CHAPTER III.

Early the next morning (the 12th of April) a rumour went through the town that an English fleet was signalled as in sight. The news roused the starving people like electricity. The pale spectres of men that, on the previous day, had stalked so gauntly through the dreary streets--the wretched, sinking women, and children careworn as grandfathers--poured forth, with something like a natural light in their hollow eyes, to witness the joyful spectacle. The sea-wall of the city was, like the margin of a vast pool of Bethesda, thronged with hopeful wretches awaiting the coming of the angel.

The streets were instantly deserted. Those who could not leave their homes got on the housetops, but the great mass of the population spread itself along the line-wall, the Grand Parade and Alameda, and the heights skirting the chief slopes of the Rock. Moors and Jews, Spaniards and English, citizens and soldiers, men, women, and children, of all ages, grades, and nations, ranged themselves indiscriminately wherever they could obtain a view of the sea.

For some time the wished-for sight was delayed by a thick fog that spread itself across the Straits and the entrance of the bay. A murmur rose from each successive rank of people that forced itself into a front place on the line-wall. Terrible doubts flew about, originating no one knew where, but gaining strength and confirmation as they passed from mouth to mouth. On the summit of the Rock behind them the signal for a fleet flew steadily from the mast at Middle Hill; but still in this, as in all crowds, were some of little faith, who were full of misgivings. Many rushed up to the signal station, unable to bear the pain of the delay. My grandfather noticed the Jew Lazaro among the throng, watching the event with an anxious eye, though his anxiety was from the opposite cause to that of most of the spectators. The arrival of supplies would at once bring down the price of provisions, and rob him, for the present, of his expected profits; and as each successive rumour obtained credence with the crowd, his countenance brightened as their hopes fell, and sank as they again emerged from despondency.

Not far from him was an old Genoese woman, wearing the quaint red cloak, trimmed with black velvet, that old Genoese women usually wear in Gibraltar. She hovered round the skirts of the crowd, occasionally peering beneath an uplifted arm, or thrusting it between two obstructing figures, to catch a glimpse, though it was evident that her dim eyes would fail to discern the fleet when it should come in view. Her thin shrivelled features, relieved against her black hood, were positively wolfish from starvation. She frequently drew one hand from beneath her cloak, and gazed at something she held in it--then, muttering, she would again conceal it. My grandfather's curiosity was roused. He drew near and watched for the reappearance of the object that so engrossed her. It was a blue mouldy crust of bread.

The wished-for spectacle was at length revealed. "As the sun became more powerful," says Drinkwater, rising into positive poetry with the occasion, "the fog gradually rose, _like the curtain of a vast theatre_, discovering to the anxious garrison one of the most beautiful and pleasing scenes it is possible to conceive. The convoy, consisting of near a hundred vessels, were in a compact body, led by several men-of-war--their sails just filled enough for steerage, while the majority of the line-of-battle ships lay to under the Barbary shore, having orders not to enter the bay, lest the enemy should molest them with their fireships."

Then rose a great shout--at once the casting-off of long-pressing anxiety and the utterance of delight. Happy tears streamed down haggard faces overgrown with hair, and presently men turned to one another, smiling in the face of a stranger neighbour as in that of an old friend, while a joyful murmur, distilled from many languages, rose upward. Assuredly, if blessings are of any avail, the soul of Admiral Darby, who commanded the relieving fleet, is at this moment in Paradise.

Friends and relations now began to search for one another in the crowd, which broke quickly into knots, each contriving how to enjoy together the plenty that was to descend upon them. My grandfather's eye at this juncture was again attracted by the old Genoese woman. When the crowd shouted, she screened her eyes with her withered hand, and, with her nostril spread, her chin fallen, in her eagerness gazed towards the sea--but presently shook her head, discerning nothing. Then she plucked by the arm a joyful Spaniard.

"_Es verdad? Por Dios, es verdad?_" she cried; "_jura! jura!_"--(Is it true? Swear by Heaven it is true.)

"_Si, si,_" said the Spaniard, pointing; "_es verdad_," ('tis true.) "You may see them yourself."

Instantly the old woman, for the last time, drew forth her treasured crust, and began to devour it, muttering, as she tore away each mouthful, "_Mas mañana! mas mañana!_" (I shall have more to-morrow--more to-morrow!)

After the crowd had partially dispersed, Owen was returning to his quarters to breakfast, when, as he paused to open the door, he heard a voice he thought he knew crying out in affright in the rooms opposite, where Von Dessel resided. Presently the door of the quarters was opened, and the flushed and frightened face of Esther Lazaro appeared, as she struggled to escape from Von Dessel, who held her arm.

"Señor, señor, speak to the gentleman!" she cried to Owen.

"Leetle foolish girl," said Von Dessel, grinning a smile on seeing him; "she frightens at nothing. Come in, child"--trying to shut the door.

"Why don't you let her alone?" said Owen; "don't you see she doesn't like you?"

"Pouf!" said the captain. "We all have trouble with them sometimes--you must know that well."

"No, by Jupiter!" cried Frank Owen. "If I couldn't gain them willingly, they might go to the devil for me. But you hurt her--pray let her go--you must indeed."

"Do you mind your own affair," said the captain, "and don't meddle;" and, exerting his strength, he drew Esther in, and partially succeeded in shutting the door--she calling the while again on Owen to help her. Frank stepped forward, and, putting his foot against the door, sent it into the room, causing Captain Von Dessel, who was behind it, to stagger back with some violence, and to quit his hold of Esther, who ran down stairs.

"Very good, sir," said the captain, stalking grimly out of his room, pale with rage. "You have thought right to interfere with me, and to insult me. By Gott! I will teach you better, young man. Shall we say in one hour, sir, in the Fives' Court?"

