Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  CHAPTER XXIV. WESER BIDS TRIBERT GOOD-NIGHT.

  WHEN the last of the Paris Turcos, Pagot’s company, were exterminated at the fort of Issy, Tribert notified Colonel Rossel that the barricade on the rue Notre Dame was empty and undefended. Colonel Rossel, a soldier to his finger tips, and a brave man, was busily occupied in trying to retake the Issy trenches when Tribert’s despatch arrived, but he found time to send a message to Dombrowski, urging the immediate direction of a battalion to the rue Notre Dame, and explaining how important that barricade was, covering as it did the approach to the Gare Montparnasse and the Luxembourg. So Dombrowski twisted his grey moustache, scowled, glared at Bergeret’s reserves, who were filling ten thousand sacks with earth (all they were good for), and finally galloped to the Hôtel de Ville, where Tribert received him in fear and trembling.

  “I want a battalion,” said Dombrowski; “a good one — none of the Bergeret kind.”

  Weser, who was sealing orders for Tribert, chuckled to himself. “Tribert’s got to go, the lazy rat,” he thought; “how he will hate to leave this sunny, comfortable bureau!”

  “There is the Marine battalion,” began Tribert, smoothly, but was rudely interrupted.

  “D — n the Marine battalion!” said General Dombrowski; “they are a lot of drunken footpads. What I want is a tried battalion, — franc or guard, I don’t care which! Have you any such?”

  “No,” said Tribert, sullenly.

  “Then you’ve got to take command of your ‘Avengers’ — I can’t help it if they are not formed yet — they are the flower of the veterans, and the only franc corps worth their salt, now that the Turcos are gone. I wish Colonel Sarre was alive!”

  “Thank God, he’s dead, — the feather-headed fool!” thought Weser.

  “Alas,” said Tribert, with a wily glance at Weser; “it is true that Colonel Sarre is dead, but there still remains one of the bravest of his captains, — a cool, prudent fellow, but a fiend incarnate in battle. His courage has been put to proof at Meudon and Issy, and yet to-day this loyal son of the Republic is but a simple captain, asking nothing, claiming nothing, only seeking to do his duty. You ask me, General Dombrowski, who this modest hero is? And I reply, he is my dear comrade, my friend and more than brother, — the last of the Turcos, — Isidore Weser!”

  Weser, whose expression had changed slowly for the worse while Tribert was snivelling his eulogy, fairly bounded from his chair when his name was pronounced, but Tribert gave him no time to protest.

  “General,” he pleaded, “I ask that this gallant man be rewarded. He has merited well of the Republic. Give him this coveted honor, the command of the ‘Avengers.’ Proud as I would be, happy as you make me when you ask me to command the battalion which I have formed, I would be still prouder and happier if I could see my dear brother and comrade leading the ‘ Avengers’ into battle!”

  “Stop!” gasped Weser, in a cold perspiration. “I — I don’t wish to — I don’t deserve this — this honor!”

  “You do! Isidore, you do!” cried Tribert, enthusiastically.

  “I don’t!” snarled Weser, and darted a terrible glance at Tribert. Tribert continued to eulogize him, smiling blandly at the white malignancy of his face, and finally the brave old General interposed.

  “You are too modest, Citizen Weser,” he said, for, being brave himself it never occurred to him to suspect cowardice in others; “you are too modest even for a brave man. You have waited patiently for recognition. You shall have it. I give you command of the ‘Avengers.’ Be worthy of them as they will be worthy of you. It is ten o’clock. By twelve you will have your commission. Join your battalion at once and occupy the barricade in the rue Notre Dame.” Then, returning Tribert’s prompt salute, Dombrowski walked away to find Delescluze and Ferré, and if possible to drag those bloodhounds away from Rossel’s trail.

  For a moment Weser and Tribert eyed each other in silence. Weser’s face was green with suppressed fury, but Tribert, after a minute, shrugged his shoulders and turned to his desk.

  “You have played me a dirty trick!” said Weser, in a passionless voice, but his eyes were deadly.

  “Silence!” roared Tribert; “do you know whom you address?”

  “I know,” said Weser.

  “I am your superior officer — remember that!” sneered Tribert. Then he began to laugh. “You’re trapped this time, Izzy, sure as guns are guns!”

