"FOUR WOMEN CRUCIFIED"
Veronique was left alone on Coffin Island. Until the sun sank among the
clouds that seemed, on the horizon, to rest upon the sea, she did not
move, but sat huddled against the window, with her head buried in her
two arms resting on the sill.
The dread reality passed through the darkness of her mind like pictures
which she strove not to see, but which at times became so clearly
defined that she imagined herself to be living through those atrocious
scenes again.
Still she sought no explanation of all this and formed no theories as to
all the motives which might have thrown a light upon the tragedy. She
admitted the madness of Francois and of Stephane Maroux, being unable to
suppose any other reasons for such actions as theirs. And, believing the
two murderers to be mad, she did not even try to attribute to them any
projects or definite wishes.
Moreover, Honorine's madness, of which she had, so to speak, observed
the outbreak, impelled her to look upon all that had happened as
provoked by a sort of mental upset to which all the people of Sarek had
fallen victims. She herself at moments felt that her brain was reeling,
that her ideas were fading away in a mist, that invisible ghosts were
hovering around her.
She dozed off into a sleep which was haunted by these images and in
which she felt so wretched that she began to sob. Also it seemed to her
that she could hear a slight noise which, in her benumbed wits, assumed
a hostile significance. Enemies were approaching. She opened her eyes.
A couple of yards in front of her, sitting upon its haunches, was a
queer animal, covered with long mud-coloured hair and holding its
fore-paws folded like a pair of arms.
It was a dog; and she at once remembered Francois' dog, of which
Honorine had spoken as a dear, devoted, comical creature. She even
remembered his name, All's-Well.
As she uttered this name in an undertone, she felt an angry impulse and
was almost driving away the animal endowed with such an ironical
nickname. All's-Well! And she thought of all the victims of the horrible
nightmare, of all the dead people of Sarek, of her murdered father, of
Honorine killing herself, of Francois going mad. All's-Well, forsooth!
Meanwhile the dog did not stir. He was sitting up as Honorine had
described, with his head a little on one side, one eye closed, the
corners of his mouth drawn back to his ears and his arms crossed in
front of him; and there was really something very like a smile flitting
over his face.
Veronique now remembered: this was the manner in which All's-Well
displayed his sympathy for those in trouble. All's-Well could not bear
the sight of tears. When people wept, he sat up until they in their turn
smiled and petted him.
Veronique did not smile, but she pressed him against her and said:
"No, my poor dog, all's not well; on the contrary, all's as bad as it
can be. No matter: we must live, mustn't we, and we mustn't go mad
ourselves like the others?"
The necessities of life obliged her to act. She went down to the
kitchen, found some food and gave the dog a good share of it. Then she
went upstairs again.
Night had fallen. She opened, on the first floor, the door of a bedroom
which at ordinary times must have been unoccupied. She was weighed down
with an immense fatigue, caused by all the efforts and violent emotions
which she had undergone. She fell asleep almost at once. All's Well lay
awake at the foot of her bed.
Next morning she woke late, with a curious feeling of peace and
security. It seemed to her that her present life was somehow connected
with her calm and placid life at Besancon. The few days of horror which
she had passed fell away from her like distant events whose return she
had no need to fear. The men and women who had gone under in the great
horror became to her mind almost like strangers whom one has met and
does not expect to see again. Her heart ceased bleeding. Her sorrow for
them did not reach the depths of her soul.
It was due to the unforeseen and undisturbed rest, the consoling
solitude. And all this seemed to her so pleasant that, when a steamer
came and anchored on the spot of the disaster, she made no signal. No
doubt yesterday, from the mainland, they had seen the flash of the
explosions and heard the report of the shots. Veronique remained
motionless.
She saw a boat put off from the steamer and supposed that they were
going to land and explore the village. But not only did she dread an
enquiry in which her son might be involved: she herself did not wish to
be found, to be questioned, to have her name, her identity, her story
discovered and to be brought back into the infernal circle from which
she had escaped. She preferred to wait a week or two, to wait until
chance brought within hailing-distance of the island some fishing-boat
which could pick her up.
