by Eugène Sue
“Don’t you put me out so with your questions; let me tell my story my own way. This morning I says to the widow,’Why,’ says I,’I have seen nothing of Martial these last two or three days. I mark his boat is still moored, — he don’t seem to use it as usual; I suppose he’s gone away a bit? Maybe he’s in Paris upon his business?’ Upon which the widow gave me, oh, such a devil’s look! So says she,’He’s bad a-bed in the isle, and we don’t look for him to get better!’ ‘Oh, oh!’ says I to myself,’that’s it, is it? It’s three days since—’ Holla! stop, I say!” cried old Férot, interrupting himself; “where the deuce are you going? What is the girl after now?”
Believing the life of Martial in danger from the inhabitants of the isle, and unable longer to endure the twaddle of the old fisherman, La Louve rushed, half frantic with rage and fear, towards the banks of the Seine. Some topographical descriptions will be requisite for the perfect understanding of the ensuing scene.
The Isle du Ravageur was nearer to the left bank of the river than it was to the right, from which Fleur-de-Marie and Madame Séraphin had embarked. La Louve stood on the left bank. Without being extremely high, the surface of the isle completely prevented those on one side the river from seeing what was passing on the opposite bank; thus La Louve had been unable to witness the embarkation of La Goualeuse, while the Martial family had been equally prevented from seeing La Louve, who, at that very instant, was rushing in wild desperation along the banks of the other side of the river.
Let us also recall to the reader, that the country-house belonging to Doctor Griffon, and temporarily occupied by the Count Saint-Remy was midway between the land and that part of the shore where La Louve arrived half wild with apprehension and impatience. Unconsciously she rushed past two individuals, who, struck with her excited manner and haggard looks, turned back to watch her proceedings. These two personages were the Count Saint-Remy and Doctor Griffon.
The first impulse of La Louve, upon learning the danger which threatened her lover, was to hurry towards the spot from whence the peril proceeded; but, as she reached the water’s edge, she became painfully sensible of the difficulties that stood in the way of her reaching the opposite land. As the old fisherman had assured her, she well knew the folly of expecting any strangers to pass by, and none of the Martial family would take the trouble of rowing over to fetch her to the isle.
Heated and breathless, her eyes sparkling with eager excitement, she stopped opposite that point of the isle which, taking a sudden bend in this direction, was the nearest approach from the shore. Through the leafless branches of the willows and poplars, La Louve could see the roof of the very house where Martial perhaps lay dying.
At this distracting idea La Louve uttered a wild cry of desperation, then, snatching off her shawl and cap, she slipped out of her gown; and, undressed as she was to her petticoat, she threw herself intrepidly into the river, waded until she got out of her depth, and then, fearlessly striking out, she swam determinedly towards the isle, affording a strange spectacle of wild and desperate energy. At each fresh impulsion of the arms the long, thick hair of La Louve, unfastened by the violent exercise she was using, shook and waved about her head like the rich mane of a war-horse. But for the fixedness of her gaze, constantly riveted on the house which contained Martial, and the contraction of her features, drawn together by almost the convulsive agonies of fear and dreadful anticipation of arriving too late, the poacher’s mistress might have been supposed to have been merely enjoying the cool refreshment of the water for her own sport and diversion, so boldly and freely did she swim.
Tattooed in remembrance of her lover, her white but sinewy arms, strong as those of a man, divided the waters with a stroke which sent the sparkling element in rushing streams of liquid pearls over her broad shoulders and strong, expansive chest, resembling a block of half-submerged marble. All at once, from the other side of the isle, rose a cry of distress, — a cry of agony at once fearful and despairing. La Louve started, and suddenly stopped in her rapid course; then supporting herself with one hand, with the other she pushed back her thick, dripping hair, and listened. Again the cry was repeated, but more feebly, supplicatory, convulsive, and expiring; and then the most profound silence reigned around.
“’Tis Martial— ’tis his cry! He calls me to his aid!” exclaimed La Louve, swimming with renewed vigour, for, in her excited state of mind, the voice which had rent the air, and sent a pang through her whole frame, seemed to her to be that of her lover.
