The Secret of Sarek Part 54

"I've no plan. Or rather, if I have, it's to out that beggar."

"All the same, mind what you're doing. Don't go for him bull-headed; try to take him by surprise."

"Well, of course!" said Conrad, moving away. "I'm not a.s.s enough to risk his attacks. Be easy, I've got the bounder!"

Conrad's daring comforted Vorski.

"After all," he said, when his accomplice was gone, "he's right. If that old Druid didn't come after us, it's because he's got other ideas in his head. He certainly doesn't expect us to return on the offensive; and Conrad can very well take him by surprise. What do you say, Otto?"

Otto shared his opinion:

"He has only to bide his time," he replied.

Fifteen minutes pa.s.sed. Vorski gradually recovered his a.s.surance. He had yielded to the reaction, after an excess of hope followed by disappointment too great for him to bear and also because of the weariness and depression produced by his drinking-bout. But the fighting spirit stimulated him once more; and he was anxious to have done with his adversary.

"I shouldn't be surprised," he said, "if Conrad had finished him off by now."

By this time he had acquired an exaggerated confidence which proved his unbalanced state of mind; and he wanted to go back again at once.

"Come along, Otto, it's the last trip. An old beggar to get rid of; and the thing's done. You've got your dagger? Besides, it won't be wanted.

My two hands will do the trick."

"And suppose that blasted Druid has friends?"

"We'll see."

He once more went towards the crypts, moving cautiously and watching the opening of the pa.s.sages which led from one to the other. No sound reached their ears. The light in the third crypt showed them the way.

"Conrad must have succeeded," Vorski observed. "If not, he would have shirked the fight and come back to us."

Otto agreed.

"It's a good sign, of course, that we don't see him. The ancient Druid must have had a bad time of it. Conrad is a scorcher."

They entered the third crypt. Things were in the places where they had left them: the sceptre on the block and the pommel, which Vorski had unfastened, a little way off, on the ground. But, when he cast his eyes towards the shadowy recess where the ancient Druid was sleeping when they first arrived, he was astounded to see the old fellow, not exactly at the same place, but between the recess and the exit to the pa.s.sage.

"Hang it, what's he doing?" he stammered, at once upset by that unexpected presence. "One would think he was asleep!"

The ancient Druid, in fact, appeared to be asleep. Only, why on earth was he sleeping in that att.i.tude, flat on his stomach, with his arms stretched out on either side and his face to the floor? No man on his guard, or at least aware that he was in some sort of danger, would expose himself in this way to the enemy's attack. Moreover--Vorski's eyes were gradually growing accustomed to the half-darkness of the end crypt--moreover the white robe was marked with stains which looked red, which undoubtedly were red. What did it mean?

Otto said, in a low voice:

"He's lying in a queer att.i.tude."

Vorski was thinking the same thing and put it more plainly:

"Yes, the att.i.tude of a corpse."

"The att.i.tude of a corpse," Otto agreed. "That's it, exactly."

Vorski presently fell back a step:

"Oh," he exclaimed, "can it be?"

"What?" asked the other.

"Between the two shoulders . . . . Look."

"Well?"

"The knife."

"What knife?"

"Conrad's," Vorski declared. "Conrad's dagger. I recognise it. Driven in between the shoulders." And he added, with a shudder, "That's where the red stains come from . . . . It's blood . . . blood flowing from the wound."

"In that case," Otto remarked, "he is dead?"

"He's dead, yes, the ancient Druid is dead . . . . Conrad must have surprised him and killed him . . . . The ancient Druid is dead."

Vorski remained undecided for a while, ready to fall upon the lifeless body and to stab it in his turn. But he dared no more touch it now that it was dead than when it was alive; and all that he had the courage to do was to run and wrench the dagger from the wound.

"Ah," he cried, "you scoundrel, you've got what you deserve! And Conrad is a champion. I shan't forget you, Conrad, be sure of that."

"Where can Conrad be?"

"In the hall of the G.o.d-Stone. Ah, Otto, I'm itching to get back to the woman whom the ancient Druid put there and to settle her hash too!"

"Then you believe that she's a live woman?" chuckled Otto.

"And very much alive at that . . . like the ancient Druid! That wizard was only a fake, with a few tricks of his own, perhaps, but no real power. There's the proof!"

"A fake, if you like," the accomplice objected. "But, all the same, he showed you by his signals the way to enter these caves. Now what was his object in that? And what was he doing here? Did he really know the secret of the G.o.d-Stone, the way to get possession of it and exactly where it is?"

"You're right. It's all so many riddles," said Vorski, who preferred not to examine the details of the adventure too closely. "But it's so many riddles which'll answer themselves and which I'm not troubling about for the moment, because it's no longer that creepy individual who's putting them to me."

For the third time they went through the narrow communicating pa.s.sage.

Vorski entered the great hall like a conqueror, with his head high and a confident glance. There was no longer any obstacle, no longer any enemy to overcome. Whether the G.o.d-Stone was suspended between the stones of the ceiling, or whether the G.o.d-Stone was elsewhere, he was sure to discover it. There remained the mysterious woman who looked like Veronique, but who could not be Veronique and whose real ident.i.ty he was about to unmask.

"Always presuming that she's still there," he muttered. "And I very much suspect that she's gone. She played her part in the ancient Druid's obscure schemes: and the ancient Druid, thinking me out of the way . . ."

He stepped forward and climbed a few steps.

The woman was there. She was there, lying on the lower table of the dolmen, shrouded in veils as before. The arm no longer hung towards the ground. There was only the hand emerging from the veils. The turquoise ring was on the finger.

"She hasn't moved," said Otto. "She's still asleep."

"Perhaps she is asleep," said Vorski. "I'll watch her. Leave me alone."