“Now mankind needn’t worry — I mean, mankind is satisfied,” I said in a tone of bitter philosophy, “there are no elements in which men do not constantly massacre their fellow men.”
“You’ve hit it off exactly, my dear Herbert of Renich.”
“But there is nothing to prevent these hulks and tugs, these flotilla seemingly so peaceful, from dropping, if needs be, bombs or mines on the fighting men, just as airmen throw bombs on combatants on land.”
“Hang it all, Herbert, that would get known at once below, and the flotillas above would fight and that must not be, that must not be. Neutrality must be maintained above; Spanish neutrality, my dear master. Spain is not aware that we are fighting each other, don’t forget. In the main, she asks for very little; not to let the thing get noised abroad and to secrete our wounded. Do you follow me?”
“Amazing... marvellous... prodigious battle. What gold and what blood in the depths of thy waters, O Vigo!”
“That shall be the last word,” said the doctor, “for it occurs to me that I can hardly keep myself upright. I see, for that matter, that you are as tired as I am.”
“Yes, quite as tired,” I returned, glancing at my bed, the bedclothes of which had just been turned down by Potage, who came into the room at that moment, after having certainly spent the time listening behind the door.
My eyes were indeed closing unconsciously. The doctor’s eyes were equally heavy. And observing the fact we both smiled wistfully.
“Nature asserts her rights,” said the doctor, who was somewhat fond of aphorisms. “But to tell the truth I don’t know where I’m going to sleep.”
At that moment there was a knock at the door and a man came in. It was the major-domo, who said:
“There is someone below waiting for you, Monsieur. He told me to say that you must get ready to go with him to Goya Castle, where you are impatiently expected.”
I was thrown into a state of mingled fury and consternation, and I could not take my eyes from the bed in which, in imagination, I already lay stretched for the sleep which I had so fully earned.
“Ah well,” said the doctor, “that settles everything.... Goya Castle... You won’t be back before the morning. I’ll sleep in your bed.” And he began to undress.
CHAPTER XXII
WHERE CAPTAIN HYX WAS, AND HOW I WAS ORDERED TO JOIN HIM
AFTER I HAD given expression to a heart-rending sigh, I asked the major-domo to tell the man who was waiting for me that I would be with him in five minutes. The major-domo bowed and went out.
“They don’t leave me a single night’s peace,” I exclaimed.
“If you can call it a night,” returned the doctor. “For if I’m not mistaken night is already pretty well advanced.” And he slipped in between the sheets. I could have wept.
“I say,” he said, before going off to sleep, “since you have an appointment at Goya Castle, endeavour to discover who is living there at the present time, and how long ago it is since they had any news of a certain Von Kessel who made occasional short visits there at the beginning of the war.”
“Admiral von Treischke!” I exclaimed. “But he is there now. It is certainly he who has sent for me.”
In a moment the doctor was fully awake again. He raised himself on his elbow and stared at me with a terrified look that was comical to see.
“Are you sure?”
“Am I sure! Why, I saw Von Treischke to-night without his suspecting it.”
I did not explain where or how. My adventure in the cellars where the Huns were hoarding their treasure had made me extremely cautious.
“The deuce you have! And you are going to see him. Well, that’s all right. If you take my advice you’ll not lose a moment. Hurry up and tell him to leave the country at once.”
“Oh really,” I said, twisting my fingers in my fury. “I’m to undertake the same mission which was such a great success before!”
“You didn’t do so badly since you managed to snatch Von Treischke from the Irishman’s clutches. Thanks to that accident we were able to avoid a good many troubles.”
“The scheme came off well for you, perhaps, but it didn’t come off well for me. Please believe that. Do you think that to escape from Captain Hyx only to fall into the hands of Admiral von Treischke is any sort of life for a neutral?”
“You’ve never been in love with Amalia,” growled the doctor scornfully. And he sank back on the pillow.
I darted forward to the bed and gave him a sound shaking. He did not resist, for excitement at seeing me again and the schiedam and cocaine had reduced him to helplessness.
