The Slave of the Lamp Part 8

And yet there was a change: that subtle change which seems to come to girls suddenly, in the s.p.a.ce of a week--of one night. And this man was watching her with his a.n.a.lytical eyes, wondering what the change might be.

He was more or less a bookworm, and he possibly thought that this subject--this pleasant young subject walking beside him in a blue cotton dress--was one which might easily be grasped and understood if only one gave one's mind to it. Hence the little frown. It denoted the gift of his mind. It was the frown that settled over his eyes when he cut the pages of a deep book and glanced at the point of his pencil.

He had read many books, and he knew a number of things. But there is one subject of which very little can be learnt in books--precisely the subject that walked in a blue cotton dress by Christian Vellacott's side at the edge of the moat. If any one thinks that book-learning can aid this study, let him read the ignorance of Gibbon, comparing it with the learning of that cheery old ignoramus Montaigne. And Vellacott was nearer to Gibbon in his learning than to Montaigne in his careless ignorance of those things that are written in books.

He glanced at her; he frowned and brought his whole attention to bear upon her, and he could not even find out whether she was pleased to listen to his congratulations, or angry, or merely indifferent. It was rather a humiliating position for a clever man--for a critic who knew himself to be capable of understanding most things, of catching the drift of most thoughts, however imperfectly expressed. He was vaguely conscious of defeat. He felt that he was nonplussed by a pair of soft round eyes like the eyes of a kitten, and the dignified repose of a pair of demure red lips. Both eyes and lips, as well as shoulders and golden hair, were strangely familiar and strangely strange by turns.

With one finger he twisted the left side of his moustache into his mouth, and, dragging at it with his teeth, distorted his face in an unbecoming if reflective manner, which was habitually indicative of the deepest attention.

While reflecting, he forgot to be conversational, and Hilda seemed to be content with silence. So they walked the length of the moat twice without speaking, and might have accomplished it a third time, had little Stanley Carew not appeared upon the scene with the impulsive energy of his thirteen years, begging Christian to bowl him some really swift overhands.

CHAPTER VII

PUPPETS

"Ah! It goes. It goes already!"

The speaker--the Citizen Morot--slowly rubbed his white hands one over the other.

He was standing at the window of a small house in an insignificant street on the southern side of the Seine. He was remarkably calm--quite the calmest man within the radius of a mile; for the insignificant little street was in an uproar. There was a barricade at each end of it.

Such a barricade as Parisians love. It was composed of a few overturned omnibuses; for the true Parisian is a cynic. He likes overturned things, and he loves to see objects of peace converted to purposes of war. He is not content that ploughshares be beaten into swords. He prefers altar-rails. And so this little street was blocked at either end by a barricade of overturned omnibuses, of old hampers and empty boxes, of a few loads of second-hand bricks and paving-stones brought from the scene of some drainage operations round the corner.

In the street between the barricades, surged, hooted, and yelled that wildest and most dangerous of incomprehensibles--a Paris mob.

Half-a-dozen orators were speaking at once, and no one was listening to them. Here and there amidst the rabble a voice was raised at times with suspicious persistence.

"_Vive le Roi!_" it cried. "Long live the King!"

A few took up the refrain, but the general tone was negative. It was not so much a question of upholding anything as of throwing down that which was already up.

"Down with the Republic!" was the favourite cry. "Down with the President! Down with everything!"

And each man cried down his favourite enemy.

The Citizen Morot listened, and his contemptuous mouth was twisted with a delicate, subtle smile.

"Ah!" he muttered. "The voice of the people. The howling of the wolves.

Go on, go on, my braves. Cry 'Long live the King,' and soon you will begin to believe that you mean it. They are barking now. Let them bark.

Soon we shall teach them to bite, and then--then, who knows?"

His voice dropped almost to a whisper, and he stood there amidst the din and hubbub--dreaming. At last he raised his hand to his forehead--a prominent, rounded forehead, flat as the palm of one's hand from eyebrow to eyebrow, and curving at either side, sharply, back to deep-sunken temples.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, with a little laugh; and he drew from an inner pocket a delicately scented pocket-handkerchief, with which he wiped his brow. "If I get excited now, what will it be when they begin--to bite?"

All this while the orators were shouting their loudest, and the voices dispersed throughout the crowd raised at intervals their short, sharp cry of--

"Long live the King!"

And the police? There were only two agents attached to the immediate neighbourhood, and they were smoking cigars and drinking absinthe in two separate cellars, with the door locked on the outside. They were prisoners of war of the most resigned type. The room in which stood the Citizen Morot was dark, and wisely so. For the Parisian street politician can make very pretty practice of a lighted petroleum-lamp with an empty bottle or half a brick. The window was wide open, and the wooden shutters were hooked back.

