"Where is she?"
"Here."
"Here?"
"Yes, on the sacrificial stone. She's asleep."
"What, she's asleep?"
"She's been sleeping for centuries, since all time. I've never seen her other than sleeping: a chaste and peaceful slumber. Like the Sleeping Beauty, Velléda is waiting for him whom the gods have appointed to awake her; and that is."
"Who?"
"You, Vorski, you."
Vorski knitted his brows. What was the meaning of this improbable story and what was his impenetrable interlocutor driving at?
The ancient Druid continued:
"That seems to ruffle you! Come, there's no reason, just because your hands are red with blood and because you have thirty coffins on your mind, why you shouldn't have the right to act as Prince Charming. You're too modest, my young friend. Look here, Velléda is marvellously beautiful: I tell you, hers is a superhuman beauty. Ah, my fine fellow, you're getting excited! What? Not yet?"
Vorski hesitated. Really he was feeling the danger increase around him and rise like a swelling wave that is about to break. But the old man would not leave him alone:
"One last word, Vorski; and I'm speaking low so that your friends shan't hear me. When you wrapped your mother in her shroud, you left on her fore-finger, in obedience to her formal wish, a ring which she had always worn, a magic ring made of a large turquoise surrounded by a circle of smaller turquoises set in gold. Am I right?"
"Yes," gasped Vorski, taken aback, "yes, you're right: but I was alone and it is a secret which nobody knew."
"Vorski, if that ring is on Velléda's finger, will you trust me and will you believe that your mother, in her grave, appointed Velléda to receive you, that she herself might hand you the miraculous stone?"
Vorski was already walking towards the tumulus. He quickly climbed the first few steps. His head passed the level of the platform.
"Oh," he said, staggering back, "the ring.. the ring is on her finger!"
Between the two supports of the dolmen, stretched on the sacrificial table and clad in a spotless gown that came down to her feet, lay the Druidess. Her body and face were turned the other way; and a veil hanging over her forehead hid her hair. Almost bare, her shapely arm lay along the table. On the forefinger was a turquoise ring.
"Is that your mother's ring all right?" asked the ancient Druid.
"Yes, there's no doubt about it."
Vorski had hurried across the space between himself and the dolmen and, stooping, almost kneeling, was examining the turquoises.
"The number is complete," he whispered. "One of them is cracked. Another is half covered by the gold setting which has worked down over it."
"You needn't be so cautious," said the old man. "She won't hear you; and your voice can't wake her. What you had better do is to stand up and pass your hand lightly over her forehead. That is the magic caress which will rouse her from her slumber."
Vorski stood up. Nevertheless he hesitated to approach the woman, who inspired him with ungovernable fear and respect.
"Don't come any nearer, you two," said the ancient Druid, addressing Otto and Conrad. "When Velléda's eyes open, they must rest on no one but Vorski and behold no other sight. Well, Vorski, are you afraid?"
"No, I'm not afraid."
"Only you're not feeling comfortable. It's easier to murder people than to bring them to life, what? Come, show yourself a man! Put aside her veil and touch her forehead. The God-Stone is within your reach. Act and you will be the master of the world."
Vorski acted. Standing against the sacrificial altar, he looked down upon the Druidess. He bent over the motionless bust. The white gown rose and fell to the regular rhythm of the breathing. With an undecided hand he drew back the veil and then stooped lower, so that his other hand might touch the uncovered forehead.
But at that moment his action remained, so to speak, suspended and he stood without moving, like a man who does not understand but is vainly trying to understand.
"Well, what's up, old chap?" exclaimed the Druid. "You look petrified. Another squabble? Something gone wrong? Must I come and help you?"
Vorski did not answer. He was staring wildly, with an expression of stupefaction and affright which gradually changed into one of mad terror. Drops of perspiration trickled over his face. His haggard eyes seemed to be gazing upon the most horrible vision.
The old man burst out laughing:
"Lord love us, how ugly you are! I hope the last of the Druidesses won't raise her divine eyelids and see that hideous mug of yours! Sleep, Velléda, sleep your pure and dreamless sleep."
Vorski stood muttering between his teeth incoherent words which conveyed the menace of an increasing anger. The truth became partly revealed to him in a series of flashes. A word rose to his lips which he refused to utter, as though, in uttering it, he feared lest he should give life to a being who was no more, to that woman who was dead, yes, dead though she lay breathing before him: she could not but be dead, because he had killed her. However, in the end and in spite of himself, he spoke; and every syllable cost him intolerable suffering:
"Véronique.. Véronique.."
