The Secret of Sarek Part 39

In a second he had his arms round her body and, with an irresistible effort, bent her backwards, turned her round and laid her on a sofa.

Then he took a cord from his pocket and bound her firmly and brutally.

There was a moment's respite and silence. Vorski wiped the perspiration from his forehead, filled himself a tumbler of wine and drank it down at a gulp.

"That's better," he said, placing his foot on his victim, "and confess that this is best all round. Each one in his place, my beauty; you trussed like a fowl and I treading on you at my pleasure. Aha, we're no longer enjoying ourselves so much! We're beginning to understand that it's a serious matter. Ah, you needn't be afraid, you baggage: Vorski's not the man to take advantage of a woman! No, no, that would be to play with fire and to burn with a longing which this time would kill me. I'm not such a fool as that. How should I forget you afterwards? One thing only can make me forget and give me my peace of mind; your death. And, since we understand each other on that subject, all's well. For it's settled, isn't it; you want to die?"

"Yes," she said, as firmly as before.

"And you want your son to die?"

"Yes," she said.

He rubbed his hands:

"Excellent! We are agreed; and the time is past for words that mean nothing. The real words remain to be spoken, those which count; for you admit that, so far, all that I have said is mere verbiage, what? Just as all the first part of the adventure, all that you saw happening at Sarek, is only child's play. The real tragedy is beginning, since you are involved in it body and soul; and that's the most terrifying part, my pretty one. Your beautiful eyes have wept, but it is tears of blood that are wanted, you poor darling! But what would you have? Once again, Vorski is not cruel. He obeys a higher power; and destiny is against you. Your tears? Nonsense! You've got to shed a thousand times as many as another. Your death? Fudge! You've got to die a thousand deaths before you die for good. Your poor heart must bleed as never woman's and mother's poor heart bled before. Are you ready, Veronique? You shall hear really cruel words, to be followed perhaps by words more cruel still. Oh, fate is not spoiling you, my pretty one! . . ."

He poured himself out a second gla.s.s of wine and emptied it in the same gluttonous fashion; then he sat down beside her and, stooping, said, almost in her ear:

"Listen, dearest, I have a confession to make to you. I was already married when I met you. Oh, don't be upset! There are greater catastrophes for a wife and greater crimes for a husband than bigamy.

Well, by my first wife I had a son . . . whom I think you know; you exchanged a few amicable remarks with him in the pa.s.sage of the cells . . . . Between ourselves, he's a regular bad lot, that excellent Raynold, a rascal of the worst, in whom I enjoy the pride of discovering, raised to their highest degree, some of my best instincts and some of my chief qualities. He is a second edition to myself, but he already outstrips me and now and then alarms me. Whew, what a devil! At his age, a little over fifteen, I was an angel compared with him. Now it so happens that this fine fellow has to take the field against my other son, against our dear Francois. Yes, such is the whim of destiny, which, once again, gives orders and of which, once again, I am the clear-sighted and subtle interpreter. Of course it is not a question of a protracted and daily struggle. On the contrary, something short, violent and decisive: a duel, for instance. That's it, a duel; you understand, a serious duel. Not a turn with the fists, ending in a few bruises; no, what you call a duel to the death, because one of the two adversaries must be left, on the ground, because there must be a victor and a victim, in short, a living combatant and a dead one."

Veronique had turned her head a little and she saw that he was smiling.

Never before had she so plainly perceived the madness of that man, who smiled at the thought of a mortal contest between two children both of whom were his sons. The whole thing was so extravagant that Veronique, so to speak, did not suffer. It was all outside the limits of suffering.

"There is something better, Veronique," he said, gloating over every syllable. "There's something better. Yes, destiny has devised a refinement which I dislike, but to which, as a faithful servant, I have to give effect. It has devised that you should be present at the duel.

Capital; you, Francois' mother, must see him fight. And, upon my word, I wonder whether that apparent malevolence is not a mercy in disguise. Let us say that you owe it to me, shall we, and that I myself am granting you this unexpected, I will even say, this unjust favour? For, when all is said, though Raynold is more powerful and experienced than Francois and though, logically, Francois ought to be beaten, how it must add to his courage and strength to know that he is fighting before his mother's eyes! He will feel like a knight errant who stakes all his pride on winning. He will be a son whose victory will save his mother . . . at least, so he will think. Really the advantage is too great; and you can thank me, Veronique, if this duel, as I am sure it will, does not--and I am sure that it will not--make your heart beat a little faster . . . .

Unless . . . unless I carry out the infernal programme to the end . . . . Ah, in that case, you poor little thing! . . ."

He gripped her once more and, lifting her to her feet in front of him, pressing his face against hers, he said, in a sudden fit of rage:

"So you won't give in?"

"No, no!" she cried.

"You will never give in?"

"Never! Never! Never!" she repeated, with increasing vehemence.

"You hate me more than everything?"

"I hate you more than I love my son."

"You lie, you lie!" he snarled. "You lie! Nothing comes above your son!"

"Yes, my hatred for you."

All Veronique's pa.s.sion of revolt, all the detestation which she had succeeded in restraining now burst forth; and, indifferent to what might come of it, she flung the words of hatred full in his face:

"I hate you! I hate you! I would have my son die before my eyes, I would witness his agony, anything rather than the horror of your sight and presence. I hate you! You killed my father! You are an unclean murderer, a halfwitted, savage idiot, a criminal lunatic! I hate you!"

