The night passed without another incident.
At the rising of the sun the chebec was no longer in sight.
Peyrou waited with impatience the arrival of the young seaman who was
accustomed to relieve his watch.
He was anxious to warn Raimond V. of the wicked designs he attributed to
the Bohemian.
About two o’clock, Peyrou was astonished to see Mile, des Anbiez,
accompanied by Stephanette.
Reine approached him with evident embarrassment.
Without sharing the superstitious ideas of the inhabitants of the gulf,
in reference to the watchman on Cape l’Aigle, she felt irresistibly
impelled to consult him upon a subject which she could not think of
without sadness. The young girl had received new evidences of the
remembrance cherished by Erebus, through the same unknown and mysterious
way.
All her efforts, and all of Stephanette’s, had proved unavailing in
discovering the source of these strange communications.
Through an unpardonable obstinacy, and a foolish love of the marvellous,
Reine had concealed everything from her father and Honorât.
Honorât had left Maison-Forte, in a fit of jealousy as painful as it
was unreasonable.
On the evening of the day the overseers of the port held their session,
Reine, as she knelt before her praying-desk, had found a rosary of
sandalwood of the most marvellous workmanship.
The clasp by which it was to be attached to her belt again bore the
enamelled imprint of the little dove of which we have spoken,--the
symbol of the remembrance and the love of the unknown.
Since the singing of the Bohemian, Reine’s imagination, excited beyond
degree, had indulged in a thousand dreams concerning the adventurous
life of the young emir, as the vagabond had named him.
Either by design or chance, the singer had left his guzla in Reine’s
apartment, after the departure of Honorât de Berrol.
The young girl, curious to see the face of the unknown again, took
the guitar and opened the medallion, and, to her great surprise, the
portrait, insecurely fastened, came off in her hands.
Dame Dulceline entered. Reine blushed, closed the medallion and hid the
portrait in her bosom, intending to restore it to its place. Evening
came, and Stephanette, without informing her mistress, returned the
guitar to the Bohemian. The lid of the medallion was fastened, and
neither the singer nor the servant discovered the absence of the
picture.
The next day Reine sent for the Bohemian in order to return the portrait
to him. He had disappeared, the flight of the pigeon demanding his
attention.
Reine had the courage to break the crystal vase, and to burn the
miniature on vellum, but she had not the courage to destroy the portrait
or the rosary that she found in her oratory.
In spite of her struggles, in spite of her prayers, in spite of her
resolve to forget the events of the day in the rocks of Ollioules, the
memory of the unknown took possession of her heart more and more.
The songs of the Bohemian on the young emir, whom he called Erebus, had
profoundly moved her feelings.
Those contrasts of courage and kindness, of power and pity, recalled
to her mind the singular combination of audacity and timidity which had
impressed her in the scene which transpired in the gorges of Ollioules.
She counted on the restitution of the portrait as the first step to
another conversation with the Singer about the emir.
Unfortunately, the Bohemian had disappeared.
To the great astonishment of the inmates of Maison-Forte, he did not
return in the evening. Raimond V., who liked him, ordered his men
who guarded the bridge to be prepared to lower it when the Bohemian
appeared, notwithstanding the regulations of the castle.
Morning came, and still the vagabond was absent. They supposed that,
after drinking, he had fallen asleep in some tavern of La Ciotat. They
were still more astonished not to find the two pigeons in the cage where
he kept them ordinarily closely confined.
Greatly disturbed by these strange happenings, which had been
transpiring for some time, Reine, half through curiosity and half
through conviction, finally yielded to the entreaties of Stephanette,
who had the most wonderful ideas of the watchman’s abilities and
knowledge, and decided to consult the old seaman on the mysteries of
which Maison-Forte was the theatre.
So many extraordinary things had been told of Master Peyrou’s
predictions, that Reine, although little given to superstition, felt the
influence of the general opinion.
She was going to interrogate Peyrou, when, to her amazement, he accosted
her with a question about the Bohemian.
“Mademoiselle, did the vagabond enter Maison-Forte last night?” said
Peyrou, quickly.
“No; my father is much concerned about him. They think that he must
have spent the night drinking in some tavern in La Ciotat.”
“That would be astonishing,” added Stephanette, “for the poor
fellow seems to be of exemplary sobriety.”
“This poor fellow,” exclaimed the watchman, “is a spy of the
pirates.”
“He!” exclaimed Reine.
“Yes, he, himself, mademoiselle; a chebec was cruising a part of the
night in view from the gulf, waiting, no doubt, for a signal from this
vagabond to disembark.”
