The System of the World

The Black Dogg, Newgate Prison
A FEW MINUTES EARLIER

“I HAVE THE HEAVY GOLD. You know this,” Jack said.

“The Solomonic Gold?” Isaac corrected him.

“Funny, that is what Father Ed calls it, too. Whatever you call it, I have it, and I know where I can get more. Now, suppose Bolingbroke demands a Trial of the Pyx. The refiner’s furnace shall be set up in Star Chamber. A jury of London money-men shall open up the Pyx and take out a sample of coins-”

“Coins that you put in,” Isaac said.

“That you can’t prove-but in any case, you are personally responsible for every one of those coins,” Jack reminded him. “They shall be counted and weighed first. And it may astonish you, Ike, to hear that the coins I put in there shall pass this first test. I made the blanks a bit thicker, you see-not enough so as you would notice, holding one between your fingers, but enough to make them of legal weight, even though they are allayed with base metal.”

“But when they are assayed-?” Daniel said.

“When those same coins are melted in the cupel, and the quantity of gold in them is measured, they’ll be found wanting. And this is where I may be of service to you, Ike, and to that Marquis who got you your post at the Mint.”

“You can supply me with heavy gold, as you call it.”

“Indeed. Which, slipped into the cupel by a bit of prestidigitation-easily arranged, have no fear-will give the assay greater weight, and make all the numbers come out as they should.”

Isaac Newton, who had been strangely unmoved by all that infiltrated his nostrils and stuck to the soles of his shoes here in Newgate, was nauseated by this. Jack Shaftoe was quick to note it and to know why. “I disgust you, Ike, for the same reason I disgust Father Ed, which is that to me the heavy gold is only that. And when I offer it to you as a part of our present transaction, I offer it, not as a mystical essence for use in your divine sorcery, but as a bit o’ spare weight to save your nuts during the Trial of the Pyx that is soon to come. Our conversation here would seem a good deal nobler, wouldn’t it, if it were about that rather than this; if it were about that, why, you could phant’sy yourself living out a sort of latter-day sequel to the Bible, and Newgate, foul as it is, would be like those leper-towns where Jesus walked: not so foul, because part of a fair story. But because it is about this, namely, Ike Newton not getting his balls and his hand chopped off, why, you look about yourself and say, ‘Eeeyuh, I am in the Black Dogg of Newgate Prison and it stinketh!’ I see this clearly only because I have seen it so oft on the face of Father Ed, for whom all of London might as well be Newgate Prison when it is compared to Versailles. But I shall solace you with the same words I have spoke to Father Ed when he turns thus green about the gills.”

“I am astonished that you have any words left,” said Isaac. “But as I have heard so many, a few more can do no harm.”

“It is simply that when all of this has played out, and you are left holding a bit of that Solomonic Gold, why, you may believe, concerning it, whatever you choose, and do with it what you will.”

“A question,” Daniel said. “Since you know that Sir Isaac desires it, and you know he is aware that you have got some, why this elaborate scheme concerning the Pyx? Why did you not simply treat directly with Sir Isaac long ago?”

“Because there were other parties to be accounted for. On my side, there was de Gex, who had a say in the matter until I began trying to kill him a couple of weeks ago. On your side, Ravenscar, who does not believe in Alchemy any more than I do. To extract anything from him I needed something a bit more substantial than a spate of malarkey about King Solomon.”

“Since you hold my views on the matter in such contempt, this conversation cannot be any more pleasant for you than it is for me. Let us bring it to a head directly,” Isaac suggested. “You have offered a way to get me out of difficulty in the event that Bolingbroke demands a Trial of the Pyx. But this is of no utility to me if he doesn’t. For as all the world knows, he has been gathering in guineas of late, preparing to assay those coins that have been circulating in her majesty’s currency. Many counterfeits shall be encompassed in any such sample. At any time of Bolingbroke’s choosing he may change his tune, and say, ‘Behold, the Pyx was tampered with by Jack the Coiner, its contents are no reliable sample of the Mint’s produce, we must instead assay the coins in circulation.’ Such an assay shall prove deficient, both in the weight of the coins, and the fineness of the metal, because it shall include so many counterfeit guineas.”

