Kitabı oku: «The Tremendous Event», sayfa 12
"No, they think he's dead. But there are the bags, the bags filled with coin, and they are all going to fill their pockets."
"The gold is there, then?"
"In the cabins. Rolleston's share on one side; his accomplices on the other."
Below deck quarrels were beginning, followed almost immediately by a general affray, which was punctuated by yells and moans. One by one the victors emerged from the companion way. But shadows crept down it all night long; and the newcomers were heard searching and destroying.
"They'll find Rolleston in the end," said Simon.
"I don't care if they do," said Antonio, with a grin which Simon was to remember thereafter.
The Indian was getting together their arms and ammunition. A little before daybreak, he awoke Lord Bakefield and his daughter and gave them rifles and revolvers. The final assault would not be long delayed; and he calculated that the Ville de Dunkerque would be the immediate objective of the assailants and that it would be better not to linger there.
The little party therefore set out when the first pale gleams of dawn showed in the sky. They had not set foot on the sand of the arena before the signal for the attack was given by a powerful voice which sounded from the bulk of the submarine; and it so happened that, at the very moment when the final offensive was launched, when the besieged, better armed than the attackers, were taking measures of defense which were also better organized, the roar of the eruption rent the air with its thousand explosions.
Then and there, the enemy's onslaught became more furious, and the besieged began to retreat, as Simon and Antonio perceived from the disorderly rush of men falling back like trapped animals, seeking cover behind which to defend themselves or hide.
In the middle of the arena, the scorching rain and the showers of falling pebbles created a circular empty space; nevertheless, some of the more desperate assailants were bold enough to venture into it and Simon had a fleeting vision in which he seemed to see – but was it possible? – Old Sandstone running this way and that under a strange umbrella made of a round sheet of metal with the edge turned down.
The mob of invaders was growing denser. They collided with groups of men and women, brandishing sticks, old swords, scythes, hill-hooks and axes, who fell upon the fugitives. Simon and Antonio were twice obliged to take part in the fighting.
"The position is serious," said Simon, taking Isabel aside. "We must risk all for all and try to find a way through. Kiss me, Isabel, as you did on the day of the shipwreck."
She gave him her lips, saying:
"I have absolute faith in you, Simon."
After many efforts and two brushes with some ruffians who tried to stop them, they reached the line of the barricades and crossed it without hindrance. But in the open space outside they met fresh waves of marauders breaking furiously against the defences, including parties of men who seemed to be running away, rather than pursuing a quarry. It was as though they themselves were threatened by some great danger. Fierce and murderous for all that, they plundered the dead and wildly attacked the living.
"Look out!" cried Simon.
It was a band of thirty or forty street-boys and hooligans, among whom he recognized two of the tramps who had pursued him. At sight of Simon, they egged on the gang under their command. By some ill chance Antonio slipped and fell. Lord Bakefield was knocked down. Simon and Isabel, caught in an eddy, felt that they were being stifled by a mass of bodies whirling about them. Simon, however, succeeded in seizing hold of her and levelling his revolver. He fired three times in succession. Isabel did likewise. Two men dropped. There was a moment's hesitation; then a new onslaught separated the lovers.
"Simon, Simon!" cried the terrified girl.
One of the tramps roared:
"The girl! Carry her off! She'll fetch her weight in gold!"
Simon tried to reach her. Twenty hands opposed his desperate efforts; and, while defending himself, he saw Isabel pushed towards the barricades by the two tramps. She stumbled and fell. They were trying to raise her when suddenly two shots rang out and both fell headlong.
"Simon! Antonio!" cried a voice.
Through the fray Simon saw Dolores, sitting erect on a horse all covered with foam. Her rifle was levelled and she was firing. Three of the nearest aggressors were struck. Simon contrived to break away, run to Isabel and join Dolores, to whom Antonio at the same time was bringing Lord Bakefield.
