And he ran outside.
"Correjou! Correjou!"
Honorine was sitting up in bed and calling to him in despair:
"No, no, don't go away, Correjou!… Wait for me and carry me to your boat."
She listened; and, as the man did not return, she tried to get up:
"I'm frightened," she said. "I don't want to be left alone."
Veronique held her down:
"You're not going to be left alone, Honorine. I shan't leave you."
There was an actual struggle between the two women; and Honorine, pushed back on her bed by main force, moaned, helplessly:
"I'm frightened… I'm frightened… The island is accursed… It's tempting Providence to remain behind… Maguennoc's death was a warning… I'm frightened…"
She was more or less delirious, but still retained a half-lucidity which enabled her to intersperse a few intelligible and reasonable remarks among the incoherent phrases which revealed her superstitious Breton soul.
She gripped Veronique by her two shoulders and declared:
"I tell you, the island's cursed. Maguennoc confessed as much himself one day: 'Sarek is one of the gates of hell,' he said. 'The gate is closed now,[Pg 77] but, on the day when it opens, every misfortune you can think of will be upon it like a squall.'"
She calmed herself a little, at Veronique's entreaty, and continued, in a lower voice, which grew fainter as she spoke:
"He loved the island, though… as we all do. At such times he would speak of it in a way which I did not understand: 'The gate is a double one, Honorine, and it also opens on Paradise.' Yes, yes, the island was good to live in… We loved it… Maguennoc made flowers grow on it… Oh, those flowers! They were enormous: three times as tall… and as beautiful…"
The minutes passed slowly. The bedroom was at the extreme left of the house, just above the rocks which overhung the sea and separated from them only by the width of the road.
Veronique sat down at the window, with her eyes fixed on the white waves which grew still more troubled as the wind blew more strongly. The sun was rising. In the direction of the village she saw nothing except a steep headland. But, beyond the belt of foam studded with the black points of the reefs, the view embraced the deserted plains of the Atlantic.
Honorine murmured, drowsily:
"They say that the gate is a stone… and that it comes from very far away, from a foreign country. It's the God-Stone. They also say that it's a precious stone… the colour of gold and silver mixed… The God-Stone… The stone that gives life or death… Maguennoc saw it… He opened the gate and put his arm through[Pg 78]… And his hand… his hand was burnt to a cinder."
Veronique felt oppressed. Fear was gradually overcoming her also, like the oozing and soaking of stagnant water. The horrible events of the last few days, of which she had been a terrified witness, seemed to evoke others yet more dreadful, which she anticipated like an inevitable hurricane that is bound to carry off everything in its headlong course.
She expected them. She had no doubt that they would come, unloosed by the fatal power which was multiplying its terrible assaults upon her.
"Don't you see the boats?" asked Honorine.
"No," she said, "you can't see them from here."
"Yes, you can: they are sure to come this way. They are heavy boats: and there's a wider passage at the point."
The next moment, Veronique saw the bow of a boat project beyond the end of the headland. The boat lay low in the water, being very heavily laden, crammed with crates and parcels on which women and children were seated. Four men were rowing lustily.
"That's Correjou's," said Honorine, who had left her bed, half-dressed. "And there's the other: look."
The second boat came into view, equally burdened. Only three men were rowing, with a woman to help them.
Both boats were too far away-perhaps seven or eight hundred yards-to allow the faces of the occupants to be seen. And no sound of voices rose from those heavy hulls with their cargoes of wretchedness, which were fleeing from death.
[Pg 79]"Oh dear, oh dear!" moaned Honorine. "If only they escape this hell!"
"What can you be afraid of, Honorine? They are in no danger."
"Yes, they are, as long as they have not left the island."
"But they have left it."
"It's still the island all around the island. It's there that the coffins lurk and lie in wait."
"But the sea is not rough."
"There's more than the sea. It's not the sea that's the enemy."
"Then what is?"
