Volume I Part 14 (1/2)

Tausdorf returned a fitting compliment, while Schindel, who had got behind Althea's chair, whispered to her, ”The bear does not seem in one of his worst bear-moods to-day. Heaven help us farther.”

In the mean time the second course was served up. Francis ate little, but stuck so much the more diligently to the wine, and kept up a constant talk with Tausdorf, in a tone of frank importunity, which did not sit amiss upon him. Soon the conversation turned upon the Turkish war; and he was ready to leap out of his skin for joy on finding that Tausdorf had served against the infidels in Transylvania, at the very time he had been fighting with them in Hungary.

”Heaven confound me!” he cried, while his face glowed with drinking; and holding up the goblet--”Why, you please me better and better, comrade, and therefore we'll now pledge each other in a brave draught, and swear eternal friends.h.i.+p and brotherhood.”

Tausdorf hesitated at this unexpected proposal, and was about to decline it courteously, when Althea pressed his hand under the table, and in low brief words requested him to accede for her sake; upon which he took up the crystal goblet, and Francis did the same to pledge him; but in the moment that the gla.s.ses touched, both rang hollowly, and burst with a sharp jarring sound, which echoed lamentably through the wide hall, while the n.o.ble wine poured down in streams upon the floor, to the indignation of the avaricious Christopher, who called out, ”You are, and always will be, Frank the clumsy, and do nothing like rational people; all with noise and fury. You have broken now my beautiful crystal cups with your rough pledging.”

”Yes, every thing is to be laid to me,” growled Francis: ”I pledged my goblet as neatly as possible; it was not till afterwards that both broke, and how that chanced, the devil only knows.”

”It is not your brother's fault,” said Tausdorf, drying the wine from his doublet. ”I do not myself understand how it happened.”

”We have examples,” observed Schindel thoughtfully, ”that empty gla.s.ses have broken upon people calling out loudly in the same key to which they were tuned; but these goblets were full, and all was still in the room. G.o.d grant that this accident may not prognosticate the rupture of your new-formed friends.h.i.+p as early as the gla.s.ses!”

”No fear of rupture,” cried Francis, shaking Tausdorf's hand cordially.

”We must both agree to that first, but our hearts have been amalgamated and hardened together in the same war-fire, and will hold together for life and death.”

”Gentlemen,” said the butler, entering with a respectful bow, ”there are some well-dressed personages--masks,--standing without, before the door, who would ask of the honourable company through me whether they may come in to amuse you with song and dance, and other allowable pleasantries.”

”They are welcome,” cried the restless Francis, starting up. ”This tedious sitting at table has long been abominable to me.”

He ran to the door and opened it. Three gipsies danced in, playing with pipe, triangle, and tambourine: these were followed by three females in black clothes, slashed with red, and wearing black masks.

”Trim wenches, brother,” said Francis, with eager look, to Tausdorf, upon whose chair he was leaning. ”So slim, and at the same time so full! By heavens! it makes one wish to become a gipsy for the pleasure of possessing them.”

”This masking is not to my taste,” replied Tausdorf. ”The burning eyes that sparkle from the fixed black faces have to me something almost supernatural. The open brow, and an open heart whether in joy or grief, are what I love.”

”I understand you, my poor knight,” said Francis mockingly. ”You are already in the cage, and dare no longer take any pleasure in a handsome face, at least not _show_ it, lest your lady wife should be angry, and hold a criminal court upon her faithless shepherd.”

”Do you know any of the party?” asked Althea, to interrupt this conversation.

”Not I,” answered Francis. ”The devil knows where stupid Kit has picked up the handsome wenches; but my acquaintance with them shall soon be made, and then I'll let you know more about them.”

With this he would have forced himself upon the masks, but the gipsy with the triangle, an old gray-beard, waved him back, and gave the women a sign to begin their revels. The music immediately struck up, and the three gipsies commenced a wild fantastic dance, in which the twines of their round well-formed arms, the turnings and bendings of their slim, delicate figures, the springing and agility of their feet, were shown off in full perfection. One of them, whose auburn hair was adorned with coloured ribbons and Bohemian stones, particularly distinguished herself by the gracefulness of her movements; and Francis, after having looked on for some time, tore open his doublet, exclaiming, ”Zounds! what a figure! It warms an honest fellow who has got a few bottles of Tokay in him.”

”This mad springing may please you,” said Althea contemptuously; ”it is just calculated for the taste of a drunkard; but to me it seems like the wild dance of fiends about a lost soul. It grates me to see that a woman can so far forget the female dignity as to expose herself thus.”

”Heaven deliver me from a tribunal where you preside,” said Francis laughing; ”why, it must be worse than that of the emperor at Prague.

Your virtue is of so fierce a nature, there's no reasoning with it.

That which is to please must be a little free: your decorum and modesty are the most tedious things on the face of the earth.”

The trio was at an end. The gipsies fanned themselves with their motley-coloured handkerchiefs, but they would not move their masks, and on that account rejected the wine which was proffered to them by the master of the feast.

”These girls seem to be b.u.t.toned up to their chins,” said Francis, ”but for all that I'll have a peep behind their black masks, or die for it.

Above all, I must try the fair-haired witch.” And in the delirium of the moment, he dashed his goblet through the window, and leaped upon a chair, shouting ”Huzza! huzza! away with the tables; we have had enough of eating, and will dance you one till the floor shakes, and the rafters crack again.”

”Man! are you alone here?” exclaimed Tausdorf indignantly; but in his frenzy, Francis heard him not, and, springing from the chair over the table with a neck-breaking leap, alighted again just before the mask with the auburn hair.

”Take away,” said Christopher with vexation. ”When once he breaks out, there is no managing with him.”