Thus the four were together again, but each was followed by the rabble of persistent marauders, and these were reinforced by dozens of others, who loomed out of the fog and doubtless imagined that the stake in such a battle, in which the number of their opponents was so small, must be the capture of some treasure.
"There are more than a hundred of them," said Antonio. "We are done for."
"Saved!" cried Dolores, who now ceased firing.
"Why?"
"Yes, we must hold out.. one minute.."
Dolores' reply was drowned in the uproar. Their assailants came along with a rush. With their backs against the horse, the little party faced in all directions, firing, wounding, killing. With his left hand Simon discharged his revolver, while with his right hand, which gripped his rifle by the barrel, whirling it to terrible effect, he held the enemy at a distance.
But how could they resist the torrent, continually renewed, that rushed upon them. They were submerged. Old Lord Bakefield was struck senseless with a stick; and one of Antonio's arms was paralysed by a blow from a stone. Any further resistance was out of the question. The hideous moment had come when people fall, when their flesh is trampled underfoot and torn asunder by the enemy's claws.
"Isabel!" murmured Simon, crushing her passionately in his arms.
They dropped to their knees together. The beasts of prey fell upon them, covering them with darkness.
A bugle sounded some distance away, scattering its lively notes upon the air. Another call rang out in reply. It was a French bugle sounding the charge.
A great silence, heavy with fear, petrified the hoardes of pillagers. Simon, who was losing consciousness, felt that the weight above him was lightened. Some of the beasts of prey were taking flight.
He half-raised himself, while supporting Isabel, and the first thing that struck him was Antonio's attitude. The Indian, with drawn face, was gazing at Dolores. Slowly and steadily he took a few steps towards her, like a cat creeping up to its prey, and suddenly, before Simon could intervene, he leapt on the crupper behind her, passed his arms under hers and dug his heels into the horse, which broke into a gallop along the barricades, towards the north.
From the opposite direction, through the mist, appeared the sky-blue uniforms of France.
CHAPTER VIII
THE HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR THE NEW TERRITORIES
"My fault!.. Now aren't you convinced, as I am, that this is a ramification of my fault, ending in a cul-de-sac? So that all the eruptive forces immobilized in the direction of this blind alley have found a favourable position.. so that all these forces.. you grasp the idea, don't you?"
Simon grasped it all the less inasmuch as Old Sandstone was becoming more and more entangled in his theory, while he, Simon, was wholly absorbed in Isabel and had ears for hardly anything but what she was telling him.
They were all three a little way outside the barricades, among the groups of tents around which the soldiers, in overalls, and fatigue-caps, were moving to and fro and preparing their meals. Isabel's face was already more peaceful and her eyes less uneasy. Simon gazed at her with infinite tenderness. In the course of the morning the fog had at last dispersed. For the first time since the day when they had travelled together on the deck of the Queen Mary, the sun shone in a cloudless sky; and one might almost have thought that nothing had occurred between that day and this to divide them. All evil memories faded away. Isabel's torn dress, her pallor and her bruised wrists were the reminder merely of an adventure already remote, since the glorious future was opening out before them.
Inside the barricades, a few soldiers scurried round the arena, stacking the dead bodies, while others, farther back, stationed on the wreck of the Ville de Dunkerque, removed the sinister shapes hanging from their gibbets. Near the submarine, in an enclosed space guarded by many sentries, some dozens of prisoners were herded and were joined at every moment by fresh batches of captives.
"Of course," resumed Old Sandstone, "there are many other obscure points; but I shall not leave this until I have studied all the causes of the phenomenon."
"And I," said Simon, laughing, "should very much like to know how you managed to get here."
This was a question which possessed little interest for Old Sandstone, who replied, vaguely:
"How do I know! I followed a crowd of good people.."
"Good looters and murderers!"
"Oh, do you think so? Yes, it may be.. it seemed to me, sometimes… But I was so absorbed! So many observations to make! Besides, I was not alone.. at least, on the last day."
"Really? Who was with you?"
