The Baron's Sons Part 16

"Heavens! what will become of us?"

"I came to give you warning. For my part, I believe the people have fixed upon certain houses as objects of their fury, and I would not pa.s.s the night in one of them for all the Rothschild millions."

"Do you think my house is one of the number?" asked Baroness Plankenhorst. The only reply she got was a significant shrug of the shoulders.

"And now I must hasten away," concluded the secretary. "I have to order post-horses and relays for the chancellor."

"What! has it come to that already?"

"So it seems."

"And do you go with him?"

"I shall take good care not to remain long behind. And you too, madam, I should advise at the earliest opportunity--"

"I will consider the matter," returned Antoinette composedly, and she let him hurry away.

Jeno Baradlay never left his room all that day. The brave who laugh at danger little know the agony of fear that the timid and nervous must overcome before resolving to face peril and rush, if need be, into the jaws of death. Finally, at nine o'clock in the evening, his anxiety for Alfonsine's safety impelled him to seek her. With no means of self-defence, he went out on the street and exposed himself to its unknown perils. What he there encountered was by no means what he had, in the solitude of his own room, nerved himself to face. Instead of meeting with a violent and raging mob, he found himself surrounded by an exultant throng, drunk with joy and shouting itself hoa.r.s.e in the cause of "liberty." Jeno's progress toward his destination was slow, but at last he managed to push his way into the street where the Plankenhorst house was situated. His heart beat with fear lest he should find the building a ma.s.s of ruins. Many a fine residence had that day fallen a sacrifice to the fury of the mob.

Greatly to the young man's surprise, however, upon turning a corner he beheld the house brilliantly illuminated from bas.e.m.e.nt to attic, two white silk banners displayed from the balcony, and a popular orator standing between them and delivering a spirited address to the crowd below.

Jeno quite lost his head at this spectacle, and became thenceforth the mere creature of impulse. Reaching the steps of the house, he encountered nothing but white c.o.c.kades and faces flushed with triumph, while cheers were being given for the patronesses of the cause of liberty by the throng before the house. Pus.h.i.+ng his way into the drawing-room, he saw two ladies standing at a table and beaming with happy smiles upon their visitors. With difficulty he a.s.sured himself that they were the baroness and her daughter. The former was making c.o.c.kades out of white silk ribbon, with which the latter decorated the heroes of the people, fastening bands of the same material around their arms. And meanwhile the faces of the two ladies were wreathed in smiles.

The young man suffered himself to be swept along by the crowd until Alfonsine, catching sight of him, gave a cry of joy, rushed forward, threw her arms about his neck, kissed him, and sank on his breast, exclaiming:

"Oh, my friend, what a joyful occasion!" and she kissed him again, before all the people and before her mother. The latter smiled her approval, while the people applauded and cheered. They found it all entirely natural. Their shouts jarred on Jeno's nerves, but the kisses thrilled him with new life.

In the days that followed, Jeno Baradlay found it quite a matter of course that he should be at the Plankenhorsts' at all hours, uninvited and unannounced, amid a throng of students, democrats, popular orators, all wearing muddy boots, long swords, and pendent feathers in their caps. He also found nothing strange in the fact that Alfonsine frequently received him in her morning wrapper and with her hair uncurled, that she embraced him warmly on each occasion, and that she took no pains to conceal her endearments either from strangers or from friends. It was a time when everything was permitted.

As the two turned aside one evening in their walk, to join a throng of eager listeners who were being addressed by one impa.s.sioned speaker after another, Jeno was startled at seeing his brother odon mount the platform as one of the orators of the occasion. He, too, it appeared, was on the side of the people; he was one of the parliamentary speakers who were making their voices heard in favour of popular rights and legislative reform. His speech swept all before it; no one could listen to his words without feeling his heart stirred and his pulse quickened. Alfonsine waved her handkerchief in her enthusiasm, but her companion was suddenly seized with a mysterious fear and dread. What premonition was it that seemed to whisper in his ear the true significance of that elevated platform on which his brother stood?

When the two had returned from their stroll, weary with walking the streets, and Jeno had been dismissed with a good-night kiss, Alfonsine, at last alone with her mother, threw her hat with its tricoloured ribbons into a corner and sank exhausted upon a sofa.

"Oh," she cried, "how tired I am of this horrid world!"

CHAPTER XIII.

THE REVERSE OF THE MEDAL.

After a troubled night's rest Jeno rose and, telling his servant that he should not return until late in the evening, betook himself to the Plankenhorst residence, thinking thus to avoid all possibility of meeting his brother odon, who, he feared, might try to persuade him to return home to their mother.

"Welcome, comrade!" cried Fritz Goldner, chairman of the standing committee, as Jeno entered the drawing-room; "we were just speaking of you. Do you know that our cause is in great danger?"

Jeno had known that from the beginning.

