“A week later he passed away. To his friend, the landgrave, he bequeathed his note-books, manuscripts, and talismans (all of which were so much Greek to that well-meaning warrior). To me he left what he called his ‘Secret.’
“Monsieur le capitaine, when I began this account of my life, it was to the subject of this Secret, my legitimate heritage, that I intended eventually to come. I have arrived at last. Again I crave your pardon for my great prolixity. But without this long preamble I feared you would not really understand. Now, however, there is no reason in the world why I should not satisfy your curiosity, and, without falsehood, reticence or evasion, answer your query as to what I, my son, and my grandson here are doing with the girl you love, with Madame Madeleine de X....”
Once more, the Marquis Gaspard drew his snuff-box and opened it. But this time he did not close it again. He held it wide open in the palm of his hand without taking his pinch of snuff.
“Monsieur,” he resumed, “I am far from being a philosopher. On the subject of metaphysics I am quite as unpretentious as you. Nevertheless, you and I know as much assuredly as any man in France about the real nature of that undefinable thing called Life. I say ‘as much,’ though I might well say ‘as little’; for no one ever has known, or ever will know, anything really about Life. At the very most we are at liberty to guess at a few of the phenomena which accompany the existence of living beings on earth and which disappear on the advent of Death. My master, the Count of Saint Germain, never deluded himself on this point. Once he discovered the path we may follow with security, he contented himself with not departing from it by an inch, though the path itself he traversed in Seven League Boots,one might say, burning a very long candle at both ends! In his case, there was not, as commonplace minds have stupidly imagined, any trace of sorcery or magic. With him it was a matter of solid science, acquired by patient experiment—a matter of mentality, of genius, if you will—nothing more, nothing less, than that. The Secret, the Truth which he discovered, and which he bequeathed to me when he had tired of using it, the Secret of Long Life, the Secret of Never Dying—is a purely natural, a purely scientific affair. You yourself can be judge, Monsieur le capitaine.
“Not that I shall pretend to explain, to demonstrate, this Secret to you with the rigor mathematicians and physicists require in their sciences. My master might have presumed so much. For myself, I feel quite too ignorant even to venture on such a task. But, after all, what does that matter? All you want to know is what your friend, Madame Madeleine de X...., has to do with it. Am I not right, Monsieur?
“Very well, Sir! To the point! We, Monsieur le capitaine, you, I, all of us, considered as living beings, are compounds of elements, so many bundles of atoms, or cells, which latter come to life in us, live their lives, and die, to be replaced, in the end, by other similar elementsengendered of those before them. Trustworthy scientists have declared that the bodies we have today do not contain a single particle of the substances of which they were composed ten years ago. This incessant transformation, this constant renewal of ourselves, constitutes one of the distinctive traits of the Life to which I referred a moment since.
“This reconstruction, however, does not take place in the same way in every creature, nor in the same way at all periods in one individual existence. When a child grows, for example, each old atom is replaced by several new ones. In old age, on the contrary, many atoms disappear while only a few successors take their places. Death occurs when the departing elements are no longer replaced at all.
“Monsieur le capitaine, this was the special fact which arrested my master’s attention, and meditation on which revealed to him in the end the Secret I have the honor to be discussing with you—instead of sleeping, as I might normally and reasonably be doing, in some coffin already rotted from the years. And this Secret....
“I will reveal it to you, Sir, and without flinching, dangerous as that may be. You, Monsieur, must I again remind you, are in a position to ask anything of us and always be contented—anything save one thing, of course; but this one thing is not the Secret. So then....
“If we grow old, or if we die, the reason is that our atoms, our cells, have lost the power to engender others, the others which are essential to the prolongation of life—the reason is that our aged bodies have become inept at a task which our youthful constitutions perform at play, as it were, without effort. Well then, why not pass on a burden too heavy for our years to some other body, whose youth and vigor will do double duty—for itself and us—and quite willingly besides, not even perceiving the extra labor imposed upon it?
“I am not sure than any objection, any reasonable objection, can be raised to that. My master thought not, at least; and I am of his opinion. So are my son and my grandson here. And I take it, personal presumptuousness quite aside, that when it is a case of unanimity among four competent judges, all old men, and consequently the wiser from an experience not unusual but quite unprecedented, our opinion should be respected. I venture to hope, Monsieur le capitaine, that you yourself will share it....
“Madame Madeleine de X...., your friend, is here of her own free will, or virtually of her own free will, for the purpose of coöperating,generously, in our profit—in the task, that is, of rejuvenating our aged substances which, without her, could not recover of themselves....”
In the pale hand of the Marquis Gaspard the snuff-box cover snapped, with a sharp though barely audible click; and he returned it to his pocket, this time without remembering to take his pinch of snuff.
I was still seated facing my three hosts, and nothing seemed changed between us. To all appearances, I was quite at liberty: no shackles, no bonds, impeded me; I was free to get up, walk around, make a fight of it. In reality an irresistible force, a crushing weight, had settled on my members. I was paralyzed in the most complete, the most atrocious sense of the word. To save my life, to save my soul, to save the woman I loved, I should not, even at the command of God himself, have been able to lift a finger or wink an eyelid.
