Simon Dubosc gave the servant his instructions:
“Get Mr. Rolleston under shelter in the wreck, look after him and don’t leave him for a second. Jim, can I count on you?”
“Yes.”
“And on your father?”
“All depends.”
“Fifty pounds for him if the wounded man is in Brighton, safe and sound, in two days’ time.”
“Make it a hundred,” said Jim. “Not a penny less.”
“Very well, a hundred.”
At six o’clock in the evening, Simon and Antonio returned to the Indians’ camp. They quickly bridled and saddled their horses, while Old Sandstone, who was strolling around, ran up to them shouting:
“My fault, Simon! I swear we are over my fault, the fault in the Paris basin, which I traced to Maromme and near the Ridin de Dieppe . . . the one whose fracture caused the whole upheaval. Get on your horse, so that I may give you my proofs. There’s a regular Eocene and Pliocene mixture over there which is really typical. . . . Heavens, man, listen to me, can’t you?”
Simon stepped up to him and, with drawn features, shouted:
“This is no time to listen to your nonsense!”
“What do you mean?” stammered the old fellow, utterly bewildered.
“Mean? Why, shut up!”
And the young man leapt into the saddle:
“Are you coming, Antonio?”
“Yes. My mates will follow our trail. I shall leave a mark from spot to spot; and I hope we shall all be united again to-morrow.”
As they were starting, Dolores, on horseback, brought up her mount alongside theirs.
“No!” said Antonio. “You come on with the others. The professor can’t walk all the time.”
She made no reply.
“I insist on your keeping with the others,” repeated the half-breed, more severely.
But she set her horse at a trot and caught up with Simon.
For more than an hour they followed a direction which Simon took to be south by south-east, that is to say, the direction of France. The half-breed thought the same:
“The main thing,” he said, “is to get near the coast, as our beasts have only enough food to last them till to-morrow evening. The water question also might become troublesome.”
“I don’t care what happens to-morrow,” Simon rejoined.
They made much slower progress than they had hoped to do. Their mounts were poor, spiritless stuff. Moreover, they had to stop at intervals to decipher the tracks which crossed one another in the wet sand or to pick them up on rocky ground. Simon became incensed at each of these halts.
All around them the scene was like that which they had observed early in the afternoon; the land rose and fell in scarcely perceptible undulations; it was a dismal, monotonous world, with its graveyards of ships and skeleton steamers. Prowling figures crossed it in all directions. Antonio shouted questions to them as he passed. One of them said that he had met two horsemen and four pedestrians leading a couple of horses on which were bound a man and a woman whose fair hair swept the ground.
“How long ago was this?” asked Simon, in a hoarse voice.
“Forty minutes, or fifty at the most.”
He dug his heels into his horse’s flanks and set off at a gallop, stooping over the animal’s neck in order not to lose the scoundrel’s track. Antonio found it difficult to follow him, while Dolores erect in her saddle, with a serious face and eyes fixed on the distant horizon, kept up with him without an effort.
Meanwhile the light was failing, and the riders felt as though the darkness were about to swoop down on them from the heavy clouds in which it was gathering.
“We shall get there . . . we must,” repeated Simon. “I feel certain we shall see them in ten minutes. . . .”
He told Dolores in a few words what he had heard of Isabel’s abduction. The thought that she was in pain caused unendurable torture. His overwrought mind pictured her a captive among savages torturing her for their amusement, while her blood-bedabbled head was gashed by the stones along the track. He followed in imagination all the stages of her last agony; and he had such a keen impression of speed contending with death, he searched the horizon with so eager a gaze, that he scarcely heeded a strident call from the half-breed, a hundred yards in the rear.
Dolores turned and calmly observed:
“Antonio’s horse has fallen.”
“Antonio can follow us,” said Simon.