"So you think she's like her?" chuckled the ancient Druid. "Upon my word, may be you are right: there is a sort of family resemblance.. I dare say, if you hadn't crucified the other with your own hands and if you hadn't yourself received her last breath, you would be ready to swear that the two women are one and the same person.. and that Véronique d'Hergemont is alive and that she's not even wounded.. not even a scar.. not so much as the mark of the cords round her wrists.. But just look, Vorski, what a peaceful face, what comforting serenity! Upon my word, I'm beginning to believe that you made a mistake and that it was another woman you crucified! Just think a bit!.. Hullo, you're going to go for me now! Come to my rescue, O Teutatès! The prophet wants to have my blood!"
Vorski had drawn himself up and was now facing the ancient Druid. His features, fashioned for hatred and fury, had surely never expressed more of either than at this moment. The ancient Druid was not merely the man who for an hour had been toying with him as with a child. He was the man who had performed the most extraordinary feat and who suddenly appeared to him as the most ruthless and dangerous foe. A man like that must be got rid of on the spot, since the opportunity presented itself.
"I'm done!" said the old man. "He's going to eat me up! Crikey, what an ogre!.. Help! Murder! Help!.. Oh, look at his iron fingers! He's going to strangle me!.. Unless he uses a dagger.. or a rope.. No, a revolver! I prefer that, it's neater.. Fire away, Alexis. Two of the seven bullets have already made holes in my best Sunday robe. That leaves five. Fire away, Alexis."
Each word aggravated Vorski's fury. He was eager to get the work over and he shouted:
"Otto.. Conrad.. are you ready?"
He raised his arm. The two assistants likewise took aim. Four paces in front of them stood the old man, laughingly pleading for mercy:
"Please, kind gentlemen, have pity on a poor beggar.. I won't do it again.. I'll be a good boy.. Kind gentlemen, please.."
Vorski repeated:
"Otto.. Conrad.. attention!.. I'm counting three: one.. two.. three.. fire!"
The three shots rang out together. The Druid whirled round with one leg in the air, then drew himself up straight, opposite his adversaries, and cried, in a tragic voice:
"A hit, a palpable hit! Shot through the body! Dead, for a ducat!.. The ancient Druid's kaput!.. A tragic development! Oh, the poor old Druid, who was so fond of his joke!"
"Fire!" roared Vorski. "Shoot, can't you, you idiots? Fire!"
"Fire! Fire!" repeated the Druid. "Bang! Bang! A bull's eye!.. Two!.. Three bull's eyes!.. Your shot, Conrad: bang!.. Yours, Otto: bang!"
The shots rattled and echoed through the great resounding hall. The bewildered and furious accomplices were gesticulating before their target, while the invulnerable old man danced and kicked, now almost squatting on his heels, now leaping up with astounding agility:
"Lord, what fun one can have in a cave! And what a fool you are, Vorski, my own! You blooming old prophet!.. What a mug! But, I say, however could you take it all in? The Bengal lights! The crackers! And the trouser-button! And your old mother's ring!.. You silly juggins! What a spoof!"
Vorski stopped. He realized that the three revolvers had been made harmless, but how? By what unprecedented marvel? What was at the bottom of all this fantastic adventure? Who was that demon standing in front of him?
He flung away his useless weapon and looked at the old man. Was he thinking of seizing him in his arms and crushing the life out of him? He also looked at the woman and seemed ready to fall upon her. But he obviously no longer felt equal to facing those two strange creatures, who appeared to him to be remote from the world and from actuality.
Then, quickly, he turned on his heel and, calling to his accomplices, made for the crypts, followed by the ancient Druid's jeers:
"Look at that now! He's slinging his hook! And the God-Stone, what about it? What do you want me to do with it?.. I say, isn't he showing a clean pair of heels!.. Hi! Are your trousers on fire? Yoicks, tally-ho, tally-ho! Proph – et Proph – et!."
CHAPTER XV
THE HALL OF THE UNDERGROUND SACRIFICES
Vorski had never known fear and he was perhaps not yielding to an actual sense of fear in taking to flight now. But he no longer knew what he was doing. His bewildered brain was filled with a whirl of contradictory and incoherent ideas in which the intuition of an irretrievable and to some extent supernatural defeat held the first place.
