"If you have her, old lad, I cry snacks," said Tortillard, with a laugh.
And he stopped on the top step of the stairs.
"Help!" shrieked the Chouette, in a strangling voice.
"Thanks, Tortillard!" said the Schoolmaster, "thanks. And, to reward you, you shall hear the night-bird (Chouette) shriek! Listen, boy,--listen to the bird of death!"
"Bravo! Here I am in the dress-boxes!" said Tortillard, seating himself on the top of the stairs.
As he said this, he raised the light to endeavour to see the fearful scene which was going on in the depths of the cavern; but the darkness was too thick, so faint a light could not disperse it: Bras-Rouge"s son could not see anything. The struggle with the Schoolmaster and the Chouette was mute, deadly, without a word, without a cry; only from time to time was heard the hard breathing, or the stifled groan, which always accompanies violent and desperate efforts. Tortillard, seated on the step, began to stamp his feet with that cadence peculiar to an audience impatient to see the beginning of a play; then he uttered the cry so familiar to the frequenters of the gallery of the minor theatres:
"Music! Music! Play up! Up with the curtain!"
"Oh, now I have hold of you, as I desired," murmured the Schoolmaster, from the recess of the cellar; "and you were going--"
A desperate movement of the Chouette interrupted him; she struggled with all the energy which the fear of death inspires.
"Louder! Can"t hear!" bawled Tortillard.
"It is in vain you try to gnaw my hand, I will hold you as I like," said the Schoolmaster. Then, having, no doubt, succeeded in keeping the Chouette down, he added, "That"s it! Now listen--"
"Tortillard, call your father!" shrieked the Chouette, with a faltering, exhausted voice. "Help! Help!"
"Turn her out, the old thing! She won"t let us hear," said the little cripple, with a shout of laughter; "put her out!"
The Chouette"s cries were not audible from this cavern, low as it was.
The wretched creature, seeing that there was no chance of help from Bras-Rouge"s son, resolved to try a last effort.
"Tortillard, go and fetch help, and I will give you my basket; it is full of jewels. There it is, under a stone."
"How generous! Thank ye, madame. Why, haven"t I got it already? Hark!
Don"t you hear how it rattles?" said Tortillard, shaking it. "But now, if you"ll give us half a pound of gingerbread nuts, I"ll go and fetch pa."
"Have pity on me, and I will--"
The Chouette was unable to conclude. Again there was a profound silence.
The little cripple again began to beat time on the stone staircase on which he was seated, accompanying the noise of his feet with the repeated cry:
"Why don"t you begin? Up with the curtain! Music! Music!"
"In this way, Chouette, you can no longer disturb me with your cries,"
said the Schoolmaster, after a few minutes, during which he had, no doubt, gagged the old woman. "You know very well," he continued, in a slow, hollow voice, "that I do not wish to end this all at once; torture for torture! You have made me suffer enough, and I must speak at length to you before I kill you,--yes, at length. It will be very terrible for you, agonising!"
"Come, no stuff and nonsense, old parson," said Tortillard, raising himself half up from his seat; "punish her, but don"t do her any harm.
You say you"ll kill her,--that"s only a hum; I am very fond of my Chouette; I have only lent her to you, and you must give her back again.
Don"t spoil her,--I won"t have my Chouette spoiled,--if you do, I"ll go and fetch pa!"
"Be quiet, and she shall only have what she deserves, a profitable lesson," said the Schoolmaster, in order to a.s.sure Tortillard, and for fear the cripple should go and fetch a.s.sistance.
"All right! Bravo! Now the play"s going to begin!" said Bras-Rouge"s son, who did not seriously believe that the Schoolmaster intended to kill the Chouette.
