPTER XXXII.*

Sleep by evil spirits troubled,
Fleeing at the matin bell;
Fears that start to eyes scarce waking,
Sighs that will not quit her cell.

As from a dream I was roused at last by Jack Studhome proffering his cigar-case, and saying, with a smile--

"How about the year's pay, Norcliff, eh? I owe you that, I suppose?"

"Don't jest, for Heaven's sake, Jack," said I; "for I feel faint, queer, and ill."

All that night we talked over the affair, through the medium of sundry flasks of iced champagne, without being able to come to any conclusion about it.

As a piece of trickery, it beat all that we had ever seen performed at Cawnpore, Delhi, or Benares, by Indian jugglers, though at mess we had seen those worthies swallow a sword to the hilt, or run it through a basket, in which was concealed a child, whose blood and screams came forth together, till the room door opened, and the little one ran in joyously, unhurt, and without a wound; or the orange seed, which one placed in my tumbler, where it took root, and in three minutes became a little tree in full bearing, from which the mess plucked the oranges as it was handed round. All such performances were beaten by that of the hakim Abd-el-Rasig!

That Jules Jolicoeur had seen a female face--a pretty one, too--in the clam-shell was certain, by whatever art or legerdemain that circumstance was achieved. His astonishment was too genuine and too palpable to be acted. The detail of the crescent brooch was a coincidence, perhaps; but then his description of the wearer accorded so well with that of Cora!

I resolved to seek him next day; but he was despatched on duty along the road towards the Balkan; and, as the event proved, I became too ill to follow him.

As we rode home from the Restaurant de l'Armee d'Orient, I was sensible of extreme giddiness; but attributed it to the champagne. I could scarcely guide my horse along the road that led to our camp in the vale of Aladyn, and felt Studhome repeatedly place his hand upon my bridle to guide me. I felt delirious, too, and next day found myself in the pangs of that foul pest, the cholera.

It seized me at the distance of some ten miles or so from the camp, from which I had ridden in search of Lieutenant Jolicoeur. I became so ill that I had to dismount, and was conveyed to the kiosk of a wealthy Armenian merchant, and there I remained in great peril for several days, before my circumstances or my whereabouts became known to my friends or the regiment.

I endured a severe pain or burning heat in the pit of my stomach, accompanied by the other symptoms of cholera--cramps in the limbs, and spasms of the intestines and muscles of the abdomen.

The pulses became faint, and at times scarcely perceptible; my skin grew cold, and suffused by a clammy perspiration. It was an undoubted case of spasmodic cholera.

I felt resigned and almost careless of life. There were times, however, when I reflected sorrowfully, almost bitterly, that it was not thus I had wished to die, unnoticed and unknown, among strangers in a foreign land; but, luckily for myself, I could not have fallen into more worthy hands.

The proprietor of the kiosk I have mentioned was a wealthy Armenian merchant, a native of Kars. Whether he was animated by that inordinate love of gain which is peculiar to his race, I know not; but he treated me with extreme kindness and hospitality, yet I never saw either him or any of his family. The dangerous nature of my disease was a sufficient excuse for my being carefully secluded from his entire household, which was numerous, as it consisted of several sons with their wives and children, all living together as one great family, but under his own rule, somewhat in the patriarchal mode of a Scottish clan under its chief.

In a little airy apartment, which opened upon a high-walled and spacious garden, I lay for many days, hovering between life and death. My medical attendant was an Italian surgeon, attached to the Bashi Bazooks, and wore a bright green frock-coat, long riding-boots, and a crimson fez, with a long blue tassel and broad military button. He looked like a reckless foreign cut-throat, with a fierce moustache, vast black beard, and close shorn head; but his exterior belied his character and skill.

In the old Sangrado fashion he bled me, taking twenty-five ounces of blood from my left arm, and gave me, I remember, from eighty to a hundred drops of laudanum, together with a teaspoonful of cayenne pepper, in a glass of stiff brandy-and-water, steaming hot, ordering me to drain it almost at a draught.

"Oh, Signor Dottore," said I, "whence come those dreadful spasms?"

"They are rarely accounted for satisfactorily," he replied, with professional nonchalance; "but, if I were to venture an opinion, I should say that the _convulsioni_ arise from distended vessels, in the neighbourhood of the spine, on the origin of the nerves--you understand, Signor Capitano?"

I was soon past understanding anything; but, after the hot dose, I was wrapped in hot blankets, friction, with strong stimulating liniments, being applied along the spine by the hard hands of two black slaves, and heated bricks were placed to my feet and hands; and under all this process I fainted away.

