"ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!"
The preparations were soon made; and Vorski himself took an active part
in them. Resting the ladder against the trunk of the tree, he passed one
end of the rope round his victim and the other over one of the upper
branches. Then, standing on the bottom rung, he instructed his
accomplices:
"Here, all you've got to do now is to pull. Get her on her feet first
and one of you keep her from falling."
He waited a moment. But Otto and Conrad were whispering to each other;
and he exclaimed:
"Look here, hurry up, will you? . . . Remember I'm making a pretty easy
target, if they took it into their heads to send a bullet or an arrow at
me. Are you ready?"
The two assistants did not reply.
"Well, this is a bit thick! What's the matter with you? Otto! Conrad!"
He leapt to the ground and shook them:
"You're a pair of nice ones, you are! At this rate, we should still be
at it to-morrow morning . . . and the whole thing will miscarry . . . .
Answer me, Otto, can't you?" He turned the light full on Otto's face.
"Look here, what's all this about? Are you wriggling out of it? If so,
you'd better say so! And you, Conrad? Are you both going on strike?"
Otto wagged his head:
"On strike . . . that's saying a lot. But Conrad and I would like a word
or two of explanation?"
"Explanation? What about, you pudding-head? About the lady we're
executing? About either of the two brats? It's no use taking that line,
my man. I said to you, when I first mentioned the business, 'Will you go
to work blindfold? There'll be a tough job and plenty of bloodshed. But
there's big money at the end of it.'"
"That's the whole question," said Otto.
"Say what you mean, you jackass!"
"It's for you to say and repeat the terms of our agreement. What are
they?"
"You know as well as I do."
"Exactly, it's to remind you of them that I'm asking you to repeat
them."
"I remember them exactly. I get the treasure; and out of the treasure I
pay you two hundred thousand francs between the two of you."
"That's so and it's not quite so. We'll come back to that. Let's begin
by talking of this famous treasure. Here have we been grinding away for
weeks, wallowing in blood, living in a nightmare of every sort of crime
. . . and not a thing in sight!"
Vorski shrugged his shoulders:
"You're getting denser and denser, my poor Otto! You know there were
certain things to be done first. They're all done, except one. In a few
minutes, this will be finished too and the treasure will be ours!"
"How do we know?"
"Do you think I'd have done all that I have done, if I wasn't sure of
the result . . . as sure as I am that I'm alive? Everything has happened
in a certain given order. It was all predetermined. The last thing will
come at the hour foretold and will open the gate for me."
"The gate of hell," sneered Otto, "as I heard Maguennoc call it."
"Call it by that name or another, it opens on the treasure which I shall
have won."
"Very well," said Otto, impressed by Vorski's tone of conviction, "very
well. I'm willing to believe you're right. But what's to tell us that we
shall have our share?"
"You shall have your share for the simple reason that the possession of
the treasure will provide me with such indescribable wealth that I'm not
likely to risk having trouble with you two fellows for the sake of a
couple of hundred thousand francs."
"So we have your word?"
"Of course."
"Your word that all the clauses of our agreement shall be respected."
"Of course. What are you driving at?"
"This, that you've begun to trick us in the meanest way by breaking one
of the clauses of the agreement."
"What's that? What are you talking about? Do you realize whom you're
speaking to?"
"I'm speaking to you, Vorski."
Vorski laid violent hands on his accomplice:
"What's this? You dare to insult me? To call me by my name, me, me?"
"What of it, seeing that you've robbed me of what's mine by rights?"
Vorski controlled himself and, in a voice trembling with anger:
"Say what you have to say and be careful, my man, for you're playing a
dangerous game. Speak out."
"It's this," said Otto. "Apart from the treasure, apart from the two
hundred thousand francs, it was arranged between us--you held up your
hand and took your oath on it--that any loose cash found by either of us
in the course of the business would be divided in equal shares: half for
you, half for Conrad and myself. Is that so?"
"That's so."
"Then pay up," said Otto, holding out his hand.
"Pay up what? I haven't found anything."
"That's a lie. While we were settling the sisters Archignat, you
discovered on one of them, tucked away in her bodice, the hoard which we
couldn't find in their house."
"Well, that's a likely story!" said Vorski, in a tone which betrayed his
embarrassment.
"It's absolutely the truth."
"Prove it."
"Just fish out that little parcel, tied up with string, which you've got
pinned inside your shirt, just there," said Otto, touching Vorski's
chest with his finger. "Fish it out and let's have a look at those fifty
thousand-franc notes."
Vorski made no reply. He was dazed, like a man who does not understand
what is happening to him and who is trying to guess how his adversary
procured a weapon against him.
