THE DAWN AND THE DUSK
Gradually, so gradually the change could hardly be observed, the inner
grating of the window became visible; the chinks between the edges of
the stones assumed distinctness. A ghostly blotch grew into a fact
upon the floor. A leaden hue, less black than the pulsing sea of ink
about it, spread and spread, lighter and lighter, until it invaded the
dim recesses where I stood. My hand became once more a tangible
possession, unreal and grim, yet all my own. The opposite wall loomed
up, my utmost frontier of the domain of certainty. Dimmer, darker,
more obscure, the door, a vast unexplored cavern gathered to itself the
hobgoblins of evil and gave them shelter. As still as the creeping on
of day we two men stood, glaring at each other and watched it come.
Exactly when I began to see him I could not say. Every impulse and
vital force of nature centered in my eyes, and they fastened themselves
upon that one irregular shadow in the opposing corner which slowly--oh!
with such agonizing slowness--assumed the outlines of a man. My
fascinated gaze wandered not nor wearied. When in the moist light of
the morning I clearly saw Broussard, haggard, pale and sunken-eyed,
watching me thirty feet away, it seemed that I had seen him all the
night.
No detail of his dress or manner but I observed. There was a scar
across his forehead, fresh and bleeding a bit. A contusion rather. He
had probably struck the door-facing as he rushed in. Yes, it bled. A
few drops had trickled down his nose; there hung one, quite dry, from
his brow. Precisely beneath this there were some dozen or so upon the
floor. All could have been covered by my hand. Like myself Broussard
had not moved throughout that awful night. God, how I pitied him.
With such a weight of treason on his soul. And yet, looking back, the
night was less awful than the coming day, far more merciful than the
hideous night which followed it. With the sun Broussard heartened up,
and first broke the silence.
"Who are you comrade, and what do you here?"
I was at a loss for reply. I had no faith in him, yet even a rotten
stick might serve to get me out.
"I am trapped like yourself, and feared you all the night. God in
Heaven what a long night it was."
Broussard had no words, his convulsive shudder expressed more than mine.
"Do you know how to get out of here?" I asked.
"Not I, except by the door, or the window," looking at that.
"I'll try the door," he continued, smiling the treacherous smile of the
tiger. I remembered so well the first day he showed his teeth aboard
ship. The man well knew I recognized him, he had heard me speak his
name, and I feared if he found the door open he would shut me up again,
and escape.
"I'll test the door softly and see what is outside," and he moved as if
to put his thought in action.
"Hold on, not yet; methinks I'll try that door myself." I could see he
had the same idea which had occurred to me, for he demurred.
"No, my fine sir; why you and not I?"
"Because I know you, sir, and fear to trust you."
"Verily, you have honorable intentions yourself to suspect me so
readily." He was bent on engaging me in conversation, so he might
perhaps recognize me from my voice. The mask still hid my features,
and the entire difference in my mode of dress made recognition almost
impossible. The puzzled expression of a half recollection still rested
on his face as I continued:
"I do not merely suspect you, I know you for a traitor--nay do not clap
your hand upon your sword until I have finished. You have now in your
possession certain traitorous dispatches which were given you by one
Carne Yvard in exchange for others which you brought over with you in a
vessel called le Dauphin. Ah, you begin to pale and shrink, and well
you may--"
"You lie!" he shrieked, convincing me I had made a home thrust.
"Softly, softly, have a care, lest you call the Marshal's bloodhounds
down upon us. The dispatches with the purple seals, which you brought
with such care from Biloxi, have been taken from Yvard, and are now in
safe keeping for the King. The lie, ah, well, I'll pardon that for the
while. You can not leave here, and I have ample time for avenging my
honor after I have had the pleasure of your delightful conversation."
He leaned morosely against the wall, staring at me, as I went on.
"Now listen to me quietly. You have those dispatches upon your person.
I want them, and by all the gods I will have them. If I have to kill
you for them, then so much the worse for you. Now listen. Give me
those dispatches. We will then get out of here together, and once
outside, I will give you full four and twenty hours. That time
elapsed, I will turn the dispatches over to the authorities. If you
can escape with your miserable life so be it. Do you agree?"
"I have no dispatches," he sullenly replied, "and who are you to dare
charge me with treason?"
There was no ring of real resentment in his tones, though he strove
manfully to simulate offended and indignant innocence. It was
necessary to keep him in ignorance for a while, because I feared he
might set upon me, and being really an excellent swordsman, the issue
of conflict would be doubtful. But the weightier reason lay in the
fact that the clash of steel might draw down upon us the occupants of
the house. Here I was in a much worse plight than he, though he knew
it not. For whether those occupants were the friends of Broussard or
the Marshal's men, the result would be equally fatal to me. A man must
think quickly under such straits, and I was sorely put to it for some
device. No stratagem would be too base to use against such a villain,
for he would not hesitate to knife me in the back.
