CHAPTER IX
THE DEATH-CHAMBER
Veronique's estimate was correct, provided that the door opened outwardsand that her enemies were at once revealed to view. She thereforeexamined the door and suddenly observed that, against all logicalexpectation, it had a large strong bolt at the bottom. Should she makeuse of it?
She had no time to weigh the advantages or drawbacks of this plan. Shehad heard a jingle of keys and, almost at the same time, the sound of akey grating in the lock.
Veronique received a very clear vision of what was likely to happen.When the assailants burst in, she would be thrust aside, she would behampered in her movements, her aim would be inaccurate and her shotswould miss, whereupon _they_ would shut the door again and promptlyhurry off to Francois' cell. The thought of it made her lose her head;and her action was instinctive and immediate. First, she pushed the boltat the foot of the door. Next, half rising, she slammed the iron shutterover the wicket. A latch clicked. It was no longer possible either toenter or to look in.
Then at once she realized the absurdity of her action, which had notopposed any obstacle to the menace of the enemy. Stephane, leaping toher side, said:
"Good heavens, what have you done? Why, they saw that I was not movingand they now know that I am not alone!"
"Exactly," she answered, striving to defend herself. "They will try tobreak down the door, which will give us the time we want."
"The time we want for what?"
"To make our escape."
"Which way?"
"Francois will call out to us. Francois will . . ."
She did not complete her sentence. They now heard the sound of footstepsmoving swiftly down the passage. There was no doubt about it; the enemy,without troubling about Stephane, whose flight appeared impossible, wasmaking for the upper floor of cells. Moreover, might he not suppose thatthe two friends were acting in agreement and that it was the boy who wasin Stephane's cell and who had barred the door?
Veronique therefore had precipitated events and given them a turn whichshe had so many reasons to dread; and Francois, up above, would becaught 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 towait! The two of us would have saved you to a certainty."
One idea flashed through the confusion of her mind: had she not soughtto hasten Stephane's release because of what she knew of this man's lovefor her? And was it not an unworthy curiosity that had prompted her tomake 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 Stephane. "Everything will come right."
"Too late!" said she, shaking her head.
"Why? How do we know that Francois has not left his cell? You yourselfthought so just now . . . ."
She did not reply. Her face became drawn and very pale. By virtue of hersufferings she had acquired a kind of intuition of the evil thatthreatened her. This evil now surrounded her on every hand. A secondseries 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 itall."
She rushed to the door, drew the bolt, tried to open it; but what couldshe do against that massive, iron-clad door?
Stephane seized her by the arm:
"One moment . . . . Listen . . . . It sounds as if . . ."
"Yes," she said, "it's up there that they are knocking . . . above ourheads . . . in Francois' cell . . . ."
"Not at all, not at all: listen . . . ."
There was a long silence; and then blows were heard in the thickness ofthe cliff. The sound came from below them.
"The same blows that I heard this morning," said Stephane, 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 befollowed by a dull, continuous sound, pierced by shriller creakings andsudden cracks, like the straining of machinery newly started, or of oneof those capstans which are used for hoisting boats up a beach.
Veronique listened, desperately expectant of what was coming, trying toguess, seeking to find some clue in Stephane's eyes. He stood in frontof her, looking at her as a man, in the hour of danger, looks at thewoman 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 movingfrom its place.
"Oh," she murmured, "is it I who am trembling like this? Is it from fearthat I am shaking from head to foot?"
Seizing Stephane'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 wasthinking only of her.
Besides, was it necessary for him to explain what was happening? Did notthe reality itself become more and more apparent as the seconds passed?A strange reality indeed, having no connection with commonplace facts, areality quite beyond anything that the imagination might invent in thedomain of evil, a strange reality which Veronique, who was beginning tograsp 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 caverose, pivoting on the fixed axis by which it was hinged parallel withthe cliff. The almost imperceptible movement was that of an enormous lidopening; and the thing already formed a sort of spring-board reachingfrom the edge to the back of the cave, a spring-board with as yet a veryslight slope, on which it was easy enough to keep one's balance.
At the first moment, Veronique thought that the enemy's object was tocrush them between the implacable floor and the granite of the ceiling.But, almost immediately afterwards, she understood that the hatefulmechanism, by standing erect like a draw-bridge when hoisted up, wasintended to hurl them over the precipice. And it would carry out thatintention inexorably. The result was fatal and inevitable. Whatever theymight try, whatever efforts they might make to hold on, a minute wouldcome 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. Stephane 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. Wemight . . ."
