My purpose was to obtain, by the magistrate's permission, an interview
with the prisoner. His account of the man's sincere or pretended
belief in spirits and demons had deeply interested me, and I wished to
have some conversation with him respecting this particular adventure
which had ended in murder. I obtained without difficulty the
permission I sought. I asked if the prisoner had made any further
admissions or confession, and the magistrate answered no, and that the
man persisted in a sullen adherence to the tale he had invented in his
own defence.
"I saw him this morning," the magistrate said, "and interrogated him
with severity, to no effect. He continues to declare himself to be
innocent, and reiterates his fable of the demon."
"Have you asked him," I inquired, "to give you an account of all that
transpired within his knowledge from the moment he entered Nerac until
the moment he was arrested?"
"No," said the magistrate, "it did not occur to me to demand of him so
close a description of his movements; and I doubt whether I should
have been able to drag it from him. The truth he will not tell, and
his invention is not strong enough to go into minute details. He is
conscious of this, conscious that I should trip him up again and again
on minor points which would be fatal to him, and his cunning nature
warns him not to thrust his head into the trap. He belongs to the
lowest order of criminals."
My idea was to obtain from the prisoner just such a circumstantial
account of his movements as I thought it likely the magistrate would
have extracted from him; and I felt that I had the power to succeed
where the magistrate had failed. This power I determined to use.
I was taken into the man's cell, and left there without a word. He was
still bound; his brute face was even more brute and haggard than
before, his hair was matted, his eyes had a look in them of mingled
terror and ferocity. He spoke no word, but he raised his head and
lowered it again when the door of the cell was closed behind me.
"What is your name?" I asked. But I had to repeat the question twice
before he answered me.
"Pierre," he said.
"Why did you not reply to me at once?" But to this question, although
I repeated it also twice, he made no response.
"It is useless," I said sternly, "to attempt evasion with me, or to
think that I will be content with silence. I have come here to obtain
a confession from you--a true confession, Pierre--and I will force it
from you, if you do not give it willingly. Do you understand me? I
will force it from you."
"I understand you," he said, keeping his face averted from me, "but I
will not speak."
"Why?" I demanded.
"Because you know all; because you are only playing with me; because
you have a design against me."
His words astonished me, and made me more determined to carry out my
intention. He had made it clear to me that there was something hidden
in his mind, and I was resolved to get at it.
"What design can I have against you," I said, "of which you need be
afraid? You are in sufficient peril already, and there is no hope for
you. Your life is forfeit. What worse danger can befall you? Soon you
will be as dead as the man you murdered."
"I did not murder him," was the strange reply, "and you know it."
"Fool!" I exclaimed. "You are playing the same trick upon me that you
played upon your judge. It was unsuccessful with him; it will be as
unsuccessful with me. Answer me. What further danger can threaten you
than the danger, the certain, positive danger, in which you now stand?
You are doomed, Pierre."
"My body is, perhaps," he muttered, "but not my soul."
"Oh," I said, in a tone of contempt, "you believe in a soul."
"Yes," he replied, "do not you?"
"I? Yes. With reason, with intelligence. Not out of my fears, but out
of my hopes."
"I have no hopes and no fears," he said. "I have done wrong, but not
the wrong with which I am charged."
"Look at me, Pierre."
His response to this was to hide his head closer on his breast, to
make an even stronger endeavour to avoid my glance.
"When I next command you," I said, "you will obey. About your soul?
Believing that you possess one, what worse peril can threaten it than
the pass to which you have brought it by your crime."
And still he doggedly repeated, "I have committed no crime."
"You fear me?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because you are here to tempt me, to ensnare me. I will not look at
you."
I strode to his side, and with my strong hand on his shoulder, forced
him to raise his head, forced him to look me straight in the face. His
eyes wavered for a few moments, shifted as though they would escape my
compelling power, and finally became fixed on mine. He had no power to
resist me. The will in me was strong, and produced its effects on the
weaker mind. Gradually what brilliancy there was in his eyes became
dimmed, and drew but a reflected, shadowy light from mine. Thus we
remained face to face for four or five minutes, and then I spoke.
"Relate to me," I said, "all that you know from the time you and the
man who is dead conceived the idea of coming to Nerac up to the
present moment. Conceal nothing. The truth, the bare, naked truth!"
"We were poor, both of us," Pierre commenced, "and had been poor all
our lives. That would not have mattered had we been able to obtain
meat and wine. But we could not. We were neither of us honest, and had
been in prison more than once for theft. We were never innocent when
we were convicted, although we swore we were. I got tired of it;
starvation is a poor game. I would have been contented with a little,
and so would he, but we could not make sure of that little. Nothing
else was left to us but to take what we wanted. The wild beasts do;
why should not we? But we were too well known in our village, some
sixty miles from Nerac, so, talking it over, we said we would come
here and try our luck. We had heard of Doctor Louis, and that he was a
rich man. He can spare what we want, we said; we will go and take. We
had no idea of blood; we only wanted money, to buy meat and wine with.
So we started, with nothing in our pockets. On the first day we had a
slice of luck. We met a man and waylaid him, and took from him all the
money he had in his pockets. It was not much, but enough to carry us
to Nerac. No more; but we were satisfied. We did not hurt the man; a
knock on the head did not take his senses from him, but brought him to
them; so, being convinced, he gave us what he had, and we departed on
our way. We were not fast walkers, and, besides, we did not know the
straightest road to Nerac, so we were four days on the journey. When
we entered the inn of the Three Black Crows we had just enough money
left to pay for a bottle of red wine. We called for it, and sat
drinking. While we were there a spirit entered in the shape of a man.
