Pog was too closely occupied with the disabled condition in which he
found his galleys, to lend attention to the last words of Hadji. One
of the spahis picked up the casket, and placed it in Pog’s chamber, to
which the latter had descended, after leaving the galley in the command
of the pilot.
This chamber was entirely covered with a coarse red woollen material.
On this tapestry could be seen, here and there, a great number of black
crosses traced by the hand with charcoal. Among them a small number of
white crosses appeared, drawn with chalk.
A copper lamp threw a wan and sepulchral light in this room.
The only furniture of the room consisted in a bed, covered with a
tiger-skin, two chairs, and an oak table, hardly square.
When the Moor had dressed the wounds of the captain, he retired.
Pog, left alone, remained seated, resting his head on his hand, and
reflecting upon the events of the night His vengeance was only half
satisfied.
His precipitate retreat humiliated his self-love, and aroused new
resentments in his heart.
Nevertheless, he smiled as he thought of the evil he had wrought, and
rose from his seat, saying:
“It is always so! My night will not have been lost, if--”
Then he took a piece of charcoal, and made several black crosses on the
tapestry. From time to time he paused, as if to collect his thoughts. He
had just traced a black cross when he said to himself:
“That Baron des Anbiez was killed! I think so, and I hope so. From the
hollow vibration of the handle of the battle-axe in my hand, I thought
I felt his skull broken. But the baron wore a helmet, his death is not
certain. We will not make a false estimate of victims.” After this
lugubrious pleasantry, he erased the cross, and began to count the white
crosses.
“Eleven,” said he, “eleven chevaliers of Malta, slain by my hand.
Oh! they are surely dead, for I would have killed myself a thousand
times on their bodies, rather than have left in them one breath of
life.”
He then sank into a gloomy silence. Suddenly, standing up, his arms
crossed on his breast, his head bowed, he said, with a deep sigh:
“For more than twenty years I have pursued my vengeance,--my work of
destruction. For twenty years has my sorrow diminished? Are my regrets
less desperate? I do not know. Without doubt I feel a horrible joy in
saying to man: ‘Suffer--die.’ But after--after! Always regret--always!
And yet I have no remorse, no! It seems to me that I am the blind
instrument of an all-powerful will. Yes, that must be. It is not
the love of gain which guides me. It is an imperious necessity, an
insatiable need of vengeance. Where am I going? What will be the
awakening from this bloody life which sometimes seems to me a horrible
dream? When I think upon what was formerly my life, on what I was
myself, it is something to drive me mad,--as I am. Yes, I must be mad,
for sometimes there are moments when I ask myself: ‘Why so many cruel
deeds?’ To-night, for instance, how much blood--how much blood! That old
man! Those women! Oh, I am mad, furiously mad! Oh, it is terrible! What
had they done to me?”
He hid his face in his hands. After a few moments of sullen reflection,
he cried, in an agonising voice:
“Oh, what had I done to him,--to the one who hurled me from heaven
to hell? I never did him a wrong! What had I done to her,--to his
accomplice? I surrounded her with all the adoration, all the idolatry
that man could feel here below for a creature. And, yet! Oh!--this
sorrow,--will it always be bleeding? Will this memory always be so
dreadful,--always burning like a hot iron? Oh, rage! Oh, misery! Oh, to
forget! to forget! I only ask to forget!”
As he uttered these words, Pog fell with his face on the bed, tore the
tiger-skin in his convulsed hands, and groaned with a sort of hollow,
stifled roar.
The paroxysm lasted some time, and was succeeded by a heavy stupor.
Suddenly he straightened himself up, his complexion paler than usual,
his eyes brilliant, and his lips contracted.
He passed his hand over his forehead to fasten the bandage around
his wound, which had become disarranged. As he let his arm fall
from weakness, he felt near the partition an object which he had not
remarked. It was the casket which Hadji had thrown on board the _Red
Galleon_, and that one of the men had left in the captain’s chamber.
Pog mechanically took up the casket and placed it on his knees. The
Maltese cross embossed on the lid met his sight, and made him start.
He threw it abruptly away from him; the scarf became untied, and fell
open.
Quite a large number of letters rolled on the floor, with two
medallions, and a long tress of blond hair.
Pog was seated on his bed; the medallions had fallen a considerable
distance from him.
The light in his chamber was pale and fluctuating.
By what miracle of love, of hatred, or of vengeance, did he recognise
instantly the features that he had never forgotten?
The event was so startling, so dreadful, that at first he believed
himself to be the sport of a dream.
He did not dare move. His body leaning forward, his eyes fixed on the
medallion, he feared every moment to see what he took for a vision of
his excited imagination vanish from his sight.
Finally, falling on his knees, he threw himself upon the medallions, as
if he feared they might escape his grasp.
He seized the portraits. One of them represented a woman of resplendent
beauty. He was not mistaken; he had recognised it.
The other was the face of a child.
The pirate let the medallion fall on the floor; he was petrified with
amazement. He had just recognised Erebus! Erebus, at least, as he was
fifteen years before, when he had carried him away from the coasts of
Languedoc!
Still doubting what he saw with his own eyes, he rallied from this
passing weakness, picked up the medallion, recalled his memories with
exactness, to provide against every error, and again examined the
portrait with a consuming anxiety. It was Erebus, indeed,--Erebus at the
age of five years.
Then Pog threw himself on the floor with the letters, and read them
on his knees without a thought of rising. The scene was something
terrible,--ghastly.
This man, pale, stained with blood, kneeling in the middle of that
lugubrious chamber, read with eagerness the pages which revealed to him,
at last, the dark mystery which he had sought for so many years.