"The space is too small. If we tried to stand between the sides of thesquare and the wall, we should be crushed to death. That has all beenplanned. I have often thought about it."
"Then . . . ?"
"We must wait."
"For what? For whom?"
"For Francois."
"Oh, Francois!" she said, with a sob. "Perhaps he too is doomed . . . .Or perhaps he is looking for us and will fall into some trap. In anycase, I shall not see him . . . . And he will know nothing . . . . Andhe will not even have seen his mother before dying . . . ."
She pressed Stephane's hands and said:
"Stephane, 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 surprisedthat the enemy should condemn you to the same torture as myself. But nodoubt he doesn't know that it's you who are here with me."
"It surprises me too!" said Veronique. "A different torture is set asidefor me. But what does it matter, if I am not to see my son again! . . .Stephane, I can safely leave him in your charge, can't I? I know allthat you have already done for him."
The floor cont
inued to rise very slowly, with an uneven vibration andsudden jerks. The slope became more accentuated. A few minutes more andthey would no longer be able to speak freely and quietly.
Stephane replied:
"If I survive, I swear to fulfil my task to the end. I swear it inmemory . . ."
"In memory of me," she said, in a firm voice, "in memory of theVeronique 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 lovefor me . . . and I accept it." She gave a sad smile. "That poor lovewhich you offered to the woman who was absent . . . and which you arenow offering to the woman who is about to die."
"No, no," he said, eagerly, "don't believe that . . . . Salvation may benear at hand . . . . I feel it. My love does not belong to the past butto 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 theprecipice, on the straight edge of granite which ran parallel with thefourth side of the spring-board.
They kissed gravely.
"Hold me firmly," said Veronique.
She leant back as far as she could, raising her head, and called in amuffled voice:
"Francois . . . . Francois . . . ."
But there was no one at the upper opening, from which the ladder wasstill hanging by one of its hooks, well out of reach.
Veronique bent over the sea. At this spot, the swell of the cliff didnot project as much as elsewhere; and she saw, in between thefoam-topped reefs, a little pool of still water, very calm and so deepthat she could not see the bottom. She thought that death would begentler there than on the sharp-pointed rocks and, yielding to a suddenlonging to have done with it all and to avoid a lingering agony, shesaid to Stephane:
"Why wait for the end? Better die than suffer this torture."
"No, no!" he exclaimed, horrified at the thought that Veronique mightdisappear 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 lullVeronique's sufferings and to bear the whole weight of the supremeordeal himself.
The floor continued to rise. The vibration had ceased and the slopebecame much more marked, already reaching the bottom of the wicket, halfway up the door. Then there was a sound like a sudden stoppage ofmachinery, 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 thegranite 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 movedslowly forward, along the ceiling, towards the opening of the cave. Theycould see very plainly that it would fit this opening exactly and closeit hermetically, like a draw-bridge. The rock had been hewn in such away that the deadly task might be accomplished without leaving anyloophole for chance.
They did not utter a word. With hands tight-clasped, they resignedthemselves to the inevitable. Their death was assuming the aspect of anevent decreed by destiny. The machine had been constructed far back inthe centuries and had no doubt been reconstructed, repaired and put inorder at a more recent date; and during those centuries, worked byinvisible executioners, it had caused the death of culprits, of guiltymen and innocent, of men of Armorica, Gaul, France or foreign lands.Prisoners of war, sacrilegious monks, persecuted peasants, renegadeChouans and soldiers of the Revolution; one by one the monster hadhurled them over the cliff.
To-day it was their turn.
They had not even the bitter solace of rage and hatred. Whom were theyto hate? They were dying in the deepest obscurity, with no hostile faceemerging from that implacable night. They were dying in theaccomplishment of a task unknown to themselves, to make up a total, soto speak, and for the fulfilment of absurd prophecies, of imbecileintentions, such as the orders given by the barbarian gods andformulated by fanatical priests. They were--it was a thing unheardof--the victims of some expiatory sacrifice, of some holocaust offeredto the divinities of a blood-thirsty creed!
The wall stood behind them. In a few more minutes it would beperpendicular. The end was approaching.
