But I am not taken so easily. Again I kicked and fought my way through
them, though one of them tore a handful of hair from my head in his
effort to hold me. The little steward struck me with a key and I was
battered and bruised, but once more I cleared a way in front of me.
Up the grand staircase I rushed, burst open the pair of huge folding
doors which faced me, and learned at last that my efforts were in vain.
The room into which I had broken was brilliantly lighted. With its gold
cornices, its massive pillars, and its painted walls and ceilings it was
evidently the grand hall of some famous Venetian palace. There are many
hundred such in this strange city, any one of which has rooms which
would grace the Louvre or Versailles. In the centre of this great hall
there was a raised dais, and upon it in a half circle there sat twelve
men all clad in black gowns, like those of a Franciscan monk, and each
with a mask over the upper part of his face.
A group of armed men--rough-looking rascals--were standing round the
door, and amid them facing the dais was a young fellow in the uniform
of the light infantry. As he turned his head I recognised him. It was
Captain Auret, of the 7th, a young Basque with whom I had drunk many a
glass during the winter.
He was deadly white, poor wretch, but he held himself manfully amid the
assassins who surrounded him. Never shall I forget the sudden flash of
hope which shone in his dark eyes when he saw a comrade burst into the
room, or the look of despair which followed as he understood that I had
come not to change his fate but to share it.
You can think how amazed these people were when I hurled myself into
their presence. My pursuers had crowded in behind me and choked the
doorway, so that all further flight was out of the question. It is at
such instants that my nature asserts itself. With dignity I advanced
toward the tribunal. My jacket was torn, my hair was dishevelled, my
head was bleeding, but there was that in my eyes and in my carriage
which made them realise that no common man was before them. Not a hand
was raised to arrest me until I halted in front of a formidable old man,
whose long grey beard and masterful manner told me that both by years
and by character he was the man in authority.
“Sir,” said I, “you will, perhaps, tell me why I have been forcibly
arrested and brought to this place. I am an honourable soldier, as is
this other gentleman here, and I demand that you will instantly set us
both at liberty.”
There was an appalling silence to my appeal. It was not pleasant to
have twelve masked faces turned upon you and to see twelve pairs of
vindictive Italian eyes fixed with fierce intentness upon your face. But
I stood as a debonair soldier should, and I could not but reflect how
much credit I was bringing upon the Hussars of Conflans by the dignity
of my bearing. I do not think that anyone could have carried himself
better under such difficult circumstances. I looked with a fearless face
from one assassin to another, and I waited for some reply.
It was the grey-beard who at last broke the silence.
“Who is this man?” he asked.
“His name is Gerard,” said the little steward at the door.
“Colonel Gerard,” said I. “I will not deceive you. I am Etienne Gerard,
THE Colonel Gerard, five times mentioned in despatches and recommended
for the sword of honour. I am aide-de-camp to General Suchet, and I
demand my instant release, together with that of my comrade in arms.”
The same terrible silence fell upon the assembly, and the same twelve
pairs of merciless eyes were bent upon my face. Again it was the
grey-beard who spoke.
“He is out of his order. There are two names upon our list before him.”
“He escaped from our hands and burst into the room.”
“Let him await his turn. Take him down to the wooden cell.”
“If he resist us, your Excellency?”
“Bury your knives in his body. The tribunal will uphold you. Remove him
until we have dealt with the others.”
They advanced upon me, and for an instant I thought of resistance.
It would have been a heroic death, but who was there to see it or to
chronicle it? I might be only postponing my fate, and yet I had been in
so many bad places and come out unhurt that I had learned always to hope
and to trust my star. I allowed these rascals to seize me, and I was led
from the room, the gondolier walking at my side with a long naked knife
in his hand. I could see in his brutal eyes the satisfaction which it
would give him if he could find some excuse for plunging it into my
body.
They are wonderful places, these great Venetian houses, palaces, and
fortresses, and prisons all in one. I was led along a passage and down
a bare stone stair until we came to a short corridor from which three
doors opened. Through one of these I was thrust and the spring lock
closed behind me. The only light came dimly through a small grating
which opened on the passage.
Peering and feeling, I carefully examined the chamber in which I had
been placed. I understood from what I had heard that I should soon have
to leave it again in order to appear before this tribunal, but still it
is not my nature to throw away any possible chances.
The stone floor of the cell was so damp and the walls for some feet high
were so slimy and foul that it was evident they were beneath the level
of the water. A single slanting hole high up near the ceiling was the
only aperture for light or air. Through it I saw one bright star shining
down upon me, and the sight filled me with comfort and with hope. I have
never been a man of religion, though I have always had a respect for
those who were, but I remember that night that the star shining down the
shaft seemed to be an all-seeing eye which was upon me, and I felt as a
young and frightened recruit might feel in battle when he saw the calm
gaze of his colonel turned upon him.