For days I was as one who is in a dream, passive in the hands of those sable assistants, who, doubtless, thought a bowstring would have proved a "perfect cure," and a saving of considerable trouble. The green frogged coat, the crimson fez, and the dark face of the Italian doctor, as he came from time to time, seemed all a portion of the phantasmagoria which surrounded me; but there came anon a sweeter, a softer, and more feminine face, with a lighter and a smaller hand, that seemed to touch me and smooth my pillow; and with this vision came thoughts of Louisa, of Cora, of the hakim Abd-el-Rasig and his magic spells, and then I would close my eyes, wondering whether I was asleep or awake, or if in a dream, from which I would waken, to find myself in my cool bell-tent in the green breezy vale of Aladyn, in my familiar quarters at Canterbury, or it might be in the dear old room of my boyhood, where my mother had so often hung over me and watched, in Calderwood Glen, and then I seemed to hear the cawing of the hoodiecrows among the ancient trees that rustled their green leaves in the summer wind.

The murmuring breeze that came so pleasantly to my dreaming ear passed over wooded mountains; but, alas! they were those of Bulgaria, and not my native land.

Amid all the wild ideas induced by my condition was the overpowering sense of weakness, with intense prostration and lassitude; but now, thanks to Heaven, to human skill, to my own youth and strength, the terrible disease was passing away.

While, by a stupidity or treachery closely akin to treason, our army, during the hot, breathless months of a Bulgarian summer, lay rotting and inactive at Varna, as if merely waiting the approach of winter to open a campaign with Russia--hardy Russia, the land of ice and snows, whose rash emperor boasted that her two most terrible generals were January and February--the fell disease which prostrated me was making sad havoc among my brave and patient comrades.

The 7th, 23rd, and 88th regiments, and all the infantry generally--the Highlanders almost excepted, their Celtic costume being an admirable safeguard by its warmth about the loins--were decimated by cholera. The Inniskillings and 5th Dragoon Guards were reduced to mere skeletons, and few cavalry colonels could bring more than two hundred and fifty sabres into the field.

So much was my own corps reduced, that on one parade Beverley only mustered two hundred lances; but many convalescents joined after. It was remarked that many of the ambulance corps, after what was termed "the great thunder-storm," died within five hours of being assailed by the plague.

Thus, "hundreds of brave men, who had left the British shores, full of high hope and manly strength, died in the valley of Aladyn, or on the hills overlooking Varna! The army grew discontented. Though no act unbecoming British soldiers was committed--though no breach of discipline could be charged--it was impossible to refrain from discontent. Murmurs, not loud but deep, made themselves heard. No man there but burned to meet the enemy. The entire army was prepared cheerfully to face death in the service of the country to which it had sworn allegiance; but to remain in inactivity, exposed to pestilence, which struck down its victims as surely, and nearly as speedily, as the rifle-bullet, beneath a burning sun, with no power of resistance, and no possibility of evasion, was a fate which might quell the stoutest courage, and raise discontent in the most loyal bosom."

Seven thousand Russians, who had perished of cholera some time before, were buried in the vicinity of our camp; and thus the green, smiling spot which the Bulgarians named the vale of Aladyn, the bearded Muscovites anathematized as the Valley of the Plague!

While such was the state of our inactive army at Varna, our fleet in the Black Sea was vainly seeking to lure the Russian vessels from their secure anchorage under the formidable batteries of Sebastopol; and the Turkish army was exhibiting a courage which astonished all Europe.

At Giurgevo, a city on the left bank of the Danube, on the 7th of July, a mere handful of Turks, chiefly led by a gallant Scot, styled Behram Pasha,[*] defeated a large force of Russians, after a desperate conflict. At Kalafat the latter sought in vain to force the passage of the river, and drive the Osmanlees from their stronghold; and at Citate and Oltenitza they were routed with disgrace. For neither their own native prowess, the prayers of the Bishop of Moscow, nor the miraculous image of St. Sergius, availed them--the blue cross of St. Andrew and the Eagle of Muscovy fled alike before the crescent and star of Mahommed. And now Silistria, on the Danube--"the thundering river"--became the base of operations; and there Moussa Pasha, Butler, an Irish officer, and my countryman, Naysmith, covered themselves with glory, while the Hungarian exile, Omar Pasha, opposed the foe with all his available troops.

[*] Lieutenant-Colonel Cannon.

During this time the French continued pouring into Varna, by marching across the Balkan, the great mountain barrier of Turkey, the rocky passes and deep defiles of which are almost impassable in winter.

