LITMIR.BIZ

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you thought that I ought to go, – if you advised it and would actually say ‘Go’ – ”

      “Well, if I should?”

      “Then I’d set off to-night; though, to say truth, neither the journey nor the business are much to my fancy.”

      “Were they ten times less so, sir, I’d say, ‘Go,’” said she, resolutely.

      “Then go I will,” cried the Captain; “and I’ll start within two hours.”

      CHAPTER VI. MR. MERL’S DEPARTURE

      Worthy reader, you are neither weak of purpose nor undecided in action; as little are you easily moved by soft influences, when aided by long eyelashes. But had you been so, it would have been no difficult effort for you to comprehend the state of mind in which Captain Martin repaired to his room to make preparation for his journey. There was a kind of half chivalry in his present purpose that nerved and supported him. It was like a knight-errant of old setting out to confront a peril at the behest of his lady-love; but against this animating conviction there arose that besetting sin of small minds, – a sense of distrust, – a lurking suspicion that he might be, all this while, nothing but the dupe of a very artful woman.

      “Who can tell,” said he to himself, “what plan she may have in all this, or what object she may propose to herself in getting me out of the way? I don’t think she really cares one farthing about the distress of these people, supposing it all to be true; and as to the typhus fever and cholera, egad! if they be there, one ought to think twice before rushing into the midst of them. And then, again, what do I know about the country or its habits? I have no means of judging if it be poorer or sicklier or; more wretched than usual. To my eyes, it always seemed at the lowest depth of want and misery; every one went half starved and more than half naked. I ‘m sure there is no necessity for my going some few hundred and odd miles to refresh my memory on this pleasant fact; and yet this is precisely what I ‘m about to do. Is it by way of trying her power over me? By Jove, I ‘ve hit it!” cried he, suddenly, as he stopped arranging a mass of letters which he was reducing to order before his departure. “That’s her game; there’s no doubt of it! She has said to herself, ‘This will prove him. If he do this at my bidding, he’ll do more.’ Ay, but will he, mademoiselle? that’s the question. A young hussar may turn out to be a very old soldier. What if I were just to tell her so. Girls of her stamp like a man all the better when he shows himself to be wide-awake. I ‘d lay a fifty on it she ‘ll care more for me when she sees I ‘m her own equal in shrewdness. And, after all, why should I go? I could send my valet, Fletcher, – just the kind of fellow for such a mission, – never knew the secret he could n’t worm out; there never was a bit of barrack scandal he did n’t get to the bottom of. He ‘d be back here within a fortnight, with the whole state of the case, and I’ll be bound there will be no humbugging him.”

      This bright idea was not, however, without its share of detracting reflections, for what became of all that personal heroism on which he reposed such hope, if the danger were to be encountered by deputy? This was a puzzle, not the less that he had not yet made up his mind whether he ‘d really be in love with Kate Henderson, or only involve her in an unfortunate attachment for him. While he thus pondered and hesitated, strewing his room with the contents of drawers and cabinets, by way of aiding the labor of preparation, his door was suddenly opened, and Mr. Merl made his appearance. Although dressed with all his habitual regard to effect, and more than an ordinary display of chains and trinkets, that gentleman’s aspect betokened trouble and anxiety; at least, there was a certain restlessness in his eye that Martin well understood as an evidence of something wrong within.

      “Are you getting ready for a journey, Captain?” asked he, as he entered.

      “I was thinking of it; but I believe I shall not go. I ‘m undecided.”

      “Up the Rhine?”

      “No; not in that direction.”

      “South, – towards Italy, perhaps?”

      “Nor there, either. I was meditating a trip to England.”

      “We should be on the road together,” said Merl. “I’m off by four o’clock.”

      “How so? What’s the reason of this sudden start?”

      “There’s going to be a crash here,” said Merl, speaking in a lower tone. “The Government have been doing the thing with too high a hand, and there’s mischief brewing.”

      “Are you sure of this?” asked Martin.

      “Only too sure, that’s all. I bought in, on Tuesday last, at sixty-four and an eighth, and the same stock is now fifty-one and a quarter, and will be forty to-morrow. The day after – ” Here Mr. Merl made a motion with his outstretched arm, to indicate utter extinction.

      “You’re a heavy loser, then?” asked Martin, eagerly.

      “I shall be, to the tune of some thirteen thousand pounds. It was just on that account I came in here. I shall need money within the week, and must turn those Irish securities of yours into cash, – some of them at least, – and I want a hint from you as to which I ought to dispose of and which hold over. You told me one day, I remember, that there was a portion of the property likely to rise greatly in value – ”

      “You told me, sir,” said Captain Martin, breaking suddenly in, “when I gave you these same bonds, that they should remain in your own hands, and never leave them. That was the condition on which I gave them.”

      “I suppose, Captain, you gave them for something; you did not make a present of them,” said the Jew, coloring slightly.

      “If I did not make a present of them,” rejoined Martin, “the transaction was about as profitable to me.”

      “You owed me the money, sir; that, at least, is the way I regard the matter.”

      “And when I paid it by these securities, you pledged yourself not to negotiate them. I explained to you how the entail was settled, – that the property must eventually be mine, – and you accepted the arrangement on these conditions.”

      “All true, Captain; but nobody told me, at that time, there was going to be a revolution in Paris, – which there will be within forty-eight hours.”

      “Confounded fool that I was to trust the fellow!” said Martin to himself, but quite loud enough to be heard; then turning to Merl, he said, “What do you mean by converting them into cash? Are you about to sell part of our estate?”

      “Nothing of the kind, Captain,” said Merl, smiling at the innocence of the question. “I am simply going to deposit these where I can obtain an advance upon them. I promise you, besides, it shall not be in any quarter by which the transaction can reach the ears of your family. This assurance will, I trust, satisfy you, and entitle me to the information I ask for.”

      “What information do you allude to?” asked Martin, who had totally forgotten what the Jew announced as the reason of his visit.

      “I asked you, Captain,” said Merl, resuming the mincing softness of his usual manner, “as to which of these securities might be the more eligible for immediate negotiation?”

      “And how should I know, sir?” replied the other, rudely. “I am very little acquainted with the property itself; I know still less about the kind of dealings you speak of. It does not concern me in the least what you do, or how you do it. I believe I may have given you bonds for something very like double the amount of all you ever advanced to me. I hear of nothing from my father but the immense resources of this, and the great capabilities of that; but as these same eventualities are not destined to better my condition, I have not troubled my head to remember anything about them. You have a claim of about twenty thousand against me.”

      “Thirty-two thousand four hundred and seventy-eight pounds,” said the Jew, reading from a small note-book which he had just taken from his waistcoat pocket.

      “That is some ten thousand more than ever I heard of,” said Martin, with an hysterical

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