Three of the sides of my prison were formed of stone, but the fourth
was of wood, and I could see that it had only recently been erected.
Evidently a partition had been thrown up to divide a single large cell
into two smaller ones. There was no hope for me in the old walls, in the
tiny window, or in the massive door. It was only in this one direction
of the wooden screen that there was any possibility of exploring. My
reason told me that if I should pierce it--which did not seem very
difficult--it would only be to find myself in another cell as strong
as that in which I then was. Yet I had always rather be doing something
than doing nothing, so I bent all my attention and all my energies upon
the wooden wall. Two planks were badly joined, and so loose that I was
certain I could easily detach them. I searched about for some tool,
and I found one in the leg of a small bed which stood in the corner. I
forced the end of this into the chink of the planks, and I was about to
twist them outward when the sound of rapid footsteps caused me to pause
and to listen.
I wish I could forget what I heard. Many a hundred men have I seen die
in battle, and I have slain more myself than I care to think of, but all
that was fair fight and the duty of a soldier. It was a very different
matter to listen to a murder in this den of assassins. They were pushing
someone along the passage, someone who resisted and who clung to my
door as he passed. They must have taken him into the third cell, the
one which was farthest from me. “Help! Help!” cried a voice, and then I
heard a blow and a scream. “Help! Help!” cried the voice again, and then
“Gerard! Colonel Gerard!” It was my poor captain of infantry whom they
were slaughtering.
“Murderers! Murderers!” I yelled, and I kicked at my door, but again I
heard him shout and then everything was silent. A minute later there was
a heavy splash, and I knew that no human eye would ever see Auret again.
He had gone as a hundred others had gone whose names were missing from
the roll-calls of their regiments during that winter in Venice.
The steps returned along the passage, and I thought that they were
coming for me. Instead of that they opened the door of the cell next to
mine and they took someone out of it. I heard the steps die away up the
stair.
At once I renewed my work upon the planks, and within a very few minutes
I had loosened them in such a way that I could remove and replace them
at pleasure. Passing through the aperture I found myself in the farther
cell, which, as I expected, was the other half of the one in which I had
been confined. I was not any nearer to escape than I had been before,
for there was no other wooden wall which I could penetrate and the
spring lock of the door had been closed. There were no traces to show
who was my companion in misfortune. Closing the two loose planks behind
me I returned to my own cell and waited there with all the courage which
I could command for the summons which would probably be my death knell.
It was a long time in coming, but at last I heard the sound of feet once
more in the passage, and I nerved myself to listen to some other odious
deed and to hear the cries of the poor victim. Nothing of the kind
occurred, however, and the prisoner was placed in the cell without
violence. I had no time to peep through my hole of communication, for
next moment my own door was flung open and my rascally gondolier, with
the other assassins, came into the cell.
“Come, Frenchman,” said he. He held his blood-stained knife in his
great, hairy hand, and I read in his fierce eyes that he only looked for
some excuse in order to plunge it into my heart. Resistance was useless.
I followed without a word. I was led up the stone stair and back into
that gorgeous chamber in which I had left the secret tribunal. I was
ushered in, but to my surprise it was not on me that their attention
was fixed. One of their own number, a tall, dark young man, was standing
before them and was pleading with them in low, earnest tones. His
voice quivered with anxiety and his hands darted in and out or writhed
together in an agony of entreaty. “You cannot do it! You cannot do it!”
he cried.
“I implore the tribunal to reconsider this decision.”
“Stand aside, brother,” said the old man who presided.
“The case is decided and another is up for judgment.”
“For Heaven's sake be merciful!” cried the young man.
“We have already been merciful,” the other answered.
“Death would have been a small penalty for such an offence. Be silent
and let judgment take its course.”
I saw the young man throw himself in an agony of grief into his chair. I
had no time, however, to speculate as to what it was which was troubling
him, for his eleven colleagues had already fixed their stern eyes upon
me.
The moment of fate had arrived.
“You are Colonel Gerard?” said the terrible old man.
“I am.”
“Aide-de-camp to the robber who calls himself General Suchet, who in
turn represents that arch-robber Buonaparte?”
It was on my lips to tell him that he was a liar, but there is a time to
argue and a time to be silent.
“I am an honourable soldier,” said I. “I have obeyed my orders and done
my duty.”
The blood flushed into the old man's face and his eyes blazed through
his mask.
