The clouds piled high in the west, spread rapidly over the sky which had
been so serene. The increasing murmur of the waves, the plaintive moan
of the wind, which was gradually rising, the distant rolling of the
thunder, all announced a terrible storm.
The little boat reached the shore, a lonely beach girded by blocks of
reddish granite. The commander and Honorât landed, when Hadji, who
had preceded them a few steps, stopped and said to Pierre des Anbiez,
“Monseigneur, follow this path hollowed out of the rock, and you will
soon arrive at the ruins of the Abbey of St. Victor. Pog-Reis awaits you
there.”
Without replying to Hadji, Pierre des Anbiez resolutely entered a sort
of crevasse formed by a rent in the rock, and scarcely large enough for
a man to pass through.
Honorât, not less courageous, followed him, reflecting at the same time
that a traitor, placed on the crest of the two rocks between which they
rather glided than walked, could easily crush them by rolling upon
them some one of the enormous stones which crowned the escarpment. The
tempest was gradually approaching. The loud voices of the wind and the
sea, which threatened more and more, at last burst forth into fury, and
were answered from the height of the clouds by the thunderbolts. The
elements had entered upon a tremendous struggle.
The commander walked with long strides. In the violence of the storm
he saw an omen; it seemed to him that the vengeance of Heaven clothed
itself in a terrible majesty before striking him.
The more he reflected, the more the strange dream related by the
Bohemian appeared to him a manifestation of the divine will.
By one of the ordinary phenomena of thought, Pierre des Anbiez in one
second recalled every detail of bloody tragedy which was the consequence
of his love for the wife of Count de Montreuil, the birth of his
unfortunate child, the death of Emilie, and the murder of her husband.
All of these events came back to his mind with awful precision, as if
the crime had been committed the day before.
The narrow passage which wound across the rocks enlarged somewhat, and
the commander and Honorât issued from this granite wall, and found
themselves opposite the ruins of the Abbey of St. Victor. In this spot
they beheld no one.
The interior basin of the bay formed a deep cove. At the south it was
shut in by the rocks through which they had just passed; at the north
and at the west, by the half-destroyed buildings of the abbey; at the
east could be seen the road in which the two galleys of the pirates were
anchored.
The imposing pile of the abbey ruins, the wreck of vaults and heavy
arches, the crumbling towers covered with ivy, outlined their sad, gray
forms upon the black clouds which hung lower and lower over the solemn
scene.
A wan, bleak day, which was neither light nor darkness, threw a strange
and weird radiance over the rocks, the ruins, the beach, and the sea.
The waves roared, the wind howled, the thunder rolled, yet no person
appeared.
Honorât, in spite of his courage, was struck with the awful and dismal
scene which lay around him. The commander, wrapped in his long black
mantle, his form erect, his face anxious and gloomy, seemed to evoke
evil spirits.
In a deep, sepulchral voice, he called three times: “Pog-Reis!
Pog-Reis! Pog-Reis!” No answer was heard.
An enormous owl uttered a doleful cry as it flew slowly and heavily from
a vault, as massive as the arch of a bridge, which had once been the
entrance to the cloister.
“Nobody comes,” said Honorât. “Do you not fear an ambuscade, M.
Commander? Perhaps you have placed too much confidence in the words of
these wretches.”
“Divine vengeance assumes all forms,” replied Pierre des Anbiez.
He then relapsed into silence, gazing abstractedly at the heavy arcade,
which formerly served as an entrance to the cloister, and whose interior
was now enveloped in dense shadow.
Suddenly a pale winter ray threw its wan light over this arch, casting a
livid, fantastic illumination over the solemn scene.
A thunderbolt broke and reverberated, and, by a strange coincidence, at
the same moment two men issued from the obscurity of the vault, and with
slow and deliberate steps advanced toward the commander and Honorât de
Berrol.
These men were Pog and Erebus.
Pog held a naked sword in his right hand; his left arm was around the
neck of Erebus, and he reclined tenderly upon the young man, as a father
would lean upon a son. Erebus also held an unsheathed sword in his hand.
Both continued to approach the commander and Honorât.
Suddenly Pierre des Anbiez stood for a moment petrified, then, without
uttering a word, quickly stepped back, seized the arm of the Chevalier
de Berrol, and pointed to Pog and Erebus, with a gesture of terror.
