CHAPTER IX
THE DEATH-CHAMBER
Véronique's estimate was correct, provided that the door opened outwards and that her enemies were at once revealed to view. She therefore examined the door and suddenly observed that, against all logical expectation, it had a large strong bolt at the bottom. Should she make use of it?
She had no time to weigh the advantages or drawbacks of this plan. She had heard a jingle of keys and, almost at the same time, the sound of a key grating in the lock.
Véronique received a very clear vision of what was likely to happen. When the assailants burst in, she would be thrust aside, she would be hampered in her movements, her aim would be inaccurate and her shots would miss, whereupon they would shut the door again and promptly hurry off to François' cell. The thought of it made her lose her head; and her action was instinctive and immediate. First, she pushed the bolt at the foot of the door. Next, half rising, she slammed the iron shutter over the wicket. A latch clicked. It was no longer possible either to enter or to look in.
Then at once she realized the absurdity of her action, which had not opposed any obstacle to the menace of the enemy. Stéphane, leaping to her side, said:
"Good heavens, what have you done? Why, they saw that I was not moving and they now know that I am not alone!"
"Exactly," she answered, striving to defend herself. "They will try to break down the door, which will give us the time we want."
"The time we want for what?"
"To make our escape."
"Which way?"
"François will call out to us. François will."
She did not complete her sentence. They now heard the sound of footsteps moving swiftly down the passage. There was no doubt about it; the enemy, without troubling about Stéphane, whose flight appeared impossible, was making for the upper floor of cells. Moreover, might he not suppose that the two friends were acting in agreement and that it was the boy who was in Stéphane's cell and who had barred the door?
Véronique therefore had precipitated events and given them a turn which she had so many reasons to dread; and François, up above, would be caught at the very moment when he was preparing to escape.
She was utterly overwhelmed:
"Why did I come here?" she muttered. "It would have been so simple to wait! The two of us would have saved you to a certainty."
One idea flashed through the confusion of her mind: had she not sought to hasten Stéphane's release because of what she knew of this man's love for her? And was it not an unworthy curiosity that had prompted her to make the attempt? A horrible idea, which she at once rejected, saying:
"No, I had to come. It is fate which is persecuting us."
"Don't believe it," said Stéphane. "Everything will come right."
"Too late!" said she, shaking her head.
"Why? How do we know that François has not left his cell? You yourself thought so just now.."
She did not reply. Her face became drawn and very pale. By virtue of her sufferings she had acquired a kind of intuition of the evil that threatened her. This evil now surrounded her on every hand. A second series of ordeals was before her, more terrible than the first.
"There's death all about us," she said.
He tried to smile:
"You are talking like the people of Sarek. You have the same fears."
"They were right to be afraid. And you yourself feel the horror of it all."
She rushed to the door, drew the bolt, tried to open it; but what could she do against that massive, iron-clad door?
Stéphane seized her by the arm:
"One moment.. Listen.. It sounds as if."
"Yes," she said, "it's up there that they are knocking.. above our heads.. in François' cell.."
"Not at all, not at all: listen.."
There was a long silence; and then blows were heard in the thickness of the cliff. The sound came from below them.
"The same blows that I heard this morning," said Stéphane, in dismay. "The same attempt of which I spoke to you.. Ah, I understand!."
"What? What do you mean?"
The blows were repeated, at regular intervals, and then ceased, to be followed by a dull, continuous sound, pierced by shriller creakings and sudden cracks, like the straining of machinery newly started, or of one of those capstans which are used for hoisting boats up a beach.
Véronique listened, desperately expectant of what was coming, trying to guess, seeking to find some clue in Stéphane's eyes. He stood in front of her, looking at her as a man, in the hour of danger, looks at the woman he loves.
And suddenly she staggered and had to press her hand against the wall. It was as though the cave and indeed the whole cliff were bodily moving from its place.
"Oh," she murmured, "is it I who am trembling like this? Is it from fear that I am shaking from head to foot?"
Seizing Stéphane's hands, she said:
"Tell me! I want to know!."
He did not answer. There was no fear in his eyes bedewed with tears, there was nothing but immense love and unbounded despair. He was thinking only of her.