"Do you admit it?" asked Otto.
"Why not?" he rejoined. "I meant to square up later, in the lump."
"Square up now. We'd rather have it that way."
"And suppose I refuse?"
"You won't refuse."
"Suppose I do?"
"In that case, look out for yourself!"
"I have nothing to fear. There's only two of you."
"There's three of us, at least."
"Where's the third?"
"The third is a gentleman who seems cleverer than most, from what Conrad
tells me: brrr! . . . The one who fooled you just now, the one with the
arrow and the white robe!"
"You propose to call him?"
"Rather!"
Vorski felt that the game was not equal. The two assistants were
standing on either side of him and pressing him hard. He had to yield:
"Here, you thief! Here, you robber!" he shouted, taking out the parcel
and unfolding the notes.
"It's not worth while counting," said Otto, snatching the bundle from
him unawares.
"Hi! . . ."
"We'll do it this way: half for Conrad, half for me."
"Oh, you blackguard! Oh, you double-dyed thief! I'll make you pay for
this. I don't care a button about the money. But to rob me as though
you'd decoyed me into a wood, so to speak! I shouldn't like to be in
your skin, my lad!"
He continued to insult the other and then, suddenly, burst into a laugh,
a forced, malicious laugh:
"After all, Otto, upon my word, well played! But where and how did you
come to know it? You'll tell me that, won't you? . . . Meanwhile, we've
not a minute to lose. We're agreed all round, aren't we? And you'll get
on with the work?"
"Willingly, since you're taking the thing so well," said Otto. And he
added, obsequiously, "After all . . . you have a style about you, sir!
You're a fine gentleman, you are!"
"And you, you're a varlet whom I pay. You've had your money, so hurry
up. The business is urgent."
* * * * *
The "business," as the frightful creatures called it, was soon done.
Climbing on his ladder, Vorski repeated his orders, which were executed
in docile fashion by Conrad and Otto.
They raised the victim to her feet and then, keeping her upright, hauled
at the rope. Vorski seized the poor woman and, as her knees were bent,
violently forced them straight. Thus flattened against the trunk of the
tree, with her skirt tightened round her legs, her arms hanging to right
and left at no great distance from her body, she was bound round the
waist and under the arms.
She seemed not to have recovered from her blow and uttered no sound of
complaint. Vorski tried to speak a few words, but spluttered them,
incapable of utterance. Then he tried to raise her head, but abandoned
the attempt, lacking the courage to touch her who was about to die: and
the head dropped low on the breast.
He at once got down and stammered:
"The brandy, Otto. Have you the flask? Oh, damn it, what a beastly
business!"
"There's time yet," Conrad suggested.
Vorski took a few sips and cried:
"Time . . . for what? To let her off? Listen to me, Conrad. Rather than
let her off, I'd sooner . . . yes, I'd sooner die in her stead. Give up
my task? Ah, you don't know what my task or what my object is! Besides
. . ."
He drank some more:
"It's excellent brandy, but, to settle my heart, I'd rather have rum.
Have you any, Conrad?"
"A drain at the bottom of a flask."
"Hand it over."
They had screened the lantern lest they should be seen; and they sat
close up to the tree, determined to keep silence. But this fresh drink
went to their heads. Vorski began to hold forth very excitedly:
"You've no need of any explanations. The woman who's dying up there,
it's no use your knowing her name. It's enough if you know that she's
the fourth of the women who were to die on the cross and was specially
appointed by fate. But there's one thing I can say to you, now that
Vorski's triumph is about to shine forth before your eyes. In fact I
take a certain pride in telling you, for, while all that's happened so
far has depended on me and my will, the thing that's going to happen
directly depends on the mightiest of will, wills working for Vorski!"
He repeated several times, as though smacking his lips over the name:
"For Vorski . . . For Vorski!"
And he stood up, impelled by the exuberance of his thoughts to walk up
and down and wave his arms:
"Vorski, son of a king, Vorski, the elect of destiny, prepare yourself!
Your time has come! Either you are the lowest of adventurers and the
guiltiest of all the great criminals dyed in the blood of their
fellow-men, or else you are really the inspired prophet whom the gods
crown with glory. A superman or a highwayman: that is fate's decree. The
last heart-beats of the sacred victim sacrificed to the gods are marking
the supreme seconds. Listen to them, you two!"
Climbing the ladder, he tried to hear those poor beats of an exhausted
heart. But the head, drooping to the left, prevented him from putting
his ear to the breast; and he dared not touch it. The silence was broken
only by a hoarse and irregular breath.
He said, in a low whisper:
"Veronique, do you hear me? Veronique . . . . Veronique . . . ."