For a few moments, they had been riding through a rather more uneven tract of land, covered with a sort of downs with precipitous sides, like cliffs. A fairly steep incline led to a long valley, filled with water, on the brink of which the bandits’ trail was plainly visible. They entered the water, making for a place on the opposite edge which seemed to them, at a distance, to be trampled in the same way.
The water, which barely reached the horses’ hocks, flowed in a gentle current from left to right. But, when they had covered a third of the distance, Dolores struck Simon’s horse with her long reins:
“Hurry!” she commanded. “Look . . . on the left. . . .”
On the left the whole width of the valley was blocked by a lofty wave which was gathering at either end into a long, foaming breaker. It was merely a natural phenomenon; as a result of the great upheaval, the waters were seeking their level and invading the lower tracts. Moreover, the flow was so gradual that there was no reason to fear its effects. The horses, however, seemed to be gradually sinking. Dragged by the current, they were forced to sheer off to the right; and at the same time the opposite bank was moving away from them, changing its aspect, shifting back as the new stream rose. And, when they had reached it, they were still obliged, in order to escape the water, which pursued them incessantly, to quicken their pace and trot along the narrow lane enclosed between two little cliffs of dried mud, in which thousands upon thousands of shells were encrusted like the cubes of a mosaic.
Only after half an hour’s riding were they able to clamber to a table-land where they were out of reach. It was as well, for their horses refused to go any farther.
The darkness was increasing. How were they to recover the tracks of Isabel and her kidnappers? And how could their own tracks, buried beneath this enormous sheet of water, be recovered by Antonio and his men?
“We are separated from the others,” said Simon, “and I don’t see how our party can be got together again.”
“Not before to-morrow, at all events,” said Dolores.
“Not before. . . .”
And so these two were alone in the night, in the depths of this mysterious land.
Simon strode to and fro on the plateau, like a man who does not know on what course to decide and who knows, moreover, that there is no course on which he can decide. But Dolores unsaddled the horses, unbuckled the saddle-bags and said:
“Our food will hold out, but we have nothing to drink. The spare water-bottles were strapped to Antonio’s saddle.”
And she added, after spreading out the two horse-rugs:
“We will sleep here, Simon.”
CHAPTER II. ALONG THE CABLE
HE FELL ASLEEP beside her, after a long spell of waking during which his uneasiness was gradually assuaged by the soft and regular rhythm which marked the young girl’s breathing.
When he woke, fairly late in the morning, Dolores was stooping and bathing her beautiful arms and her face in the stream that flowed down the hillside. She moved slowly; and all her attitude, as she dried her arms and put back her hair, knotting it low on her neck, were full of a grave harmony.
As Simon stood up, she filled a glass and brought it to him:
“Drink that,” she said. “Contrary to what I thought, it’s fresh water. I heard our horses drinking it in the night.”
“That’s easily explained,” said Simon. “During the first few days, the rivers of the old coasts filtered in more or less anywhere, until forced, by their increasing flow, to wear themselves a new course. Judging by th
e direction which this one seems to follow and by its size, it should be a French river, doubtless the Somme, which will join the sea henceforth between Le Havre and Southampton. Unless. . . .”
He was not certain of his argument. In reality, under the implacable veil of the clouds, which were still motionless and hanging very low, and without his compass, which he had heedlessly handed to Antonio, he did not know how to take his bearings. He had followed in Isabel’s track last evening; and he hesitated to venture in either direction now that this track was lost and that there was no clue to justify his seeking her in one direction rather than in another.
A discovery of Dolores put an end to his hesitation. In exploring the immediate surroundings, the girl had noticed a submarine cable which crossed the river.
“Capital!” he said. “The cable evidently comes from England, like ourselves. If we follow it, we shall be going towards France. We shall be sure of going the same way as our enemies and we shall very likely pick up some information on the road.”
“France is a long way off,” Dolores remarked, “and our horses perhaps won’t last for more than another half day.”
“That’s their lookout,” cried Simon. “We shall finish the journey on foot. The great thing is to reach the French coast. Let us make a start.”