In a few words the watchman acquainted Reine with the adventure of the
pigeon, informing her on what indisputable grounds he suspected the
Bohemian of having communication with the pirates; showed her the
satchel and letter, and gave them to her, that the baron might have the
writing translated by one of the brother monks in La Ciotat, who, having
been a slave in Tunis for a long time, was familiar with Arabic.
When she learned the odious suspicions which attached to the Bohemian,
without accounting to herself for her fear, Reine dared not confide the
object of her visit to the watchman.
Stephanette looked at her mistress, utterly confounded, and cried:
“Our Lady! who would have believed that this unbeliever, who sang so
well, could be such an abominable scoundrel? And to think I pitied him
enough to give him a flame-coloured ribbon! Ah, my dear mistress, and
the portrait of--”
Reine by an imperious sign forbade Stephanette to continue.
“Good-bye, good watchman,” said Mlle, des Anbiez, “I am going back
to Maison-Forte at once, to warn my father to be on his guard.”
“Do not forget, Stephanette, to send Luquin Trinquetaille here. I
must make arrangements with him to have one more young watchman,” said
Peyrou. “I have not slept the whole night. This dangerous knave is
perhaps wandering about these rocks, and may come and assassinate me at
the setting of the moon. The pirates are somewhere in the gulf, hidden
in some one of the coves where they often ambuscade, to wait for their
prey; for, alas! our coasts are not protected.”
“Be easy, Master Peyrou, Luquin is coming with his two cousins; just
tell him that you are watching for the Bohemian, and he will not delay
to come as fast as his long legs can bring him. And to think I gave a
ribbon to a pirate!” added Stephanette, clasping her hands. “Perhaps
he is one of those brigands who ravaged all this coast last year.”
“Go, go, my girl, and hurry. I must confer with the captain about a
little cruise he can undertake even to-day with his polacre. We must
warn the consuls to arm some fishing-boats immediately, with sure and
determined men. We must give the alarm all along the shore, arm
the entrance into the gulf, which is defended only by the cannon of
Maison-Forte, and be prepared for any surprise, for these brigands rush
on the coast like a hurricane. So Luquin must come on the instant Do you
hear, Stephanette? The safety of the city depends on it.”
“Be easy, Master Peyrou, although it breaks my heart to know that my
poor Luquin is going to run such danger. I love him too much to advise
him to be a coward.”
During this rapid conversation between the watchman and her servant,
Reine, lost in deep reverie, had descended a few steps of the path which
conducted to the platform upon which stood the sentry-box.
This path, which was very steep, wound around the outside of the
promontory, and formed at this spot a sort of comice, whose projection
reached considerably over the base of this immense wall of rocks, more
than three hundred feet above the level of the sea.
A young girl less habituated to walks and to mountain climbing would
have feared to venture on this narrow passage. From the side of the sea,
its only parapet was a few asperities of rock, more or less pronounced.
Reine, accustomed to brave these perils from her infancy, thought
nothing of danger. The emotion that agitated her since her interview
with the watchman absorbed her entirely.
Her gait, sometimes slow, sometimes hurried, seemed to share the nature
of her tumultuous emotions.
Stephanette soon joined her. Surprised at the pallor of her mistress,
she was about to ask the cause of it, when Reine said to her, in an
altered voice, with a gesture which did not admit of a reply, “Walk in
front of me, Stephanette, do not concern yourself whether I follow you
or not.”
Stephanette preceded her mistress at once, directing her steps in all
haste toward Maison-Forte.
The agitation of Reine des Anbiez was extreme. The relations which
seemed to exist between the Bohemian and the unknown were too evident
for her not to have the most painful suspicions of this young man whom
the vagabond called the emir.
Many circumstances, which had not impressed her at the time, now made
Reine believe that the Bohemian was an emissary of the unknown. No doubt
it was the vagabond who had placed in her chamber the various objects
which had caused her so much surprise. Adopting this hypothesis, there
was, however, one objection which presented itself to her mind,--she had
found the crystal vase and the miniature on vellum before the arrival of
the vagabond.
Suddenly a ray of light entered her mind; she remembered that one
day, in order to display his agility to Stephanette, the Bohemian had
descended to the terrace by the balcony, upon which opened the window of
her oratory, and that he had remounted by the same way. Another time he
had slid down from the terrace on the rocks, which lined the shore,
and had remounted from the rocks to the terrace, by the aid of the
asperities of the wall and the plants which had taken root there.
Although he arrived for the first time at the castle with the recorder,
might not this vagabond, before that day, have been hidden in the
environage of La Ciotat? Could he not have entered Maison-Forte twice
during the night, then, to avoid suspicion, returned in the recorder’s
train, as if he had met it by chance?