The count and the doctor, whom La Louve had rushed so quickly by, were quite unable to overtake her in time to prevent her daring attempt; but both arrived immediately opposite the isle at the moment when those frightful cries were heard. Both stopped, as perfectly shocked and startled as La Louve had been. Observing the desperate energy with which she battled with the water, they exclaimed:
“The unfortunate creature means to drown herself!”
But their fears were vain. Martial’s mistress swam like an otter, and, with a few more vigorous strokes, the intrepid creature had reached the land. She gained her feet, and, to assist her in climbing up the bank, she took hold of one of the stakes used as a sort of protecting stockade at the extremity of the isle, when at that instant, as partially in the water and holding on by one hand, she saw drifting along the form of a young female, dressed after the fashion of the country girls who come to Paris with their wares. The body floated slowly on with the current, which drove it against the piles, while the garments served to render it buoyant. To cling to one of the strongest stakes, and with the hand left free to snatch at the clothes of the female as it was passing, was the instantaneous impulse of La Louve, — an impulse executed as rapidly as conceived. In her extreme eagerness, however, she drew the unfortunate being she sought to save so suddenly and violently towards herself and within the small enclosure formed by the piles, that the body sunk completely under water, though here it was shallow enough to walk to land. Gifted with skill and strength far from common, La Louve raised La Goualeuse (for she it was, although not as yet recognised by her late friend), took her up in her powerful arms as though she had been a child, and laid her on the grassy banks of the isle.
“Courage! Courage!” shouted M. de Saint-Remy, from the opposite side, having, as well as Doctor Griffon, witnessed this bold deliverance. “We will make all haste to cross the bridge of Asnières, and bring a boat to your assistance.”
After thus speaking, both the count and his companion proceeded as quickly as they were able in the direction of the bridge; but La Louve heard not the words addressed to her.
Let us again repeat, that, from the right bank of the Seine, on which Nicholas, Calabash, and their mother assembled after the commission of their atrocious crime, it was impossible, owing to its steepness, to observe what was passing on the opposite shore. Fleur-de-Marie, abruptly drawn by La Louve within the piles, having first sunk completely from the eyes of her murderers, was thus in safety from any further pursuit on their part, they believing that she had effectually perished.
A few instants after, the current, as it swept by, carried with it a second body, floating near to the surface of the water; but La Louve perceived it not. It was the corpse of Madame Séraphin, the notary’s femme de charge. She, however, was perfectly dead.
It was as much the interest of Nicholas and Calabash as it was of Jacques Ferrand to remove so formidable a witness as well as sharer of their crime; seizing the opportunity, therefore, when the boat sunk with Fleur-de-Marie, to spring into that rowed by his sister, and in which was Madame Séraphin, he contrived to give the small vessel so great a shock as almost threw the femme de charge into the water, and, while struggling to recover herself, he managed to thrust her overboard, and then to finish her with his boat-hook.
Breathless and exhausted, La Louve, kneeling on the grass beside Fleur-de-Marie, tried to recover her strength, and, at the same time, to make out the features of her she had saved from certain death. Who can describe her surprise, her
utter astonishment, as she recognised her late prison companion, — she who had exercised so beneficial an influence on her mind, and produced so complete a change in her conduct and ideas? In the first bewilderment of her feelings even Martial was forgotten.
“La Goualeuse!” exclaimed she, as, with head bent down, her hair dishevelled, her garments streaming with wet, she, kneeling, contemplated the unhappy girl stretched almost dying before her on the grass.
Pale, motionless, her half closed eyes vacant and senseless, her beautiful hair glued to her pallid brows, her lips blue and livid, her small, delicate hands stiff and cold, La Goualeuse might well have passed for dead to any but the watchful eye of affection.
