Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 133, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 December 1904 — Woman The Mystery [ARTICLE]

Woman The Mystery

By HENRY HERMAN

CHAPTER VIII. It was early in the morning, one spring day of the year of grace, 1801, when a rather short, thickset man, whose* sparkling teeth were hidden behind a huge black mustache, and whose black-heard was out in the Vandyke style, with all the precision of a Parisian dandy, though lie was dressed only in a stained and well-worn pair of gray linen trousers nnd a ragged blue flannel shirt, was engaged in taking down the shutters of the Hotel de Paris, facing the levee of New Orleans. The Hotel de Paris was a small, twostory building, which seemed so thin and puny between its two four-story neighbors that one might have imagined some- ' body had found it in quite another spot, nnd had maliciously dropped it into its place to fill up the gap.' It was brightly distempered in a salmony pink, and the green shutters nnd green window blinds gave it a cheerful aspect, to which the flaring signboard, adorned with the legend, ‘•John Roberts, Proprietor,” in gold letters on a green ground, added considerably. Just then the rather unsteady and uneven tramp of many steps resounded on the broad stone flags; and a company (if the aewly enrolled Louisiana State Volunteers, iu gray uniforms with red eordJngs.came marching by in open order carrying their converted Brown Bess muskets in any manner from the “trail” to the “right shoulder shift,” singing “Away Down in Dixie,” and looking for ■ll the world as if no thought of a possible death on the battlefield found a place In their minds. The short, dark man, who had been watching the soldiers pass by. shrugged bis shoulders in disapproval of their undisciplined gait, and grunted impatiently as the dragged the heavy shutters from their places. This portion of his work being over. Monsieur Henri Sainton — for it was he—sat himself down on a wooden stool and looked about him like a man dazed by his exertions. He had been sitting on the stool for the space of about five or six minutes, when a sharp, scowling face appeared «t the top of a small staircase, a face as bearded as his own, but with the difference that the hair was of a coarse red of various shades. “Look here. Henri,” . cried a rasping voice, “what on earth are you up to now? Are you going to kick your legs about all day? And the red-bearded man, dressed in linen trousers and a flannel shirt only, came with slippered feet downstairs, and stood facing Henri with his arms crossed over his chest. "What do you think I brought you here for?” he asked, with a sneer of disgust. "Do you think it was' to eat'sponge cake?"

“No,” growled Monsieur Henri Sainton, in reply to Mr. Bernard Quayle, for he was the gentleman who had resumed his old patronymic of John Roberts. “You not bring me for sponge cake. You bring me for clean knives, scrub floor all day, all night. You bring me for fight ven sailor call you zief and make your eyes Mack viz zrowing oyster can. I rebel, I clean knife no more. I scrub floor no more. Negro cheap. You buy negro, clean knife, scrub floor. I go bed.” “You ungrateful sweep,” said Mr. Quayle, with slow, hissing emphasis. "Where would you be now if I had not taken pity on you?” “Me?” retorted Henri, defiantly. “In Paris. You come 'ere, and zere are case concerts in Paris.” » “Yes,” rejoined Mr. Quayle; “there are case concerts, and there are also police; and a nice figure you'd cut —you, an escaped convict. They’d have you by the neck before you were up to many of your larks. Thank your stars you are with me, and he grateful.” "Grateful!" nearly yelled Henri. “Vat for grateful?” “I'll tell yon what you ought to be .grateful for,” hissed Mr. Quayle. “You ought to be grateful to me fqr teaching you the beastly English you are speaking. You ought to he grateful to me for allowing you to share with me when we relieved that confiding Dutchman of his two thousand three hundred dollars.” “Yes.” interrupted Henri, “two zou#an’ zree ’uuderd. You take zousan’ five underd. You give me eight ’underd. I ’ave nozings. You buy hotel. You boss. You ’ave all you vaut. I scrub floor, clean knife, take down shutter.” At this outburst Mr. Quayle thought It politic to change his demeanor. He became friendly, changing the subject and saying: “Confusion to that villain Adams, who sent us to slavery in the galleys.”

“Deaz to zat pig Adams!” exclaimed Henri, with great fervor. “Ve vill make of ’hn food for dogs. I svear!” “And death to that wretched hussy through whom we- were sent to the galleys,” Quaylv went ou. Henri’s retort was not so fervent. He pursed his lips aud shrugged his shoulders. “Yes,” he cried, nfter a moment’s pause. “But she beautiful, and if she nice viz me, I not know." “What d’you mean?” snorted Quayle. “You are not alone to he considered in this matter. I suffered through her as well, and I have got my reckoning to "do. You swore you would kill her when you got the chance.” “Yes, I svear, nnd I keep my svear,” .replied Henri. "But if she nice, very nice, I not know," he added, with a sigh. Quayle looked at his companion again *s if he would have poisoned him with a glance had he been able. “I'll keep your nose to the grindstone, *ny friend,” he muttered to himself. "If you were Dot Intended to be my catspaw, I’d noon make short work of you.” At that moment the sounds of a bugle playing a march made both lienrl and Qoayle prick up their ears. The clear, pnlM-quickenJng melody seemed to grip them, and they both stepped to the door. Another mass of soiuiers—a battalion tUa time — were coming with swinging step along the road. A couple of horseman and —what seemed more strange—- « lady on horseback rode at the head of tba column. Henri’s eyes instinctively "brightened as ha recognized the uniforms «a those worn by the regular French Zouaves—dark blue Jackets, red Imaanhaa. red caps with bine tassels, and Mat waistbands "ft is the Louisiana Zouaves,” said

Quayle, “and that hound Adams is riding at the head of them.” It was indeed Col. Lntrobe Adams, commanding the battalion of Zouqves, who nCthat moment passed the Hotel de Paris. ll® was in civilian’s dress, and a gentleman who accompanied him wore the same undistinguished garb. Quayle instinctively shuddered as Adams enst an unrecognizing glance toward him and rode on. He lmd in no wise altered since thp day when Helene had knocked at his door in Paris. Indeed, one might have thought that he had grown younger, so upright was his carriage. so nil wrinkled his face. While Quayle looked at the man. Henri’s eyes were glued upon the woman— Helene, in fact. Slip had altered in the Intervening years, and from a comparatively unpromising girlhood had developed into a glorious woman. Tall, straight as n larch, she sat on her horse as if she had been born on it. Her figure had ripened and rounded, and her face had the charm which makes men’s pulses sing, though perhaps no single feature could have claimed ideal perfection. But the eyes, those deep-blue eyes, which glittered with a sheen that no man might have explained, fastened themselves upon the beholder and were not to he forgotten. Helene was engaged in a lively conversation with the gentleman riding by her side, and Henri gripped Quayle’s arm so fiercely that the hotelkeeper dragged himself away with a sharp cry. “Is she not beautiful?'’ said Henri. “Yes, confound her!” replied Quayle. “There is no question about that. You will not allow that to stand between her and our purpose, will you now?” he questioned, angrily. “Yon won't forget all we have endured through her—the years of torture, the years iu chains, the years of lives of dogs?” Henri’s eyes still followed the column which was marching past in a steady, even tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp. “I vish she not so beautiful!” he ejaculated.

CHAPTER IX. The threatening shadow of the war cloud, daily ami hourly expected to burst its fury over the Southern States, had transformed a peaceful grove —into a camp of arnied men. Steel flashed in the summer sun between the dark green of the cypress and the paler verdure of the laurel bushes. Rows of white tents stretcKeffin even lines in the open space made gaudy by the red and blue uniforms which occupied them. The maiu portion of the Louisiana Zouaves was composed of boys barely out of their teens, but in addition to this raw material, the battalion embodied in its ranks a very considerable number of old French soldiers. Col. Adams wgs proud of his men, and only that very day had taken especial elation in showing their proficiency to no less a person than an officer of the United States regulars—a possible enemy, in sact —to his cousin, Oapt. Denon. Capt. Denon was on leave of absence from his command far out West in the vilds of Kansas. He had been slightly wounded in an action with the Apaches, and, haring been furloughed, had come to his native city, little dreaming that by the time he arrived there he would find the townsmen arrayed against the authority to whom he had sworn 'alleginnee. Adams’ plantation was only divided from the camp of his regiment by a thick copse of magnolias, then in the pride of their spring bloom, which perfumed the air with the sweetest scent of any tree in the wide, wide world. The house itself was a straggling erection, mostly of one story only, but standing upon a space large enough for a small village.

Adams Was seated in the welcome shade of the awning over the porch with a little writing table in front of him, piled high with papers of all kinds. Opposite him sat Walter Giaydes, dressed in the dark blue, gold-braided uniform of a lieutenant in the Louisiana Zouaves. Walter, had changed but little physically since the day when he was so grievously wounded. He had allowed his heard to grow, and his face had .become bronzed by exposure to a Southern sun, but beyond that he still looked the halo and stalwart young fellow who had fought against the reds in JParis. Kindly Nature and a healthy constitution had repaired all his hurts except the one which left a blank in his mind. He was still as ignorant of the past, from the day he was born to the day he was wounded, as if those days had never existed for him. Even his own name was a mystery to him. Helene had first of all called him Jack, and when they had settled at the old plantation everybody had come to call him Jack Adams, and the name had clung to hint. There was one bright light which illumined his path—namely, the near presence of Helene. She was his idol, his goddess. At her bidding he would gladly have laid down his life. He loved her with the pure‘and devoted affection of a faithful dog. Helene, in her turn, had grown up, under Adams’ teaching, exactly what Adams intended her to in*-—fit to enslave men and ruin kings. That she was a beautiful woman no one might have denied, though hers was a kind of beauty which recommended itself not to all mem Ailnms had brought her up and trained her to despise men. He hnd laid open to her every weakness of the so-called sterner sex. and in the result he had fashioned a woman who, if she had a heart, wa* guarded at every point where love could hsssil it. The natural untutored girl hnd become a woman of the world; and though suitors came nnd suitors went, if she loved anybody, that being was herself. Adams' success with ins pupil was hit own punishment. As Helene grew from child’s estate to that of woman, the ascetic revolutionist unbent himself to her, and little by little he grew to hunger for that which he hnd striven so hard to eradicate. Little try little he began to yearn for Helene’s love, while he himself had taught her °that It was unwise to love anybody. He had never dared to confess to the woman whom he bad reared from child’s estate that ha would have been eo happy could be here made bar hie wife, and when be aaw her tur-

