Hardly had the peasant pronounced these words, when Rose and Blanche, springing up by a common impulse, flew to the door.They arrived there at the same moment as Dagobert.
The soldier, unable to utter a syllable, fell on his knees at the threshold, and extended his arms to the daughters of General Simon; while Spoil-sport, running to them licked their hands.
But the emotion was too much for Dagobert; and, when he had clasped the orphans in his arms, his head fell backward, and he would have sunk down altogether, but for the care of the peasants.In spite of the observations of the bailiff's wife, on their state of weakness and agitation, the two young girls insisted on accompanying Dagobert, who was carried fainting into an adjoining apartment.
At sight of the soldier, Rodin's face was again violently contracted, for he had till then believed that the guide of General Simon's daughters was dead.The missionary, worn out with fatigue, was leaning upon a chair, and had not yet perceived Rodin.
A new personage, a man with a dead yellow complexion, now entered the room, accompanied by another peasant, who pointed out Gabriel to him.
This man, who had just borrowed a smock-frock and a pair of trousers, approached the missionary, and said to him in French but with a foreign accent: "Prince Djalma has just been brought in here.His first word was to ask for you."
"What does that man say?" cried Rodin, in a voice of thunder; for, at the name of Djalma, he had sprung with one bound to Gabriel's side.
"M.Rodin!" exclaimed the missionary, falling back in surprise.
"M.Rodin," cried the other shipwrecked person; and from that moment, he kept his eye fixed on the correspondent of M.Van Dael.
"You here, sir?" said Gabriel, approaching Rodin with an air of deference, not unmixed with fear.
"What did that man say to you?" repeated Rodin, in an excited tone."Did he not utter the name of Prince Djalma?"
"Yes, sir; Prince Djalma was one of the passengers on board the English ship, which came from Alexandria, and in which we have just been wrecked.
This vessel touched at the Azores, where I then was; the ship that brought me from Charlestown having been obliged to put in there, and being likely to remain for some time, on account of serious damage, I embarked on board the `Black Eagle,' where I met Prince Djalma.We were bound to Portsmouth, and from thence my intention was to proceed to France."
Rodin did not care to interrupt Gabriel.This new shock had completely paralyzed his thoughts.At length, like a man who catches at a last hope, which he knows beforehand to be vain, he said to Gabriel: "Can you tell me who this Prince Djalma is?"
"A young man as good as brave--the son of an East Indian king, dispossessed of his territory by the English."
Then, turning towards the other shipwrecked man, the missionary said to him with anxious interest: "How is the Prince? are his wounds dangerous?"
"They are serious contusions, but they will not be mortal," answered the other.
"Heaven be praised!" said the missionary, addressing Rodin; "here, you see, is another saved."
"So much the better," observed Rodin, in a quick, imperious tone.
"I will go see him," said Gabriel, submissively."You have no orders to give me?"
"Will you be able to leave this place in two or three hours, notwithstanding your fatigue?"
"If it be necessary--yes."
"It is necessary.You will go with me."
Gabriel only bowed in reply, and Rodin sank confounded into a chair, while the missionary went out with the peasant.The man with the sallow complexion still lingered in a corner of the room, unperceived by Rodin.
This man was Faringhea, the half-caste, one of the three chiefs of the Stranglers.Having escaped the pursuit of the soldiers in the ruins of Tchandi, he had killed Mahal the Smuggler, and robbed him of the despatches written by M.Joshua Van Dael to Rodin, as also of the letter by which the smuggler was to have been received as passenger on board the "Ruyter." When Faringhea left the hut in the ruins of Tchandi, he had not been seen by Djalma; and the latter, when he met him on shipboard, after his escape (which we shall explain by and by), not knowing that he belonged to the sect of Phansegars, treated him during the voyage as a fellow-countryman.
Rodin, with his eye fixed and haggard, his countenance of a livid hue, biting his nails to the quick in silent rage, did not perceive the half-
caste, who quietly approached him and laying his hand familiarly on his shoulder, said to him: "Your name is Rodin?"
"What now?" asked the other, starting, and raising his head abruptly.
"Your name is Rodin?" repeated Faringhea.
"Yes.What do you want?"
"You live in the Rue du Milieu-des-Ursins, Paris?"
"Yes.But, once more, what do you want?"
"Nothing now, brother: hereafter, much!"
And Faringhea, retiring, with slow steps, left Rodin alarmed at what had passed; for this man, who scarcely trembled at anything, had quailed before the dark look and grim visage of the Strangler.
[8]We always remember with emotion the end of a letter written, two or three years ago, by one of these young and valiant missionaries, the son of poor parents in Beauce.He was writing to his mother from the heart of Japan, and thus concluded his letter: "Adieu, my dear mother! they say there is much danger where I am now sent to.Pray for me, and tell all our good neighbors that I think of them very often." These few words, addressed from the centre of Asia to poor peasants in a hamlet of France, are only the more touching from their very simplicity--E.S.