Collected Works of Gaston Leroux

by Gaston Leroux

  “Madame,” returned the Captain in his calmest and iciest tones, while Dolores and I, beside him, shed a river of tears, “will you please rise...” and he helped her with incomparable dignity of movement to assume a less humble posture....— “Sit down near your friend, Monsieur Herbert, to whom, as it happens, I was saying a moment ago that certainly if it depended upon me not a hair of your children’s heads would be touched.”

  “Then upon whom does it depend?” she cried, more startled than before. “Indeed, Monsieur, those are terrible words to use to me. Is there then some one upon whom the safety of my children does depend...?”

  “Yes, Madame, it depends upon their father,” replied Captain Hyx, who showed himself more and more distant, affecting the non-committal attitude generally adopted by the Pontius Pilates of the world when some great crime is in contemplation.

  Before we could interpose, Amalia again fell on her knees to the Captain. She lifted up her hands to him in entreaty with a gesture which art has consecrated in its finest paintings whenever it has depicted human woe.

  “Their father... their father. Oh, Monsieur, I know what you mean. Their father bears a name which is loaded with the whole weight of the world’s detestation for crimes that are not so much his as those of a caste who have built up terror into a system. But their father is not a bad man. I have often been able to move him.... Let me be allowed to speak to him, and the man that you are will thank me for sparing you unnecessary ‘ deeds.’ Don’t you realise,” she continued, “ that if their father sent me away from him, and made me sail for a distant island, it was because he no longer had the strength to refuse me anything... no longer wished to listen to my voice which never ceased to reproach him for those German outrages.... My influence with ‘their father’ would be more powerful than anything you could do....”

  “Well, Madame,” interrupted Captain Hyx in a tone which seemed to possess peculiar significance, “ well, we’ll do our utmost to enable you to talk to ‘their father’ at the earliest possible moment.”

  “Oh, give me your promise,” cried the unhappy woman, crouching at his feet in an attitude of deepest misery. “Give me your promise that you will not harm, that no one will harm, any of these dear children until I have spoken to their father... and I will bless you!

  .. Listen... listen to me.... We must be logical... I see plainly that in spite of your goodness... I say you are good, I say you are good, I feel it... you are as mercilessly logical as you are powerful.... Well, I want to be logical too. I say to you: ‘Since it is not for your own devilish pleasure that crimes are being prepared here but to save the world... have I understood you? Oh, a mother understands everything, if she must, when it is a question of the safety of her children... well, nothing can be more effective in stopping German outrages than the voice of Amalia Edelman, which is not a German voice, in Admiral von Treischke’s ear. He is her husband and his children are your prisoners.... But swear to me, Monsieur, swear to me, that nothing shall be attempted against them before I return, for I shall have the courage and the confidence to leave them in your hands since it is necessary.... And I will return immediately I have spoken to him. I will return, I promise you, with a treaty of peace by which submarines will guarantee the lives of non-combatants, and of women and children; of all persons who have no connection and never had any connection with the war, and whose lives are sacred and should be respected by every high-minded and honourable combatant. That has always been my opinion, and the one ground of difference between my husband and me.... Monsieur, swear to me that you agree. My husband loves me.... Monsieur, my husband adores me. He will listen to me. But I want your word now. On my knees I implore you to give it to me.

  .. See.... I am weeping at your feet.... Swear that you will protect my children until then. I ask you nothing more. Afterwards... if I do not succeed it will be time for us to die, my children and myself; if our deaths can be useful to you for any purpose, Monsieur.”

  Oh! the accents... the accents in which those last words were spoken: “If our deaths can be useful to you for any purpose, Monsieur.”

  Dolores and I rose to our feet in tears in a common impulse to entreat the Captain to give Amalia her promise. But Dolores, unable to withstand the ominous glance which the Man who was master of us all flashed at her, sighed and hid her face in her hands.

  “Captain, grant this mother her request,” I exclaimed. “ If she returns without success I, too, shall be here to die with her.”

  “Madame, I repeat my promise to you that nothing shall be done until you have spoken to your husband.”

  The Captain pronounced these words decisively but coldly. His manner of expressing himself, however, was so grave that I was impressed by it and it gave me confidence in him. Nevertheless, as he turned to go away, after bowing to us, without troubling himself any further about the poor woman and her three little children, Amalia dragged herself after him and cried:

  “No... no. I cannot let you leave me in this way. I asked you to swear, but you have not sworn.... Take the oath that I want from you and I shall be easy in my mind.”

  “How, Madame, do you want me to take this oath?”

  “Oh,” she cried, “Oh.... Swear by the suffering that you have inflicted upon Uncle Ulrich who has paid his debt and owes you nothing more. Swear to me that my children shall be spared until I have spoken to my husband....”

  “Madame,” returned the Captain, “that is understood; and I swear it to you as you desire.”

  He rang the bell, and ordered the butler to conduct Amalia and her children back to her rooms, and to see that they were supplied with everything they wanted.