But no one came to the Priory. The steamer put off; and nothing
disturbed her isolation.
And so she remained for three days. Fate seemed to have reconsidered its
intention of making fresh assaults upon her. She was alone and her own
mistress. All's Well, whose company had done her a world of good,
disappeared.
The Priory domain occupied the whole end of the island, on the site of a
Benedictine abbey, which had been abandoned in the fifteenth century and
gradually fallen into ruin and decay.
The house, built in the eighteenth century by a wealthy Breton
ship-owner out of the materials of the old abbey and the stones of the
chapel, was in no way interesting either outside or in. Veronique, for
that matter, did not dare to enter any of the rooms. The memory of her
father and son checked her before the closed doors.
But, on the second day, in the bright spring sunshine, she explored the
park. It extended to the point of the island and, like the sward in
front of the house, was studded with ruins and covered with ivy. She
noticed that all the paths ran towards a steep promontory crowned with a
clump of enormous oaks. When she reached the spot, she found that these
oaks stood round a crescent-shaped clearing which was open to the sea.
In the centre of the clearing was a cromlech with a rather short, oval
table upheld by two supports of rock, which were almost square. The spot
possessed an impressive magnificence and commanded a boundless view.
"The Fairies' Dolmen, of which Honorine spoke," thought Veronique. "I
cannot be far from the Calvary and Maguennoc's flowers."
She walked round the megalith. The inner surface of the two uprights
bore a few illegible engraved signs. But the two outer surfaces facing
the sea formed as it were two smooth slabs prepared to receive an
inscription; and here she saw something that caused her to shudder with
anguish. On the right, deeply encrusted, was an unskilful, primitive
drawing of four crosses with four female figures writhing upon them. On
the left was a column of lines of writing, whose characters,
inadequately carved in the stone, had been almost obliterated by the
weather, or perhaps even deliberately effaced by human hands. A few
words remained, however, the very words which Veronique had read on the
drawing which she found beside Maguennoc's corpse:
"Four women crucified . . . . Thirty coffins . . . . The God-Stone which
gives life or death."
Veronique moved away, staggering. The mystery was once more before her,
as everywhere in the island, and she was determined to escape from it
until the moment when she could leave Sarek altogether.
She took a path which started from the clearing and led past the last
oak on the right. This oak appeared to have been struck by lightning,
for all that remained of it was the trunk and a few dead branches.
Farther on, she went down some stone steps, crossed a little meadow in
which stood four rows of menhirs and stopped suddenly with a stifled
cry, a cry of admiration and amazement, before the sight that presented
itself to her eyes.
"Maguennoc's flowers," she whispered.
The last two menhirs of the central alley which she was following stood
like the posts of a door that opened upon the most glorious spectacle, a
rectangular space, fifty yards long at most, which was reached by a
short descending flight of steps and bordered by two rows of menhirs all
of the same height and placed at accurately measured intervals, like the
columns of a temple. The nave and side-aisles of this temple were paved
with wide, irregular, broken granite flag-stones, which the grass,
growing in the cracks, marked with patterns similar to those of the lead
which frames the pieces of a stained-glass window.
In the middle was a small bed of flowers thronging around an ancient
stone crucifix. But such flowers! Flowers which the wildest imagination
or fancy never conceived, dream-flowers, miraculous flowers, flowers out
of all proportion to ordinary flowers!
Veronique recognized all of them; and yet she stood dumbfounded at their
size and splendour. There were flowers of many varieties, but few of
each variety. It was like a nosegay made to contain every colour, every
perfume and every beauty that flowers can possess.
And the strangest thing was that these flowers, which do not usually
bloom at the same time and which open in successive months, were all
growing and blossoming together! On one and the same day, these flowers,
all perennial flowers whose time does not last much more than two or
three weeks, were blooming and multiplying, full and heavy, vivid,
sumptuous, proudly borne on their sturdy stems.
