XXIII.
There is no man, however brave he may think himself, who would nottremble at the idea that he has, just by a miracle, escaped from theassassin's hand. There is not one who would not feel his blood growchill in his veins at the thought that those who have failed in theirattempt once will no doubt renew their efforts, and that perhaps themiracle may not be repeated.
That was Daniel's position.
He felt henceforth this terrible certainty, that war had been declaredagainst him, a savage warfare, merciless, pitiless, a war of treacheryand cunning, of snare and ambush. It had been proved to him that at hisside, so to say, as his very shadow, there was ever a terrible enemy,stimulated by the thirst of gain, watching all his steps, ever awake andon the watch, and ready to seize the first opportunity to strike. Theinfernal cunning of the first two attempts enabled Daniel to measurethe superior wickedness of the man who had been chosen and enlisted--atleast Daniel thought so--by Sarah Brandon.
Still he did not say a word of the danger to which he was exposed,and even assumed, as soon as he had recovered from the first shock, acertain cheerfulness which he had not shown during the whole voyage, andunder which he concealed his apprehensions.
"I do not want my enemy," he said to himself, "to suspect mysuspicions."
But from that moment his suspicions never fell asleep; and every stephe took was guided by most careful circumspection. He never put one footbefore the other, so to say, without first having examined the ground;he never seized a man-rope without having first tried its solidity; hehad made it a law to eat and drink nothing, not even a glass of water,but what came from the officers' table.
These perpetual precautions, these ceaseless apprehensions, wereextremely repugnant to his daring temper; but he felt, that, under suchcircumstances, careless would be no longer courage, but simple folly. Hehad engaged in a duel in which he wanted to be victorious; hence he mustat least defend himself against the attack. He felt, moreover, that hewas the only protector his beloved had now; and that, if he died, shewould certainly be lost. But he also thought not only of defendinghimself, but of getting at the assassin, and, through him, at theinfamous creature by whom he was employed, Sarah Brandon.
He therefore pursued his search quietly, slowly, but indefatigably.Certain circumstances which he had at first forgotten, and a few pointsskilfully put together, gave him some hope. He had, for instance,ascertained that none but the crews of the boats had been on shore, andthat, of these, not one had been for ten minutes out of sight of theothers. Hence the pretended boatman was not a sailor on board "TheConquest." Nor could it have been one of the marines, as none of themhad been allowed to leave the vessel. There remained the emigrants,fifty or sixty of whom had spent the night in Saigon.
But was not the idea that one of these men might have led Daniel intothe trap contradicted by the circumstances of the first attempt? Byno means; for many of the younger men among these emigrants had askedpermission to help in the working of the ship in order to break themonotony of the long voyage. After careful inquiry, Daniel ascertainedeven that four of them had been with the sailors on the yards from whichthe heavy block fell that came so near ending his life.
Which were they? This he could not ascertain.
Still the result was enough for Daniel to make his life more endurable.He could breathe again on board ship; he went and came in all safety,since he was sure that the guilty man was not one of the crew. He evenfelt real and great relief at the thought that his would-be assassin wasnot to be looked for among these brave and frank sailors; none of them,at least, had been bribed with gold to commit a murder. Moreover, thelimits of his investigations had now narrowed down in such a manner,that he might begin to hope for success in the end.
Unfortunately the emigrants had, a fortnight after the landing,scattered abroad, going according as they were wanted, to the differentestablishments in the colony, which were far apart from each other.Daniel had therefore, at least for the moment, to give up a plan he hadformed, to talk with every one of them until he should recognize thevoice of the false boatman.
He himself, besides, was not to remain at Saigon. After a firstexpedition, which kept him away for two months, he obtained command ofa steam-sloop, which was ordered to explore and to take all the bearingsof the River Kamboja, from the sea to Mitho, the second city of CochinChina. This was no easy task; for the Kamboja had already defeated theefforts of several hydrographic engineers by its capricious and constantchanges, every pass and every turn nearly changing with the monsoons indirection and depth.
But the mission had its own difficulties and dangers. The Kamboja is notonly obstructed by foul swamps; but it flows through vast marshy plains,which, in the season of rains, are covered with water; while in thedry season, under the burning rays of the sun, they exhale that fatalmalaria which has cost already thousands of valuable lives.