By way of an answer, Jack reached into the pocket of his breeches and drew out a little packet, which he tossed across the Black Dogg. Isaac got his hands up quickly enough, bobbled it, and trapped it against his breast. Daniel did not have to look to know what it was. “One of the Sinthias you stole from the Pyx in April.”

“I have the rest stored away nice and safe,” Jack said, “and can produce them when and where needed, to prove that you put only good coins into the Pyx, Ike. So, you see, whether Bolingbroke orders a Trial of the Pyx or no, I can save you: if he does, by supplying heavy gold, and if he doesn’t, by supplying the rest of those.” Jack nodded at the packet, which Isaac was now fondling near a candle-flame.

“In exchange for which, I suppose you require that you not be prosecuted, and that your sons get the farm in Carolina.”

“My sons, and Tomba,” Jack said. “That is an African who has been with me since we met him racing horses on the beach near Acapulco. Fine lad.”

“I remind you that there is a reason why we insisted that this conversation happen this evening,” Daniel said.

“Bolingbroke has Ravenscar backed up against the wall,” Jack returned, “and Ravenscar needs something.”

“Yes.”

“Show Bolingbroke that, then.” Jack nodded at the Sinthia. “It’ll hit him like a bolt between the eyes; for he has pestered me without letup these many months, wanting them from me.”

This silenced Daniel and Isaac for some moments. They had to look at each other for a while, before they looked at Jack. “Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, her majesty’s Secretary of State, has been pestering you?”

“Call him by as many names as you like, the answer is yes.”

“Let us go and see your good friend Bolingbroke, then,” Daniel suggested, with a not very subtle look at his watch.

“He is not my friend, but a damned nuisance,” Jack returned, “and I’d not go in to his house again even if he invited me. But you may have that packet, as proof of my bona fides, and I shall ride with you to Golden Square, and go for a constitutional round the green, as you go in to strike your bargain with him. When you have done, come out and tell me the results. I’m keen to know whether the next English King is going to be German or French.”

“The only defect in your plan is a terribly mundane one,” Daniel said. “We came in a phaethon.”

“What a rake you are, Dr. Waterhouse! Do stay away from my sons!”

“Two may fit inside, only with a lot of stuffing and bending.”

“Then do you stuff and bend yourselves into it,” said Jack, walking over to the door. He hauled it open and extended a hand to say, after you. “I shall ride on the running-board, like a footman, as befits my station in life, and if any footpads or Jacobite fops get after us, why, I’ll run ’em through.”

The phaethon had been waiting in the Press-Yard next to the gaol. This opened onto Newgate Street intra muros. Driving west, they passed immediately beneath the vault of the city gate: a Gothick castle housing wealthy prisoners. Thence they could have got directly to Holbourn and taken a northerly route toward Golden Square, but Daniel knew it was an infernal gantlet of bonfires to-night: the bright line where Whig and Tory orders of battle were being drawn up. So he requested the southerly approach. The Old Bailey connected to the street extra muros and took them south to Ludgate Hill which, going west, became the last bridge over the Fleet Ditch, which became Fleet Street, which became the Strand.

The scheme of placing Jack on the running-board worked well, for the phaethon was equipped with a grate, situated next to where a footman’s face was likely to be, so that master and servant could mis-communicate as freely and grievously on the road as they did at home. Daniel left it open. Jack was able to chat with the passengers almost as easily as if he were sharing the compartment with them. He was in a cheery mood-more so than Isaac, certainly-and offered up wry comments upon the Old Bailey, the odor of the Fleet, the Royal Society’s headquarters, Drury Lane, the Kit-Cat Clubb, and other exhibits as they rattled past. Daniel took most of these in good humor, but Isaac, who suspected that Jack was baiting him, fumed quietly, like a beaker just tonged from a furnace. There were bonfires, fist-fights, and dogs fucking each other in Charing Cross, and Jack was silent for a while, because alert. But Roger’s driver-who was of the best-negotiated this adroitly and got them on the short street called Cockspur that would soon fork into Pall Mall and Hay Market just before the Opera House.