There were spiderworts, there were ranunculi, tiger-lilies, columbines,
blood-red potentillas, irises of a brighter violet than a bishop's
cassock. There were larkspurs, phlox, fuchsias, monk's-hoods,
montbretias. And, above all this, to Veronique's intense emotion, above
the dazzling flower-bed, standing a little higher in a narrow border
around the pedestal of the crucifix, with all their blue, white and
violet clusters seeming to lift themselves so as to touch the Saviour's
very form, were veronicas!
She was faint with emotion. As she came nearer, she had read on a little
label fastened to the pedestal these two words.
"Mother's flowers."
* * * * *
Veronique did not believe in miracles. She was obliged to admit that the
flowers were wonderful, beyond all comparison with the flowers of our
climes. But she refused to think that this anomaly was not to be
explained except by supernatural causes or by magic recipes of which
Maguennoc held the secret. No, there was some reason, perhaps a very
simple one, of which events would afford a full explanation.
Meanwhile, amid the beautiful pagan setting, in the very centre of the
miracle which it seemed to have wrought by its presence, the figure of
Christ Crucified rose from the mass of flowers which offered Him their
colours and their perfumes. Veronique knelt and prayed.
Next day and the day after, she returned to the Calvary of the Flowers.
Here the mystery that surrounded her on every side had manifested itself
in the most charming fashion; and her son played a part in it that
enabled Veronique to think of him, before her own flowers, without
hatred or despair.
But, on the fifth day, she perceived that her provisions were becoming
exhausted; and in the middle of the afternoon she went down to the
village.
There she noticed that most of the houses had been left open, so certain
had their owners been, on leaving, of coming back again and taking what
they needed in a second trip.
Sick at heart, she dared not cross the thresholds. There were geraniums
on the window-ledges. Tall clocks with brass pendulums were ticking off
the time in the empty rooms. She moved away.
In a shed near the quay, however, she saw the sacks and boxes which
Honorine had brought with her in the motor-boat.
"Well," she thought, "I shan't starve. There's enough to last me for
weeks; and by that time . . ."
She filled a basket with chocolate, biscuits, a few tins of preserved
meat, rice and matches; and she was on the point of returning to the
Priory, when it occurred to her that she would continue her walk to the
other end of the island. She would fetch her basket on the way back.
A shady road climbed upwards on the right. The landscape seemed to be
the same: the same flat stretches of moorland, without ploughed fields
or pastures; the same clumps of ancient oaks. The island also became
narrower, with no obstacle to block the view of the sea on either side
or of the Penmarch headland in the distance.
There was also a hedge which ran from one cliff to the other and which
served to enclose a property, a shabby property, with a straggling,
dilapidated, tumbledown house upon it, some out-houses with patched
roofs and a dirty, badly-kept yard, full of scrap-iron and stacks of
firewood.
Veronique was already retracing her steps, when she stopped in alarm and
surprise. It seemed to her that she heard some one moan. She listened,
striving to plumb the vast silence, and once again the same sound, but
this time more distinctly, reached her ears; and there were others:
cries of pain, cries for help, women's cries. Then had not all the
inhabitants taken to flight? She had a feeling of joy mingled with some
sorrow, to know that she was not alone in Sarek, and of fear also, at
the thought that events would perhaps drag her back again into the fatal
cycle of death and horror.
So far as Veronique was able to judge, the noise came not from the
house, but from the buildings on the right of the yard. This yard was
closed with a simple gate which she had only to push and which opened
with the creaking sound of wood upon wood.
The cries in the out-house at once increased in number. The people
inside had no doubt heard Veronique approach. She hastened her steps.
Though the roof of the out-buildings was gone in places, the walls were
thick and solid, with old arched doors strengthened with iron bars.
There was a knocking against one of these doors from the inside, while
the cries became more urgent:
"Help! Help!"
But there was a dispute; and another, less strident voice grated:
"Be quiet, Clemence, can't you? It may be them!"
"No, no, Gertrude, it's not! I don't hear them! . . . Open the door,
will you? The key ought to be there."
Veronique, who was seeking for some means of entering, now saw a big key
in the lock. She turned it; and the door opened.