"We must step into the breach," continued the chairman. "The reactionary party is bent on compromising us and bringing disgrace on our patriotism by stirring up the dregs of the people to the most outrageous excesses. The false friends of liberty are inciting the mob to acts of violence and riot against the manufacturing and property-holding cla.s.ses. Last night the custom-house was burnt and property destroyed in the outlying villages. To-day the rioters are expected to attack the factories and the religious houses within the city limits, and our duty will be to confront them and turn their misguided zeal into proper channels. We have not a moment to lose, but must hasten to meet this movement and rescue our flag from the dishonour with which our false friends are striving to stain it. Let us oppose our b.r.e.a.s.t.s to the flood and dam its course with our bodies."

Poor Jeno! To offer his own person as a check to the fury of the mob, and to stand as a target between two fires--that of the rioters on one side, and of the soldiery on the other--was hardly to his liking. But he made haste to a.s.sure his friend Fritz of his hearty acquiescence in the plan proposed, and bade him go on ahead; he himself would run home and get his sword and pistols and then follow in a cab. Before Alfonsine he could not betray how little stomach he had for the undertaking.

Gaining the street, he hailed the first empty cab he saw, and hired it for the day, directing the coachman to drive around whithersoever he chose, without halting, except at noon at some outlying inn, and late in the evening at his lodging.

His friends and co-workers in the cause of freedom did not wait for him, but marshalled their forces and pushed forward to check the fury of mob violence that was now gaining fearful headway.

The Granichstadt distillery was a ma.s.s of smoking ruins. The machinery had been wrecked, the brandy casks rolled into the street and their heads knocked in, whereupon their contents had rushed out over the pavement in a stream that soon caught fire. This blazing Phlegethon, pouring through the streets, had been the salvation of the St. Bridget Convent; for as long as the fiery stream barred the way in that direction, the mob could not offer the nunnery any violence. Yet the rioters were taking measures to overcome this obstacle, and were bringing sand, mud, ashes,--anything that would serve to make a road through the burning flood. At the entrance to the convent, however, a squadron of hussars had been posted early in the morning; its commander was Captain Richard Baradlay.

It was nearly a year since he had changed his quarters and moved out of the city into the barracks in the suburbs. His purpose in making the change had been to devote himself entirely to the duties of his calling. He was no longer seen idling in the town, he attended no b.a.l.l.s, paid court to no ladies, but lived wholly with his men, contenting himself with their society, and became one of the most industrious of officers. He had learned from Jeno that Edith was at a boarding-school, to which her aunt had sent her the day after he had asked her hand in marriage; and with this information he was content.

The young girl was doubtless well cared for, and at the proper time he would go and take her away. So why disturb her meanwhile?

In the last few days Captain Baradlay had received six successive and mutually contradictory orders, all relating to the maintenance of order, and each signed by a different hand and valid only until its writer's deposition from office. Finally, the young commander found himself left entirely to his own discretion. He was all night in the saddle, leading his troop hither and thither, but utterly unable to subdue a mob that broke out in one quarter after another and always melted away at his approach, to muster again immediately afterward in another part of the town.

At length the light of the burning distillery had led him in that direction. After drawing up his men across the street and before the entrance to the convent, he was calmly watching the mob's advance, when suddenly a strangely clad figure approached him. A black coat faced with red, black, and gilt, a sash of the same colours, a straight sword with an iron hilt, a broad-brimmed hat adorned with a black ostrich feather,--these were the accoutrements of the stranger, who wore a thin beard and mustache, and was of a bold and spirited bearing, though evidently not of military training. Hastening up to Richard, the newcomer greeted him heartily.

"Good day, comrade!" he cried. "Hurrah for the const.i.tution and public order!"

Richard offered no objection to this sentiment, and the young gallant next extended his hand, which the hussar officer did not refuse.

"I am Fritz Goldner," he explained, without further ceremony, "an officer in the second battalion of the Aula."

"What news do you bring?"

"I heard that a mob was collected here and was likely to bring dishonour on our cause, and so I came to quiet the storm."

The other surveyed him doubtfully. "What, you alone?" he asked.

"Heavens and earth, man! I have been doing my best for three days, at the head of my squadron, to put down the mob, and it is growing stronger every minute."

The young hero of the Aula threw up his head proudly. "Yes, I alone will quell the disturbance," he declared.

"I leave you a free hand, comrade," returned Richard; "but I cannot abandon my position, as it would be no easy matter recovering it again."

"Very well, then," a.s.sented the other; "you stay here as a pa.s.sive onlooker. But first may I ask your name?"

"Richard Baradlay."

"Ah, glad to meet you. Your brother and I are good friends."

"My brother Jeno?"

"Yes, he is attached to our headquarters at the Plankenhorsts'."

"Headquarters at the Plankenhorsts'?" repeated Richard, in surprise.

"Yes, indeed. Didn't you know about it? Both of the ladies are most zealous friends of the cause, and they give us the happiest advice and suggestions."