28. CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE SECRET AGENT.
As the soldier uttered these words, Captain Foy, private
secretary, confidential adviser, and general secret agent of
his Excellency, Lord Dunmore, approached the spot where
he stood with St. John.
Captain Foy was a gentleman of middle age, of tall stature,
with a pale, cold countenance, piercing eyes beneath
shaggy brows, and a certain mixture of boldness and stealth-iness
in his carriage, which brought to the mind the idea of
an animal of the tiger species—at once soft and cruel, calm
and ferocious.
There was about the man an air of mystery and reserve
which could not be mistaken, and forcibly impressed upon
the beholder the opinion that he was habitually employed
in what was then known as “secret service.” The secretary
was richly clad, but wore no sword, not even a parade
weapon, and as he approached, Mr. St. John felt as if a
portion of Lord Dunmore himself were walking toward
him.
“Why my dear Foy,” said Captain Waters, making a
military salute as the secretary came opposite to him, “really
delighted to see you! You haven't forgotten an old
comrade, eh?”
The secretary's calm, piercing eye, dwelt for an instant
upon the soldier's face, and he replied at once, with a bow,
“By no means, Captain Waters. I am pleased to meet
with you, and with you, Mr. St. John.”
“The same to you my boy,” replied the captain, with great
good humor; “I reply for both of us. You're looking
rather thin and pale, which is probably owing to your con-finement
in your abominably disagreeable office of secretary,
and I find you no longer the jolly companion you were on
the continent; but I'm delighted to see you.”
“I reciprocate your obliging sentiments, Captain,” said
Foy, in the same serene tone.
“You really, then, have not forgotten me?”
“By no means! I think that is proved by saluting you
at once, though I had no expectation of seeing you.”
“Why certainly,” cried the captain. “Morbleu! that
never occurred to me. The fact is, my dear comrade, I am
deteriorating, I'm getting fat and stupid for want of fighting.
Tonnerre! if I only had Minden for an hour! I'd get
well again, or the devil's in it!”
“A terrible fight, Captain Waters.”
“Perfectly glorious!”
“We were near each other frequently, I remember.”
“Morbleu! that's a great compliment!” cried the soldier.
“A compliment, sir?”
“To myself, faith!”
The secretary bowed serenely.
“No simpers and disclaimers, comrade!” said the soldier;
“may the devil eat me whole, if you didn't fight like a wild
boar. At present, companion, permit me to say that your
countenance resembles that of a clergyman; on the day of
Minden, it resembled that of Mars, parbleu! A devil of a
fight, friend! and you did your part like a firebrand!”
As the captain spoke thus in his rough, laughing voice, a
slight color seemed to tinge, for a moment, the pale cheek
of the soldier-secretary, and his eyes wandered. He recovered
instantly, however, his presence of mind, and with
a movement of his hand, said,
“I fear you are too complimentary, sir; I did but my
small part!”
“Morbleu! 't was a large part, companion. I'll say that
everywhere, and do you full justice, if you are the secretary
of my Lord Dunmore, whom I've not yet fallen very much
in love with. In fact, I dislike that worthy nobleman to an
extent really wonderful, but I don't commit injustice. I
have the pleasure of informing you, my dear St. John, that
Captain, or Secretary Foy, went through the ranks of the
French at Minden like a flaming sword, and that he was
publicly complimented by his commanding officer, on full
parade, afterwards.”
Foy made a modest movement with his hand.
“You forget after Lissa, Captain Waters,” he said, “and
for fear you will not mention it, I will inform Mr. St. John
that you were publicly thanked also, sir.”
“Why so I was!” cried the captain. “I'd forgotten it!”
“I have not, sir, as I shall not forget the flash of your
sword in the charge.”
“See now!” said the captain, laughing, “how pleasant
this is.”
“Pleasant?”
“Yes, recalling, morbleu! all these tender recollections!
There is one, however, my dear Foy, which affects me even
still more deeply.”
“What's that, captain?”
