CHAPTER I.

PEACEFUL REPOSE.

I was now without a heller in my pocket; and yet I did not feel poor. I thought to myself: I am a man, born this day--nothing, and nobody. I am so much better off than the new-born babe, in that I shall not have to be taught how to walk and talk, need no one to feed me, and rock me to sleep.

I determined I would not remain longer on German soil. If I remained, only one of two alternatives was left to me: If I desired to associate with respectable folk, I should have to allow them, when they discovered who I was, to cut off my head; and if I went back to my old life, or into the army, I should have to cut off the heads of my fellow-creatures. I had no desire to do either.

After my varied, and troublous experiences, I yearned for peace and quiet. My plans were soon formed. There was considerable trade in lumber, between Andernach and Holland. Innumerable rafts, composed of huge tree-trunks for masts, and piles for dams, were floated down the Rhine; and to the owner of one of these rafts I hired myself as rower.

The wage was fair: thirty pfenings a day, with bread, cheese, dried fish, and a jug of beer. I never drank my portion of beer, but sold it for three pfenings, to one of my comrades on the raft, who got thirsty twice daily. I drank only water.

When my fellow rowers would curse and swear, because a strong wind, or the current, drove the raft against the rocks, I would remonstrate mildly with them; and assure them that such speech in the mouths of Christian men was displeasing to God; and when, to pass the time, they would sit down to a game of dice, I would withdraw to the further end of the raft. If they urged me to join the game, I would reply:

"Thou shalt not covet what belongs to thy neighbor."

After awhile the jeers of my comrades attracted the attention of the owner of the raft.

"Hello, lad; what's the matter with you? You don't drink, don't gamble, and don't swear--you are damnably pious, it seems to me! But, you are a first-rate worker; and I shall sell you in Nimeguen for at least three times as much as any of those lazy louts."

"You are going to sell me and my comrades in Nimeguen?" I exclaimed in amazement.

"Why, certainly! What the devil else should I do with you? You can float down stream on the raft; but I couldn't float you up-stream!--and I couldn't carry you on my back, could I? But, don't you worry. I'll find good places for the lot of you. There will be plenty of buyers for the rowers, as well as for the raft, and the price every fellow brings will be equally divided between me and himself!"

"What becomes of the men--usually?" I ventured to inquire.

"Well, I don't believe _all_ are chopped into sausage-meat! The Hollander likes to be a sailor--but only a captain, or a pilot. He likes also to be a soldier, but again he prefers to be a captain, or the commandant of a fortress. Therefore, common seamen and private soldiers are in demand; and for this the ignorant stranger is good. Consequently, you need only say which you prefer: to become a sailor, or a land-lubber--and take your choice."

I deliberated a moment, then I said to him:

"I will tell you the truth, Captain, because I have vowed never again to let a lie pass my lips. I am tired of soldiering. I have shed so much blood on the battlefield, that the remembrance of it oppresses my soul. I don't want to be a soldier; I would rather go to sea, and be rocked by the waves."

"Well, you are an ignorant dunce!" he exclaimed. "Don't you know that, if you go to sea, you will get right into the thick of battle? The Dutch fight all their real battles at sea. They keep an army on shore, only that they may have troops to capitulate when a fortress is starved out by the enemy! The soldiers never get any actual fighting. Punctuality, sobriety, irreproachable conduct--these are the Dutch soldier's strong points--and, the devil fly away with me, if you don't rise to be a corporal in less than a twelve-month, if you join the army! What were you before?"

"A gunner."

"Well, you can be a gunner in the Dutch army."

"But, what have the gunners in the Dutch artillery to do if there is no enemy to shoot at?" I asked.

"Oh, they find enough to occupy their time. On Saturday evenings they have the management of the fire-works, which are set off in the park; and on the other days of the week they prepare the rockets, and other things, for the Saturday evening's display."

That is why I became a gunner in the artillery, in the goodly city of Nimeguen. Sixty dollars was the price paid for me, the half of which I received.