Besides, was it necessary for him to explain what was happening? Did not the reality itself become more and more apparent as the seconds passed? A strange reality indeed, having no connection with commonplace facts, a reality quite beyond anything that the imagination might invent in the domain of evil, a strange reality which Véronique, who was beginning to grasp its indication, still refused to believe.
Acting like a trap-door, but like a trap-door working the reverse way, the square of enormous joists which was set in the middle of the cave rose, pivoting on the fixed axis by which it was hinged parallel with the cliff. The almost imperceptible movement was that of an enormous lid opening; and the thing already formed a sort of spring-board reaching from the edge to the back of the cave, a spring-board with as yet a very slight slope, on which it was easy enough to keep one's balance.
At the first moment, Véronique thought that the enemy's object was to crush them between the implacable floor and the granite of the ceiling. But, almost immediately afterwards, she understood that the hateful mechanism, by standing erect like a draw-bridge when hoisted up, was intended to hurl them over the precipice. And it would carry out that intention inexorably. The result was fatal and inevitable. Whatever they might try, whatever efforts they might make to hold on, a minute would come when the floor of that draw-bridge would be absolutely vertical, forming an integral part of the perpendicular cliff.
"It's horrible, it's horrible," she muttered.
Their hands were still clasped. Stéphane was weeping silent tears.
Presently she moaned:
"There's nothing to be done, is there?"
"Nothing," he replied.
"Still, there is room beyond that wooden floor. The cave is round. We might."
"The space is too small. If we tried to stand between the sides of the square and the wall, we should be crushed to death. That has all been planned. I have often thought about it."
"Then.. ?"
"We must wait."
"For what? For whom?"
"For François."
"Oh, François!" she said, with a sob. "Perhaps he too is doomed.. Or perhaps he is looking for us and will fall into some trap. In any case, I shall not see him.. And he will know nothing.. And he will not even have seen his mother before dying.."
She pressed Stéphane's hands and said:
"Stéphane, if one of us escapes death – and I hope it may be you."
"It will be you," he said, in a tone of conviction. "I am even surprised that the enemy should condemn you to the same torture as myself. But no doubt he doesn't know that it's you who are here with me."
"It surprises me too!" said Véronique. "A different torture is set aside for me. But what does it matter, if I am not to see my son again!.. Stéphane, I can safely leave him in your charge, can't I? I know all that you have already done for him."
The floor continued to rise very slowly, with an uneven vibration and sudden jerks. The slope became more accentuated. A few minutes more and they would no longer be able to speak freely and quietly.
Stéphane replied:
"If I survive, I swear to fulfil my task to the end. I swear it in memory."
"In memory of me," she said, in a firm voice, "in memory of the Véronique whom you knew.. and loved."
He looked at her passionately:
"So you know?"
"Yes; and I tell you frankly, I have read your diary. I know your love for me.. and I accept it." She gave a sad smile. "That poor love which you offered to the woman who was absent.. and which you are now offering to the woman who is about to die."
"No, no," he said, eagerly, "don't believe that.. Salvation may be near at hand.. I feel it. My love does not belong to the past but to the future."
He stooped to put his lips to her hands.
"Kiss me," she said, offering him her forehead.
Each of them had been obliged to place one foot on the brink of the precipice, on the straight edge of granite which ran parallel with the fourth side of the spring-board.
They kissed gravely.
"Hold me firmly," said Véronique.
She leant back as far as she could, raising her head, and called in a muffled voice:
"François.. François.."
But there was no one at the upper opening, from which the ladder was still hanging by one of its hooks, well out of reach.
Véronique bent over the sea. At this spot, the swell of the cliff did not project as much as elsewhere; and she saw, in between the foam-topped reefs, a little pool of still water, very calm and so deep that she could not see the bottom. She thought that death would be gentler there than on the sharp-pointed rocks and, yielding to a sudden longing to have done with it all and to avoid a lingering agony, she said to Stéphane:
"Why wait for the end? Better die than suffer this torture."
"No, no!" he exclaimed, horrified at the thought that Véronique might disappear from his sight.
"Then you are still hoping?"
"Until the last second, since it's your life that's at stake."
"I have no longer any hope."
Nor was he borne up by hope; but he would have given anything to lull Véronique's sufferings and to bear the whole weight of the supreme ordeal himself.