  CHAPTER XX

  UNCLE ULRICH AGAIN ON THE RACK

  SO AMALIA KNEW of Uncle Ulrich’s martyrdom! Her swift and emphatic change of front showed, I thought, that she must have learnt of the catastrophe at the very moment of its occurrence. Thus I was able to account for her sudden distress, and the frenzy with which she sought to obtain promises and oaths safeguarding the life of her children.

  “Do you think he will keep his oath?” she asked me, rising with my assistance from her kneeling posture as soon as Captain Hyx had left us.

  “I do think so,” I replied. “He seemed sincere enough. For that matter, I think that you divined the keynote to his character. He is a terrible utilitarian, or at least he thinks he is. You succeeded in convincing him that nothing could be more useful than a meeting between you and your husband. He promised you to bring about that meeting, and you need have no fear until then. For my part, my dear Amalia, I am easy in my mind, and am more than ever determined to share all your difficulties and dangers.”

  “What is Senorita Dolores’ opinion about it?” inquired Amalia.

  But Senorita Dolores was no longer with us. She, too, had left us. There was no one near us but the obsequious butler who placed himself “at Madame’s service” to show her back to her rooms.

  Accordingly we started to return, and on our way I questioned Amalia about Uncle Ulrich. But she did not answer me; perhaps she lacked the strength to say anything. At all events, when we reached her apartments, she threw open a door which led into a small study, and at the further end, lying on a camp-bed, was Uncle Ulrich. The ship’s doctor was holding vigil at his bedside.

  The dear man, eminent among the most learned, — I refer to Uncle Ulrich — had not changed greatly since his latest experience. He was rather pale, but his cheeks were full, his chin was firm and his hair still curled.

  He was peacefully sleeping.

  But his half-open mouth did not expose to view his tongue, and for a sufficient reason!

  The excellent doctor, who stood up when we came in, informed us that he had given the patient an injection of morphine. There was hardly any fever and in the course of a few days things would resume their normal condition for him with the exception, of course, of oratory, from which henceforth the dear man would unfortunately be compelled to abstain, “which,” add
ed the doctor, “ cannot but be rather a disadvantage to a professor.”

  “No,” exclaimed a voice behind us.

  Our astonishment may be imagined; particularly mine. It was Amalia’s voice. After rapping out this furious “No,” she left us to lock her children in their bedroom, and she returned to us before we had time to recover from the unexpected shock. Without troubling to ask herself if her outburst might not rouse the eminent Von Hahn from his refreshing sleep, Amalia proceeded to “ hold forth” against the professor in a manner which gave me a considerable insight into her real opinion of the German people from whom at all events she had acquired her husband.

  Oh, she still belonged at heart to Luxemburg. She was much more substantially a citizen of Luxemburg than many women of our country — and highly placed at that, if you please — who did not marry Germans.

  Our weakness, worse luck, as the feeble folk of a little state, compelled us to remain silent during those fateful hours when we might have had a mind to speak. We did not suffer like the Belgians because we did not fight — we could not fight — but we were humiliated, and I am not at all sure that this national humiliation did not play some part in the fit of indignation which suddenly leapt forth in Admiral von Treischke’s wife against Professor Ulrich von Hahn of Bonn University.

  At all events this particular reason, added to all the others, caused her to revolt against German arrogance and folly which had brought her and her children to such terrible straits.

  “No, no,” she cried in a state of fury bordering on distraction. “ No one need regret that Monsieur will not be able to talk in future. Certainly when I first heard of the catastrophe that had happened to him, its arbitrary daring and ruthless cruelty, I was much moved and filled with compassion for him. I am a woman. But — I say it now and I say what I think — Captain Hyx had some justification for having the Professor’s tongue cut out.... For it was the culprit.

  “Oh, let him seize all the professors... all of them... as long as he leaves me my children. And let these professors lose their tongues... all of them, so that my children may not hear them babble their tomfoolery again.... Oh, the monstrous drivel which is always on the tip of their tongues.... They must needs be long tongues to bear the weight of such colossal imbecilities and ineptitudes. Let him get rid of the tongues of all of them.

  “Why, you, my dear Carolus Herbert,... how many times have you not yourself heard them? If we did not get away from their talk in horror, it was at least to burst out laughing at them.... But we can’t laugh now at speeches which have reduced so many mothers to tears....

  “Oh, let them lose their tongues... let them lose their tongues.... And then we shan’t be compelled to listen to their pet phrases.... I know them all by heart.... Let us never again hear such speeches....

  “‘War is an instrument of progress.’

  There is no limit to the employment of violence in war.’

  “‘In war the end justifies the means.’

  “‘The people whose territory has been invaded must be left only their eyes to weep with.’

  “‘ Above all, we must be merciless.’

  “‘Ye say it is the good cause which halloweth even war. I say unto you: It is the good war which halloweth every cause.’

  “That’s from Neitzsche, I think, Uncle Ulrich.

  “‘Germany, thanks to its genius for organisation, has reached a higher level of civilisation than any other people. War will enable other people to participate in our civilisation!’ Do you think so, Professor von Hahn?

  “‘We have nothing to apologise for. We are morally and intellectually superior to any other nation. We are beyond comparison.... We shall make a clean sweep this time.’ Do you think so, Professor Lasson?