“You are thieves and murderers, every man of you,” he cried. “What are
you doing here? You are Frenchmen. Why are you not in France? Did we
invite you to Venice? By what right are you here? Where are our
pictures? Where are the horses of St. Mark? Who are you that you should
pilfer those treasures which our fathers through so many centuries have
collected? We were a great city when France was a desert. Your drunken,
brawling, ignorant soldiers have undone the work of saints and heroes.
What have you to say to it?”
He was, indeed, a formidable old man, for his white beard bristled with
fury and he barked out the little sentences like a savage hound. For
my part I could have told him that his pictures would be safe in Paris,
that his horses were really not worth making a fuss about, and that he
could see heroes--I say nothing of saints--without going back to his
ancestors or even moving out of his chair. All this I could have pointed
out, but one might as well argue with a Mameluke about religion. I
shrugged my shoulders and said nothing.
“The prisoner has no defence,” said one of my masked judges.
“Has any one any observation to make before judgment is passed?” The old
man glared round him at the others.
“There is one matter, your Excellency,” said another.
“It can scarce be referred to without reopening a brother's wounds,
but I would remind you that there is a very particular reason why an
exemplary punishment should be inflicted in the case of this officer.”
“I had not forgotten it,” the old man answered.
“Brother, if the tribunal has injured you in one direction, it will give
you ample satisfaction in another.”
The young man who had been pleading when I entered the room staggered to
his feet.
“I cannot endure it,” he cried. “Your Excellency must forgive me. The
tribunal can act without me. I am ill. I am mad.” He flung his hands out
with a furious gesture and rushed from the room.
“Let him go! Let him go!” said the president. “It is, indeed, more than
can be asked of flesh and blood that he should remain under this roof.
But he is a true Venetian, and when the first agony is over he will
understand that it could not be otherwise.”
I had been forgotten during this episode, and though I am not a man who
is accustomed to being overlooked I should have been all the happier
had they continued to neglect me. But now the old president glared at me
again like a tiger who comes back to his victim.
“You shall pay for it all, and it is but justice that you should,” he
said. “You, an upstart adventurer and foreigner, have dared to raise
your eyes in love to the grand daughter of a Doge of Venice who was
already betrothed to the heir of the Loredans. He who enjoys such
privileges must pay a price for them.”
“It cannot be higher than they are worth,” said I.
“You will tell us that when you have made a part payment,” said he.
“Perhaps your spirit may not be so proud by that time. Matteo, you will
lead this prisoner to the wooden cell. To-night is Monday. Let him
have no food or water, and let him be led before the tribunal again
on Wednesday night. We shall then decide upon the death which he is to
die.”
It was not a pleasant prospect, and yet it was a reprieve. One is
thankful for small mercies when a hairy savage with a blood-stained
knife is standing at one's elbow. He dragged me from the room and I was
thrust down the stairs and back into my cell. The door was locked and I
was left to my reflections.
My first thought was to establish connection with my neighbour
in misfortune. I waited until the steps had died away, and then I
cautiously drew aside the two boards and peeped through. The light was
very dim, so dim that I could only just discern a figure huddled in the
corner, and I could hear the low whisper of a voice which prayed as one
prays who is in deadly fear. The boards must have made a creaking. There
was a sharp exclamation of surprise.
“Courage, friend, courage!” I cried. “All is not lost. Keep a stout
heart, for Etienne Gerard is by your side.”
“Etienne!” It was a woman's voice which spoke--a voice which was always
music to my ears. I sprang through the gap and I flung my arms round
her.
“Lucia! Lucia!” I cried.
It was “Etienne!” and “Lucia!” for some minutes, for one does not make
speeches at moments like that. It was she who came to her senses first.
“Oh, Etienne, they will kill you. How came you into their hands?”
“In answer to your letter.”
“I wrote no letter.”
“The cunning demons! But you?”
“I came also in answer to your letter.”
“Lucia, I wrote no letter.”
“They have trapped us both with the same bait.”
“I care nothing about myself, Lucia. Besides, there is no pressing
danger with me. They have simply returned me to my cell.”
“Oh, Etienne, Etienne, they will kill you. Lorenzo is there.”
“The old greybeard?”
“No, no, a young dark man. He loved me, and I thought I loved him
until--until I learned what love is, Etienne. He will never forgive you.
He has a heart of stone.”
“Let them do what they like. They cannot rob me of the past, Lucia. But
you--what about you?”
“It will be nothing, Etienne. Only a pang for an instant and then all
over. They mean it as a badge of infamy, dear, but I will carry it like
a crown of honour since it was through you that I gained it.”