“Not in love with Amalia,” I cried. “Why, every step I take, every breath I breathe, every thought in my mind... everything is done for Amalia and to secure her safety. If I’m going to Goya Castle at this time of night, leaving you in a bed that I need as much as you do, it’s for her sake. I have discovered a method of saving Amalia other than by making her husband run away; a method by which she will be saved and at the same time, I hope, Captain Hyx be brought back to common sense, and prevented from committing these final crimes.”
“Well, if you have a way that will do that,” cried the doctor, brandishing on high his little phial of cocaine, “make use of it, make use of it as quickly as possible, for it is high time I assure you.”
“Look here, my dear Mederic Eristal, you can help me in this business better than anyone,” I replied, with sudden force and enthusiasm with the object of galvanising his vacillating temperament into action. “I should be sure of success, you understand, if I could meet Captain Hyx and have five minutes conversation with him. But you see my difficulty. Not only have I not been able to get at him up to now, but my letters, including one to you, addressed to the Cies Islands were returned through the post. So you can appreciate my delight when I saw you in this room. Behold the very man, I said to myself, who will get me out of a cruel dilemma and save sill of us, by undertaking my mission to Captain Hyx. In the morning, my dear doctor, you must go and see our Captain. You mustn’t lose a moment, not a moment. I, too, am in a hurry.”
“You’re mad. I’ve nothing farther to do with Captain Hyx,” replied the doctor sanctimoniously. “I’ve said so urbi et orbi. I no longer know him. I shall never return to him. I left him yesterday morning for good. I am free henceforward, and I can sleep peacefully in my bed. That is why, my dear Herbert of Renich, when you saw me in this room, you saw me with such a beaming look on my face. Don’t ask me to do anything which has the slightest connection with Captain Hyx.”
I could have strangled him, but he was in no state to defend himself, and it would have been a coward’s deed. He again fell back on my pillow, and seemed to appreciate its comfort in earnest. The major-domo once more knocked at the door.
“I’m coming down at once,” I said. But I turned round to Mederic Eristal, and I checked him once more on the brink of the abyss of sleep into which he was voluptuously sinking.
“You are betraying Captain Hyx,” I shouted in his face. “What you are doing is abominable.”
“Not so abominable as what Captain Hyx has in preparation,” he murmured calmly. I shook him again.
“Have you considered that to betray Captain Hyx at a moment like this, is to betray your cause, the Allies’ cause, the cause for which he is fighting, for which he has given his fortune, for which he wants to rob the Huns of two milliards of gold in the galleons? If it were not for him those milliards would have already taken the road to Berlin. You may take that from me.”
“I believe you,” he replied blandly. He had no further power of resistance, and closed his eyes like a baby who does not listen even to its nurse’s singing. To shake him was like rocking him. At last he managed to say, correcting himself every now and again. “My dear Herbert, Captain Hyx is a wonderful man, wonderful, and I am very fond of him. But I have nothing, or hardly anything, to do with the Battle of Vigo. I am the ‘Vengeance’s’ private doctor. Life has become totally impossible on
board. Believe the word of a man who is very sleepy! .... Almost every day there are mutinies. The Irishman has had to make examples.... There have been terrible punishments. Since the ‘Lot-et-Gironde’ atrocity there’s no holding the Angels of the Waters, as I’ve told you... nor Captain Hyx either, who has sworn such hatred against the Huns that he drives daggers into the walls of his cabin. I’ve seen him do it. Nevertheless he will not absolutely revel in blood until he has caught Admiral von Treischke. But his men have been waiting too long....
“In the absence of the man they want his wife. They want all the Hun prisoners to be handed over to them.
I really believe that he has had to hand over some of them this morning to keep them quiet. I know, I know that in Amalia’s case he still has three days. He has secured from his men three days’ grace. ‘Within three days,’ the Captain promised them, ‘I will give you Von Treischke.’ Well, I personally had no wish to wait those three days, because at the aid of them whether they have Von Treischke or not, things will be done for which there is no name in any civilised language. That is why I have made myself scarce. I wanted to shake hands with Captain Hyx when I left, for I had a great affection for him, but he went for me. That’s where we stand. It’s as I tell you.... Good night... my dear Herbert of Renich.”