On the 28th of July the Russians were driven from Wallachia; but the Turks were utterly defeated by them at Bayazid, on the slopes of Western Armenia, and again at Kuyukdere. Our fleets bombarded Kola, on the White Sea, and the 4th of September saw the eagle of victory hovering over the armies of the Czar at Petropaulovski; but thus the summer passed with us ingloriously away, and still our army lay inactive amid a hotbed of fever and suffering at hated Varna.

The most of these stirring events I learned after my recovery from that illness which so nearly carried me off. I knew nothing of them while in the house of the Armenian, and equally little did I know that Mr. De Warr Berkeley, in the hope that I might never rejoin, was doing all he could to blot my military reputation in the brigade to which we belonged.

It was on a morning in June--the 23rd, I think--the same day on which the Russians raised the siege of Silistria, leaving twelve thousand dead before its walls--that I seemed to wake from a long and refreshing slumber.

The vague, drowsy sense of having been surrounded by phantasms and unrealities, and that it was not Newton Norcliff, but some one else, who was lying there, sick and weary, had passed away with sleep. I was conscious and coherent now, but weak with past suffering.

Through the lattices of a pretty kiosk (for that word signifies alike a room or a house), I could see the great rose trees, covered with their fragrant glories, standing in rows, or trained over gilded iron bowers or arches. The leaves of the apricot, the purple plum and greengage trees, rustled pleasantly in the passing breeze, and pleasantly, too, there came to my ear the plashing of a marble fountain that stood in the shaded verandah without.

Around that white marble fountain grew the great scarlet pumpkin and the golden-coloured water-melon, their gaudy brilliance contrasting with the green leaves amid which they nestled. The garden was an epitome of Turkey, for there the blood-red ilex of Italy, the rose tree of Persia, the palm of Egypt, the Indian fig, and the African aloe, with the tall, solemn cypress, all grew side by side in the lovely parterres, through which the sunshine fell aslant in golden flakes.

The kiosk in which I lay was floored with marble slabs. Its walls were painted gaily with a panoramic view of Constantinople. I could recognise the heights of Pera, and all the Propontis, from the Seraglia point to the Seven Towers, with all the glories of the Golden Horn, Sophia's shining cupola, the Serai Bournou, and the cypress groves, where the dead of ages lie.

I was reposing in a pretty bed, with spotless white hangings, and lace all so charmingly arranged, that it reminded me of a baby's cradle. A divan of yellow silk cushions surrounded the apartment on three sides. On the fourth it was entirely open to the verandah and garden. On this divan I saw my undress uniform, neatly folded, with my forage-cap, sword, and cartridge-box placed above it.

My watch and purse, Louisa's miniature and ring--I felt for the latter involuntarily--were all lying on a little white marble tripod table by my side, together with a beautiful china drinking vessel, which seemed familiar to me.

A sigh of thankfulness that I was conscious, free of pain, and at comparative ease, escaped me, and I turned to survey again the other side of my chamber, when a remarkable female figure met my eye.

She was seated on the low divan, quite motionless. She was reading intently, and by her costume I knew at once that she was a French sister of charity--one of those pure in heart, great in soul, and unflinching in purpose, who, on their saint-like mission of mercy and humanity, had followed the allies from France.

Her dress was a plain black serge gown, with a spotless white coif, which fell in soft folds upon her shoulders, pure as the feathers of a dove. In her gentle face, which seemed familiar--for doubtless it had often been before me in the intervals of suffering and delirium--there was a kind, a peaceful, and divine expression, that underlay the lines of premature care, suffering, and privation.

She was young; but among the dark brown hair that was braided smoothly and modestly over her pale, serene brow, I could detect already a silver thread or two.

So perfectly regular were her features, so straight the lines of eyebrow and nose, that the dark, speaking eyes, and that drooping form of eyelid peculiar to the south of Europe, alone relieved them from tameness, for I had seen more sparkling beauty in a somewhat irregular face; but in those dark eyes there ever shone the steady light of a soul devoted to one great purpose; and yet at times, as I afterwards found, her manner could become merry, almost playful.

Slight though the motion of simply turning my head, she heard it, arose anxiously, and, coming forward, handed to me a cooling drink.

"Mademoiselle, I thank you!" said I, gratefully.

"You must not thank me, monsieur. I am simply your nurse."

"And I have disturbed you----"

"At my office--merely, monsieur, at my office, which I can read at any time within the twenty-four hours."

"And how often do you do this?"

"Every day--all these pages--see!"

Her voice was so very silvery, her eyes so calm and lustrous, her hands so white and small, that it was impossible not to see that she had been highly bred, delicately nurtured, and came of some good French family.