She at once recognized the sisters Archignat, half-dressed, gaunt,
evil-looking, witch-like. They were in a wash-house filled with
implements; and Veronique saw at the back, lying on some straw, a third
woman, who was bewailing her fate in an almost inaudible voice and who
was obviously the third sister.
At that moment, one of the first two collapsed from exhaustion; and the
other, whose eyes were bright with fever, seized Veronique by the arm
and began to gasp:
"Did you see them, tell me? . . . Are they there? . . . How is it they
didn't kill you? . . . They are the masters of Sarek since the others
went off . . . . And it's our turn next . . . . We've been locked in
here now for six days . . . . Listen, it was on the day when everybody
left. We three came here, to the wash-house, to fetch our linen, which
was drying. And then _they_ came . . . . We didn't hear them . . . . One
never does hear them . . . . And then, suddenly, the door was locked on
us . . . . A slam, a turn of the key . . . and the thing was done
. . . . We had bread, apples and best of all, brandy . . . . We didn't
do so badly . . . . Only, were they going to come back and kill us? Was
it our turn next? . . . Oh, my dear good lady, how we strained our ears!
And how we trembled with fear! . . . My eldest sister's gone crazy
. . . . Hark, you can hear her raving . . . . The other, Clemence, has
borne all she can . . . . And I . . . I . . . Gertrude . . ."
Gertrude had plenty of strength left, for she was twisting Veronique's
arm:
"And Correjou? He came back, didn't he, and went away again? Why didn't
anyone come to look for us? It would have been easy enough: everybody
knew where we were; and we called out at the least sound. So what does
it all mean?"
Veronique hesitated what to reply. Still, why should she conceal the
truth?
She replied:
"The two boats went down."
"What?"
"The two boats sank in view of Sarek. All on board were drowned. It was
opposite the Priory . . . after leaving the Devil's Passage."
Veronique said no more, so as to avoid mentioning the names of Francois
and his tutor or speaking of the part which these two had played. But
Clemence now sat up, with distorted features. She had been leaning
against the door and raised herself to her knees.
Gertrude murmured:
"And Honorine?"
"Honorine is dead."
"Dead!"
The two sisters both cried out at once. Then they were silent and looked
at each other. The same thought struck them both. They seemed to be
reflecting. Gertrude was moving her fingers as though counting. And the
terror on their two faces increased.
Speaking in a very low voice, as though choking with fear, Gertrude,
with her eyes fixed on Veronique, said:
"That's it . . . that's it . . . I've got the total . . . . Do you know
how many there were in the boats, without my sisters and me? Do you
know? Twenty . . . . Well, reckon it up: twenty . . . and Maguennoc, who
was the first to die . . . and M. Antoine, who died afterwards . . . and
little Francois and M. Stephane, who vanished, but who are dead too
. . . and Honorine and Marie Le Goff, both dead . . . . So reckon it up:
that makes twenty-six, twenty-six . . . The total's correct, isn't it?
. . . Now take twenty-six from thirty . . . . You understand, don't you?
The thirty coffins: they have to be filled . . . . So twenty-six from
thirty . . . leaves four, doesn't it?"
She could no longer speak; her tongue faltered. Nevertheless the
terrible syllables came from her mouth; and Veronique heard her
stammering:
"Eh? Do you understand? . . . That leaves four . . . us four . . . the
three sisters Archignat, who were kept behind and locked up . . . and
yourself . . . . So--do you follow me?--the three crosses--you know, the
'four women crucified'--the number's there . . . it's our four selves
. . . there's no one besides us on the island . . . four women . . . ."
Veronique had listened in silence. She broke out into a slight
perspiration.
She shrugged her shoulders, however:
"Well? And then? If there's no one except ourselves on the island, what
are you afraid of?"
"_Them_, of course! _Them!_"
Veronique lost her patience:
"But if everybody has gone!" she exclaimed.
Gertrude took fright:
"Speak low. Suppose they heard you!"
"But who?"
"_They_: the people of old."
"The people of old?"
"Yes, those who used to make sacrifices . . . the people who killed men
and women . . . to please their gods."
"But that's a thing of the past! The Druids: is that what you mean?
Come, come; there are no Druids nowadays."
"Speak quietly! Speak quietly! There are still . . . there are evil
spirits . . ."
"Then they're ghosts?" asked Veronique, horror-stricken by these
superstitions.
"Ghosts, yes, but ghosts of flesh and blood . . . with hands that lock
doors and keep you imprisoned . . . creatures that sink boats, the same,
I tell you, that killed M. Antoine, Marie Le Goff and the others . . .
that killed twenty-six of us . . . ."
Veronique did not reply. There was no reply to make. She knew, she knew
only too well who had killed M. d'Hergemont, Marie Le Goff and the
others and sunk the two boats.
"What time was it when the three of you were locked in?" she asked.
"Half-past ten . . . . We had arranged to meet Correjou in the village
at eleven."
Veronique reflected. It was hardly possible that Francois and Stephane
should have had time to be at half-past ten in this place and an hour
later to be behind the rock from which they had darted out upon the two
boats. Was it to be presumed that one or more of their accomplices were
left on the island?
"In any case," she said, "you must come to a decision. You can't remain
in this state. You must rest yourselves, eat something . . . ."
The second sister had risen to her feet. She said, in the same hollow
and violent tones as her sister:
"First of all, we must hide . . . and be able to defend ourselves
against _them_."
"What do you mean?" asked Veronique.
She too, in spite of herself, felt this need of a refuge against a
possible enemy.
"What do I mean? I'll tell you. The thing has been talked about a lot in
the island, especially this year; and Maguennoc decided that, at the
first attack, everybody should take shelter in the Priory."
"Why in the Priory?"
"Because we could defend ourselves there. The cliffs are perpendicular.
You're protected on every side."
"What about the bridge?"
"Maguennoc and Honorine thought of everything. There's a little hut
fifteen yards to the left of the bridge. That's the place they hit on to
keep their stock of petrol in. Empty three or four cans over the bridge,
strike a match . . . and the thing's done. You're just as in your own
home. You can't be got at and you can't be attacked."
"Then why didn't they come to the Priory instead of taking to flight in
the boats?"
"It was safer to escape in the boats. But we no longer have the choice."
"And when shall we start?"
"At once. It's daylight still; and that's better than the dark."
"But your sister, the one on her back?"
"We have a barrow. We've got to wheel her. There's a direct road to the
Priory, without passing through the village."
Veronique could not help looking with repugnance upon the prospect of
living in close intimacy with the sisters Archignat. She yielded,
however, swayed by a fear which she was unable to overcome:
"Very well," she said. "Let's go. I'll take you to the Priory and come
back to the village to fetch some provisions."
"Oh, you mustn't be away long!" protested one of the sisters. "As soon
as the bridge is cut, we'll light a bonfire on Fairies' Dolmen Hill and
they'll send a steamer from the mainland. To-day the fog is coming up;
but to-morrow . . ."
Veronique raised no objection. She now accepted the idea of leaving
Sarek, even at the cost of an enquiry which would reveal her name.
They started, after the two sisters had swallowed a glass of brandy. The
madwoman sat huddled in the wheel-barrow, laughing softly and uttering
little sentences which she addressed to Veronique as though she wanted
her to laugh too:
"We shan't meet them yet . . . . They're getting ready . . . ."
"Shut up, you old fool!" said Gertrude. "You'll bring us bad luck."
"Yes, yes, we shall see some sport . . . . It'll be great fun . . . . I
have a cross of gold hung round my neck . . . and another cut into the
skin of my head . . . . Look! . . . Crosses everywhere . . . . One ought
to be comfortable on the cross . . . . One ought to sleep well there
. . . ."
"Shut up, will you, you old fool?" repeated Gertrude, giving her a box
on the ear.
"All right, all right! . . . But it's they who'll hit you; I see them
hiding! . . ."
The path, which was pretty rough at first, reached the table-land formed
by the west cliffs, which were loftier, but less rugged and worn away
than the others. The woods were scarcer; and the oaks were all bent by
the wind from the sea.