Believing as he did in witchcraft and wonders, he had an impression that Vorski, the man of destiny, had fallen from his mission and been replaced by another chosen favourite of destiny. There were two miraculous forces opposed to each other, one emanating from him, Vorski, the other from the ancient Druid; and the second was absorbing the first. Véronique's resurrection, the ancient Druid's personality, the speeches, the jokes, the leaps and bounds, the actions, the invulnerability of that spring-heeled individual, all this seemed to him magical and fabulous; and it created, in these caves of the barbaric ages, a peculiar atmosphere which stifled and demoralized him.
He was eager to return to the surface of the earth. He wanted to breathe and see. And what he wanted above all to see was the tree stripped of its branches to which he had tied Véronique and on which Véronique had expired.
"For she is dead," he snarled, as he crawled through the narrow passage which communicated with the third and largest of the crypts. "She is dead. I know what death means. I have often held it in my hands and I make no mistakes. Then how did that demon manage to bring her to life again?"
He stopped abruptly near the block on which he had picked up the sceptre:
"Unless." he said.
Conrad, following him, cried:
"Hurry up, instead of chattering."
Vorski allowed himself to be pulled along; but, as he went, he continued:
"Shall I tell you what I think, Conrad? Well, the woman he showed us, the one asleep, wasn't that one at all. Was she even alive? Oh, the old wizard is capable of anything! He'll have modelled a figure, a wax doll, and given it her likeness."
"You're mad. Get on!"
"I'm not mad. That woman was not alive. The one who died on the tree is properly dead. And you'll find her again up there, I warrant you. Miracles, yes, but not such a miracle as that!"
Having left their lantern behind them, the three accomplices kept bumping against the wall and the upright stones. Their footsteps echoed from vault to vault. Conrad never ceased grumbling:
"I warned you.. We ought to have broken his head."
Otto, out of breath with walking, said nothing.
Thus, groping their way, they reached the lobby which preceded the entrance-crypt; and they were not a little surprised to find that this first hall was dark, though the passage which they had dug in the upper part, under the roots of the dead oak, ought to have given a certain amount of light.
"That's funny," said Conrad.
"Pooh!" said Otto. "We've only got to find the ladder hooked to the wall. Here, I have it.. here's a step.. and the next.."
He climbed the rungs, but was pulled up almost at once:
"Can't get any farther.. It's as if there had been a fall of earth."
"Impossible!" Vorski protested. "However, wait a bit, I was forgetting: I have my pocket-lighter."
He struck a light; and the same cry of anger escaped all three of them: the whole of the top of the staircase and half the room was buried under a heap of stones and sand, with the trunk of the dead oak fallen in the middle. Not a chance of escape remained.
Vorski gave way to a fit of despair and collapsed on the stairs:
"We're tricked. It's that old brute who has played us this trick.. which shows that he's not alone."
He bewailed his fate, raving, lacking the strength to continue the unequal struggle. But Conrad grew angry:
"I say, Vorski, this isn't like you, you know."
"There's nothing to be done against that fellow."
"Nothing to be done! In the first place, there's this, as I've told you twenty times: wring his neck. Oh, why did I restrain myself?"
"You couldn't even have laid a hand on him. Did any of our bullets touch him?"
"Our bullets.. our bullets," muttered Conrad. "All this strikes me as mighty queer. Hand me your lighter. I have another revolver, which comes from the Priory: and I loaded it myself yesterday morning. I'll soon see."
He examined the weapon and was not long in discovering that the seven cartridges which he had put in the cylinder had been replaced by seven cartridges from which the bullets had been extracted and which could therefore fire nothing except blank shots.
"That explains it," he said, "and your ancient Druid is no more of a wizard than I am. If our revolvers had been really loaded, we'd have shot him down like a dog."
But the explanation only increased Vorski's alarm:
"And how did he unload them? At what moment did he manage to take our revolvers from our pockets and put them back after drawing the charges? I did not leave go of mine for an instant."
"No more did I," Conrad admitted.
"And I defy any one to touch it without my knowing. So what then? Doesn't it prove that that demon has a special power? After all, we must look at things as they are. He's a man who possesses secrets of his own.. and who has means at his disposal, means which."
Conrad shrugged his shoulders:
"Vorski, this business has shattered you. You were within reach of the goal and yet you let go at the first obstacle. You're turned into a dish-cloth. Well, I don't bow my head like you. Tricked? Why so? If he comes after us, there are three of us."
