by Eugène Sue
CHAPTER VII.
THE MOUSE-TRAP.
DAWN WAS ABOUT to succeed the night in which Broute-Saule was killed by Berthoald. Profoundly asleep and with his hands pinioned behind his back, the young chief lay upon the floor of Meroflede’s bedchamber. Wrapped in a black cloak, her face pale and half veiled by her now loose thick red hair that almost reached the floor, the abbess proceeded to the window, holding in her hand a lighted torch of rosin. Leaning over the sill whence the horizon could be seen at a distance, the abbess waved her torch three times, while intently looking towards the east which began to be tinted with the approaching day. After a few minutes, the light of a large flame, that rose from a distance behind the retreating shades of night, responded to Meroflede’s signal. Her features beamed with sinister joy. She dropped her torch into the moat that surrounded the monastery, and then proceeded to awaken Berthoald by shaking him rudely. Berthoald was with difficulty drawn from his lethargy. He sought to take his hand to his forehead, but found that he was pinioned. He raised himself painfully upon his leaden feet, and still unclear of mind he contemplated Meroflede in silence. The abbess extended her bare arms towards the horizon, that dawn was feebly lighting, and said: “Do you see yonder, far away, the narrow road that crosses the pond and prolongs itself as far as the outer works of the abbey?”
“Yes,” said Berthoald, struggling against the strange torpor that still paralyzed his mind and will, without thereby wholly clouding his intellect; “yes, I see the road surrounded by water on all sides.”
“Did not your companions in arms camp on that road during the night?”
“I think so,” replied the young chief, seeking to collect his confused thoughts; “last evening ... my companions—”
“Listen!” put in the abbess nervously and placing her hand upon the young man’s shoulder. “Listen ... what do you hear from the side on which the sun is about to rise?”
“I hear a great rumbling noise ... that seems to draw nearer towards us. It sounds like the rush of waters.”
“Your ear does not deceive you, my valiant warrior;” and leaning upon Berthoald’s shoulder: “Yonder, towards the east, lies an immense lake held in by dikes and locks.”
“A lake? What of it?”
“The level of its waters is eight to ten feet above those of the ponds.... Do you understand what will follow?”
“No, my mind is heavy ... I hardly remember ... our charming night ... but why am I pinioned?”
“For the purpose of checking your joy when, as will soon be the case, you will have recovered your senses.... Now, let us continue our confidential chat. You will understand that the moment the dikes are broken through and the locks opened, the water will rise in these ponds to the extent that they will submerge the narrow road on which your companions encamped for the night with their horses and the carts that held their booty and slaves.... Now, watch.... Do you notice how the water is rising? It is now up to the very edge of the jetty.... Within an hour, the jetty itself will be entirely submerged. Not one of your companions will have escaped death.... If they seek to flee, a deep trench, cut at my orders over night, will stop their progress.... Not one will escape death.... Do you hear, my handsome prisoner?”
“All drowned!” murmured Berthoald, still under the dominion of a dull stupor; “all my companions drowned — —”
“Oh, does not yet that new piece of confidential news wake you up?... Let us pass to another thing,” and the abbess proceeded with a voice of ringing triumph: “Among the female slaves, taken from Languedoc, that your band brought in its train, there was a woman ... who will drown with the rest, and that woman,” said Meroflede, emphasizing each word in the hope of each being a dagger in Berthoald’s heart, “is — your — mother!”
Berthoald trembled violently, leaped up in his bonds, and vainly sought to snap them. He uttered a piercing cry, cast a look of despair and terror upon the immense sheet of water that, tinted with the first rays of the rising sun, now extended in every direction. The wretched man called aloud: “Oh, my mother!”
“Now,” said Meroflede with savage joy, “the water has almost completely invaded the causeway. The tent-cloths that cover the carts can hardly be seen. The flood still rises, and at this very hour your mother is undergoing the agonies of death ... agonies that are more horrible than death itself.”
“Oh, demon!” cried the young man, writhing in his bonds. “You lie! My mother is not there!”
“Your mother’s name is Rosen-Aër, she is forty years of age; she lived one time in the valley of Charolles in Burgundy.”
“Woe! Woe is me!”
“Fallen into the hands of the Arabs at the time of their invasion of Burgundy, she was taken to Languedoc as a slave. After the last siege of Narbonne by Charles, your mother was captured in the vicinity of the town together with other women. When the division of the booty took place, Rosen-Aër having fallen to the lot of your band was brought as far as here.... If still you should doubt, I shall give you one more token. That woman carries on her arm, like you, traced in indelible letters the two words: ‘Brenn’ and ‘Karnak’.... Are these details accurate enough?”
“Oh, my mother!” cried the unfortunate Berthoald casting upon the waters of the pond a look of most poignant pain.
“Your mother is now dead.... The jetty has disappeared under the waters, and still they rise.... Aye, your mother was drowned in the covered cart, where she was held confined with the other slaves.”
“My heart breaks,” murmured Berthoald, crushed by the weight of pain and despair: “My suffering is beyond endurance!”
