I dreamed that my nostrils were being tickled with a straw. After awhile the sensation became intolerable. I knew that I was dreaming, yet I wished to wake up. Sleep, however, pressed with a heavy hand upon my eyelids, and I contended long and desperately without at all persuading him to go.
At last a voice said, "That will do, Jussieu, he is coming round."
I opened my eyes at once, with extraordinary ease, considering my long struggle, and I looked up into the impassive countenance of Sir Charles Venner. I was seated upright in a high-backed chair, strapped securely in position, strapped in such a way indeed that I could move only my fingers and my toes. The negro surgeon, Jussieu, whom I had last seen at the Kingsmere Hospital for Consumptives, was standing to the right of Sir Charles, and three of us were grouped about the centre of a small uncarpeted brick-floored room scarce twelve feet square, that was furnished only with the chair I occupied and a bracket oil lamp whose wick was smoking. There was one other person in the room. The negro, Beudant, stood near the closed door, wiping upon a cloth a blood-smeared lancet. I noticed that my left sleeve had been ripped open, and that my arm was bandaged just above the elbow. Evidently they had bled me. But why? And where was Marion? Of a sudden I remembered all. Marion had lured me to this river park and betrayed me with a Judas kiss into the hands of my enemies. Too late she had repented of her treachery and tried to save me. She had swooned; I had knelt beside her body, and someone had stunned me with a club. It was all very simple. I had been a contemptible fool, and now I must pay the price of my folly. What price would they exact? I wondered. But I most wondered at my indifference. They can only kill me, I reflected, and the thought scarcely disturbed me. Yet I was curious. There were many things I wished to know.
"Where am I?" I asked, looking at Sir Charles.
"You are in the cellar of my private house at Staines," he answered civilly enough. "I may inform you that I keep no servants except these men you see, and the house is set in the middle of a small park some hundred and fifty yards distant from the river and at least a quarter mile from any other building. You may therefore spare yourself the useless trouble of shouting for help, should you have been so minded."
"Thank you!" said I.
"Question me further, if you wish, Mr. Hume. It will be my turn soon to play inquisitor, when you are stronger."
"Where is Marion Le Mar?"
"She returned to London, this morning. You have been four and twenty hours insensible."
"A clever woman that," I muttered coolly. "You may congratulate yourself, Sir Charles, on her assistance. But for her I would long ago have been in France."
He smiled ironically. "You praise her too much!" he replied. "She has served me well, it is true; but for the last fortnight you have been practically my prisoner."
"What do you mean?" I demanded.
"What I say. Do you remember Miss Le Mar calling you to her room one certain evening and asking you questions of your race and parentage?"
"Yes."
"Had you left the house that evening, even the very second she dismissed you, and indeed at any moment since, you would have been arrested on the instant."
"By whom?"
"By my detectives!"
"What, did you commit yourself with the police?"
He smiled again. "Oh, no! Nevertheless, you would have been arrested, Mr. Hume, and you would have thought—by the police!"
"I—see; but—but—how could you have known, I mean, how could you have been sure that I was I—until you had communicated with—with her?"
For a third time he smiled, and when he spoke it was in a tone of genuine admiration. "You are an able man, Mr. Hume!" said he, "but no chain is stronger than its weakest link, and your weakest link was revealed to me that very morning!"
"Ah! what was it?"
"An advertisement in the personal column of theDaily Mail."
"You deal in mysteries!" I cried impatiently, "I never inserted such an advertisement in my life."
"It ran like this"—replied Sir Charles. "If the gentleman who left a plain, oak coffin in the front room of number 904 Old Kent Road on the morning of the —— day of ——, does not claim it within fourteen days from date, it will be sold to pay expenses. Sarah Rosenbaum!"
"The idiot!" I gasped. "I gave it to her!"
Sir Charles burst out laughing. "Did you?" he cried—"did you indeed? Well luckily for me she could not have understood you!"
"Do you mean to say, sir, it was only that advertisement which put you on my track?"
"That, and only that. I suspected you before, but I confess that you were adroit enough to allay my suspicions and hoodwink me completely!"
"Oh! Lord," I groaned. "To think that a frowsy, oily haired Jewess should be the cause of my undoing. Why in the name of goodness was she not satisfied to take the coffin for a gift!"
"Perhaps she was afraid to sell it, or perhaps she tried to sell it and could not show a title to its would-be purchaser. You should not condemn her, Hume, uponex parteevidence. Pardon me for saying it, but the fault was yours. You should not have given her the coffin at all. You should have got rid of it by other means!"
"Too true!" I groaned. "But I only wanted a day's grace then, or I'd not have been so careless!"
"You had seven!" he exclaimed. "The advertisement did not appear for a week!"
I felt my cheeks crimson. "After all," I muttered, "you owe everything to Marion."
