Part 64 (1/2)

KOSINSKY. Pardon, sirs. I know not whether I am going right or wrong.

CHARLES. Suppose right, whom do you take us to be?

KOSINSKY. Men!

SCHWEITZER. I wonder, captain, whether we have given any proof of that?

KOSINSKY. I am in search of men who can look death in the face, and let danger play around then like a tamed snake; who prize liberty above life or honor; whose very names, hailed by the poor and the oppressed, appal the boldest, and make tyrants tremble.

SCHWEITZER (to the Captain). I like that fellow. Hark ye, friend! You have found your men.

KOSINSKY. So I should think, and I hope soon to find them brothers.

You can direct me to the man I am looking for. 'Tis your captain, the great Count von Moor.

SCHWEITZER (taking him warmly by the hand). There's a good lad. You and I must be chums.

CHARLES (coming nearer). Do you know the captain?

KOSINSKY. Thou art he!--in those features--that air--who can look at thee, and doubt it? (Looks earnestly at him for some time). I have always wished to see the man with the annihilating look, as he sat on the ruins of Carthage.* That wish is realized.

*[Alluding to Caius Marius. See Plutarch's Lives.]

SCHWEITZER. A mettlesome fellow!--

CHARLES. And what brings you to me?

KOSINSKY. Oh, captain! my more than cruel fate. I have suffered s.h.i.+pwrecked on the stormy ocean of the world; I have seen all my fondest hopes perish; and nought remains to me but a remembrance of the bitter past, which would drive me to madness, were I not to drown it by directing my energies to new objects.

CHARLES. Another arraignment of the ways of Providence! Proceed.

KOSINSKY. I became a soldier. Misfortune still followed me in the army. I made a venture to the Indies, and my s.h.i.+p was s.h.i.+vered on the rocks--nothing but frustrated hopes! At last, I heard tell far and wide of your valiant deeds, incendiarisms, as they called them, and I came straightway hither, a distance of thirty leagues, firmly resolved to serve under you, if you will deign to accept my services. I entreat thee, n.o.ble captain, refuse me not!

SCHWEITZER (with a leap into the air). Hurrah! Hurrah! Our Roller replaced ten hundred-fold! An out-and-out brother cut-throat for our troop.

CHARLES. What is your name?

KOSINSKY. Kosinsky.

CHARLES. What? Kosinsky! And do you know that you are but a thoughtless boy, and are embarking on the most weighty pa.s.sage of your life as heedlessly as a giddy girl? You will find no playing at bowls or ninepins here, as you probably imagine.

KOSINSKY. I understand you, sir. I am,'tis true, but four-and-twenty years old, but I have seen swords glittering, and have heard b.a.l.l.s whistling around me.

CHARLES. Indeed, young gentleman? And was it for this that you took fencing lessons, to run poor travellers through the body for the sake of a dollar, or stab women in the back? Go! go! You have played truant to your nurse because she shook the rod at you.

SCHWEITZER. Why, what the devil, captain! what are you about? Do you mean to turn away such a Hercules? Does he not look as if he could baste Marechal Saxe across the Ganges with a ladle?

CHARLES. Because your silly schemes miscarry, you come here to turn rogue and a.s.sa.s.sin! Murder, boy, do you know the meaning of that word?

You may have slumbered in peace after cropping a few poppy-heads, but to have a murder on your soul--

KOSINSKY. All the murders you bid me commit be upon my head!