He lifted her with an effort, carried her to the window and threw her on the ground, spluttering:

"On your knees! On your knees! The punishment is beginning. You would scoff at me, you hussy, would you? Well, you shall see!"

He forced her to her knees and then, pushing her against the lower wall and opening the window, he fastened her head to the rail of the balcony by means of a cord round her neck and under her arms. He ended by gagging her with a scarf:

"And now look!" he cried. "The curtain's going up! Boy Francois doing his exercises! . . . Oh, you hate me, do you? Oh, you would rather have h.e.l.l than a kiss from Vorski? Well, my darling, you shall have h.e.l.l; and I'm arranging a little performance for you, one of my own composing and a highly original one at that! . . . Also, I may tell you, it's too late now to change your mind. The thing's irrevocable. You may beg and entreat for mercy as much as you like; it's too late! The duel, followed by the cross; that's the programme. Say your prayers, Veronique, and call on Heaven. Shout for a.s.sistance if it amuses you . . . . Listen, I know that your brat is expecting a rescuer, a professor of clap-trap, a Don Quixote of adventure. Let him come! Vorski will give him the reception he deserves! The more the merrier! We shall see some fun!

. . . And, if the very G.o.ds join in the game and take up your defence, I shan't care! It's no longer their business, it's my business. It's no longer a question of Sarek and the treasure and the great secret and all the humbug of the G.o.d-Stone! It's a question of yourself! You have spat in Vorski's face and Vorski is taking his revenge. He is taking his revenge! It is the glorious hour. What exquisite joy! . . . To do evil as others do good, lavishly and profusely! To do evil! To kill, torture, break, ruin and destroy! . . . Oh, the fierce delight of being a Vorski!"

He stamped across the room, striking the floor at each step and hustling the furniture. His haggard eyes roamed in all directions. He would have liked to begin his work of destruction at once, strangling some victim, giving work to his greedy fingers, executing the incoherent orders of his insane imagination.

Suddenly, he drew a revolver and, brutishly, stupidly, fired bullets into the mirrors, the pictures, the window-panes.

And, still gesticulating, still capering about, an ominous and sinister figure, he opened the door, bellowing:

"Vorski's having his revenge! Vorski's having his revenge!"

CHAPTER XII

THE ASCENT OF GOLGOTHA

Twenty or thirty minutes elapsed. Veronique was still alone. The cords cut into her flesh; and the rails of the balcony bruised her forehead.

The gag choked her. Her knees, bent in two and doubled up beneath her, carried the whole weight of her body. It was an intolerable position, an unceasing torture . . . . Still, though she suffered, she was not very clearly aware of it. She was unconscious of her physical suffering; and she had already undergone such mental suffering that this supreme ordeal did not awaken her drowsing senses.

She hardly thought. Sometimes she said to herself that she was about to die; and she already felt the repose of the after-life, as one sometimes, amidst a storm, feels in advance the wide peace of the harbour. Hideous things were sure to happen between the present moment and the conclusion which would set her free; but her brain refused to dwell on them; and her son's fate in particular elicited only momentary thoughts, which were immediately dispersed.

At heart, as there was nothing to enlighten her as to her frame of mind, she was hoping for a miracle. Would the miracle occur in Vorski?

Incapable of generosity though he was, would not the monster hesitate none the less in the presence of an utterly unnecessary crime? A father does not kill his son, or at least the act must be brought about by imperative reasons; and Vorski had no such reasons to allege against a mere child whom he did not know and whom he could not hate except with an artificial hatred.

Her torpor was lulled by this hope of a miracle. All the sounds which reechoed through the house, sounds of discussions, sounds of hurrying footsteps, seemed to her to indicate not so much the preparations for the events foretold as the sign of interruptions which would ruin all Vorski's plans. Had not her dear Francois said that nothing could any longer separate them from each other and that, at the moment when everything might seem lost and even when everything would be really lost, they must keep their faith intact?

"My Francois," she repeated, "my darling Francois, you shall not die . . . we shall see each other again . . . you promised me!"

Out of doors, a blue sky, flecked with a few menacing clouds, hung outspread above the tall oaks. In front of her, beyond that same window at which her father had appeared to her, in the middle of the gra.s.s which she had crossed with Honorine on the day of her arrival, a site had been recently cleared and covered with sand, like an arena. Was it here that her son was to fight? She received the sudden intuition that it must be; and her heart contracted.

"Francois," she said, "Francois, have no fear . . . . I shall save you . . . . Oh, forgive me, Francois darling, forgive me! . . . All this is a punishment for the wrong I once did . . . . It is the atonement . . . . The son is atoning for the mother . . . . Forgive me, forgive me! . . ."

At that moment a door opened on the ground-floor and voices ascended from the doorstep. She recognized Vorski's voice among them.

"So it's understood," he said. "We shall each go our own way; you two on the left, I on the right. You'll take this kid with you, I'll take the other and we'll meet in the lists. You'll be the seconds, so to speak, of yours and I'll be the second of mine, so that all the rules will be observed."

Veronique shut her eyes, for she did not wish to see her son, who would no doubt be maltreated, led out to fight like a slave. She could hear the creaking of two sets of footsteps following the two circular paths.

Vorski was laughing and speechifying.