"Were you really such a fool," he cried.
I nodded. "Give me to drink!" I said. "I'm feeling weak and sick."
He made a sign, and one of the negroes hurried out. I was very near swooning, when I felt my chair tipped back, and something was forced between my teeth. I drank and was revived. Then one of the negroes fed me with a bowl of soup and soon my strength was perfectly restored. Sir Charles Venner waited all the time before me, occasionally feeling my pulse. He seemed satisfied at last that my condition warranted his promised inquisition, and he proceeded straight away to business.
"Where are the jewels?" he demanded. "The jewels you purchased with the ten thousand pounds that you extorted from me?"
"In a safe place." I replied.
"But you must tell me where, Mr. Hume," he said, in a pleasant but determined voice.
"Ah, but you must first tell me what you intend to do with me, Sir Charles."
He shrugged his shoulders. "What can I do but kill you?" he replied. "I dare not let you go, and you are too infernally adroit to keep a prisoner! Come, Hume, I'll make a bargain with you. Give me the jewels, and I'll promise you your choice of deaths."
"Done with you!" I cried. "I choose old age!"
"Senility is not for you, my friend; I spoke of sudden deaths."
"Then we can't trade, Sir Charles!"
"Let me remind you that I am a surgeon, Hume. Some deaths are extraordinarily painful. You, who are no anatomist, I think, would be surprised to learn how tenaciously the soul may cling to its clay casket, and how deep are the wells of agony that it will often plumb before it can be prevailed upon to seek another sphere of usefulness. Now I am not a cruel man, and I should not like to see you suffer too protractedly. Let me persuade you not to force my hand."
"Give me a night to think it over," I replied.
"Why delay? No, Hume, I cannot grant your wish in any case. I have to perform a difficult operation to-morrow, and if my mind were occupied with doubts, I might not do my patient justice. If I left you here alive I should be uneasy, my knife might slip—a thousand accidents might happen. Improbable as it seems, you might escape."
"You have determined then to murder me tonight?" I gasped.
"Yes."
"But, you fool!" I cried, seeing one gleam of hope. "How then can you be sure of getting the jewels. I have only to tell you a lie in order to rob you of them for ever!"
The man positively started; nor did he attempt to conceal his mind.
"Hum!" he muttered. "That is a point I had overlooked." Of a sudden, however, his lips parted in a smile and his eyes gleamed.
"Well, well," he said. "Since there's no help, I needs must let you live a day or two. But in order to save time, Hume, be good enough to tell me your first lie at once?"
"You mean?"
"I'll be quite frank with you, my man. This is my meaning. You will presently mention a place where the jewels may be but are not. I shall prove during to-morrow that you have lied. And to-morrow night we'll speak again—and you will then tell me the truth. You understand?"
"You mean, that to-morrow night you will torture me?"
"Just so."
"And if I refuse to speak to-night?"
"You will sleep poorly, I'm afraid, my friend. But come, be reasonable. You pleaded for a night's reflection. I offer it to you."
"But with a sure prospect of torture on the morrow."
"Unless you speak the truth to-night."
"Then I shall!" I cried with a shudder. "Better death than torture!"
"Well?"
"The jewels are in Sir William Dagmar's house. You will——"
"You lie," he interjected sharply. "I drugged and searched you the night that you returned from robbing me."
"I know that, sir; but the very next day I went out and brought them to the house, I couldn't bear to have them any longer out of my reach."
"Ah!" His looks pierced me, but I did not flick an eyelash as I steadily returned his stare.
"Go on!" he said at length. "Where are they hidden, then?"
"Marion Le Mar has them, Sir Charles. I gave them to her when we left the house last morning?"
"What?" he shouted. "What?"
"It is true," I answered glibly. "I gave them to her wrapped up in a small sealed parcel, which I asked her to keep for me in her box until we had returned. I acted so for this reason. It occurred to me that you or someone might take a notion to search my room while I was away, but I felt pretty sure you'd never dream of searching Marion's box."
It were as well for me perhaps to explain straight away the monstrous falsehood last recorded. An instinct taught me that Sir Charles Venner entertained but small respect for women. I saw that he wanted the jewels very badly, and I fancied that if I could make him believe the story I had so readily invented, I might still live for many days. His natural course would be at once to demand from Marion the packet which I declared that I had given her. As I had given her nothing, she would truthfully repudiate his claim. But Sir Charles Venner's want of respect for women would immediately induce him to doubt the honesty of Marion's denial. He would think, "she has opened the packet, and the jewels—treasures so dear to women's eyes—have stolen her honour."
I would act thereafter so as subtly to foster his suspicions, and I hoped that at last, in order to satisfy himself whether Marion or I spoke true, he would confront me with the beautiful woman, for love of whom I had to die. I felt that I would be content to perish, given in exchange one opportunity to hurl at her my hate. As deep and tender as had been my love, so bitter and so ardent was my hate!