“There must be an opera tonight,” Jack remarked through the grate.

“ ’Tis not possible,” Daniel returned. “It is out of season. I do believe they are erecting sets, and rehearsing, for a revival of The Alchemist by Ben Jonson.”

“I saw that a hundred times as a boy,” Jack said, “why ever are they reviving it now?”

“Because Herr Handel has written new music for it.”

“What? It is a play, not an opera.”

“Styles change,” Daniel said. “Mr. Vanbrugh’s theatre, there, is nothing like the theatres of your boyhood: it is all indoors, and ornate beyond description, and the actors are imprisoned on a stage, behind a proscenium.”

“Stay, I have been to a few such,” said Jack. “I could not hear a damned word. My ears are ruined; too much early horseplay with firearms.”

“Your ears are fine. No one can hear what the actors are saying, in a place like that. And this one in Hay Market is worse than most.”

“When Vanbrugh designed it,” said Newton, suddenly thawing, “it was styled the Theatre Royal. When it opened, nine years ago, and the audience thought they were witnessing a mum-show, then they had to change the name of it to the Opera, which empowered the performers to make themselves heard, by bellowing at the tops of their lungs in the style that is customary in that Art.”

“It chagrins me to hear that the good old Alchymist is being subjected to such perversion,” said Jack. “I’ve a mind to pop Mr. Handel in the gob.”

“It might not be so bad,” Daniel said. “When yonder Opera got into financial straits-which did not take long-my lord Ravenscar stepped into the breach, and remodeled the inside-made it smaller, lowered the ceiling, et cetera.”

“Ah, and that fixed the problem?”

“Of course not. So he had to rip it out and redo it again-anyway, he defrayed the expense by selling subscriptions for half a guinea.”

“Only half! I’d have bought one, had I known.”

“I shall ask my lord Ravenscar to throw one in as a soupcon,” said Daniel.

“While you are at it, let him know his Opera is invested by the Mobb,” said Jack. “For what I at first took to be the fireworks to celebrate an Opening Night, now takes on the appearance of a small Riot. There are several blokes on horseback, and I do believe I see a formation of infantry flanking them from behind the Opera House.”

“Infantry!?”

“Some would call it more Mobb, but to my eye their movements are altogether too orderly and platoonishly clumped. They are some militia. Ah, and there is something else, just before the entrance: I think it is an overturned carriage.”

Just then they swung round a curve onto Hay Market, and the Italian Opera House became visible out the left side of the phaethon. It was all as Jack had described it, save that Daniel did not see any of the phantom infantry spoken of by Jack. But he knew there was an open lot behind the building that was a perpetual construction camp as the theatre was gutted and remodeled by Ravenscar in his never-ending quest to make his performers audible, and where sets were erected for the operas. That was a very likely place for some Whig Association militia to have bivouacked. If it was really true that Jack had seen infantry, he’d have seen them there.

The phaethon bounded up on its suspension, as if they had driven over a sudden rise. Jack had jumped off. Looking back through the grate, Daniel saw him receding. He was standing in the middle of Hay Market, squarely in front of the Italian Opera. “I have just recognized that overturned carriage,” he called. “I have deeds to do here.”

“Our transaction is not finished!” Newton shouted back.

“It cannot be helped. I shall try to meet you in Golden Square later.”

“If you do not, you may consider that the deal is null and void,” Newton returned, his voice faltering, as he was no longer so sure that anyone was listening. Jack had dissolved into the Mobb.

The Fabrick’s Finish’d, and the Builder’s part

Has shown the Reformation of his Art.

Bless’d with Success, thus have their first Essays

Reform’d their Buildings, not Reform’d their Plays…

Never was Charity so Ill Employ’d,

Vice so Discourag’d, Vertue so Destroy’d;

Never Foundation so abruptly laid,

So Much Subscrib’d and yet so little Paid.

–FROM DANIEL DEFOE’S ATTACK ON THE OPERA HOUSE IN HAY MARKET, THE REVIEW, NO. 26, 3 MAY 1705

The Kit-Cat Club is now grown Famous and Notorious, all over the Kingdom. And they have Built a Temple for their Dagon, the new Play-house, in the Hay-Market. The Foundation was laid with great Solemnity, by a Noble Babe of Grace. And over or under the Foundation Stone is a Plate of Silver, on which is Graven Kit-Cat on the one side, and Little Whigg* on the other. This is in Futuram re Memoriam, that after Ages may know by what Worthy Hands, and for what good Ends this stately Fabrick was Erected.

–JACOBITE JOURNALIST CHARLES LESLIE, THE REHEARSAL OF OBSERVATOR, NO. 41 (5/12 MAY 1705)

BROAD AS IT WAS COMPARED to the town-houses hemming it in on left and right, the part of the Opera House fronting on the Hay Market could not contain a whole theatre. As anyone would discover who entered into one of its triad of massive arched doorways, this was only a lobby. The auditorium proper, and the set-shops and backstage spaces, were all under a mountainous roof that loomed in the interior of the block like a mountain-range over an Alpine town, and threatened to bury the adjoining houses under an avalanche of roof-tiles someday. Tonight the roof was hidden by darkness, occasionally blushing a lambent red as a bonfire flared on the street below, and betraying the presence of silent watchers posted on its roof. It over-shadowed a stretch of Hay Market running some two hundred feet from Bell Inn on the north (rumored to contain a secret subscribers’ entrance, used by the Kit-Catocracy) to the even narrower and darker alley of Unicorn Court on the south (which, for those brave enough to follow it all the way to its dead end, gave access to the backstage). Overall this was neither the grandest nor meanest fabrique in London and one could easily go past it without a second glance; but it happened to be the place where a lot of Jacobite Tories had lit bonfires tonight. The squadrons of un-uniformed Tory cavalry that had roved through the district to intercept messages between Marlborough House and the Kit-Cat Clubb, or Marlborough House and Leicester House, had converged hither, and turned their attention inward, toward the fires they had lit and the carriage they had brought to bay, which was rumored to contain the Electoral Princess of Hanover, here in London to spy and to cabal with Whigs incognito. Not a one of them noted the sentries on the high dark roof of the Opera, who, for the last several minutes, had been busy with signal-flags. Those faced not towards the imbroglio in the Hay Market but west toward certain parks and undeveloped parcels of land, not far away, which in recent days had turned into strangely well-ordered Vagabond-camps.

“Money, and all that comes with it, disgusts me,” said Father Edouard de Gex, speaking apparently to his own boots. For he had planted one to either side of the head of the Duchess of Arcachon-Qwghlm, and clamped her head between his ankle-bones, forcing her to look up into his face. “Within living memory, men and women of noble birth did not even have to think about it. Oh, there were rich nobles and poor, just as there were tall and short, beautiful and ugly. But it would never have entered the mind of even a peasant to phant’sy that a penniless Duke was any less a Duke, or that a rich whore ought to be made a Duchess. Nobles did not handle money, or speak of it; if they were guilty of caring about it, they took pains to hide it, as with any other vice. Men of the cloth did not need money, or use it, except for a few whose distasteful duty it was to take in the tithes from the poor-box. And ordinary honest peasants lived a life blessedly free of money. To nobles, clerics, and peasants-the only people needed or wanted in a decent Christian Realm-