I was now in a community that exactly suited me. Here was no mighty uproar, no rioting, no drinking. Here, no vain braggart youths molested the wives of the staid burghers. Here were no conflicts between the military and the citizens. All were at peace with one another.

On Sunday mornings the armed, and the unarmed residents went together to church; and in the evening all drank their pints together amicably in the beer-houses. The soldiers were allowed, when not on guard duty, or otherwise engaged in the fortress, to work for the citizens; the money thus earned belonged to themselves. And there were many chances to secure employment. The entire city of Nimeguen was a huge flower-garden, in which was grown that most important article of commerce: the tulip bulb.

It is a well-known fact that not only entire Europe but all the lands under the dominion of the Turkish sultan, would suffer a greater financial loss, were the Dutch tulip-bulbs to remain out of the markets for a year, than if all other crops were to fail for the same length of time.

By saying this, I do not mean that the carnation is not also a necessary luxury--if I may so term it; but the tulip is, and will remain, the most important article of commerce in the lands I have mentioned. One tulip-bulb is worth as much as a peck of wheat. But it is of different values--according to the color. There are tulips which only kings and sultans can afford to have bloom in their gardens.

I was fortunate enough to secure employment for my leisure hours, as gardener's assistant, on the estate of a widow who was "tulip-wealthy."

The lady would visit her tulip beds early every morning, to see them in bud; and again late in the afternoon, to see the full-blown flowers. At such times I never got a glimpse of her face; for she always wore a huge cap, from which only the tip of her nose protruded.

But I decided, after I had been on the estate a week, that the fair owner must be young, for when she addressed a remark to me, which she did occasionally, her voice was so low--as if she feared I might hear what she said.

To judge by the enormous quantities of bulbs she sent to market, the widow must have been very rich; but the bulbs were not her only treasures. She possessed a collection of shells, fresh, and salt-water, that represented a very tidy sum of money.

In Holland, as well as in England, and France, the shell had also a commercial value; and wealthy collectors vied with one another to secure the finest examples of the _spordilus regius_; the "sun-ray" mussel; the rainbow-hued "venus-ear"; the "queen's cap"; the "tower of Babylon"; and "Pharaoh's turban," and would pay as high as two hundred dollars for a perfect specimen of the shell they wanted. I have known a perfect _scalaria preciosa_ to bring one hundred zequins. This shell is more valuable than the pearl; and my fair employer possessed a whole drawerful of them. Her sainted husband had collected them; and they would have sold for more than would a three-master loaded with grain.

More than one nabob had offered fabulous sums for the collection; and it was said that a British peer, who was devoted to the study of conchology, had even gone so far as to offer his hand and title to the widow, in order to gain possession of the much coveted treasure.

The widow who hesitates loses a title; while the lady was considering the peer's offer, there was a sudden fall in the price of shells, and my lord sailed away to England.

What caused this depression in the shell-market you ask?

Well, as your highness, and the honorable gentlemen, must know, every sea-creature like the _scalaria_ builds its house with the volutions turning to the left.

One day a sailor, whose home was in Nimeguen, returned from a voyage to Sumatra, and brought with him a large number of _scalaria_ with the shells turned in just the opposite direction--from left to right. Now, a shell of this order was a decided _lusus naturae_, and the price for the ordinary pattern at once depreciated. The bankers and nabobs, who had formerly vied with one another in their quest for the _scalaria preciosa_, were now so inflamed with the desire to possess a _scalaria retrotorsa_, that they willingly paid from two to three thousand thalers for a single specimen. On the other hand, the ordinary _scalaria_, which had sold readily for one hundred ducats, could now be bought for ten, and fifteen thalers.

This was a heavy blow for my widowed employer, and she soon found that she had not the strength to bear it alone.

When I heard of her loss, I summoned enough courage to say to her:

"If this unlucky business about the shells is all that troubles you, my dear lady, I think I can help you. I have a scheme that will in a very short time produce shells which turn to the right--and in such quantities, that you can supply all the shell-markets in the country."