  “I am very glad to go,” said Weser.

  Tribert burst into shrieks of laughter.

  “Of course you are! Why, I can see martial ardor burning in your eyes! How you must long to bare your breast to the Versaillist bayonets! Bayonets hurt. How you must yearn for the bursting shells! Bullets hurt, too, Izzy, — but what is a leg, an arm, an eye, a face torn to pieces — what is a human life when one can give it for the glory and — oh, dear me! ha! ha! — the glory and honor — yes, honor, Izzy, — of the Commune?”

  “May the God of Israel curse you!” said Weser, slowly. His eyes were burning in his distorted face, and he stretched out his arms in an agony of fear and hate. Then he went out of the room, and far down the street Tribert heard his sabre clanging on the stony pavement.

  So Tribert was left alone to laugh his fill — and curse a little too, for there was something in Weser’s voice and face that troubled him more than he cared to acknowledge. He was glad his bureau was public property. Officers of every grade, in gorgeous uniforms, passed and repassed, and all were discussing the same thing, — the latest issue of the Official Journal of the Commune, or the “Official,” as it was called. In it were the full reports of the trial and sentence of Cluseret before the Commune. The Commune had been in session that morning, and measures of urgency were voted at Rossel’s request. Day after day Rigault, Delescluze, Billioray, and Ferré had urged their bloody measures, and most of them had been passed. The death penalty, swift, merciless sentences for civil and military offences, the law of denunciations and midnight visits to suspected houses, the compulsory service with the National Guard, — all these measures had been passed, and were now laws in full operation. And still Rigault demanded more power, more plunder, more blood; and the Commune trembled before him.

  Perhaps Tribert was thinking of Rigault, perhaps of some other unpleasant subject, for he started violently when a small, near-sighted man sat down beside him without ceremony, and, drawing a pair of glasses from his silver slashed jacket, adjusted them and smiled. It was Rigault.

  “Sit down, sit down, Colonel Tribert,” he said, noticing the other’s involuntary start; “I want to chat with you a bit. I’ve just come from the séance of the Commune. They are beginning to suspect Dombrowski now. Hey! The dance goes on, and my prisons are getting too full. I must shoot a few people to make room. I’ve just convinced the Commune that there are twenty or thirty gendarmes who are of no use to the world. They ‘re sentenced, and by this time are filing out to be shot. I’m sorry to miss it too, for there are a dozen cowardly National Guards among the batch who hate to die. Where is your friend Weser?”

  “He is detailed to command the ‘Avengers,’” replied Tribert, with a sickly smile.

  “Ah — um — I see. So you escaped and he was caught, eh? He’s a coward — but you are not — at least, not that kind of coward. You merely love comfort and good food. Who detailed him?”

  “Dombrowski.”

  “Dombrowski is suspected,” said Rigault, coldly; then, “if I could shoot ninety-nine percent, of the Commune it would leave traitors enough and to spare. They say — I know they say that I am crazy, — that I am blood-drunk, but I know who the traitors are! Do you suppose that a single whispered word escapes my spies? Do you suppose a single traitorous heart-beat is not noted in my ‘Book of the Condemned’? I bide my time.”

  Tribert stared at him, mouth ajar.

  “I came to speak about the American, Philip Landes,” said Rigault, “do you know where he is?”

  “No,” gasped Tribert.

  “I do,
” said Rigault.

  “You — you have caught him!”

  “Yes. Your friend Weser caught him. He wants the reward now.”

  “Where is — where is this American?”

  “In La Roquette. I am very much pleased. I shall not shoot him.”

  “Not shoot him!” blurted out Tribert.

  “No — I shall have him strangled — slowly.” They sat silent for a while, then Rigault spoke again: “Your face will always bear his marks.”

  Tribert ground his teeth.

  “I have also my little account to settle with Monsieur Landes,” continued Rigault, with a meditative glance at Tribert’s disfigured face.

  “When are you going to do it?” demanded Tribert, after a moment.

  “Do what?”

  “Strangle him.”

  “Oh, really I don’t know. I want to take my time, — I wish to give my personal attention to it. The young man really merits it. I am going to shoot a lot of gendarmes and priests first, to clear out the prisons. Then I’m going to shoot the priest Darboy.”