"How long have I been here, mademoiselle?" I asked, after a pause.

"I do not know. Monsieur was here when I came."

"And who brought you to nurse me?"

"Lieutenant Jolicoeur, of the 2nd Zouaves, heard somehow that you were here, suffering under a perilous illness. An Italian surgeon chanced to mention it at the Restaurant de l'Armee d'Orient, and they brought me here. We are in the house of a rich Armenian trader--a good Christian, after his own fashion; but, O Sacre Coeur! what an odd fashion it is!"

"Ah! mademoiselle----"

"I am Archange, of the Order of Charity."

"Well, Sister Archange, you are really an angel!"

"Oh, fie! don't say so! You must think very poorly, very meanly, of me to give me a title I dare not hope to merit, even by a thousand actions such as attending you."

"Pardon me; I did but--but say what I thought."

"You are a child, and thought wrong," she replied, with playful asperity. "But you have already spoken too much for one who is only beginning to recover; so try to sleep, _mon frere_."

And, waving her hand with a pretty gesture of authority, she resumed her missal, and read on in silence.

I slept for a time--I know not how long--it might have been an hour, or perhaps two: but, when I looked up, she was still seated, motionless and reading.

"_Ma soeur!_" said I, as our eyes met, and my heart swelled with gratitude for her generous watchfulness; and she came hastily towards me.

"_Mon frere_, what do you want?"

"You mistook my meaning when I called you an angel, and were angry with me."

"Angry?--I? Ah, no! no! Don't say so--I am never angry; it would not do for me to be so now."

"But I think you quite a saint to watch me thus."

"You must not say that either."

"You are so good, and I so unworthy."

"Good I may be thought, monsieur; but I shall never be a saint, like Father Vincent de Paul--I am too wicked for that," she added, laughing merrily; "but I try to be as good as I can."

"Have any letters come here for me?"

"Letters!" she said, with alarm in her fine eyes, and withdrawing a pace.

"Yes; I am so anxious for them."

"Ah! now you are beginning to rave again. In your pain and delirium you always raved about letters."

"There are, then, none?" said I, with a groan.

"I shall see, _mon frere_," and, in the kindness of her heart, after pretending to search for what she too well knew were not to be found, she came again to my bedside, and said there would, perhaps, be some to-morrow.

"Still no letter!" I exclaimed, sadly, with tears in my eyes.

She laid a soft hand caressingly on my brow.

I besought her, in the most moving terms, to inquire if there were any letters for me at our cantonments in the vale of Aladyn, heedless of the distance and of the trouble I gave her; for I thought only of Louisa Loftus, and that her answer to my Gallipoli missive might have reached the regiment during my illness and absence.

"Monsieur, then, belongs to the English service?"

"No."

"The Osmanli army, then?"

"No, mademoiselle; I belong to the British," said I.

"Ah! true. But your uniform is not red?"

"All our light cavalry wear blue. Ah, _ma soeur_, seek the quarters of the lancers serving in the Light Brigade, and see if there is a letter for me. It will do me more good than all the doses of our Italian doctor."

"Ah! you will be dosed by him no more."

"I am truly glad to hear it. Some of his messes were vile enough."

"Do not speak so ungratefully; but you know not what I mean or what has happened."

"How?"

"Poor _monsieur le docteur_ is dead."

"Dead!"

"He died of cholera in the cavalry camp yesterday. He had volunteered to attend the sick soldiers in the vale of Aladyn, and perished at his post among them."

I was greatly shocked by this intelligence, which perhaps, it was not wise in my little nurse to afford me at such a time.

When again I woke from sleep the shadows of evening were darkening the room; the trellis-work and Venetian lattices that had opened to the sunlit garden were closed now, and the sun had set. Sister Archange was seated in her usual place upon the low divan, but looking pale and exceedingly fatigued.

She had been at the British cavalry camp, and she had seen my friends, but no letters had arrived for me, of that she was assured, as she had taken one of my cards from its case to show the commanding officer.

"No letters?" I repeated, in a hollow tone.

"No; but, _monsieur mon frere_, must take courage. Many, many ships have perished in a recent storm in the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora, and your letters may have gone to the bottom with the mail steamer. Monsieur Estoodome--_monsieur l'adjudant_ he is, I think, of your regiment--and _monsieur le colonel_, too, will ride over here to-morrow to see you. And now there must be no more talking, but to sleep, _mon ami_--to sleep. I must take care of you now, for _la soeur_ Archange will not be with you always."

"What are you doing?"

"Making the sign of the cross on your forehead, _mon frere_. To-morrow I shall tell you what it means, if you will remind me; but, for to-night, adieu."