"I don't know… I don't know…"
The two boats veered round at the southern point. Before them lay two channels, which Honorine pointed out by the name of two reefs, the Devil's Rock and the Sarek Tooth.
It at once became evident that Correjou had chosen the Devil's Channel.
"They're touching it," said Honorine. "They are there. Another hundred yards and they are safe."
She almost gave a chuckle:
"Ah, all the devil's machinations will be thwarted, Madame Veronique! I really believe that we shall be saved, you and I and all the people of Sarek."
Veronique remained silent. Her depression continued and was all the more overwhelming because she could attribute it only to vague presentiments which she was powerless to fight against. She had drawn an imaginary line up to which the danger threatened, would continue to threaten, and where it[Pg 80] still persisted; and this line Correjou had not yet reached.
Honorine was shivering with fever. She mumbled:
"I'm frightened… I'm frightened…"
"Nonsense," declared Veronique, pulling herself together, "It's absurd! Where can the danger come from?"
"Oh," cried the Breton woman, "what's that? What does it mean?"
"What? What is it?"
They had both pressed their foreheads to the panes and were staring wildly before them. Down below, something had so to speak shot out from the Devil's Rock. And they at once recognized the motor-boat which they had used the day before and which according to Correjou had disappeared.
"Francois! Francois!" cried Honorine, in stupefaction. "Francois and Monsieur Stephane!"
Veronique recognized the boy. He was standing in the bow of the motor-boat and making signs to the people in the two rowing-boats. The men answered by waving their oars, while the women gesticulated. In spite of Veronique's opposition, Honorine opened both halves of the window; and they could hear the sound of voices above the throbbing of the motor, though they could not catch a single word.
"What does it mean?" repeated Honorine. "Francois and M. Stephane!… Why did they not make for the mainland?"
"Perhaps," Veronique explained, "they were afraid of being observed and questioned on landing."
[Pg 81]"No, they are known, especially Francois, who often used to go with me. Besides, the identity-papers are in the boat. No, they were waiting there, hidden behind the rock."
"But, Honorine, if they were hiding, why do they show themselves now?"
"Ah, that's just it, that's just it!… I don't understand… and it strikes me as odd… What must Correjou and the others think?"
The two boats, of which the second was now gliding in the wake of the first, had almost stopped. All the passengers seemed to be looking round at the motor-boat, which came rapidly in their direction and slackened speed when she was level with the second boat. In this way, she continued on a line parallel with that of the two boats and fifteen or twenty yards away.
"I don't understand… I don't understand," muttered Honorine.
The motor had been cut off and the motor-boat now very slowly reached the space that separated the two fish-boats.
And suddenly the two women saw Francois stoop and then stand up again and draw his right arm back, as though he were going to throw something.
And at the same time Stephane Maroux acted in the same way.
Then the unexpected, terrifying thing happened.
"Oh!" cried Veronique.
She hid her eyes for a second, but at once raised her head again and saw the hideous sight in all its horror.
Two things had been thrown across the little[Pg 82] space, one from the bow, flung by Francois, the other from the stern, flung by Stephane Maroux.
And two bursts of fire at once shot up from the two boats, followed by two whirls of smoke.
The explosions re-echoed. For a moment, nothing of what happened amid that black cloud was visible. Then the curtain parted, blown aside by the wind, and Veronique and Honorine saw the two boats swiftly sinking, while their occupants jumped into the sea.
The sight, the infernal sight, did not last long. They saw, standing on one of the buoys that marked the channel, a woman holding a child in her arms, without moving: then some motionless bodies, no doubt killed by the explosion; then two men fighting, mad perhaps. And all this went down with the boats.
A few eddies, some black specks floating on the surface; and that was all.
Honorine and Veronique, struck dumb with terror, had not uttered a single word. The thing surpassed the worst that their anguished minds could have conceived.