"We are coming to the heath which they call the Black Heath," said
Clemence Archignat.
"_They_ live underneath."
Veronique once more shrugged her shoulders:
"How do you know?"
"We know more than other people," said Gertrude. "They call us witches;
and there's something in it. Maguennoc himself, who knew a great deal,
used to ask our advice about anything that had to do with healing, lucky
stones, the herbs you gather on St. John's Eve . . ."
"Mugwort and vervain," chuckled the madwoman. "They are picked at
sunset."
"Or tradition too," continued Gertrude. "We know what's been said in the
island for hundreds of years; and it's always been said that there was a
whole town underneath, with streets and all, in which _they_ used to
live of old. And there are some left still, I've seen them myself."
Veronique did not reply.
"Yes, my sister and I saw one. Twice, when the June moon was six days
old. He was dressed in white . . . and he was climbing the Great Oak to
gather the sacred mistletoe . . . with a golden sickle. The gold
glittered in the moonlight. I saw it, I tell you, and others saw it too
. . . . And he's not the only one. There are several of them left over
from the old days to guard the treasure . . . . Yes, as I say, the
treasure . . . . They say it's a stone which works miracles, which can
make you die if you touch it and which makes you live if you lie down on
it. That's all true, Maguennoc told us so, all perfectly true. _They_ of
old guard the stone, the God-Stone, and _they_ are to sacrifice all of
us this year . . . . yes, all of us, thirty dead people for the thirty
coffins . . . ."
"Four women crucified," crooned the madwoman.
"And it will be soon. The sixth day of the moon is near at hand. We must
be gone before _they_ climb the Great Oak to gather the mistletoe. Look,
you can see the Great Oak from here. It's in the wood on this side of
the bridge. It stands out above the others."
"_They_ are hiding behind it," said the madwoman, turning round in her
wheel-barrow. "_They_ are waiting for us."
"That'll do; and don't you stir . . . . As I was saying, you see the
Great Oak . . . over there . . . beyond the end of the heath. It is
. . . it is . . ."
She dropped the wheel-barrow, without finishing her sentence.
"Well?" asked Clemence. "What's the matter?"
"I've seen something," stammered Gertrude. "Something white, moving
about."
"Something? What do you mean? _They_ don't show themselves in broad
daylight! You've gone cross-eyed."
They both looked for a moment and then went on again. Soon the Great Oak
was out of sight.
The heath which they were now crossing was wild and rough, covered with
stones lying flat like tombstones and all pointing in the same
direction.
"It's _their_ burying-ground," whispered Gertrude.
They said nothing more. Gertrude repeatedly had to stop and rest.
Clemence had not the strength to push the wheel-barrow. They were both
of them tottering on their legs; and they gazed into the distance with
anxious eyes.
They went down a dip in the ground and up again. The path joined that
which Veronique had taken with Honorine on the first day; and they
entered the wood which preceded the bridge.
Presently the growing excitement of the sisters Archignat made
Veronique understand that they were approaching the Great Oak; and she
saw it standing on a mound of earth and roots, bigger than the others
and separated from them by wider intervals. She could not help thinking
that it was possible for several men to hide behind that massive trunk
and that perhaps several were hiding there now.
Notwithstanding their fears, the sisters had quickened their pace; and
they kept their eyes turned from the fatal tree.
They left it behind. Veronique breathed more freely. All danger was
passed; and she was just about to laugh at the sisters Archignat, when
one of them, Clemence, spun on her heels and dropped with a moan.
At the same time something fell to the ground, something that had struck
Clemence in the back. It was an axe, a stone axe.
"Oh, the thunder-stone, the thunder-stone!" cried Gertrude.
She looked up for a second, as if, in accordance with the inveterate
popular belief, she believed that the axe came from the sky and was an
emanation of the thunder.
But, at that moment, the madwoman, who had got out of her barrow, leapt
from the ground and fell head forward. Something else had whizzed
through the air. The madwoman was writhing with pain. Gertrude and
Veronique saw an arrow which had been driven through her shoulder and
was still vibrating.