Time after time Stephane had to hold Veronique back. An increasingterror distracted her mind. She yearned to fling herself down.
"Please, please," she stammered, "do let me . . . . I am suffering morethan I can bear."
Had she not found her son again, she would have retained herself-control to the end. But the thought of Francois was unsettling her.The boy must also be a prisoner, they must be torturing him too andimmolating him, like his mother, on the altars of the execrable gods.
"No, no, he will come," Stephane declared. "You will be saved . . . . Iwill 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 littleson! . . ."
"He will come, dear, he told you he would. Nothing can separate a motherand son who have been brought together again."
"We have found each other in death; we shall be united in death. I wishit might be at once! I don't want him to suffer!"
The agony was too great. With an effort she released her hands fromStephane's and made a movement to fling herself down. But sheimmediately threw herself back against the draw-bridge, with a cry ofamazement which was echoed by Stephane.
Something had passed before their eyes and disappeared again. It camefrom the left.
"The ladder!" exclaimed Stephane. "It's the ladder, isn't it?"
"Yes, it's Francois," said Veronique, catching her breath with joy andhope. "He is saved. He is coming to rescue us."
At that moment, the wall of torment was almost upright, vibratingimplacably beneath their shoulders. The cave no longer existed behindthem. The depths had already claimed them; at most they were clinging toa narrow ledge.
Veronique leant outwards again. The ladder swung back and then becamestationary, fixed by its two hooks.
Above them, at the opening in the cliff, was a boy's face; and the boywas smiling and making gestures:
"Mother, mother . . . quick!"
The call was eager and urgent. The two arms were outstretched towardsthe pair below. Veronique moaned:
"Oh, it's you, it's you, my darling!"
"Quick, mother, I'm holding the ladder! . . . Quick! . . . It's quitesafe!"
"I'm coming, darling, I'm coming."
She had seized the nearest upright. This time, with Stephane'sassistance, she had no difficulty in placing her foot on the bottomrung. But she said:
"And you, Stephane? 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, Stephane?"
He had already turned towards the cliff and slipped his left hand into anarrow fissure which remained between the draw-bridge and the rock. Hisright hand reached the ladder and he was able to set foot on the lowestrung. He too was saved.
With what delight Veronique covered the rest of the distance! Whatmattered the void below her, now that her son was there, waiting for herto 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 herthrough; 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 alittle,
she did not know why. An inexplicable discomfort checked herfirst outburst.
"Come here," she said, dragging him to the light of the window. "Comeand let me look at you."
The boy did as she wished. She examined him for two or three seconds, nolonger, 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 hadkilled her father and Honorine before her eyes!
"So you know me?" he chuckled.
Veronique realised her mistake from the boy's very tone. This was notFrancois but the other, the one who had played his devilish part in theclothes which Francois 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 thevilest expression.
"Vorski! Vorski!" stammered Veronique. "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!" Veronique repeated.
"Lord bless me, yes, his son: why shouldn't I be? Surely the good fellowhad the right to have two sons! Me first and dear Francois next!"
"Vorski's son!" Veronique exclaimed once more.
"And one of the best, I tell you, ma'am, a worthy son of his father andbrought 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 atthat stick-in-the-mud of a tutor! . . . No, but look how things go whenI take a hand in them."
He sprang to the window. Stephane's head appeared. The boy picked up astone and struck with all his might, throwing him backwards.
Veronique, who at the first moment had hesitated, not realising thedanger, now rushed and seized the boy's arm. It was too late. The headvanished. The hooks of the ladder slipped off the ledge. There was aloud cry, followed by the sound of a body falling into the water below.
Veronique ran to the window. The ladder was floating on the part of thelittle pool which she was able to see, lying motionless in its frame ofrocks. There was nothing to point to the place where Stephane hadfallen, not an eddy, not a ripple.
She called out:
"Stephane! Stephane! . . ."
No reply, nothing but the great silence of space in which the winds arestill and the sea asleep.
"You villain, what have you done?" she cried.
"Don't take on, missus," he said. "Master Stephane brought up your kidto be a duffer. Come it's a laughing matter, it is, really. Give us akiss, 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. Veronique swiftly coveredhim 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 meanby 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 . . . innice 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 tunnelwhich led to the Priory, shouting:
"The blood of your son, Mother Veronique! . . . The blood of yourdarling Francois!"