When it was all over, Honorine put her hand to her head and, in a hollow voice which Veronique was never to forget, said:
"My head's bursting. Oh, the poor people of Sarek! They were my friends, the friends of my childhood; and I shall never see them again… The sea never gives up its dead at Sarek: it keeps them. It has its coffins all ready: thousands and thousands of hidden coffins… Oh, my head is bursting!… I shall go mad… mad like Francois, my poor Francois!"
[Pg 83]Veronique did not answer. She was grey in the face. With clutching fingers she clung to the balcony, gazing downwards as one gazes into an abyss into which one is about to fling oneself. What would her son do? Would he save those people, whose shouts of distress now reached her ears, would he save them without delay? One may have fits of madness; but the attacks pass away at the sight of certain things.
The motor-boat had backed at first to avoid the eddies. Francois and Stephane, whose red cap and white cap were still visible, were standing in the same positions at the bow and the stern; and they held in their hands… what? The two women could not see clearly, because of the distance, what they held in their hands. It looked like two rather long sticks.
"Poles, to help them," suggested Veronique.
"Or guns," said Honorine.
The black specks were still floating. There were nine of them, the nine heads of the survivors, whose arms also the two women saw moving from time to time and whose cries for help they heard.
Some were hurriedly moving away from the motor-boat, but four were swimming towards it; and, of those four, two could not fail to reach it.
Suddenly Francois and Stephane made the same movement, the movement of marksmen taking aim.
There were two flashes, followed by the sound of a single report.
The heads of the two swimmers disappeared.
"Oh, the monsters!" stammered Veronique, almost swooning and falling on her knees.
Honorine, beside her, began screaming:
[Pg 84]"Francois! Francois!"
Her voice did not carry, first because it was too weak and then the wind was in her face. But she continued:
"Francois! Francois!"
She next stumbled across the room and into the corridor, in search of something, and returned to the window, still shouting:
"Francois! Francois!"
She had ended by finding the shell which she used as a signal. But, on lifting it to her mouth, she found that she could produce only dull and indistinct sounds from it:
"Oh, curse the thing!" she cried, flinging the shell away. "I have no strength left… Francois! Francois!"
She was terrible to look at, with her hair all in disorder and her face covered with the sweat of fever. Veronique implored her:
"Please, Honorine, please!"
"But look at them, look at them!"
The motor-boat was drifting forward down below, with the two marksmen at their posts, holding their guns ready for murder.
The survivors fled. Two of them hung back in the rear.
These two were aimed at. Their heads disappeared from view.
"But look at them!" Honorine said, explosively, in a hoarse voice. "They're hunting them down! They're killing them like game!… Oh, the poor people of Sarek!…"
Another shot. Another black speck vanished.
Veronique was writhing in despair. She shook[Pg 85] the rails of the balcony, as she might have shaken the bars of a cage in which she was imprisoned.
"Vorski! Vorski!" she groaned, stricken by the recollection of her husband. "He's Vorski's son!"
Suddenly she felt herself seized by the throat and saw, close to her own face, the distorted face of the Breton woman.
"He's your son!" spluttered Honorine. "Curse you! You are the monster's mother and you shall be punished for it!"
And she burst out laughing and stamping her feet, in an overpowering fit of hilarity.
"The cross, yes, the cross! You shall be crucified, with nails through your hands!… What a punishment, nails through your hands!"
She was mad.
Veronique released herself and tried to hold the other motionless: but Honorine, filled with malicious rage, threw her off, making her lose balance, and began to climb into the balcony.
She remained standing outside the window, lifting up her arms and once more shouting:
"Francois! Francois!"
The first floor was not so high on this side of the house, owing to the slope of the ground. Honorine jumped into the path below, crossed it, pushed her way through the shrubs that lined it and ran to the ridge of rocks which formed the cliff and overhung the sea.
She stopped for a moment, thrice called out the name of the child whom she had reared and flung herself headlong into the deep.
In the distance, the man-hunt drew to a finish.
[Pg 86]The heads sank one by one. The massacre was completed.