rounded by admirers his heart for the first time in his life felt the bitter stabs of jealousy. Adams was paying but little attention to the papers in front q£, him, but gazed steadfastly in the direction of the copse of magnolias, where Helene was strolling between the trees by Capt. Denon’s side. Walter looked from Adams to Helene, and from" Helene to Adams with a puzzled inquiry. He bad discovered ! a new trouble. Was Adams in lore with | Helene as well as all the others who ! came and departed again? He would be • nearer and dearer, if he were accepted, the load would be harder to bear. “Denon seems to be in favor,” he burst out after waiting weariedly for awhile. "Yes, my poor friend,” said Adams, rather enigmatically, “I am afraid he is in favor.” Walter read in the words a confirmation of his fears, and was silent. Whatever hopes Capt. Denon may have cherished were cut short by the arrival of a young lieutenant with the news that war between the North and South had actually broken out and that Fort Sumter had been attacked. Capt. Denon immediately bade farewell to his cousin and took the first train for Washington.

CHAPTER X. The next morning Walter Adams, after a hurried breakfast, ordered his negro servant to saddle his hors:. He was the acting adjutant of the regiment during the temporary absence of the regular officer, and it was his duty to present the report every morning at the brigade headquarters, which were located iu St. Charles Hotel. lie rode into town at a headlong gallop. Arrived at the hotel, he threw the reins to the negro attendant and walked up the steps. A tall, distinguished looking old gentleman was Standing at the door of the hojtel. His pale face was fringed by small silver-white whiskers, and his silvery white hair was combed with a scrupulous neatness. He stared at Walter for a moment and looked at him with nearly frightened eyes. Walter, in his turn, stopped with an amused interest. “Mr. Walter Glnydes!” gasped the old gentleman at last, holding out a hand. “I cannot be mistaken. You are Mr. Walter Glaydes.” “Indeed l am not,” said Walter, smiling. "Surely I am not mistaken. You are Mr. Walter Glaydes, I-ord Yorley's son. Don’t you know me? I am Mr. Rodbert Berinquay.” “Indeed I do not know you,” said Walter, pleasantly. "My name is Jack Adams. and I am the acting adjutant of th« Louisiana Zouaves.” With that Walter passed into the hotel, and the old gentleman stared after him as if the lieutenant were a ghost who had risen from some cavernous depth to frighten him. Walter settled his business and rode back to the camp. On a sudden a thought gripped his mind. Walter Glaydes! The name sounded familiar to him. Lord Yorley’s son. That also sounded familiar to him. Where had he heard the name? He was sure he had heard it before. But where, and when, and under what circumstances? When he reached the house he went straight to Adams. “Have you ever heard the name ol Walter Glaydes?” he asked. “Not that I know of,” was Adams’ reply. “Nor that of Lord Yorley?” “I do know that name,” he said. “It is that of a rich English nobleman.” “Have you ever heard the name of Rodbert Berinquay, or something like that?” Walter questioned further. “No, I do not know that name at all,” Adams answered. “But why do you ask ?” "i met a gentleman at the door of the St. Charles Hotel just now,” said Walter, “and he insisted that I was Mr. Walter Glaydes, Lord Yorley’s sou. I told him he was mistaken. Adams had turned pale. “He told you your name was Walter Glaydes!” he exclaimed. “Why, of course, that is quite possible. We d> not know w r ho you are. You may be Mr. Walter Glaydes, for all I or you know. We must fathom this immediately. We will both ride into town at once.” In less than an hour afterward both Adams and Walter were standing at the office window of the St. Charles Hotel. “I should like to see Mr. Rodbert Berinquay,” said Walter to the clerk. The young man ran over his boows. “Rodbert Berinquay.” he said, “No. 162. He’s gone. Hr arrived by the early train this morning, and* stayed only a couple of hours.” (To he continued.!