"I readily believe it. That hook is, indeed, of large dimensions----"
"Our stubborn guest having resisted the trial of the carcan, he is hooked naked on this p.r.o.ng, either by the flesh of the back, or by the skin of his bowels, or by any other and more sensitive part of the body."
"Speak not so loud," implored the merchant, hardly able to restrain his indignation and horror, "my daughter might overhear you."
"You are right," answered the bailiff, with a sardonic smile; "your daughter"s blushes must be spared. Well, now Bezenecq the Rich, think of it. I have seen stubborn fellows remain suspended from that hook by the skin for a whole hour, bleeding like a cow in the shambles, and still refuse to relinquish their goods! But they never resist the third trial, with which I am now about to entertain you, Bezenecq the Rich. Give me your ear, the description will interest you."
"Strange!" suddenly exclaimed the merchant, interrupting Garin the Serf-eater. "I smell smoke. Whence does the smell proceed?"
"Father, there is a fire!" cried out Isoline, horrified. "They are making a fire under the iron bars!"
The bourgeois of Nantes turned around sharply and saw the heaped-up combustibles under the gridiron beginning to take fire. Several tongues of flame lighted with their ruddy glow the black walls of the cell, while forcing themselves through thick columns of smoke. A frightful suspicion flashed through the mind of the merchant, but he dared not even allow his thoughts to dwell upon them; and, wishing to comfort his daughter, said to her: "Be not afraid, you dear bundle of fears, that fire is built to drive off the chill in this cell; we may have to spend the night here. I was thanking the worthy bailiff for his thoughtfulness." But immediately upon this answer, uttered only in order to rea.s.sure his daughter, the merchant, shivering, despite himself with fear, turned to Garin: "Speaking truly, why is that fire made under the gridiron?"
"Merely to give you an idea of the omnipotence of this last test, Bezenecq the Rich. I now commence the description."
"It is superfluous. I take your word for it."
"A fire is built under the gridiron, as they are doing now; when the fire has ceased to shoot up flames, a necessary precaution, and consists of a bed of live coals, the recalcitrant patient is stretched naked upon the gridiron, and he is kept there with the aid of those rings and iron chains. At the end of a few instants the skin of the patient, red and shriveling, rips up, bleeds, then turns black. I have seen the hot coals patter with fat that, clotted with blood, dripped from the body of men even less fat than you, Bezenecq the Rich."
"Hold on, bailiff! I must confess to you my heart fails me, my head reels at the mere thought of such infliction," said the bourgeois of Nantes, shivering from head to foot. "I am ready to faint. Let me out of this cell with my daughter. I have a.s.signed to your master my whole fortune. You have taken everything----"
"Come, come, Bezenecq the Rich," broke in the bailiff, "a man who empties himself as easily as you did at the first word, and without having suffered the least tortures, must have reserved other riches.
That"s what we"ll learn all about in a moment."
"I? I have reserved part of my fortune!" exclaimed the merchant, struck almost speechless with amazement. "I have given you all, down to my last piece."
"You observed, my wily friend, that despite the a.s.signment of all the property that you were credited with having, I continued to call you Bezenecq the Rich. I feel certain you still merit the name. Come, now!
You must disgorge. Come, let"s have the rest of your fortune."
"Upon the salvation of my soul, I have nothing left! I have given you all I possess."
"May not the three tests draw from you some admission to the contrary?"
"What tests are you speaking of?"
"The tests of the carcan, of the hook and of the gridiron. Yes, if you do not surrender to me the other property that you are hiding from us, you will undergo the three tests under the very eyes of your daughter,"
and saying this, Garin the Serf-eater raised his voice in such a way that Isoline, hearing his threats, darted through the gaolers and threw herself distracted at the feet of the bailiff, crying: "Mercy! Mercy upon my father! Have pity upon us!"
"Mercy depends upon him," said Garin, imperturbably. "Let him surrender to our seigneur what he still holds in reserve."
