Cæsar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century
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hoarse, but no one replied fromthe vessel. He looked around. The wharves were deserted; the fewboats visible were chained and padlocked to their iron rings. Themaster of many servants was helpless. He shouted, screamed, tore hishair, stamped and swore viciously. The man who had coolly doomed tenmillion human beings to death was horribly afraid he would have todie himself. He ran back, still clinging to Frederika, to hide in thethick shrubbery of his own garden; there, perhaps, he might find afaithful servant who would get him a boat and take him off to theyacht in safety.
But then, like the advancing thunder of a hurricane, when it champsthe earth and tears the trees to pieces with its teeth, came on theawful mob.
Now it is at his gates. He buries himself and companion in a thickgrove of cedars, and they crouch to the very ground. Oh, how humbleis the lord of millions! How all the endowments of the world fall offfrom a man in his last extremity! He shivers, he trembles--yea, heprays! Through his bloodshot eyes he catches some glimpses of aGod--of a merciful God who loves _all_ his creatures. Even Frederika,though she has neither love nor respect for him, pities him, as thebloated mass lies shivering beside her. Can this be the same lordlygentleman, every hair of whose mustache bespoke empire and dominion,who a few days since plotted the abasement of mankind?
But, hark! the awful tumult. The crashing of glass, the breaking offurniture, the beating in of doors with axes; the _canaille_ havetaken possession of the palace. They are looking for him everywhere.They find him not.
Out into the grounds and garden; here, there, everywhere, they turnand wind and quarter, like bloodhounds that have lost the scent.
And then the Prince hears, quite near him, the piping voice of alittle ragged boy--a bare-footed urchin--saying: "They came back fromthe river; they went in here.---(He is one of the cripple's spies,set upon him to watch him.)---This way, this way!" And the nextinstant, like a charge of wild cattle, the mob bursts through thecedars, led by a gigantic and ferocious figure, black with dust andmantled with blood--the blood of others.
The Prince rose from his lair as the yell of the pursuers told he wasdiscovered; he turned as if to run; his trembling legs failed him;his eyes glared wildly; he tried to draw a weapon, but his hand shookso it was in vain. The next instant there was a crack of a pistol inthe hands of one of the mob. The ball struck the Prince in the backof the neck, even in the same spot where, a century before, theavenging bullet smote the assassin of the good President Lincoln.With a terrible shriek he fell down, and moaned in the most exquisitetorture. His suffering was so great that, coward as he was, he criedout: "Kill me! kill me!" A workman, stirred by a human sentiment,stepped forward and pointed his pistol, but the cripple struck theweapon up.
"No, no," he said; "let him suffer for a few hours something of themisery he and his have inflicted on mankind during centuries. Athousand years of torture would not balance the account. The wound ismortal--his body is now paralyzed--only the sense of pain remains.The damned in hell do not suffer more. Come away."
But Caesar had seen a prize worth pursuing. Frederika had risen, andwhen the Prince was shot she fled. Caesar pursued her, crashingthrough the shrubbery like an enraged mammoth; and soon the cripplelaughed one of his dreadful laughs--for he saw the giant returning,dragging the fair girl after him, by the hair of her head, as we haveseen, in the pictures, ogres hauling off captured children todestruction.
And still the Prince lay upon his back; and still he shrieked andmoaned and screamed in agony, and begged for death.
An hour passed, and there was dead silence save for his cries; themob had swept off to new scenes of slaughter.
The Prince heard the crackling of a stick, and then a stealthy step.A thief, hunting for plunder, was approaching. The Prince, by greateffort, hushed his outcries.
"Come here," said he, as the pale, mean face peered at him curiouslythrough the shrubbery. "Come nearer."
The thief stood close to him.
"Would you kill a man for a hundred thousand dollars?" asked thePrince.
The thief grinned, and nodded his head; it signified that he wouldcommit murder for the hundred thousandth part of that sum.
"I am mortally wounded and in dreadful pain," growled the Prince, thesuppressed sobs interrupting his speech. "If I tell you where you canfind a hundred thousand dollars, will you drive my knife through myheart?"
