The Secret of Sarek Part 26

"Madeleine and I were not children of the same father."

"Ah," she said, "that was what misled me!"

She gave him her hand:

"Well, Stephane," she said, "as we are old friends and have renewed our acquaintance, let us put off all our remembrances until later. For the moment, the most urgent matter is to get away. Have you the strength?"

"The strength, yes: I have not had such a very bad time. But how are we to go from here?"

"By the same road by which I came, a ladder communicating with the upper pa.s.sage of cells."

He was now standing up:

"You had the courage, the pluck?" he asked, at last realizing what she had dared to do.

"Oh, it was not very difficult!" she declared. "Francois was so anxious!

He maintained that you were both occupying old torture-chambers . . .

death-chambers . . . ."

It was as though these words aroused him violently from a dream and made him suddenly see that it was madness to converse in such circ.u.mstances.

"Go away!" he cried. "Francois is right! Oh, if you knew the risk you are running. Please, please go!"

He was beside himself, as though convulsed by the thought of an immediate peril. She tried to calm him, but he entreated her:

"Another second may be your undoing. Don't stay here . . . . I am condemned to death and to the most terrible death. Look at the ground on which we are standing, this sort of floor . . . . But it's no use talking about it. Oh, please do go!"

"With you," she said.

"Yes, with me. But save yourself first."

She resisted and said, firmly:

"For us both to be saved, Stephane, we must above all things remain calm. What I did just now we can do again only by calculating all our actions and controlling our excitement. Are you ready?"

"Yes," he said, overcome by her magnificent confidence.

"Then follow me."

She stepped to the very edge of the precipice and leant forward:

"Give me your hand," she said, "to help me keep my balance."

She turned round, flattened herself against the cliff and felt the surface with her free hand.

Not finding the ladder, she leant outward slightly.

The ladder had become displaced. No doubt, when Veronique, perhaps with too abrupt a movement, had set foot in the cave, the iron hook of the right-hand upright had slipped and the ladder, hanging only by the other hook, had swung like a pendulum.

The bottom rungs were now out of reach.

CHAPTER VIII

ANGUISH

Had Veronique been alone, she would have yielded to one of those moods of despondency which her nature, brave though it was, could not escape in the face of the unrelenting animosity of fate. But in the presence of Stephane, who she felt to be the weaker and who was certainly exhausted by his captivity, she had the strength to restrain herself and announce, as though mentioning quite an ordinary incident:

"The ladder has swung out of our reach."

Stephane looked at her in dismay:

"Then . . . then we are lost!"

"Why should we be lost?" she asked, with a smile.

"There is no longer any hope of getting away."

"What do you mean? Of course there is. What about Francois?"

"Francois?"

"Certainly. In an hour at most, Francois will have made his escape; and, when he sees the ladder and the way I came, he will call to us. We shall hear him easily. We have only to be patient."

"To be patient!" he said, in terror. "To wait for an hour! But they are sure to be here in less than that. They keep a constant watch."

"Well, we will manage somehow."

He pointed to the wicket in the door:

"Do you see that wicket?" he said. "They open it each time. They will see us through the grating."

"There's a shutter to it. Let's close it."

"They will come in."

"Then we won't close it and we'll keep up our confidence, Stephane."

"I'm frightened for you, not for myself."

"You mustn't be frightened either for me or for yourself . . . . If the worst comes to the worst, we are able to defend ourselves," she added, showing him a revolver which she had taken from her father's rack of arms and carried on her ever since.

"Ah," he said, "what I fear is that we shall not even be called upon to defend ourselves! They have other means."

"What means?"