"Broussard, let us understand each other here and now. You know me. I
am Placide de Mouret," removing my mask and looking him sternly in the
eye.
"Great God, de Mouret!"
"The same. I am your master at the swords, and you know it. Now turn
out those papers." I had been quietly drawing my blade during this
speech, as the dazed man tried to collect his senses, so I was ready
while he still stood unprepared.
"Throw up your hands."
He mechanically obeyed; the discovery of his villainy had completely
unmanned him.
"Now unbuckle your belt, and drop it to the ground." He did as he was
bid.
"Kick it across the floor." The weapon was tossed out of his reach.
I walked up closer to him, and forced him to loose his coat that I
might find the papers, and was rewarded by the discovery of a packet,
much similar to that dropped by Yvard. It was sealed in such a manner
it could not be opened, and bore no address. I removed the dagger from
his hip, and having, as I thought, completely disarmed him, felt no
further uneasiness. The man was thoroughly cowed, and never once
raised his eyes to mine. Verily treason doth rob the stoutest heart of
half its courage.
"Now do as I bid you, and I will keep my promise to let you go. And
mind that you make not the slightest sound which may attract the
soldiers."
"Ah, you fear the soldiers too?" he asked, vaguely trying to puzzle out
why I should be afraid of those in whose service I was.
"It is not to our purpose to talk. I simply want the credit myself,
and do not want to share it with those fellows out there. We must work
to leave this place at once. Do you stand where you are."
I gathered up the scattered weapons and piled them all in one corner,
farthest from the door, where I now proposed to set about getting free.
With the fearful blight of uncovered treason in his soul, Broussard
obeyed me cringingly as a servant, and worked as hard, for his safety
lay in mine. We went first to the door by which we entered, and after
a tedious examination failed to find any means by which it could be
opened or broken down. A stout latch, of some pattern we could not
tell, held it fast from the outside. There was no catch or fastening
of any sort within. The age-hardened oak, studded as it was with
heavily wrought nails, forbade the plan of cutting through. This would
require days and days of patient labor, and I was already faint from
lack of food and the exhaustion of the night. Plainly the room was
intended for a prison, and as such it served well its purpose. Baffled
and disheartened I turned my thought to the window. It looked out upon
the street; this was so much in my favor. The irons that guarded it
were close set, bending out toward the street in the shape of a bow. I
judged this was in order that archers stationed there might shoot the
more easily into the street in times of siege.
I could have reached this without trouble, but I desired to employ
Broussard, that I might know where he was and prevent treachery. For
that double purpose I reached up and grasped the sill, commanding him
to catch me about the knees and lift so I might see out. This he did.
While in that position he made a pretense of shifting his hold, and
something impelled me to glance downward at him. He was stealthily
drawing a concealed knife from his bosom. I threw all my weight back
upon him, casting the twain of us together to the floor. Meantime he
had the knife full drawn, in his left hand held at my breast.
I grappled with him, holding his left hand in my right, and with the
free hand clutched him by the throat, burying my thumb deep in his
wind-pipe. Instinctively he raised both hands to protect his throat,
and then we struggled to our feet. He made futile efforts to strike me
with the knife, but his strength deserted him with his wind. The blade
dropped clattering on the floor. My other hand closed about his neck,
circling it with an unyielding collar of steel. Desperately as a caged
rat might fight he squirmed and twisted in my grasp. To no avail.
Tigerish now, as though I held a rabid dog, I thrust him back against
the wall, and there rigidly held him fast. In merciless silence I
listened to the precious breath gurgling from his body; a reddish froth
gathered at the lips. I could feel his hot blood surge and beat
against my thumb under that deadly pressure. The cold sweat stood in
clammy clusters upon his forehead; his head thrown back, the eyes
turned toward the ceiling no longer pleaded into mine. I sickened
almost at sight of the tongue swelling black, which seemed to consume
all the fleeing color from lips and face. Oh God, how he struggled!
His hands closed over mine as bars of steel to tear them from his
throat.
Even in our mortal strife I marked the eternal harmony of the scene.
Truly death had never stage more fitting whereon to play its last stern
drama of dissolution. Hemmed in by four massive walls of granite,
ghastly grim and desolately gray, we wrestled in a stifling stillness,
while hell stood umpire at the game. No sound of trumpet, no warlike
cry, no strains of martial music were there to thrill the nerves and
taunt men on to glory. We fought to the scrape and scratch of
shuffling feet, the labored gasp, the rattle in the throat, while echo
hushed in silence and in fright.
He grew more quiet, his muscles stiffened and relaxed--he was no longer
conscious. A few more convulsive quivers, as a serpent might writhe
and jerk, then he hung, a limp dead thing, in my hands. My
outstretched arms seemed made as a gibbet, feeling no fatigue, so
lightly did they sustain him. Cords of brass could be no more tense
than mine; his weight was as nothing. Softly I eased him down, and
composed his limbs in decent order upon the stones.