Sir Charles eyed me for a moment in thoughtful silence. Then very slowly he nodded his head.
"Did you tell her what it was you gave her?" he demanded.
"No."
"Why do you tell me now? It will cost you a day of life if you spoke the truth."
I permitted myself a show of passion.
"A life of which I am weary, weary! Have you ever loved, you man of ice? Have you ever been betrayed by the creature you adored?" I cried. "I would to God that you had killed me as I knelt beside her body in the park. I had then hardly realized her treachery!" I closed my eyes and shuddered, straining my muscles as though in a paroxysm of mental agony, the while.
"Hume!" said Sir Charles, "if you are not acting, you are desperate, and you have not lied to me. Take my advice and die while you are desperate! A pin prick and all will be over. I can promise you no pain."
The fact is I had acted far too well. It was necessary then to surpass my former effort in order to save my life, and at the same time make him continue to believe in me.
I opened my eyes and looked up at him, at first with a vacant stare. "She sold me with a Judas kiss!" I muttered, "a cursed traitress—with a Judas kiss. You've promised me my choice of deaths. You'll keep your word, Sir Charles, or by the God above us—you'll die a fouler death than I."
I gave him a look of such concentrated rage as I concluded, that, bound though I was, he started back a step and bit his lip.
"Well, well!" he exclaimed, "I'll keep my word, you need not fear."
"Then bring me a cross, and nail me to it—in my senses while I live, and while I bleed to death—you'll drag her here to see me—so that I may curse her as I die!"
"The man is mad!" he gasped, "mad as a March hare!"
"Keep your word!" furiously I hissed. "I bind you to your word!"
Sir Charles exchanged fearful glances with the negroes. I watched him, frowning like a thunder-cloud.
"Come, come!" he said at last. "You must sleep over this, Hume! You must not set me a task beyond my power—I——"
But I broke in upon him with a curse. "What!" I shrieked. "You bragged and bleated of the torture you had in store for me—and when I bid you kill me as I wish to die, you shrink and blanch and mouth your feminine humanity. But you've given me your promise—and you'll keep it or by—" I finished with a storm of maledictions so blasphemously horrible, and which I delivered with such wild and awful force, that even the stolid negroes staggered back and rolled their eyes. As for Sir Charles, he turned sheet white before I was half through, and with a look of something marvellously resembling terror, he turned and simply rushed out of the room.
I screamed my curses after him, straining and tugging at my bonds like one possessed. But at length, thoroughly outworn with the exertion, I stopped and feigned to swoon.
Next moment the cellar was in darkness, and I heard the negroes stumble out and bolt the door behind them.
I'll not relate the anguish I endured that night, more than to say it made an old man of me—in mind, if not in body. I did not sleep. I could not if I would, for I was companied with memories sharp enough to sting a soul from torpor deep as death. And I would not, if I could, because I feared that those were by me who might take advantage of my slumber to extend my sleep beyond mortality.
But none came near me, and through the dragging hours I heard no sound. Morning came without the black dark lessening one whit, until the negro, Beudant, brought a candle with some breakfast. He was plainly afraid of me at first, and without doubt I was not a pleasant thing to gaze upon. But his fears faded as he fed me and saw me grateful for the food.
"You are in a gentler mood, monsieur, than overnight," he presently remarked. "It is better so, believe me. If I were you, I would not die upon a cross."
"Just so," I answered quickly. "I do not wish to die at all, would you like to make yourself a rich man, M. Beudant?"
"Why, yes, monsieur."
"Then help me to escape, and I shall fill your hands with gold."
"But in that case I should incur my patron's enmity."
"And in the other you will run a very certain risk of being hanged."
"Even so, monsieur."
"You fear your patron more keenly than the law!" I cried. "Believe me, you are wrong."
"Pardon!" he interrupted, "you mistake, monsieur. I fear no man. Sir Charles Venner is my patron and my teacher. But he is also my friend. I would suffer death for him, if need arose."
I sighed. "Will he really kill me, do you think?" I asked.
The negro pursed out his thick, black lips. "I feel sure of it," he muttered. "As soon as once the jewels that he seeks are in his hands, you'll die."
"Then my hours are numbered," I said gloomily, "for that will be to-day."
"But then, can it be, you told him truly, yesternight, monsieur?"
"I was mad!" I groaned aloud. "Mad. Last night I cared for nothing! I was torn apart with rage and with despair. But now it is different." I groaned again. "Ah! M. Beudant, is there no hope for me? You do not look inhuman! Would you have the murder of a fellow being on your soul. Help me to live, if only for a little while—a few short hours? One other day? I am not fit to die, Beudant. Great God, no! I am not fit to die!"
"What can I do for you, monsieur?"
"Oh! it is not much I ask. Go to your patron and persuade him that I lied last night."