After a moment's hesitation:
"I want you to know it . . . yes, I myself am terrified at what I'm
doing. But it's fate . . . . You remember the prophecy? 'Your wife shall
die on the cross.' Why, your very name, Veronique, demands it! . . .
Remember St. Veronica wiping Christ's face with a handkerchief and the
Saviour's sacred image remaining on the handkerchief . . . . Veronique,
you can hear me, surely? Veronique . . ."
He ran down hurriedly, snatched the flask of rum from Conrad's hands and
emptied it at a draught.
He was now seized with a sort of delirium which made him rave for a few
moments in a language which his accomplices did not understand. Then he
began to challenge the invisible enemy, to challenge the gods, to hurl
forth imprecations and blasphemies:
"Vorski is the mightiest of all men, Vorski governs fate. The elements
and the mysterious powers of nature are compelled to obey him.
Everything will fall out as he has determined; and the great secret will
be declared to him in the mystic forms and according to the rules of the
Kabala. Vorski is awaited as the prophet. Vorski will be welcomed with
cries of joy and ecstasy; and one whom I know not, one whom I can only
half see, will come to meet him with palms and benedictions. Let the
unknown make ready! Let him arise from the darkness and ascend from
hell! Here stands Vorski. To the sound of bells, to the singing of
alleluias, let the fateful sign be revealed upon the face of the
heavens, while the earth opens and sends forth whirling flames!"
He fell silent, as though he had descried in the air the signs which he
foretold. The hopeless death-rattle of the dying woman sounded from
overhead. The storm growled in the distance; and the black clouds were
rent by lightning. All nature seemed to be responding to the ruffian's
appeal.
His grandiloquent speech and his play-acting made a great impression on
the two accomplices.
"He frightens me," Otto muttered.
"It's the rum," Conrad replied. "But all the same he's foretelling
terrible things."
"Things which prowl round us," shouted Vorski, whose ears noticed the
least sound, "things which make part of the present moment and have been
bequeathed to us by the pageant of the centuries. It's like a
prodigious childbirth. And I tell the two of you, you will be the amazed
witnesses of these things! Otto and Conrad, be prepared as I am: the
earth will shake; and, at the very spot where Vorski is to win the
God-Stone, a column of fire will rise up to the sky."
"He doesn't know what he's saying," mumbled Conrad.
"And there he is on the ladder again," whispered Otto. "It'll serve him
right if he gets an arrow through him."
But Vorski's exaltation knew no bounds. The end was at hand. Extenuated
by pain, the victim was in her death-agony.
Beginning very low, so as to be heard by none save her, but raising his
voice gradually, Vorski said:
"Veronique . . . . Veronique . . . . You are fulfilling your mission
. . . . You are nearing the top of the ascent . . . . All honour to you!
You deserve a share in my triumph . . . . All honour to you! Listen! You
hear it already, don't you? The artillery of the heavens is drawing
near. My enemies are vanquished; you can no longer hope for rescue! Here
is the last beat of your heart . . . . Here is your last cry: '_Eloi,
Eloi, lama sabachthani?_ My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?'"
He screamed with laughter, like a man laughing at the most riotous
adventure. Then came silence. The roars of thunder ceased. Vorski bent
forward and suddenly, from the top of the ladder, shouted:
"_Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani!_ The gods have forsaken her. Death has
done its work. The last of the four women is dead. Veronique is dead!"
He was silent once again and then roared twice over:
"Veronique is dead! Veronique is dead!"
Once again there was a great, deep silence.
And all of a sudden the earth shook, not with a vibration produced by
the thunder, but with a deep inner convulsion, which came from the very
bowels of the earth and was repeated several times, like a noise
reechoing through the woods and hills.
And almost at the same time, close by, at the other end of the
semicircle of oaks, a fountain of fire shot forth and rose to the sky,
in a whirl of smoke in which flared red, yellow and violet flames.
Vorski did not speak a word. His companions stood aghast. One of them
stammered:
"It's the old rotten oak, the one which has already been struck by
lightning."
Though the fire had disappeared almost instantly, the three men retained
the fantastic vision of the old oak, all aglow, vomiting flames and
smoke of many colours.
"This is the entrance leading to the God-Stone," said Vorski, solemnly.
"Destiny has spoken, as I said it would: and it has spoken at the
bidding of me who was once its servant and who am now its master."
He advanced, carrying the lantern. They were surprised to see that the
tree showed no trace of fire and that the mass of dry leaves, held as in
a bowl where a few lower branches were outspread, had not caught fire.
"Yet another miracle," said Vorski. "It is all an inconceivable
miracle."
"What are we going to do?" asked Conrad.