Notwithstanding the change produced by years in the countenance of Pog,
the commander recognised in him the Count de Montreuil, the husband of
Emilie, the man whom he believed he had killed, and whose portrait he
had preserved as an expiation of his crime.
“Have the dead come back from the grave?” said he, in a low voice,
recoiling and dragging Honorât with him as Pog advanced.
The Chevalier de Berrol was ignorant of all that pertained to that
terrible tragedy, but he felt a secret horror, less at the appearance
of the two pirates than at the evident fright of the commander, whose
intrepidity was so well known.
Then, as if to render the solemn scene still more awful, the tempest
increased in violence, and the thunder grew louder and more frequent.
Pog stopped.
“Do you know me? Do you know me?” said he to the commander.
“If you are not a ghost, I know you,” replied the commander, fixing
a look of amazement upon the husband of Emilie.
“Do you remember the unhappy woman whose murderer you were?”
“I remember, I remember, I accuse myself.” And the commander struck
his breast in the act of contrition.
At these words, uttered in a low voice by Pierre des Anbiez, Erebus,
whose countenance expressed the rage of desperation, raised his sword,
and started to throw himself upon the commander.
Pog restrained him with a firm hand, and said to him: “Not yet.”
Erebus rested the point of his sword on the ground, and raised his eyes
to heaven.
“You owe me a bloody reparation,” said Pog.
“My life belongs to you. I shall not lift my sword against you,”
replied the commander, bowing his head upon his breast.
“You have accepted the combat. I have your word. Here is your
adversary,” and he pointed to Erebus. “Here is mine,” and he
pointed to Honorât.
“Take up your sword, then,” cried the Chevalier do Berrol, who
wished at any cost to put an end to a scene which, in spite of himself,
chilled him with horror.
He advanced toward Pog.
“They first, we afterward,” answered Pog.
“This instant, this instant! Take up your sword!” cried Honorât.
Pog, addressing Pierre des Anbiez, said, in an imperious tone: “Order
your second to await the result of your fight with the young captain.”
“Chevalier, I pray you to wait,” said the commander, with
resignation.
“Defend your life, murderer!” cried Erebus, rushing upon Pierre des
Anbiez with uplifted sword.
“But this is a child!” said the commander, looking at his adversary
with a sort of contemptuous compassion.
“Your mother! Your mother!” whispered Pog to Erebus.
“Yes, a child, the child of those whom you have murdered,” cried the
unfortunate youth, striking the commander in the face with the breadth
of his sword.
The livid countenance of the old soldier became purple; transported with
anger at this insult, he threw himself upon Erebus, saying, “Lord, thy
will be done!”
Then ensued a parricidal struggle.
And the darkness suddenly fell upon the scene, as if nature herself
revolted at the sight.
Thunderbolts rent the clouds, the tempest let loose its fury, and the
very rocks trembled upon their foundations.
The parricidal combat continued with undiminished rage.
[Illustration: This parricidal combat continued ]
With clasped hands, Pog, with ferocious eagerness, enjoyed the frightful
spectacle.
“At last, after twenty years, I taste one moment of true, ineffable
happiness. Roll, O thunder! Burst forth, O tempest! All nature takes
part in my vengeance!” cried he, in savage joy.
Honorât, unable to account for his own feelings, cried in dismay:
“Enough! enough!” and tried to separate Erebus and Pierre des
Anbiez.
Pog, endowed for the moment with superhuman strength, seized Honorât,
paralysed his efforts, and said, in a low voice, trembling with rage and
excitement, “My vengeance!”
Erebus fell.
“Pierre des Anbiez, you have killed your son! Here are your letters,
here are the portraits, you can see them,” cried Pog, in a voice that
rose above the storm, and he threw at the feet of the commander the
casket which Hadji had stolen from Peyrou.
Suddenly a thunderbolt struck with a noise impossible to describe. The
heavens, the bay, the ruins, the rocks, and the sea, appeared to be on
fire.
A terrible explosion followed, and the very earth trembled; a part of
the ruins of the abbey fell away, while a blast of wind, breaking
and driving everything in its path, enveloped the entire bay in its
irresistible and tremendous whirlpool.