Then Gertrude fled screaming.
Veronique hesitated. Clemence and the madwoman were rolling about on
the ground. The madwoman giggled:
"Behind the oak! They're hiding . . . I see them."
Clemence stammered:
"Help! . . . Lift me up . . . carry me . . . I'm terrified!"
But another arrow whizzed past them and fell some distance farther.
Veronique now also took to her heels, urged not so much by panic, though
this would have been excusable, as by the eager longing to find a weapon
and defend herself. She remembered that in her father's study there was
a glass case filled with guns and revolvers, all bearing the word
"loaded," no doubt as a warning to Francois; and it was one of these
that she wished to seize in order to face the enemy. She did not even
turn round. She was not interested to know whether she was being
pursued. She ran for the goal, the only profitable goal.
Being lighter and swifter of foot, she overtook Gertrude, who panted:
"The bridge . . . . We must burn it . . . . The petrol's there . . . ."
Veronique did not reply. Breaking down the bridge was a secondary matter
and would even have been an obstacle to her plan of taking a gun and
attacking the enemy.
But, when she reached the bridge, Gertrude whirled about in such a way
that she almost fell down the precipice. An arrow had struck her in the
back.
"Help! Help!" she screamed. "Don't leave me!"
"I'm coming back," replied Veronique, who had not seen the arrow and
thought that Gertrude had merely caught her foot in running. "I'm coming
back, with two guns. You join me."
She imagined in her mind that, once they were both armed, they would go
back to the wood and rescue the other sisters. Redoubling her efforts,
therefore, she reached the wall of the estate, ran across the grass and
went up to her father's study. Here she stopped to recover her breath;
and, after she had taken the two guns, her heart beat so fast that she
had to go back at a slower pace.
She was astonished at not meeting Gertrude, at not seeing her. She
called her. No reply. And it was not till then that the thought occurred
to her that Gertrude had been wounded like her sisters.
She once more broke into a run. But, when she came within sight of the
bridge, she heard shrill cries pierce through the buzzing in her ears
and, on coming into the open opposite the sharp ascent that led to the
wood of the Great Oak, she saw . . .
What she saw rivetted her to the entrance to the bridge. On the other
side, Gertrude was sprawling upon the ground, struggling, clutching at
the roots, digging her nails into the grass and slowly, slowly, with an
imperceptible and uninterrupted movement, moving along the slope.
And Veronique became aware that the unfortunate woman was fastened under
the arms and round the waist by a cord which was hoisting her up, like a
bound and helpless prey, and which was pulled by invisible hands above.
Veronique raised one of the guns to her shoulder. But at what enemy was
she to take aim? What enemy was she to fight? Who was hiding behind the
trees and stones that crowned the hill like a rampart?
Gertrude slipped between those stones, between those trees. She had
ceased screaming, no doubt she was exhausted and swooning. She
disappeared from sight.
Veronique had not moved. She realized the futility of any venture or
enterprise. By rushing into a contest in which she was beaten beforehand
she would not be able to rescue the sisters Archignat and would merely
offer herself to the conqueror as a new and final victim.
Besides, she was overcome with fear. Everything was happening in
accordance with the ruthless logic of facts of which she did not grasp
the meaning but which all seemed connected like the links of a chain.
She was afraid, afraid of those beings, afraid of those ghosts,
instinctively and unconsciously afraid, afraid like the sisters
Archignat, like Honorine, like all the victims of the terrible scourge.
She stooped, so as not to be seen from the Great Oak, and, bending
forward and taking the shelter offered by some bramble-bushes, she
reached the little hut of which the sisters Archignat had spoken, a sort
of summer-house with a pointed roof and coloured tiles. Half the
summer-house was filled with cans of petrol.
From here she overlooked the bridge, on which no one could step without
being seen by her. But no one came down from the wood.
Night fell, a night of thick fog silvered by the moon which just
allowed Veronique to see the opposite side.