Daniel was to experience its effects but too soon. In less than a weekafter he had set out, he saw three of the men who had been put underhis orders die before his eyes, after a few hours' illness, and amidatrocious convulsions. They had the cholera. During the next fourmonths, seven succumbed to fevers which they had contracted in thesepestilential swamps. And towards the end of the expedition, when thework was nearly done, the survivors were so emaciated, that they hadhardly strength enough to hold themselves up. Daniel alone had not yetsuffered from these terrible scourges. God knows, however, that he hadnot spared himself, nor ever hesitated to do what he thought he oughtto do. To sustain, to electrify these men, exhausted as they were bysickness, and irritated at wasting their lives upon work that had noreward, a leader was required who should possess uncommon intrepidity,and who should treat danger as an enemy who is to be defied only byfacing him; and such a leader they found in Daniel.
He had told Sarah Brandon on the eve of his departure,--
"With a love like mine, with a hatred like mine, in the heart, one candefy all things. The murderous climate is not going to harm me; and, ifI had six balls in my body, I should still find strength enough to comeand call you to account for what you have done to Henrietta before Idie."
He certainly had had need of all that dauntless energy which passioninspires to sustain him in his trials. But alas! his bodily sufferingswere as nothing in comparison with his mental anxiety. At night, whilehis men were asleep, he kept awake, his heart torn with anguish, nowcrushed under the thought of his helplessness, and now asking himself ifrage would not deprive him of his reason.
It was a year now since he had left Paris to go on board "The Conquest,"a whole year.
And he had not received a single letter from Henrietta,--not one. Everytime a vessel arrived from France with despatches, his hopes revived;and every time they were disappointed.
"Well," he would say to himself, "I can wait for the next." And then hebegan counting the days. Then it arrived at last, this long-expectedship, and never, never once brought a letter from Henrietta--
How could this silence be explained? What strange events could havehappened? What must he think, hope, fear?
To be chained by honor to a place a thousand leagues from the woman heloved to distraction, to know nothing about her, her life, her actionsand her thoughts, to be reduced to such extreme wretchedness, to doubt--
Daniel would have been much less unhappy if some one had suddenly comeand told him, "Miss Ville-Handry is no more."
Yes, less unhappy; for true love in its savage selfishness suffers lessfrom death than from treason. If Henrietta had died, Daniel wouldhave been crushed; and maybe despair would have driven him to extrememeasures; but he would have been relieved of that horrible strugglewithin him, between his faith in the promises of his beloved and certainsuspicions, which caused his hair to stand on end.
But he knew that she was alive; for there was hardly a vessel comingfrom France or from England which did not bring him a letter fromMaxime, or from the Countess Sarah. For Sarah insisted upon writingto him, as if there existed a mysterious bond
between them, which shedefied him to break.
"I obey," she said, "an impulse more powerful than reason and willalike. It is stronger than I am, stronger than all things else; I mustwrite to you, I cannot help it."
At another time she said,--
"Do you remember that evening, O Daniel! when, pressing Sarah Brandonto your heart, you swore to be hers forever? The Countess Ville-Handrycannot forget it."
Under the most indifferent words there seemed to palpitate and tostruggle a passion which was but partially restrained, and ever on thepoint of breaking forth. Her letters read like the conversations oftimid lovers, who talk about the rain and the weather in a tone of voicetrembling with desire, and with looks burning with passion.
"Could she really be in love with me?" Daniel thought, "and could thatbe her punishment?"
Then, again, swearing, like the roughest of his men, he added,--
"Am I to be a fool forever? Is it not quite clear that this wicked womanonly tries to put my suspicions to sleep? She is evidently preparing forher defence, in case the rascal who attempted my life should be caught,and compromise her by his confessions."
Every letter; moreover, brought from the Countess Sarah some news abouthis betrothed, her "stepdaughter." But she always spoke of her withextreme reserve and reticence, and in ambiguous terms, as if countingupon Daniel's sagacity to guess what she could not or would not write.According to her account, Henrietta had become reconciled to herfather's marriage. The poor child's melancholy had entirely disappeared.Miss Henrietta was very friendly with Sir Thorn. The coquettish ways ofthe young girl became quite alarming; and her indiscretion provoked thegossip of visitors. Daniel might as well accustom himself to the idea,that, on his return, he might find Henrietta a married woman.