“La Goualeuse!” again cried La Louve. “What a singular chance that I should have come hither to relate to my man all the good and harm she has done me with her words and promises, as well as the resolution I have taken, and to find the poor thing thus to give me the meeting! Poor girl! She is cold and dead. But, no, no!” exclaimed La Louve, stooping still more closely over Fleur-de-Marie, and, as she did so, finding a faint — indeed, almost imperceptible — breath escape her lips; “no, she lives! Merciful Father, she breathes! And ’tis I have snatched her from death! I, who never yet saved any one! Oh, how happy the thought makes me! My heart glows with a new delight. How thankful I feel that none but I saved her! Ha! but my man, — I must save him also. Perhaps he is even now in his death-throes — his mother and brother are even wretches enough to murder him! What shall I do? I cannot leave this poor creature here, — I will carry her to the widow’s house. She must and she shall succour the poor Goualeuse and let me see Martial, or I will smash everything in my way. No mother, brother, or sister shall hinder me from going wherever my man is!”
And, springing up as she spoke, La Louve raised Fleur-de-Marie in her strong arms. Charged with this slender burthen, she hurried towards the house, never for a moment doubting that, spite of their hard and wicked natures, the widow and her daughter would bestow on Fleur-de-Marie every requisite care.
When Martial’s mistress had reached that point of the isle from which both sides of the Seine were distinguishable, Nicholas, his mother, and Calabash had quitted the place, certain of the accomplishment of their double crime; they then repaired, in all haste, to the house of Bras-Rouge.
At this moment a man who, hidden in one of the recesses of the river concealed by the lime-kiln, had, without being seen himself, witnessed the whole progress of this horrible scene, also disappeared; believing, as well as the guilty perpetrators, that the fell deed had been fully achieved. This man was Jacques Ferrand.
One of Nicholas’s boats was rocking to and fro, moored to a stake on the river’s bank, just by where Madame Séraphin and La Goualeuse had embarked.
Scarcely had Jacques Ferrand quitted the lime-kiln to return to Paris than M. de Saint-Remy and Doctor Griffon hastily crossed the bridge of Asnières, for the purpose of reaching the isle; which they contemplated doing by means of Nicholas’s boat, which they had discerned from afar.
To the extreme astonishment of La Louve, when she arrived at the house in the Isle du Ravageur, she found the door shut and fastened. Placing the still inanimate form of Fleur-de-Marie beneath the porch, she more closely examined the dwelling. The window of Martial’s chamber was well known to her; what was her surprise to find the shutters belonging to it closed, and sheets of tin nailed over them, strongly secured from without by two bars of iron!
Suspecting a part of the cause of this, La Louve, in a loud, hoarse voice of mingled fury and deep tenderness, screamed out as loudly as she could:
“Martial! My man!”
No answer was returned.
Terrified at this silence, La Louve began pacing round and round the house like a wild beast who scents the spot whither her mate has been entrapped, and with deep roars and savage growls demands admittance to him.
Still pursuing her agitated search, La Louve kept shouting from time to time, “My man! Are you there, my man?” And in her desperate fury she shook and rattled the bars of the kitchen windows, beat against the walls, and knocked long and loudly at the door. All at once a dull, indistinct noise was heard from withinside the house. Eagerly and attentively La Louve listened; the noise, however, ceased.
“My man heard me! I must and will get in somehow, if I gnaw the door away with my teeth.”
And again she reiterated her frantic cries and adjurations to Martial. Several faint blows struck inside the closed shutters of Martial’s chamber replied to the yells and screams of La Louve.
“He is there!” cried she, suddenly stopping beneath the window of her lover. “He is there! I am sure of it; and if all other means fail I will strip off that tin with my nails, but I will wrench those shutters open!”
So saying, she glanced frantically around in search of something to aid her efforts to free her lover, when her eye caught sight of a ladder partly hanging against one of the outside shutters of the sitting-room. Hastily pulling the shutter, the more quickly to disengage the ladder, the key of the outer door, left by the widow on the sill of the window, fell to the ground.
“Oh, if this be only the right key!” cried La Louve, trying it in the lock of the entrance door; “I can go straight up stairs to his chamber. Oh, it turns! It opens!” exclaimed La Louve, with delight; “and my man is saved!”
