A Conspiracy of the Carbonari Part 10

Leonore shuddered, and a deathlike pallor overspread her face. "And _I_ delivered them to death!" she moaned.

"And if you had spared them, you would have delivered the Emperor Napoleon, the greatest man of the age, to death, to the most terrible torture of imprisonment!" cried her father, shrugging his shoulders. "These men wished to commit a crime against their sovereign, their commander. You have no reason to reproach yourself for having delivered the criminals to the law."

"And Mariage? What has become of Mariage?"

"Apparently he received a warning; he has fled. But we found all the others yesterday at their posts; for we had made all our arrangements so secretly that even the conspirators who surrounded the emperor were not aware of it.

The emperor at first intended to act strictly according to the programme of the conspirators; take the ride with his suite, and not permit me to come to his a.s.sistance, with a few trustworthy a.s.sistants, until after he had entered the hut and been captured. But he rejected this plan, because he would have been compelled to arrest his most distinguished generals and subject the greater number of his staff officers to a rigid investigation.

The whole army would then have heard of this bold conspiracy, and conspiracies are like contagious diseases, they always have successors. So the emperor rejected this plan, and, at the moment that his suite were mounting to attend him on his ride, he dismissed them all, saying that he wished to go into the woods alone, accompanied only by Colonel Lejeune, the Mameluke, and myself. You can imagine the mute horror, the deathlike pallor of the generals. The emperor did not vouchsafe any of them a glance, but dashed away. When we had ridden into the woods, the emperor checked his horse and turned to Colonel Lejeune, who, white as a corpse, rode beside him.

"Your sword, colonel!" he exclaimed, in tones of thunder. "You will not play the part of emperor to-day, but merely the character of an arch-traitor and a.s.sa.s.sin."

At the same instant Roustan and I rode to Lejeune's side, and each seized an arm. A moment later he was disarmed and deprived of the papers which we found in his breast pocket, and the tender farewell letters to his wife and his mother, in case that the enterprise should fail.

"I will have these sent at once to their addresses the morning after your execution," the emperor said, with a withering glance from his large flashing eyes. Then he rode on, and we followed, each holding an arm of Lejeune, who rode between us. At last we reached the hut and the emperor checked his horse again. Roustan uttered a low whistle and, at the same instant, six gray-bearded giants of the imperial guard stood beside us as if they had sprung from the earth. As soon as the conspirators entered the hut, they had cautiously approached it and, concealed behind the trees, awaited the preconcerted signal.

The emperor greeted them with the smile which bewitched his old soldiers, because it reminded them of the days of their great victory.

"I know that you are faithful," he said, "but I should also like to know whether you are silent."

"Silent as the grave, if the Little Corporal commands it," said old Conradin, the emperor's favorite.

"Well, I believe you, and you shall give me a proof of it to-day. Clear out the nest you see there, and catch the birds for me!"

"He pointed with uplifted arm and menacing gesture to the hut; the soldiers rushed to it and broke in the door. Shouts of rage were heard, several shots rang out, then all was still, and the old grenadiers dragged out five men. Three were wounded, but they had avenged themselves, for three of the soldiers were also injured."

"Was Baron von Moudenfels among the prisoners?" asked Leonore quickly.

"Yes," replied Schulmeister, "yes, he was among them."

"Then you saw him?"

"Yes, I saw him."

The slow, solemn tone with which her father answered made Leonore tremble.

She looked up questioningly into his face, their eyes met, and were fixed steadily on each other.

"Why do you gaze at me so sadly and compa.s.sionately?" asked Leonore suddenly, cowering as though in fright.

"I did not know that I was doing so," he answered gently.

"You were, you are still," she cried anxiously. "Father, I read misfortune in your face. You are concealing something from me! You--oh, heaven, you have news of Kolbielsky."

She started up, letting the bank-notes fall unheeded to the floor, seized her father's arm with both hands, and gazed silently at him with panting breath.

He avoided her eyes, released himself almost violently from her grasp, stooped, picked up the bills and divided them into halves, putting five into his breast pocket, and giving his daughter the other five.

"Take it, my Leonore; take the magic key which will open Paradise to you!"

She took the bank-notes and, with a contemptuous gesture, flung them on the floor.

"You know something of Kolbielsky," she repeated. "Where is he? Answer me, father, if you don't wish me to fall dead at your feet."

"Yet if I do answer, poor child, what will it avail you? He is lost, you cannot save him."

She neither shrieked nor wept, she only grasped her father's arm more firmly and looked him steadily in the face.

"Where is Kolbielsky?" she asked. "Answer, or I will kill myself."

"Well, Leonore, I will give you a proof of my infinite love. I will tell you the truth, the whole truth. When the prisoners were dragged out of the hut, one of them suddenly made an attempt to escape. The soldier tried to hold him, they struggled--in the scuffle the conspirator's wig fell off.

Hitherto he had had white hair--"

"It was Baron von Moudenfels?" asked Leonore breathlessly.

"Yes, Leonore, it was Baron von Moudenfels. But when the wig was torn from his head, we saw no old man, no Baron von Moudenfels, but--"

"Kolbielsky!" she shrieked with a loud cry of anguish.

Her father nodded, and let his head sink upon his breast.

"And he, too, was shot this morning?" she asked in a low, strange whisper.

"No, Leonore. I told you that the emperor, out of regard for his future ally, the Emperor Francis, did not have him executed. He simply imprisoned him and punished him only by compelling him to witness the execution. He will leave it to the Emperor Francis to p.r.o.nounce sentence of death upon the a.s.sa.s.sin."

"He lives? You will swear that he lives?" she asked breathlessly.

"I will swear that he lives, and that he will live until the return of the courier whom Count Bubna, who is in Schonbrunn attending to the peace negotiations--has sent to Totis to the Emperor Francis."

The Baroness de Simonie bounded like a tigress through the room, tearing at the bell till it sounded like a tocsin and the servants came rushing in terror from the anteroom.

"My carriage--it must be ready in five minutes!" she cried. The servants ran out and Leonore darted across the room, tore open the door of the adjoining chamber, opened a wardrobe in frantic haste, and dragged out a cloak, which she flung over her shoulders.

"In heaven's name, Leonore, are you out of your senses?" asked her father, who had hurried after her and now seized her arm. "What do you mean to do?

Where are you going?"

"To the Emperor Napoleon!" she cried loudly. "To the Emperor Napoleon, to save the life of the man I love. Give me the money, father!"

"What money, Leonore?"

"The bank-notes! The blood-money which I have earned!"

Her father had carefully gathered up the bank-bills which she had thrown about the room, and gave them to her. Leonore shuddered as she clenched them in her trembling hands. "I have sold him," she shrieked, raising the hand that held the papers toward heaven. "His blood clings to this money.

But I will hurl it at the emperor's feet. I want no pay; I will beg his life for my recompense. Pray father, pray that he may hear me, may grant me mercy, for I swear by all that is sacred, if Kolbielsky must die, I will kill his murderers. And his murderers are--you and I!"

"The carriage is at the door," said a servant, entering.

She sprang forward. "I am coming. Pray, father, pray for mercy upon my loved one's murderers!"