The Secret of Sarek

by Maurice Leblanc

  CHAPTER XIII

  "ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!"

  The preparations were soon made; and Vorski himself took an active partin them. Resting the ladder against the trunk of the tree, he passed oneend of the rope round his victim and the other over one of the upperbranches. Then, standing on the bottom rung, he instructed hisaccomplices:

  "Here, all you've got to do now is to pull. Get her on her feet firstand 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 easytarget, if they took it into their heads to send a bullet or an arrow atme. 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 beat 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 wordor two of explanation?"

  "Explanation? What about, you pudding-head? About the lady we'reexecuting? 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 goto work blindfold? There'll be a tough job and plenty of bloodshed. Butthere'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 arethey?"

  "You know as well as I do."

  "Exactly, it's to remind you of them that I'm asking you to repeatthem."

  "I remember them exactly. I get the treasure; and out of the treasure Ipay 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 beginby talking of this famous treasure. Here have we been grinding away forweeks, 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 werecertain things to be done first. They're all done, except one. In a fewminutes, 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 ofthe result . . . as sure as I am that I'm alive? Everything has happenedin a certain given order. It was all predetermined. The last thing willcome 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 shallhave won."

  "Very well," said Otto, impressed by Vorski's tone of conviction, "verywell. I'm willing to believe you're right. But what's to tell us that weshall have our share?"

  "You shall have your share for the simple reason that the possession ofthe treasure will provide me with such indescribable wealth that I'm notlikely to risk having trouble with you two fellows for the sake of acouple 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 oneof the clauses of the agreement."

  "What's that? What are you talking about? Do you realize whom you'respeaking 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 adangerous game. Speak out."

  "It's this," said Otto. "Apart from the treasure, apart from the twohundred thousand francs, it was arranged between us--you held up yourhand and took your oath on it--that any loose cash found by either of usin the course of the business would be divided in equal shares: half foryou, 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, youdiscovered on one of them, tucked away in her bodice, the hoard which wecouldn't find in their house."

  "Well, that's a likely story!" said Vorski, in a tone which betrayed hisembarrassment.

  "It's absolutely the truth."

  "Prove it."

  "Just fish out that little parcel, tied up with string, which you've gotpinned inside your shirt, just there," said Otto, touching Vorski'schest with his finger. "Fish it out and let's have a look at those fiftythousand-franc notes."

  Vorski made no reply. He was dazed, like a man who does not understandwhat is happening to him and who is trying to guess how his adversaryprocured 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 Conradtells me: brrr! . . . The one who fooled you just now, the one with thearrow and the white robe!"

  "You propose to call him?"

  "Rather!"

  Vorski felt that the game was not equal. The two assistants werestanding on either side of him and pressing him hard. He had to yield:

  "Here, you thief! Here, you robber!" he shouted, taking out the parceland unfolding the notes.

  "It's not worth while counting," said Otto, snatching the bundle fromhim 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 forthis. I don't care a button about the money. But to rob me as thoughyou'd decoyed me into a wood, so to speak! I shouldn't like to be inyour 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 youcome to know it? You'll tell me that, won't you? . . . Meanwhile, we'venot a minute to lose. We're agreed all round, aren't we? And you'll geton with the work?"

  "Willingly, since you're taking the thing so well," said Otto. And headded, 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 hurryup. 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 executedin docile fashion by Conrad and Otto.

  They raised the victim to her feet and then, keeping her upright, hauledat the rope. Vorski seized the poor woman and, as her knees were bent,violently forced them straight. Thus flattened against the trunk of thetree, with her skirt tightened round her legs, her arms hanging to rightand left at no great distance from her body, she was bound round thewaist and under the arms.

  She seemed
not to have recovered from her blow and uttered no sound ofcomplaint. Vorski tried to speak a few words, but spluttered them,incapable of utterance. Then he tried to raise her head, but abandonedthe attempt, lacking the courage to touch her who was about to die: andthe 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 beastlybusiness!"

  "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 thanlet her off, I'd sooner . . . yes, I'd sooner die in her stead. Give upmy 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 satclose up to the tree, determined to keep silence. But this fresh drinkwent 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'sthe fourth of the women who were to die on the cross and was speciallyappointed by fate. But there's one thing I can say to you, now thatVorski's triumph is about to shine forth before your eyes. In fact Itake a certain pride in telling you, for, while all that's happened sofar has depended on me and my will, the thing that's going to happendirectly 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 upand 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 theguiltiest of all the great criminals dyed in the blood of theirfellow-men, or else you are really the inspired prophet whom the godscrown with glory. A superman or a highwayman: that is fate's decree. Thelast heart-beats of the sacred victim sacrificed to the gods are markingthe supreme seconds. Listen to them, you two!"