Then I rose, and gazed complacently at my work. Yes, it _was_ well
done, excellently done, in fact. The most expert strangler of the
Choctows could have done no better. Those purpling lines about the
throat, those darker clots where my thumbs had left their signs, could
not have been more intelligently placed. I smiled my satisfaction at
the job, then--then--my own overstrung nerves gave way, and I fell
unconscious across the corpse of my hands' creation.
When I came to myself I was weeping, weeping as a child might weep,
over the dead, distorted face of him I had loved. How long this lasted
I had no means of knowing. Uncompromising necessity forced me to
action; forbade me time to dream.
The body being in my way where it lay--for I proposed now to work in
earnest at the window--I moved it tenderly as possible across the floor
and stretched him out near the door sill. Springing up then I attacked
the bars at the window. Hours and hours I labored, impelled to greater
effort by the dread of spending another night in that room of murder.
I was patient, too, patient with the cunning of a maniac.
The dagger made my chisel; my sword, wrapped in a cloth to muffle the
strokes, furnished me a maul. Full half the day was before me. The
rough paving stones below held out the hope of escape or death. How to
reach the street after the bars were removed, I did not suffer myself
to consider. I should go mad if I lay idle. I leaned as far out the
window as the grating would allow, and observed a guard standing in
plain view at the corner. It was very evident the Provost of Paris had
taken possession of the house, and there was little use in my trying to
make a way out the door.
I bitterly resented the intrusion of every passenger along the street,
and scanned with hatred the few who came. For while they remained in
hearing I was obliged to cease my chipping at the masonry and leaden
cement which held my freedom. I bided my time, and, long before the
shadow of the house across the way had climbed to the window where I
worked, had the gratification of finding a bar give way in my hands,
and found I could take it out. Removing this bar, it gave me a
powerful leverage on the others, and by exerting all my strength,
succeeded in bending the two on either side to such a degree I could
force my body between.
While thus engaged, my eyes were ever fixed anxiously upon the street,
in the hope that Jerome might pursue his plan of watching the house,
and I would catch sight of him. The passers-by were few indeed, but
somehow it struck me that the same persons passed several times, and in
something like regular order. A patrol of Jerome's? My heart bounded
at the thought. I watched more carefully; yes, it was true. I counted
five different persons; some walked fast, some walked slow, but all
looked about them and inspected the house with more than an ordinary
glance. And, no, I was not mistaken, that simple-looking countryman
yonder was Jerome.
I was quite at a loss how to attract his attention; I feared to yell,
lest that give notice to the sentry. I took a spur from my heel and
dropped it directly in front of him; I knew he would recognize it, for
it was his own, loaned to me for my more fashionable appearance. He
heard the jingle and glanced around. His hat blew off as if by
accident and fell near the spur. In stooping to pick it up, the spur
also found its way into his hand beneath the hat. He was truly a
quick-witted gentleman, and I forgave him from my heart all his chaff
in the matter of teaching me manners. It took him not a great while to
comprehend, and taking note of the situation of my window, he sauntered
off. Thence forward only three men passed by the house, at much longer
intervals. He had taken one with him, and I was left to surmise in
what method they purposed to effect my deliverance. I made myself
almost merry. The long labor at the window had cramped my limbs to
such a degree it pained me to move. I clambered down and took a few
turns about the room as if I had naught to do but exercise. But at
every turn the hideous face and whitened eyes of Broussard dogged my
footsteps as a spectre. Look where I would, it was only that I saw.
Hour after hour crawled by. Jerome would wait for night. Night!
Did he but know what lurking horrors filled the dismal hours for me, he
would come soon. By some fatality I had drawn the body directly to the
spot where the last fading shafts of light would hover about its face.
Not for a paradise of peace would I touch the loathsome thing again to
hide it in the shadows. I could neither take my eyes from it nor put
my hands upon it. Like the basilisk of fable it held my gaze charmed,
fixed it, bound it fast. Crouch as I might in the remotest corner,
cover my face in my mantle, still that searching, penetrating thing
pierced all obstacles, glared grisly and distinct before me.
I tried to throw off the thought which now constantly recurred. What
if Jerome did not come? Would I starve here in company with this
corrupting flesh? No, there was the window; a headlong dash from that
would bring death and release. So I determined. Then came on the
night. To me it brought no rest, no sweet surcease of the labors
through the day.
Somewhere, afar off in the city, there rang a tremulous bell, launching
its vibrations upon the infinite silence as a sinner's guilty soul
might trembling stand in the presence of Almighty condemnation. The
melancholy howl of a dog at first cleft through every nerve and fibre
of my being, thrilling with a creeping chill of horror. So regular did
it come, so unvaried, I grew to count the seconds under my breath, and
to note its monotonous precision. Somehow this occupation in a measure
relieved me, and when the howls came more infrequently and at less well
defined intervals, I mentally resented the change. Time had ceased to
be. I cowered in the corner with naught but death and fear and
darkness to keep me company.