“Old chap,” said Escander, “I’m bringing you something that would cure a neurasthenic abandoned by all the faculties in the world. Do you still have your yacht?”
“The Étoile polaire? Of course—but what can I do…?”
“You’re going to do something with it. Is it ready to sail?”
“A dispatch to the captain and she can put to sea tomorrow.”
“Perfect. Let’s have dinner, then, and listen to me.”
Throughout dinner, Escander talked. By dessert, Laverdy as exultant; he was no longer taking about ennui or the desire to die; on the contrary, he was burning with a fever of activity, and if the journalist had listened to him they would both have left that same evening. Escander left him in that disposition, and while going home, as he expelled the smoke of a magnificent cigar toward the September sky, he said to himself: This is definitely turning out even better than I hoped. The Boss will be pleased.
Two days later, he introduced Laverdy to Mathilde, and the chocolatier took the young woman to Le Havre in his powerful automobile.
XIII. The Manuscript Continued:
The Revolt
For a fortnight, the second lieutenant has hardly quit my laboratory. I’ve succeeded in devising an explosive that produces a considerable force of expansion from a very small volume. I’ve enclosed it in six medium-sized metallic flasks; with the aid of a single inversion one can obtain, by mixing the elements, an almost instantaneous deflagration. I’ve hidden four of the flasks at different points on the airship and kept the other two—after which I had the commandant notified that I’ve concluded my initial research and that I’d like to show him the results.
He summoned me immediately.
“In the course of my work,” I said, “I’ve discovered an explosive that deploys a hitherto-unknown force.”
He smiled skeptically.
“I’d like you to give me the opportunity to experiment with it in your presence,” I went on. “One cubic centimeter of the product could reduce the room we’re in to smithereens; I’d like to convince you of that.”
He was no longer laughing.
“In sum, what do you want, Monsieur Ménestin?”
“That you place me above some target—a rock, for instance. You’ll see that I’m not exaggerating.”
“All right. Tomorrow we’ll pass over a group of rocks at sea level; you can take your choice—but don’t hope that your discovery can modify in any way the conditions of your sojourn here; it’s a gas that you’re supposed to reconstitute, not an explosive.”
I inclined my head to show that I’d understood and left. Second Lieutenant Eitel joined me on the bridge where I like to stand.
“At six o’clock tomorrow,” he told me, “when the convicts come out, there’ll be two executions…punishment number 3 and punishment number 4. You’ll have to watch. Summon up your courage; they’re said to be terrible punishments.”
“But aren’t you revolted by such cruelties yourself, Lieutenant?”
“My own misery causes me to scorn that of others. However, the contemplation of the spectacle will be odious to me.”
The last remark astonished me, but I was not at the end of the surprises that Lieutenant Eitel had in store for me.
That evening we found ourselves in the same place, and we spent the evening chatting about a thousand things. As we separated, he took my hand and shook it, with a long, embarrassing grip.
“If you only knew how I’d like to be your friend!” he said.
“But aren’t you, to the extent that you can be?”
“Not enough for my liking, Monsieur Ménestin. If, at the price of a treason, I could conquer your…affection, in order to obtain it, I’d betray my father and my country.”
He did not wait for the effect of his words. Confused, he got up, uttering a kind of dolorous groan, and drew away rapidly. I saw him take one of the ladders and go to one of the engine rooms, almost at a run.
I remained disconcerted by those words, so grave or so ill-considered. After a while, the lieutenant came back, sat down, and, with his face turned skywards, appeared to deliver himself to a profound meditation.
He uttered a long sigh, and turned toward me. I remained standing beside him.
“Life is cruel, Monsieur Ménestin; there’s little we can do to make it better. It’s necessary to encounter a soul that understands your own... I’m very unhappy.... Excuse me... Just now I said something that must have seemed strange to you, but if you knew how troubled I am, how miserable my poor existence is...”
He bowed his head and held it between his hands. I addressed a few comforting words to him, but they were futile. I held out my hand; he took it, and shook it effusively. Then I saw that he was weeping.
“Come on,” I said, “be reasonable; I sympathize sincerely with your troubles, even though the true reason for them escapes me. I’d like to see you happier.”
“Good night,” he said, abruptly.
The next day, at four o’clock, we were at sea off the Saharan coast. The commandant informed me that the airship was about to fly over a group of reefs, and that the time had come to try out my explosive. Dawn was beginning to break on the horizon.
I took one of my flasks and went to the bridge. The officers were all there. Eitel greeted me with a smile.
The airship descended rapidly, in a faintly tight spiral, around the red head of a rock, which put something like a large bloodstain upon the glaucous immensity of the waters.
We were about five hundred meters from the waves. At that moment, on his father’s order, Eitel came toward me.
“You’re going to give your device to the spotter,” he said. “He’s the one who has the order to drop it.”
The spotter was the man in charge of all landing maneuvers; he was very skilful. On the other hand, I understood perfectly that the commandant wanted to relieve me as soon as possible of the redoubtable flask that I was holding in my hand.
“When he lets it go,” I said, he has to turn it upside-down. “It will only require ten seconds to provoke the mixture of the liquids.”