*CHAPTER XXXIII.*

O fondest memories! come and go,
Shine on sad times which are no more,
As sunbeams gladden waters of snow,
As wavelets kiss a barren shore:
And light with love and tenderness
The happy days which still are ours;
Whose influence, rich in April showers,
Casts round us love and tenderness.

The clatter of spurs and scabbards, and the firmer tread of feet than one usually hears among the slipshod or slippered Moslems, next forenoon, announced the arrival of my friends, and most welcome to me was the appearance of Colonel Beverley, Studhome, Wilford, and Jocelyn of ours, all fearless of cholera, as they came through the verandah of the kiosk where I lay; and there, too, lingering without, I saw my faithful follower, Pitblado.

They were all in full uniform and accoutred, for it was the day of a great review; and all bowed with politeness to the sister of charity, who immediately withdrew to the shadow of the verandah.

"I rejoice to see you, my dear boy," said the colonel; "we had all given you up as lost to us and to the regiment."

"Lost, colonel?" I repeated.

"Faith, did we, Newton," said Studhome. "We concluded that you had been waylaid--cut off in the flower of your youth and day-dawn of ambition, as the novels have it--by some Bulgarian footpads or rascally Bashi Bazooks, for I presume you know that no one can go beyond the advanced posts with safety without a revolver."

"A rumour reached us of a British cavalry officer being conveyed seriously ill to the house of an Armenian gentleman," resumed Beverley. "We strongly suspected that you were the person, and the presumption became a certainty when yesterday this young lady brought your card to my tent at the cavalry camp."

"She is a good little saint," said I, with enthusiasm.

"And so, Norcliff, you have actually had cholera--that foul pest which is destroying our noble army piece-meal?"

"I am recovering, as you see; but pray don't linger here, colonel. There is danger by my side."

"Norcliff, the air we breathe is full of cholera," said Beverley, impatiently twisting his grizzled moustache; "our poor fellows are dying of it like sheep with the rot!"

"If the Emperor of Russia had planned the whole affair himself, he could not have taken better measures to weaken and decimate us than this useless camp at Varna."

"You are right, Studhome--to decimate us before the war begins," added Jocelyn.

"When do we take the field, colonel?"

"No one knows."

"Then how long are we to remain here?"

"No one can tell. Satisfactory, isn't it? In fact, no one knows anything."

"Except," said Studhome, "that we are giving the Russians plenty of time to prepare a hot reception for us, if we venture to seek 'the bubble reputation' in the Crimea--or military fame, which, as some one says, consists of 'a few orders on a tight uniform.'"

"How far am I from the camp, colonel?"

"About five miles."

"Five miles!" I exclaimed, "Then you, my poor friend, Sister Archange, actually walked for me ten miles under a broiling sun yesterday?"

"Yes, _monsieur le capitaine_," she replied; "and happy would I have been could I have returned with what you wished for."

"How sorry I am! How can I ever repay, ever apologize, for the amount of trouble I have given you?"

"Apologies are not to be thought of," said she, quietly; "and as for repayment, we do not look for that--here, at least."

She smiled, and looked very beautiful. Twirling his carefully-bandolined moustache, Jocelyn, who had been observing her admiringly, was about to address her in, perhaps, rather a heedless way, when Beverley said to him pointedly--

"Those French sisters of charity are the admiration of all the troops. Even the stupid Turks adore them, and are bewildered by a devotion and purity of purpose which their sensual souls cannot understand. Mademoiselle, we have no language to describe what we owe to your order."

The sister of charity gave the colonel a pleasant smile, and a bow full of grace and good humour.

"Our visit," said he, "is necessarily a hurried one. We are all in full puff, as you may see, Norcliff, for this afternoon the cavalry division is to be reviewed before Omar Pasha and Marshal St. Arnaud."

"Hence my Lord Lucan is most anxious that each and all should appear in his best bib and tucker," added Studhome.

After they were gone, I turned again to thank the gentle sister of charity for the journey she had made, on a hot and breathless day, through a camp of more than eighty thousand foreign troops, to serve me.

She only gave me one of her pleasant smiles, and; taking the miniature of Louisa from the tripod table, said in a low voice, "Is this the lady from whom you expect letters?"

"Yes."

She shook her head sadly, as if her survey of the tiny portrait had not proved satisfactory.

"Why do you look thus, _ma soeur_? What do you see?"

"Much of dangerous beauty; but more of pride, of caution, tact, and cold decision. The eyebrows nearly meet--I don't like that. The eyes are lovely; but--but----"

"What?" I asked, almost imperiously.

