CHAPTER VII. THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA.
A quarter of an hour afterward Pierre arrived on the quays of Gravosa. For a few minutes he stopped to admire the schooner, whose burgee was lazily fluttering from the mainmast-head.
“Whence comes this Dr. Antekirtt?” he said to himself. “I do not know that flag.”
Then addressing himself to a pilot who was standing near, he asked:
“Do you know what flag that is?”
The pilot did not know. All he could say about the schooner was that she had come from Brindisi, and that all her papers had been found correct by the harbor-master; and as she was a pleasure yacht the authorities had respected her incognito.
Pierre Bathory then hired a boat and was rowed off to the “Savarena,” while the Moor, very much surprised, watched him as he neared the yacht.
In a few minutes the young man had set foot on the schooner’s deck and asked if Dr. Antekirtt was on board. Doubtless the order which denied admittance to strangers did not apply to him, for the boatswain immediately replied that the doctor was in his room. Pierre presented his card and asked if he could see the doctor. A sailor took the card and disappeared down the companion which led to the aft saloon. A minute afterward he returned with the message that the doctor was expecting Mr. Pierre Bathory.
The young man was immediately introduced into a saloon where only a half light found its way in through the curtains overhead. But when he reached the double doors both of which were wide open, the light from the glass panels at the end shone on him strong and full.
In the half-shadow was Dr. Antekirtt seated on a divan. At the sudden appearance of the son of Stephen Bathory he felt a sort of thrill go through him, unnoticed by Pierre, and these words escaped, so to speak, from his lips:
“’Tis he! ’tis he!”
And in truth Pierre Bathory was the very image of his father, as the noble Hungarian had been at his age. There was the same energy in his eyes, the same nobleness in his attitude, the same look prompt at enthusiasm for all that was good and true and beautiful.
“Mr. Bathory,” said the doctor, rising, “I am very glad to see you in response to the invitation contained in my letter.”
And he motioned Pierre to sit down in the other angle of the saloon.
The doctor had spoken in Hungarian, which he knew was the young man’s native language.
“Sir,” said Pierre Bathory, “I would have come to return the visit you made to my mother even if you had not asked me to come on board. I know you are one of those known friends to whom the memory is so dear of my father and the two patriots who died with him. I thank you for having kept a place for them in your remembrance.”
In thus evoking the past, now so far away, in speaking of his father, and his friends Mathias Sandorf and Ladislas Zathmar, Pierre could not hide his emotion.
“Forgive me,” he said. “When I think of these things I can not help—”
Did he not feel that Dr. Antekirtt was more affected than he was, and that if he did not reply it was the better to keep hidden what he felt?
“Mr. Bathory,” he said, after a lengthened pause, “I have nothing to forgive in so natural a grief. You are of Hungarian blood, and what child of Hungary would become so denaturalized as not to feel his heart shrink at such remembrances? At that time, fifteen years ago—yes, already fifteen years have passed you were still young. You can scarcely remember your father and the events in which he took part.”
“My mother is his other self,” answered Pierre. “She brought me up in the creed of him she has never ceased to mourn. All that he did, all that he tried to do, all the life of devotion to his people and his country, I have learned from her. I was only eight years old when my father died, but it seems that he is still living, for he lives again in my mother.”
“You love your mother as she deserves to be loved,” said the doctor; “and we venerate her as if she were a martyr’s widow.”
Pierre could only thank the doctor for thus expressing himself. His heart beat loudly as he listened; and he did not notice the coldness, natural or acquired, with which the doctor spoke, and which seemed to be characteristic.
“May I ask if you knew my father personally?” asked he.
“Yes, Mr. Bathory,” was the reply, not without a certain hesitation; “but I knew him as a student knew a professor who was one of the most distinguished men in the Hungarian universities. I studied medicine and physics in your country. I was one of your father’s pupils, for he was only my senior by twelve years. I learned to esteem him, to love him, for I felt that through all his teaching there thrilled all that which made him later on an ardent patriot, and I only left him when I went away to finish the studies I had begun in Hungary. But shortly afterward Professor Stephen Bathory sacrificed his position for the sake of ideas he believed to be noble and just, and no private interest could stop him in his path of duty. It was then that he left Presburg to take up his residence in Trieste. Your mother had sustained him with her advice and encompassed him with her thoughtfulness during that time of anxiety. She possessed all the virtues of a woman as your father had all the virtues of a man. Yon will forgive me for awakening your sad recollections, and if I have done so it is only because you are not one of those that can forget them!”
“No, sir, no,” replied the young man with the enthusiasm of his age; “no more than Hungary can forget the three men who were sacrificed for her Ladislas Zathmar, Stephen Bathory, and the boldest of the three, Mathias Sandorf!”
“If he was the boldest,” answered the doctor, “do not think that his two companions were inferior to him in devotion, in sacrifices or in courage! The three are worthy of the same respect! The three have the same right to be avenged!”
The doctor paused and then asked if Mme. Bathory had told him the circumstances under which the chiefs of the conspiracy had been delivered up, if she had told him that treason had been at work? But the young engineer had not heard anything.
In fact Mme. Bathory had been silent on the subject. She shrunk from instilling hatred into her son’s life and perhaps sending him on a false track, for no one knew the names of the traitors. And the doctor thought that for the present he had better maintain the same reserve.
What he did not hesitate to say was that, without the odious deed of the Spaniard who had betrayed the fugitives in the house of Ferrato the fisherman, Count Sandorf and Stephen Bathory would probably have escaped. And once beyond the Austrian frontier, no matter in what country, every door would be opened to receive them.
“With me,” he concluded, “they would have found a refuge which never would have failed them.”