At two hundred yards’ distance, in a depression of the soil, the cable rose from the river and ran straight to a sand-bank, after which it appeared once more, like one of those roads which show in sections on uneven plains.
“It will lead you to Dieppe,” said a wandering Frenchman, whom Simon had stopped. “I’ve just come from there. You’ve only to follow it.”
They followed it in silence. A mute companion, speaking none save indispensable words, Dolores seemed to be always self-absorbed, or to heed only the horses and the details of the expedition. As for Simon, he gave no thought to her. It was a curious fact that he had not yet felt, even casually, that there was something strange and disturbing in the adventure that brought him, a young man, and her, a young woman, together. She remained the unknown; yet this mystery had no particular attraction for him, nor did Antonio’s enigmatic words recur to his memory. Though he was perfectly well aware that she was very beautiful, though it gave him pleasure to look at her from time to time and though he often felt her eyes resting on him, she was never the subject of his thoughts and did not for a moment enter into the unbroken reflections aroused by his love for Isabel Bakefield and the dangers which she was incurring.
These dangers he now judged to be less terrible than he had supposed. Since Rolleston’s plan consisted in sending Lord Bakefield to a Paris banker to obtain money, it might be assumed that Isabel, held as a hostage, would be treated with a certain consideration, at least until Rolleston, after receiving a ransom, made further demands. But, when this happened, would not he, Simon, be there?
They were now entering a region of a wholly different character, where there was no longer either sand or mud, but a floor of grey rock streaked with thin sheets of hard, sharp-edged stone, which refused to take the imprint of a trail and which even the iron of the horses’ shoes failed to mark. Their only chance of information was from the prowlers whom they might encounter.
These were becoming more and more numerous. Two full days had elapsed since the emergence of the new land. It was now the third day; and from all parts, from every point of the sea-side counties or departments, came hastening all who did not fear the risk of the undertaking: vagabonds, tramps, poachers, reckless spirits, daredevils of all kinds. The ruined towns poured forth their contingent of poverty-striken, starving outcasts and escaped prisoners. Armed with rifles and swords, with clubs or scythes, all these brigands wore an air that was both defiant and threatening. They watched one another warily, each of them gauging at a glance his neighbour’s strength, ready to spring upon him or ready to act in self-defence.
Simon’s questions hardly evoked as much as a grumbling reply:
“A woman tied up? A party? Horses? Not come my way.”
And they went on. But, two hours later, Simon was greatly surprised to see the motley dress of three men walking some distance ahead, their shoulders laden with bundles which each of them carried slung on the end of a stick. Weren’t those Antonio’s Indians?
“Yes,” murmured Dolores. “It’s Forsetta and the Mazzani brothers.” But, when Simon proposed to go after them, “No!” she said, without concealing her repugnance. “They’re a bad lot. There’s nothing to be gained by joining them.”
But he was not listening; and, as soon as they were within hearing, he shouted:
“Is Antonio anywhere about?”
The three men set down their bundles, while Simon and Dolores dismounted and Forsetta, who had a revolver in his hand, thrust it into his pocket. He was a great giant of a fellow.
“Ah, so it’s you, Dolores?” he said, after saluting Simon. “Faith, no, Antonio’s nowhere hereabouts. We’ve not seen him.”
He smiled with a wry mouth and treacherous eyes.
“That means,” retorted Simon, pointing to their burdens, “that you and Mazzani thought it simpler to go hunting in this direction?”
“May be,” he said, with a leer.
“But the old professor? Antonio left him in your charge.”
“We lost sight of him soon after the Queen Mary. He was looking for shells. So Mazzani and I came on.”
Simon was losing patience. Dolores interrupted him:
“Forsetta,” she said gravely. “Antonio was your chief. We four were fellow-workers; and he asked if you would come with him and me to avenge my uncle’s death. You had no right to desert Antonio.”
