The Secret of Sarek Part 66

"So," said Stephane, "you regard the G.o.d-Stone . . ."

"I regard the G.o.d-Stone as a block of radiferous pitchblende originating from the Joachimsthal lodes. I have long known the Bohemian legend which speaks of a miraculous stone that was once removed from the side of a hill; and, when I was travelling in Bohemia, I saw the hole left by the stone. It corresponds pretty accurately with the dimensions of the G.o.d-Stone."

"But," Stephane objected, "radium is contained in rocks only in the form of infinitesimal particles. Remember that, after a ma.s.s of fourteen hundred tons of rock have been duly mined and washed and treated, there remains at the end of it all only a filtrate of some fifteen grains of radium. And you attribute a miraculous power to the G.o.d-Stone, which weighs two tons at most!"

"But it evidently contains radium in appreciable quant.i.ties. Nature has not pledged herself to be always n.i.g.g.ardly and invariably to dilute the radium. She was pleased to acc.u.mulate in the G.o.d-Stone a generous supply which enabled it to produce the apparently extraordinary phenomena which we know of . . . not forgetting that we have to allow for popular exaggeration."

Stephane seemed to be yielding to conviction. Nevertheless he said:

"One last point. Apart from the G.o.d-Stone, there was the little chip of stone which Maguennoc found in the leaden sceptre, the prolonged touch of which burnt his hand. According to you, this was a particle of radium?"

"Undoubtedly. And it is this perhaps that most clearly reveals the presence and the power of radium in all this adventure. When Henri Becquerel, the great physicist, kept a tube containing a salt of radium in his waistcoat-pocket, his skin became covered in a few days with suppurating ulcers. Curie repeated the experiment, with the same result.

Maguennoc's case was more serious, because he held the particle of radium in his hand. A wound formed which had a cancerous appearance.

Scared by all that he knew and all that he himself had said about the miraculous stone which burns like h.e.l.l-fire and 'gives life or death,'

he chopped off his hand."

"Very well," said Stephane, "but where did that particle of pure radium come from? It can't have been a chip of the G.o.d-Stone, because, once again, however rich a mineral may be, radium is incorporated in it, not in isolated grains, but in a soluble form, which has to be dissolved and afterwards collected, by a series of mechanical operations, into a solution rich enough to enable successive crystallizations and concentrations to isolate the active product which the solution contains. All this and a number of other later operations demand an enormous plant, with workshops, laboratories, expert chemists, in short, a very different state of civilization, you must admit, from the state of barbarism in which our ancestors the Celts were immersed."

Don Luis smiled and tapped the young man on the shoulder:

"Hear, hear, Stephane! I am glad to see that Francois' friend and tutor has a far-seeing and logical mind. The objection is perfectly valid and suggested itself to me at once. I might reply by putting forward some quite legitimate theory, I might presume a natural means of isolating radium and imagine that, in a geological fault occurring in the granite, at the bottom of a big pocket containing radiferous ore, a fissure has opened through which the waters of the river slowly trickle, carrying with them infinitesimal quant.i.ties of radium; that the waters so charged flow for a long time in a narrow channel, combine again, become concentrated and, after centuries upon centuries, filter through in little drops, which evaporate at once, and form at the point of emergence a tiny stalact.i.te, exceedingly rich in radium, the tip of which is broken off one day by some Gallic warrior. But is there any need to seek so far and to have recourse to hypotheses? Cannot we rely on the unaided genius and the inexhaustible resources of nature? Does it call for a more wonderful effort on her part to evolve by her own methods a particle of pure radium than to make a cherry ripen or to make this rose bloom . . . or to give life to our delightful All's Well? What do you say, young Francois? Do we agree?"

"We always agree," replied the boy.

"So you don't unduly regret the miracle of the G.o.d-Stone?"

"Why, the miracle still exists!"

"You're right, Francois, it still exists and a hundred times more beautiful and dazzling than before. Science does not kill miracles: it purifies them and enn.o.bles them. What was that crafty, capricious, wicked, incomprehensible little power attached to the tip of a magic wand and acting at random, according to the ignorant fancy of a barbarian chief or Druid, what was it, I ask you, beside the beneficent, logical, reliable and quite as miraculous power which we behold to-day in a pinch of radium?"