  “The Archbishop?”

  “That’s what he calls himself. After him there are a lot of others. It won’t be very amusing. I am saving the American as one saves a good morsel. Would you like to be present at the interview?” Tribert nodded.

  “I will let you know in time. I shall torture him,” continued Raoul Rigault. “Have you heard any news of the de Brassac hussy?”

  “No,” said Tribert, “it’s a wonder they were not trapped together. Was he alone?”

  “No — he had another young fellow with him; — both were masquerading in our uniform. But Weser saw no traces of the de Brassac wench.”

  “How did Weser stumble on Landes?” enquired Tribert, curiously.

  “Do you remember the day you sent him to Dombrowski with Bergeret’s despatch, — the day that the Versaillists outflanked La Cécelia and knocked Moulin-Saquet and the Montrouge fort to pieces? Well, this fox, Weser, also went on a little errand of mine at the same time, and that errand was to arrest Colonel Wilton of the 266th, who is in my eyes a suspect. He got him and packed him off to La Roquette, and, coming back with his marine escort, he had the luck, — the pure luck, to stumble on a fugitive — a private in your old battalion, the 265th, named Martin. This man Martin was the fellow who was on guard at the Impasse de la Mort when Landes got in and carried away the de Brassac girl. Well, Martin had seen and recognized Landes, although the American cur wore our uniform; so Martin, remembering the reward, and also having an old score to settle, followed the American and his brother spy, and when he saw Weser and his marines, he denounced Landes, and led Weser to where he stood. That is the whole story. Simple, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Does Martin get any of the money?”

  “Half. Here is Weser’s share.” Rigault flung a bag of gold coins onto Tribert’s desk.

  “Weser’s gone,” said Tribert.

  “He’ll be back. See that he gets his money. Money’s cheap now. There is plenty in the Bank of France.” Then he rose, adjusted his sword, mopped his chin with a scented embroidered handkerchief, and walked out.

  Tribert leaned back in his chair, his eyes fixed on the bag of gold. He had sat there for an hour, scarcely moving, never taking his eyes from the bag, when a light step sounded behind him, and Weser reappeared in the uniform of a Colonel of the National Guard. Tribert looked at him, expecting another outbreak, but Weser smiled, and motioned him to rise.

  “I want to have a talk with you,” he said pleasantly; “come into the secret office. Have you got the keys?”

  Tribert, a little surprised, but willing to escape another wrangle with the man who was now his equal in rank, fumbled in his pocket for the keys, and produced them. “I’ve got something to say to you also,” he said, picking up the bag of gold, and balancing it in his hand; “come on, Izzy.” Weser followed him down the broad staircase, through a series of gloomy corridors, and then down another staircase to a landing, closed at the end by a massive door. Here he fumbled with his keys for a while, but at last the heavy door swung open, and they entered the secret office.

  “Whew!” grumbled Tribert; “that door is heavy!”

  “How thick are the walls?” asked Weser.

  “Thick enough to deaden the screams of the damned. Nobody can hear us now. Sit down.”

  The room contained a table and a dozen chairs. In the corner stood a sink. Two quaintly wrought faucets dripped water into the iron basin, and the constant drop! drop! drop! irritated Tribert. He tried to turn the faucets entirely around, but they stuck fast, and the water continued dripping with solemn regularity.

  Weser had closed and bolted the door, and now sat before the iron table, his pointed ferret-like face in his hands, his black eyes roaming restlessly about the room.

  “I have never before been here,” he said; “what is that ring in the floor for?”

  “That iron ring? Oh, it lifts a slab of stone.”

  “What’s there?”

  “Down there? The river.”

  “Under the floor here?”

  “Yes. D — n this faucet; I can’t turn it. What do you want to see me about, Izzy?” He came and sat down opposite Weser, and lighted a cigar. “What do you want?” he repeated.

  “I want to know what you honestly think of the chances of the Commune, — for one thing.”

  “Well, Izzy, as we are alone, and no witnesses at the keyhole, I can safely say that the jig is up.”

  “You think so?”

