"What do you want to say?" she murmured.
Vagualame took a few steps forward, then returned to where the girl was leaning against the van.
"Listen to me, Bobinette, listen, for, by Heaven, the words I am about to utter are the last you will ever hear."
Before Bobinette could interrupt, Vagualame continued:
"Tell me, do you know of anything more wicked, more contemptible, more vile, more shameful than treachery, than betrayal, than a trap set, a snare laid to catch one who has always been your friend, your defender?... Tell me, Bobinette, who is more hateful than the Judas who sells you with a kiss?... Tell me, Bobinette, who is less worthy of pity than the cowardly criminal who betrays his accomplice?... Than the bandit who delivers up his chief for money, perhaps for less than money--because of fear--who betrays his master to save his own skin?"...
Bobinette did not seem to understand one word of this apostrophe. She kept silence, terrified, crushed, in front of the awful abyss she divined.
Vagualame seized her by the shoulders and shook her brutally, thrusting her fiercely against the side of the van.
"Speak! Reply, Bobinette! I command you!"
"I do not understand you! I am afraid!"
A shout of ferocious laughter burst from Vagualame.
"You do not understand me! You are afraid?... Ah! If you are afraid it is because you understand well enough!... Bobinette! You know well enough what I have to reproach you with!... What I have to force you to expiate!"...
A hoa.r.s.e cry escaped the girl"s parched lips:
"You are mad, mad, Vagualame!... Pity!... Pity!"
In a voice so hard, so biting, that the words seemed arrows piercing her quivering flesh, the bandit addressed his victim:
"Bobinette, you deceive yourself strangely! I am not of those to whom one cries for pity!... I know not the word, nor such weakness. I have never had it, and never shall have it for any living soul."
The bandit paused. Then, in a tone of rising anger, he continued:
"And you think me mad? But what sort of woman are you, Bobinette, to try and deceive me? What madness is yours to think, to imagine you can dupe me?... To confess that with such words and speeches as your feminine mind can think of you are going to ensnare me, make me alter my decision, turn me from my vengeance--that you should decide how I shall act--I?... I?... Vagualame?"
The bandit p.r.o.nounced "I?" with such an accent of authority, with such terrific pride, that Bobinette, with a sound as though the death rattle were in her throat, cried:
"Vagualame! Who are you? Tell me!... Tell me!"...
"You ask me who I am?... You wish to know?... It be according to your wish!... Who am I?... Look!"...
Slowly, with a movement firm and dignified, Vagualame unfolded the long cloak which enveloped him. He tore off his hat and flung it at his feet. With arms crossed he apostrophied Bobinette:
"Dare to utter my name! Dare to name me!"
Before Bobinette"s distracted eyes a terrifying outline showed itself.... The beggar of a moment ago, his cloak removed, his hat thrown to the ground, appeared no more a bent old man: he stood there, upright, young, vigorous, superbly muscular. He was sheathed from head to foot in a tight-fitting garment, black as Erebus!
Bobinette could not see his face, a black hood covered it: two gleaming eyes alone were visible, eyes that to the distraught girl seemed lit by fires from h.e.l.l!
This vision, the vision of this man without a face, resembling no other man, this apparition with nameless mask, its body like some statue cut from solid darkness, was yet so definite in its mystery that Bobinette, uttering the indescribable cry of some inhuman thing, articulated:
"Fantomas!... You are Fantomas!"
The bandit spoke:
"I am Fantomas!... I am he for whom the entire world is searching, whom none has ever seen, whom none can recognise!... I am Crime incarnated!... I am Night!... No human sees my face, because Crime and Night are featureless!... I am illimitable Power!... I am he who mocks at all the powers, at all the efforts, at all the forces!... I am master of all, of everything; of all times and seasons.... I am Death!... Bobinette, thou hast said it--I am Fantomas."
His wretched listener could not breathe. She felt death in her veins: she felt the earth dissolving into dust.... She sank on her knees.
"Pity, master! Pity!... Fantomas, have pity!"...
"You join those words together!... Fantomas and Pity!"... A furious anger seized the bandit. "Fantomas knows not what mercy is, I tell you!... Fantomas ordains that whoso resist him shall perish--shall disappear!"
"But, Master!... What have I done?... Master!... Fantomas, what have I done?"
Slowly the bandit enveloped himself once more in his cloak....
Bobinette was on her knees, as one nailed to the earth!... Fantomas had hypnotised her into immobility, as the bird is hypnotised by the cat watching its prey. He played with her. He could seize and master her at his pleasure.
In a voice cold and hard as the nether millstone, he denounced his victim:
"Bobinette, you aimed at my betrayal!... You pointed out the Nihilist"s haunt to Juve, to Fandor, to my most personal enemies, to those who would hound me to the guillotine!"
"I never did!... I did not do it!... I swear it!" shrieked the maddened girl.
Fantomas, convinced that Bobinette, and she alone, was the traitor here....
"You are to die; but not by my hand!... The hand of Fantomas does not deal death to those who once served him, to the traitorous wretches once in his employ!... But you shall die, Bobinette! I deliver you to death!"...
Fantomas laughed. He laughed because the body of this woman, huddled in the mud, crushed to the earth, was a pleasing thing, because Fantomas was happy when he made human creatures suffer, when he tortured, when he wrought sweet vengeance....
Far away sounded the church bells.... The carillon was ringing....
Church bells were chiming through the night. To Bobinette, the abject creature grovelling in the mire of the roadway, the bells sounded vaguely serene, far, far away....
She seemed to be floating in some indefinable element, floating like thistledown on an irresistible breeze.... Suddenly she had the sensation that she was sinking, falling, that she was rolling down, down, into the depths of a bottomless abyss....
When she opened her eyes, tried to move, sat up, she knew she was not dreaming.... She knew she had lost consciousness and was coming back to life.... She asked herself could she possibly be alive? Fantomas had threatened her with death, and yet she lived.... Where was she?...
Bobinette felt so weak and giddy that she remained in a sitting posture.... What exactly had happened?... Ah!--yes!--when Fantomas had announced she was to die, she had fallen down on the road: her skirt was still wet and muddy, her testing fingers told her that! She was cold! What had happened since?... Bobinette heard the wind blowing rain as still falling, but she noticed none fell on her face.
"Where am I?" she asked aloud. Clear came the mental answer:
"Fantomas has shut me up in this van! I am imprisoned in this van!"...
She felt about her with her fingers. She was certainly sitting on rough boards.... She knelt, she stretched out her arms: she touched rough boards.... Yes, this was the van she was in!... Was Fantomas quite near? He might appear again! She was not saved!... But in Bobinette who, terrified at being confronted with Fantomas self-confessed, had tasted the bitterness of death, a powerful reaction had set in: she was becoming mistress of herself once more.
Fantomas had said to her: "Thou shalt die!" She now decided that she would live, would save herself!... She must escape!
"If Fantomas were there I should hear him," she thought. "He must have gone.... I must at all costs escape from this prison before he returns."
Bobinette got up.... The van must have a door, a window. She would force her way out somehow. She was strong, and she was fighting for her life!... She would make a tour of the van!... She felt her way by fingering the wooden side of her prison.... The van must be empty, she thought, for she had not encountered any furniture--when, suddenly, she felt her hand come into contact with something soft and warm, which moved. What was it?...
Bobinette jumped back.... She must be mad to imagine!... She waited a few moments--she stepped forward--anew her fingers touched something.... She could not say what!... But while she tried to define the strange object her fingers touched, she felt the unknown thing was drawing back--was avoiding her caress!...