A GAME OF CHANCE.
(From an Imaginative French Source.)
War had broken out between France and Great Britain. In the Mediterranean—owing to several French ironclads having got through into the Black Sea and being unable to get out again—the French fleet was shut up in Toulon harbour by a powerful English squadron. It was just at this time that some curious events were taking place in the neighbouring seaside resort of Sablettes-les-Bains, recently purchased by an English company, which was running the place as a kind of compromise between Boulogne and Monte Carlo.
"Messieurs, faites vos jeux!"—was heard the monotonous refrain of the burly "Croupier," who, with face rather pale, and a preoccupied air, was presiding over one of the numerous games of "Petits-Chevaux," combined with "Rouge et Noir" which were proceeding in the gorgeously-upholstered and magnificently-lighted "Salle des Papas Perdus" of the "Cercle des Etrangers" of this Paradise of the Middle Sea.
Suddenly the Croupier sprang from his seat, threw off his loose outer coat, and displayed the well-known uniform of an Officer in Her Majesty's Royal Shropshire Yeomanry Carabineers. All the other Croupiers did the same. Astonishment and dismay were depicted on the countenances of the players.
"Gentlemen," said the Croupier, "I am sorry to say you are all my prisoners. Resist, and you will be shot without mercy!"
"But I had just staked twenty thousand Louis on the black!" ejaculated a bewildered Gaul.
"You have lost your stake, Monsieur," replied the Croupier, with politeness. "It is red, not black;" and, in a moment, all the English visitors who thronged the rooms had also thrown off their overcoats, and the hall was filled with red-coats.
"Treachery! Perfide Alb——" the Gaul shouted; but ere he could rise from his seat to give the alarm to the Toulon garrison, as he had fully intended doing, a hundred swords (made in Birmingham) had passed simultaneously through his body. Their stakes fell from the trembling hands of the players.
"Then are we to understand," asked another Frenchman, who had somewhat recovered from the first shock of surprise, "that the English Government has suppressed Sablettes-les-Bains because it disapproves of the game of Petits-Chevaux?"
"Not at all," replied the Croupier-Officer. "It is a military coup-de-main, that's all. The English company running this place, was, of course, in the pay of the British War Office. By a prearranged system of signals we have been making known everything that is going on at Toulon to the British Admiral out at sea. You may perhaps have noticed what an extremely large orchestra took part in last night's free classical concert; they were English marines disguised as musicians. And the gardens attached to the Casino, which rival those of Monte Carlo, what do you think those grassy slopes crowned with olives and orange-trees are in reality? Why, the artfully-contrived glacis of the impregnable fortress inside which you are now standing, and which I have the honour to command!"
Just then the booming of cannon was heard outside.
"It is our guns playing on the defences of Toulon!" exclaimed the Officer. "Toulon is ours!"
And the treacherous Britons, having cleared the tables of the five-franc pieces still remaining on them, proceeded, with the aid of the Germans and Italians, to the dismemberment of France.