Collected Works of Eugène Sue

by Eugène Sue

  Erebus was overwhelmed.

  Neither threats nor entreaties could shake the determination of Hadji, or of the crew.

  For a moment, in his despair, he was on the point of throwing himself into the sea and swimming to the coast, that he might be killed by the pirates; then he remembered that such a course would leave Reine without a defender. He descended to the cabin in the gloom of despair.

  “There is our generous saviour,” cried Reine, rising and walking up to him. Erebus shook his head sadly, and said:

  “I am now a prisoner like you.”

  And he related to the two young girls what had just transpired on the bridge. One moment calmed by a deceitful assurance, the distress of Reine now burst forth with renewed violence, and notwithstanding the repentance of Erebus, she accused him, with reason, of being the author of the misery which oppressed her.

  Such was the state of affairs on board the chebec, when, now commanded by Hadji, since Erebus had joined Reine and Stephanette, it approached the galleys of Pog and Trimalcyon, which, by dint of oars, were leaving La Ciotat after their fatal expedition.

  The Bohemian stood at the stem of the chebec, when Pog-Reis, hailing it from his galley, said to him:

  “Ah, well! is that girl on board?”

  “Yes, Captain Pog, and more, there is a linnet with the dove.”

  “And Erebus?”

  “Captain Erebus wanted to do what Captain Pog foresaw,” said the Bohemian, making an intelligent sign.

  “I expected it Watch him. Keep the command of the chebec, sail in my waters, and follow my manoeuvres.”

  “You will be obeyed, Captain Pog. But before parting from you, let me make you a present There are the papers and playthings of love belonging to a chevalier of Malta. It is, I believe, a story worthy of Ben-Absull. I got this treasure-trove from the cabin of the watchman. I thought I had found a diamond, and found only a grain of corn. But it may interest you, Captain Pog. There is a Maltese cross on the casket; everything which bears that hated sign returns to you by right.”

  As he said these words, Hadji threw at the feet of Pog-Reis the carved silver casket that he had stolen from the ebony case belonging to Peyrou. This casket was wrapped in a scarf, designed to protect the broken cover.

  Pog-Reis, little appreciative of the Bohemian’s attention, made a sign to him to continue his route.

  The chebec took her place of headway behind the galley of Pog, and the three vessels soon disappeared in the east, directing their course with all possible speed toward the isles of St Honorât, where they intended to lie in for repairs.

  CHAPTER XXXIII. DISCOVERY

  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 mis
taken; 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.

  CHAPTER XXXIV. THE LETTERS

  WE WILL NOW put before the eyes of the reader the letters that Pog was reading with such painful attention.

  The first had been written by himself, about twenty years before the period of which we now speak. So striking was the contrast between his life then, — a life calm, happy, and smiling, — and the life of a pirate and murderer, that one might be moved to pity the unhappy man, if only by comparing him as he was, to what he had been in the past.

  The height from which he had fallen, the depth of infamy to which he had descended, must have moved the most obdurate heart to pity!

  These letters will unveil also what mysterious tie united the Commander des Anbiez, Erebus, and Pog, to whom we restore his real name, that of Count Jacques de Montreuil, former lieutenant of the king’s galleys.

  M. de Montreuil — Pog — had written the following letter to his wife on his return from a campaign of eight or nine months in the Mediterranean.

  This letter was dated from the lazaretto, or pest-house, in Marseilles.

  The galley of Count de Montreuil, having touched at Tripoli, of Syria, where the plague had been declared, was compelled according to custom to submit to a long quarantine.

  Madame Emilie de Montreuil lived in a country house situated on the borders of the Rhone, near Lyons.

  First Letter.

  “Lazaretto de Marseilles, December 10,1612.

  “On board the Capitaine.

  “Can it be true, Emilie, — can it be true? My heart overflows with joy.

  “I do not know how to express my surprise to you. It is an intoxication of happiness, it is a flowering of the soul, — a foolish exaltation which borders on delirium, if each moment a holy, grateful thought did not lead me to God, the almighty author of our felicities!

  “Oh, if you only knew, Emilie, how I have prayed to him, as I have blessed him! with what profound fervour I have lifted to him my transported soul! Thanks to thee, my God, who hast heard our prayers. Thanks to thee, my God, who dost crown the sacred love which unites us by giving us a child.

  “Emilie — Emilie, I am crazy with joy.

  “As I write this word, — a child, — my hand trembles, my heart leaps.

  “Wait, for I am weeping.

  “Oh, I have wept with delight!

  “What sweet tears! How good it is to weep!

  “Emilie, my wife, soul of my soul, life of my life, pure treasure of the purest virtues!

  “It seems to me now that your beautiful brow must radiate majesty. I prostrate myself before you, there is something so divine in maternity.

  “Emilie, you know it, since the three years of our union, our love, never has a cloud troubled it. Each day has added a day to this life of delight.

  “Yet, in spite of myself, doubtless, I have caused you, perhaps, not some pain, not some displeasure, but some little contrariety, and you always so sweet, so good, you have no doubt hidden it from me. Ah, well! in this solemn day I come to you on both knees, to ask your forgiveness as I would ask forgiveness of God for having offended him.

