The Casque's Lark; or, Victoria, the Mother of the Camps
Page 26
CHAPTER IX.
KIDDA, THE BOHEMIAN GIRL.
On leaving the general of the army I walked home disconsolate. Crime wastriumphant. I returned home, to the house of my foster-sister, where Iremained until my departure for Brittany. I was engaged with Sampsopacking up the last articles needed on our journey, when the followingunlooked-for events happened on that night.
Mora, the servant, had also remained in the house. The woman's grief ather mistress's death touched my heart. On the night that I am writingabout, my son, while engaged with your second mother in the preparationsfor our journey, we found that we needed another trunk. I wentdownstairs in search of one into a room that was separated from Mora'schamber by a rough wooden partition. It was past midnight. Upon enteringthe room where the trunk was, I noticed, to my no slight astonishment,that a bright light shone from the servant's room through the clefts ofthe partition. Fearing that the woman's bed might have taken fire whileshe slept, I hastened to peep through the clefts in the boards. Ibounded back with astonishment, but quickly returned to my place ofobservation.
Mora was contemplating herself in a little silver mirror by the light oftwo lamps, the gleam of which had first attracted my attention. But itwas no longer Mora the Mauritanian; at least, her bronze complexion haddisappeared! I now saw her a pale brunette, coiffed in a rich gold bandornamented with precious stones. The woman smiled at herself in theglass. She put a long pearl earring to one of her ears, and--strangestof all--she wore a corsage of some silvery material and a scarlet skirt.
I recognized Kidda, the Bohemian girl.
Alas! I had seen the creature only once, and then only by the light ofthe moon, on that fateful night, when, suddenly recalled to Mayence bythe mysterious notification given me by my traveling companion, I slewVictorin in my house, together with my beloved wife Ellen.
Rage followed close upon the heels of my stupor--a horrible suspicionflashed through my mind. I bolted from the inside the room in which Iwas; with a violent thrust of my shoulder--rage multiplied my strength ahundredfold--I broke down one of the boards of the partition, andsuddenly I stood before the eyes of the startled Bohemian. With one handI seized her and threw her upon her knees, with the other I took one ofthe two heavy iron lamps, and raising it over the woman's head I cried:
"I shall shatter your skull if you do not immediately confess yourcrimes!"
Kidda believed she read the decree of her death in my face. She grewlivid and murmured:
"Kill me not! I shall speak!"
"You are Kidda, the Bohemian girl?"
"Yes--I am Kidda."
"You were formerly at Mayence--and, as the price of your favors, youexacted of Victorin that he dishonor my wife Ellen?"
"Yes--that is so!"
"You were acting under orders of Tetrik?"
"No, I never spoke to him."
"Whose orders were you, then, following?"
"Of Tetrik's equerry."
"The man is cautious," I thought to myself. "And the soldier who on thatfateful night announced to me that a heinous crime was being perpetratedin my house--do you know who he was?"
"It was Captain Marion's companion in arms, he was a former blacksmith,like Marion."
"Did Tetrik also know that soldier?"
"No, it was Tetrik's equerry who had secret conferences with him atMayence."
"And where is that soldier now?"
"He died."
"After Tetrik employed him to assassinate Captain Marion?"
The girl looked puzzled.
"Did Tetrik cause him to be put to death? Answer!"
"I think so!"
"And it is that same equerry who sent you to this house under the guiseof Mora, the Mauritanian? Was it in order to disguise yourself that youpainted your face?"
"Yes--that is all so."
"You were to spy upon your mistress, were you not?--and then poison her?Speak! If you believe in a God--if your infernal soul dares at thissupreme moment to implore his help--you have but a minute tolive--Speak!"
"Have pity upon me!"
"Confess your crime--you committed it under orders of Tetrik? Speak!"
"Yes, I was ordered by Tetrik."
"When--how did he give you the order to execute that crime?"
"When I entered the room the second time--after I was sent to bringCaptain Paul, who was to arrest Tetrik."
"And the poison--you poured it into the drink that you were to presentto your mistress?"
"Yes--it happened that way."
"And on that same day," I added, my recollections now thronging to mymind, "when I sent you to my wife, you purloined a parchment that lay onmy table and that I had written upon?"
"Yes, Tetrik ordered me to--he heard Victoria refer to the parchment."
"Why, after the crime was committed, did you stay in this house down toto-day?"
"So as to awaken no suspicions."
"What induced you to poison your mistress?"
"The gift of these jewels that I was entertaining myself with putting onwhen you broke in upon me. I thought I was alone!"
"Tetrik came himself near dying of the poison--do you believe hisequerry is guilty of that crime?"
"Every poison has its counter-poison," answered the Bohemian with asinister smile. "He who poisons others, removes suspicion from himselfby drinking from the same cup, and he is safe through thecounter-poison."
The woman's answer was a flash-light to me. By an infernal ruse, anddoubtlessly guaranteed against death, thanks to an antidote, Tetrik hadswallowed enough poison to produce in him the identical symptoms thatmarked Victoria's agony and thus seem to share her fate.
To seize a scarf that lay upon the bed, and, despite the resistance thatshe offered, to tie her hands firmly together and to lock her up in oneof the lower rooms, was the affair of but an instant. I ran back to thegeneral of the army. After finally succeeding in being admitted to hispresence--a difficult thing owing to the hour of the night--I repeatedto him the confession that Kidda had just made to me. He shrugged hisshoulders impatiently and said:
"Ever this same, rooted, thought--your mind must be wholly deranged. Theidea of having me waked up to hear such crazy man's stories. Moreover,you have chosen ill the hour to prefer such charges against thevenerable Tetrik. He left Treves last evening for Bordeaux."