This spirit, whom I did not then know to be a demon, sat talking with
the landlord of the Three Black Crows. He looked towards the place
where we were sitting, and I wondered whether he and the landlord were
talking of us; I could not tell, because what they said did not reach
my ears. He went away, and we went away, too, some time afterwards. We
wanted another bottle of red wine, but the landlord would not give it
to us without our paying for it, and we had no money; our pockets were
bare. So out we went into the night. It was very dark. We had settled
our plan. Before we entered the Three Black Crows we had found out
Doctor Louis's house, and knew exactly how it was situated; there
would be no difficulty in finding it later on, despite the darkness.
We had decided not to make the attempt until at least two hours past
midnight, but, for all that, when we left the inn we walked in the
direction of the doctor's house. I do not know if we should have
continued our way, because, although I saw nothing and heard nothing,
I had a fancy that we were being followed; I couldn't say by what, but
the idea was in my mind. So, talking quietly together, he and I
determined to turn back to some woods on the outskirts of Nerac which
we had passed through before we reached the village, and there to
sleep an hour or two till the time arrived to put our plan into
execution. Back we turned, and as we went there came a sign to me. I
don't know how; it was through the senses, for I don't remember
hearing anything that I could not put down to the wind. My mate heard
it too, and we stopped in fear. 'What was that?' my mate said. 'Are we
being followed?' I said nothing. We stood quiet a long while, and
heard nothing. Then my mate said, 'It was the wind;' and we went on
till we came to the woods, which we entered. Down upon the ground we
threw ourselves, and in a minute my mate was asleep. Not so I; but I
pretended to be. Then came a Shadow that bent over us. I did not move;
I even breathed regularly to put it off the scent. Presently it
departed, and I opened my eyes; nothing was near us. Then, being tired
with the long day's walk, and knowing that there was work before us
which would be better done after a little rest, I fell asleep myself.
We both slept, I can't say how long, but from the appearance of the
night I judged till about the time we had resolved to do our work. I
woke first, and awoke my mate, and off we set to the doctor's house.
We reached it in less than an hour, and nothing disturbed us on the
way. That made me think that I had been deceived, and that my senses
had been playing tricks with me. I told my mate of my fears, and he
laughed at me, and I laughed, too, glad to be relieved. We walked
round the doctor's house, to decide where we should commence. The
front of it faces the road, and we thought that too dangerous, so we
made our way to the back, and, talking in whispers, settled to bore a
hole through the shutters there. We were very quiet; no fear of our
being heard. The hole being bored, it was easy to cut away wood enough
to enable us to open the window and make our way into the house. We
did not intend violence, that is, not more than was necessary for our
safety. We had talked it over, and had decided that no blood was to be
shed. Robbers we were, but not murderers. Our plan was to gag and tie
up any one who interfered with us. My mate and I had had no quarrel;
we were faithful partners; and I had no other thought than to remain
true to him as he had no other thought than to remain true to me.
Share and share alike--that was what we both intended. So he worked
away at the shutter, while I looked on. Suddenly, crack! A blow came,
from the air it seemed, and down fell my mate, struck dead! He did not
move; he did not speak; he died, unshriven. I looked down, dazed, when
I heard a swishing sound in the air behind me, as though a great club
was making a circle and about to fall upon my head. It was all in a
minute, and I turned and saw the demon. Dark as it was, I saw him. I
slanted my body aside, and the club, instead of falling upon my head,
fell upon my shoulder. I ran for my life, and down came another blow,
on my head this time, but it did not kill me. I raced like a madman,
tearing at the bushes, and the demon after me. I was struck again and
again, but not killed. Wounded and bleeding, I continued my flight,
till flat I fell like a log. Not because all my strength was gone; no,
there was still a little left; but I showed myself more cunning than
the demon, for down I went as if I was dead, and he left me, thinking
me so. Then, when he was gone, I opened my eyes, and managed to drag
myself away to the place where I was found yesterday more dead than
alive. I did not kill my mate; I never raised my hand against him.
What I have said is the truth, as I hope for mercy in the next world,
if I don't get it in this!"
This was the incredible story related to me by the villain who had
threatened the life of the woman I loved; for he did not deceive me;
murder was in his heart, and his low cunning only served to show him
in a blacker light. However, I did not leave him immediately. I
released him from the spell I had cast upon him, and he stood before
me, shaking and trembling, with a look in his eyes as though he had
just been awakened from sleep.
"What have I said?" he muttered.
"You have confessed all," I said, meeting cunning with cunning.
"All!" he muttered. "What do you mean?"
Then I told him that he had made a full confession of his crime, and
in the telling expounded my own theory, as if it had come from his
lips, of the thoughts which led to it, and of its final committal--my
hope being that he would even now admit that he was the murderer. But
he vehemently defended himself.
"If I have said as much," he said, "it is you who have driven me to
it, and it is you who have come here to set a snare for my
destruction. But it is not possible, because what you have told me is
false from beginning to end."
So I left him, amazed at his dogged, determined obstinacy, which I
knew would not avail him. He was doomed, and justly doomed.