  “‘Kultur does not exclude ferocious barbarity... it glorifies the demoniacal.’ Do you think so, Thomas Mann?

  “And here is another abstract.... Think of it.

  “‘And thou, O Germany... slaughter millions of men... so that smoking flesh and human remains may be heaped up higher than the mountains, to the very skies.’ Do you think so, Heinrich Viererd, member of the Aulic Council? Do you think so, Uncle Ulrich?... Yes... yes.... It is an act of justice.... Let them lose their tongues.... Let them lose their tongues.”

  In the excitement of letting herself go, Amalia did not at first observe that Uncle Ulrich, roused from his semistupor by the sound of her voice bursting over him in its revengeful fury, was staring at her with terrified eyes and open mouth, vainly endeavouring to answer her.

  Suddenly Amalia looked at him, and caught sight of his mouth.... She bent over it with frantic delight. And drawing herself up with a gesture of triumph, she exclaimed; “Anyway I shall never again hear him shout Deutschland über ailes.”

  CHAPTER XXI

  THE MEANING OF CAPTAIN HYX’S PROMISE

  AMALIA WOULD NOT have been the kind and gentle soul that she was if after her paroxysm which was quite human in the circumstances, she had not immediately burst into tears and begged the doctor to look after Uncle Ulrich as he would a beloved relative.

  She turned to me and carried me off to the children’s room, and, out of the sight of alien eyes, we sympathised with each other, as was natural, on our sorry plight.

  While she was bemoaning her fate close by, I was stroking little Carolus’s hair. Dorothée and Heinrich, I am sorry to say, were playing “at war” as if they had forgotten altogether the tragic scene which took place before the Man in the mask, and as if there were no more delightful pastime in the world.

  Heinrich, of course, was in command of a submarine which was sinking the entire British fleet, and Dorothée with a towel over her head was a Red Cross nurse. Happy childhood!

  Amalia confided to me that at first she was displeased with the reckless obstinacy which I had shown in following her to her prison. That was one of the reasons why she had not received me with any great demonstration of welcome.

  Being very religious she attributed the misfortune that had befallen her to our mutual pleasure in meeting again at Funchal. It was the punishment which inevitably followed a “sin” of that sort. And so she was “cross” with me for the irreverent conversation into which she allowed herself to drift at the midnight mass.

  But she did not long persist in this attitude of flagrant injustice. She realised that the abduction was organised some little time before, and even if I had not happened to be in Madeira, it would have occurred just the same. And it was this thought which led her to express her real feelings, and she did not conceal from me that they were feelings of gratitude and friendship.

  She was particularly thankful to me for unhesitatingly sacrificing my liberty at a moment when she was about to undertake her great mission to her husband.

  “You came forward as a guarantee of my good faith,” she exclaimed warmly, “and you offered yourself as a hostage. You run the risk of suffering greatly for your courage.... And you’ve done this for me who never brought you anything but trouble.”

  I begged her not to talk like that but to consider only the safety of the children, and the great good that might ensue from an errand such as hers if she were to succeed in persuading Admiral von Treischke.

  “If he were the only person concerned,” she replied, “I would answer for him without hesitation, because he will want to save the children; but we have to deal with a ‘clique.’ All the same, I don’t despair of making them listen to reason, thanks to my husband’s predominant position. It is by no means in their interests to adopt an uncompromising attitude, and to create for themselves as time goes on more formidable enemies who have weapons at their command deadlier than their own.... And, dear friend, what else can I say to you? I shall do my utmost, and you will never be absent from my thoughts. I shall be conscious that you are here watching over the dear little things, and it will give me the courage not to return until I can bring back with me the treaty that will set us free.”

  “Do you think that the Admiral will al
low you to return?” I inquired.

  “Most certainly, for the sake of the children,” she answered. “Do you suppose that if Captain Hyx had the least fear about it he would have promised to let me go?”

  I was at a loss what to reply to her because her last words were so ominous, particularly so far as she herself was concerned, that I could only turn away to hide my acute anxiety. The unhappy woman saw for herself that the Vengeance had need of her, too, in its policy of reprisals. And yet the awful thought did not move her from her resolution, to which she was now devoted heart and soul, to return from her journey and bring back with her the precious treaty of “humanity.”

  On second thoughts the whole affair seemed to me to be fantastic. How could Captain Hyx expect that a woman as simple and as little versed in political craft as Amalia, would be able to take this step, and to transform at one stroke the procedure by which the German submarine campaign was carried on?

  There were other Admirals in Germany besides Admiral von Treischke, and even supposing that he himself were prepared to submit, it would be easy to find an officer to replace him.

  Was not the whole thing childish? And yet Captain Hyx was certainly no child.

  And then...?

  Then I was not comfortable in my mind about his promise to Amalia....

  What was behind it? What was its precise significance? It was impossible for me, of course, to say. But from the moment when these reflections crowded upon me, I believed that the promise contained some hidden meaning much more to be feared than anything we had imagined.

  It was simply an idea, but it seized hold of my mind so completely that I no longer listened even to what Amalia was saying, and I seemed to be waking from a dream when the maid came in and informed me that the doctor wished to see me.