"No, by Jupiter!" cried Frank Owen. "If I couldn't gain them
willingly, they might go to the devil for me. But you hurt her--pray
let her go--you must indeed."
"Do you mind your own affair," said the captain, "and don't meddle;"
and, exerting his strength, he drew Esther in, and partially
succeeded in shutting the door--she calling the while again on Owen
to help her. Frank stepped forward, and, putting his foot against
the door, sent it into the room, causing Captain Von Dessel, who was
behind it, to stagger back with some violence, and to quit his hold
of Esther, who ran down stairs.
"Very good, sir," said the captain, stalking grimly out of his room,
pale with rage. "You have thought right to interfere with me, and to
insult me. By Gott! I will teach you better, young man. Shall we say
in one hour, sir, in the Fives' Court?"
Owen nodded. "At your pleasure," said he, and, entering his own
quarters, shut the door.
Meanwhile my grandfather walked about with the telescope he had
brought with him to look after the fleet under his arm, enjoying the
unusual sight of happy faces around him. And he has remarked it as
a singular feature of humanity, that this prospect of relief from
physical want inspired a far more deep and universal joy than he
had witnessed in any public rejoicings arising from such causes as
loyalty or patriotism evinced at a coronation or the news of a great
victory; and hence my grandfather takes occasion to express a fear
that human nature, as well as other nature, is, except among the
rarer class of souls, more powerfully and generally influenced by
its animal propensities than by more refined causes.
He was so engrossed with the philanthropic pursuit of enjoying the
joy of the multitude, and the philosophic one of extracting moral
reflections therefrom, that he quite forgot he had not breakfasted.
He was just beginning to be reminded of the circumstance by a
feeling of hollowness in the region of the stomach, and to turn
his steps homeward, when a light hand was laid on his arm. My
grandfather turned, and beheld the face of the young Jewess looking
wistfully in his.
She began at first to address him in Spanish--the language she spoke
most naturally; but, quickly perceiving her mistake on hearing the
extraordinary jargon in which he replied, (for it is a singular
fact that nobody but Carlota, who taught him, could understand my
grandfather's Spanish,) she exchanged it for his own tongue. She
told him in a few hurried words of the quarrel Owen had incurred on
her account with Von Dessel, and of the challenge she had overheard
given by the latter, beseeching the major to hasten to prevent the
result.
"In the Fives' Court! in an hour!" said my grandfather. "When did
this happen?"
Esther thought nearly an hour ago--she had been almost so long
seeking my grandfather.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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