"Impossible, monsieur! He has already left the house."
"Then follow him, Beudant. I am bound or I would beseech you on my knees. Beudant for the love of God——"
"Monsieur, monsieur!"
"Kind, sweet Beudant!" I wailed. "Beautiful, excellent Beudant, do this little thing for me. See it is a dying man entreats you. Sweet Beudant, pretty Beudant."
The poor negro looked the picture of distress. His eyes rolled in his head, and he knew not what to do or say.
"I cannot deceive my patron!" he cried at last.
But at that I shrieked aloud and drove him from the room with venomous blood-curdling curses. In his agitation he forgot to take with him the candle, which he had set upon the floor, and that circumstance gave me an occupation for some hours which in some degree alleviated my dark mood of bitterness. I thought that by dint of great stress and labour I might work my chair beside the flame and sear through some or other of my bonds. In four hours of constant effort I had moved a foot perhaps, but then I gave up in despair, for I had still a yard to go and already the candle guttered in its socket.
Jussieu was the next to visit me, bearing on a tray my mid-day meal. After eating heartily, I tested him in much the fashion I had tried on Beudant. He gave me similar replies, and I rewarded him with similar maledictions. But instead of flying from my oaths as the other negro had, to my astonishment, he quelled me with a rolling sermon, delivered in the finest Lutheran style. Texts quivered from his tongue, like shafts of lightning in a storm, and the black canting hypocrite, who was ready at his master's nod to murder me, dared preach to me of penitence, and summoned me in thunderous tones to prepare my soul for death.
At first rage and indignation held me speechless; but when the humour of the situation struck me properly, I yelled with laughter, and laughed and laughed until my ribs ached and the tears trickled down my cheeks.
When I had sobered he was gone, and I was glad, despite the dark. I am too good a hypocrite myself to endure a man whose hypocrisy may be pierced with a pin. And though I had laughed at him, too much of Jussieu would have made me sick.
Seven hours later Sir Charles Venner entered my prison cellar with his ebony attendants, who bore between them a small table spread with lamps, and one or two strange ugly looking implements.
The surgeon wore a gloomy look, and he made no answer to my courteous greeting. But bidding Beudant shut the door, he turned to me and said:—
"Hume, after all you lied to me!"
"What!" I cried as if dumbfounded. Then quickly recovering my countenance, I exclaimed. "Oh, yes, yes. You have discovered it. Yes, yes, I lied to you. The jewels are really hidden behind the second volume of Bruton's "Anatomy of Melancholy" in the bookshelf on the eastern wall of Sir William Dagmar's library."
Sir Charles favoured me with a black frown. "You are such an accomplished liar!" he said coldly, "that I can no longer rely upon your unsupported word."
"What would you do?" I cried.
"Persuade you to be honest with a foretaste of damnation!"
At that I felt my blood turn cold within me, and yet strange to say a hot sweat broke out on my forehead and my face.
"You monster!" I gasped. "You would really torture me?"
"I shall," he retorted. "Jussieu, will you please to operate."
"But certainly, monsieur," replied the brutal preacher, with a grin of malice which showed me that my laughter had not failed to prick his vanity.
He seized one of the implements that I had noted and immediately approached my chair. In another moment my left hand was encased in a curious steel glove, which held the fingers widely separated in rigid iron stalls. I tremulously assured myself this was a farce to try my nerve; and resolving not to watch the leering villain at his work, I looked up at Sir Charles, who met my eyes as impassively as ever.
"A test?" I sneered.
"Yes, a test," said he.
Next instant I uttered a scream of agony, for a burning pain had suddenly pierced my thumb. I looked at it and saw that a long needle had been inserted down the joint between the nail and quick. Jussieu was already busy at my forefinger. "Mercy mercy," I shouted. "I'll tell you the truth, the truth!"
"Then speak!"
"She has them, Marion!"
"Once more, Jussieu?" said Sir Charles.
Again that penetrating agony. Again I raved and screamed. Again I swore I'd tell the truth.
"Speak!" cried Sir Charles.
"They are in Sir William Dagmar's library, where I said before, behind——"
"Once more, Jussieu!" interrupted the surgeon.
I lost sight of the agonizing periods. I fainted more than once and was restored to life by pain. Sometimes I lied, more often still I shrieked aloud the truth, and was not credited. But at last growing wise under the torture, I perceived what my inquisitor wished me most to say, and I vowed time after time that Marion possessed the jewels, and Marion alone. At last Sir Charles decided to believe me, and my mangled hand was grudgingly released. I was by then well-nigh incapable of feeling, and they might have murdered me without exciting in my breast one added solitary pang.