“Are you so soon at the end of your strength?” cried Meroflede with a peal of infernal laughter. “Oh! no, no! You have not yet suffered enough. What! You stupid slave! You Gallic renegade! Cowardly liar, who brazenly deck yourself with the name of a noble Frank! What, did you imagine vengeance did not boil in my veins because you saw me smile last evening at the death of my ancestor, who was killed by a bandit of your race! Aye! I smiled because I thought how at daybreak I would have you witness from a distance the death agonies of your own mother! I was but preparing my vengeance.”
“Monster of lewdness and ferocity!” cried Berthoald, making superhuman efforts to break his bonds. “I must punish you for your crimes!... Yes, by Hesus, I shall throttle you with my own hands!”
The abbess realized the impotence of Berthoald’s fury, shrugged her shoulders and continued: “Your ancestor, the bandit, set fire a century and a half ago to the castle of my ancestor, Count Neroweg, and killed him with an axe. I reply to the fire with the inundation, and I drown your mother! As to the fate that awaits you, it will be terrible!”
“Did my mother know that I was the chief of the Franks who took her prisoner?”
“My vengeance lacked only that!”
“But who, miserable woman, could have told you what you know about my mother?”
“The Jew Mordecai.”
“How did he know her? Where did he see her?”
“At the halt that you made at the convent of St. Saturnine with Charles Martel; it was there that the Jew recognized you.”
“God was merciful to me! My mother did not live to know my shame. Her death would have been doubly terrible.... And now, monster, deliver me of your presence and of life. I am in a hurry to die!”
“Have patience! I have prepared for you a refined punishment, and a prolonged agony.”
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MIRACLE OF ST. LOUP’S TEETH.
ON THE MORNING of the fateful day when the abbess Meroflede drowned, as in a mouse-trap, the troop of Frankish warriors that had presumed to dispossess her, the goldsmith Bonaik entered his workshop at the accustomed hour. He was soon joined by his slave apprentices. After lighting the fire in the forge, the old man opened the window that looked over the fosse, to let the smoke escape. With no little astonishment Bonaik observed that the water in the moat had risen so high as to be within a foot of the window sill. “
Oh, my lads,” said he to the apprentices, “I fear some great calamity happened last night! For very many years the water of this moat did not reach the height of to-day, and then it happened when the dike of the upper lake broke, and caused widespread disasters. Look yonder at the other end of the moat. The water is almost up to the air-hole cut into the cavern under the building opposite us.”
“And it looks as if the water were still rising, Father Bonaik.”
“Alack, yes, my lad! It is still rising. Oh, the bursting of the dikes will bring on great calamities. There will be many victims!”
While Bonaik and his apprentices were looking at the rising water in the moat, the voice of Septimine was heard calling on the outside: “Father Bonaik, open the door of the workshop!” One of the apprentices ran to the door and the girl entered, supporting a woman whose long hair streamed with water; her clothes were drenched, her face livid; she was barely able to drag herself along; so weak was she that after taking a few steps in the shop she fell fainting in the arms of the old goldsmith and Septimine.
“Poor woman! She is cold as ice!” exclaimed the old man, and turning to his apprentices: “Quick, quick boys! Fetch some coal from the vault, ply the bellows and raise the fire in the forge to warm up this unfortunate woman. I thought so! This inundation must have caused much damage.”
At the words of the goldsmith, two apprentices ran down into the vault behind the forge for charcoal, and the other blew upon the fire, while the old man approached Septimine, who, on her knees before the unconscious woman, wept and said: “Oh, she is going to die!”
“Reassure yourself,” the old man said; “this poor woman’s hands, icy cold a minute ago, are becoming warmer. But what has happened? Your clothes also are drenched. You look strangely shocked.”
“Good father, at daybreak this morning, the girls who sleep in my room and I woke up and went into the courtyard. There we heard other slaves crying that the dikes had burst. The girls all ran to see the progress of the inundation. I went along without knowing why. They dispersed. I advanced to a tongue of land that is washed by the water of the pond. A large willow stands near the spot. I presently saw a half-submerged cart floating a little way off. It was being turned around by the opposite currents, and it was covered by a tent-cloth.”
“Thanks be to God! The spreading tent-cloth acted like a balloon and kept the cart from sinking.”
“The wind blew into this sort of a sail, driving the cart towards the shore where I stood. I then saw this unfortunate woman, holding to the tent-cloth, the rest of her body in the water.”
“And what happened then, my daughter?”
“There was not a second to lose. The failing hands of the poor woman, whose strength was exhausted, were about to drop. I fastened one end of my belt to one of the branches of the willow-tree and the other to my wrist and I leaned forward towards the poor woman calling out to her: ‘Courage!’ She heard me, and seized my right hand convulsively. The sudden pull caused my feet to slip from the edge and I fell into the water.”
“Fortunately your left wrist was tied to one of the ends of the belt that you had fastened to the tree!”
“Yes, good father. But the shock was violent. I thought my arm was wrenched from its socket. Fortunately the poor woman took hold of the edge of my dress. My first pain having passed I did my best, and with the aid of my belt that remained fastened to the tree and on which I tugged away, I succeeded in reaching the shore and pulling out this woman, on the point of drowning. Our workshop being the nearest place that I could think of, I brought her here; she could hardly support herself; but, alack!” added the girl at the sight of the still inanimate face of Rosen-Aër, for it was Berthoald’s mother that Septimine had just saved, “I may only have retarded the supreme moment for a few seconds!”