"Dolores. We made the whole of the last stage together; and it was she who brought me here. She left me when we came in sight of the barricades. For that matter, it was impossible to enter this enclosure and examine the phenomena more closely. Directly I went forward, pom-pom went the machine-gun! At last, suddenly, the crowd burst the dike. But what puzzles me now is that these eruptions seem already to be decreasing in violence, so that we can foresee the end of them very shortly. True, on the other hand.."
But Simon was not listening. He had caught sight, in the arena, of the captain commanding the detachment, with whom he had not been able to exchange more than a few words that morning, as the officer had at once gone in pursuit of the fugitives. Simon led Isabel to the tent, set aside for her, in which Lord Bakefield was resting, and joined the captain, who cried:
"We are straightening things out, M. Dubosc. I've sent a few squads north; and all these bands of cut-throats will fall into my hands or into those of the English troops, who, I'm told, have arrived. But what savages! And how glad I am that I came in time!"
Simon thanked him in the name of Lord Bakefield and his daughter.
"It's not I whom you should thank," he replied, "but that strange woman, whom I know only by the name of Dolores, and who brought me here."
The captain related how he had been operating since three o'clock in the out-posts of Boulogne, where he was garrisoned, when he received from the newly-appointed military governor an order instructing him to move towards Hastings, to take possession of the country as far as mid-way between the two coasts and to put down all excesses ruthlessly.
"Well, this morning," he said, "when we were patrolling two or three miles from there, I saw the woman ride up at a gallop. She told me in a few words what was happening inside these barricades, which she had not been able to pass, but behind which Simon Dubosc was in danger. Having succeeded in catching a horse, she had come to beg me to go to your assistance. You can imagine how quickly I marched in the direction she gave me, as soon as I heard the name of Simon Dubosc. And you will understand also why, when I saw that she in her turn was in danger, I rushed in pursuit of the man who was carrying her off."
"What then, captain?"
"Well, she returned, quite quietly, all alone on her horse. She had thrown the Indian, whom my men picked up in the neighbourhood, rather the worse for his fall. He says he knows you."
Simon briefly related the part which Antonio had played in the tragedy.
"Good!" cried the officer. "The mystery is clearing up!"
"What mystery, captain?"
"Oh, something quite in keeping with all the horrors that have been committed!"
He drew Simon to the wreck and down, the companion-ladder.
The wide gangway was littered with empty bags and baskets. All the gold had disappeared. The doors of the cabins occupied by Rolleston had been demolished. But, outside the last of these cabins and a little before the cupboard into which Antonio had locked Rolleston on the previous evening, Simon, by the light of an electric torch switched on by the officer, saw a man's body hanging from the ceiling. The knees had been bent back and fastened to keep the feet from touching the floor.
"There's the wretched Rolleston," said the captain. "Obviously he has got no more than his deserts. But, all the same… Look closely.."
He threw the rays of the lamp over the upper part of the victim's body. The face, covered with black clotted blood, was unrecognizable. The drooping head displayed the most hideous wound: the skull was stripped of its skin and hair.
"It was Antonio who did that," said Simon, remembering the Indian's smile when he, Simon, had expressed the fear that the ruffians might succeed in finding and releasing their chief. "After the fashion of his ancestors, he has scalped the man whom he wished to punish. I tell you, we're living in the midst of savagery."
A few minutes later, on leaving the wreck, they saw Antonio who was talking to Dolores near the spot where the submarine strengthened the former line of defence. Dolores was holding her horse by the bridle. The Indian was making gestures and seemed to be greatly excited.
"She's going away," said the officer. "I've signed a safe-conduct for her."
Simon crossed the arena and went up to her:
"You're going, Dolores?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"Where my horse chooses to take me.. and as far as he can carry me."
"Won't you wait a few minutes?"
"No."
"I should have liked to thank you… So would Miss Bakefield.."
"Miss Bakefield has my best wishes!"
She mounted. Antonio snatched at the bridle, as though determined to detain her, and began to speak to her in a choking voice and in a language which Simon did not understand.