The floor continued to rise. The vibration had ceased and the slope became much more marked, already reaching the bottom of the wicket, half way up the door. Then there was a sound like a sudden stoppage of machinery, followed by a violent jolt, and the whole wicket was covered. It was becoming impossible for them to stand erect.
They lay down on the slanting floor, bracing their feet against the granite edge.
Two more jerks occurred, each time pushing the upper end still higher. The top of the inner wall was reached; and the enormous mechanism moved slowly forward, along the ceiling, towards the opening of the cave. They could see very plainly that it would fit this opening exactly and close it hermetically, like a draw-bridge. The rock had been hewn in such a way that the deadly task might be accomplished without leaving any loophole for chance.
They did not utter a word. With hands tight-clasped, they resigned themselves to the inevitable. Their death was assuming the aspect of an event decreed by destiny. The machine had been constructed far back in the centuries and had no doubt been reconstructed, repaired and put in order at a more recent date; and during those centuries, worked by invisible executioners, it had caused the death of culprits, of guilty men and innocent, of men of Armorica, Gaul, France or foreign lands. Prisoners of war, sacrilegious monks, persecuted peasants, renegade Chouans and soldiers of the Revolution; one by one the monster had hurled them over the cliff.
To-day it was their turn.
They had not even the bitter solace of rage and hatred. Whom were they to hate? They were dying in the deepest obscurity, with no hostile face emerging from that implacable night. They were dying in the accomplishment of a task unknown to themselves, to make up a total, so to speak, and for the fulfilment of absurd prophecies, of imbecile intentions, such as the orders given by the barbarian gods and formulated by fanatical priests. They were – it was a thing unheard of – the victims of some expiatory sacrifice, of some holocaust offered to the divinities of a blood-thirsty creed!
The wall stood behind them. In a few more minutes it would be perpendicular. The end was approaching.
Time after time Stéphane had to hold Véronique back. An increasing terror distracted her mind. She yearned to fling herself down.
"Please, please," she stammered, "do let me.. I am suffering more than I can bear."
Had she not found her son again, she would have retained her self-control to the end. But the thought of François was unsettling her. The boy must also be a prisoner, they must be torturing him too and immolating him, like his mother, on the altars of the execrable gods.
"No, no, he will come," Stéphane declared. "You will be saved.. I will have it so.. I know it."
She replied, wildly:
"He is imprisoned as we are.. They are burning him with torches, driving arrows into him, tearing his flesh.. Oh, my poor little son!."
"He will come, dear, he told you he would. Nothing can separate a mother and son who have been brought together again."
"We have found each other in death; we shall be united in death. I wish it might be at once! I don't want him to suffer!"
The agony was too great. With an effort she released her hands from Stéphane's and made a movement to fling herself down. But she immediately threw herself back against the draw-bridge, with a cry of amazement which was echoed by Stéphane.
Something had passed before their eyes and disappeared again. It came from the left.
"The ladder!" exclaimed Stéphane. "It's the ladder, isn't it?"
"Yes, it's François," said Véronique, catching her breath with joy and hope. "He is saved. He is coming to rescue us."
At that moment, the wall of torment was almost upright, vibrating implacably beneath their shoulders. The cave no longer existed behind them. The depths had already claimed them; at most they were clinging to a narrow ledge.
Véronique leant outwards again. The ladder swung back and then became stationary, fixed by its two hooks.
Above them, at the opening in the cliff, was a boy's face; and the boy was smiling and making gestures:
"Mother, mother.. quick!"
The call was eager and urgent. The two arms were outstretched towards the pair below. Véronique moaned:
"Oh, it's you, it's you, my darling!"
"Quick, mother, I'm holding the ladder!.. Quick!.. It's quite safe!"
"I'm coming, darling, I'm coming."
She had seized the nearest upright. This time, with Stéphane's assistance, she had no difficulty in placing her foot on the bottom rung. But she said:
"And you, Stéphane? You're coming with me, aren't you?"
"I have plenty of time," he said. "Hurry."
"No, you must promise."
"I swear. Hurry."
She climbed four rungs and stopped:
"Are you coming, Stéphane?"
He had already turned towards the cliff and slipped his left hand into a narrow fissure which remained between the draw-bridge and the rock. His right hand reached the ladder and he was able to set foot on the lowest rung. He too was saved.