  Climbing the ladder, he tried to hear those poor beats of an exhaustedheart. But the head, drooping to the left, prevented him from puttinghis ear to the breast; and he dared not touch it. The silence was brokenonly 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'mdoing. But it's fate . . . . You remember the prophecy? 'Your wife shalldie on the cross.' Why, your very name, Veronique, demands it! . . .Remember St. Veronica wiping Christ's face with a handkerchief and theSaviour'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 andemptied it at a draught.

  He was now seized with a sort of delirium which made him rave for a fewmoments in a language which his accomplices did not understand. Then hebegan to challenge the invisible enemy, to challenge the gods, to hurlforth imprecations and blasphemies:

  "Vorski is the mightiest of all men, Vorski governs fate. The elementsand the mysterious powers of nature are compelled to obey him.Everything will fall out as he has determined; and the great secret willbe declared to him in the mystic forms and according to the rules of theKabala. Vorski is awaited as the prophet. Vorski will be welcomed withcries of joy and ecstasy; and one whom I know not, one whom I can onlyhalf see, will come to meet him with palms and benedictions. Let theunknown make ready! Let him arise from the darkness and ascend fromhell! Here stands Vorski. To the sound of bells, to the singing ofalleluias, let the fateful sign be revealed upon the face of theheavens, while the earth opens and sends forth whirling flames!"

  He fell silent, as though he had descried in the air the signs which heforetold. The hopeless death-rattle of the dying woman sounded fromoverhead. The storm growled in the distance; and the black clouds wererent by lightning. All nature seemed to be responding to the ruffian'sappeal.

  His grandiloquent speech and his play-acting made a great impression onthe two accomplices.

  "He frightens me," Otto muttered.

  "It's the rum," Conrad replied. "But all the same he's foretellingterrible things."

  "Things which prowl round us," shouted Vorski, whose ears noticed theleast sound, "things which make part of the present moment and have beenbequeathed to us by the pageant of the centuries. It's like aprodigious childbirth. And I tell the two of you, you will be the amazedwitnesses of these things! Otto and Conrad, be prepared as I am: theearth will shake; and, at the very spot where Vorski is to win theGod-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 himright if he gets an arrow through him."

  But Vorski's exaltation knew no bounds. The end was at hand. Extenuatedby pain, the victim was in her death-agony.

  Beginning very low, so as to be heard by none save her, but raising hisvoice 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! Youhear it already, don't you? The artillery of the heavens is drawingnear. My enemies are vanquished; you can no longer hope for rescue! Hereis 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 riotousadventure. Then came silence. The roars of thunder ceased. Vorski bentforward and suddenly, from the top of the ladder, shouted:

  "_Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani!_ The gods have forsaken her. Death hasdone 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 bythe thunder, but with a deep inner convulsion, which came from the verybowels of the earth and was repeated several times, like a noisereechoing through the woods and hills.

  And almost at the same time, close by, at the other end of thesemicircle 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 themstammered:

  "It's the old rotten oak, the one which has already been struck bylightning."

  Though the fire had disappeared almost instantly, the three men retainedthe fantastic vision of the old oak, all aglow, vomiting flames andsmoke 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 thebidding of me who was once its servant and who am now its master."

  He advanced, carrying the lantern. They were surprised to see that thetree showed no trace of fire and that the mass of dry leaves, held as ina bowl where a few lower branches were outspread, had not caught fire.

  "Yet another miracle," said Vorski. "It is all an inconceivablemiracle."

  "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 andwe shall soon see . . ."

  "A tree can be as hollow as you please," said Otto, "but there arealways roots to it; and I can hardly believe in a passage through theroots."

  "I repeat, we s
hall 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 touchthe 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 theattempt, for he ended by saying:

  "After all, there's no hurry. Let's wait till daylight comes. We willcut down the tree with an axe: and that will show us better thananything how things stand and how to go to work."

  They agreed accordingly. But, as the signal had been seen by othersbesides themselves and as they must not allow themselves to beforestalled, they resolved to sit down opposite the tree, under theshelter offered by the huge table of the Fairies' Dolmen.

  "Otto," said Vorski, "go to the Priory, fetch us something to drink andalso bring an axe, some ropes and anything else that we're likely towant."

  The rain was beginning to pour in torrents. They settled themselvesunder the dolmen and each in turn kept watch while the other slept.

  Nothing happened during the night. The storm was very violent. Theycould hear the waves roaring. Then gradually everything grew quiet.

  At daybreak they attacked the oak-tree, which they soon overthrew bypulling upon the ropes.

