CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE PISTOL-SHOT.

A few pages back, we left Bandolo the scout, and Bernhard his fellow-ruffian, confronting each other with knife and pistol, not sixty yards from where we were quietly seated on the grass, listening intently to the story of Angus Roy M'Alpine. Bernhard's heart was swollen with rage, but fear of Bandolo repressed it; for he knew all that personage was capable of; and, moreover, that he would require at least one-half of the expected reward for the only good act the woodman had ever performed--yea, since he left his cradle in infancy.

"For this girl you are to get about the value of eight hundred ducats?"

"Yes," growled Bernhard. Bandolo laughed, and replied--

"I dare say Merodé would give another thousand to have her back again; but that is a slender chance. We shall then have four hundred ducats each--is it not so, camarado?"

"No--it is not so," said Bernhard, hoarsely; "you have no right to dictate to me in this matter. I never marred your little plots or speculations; leave mine to the event of fortune. Now stand aside, or by----"

"Ha--ha--ha!" laughed Bandolo, standing right in the centre of the narrow path, while Gabrielle clung to a tree, for terror had quite unnerved her.

"Schelm!" growled Bernhard, "do you know that a party of Christians, Scottish musketeers, are within pistol-shot?"

"Yes; and that, by firing one of these, I could at the same moment summon them, and blow out your brains, which I shall assuredly do if you utter a cry or sound."

Inflamed by sudden fury, Bernhard made a spring at Bandolo, knife in hand; but he was hurled back like a boy by the more powerful ruffian; and one touch of the cold pistol barrel against his face, was sufficient to curb the emotion that sprang from avarice.

"Then you will not divide with me?"

"No--I will rather see you in the lowest pit of----."

"Time enough, Bernhard, my camarado; we may see each other there yet. But why do I chaffer here, and what are four hundred despicable ducats to the sum I lost in that cottage near Eckernfiörd?"

At this recollection a gleam seemed to shoot athwart the savage eyes of Bandolo; his livid face became convulsed by the emotions of an enraged and ferocious heart; and he spoke in broken sentences.

"Hear me, camarado, I have to punish thee for robbing me of a thousand ducats----"

"I swear that Merodé never gave them to me!"

"Silence! I have to punish Ernestine, the count's daughter, for robbing me of my hard won gold and treasury bills, and for leaving me like a fool, drugged, senseless, and snorting, for two days in Fraü Krümple's hut; I have to punish Carlstein, for riding over me like a dog in the streets of Vienna, without a word of pity, because he knew me to be Bandolo. (Ha! did not that name bring one thought of terror to his haughty heart?) I have to punish the Scottish Captain Rollo, for wounding, discovering, and disarming me--for insulting me, and crossing my purposes, and marring my profits on a hundred occasions; last of all, I am not to be outwitted by a mere animal like thee; and thus I rob thee of thy ducats, and avenge myself like Bandolo the Spaniard--like the man I have always been!"

He levelled a pistol at Gabrielle, but it flashed in the pan; and that flash showed her a face that froze her very blood; for the pallid and distorted visage of the Spaniard, with his inflated nostrils, and sharp jackal-like teeth, made him resemble a fiend--a vampire--any thing but a man. Yet she sprang forward, and said in a piercing voice, while clasping her trembling hands, and bending upon him a timid and imploring smile--a smile that would have fascinated the most ascetic saint, and softened even the heart of a Nero--

"Ah, Spaniard, you cannot have the heart to kill me! I never did you wrong."

Bandolo laughed like a hyena, and cocked his second pistol; then she uttered a wild cry, and hung upon his arm, saying--

"Spare me--spare me! Do not kill me--I am too young to die--I must see my sister--do not kill me--none shall know--none shall hear! Spare me, and you will be rewarded--my father--my sister----"

The bright flash of the pistol was followed by a dull, but terrible sound: the barbarian had shot her dead, and she fell quivering at his feet.

