Collected Works of Gaston Leroux

by Gaston Leroux

  They sat without exchanging another word. The night wore on.

  Gertrude lit her lantern and prepared to go up to her garret. She said good-night, in a tearful voice, to Madeleine, who raised her head and begged her not to leave her:

  “You’ve frightened me with your jeremiads, Gertrude! Come and sleep in my room. We’ll put you a mattress on the floor.”

  “But what’s happening? Lord above, miss, I’ve never seen you like this before!...Aren’t you going to say good-night to your father?”

  “No, he doesn’t want to be disturbed: he’s working.”

  “He’s no more working than we are: he’s waiting for Balaoo to come back, miss. You can’t deceive old Gertrude.”

  They both lay down in Madeleine’s room; but neither Gertrude, on the floor, nor Madeleine, in her bed, was able to sleep. And it was quite two o’clock in the morning when, as though moved by a common spring, they both sat up, with ears on the alert:

  “Did you hear, miss?”

  “Yes, Gertrude, I heard...I believe it’s he, isn’t it?”

  “It came from the forest. It’s as if the forest were sighing.”

  “That’s a bad sign,” said Madeleine, in a choking voice. “Those sighs always frightened me.”

  They were silent...and then, when the sighs in the forest were renewed, they got up, huddled on a few things and opened the window.

  And they at once whispered:

  “It’s he!...It’s he!...”

  They could see the skirt of the forest, at no great distance, in the moonlight; and, from that near, mysterious, ominous horizon, the sound reached them of a strange growling breath.

  The growling increased and became a rolling, like the incipient noise of thunder trying its voice before it becomes a storm. The forest stood poised like an immense, black, tempest-laden cloud upon the earth, upon the fields, which already shook under the as yet distant voice of the thunder. And, suddenly, the thunder burst (*) so furiously that Madeleine almost fainted away as she moaned:

  “Oh dear, what are they doing to him? Balaoo never thundered so loud as that before!”

  (*) In the opinion of every traveller who has heard the orang-utan in the virgin forest, its thunderous voice can be compared only with that of the thunder itself. An angry orang-utan sends the sound of a storm for many miles around, creating a noise that has deceived more than one inexperienced hunter at the first hearing. — AUTHOR’S NOTE.

  And, when, at the same moment, shots were heard amid shouting, in the woods, the two women flung themselves into each other’s arms, stammering in their fright:

  “Balaoo! Balaoo!”

  A fresh report of fire-arms electrified them and sent them rushing madly out of the room, across the house and up the tower. They climbed its shaky stairs, screaming for the doctor. The men were killing Balaoo! They were killing Balaoo!

  The two women burst into the belvedere, to find the old eccentric fretting like a wild beast in its cage, tearing from window to window, with fists clenched and mouth afire. Coriolis, who was stifling, had unfastened his neck-tie, his collar and his shirt; and, at intervals, when the shots rang out anew, his nails dug into his bare chest, drawing the blood., With his eyes starting from his sockets, he gurgled:

  “They’ll kill him!...They’ll kill him!...Oh, the scoundrels! The murderers!...The men!...”

  His overpowering rage could find no stronger expression, nor did it seek one. It was satisfied with that:

  “The men! The men!”

  Was it possible, was it possible that they were going to destroy his handiwork, to kill his child?

  There was not a doubt left in his mind but that they had surprised Balaoo with Meyrentin’s body, that they had tried to arrest him and that, in his madness, the pithecanthrope, forgetting all his acquired human prudence, had revealed himself the monster! This explained both the array of troops and the curiosity displayed throughout the day by all the people of the country-side. Coriolis had reassured Madeleine not long ago, but he himself knew that the thing was certain and that the whole crowd were there for the purpose of storming the forest.

  Nevertheless, until two oclock in the morning, Coriolis did not cease to hope that Balaoo, who was an integral part of the forest, would manage to extricate himself by trickery and silence. A pithecanthrope has more than one trick up his sleeve! Every tree is his friend; and he knows how to “move” in the branches!