"She lies, the wretch!" said Daniel; "yes, she lies!"
But he tried in vain to resist; every letter from Sarah brought him thegerm of some new suspicion, which fermented in his mind as the miasmafermented in the veins of his men.
The information furnished by Maxime de Brevan was different, andoften contradictory even, but by no means more reassuring. His lettersportrayed the perplexity and the hesitation of a man who is all anxietyto soften hard truths. According to him, the Countess Sarah and MissVille-Handry did not get on well with each other; but he declared he wasbound to say that the wrong was all on the young lady's side, who seemedto make it the study of her life to mortify her step-mother, while thelatter bore the most irritating provocations with unchanging sweetness.He alluded to the calumnies which endangered Miss Henrietta'sreputation, admitting that she had given some ground for them bythoughtless acts. He finally added that he foresaw the moment whenshe would leave her father's house in spite of all his advice to thecontrary.
"And not one line from her," exclaimed Daniel,--"not one line!"
And he wrote her letter after letter, beseeching her to answer him,whatever might be the matter, and to fear nothing, as the certaintyeven of a misfortune would be a blessing to him in comparison with thistorturing uncertainty.
He wrote without imagining for a moment that Henrietta suffered all thetorments he endured, that their letters were intercepted, and that shehad no more news of him than he had of her.
Time passed, however, carrying with it the evil as well as the gooddays. Daniel returned to Saigon, bringing back with him one of thefinest hydrographic works that exist on Cochin China. It was well knownthat this work had cost an immense outlay of labor, of privations, andof life; hence he was rewarded as if he had won a battle, and he wasrewarded instantly, thanks to special powers conferred upon his chief,reserving only the confirmation in France, which was never refused.
All the survivors of the expedition were mentioned in public orders andin the official report; two were decorated; and Daniel was promotedto officer of the Legion of Honor. Under other circumstances, thisdistinction, doubly valuable to so young a man, would have made himsupremely happy; now it left him cold.
The fact was, that these long trials had worn out the elasticity of hisheart; and the sources of joy, as well as the sources of sorrow, haddried up. He no longer struggled against despair, and came to believethat Henrietta had forgotten him, and would never be his wife. Now, ashe knew he never could love another, or rather as no other existedfor him; as, without Henrietta, the world seemed to him empty, absurd,intolerable,--he asked himself why he should continue to live. Therewere moments in which he looked lovingly at his pistols, and said tohimself,--
"Why should I not spare Sarah Brandon the trouble?"
What kept his hand back was the leaven of hatred which still rose in himat times. He ought to have the courage, at least, to live long enough toavenge himself. Harassed by these anxieties, he withdrew more andmore from society; never went on shore; and his comrades on board "TheConquest" felt anxious as they looked at him walking restlessly up anddown the quarter-deck, pale, and with eyes on fire.
For they loved Daniel. His superiority was so evident, that nonedisputed it; they might envy him; but they could never be jealous ofhim. Some of them thought he had brought back with him from Kamboja thegerm of one of those implacable diseases which demoralize the strongest,and which break out suddenly, carrying a man off in a few hours.
"You ought not to become a misanthrope, my dear Champcey," they wouldsay. "Come, for Heaven's sake shake off that sadness, which might makean end of you before you are aware of it!"
And jestingly they added,--
"Decidedly, you regret the banks of the Kamboja!"
They thought it a jest: it was the truth. Daniel did regret even theworst days of his mission. At that time his grave responsibility,overwhelming fatigues, hard work, and daily danger, had procured him atleast some hours of oblivion. Now idleness left him, without respite ortime, face to face with his distressing thoughts. It was the desire, thenecessity almost, of escaping in some manner from himself, which madehim accept an invitation to join a number of his comrades who wanted totry the charms of a great hunting party.
On the morning of the expedition, however, he had a kind ofpresentiment.
"A fine opportunity," he thought, "for the assassin hired by SarahBrandon!"
Then, shrugging his shoulders, he said with a bitter laugh,--
"How can I hesitate? As if a life like mine was worth the trouble ofprotecting it against danger!"
When they arrived on the following day on the hunting ground, he, aswell as the other hunters, received their instructions, and had theirposts assigned them by the leader. He found himself placed between twoof his comrades, in front of a thicket, and facing a narrow ravine,through which all the game must necessarily pass as it was driven downby a crowd of Annamites.