"Let us discourse a little, Chouette," continued the Schoolmaster, in a calm voice. "In the first place, you see, since that dream at the Bouqueval farm, which brought all my crimes before my eyes, since that dream, which did all but drive me mad,--which will drive me mad, for, in my solitude, in the deep isolation in which I live, all my thoughts dwell on this dream, in spite of myself,--a strange change has come over me; yes, I have a horror of my past ferocity. In the first place, I would not allow you to make a martyr of La Goualeuse, though that was nothing. Chaining me here in the cellar, making me suffer from cold and hunger, and detaining me for your wicked suggestions, you have left me to all the fear of my own reflections. Oh, you do not know what it is to be left alone,--always alone,--with a dark veil over your eyes, as the pitiless man said who punished me. Oh, it is horrid! It was in this very cavern that I flung him, in order to kill him; and this cavern is the place of my punishment, it may be my grave. I repeat that this is horrid! All that that man predicted to me has come to pa.s.s; he said to me, "You have abused your strength,--you will be the plaything, the sport of the most weak." And it has been so. He said to me, "Henceforward separated from the exterior world, face to face with the eternal remembrance of your crimes, one day you will repent those crimes." And that day has come; the loneliness has purified me; I could not have believed it possible. Another proof that I am perhaps less wicked than formerly, is that I feel inexpressible joy in holding you here, monster! Not to avenge myself, but to avenge your victims,--yes, I shall have accomplished a duty when, with my own hands, I shall have punished my accomplice. A voice says to me, that, if you had fallen into my power earlier, much blood, much blood would have been spared. I have now a horror of my past murders; and yet, is it not strange? It is without fear, it is even with security, that I am now about to perpetrate on you a fearful murder, with most fearful refinements. Say, say! Do you understand that?"
"Bravo! Well played, old No-Eyes! He gets on," exclaimed Tortillard, applauding. "It is really something to laugh at."
"To laugh at?" continued the Schoolmaster, in a hollow voice. "Keep still, Chouette; I must complete my explanation as to how I gradually came to repentance. This revelation will be hateful to you, heart of stone, and will prove to you also how remorseless I ought to be in the vengeance which I should wreak on you in the name of our victims. I must be quick. My delight at grasping you thus makes my blood throb in my veins,--my temples beat with violence, just as when, by thinking of my dream, my reason wanders. Perhaps one of my crises will come on; but I shall have time to make the approaches of death frightful to you by compelling you to hear me."
"At him, Chouette!" cried Tortillard. "At him! And reply boldly! Why, you don"t know your part. Tell the "old one" to prompt you, my worthy elderly damsel."
"It is useless for you to struggle and bite me," said the Schoolmaster, after another pause. "You shall not escape me,--you have bitten my fingers to the bone; but I will pull your tongue out, if you stir. Let us continue our discourse. When I have been alone--alone in the night and silence--I have begun to experience fits of furious, impotent rage; and, for the first time, my senses wandered. Oh! though I was awake, I again dreamed the dream--you know--the dream. The little old man in the Rue du Roule, the drowned woman, the cattle-dealer, and you--soaring over these phantoms! I tell you it was horrible! I am blind, and my thoughts a.s.sume a form, a body, in order to represent to me incessantly, and in a visible, palpable manner, the features of my victims. I should not have dreamed this fearful vision, had not my mind, continually absorbed by the remembrance of my past crimes, been troubled with the same fantasies. Unquestionably, when one is deprived of sight, the ideas that beset us form themselves into images in the brain. Yet sometimes, by dint of viewing them with resigned terror, it would appear that these menacing spectres have pity on me,--they grow dim--fade away--vanish.
Then I feel myself awakened from my horrid dream, but so weak--cast down--prostrated--that--would you believe it? ah, how you will laugh, Chouette!--that I weep! Do you hear? I weep! You don"t laugh? Laugh!
Laugh! Laugh, I say!"
The Chouette gave a dull and stifled groan.
"Louder," said Tortillard; "can"t hear."
"Yes," continued the Schoolmaster, "I weep, for I suffer and rage in vain. I say to myself, "To-morrow, next day, for ever, I shall be a prey to the same attacks of delirium and gloomy desolation. "What a life! Oh, what a life! And I would not choose death rather than be buried alive in this abyss which incessantly pervades my thoughts! Blind, alone, and a prisoner,--what can relieve me from my remorse? Nothing, nothing! When the fantasies disappear for a moment, and do not pa.s.s and repa.s.s the black veil constantly before my eyes, there are other tortures,--other overwhelming reflections. I say to myself, "If I had remained an honest man, I should be at this moment free, tranquil, happy, beloved, and honoured by my connections, instead of being blind and chained in this dungeon at the mercy of my accomplices." Alas! the regret of happiness lost from crime is the first step towards repentance; and when to repentance is joined an expiation of fearful severity,--an expiation which changes life into a long, sleepless night, filled with avenging hallucinations or despairing reflections,--perhaps then man"s pardon succeeds to remorse and expiation."