Her words froze my blood with horror. All my adventures were
insignificant compared to this terrible shadow which was creeping over
my soul.
“Lucia! Lucia!” I cried. “For pity's sake tell me what these butchers
are about to do. Tell me, Lucia! Tell me!”
“I will not tell you, Etienne, for it would hurt you far more than
it would me. Well, well, I will tell you lest you should fear it was
something worse. The president has ordered that my ear be cut off, that
I may be marked for ever as having loved a Frenchman.”
Her ear! The dear little ear which I had kissed so often. I put my hand
to each little velvet shell to make certain that this sacrilege had not
yet been committed.
Only over my dead body should they reach them. I swore it to her between
my clenched teeth.
“You must not care, Etienne. And yet I love that you should care all the
same.”
“They shall not hurt you--the fiends!”
“I have hopes, Etienne. Lorenzo is there. He was silent while I was
judged, but he may have pleaded for me after I was gone.”
“He did. I heard him.”
“Then he may have softened their hearts.”
I knew that it was not so, but how could I bring myself to tell her?
I might as well have done so, for with the quick instinct of woman my
silence was speech to her.
“They would not listen to him! You need not fear to tell me, dear, for
you will find that I am worthy to be loved by such a soldier. Where is
Lorenzo now?”
“He left the hall.”
“Then he may have left the house as well.”
“I believe that he did.”
“He has abandoned me to my fate. Etienne, Etienne, they are coming!”
Afar off I heard those fateful steps and the jingle of distant keys.
What were they coming for now, since there were no other prisoners to
drag to judgment? It could only be to carry out the sentence upon my
darling.
I stood between her and the door, with the strength of a lion in my
limbs. I would tear the house down before they should touch her.
“Go back! Go back!” she cried. “They will murder you, Etienne. My life,
at least, is safe. For the love you bear me, Etienne, go back. It is
nothing. I will make no sound. You will not hear that it is done.”
She wrestled with me, this delicate creature, and by main force she
dragged me to the opening between the cells. But a sudden thought had
crossed my mind.
“We may yet be saved,” I whispered. “Do what I tell you at once and
without argument. Go into my cell. Quick!”
I pushed her through the gap and helped her to replace the planks. I had
retained her cloak in my hands, and with this wrapped round me I crept
into the darkest corner of her cell. There I lay when the door was
opened and several men came in. I had reckoned that they would bring no
lantern, for they had none with them before.
To their eyes I was only a dark blur in the corner.
“Bring a light,” said one of them.
“No, no; curse it!” cried a rough voice, which I knew to be that of the
ruffian, Matteo. “It is not a job that I like, and the more I saw it
the less I should like it. I am sorry, signora, but the order of the
tribunal has to be obeyed.”
My impulse was to spring to my feet and to rush through them all and
out by the open door. But how would that help Lucia? Suppose that I got
clear away, she would be in their hands until I could come back with
help, for single-handed I could not hope to clear a way for her. All
this flashed through my mind in an instant, and I saw that the only
course for me was to lie still, take what came, and wait my chance. The
fellow's coarse hand felt about among my curls--those curls in which
only a woman's fingers had ever wandered. The next instant he gripped my
ear and a pain shot through me as if I had been touched with a hot iron.
I bit my lip to stifle a cry, and I felt the blood run warm down my neck
and back.
“There, thank Heaven, that's over,” said the fellow, giving me a
friendly pat on the head. “You're a brave girl, signora, I'll say
that for you, and I only wish you'd have better taste than to love a
Frenchman. You can blame him and not me for what I have done.”
What could I do save to lie still and grind my teeth at my own
helplessness? At the same time my pain and my rage were always soothed
by the reflection that I had suffered for the woman whom I loved. It is
the custom of men to say to ladies that they would willingly endure any
pain for their sake, but it was my privilege to show that I had said no
more than I meant. I thought also how nobly I would seem to have
acted if ever the story came to be told, and how proud the regiment of
Conflans might well be of their colonel. These thoughts helped me
to suffer in silence while the blood still trickled over my neck and
dripped upon the stone floor. It was that sound which nearly led to my
destruction.
“She's bleeding fast,” said one of the valets. “You had best fetch a
surgeon or you will find her dead in the morning.”
“She lies very still and she has never opened her mouth,” said another.
“The shock has killed her.”
“Nonsense; a young woman does not die so easily.” It was Matteo who
spoke. “Besides, I did but snip off enough to leave the tribunal's mark
upon her. Rouse up, signora, rouse up!”
He shook me by the shoulder, and my heart stood still for fear he should
feel the epaulet under the mantle.
“How is it with you now?” he asked.