The departure of Tetrik was a heavy blow to my last hopes. Nevertheless,I pressed the general with such insistence, I spoke to him with suchearnestness and coherence, that he consented to order one of hisofficers to accompany me back to the house, and take the Bohemian girl'sconfession in writing. He and I returned hurriedly to the house. Iopened the door of the chamber in which I had left Kidda with her handstied. She was gone! She must have gnawed at the scarf with her teeth,and fled by one of the windows that now stood open and that looked intothe garden. In my hurry and the seething confusion of my brain I hadomitted to guard against the chances of the woman's escape by thatissue.
"Poor Schanvoch!" said the officer to me with deep pity. "Your griefmakes you see visions--be careful, or you will go crazy, altogether!"
And without caring to listen to me any longer he left.
The will of God be done! I now renounced all hope of uncovering thecrimes of Tetrik. The next day I left the city of Treves with you andSampso, and took the road for Brittany.
* * * * *
You will read, alas! with no little grief and apprehension, my son, thefew lines with which I shall close this narrative. You will see how ourold Gaul, after having fully reacquired her freedom by dint of threecenturies of continuous struggle, after having become great and powerfulunder the influence of Victoria, was again to fall, not, it is true,completely under the yoke, but at least enfeoffed to the Roman Emperorsthrough the infamous treachery of Tetrik.
Finding his projects of marriage and usurpation thwarted by the Motherof the Camps, the monster had her poisoned. She alone, had she consentedto abjure her faith and contract a union with him
, could have clearedthe path for him to reach the hereditary throne of Gaul. With Victoriadead, he realized the futility of persevering along that route.Moreover, he soon felt that, being no longer sustained by the wisdom andsovereign influence of that august woman, the people's affection for himwas visibly ebbing. Seeing that with every day he lost some of hisformer prestige, and foreseeing his speedy fall, he began to cast aboutfor the commission of one of the two acts of treason that I had long agosuspected him of contemplating. He labored in the dark to reduce Gaul,after the country had acquired its complete independence, back to thelevel of a dependency of the Roman Emperors. Long in advance, and bymeans of a thousand and one covert schemes, he sowed the germs of civildiscord in the country. By these means Gaul's powers of resistance wereweakened. He succeeded in re-kindling the old jealousies betweenprovince and province that had long been allayed. By means ofdeliberately practiced acts of favoritism and of injustice, he incitedviolent rivalries between the generals and also between the several armycorps. When matters were ripe for the deed of treason he secretly wroteto Aurelian, the Roman Emperor:
"The favorable moment for an attack upon Gaul has arrived. You willprevail easily over a people that is weakened by internal dissensions,and an army, one division of which is jealous of the other. I shallnotify you in advance of how the Gallic troops are distributed, and alsoof their moves, in order to insure the prospects of your triumph."
The two armies met on the banks of the Marne on the wide plain ofChalon. Agreeable to his promise, and acting in concert with the Romangeneral, Tetrik allowed the corps that he led to be cut off from therest of the army. The Gallic legions of the Rhine fought with theirwonted intrepidity, but it was of no avail. Their movements being knownin advance by the enemy and overpowered by numbers, they were finallycut to pieces. Tetrik and his son took refuge in the enemy's camp. Ourarmy being out of the way, and our country divided against itself, as ithad never been before even during the darkest days of our history,victory was rendered an easy matter to the Romans. After re-enjoyingabsolute freedom for many a year, Gaul became a Roman province oncemore. As Caesar had done before him, in order to glorify the greatevent, the Emperor Aurelian made a solemn entry into the Roman capital.All the captives, gathered by that emperor in the course of his longwars in Asia, marched before his chariot. Among these the queen of theOrient was seen, the heroine who emulated Victoria--Zenobia. She wasloaded with golden chains riveted to the gold collar that she worearound her neck. Behind Zenobia marched Tetrik, the last Chief of Gaulbefore the country relapsed into a province of Rome. Tetrik and his sonmarched free and with heads erect, despite their infamous treachery.They wore long purple mantles over silk tunics and breeches. Theyrepresented in the procession the recent submission of the Gauls toAurelian the Emperor.
Alas! my son, the history of our fathers will teach you that one day,three hundred years ago, another Gaul also marched before the triumphalchariot of a Roman Emperor, Caesar. That Gaul did not march in brilliantarray, with audacious mien and with smiles for his vanquisher. Thatcaptive was loaded with chains, he was clad in rags, and was hardly ableto walk; he was that day taken out of the dungeon where he hadlanguished four years after having defended the freedom of Gaul inch byinch against the victorious armies of the great Caesar. That captive,one of the most heroic martyrs of our country and our independence, wascalled Vercingetorix, the Chief of the Hundred Valleys.
After the triumphal march of Caesar, the head of the valiant defender ofGaul was cut off.
After the triumphal march of Aurelian, Tetrik, the renegade whodelivered his country to the foreigner, was led with pomp to a splendidpalace, the price of his sacrilegious treason.
Let not the contrast cause you to despair of virtue, my son. The justiceof Hesus is eternal. Traitors will receive their punishment.