"He won't come. He'll leave us here shut up in a burrow with no way out of it."
"Then, if he doesn't come, I'll go back there, I will! I've got my knife; that's enough for me."
"You're wrong, Conrad."
"How am I wrong? I'm a match for any man, especially for that old blighter; and he's only got a sleeping woman to help him."
"Conrad, he's not a man and she's not a woman. Be careful."
"I'm careful and I'm going."
"You're going, you're going; but what's your plan?"
"I've no plan. Or rather, if I have, it's to out that beggar."
"All the same, mind what you're doing. Don't go for him bull-headed; try to take him by surprise."
"Well, of course!" said Conrad, moving away. "I'm not ass enough to risk his attacks. Be easy, I've got the bounder!"
Conrad's daring comforted Vorski.
"After all," he said, when his accomplice was gone, "he's right. If that old Druid didn't come after us, it's because he's got other ideas in his head. He certainly doesn't expect us to return on the offensive; and Conrad can very well take him by surprise. What do you say, Otto?"
Otto shared his opinion:
"He has only to bide his time," he replied.
Fifteen minutes passed. Vorski gradually recovered his assurance. He had yielded to the reaction, after an excess of hope followed by disappointment too great for him to bear and also because of the weariness and depression produced by his drinking-bout. But the fighting spirit stimulated him once more; and he was anxious to have done with his adversary.
"I shouldn't be surprised," he said, "if Conrad had finished him off by now."
By this time he had acquired an exaggerated confidence which proved his unbalanced state of mind; and he wanted to go back again at once.
"Come along, Otto, it's the last trip. An old beggar to get rid of; and the thing's done. You've got your dagger? Besides, it won't be wanted. My two hands will do the trick."
"And suppose that blasted Druid has friends?"
"We'll see."
He once more went towards the crypts, moving cautiously and watching the opening of the passages which led from one to the other. No sound reached their ears. The light in the third crypt showed them the way.
"Conrad must have succeeded," Vorski observed. "If not, he would have shirked the fight and come back to us."
Otto agreed.
"It's a good sign, of course, that we don't see him. The ancient Druid must have had a bad time of it. Conrad is a scorcher."
They entered the third crypt. Things were in the places where they had left them: the sceptre on the block and the pommel, which Vorski had unfastened, a little way off, on the ground. But, when he cast his eyes towards the shadowy recess where the ancient Druid was sleeping when they first arrived, he was astounded to see the old fellow, not exactly at the same place, but between the recess and the exit to the passage.
"Hang it, what's he doing?" he stammered, at once upset by that unexpected presence. "One would think he was asleep!"
The ancient Druid, in fact, appeared to be asleep. Only, why on earth was he sleeping in that attitude, flat on his stomach, with his arms stretched out on either side and his face to the floor? No man on his guard, or at least aware that he was in some sort of danger, would expose himself in this way to the enemy's attack. Moreover – Vorski's eyes were gradually growing accustomed to the half-darkness of the end crypt – moreover the white robe was marked with stains which looked red, which undoubtedly were red. What did it mean?
Otto said, in a low voice:
"He's lying in a queer attitude."
Vorski was thinking the same thing and put it more plainly:
"Yes, the attitude of a corpse."
"The attitude of a corpse," Otto agreed. "That's it, exactly."
Vorski presently fell back a step:
"Oh," he exclaimed, "can it be?"
"What?" asked the other.
"Between the two shoulders.. Look."
"Well?"
"The knife."
"What knife?"
"Conrad's," Vorski declared. "Conrad's dagger. I recognise it. Driven in between the shoulders." And he added, with a shudder, "That's where the red stains come from.. It's blood.. blood flowing from the wound."
"In that case," Otto remarked, "he is dead?"
"He's dead, yes, the ancient Druid is dead.. Conrad must have surprised him and killed him.. The ancient Druid is dead."
Vorski remained undecided for a while, ready to fall upon the lifeless body and to stab it in his turn. But he dared no more touch it now that it was dead than when it was alive; and all that he had the courage to do was to run and wrench the dagger from the wound.
"Ah," he cried, "you scoundrel, you've got what you deserve! And Conrad is a champion. I shan't forget you, Conrad, be sure of that."
"Where can Conrad be?"
"In the hall of the God-Stone. Ah, Otto, I'm itching to get back to the woman whom the ancient Druid put there and to settle her hash too!"
"Then you believe that she's a live woman?" chuckled Otto.