They had been firing for an hour, when Daniel's neighbors saw himsuddenly let go his rifle, turn over, and fall.
They hurried up to catch him; but he fell, face forward, to the ground,saying aloud, and very distinctly,--
"This time they have not missed me!"
At the outcry raised by the two neighbors of Daniel, other hunters hadhastened up, and among them the chief surgeon of "The Conquest," one ofthose old "pill-makers," who, under a jovial scepticism, and a rough,almost brutal outside, conceal great skill and an almost femininetenderness. As soon as he looked at the wounded man, whom his friendshad stretched out on his back, making a pillow of their overcoats, andwho lay there pale and inanimate, the good doctor frowned, and growledout,--
"He won't live."
The officers were thunderstruck.
"Poor Champcey!" said one of them, "to escape the Kamboja fevers, and tobe killed here at a pleasure party! Do you recollect, doctor, what yousaid on the occasion of his second accident,--'Mind the third'?"
The old doctor did not listen. He had knelt down, and rapidly strippedthe coat off Daniel's back. The poor man had been struck by a shot. Theball had entered on the right side, a little behind; and between thefourth and the fifth rib, one could see a round wound, the edges drawnin. But the most careful examination
did not enable him to find theplace where the projectile had come out again. The doctor rose slowly,and, while carefully dusting the knees of his trousers, he said,--
"All things considered, I would not bet that he may not escape. Whoknows where the ball may be lodged? It may have respected the vitalparts.
"Projectiles often take curious turns and twists. I should almost bedisposed to answer for M. Champcey, if I had him in a good bed in thehospital at Saigon. At all events, we must try to get him there alive.Let one of you gentlemen tell the sailors who have come with us to makea litter of branches."
The noise of a struggle, of fearful oaths and inarticulate cries,interrupted his orders. Some fifteen yards off, below the place whereDaniel had fallen, two sailors were coming out of the thicket, theirfaces red with anger, dragging out a man with a wretched gun, who hurledout,--
"Will you let me go, you parcel of good-for-nothings! Let me go, or I'llhurt you!"
He was so furiously struggling in the arms of the two sailors, clingingwith an iron grip to roots and branches and rocks, turning and twistingat every step, that the men at last, furious at his resistance, liftedhim up bodily, and threw him at the chief surgeon's feet, exclaiming,--
"Here is the scoundrel who has killed our lieutenant!"
It was a man of medium size, with a dejected air, and lack-lustre eyes,wearing a mustache and chin-beard, and looking impudent. His costumewas that of an Annamite of the middle classes,--a blouse buttoned atthe side, trousers made in Chinese style, and sandals of red leather. Itwas, nevertheless, quite evident that the man was a European.
"Where did you find him?" asked the surgeon of the men.
"Down there, commandant, behind that big bush, to the right of Lieut.Champcey, and a little behind him."
"Why do you accuse him?"
"Why? We have good reasons, I should think. He was hiding. When we sawhim, he was lying flat on the ground, trembling with fear; and we saidat once, 'Surely, there is the man who fired that shot.'"
The man had, in the meantime, raised himself, and assumed an air ofalmost provoking assurance.
"They lie!" he exclaimed. "Yes, they lie, the cowards!"
This insult would have procured him a sound drubbing, but for the oldsurgeon, who held the arm of the first sailor who made the attack. Then,continuing his interrogatory, he asked,--
"Why did you hide?"
"I did not hide."
"What were you doing there, crouching in the bush?"
"I was at my post, like the others. Do they require a permit to carryarms in Cochin China? I was not invited to your hunting party, to besure; but I am fond of game; and I said to myself, 'Even if I were toshoot two or three head out of the hundreds their drivers will bringdown, I would do them no great harm.'"
The doctor let him talk on for some time, observing him closely with hissagacious eye; then, all of a sudden, he broke in, saying,--
"Give me your gun!"
The man turned so visibly pale, that all the officers standing aroundnoticed it. Still he did what he was asked to do, and said,--
"Here it is. It's a gun one of my friends has lent me."
The doctor examined the weapon very carefully; and, after havinginspected the lock, he said,--
"Both barrels of your gun are empty; and they have not been emptied morethan two minutes ago."
"That is so; I fired both barrels at an animal that passed me withinreach."