She did not move. Her beautiful, austere face did not change. She waited, with her eyes on the horizon, until the Indian, discouraged, released the bridle. Then she rode away. Not once had her eyes met Simon's.
She rode away, mysterious and secretive to the last. Simon's refusal, his conduct during the night which they had passed in the prehistoric dwelling must have humiliated her profoundly; and the best proof was this departure without farewell. But, on the other hand, what miracles of dogged heroism she must have wrought to cross this sinister region by herself and to save not only the man who had spurned her but the woman whom that man loved above all things in this world!
A hand rested on Simon's shoulder:
"You, Isabel!" he said.
"Yes… I was over there, a little farther on… I saw Dolores go."
The girl seemed to hesitate. At length, she murmured, watching him attentively:
"You didn't tell me she was so strikingly beautiful, Simon."
He felt slightly embarrassed. Looking her straight in the eyes, he replied:
"I had no occasion to tell you, Isabel."
At five o'clock that afternoon, the French and British troops being now in touch, it was decided that Lord Bakefield and his daughter should make part of an English convoy which was returning to Hastings and which had a motor-ambulance at its disposal. Simon took leave of them, after asking Lord Bakefield's permission to call on him at an early date.
Simon considered that his mission was not yet completed in these days of confusion. Indeed, before the afternoon was over, an aeroplane alighted in sight of the camp and the captain was asked to send immediately reinforcements, as a conflict appeared inevitable between the French and a British detachment, both of which had planted their colours on a ridge overlooking the whole country. Simon did not hesitate for a moment. He took his place between the two airmen.
It is needless to describe in all its details the part which he played in this incident, which might have had deplorable results: the way in which he threw himself between the adversaries, his entreaties, his threats and, at last, the order to withdraw which he gave to the French with such authority and such persuasive force. All this is history; and it is enough to recall the words uttered two days later by the British prime minister in the House of Commons:
"I have to thank M. Simon Dubosc. But for him, there would have been a stain upon our country's honour; French blood would have been shed by English hands. M. Simon Dubosc, the wonderful man who crossed what was once the Channel at one stride, understood that it would be necessary, at least for a few hours, to exercise a little patience towards a great nation which for so many centuries has been accustomed to feel that it was protected by the seas and which suddenly found itself disarmed, defenceless, deprived of its natural ramparts. Let us not forget that Germany, that very morning, with her customary effrontery, offered France an alliance and proposed the immediate invasion of Great Britain by the whole of the united forces of the two countries. Britannia delenda est! Mr. Speaker, it was Simon Dubosc who gave the reply, by achieving the miracle of a French retreat! All honour to Simon Dubosc!"
France at once recognized Simon's action by appointing the young man high commissioner for the new French territories. For four days longer he was ubiquitous, flying over the province which he had conquered, restoring order, enforcing harmony, discipline and security. Pursued and captured, all the bands of pillagers and spoilers were duly brought to trial. Aeroplanes sailed the heavens. Provision-lorries ran in all directions, assuring travellers the means of transport. Chaos was becoming organized.
At last one day, Simon called at Lord Bakefield's country-house near Battle. Here too tranquillity had returned. The servants had resumed their duties. Only a few cracks in the walls, a few gaps in the lawns reminded them of the hours of terror.
Lord Bakefield, who appeared to be in excellent health, received Simon in the library and gave him the same cordial welcome as on the Brighton golf-links:
"Well, young man, where do we stand now?"
"On the twentieth day after my request for your daughter's hand," said Simon, smiling, "and as you gave me twenty days in which to perform a certain number of exploits, I come to ask you, on the appointed date, whether I have, in your opinion, fulfilled the conditions settled between us."
Lord Bakefield offered him a cigar and handed him a light.
He made no further reply. Simon's exploits and his rescue of Lord Bakefield when at the point of death, these obviously were interesting things, deserving the reward of a good cigar, with Isabel's hand perhaps thrown into the bargain. But it was asking too much to expect thanks as well and praise and endless effusions. Lord Bakefield remained Lord Bakefield and Simon Dubosc a nobody.