The widow reflected several moments, then replied:

"But, I couldn't think of allowing you to employ witch-craft to secure such shells for me. I do not approve of magic. I have always held aloof from sorcery, charms, conjuring, and all such infernal practices; and, as I hope some time to be united with my beloved husband, who is with the saints, I could not bind my soul to the wicked one, by countenancing any sort of magic, or idolatry."

"There is neither magic nor idolatry connected with my scheme to benefit you, gracious lady," I assured her. "What I have in mind is a purely scientific experiment. It is fully described in a large book written by the learned Professor Wagner, who was a very pious man, as well as a very clever scholar."

"The book I allude to, gracious lady, treats of the sympathy and antipathy of plants, and cold-blooded animals; and is all about creatures made by our Heavenly Father. It is a noteworthy fact, that the bean vine always twines from left to right around the stake which supports it; while the hop as invariably winds from right to left--neither of them ever makes a mistake. If, however, the bean and the hop be planted close together, then, the two plants being antipathetic one to the other, the bean will twine to the left, and the hop to the right."

"_Quid fuit probatum._"

"From such experiments the learned professor was led to experiment with living creatures. He found that, when an acaleph which forms its shell from right to left in the flower-beds at the bottom of the ocean, chances to lie in close proximity to a _nautilus pompilius_, which belongs to the cephalopods, and builds from left to right, the two, because of their antipathy for each other, will reverse the order of their volutions."

"From this it is clear that those conchologists, who have created a veritable social revolution with their _scalaria retrotorsa_, and have shaken the foundations of prosperity in the Dutch low countries, have accidentally come upon such shells which, in consequence of an antipathetic propinquity, have reversed their order of building--and by so doing, my dear lady, have caused you great loss and sorrow. But, you need sorrow no longer, if you will graciously assent to my proposition. It will, I feel confident, bring you a fortune so enormous that even the queen regent will envy you!"

"But, what is your proposition?" queried the pious soul, and for the first time, half of her face emerged from the depths of her cap.

"It is this, gracious lady: Order your agents to bring from the ocean living _scalaria_, and _nautili_, which are to be secured with least trouble during the mating season. We will prepare for them here a large basin of sea-water, with sand from the bottom of the ocean. In this we will plant sea-weeds, place our living shells among them, and feed them with star-fish, holothures, and other soft-bodied marine creatures. After a season our shell-fish will spawn; the eggs of the _scalaria_ cling together--like a string of pearls; those of the _nautili_ adhere to one another by sixes, in shape of a star.

"When we shall have secured a number of broods, we will fasten together the ends of a _scalaria_ string, forming a circle, in the center of which we will place a star of _nautilus_ spawn; and you will see, when the tiny creatures escape from the eggs, that they will build their houses in a reversed order from the parent shell."

My plan was quite clear to the fair widow; she gave her orders at once to her agents, for the _scalaria_, and _nautili_, and from that moment treated me with great respect and affability.

Meanwhile, I continued to perform my duties: I polished my guns mornings; inspected the soldiers' coats, to see if any of the buttons had been sewed on wrong side up--the lower part of the state's coat of arms uppermost--and reported to the captain that everything was in order. Saturday evenings I attended to setting off the fire-works; and every week-day afternoon I worked in the widow's garden.

What I earned I laid by. I never touched pipe, nor glass--not even when they were offered to me; and to whomsoever I addressed a remark, I gave the title belonging to him. Thus, I gained the respect of all my fellow-citizens. I had become what I had long desired: a respectable God-fearing man--

"Now, look out for a special bit of rascality;" _sotto voce_, interjected the chair.

I admit it was to win promotion that I conducted myself with such propriety, continued the prisoner. I was extremely desirous of attaining a lieutenancy.

When the living _scalaria_, and _nautili_, arrived together with the creatures which were to serve as food for them, they were placed in the large basin with a wall about it, I had prepared for them in the lower portion of the tulip garden; and in due time the spawn was ready for further operation.