  “I’m sure. Only a compromise with Thiers can save our necks.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Look at the Issy fort! Look at the viaduct of the Point-du-Jour! Look how they sunk our gun-boats! Look at the forts of Mont-rouge, the battery of Moulin-Saquet, bastion number seventy! Do you know the Versaillists are running their parallels within a few metres of the enciente? They are already in the Bois de Boulogne.”

  “So are we — in the Bois de Boulogne.”

  “Yes, and we are quitting it in a hurry too. The shells are falling all about the Arc-de-Triomphe, the shells are digging holes in the Boulevard des Italiens. Our only hope is behind the barricades.”

  “And then?”

  “Then? Then if they take the barricades, we can burn the city, blow up everything behind us, and run for the German lines. The Prussians are neutral. Is that all you wanted of me?”

  “All — for the present. What do you want of me?”

  “Nothing — a trifle. I hear you have been earning a reward.” Weser raised his eyebrows. “A fat reward,” continued Tribert, “in the service of Raoul Rigault.”

  “Yes.”

  “You never told me, Izzy.”

  “What of it?”

  “Oh, nothing. I might have shared the reward with you if you had.”

  “The reward is mine. Where is the money?” said Weser.

  “In my pocket, Izzy. Half of the reward went to Martin, half I keep.”

  “It’s mine,” said Weser, in a low voice.

  “But you will give it to me,” sneered Tribert, “won’t you, Izzy?”

  “Give me the money,” said Weser again.

  “I’m sure you’ll give it to me, unless you care to have it known that Pagot died with a knife in his back,” grinned Tribert.

  For a moment Weser’s face was awful to see. Then a ghastly smile stretched his mouth. “Oh, if you put it in that way I suppose I must not find fault,” he said, with the slightest quaver in his voice. “You can keep the money.” Tribert grinned again.

  “Thanks,” he said, rising and walking toward the door. “Are you coming, Izzy?”

  “Not yet.”

  “No? Well, good-bye then.”

  He bowed ironically, and touched his cap in salute. “Good-night, Colonel Weser.”

  “Good-night,” said Weser, and shot him through the back.

  CHAPTER XXV. HUSBAND AND WIFE.

  THE crash of the revolver in the stone room set Weser’s ea
rs tingling, the pungent powder vapors stung his eyes and choked him. Little by little the smoke floated to the black ceiling, where it wavered in broad bands, drifting and settling like filmy cobwebs. Through the silence of the sealed chamber the water in the sink dripped, dripped, dripped, until the sound seemed to grow like rain increasing with the wind. His whitened fingers still clutched the revolver, but now his wrist began to ache, and he laid the weapon on the table softly. His eyes had never left the bleeding, dusty heap before the door, and presently he rose and bent above it. Then he rolled it over with his foot. Death was stamped on the loose face and glazing eyes.

  When he had searched the body, — a task which he hated, for Weser disliked to touch the dead, — he dragged what had once been his comrade to the square slab in the floor, and seizing the iron ring, lifted the slab. From the black depths a foul odor crept. It nauseated him, and he seized the corpse by the feet and pushed it head-foremost into the hole. Then he turned on the water in the sink, mopped up the lake of bright red blood with the table covering, and flung it into the hole.

  When he had washed his hands and replaced the slab in the stone floor, he counted the twenty-franc pieces in the bag, carefully arranging them in piles of ten each. Several were badly defaced, and he rubbed his thumb nail over them, whistling under his breath. Then he examined the plunder taken from Tribert’s pockets. In one pile he placed a handsome American watch, a gold pencil case, a silver-handled knife, a bunch of keys, and a gold-rimmed wallet stuffed with twenty-franc pieces. A handful of silver coins he dropped into his own pocket, and then sat down to read the letters and papers; but they were unpleasantly smeared with blood, and he finally took them, together with a revolver, a sabre, a bundle of order blanks, and a tobacco pouch stuffed with cigarette materials, and dropped them into the hole. For a moment he stooped, listening to the faint clash of the sabre as it struck the sides of the well, then the odor of death and decay sickened him, and he once more replaced the iron-ringed slab. When he had washed his hands again, and had pocketed the plunder from Tribert’s corpse, he was ready to go; and he went, humming a tune.