Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/262

255 been toasted there with words that might have brought a tear to her eye, but not a blush to her cheek. And many a group of scoundrels had also met in that room, where the worst of them had spoken in low voices which no excitement of drink could elevate into manly freedom, and others, perhaps not the worst, had given vile toasts and shouted vile songs, and all had reeled away, making uncertain progress through the street, but certain and measured advance towards the Devil.

Perhaps no worse group had ever occupied the room than those gathered round a table in a corner-box on the night of Adair’s second visit. There were five or six men, foreigners, but whose nationality it would have been hard to define. Their costumes were not squalid, but incongruous, and it seemed as if each had bought some one new and good garment, when he happened to have the means, without reference to the rest of his dress. The handsome coat of one man half covered a wretchedly threadbare vest, while the showy waistcoat of a second shamed the poverty of his other clothes, and the nether man presented similar contrasts. Some of them wore jewellery, which looked good, and as if it had been procured as a safe and portable investment against a time of need, but one or two had no such adornments on their persons. The faces of the party seemed at first to bear a strong family likeness, and it was not until one had observed closely a group that ill repaid such study, that the general impression of sallowness, dishonesty, and ferocity subsided into more distinct ideas, and enabled a spectator to note that at least half the men were mere tools, and that Haureau, and a couple of evil looking persons who sat close to him, were the masters of that company.

They were drinking and smoking when Adair came in, and there was the combined gabble which characterises such meetings among foreigners, and which contrasts with the silence maintained by Englishmen of the same kind, while some one dull guest is permitted to drone and prose over something which the party accepts as a narrative. But it was curious to notice that at the approach of a stranger, who could ill be made out in the smoke and gloom, not only did those who could see him instantly suspend talking, but the signal of silence was caught by those whose backs were towards the new-comer. It was like the hindmost pointer’s drop into attitude at sight of the point of his colleague in the field.

Haureau rose, and came round to Ernest Adair.

“So, my friend, you have lost no time in coming to be congratulated?”

“Congratulated on what, in the devil’s name?” was the ungracious response.

“Why, you have had your letter.”

“I have had none.”

“Nothing from that lawyer?”

“Nothing.”

“And no message?”

“None.”

“Then you have no business here. That you know well, Adair.”

“Business or none, I am here, and, being here, I mean to stop. I will not kill myself by inches.”

“Nobody asked you to kill yourself at all,” said Haureau, looking at him with a sinister expression. “But you were ordered to remain on guard until relieved.”

“And I have deserted my post,” replied Adair, savagely. “What is this letter you talk of?”

“You have heard nothing?”

“Nothing, once more. Do you want me to swear it?”

“Well, no, I cannot say that I do; great weight as your oath would, of course, have. But, come here.”

He seized the arm of Ernest and led him, not to a seat, but between two of the party, and all the upturned eyes of that group were at once upon Adair.

“Our friend informs me that he has received no orders or instructions of any kind, and yet he is here. He is a brave man, is he not?”

A strange, growling assent passed round.

“A brave man,” repeated Haureau. “A chair for the brave man. We will drink his health, English fashion.”

Ernest Adair took a seat, and lit a cigar, but did not speak.

“He is impatient for some news, which I will tell him by-and-bye,” said Haureau, with a coarse laugh. “Meantime, fill, all of you, and drink to him.”

The men obeyed, some with a slight and sullen nod, others with a more elaborate and mocking gesture.

Ernest’s answer was a mocking curse, addressed to the group generally. At this Haureau laughed boisterously, and pushed a glass towards Adair.

But, three hours later, when the room had long been abandoned by all save Haureau’s party, Ernest Adair was in another mood. He had drunk deeply, he had poured out a flood of wild and ribald talk, such as no pen sets down even for men like himself, he had sang songs, and he had in turn encountered each of his companions in a combat of abuse, in which he had utterly vanquished and silenced all except Haureau, against whose imperturbable but ruffianly jollity Adair’s sarcasms were spent in vain, while his denunciations were met by nods of approbation, given with a meaning which Ernest was not too intoxicated to observe as intended, which he pointed out scoffingly to the others, and defied Haureau to explain.

Soon afterwards, Ernest, who had been steadily gazing at Haureau, and in an under voice delivering himself of new taunts, looked round, and saw that the party had diminished by one-half.

“So,” he exclaimed, “I have whipped them to their kennels, have I?”

“Nay, nay,” said Haureau, “they are good men, and have gone home to their wives.”

Ernest Adair looked at him for a moment, and then sang—

“Shall she?” said Haureau, smiling.

“Yes, she shall,” responded Adair, with drunken fierceness.

“You must go home, Ernest Adair,” said Haureau.