  Alas, the thunder was soon to teach Coriolis otherwise! Balaoo sometimes thundered to amuse himself, but that was always quite evident and Coriolis then knew that the pithecanthrope was making fun of men. Now the thunder of that night was something different, was positively alarming. Never had one of the higher quadrumanes, attacked by a band of hunters in the bush, made the depths of the equatorial jungle ring with a more gigantic anger. And then there were the shots. Balaoo had been discovered! They were giving him a dose of platoon-firing!

  Coriolis tore out his hair by handfuls. He took no notice of the women when they entered. Leaning from the tower, he shouted into the night:

  “Have at them, Balaoo, have at them!...Defend yourself!...The cowards!...There’s a thousand of them to one of you, the cowards!...Have at them, Balaoo!...Kill them! Kill them!...”

  Madeleine, seeing his wild condition, tried to silence him, but in vain. He repelled her with the utmost violence. He shook his fist at heaven and earth. He cursed the universe.

  Such a work as his! They were murdering his work, the work of a god! For he had proved himself God’s equal, that old eccentric, with his pithecanthrope! He had created man; and in less time than it had occupied Him! Where God had taken perhaps five hundred thousand years, he, the old eccentric, had taken ten: ten years and a couple of touches with the scalpel under the tongue! And all that to end...how? In their daring to destroy his masterpiece in the corner of a forest!...O misery! And he wept...

  He wept, for the sounds had ceased...The thing must be over...Nothing remained of Balaoo.

  Madeleine took her father’s head in her lap and petted and consoled him like an old, white-haired child.

  He did not reply.

  He certainly did not hear her. From time to time, he repeated:

  “It’s over!...It’s all over!...We shall never see Balaoo again, we shall never see him again!”

  The scene told Gertrude much that she did not know before. Through her master’s ravings, she at last learnt the nature of the “dirty trick” of which Balaoo had been guilty. The dear darling had killed a gentleman visitor! She could not get over it. He who had always seemed to her so gentle...and who certainly would never have hurt a fly!...

  Daylight found them all three in the belvedere: they were still there at the hour when nature seems to rise from the mists of the dawn, when thick grey tints enshroud the beauty of the woods, while, far away, on the clearer horizon, the leafless tops of the great trees gleam and sparkle in the light.

  With terrified hearts, they assisted at nature’s awakening. It was the moment when the earth reeks, when the wind falls, when wild things suck the breath of the earth that makes them strong...Ah, how Balaoo used to love that hour!...And how often Coriolis had caught him, with his nose in the cool grass, sniffing the pungent smell of the morning; how often he had almost to drag him to the schoolroom where his lessons awaited him!...Poor Balaoo, who was so fond of playing truant!...How could they grow accustomed to the thought that he was now probably nothing more than a torn and mutilated corpse, which those brutes of men, who fought a thousand to one, would carry back on a litter of branches, little suspecting the miraculous nature of the game which they had killed!.

  But the idea in Coriolis’ mind suddenly found utterance on Madeleine’s lips:

  “If they have killed him,” she said, “they will certainly know. They will recognize M. Noël.”

  “Why, of course! Why, of course! There would be hundreds of people to recognize him; and Coriolis would soon be asked for explanations...”

  We
ll, what did that matter? He would furnish the explanations. He would call to witness everybody who had spoken to M. Noël: Mme. Boche, Mme. Mûre, the small tradesmen in the Rue Neuve and even those rascals the brothers Vautrin, in their prison, for Dr. Coriolis did not yet know of their escape. And people would learn what they had killed, what they had silenced for ever: human speech in a monkey’s throat!

  When Coriolis reached this second stage of his despair, he saw groups of men emerging from the forest and walking in front of something which he could not yet distinguish, but which resembled a load thrown over a litter of boughs; and he had not a doubt that it was the remains of Balaoo being carried back to the village. Soon he recognized the mayor and the prefect walking ahead: he had seen them, at a distance, on the day before, when already their curious behaviour had caused him no little anxiety. They both seemed now to be talking very excitedly, with gestures expressive of immense distress. Soldiers and peasants followed, making similar gesticulations. And all these people were escorting that sort of bier, over which a long military cloak was thrown. As the procession approached, the occupants of the tower distinguished the details more plainly; and, when it passed the foot of the tower, Madeleine and Gertrude burst into loud sobs, while Coriolis, pale as death, nearly fell over, in his attempt to see. But he saw nothing, except the cloak beneath which lay outlined a human shape that could only be the shape of Balaoo.