My gracious employer was greatly surprised to learn that the eggs of the shell-fish have a peculiarity which distinguishes them from the eggs of birds and insects. With the development of the embryonic fish, its envelope also extends; one such egg, which at first is hardly as large as a lentil, increases to the size of a hazel-nut. In this condition its outer covering is very thin--merely a transparent membrane, through which the now quickened animal may be seen revolving with the celerity of a spinning top. One may even detect the pulsations of its heart.

"The fellow has actually taken it upon himself to deliver a lecture on malacology!" irritably interposed the chair. "I am sorry to prolong the hearing, your honor," deferentially returned the prisoner, "but, I beg you will allow me to finish what I have to say on this subject, in order that I may explain why I was accused of conjuring. I desire to prove that what I did was not accomplished by aid of any infernal power; but through my own intelligence, in discovering, and making use of one of Nature's secrets."

As I mentioned before, one may perceive, in the embryonic mollusk, the incessant rotary movement from left to right. In order to keep the two antipathetic broods constantly in the close juxtaposition necessary to influence their development, I was obliged to handle them frequently, as the eggs would move about--

"Stop!" interrupted the chair, "mollusks have no eyes; how then were those you hatched able to see their antipathetic neighbors, and move away from them?"

Their antipathetic sensations informed them. Though mollusks have no eyes, they are endowed with other remarkable organs--such as are not found in warm-blooded animals. However, to cut my story short, the quickened _scalaria_, and _nautili_, immediately began to form their shells in the reversed order I had expected, and the secret of fabulous enrichment was solved.

During the mysterious process of nature--while the shell-fish were industriously rearing their priceless houses--my patroness daily spent a half hour or more beside the sea-water basin; and would even, now and then, assist me to restore the creatures to their proper positions.

At first she would push her sleeves only an inch or two above the wrists; but, after awhile, they were tucked above the elbows, and I could admire as much as I wanted the beautiful white arms--a favor no modest woman will allow anyone but her own husband.

As the work had to be done, and as we did not want a third party to have cognizance of our experiment, the fair widow was obliged to assist me, and the natural result of the bared arms was: I became her legal husband. Therefore, it was neither through magic, nor witch-craft, nor yet through seductive arts employed by myself, that I became the legal protector of the richest, and handsomest young widow in Nimeguen.

("The truth of the matter is: the modest Dutch widow bewitched the valiant gunner, and compelled him to marry her!" was the chair's sarcastic interpolation.)

Well, be that as it may, the lady was amply rewarded for marrying me. The _scalaria retrotorsa_ resulting from my experiment, brought her enormous wealth. We did not know, at last, what to do with all the money that kept pouring into our coffers; but, the larger portion of her reward by far, she found in the conjugal fidelity I vowed to her. I would not have believed that I possessed so many of the attributes necessary to the making of a pattern husband, and my wife would have been entirely satisfied with me, had I been a captain like her first spouse.

But I was only a gunner!

My predecessor had been a captain, it is true, but he had never seen a battle; and when, on _Corpus Christi_, he commanded the city militia, and gave orders to fire the salute, he always pressed his hands against his ears to shut out the noise.

Still, his title gave his wife the right to call herself "Frau Hauptmannin;" while, as my wife she was merely "Constablerinn"--a degradation intolerable to any proud-spirited woman.

I tried to purchase at least a lieutenant's commission; but there were fifty-six applicants for the position ahead of me; and there was no telling how many years I should have to wait for my turn.

My wife at last became so sensitive that, in order to escape being addressed by the inferior title, she ceased to go out of the house; and when she had occasion to make mention of me to any one, she always spoke, or wrote, in this wise: "The husband of the widow of Captain Tobias van der Bullen." That honorable and high-born gentlemen, is how I came to be called--through no fault of mine!--by my twelfth false name: "Tobias van der Bullen."

I must confess, it was an extremely dull life. Of what use to us were the hoards of gold in the treasure-chests? We did not know how to spend them. I did not drink wine; I was not allowed to smoke at home, because it was an unclean habit. And I was always at home, when not at the barracks, because I had nowhere else to go.

