Kitabı oku: «Servants of Sin», sayfa 15

 
"Why drew Marseilles' good bishop purer breath,
When nature sickened, and each gate was Death?"
 

Of convicts, galley slaves, there were many everywhere, since, as soon as one batch sent from the vessels lying at the Quai de Riveneuve was decimated, or more than decimated, another was turned into the city to assist in removing the dead, and, where possible, burying them within the city ramparts and port-walls, which had been discovered to be not entirely solid but to possess large vacant spaces within them that might serve as catacombs. And, also, they were removing many to the churches, the vaults of which were opened, and, when stuffed full of the dead, were filled with quicklime and closed up again, it remaining doubtful, however, if the churches themselves could be used for worship for many years to come.

In that dreadful ride he saw and heard such things that he wondered he did not, himself, fall dead off his horse from horror. He saw men and their wives afraid to approach each other for fear of contracting contagion; he observed many people running about the streets who had gone mad from fright; once, in the midst of all these shocking surroundings, he perceived a wedding party-the bride and bridegroom laughing and shrieking, while the man, who was either overcome with drink or frenzy, called out boisterously, "Thy uncle can thwart us no more, Julie. The pest has done us this service at least."

Next, he passed through a street at which a little trading was taking place, some provisions being sold there. Yet he noticed what precautions prevailed over even such transactions as these. He saw a great cauldron of boiling water with a fire burning fiercely beneath it, and into this cauldron was plunged every coin that changed hands, pincers being used for the purpose. It was feared that even the pieces of metal might convey the disease! And he observed that those who brought fish to sell were driven away with shouts and execrations, and made to retire with their bundles. It was rumoured, he heard one man say, that all the fish near land were poisoned and infected by the bodies that had been cast into the sea.

The night drew near as still he paced the city streets and open places, and he knew that both he and his horse must rest somewhere-either out in the open or in some deserted house or stable. Food, too, must be obtained for both. Only-where?

Then he determined he would make his way back to the gate and discover if, by any chance, the chain-gang of women had yet arrived. If it had not, it must, he felt sure, be very near, or-perhaps-already lying outside the city. To-morrow at daybreak he would begin his search again.

Remembering the way he had come, guided by terrible signs, by shocking sights which he recollected having passed on his way to the spot he was now returning from; guided, also, by the glow left by the sun as it began to sink, he went on his road back towards the gate, observing the names of the streets at the corners as he did so. One, which now he was passing through, and which he noticed was called La Rue des Carmes Déchaussés, seemed to have, for some reason, been more deserted by its inhabitants than several others he had traversed. Perhaps, he thought, because the fever had developed itself more pronouncedly here than elsewhere; perhaps because the inhabitants were wealthy enough to take themselves off at the first sign of the approach of the pestilence. That might be so. Now, the doors and, in many cases, the windows stood open; he could see through these windows-even in the fast falling dusk-that the rooms were sumptuously furnished, yet how desolate and neglected all seemed! How fearful must have been the terror of their owners when they could flee while leaving behind them all their treasures and belongings, leaving even their doors open behind them to the midnight prowlers or thieves who must surely be about after dark. Or, had those prowlers and thieves themselves burst open those doors, while neglecting to shut them again after they had glutted themselves with the treasures within?

Musing thus he halted, regarding one particularly open house-it was number 77-then started to see he was not alone in the street.

Coming slowly up it was a man who walked as though with difficulty; a man who, seeing a solitary woman's body lying on the footpath, crossed over to her, turned over the body, and regarded the face. Then he seemed to shake his head and walk on again towards where Walter Clarges sat his horse observing him. And, far down the street, he saw also another figure, indistinct as to features, distinct as to dress. A man arrayed in the garb of a convict; a man who, as he crept along, gave to the watcher the idea that he was tracking him who was ahead.

Ahead and near Clarges now, so near that he could see his features. And, as he saw and recognised them, he gave a gasp, while exclaiming hastily, "My God!"

For the first man of the two, the one who now drew close to him, was Desparre!

CHAPTER XXVI
"REVENGE-BITTER! ERE LONG BACK ON ITSELF RECOILS!"

The night was close at hand as those two men came together, they being brought so by the slow, heavy approach of Desparre towards where the other sat his horse watching him. The dark had almost come. But, still, there was a sufficiency of dusky light left beneath the stars which began to twinkle above in the deep, sapphire sky for the features of each to be recognised by the other.

