The Clique of Gold by Emile Gaboriau (polar express read aloud .TXT) 📕

and pray to God that I may be able to forget all the wrong you have done me.”

Miss Brandon’s beautiful eyes filled with tears of grief or of rage. She folded her hands, and said in a suppliant tone,—

“I conjure you, M. Champcey, grant me only five minutes. I must speak to you. If you knew”—

He could not turn her out; he bowed profoundly before her, and withdrew into his bedroom, closing the door behind him. But he immediately applied his eye to the keyhole, and saw Miss Brandon, her features convulsed with rage, threaten him with her closed hand, and leave the room hastily.

“She was going to dig another pit for me,” thought Daniel.

And the idea that he had avoided it made him, for a part of that day at least, forget his sorrow. But on the following day he found, when he returned home, a formidable document from the navy department, and inside two letters.

One informed him that he had been promoted to be a lieutenant.

The other ordered him to report four days hence at Rochefort, on board the frigate “Conquest,” which was lying in the roadstead waiting for two battalions of marines to be transferred to Cochin China.

Daniel had for long years, and with all the eager ambition of a young man, desired the promotion which he now obtained. That rank had been the supreme goal of all his dreams since the day on which he learned at the navy school the rudiments of his perilous vocation. How often, as he stood leaning against the monkey-railing, and saw boats passing by which carried officers, had he said to himself,—

“When I am a navy lieutenant!”

Well, now he was a lieutenant. But alas! his wishes, thus realized, filled him only with disgust and bitterness, like those golden apples, which, at a distance, shine brightly in the branches of magic trees, and under the touch of the hand turn into dust and ashes.

For with the news of his promotion came also the fatal order to a distant shore. Why did they send such an order to him, who had at the department an office in which he could render valuable services, while so many of his comrades, waiting idly in port, watched anxiously, and with almost feverish impatience, for a chance to go into active service?

“Ah!” he said to himself, his heart filled with rage, “how could I fail to recognize in this abominable treachery Miss Brandon’s cunning hand?”

First she had closed against him the gates of Count Ville-Handry’s palace, and thus separated him from his beloved Henrietta, so that they could not meet nor speak to each other.

But this was not enough for the accursed adventuress. She wanted to raise a barrier between them which should be more than a mere moral and social obstacle, one of those difficulties which no human power, no lover’s ingenuity, could overcome,—the ocean and thousands of miles.

“Oh, no!” he cried in his anguish, “a thousand times no! Rather give up my career, rather send in my resignation.”

Hence, the very next day, he put on his uniform, determined to lay the matter, first before that officer who was his immediate superior, but resolved, if he should not succeed there, to go up to the minister himself.

He had never worn that uniform since the night of a large court-ball, where he had danced with Henrietta. It was nearly a year ago, a few weeks before the death of the Countess Ville-Handry. As he compared his happiness in those days with his present desperate condition, he was deeply moved; and his eyes were still brimful of tears when he reached the navy department, towards ten o’clock in the morning.

The officer whom he called upon was an old captain, an excellent man, who had practised the appearance of a grim, stern official so long, that he had finally become in reality what he only wished to appear.

Seeing Daniel enter his office, he thought he came to inform him of his promotion, and made a great effort to smile as he hailed him with the words,—

“Well, Lieut. Champcey, we are satisfied, I hope?”

And, perceiving that Daniel did not wear the epaulets of his new rank, he added,—

“But how is that, lieutenant? Perhaps you have not heard yet?”

“I beg your pardon, captain.”

“Why on earth, then, have you no epaulets?”

And he began to frown terribly, considering that such carelessness augured ill for the service. Daniel excused himself as well as he could, which was very little, and then boldly approached the purpose of his call.

“I have received an order for active service.”

“I know,—on board ‘The Conquest,’ in the roadstead at Rochefort, for Cochin China.”

“I have to be at my post in four days.”

“And you think the time too short? It is short. But impossible to grant you ten minutes more.”

“I do not ask for leave of absence, captain; I want the favor—to be allowed to keep my place here.”

The old officer could hardly keep his seat.

“You would prefer not going on board ship,” he exclaimed, “the very day after your promotion? Ah, come, you are mad!”

Daniel shook his head sadly.

“Believe me, captain,” he replied, “I obey the most imperative duty.”

Leaning back in his chair, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, the captain seemed to look for such a duty; then he asked suddenly,—

“Is it your family that keeps you?”

“If my place can really not be filled by one of my comrades, I shall be compelled to send in my resignation.”

The old sailor bounded as he heard that word, and said furiously,—

“I told you you were a fool!”

In spite of his determination, Daniel was too much troubled not to commit a blunder. He insisted,—

“It is a matter of life and death with me, captain. And if you only knew my reasons; if I could tell them”—

“Reasons which cannot be told are always bad reasons, sir. I insist upon what I have told you.”

“Then, captain, I shall be compelled, to my infinite sorrow, to insist upon offering my resignation.”

The old sailor’s brow became darker and darker. He growled.

“Your resignation, your resignation! You talk of it very lightly. It remains to be seen whether it will be accepted. ‘The Conquest’ does not sail on a pleasure-party; she is sent out on a serious campaign, and will probably be absent for some time. We have unpleasant complications down there