“In what country, sir?”
“In Cephalonia, where I then lived.”
“Yes, in the Ionian Islands under the protection of the Greek flag they would have been safe, and my father would be still alive.”
For a minute or two the conversation was broken off with this return to the past. The doctor broke the silence:
“Our recollections have taken us far from the present. Shall we now talk about it, and especially of the future I have been thinking of for you?”
“I am ready,” answered Pierre. “In your letter you gave me to understand that it might be to my interest—”
“In short, Mr. Bathory, as I am aware of your mother’s devotion during the childhood of her son, I am also aware that you are worthy of her, and after the bitter experience you have become a man—”
“A man,” said Pierre, bitterly, “a man who has not enough to keep himself, nor to give his mother a return for what she has done for him.”
“That is so!” answered the doctor; “but the fault is not yours. I know how difficult it is for any one to obtain a position with so many rivals struggling against you. You are an engineer?”
“Yes. I passed out of the schools with the title but I am an engineer unattached, and have no employment from the State. I have been seeking an appointment with some manufacturing company, and up to the present I have found nothing to suit me—at least at Ragusa.”
“And elsewhere?”
“Elsewhere?” replied Pierre, with some hesitation.
“Yes! Was it not about some business of the sort that you went to Zara a few days ago?”
“I had heard of a situation which a metallurgical company had vacant—”
“And this situation?”
“It was offered to me.”
“And you did not accept it?”
“I had to refuse it because I should have had to settle permanently in Herzegovina.”
“In Herzegovina? Would not Madame Bathory have gone with you?”
“My mother would go wherever my interests required.”
“And why did you not take the place?” persisted the doctor.
“Sir,” said the young man, “as I am situated, I have strong reasons for not leaving Ragusa.”
And as he made the remark, the doctor noticed that he seemed embarrassed. His voice trembled as he expressed his desire—more than his desire—his resolution not to leave Ragusa. What was the reason for his refusing the offer that had been made?
“That will make what I was going to offer you unacceptable,” said the doctor.
“Should I have to go—”
“Yes—to a country where I am about commencing some very considerable works which I should put under your management.”
“I am very sorry, but, believe me, that as I have made this resolution—”
“I believe, you, and, perhaps, I regret it as much as you. I should have been very glad to have been able to help you in consideration of my feelings toward your father.”
Pierre made no reply. A prey to internal strife, he showed that he was suffering—and suffering acutely. The doctor felt sure that he wished to speak and dared not. But at last an irresistible impulse impelled Pierre toward the man who had shown such sympathy with his mother and himself.
“Sir—sir,” said he with an emotion that he took no pains to hide, “do not think it is caprice or obstinacy that makes me refuse your offer. You have spoken like a friend of Stephen Bathory. You would show me all the friendship you felt for him; I feel it, although I have only known you for a few minutes. Yes, I feel for you all the affection that I should have had for my father.”
“Pierre, my child!” said the doctor, seizing the young man’s hand.
“Yes, sir!” continued Pierre, “and I will tell you all! I am in love with a young lady in this town! Between us there is the gulf which separates poverty from wealth. But I will not look at the abyss, and maybe she has not seen it! If occasionally I can see her in the street or at the window, it gives me a happiness I have not strength to renounce! At the idea that I must go away, and go away for long, I become insane! Ah! sir! understand me, and forgive my refusal!”
“Yes, Pierre,” answered the doctor, “I understand you, and I have nothing to forgive. You have done well to tell me so frankly; and it may lead to something! Does your mother know of what you have been telling me?”
“I have said nothing to her yet. I have not dared, because, in our modest position she would perhaps have the wisdom to deprive me of all hope! But she may have divined and understood what I suffer—what I must suffer.”
“Pierre,” said the doctor, “you have confided in me, and you are right to have done so! Is the young lady rich?”
“Very rich! Too rich! Yes, too rich for me!”
“Is she worthy of you?”
“Ah! sir, could I dream of giving my mother a daughter that was not worthy of her?”
“Well, Pierre,” continued the doctor, “perhaps the abyss may be bridged!”
“Sir,” said the young man, “do not encourage me with hopes that are unrealizable!”
“Unrealizable!”
And the accent with which the doctor uttered the word betrayed such confidence in himself that Pierre Bathory seemed as it were transformed, as if he believed himself master of the present, master of the future.
“Yes, Pierre,” continued the doctor, “have confidence in me. When you think fit and think the time has come you will tell me the lady’s name—”
“Why should I hide it now? It is Sava Toronthal—”
The effort the doctor made to keep calm as he heard the hated name was as that of a man who strives to prevent himself from starting when the lightning strikes at his feet. An instant—several seconds—he remained motionless and mute.
Then in a voice that betrayed not the slightest emotion he remarked:
“Good! Pierre, good! I must think it over! Let me see—”
“I will go,” interrupted the young man, clasping the hand which the doctor held out to him, “and allow me to thank you as I would have thanked my father.”
He left the doctor alone in the saloon, and then gaining the deck he entered his boat, landed at the quay, and returned to Ragusa.
Pierre felt very much happier in his mind. At last his heart had been opened! He had found a friend in whom he could trust—more than a friend perhaps. To him this had been one of those happy days of which fortune is so stingy in this world.
And how could he doubt it when as he passed along the Stradone he saw the corner of the curtain at one of the windows of Toronthal’s house slowly rise and suddenly fall!
But the stranger had also seen the movement, and as Pierre turned up the Rue Marinella she remained motionless at the corner. Then she hurried to the telegraph office and dispatched a message which contained but one word—and that was—
“Come!”
The address of that monosyllabic message was—“Sarrany; to be called for; Syracuse. Sicily.”
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