At the merchants' casino, of which I might have become a member had I so elected, all the conversation was about matters I could not endure. The men were so grave and sedate, there was no fun in trying to play tricks on them; and the women were virtuous to such a degree, that not one of them would have allowed a barn-yard cock to scratch worms for more than one hen.

As all married men know, women are peculiar creatures. There are times when they become impressed with a desire to possess certain things that--so say the sagacious doctors--it is unwise, nay dangerous, to refuse to gratify the request. I have heard said, that a woman has been known to long for a dish of shoemaker's paste; another believed she would collapse if she did not get a frog to devour; still another, vowed she could not survive, if her husband did not rise from his bed at midnight, and hasten to the nearest grocery for a box of superfine wagon grease!

Now, my wife was seized with a longing to possess a sheet of parchment--a desire, you will say, that might easily have been gratified. But, the sort of parchment she wanted did not grow on every bush! A document, engrossed with the words which certified that her husband was a captain, was what she craved. But, where was I to procure it?

Chance one day brought me face to face with an old acquaintance, Mynheer Ruissen. He recognized me at once. It would have been useless to deny my identity; moreover, there had been established between us a certain good-fellowship that justified me in believing I might safely take him into my confidence.

He told me how zealously the officers of the law were searching throughout Germany for the fugitive, who had substituted tin church-vessels for the gold and silver ones used in the Templars' castle; and for having caused the wonderful metamorphosis of the Hamburg moo-calf.

("Fine phrases for robbery, and assassination!" commented the chair).

It was fortunate for me that I was known in Holland only under the name of my wife's deceased husband; had the worthy Dutchmen known who I was, the German authorities would not have remained long in ignorance as to the whereabouts of the fugitive criminal they were seeking.

I confided to Mynheer Ruissen my desire to obtain the title of captain in order to prevent my wife from grieving herself to death.

"Well, my son," he observed after a moment's deliberation, "it isn't such an easy matter to get to be a captain--on shore. There is no war now. These Hollanders prefer to look on fighting at a distance. If you want to become a captain, come with me to sea. I am on my way to East India, with small arms and cannons for the nabob Nujuf Khan, of Bengal. There's a general in his army, who is a countryman of yours--a Reinhard Walter. He was an adventurer like yourself when he went to India; and now he is a distinguished man. He changed his name to 'Sommer,' and the natives out yonder call him 'Sumro.' He is in need of soldiers, especially skilled gunners. If you will come with me--who can tell?--you may become not only a captain, but a prince within a twelve-month."

The tales Mynheer Ruissen related of General Sommer's success in Bengal were so marvelous, they inflamed me with the desire to try my fortune in that distant land; besides, the wearisome dullness of my monotonous existence in Nimeguen was driving me to madness. I decided to accompany the Mynheer, whom I introduced to my wife. She was almost beside herself with delight, when he told her he knew of a land in which there grew a tree, called the banyan, with a thousand branches, every one bearing a hundred figs, in every one of which might be found a captain's commission. And these wonderful figs might be had for the plucking, by any one who would take the trouble to journey to that distant land.

"You must start at once, my dear," said my wife in urgent tones--as if she feared there might not be any of the figs left for me, if I delayed going immediately. "At once! You must on no account miss the ship!"

With her own hands she packed everything I should need for the journey--not forgetting soap and tooth-brushes! And she did not weep at parting with me. You see, the women of Holland become accustomed to having their husbands go away on long journeys, to be absent for years. I confess I was not sorry to go; for, I knew that, if I stopped at home, when the third member of the family arrived, it would be my task to rock the cradle. I preferred to be rocked myself by the waves on a good ship!

Two days later I bade farewell for a time to Europe, and set sail with Mynheer Ruissen for India. A favorable wind sent us skimming out of the harbor; my wife waved a farewell with her handkerchief from the shore.

"Did you commit any crimes on the high seas?" This query from the chair interrupted the voyage for a few moments.

"Nothing worth mentioning, your honor."

"Then, just skip over the entire ocean, and don't waste our time with descriptions of flying-fish, and chanting mermaids. Debark without further delay in Bengal, and let us hear what rascalities you perpetrated there?"