“Do not lose hope,” answered the old man, “her hands are growing warmer.”
With the aid of the apprentices, who were no less compassionate than Septimine and the old man, Rosen-Aër was drawn sitting on a stool near the forge. Little by little she felt the salutary effect of the penetrating heat, she gradually recovered her senses, and finally awoke. Gathering her thoughts, she stretched out her arms to Septimine and said in a feeble voice: “Dear child, you saved me!”
Septimine threw herself around Rosen-Aër’s neck, shedding glad tears, and answered: “We have done what we could; we are only poor slaves.”
“Oh! my child, I am a slave like yourselves, brought to this country from the center of Languedoc. We spent the night on the road between the two ponds of this monastery. The oxen had been unhitched from the carts. We were caught in the inundation that began at daybreak — —” But Rosen-Aër suddenly broke off and rose to her feet. Her face was at first expressive of stupor, but immediately a delirious joy seized her, and precipitating herself towards the open window, she passed her arm through the thick iron bars, crying: “My son! I see my son Amael yonder!”
For a moment both Septimine and Bonaik believed the unhappy woman had become demented, but when they approached the window the young girl joined her hands and cried out: “The Frankish Chief, he in an underground passage of the abbey?”
Rosen-Aër and Septimine saw on the other side of the moat Berthoald holding himself up with both hands by the iron bars of the air-hole of the cavern. He suddenly saw and as quickly recognized his mother, and, delirious with joy, he cried in a thrilling voice that, despite the distance, reached the workshop: “Mother!... My dear mother!”
“Septimine,” Bonaik said anxiously to the girl, “do you know that young man?”
“Oh, yes! He was as good to me as an angel from Heaven! I saw him at the convent of St. Saturnine. It is to that warrior that Charles donated this abbey.”
“To him!” replied the old man, bewildered. “How, then, comes he in that cavern?”
“Master Bonaik,” one of the apprentices ran by saying, “I hear outside the voice of the intendant Ricarik. He stopped under the vault to scold some one. He will be here in a minute. He is coming on his morning round, as is his habit. What is best to be done?”
“Good God!” cried the old man in terror. “He will find this woman here, and will question her. She may betray herself and acknowledge that she is the mother of that young man — undoubtedly a victim of the abbess.” And the old man, running to the window, seized Rosen-Aër by the arm and said to her while he dragged her away: “In the name of your son’s life, come! Come quick!”
“What threatens my son’s life?”
“Follow me, or he is lost, and you also.” And Bonaik, without further explanations to Rosen-Aër, pointed out to her the vault behind the forge, saying: “Hide there, do not stir,” and turning to his apprentices while he put on his apron: “You, boys, hammer away as loud as you can, and sing at the top of your voices! You, Septimine, sit down and polish this vase. May God prevent that poor young man from remaining at the air-hole or from being seen by Ricarik!” Saying this the old goldsmith started to hammer upon his anvil, striking with a sonorous voice the old and well-known goldsmith’s song in honor of the good Eloi:
“From the station of artisan
He was raised to that of bishop, —
With his duties of pastor,
Eloi purified the goldsmith.
His hammer is the authority for his word,
His furnace the constancy of zeal,
His bellows the inspirer,
His anvil, obedience!”
Ricarik entered the workshop. The goldsmith seemed not to notice him, and proceeded with his song while flattening with hammer blows a silver leaf into which the abbatial cross terminated. “You are a jolly set,” remarked the intendant stepping to the center of the workshop; “stop your singing ... you dogs ... you deafen my ears!”
“I have not a drop of blood in my veins,” Septimine whispered to Bonaik. “That wicked man is drawing near the window.... If he were to see the Frankish chief—”
“Why have you so much fire in the forg
e?” the intendant proceeded to say, taking a step towards the fireplace, behind which was the cave that Rosen-Aër was concealed in. “Do you amuse yourself burning coal uselessly?”
“No, indeed! This very morning I shall melt the silver that you brought me yesterday.”
“Metal is melted in crucibles, not in forges—”
“Ricarik, everyone to his trade. I have worked in the workshops of the great Eloi. I know my profession, seigneur intendant. I shall first subject my metal to the strong fire of the forge, then hammer it, and only after that will it be ready for the crucible. The cast will then be more solid.”
“You never lack for an answer.”
“Because I always have good ones to give. But there are several necessary things that I shall want from you for this work, the most important of any that I shall have made for the monastery, seeing the silver vase is to be two feet high, as you may judge from the cast on the table.”
“What do you need, dotard?”
“I shall need a barrel that I shall fill with sand, and in the middle of which I shall place my mold.... That is not all.... I have often found that, despite the hoops that hold the staves of the barrel, where molds are placed inside of the sand, the barrel bursts when the molten metal is poured into the hollow. I shall need a long rope to wind tightly around the barrel. If the hoops snap, the rope will hold. I shall also need a long thin string to hold the sides of the mold.”