He was now snoring, and as there was another knock at my door I gave way to my fury, and roughly thrust aside Potage, who went rolling to the end of the room with noise enough to waken the entire hotel.
“I’m coming now. I’m coming down now.”
The sound of a motor horn, a sound which seemed to be calling me impatiently, induced me to go to the window. I recognised in the light of the hotel lamp at the wheel of a racing car the man who was looking up at the window. It was the Herr lieutenant in command of the black hulk whom I had seen that very night in the mysterious cellars of Goya Castle conversing with Fritz and Von Treischke.
“I’m coming,” I shouted. But before going down I took the weeping Potage in my arms.
“Potage,” I said, “my good little Potage, forgive me, I am unnerved and with reason....”
“The senor can rely on me.... I am thinking only of her. I should have been with her already if I had found the necessary tools for the window bars. But I swear I’ll have them to-morrow morning when the shops open.”
“I thought, Potage, that in the ordinary way you carried those tools on you.”
“So I did once. But since Don Ramon taught me to earn an honest living as a beggar, I gave them to some poor fellows who are accused of using them at night in order to live, Señor Herbert.”
“You have a great heart, Potage. Listen to me. I’m going to Goya. I don’t know when I shall return, but don’t trouble about me. Look after her. I shall be very glad if when I come back, you can tell me that you have released her from her cage.”
“I will do my utmost. Good-bye, Senor.” The motor horn was renewing its music.
A minute later I jumped into the car. The man asked me if I was M. Herbert of Renich. I replied with a bow. He introduced himself as Von Kessel’s nephew, a native of Luxemburg, of independent means, at my service. I nodded my head and took my seat beside him. All these pretences were lost on me, but these people are never happy unless they are concealing something or deceiving somebody even when it is absolutely unnecessary.
We took the shortest cut, in other words we drove through the small streets which I had already traversed on foot with Potage when returning to the hotel. And thus we arrived at the cross road near which stood the Bar de Santiago de Compestello. The bar which was being closed when we left it was now open again; and inside all was light and gaiety. We sped quickly past, but what was my amazement as I caught a glimpse, a rapid glimpse, of the “middy” himself, perched on a high stool, drinking a blessed cocktail with that confounded Jim.
There was a time, not so long ago, when I should have rejoiced to see that jovial person, for I should have said to myself: “Now here’s a man who will help me to get into contact with Captain Hyx.” But after my last conversation with the doctor I imagined that the “middy,” who was drinking so cheerfully with Jim, had himself left Captain Hyx. It seemed as if those who could flee from the “Vengeance” had fled in panic.... And indeed it was time to have done with it. Mederic Eristal’s last drowsy words were still ringing in my ears and I was still shuddering at them.
My escort did not speak a single word during the whole of the journey. And while the car followed the line of San Francisco Bay, intersected Castro Point, and went down along Goya Bay, I called to mind a certain other motor drive which on a particular evening had taken the handsome Vigo cigarette seller, by exactly the same route, to the tragic room which had become the veiled lady’s prison.
Was it by chance that both tragedies had occurred in that wild spot?... Where was Dolores at that moment? The doctor had not enlightened me. And in particular I wondered within myself where Dolores’ fiancé was. What was Gabriel doing? What had he done since my last disclosure? Was he still seeking Von Treischke whom he had sworn to cut to pieces, was he still searching for him in the deeps? Was he pursuing him with his trawler into those mysterious creeks where it might be that submarine U — would find a passing refuge? Was he wasting precious time dragging his war nets, hoping some day to bring home in his vessel the famous Von Treischke, the terror of the sea and the sea coast? Would Captain Hyx or would Gabriel be the first to humble the Admiral’s pride in the dust? Lord! Gabriel was a child, too much of a child to be the just instrument of a just wrath.... I had given him my confidence in vain. And I might suffer one day for allowing my tongue to run on to no purpose. But, even so, I should no more be astonished than I had been astonished by what had previously befallen me.