Then the motor-boat with Francois and Stephane on board fled towards the coast of Brittany, towards the beaches of Beg-Meil and Concarneau.
Veronique was left alone on Coffin Island.
[Pg 87]
CHAPTER V
"FOUR WOMEN CRUCIFIED"
Veronique was left alone on Coffin Island. Until the sun sank among the clouds that seemed, on the horizon, to rest upon the sea, she did not move, but sat huddled against the window, with her head buried in her two arms resting on the sill.
The dread reality passed through the darkness of her mind like pictures which she strove not to see, but which at times became so clearly defined that she imagined herself to be living through those atrocious scenes again.
Still she sought no explanation of all this and formed no theories as to all the motives which might have thrown a light upon the tragedy. She admitted the madness of Francois and of Stephane Maroux, being unable to suppose any other reasons for such actions as theirs. And, believing the two murderers to be mad, she did not even try to attribute to them any projects or definite wishes.
Moreover, Honorine's madness, of which she had, so to speak, observed the outbreak, impelled her to look upon all that had happened as provoked by a sort of mental upset to which all the people of Sarek had fallen victims. She herself at moments felt that her brain was reeling, that her ideas were fading away in a mist, that invisible ghosts were hovering around her.
[Pg 88]She dozed off into a sleep which was haunted by these images and in which she felt so wretched that she began to sob. Also it seemed to her that she could hear a slight noise which, in her benumbed wits, assumed a hostile significance. Enemies were approaching. She opened her eyes.
A couple of yards in front of her, sitting upon its haunches, was a queer animal, covered with long mud-coloured hair and holding its fore-paws folded like a pair of arms.
It was a dog; and she at once remembered Francois' dog, of
which Honorine had spoken as a dear, devoted, comical creature. She even remembered his name, All's-Well.
As she uttered this name in an undertone, she felt an angry impulse and was almost driving away the animal endowed with such an ironical nickname. All's-Well! And she thought of all the victims of the horrible nightmare, of all the dead people of Sarek, of her murdered father, of Honorine killing herself, of Francois going mad. All's-Well, forsooth!
Meanwhile the dog did not stir. He was sitting up as Honorine had described, with his head a little on one side, one eye closed, the corners of his mouth drawn back to his ears and his arms crossed in front of him; and there was really something very like a smile flitting over his face.
Veronique now remembered: this was the manner in which All's-Well displayed his sympathy for those in trouble. All's-Well could not bear the sight of tears. When people wept, he sat up until they in their turn smiled and petted him.
[Pg 89]Veronique did not smile, but she pressed him against her and said:
"No, my poor dog, all's not well; on the contrary, all's as bad as it can be. No matter: we must live, mustn't we, and we mustn't go mad ourselves like the others?"
The necessities of life obliged her to act. She went down to the kitchen, found some food and gave the dog a good share of it. Then she went upstairs again.
Night had fallen. She opened, on the first floor, the door of a bedroom which at ordinary times must have been unoccupied. She was weighed down with an immense fatigue, caused by all the efforts and violent emotions which she had undergone. She fell asleep almost at once. All's Well lay awake at the foot of her bed.
Next morning she woke late, with a curious feeling of peace and security. It seemed to her that her present life was somehow connected with her calm and placid life at Besancon. The few days of horror which she had passed fell away from her like distant events whose return she had no need to fear. The men and women who had gone under in the great horror became to her mind almost like strangers whom one has met and does not expect to see again. Her heart ceased bleeding. Her sorrow for them did not reach the depths of her soul.
It was due to the unforeseen and undisturbed rest, the consoling solitude. And all this seemed to her so pleasant that, when a steamer came and anchored on the spot of the disaster, she made no signal. No doubt yesterday, from the mainland,[Pg 90] they had seen the flash of the explosions and heard the report of the shots. Veronique remained motionless.
The Secret of Sarek (arsene lupin) Page 6