The Indians looked at one another and laughed. It was obvious that notions of right and wrong, promises, obligations, duties of friendship, established rules, decent behaviour, all these had suddenly became things which they had ceased to understand. In the stupendous chaos of events, in the heart of this virgin soil, nothing mattered but the satisfaction of the appetites. It was a new situation, which they were unable to analyse, though they hastened to profit by its results without so much as discussing them.
The brothers Mazzani lifted their bundles to their shoulders. Forsetta went up to Dolores and stared at her for a moment without speaking, with eyes that glittered between his half-closed lids. His face betrayed at the same time hesitation and a brutal desire, which he made no attempt to conceal, to seize the girl as his prey.
But he restrained himself and, picking up his bag, moved off with his companions.
Simon had watched the scene in silence. His eyes met Dolores’. She coloured slightly and said, in a low voice:
“Forsetta used to know how to keep his distance. . . . The air of the prairie, as you say, has acted on him as it has on the others.”
Around them, a bed of dried wrack and other sea-weeds, beneath which the cable disappeared for a length of several miles, formed a series of hills and valleys. Dolores decided that they would halt there and led the horses a little way off, so that they should not disturb Simon’s rest.
As it happened, Simon, having lain down on the ground and fallen asleep, was attacked, knocked helpless, gagged and bound before he was able to offer the least resistance to his assailants. These were the three Indians, who had returned at a run.
Forsetta took possession of Simon’s pocket-book and watch, tested the firmness of his bonds and then, flat on his stomach, with one of the Mazzanis on either side, crawled under the wrack and seaweed towards the spot where the girl was tending the horses.
Simon repeatedly saw their supple bodies wriggling like reptiles. Dolores, who was busied over the saddle-bags, had her back to them. No feeling of uneasiness warned her of her danger. In vain Simon strove against his bonds and uttered shouts which were stifled by his gag. No power could prevent the Indians from attaining their aim.
The younger Mazzani was the swifter of the two. He suddenly sprung upon Dolores and threw her down, while his brother leapt upon one o
f the horses and Forsetta, holding another by the bridle, gave his orders in a hoarse tone of triumph:
“Lift her. Take away her rifle. . . . Good! Bring her here. . . . We’ll tie her on.”
Dolores was placed across the saddle. But, just as Forsetta was uncoiling a rope which he carried round his waist, she raised herself upon the horse’s neck, towering over young Mazzani and, raising her arm, struck him full in the chest with her dagger. The Indian fell like a stone against Forsetta; and, when the latter had released himself and made as though to continue the struggle on his own account, Dolores was already before him, threatening him point-blank with her rifle, which she had recovered:
“Clear out,” she said. “You too, Mazzani, clear out.”
Mazzani obeyed and flew off at a gallop. Forsetta, his features convulsed with rage, withdrew with deliberate steps, leading the second horse. Dolores called to him:
“Leave that horse, Forsetta! This moment . . . or I fire!”
He dropped the bridle and then, twenty paces farther on, suddenly turned his back and fled as fast as he could run.
Simon was impressed not so much by the incident itself — a mere episode in the great tragedy — as by the extraordinary coolness which the girl had displayed. When she came to release him, her hands were cold as ice and her lips quivering:
“He’s dead,” she faltered. “The young Mazzani is dead. . . .”
“You had to defend yourself,” said Simon.
“Yes . . . yes . . . but to take a man’s life . . . how horrible! I struck instinctively . . . as though I were acting for the films: you see, we rehearsed this scene a hundred times and more, the four of us, the Mazzanis, Forsetta and I, in the same way, with the words and gestures in the same order. . . . Even to the stab! It was young Mazzani himself who taught me that; and he often used to say: ‘Bravo, Dolores! If ever you play the kidnapping-scene in real life, I’m sorry for your adversary!’”
“Let’s hurry,” said Simon. “Mazzani may try to avenge his brother’s death; and a man like Forsetta doesn’t easily give up. . . .”
Delphi Collected Works of Maurice Leblanc (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Nine Book 17) Page 375