“Why, but where am I?” I rubbed my eyes and made an effort to recall the past.
I hoped that all the horrors and misfortunes with which my life had been filled during the last forty-eight hours were but visions in a nightmare from which my waking consciousness would soon deliver me.
But the Hindu manservant entered with the Doctor; and I recognised the Doctor!
At the same time my eyes caught sight, above the door of my little bedroom, of a neat V like those which were embroidered on the collar of the Doctor’s jacket, and like those, also, which I remembered to have seen in my dream.... And at once I was back again in the frightful reality.
The man who came and took my hand and felt my pulse; this man was he whom I had seen weeping last night in the presence of Dolores and Gabriel, two other persons of my nightmare!
Nightmare, did I say? There was nothing of the nightmare about it.... The evening prayer.... Captain Hyx.... The railed recess.... They were all real... they all existed... they were all around me.... I was living.... I should live among them all... or die!...
“Monsieur,” said the Doctor, “you still have a touch of fever, but it will soon pass if you are careful. In fact, yours is an excellent constitution. You have had a very good night. I gave you an injection while you slept and it has almost entirely restored your strength. Eat your breakfast with an easy mind.... Don’t get excited... it won’t help you.... And everything will turn out for you, I hope, much better than you fear.”
“Doctor,” I exclaimed, “if there is a just man here I have nothing to be afraid of.”
“I am glad to hear it, Monsieur. But your story is no concern of mine. Don’t discuss your affairs with anybody, and reply only when you are spoken to. Apart from this, you are free to converse with your friends on any subject that occurs to you. But speaking from some experience, I should say it is better to talk literature or music.”
“I don’t know, Doctor, to what friends you are referring, and as to my conversation, I am no gossip. There is only one subject which interests me. Can you give me any news of a lady who unwittingly is the cause of my misfortunes?”
“You mean, I take it, Frau von Treischke?”
“Ah! You know about her. She is here, I believe?”
“Yes, she is here. I was called in to see her this morning.”
“What?” I cried, turning pale. “Has anything happened to her? Have these assassins been torturing her?”
The last words were shouted inadvertently in despair, but even if I had thought how reckless and unwise they were, I could not have restrained them.
The Doctor no sooner heard them than he looked around to assure himself that we were alone and the servant was not behind the door, and slightly ruffled, in a low voice replied; “Frau von Treischke is treated with every respect. But you used a word which has been expunged from our vocabularies here.... Whatever you say to your friends.,, talk of other things. Do you understand?
“Oh,” I replied, shaking my hand, “ if you have tortured Amalia you are a set of scoundrels.... I’ve been present at evening prayer.... I’ve seen the railed recess.”
“People can please themselves what they see. But it is understood that we don’t talk about it... if we can help it... if we can help it.”
“The people who contrived the railed recess, you know, Doctor... you know... whoever they are, and whatever they say, are a disgrace to humanity.”
He hung his head and I asked him with an anguish which made my voice tremble:
“What are you going to do with Frau von Treischke? What are you going to do with her?”
He made no answer.
“Will you look me in the face? Why do you turn your head away?... Why?... I insist on knowing.... If you are an honest man let me see your eyes....”
But he left the room without letting me see his eyes.
He was a queer but rather prepossessing-looking old gentleman, and perfect benevolence was stamped upon his likeable personality. But he seemed to be always looking around him as if he were expecting some new trouble. A crown of grey hair on his partly bald head gave him the appearance of King Lear after he had lost his throne.
His abrupt departure left me in an unspeakable agitation about Amalia. At that moment the Hindu servant came back, smiling at me all over his handsome face, and looking intensely pleased with himself. His name was Buldeo, he said, “at your service.” He was born near Delhi, and in his early childhood had been taken off by a Sahib to the heart of the Garo Hills where, as he told me later, wild elephants dance in chorus during the night. He was a clever valet. He proudly displayed the contents of the drawers, and showed me three pairs of trousers spread out on their racks in a cupboard, and two coats and a dinner-jacket hanging from their pegs.
He tried them on me, and, in fact, they fitted like a glove. We noted that the trousers were a little long, but it was quite fashionable to turn them up at the ends. I wanted to know from whom he had obtained this wardrobe and fine linen; and he told me that the things had arrived that very morning from Captain Hyx’s personal servant.
On reflection, I felt that this polite attention would have contributed to restore my composure if the Doctor’s hurried departure, his shifting gaze when I mentioned Amalia, and especially the remembrance of Dolores’ wild words, had not made it impossible for me to retain my mental balance.
I oscillated between terror and fury and no longer felt any solid ground underneath me, when a page boy, as it happened, brought me a letter from Frau von Treischke.
I recognised Amalia’s writing on the envelope and the trembling haste with which I tore it open may be imagined. Like everything around us it bore upon it the red V, which seemed to me to be written in the blood of the unhappy wretches who had died inside this accursed vessel.
The Admiral’s wife invited me to dine with her that evening. She had learnt of my presence on board from the Doctor, who had advised her to write so as to reassure me.