After an hour, feeling a little reassured, she made a first trip with
two cans which she emptied on the outer beams of the bridge.
Ten times, with her ears pricked up, carrying her gun slung over her
shoulder and prepared at any moment to defend herself, she repeated the
journey. She poured the petrol a little at random, groping her way and
yet as far as possible selecting the places where her sense of touch
seemed to tell her that the wood was most rotten.
She had a box of matches, the only one that she had found in the house.
She took out a match and hesitated a moment, frightened at the thought
of the great light it would make:
"Even so," she reflected, "if it could be seen from the mainland . . .
But, with this fog . . ."
Suddenly she struck the match and at once lit a paper torch which she
had prepared by soaking it in petrol.
A great flame blazed and burnt her fingers. Then she threw the paper in
a pool of petrol which had formed in a hollow and fled back to the
summer-house.
The fire flared up immediately and, at one flash, spread over the whole
part which she had sprinkled. The cliffs on the two islands, the strip
of granite that united them, the big trees around, the hill, the wood of
the Great Oak and the sea at the bottom of the ravine: these were all
lit up.
"_They_ know where I am . . . . _They_ are looking at the summer-house
where I am hiding," thought Veronique, keeping her eyes fixed on the
Great Oak.
But not a shadow passed through the wood. Not a sound of voices reached
her ears. Those concealed above did not leave their impenetrable
retreat.
In a few minutes, half the bridge collapsed, with a great crash and a
gush of sparks. But the other half went on burning; and at every moment
a piece of timber tumbled into the precipice, lighting up the depths of
the night.
Each time that this happened, Veronique had a sense of relief and her
overstrung nerves grew relaxed. A feeling of security crept over her and
became more and more justified as the gulf between her and her enemies
widened. Nevertheless she remained inside the summer-house and resolved
to wait for the dawn in order to make sure that no communication was
henceforth possible.
The fog increased. Everything was shrouded in darkness. About the middle
of the night, she heard a sound on the other side, at the top of the
hill, so far as she could judge. It was the sound of wood-cutters
felling trees, the regular sound of an axe biting into branches which
were finally removed by breaking.
Veronique had an idea, absurd though she knew it to be, that they were
perhaps building a foot-bridge; and she clutched her gun resolutely.
About an hour later, she seemed to hear moans and even a stifled cry,
followed, for some time, by the rustle of leaves and the sound of steps
coming and going. This ceased. Once more there was a great silence which
seemed to absorb in space every stirring, every restless, every
quivering, every living thing.
The numbness produced by the fatigue and hunger from which she was
beginning to suffer left Veronique little power of thought. She
remembered above all that, having failed to bring any provisions from
the village, she had nothing to eat. She did not distress herself, for
she was determined, as soon as the fog lifted--and this was bound to
happen before long--to light bonfires with the cans of petrol. She
reflected that the best place would be at the end of the island, at the
spot where the dolmen stood.
But suddenly a dreadful thought struck her: had she not left her box of
matches on the bridge? She felt in her pockets but could not find it.
All search was in vain.
This also did not perturb her unduly. For the time being, the feeling
that she had escaped the attacks of the enemy filled her with such
delight that it seemed to her that all the difficulties would disappear
of their own accord.
The hours passed in this way, endlessly long hours, which the
penetrating fog and the cold made more painful as the morning
approached.
Then a faint gleam overspread the sky. Things emerged from the gloom and
assumed their actual forms. And Veronique now saw that the bridge had
collapsed throughout its length. An interval of fifty yards separated
the two islands, which were only joined below by the sharp, pointed,
inaccessible ridge of the cliff.
She was saved.
But, on raising her eyes to the hill opposite, she saw, right at the
top of the slope, a sight that made her utter a cry of horror. Three of
the nearest trees of those which crowned the hill and belonged to the
wood of the Great Oak had been stripped of their lower branches. And, on
the three bare trunks, with their arms strained backward, with their
legs bound, under the tatters of their skirts, and with ropes drawn
tight beneath their livid faces, half-hidden by the black bows of their
caps, hung the three sisters Archignat.
They were crucified.