The Mesmerist's Victim

He made a desperate gesture, as he pulled up the splendid horse short on its haunches.

“Let me see,” he said, frowning, “is silence a word or a fact? can it do or not do? let me try my will, again. Lorenza,” he said while making the passes to throw the magnetic fluid to a distance, “Lorenza, sleep, I will it! Wherever you are, sleep, I will it, and rely upon it. Cleave the air, oh, my supreme will! cross all the currents antipathetic or indifferent; go through the walls like a cannonball; strike her and annihilate her will. Lorenza, I will have you sleep – I will have you mute!”

After this mighty effort of animal magnetism, he resumed the race, but used neither whip nor spur and gave the Arab rein.

It appeared as if he wanted to make himself believe in the potency of the spell he exercised.

While he was apparently peacefully proceeding, he was framing a plan of action. It was finished as he reached the paving stones of Sevres. He stopped at the Park gates as if he expected somebody. Almost instantly a man emerged from a coach-doorway and came to him.

It was his German attendant Fritz.

“Have you gathered information?” asked the master.

“Yes, Lady Dubarry is in Paris.”

Balsamo raised a triumphant glance to heaven.

“How did you come?”

“On Sultan, now ready saddled in the inn stables here.”

He went for the horse and came back on its back.

Balsamo was writing under the lantern of the town tax-gatherer’s office door with a pen which was self-fed with ink.

“Ride back to town with this note,” said he, “to be given to Lady Dubarry herself. Do it in half an hour. Then get home to St. Claude street, where you will await Signora Lorenza, who will soon be coming home. Let her pass without staying her or saying anything.”

At the same time he said “He would!” Fritz laid spur and whip on Sultan, who sprang off, astonished at this unaccustomed aggression, with a painful neigh.

Balsamo rode on by the Paris Road, entering the capital in three quarters of an hour, almost smooth of face and calm in eye – if not a little thoughtful.

The mesmerist had reasoned correctly: as rapid as Dejerrid the steed might be, it was not as swift as the will, and that alone could outstrip Lorenza escaped from her prison-house.

As Andrea – the other medium had clearly seen, the vengeful Italian had found her way to the residence of Lieutenant Sartines.

Questioned by an usher, she replied merely by these words:

“Are you Lord Sartines?”

The servant was surprised that this young and lovely woman, richly clothed and carrying a velvet-covered casket under her arm, should confuse his black coat and steel chain of office with the embroidered coat and perriwig of the Lieutenant of Police, though a foreigner. But as a lieutenant is never offended at being called a captain, and as the speaker’s eye was too steady and assured to be a lunatic’s, he was convinced that she brought something of value in the casket and showed her into the secretaries.

The upshot of all was that she was allowed to see the Minister of Police.

He sat in an octagonal room, lighted by a number of candles.

Sartines was a man of fifty, in a dressing gown, and enormous wig, limp with curling and powder; he sat before a desk with looking-glass panels enabling him to see any one coming into the study without having to turn and study their faces before arranging his own.

The lower part of the desk formed a secretary where were kept in drawers his papers and those in cipher which could not be read even after his death, unless in some still more secret drawer were found the key to the cipher. This piece of mechanism was built expressly for the Regent Duke of Orleans to keep his poisons in, and it came to Sartines from his Prime Minister Cardinal Dubois per the late Chief of Police. Rumor had it that it contained the famous contract called the “Compact of Famine,” the statutes of the Great Grain Ring among the directors of which figured Louis XV.

So the Police Chief saw in this mirror the pale and serious face of Lorenza as she advanced with the casket under her arm.

“Who are you – what do you want?” he challenged without looking round.

“Am I in the presence of Lord Sartines, Head of the Police?”

“Yes,” he curtly answered.

“What proof have I of that?” she asked.

This made him turn round.

“Will it be good proof if I send you to prison?”

She did not reply but looked round for the seat which she expected to be offered her by right, as to any lady of her country. He was vanquished by that single look for Count Alby de Sartines was a well-bred gentleman.

“Take a chair,” he said brusquely.

Lorenza drew an armchair to her and sat down.

“Speak quick,” said the magistrate; “what do you want?”

“To place myself under your protection,” answered Lorenza.

“Ho, ho,” said he with a jeering look, peculiar to him.

“My lord, I have been abducted from my family and forced into a clandestine marriage by a man who has been ill-using me during three years and would be my death.”

He looked at the noble countenance and was moved by the voice so sweet that it seemed to sing.

“Where do you come from?” he asked.

“I am a Roman and my name is Lorenza Feliciani.”

“Are you a lady of rank, for I do not know the name?”

“I am a lady and I crave justice on the man who has incarcerated and sequestrated me.”

“This is not in my province, since you say you are his wife.”

“But the marriage was performed while I was asleep.”

“Plague on it! you must enjoy sound sleep! I mean to say that this is not in my way. Apply to a lawyer, for I never care to meddle in these matrimonial squabbles.” He waved his hand as much as to say “Be off!” but she did not stir.

“I have not finished;” she said “you will understand that I have not come here to speak of frivolities, but to have revenge. The women of my country revenge and do not go to law.”

“This is different,” said Sartines: “but have despatch for my time is dear.”

“I told you that I come for protection against my oppressor. Can I have it?”