As to her own affairs, she and the children had been treated with every care and attention since their brutal abduction. She thanked me for my devotion in pursuing the kidnappers to the depths of the sea, and did not conceal her hope that it would all end well and very soon. She accounted for the disagreeable incident by the necessity in which Germany’s enemies found themselves to secure valuable hostages; perhaps with a view to an exchange of prisoners to which they attached great Importance.... The youngsters were quite well, but the little girl had had a slight sore throat. All three — Dorothée, Heinrich, Carolus — sent me a kiss. As to the mother, who could hardly send me a kiss, she assured me of her affectionate and grateful friendship. I warmly kissed her signature.
Poor, dear, beloved Amalia! I wrote a letter declaring that it made me the happiest of men to follow her in her misadventure, and when I wrote the words I believed them, though I was terribly anxious and almost as much alarmed on my own account as on hers.... And her letter showed that, unlike myself, she was easy in her mind, calm and confident. Oh the monsters... the monsters.... How could I save her from them? God cannot be with such people.... True,! they that take up the sword shall perish with the sword,” but this does not mean that we must take up the sword, it means that the sword must be left in the scabbard.... Lord help me to rescue Amalia....
In the meantime, I intended to be seen suitably dressed if by chance I met her before dinner....
After a shower bath and a shave, dressed in a navy blue suit which really seemed as if it had been cut to order, with a silk tie for which I might have paid forty francs in the Rue de la Paix, at Paris, nothing was wanting to make me a perfect man of fashion but a pin for my tie. It was a detail which unfortunately for the correctness of my attire had been overlooked... for a man is not properly dressed so long as he is not wearing a pin in his tie; at least not at Renich.
However that may be, I had reason to be satisfied with my appearance — I speak certainly of my appearance only — when I left my little bedroom with Buldeo’s
permission.
“Where may I go? “ I asked this perfect servant.
“Wherever you can, sir,” was the reply.
It did not take me long to grasp the full significance of these words, for I soon came up against several çlosed doors and brightly polished steel walls, which in the brilliance of the electric light made a most agreeable white prison to the eye for us, but a prison all the same.
It was easy to imagine that this was the well-guarded quarter, in which the prisoners, in a modern, hygienic and elegant setting, waited until sentence was pronounced.
In this very affectation, or rather exaggerated attention, in this egregious final concession to luxury, comfort and cultured taste, there was to my mind a sort of mental perversion in these executioners which rendered them more odious still.
In the course of my stroll through the alley-ways which were set apart for us, I imagined that there were several bedrooms like mine, in which terror and dread were much more cruelly felt, for after all I could not forget that I was a neutral. In spite of every menace, and the worst and darkest omens and anxieties, I had in my heart of hearts a hopefulness which I never abandoned, but to which I clung with desperation.
Soon I reached a sort of smoking-room, in the centre of which was an oblong table covered with a green cloth, and a large number of newspapers and reviews in every language lay on it. Against the walls stood some shelves filled with a respectable collection of books, the reading of which would help to pass the hours of waiting... waiting for what? Oh, the horror of it!
When I entered this reading-room two persons, whom I recognised by their uniforms as German naval officers, were conversing in a low voice and smoking excellent Havana cigars. They had not removed the band, contrary to the custom of persons of a more refined standard who wish to avoid being ridiculed for ostentation.
They turned their heads slightly at the sound of my entrance. I bowed discreetly, but they ignored my politeness because, it would seem, I had not been introduced, and they did not know to what class of society I belonged. And then, perhaps, they took me for a spy.
At any rate, they began to talk in loud tones about nothing in particular, which was rather clumsy of them and led me to conclude that what they had been discussing in a whisper possessed some hidden significance.
The first, who was nearest to me, had a big puffed face with goggle eyes and a squat nose; the second had the sharp features of a bird of prey that had known better days, and resembled some of the caricatures of the ex Crown Prince of Germany; both were clean-shaven with the exception of their upper lips, which bore two thin tufts kept erect with cosmetics. The first was as red as a red-hot cannon ball and seemed ready to carry fire into the world with his head. The second was green like the green of an advanced stage of death. They laughed and smoked after their conversation about nothing in particular. A silence followed, and then the first quoted a verse from a poem which was not unknown to me:
Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and shadow,
Had journey long.
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.
The other replied with the second stanza:
But he grew old —
This knight so bold —
And o’er his heart a shadow Fell as he found No spot of ground That looked like Eldorado.
And then both burst into laughter and disappeared.
One must needs be an ignoramus not to recognise in this singular poem the work of the author of “The Raven.”
They sprung this poem on me in English notwithstanding that they were Germans; and I realised what they intended to convey by their story of the gallant knight who died before he found his quest. That was it. They took me for a spy, and certainly for an Englishman or an American....
The thought that in their eyes I belonged to the gang of corsairs enrolled by Captain Hyx for his infernal work, sent the blood to my head. And I determined on the first opportunity to have a decisive explanation.