"Well, see you later, young man.. Oh, by the way! I have had the marriage annulled which that reptile Rolleston forced upon Isabel… The marriage wasn't valid of course; but I've done what was necessary just as though it had been. Isabel will tell you all about it. You'll find her in the park."
She was not in the park. She had heard that Simon had called and was waiting for him on the terrace.
He told her of his interview with Lord Bakefield.
"Yes," she said, "my father accepts the position. He considers that you have satisfied the ordeal."
"And you, Isabel?"
She smiled:
"I have no right to be more difficult than my father. But remember that there were not only his conditions: there was one added by myself."
"Which condition was that, Isabel?"
"Have you forgotten?.. On the deck of the Queen Mary?"
"Then, Isabel, you doubt me?"
She took both his hands and said:
"Simon, it sometimes makes me rather sad to think that in this great adventure it was not I but another who was your companion in danger, the one whom you defended and who protected you."
He shook his head:
"No, Isabel, I never had but one companion, you, Isabel, and you alone. You were my only aim and my only thought, my one hope and my one desire."
After a moment's reflection, she said:
"I talked of her a good deal with Antonio, on the way home. Do you know, Simon, that girl is not only very beautiful, but capable of the noblest, loftiest feelings? I know nothing of her past; according to Antonio, it had its unsettled moments. But since then.. since then.. in spite of her present mode of life, in spite of all the admiration which she attracts, she leads an existence apart. You alone have really stirred her feelings. For you, from what I can see for myself and from what Antonio told me – and he, after all, is only a rejected and embittered lover – for you Dolores would have laid down her life and that from the first day. Did you know that, Simon?"
He was silent.
"You are right," she said. "You can't answer. However, there is one point, Simon, on which I ask you to tell me the absolute truth. I can look you straight in the face, can I not? There is not in the depths of your being a single memory that comes between us?.. Not a weakness?.. Not a disloyal thought?"
He pressed her to him and, with his lips on hers, said:
"There's you, Isabel, and you alone: you in the past and you in the future."
"I believe you, Simon," she declared.
The wedding took place a month later; and they went to live in the wreck of the Ville de Dunkerque, the official residence of the French high commissioner of the new territories.
It was here that the draft agreement was signed, in accordance with Simon Dubosc's proposal and his preliminary investigations, for the great canal which was to bisect the Isthmus of Normandy, allotting to each country, right and left, an almost equal portion of land.
Here too was signed the solemn covenant by which Great Britain and France declared eternal friendship and laid the foundations of the United States of Europe.
And it was here that four children were born to Isabel and Simon.
In after years, Simon often went on horseback or by aeroplane, accompanied by his wife, to visit his friend Edward Rolleston. When he had recovered from his wounds, Rolleston set to work and became the manager of a large fishing-industry on the new English coast, in which he employed Antonio. Rolleston married. The Indian lived alone for a long time, waiting for her who never came and of whom no one ever spoke. But one day he received a letter and went away. Some months later, he wrote from Mexico announcing his marriage to Dolores.
But Isabel and Simon's favourite walk led them to Old Sandstone's house. He lived in a little bungalow, close to the prehistoric dwelling by the lake, where he pursued his researches into the new land. The showers of gold, now exhausted, no longer interested him; moreover, the problem had been solved. But what an indecipherable riddle was this building, standing on a site of the Eocene period!
"There were apes in those days," Old Sandstone declared. "There's no doubt of that. But men! And men capable of building, of ornamenting their dwellings of carving stone! No, I confess this is a phenomenon which unsettles all one's ideas. What do you make of it, Simon?"
Simon made no reply. A boat was rocking on the lake. He took his place in it with Isabel and rowed with a care-free mind; nor did Dolores' image ever rise from this limpid water, in which she had bathed on a certain voluptuous evening. Simon was the husband of one alone and this was the woman whom he had won.