Unfortunate Gabrielle!

"Now go to Hesinge--to the Schottlanders---and get your eight hundred ducats, or so much as this carrion is worth!" said Bandolo, as he sprang through the thicket, and vanished.

Fear, the first impulse of the guilty and the vile, impelled Bernhard also to fly, and it was not until the next day at noon that he presented himself among us at Hesinge, and explained circumstantially the particulars of a deed of barbarity so wanton, that I believe it has few parallels in the annals of crime.

Rushing from our bivouac, with sword drawn and musket cocked, we scattered through the wood, seeking for the source of the cry and the shot we had heard. Soldiers' eyes are accustomed to scan and recognise objects even in the gloomiest night; thus Angus Roy first found Gabrielle, and like the sound of a trumpet his Highland hollo drew us all to the spot.

I shall never forget my emotion on beholding the poor girl's body, stretched at full length on the grass, and quite dead, but still warm, though the blood was flowing profusely from a terrible wound under the right ear; for through there the ball had passed, departing by the back part of the head. She must have died on the instant.

The blood soon ceased to ooze; her jaw fell, and her once merry blue eye became glazed and dim. Ernestine was now my sole thought. I anticipated all she would suffer; and my sympathies for the once happy and childlike being who was gone, were mingled with pity for the survivor. I knew that she would, indeed, be lonely now!

It was a dreary place where Gabrielle lay, and, bedabbled in blood, her bright golden hair was spread among the rank, luxuriant grass.

With something akin to terror, I contemplated our return to Hesinge, and for a time felt completely bewildered. Our sternest clansmen all shared my emotions, though of course in a less degree; and while Phadrig Mhor and two others remained by my side, Angus M'Alpine with the rest, scoured the whole vicinity, without meeting a single person whom they could in any way implicate in the terrible catastrophe of the night.

"Be patient, sir," said Phadrig Mhor, seeing how deeply I was moved; "be patient--for this is the dispensation of God."

"From his blessed hand there never came a blow so cruel!" I replied bitterly. "O for the power of magic to discover, to reach, to punish, the author of this dire calamity!"

"Let us make the poor corpse look as comely as possible," said Phadrig, "lest we needlessly shock the poor lady at Hesinge."

"Comely!" said I.

"By washing the gore from her beautiful hair--oichone! and her neck, poor innocent!" A big tear trembled on the sturdy sergeant's eye-lashes. "She often spoke very kindly to me, sir," he added.

"I thank you, Phadrig, for the gentle and delicate thought," said I; "get me some water."

The honest fellow ran to an adjacent runnel, and brought me some water in his bonnet. I knelt down, and tore my white silk scarf (we all wore Scottish scarfs), and bathed the face, neck, and hair of Gabrielle. I closed her eyes, and arranged her luxuriant tresses about her head, so as to conceal that terrible wound from whence her pure spirit had gone to happier regions. I dropped more than one hot tear upon her pallid face, as I kissed her cold lips with all the affection of a brother, and spread my tartan plaid over her.

It would have been a fine subject for a picture--that poor girl's body lying lifeless on the ground, and the grim group of kilted soldiers standing gravely and sadly around it, leaning on their muskets; and some there were, whose eyes, though dimmed by honest emotion, had looked on many a battle-field--stout fellows who would march to the cannon's mouth; but were now recalling those prayers for the dead, which their Highland mothers had taught them in other times, when James of Jerusalem and Father Ignatius had preached to the Catholic clans.

When all our party had returned, a bier was formed by stretching my plaid between two sergeants' halberts, and thus the remains of Gabrielle were borne by Phadrig Mhor and Gillian M'Bane towards our cantonments.

All who, like myself, have marched between Helnœsland and Hesinge, must have remarked a little roadside tavern near the head of the bay.

There we first carried the body, and after procuring a more suitable bier, set out on our mournful journey for Hesinge.

How can I describe the grief of Ernestine!

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