"Yes," said the thief.
"Then take the knife," he said.
The thief did so, eying {sic} it rapaciously--for it wasdiamond-studded and gold-mounted.
"But," said the Prince--villain himself and anticipating all villainyin others,--"if I tell you where the money is you will run away toseek it, and leave me here to die a slow and agonizing death."
"No," said the thief; "I promise you on my honor."
A thief's honor!
"I tell you what you must do," said the Prince, after thinking amoment. "Kneel down and lean over me; put your arms around me; Icannot hold you with my hands, for they are paralyzed; but put thelapel of your coat between my teeth. I will then tell you where thetreasure is; but I will hold on to you by my teeth until you kill me.You will have to slay me to escape from me.
The thief did as he was directed; his arms were around the Prince;the lapel of his coat was between the Prince's teeth; and thenthrough his shut teeth, tight clenched on the coat, the Princemuttered:
"It is in the satchel beneath me."
Without a word the thief raised his right hand and drove the knifesidewise clear through the Prince's heart.
The last of the accumulations of generations of wrong and robbery andextortion and cruelty had sufficed to purchase their heritor amiserable death,--in the embrace of a thief!
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE LIBERATED PRISONER
About two o'clock that day Maximilian returned home. He was coveredwith dust and powder-smoke, but there was no blood upon him. I didnot see him return; but when I entered the drawing-room I startedback. There was a stranger present. I could not long doubt as to whohe was. He was locked in the arms of Max's mother. He was a pitifulsight. A tall, gaunt man; his short hair and stubby beard white assnow. He was prematurely aged--his back was stooped--his pallidcomplexion reminded one of plants grown in cellars; he had adejected, timorous look, like one who had long been at the mercy ofbrutal masters; his hands were seamed and calloused with hard work;he was without a coat, and his nether garments had curious,tiger-like stripes upon them. He was sobbing like a child in the armsof his wife. He seemed very weak in body and mind. Maximilian gavehim a chair, and his mother sat down by him, weeping bitterly, andholding the poor calloused hands in her own, and patting them gently,while she murmured words of comfort and rejoicing. The poor manlooked bewildered, as if he could not quite collect his faculties;and occasionally he would glance anxiously at the door, as if heexpected that, at any moment, his brutal masters would enter and takehim back to his tasks.
"Gabriel," said Maximilian,--and his face was flushed andworking,--"this is--or was--my father."
I took the poor hand in my own and kissed it, and spoke encouraginglyto him. And this, I thought, was once a wealthy, handsome, portly,learned gentleman; a scholar and a philanthropist; and his only crimewas that he loved his fellow-men! And upon how many such men have theprison doors of the world closed--never to open again?
They took him away to the bath; they fed him; they put upon him theclothes of a gentleman. He smiled in a childish way, and smoothed thefine cloth with his hands; and then he seemed to realize, for thefirst time, that he was, indeed, no longer a prisoner--that hisjailers had gone out of his life forever.
"I must go now," said Maximilian, hurriedly; "I will be back thisevening. I have a duty to perform."
He returned at nightfall. There was a terrible light in his eyes.
"I have avenged my father," he said to me, in a hoarse whisper. "Comethis way."
He took me into the library, for he would not have the women hear thedreadful s
tory. I shut the door. He said:
"I had made all the necessary arrangements to prevent the escape ofthe Count and his accomplices. I knew that he would fly, at the firstalarm, to his yacht, which lies out in the harbor. He had ruined myfather by bribery; so I brought his own instrument to bear upon him,and bribed, with a large sum, his confidential friend, who was incommand of his vessel, to deliver him up to me. As I had anticipated,the cunning wretch fled to the yacht; they took him on board. Thenthey made him prisoner. He was shackled and chained to the mast. Hebegged for his life and liberty. He had brought a fortune with him ingold and jewels. He offered the whole of it to his _friend_, as abribe, for he surmised what was coming. The faithful officer replied,as I had instructed him, that the Count could not offer thattreasure, for he himself had already appropriated it to his ownpurposes. The miscreant had always had a