Owen nodded. "At your pleasure," said he, and, entering his own quarters, shut the door.

Meanwhile my grandfather walked about with the telescope he had brought with him to look after the fleet under his arm, enjoying the unusual sight of happy faces around him. And he has remarked it as a singular feature of humanity, that this prospect of relief from physical want inspired a far more deep and universal joy than he had witnessed in any public rejoicings arising from such causes as loyalty or patriotism evinced at a coronation or the news of a great victory; and hence my grandfather takes occasion to express a fear that human nature, as well as other nature, is, except among the rarer class of souls, more powerfully and generally influenced by its animal propensities than by more refined causes.

He was so engrossed with the philanthropic pursuit of enjoying the joy of the multitude, and the philosophic one of extracting moral reflections therefrom, that he quite forgot he had not breakfasted. He was just beginning to be reminded of the circumstance by a feeling of hollowness in the region of the stomach, and to turn his steps homeward, when a light hand was laid on his arm. My grandfather turned, and beheld the face of the young Jewess looking wistfully in his.

She began at first to address him in Spanish--the language she spoke most naturally; but, quickly perceiving her mistake on hearing the extraordinary jargon in which he replied, (for it is a singular fact that nobody but Carlota, who taught him, could understand my grandfather's Spanish,) she exchanged it for his own tongue. She told him in a few hurried words of the quarrel Owen had incurred on her account with Von Dessel, and of the challenge she had overheard given by the latter, beseeching the major to hasten to prevent the result.

"In the Fives' Court! in an hour!" said my grandfather. "When did this happen?"

Esther thought nearly an hour ago--she had been almost so long seeking my grandfather.

"I'll go, child--I'll go at once," said the Major. "With Von Dessel, too, as if he could find nobody else to quarrel with but the best swordsman in the garrison. 'Souls and bodies' quoted my grandfather, 'hath he divorced three.'"

With every stride he took, the Major's uneasiness was augmented. At any time his anxiety would have been extreme while peril threatened Frank; but now, when he was calculating on him as a companion at many a well-spread table, when they might forget their past miseries, it peculiarly affected him.

"To think," muttered my grandfather, "that these two madmen should choose a time when everybody is going to be made so happy, by getting plenty to eat, to show their gratitude to Providence by cutting one another's throats!"

The danger to Owen was really formidable; for, though a respectable swordsman, he was no unusual proficient in the graceful art, while his opponent was not only, as my grandfather had said, the best swordsman in the garrison, but perhaps the best at that time in the army. As a student in Germany he had distinguished himself in some sanguinary duels; and since his arrival in Gibraltar, a Spanish gentleman, a very able fencer, had fallen beneath his arm.

"God grant," said my grandfather to himself, as he neared the Fives' Court, "that we may settle this without the perdition of souls. Frank, my dear boy, we could better spare a better man!"

On attempting to enter the Fives' Court he was stopped by the master, posted at the door. "It was engaged," he said, "for a private match."

"Ay, ay," said my grandfather, pushing past him; "a pretty match, indeed! Ay, ay--pray God we can stop it!"

Finding the inner door locked, the Major, who was well acquainted with the locality--for, when he had nothing else particular to do, he would sometimes mark for the players for a rubber or two--ascended the stairs to the gallery.

About the centre of the court stood the combatants. All preliminaries had been gone through--for they were stripped to their shirts--and the seconds (one a German, the adjutant of Hardenberg's regiment--the other, one Lieutenant Rushton, an old hand at these affairs, and himself a fire-eater) stood by, each with a spare sword in his hand. In a corner was the German regimental surgeon, his apparatus displayed on the floor, ready for an emergency. Rushton fully expected Owen to fall, and only hoped he might escape without a mortal wound. Von Dessel himself seemed of the same opinion, standing square and firm as a tower, scarcely troubling himself to assume an attitude, but easy and masterly withal. Both contempt and malice were expressed for his antagonist in his half-shut eyes and sardonic twist of the corners of his mouth.

"Owen, Owen, my boy!" shouted my grandfather, rushing to the front of the gallery, and leaning over, as the swords crossed--"stop, for God's sake. You mustn't fight that swashbuckler! They say he hath been fencer to the Sophy," roared the Major, in the words of Sir Toby Belch.

The combatants just turned their heads for a moment to look at the interrupter, and again crossed swords.

Immediately on finding his remonstrance disregarded, the Major descended personally into the arena--not by the ordinary route of the stairs, but the shorter one of a perpendicular drop from the gallery, not effected with the lightness of a feathered Mercury. But the clatter of his descent was lost in the concussion of a discharge of artillery that shook the walls. Instantly the air was alive with shot and hissing shells; and before the echoes of the first discharge had ceased, the successive explosion of the shells in the air, and the crashing of chimneys, shattered doors, and falling masonry, increased the uproar. One shell burst in the court, filling it with smoke. My grandfather felt, for a minute, rather dizzy with the shock. When the smoke cleared, by which time he had partially recovered himself, the first object that caught his eye was Von Dessel lying on the pavement, and the doctor stooping over him. The only other person hurt was Rushton, a great piece of the skin of whose forehead, detached by a splinter, was hanging over his right eye. Von Dessel had sustained a compound fracture of the thigh, while the loss of two fingers from his right hand had spoiled his thrust in tierce for ever.

"What can be the matter?" said my grandfather, looking upward, as a second flight of missiles hurtled overhead.

"Matter enough," quoth Rushton, mopping the blood from his eye with his handkerchief; "those cursed devils of Spaniards are bombarding the town."

The Major went up to Owen, and squeezed his hand. "We won't abuse the Spaniards for all that," said he--"they've saved your life, my boy."