Eitel nodded his head, smiled at me, and then, taking the flask he went to give it to the spotter, who was standing motionless at the prow of the airship, above the void.
The 32 was still descending; never, except when landing, had it flown so low. Scarcely a hundred and fifty meters from sea level, a whistle-blast immobilized the propulsive and tractional helices; only the ascensional helices were functioning to maintain the biplane at that height.
“Dispatch!” Eitel commanded.
The man inverted the flask and let it go. We were able to follow its fall through space for about twenty meters, and then we lost sight of it, but a second or two later, we where whipped in the face by a great displacement of atmospheric waves. The aircraft had started moving again when the noise of the explosion reached us, weakened by the distance. With the aid of prismatic binoculars, we were able to observe that the effect had been formidable; the rock was almost leveled, and the sea was foaming all around it.
The commandant ran toward me.
“That’s perfect, Monsieur—but you intend, I hope, to give me that formula?”
“Indeed,” I said to him, holding it out. “Here it is.”
“Very good. Do you want anything in return?”
“No, Monsieur,” I said. “It’s not in your power to give me what I’d like. Know, however, that that explosive is known to your compatriots; I’ve only manufactured it. Know, too, that I have four similar flasks…well hidden, I assure you. On the day when I’m weary of the life I lead here, or simply of your company, I have the wherewithal to liberate myself from it. It’s you, Monsieur, who are my prisoner henceforth. I have the honor of saluting you.”
He looked at me open-mouthed, not yet understanding—but when he had grasped the meaning of my words, he suddenly turned crimson. I thought he was about to explode. He clenched his fists, and then put his hand to the hilt of a small
dagger, an insignia of his grade, which was beating his left flank; but all those manifestations left me cold.
“I’ll have you put in solitary confinement!” he howled.
I took a flask full of explosive out of my pocket and showed it to him. Then, I calmly went down from the bridge.
My intention was to go back to my cell, but the door of my cabin and that of the laboratory were locked; I was forced to remain there.
Orders had been given to all the guards to search every corner of the airship for the flasks I had mentioned. They searched everywhere, scrupulously; neither my cabin, nor the laboratory were spared. They found nothing, of course—which visibly augmented the commandant’s rage.
At six o’clock—for it was necessary that it be daylight in order that no detail of the tortures should be lost—the convicts were brought out.
The former, previously condemned for murder, was to be suspended in front of a propeller moving at top speed, and thus exposed to such a blast of air that the skin split and bled as if scored by a knife. That was further complicated by the suspension, by a steel wire, which dug into the flesh.
That torture lasted a quarter of an hour; that was enough, it appeared, for the man to emerge from it permanently insane.
That one escaped the fate that awaited him. The steel wire snapped and the man, absorbed by the void, uttered a frightful cry as he fell. Leaning over the guard-rail, I saw him disappear. At that moment we were over sand-dunes, level with Cap d’Arquin, at an altitude of two thousand feet.
That frightful fall was greeted by a burst of laughter on the commandant’s part. He must have been drunk.
There was a brief agitation in the gray mass of the convicts; that was all.
Not a word had been pronounced.
The man who was to suffer punishment number three was condemned to three minutes of suspension by the hands above the void. Like the first, he was led forward by four guards. His torso was bare and his legs were tied at the knees and the ankles. He was placed above a kind of trapeze installed a few moments before, which was swinging with a regular movement at the end of its steel wires.
The man, who would thus have to preserve his life by the strength of his resistance, put on a brave face; for the moment, he had more hatred than dread in his eyes. The bar of the trapeze was placed in his hands, but he kept them open and did not grasp the bar.
Then, without a word, and as if they had anticipated that resistance, the two guards tied his wrists to the bar with a thin thread, incapable of supporting the man’s weight but sufficient to keep his hands in the position in which they were put.
The guards let him go; a blast of the whistle resounded, and two of the plates of the metallic deck, on which the patient’s feet were resting, flexed gently with the aid of hinges.
The convict went frightfully pale, but his hands remained open. The hinged flaps continued to open, only offering an increasingly slippery purchase to the man’s feet.
The patient clenched his jaws; his eyes filled with an atrocious terror, and he closed his hands desperately.
The floor disappeared completely beneath him, and the bar of the trapeze descended slowly, until the man’s waist was level with the floor, his legs in empty space.
Suddenly, the terror was effaced from his visage; his face, although its pallor was livid, maintained a kind of mocking impassivity. Twice, he raised himself up by the force of his arms, as gymnasts do, until his face was level with the metal bar—which made the commandant snigger.
That snigger changed into a laugh, and, in spite of the discipline that ordered the most profound silence, he spoke.
“Look! Clever man! What vigor! He’s splendid! It’s not three minutes he needs, it’s five! What biceps! What strength! What courage! Bravo!”
A rage seemed to succeed his sarcasm.
“I’ve seen stronger men than you let go, out of strength! What are you going to do, wretch?”
I could not hold still any longer. I ran toward the commandant.
“It’s you,” I told him, “who are a wretch! That man is suffering in silence—he has more dignity than you.”
“Be careful, Frenchman,” he howled, “that I don’t hang you from the trapeze!”