"Yet," Clarges asked himself, as he dismounted and left his tired horse standing unheld in the deserted street, "did Desparre recognise his features?" He could hardly decide.

The man had stopped in that halting, dragging walk up the long, deserted street which rose slightly on a hill; he had stopped and was looking-yes, looking-staring-at him, yet saying nothing either with his lips or by the expression of those glassy eyes. He was standing still before him, mute and rigid.

And Clarges noted, all unimportant as it was, that far down the street, a hundred yards away, the galley slave who was the only other living creature about besides themselves, had halted too-had halted and was looking up towards them as though wondering curiously what these men might have to do with one another.

"Desparre!" exclaimed Walter Clarges now, abandoning all title, all form of ceremony. "Desparre, how it is that you have been delivered into my hands here to-night in this loathsome, plague-stricken spot, I know not. Yet I know one thing. We have met. Met for me to kill you, or for you to kill me!"

To his astonishment, to his utter amazement, the other was silent-silent as if stricken dumb, as if turned to stone. But still the glassy eyes regarded him and seemed to glisten in the light that was almost darkness now.

Clarges paused a moment while observing that figure before him and wondering if this might be some devilish ruse, some scheme concocted in Desparre's mind for either saving himself or perpetrating some act of treachery. The villain might, he thought, have a pistol in his breast or pocket which he would suddenly draw forth and discharge full at him. Then, seeing that the other still remained mute and motionless, he said:

"No silence on your part can save you. Be dumb if you will, but act. Draw your sword at once or stand there to be slain, to be righteously executed. I have to avenge to-night the wrongs of myself and of my wife-your daughter. Ha! you know that!"

As he mentioned "my wife-your daughter," he saw that he had moved the man. His face became contorted with a horrible spasm; one part of it seemed to be drawn down suddenly, the mouth, by the process, assuming a hideous, one-sided grin.

Desparre was now awful to gaze upon.

Unsheathing his own sword, Clarges advanced towards him, uttering only one word, the word "Draw." Then he stood before the other, waiting, watching what he would do, while determined that, if he did not draw as he bade him, he would thrust his weapon through his craven breast and so put an end to his vile life.

At first Desparre did nothing, but stood stock and motionless before him with always that drawn-down look upon one side of his face, though now his lower jaw seemed, as seen through the dusk, to be working horribly, and his teeth, one or two of which were discoloured, showing like fangs.

Then he put his hand to his sword-it appeared as though that hand would never reach the hilt, as though it were numbed or dead-and with what looked like extreme effort, drew forth the blade. Yet only to let it drop listlessly by his side directly afterwards, the point clicking metallically against the cobble stones of the street as he did so.

Was the coward struck lifeless with fear? Almost, it seemed so. Yet but a moment later, Clarges knew that it was something worse than fear that possessed him. For now the sword he had held so languidly fell altogether from his hand and clattered upon the stones as it did so, while Desparre stood shaking before the man who was about to slay him, his arms quivering helplessly, his face appalling in its distortions, his body swaying. Then he, too, fell heavily, and lay, as it seemed, lifeless before the other, his arms stretched out wide.

And Clarges, bending over him, regarding him as though he still doubted whether this were a ruse or not, yet knowing, feeling certain, that it was not so-did not perceive that the skulking form of the galley-slave had drawn nearer to them-that the man was now crouching in a stooping posture on the other side of the street regarding him and Desparre, while his starting, eager eyes observed all that was happening.

"Has he died of fright?" Clarges whispered to himself, while he bent over the prostrate man. "Died of fright or by God's visitation? Or is he dead? Anyway, he has escaped me for the present. So be it. We shall meet again, unless this scourge which is over all the place takes him or me, or both of us, before we can do so."

Whereupon, he left Desparre lying there. He could not stab him now, helpless as he was and dead or dying? Yet, as he remounted his tired steed which had stood tranquilly in the road where he had left it, he remembered that, during the many weeks he had lain in the Paris Hospital, and while the wounds administered at that craven's instigation were healing, he had seen men brought into it who had fallen almost lifeless in the street from paralysis and apoplexy. From paralysis! Yes, that must be what had now stricken this man; he felt sure it must. He remembered that there was one so brought in who had dropped in the street suddenly-the doctors said from a great shock he had received-whose face had been drawn down as Desparre's was, whose jaws had twitched, even in his insensibility, in much the same way.