"I dare not say it. I may be guilty of the sin of detraction."

"Nay, speak, I beg of you. The eyes are lovely, you say, but----"

"Have an untruthful expression."

"Ah, good heavens, don't say so!"

My heart sank as she spoke, and I sighed deeply.

"I have seen such eyes and brows once before, and I remember the sorrow they wrought."

The paragraph which I had read in the London morning paper, on board the _Ganges_, in the harbour of Valetta--that fulsome paragraph, at which Berkeley had smiled so complacently and covertly--came to my memory word for word now. Was it possible that the journal was true, and Louisa false? After an uncomfortable pause, I related to the sister the strange episode which occurred at the house of the hakim Abd-el-Rasig.

"_Magique!_" she exclaimed, while her large eyes became larger still, and she crossed herself three several times with great earnestness. "_O Sainte Dame!_ you tried the art of the great fiend, did you?"

"Who--I? Not at all! How could I? Don't imagine anything so absurd. The man is only a trickster, like Houdin or Herr Frickel."

But she seemed so horrified at me, and "the art that none may name," that I was fain to explain that the whole affair originated in the suggestion of Studhome, and some of the officers of the 2nd Zouaves, in a moment of idleness.

"I can tell you many a tale of the wickedness of having recourse to magic, and the retribution which falls on those who do so," said she. "Have you ever read the writings of the fathers?"

"No, I regret exceedingly," I was beginning, when I could not help laughing at her conceiving such a course of reading palatable to a young cavalry officer. Even the pundits who "go in" for cramming, that they may have the magical letters "P.S.C."[*] after their names in the "Army List," do not go that length.

[*] Passed (final examination) at the Staff College,

"Have you ever heard of St. Jerome?" she asked, gravely.

"I think so, _ma soeur_."

"Well, I shall tell you a tale he records concerning magic, and one who resorted thereto. Once upon a time in France, your odious Abd-el-Rasig would have been burned alive, for there can be no doubt that, like those of the Egyptian magicians of old, his operations are conducted with infernal agency. Can the accounts we hear of those magicians from Moses admit of any other construction?"

"Of course not, though I can't for the life of me see what you are driving at."

"If ever you see him again, _mon frere_, make the sign of the cross, and then you will see how he will shrink and whine, like Mephistopheles in the opera, for it is a sign that always sends the thoughts heavenward. We are told that, if St. Ephrem saw a little bird fly, he always remembered that, with pinions outspread, it made the sign of the cross as it soared towards heaven; but that when it folded those wings the holy sign was marred, and the poor bird fell at once, grovelling and fluttering, on the earth."

"Well, _ma soeur_; but the story and St. Jerome?"

"Pardon me, I had forgotten. He tells, in his life of St. Hilarion the Hermit--ah, you never heard of him either--that a gay young man of the town of Gaza, in Syria, fell deeply in love with a young lady, whom he used to see occasionally in those beautiful gardens of tamarisks, figs, and olives for which the place is still so famous; but she was pious, devoted to Heaven and to religion, and, consequently, shunned him--a course which only added the stings of jealousy and attraction to the passion which she had inspired.

"His glances, his tender whispers, his presents, and professions she treated with coldness; his attempted caresses she repulsed with anger and disdain, till, finding all his attempts baffled and ineffectual, in a fit of rage and despair he went to Memphis, which was then the residence of many eminent magicians, all reputed to possess wonderful power.

"There he remained a whole year, studying the dark mysteries under the tutelage of the most learned, until he deemed himself sufficiently instructed; and, exulting in his unholy knowledge, acquired chiefly among the graves which still lie to the south and westward of Memphis, and where one may walk for miles and miles amid bones and fragments of crumbling mummies, he returned to Gaza, confident that now he could bend the inflexible beauty to his will.

"Beneath the marble peristyle of her father's house he contrived to lodge at midnight a plate of brass, whereon he had engraved a potent spell. Hence, the first time she passed over it a wondrous illness seized her! She became furious, says St. Jerome; she tore her glorious hair, she gnashed her teeth, and raved over the name and image of the very youth whom she had so repeatedly driven from her presence in despair by her coldness and hauteur.

"In sorrow and terror her parents conducted her to the hermitage of St. Hilarion; and then, when the holy hands of the old man crossed her, the devil that was within her began to howl, and to confess the truth.

"'I have suffered violence!' he exclaimed, speaking with _her_ tongue, to the fear of all.

"St. Hilarion took a branch of blessed palm, and, having dipped it in holy water as an esperges, threw the sparkling drops profusely over her, on which the devil exclaimed again--

"'I have been forced here against my inclination! Alas! these drops are as freezing ice! Oh, how happy I was at Memphis among the tombs of the dead! Oh! the pains, the tortures I suffer!'

"Then the hermit commanded him to come forth; but the devil told him that he was detained by a brazen spell beneath the peristyle of the maiden's house.

"So cautious was the saint, however, that he would not permit the magic figures to be searched for till he had released the virgin, for fear he should seem to have intercourse with incantations for the performance of a cure, or to have believed that a devil could ever speak truth. He observed that demons are always liars, and cunning only to deceive."

"So the damsel was released?" said I, who had listened with some amusement to the story, which was told me with implicit faith in its veracity.

"Yes; but the devil, ere he went back to Memphis, paid a terrible visit to his first summoner; for the young man was found in the garden of olives, strangled, with the marks of talons in his throat. So, _mon ami_, never again have recourse to such persons as Abd-el-Rasig. Promise this to your little sister, Archange!"

"I may well promise you that, or anything else you ask," said I, charmed by her winning manner. "How sweetly your name sounds when pronounced by yourself."

"Do you really think so?" she asked, while her dark eyebrows arched up. "My godfather named me Archange, that I might be under the protection of the archangels. You comprehend me, monsieur? When I joined the order of the _soeurs de la charite_ for my noviciate in the Rue du Vieux Colombier, to share with the Sisters of St. Martha the care of the sick in the hospitals of Paris, they saw no reason to change it; and hence I am still, as I was before--before I thought of being a sister of charity--Archange."

To a sick man's ear, there was a soothing charm in the girl's voice and its intonation. Then her broken English, her earnestness, truthfulness, and intense faith in all the little religious legends and anecdotes with which she amused us, were all fascinating, and there came a time when I missed her, and then sorely. Add to all these that, in the girl's beautiful but colourless face, there was an expression singularly pure, noble, and frank, lofty, and at times sublime. I was very curious to know her surname, and the reason why she had adopted a life of such privation and peril as that of a Sister of Charity--an order so severe, and whose duties were a ceaseless round of privation and peril. Without being uncourteously curious, I knew not how to approach the subject; but next day, after Jack Studhome and Fred Wilford (who rode over from the camp) had retired, she imparted the little story of her past life of her own accord, and the circumstance came about very simply, through a mere remark of mine. The mail steamer had come in from Constantinople, but Studhome had no letter for me.

"Ah, _ma soeur_ Archange, I begin to be torn by jealousy," said I.

"Why?" she asked, gently.

"I cannot say why, as the only man in England I have reason to fear is a creature so contemptible."

"Then wherefore give way to a weakness so odious and so tempting?"

"Tempting?" I repeated.

"Yes; I mean tempting to crime."

"How strangely you speak!"

"But truly," she replied, sadly.

"I do not understand----"

"I can tell you a horrible episode," she began, impetuously; "but no, 'tis better forgotten--forgotten, if possible, than to recollect it now, in all its sad details," she added, after a pause.

"Why?"

"You have unbosomed yourself to me, and have told to me your only sorrow; why should I conceal mine? or why be less communicative to you? Well, I shall tell you why I--for the sake of others, rather than even for my own soul's welfare--dedicated myself to God and the order of charity. By jealousy, and the revenge it inspired, I lost a brother whom I idolized, and two friends whom I loved dearly; and, monsieur, it all happened thus."

After a short pause, with her long dark lashes cast down, and her little white hands folded on her knees, she told me the following story:--"My father, M. Marie Anatole Chaverondier, resided in a little antique chateau among the mountains of Beaujolais, where we had a property which, though small, is fertile, and in some places is covered with fine old wood. Our chateau is very ancient, for it had anciently been a hunting-seat of the illustrious family of Beaujeu, who gave their name to all that district; and thus we have rooms that many a time were honoured by the presence of the Great Constable and the Dukes of Bourbon.

"I can, in fancy, see that dear old chateau now, with its round turrets, its gilded vanes, and white facade, rising above the green woodlands, with the blue Saone flowing in front under an ancient bridge, the central arch of which had been blown up in the wars of the old revolution, but was now partly repaired by logs of oak, that were half-hidden by luxuriant ivy, and beautiful red and white roses. Ah!" she exclaimed, while her splendid eyes became suffused with tears, "shall I ever again see the old Chateau de Chaverondier?