I fell into a heavy sleep before they left the room, and when I awoke I was benumbed and very listless. I became, however, gradually aware that much had been done during my unconsciousness which must have lasted hours. The table remained in the room, and a lamp thereon cast a yellow glitter round the plastered walls. To the left of my chair there yawned a deep hole in the floor, something coffin shaped, with bricks and earth and stones heaped against the wall behind. Two spades were sticking in the rubble, and a pick. Very patently it was a grave, my grave! I gazed at it with a sort of solemn wonder, but I thought it might prove a friend, if it would only save me from such horrors as I shuddered to remember I had lately undergone. After a time I realized that I was listening to a faint bubbling sound that seemed to issue from my grave. Then I noted in the shadowy depths a whitish froth, and understood! My grave promised me, as well as death, obliteration, nay, absolute annihilation. It was partly filled with seething quicklime!
Beudant came and made me eat and drink. I was very faint and only asked him for the time. He told me it was two o'clock upon the fourth day of my imprisonment.
While wondering at the news, I fell asleep. Beudant awoke me with more food and drink. Again I fell asleep, and again I awoke to find myself being softly carried from the cellar of my grave, into an adjoining room that was also situated underground, for it, too, was plastered walled and windowless. It contained, however, a long rack furnished with some dozens of champagne, neck downwards, and most carefully bestowed.
"A good vintage! I should say," I said to Beudant. Satan himself could not have made me to speak to Jussieu, except with sneers.
"You shall judge, monsieur!" replied the negro, and when he set me down, he took a bottle from the rack and proceeded to unfold the cork.
"Why this sudden kindness to aname damnée!" I asked indifferently. "Has my last hour come?"
"God knows, monsieur; but you are, I think, to have a visitor, and I have orders! Kindly drink!"
He poured out a full cup of the frothy nectar, and held it to my lips. I quaffed it slowly, and felt the life blood surge anew along my veins. Also I felt my lacerated hand begin to pain, and soon I groaned aloud. Beudant on instant was a kind physician, and I blessed him as he poured some warm and grateful balsam on the wounds, and bound my injured fingers in a swathe of silk.
"Beudant." said I, "whichever takes me, Beelzebub or Satan, when I go, I'll sing your praises to him as a man of heart."
"Peace, blasphemer!" grated Jussieu.
"Peace yourself, you canting hound!" I cried.
For answer he smote me on the mouth. But that was too much even for me, who till that moment honestly believed that I was destitute of pride. I discovered at the touch of a blackfellow's paw that, at all events, I had a pride of race. I filled my lungs with air and shouted like a Stentor: "Help! Help! Murder! Murder!"
Jussieu shook like a leaf. "You blasted pig!" he muttered—very low. "God strike you dead!"
Truly his religion, for all his preaching, was not deep.
But Sir Charles Venner's voice answered at once, in very angry tones: "Beudant, Jussieu, what the devil are you doing?"
Next instant the door opened. I saw the tail end of a flight of brick steps, and into the room rushed Marion Le Mar, followed less quickly by the surgeon, who stopped to lock the door behind him. The girl stopped midway on the floor. But I did not look at her. I was too deeply agitated, and I wished to gather up my strength for later use.
I heard Sir Charles repeat his question. Jussieu replied—"Master, he blasphemed, and I struck him on the mouth."
Pride of race is a curious thing. I found I could not argue with the negro, though he had lied.
The surgeon whipped his servant with a dozen scorching words, then strode beside my chair.
"For this insult, Hume," he said, "I offer you my sincere apologies. Such a thing will not occur again!"
"Give me another cup of wine," I cried, "and I'll forgive you."
Within a moment it was held up to my lips, and I drained it at one draught. I was passionately craving strength to show my hate to Marion. Heaven! How I hated her!
"More?" asked Sir Charles.
"No," I answered sullenly; my eyes fell upon the floor.
"Mademoiselle Le Mar denies that you gave her any packet, Hume?"
"Does she?"
"Yes, and she is here to confront you?"
"Why?"
"To induce you to confess your falsehood!"
"And if I don't?"
"It will go harder with you than before!"
I ground my teeth. "Bah!" I snarled, "you doubt her word, or you'd not have brought her here. I see your game, you wish to make her own her theft by witnessing my torture. But you will fail, you fool. Do you forget that she betrayed me? She'll laugh to hear my screams!"
Marion spoke for the first time. "Sir Charles," she began, in low vibrating tones, "this man looks very ill. What have you done with him, and what is the matter with his hand?"
"He will tell you," said the surgeon curtly.
I looked up at her for the first time. Her eyes were dilated, and full of passionate questioning.
"You pretty actress!" I sneered, "you know nothing, oh, of course, you know nothing!"
"Miss Le Mar knows nothing, Hume," said Sir Charles, in tones of ice. "But it is time she knew. You will tell her, or shall I?"
"You," I muttered. I was a little dazed. Marion had not thought to have me tortured then. I had to readjust my mind, concerning her.