Yes, he reflected, it was that, it must be that which had stricken this man thus at the moment when he had meant to slay him. One death had saved him from another, since now he must surely be near his end. If he did not perish of the stroke, the fever would doubtless lay hold upon him. His account was made. And musing thus, thanking God, too, that he had been spared from taking the life of even so great a villain as Desparre, and from having for ever the burden of the man's execution upon his head, he slowly rode off from the street of the Barefooted Carmelites, to learn, if possible, whether the cordon of women from Paris had yet arrived. But scarcely had his horse's hoofs ceased to echo down that mournful, deserted place in which now lay two bodies stretched upon their backs-the one, that of the poor dead woman at the lower end of it, the other, that of the wealthy and highly descended Armand, Duc Desparre-than forth from the porch across the street there stole the form of the skulking convict, – the convict who had been tracking Desparre from long before he entered the street, the galley-slave who had stood, or crouched aside, to see what should be the result of the meeting with the man who had dismounted from his horse to parley with him.

With almost the sinuous crawl of the panther, this convict-old, and with his close cropped hair flecked with grey-stole across the wide street to where the form of Desparre lay; then, reaching that form, he went down on one knee beside it, and, in the dark, felt all over it, lifting up his own hands now and again and peering at them in the night as though to see if they glistened with anything they might have come against, while feeling also one palm with the fingers of the other hand to discover if it was wet. Yet such was not the case.

"Almost I could have sworn," the galérien muttered, "that I heard his sword fall from him. That he was disarmed and therefore run through a moment later. Yet he is not wounded; there is no blood. What does it mean? That man was Walter Clarges-alive! Alive Alive! He whom I have deemed dead for months. Her husband-and alive! He must have slain him. He must. He must. He would be more than human, more than man, to spare him after all that he and she have suffered. He must have run that black treacherous heart through and through. Yet, there is no wound that I can find; no blood!"

Again and again-feeling the body all over, feeling, too, that the heart was beating beneath his hand and that there was no sign of cold or stiffness coming into that form as it lay motionless there-he was forced at last to the conclusion that, for some strange reason, Clarges had spared his bitterest foe.

"Spared him," he hissed. "Spared him. Why, why, why!" and he rose to his feet cursing Clarges for his weakness or folly. Cursing him even as he looked down and meditated on throttling the man lying there before him.

"He may spare him," he said. "I will not. My wrongs are as great, as bitter as theirs. I will have his life. Here-to-night."

He had touched with his foot, some moments before, the sword which Desparre had let fall from his nerveless hand, and the clatter of which had led him to imagine that the duke had been disarmed. Now, he picked up the weapon, tried it once against the stones, then bent over the miserable man with his arm shortened so as to drive the blade a moment later through throat and breast.

"Hellhound!" he muttered, "your hour is truly come. Devil! go to your master. You swore she should go unharmed if I would but assist you in your vengeance on him; that-that knowing I loved her-God, how I had learnt to love her! in spite of my trying to force her to marry such as you so that she might be great and powerful-she should be given back to me. Whereby we could yet have lived happy, prosperous, unmolested, together. Together! Together! And you sent her to exile and death, and me-your tool-to the galleys. Die!"

And now, he drew back his arm so as to drive the blade home. Yet, even as he did so, even before he thrust it through neck and chest, he whispered savagely. "It is too good a death, it is too easy. He is insensible from fear, he will die without pain. If there were any other way-any method-"

He paused with his eyes roaming round the street from side to side-then started. A moment afterwards he went up the steps of the house with the sword still in his hand, and peered at the numbers painted in great white figures on the door. In the dark of the summer night, in the faint light given by the blazing southern stars, he could decipher them.

"Seventy-seven," he muttered, "seventy-seven." Then paused again as though thinking deeply, his empty hand fingering his grisly, unshaven chin. "Seventy-seven. Ay! I do remember. This house was one of them. One of the first. One of the worst. 'Twill serve."