"And very much alive at that.. like the ancient Druid! That wizard was only a fake, with a few tricks of his own, perhaps, but no real power. There's the proof!"
"A fake, if you like," the accomplice objected. "But, all the same, he showed you by his signals the way to enter these caves. Now what was his object in that? And what was he doing here? Did he really know the secret of the God-Stone, the way to get possession of it and exactly where it is?"
"You're right. It's all so many riddles," said Vorski, who preferred not to examine the details of the adventure too closely. "But it's so many riddles which'll answer themselves and which I'm not troubling about for the moment, because it's no longer that creepy individual who's putting them to me."
For the third time they went through the narrow communicating passage. Vorski entered the great hall like a conqueror, with his head high and a confident glance. There was no longer any obstacle, no longer any enemy to overcome. Whether the God-Stone was suspended between the stones of the ceiling, or whether the God-Stone was elsewhere, he was sure to discover it. There remained the mysterious woman who looked like Véronique, but who could not be Véronique and whose real identity he was about to unmask.
"Always presuming that she's still there," he muttered. "And I very much suspect that she's gone. She played her part in the ancient Druid's obscure schemes: and the ancient Druid, thinking me out of the way."
He stepped forward and climbed a few steps.
The woman was there. She was there, lying on the lower table of the dolmen, shrouded in veils as before. The arm no longer hung towards the ground. There was only the hand emerging from the veils. The turquoise ring was on the finger.
"She hasn't moved," said Otto. "She's still asleep."
"Perhaps she is asleep," said Vorski. "I'll watch her. Leave me alone."
He went nearer. He still had Conrad's dagger in his hand: and perhaps it was this that suggested killing to him, for his eyes fell upon the weapon and it was not till then that he seemed to realise that he was carrying it and that he might make use of it.
He was not more than three paces from the woman, when he perceived that the wrist which was uncovered was all bruised and as it were mottled with black patches, which evidently came from the cords with which she had been bound. Now the ancient Druid had remarked, an hour ago, that the wrists showed no signs of a bruise!
This detail confounded him anew, first, because it proved to him that this was really the woman whom he had crucified, who had been taken down and who was now before his eyes and, secondly, because he was suddenly reentering the domain of miracles; and Véronique's arm appeared to him, alternately, under two different aspects, as the arm of a living, uninjured woman and as the arm of a lifeless, tortured victim.
His trembling hand clutched the dagger, clinging to it, in a manner of speaking, as the only instrument of salvation. Once more in his confused brain the idea arose of striking, not to kill, because the woman must be dead, but of striking the invisible enemy who persisted in thwarting him and of conjuring all the evil spells at one blow.
He raised his arm. He chose the spot. His face assumed an expression of extreme savagery, lit up with the joy of murder. And suddenly he swooped down, striking, like a madman, at random, ten times, twenty times, with a frenzied unbridling of all his instincts.
"Take that and die!" he spluttered. "Another!.. Die!.. And let's have an end of this.. You are the evil genius that's been resisting me.. and now I'm killing you.. Die and leave me free!.. Die so that I shall be the only master!"
He stopped to take breath. He was exhausted. And while his haggard eyes stared blindly at the horrible spectacle of the lacerated corpse, he received the strange impression that a shadow was placing itself between him and the sunlight which came through the opening overhead.
"Do you know what you remind me of?" said a voice.
He was dumbfounded. The voice was not Otto's voice. And the voice continued, while he stood with his head lowered and stupidly holding his dagger planted in the dead woman's body:
"Do you know what you remind me of, Vorski? You remind me of the bulls of my country. Let me tell you that I am a Spaniard and a great frequenter of the bull-ring. Well, when our bulls have gored some poor old cab-horse that is only fit for the knacker's yard, they go back to the body, from time to time, turn it over, gore it again, keep on killing it and killing it. You're like them, Vorski. You're seeing red. In order to defend yourself against the living enemy, you fall desperately on the enemy who is no longer alive; and it is death itself that you are trying to kill. What a silly beast you're making of yourself!"
Vorski raised his head. A man was standing in front of him, leaning against one of the uprights of the dolmen. The man was of the average height, with a slender, well-built figure, and seemed to be still young, notwithstanding his hair, which was turning grey at the temples. He wore a blue-serge jacket with brass buttons and a yachting-cap with a black peak.
"Don't trouble to rack your brains," he said. "You don't know me. Let me introduce myself: Don Luis Perenna, grandee of Spain, a noble of many countries and Prince of Sarek. Yes, don't be surprised: I've taken the title of Prince of Sarek, having a certain right to it."
Vorski looked at him without understanding. The man continued:
"You don't seem very familiar with the Spanish nobility. Still, just test your memory: I am the gentleman who was to come to the rescue of the d'Hergemont family and the people of Sarek, the one whom your son François was expecting with such simple faith.. Well, are you there?.. Look, your companion, the trusty Otto, he seems to remember!.. But perhaps my other name will convey more to you? It is well and favourably known. Lupin.. Arsène Lupin.."
Vorski watched him with increasing terror and with a misgiving which became more accentuated at each word and movement of this new adversary. Though he recognized neither the man nor the man's voice, he felt himself dominated by a will of which he had already felt the power and lashed by the same sort of implacable irony. But was it possible?
"Everything is possible," Don Luis Perenna went on, "including even what you think. But I repeat, what a silly beast you're making of yourself! Here are you playing the bold highwayman, the dashing adventurer; and you're frightened the moment you set eyes on one of your crimes! As long as it was just a matter of happy-go-lucky killing, you went straight ahead. But the first little jolt throws you off the track. Vorski kills; but whom has he killed? He has no idea. Is Véronique d'Hergemont dead or alive? Is she fastened to the oak on which you crucified her? Or is she lying here, on the sacrificial table? Did you kill her up there or down here? You can't tell. You never even thought, before you stabbed, of looking to see what you were stabbing. The great thing for you is to slash away with all your might, to intoxicate yourself with the sight and smell of blood and to turn live flesh into a hideous pulp. But look, can't you, you idiot? When a man kills, he's not afraid of killing and he doesn't hide the face of his victim. Look, you idiot!"
He himself stopped over the corpse and unwrapped the veil around the head.
Vorski had closed his eyes. Kneeling, with his chest pressed against the dead woman's legs, he remained without moving and kept his eyes obstinately shut.
"Are you there now?" chuckled Don Luis. "If you daren't look, it's because you've guessed or because you're on the point of guessing, you wretch: am I right? Your idiot brain is working it out: am I right? There were two women in the Isle of Sarek and two only, Véronique and the other.. the other whose name was Elfride, I understand: am I right? Elfride and Véronique, your two wives, one the mother of Raynold, the other the mother of François. So, if it's not François' mother whom you tied on the cross and whom you've just stabbed, then it's Raynold's mother. If the woman lying here, with her wrists bruised by the torture, is not Véronique, then she's Elfride. There's no mistake possible: Elfride, your wife and your accomplice; Elfride, your willing and subservient tool. And you know it so well that you would rather take my word for it than risk a glance and see the livid face of that dead woman, of your obedient accomplice tortured by yourself. You miserable poltroon!"
Vorski had hidden his head in his folded arms. He was not weeping. Vorski could not weep. Nevertheless, his shoulders were jerking convulsively; and his whole attitude expressed the wildest despair.
This lasted for some time. Then the shaking of the shoulders ceased. Still Vorski did not stir.
"Upon my word, you move me to pity, you poor old buffer!" said Don Luis. "Were you so fond of your Elfride as all that? She had become a habit, what? A mascot? Well, what can I say? People as a rule aren't such fools as you! They know what they're doing. They look before they leap! Hang it all, they stop to think! Whereas you go floundering about in crime like a new-born babe struggling in the water! No wonder you sink and go to the bottom.. The ancient Druid, for instance: is he dead or alive? Did Conrad stick a dagger into his back, or was I playing the part of that diabolical personage? In short, are there an ancient Druid and a Spanish grandee, or are the two individuals one and the same? This is all a sealed book to you, my poor fellow. And yet you'll want an explanation. Shall I help you?"
If Vorski had acted without thinking, it was easy to see, when he raised his head, that on this occasion he had taken time to reflect; that he knew very well the desperate resolve which circumstances called upon him to take. He was certainly ready for an explanation, as Don Luis suggested, but he wanted it dagger in hand, with the implacable intention of using it. Slowly, with his eyes fixed on Don Luis and without concealing his purpose, he had freed his weapon and was rising to his feet.
"Take care," said Don Luis. "Your knife is faked as your revolver was. It's made of tin-foil."
Useless pleasantry! Nothing could either hasten or delay the methodical impulse which urged Vorski to the supreme contest. He walked round the sacred table and took up his stand in front of Don Luis.