  When the procession had passed, another followed at once; and here again there were multitudes of people and soldiers around a litter bearing a human figure covered with a cloak...

  And then came another...and yet another...making four funeral processions...

  “Oho!” muttered Coriolis, who no longer had the strength to stand and who felt as though he were losing his reason for good. “Oho! So Balaoo defended himself!...”

  But that was not all...Gradually, the forest belched forth all the soldiers whom it had swallowed up yesterday...but in what a plight! After the dead came the wounded. Of these there were at least a score, limping along in single file, supported by their comrades, with their arms in slings and their foreheads bandaged...Good old Balaoo!...

  Yet one more procession brought up the rear. It was formed of a group of people in whose midst a figure which Coriolis seemed to know was struggling in the strangest fashion. Suddenly, he recognized it: Dr. Honorat! But such a Dr. Honorat! Coriolis could not make out the dear doctor’s attitude, nor his cries. Honorat’s face was covered with blood...and he was singing the Marseillaise!

  It was really not the moment to strike up this triumphal anthem; and the others were doing their very best to make him stop, but could not. They also had the greatest difficulty in keeping him on his legs...

  At length, this last procession, like the others, disappeared down the Rue Neuve, towards which all the peasants around were hastening with cries and shouts and lamentations, while the bell of the little church began to toll dismally for the dead, with short, single knells that fell from the steeple slowly, one by one, like tears.

  Coriolis, remembering at last that he was a member of the human race, slid to the floor at full length, lifeless, icy cold. The women thought for a moment that he was dead. No amount of attention or rubbing was able to restore the warmth to his body. At last, he opened his eyes and looked around him with a startled air:

  “Where is Balaoo?” he asked.

  They did not reply. He remembered and heaved a sigh that seemed to come from the dark depths of his scientist’s soul, the soul that had taught a pithecanthrope to speak. He shook his head and asked:

  “How many killed?”

  When the others again did not reply, he gave a violent movement of impatience:

  “I’m asking you, how many killed, how many killed!”

  “But, papa, we don’t know,” said Madeleine’s trembling voice, at last.

  “Well, you, Gertrude, go and find out.”

  She went to the municipal buildings to enquire.

  There were four killed and twenty-seven wounded.

  The first victim was the Vicomte de la Terrenoire, who had died the death of a soldier, at the head of his troops, with his skull cracked like a nutshell. It was his body that lay under the first cloak; and he had been laid in state on the desk in the marriage-registry-office. The three others were private soldiers. Their bodies were placed in a row on the floor of the council-chamber.

  In addition to these four heroes, there were a number of men suffering from fractured arms, broken legs, bruised noses; but the wordt injuries were certainly those of Colonel du Briage, who had met with an astounding adventure of which, unfortunately, he was unable to furnish particulars, for the very simple reason that he had returned with his jaws smashed to a jelly, every tooth in his head broken and his tongue torn out by the roots. Moreover, both his wrists were fractured. As for the Three Brothers, not one of them, of course, was brought back, dead or alive. More than that, they had not even been seen; and they had not fired a single shot. The soldiers had discharged their rifles at them, at random, but were unable to say if they had even driven them away. All that they found was Dr. Honorat, tied to the foot of a tree in the middle of the Moabit clearing. Throughout the fighting, he had sung the Girondins’ song, Mourir pour la patrie, and, afterwards, when the others had tried to make him speak, he had struck up the Marseillaise, which he was singing still. The mayor was utterly dismayed. As for the prefect, he could think of nothing but a telegram which he had received from the government, dismissing him from his post.