The att.i.tude of the man was interested and slightly self-satisfied. It suggested that of the manager of a theatre looking down from an upper-tier box upon a full house and a faultless stage. At the same time he was keeping what sailors call a very "bright look-out" towards either end of the street. From his elevated position he was able to see over the barricades, and he watched with intense interest the movements of two women (or perhaps men disguised as such) who stood in the centre of the street just beyond each obstruction.

There was something dramatic in the motionless att.i.tude of these two women, standing guard alone in the deserted street, on the wrong side of the barricades.

At times Morot leant well out of the window and listened. Then he stood back again and contemplated the crowd.

Each orator was illuminated by a naphtha "flare," which, being held in unsteady hands, flickered and wavered, casting strange gleams of light over the evil faces upturned towards it. At times one speaker would succeed in raising a laugh or extracting a groan, and when he did so those listening to his rivals turned and surged towards him. There was plenty of movement. It was what the newspapers call an animated scene--or a disgraceful scene--according to their political bias.

The Citizen Morot could not hear the jokes nor distinguish the cause of the groaning. But he did not seem to mind much. The speeches were not of the description to be given in full in the morning papers. There were, fortunately, no reporters present. It was the frank eloquence of the slaughter-house--the unclad humour of the market.

Suddenly one of the women--she who was posted at the southern end of the street--raised both her arms, and the Citizen leant far out of the window. He was very eager, and his hawk-like eyes blinked perpetually.

His hand was raised to his mouth, and the lights of the orators gleamed on something that he held in his fingers--something that looked like silver.

The woman held her two arms straight up into the air for some moments, then she suddenly crossed them twice, turning at the same moment and scrambling over the barricade. A long shrill whistle rang out over the heads of the mob, and its effect was almost instantaneous. The "flares"

disappeared like magic. Dark figures swarmed up the lamp-posts and extinguished the feeble lights. The voice of the orator was still.

Silence and darkness reigned over that insignificant little street on the southern side of the Seine. Then came the clatter of cavalry--the rattle of horses' feet, and the ominous clank of empty scabbards against spur and buckle. A word of command, and a scrambling halt. Then silence again, broken only by the shuffling of feet (not too well clad) in the darkness between the barricades.

The Citizen Morot leant recklessly out of the window, peering into the gloom. He forgot to make use of the delicately scented pocket-handkerchief now, and the drops of perspiration trickled slowly down his face.

The soldiers shuffled in their saddles. Some of the spirited little Arabs pawed the pavement. One of them squealed angrily, and there was a slight commotion somewhere in the rear ranks--an equine difference of opinion. The officers had come forward to the barricade and were consulting together. The question was--what was there behind that barricade? It might be nothing--it might be everything. In Paris one can never tell. At last one of them determined to see for himself. He scrambled up, putting his foot through the window of an omnibus in pa.s.sing. Against the dim light of the street-lamp beyond, his slight, straight figure stood out in bold relief. It was a splendid mark for a man with chalked sights to his rifle.

"Ah!" muttered the Citizen, "you are all right this time--master, the young officer. They are only barking. Next time perhaps it will be quite another history."

The officer turned and disappeared. After the lapse of a few moments a dozen words of command were shouted, and upon them followed the sharp click of hilt on scabbard as the sabres fell home.

After a pause it became evident that the barricade was being destroyed.

And then lights flashed here and there. In a compact column the cavalry advanced at a trot. The street was empty.

Citizen Morot turned away and sat down on a chair that happened to be placed near the window. His finely-drawn eyebrows were raised with a questioning weariness.

"Pretty work!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Pretty work for--my father's son! So grand, so open, so n.o.ble!"

He waited there, in the darkness, until the cavalry had been withdrawn and the local firemen were at work upon the barricade. Then, when order was fully restored, he left the house, walking quietly down the length of the insignificant little street.

Ten minutes later he entered the tobacco-shop in the Rue St. Gingolphe.

Mr. Jacquetot was at his post, behind the counter near the window, with the little tin box containing postage-stamps in front of him upon his desk. He was always there--like the poor. He laid aside the _Pet.i.t Journal_ and wished the new-comer a courteous, though breathless, good evening.

The salutation was returned gravely and pleasantly. The Citizen Morot lingered a moment and remarked that it was a warm evening. He never seemed to be in a hurry. Then he pa.s.sed on into the little room behind the shop.

There he found Lerac, the foreman of the slaughter-house. The butcher was pale with excitement. His rough clothing was dishevelled; his stringy black hair stood up uncouthly in the centre of his head, while over his temples it was plastered down with perspiration and suet pleasingly mingled.

"Well?" he exclaimed, with triumphant interrogation.

"Good," said Morot. "Very good. It marches, my friend. It marches already."