“The little scene at Reinfels!”
And the captain burst into laughter.
The ghost of a smile touched the secretary's pale face.
“Basta!” cried the captain. “I see you remember!”
“Perfectly, sir,” replied the secretary, serenely.
“Under the bastion!”
“Yes, sir.”
“A little duel, my dear friend,” said the captain to St.
John, by way of explanation; “a little bout between Foy
and myself. I regret to say that our present dear spiritual
adviser, as I regard him, and myself, fell out about a—”
“Ah, Captain Waters! why recall these follies?”
“Why not? They were but youthful pranks.”
“That is all, sir.”
“Well, as I was saying, 't was a girl that we quarreled
for. We fought the next morning, and faith! both of us
were a month in the hospital!”
“Unfortunately,” said the secretary, “that is true—just
a month!”
“And you remember, my dear comrade—?”
“What, Captain Waters?”
“We were lying in cots, next to each other.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“And I made you explain, with the arm I had slashed,
the coup which broke my guard, and ran me very nearly
through the gizzard. Morbleu! 't was admirable, and I
adored you after that blow!”
With which the captain laughed.
“See how pleasant 't is, recalling these scenes of the past,”
he said. “Hilf himmel! is there any thing like it? Here
I'm getting fat and vegetating, and becoming a country
squire, thinking only of tobacco and wheat, and with not a
care in the world, when, formerly, in the good old times, I
was lean and full of muscle, with a wrist of bone and sinew,
not a sous in my pocket, and half the time not knowing
where to lay my head! Bah! it's really deplorable—is it
not comrade?”
“I think it more agreeable, sir.”
“More agreeable! You do n't really? But I can't
wonder at your mistake—you've not tried it.”
“I am, like yourself, no longer a soldier.”
“Why so you are not.”
“I am a civilian.”
“And a secretary. My dear comrade,” said the captain,
sighing, “we have both deteriorated. I foresee that we
shall have no more amusement, no life, no frolics! For the
future we must resign ourselves to fate. No more Mindens,
no Lissas, no glorious assaults like that of Breslau, where I
think the devil got loose; no battles or skirmishes any more!
In the bitterness of my regret, comrade, I could propose a
bout here in the street, that I might thus be taken back
to old times and learn the coup of Reinfels! I despair of
any amusement in the future, comrade, unless—but that is
idle.”
“Unless, captain?”
“Unless Dunmore will afford it.”
The secretary retired into himself suddenly, all thoughts
of the past seemed to disappear, and his pale face became
impenetrable.
“That reminds me, Captain Waters,” he said, with formal
courtesy, “that my duties recall me to his lordship's presence—I
have already tarried too long. I have the honor to
salute you, gentlemen.”
And the secretary bowed, and then moved toward the
palace.
“I say, my dear Foy!” called the captain.
“Sir,” said the secretary, half turning.
“Give my compliments to his Excellency, and tell him I
am thirsting for something to do. If he'll only endeavor
now to turn the Burgesses out of doors and give me an opportunity
of meeing you, sword in hand, and learning the
coup—of Reinfels, you know!”
A strange smile flitted over the subtle face of the secretary,
but he only bowed.
In a moment he disappeared at the corner of the street
which led to the palace.
Captain Ralph Waters looked after him for a moment in
silence, and then moving his head up and down, said to St.
John,
“My dear companion, there goes one of the most dangerous
fellows under heaven! As close as a trap, as
brave as steel, and as cunning as the devil. Take care of
him!”
“Thanks for your warning,” said St. John, laughing,
“but I'm not afraid.”
“Well, I do n't feel so myself. In case of trying the coup
of Reinfels, I count on you.”
“The coup?”
“In a duel with Foy, I mean.”
“Certainly; and if ever I'm in want of a second, you'll
act for me?”
“Morbleu! with delight, my dear comrade!”
“It's a bargain?”
“Signed and sealed.”
“Well, perhaps I may call on you.”
And the friends parted, going each a different way.