"I say, old chap," exclaimed Tortillard, "you are borrowing a bit from M. Moissard"s part! Come, no cribbing--gammon!"
The Schoolmaster did not hear Bras-Rouge"s son.
"You are astonished to hear me speak thus, Chouette? If I had continued to imbrue myself either in b.l.o.o.d.y crimes or the fierce drunkenness of the life of the galleys, this salutary change would never have come over me I know full well. But alone, blind, stung with remorse, which eats into me, of what else could I think? Of new crimes,--how to commit them?
Escape,--how to escape? And, if I escaped, whither should I go? What should I do with my liberty? No; I must henceforth live in eternal night, between the anguish of repentance and the fear of formidable apparitions which pursue me. Sometimes, however, a faint ray of hope comes to lighten the depth of my darkness, a moment of calm succeeds to my torments,--yes, for sometimes I am able to drive away the spectres which beset me by opposing to them the recollections of an honest and peaceable past, by ascending in thought to my youthful days, to my hours of infancy. Happily, the greatest wretches have, at least, some years of peace and innocence to oppose to their criminal and blood-stained years.
None are born wicked; the most infamous have had the lovely candour of infancy,--have tasted the sweet joys of that delightful age. And thus, I again say, I sometimes find a bitter consolation in saying to myself, "I am, at this hour, doomed to universal execration, but there was a time when I was beloved, protected, because I was inoffensive and good. Alas!
I must, indeed, take refuge in the past, when I can, for it is there only that I can find calm.""
As he uttered these last words, the tones of the Schoolmaster lost their harshness; this man of iron appeared deeply moved, and he added:
"But now the salutary influence of these thoughts is such that my fury is appeased; courage, power will fail me to punish you. No, it is not I who will shed your blood."
"Well said, old buck! So, you see, Chouette, it was only a lark," cried Tortillard, applauding.
"No, it is not I who will shed your blood," continued the Schoolmaster; "it would be a murder, excusable perhaps, but still a murder; and I have enough with three spectres; and then--who knows?--perhaps one day you will repent also?"
And, as he spake thus, the Schoolmaster had mechanically given the Chouette some liberty of movement. She took advantage of it to seize the stiletto which she had thrust into her stays after Sarah"s murder, and aimed a violent blow with this weapon at the ruffian, in order to disengage herself from him. He uttered a cry of extreme pain.
The ferocity of his hatred, his vengeance, his rage, his b.l.o.o.d.y instincts, suddenly aroused and exasperated by this attack, now all burst forth suddenly, terribly, and carried with it his reason, already so strongly shaken by so many shocks.
"Ah, viper, I feel your teeth!" he exclaimed in a voice that shook with pa.s.sion, and seizing, with all his might, the Chouette, who had thought thus to escape him. "You are in this dungeon, then?" he added, with an air of madness. "But I will crush the viper or screech-owl. No doubt you were waiting for the coming of the phantoms. Yes; for the blood beats in my temples,--? my ears ring,--my head turns--as when they are about to appear! Yes; I was not deceived; here they are,--they advance from the depths of darkness,--they advance! How pale they are; and their blood, how it flows,--red and smoking! It frightens you,--you struggle. Well, be still, you shall not see the phantoms,--no, you shall not see them. I have pity on you; I will make you blind. You shall be, like me,--eyeless!"
Here the Schoolmaster paused. The Chouette uttered a cry so horrible that Tortillard, alarmed, bounded off the step, and stood up. The horrid shrieks of the Chouette served to place the copestone on the fury of the Schoolmaster.
"Sing," he said, in a low voice, "sing, Chouette,--night-bird! Sing your song of death! You are happy; you do not see three phantoms of those we have a.s.sa.s.sinated,--the little old man in the Rue du Roule, the drowned woman, the cattle-dealer. I see them; they approach; they touch me. Ah, so cold,--so cold! Ah!"
The last gleam of sense of this unhappy wretch was lost in this cry of condemnation. He could no longer reason, but acted and roared like a wild beast, and only obeyed the savage instinct of destruction for destruction. A hurried trampling was now heard, interrupted frequently at intervals with a heavy sound, which appeared like a box of bones bounding against a stone, upon which it was intended to be broken.
Sharp, convulsive shrieks, and a burst of h.e.l.lish laughter accompanied each of these blows. Then there was a gasp of agony. Then--nothing.