Sir Charles nodded, and the girl and he gazed into each other's eyes.
"Tell me!" she cried.
"His fingers have been pierced with frozen probes between the nail and quick!"
It seemed to me that an hour passed before their glances parted. But at last Marion uttered a little gasping sigh and slowly turned to me. Her face was very pale. "How you must loathe me!" she muttered.
"Yes!" I answered simply. "But you will better understand how much, if you will trouble to explore the room I lately occupied!"
"Come!" said Sir Charles, at once, and he strode across the cellar.
They were not absent long, yet when they returned Marion had some colour in her face. It seemed they had been talking, but I heard the end of their discourse.
"You should have known it, child," Sir Charles was saying. "I did not use bald words, because I trusted your intelligence. 'A long voyage' was the term I used. It bore one application only in my mind. You must perceive how utterly impossible it is that he should live. Why, if we kept him prisoner, he might escape—ten, twenty years hence even, and yet he still could ruin us!"
"But you spoke also of an island?"
"An island of dreams, Marion!" he replied impatiently. "Come, come, we waste time. You must be sensible!"
She bowed her head before him and appeared to think.
"Come, come," he said again, still more impatiently.
"Wait!" she replied. "I begin to understand."
"Well!"
"Mr. Hume spoke truly, monsieur, you doubted my word, and that is why you brought me here. You think it possible that I have the jewels. Is it not so?"
"Yes to all your questions!"
"And unless M. Hume confesses that he lied about the packet, I must behold his torture and listen to his screams!"
"Unhappily, my child!"
"Why should you doubt my word, monsieur? Have I ever in my life deceived you?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "How can I tell!" he sneered.
"Perhaps, perhaps, m'sieur—if he withstands the torture and persists to lie, you will then torture me? You do not see, though I see. He has planned that you should bring me here for his revenge. Therefore, he will not tell the truth! Will you torture me, m'sieur?"
"My child, you are a fool. It is the truth that I am seeking. I would give you the jewels, if you needed them. But this I shall not do—permit that man to triumph over me, in one iota! Why, Marion"—his voice broke—"he once obliged me to shake hands with him!"
I thrilled to hear him, for I saw he spoke the truth, and I understood at last how bitterly he had brooked the way that I had used him. I could write a sermon here on pride and vanity, if I had a mind. Good heavens! to what heights will they not drive, to what depths will they not drag their victims! But let another pen than mine essay the task. It is Homeric and beyond my powers to do it justice.
Marion left the surgeon's side, and came very close to me. "Agar Hume," she murmured, "I have used you ill, but how ill I did not dream till now. As God hears me I would never have betrayed you, if I had known it could have meant, what it has meant, and means!"
"Go on!" said I, "your voice is very sweet."
"You loved me once," she whispered.
"I did indeed."
"By the memory of that love I implore you now to speak the truth and forfeit your revenge. I am only a woman, monsieur, surely my punishment is great enough in knowing that I have brought you to your death!"
"I'm not dead yet, mademoiselle. You reproach yourself too soon."
"But you will die!" she cried.
"When it is written."
She clasped her hands and gazed at me beseechingly. "I want you to look back into a night, one night," she muttered very low, "I asked what would you give me for my love, and you replied, 'all that I can!'"
"Too true. I was sincere as well in what I said."
"Then give to me the memory of a man!"
"And you will keep the bargain, how? By worshipping that memory?"
She gave a little moan. "For God's sake," she pleaded, "For God's sake, M. Hume."
"For man's sake," I retorted, "I shall speak the truth," and looked beyond her.
"Sir Charles," said I, "I thought myself a liar till I met this woman—and selfish too beyond comparison. Did you ever hear the maxim I invented for the ruling of my life? It was this:—'First person paramount!' But look at her! She dwarfs and shadows me so much, without a maxim but her womanhood, that I can only keep my dignity by noising my defeat. Here am I, bound, helpless, ill, and threatened with a painful death, because of her. But she has jewels which she sets before my agony, and she would spare herself the shame of witnessing that agony. Wherefore she tries to fool me to the end, not caring what I suffer, so that her eyes and ears are not offended."
Sir Charles nodded his head, and it is very likely he believed me, for his eyes gleamed scorn at Marion.
"It is your turn," he said coldly.
"My turn, monsieur," she shuddered and turned crimson, it seemed to me with passion.
"Your turn," he repeated.
"Very well!" she cried in a voice grown hoarse and desperate. "Torture him! Torture him! That is all I have to say!"
Sir Charles glanced from her to the negroes. "Light the stove," he said.
The wretches disappeared behind my chair, and I heard one strike a lucifer.
"What is the bill of fare?" I jauntily inquired.
The surgeon smiled evilly. "I am too good a host to keep you in suspense!" he said. "For hors d'oeuvre, Jussieu will stroke your soles with red hot needles. Potage—we'll fill you palms with boiling oil. The entrée——"
"Hold, monsieur!" I cried. "You go too fast. You'll spoil my appetite!"
"Your nerve is excellent!" he grudgingly admitted. "But how long will it last? Beudant, be good enough to bare our patient's feet."
Beudant obeyed. I have well-shaped feet, with not a blemish upon either. I was not ashamed to have them publicly exhibited. I could not see them myself because of my position, but Marion looked at them, and her glance was quickly riveted. Her lips were moving, and she seemed to be muttering to herself, although I heard no sound. God in Heaven! how beautiful she was, and how I hated her!
Within a few minutes, Jussieu re-appeared, bearing an iron plate, upon which was arrayed a brace of steel awls, set in wooden handles. The points glimmered blue and red. At a nod from Sir Charles Venner, my chair was tipped back in order to raise the soles of my feet. My ankles were strapped securely to the legs of the chair.
Jussieu set his plate upon the floor, and taking one of the awls in his hand, glanced up at his master.
"One moment!" cried Marion. She darted to the rack and seized the half-emptied champagne bottle which Beudant had opened for my benefit. Disdaining the cup, whose rim my lips had touched, she raised the bottle to her mouth and bending back her head drank deeply.
Sir Charles and I exchanged glances of amusement. A little later Marion recovered her position, but she continued to hold the bottle. The wine had produced an instantaneous and curious effect. She was snow white, and her eyes were dull and turgid. "I am ready!" she declared.
The surgeon stepped to the side of my chair, and presenting his back to Marion put his fingers on my right wrist.
Jussieu kneeled upon the floor, and passed his accursed awl across my instep. The pain was so exquisite that, although I fought like a tiger for control, I writhed and groaned.
The torture seared again, and then I shrieked.
But Marion glided forward, and raising the heavy bottle that she held on high, she brought it down with a crashing blow upon Sir Charles Venner's undefended head. The glass shivered into fragments, and the surgeon fell without groan or cry, unconscious at my feet.
My chair was unexpectedly released. I swung forward, seated erect again, helpless and suffering intensely, but uplifted to a mental contempt of pain in a sudden rapture of astonishment. Marion, who had stepped back almost to the farthest wall, faced the negroes with a little cocked pistol, which did not waver in her grasp. Her face was still ashen coloured, but her eyes were simply on fire.
"M. Jussieu!" said she, her voice was like a silver bell, "take up your master, if you want to live, and carry him into the other cellar!"
The negro did not move. He glared at her from where he kneeled, like a frozen image.
"In five seconds I shall kill you!" said the girl. "One—two—"
Jussieu uttered a raucous cry, and scrambled to his feet. Stooping quickly he seized the body of Sir Charles and staggered off.
"Beudant," said Marion, "lock that door quick!"
Beudant sprang to obey. I heard him slam the door and shoot home the bolts.
"Now," said the girl, "release M. Hume and take care not to hurt him."
In a moment I was free. But I could not move so much as a muscle. I had been four days in the chair, and I was not only cramped, but ill, frightfully ill. There was not an organ in my body that did not begin to give me agony immediately the supporting straps relaxed. Even as I swayed forward, I shrieked with pain and swooned. When I awoke I was stretched out at length upon the floor, and Beudant was kneading my half-naked limbs and body with all the strength and science of a skilled masseur. Marion, seated at a little distance on the chair, kept the muzzle of her pistol pointed at the negro's head. From the adjoining chamber a curious babel of sounds proceeded. Sir Charles Venner's voice, raised in passionate entreaties and commands, mingled with the noise of continual digging. Was Jussieu trying to dig a way out? For a moment I wondered why he did not attack the door with his pick, but then I remembered it was thick and stout and heavily bound with iron.
For another hour Beudant continued his massage, and Marion uttered no word nor made one move. I could not speak, because the pain I suffered obliged me to lock my teeth to keep from shrieking, and even as it was I often groaned. Beudant paused at last in sheer fatigue, and Marion permitted him to rest. Afterwards the negro dressed me, and bound up my wounded foot. He also gave me more champagne and assisted me to rise. I found that I could stand, but my muscles were flaccid and unstrung, while every nerve was raw and quivering. I could not move without assistance. At Marion's command Beudant took me in his arms. He was very strong, that negro, and he bore me as easily as I might have done a child. She opened the door, and we passed out before her, and mounted a flight of brick steps into a kitchen above. Marion bolted the door and followed us like a shadow. I was carried thence out into the night, across a long flagged yard into a stable, Marion always close behind us, with a lanthorn in her hand. I was deposited upon a truss of straw, from which vantage post I watched Beudant, under the guidance of the pistol, harness a quiet-looking horse, and attach it to the shafts of a small basket phaeton. The negro then lifted me into the body of the vehicle, and mounting to the box took up the reins. Marion climbed in and sat beside me. "Drive to London, Beudant," she said quietly, "and if you value your life keep your eyes before you!"