"Father!" cried out the young girl, "I know not what the extent of your wealth is. But if, in your tenderness for me, you sought to reserve aught to shelter me against poverty, I conjure you give it all! Oh, dear father, surrender everything!"
"You hear!" resumed Garin the Serf-eater, smiling fiendishly upon the couple, and seeing the demoralizing effect upon the merchant of the imprudent words that terror had drawn from Isoline, "I am not the only one to suspect you of hiding from us a part of your treasures, Bezenecq the Rich. Like a good father you have sought to keep a fat dower for your daughter. Come, now, you must give us the dower!"
"Garin," one of the gaolers approached to notify the bailiff, "the coals are red hot. They may go out if you put the man through the trials of the carcan and the hook."
"As a favor to this young girl I shall be generous," said Garin. "The gridiron test will be enough, but stir the coals. And now answer, Bezenecq the Rich. I ask you for the last time, yes or no, will you give all you possess to my seigneur, the Count of Plouernel, including your daughter"s dower?"
"It is my daughter whom I shall make the answer to," answered the merchant, in a solemn voice. "Gaolers will not believe me;" and addressing Isoline in a voice broken with tears: "I swear to you, my child, by the sacred memory of your mother, by my tenderness for you, by all the pleasures you have afforded me since your birth,--I swear to you, by the salvation of my soul, I have not a denier left; I have surrendered all to the Seigneur of Plouernel!"
"Oh, father, I believe you!" exclaimed the girl at his feet, and turning to Garin, she extended her hands towards him in prayer: "You have heard my father"s oath; you may join mine to it."
"I hold Bezenecq the Rich incapable of leaving his daughter thus penniless," retorted the bailiff. Turning then to the gaolers: "He will now have to confess to us. Strip him, stretch him on the gridiron and stir the coals. Let the brand flame up."
The men of the seigneur of Plouernel threw themselves upon Bezenecq the Rich. Despite the resistance and the heart-rending, desperate cries of his daughter, whom they brutally held back, they stripped the bourgeois of Nantes, spread him upon the gridiron, and, by means of the iron chains, fastened him over the burning coals. "Oh, my father!" exclaimed Bezenecq, "I have disregarded your advice ... I now undergo the punishment for my cowardice ... for my selfishness ... I die under the torture for having been afraid to die arms in hand at the head of the serfs in revolt against the Frankish seigneurs.... Triumph, Neroweg!
Yet, perchance, the terrible day of reprisals will come to the sons of Joel!"
CHAPTER IX.
THE RESCUE.
In her apartment, lighted by a lamp, Azenor the Pale was engaged in the preparation of the magical philter, promised by her to the seigneur of Plouernel. After blowing some powder on a fluid that she had poured into a flagon, she pulled out of a chest a little vial, whose contents she drank. Laying down the vial, she remarked with a sinister smile: "Now, Neroweg, you may come ... I am ready for you." Then, taking up the flagon, half full with a solution of several powders, she proceeded: "This flagon must now be filled with blood ... the imagination of these ferocious brutes must be struck ... come...." she added with a sigh, turning towards the turret where the little Colombaik was secreted.
Raising the curtain that masked the alcove, Azenor saw before her the innocent little creature huddled in a lump in a corner, and silently weeping. "Come," said the sorceress to him in a sweet voice, "come to me." The son of Fergan the Quarryman obeyed, he rose and advanced timidly. Wan, thin, broken with want, his pale mien had, like his mother"s, Joan the Hunchback"s, an inexpressible charm of kindness.
"Must you always be sad?" inquired Azenor, sitting down and drawing the child near to her and to a table on which lay a poniard. "Why do you always weep?" The little fellow wept afresh. "What"s the cause of your sorrow?"
"My mother, my father," faltered the child, without ceasing to weep, "I do not see them any more!"