Moreover, apart from this personal incident, and the exasperation that it caused me, I was immensely struck by the easy bearing of these gentlemen and the attention which they devoted to their cigars. They had no sort of fear, it appeared, that the threat of torture hanging over their heads would be carried into effect.
My fever had returned; my temples throbbed; I was thirsty. A Hindu steward who looked exactly like Buldeo, as one pea looks like another, but who was not Buldeo, happened to be passing and, on the off-chance, I asked if he would give me something to drink.
He immediately brought me a bottle of champagne and a glass....
Certainly these people refuse us nothing.
Another Hindu steward brought a card table and some packs of cards.... And indeed the four persons who thereupon came in, and seated themselves in silence at the table, had the serious, pallid and abstracted look of prisoners sentenced to death who are about to indulge in a last game before execution.
One of them frowning asked, in German, for the counters, and rebuked in severe tones the steward for negligence.... Almost immediately afterwards they threw themselves into the game with incomparable energy, cunning, artifice, trickery, brutality and audacity.
Now I, too, am a lover of poker.
Hypnotised by the fantastic game which was proceeding I drew near. Between two games, a discussion arose as to the value of a colour in a case where the cards were equal, and I could not refrain from expressing my opinion. Thus I had the opportunity of introducing myself, and without any further explanation, I told them briefly that I was wrecked in a small boat, picked up by a submarine of unknown nationality, and was being treated with every consideration, but knew nobody on board.
The four players exchanged glances in which I detected mutual suggestions of caution, and introduced themselves. They were four German officers, and stated their names and rank without adding any other details; but they asked me quite courteously if I would care to take a hand in the game.
I replied that I should be delighted, but that unfortunately, at that moment, I was entirely unprovided with funds.,.. They told me politely that my word would be sufficient and that accounts could be settled on land.
“What do you say?” I exclaimed. “ On land. And when do you suppose we shall be put ashore?”
“Well, mein Gott,” one of them rapped out, “ when the war is over, which will be soon, if His Majesty pleases.”
They did not notice the extraordinary excitement into which this language threw me. Obviously they did not believe the stories of tortures which were current on board; they had never been present at any of the performances behind certain railings... or else they thought, for reasons which I was unable to fathom, that, personally, they had nothing to fear.
Or else again, they believed in the idea which Dolores had vaguely and pathetically put forward, that these people meant merely to frighten them... a silly idea... a silly idea to one who had had good cause to faint in this railed recess!... What could these men be thinking about to play cards at their ease, while behind the bulkheads a Chinaman, of my acquaintance, was setting his precious little tools in order for the next bit of business.... To all appearance these gentlemen were concerned only with their game.
At this point, I declared that I was not playing that hand, notwithstanding that, to start with, I held two pairs, aces up; but this was done so as to have time to think.
While the game was proceeding, about twenty persons came into the reading-room. Most of them were German army or navy officers; and there were half a dozen civilians who spoke only German and soon joined forces at a small table, but they were by no means the least cheerful.
According to a few odds and ends of conversation which reached me, I concluded that they were big merchants from North Germany, and I rather gathered that they were burgomasters, in other words, mayors of their cities.
The coincidence which brought them together round the same table, under the sea, w
as at least curious, and would have been enough, as far as I was concerned, to take away any tendency to high spirits.
But these gentlemen did not appear to be in the slightest degree astonished by their adventure, and related “good strokes of business” or stories of municipal administration to the accompaniment of bursts of laughter.
It was a little too much. They were putting on side before me the foreigner.
All the same I was dismayed, and my partners improved the occasion to bluff me out of “full houses” and three aces, which fell in showers, as the French say.
When I left the table I owed five thousand marks. I wrote an acknowledgment of the debt and added my address to the signature. Then I took my departure. When I reached my room I asked Buldeo to bring me a couple of fried eggs. My appetite was of the smallest, and I wanted to be alone in my room to think... to think!
Was it not my duty to warn my fellow-captives that they, perhaps, were under a delusion as to the fate in store for them?... On reflection, I was convinced, like Gabriel, that an enterprise of this sort was not organised merely to end in a farce.... And Dolores, too, was convinced of it. Only she lied for Gabriel’s sake.... I... I had seen!... and it was a horrible sight. True I had seen only bodies... but such bodies! How could I believe, as Dolores would have it, that these bodies were dead bodies when they were taken into the torture chamber; and that all these horrors were but so much preliminary spadework until the real little festival for the Angels of the Waters began? How could one tell? How could one tell with angels who hold such evening prayers?... In truth, my fellow-prisoners in their national pride must believe that these people dare not do these things, and the little festival would never begin.... The fools... the fools!
CHAPTER XIII
AMALIA’S UNRUFFLED CALM
WHEN I WAS shown into Amalia’s room that evening my beloved one was looking quite calm and fresh as if she had fully recovered from her experiences. She was attired in the same striking costume, not much the worse for wear, as on her last evening in Madeira. My first impression of her was considerably more disturbing than if I had found her in a state of agitation and despair.
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 341