  From the town-hall, Gertrude went on to the Black Sun. The crowd in the street was so great that she soon saw that she would never reach the door of the Roubions’ inn, where generally all the news of the district centred. However, by working her way through the kitchens, she managed to reach the large summer dining-room, now transformed into an infirmary, at the moment when Born-drunk, a sergeant in the second battalion of the 3rd, was describing the terrible, swift and incomprehensible events in which he himself had taken part. He’d had the luck, he had, to get off with a split ear. Now that it was all over, he gave you his word, he wasn’t sorry that he’d been there!

  Sergeant Born-drunk expressed himself as nimbly with gestures as with words; and often the former were the more easily understood. His hearers could see, as plainly as though they had been present, the little troop under his command, slipping through the tall ferns, noiselessly, amid the silent darkness of the forest; and this merely by the way in which he stooped, bending his body, stretching out his arms, groping with cautious fingers.

  And then he pictured the whole mysterious battle, with his chest flung out, his fists cleaving the air, striking at some invisible, retreating form. And then came the firing — Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! — with his cheek on his arm, as though he were taking aim. Oh, he was there, he was there right enough! But he was no wiser for all that; for, after all, what did anyone know? Why, nothing! Not a thing! They knew that there were so many killed, that was all, and so many wounded. But how did it happen? Ah, that was the difficulty, that was the difficulty!

  The colonel alone could have told. But he would never speak again! And, as for writing, they would have long to wait, for both his wrists were smashed! As for Sergeant Born-drunk, he only knew one thing and that was that the whole business had come from above! Yes, the disaster, so to speak, had dropped out of the sky! At the moment when they thought they were going to catch the Three Brothers, when they were not far from Moabit, he had seen Colonel du Briage standing in front of him, right under the moon, in the middle of a little path. Suddenly, the colonel’s figure began to rise up from the ground, absolutely like the pictures of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. The colonel simply ascended to heaven. Not a word! Not a cry! The “old man” said nothing, but just ascended to heaven, with his arms stretched out, as though to bless the earth!

  Sergeant Born-drunk was not the only one to see that wonderful sight: all his comrades around him had seen it...and all were so much struck by
it that they thought, at first, that, they were dreaming, that they were the victims of an illusion, an hallucination...And then they had had to accept the fact that the colonel had disappeared: two officers, behind him, had also witnessed that unprecedented piece of witchcraft. And all, officers and men alike, had begun, with their heads in the air, to call out, “Colonel! Colonel!” as though they expected him to drop down from the sky. His figure had vanished through the upper branches of the tall trees...

  When the first moment of bewilderment was over, everybody ran forward...They scrambled into the branches, they quickly beat that corner of the forest...But nothing, nobody, no colonel!...

  The news soon spread along the whole line, which was closing in upon Moabit. Sergeant Born-drunk was dispatched by his lieutenant to tell Major de la Terrenoire and arrived just in time to see the major disappear, even as he had seen the colonel. But, this time, it was something awful. The major and a few other officers were sitting on their horses under the branches of a great oak. As a matter of fact, they feared that it was coming on to rain; for, though the sky was clear and the moon as bright as a five-franc piece, they could hear the first rumblings of a storm that seemed close at hand.

  Suddenly, they thought that the oak itself was struck, for there was a terrible clap of thunder in the tree and the horses shied, reared and neighed with terror. There was no holding them in. Sergeant Born-drunk, if he lived to be a hundred, would never forget the moment when Major de la Terrenoire, sitting his prancing charget, was lifted out of the saddle by something that dropped out of the tree and yet remained hanging to it. It was like a swing in which the viscount was now caught by the feet, while his head swept the ground. It was impossible quite to realize the extraordinary spectacle, in the first place, because it was dark and the moon did not shine clearly through the branches and, secondly, because everybody had lost his presence of mind.

  The horses, upsetting everything in their way, bolted, carrying their riders with them or throwing them under the branches. The linesmen ran to the assistance of the officer, who began to whirl round and to come down like a club among the rash group which was trying to rescue him. It only lasted a minute. Two of them, a corporal and a private, were killed on the spot by blows of the viscount, whose own head was no more than a mass of pulp. And the viscount himself, reduced to a useless weapon, was quickly flung by “the swing” into the midst of the dead and wounded.