"Go in by the entrance revealed to us . . . . Take the ladder, Conrad,
and feel with your hand in that heap of leaves. The tree is hollow and
we shall soon see . . ."
"A tree can be as hollow as you please," said Otto, "but there are
always roots to it; and I can hardly believe in a passage through the
roots."
"I repeat, we shall see. Move the leaves, Conrad, clear them away."
"No, I won't," said Conrad, bluntly.
"What do you mean, you won't? Why not?"
"Have you forgotten Maguennoc? Have you forgotten that he tried to touch
the God-Stone and had to cut his hand off?"
"But this isn't the God-Stone!" Vorski snarled.
"How do you know? Maguennoc was always speaking of the gate of hell.
Isn't this what he meant when he talked like that?"
Vorski shrugged his shoulders:
"And you, Otto, are you afraid too?"
Otto did not reply: and Vorski himself did not seem eager to risk the
attempt, for he ended by saying:
"After all, there's no hurry. Let's wait till daylight comes. We will
cut down the tree with an axe: and that will show us better than
anything how things stand and how to go to work."
They agreed accordingly. But, as the signal had been seen by others
besides themselves and as they must not allow themselves to be
forestalled, they resolved to sit down opposite the tree, under the
shelter offered by the huge table of the Fairies' Dolmen.
"Otto," said Vorski, "go to the Priory, fetch us something to drink and
also bring an axe, some ropes and anything else that we're likely to
want."
The rain was beginning to pour in torrents. They settled themselves
under the dolmen and each in turn kept watch while the other slept.
Nothing happened during the night. The storm was very violent. They
could hear the waves roaring. Then gradually everything grew quiet.
At daybreak they attacked the oak-tree, which they soon overthrew by
pulling upon the ropes.
They now saw that, inside the tree itself, amid the rubbish and the dry
rot, a sort of trench had been dug, which extended through the mass of
sand and stones packed about the roots.
They cleared the ground with a pick-axe. Some steps at once came into
sight: there was a sudden drop of earth: and they saw a staircase which
followed a perpendicular wall and led down into the darkness. They threw
the light of their lantern before them. A cavern opened beneath their
feet.
Vorski was the first to venture down. The others followed him
cautiously.
The steps, which at first consisted of earthen stairs reinforced by
flints, were presently hewn out of the rock. The cave which they entered
was in no way peculiar and seemed rather to be a vestibule. It
communicated, in fact, with a sort of crypt, which had a vaulted ceiling
and walls of rough masonry of unmortared stones.
All around, like shapeless statues, stood twelve small menhirs, each of
which was surmounted by a horse's skull. Vorski touched one of these
skulls; it crumbled into dust.
"No one has been to this crypt," he said, "for twenty centuries. We are
the first men to tread the floor of it, the first to behold the traces
of the past which it contains."
He added, with increasing emphasis:
"It is the mortuary-chamber of a great chieftain. They used to bury his
favourite horses with him . . . and his weapons too. Look, here are axes
. . . and a flint knife; and we also find the remains of certain funeral
rites, as this piece of charcoal shows and, over there, those charred
bones . . . ."
His voice was husky with emotion. He muttered: "I am the first to enter
here. I was expected. A whole world awakens at my coming."
Conrad interrupted him:
"There are other doorways, another passage; and there's a sort of light
showing in the distance."
A narrow corridor brought them to a second chamber, through which they
reached yet a third. The three crypts were exactly alike, with the same
masonry, the same upright stones, the same horses' skulls.
"The tombs of three great chieftains," said Vorski. "They evidently lead
to the tomb of a king; and the chieftains must have been the king's
guards, after being his companions during his lifetime. No doubt it's
the next crypt."
He hesitated to go farther, not from fear, but from excessive excitement
and a sense of inflamed vanity which he was enjoying to the full:
"I am on the verge of knowledge," he declaimed, in dramatic tones.
"Vorski is approaching the goal and has only to put out his hand to be
regally rewarded for his labours and his struggles. The God-Stone is
there. For ages and ages men have sought to fathom the secret of the
island and not one has succeeded. Vorski came and the God-Stone is his.
So let it show itself to me and give me the promised power. There is
nothing between it and Vorski, nothing but my will. And I declare my
will! The prophet has risen out of the night. He is here. If there be,
in this kingdom of the dead, a shade whose duty it is to lead me to the
divine stone and place the golden crown upon my head, let that shade
arise! Here stands Vorski."
He went in.
The fourth room was much larger and shaped like a dome with a slightly
flattened summit. In the middle of the flattened part was a round hole,
no wider than the hole left by a very small flue; and from it there fell
a shaft of half-veiled light which formed a very plainly-defined disk on
the floor.