He leant the sword against the side of the porch, muttering: "He would not stab you to the heart-so-neither will I," then went slowly down the steps again, and back to where Desparre lay unmoved. After which he took both of the other's hands in his, drew them above the shoulder, and stretched the arms out to their full length, and thus hoisted the burden on his own gaunt shoulders-while bending-almost staggering at first-under the weight. Yet he kept his feet; at last he was able to straighten his back, and to stagger up the steps into the house. Here, when once in it, he let the body down to the floor of the passage and stood gasping and breathing heavily for some moments, what time he muttered to himself:

"This will not do. Not here on the first floor. It is too near the street. He must go higher. Higher yet. Otherwise he may be found-and saved!"

Whereupon, having regained his breath, he lifted Desparre on to his shoulders again and slowly mounted to the first floor of the house. Then he rested there, and afterwards went on to the second. Here, as was ever the case in the houses of the well-to-do in the city, the sleeping apartments began; the principal bedroom of the master of the house being in this instance on the front, or street side, while that reserved for guests was on the back, and looked over a small plot of ground, or garden. The moon, now peeping up, showed that both rooms were in a state of great confusion-rooms to which, by this time, the man had crept laboriously with his heavy, horrid burden on his back. The bed, he could see, as still the rays stole in more fully to the front apartment, was in disorder, the upper sheet and coverlet being flung back as though some one had leapt hastily from them; the doors of wardrobes and cupboards stood open; so, too, did the lid of a huge strong-box bound and clasped with iron bands. Easy enough was it for Vandecque to see that, from this room a hurried flight had been made, and with only sufficient time allowed before the departure for the more precious and smaller objects of value to be hastily gathered up. For, upon the floor there lay-as he felt as well as saw, since his feet struck against them-the larger articles of importance, the silverware, the coffee pots and tea-pots, the salvers, and other things. It had been a hurried flight!

"If," said Vandecque to himself, even as his eye glanced round on all these things which he would once have deemed a rich booty had they fallen into his hands, but which now he scorned, since, if he could but gain his freedom by his conduct here and return to Paris a liberated man, he would want for nothing, having at last grown rich through the gambling house; "if I leave him in this house and he recovers consciousness-strength-he may be able to attract attention; to call for assistance from the window. He shall have no chance of that. Come, murderer, come," and again he lifted the insensible man upon his shoulders and bore him into the back, or spare, room.

This was not in a disordered condition. There would be no guests in Marseilles at this time; no visitors from a healthy place to such an unhealthy, stricken one as this. The bed was made and arranged, and on to it Vandecque flung the body of his victim. His victim! Yes, yet how long was it since he himself had been the victim? And, even as he thought of how he had suffered at this man's hand, any compunctions he might have had during the last hour-and, hardened as he was, he had had them! – vanished for ever.

"Arrested by your orders," he muttered, glancing down upon Desparre as he lay senseless on the bed; glaring down, indeed, though only able to see the dim outline of his enemy's form, since, as yet, the moonbeams had scarcely penetrated to this room. "By your orders, though not knowing, never dreaming that it was so; not dreaming that my betrayal came from you. Then the prison of La Tournelle-oh, God! for the third time in my life-the condemnation to the galleys, this time in perpetuity. I-I who had grown well-to-do, who had no need to be a criminal again, who might have finished my life in ease. And Laure-Laure-poor Laure! – whom I had hoped to see a Duchess, and great-happy-or, at least, not unhappy! Cut-throat!" he almost shrieked at the senseless man; "when I learnt, as we gaol birds do learn from one another, all that you had done, I swore to escape from these galleys somehow, to make my way back to Paris, to slay you. Yet, it is better thus; far better. Lie there and die."

Then he went forth from the room, finding the key in the door and turning it upon Desparre.

But, as he descended the stairs and returned to the street, taking no precaution to deaden his footfall in the empty corridors, since he knew well enough that there were none to hear them, he muttered to himself, "Clarges spoke of her to him as 'his wife.' Also he said 'Your daughter.' Mon Dieu! was she that? Was she that? And if so, how should the Englishman know it, how have found out what I spent years in fruitlessly trying to discover?"

Musing thus, he caught up the sword which still stood in the porch, flung it down a drain, and went slowly through the deserted streets towards the Quai de Riveneuve where the galleys were, and to which the convicts returned nightly to sleep-if they had not succumbed during the day to the pestilence.