With what delight Véronique covered the rest of the distance! What mattered the void below her, now that her son was there, waiting for her to clasp him to her breast at last!
"Here I am, here I am," she said. "Here I am, my darling."
She swiftly put her head and shoulders in the window. He pulled her through; and she climbed over the ledge. At last she was with her son.
They flung themselves into each other's arms:
"Oh, mother, mother, is it really true? Mother!"
But she had no sooner closed her arms about him than she drew back a little, she did not know why. An inexplicable discomfort checked her first outburst.
"Come here," she said, dragging him to the light of the window. "Come and let me look at you."
The boy did as she wished. She examined him for two or three seconds, no longer, and suddenly, giving a start of terror, ejaculated:
"Then it's you? It's you, the murderer?"
Oh, horror! She was once more looking on the face of the monster who had killed her father and Honorine before her eyes!
"So you know me?" he chuckled.
Véronique realised her mistake from the boy's very tone. This was not François but the other, the one who had played his devilish part in the clothes which François usually wore.
He gave another chuckle:
"Ah, you're beginning to see things as they are, ma'am! You know me now, don't you?"
The hateful face contracted, became wicked and cruel, animated by the vilest expression.
"Vorski! Vorski!" stammered Véronique. "It's Vorski I recognise in you."
He burst out laughing:
"Why not? Do you think I'm going to disown my father as you did?"
"Vorski's son! His son!" Véronique repeated.
"Lord bless me, yes, his son: why shouldn't I be? Surely the good fellow had the right to have two sons! Me first and dear François next!"
"Vorski's son!" Véronique exclaimed once more.
"And one of the best, I tell you, ma'am, a worthy son of his father and brought up on the highest principles. I've shown you as much already, haven't I? But it's not finished, we're only at the beginning.. Here, would you like me to give you a fresh proof? Just take a squint at that stick-in-the-mud of a tutor!.. No, but look how things go when I take a hand in them."
He sprang to the window. Stéphane's head appeared. The boy picked up a stone and struck with all his might, throwing him backwards.
Véronique, who at the first moment had hesitated, not realising the danger, now rushed and seized the boy's arm. It was too late. The head vanished. The hooks of the ladder slipped off the ledge. There was a loud cry, followed by the sound of a body falling into the water below.
Véronique ran to the window. The ladder was floating on the part of the little pool which she was able to see, lying motionless in its frame of rocks. There was nothing to point to the place where Stéphane had fallen, not an eddy, not a ripple.
She called out:
"Stéphane! Stéphane!."
No reply, nothing but the great silence of space in which the winds are still and the sea asleep.
"You villain, what have you done?" she cried.
"Don't take on, missus," he said. "Master Stéphane brought up your kid to be a duffer. Come it's a laughing matter, it is, really. Give us a kiss, won't you, daddy's missus? But, I say, what a face you're pulling! Surely you don't hate me as much as all that?"
He went up to her, with his arms outstretched. Véronique swiftly covered him with her revolver:
"Be off, be off, or I'll kill you as I would a mad dog! Be off!"
The boy's face became more inhuman than ever. He fell back step by step, snarling:
"Oh, I'll make you pay for this, my pretty lady!.. What do you mean by it? I come up to give you a kiss.. I'm full of kindly feelings.. and you want to shoot me! You shall pay for it in blood.. in nice red flowing blood.. blood.. blood.."
He seemed to love the sound of the word. He repeated it time after time, then once more gave a burst of evil laughter and fled down the tunnel which led to the Priory, shouting:
"The blood of your son, Mother Véronique!.. The blood of your darling François!"
CHAPTER X
THE ESCAPE
Shuddering, uncertain how to act next, Véronique listened till she no longer heard the sound of his footsteps. What should she do? The murder of Stéphane had for a moment turned her thoughts from François; but she now once more fell a prey to anguish. What had become of her son? Should she go to him at the Priory and defend him against the dangers that threatened him?
"Come, come," she said, "I'm losing my head.. Let me think things out.. A few hours ago, François was speaking to me through the wall of his prison.. for it was certainly he then, it was certainly François who yesterday took my hand and covered it with his kisses.. A mother cannot be deceived; and I was quivering with love and tenderness.. But since.. since this morning has he not left his prison?"
She stopped to think and then said, slowly:
"That's it.. that's what happened.. Stéphane and I were discovered below, on the floor underneath. The alarm was given at once. The monster, Vorski's son, had gone up expressly to watch François. He found the cell empty and, seeing the opening which had been made, crawled out here. Yes, that's it.. If not, by what way did he come?.. When he got here, it occurred to him to run to the window, knowing that it overlooked the sea and suspecting that François had chosen it to make his escape. He at once saw the hooks of the ladder. Then, on leaning over, he saw me, knew who I was and called out to me.. And now.. now he is on his way to the Priory, where he is bound to meet François.."
Nevertheless Véronique did not stir. She had an instinct that the danger lay not at the Priory but here, by the cells. And she wondered whether François had really succeeded in escaping and whether, before his task was done, he had not been surprised by the other and attacked by him.
It was a horrible doubt! She stooped quickly and, perceiving that the hole had been widened, tried to pass through it herself. But the outlet, at most large enough for a child, was too narrow for her; and her shoulders became fixed. She persisted in the attempt, however, tearing her bodice and bruising her skin against the rock, and at last, by dint of patience and wriggling, succeeded in slipping through.
The cell was empty. But the door was open on the passages facing her; and Véronique had an impression – merely an impression, for the window admitted only a faint light – that some one was just leaving the cell through the open door. And from this confused impression of something that she had not absolutely seen she retained the certainty that it was a woman who was hiding there, in the passage, a woman surprised by her unexpected entrance.
"It's their accomplice," thought Véronique. "She came up with the boy who killed Stéphane, and she has no doubt taken François away.. Perhaps François is even there still, quite near me, while she's watching me.."
Meanwhile Véronique's eyes were growing accustomed to the semidarkness and she distinctly saw a woman's hand upon the door, which opened inwardly. The hand was slowly pulling.
"Why doesn't she shut it at once," Véronique wondered, "since she obviously wants to put a barrier between us?"
Véronique received her answer when she heard a pebble grating under the door and interfering with its movement. If the pebble were not there, the door would be closed. Without hesitating, Véronique went up, took hold of a great iron handle and pulled it towards her. The hand disappeared, but the opposition continued. There was evidently a handle on the other side as well.
Suddenly she heard a whistle. The woman was summoning assistance. And almost at the same time, in the passage, at some distance from the woman, there was a cry:
"Mother! Mother!"
Ah, with what deep emotion Véronique heard that cry! Her son, her real son was calling to her, her son, still a captive but alive! Oh, the superhuman delight of it!
"I'm here, darling!"
"Quick, mother! I'm tied up; and the whistle is their signal.. they'll be coming."
"I'm here.. I shall save you before they come!"
She had no doubt of the result. It seemed to her as though her strength knew no limits and as though nothing could resist the exasperated tension of her whole being.
Her adversary was in fact weakening and giving ground by inches. The opening became wider; and suddenly the contest was over. Véronique walked through.
The woman had already fled down the passage and was dragging the boy by a rope in order to make him walk despite the cords with which he was bound. It was a vain attempt and she abandoned it forthwith. Véronique was close to her, with her revolver in her hand.
The woman let go the boy and stood up in the light from the open cells. She was dressed in white serge, with a knotted girdle round her waist. Her arms were half bare. Her face was still young, but faded, thin and wrinkled. Her hair was fair, interspersed with strands of white. Her eyes gleamed with a feverish hatred.
The two women looked at each other without a word, like two adversaries who have met before and are about to fight again. Véronique almost smiled, with a smile of mingled triumph and defiance. In the end she said:
"If you dare to lay a finger on my child, I'll kill you. Go! Be off!"
The woman was not frightened. She seemed to be reflecting and to be listening in the expectation of assistance. None come. Then she lowered her eyes to François and made a movement as though to seize upon her prey again.
"Don't touch him!" Véronique exclaimed, violently. "Don't touch him, or I fire!"
The woman shrugged her shoulders and said, in measured accents:
"No threats, please! If I had wanted to kill that child of yours, I should have done so by now. But his hour has not come; and it is not by my hand that he is to die."
Véronique, trembling all over, could not help asking:
"By whose hand is he to die?"
"By my son's: you know.. the one you've seen."
"Is he your son, the murderer, the monster?"