The centre of this disk was occupied by a little block of stones set
together. And on this block, as though purposely displayed, lay a metal
rod.
In other respects, this crypt did not differ from the first three. Like
them it was adorned with menhirs and horses' heads, like them it
contained traces of sacrifices.
Vorski did not take his eyes off the metal rod. Strange to say, the
metal gleamed as though no dust had ever covered it. He put out his
hand.
"No, no," said Conrad, quickly.
"Why not?"
"It may be the one Maguennoc touched and burnt his hand with."
"You're mad."
"Still . . ."
"Oh, I'm not afraid of anything!" Vorski declared taking hold of the
rod.
It was a leaden sceptre, very clumsily made, but nevertheless revealing
a certain artistic intention. Round the handle was a snake, here
encrusted in the lead, there standing out in relief. Its huge,
disproportionate head formed the pommel and was studded with silver
nails and little green pebbles transparent as emeralds.
"Is it the God-Stone?" Vorski muttered.
He handled the thing and examined it all over with respectful awe; and
he soon observed that the pommel shifted almost loose. He fingered it,
turned it to the left, to the right, until at length it gave a click and
the snake's head became unfastened.
There was a space inside, containing a stone, a tiny, pale-red stone,
with yellow streaks that looked like veins of gold.
"It's the God-Stone, it's the God-Stone!" said Vorski, greatly agitated.
"Don't touch it!" Conrad repeated, filled with alarm.
"What burnt Maguennoc will not burn me," replied Vorski, solemnly.
And, in bravado, swelling with pride and delight, he kept the mysterious
stone in the hollow of his hand, which he clenched with all his
strength:
"Let it burn me! I will let it! Let it sear my flesh! I shall be glad if
it will!"
Conrad made a sign to him and put his finger to his lips.
"What's the matter?" asked Vorski. "Do you hear anything?"
"Yes," said the other.
"So do I," said Otto.
What they heard was a rhythmical, measured sound, which rose and fell
and made a sort of irregular music.
"Why, it's close by!" mumbled Vorski. "It sounds as if it were in the
room."
It was in the room, as they soon learnt for certain; and there was no
doubt that the sound was very like a snore.
Conrad, who had ventured on this suggestion, was the first to laugh at
it; but Vorski said:
"Upon my word, I'm inclined to think you're right. It _is_ a snore
. . . . There must be some one here then?"
"It comes from over there," said Otto, "from that corner in the dark."
The light did not extend beyond the menhirs. Behind each of them opened
a small, shadowy chapel. Vorski turned his lantern into one of these and
at once uttered a cry of amazement:
"Some one . . . yes . . . there is some one . . . . Look . . . ."
The two accomplices came forward. On a heap of rubble, piled up in an
angle of the wall, a man lay sleeping, an old man with a white beard and
long white hair. A thousand wrinkles furrowed the skin of his face and
hands. There were blue rings round his closed eyelids. At least a
century must have passed over his head.
He was dressed in a patched and torn linen robe, which came down to his
feet. Round his neck and hanging over his chest was a string of those
sacred beads which the Gauls called serpents' eggs and which are
actually sea-eggs or sea-urchins. Within reach of his hand was a
handsome jadeite axe, covered with illegible symbols. On the ground, in
a row, lay sharp-edged flints, some large, flat rings, two ear-drops of
green jasper and two necklaces of fluted blue enamel.
The old man went on snoring.
Vorski muttered:
"The miracle continues . . . . It's a priest . . . a priest like those
of the olden time . . . of the time of the Druids."
"And then?" asked Otto.
"Why, then he's waiting for me!"
Conrad expressed his brutal opinion:
"I suggest we break his head with his axe."
But Vorski flew into a rage:
"If you touch a single hair of his head, you're a dead man!"
"Still . . ."
"Still what?"
"He may be an enemy . . . he may be the one whom we were pursuing last
night . . . . Remember . . . the white robe."
"You're the biggest fool I ever met! Do you think that, at his age, he
could have kept us on the run like that?"
He bent over and took the old man gently by the arm, saying:
"Wake up! . . . It's I!"
There was no answer. The man did not wake up.
Vorski insisted.
The man moved on his bed of stones, mumbled a few words and went to
sleep again.
Vorski, growing a little impatient, renewed his attempts, but more
vigorously, and raised his voice:
"I say, what about it? We can't hang about all day, you know. Come on!"
He shook the old man more roughly. The man made a movement of
irritation, pushed away his importunate visitor, clung to sleep a few
seconds longer and, in the end, turned round wearily and, in an angry
voice, growled:
"Oh, rats!"