While I took a patient survey of all these, and was deliberately examining myself as to how and when I had first made their acquaintance, a voice from an adjoining room, the door of which lay open, exclaimed,—
“Sacristi! quel mauvais temps!” and then broke out into a little French air, to which, after a minute, the singer appeared to move, in a kind of dancing measure. “Qui, c'est ça!” exclaimed he, in rapture, as he whirled round in a pirouette, overturning a dressing-table and its contents with a tremendous crash upon the floor.
I started up, and without thinking of what I was doing, rushed in.
“Ha! bonjour,” said he, gayly, stretching out two fingers of a hand almost concealed beneath a mass of rings. And then suddenly changing to English, which he spoke perfectly, saving with a foreign accent,—“How did you sleep? I suppose the tintamarre awoke you.”
I hastened to apologize for my intrusion; which he stopped at once by asking if I had passed a comfortable night, and had a great appetite for breakfast.
Assuring him of both facts, I retreated into the sitting room, where he followed me, laughing heartily at his mishap, which he confessed he had not patience to remedy. “And what 's worse,” added he; “I have no servant. But here 's some tea and coffee; let us chat while we eat.”
I drew over my chair at his invitation, and found myself—before half an hour went by—acted on by that strange magnetism which certain individuals possess, to detail to my new friend the principal events of my simple story, down to the very moment in which we sat opposite to each other. He listened to me with the greatest attention, occasionally interposing a question, or asking an explanation of something which he did not perfectly comprehend; and when I concluded, he paused for some minutes, and then, with a slight laugh, said:—
“You don't know how you disappointed the people here. Your travelling companion had given them to understand that you were some other Burke, whose alliance they have been long desiring. In fact, they were certain of it; but,” said he, starting up hastily, “it is far better as it is. I suspect, my young friend, the way in which you have been entrapped. Don't fear; we are perfectly safe here. I know all the hackneyed declamations about wrongs and slavery that are in vogue; and I know, too, how timidly they shrink from every enterprise by which their cause might be honorably, boldly asserted. I am myself another victim to the assumed patriotism of this party. I came over here two years since to take the command. A command,—but in what an army! An undisciplined rabble, without arms, without officers, without even clothes; their only notion of warfare, a midnight murder, or a reckless and indiscriminate slaughter. The result could not be doubtful,—utter defeat and discomfiture. My countrymen, disgusted at the scenes they witnessed, and ashamed of such confrerie; accepted the amnesty, and returned to France. I—”
Here he hesitated, and blushed slightly; after which he resumed:—
“I yielded to a credulity for which there was neither reason nor excuse: I remained. Promises were made me, oaths were sworn, statements were produced to show how complete the organization of the insurgents really was, and to what purpose it might be turned. I drew up a plan of a campaign; corresponded with the different leaders; encouraged the wavering; restrained the headstrong; confirmed the hesitating; and, in fact, for fourteen months held them together, not only against their opponents, but their own more dangerous disunion. And the end is,—what think you? I only learned it yesterday, on my return from an excursion in the West which nearly cost me my life. I was concealed in a cabin in woman's clothes—”