The Secret of Sarek Part 31

"In memory of me," she said, in a firm voice, "in memory of the Veronique whom you knew . . . and loved."

He looked at her pa.s.sionately:

"So you know?"

"Yes; and I tell you frankly, I have read your diary. I know your love for me . . . and I accept it." She gave a sad smile. "That poor love which you offered to the woman who was absent . . . and which you are now offering to the woman who is about to die."

"No, no," he said, eagerly, "don't believe that . . . . Salvation may be near at hand . . . . I feel it. My love does not belong to the past but to the future."

He stooped to put his lips to her hands.

"Kiss me," she said, offering him her forehead.

Each of them had been obliged to place one foot on the brink of the precipice, on the straight edge of granite which ran parallel with the fourth side of the spring-board.

They kissed gravely.

"Hold me firmly," said Veronique.

She leant back as far as she could, raising her head, and called in a m.u.f.fled voice:

"Francois . . . . Francois . . . ."

But there was no one at the upper opening, from which the ladder was still hanging by one of its hooks, well out of reach.

Veronique bent over the sea. At this spot, the swell of the cliff did not project as much as elsewhere; and she saw, in between the foam-topped reefs, a little pool of still water, very calm and so deep that she could not see the bottom. She thought that death would be gentler there than on the sharp-pointed rocks and, yielding to a sudden longing to have done with it all and to avoid a lingering agony, she said to Stephane:

"Why wait for the end? Better die than suffer this torture."

"No, no!" he exclaimed, horrified at the thought that Veronique might disappear from his sight.

"Then you are still hoping?"

"Until the last second, since it's your life that's at stake."

"I have no longer any hope."

Nor was he borne up by hope; but he would have given anything to lull Veronique's sufferings and to bear the whole weight of the supreme ordeal himself.

The floor continued to rise. The vibration had ceased and the slope became much more marked, already reaching the bottom of the wicket, half way up the door. Then there was a sound like a sudden stoppage of machinery, followed by a violent jolt, and the whole wicket was covered.

It was becoming impossible for them to stand erect.

They lay down on the slanting floor, bracing their feet against the granite edge.

Two more jerks occurred, each time pushing the upper end still higher.

The top of the inner wall was reached; and the enormous mechanism moved slowly forward, along the ceiling, towards the opening of the cave. They could see very plainly that it would fit this opening exactly and close it hermetically, like a draw-bridge. The rock had been hewn in such a way that the deadly task might be accomplished without leaving any loophole for chance.

They did not utter a word. With hands tight-clasped, they resigned themselves to the inevitable. Their death was a.s.suming the aspect of an event decreed by destiny. The machine had been constructed far back in the centuries and had no doubt been reconstructed, repaired and put in order at a more recent date; and during those centuries, worked by invisible executioners, it had caused the death of culprits, of guilty men and innocent, of men of Armorica, Gaul, France or foreign lands.

Prisoners of war, sacrilegious monks, persecuted peasants, renegade Chouans and soldiers of the Revolution; one by one the monster had hurled them over the cliff.

To-day it was their turn.

They had not even the bitter solace of rage and hatred. Whom were they to hate? They were dying in the deepest obscurity, with no hostile face emerging from that implacable night. They were dying in the accomplishment of a task unknown to themselves, to make up a total, so to speak, and for the fulfilment of absurd prophecies, of imbecile intentions, such as the orders given by the barbarian G.o.ds and formulated by fanatical priests. They were--it was a thing unheard of--the victims of some expiatory sacrifice, of some holocaust offered to the divinities of a blood-thirsty creed!

The wall stood behind them. In a few more minutes it would be perpendicular. The end was approaching.

Time after time Stephane had to hold Veronique back. An increasing terror distracted her mind. She yearned to fling herself down.

"Please, please," she stammered, "do let me . . . . I am suffering more than I can bear."

Had she not found her son again, she would have retained her self-control to the end. But the thought of Francois was unsettling her.

The boy must also be a prisoner, they must be torturing him too and immolating him, like his mother, on the altars of the execrable G.o.ds.

"No, no, he will come," Stephane declared. "You will be saved . . . . I will have it so . . . . I know it."

She replied, wildly:

"He is imprisoned as we are . . . . They are burning him with torches, driving arrows into him, tearing his flesh . . . . Oh, my poor little son! . . ."

"He will come, dear, he told you he would. Nothing can separate a mother and son who have been brought together again."

"We have found each other in death; we shall be united in death. I wish it might be at once! I don't want him to suffer!"

The agony was too great. With an effort she released her hands from Stephane's and made a movement to fling herself down. But she immediately threw herself back against the draw-bridge, with a cry of amazement which was echoed by Stephane.

Something had pa.s.sed before their eyes and disappeared again. It came from the left.

"The ladder!" exclaimed Stephane. "It's the ladder, isn't it?"

"Yes, it's Francois," said Veronique, catching her breath with joy and hope. "He is saved. He is coming to rescue us."

At that moment, the wall of torment was almost upright, vibrating implacably beneath their shoulders. The cave no longer existed behind them. The depths had already claimed them; at most they were clinging to a narrow ledge.

Veronique leant outwards again. The ladder swung back and then became stationary, fixed by its two hooks.

Above them, at the opening in the cliff, was a boy's face; and the boy was smiling and making gestures:

"Mother, mother . . . quick!"

The call was eager and urgent. The two arms were outstretched towards the pair below. Veronique moaned:

"Oh, it's you, it's you, my darling!"

"Quick, mother, I'm holding the ladder! . . . Quick! . . . It's quite safe!"

"I'm coming, darling, I'm coming."

She had seized the nearest upright. This time, with Stephane's a.s.sistance, she had no difficulty in placing her foot on the bottom rung. But she said: