But for my part I had my fears. I remembered that my uncle had opened the door which led into the castle by some secret catch. This sound which we had heard seemed to show that Toussac had also known how to open it. But suppose that he had closed it behind him. I remembered its size and the iron clampings which bound it together. It was possible that even at the last moment we might find ourselves face to face with an insuperable obstacle. On and on we hurried in the dark, and then suddenly I could have raised a shout of joy, for there in the distance was a yellow glimmer of light, only visible in contrast with the black darkness which lay between. The door was open. In his mad thirst for vengeance Toussac had never given a thought to the pursuers at his heels.
And now we need no longer grope. It was a race along the pa.s.sage and up the winding stair, through the second door, and into the stone-flagged corridor of the Castle of Grosbois, with the oil-lamp still burning at the end of it. A frightful cry--a long-drawn scream of terror and of pain--rang through it as we entered.
"He is killing him! He is killing him!" cried a voice, and a woman servant rushed madly out into the pa.s.sage. "Help, help; he is killing Monsieur Bernac!"
"Where is he?" shouted Savary.
"There! The library! The door with the green curtain!" Again that horrible cry rang out, dying down to a harsh croaking. It ended in a loud, sharp snick, as when one cracks one"s joint, but many times louder. I knew only too well what that dreadful sound portended.
We rushed together into the room, but the hardened Savary and the dare-devil hussar both recoiled in horror from the sight which met our gaze.
My uncle had been seated writing at his desk, with his back to the door, when his murderer had entered. No doubt it was at the first glance over his shoulder that he had raised the scream when he saw that terrible hairy face coming in upon him, while the second cry may have been when those great hands clutched at his head. He had never risen from his chair--perhaps he had been too paralysed by fear--and he still sat with his back to the door. But what struck the colour from our cheeks was that his head had been turned completely round, so that his horribly distorted purple face looked squarely at us from between his shoulders.
Often in my dreams that thin face, with the bulging grey eyes, and the shockingly open mouth, comes to disturb me. Beside him stood Toussac, his face flushed with triumph, and his great arms folded across his chest.
"Well, my friends," said he, "you are too late, you see. I have paid my debts after all."
"Surrender!" cried Savary.
"Shoot away! Shoot away!" he cried, drumming his hands upon his breast.
"You don"t suppose I fear your miserable pellets, do you? Oh, you imagine you will take me alive! I"ll soon knock that idea out of your heads."
In an instant he had swung a heavy chair over his head, and was rushing furiously at us. We all fired our pistols into him together, but nothing could stop that thunderbolt of a man. With the blood spurting from his wounds, he lashed madly out with his chair, but his eyesight happily failed him, and his swashing blow came down upon the corner of the table with a crash which broke it into fragments. Then with a mad bellow of rage he sprang upon Savary, tore him down to the ground, and had his hand upon his chin before Gerard and I could seize him by the arms. We were three strong men, but he was as strong as all of us put together, for again and again he shook himself free, and again and again we got our grip upon him once more. But he was losing blood fast.
Every instant his huge strength ebbed away. With a supreme effort he staggered to his feet, the three of us hanging on to him like hounds on to a bear. Then, with a shout of rage and despair which thundered through the whole castle, his knees gave way under him, and he fell in a huge inert heap upon the floor, his black beard bristling up towards the ceiling. We all stood panting round, ready to spring upon him if he should move; but it was over. He was dead.
Savary, deadly pale, was leaning with his hand to his side against the table. It was not for nothing that those mighty arms had been thrown round him.
"I feel as if I had been hugged by a bear," said he. "Well, there is one dangerous man the less in France, and the Emperor has lost one of his enemies. And yet he was a brave man too!"
"What a soldier he would have made!" said Gerard thoughtfully. "What a quartermaster for the Hussars of Bercheny! He must have been a very foolish person to set his will against that of the Emperor."
I had seated myself, sick and dazed, upon the settee, for scenes of bloodshed were new to me then, and this one had been enough to shock the most hardened. Savary gave us all a little cognac from his flask, and then tearing down one of the curtains he laid it over the terrible figure of my Uncle Bernac.
"We can do nothing here," said he. "I must get back and report to the Emperor as soon as possible. But all these papers of Bernac"s must be seized, for many of them bear upon this and other conspiracies." As he spoke he gathered together a number of doc.u.ments which were scattered about the table--among the others a letter which lay before him upon the desk, and which he had apparently just finished at the time of Toussac"s irruption.
"Hullo, what"s this?" said Savary, glancing over it. "I fancy that our friend Bernac was a dangerous man also. "My dear Catulle--I beg of you to send me by the very first mail another phial of the same tasteless essence which you sent three years ago. I mean the almond decoction which leaves no traces. I have particular reasons for wanting it in the course of next week, so I implore you not to delay. You may rely upon my interest with the Emperor whenever you have occasion to demand it.""
"Addressed to a chemist in Amiens," said Savary, turning over the letter. "A poisoner then, on the top of his other virtues. I wonder for whom this essence of almonds which leaves no trace was intended."
"I wonder," said I.
After all, he was my uncle, and he was dead, so why should I say further?
CHAPTER XVII
THE END
General Savary rode straight to Pont de Briques to report to the Emperor, while Gerard returned with me to my lodgings to share a bottle of wine. I had expected to find my Cousin Sibylle there, but to my surprise there was no sign of her, nor had she left any word to tell us whither she had gone.
It was just after daybreak in the morning when I woke to find an equerry of the Emperor with his hand upon my shoulder.
"The Emperor desires to see you, Monsieur de Laval," said he.
"Where?"
"At the Pont de Briques."
I knew that prompt.i.tude was the first requisite for those who hoped to advance themselves in his service. In ten minutes I was in the saddle, and in half an hour I was at the chateau. I was conducted upstairs to a room in which were the Emperor and Josephine, she reclining upon a sofa in a charming dressing-gown of pink and lace, he striding about in his energetic fashion, dressed in the curious costume which he a.s.sumed before his official hours had begun--a white sleeping suit, red Turkish slippers, and a white bandanna handkerchief tied round his head, the whole giving him the appearance of a West Indian planter. From the strong smell of eau-de-Cologne I judged that he had just come from his bath. He was in the best of humours, and she, as usual, reflected him, so that they were two smiling faces which were turned upon me as I was announced. It was hard to believe that it was this man with the kindly expression and the genial eye who had come like an east wind into the reception-room the other night, and left a trail of wet cheeks and downcast faces wherever he had pa.s.sed.
"You have made an excellent debut as aide-de-camp," said he; "Savary has told me all that has occurred, and nothing could have been better arranged. I have not time to think of such things myself, but my wife will sleep more soundly now that she knows that this Toussac is out of the way."
"Yes, yes, he was a terrible man," cried the Empress. "So was that Georges Cadoudal. They were both terrible men."
"I have my star, Josephine," said Napoleon, patting her upon the head.
"I see my own career lying before me and I know exactly what I am destined to do. Nothing can harm me until my work is accomplished.
The Arabs are believers in Fate, and the Arabs are in the right."
"Then why should you plan, Napoleon, if everything is to be decided by Fate?"
"Because it is fated that I should plan, you little stupid. Don"t you see that that is part of Fate also, that I should have a brain which is capable of planning. I am always building behind a scaffolding, and no one can see what I am building until I have finished. I never look forward for less than two years, and I have been busy all morning, Monsieur de Laval, in planning out the events which will occur in the autumn and winter of 1807. By the way, that good-looking cousin of yours appears to have managed this affair very cleverly. She is a very fine girl to be wasted upon such a creature as the Lucien Lesage who has been screaming for mercy for a week past. Do you not think that it is a great pity?"
I acknowledged that I did.
"It is always so with women--ideologists, dreamers, carried away by whims and imaginings. They are like the Easterns, who cannot conceive that a man is a fine soldier unless he has a formidable presence.
I could not get the Egyptians to believe that I was a greater general than Kleber, because he had the body of a porter and the head of a hair-dresser. So it is with this poor creature Lesage, who will be made a hero by women because he has an oval face and the eyes of a calf.
Do you imagine that if she were to see him in his true colours it would turn her against him?"
"I am convinced of it, sire. From the little that I have seen of my cousin I am sure that no one could have a greater contempt for cowardice or for meanness."
"You speak warmly, sir. You are not by chance just a little touched yourself by this fair cousin of yours?"
"Sire, I have already told you--"
"Ta, ta, ta, but she is across the water, and many things have happened since then."
Constant had entered the room.
"He has been admitted, sire."
"Very good. We shall move into the next room. Josephine, you shall come too, for it is your business rather than mine."
The room into which we pa.s.sed was a long, narrow one. There were two windows at one side, but the curtains had been drawn almost across, so that the light was not very good. At the further door was Roustem the Mameluke, and beside him, with arms folded and his face sunk downwards in an att.i.tude of shame and contrition, there was standing the very man of whom we had been talking. He looked up with scared eyes, and started with fear when he saw the Emperor approaching him. Napoleon stood with legs apart and his hands behind his back, and looked at him long and searchingly.
"Well, my fine fellow," said he at last, "you have burned your fingers, and I do not fancy that you will come near the fire again. Or do you perhaps think of continuing with politics as a profession?"
"If your Majesty will overlook what I have done," Lesage stammered, "I shall faithfully promise you that I will be your most loyal servant until the day of my death."