The Mesmerist's Victim

“Because I am right. I wish the money for another than myself.”

“I see. The child?”

“My child, yes, my lord,” said Gilbert, with marked pride. “I am strong, free and intelligent. I can make my living anywhere.”

“Oh, you will live well enough. Heaven never gives such spirits to an inadequate frame. But if you have no money for yourself, how will you get away? The ports are not open and no captain will take a novice for a seaman. You suppose that I will aid you to disappear?”

“I know you can, as you have extraordinary powers. A wizard is never so sure of his power that he does not have more than one trap-door to his cell.”

“Gilbert,” said the wonder-worker, extending his hand towards the young man, “you have a bold and adventurous spirit; you are a mingling of good and bad, like a woman; stoical and honest. Stay with me, my house being a stronghold, and I will make a very great man of you. Besides, I shall be leaving Paris shortly.”

“In a few months you might do what you like with me,” Gilbert replied: “but dazzling as your offer is to an unfortunate man, I have to refuse it. But I have a duty as well as vengeance to perform.”

“Here is your twenty thousand livres,” said the count.

“You confer obligations like a monarch,” said Gilbert, taking up the notes.

“Better, I trust, for I expect no return.”

“I will repay, with as many years of service as the sum is equal to.”

“But you are going away. Whither?”

“What do you say to America?”

“I shall be glad to cross the sea at two hour’ notice for any land not France.”

Balsamo had found in his papers a slip of paper on which were three signatures and the line: “For Boston from Havre, Dec. 15th, the Adonis, P. J., master.”

“Will the middle of December suit you?”

“Yes,” said Gilbert, having reckoned on his fingers.

Balsamo wrote on a sheet of paper:

“Receive on the Adonis one passenger.

    “JOS. BALSAMO.”

“But this is dangerous,” said Gilbert: “I may be locked up in the Bastile if this be found on me.”

“Overmuch cleverness makes a man a fool,” replied Balsamo. “That is a vessel of which I am part owner. Go to Havre and ask for the skipper, Paul Jones.”

“Forgive me, count, and accept all my gratitude.”

“We shall meet again,” said Balsamo.

CHAPTER XLI

THE KIDNAPPING

THE day of pain and grief had come. It was the 29th of November.

Dr. Louis was in attendance and Philip was ever on guard.

She had come to the point, had Andrea, as if to the scaffold. She believed that she would be a bad mother to the offspring of the lowborn lover whom she hated more than ever.

At three o’clock in the morning, the doctor opened the door behind which the young gentleman was weeping and praying.

“Your sister has given birth to a son,” he said.

Philip clasped his hands.

“You must not go near her, for she sleeps. If she did not, I should have said: ‘A son is born and the mother is dead.’ Now, you know that we have engaged a nurse. I told her to be ready as I came along by the Pointe-de-Jour, but you shall go for her as she must see nobody else. Profit by the patient’s sleep and take my carriage. I have a patient to attend to on Royale Place where I must finish the night. To-morrow at eight, I will come.”

“Good-night!”

The doctor directed the servant what to do for the mother and child which was placed near her, though Philip, remembering his sister’s aversion thought they ought to be parted.

The gentlemen gone, the waiting woman dozed in a chair near her mistress.

Suddenly the latter was awakened by the cry of the child.

She opened her eyes and saw the sleeping servant. She admired the peace of the room and the glow of the fire. The cry struck her as a pain at first, and then as an annoyance. The child not being near her, she thought it was a piece of Philip’s foresight in executing her rather cruel will. The thought of the evil we wish to do never affects us like the sight of it done. Andrea who execrated the ideal babe and even wished its death, was hurt to hear it wail.

“It is in pain,” she thought.

“But why should I interest myself in its sufferings – I, the most unfortunate of living creatures?”

The babe uttered a sharper and more painful cry.

Then the mother seemed to know that a new voice spoke within her, and she felt her heart drawn towards the abandoned little one who lamented.

What had been foreseen by the doctor came to pass. Nature had accomplished one of her preparations: physical pain, that powerful bond, had soldered the heartstrings of the mother to the progeny.

“This little one must not appeal to heaven for vengeance,” thought Andrea. “To kill them may exempt them from suffering, but they must not be tortured. If we had any right, heaven would not let them protest so touchingly.”

She called the servant but that robust peasant slept too soundly for her weak voice. However, the babe cried no more.

“I suppose,” mused Andrea, “that the nurse has come. Yes I hear steps in the next room, and the little mite cries not – as if protection was extended over it, and soothed its unshaped intelligence. So, this then is a poor mother who sells her place for a few crowns. The child of my bosom will find this other mother, and when I pass by it will turn from me as a stranger and call on the hireling as more worthy of its love. It will be my just reward! No, this shall not be. I have undergone enough to entitle me to look mine own in the face: I have earned the right to love it with all my cares and make it respect me for my sorrow and my sacrifice.”

Slowly the servant was aroused by her renewed cries and went heavily into the next room for the removed child or to welcome the wetnurse; but the latter had not arrived and she returned to say that the babe was not to be seen.

“Bring it to me, and shut that door.”

Indeed, the wind was pouring in somewhere and making the candle flicker.

“Mistress,” said the servant softly, “Master Philip told me plainly to keep the child apart from you from fear it would disturb you – ”