Heaven preserve me from the horrors of such another drive. At every jolt and rumble of the phaeton I felt as though I were being torn apart upon a rack. My moans made such hideous music for the road, that often we were stopped by travellers with courteous questions of my state. Marion addressed me several times with the same request: "For God's sake, monsieur, let me give you an injection of morphia. It will ease your pain!"
But I loathed her, and distrusted her.
"Better the pain," was my invariable response. "Better the pain!"
"How you hate me," she would cry. "How you hate me!"
Sometimes I felt her shiver, but not often, for I kept as closely to my corner as I could, and if by chance she touched me, curses trembled to my lips which I had work to stifle.
We drove so slowly that morning had already dawned before we reached the outskirts of the city. We stopped then at an inn, where Beudant's shouts procured a flask of spirits, which I drank to drug my suffering. Afterwards I did not groan, for though the brandy scarcely eased my pain, it gave me strength to smother its expression.
Marion put away her pistol soon, for the road was full of vehicles, and Beudant was no longer to be feared. The girl's face in the early morning light was pitifully lined and haggard. I watched her, but she kept her gaze set straight before, as though conscious of my stern regard. Every now and then too, she caught her breath, and shuddered as though she were remembering. Our silence lasted until we came to Notting Hill, when I became aware of a certain chilling curiosity concerning her.
"Now that you have broken with your friends," I muttered suddenly, "what will you do?"
She did not move, yet she answered at once in tones of deep humility. "Whatever you wish, monsieur!"
"Whatever I wish," I sneered. "What has my wish to do with you?"
She turned her head and looked into my eyes. "I have used you very ill, monsieur! I would make atonement, though, if you will let me!"
"How?"
"In any way you please."
"Would you marry me, mademoiselle?"
"Yes, monsieur."
"You conceive then that you owe me extraordinary reparation?"
"The greatest possible," she answered very softly.
I knew then that I loved her still, in spite of better cause for hate than love; but so deep was my bitterness and sense of injury against her, that I felt perfectly incapable of magnanimity.
"Your penitence is of sudden growth," I sneered.
"It is none the less sincere, monsieur!"
"And your humility?"
"That too, monsieur."
"I need a wife less than a servant who will nurse me!" I said coldly.
"I will serve you, monsieur."
I looked away and reflected deeply on her words. But though I tried, I could not understand her, and ignorance intensified distrust. Yet I foresaw that a period of sickness lay before me, and I could not believe that she had saved me to again betray me. Some one I must lean upon—it was imperative. She watched me in most evident anxiety, scarcely breathing the while.
I turned at last, and said:
"Have you money?"
"None, monsieur."
I felt my lip curl. It was, then, poverty which had inspired her abject self-surrender—and perhaps, too, fear. No doubt she relied upon my aid to escape Sir Charles Venner's vengeance.
She read my thought, and murmured very low: "As God hears me, you are unjust, monsieur!"
"We shall see!" I sneered. "Stop the phaeton!" We had come upon a cab-stand. Beudant transferred me into a fourwheeler, and Marion thereupon commanded him to return to Staines. When he had departed, I gave her my Bruton Street address, and thither, in perfect silence, we proceeded. My gaolers had disdained to rob me, but my pockets contained less than four pounds, and it was necessary to provide immediately against the illness I anticipated.
When we had arrived, I explained to her the situation of my room, and bade her bring me down my cash-box, in which reposed my cheque-book and all my bank receipts. The box I knew was locked, but, in order to ensure its privacy, I obliged her to detach my latch-key from the others and give me back the bunch. She obeyed me with a sigh, and in five minutes she placed the cash-box in my hands.
"Where to now, monsieur?" she asked humbly, with downcast eyes.
"To the Colonnade Hotel."
She spoke to the driver and resumed her seat. Upon arriving at our destination, two porters carried me within, and I engaged two adjoining rooms on the third floor, to the larger of which I was carefully transported. To all seeming, I was a wounded man in charge of a nurse, for Marion wore her uniform, and I explained to the clerk that our luggage would presently follow us from the station, where we had left it. We were thus able to circumvent Mother Grundy's spirit of conventionality without the necessity of answering a single question.
With Marion's assistance I got to bed, where I lay for some time convulsed with agony. As soon as I could, however, I wrote a cheque for £100, which I gave to her for our joint use. My last recollection is of enjoining upon her a course of conduct designed to secure us from the persecution of our enemies, and directing her to purchase certain trunks and clothes so that our want of luggage might not be evilly construed. Before I had finished, however, I had to spur my wits with brandy, and within an hour I was tossing in a high fever, to all intents and purposes a helpless raving lunatic.