coins were as alien, eldritch, inexplicable as communion wafers to a Hindoo. They are, I believe, an artifact of the pagan necromancers of the Romans, talismans of the subterranean Cult of Mithras, which St. Constantine, after his conversion to the True Faith, somehow forgot to eradicate, even as the temples of the idolaters were being pulled down or made over into churches. The makers, users, and hoarders of money were a cult, a cabal, a parasitical infestation, enduring through many ages, no more Christian than the Jews-indeed, many were Jews. They convened in a few places like Venice, Genoa, Antwerp, and Seville, and spun round the globe a web or net-work of links along which money flowed, in feeble and fitful pulses. This was repugnant but endurable. But what has happened of late is monstrous. The money-cult has spread faster across what used to be Christendom than the faith of Mahomet did across Araby. I did not grasp the enormity of it until you came to Versailles as an infamous Dutch whore, a plaything of diseased bankers, and shortly were ennobled-made into a Countess, complete with a fabricated pedigree-and why? Because you had noble qualities? No. Only because you were Good with Money-a high sorceress of the coin-cult-and so were adored by the same sort of degraded Versailles court-fops who would gather in abandoned churches at midnight to recite the Black Mass.

“It was then that I formed my resolve to burn you at the stake, Eliza. It is to me what the Holy Grail was to Sir Galahad: an ambition that has sustained me through many trials and journeys. Oh, by itself, to see you slowly consumed by fire would be only an idle pleasure. Do not imagine I am so self-indulgent. Burning you, Eliza, was to be the climax, the catharsis of a great Work of purification. England was to fall to the armies of the Most Christian King, and the Dutch Republic was to fall next. Not just you but many were to have been consumed in autos da fe that would have illuminated the face of Europe as these bonfires do the Hay Market to-night. It was to have been the end of heresy-the heresy of the so-called Protestants, of the Jews, and, most of all, of the money-cult. Great canvases and frescoes would have been painted of the event, by the Michelangelos of a new age, who would work not for money but for the glory of God. These paintings would have been vast tableaux of countless figures; but in the center of all, taking pride of place, would have been you, Eliza, bound to a stake in Charing Cross, burning. During my voyage round the world, when I was sick or cold or exhausted, and my faith began to fail, I would think on this, and find new strength. The love of it beckoned me ever onward, even as fear of it drove Jack like the crack of a whip at an ox’s ear.”

All during this curious discourse, Eliza was trying to saw away, with her dagger, at the ox-hide strap that served as the hinge of the carriage door. This was difficult to achieve without a continual movement of the shoulder that must have been obvious to de Gex, and so she was trying to go about it subtly. Which meant slowly. He was evidently in no hurry to get on with her auto da fe; but she feared he was now drawing to some conclusion, and about to set fire to her carriage, or something. So she asked him a question. “It is just the opposite of what one would think, given your passion for Alchemy-who would’ve phant’sied you’d such an antipathy for money?”

De Gex shook his head sadly, and took his eyes away from Eliza’s for the first time in a long while. The light of a bonfire glittered in the oily blade of his dagger, and caught his eye; he gazed into it, and twiddled it idly as he went on: “Of course some Alchemists are charlatans, seeking wealth; they are a mockery of people like you, sharing your avarice, wanting your artifice. But can you not see that Alchemy is the avenging angel to destroy your heresy? For what value shall your money have, if gold may be made as easily as straw?”

“So that is the end you seek,” Eliza said, “to overturn and scatter the new System that has been built up, during your lifetime, by the ineffable workings of Money.”

“Indeed! What right do Britain, and the Dutch Republic, have to exist? God did not mean for men to live in such places, or if He did, He did not mean for them to prosper here. Look-look at this opera house! Built on the edge of the world by frostbitten shepherds-yet in its size, its glory, truly a monster, an abomination, only possible because of the unnatural distortions that Money has wreaked on the world. The same is true of all London! It should all burn. And you should be the spark to kindle it.”

“Should be, or shall be?” Eliza asked. The ox-hide hinge was nearly sawn through; one good slash ought to drop the carriage-door to the pavement, and give her hips room to slither out. But this did her no good when her head was clamped between de Gex’s feet. She arched her neck, pointing her chin up at de Gex’s face, and thereby gained an upside-down view of a bonfire just a few paces away. If she could tempt him to go over and root around for a firebrand, she might be out from under the carriage by the time he got back.

“Grand beautiful schemes,” said de Gex, with a regretful smile, “such as the one I have just laid out, oft arise more from pride than piety. To create an auto da fe here in the Hay Market to-night would gratify my pride. But it were too grand and gaudy a scheme, under present circumstances. I must show humility, instead, by doing the work quickly, with nicotine. You may take it as a moral lesson: though you have lived expensively, and in grand style, you shall die a simple and humble death in the gutter of Hay Market.”

“Ain’t it a shame,” said an English voice, somehow familiar to Eliza, “when a noble holy man, who despises money, has to cut corners, and kill meanly, all because he and Leroy don’t have two louis d’or to rub together.”

At the first sound of this voice, de Gex stepped back half a pace, and broadened his stance. This freed Eliza’s head. She turned it toward the speaker-who was framed in the center arch of the Italian Opera, as if just emerging from a play. Since there was no performance to-night, it seemed more likely that this was a chap who knew his way around the nearby alleyways. Unable to break through the cordon of Jacobite riders and flaming barricades, and the Mobb attracted thereby, he must have entered the Opera House covertly through the side entrance at Bell Inn, and worked his way through the building to burst in on their discourse from a direction unexpected and unwatched. So much so, in fact, that most of de Gex’s riders, who were still out patrolling the fringe of the fire-light, did not even know yet that an interloper had penetrated to the core of their position.

Eliza, because startled, had let several seconds go to waste when she might have been cutting herself free. She went back to work now with the dagger.

De Gex took a step towards the interloper. “This is stupid even for you,” he said. “You are sure to be dead within a few moments-behold, you are surrounded.”

“You’re a-mazed, Father Ed, because I’ve been such a shrewd and calculating sort the whole time you’ve known me. But in my youth I used to do stupid things, and even profit from them, all the time. All the cleverness I’ve shown since I got back to London has been to one end, namely, that I might get into position, as it were, to do something foolish for my Eliza. Here I am; now’s the time.”

“As you like it!” said de Gex. “It shall be my very great pleasure to punish you for your impulsiveness, Jack.”

When this name reached Eliza’s ears, her arm jerked, and the hinge slashed through. The carriage-door fell to the pavement under her weight, and made a crack. De Gex-who had taken a step toward Jack-hesitated, and looked back. Eliza did not have time to wriggle free. She flung the dagger at de Gex. It caught him in the back of the thigh, but was too light to penetrate more than a quarter of an inch. Still, it stung like a hornet, and he reached back to paw it out. “Bitch whore!” he cried, rounding on her and bringing his own dagger up to strike.

Jack flew down the steps of the Opera House, lunging toward de Gex and thrusting one hand forward. He looked less like a duellist than a wizard casting a spell, for no blade was in his hand, and the distance between them was too great for him to land a punch. But he had been cradling a small object in his palm, which flew outwards, spinning so fast that it made a buzzing hum, like the wings of a small bird. It shot past de Gex’s upraised dagger-hand, but then, impossibly, reversed its direction and whipped around his wrist, going into a spiral orbit whose velocity waxed as its radius waned, finally becoming a whizzing blur that collided with his hand, and stuck there: for the thing that Jack had thrown was studded with glinting blades.

Jack drew back the hand that had thrown it, and de Gex’s jerked toward him at the same instant, for the two were now joined by a silken cord that had been spooled about this curious throwing-weapon. Jack’s other hand now came down. It was swinging a sword with a curved blade. The tip of it slashed the dagger out of de Gex’s hand, and severed the cord. The dagger skittered away and was lost in darkness.

De Gex showed, now, that he had studied the art of defencing at some point in his life, for he spun away from Jack even as Jack wheeled into position to guard Eliza. His left, or dagger-, hand had been mangled by Jack’s sword-stroke, but his right was still hale. With it he drew out a small-sword. He faced Jack, who had a watered-steel blade of Turkish design in his right, and nothing in his left. This would have created a reasonably even match, were it not for the fact that they were surrounded by armed men on horseback.