"My mother was dead. My father--a gentleman of the _ancien regime_, a strict legitimist, or adherent of the old monarchy, and a worshipper in secret of Henri V.--resided there in seclusion with his family, which consisted of myself, my brother Claude, and three or four servants; and, save our tutor, who was the old cure of the neighbouring village, or monsieur le maire of Beaujeu, we had few or no visitors; and our time glided away amid quiet pleasures, but with no sorrow, till Claude, a tall and handsome youth, left us for the military school of St. Cyr.

"There he soon received the commission of sous-lieutenant in the 3rd Light Infantry of the line, then commanded by Colonel Francois-Certain de Canrobert, now marshal of our army in the East.

"I sorrowed for my brother, my lost companion, long and earnestly. We had no more rambles now by the Sacine, in search of flowers and ferns, or in the deep dark woodland dells around the old chateau. There was a sad emptiness and loneliness in and around it, too. I no longer heard my brother's clear voice singing merrily as he prepared his flies and fishing-rod, or the report of his gun waking the echoes of the forest; and I went to mass, to confession, and to communion alone, for my father had become too feeble now to leave his apartment, and my chief solace was in attending him; so, monsieur, you see that I served an early apprenticeship in the sick chamber.

"But there were others who sorrowed for the absent Claude--the two daughters of Montalle, the maire of Beaujeu, a wealthy proprietor of several forges and furnaces, whose alliance my father would have opposed with disdain and wrath; but that did not prevent us from being great friends with Lucrece and Cecile, whom we had been in the habit of meeting so regularly at mass, and with whom we worked in common to decorate the altar of monsieur le cure on holidays.

"Both were remarkably handsome and sprightly girls. Cecile was fair and gentle, and Claude, I knew, loved her, and sighed for her, even as a boy; but Lucrece, the elder, I also knew, loved him in her secret heart, for she had frequently told me so after his departure for St. Cyr, and more than once I had seen a dangerous expression in her pale face and dark eyes when Cecile spoke of him with regret or affection. Dark as night were the eyes of Lucrece. Her nose was aquiline, and over it her eyebrows nearly met; and she had a general expression not unlike that which I saw in your miniature. Letters came at times to our old chateau among the mountains of Beaujolais from the absent Claude; but it was soon too evident that Cecile Montalle was in correspondence with him as well as I; for she knew quite as soon as we did of Claude's movements, and those of the 3rd Light Infantry, with which he was serving in Africa; and she knew before we did of how he had distinguished himself in Canrobert's famous expedition against Ahmed-Sghir, when that chief rallied the tribes of the Bouaoun in revolt against France.

"In 1850, Claude wrote us that he had been wounded in Canrobert's expedition against Narah, that Colonel Canrobert had granted him leave of absence, and that he was coming home. No hearts were so happy as ours at the old chateau, on learning that Claude was returning, and covered with honour, too--save, perhaps, the fair-haired Cecile Montalle. There was a radiance in her pink cheek, a sparkle in her beautiful blue eyes, when we met at church in Beaujeu, which showed that she, too, was mistress of the same joyous tidings; and, in the fulness of her heart, she confessed to me that she and Claude had corresponded long, had exchanged rings, and were mutually attached and engaged. I loved my brother. Could I wonder that Cecile Montalle did so too? Lucrece, who stood by us, heard all this with a lowering brow, and there was the old and strange expression in her face which had terrified me before as I kissed her, and got into our old-fashioned carriage to return to the chateau, which stands some five leagues or so from Beaujeu.

"For days I busied myself, preparing for the reception of Claude. His old room was put in order by my own hands. Alas! I could little foresee that he was never to tread its floor again! In fact, the unhappy Lucrece was the victim of an absorbing and corroding jealousy; and in her heart she was beginning to hate and to loathe her guileless and unsuspecting sister. To add to this evil feature in our mutual relations, when I ventured timidly to speak of Claude's engagement to my father, he became inflamed with sudden fury. All the buried pride of the old days of the monarchy--the days of periwigs and pasteboard skirts, of shoe-buckles and rapiers--with the memory of past greatness, and the time when the Constable and Dukes of Bourbon had joined our forefathers in the chase, and shared their hospitality in Chaverondier--all this I saw blazed up within him! His eyes flashed with fire, and his thin bent form became erect. He had been proud of his son's brilliant career under Canrobert; he had pictured for him a brilliant future; he already saw him ranked among the marshals of France, reviving the past glories of ancestors who had left their bones at Pavia, Rocroi and Ramilies.

"But now he thought all those ancient triumphs and those revived hopes would be blighted and blotted by a disgraceful marriage with a mere _bourgeoise_--a vulgar smelter of iron--a man who had begun life with a hammer and bellows; a grimy manufacturer of spades, ploughs, and pickaxes for the markets of Beaujeu, Belleville, and Chalieu!