"He's the son of."
"Silence! Silence!" Véronique commanded. She understood that the woman had been Vorski's mistress and feared that she would make some disclosure in François' presence. "Silence: that name is not to be spoken."
"It will be when it has to be," said the woman. "Ah, I've suffered enough through you, Véronique: it's your turn now; and you're only at the beginning of it!"
"Go!" cried Véronique, pointing her revolver.
"Once more, no threats, please."
"Go, or I fire! I swear it on the head of my son."
The woman retreated, betraying a certain anxiety in spite of herself. But she was seized with a fresh access of rage. Impotently she raised her clenched fists and shouted, in a raucous, broken voice:
"I will be revenged.. You shall see. Véronique.. The cross – do you understand? – the cross is ready.. You are the fourth.. What, oh, what a revenge!"
She shook her gnarled, bony fists. And she continued:
"Oh, how I hate you! Fifteen years of hatred! But the cross will avenge me.. I shall string you up on it myself.. The cross is ready.. you'll see.. the cross is ready for you!."
She walked away slowly, holding herself erect under the threat of the revolver.
"Don't kill her, mother, will you?" whispered François, suspecting the contest in his mother's mind.
Véronique seemed to wake from a dream:
"No, no," she replied, "don't be afraid.. And yet perhaps I ought to."
"Oh, please let her be, mother, and let us go away."
She lifted him in her arms, even before the woman was out of sight, pressed him to her and carried him to the cell as though he weighed no more than a little child.
"Mother, mother," he said.
"Yes, darling, your own mother; and no one shall take you from me again, that I swear to you."
Without troubling about the wounds inflicted by the stone she slipped, this time almost at the first attempt, through the gap made by François, drew him after her and then, but not before, released him from his bonds.
"There is no danger here," she said, "at least for the moment, because they can hardly get at us except by the cell and I shall be able to defend the entrance."
Mother and son exchanged the fondest of embraces. There was now no barrier to part their lips and their arms. They could see each other, could gaze into each other's eyes.
"How handsome you are, my darling!" said Véronique.
She saw no resemblance between him and the boy murderer and was astonished that Honorine could have taken one for the other. And she felt as if she would never weary of admiring the breeding, the frankness and the sweetness which she read in his face.
"And you, mother," he said, "do you think that I ever pictured a mother as beautiful as you? No, not even in my dreams, when you seemed as lovely as a fairy. And yet Stéphane often used to tell me."
She interrupted him:
"We must hurry, dearest, and take refuge from their pursuit. We must go."
"Yes," he said, "and above all we must leave Sarek. I have invented a plan of escape which is bound to succeed. But, first of all, Stéphane: what has become of him? I heard the sound of which I spoke to you underneath my cell and I fear."
She dragged him along by the hand, without answering his question:
"I have many things to tell you, darling, painful things which I must no longer keep from you. But presently will do.. For the moment we must take refuge in the Priory. That woman will go in search of help and come after us."
"But she was not alone, mother, when she entered my cell suddenly and caught me in the act of digging at the wall. There was some one with her."
"A boy, wasn't it? A boy of your own size?"
"I could hardly see. He and the woman fell upon me, bound me and carried me into the passage. Then the woman left me for a moment and he went back to the cell. He therefore knows about this tunnel by now and about the exit in the Priory grounds."
"Yes, I know. But we shall easily get the better of him; and we'll block up the exit."
"But there remains the bridge which joins the two islands," François objected.
"No," she said, "I burnt it down and the Priory is absolutely cut off."
They were walking very quickly, Véronique pressing her pace, François a little anxious at the words spoken by his mother.
"Yes, yes," he said, "I see that there is a good deal which I don't know and which you have kept from me, mother, in order not to frighten me. For instance, when you burnt down the bridge.. It was with the petrol set aside for the purpose, wasn't it, and as arranged with Maguennoc in case of danger? So you were threatened too; and the first attack was made on you, mother?.. And then there was something that woman said with such a hateful look on her face!.. And then.. and then, above all, what has become of Stéphane? They were whispering about him just now in my cell.. All this worries me.. Then again I don't see the ladder which you brought.."
"Please, dearest, don't let us wait a moment. The woman will have found assistance.."
The boy stopped short:
"Mother."