The gateway, the ancient gateway, between the two towers opened to allow us to pass through. True they did not give me time to fix an exact date to those old stones, nor to accumulate facts for a few architectural reflections. I was taken without a word, or the slightest civility, into a dingy office which derived its light from a narrow loophole by day and a wretched lamp by night. As it was neither complete day nor complete night, the light from the loophole had barely dawned while the light from the lamp was nearly dead. Consequently, inside, Von Treischke’s face and that of Fritz von Harschfeld behind him, was an ugly colour, half green and half yellow, which did not add to the beauty of either of them.
“Herbert of Renich, we are not satisfied with you,” Von Treischke began.
“Oh,” I replied discreetly, and did not utter another word. I might have been tempted to answer somewhat in this fashion: Do you suppose that I, on my part, have any cause to be satisfied with your treatment of my mother and me?... But not only would they not have permitted me to finish the sentence but I should have been guilty in their eyes of a spirit of rebellion which it did not behove me to show at that moment.
He complained harshly that I ought to have made my report to Goya Castle the moment that I returned from the Cies Islands, and he failed to see why it was necessary to send for me.... I answered very meekly.... O hypocrisy, lend me all your cunning until the not far-distant day when I, too, shall have my hostage and, in my turn, play the master.... I answered them that as I had not succeeded in my journey to the Cies Islands, I did not consider it absolutely urgent to inform him of my failure. And I related my adventures of the night with the exception, as may be surmised, of those connected with Goya Castle.
“We did, in fact, think that it would be very difficult for you to land in the Cies Islands,” said Von Treischke in dogmatic tones, “but we are relieved to be able to tell you that the matter is of little consequence now inasmuch as you had no chance of finding the individual in question there....”
“But the instructions which you sent me stated that he was there,” I interrupted.
“Yes, that was so at the time we drew up those instructions, but it is no longer the case. No; it’s not there that you will find Captain Hyx.”
“
Where is he, Admiral?”
Von Treischke took the lamp, beckoned me to follow him and led me to a lofty wall on which was displayed an immense hydrographical map of the Bay of Vigo. His finger indicated the spot which, on the chart in my room in the hotel, the worthy doctor had pointed out; the spot over against which was lettered in red ink “Mark six metres eighty-five!”
“Here.... You’ll find him here,” he said, in a voice that was terrible to me. “Here.... The Captain is here.”
I understood him. As I hope to be saved, I understood him. But I pretended that I did not understand him. And while my forehead broke out into a cold sweat I stammered:
“What does this mean, Admiral?... This is a hydrographical map. These figures represent the depth of water at this mark.”
“This mark, Monsieur, shows that the sounding lead would touch the rock at six metres eighty-five centimetres below water at the lowest tide. The individual is here, here, at six metres eighty-five below the sea, and I shall be glad if you will go and see him there.”
It is quite likely that there was a haggard look in my eyes for Von Treischke told me to pull myself together and show less perturbation at a moment when he had the greatest need of my self-possession.
“That anyone else should be astonished at such a mission, let that pass. But you, Herbert of Renich, you who have travelled with Captain Hyx, why should you be surprised to go and meet him under the sea! You don’t know what it is to be a diver.... You will be all right. We will give you the necessary diving-dress... the latest model. And Monsieur, here” — he pointed to his pretended nephew—” will have the pleasure of accompanying you as far as possible.”
“When?... When?” I cried, beside myself.
“At once, Monsieur, at once.”
I fell back into the chair dazed with the blow. A few words uttered by the doctor sounded in my ears like the furious clash of bells: “The battle is in full swing.”... They were sending me to seek Captain Hyx at Mark six metres eighty-five while the battle was in full swing in the depths of the Bay of Vigo!
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 374