“Try,” I said—and I showed him the little flask that I had in my pocket.
He was a coward. He mumbled something else, and went down to his cabin, to hide his fury or drown it in alcohol—but he would come out again soon, more furious and more brutal than ever.
When I returned my gaze to the torture victim, I saw that from livid, he had become crimson. His muscles were standing out and moving beneath his skin like snakes; his breast, horribly taut, seemed ready to burst; his hands were clenched, and once again, an unspeakable terror filled his eyes.
It was necessary for him to endure the torture for another minute. He closed his eyes; a frisson shook his entire body; I sensed that he was about to let go.
Eitel saw it too. He raised his whistle to his lips and blew.
Immediately, the trapeze came back up, the floor closed, and the man, whose wrists were untied, collapsed. The first lieutenant took out his watch, impassively, and consulted it.
“The duration was thirty seconds short, lieutenant” he said, addressing Eitel. “You’ll stand guard in the prison for forty-eight hours.”
Eitel was about to respond when a formidable clamor broke out. It was the convicts.
They were all on their feet, with a murderous gleam in their eyes, howling incomprehensible words and uttering cries. A furious wind of folly was carrying them away. They were a demonic host, screaming for the sake of screaming. Some were singing, others ran around, howling; the most reflective attempted to invade the bridge, but it did not occur to any of them to band together for that enterprise, so their efforts remained vain.
It was obviously one of the revolts that had been mentioned to me: a fit of collective madness. One of the guards had been seized; he disappeared into an eddy; his screams were mingling with the others when the commandant, his jacket unbuttoned, appeared on the bridge. In spite of his drunkenness, he understood the terrible danger that as threatening everyone’s existence.
Launched against the guard-rail of the bridge, he leaned over the tumultuous convicts; his appearance provoked a renewal of cries and fury. The commandant howled something that no one could hear; the first lieutenant joined him and shouted something in his ear.
Eitel, very bold, having recovered his original attitude, all pride and rigidity, came toward me.
“You don’t belong here, Monsieur Ménestin.” Then, to temper the harshness he sensed in that order, he added: “I beg you.”
“Thank you,” I said, “but I’m all right where I am.”
The commandant had seen me; he came toward me.
“Your flask, Monsieur, quickly!”
I shook my head negatively. He stamped his foot angrily.
“Throw your flask at that rabble!”
“No, Monsieur.”
Down below, the display of madness continued. The guard who had fallen into the hands of the convicts could no longer be seen, but his fate was not in doubt.
Suddenly, two detonations rang out. Eitel collapsed, uttering a cry, at the same time as the ship’s doctor, who fell face forward.
Then the commandant blew three blasts on his whistle, which dominated the racket; the machine-guns crackled. Then there was a terrible turbulence in the delirious crowd, still howling; bodies were stretched out; others were writhing on the floor. But I did not see any more; abandoning the battle, I went to the two officers lying nearby. The doctor was dead, his head traversed by a bullet. Eitel was bleeding abundantly from the left shoulder and had lost consciousness. Hastily, I unbuttoned his collar and his tunic.
Then I stopped.
He was a woman!
I picked him up—what should I call him now?—and carried him to his cabin. A rapid examination of the wound convinced me that it was slight. I put a dressing on it
with the aid of napkins, and, unclenching his teeth, I made him absorb a few drops of gin that I had found in a bottle.
He soon recovered consciousness.
His gaze, on perceiving me, did not reveal any disturbance; on the contrary, an interior joy was manifest therein. Then her womanly nature betrayed itself, and her first gesture was one of modesty; with her sound arm she covered her face.
“Now you have my secret. Only you and my father know it. You’ll know later why I’m here. Go now—it’s necessary that they don’t find you with me. I’ll say that I was able to drag myself here on my own. Thanks...Paul.”
I left her, full of perplexity and anxiety. Outside, the battle was over. The convicts, mastered, had been shoved back into the prison and the guards were busy throwing the cadavers cluttering the deck overboard.
The commandant, sobered up, advanced toward me.
“Eitel?” he demanded, anxiously. “Where is he?”
“I think he’s in his cabin. I saw him heading in that direction.”
Without saying anything more, he ran in that direction, went into the cabin, and came out again very shortly to run toward me again.
“You know therapeutic substances—give me something to stop the blood!”
While speaking, he dragged me into his cabin. He put a campaign medical kit in front of me, where I found all that was necessary to make up an adequate hemostatic. I gave him the medicament, informing him as to how it ought to be employed, and offered to apply it. As I expected, he refused, and drew away rapidly.
I sent back to my laboratory in order to note down the events I had just witnessed, and then I set out in quest of a means of getting the journal I had been writing for six months to the ground. In the commandant’s cabin I had seen a kind of leather bottle in which he kept his brandy; I resolved to take advantage of the circumstances to take possession of it.
I succeeded in my enterprise and, without having been seen, I went back to my laboratory with the product of my larceny. After having poured out all the liquid it still contained, apart for half a liter that I put to one side, I hid the bottle carefully behind jars and retorts, where no one would look for it.
The Mirror of Present Events Page 32