“Greetings Eliza,” said Jack, “supposing that is you. I am back in your life, for better or worse, and I forgive you for harpooning me. Once you prophesied I should never look on your face again. To this point, it holds true, for I must keep a sharp eye on this de Gex until he and I have finished our duel. But after that-”

Eliza, busy squirming free, did not answer.

“A duel would be lovely, Jack,” de Gex was saying, “but a commander on a field of battle must not so indulge himself.” He was holding up his bloodied left hand, beckoning to someone out of Jack’s field of view. His slashed glove flapped like a black flag, dripping blood onto the pavement. Hooves could be heard approaching; one of the gentleman riders trotted in from the perimeter, and stopped, framed in the arch of light through which Jack had just passed. Their route of escape had just been cut off. Eliza got to her feet finally. Jack, whilst keeping his eyes fixed on the face of de Gex, had maneuvered round between the latter and Eliza, and stood now with his back to her, guarding her.

“Captain Shelby,” de Gex said to the horseman, “have you a pistol?”

“Indeed, my lord.”

“Is it loaded?”

“Naturally, my lord.”

“Do you fancy you can hit that bloke, there, him with the Turkish sword?”

“It should pose no great difficulty, my lord.”

“Then pray do so. Good-bye, Jack; and please know that Eliza shall very soon be joining you on the shores of the Lake of Fire.”

The next sound was the report of a firearm; but it came from the roof of an adjoining town-house, not from Captain Shelby. The only sound that came from Captain Shelby was a distasteful spattering, as his brains showered the forecourt of the Opera, followed by a thud as his body, all but decapitated, tumbled out of the saddle.

“That was one English musket-ball,” said a voice, oddly similar to Jack’s, from the parapet of the Opera above. “We have more.”

“Identify yourselves!” demanded de Gex, raising his bloody hand to shield his eyes from the glare of the building’s entrance.

“You are in no position to give orders. But it suits my purposes to let you know that you have been surrounded by the First Company of the First Regiment of Dragoons of the Whig Association Militia, once known, and soon to be known again, as the King’s Own Black Torrent Guards. We have been bivouacked not far away to defend Marlborough House should the need arise, and were drawn here by all of your disorderly conduct.”

“Then do you return to your post, Captain,” said de Gex.

“I am a lowly Sergeant, alas.”

“Then get thee to Marlborough House, Sergeant,” said de Gex, “for I daresay it shall require some defending, before the night is through. What goes on here is no concern of yours; you are away from your post without leave.”

“It is, if truth be told, of direct concern to me, sir,” said the Sergeant, “being a sort of family matter. For unless my eyes are telling me lies, my brother, who has ever been a disgrace to the family name, is down there attempting to redeem himself, and repent, and redress his sins, and so on and so forth, by the ancient and honorable trial of single combat-for the honour of a fair lady, no less! I have sworn, many times in the past, that I’d slay my brother myself if given a chance. And perhaps I will someday. But I’ll not abandon him to be slain when he is about to do something honourable for once in his life. So have at it; but if any of your Horse try to intervene, they’ll be as dead as Captain Shelby. We are Dragoons, and to make short work of foppish cavalry is our bread and butter.”

So spoke Bob Shaftoe. The mounted Jacobites below all heard him, and heeded him; but Father Edouard de Gex missed the last bit, for he had darted inside the Opera House. Jack had lit out after him. After only a moment’s pause, Eliza called out, “Thank you, Bob…”

“No time for it. You hesitate on the threshold,” Bob said, “one part of you saying go with Jack, another saying you’ve no need of such a Vagabond wretch in your life. My voice bids you go in, Eliza, if a Sergeant may command a Duchess. The rabble beyond the fires, there, does not have the discipline or the discretion of these Jacobite riders. In a moment we may have open war here. Get inside! Stay near an exit. If you smell smoke, drop to your hands and knees, crawl out of the building, and run in any direction as fast as you can.”