Don Luis suddenly interrupted himself and began to laugh:

"Come, come, I'm allowing myself to be carried away and singing an ode to science! Forgive me, madame," he added, rising and going up to Veronique, "and tell me that I have not bored you too much with my explanations. I haven't, have I? Not too much? Besides, it's finished . . . or nearly finished. There is only one more point to make clear, one decision to take."

He sat down beside her:

"It's this. Now that we have won the G.o.d-Stone, in other words, an actual treasure, what are we going to do with it?"

Veronique spoke with a heartfelt impulse:

"Oh, as to that, don't let us speak of it! I don't want anything that may come from Sarek, or anything that's found in the Priory. We will work."

"Still, the Priory belongs to you."

"No, no, Veronique d'Hergemont no longer exists and the Priory no longer belongs to any one. Let it all be put up to auction. I don't want anything of that accursed past."

"And how will you live?"

"As I used to by my work. I am sure that Francois approves, don't you, darling?"

And, with an instinctive movement, turning to Stephane, as though he had a certain right to give his opinion, she added:

"You too approve, don't you, dear Stephane?"

"Entirely," he said.

She at once went on:

"Besides, though I don't doubt my father's feelings of affection, I have no proof of his wishes towards me."

"I have the proofs," said Don Luis.

"How?"

"Patrice and I went back to Sarek. In a writing-desk in Maguennoc's room, in a secret drawer, we found a sealed, but unaddressed envelope, and opened it. It contained a bond worth ten thousand francs a year and a sheet of paper which read as follows:

"'After my death, Maguennoc will hand this bond to Stephane Maroux, to whom I confide the charge of my grandson, Francois. When Francois is eighteen years of age, the bond will be his to do what he likes with. I hope and trust, however, that he will seek his mother and find her and that she will pray for my soul. I bless them both.'

"Here is the bond," said Don Luis, "and here is the letter. It is dated April of this year."

Veronique was astounded. She looked at Don Luis and the thought occurred to her that all this was perhaps merely a story invented by that strange man to place her and her son beyond the reach of want. It was a pa.s.sing thought. When all was considered, it was a natural consequence.

Everything said, M. d'Hergemont's action was very reasonable; and, foreseeing the difficulties that would crop up after his death, it was only right that he should think of his grandson. She murmured:

"I have not the right to refuse."

"You have so much the less right," said Don Luis, "in that the transaction excludes you altogether. Your father's wishes affect Francois and Stephane directly. So we are agreed. There remains the G.o.d-Stone; and I repeat my question. What are we to do with it? To whom does it belong?"

"To you," said Veronique, definitely.

"To me?"

"Yes, to you. You discovered it and you have given it a real signification."

"I must remind you," said Don Luis, "that this block of stone possesses, beyond a doubt, an incalculable value. However great the miracles wrought by nature may be, it is only through a wonderful concourse of circ.u.mstances that she was able to perform the miracle of collecting so much precious matter in so small a volume. There are treasures and treasures there."

"So much the better," said Veronique, "you will be able to make a better use of them than any one else."

Don Luis thought for a moment and added:

"You are quite right; and I confess that I prepared for this climax.

First, because my right to the G.o.d-Stone seemed to me to be proved by adequate t.i.tles of ownership; and, next, because I have need of that block of stone. Yes, upon my word, the tombstone of the Kings of Bohemia has not exhausted its magic power; there are plenty of nations left on whom that power might produce as great an effect as on our ancestors the Gauls; and, as it happens, I am tackling a formidable undertaking in which an a.s.sistance of this kind will be invaluable to me. In a few years, when my task is completed, I will bring the G.o.d-Stone back to France and present it to a national laboratory which I intend to found.

In this way science will purge any evil that the G.o.d-Stone may have done and the horrible adventure of Sarek will be atoned for. Do you approve, madame?"

She gave him her hand:

"With all my heart."

There was a fairly long pause. Then Don Luis said: