Part 2 (2/2)
His eyes were quite little and coloured like a lion's; and sometimes, in deep reverie, the corners of his upper lip twitched.
This happened when Ruhannah lay fretting in her mother's arms, and the hot wind blew on Trebizond.
Under the Dark Star, too, a boy grew up in Minetta Lane, not less combative than other ragged boys about him, but he was inclined to arrange and superintend fist fights rather than to partic.i.p.ate in battle, except with his wits.
His name was Eddie Brandes; his first fortune of three dollars was ama.s.sed at c.r.a.ps; he became a hanger-on in ward politics, at race-tracks, stable, club, squared ring, vaudeville, burlesque. Long Acre attracted him--but always the gambling end of the operation.
Which predilection, with its years of ups and downs, landed him one day in Western Canada with an ”Unknown” to match against an Athabasca blacksmith, and a training camp as the prospect for the next six weeks.
There lived there, gradually dying, one Albrecht Dumont, lately head gamekeeper to n.o.bility in the mountains of a Lost Province, and wearing the Iron Cross of 1870 on the ruins of a gigantic and bony chest, now as hollow as a Gothic ruin.
And if, like a thousand fellow patriots, he had been ordered to the Western World to watch and report to his Government the trend and tendency of that Western, English-speaking world, only his Government and his daughter knew it--a child of the Dark Star now grown to early womanhood, with a voice like a hermit thrush and the skill of a sorceress with anything that sped a bullet.
Before the Unknown was quite ready to meet the Athabasca blacksmith, Albrecht Dumont, dying faster now, signed his last report to the Government at Berlin, which his daughter Ilse had written for him--something about Canadian ca.n.a.ls and stupid Yankees and their greed, indifference, cowardice, and sloth.
Dumont's mind wandered:
”After the well-born Herr Gott relieves me at my post,” he whispered, ”do thou pick up my burden and stand guard, little Ilse.”
”Yes, father.”
”Thy sacred promise?”
”My promise.”
The next day Dumont felt better than he had felt for a year.
”Ilse, who is the short and broadly constructed American who comes now already every day to see thee and to hear thee sing?”
”His name is Eddie Brandes.”
”He is of the fight _gesellschaft_, not?”
”He should gain much money by the fight. A theatre in Chicago may he willingly control, in which light opera shall be given.”
”Is it for that he hears so willingly thy voice?”
”It is for that.... And love.”
”And what of Herr Max Venem, who has asked of me thy little hand in marriage?”
The girl was silent.
”Thou dost not love him?”
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