"One of the balls may have gone astray."
"That cannot be. I was aiming in the direction of the prairie; and,consequently, I was turning my back to the place where the officer wasstanding."
To the great surprise of everybody, the doctor's face, ordinarily craftyenough, now looked all benevolent curiosity,--so much so, that the twosailors who had captured the man were furious, and said aloud,--
"Ah! don't believe him, commandant, the dirty dog!"
But the man, evidently encouraged by the surgeon's apparent kindliness,asked,--
"Am I to be allowed to defend myself, or not?"
And then he added in a tone of supreme impudence,--
"However, whether I defend myself or not, it will, no doubt, be allthe same. Ah! if I were only a sailor, or even a marine, that would beanother pair of sleeves; they would hear me! But now, I am nothing buta poor civilian; and here everybody knows civilians must have broadshoulders. Wrong or right, as soon as they are accused, they areconvicted."
The doctor seemed to have made up his mind; for he interrupted this flowof words, saying in his kindest voice,--
"Calm yourself, my friend. There is a test which will clearly establishyour innocence. The ball that has struck Lieut. Champcey is still in thewound; and I am the man who is going to take it out, I promise you. Weall here have rifles with conical balls; you are the only one who has anordinary shot-gun with round balls, so there is no mistake possible. Ido not know if you understand me?"
Yes, he understood, and so well, that his pale face turned livid, andhe looked all around with frightened glances. For about six seconds hehesitated, counting his chances; then suddenly falling on his knees, hishands folded, and beating the ground with his forehead, he cried out,--
"I confess! Yes, it may be I who have hit the officer. I heardthe bushes moving in his direction, and I fired at a guess. What amisfortune! O God, what a misfortune! Ah! _I_ would give my life to savehis if I could. It was an accident, gentlemen, I swear. Such accidentshappen every day in hunting; the papers are full of them. Great God!what an unfortunate man I am!"
The doctor had stepped back. He now ordered the two sailors who hadarrested the man, to make sure of him, to bind him, and carry him toSaigon to prison. One of the gentlemen, he said, would write a fewlines, which they must take with them. The man seemed to be annihilated.
"A misfortune is not a crime," he sighed out. "I am an honest mechanic."
"We shall see that in Saigon," answered the surgeon.
And he hastened away to see if all the preparations had been madeto carry the wounded man. In less than twenty minutes, and with thatmarvellous skill which is one of the characteristic features of goodsailors, a solid litter had been constructed; the bottom formed a realmattress of dry leaves; and overhead a kind of screen had been made oflarger leaves. When they put Daniel in, the pain caused him to utter alow cry of pain. This was the first sign of life he had given.
"And now, my friends," said the doctor, "let us go! And bear in mind, ifyou shake the lieutenant, he is a dead man."
It was hardly eight in the morning when the melancholy processionstarted homeward; and it was not until between two and three o'clock onthe next morning that it entered Saigon, under one of those overwhelmingrains which give one an idea of the deluge, and of which Cochin Chinahas the monopoly. The sailors who carried the litter on which Daniellay had walked eighteen hours without stopping, on footpaths whichwere almost impassable, and where every moment a passage had to be cutthrough impenetrable thickets of aloes, cactus, and jack-trees. Severaltimes the officers had offered to take their places; but they had alwaysrefused, relieving each other, and taking all the time as ingeniousprecautions as a mother might devise for her dying infant. Although,therefore, the march lasted so long, the dying man felt no shock; andthe old doctor said, quite touched, to the officers who were aroundhim,--
"Good fellows, how careful they are! You might have put a full glass ofwater on the litter, and they would not have spilled a drop."
Yes, indeed! Good people, rude and rough, no doubt, in many ways, coarsesometimes, and even brutal, bad to meet on shore the day after pay-day,or coming out from a drinking-shop, but keeping under the rough outsidea heart of gold, childlike simplicity, and the sacred fire of noblestdevotion. The fact was, they did not dare breathe heartily till afterthey had put their precious burden safe under the hospital porch.
Two officers who had hastened in advance had ordered a room to be madeready. Daniel was carried there; and when he had been gently put on awhite, good bed, officers and s
ailors withdrew into an adjoining room toawait the doctor's sentence. The latter remained with the wounded man,with two assistant surgeons who had been roused in the meantime.