  “You know, Emilie, that dear as you are to me, our ever reviving tenderness would change our solitude to paradise. Ah, well! this happiness of the past, which seemed then to go beyond all possible limits, is yet to be doubled.

  “Do you not find, Emilie, that in the happiness of two there is a sort of egotism, a sort of isolation, which disappears when a cherished child comes to double our pleasures by adding to them the most tender, most touching, most adorable duties?

  “Oh, these duties, how well you will understand them!

  “Have you not been a model of daughters? What sublime devotion to your father! What abnegation! What care!

  “Oh, yes! the best, the most adorable of daughters will be the best, the most adorable of mothers!

  “My God! how we love each other, Emilie! And as we love each other, how we shall love it, this poor little being! My God! how we shall love it!

  “My wife, my beloved angel, I weep again.

  “My reason is lost. Oh, forgive me, but I have had no news from you in so long a time, and then the first letter that you write me, after so many months of absence, comes to inform me of this. My God! how can I resist weeping?

  “I do not know how to tell you of my dreams, my plans, the visions that I caress.

  “If it is a daughter, she must be named Emilie, like you. I wish it. I ask it of you. There can be nothing more charming than these happy repetitions of names.

  “Do you see how I will gain by it? When I call an Emilie tenderly, two will come to me. That sweet name, the only name which now exists for me, will reach in two hearts at once.

  “If it is a boy, would you wish to call it for me?

  “And now, Emilie, we must not forget to put a little fence around the lake and on the border of the river. Great God! if our child should —

  “You see, Emilie, as I know your heart, this fear will not appear exaggerated to you. It will not make you smile. No, no, but tears will fill your eyes. Oh, is not that true? is it not? I know you so well!

  “Is there an emotion of your heart to which I am a stranger? But tell me, how have I deserved so much love? What have I done so good, so great, that Heaven should recompense me thus?

  “You know that I have always had religious sentiments.

  “You know that you have often said that, if I did not know exactly the feasts of the Church, I knew perfectly well the number of poor in the neighbourhood. Now, I feel the need, not of a more ardent faith, for I believe. Oh, I have so many reasons to believe, — to believe with fervour. But I feel the need of a life more soberly religious, — more serious.

  “I owe all to God; paternity is such an imposing priesthood. Now no action of our lives can be indifferent. Nothing belongs to us any longer. We must not only look forward to our own future, but to that of our child.

  “You think, Emilie, that what you desire so much, that what you dared not ask me, out of respect for the will of my father; you think that my dismissal from the service is not a question.

  “There is not now an hour, a minute of my life, which does not belong to our child. If I have yielded to your entreaties with so much regret, poor wife, because I desired to follow the last request of my father faithfully, now it need be so no longer. Although our wealth is considerable, we must neglect nothing now which can increase it.

  “Heretofore we have trusted to agents the management of our affairs; now I shall undertake them myself.

  “That will be so much gained for our child. When the lease of our farms near Lyons has expired, we ourselves will put our lands in good condition.

  “You know, my love, the dream of my life has been to lead the life of a country gentleman in the midst of sweet and sacred family joys. Your tastes, your character, your angelic virtues, fit you also for the enjoyment of such peaceful pleasures and associations. What more can I say, my Emilie, my blessed angel of God?

  “I have just been interrupted. The lazaretto boat is leaving this moment.

  “I am in de
spair when I think of the long mortal month which still separates me from the spot where I shall fall on my knees, and we shall join our hands in thanking God for his gift.”

  This artless letter, puerile perhaps in its detail, but which pictured a happiness so profound, which spoke of hopes so radiant, was enclosed in another letter, bearing this address, “To the Commander Pierre des Anbiez,” and containing the following words, written in haste, and with a weak and trembling hand:

  Second Letter.

  “December 13th, midnight.

  “He believes me — read — read. I feel that I am about to die — read, that his letter may be our torment here below, while we wait for that which God reserves for us.

  “Now, I am ashamed of you — of myself; we have been base — base like the traitors we are.

  “This infamous lie — never will I dare assert it before him — never will I allow him to believe that this child — Ah, I am in an abyss of despair!

  “Be accursed! Depart, depart!

  “Never has my sin appeared more terrible to me than since this execrable lie was made to impose upon his noble confidence in order to shield ourselves.

  “May Heaven protect this unfortunate child.

  “Under what horrible auspices will it be born, if it is born, for I feel now it must die before seeing the light — I can never survive the agony I suffer. Yet my husband is coming, — never will I lie to him. What shall I do?

  “No, do not depart — my poor head wanders — at least — surely — you will not abandon me — no, no, do not depart — come — come —

  “Emilie.”

  Pog, the Count de Montreuil, as the sequel will show, had never been able, in discovering his wife’s guilt, to learn the name of the unhappy woman’s seducer. Nor did he know that Erebus was the child of this adulterous connection.

  For a moment he was overwhelmed with conflicting emotions. Although such a bitterness of resentment might seem puerile, after the lapse of so many years, his rage reached its height when he saw this letter, written by himself in the very intoxication of happiness, and full of those confidences of the soul which a man dares pour out only in the heart of a beloved wife, enclosed in one addressed to her seducer, when he realised that it had been read, perhaps laughed at, by his enemy, the Commander des Anbiez.