These thoughts, reinforced by recent observations, soon assumed
incontrovertible certainty in the mind of Reine. The stranger and his
two companions were, without doubt, pirates, who, with false names and
false credentials, had given out that they were Muscovites, and had thus
imposed upon the credulity of the Marshal of Vitry.
The first idea of Reine, then,--an idea absolute and imperious,--was to
forget for ever the man upon whom rested such terrible suspicion.
Religion, duty, and the will of her father were so many insurmountable
and sacred obstacles which the young girl could not think of braving.
Up to that time, her youthful and lively imagination had found
inexhaustible nourishment in the strange adventure of the rocks of
Ollioules.
All the chaste dreams of her young girlhood were, so to speak,
concentrated and realised in the person of Erebus, that unknown one,
brave and timid at the same time, audacious and charming, who had saved
the life of her father.
She could not help being touched by the delicate and mysterious
persistence with which Erebus had always tried to recall himself to
her memory. Doubtless she had never heard the voice of this stranger;
doubtless she was ignorant of his mind and character, whether or not
they responded to the graces of his person. But in these long reveries
in which a young girl thinks of him who has fascinated her, does she not
invest him with the most excellent qualities? does she not make him say
all that she desires to hear?
Thus had Reine thought of Erebus. First she wished to banish him from
her thought, but, unfortunately, to yield to a sentiment against
which we have struggled is only to render it all the more powerful and
irresistible.
Reine then loved Erebus, perhaps unconsciously, when the watchman’s
fatal revelation showed the object of her love in such unattractive
colours.
The grandeur of the sacrifice that she was required to make enlightened
her as to the power of the affection with which she had, so to speak,
played until the fatal moment arrived.
For the first time this sudden revelation taught her the depth of her
love.
Impenetrable mysteries of the human heart! During the first phases of
this mysterious love she had regarded her marriage with Honorât as
possible.
From the moment in which she knew who the unknown one was, from that
moment she felt that, notwithstanding the voice of duty ordered her to
forget him, the memory of Erebus would henceforth dominate her whole
existence, and she could never marry the chevalier.
She recognised the truth with terror, that, notwithstanding her efforts
to master her feelings, her heart belonged to her no longer, and she was
incapable of deceiving Honorât.
She wished to make a last sacrifice, to give up the rosary and portrait
which she possessed, imposing this resolution upon herself as a sort of
expiation of her reserve and reticence toward her father.
The young girl suffered much before she was able to fulfil this
resolution.
In this mental struggle, Reine was walking on the edge of the comice
formed by the rocks above the beach on which the waves of the sea were
breaking.
She wore over her dress a sort of brown mantle with a hood turned up on
the shoulders. This hood allowed her bare head to be seen, as well as
her long brown curls that floated in the wind. Her countenance had an
expression of sweet and resigned melancholy; sometimes, however, her
blue eyes shone with a new brightness, and she lifted up her noble,
beautiful head with an expression of wounded pride.
She loved passionately, but without hope, and she was going to throw to
the winds the feeble tokens of this impossible love.
At her feet, far, far below her, broke the raging waves of the sea.
She drew the rosary from her bosom, looked at it a moment with
bitterness, pressed it to her heart, then, extending her white and
delicate hand above the abyss, she held it motionless a moment, and the
rosary fell into the waves below.
She tried to follow it with her eyes, but the edge of the cornice was
too sharp to allow her a view.
She sighed profoundly, took the portrait of the unknown, and
contemplated it a long time in sad admiration. Nothing could be purer or
more enchanting than the features of Erebus; his large brown eyes, soft
and proud at the same time, reminded her of the look, full of purity and
dignity, which he cast upon Raimond V. after having saved his life. The
smile of this portrait, full of serenity, had nothing of that satirical
smile and bold expression which had so startled her on the eventful day.
For a few moments she struggled with her resolution, then reason
asserted her empire; blushing, she pressed her lips to the medallion,
then on the brow of the portrait, and then--threw it suddenly into
space.
This painful sacrifice accomplished, Reine felt less oppressed; she
believed that she would have committed a wrong in preserving these
memorials of a foolish love.
Then she felt free to abandon herself to the thoughts locked in the
depths of her heart.
She walked a long time on the beach, absorbed in these thoughts.
On returning to Maison-Forte she learned that Raimond V. had not yet
returned from the chase.
Night was fast falling, and Reine, followed by Stephanette, entered her
apartment What was her amazement, her terror--
She found on the table the portrait and rosary that two hours before she
had thrown into the depths of the sea.