Hope was very faint. Daniel had recovered his consciousness duringthe journey, and had even spoken a few words to those around him, butincoherent words, the utterance of delirium. They had questioned himonce or twice; but his answers had shown that he had no consciousnessof the accident which had befallen him, nor of his present condition; sothat the general opinion among the sailors who were waiting, and who allhad more or less experience of shot-wounds, was, that fever would carryoff their lieutenant before sunrise.
Suddenly, as if by magic, all was hushed, and not a word spoken.
The old surgeon had just appeared at the door of the sick-chamber; and,with a pleasant and hopeful smile on his lips, he said,--
"Our poor Champcey is doing as well as could be expected; and I wouldalmost be sure of his recovery, if the great heat was not upon us."
And, silencing the murmur of satisfaction which arose among them at thisgood news, he went on to say,--
"Because, after all, serious as the wound is, it is nothing incomparison with what it might have been; and what is more, gentlemen, Ihave the _corpus delicti_."
He raised in the air, as he said this, a spherical ball, which he heldbetween his thumb and forefinger.
"Another instance," he said, "to be added to those mentioned by ourgreat masters of surgery, of the oddities of projectiles. This one,instead of pursuing its way straight through the body of our poorfriend, had turned around the ribs, and gone to its place close by thevertebral column. There I found it, almost on the surface; and nothingwas needed to dislodge it but a slight push with the probe."
The shot-gun taken from the hands of the murderer had been depositedin a corner of the large room: they brought it up, tried the ball, andfound it to fit accurately.
"Now we have a tangible proof," exclaimed a young ensign, "anunmistakable proof, that the wretch whom our men have caught is Daniel'smurderer. Ah, he might as well have kept his confession!"
But the old surgeon replied with a dark frown,--
"Gently, gentlemen, gently! Don't let us be over-hasty in accusing apoor fellow of such a fearful crime, when, perhaps, he is guilty only ofimprudence."
"O doctor, doctor!" protested half a dozen voices.
"I beg your pardon! Don't let us be hasty, I say; and let us consider,For an assassination there must be a motive, and an all-powerful motive;for, aside from the scaffold which he risks, no man is capable ofkilling another man solely for the purpose of shedding his blood. Now,in this case, I look in vain for any reason, which could have inducedthe man to commit a murder. He certainly did not expect to rob our poorcomrade. But hatred, you say, or vengeance, perhaps! Well, that may be.But, before a man makes up his mind to shoot even the man he hates likea dog, he must have been cruelly offended by him; and, to bring thisabout, he must have been in contact, or must have stood in some relationto him. Now, I ask you, is it not far more probable that the murderersaw our friend Champcey this morning for the first time?"
"I beg your pardon, commandant! He knew him perfectly well."
The man who interrupted the doctor was one of the sailors to whom theprisoner had been intrusted to carry him to prison. He came forward,twisting his worsted cap in his hands; and, when the old surgeon hadordered him to speak, he said,--
"Yes, the rascal knew the lieutenant as well as I know you, commandant;and the reason of it is, that the scoundrel was one of the emigrantswhom we brought here eighteen months ago."
"Are you sure of what you say?"
"As sure as I see you, commandant. At first my comrade and I did notrecognize him, because a year and a half in this wretched countrydisfigure a man horribly; but, while we were carrying him to jail, wesaid to one another, 'That is a head we have seen before.' Then wemade him talk; and he told us gradually, that he had been one of thepassengers, and that he even knew my name, which is Baptist Lefloch."
This deposition of the sailor made a great impression upon all thebystanders, except the old doctor. It is true he was looked upon, onboard "The Conquest," as one of the most obstinate men in holding on tohis opinions.
"Do you know," he asked the sailor, "if this man was one of the four orfive who had to be put in irons during the voyage?"
"No, he was not one of them, commandant."
"Did he ever have anything to do with Lieut. Champcey? Has he beenreprimanded by him, or punished? Has he ever spoken to him?"
"Ah, commandant! that is more than I can tell."
The old doctor slightly shrugged his shoulders, and said in a tone ofindifference,--
"You see, gentlemen, this deposition is too vague to prove anything.Believe me, therefore, do not let us judge before the trial, and let usgo to bed."