Once in the kitchen she was struck by the cries of the two children, who, shut up in the cellar, and hearing an unusual noise, called loudly for help. The widow, persuaded that no person would visit the isle or her dwelling, had contented herself with double-locking the door upon François and Amandine, leaving the key in the lock.
Released by La Louve, the two children hurried from the cellar to the kitchen.
“Oh, La Louve!” exclaimed François, “save our dear Brother Martial; they want him to die! For two days he has been shut up in his room!”
“They have not wounded him, have they?”
“No, no, I think not!”
“I have arrived just in time, it seems,” cried La Louve, rushing towards the staircase, and hastily mounting the stairs. Then, suddenly stopping, she exclaimed, “Ah, but La Goualeuse! I quite forgot her. Amandine, my child, light a fire directly; and then do you and your brother fetch a poor, half-drowned girl you will find lying outside the door under the porch, and place her before the fire. She would have been quite dead, if I had not saved her. François, quick! Bring me a crowbar, a hatchet, an axe, anything, that I may break in the door that confines my man!”
“There is the cleaver we split wood with, but it is too heavy for you,” said the lad, dragging forward an enormous chopper.
“Too heavy! I don’t even feel it!” cried La Louve, swinging the ponderous weapon, which, at another time, she would have had much difficulty in lifting, as though it had been a feather.
Then, proceeding with hurried steps up-stairs, she called out to the children:
“Go and fetch the young girl I told you of, and place her by the fire.”
And, with two bounds, La Louve reached the corridor, at the end of which was situated the apartment of Martial.
“Courage! Courage, my man! Your Louve is here!” cried she, and, lifting the cleaver with both hands, she dashed it furiously against the door.
“It is fastened on the outside,” moaned Martial, in a feeble voice; “draw out the nails, — you cannot open it otherwise.”
Throwing herself upon her knees in the passage, by the help of the edge of the cleaver, her nails, which she almost tore bleeding from their roots, and her fingers, which were lacerated and torn, La Louve contrived to extract the huge nails which fastened the door all around. At length her heroic exertions were crowned with success, — the door yielded to her efforts, and Martial, pale, bleeding, and almost exhausted, fell into the arms of his mistress.
“At last — I have you — I hold you — I press you to my heart!” exclaimed La Louve, as she received and tenderly pressed Martial in her arms,
with a joy of possession that partook almost of savage energy. She supported, or, rather, carried him to a bench placed in the corridor. For several minutes Martial remained weak and haggard, endeavouring to recover from the violent surprise which had proved nearly too much for his exhausted strength. La Louve had come to the succour of her lover at the very instant when, worn-out and despairing, he felt himself dying, — less from want of food than air, which it was impossible to obtain in so small an apartment, unprovided with a chimney or any other outlet, and hermetically closed, thanks to the fiendish contrivance of Calabash, who had stopped even the most trifling crevices in the door and window with pieces of old rag.
Trembling with joy and apprehension, her eyes streaming with tears, La Louve, kneeling beside Martial, watched his slightest movements, and intently gazed on his features. The unfortunate youth seemed gradually to recover as his lungs inhaled a freer and more healthful atmosphere. After a few convulsive shudderings he raised his languid head, heaved a deep sigh, and, opening his eyes, looked eagerly around him.
“Martial! ’Tis I! — your Louve! How are you now?”
“Better!” replied he, in a feeble voice.
“Thank God! Will you have a little water or some vinegar?”
“No, no,” replied Martial, speaking more naturally; “air, air! Oh, I want only air!”
At the risk of gashing the backs of her hands, La Louve drove them through the four panes of a window she could not have opened without first removing a large and heavy table.
“Now I breathe! I breathe freely! And my head seems quite relieved!” said Martial, entirely recovering his senses and voice.
Then, as if recalling for the first time the service his mistress had rendered him, he exclaimed, with a burst of ineffable gratitude:
“But for you, my brave Louve, I should soon have been dead!”
“Oh, never mind thinking of that! But tell me, how do you find yourself now?”
“Better — much better!”