  They now saw that, inside the tree itself, amid the rubbish and the dryrot, a sort of trench had been dug, which extended through the mass ofsand and stones packed about the roots.

  They cleared the ground with a pick-axe. Some steps at once came intosight: there was a sudden drop of earth: and they saw a staircase whichfollowed a perpendicular wall and led down into the darkness. They threwthe light of their lantern before them. A cavern opened beneath theirfeet.

  Vorski was the first to venture down. The others followed himcautiously.

  The steps, which at first consisted of earthen stairs reinforced byflints, were presently hewn out of the rock. The cave which they enteredwas in no way peculiar and seemed rather to be a vestibule. Itcommunicated, in fact, with a sort of crypt, which had a vaulted ceilingand walls of rough masonry of unmortared stones.

  All around, like shapeless statues, stood twelve small menhirs, each ofwhich was surmounted by a horse's skull. Vorski touched one of theseskulls; it crumbled into dust.

  "No one has been to this crypt," he said, "for twenty centuries. We arethe first men to tread the floor of it, the first to behold the tracesof the past which it contains."

  He added, with increasing emphasis:

  "It is the mortuary-chamber of a great chieftain. They used to bury hisfavourite horses with him . . . and his weapons too. Look, here are axes. . . and a flint knife; and we also find the remains of certain funeralrites, as this piece of charcoal shows and, over there, those charredbones . . . ."

  His voice was husky with emotion. He muttered: "I am the first to enterhere. 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 lightshowing in the distance."

  A narrow corridor brought them to a second chamber, through which theyreached yet a third. The three crypts were exactly alike, with the samemasonry, the same upright stones, the same horses' skulls.

  "The tombs of three great chieftains," said Vorski. "They evidently leadto the tomb of a king; and the chieftains must have been the king'sguards, after being his companions during his lifetime. No doubt it'sthe next crypt."

  He hesitated to go farther, not from fear, but from excessive excitementand 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 beregally rewarded for his labours and his struggles. The God-Stone isthere. For ages and ages men have sought to fathom the secret of theisland 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 isnothing between it and Vorski, nothing but my will. And I declare mywill! 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 thedivine stone and place the golden crown upon my head, let that shadearise! Here stands Vorski."

  He went in.

  The fourth room was much larger and shaped like a dome with a slightlyflattened 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 fella shaft of half-veiled light which formed a very plainly-defined disk onthe floor.

  The centre of this disk was occupied by a little block of stones settogether. And on this block, as though purposely displayed, lay a metalrod.

  In other respects, this crypt did not differ from the first three. Likethem it was adorned with menhirs and horses' heads, like them itcontained traces of sacrifices.

  Vorski did not take his eyes off the metal rod. Strange to say, themetal gleamed as though no dust had ever covered it. He put out hishand.

  "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 therod.

  It was a leaden sceptre, very clumsily made, but nevertheless revealinga certain artistic intention. Round the handle was a snake, hereencrusted in the lead, there standing out in relief. Its huge,disproportionate head formed the pommel and was studded with silvernails 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; andhe 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 andthe 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 mysteriousstone in the hollow of his hand, which he clenched with all hisstrength:

  "Let it burn me! I will let it! Let it sear my flesh! I shall be glad ifit 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 felland made a sort of irregular music.

  "Why, it's close by!" mumbled Vorski. "It sounds as if it were in theroom."

  It was in the room, as they soon learnt for certain; and there was nodoubt that the sound was very like a snore.

  Conrad, who had ventured on this suggestion, was the first to laugh atit; 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 openeda small, shadowy chapel. Vorski turned his lantern into one of these andat 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 anangle of the wall, a man lay sleeping, an old man with a white be
ard andlong white hair. A thousand wrinkles furrowed the skin of his face andhands. There were blue rings round his closed eyelids. At least acentury must have passed over his head.

  He was dressed in a patched and torn linen robe, which came down to hisfeet. Round his neck and hanging over his chest was a string of thosesacred beads which the Gauls called serpents' eggs and which areactually sea-eggs or sea-urchins. Within reach of his hand was ahandsome jadeite axe, covered with illegible symbols. On the ground, ina row, lay sharp-edged flints, some large, flat rings, two ear-drops ofgreen 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 thoseof 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 lastnight . . . . Remember . . . the white robe."

  "You're the biggest fool I ever met! Do you think that, at his age, hecould 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 tosleep again.

  Vorski, growing a little impatient, renewed his attempts, but morevigorously, 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 ofirritation, pushed away his importunate visitor, clung to sleep a fewseconds longer and, in the end, turned round wearily and, in an angryvoice, growled:

  "Oh, rats!"