"You love your mother and father very much?" Instead of answering the sorceress, the poor little one threw himself sobbing upon her neck. The woman could not resist the impulse of responding to the childish prompting of a caress, and she embraced Colombaik at the very moment when, fearing he had been disrespectful to Azenor, the child was about to drop on his knees before her. Sinking upon the floor, he broke out into copious tears. The young woman, more and more moved, silently contemplated Colombaik, murmuring to herself: "No, no ... I lack courage.... I shall not kill that poor child, a few drops of his blood will be enough for the philter." Already her hand approached the poniard on the table, when suddenly her ear caught an unusual noise in the turret. It was like the sc.r.a.ping of a chain drawn with difficulty over an iron bar. The sorceress, alarmed, pushed the child back and ran toward the turret at the moment that Fergan the Quarryman stepped in, pale, bathed in perspiration and holding in his hand his iron pick.
Azenor drew back, dumb with stupor and fear, while Colombaik, with a cry of joy, rushed to the quarryman, holding up his arms to him and calling: "My father! my father!" Beside himself with happiness, Fergan dropped his iron bar, took up the child in his robust arms, and, raising him to his breast, pressed him pa.s.sionately, interrogating the face of Colombaik with inexpressible anxiety, while the child, taking between his little hands the gruff face of the quarryman, covered it with kisses, muttering: "Good father! Oh, good father! I see you again at last!"
The serf, without noticing the presence of the sorceress, devoured Colombaik with his eyes. Presently he observed, with a profound sigh of relief: "He is pale, he has been weeping, but he does not seem to have suffered; they can"t have hurt him!" Embracing Colombaik with frenzy, he repeated several times: "My poor child! How happy your mother will be!"
But his paternal alarms being calmed, he remembered that he was not alone, and not doubting that Azenor was the sorceress, whose dreaded name had reached as far as the serfs of the seigniory, he put his child down, took up again his pick, approached the young woman slowly with a savage mien and said to her: "So, it is you, who have children kidnapped to serve your diabolical sorceries?" and with glistening eyes he raised his iron bar with both hands. "You will now die, infernal witch!"
"Father, do not kill her!" cried out the child impetuously, clasping the quarryman"s legs with both his hands. "Oh, do not kill this good lady who was embracing me just as you came in!"
Fergan looked at Azenor, who, somber, pensive, her arms crossed upon her palpitating breast, seemed to brave death. Turning to the child: "Was this woman embracing you?"
"Yes, father; and since I have been here she has been kind to me. She has sought to console me. She even often rocked me in her arms."
"Why, then," said the quarryman to the sorceress, "did you have my child kidnapped? What have you to say!"
Azenor the Pale, without answering the question of the serf, and pursuing the thought that turned in her head, said: "Where does the pa.s.sage run out through which you have penetrated to this turret?"
"What"s that to you!"
The young woman stepped to a cabinet of ma.s.sive oak, took from it a casket, opened it, and displaying before the quarryman the gold pieces that it was filled with, said: "Take this casket and let me accompany you. You have been able to enter this donjon by a secret pa.s.sage, you will be able to get out again. We shall escape together from this accursed den. I pay a rich ransom."
"You ... you mean to accompany me?"
"I wish to flee from this castle, where I am a prisoner, and run to rejoin at Angers William IX., Duke of Aquitaine----" Stopping short and leaning her ear towards the door, Azenor made a sign of silence to Fergan, and proceeded in a whisper: "I hear voices and steps on the staircase. Someone is coming up here.... It is Neroweg!"
"The count!" exclaimed the quarryman, with savage joy, stepping towards the door: "Oh, Worse than a Wolf, you will no longer bite! I shall kill the wretch!"
"Keep still or we are lost," interrupted Azenor in a low voice. "The Count is not alone; think of your child!" and pointing with rapid gesture to the cabinet of ma.s.sive oak, she hastily whispered to the serf: "Push that piece of furniture across the door. Be quick! We shall have time to flee! Your enemy, Neroweg, has only a few more steps to climb! I hear his spurs clank upon the stone floor!"