Day was just breaking, pale and cool; the sailors disappeared one byone. The doctor was getting ready to lie down on a bed which he hadordered to be put up in a room adjoining that in which the wounded manwas lying, when an officer came in. It was one of those who had beenstanding near Champcey; he, also, was a lieutenant.
"I should like to have a word in private with you, doctor," he said.
"Very well," replied the old surgeon. "Be kind enough to come up to myroom." And when they were alone, he locked the door, and said,--
"I am listening."
The lieutenant thought a moment, like a man who looks for the best formin which to present an important idea, and then said,--
"Between us, doctor, do you believe it was an accident, or a crime?"
The surgeon hesitated visibly.
"I will tell you, but you only, frankly, that I do not believe it was anaccident. But as we have no evidence"--
"Pardon me! I think I have evidence."
"Oh!"
"You shall, judge yourself. When Daniel fell, he said, 'This time, theyhave not missed me!'"
"Did he say so?"
"Word for word. And Saint Edme, who was farther from him than I was,heard it as distinctly as I did."
To the great surprise of the lieutenant, the chief surgeon seemed onlymoderately surprised; his eyes, on the contrary, shone with that pleasedair of a man who congratulates himself at having foreseen exactly whathe now is told was the fact. He drew a chair up to the fireplace, inwhich a huge fire had been kindled to dry his clothes, sat down, andsaid,--
"Do you know, my dear lieutenant, that what you tell me is a matterof the greatest importance? What may we not conclude from those words,'This time they have not missed me'? In the first place, it proves thatChampcey was fully aware that his life was in danger. Secondly,that plural, 'They have not,' shows that he knew he was watched andthreatened by several people: hence the scamp whom we caught must haveaccomplices. In the third place, those words, 'This time,' establish thefact that his life has been attempted before."
"That is just what I thought, doctor."
The worthy old gentleman looked very grave and solemn, meditatingdeeply.
"Well, I," he continued slowly, "I had a very clear presentiment ofall that as soon as I looked at the murderer. Do you remember the man'samazing impudence as long as he thought he could not be convicted of thecrime? And then, when he found that the calibre of his gun betrayed him,how abject, how painfully humble, he became! Evidently such a man iscapable of anything."
"Oh! you need only look at him"--
"Yes, indeed! Well, as I was thus watching him, I instinctivelyrecalled the two remarkable accidents which so nearly killed our poorChampcey,--that block that fell upon him from the skies, and thatshipwreck in the Dong-Nai. But I was still doubtful. After what you tellme, I am sure."
He seized the lieutenant's hand; and, pressing it almost painfully, hewent on,--
"Yes, I am ready to take my oath that this wretch is the vile tool ofpeople who hate or fear Daniel Champcey; who are deeply interested inhis death; and who, being too cowardly to do their own business, arerich enough to hire an
assassin."
The lieutenant was evidently unable to follow.
"Still, doctor," he objected, "but just now you insisted"--
"Upon a diametrically opposite doctrine; eh?"
"Precisely."
The old surgeon smiled, and said,--
"I had my reasons. The more I am persuaded that this man is anassassin, the less I am disposed to proclaim it on the housetops. He hasaccomplices, you think, do you?"
"Certainly."
"Well, if we wish to reach them, we must by all means reassure them,leave them under the impression that everybody thinks it was anaccident. If they are frightened, good-night. They will vanish beforeyou can put out your hand to seize them."
"Champcey might be questioned; perhaps he could furnish someinformation."
But the doctor rose, and stopped him with an air of fury,--
"Question my patient! Kill him, you mean! No! If I am to have thewonderful good luck to pull him through, no one shall come near his bedfor a month. And, moreover, it will be very fortunate indeed if in amonth he is sufficiently recovered to keep up a conversation."
He shook his head, and went on, after a moment's silence,--
"Besides, it is a question whether Champcey would be disposed to saywhat he knows, or what he suspects. That is very doubtful. Twice he hasbeen almost killed. Has he ever said a word about it? He probably hasthe same reasons for keeping silence now that he had then."
Then, without noticing the officer's objections, he added,--
"At all events, I will think it over, and go and see the judges assoon as they are out of bed. But I must ask you, lieutenant, to keep mysecret till further order. Will you promise?"
"On my word, doctor."
"Then you may rest assured our poor friend shall be avenged. And now, asI have barely two hours to rest, please excuse me."
La clique dorée. English Page 23