The Marquis Gaspard finished his bloodcurdling reply without interruption from me. I listened on in silence; my face failing quite to show the unspeakable horror convulsing through my inner self.
Now this man—this beast—of prey was silent for a moment. At times in the placid atmosphere of that room I had the creeping sensation of wings whirring about me—the weird ghoulish flight of vampires.
Suddenly the Marquis Gaspard spoke up anew:
“Monsieur le capitaine, I am inclined to suppose that now your curiosity is satisfied; but should there remain some shadow of doubt in your mind still, should there be any point I have not yet made entirely clear, please consider me at your disposal quite. In my opinion—I know it is but a humble one—it were best all around that we understand each other perfectly, leaving nothing, absolutely nothing, in the dark. You will be patient, therefore, if I supplement my recent explanation with a few observations in detail—and kindly pardon me, if I seem to do all the talking. For that matter, I do not insist. You may be bored insufferably for instance. In that event you are quite at liberty to make your escape—you might go to bed again, for one thing. The narrative I have just completed seemed to me essential to an accurate understanding of the facts. On the other hand, what I was minded to tell you now is not wholly indispensable. I should not be in the least offended if you thought best not to hear it....
“To proceed then, Madame Madeleine de X...., a friend of yours, is here, as you now know, to work, with the best of her soul and body, for our benefit; and specifically for the purpose of renewing, of rejuvenating, the physicalsubstance of us three. Now I know how you love this lady; and I am quite ready to assume that you would be interested in hearing more of the marvelous things she does for us, and for which we are indeed her debtors. I should feel remiss in concealing anything on such a delicate matter.
“Monsieur le capitaine, I shall not inflict upon you a review I might make—dull, dry, wearisome it would almost certainly be—of the efforts men—and by men, I mean physicians more particularly—have made to transfuse a life that is young into bodies that are old. I use the word ‘transfuse,’ my mind reverting to a crude experiment resorted to from time to time (with no success worth mentioning) and which consists in a simple transfer of blood from a strong man to a weaker one. Folderol! Balderdash! Charlatanry! What else could you expect from doctors of medicine, so called? Among donkeys your physician is the prize ass! And I cannot understand how your age, Monsieur le capitaine, the Twentieth Century of Our Lord’s era, can take so seriously these fakirs who, in my time, I assure you, were appraised at a far juster worth.
“That, however, is beside the point. I need not remind you—you must surely have guessed as much yourself—that my master made no use of medical devices in arriving at hisastonishing results. His pride it was to be a chemist, not to say an alchemist, as he would have said. He was no mere horse-doctor. He was no mere barber. His discerning eye was fixed on the mysterious depths of the test-tube, not on the point of a brutal butcher-knife. And he discovered....
“Just when, I do not know. It is well authenticated that the Count de Saint Germain lived several centuries, a fact explainable only on the assumption that the Secret of Long Life must be of very ancient origin. I stress this fact, for the glory of my master is but enhanced thereby. Our Secret, indeed, has a number of curious analogies with the electric or magnetic appliances the invention of which is the glory of the present age. Just consider then how far ahead of his time this great man was! But in speaking of electricity I am not, believe me, thinking of the primitive tricks that were known even to men of old. No, my master did not waste his time in drawing sparks from a cat’s tail nor in making bull-frogs dance to music. But he did manipulate the philosopher’s stone most handily, and he was able to dispense with mercury when he chose to plate with silver or with gold. I remember that many a time, just in play one might say, he would amuse us by transferring the metal of one object to thesurface of another object of a different metal; and this he did by means of electric batteries, of which, precisely, he was an independent inventor; though he used other processes still, quite as far from being supernatural as they were kindred to the marvelous. But he did not stop at so little, for these things were mere child’s play to him. I saw him, with my own eyes, one day, take a branch from a rose-bush with two roses on it and one bud, not to mention the leaves, and transport the whole in some mysterious way through a thick partition, in which the doors were sealed, into an adjoining room. Little by little the rose-branch wasted away before our eyes and as gradually reassembled in another place. That experiment impressed me, I can tell you, Sir; though the Count assured me there was nothing very remarkable about it, since any substance could be disintegrated for a certain short length of time into incredibly minute atoms which made light of passing through such coarsely textured obstacles as wooden doors, or brick and plaster walls. ‘The time will come,’ he used to say, ‘whenmatterandmovement, which, moreover, are identical, can beexteriorized, much as smells, sounds, or light are normally at present.’
“It would be scant flattery to your acumen, Monsieur le capitaine, were I now to fear youhad not guessed the general method of our Secret. Just as a mass of pure gold, suitably moistened in an appropriate liquid and acted upon by a current from an electric battery of an appropriate force, may be broken up and distributed toward a mass of plain iron so placed as to be receptive of such action, so a living creature, likewise placed in a favorable environment and subjected to a magnetic energy of proper strength, gives up its cells in certain numbers and transmits them to another living creature stationed at a point where they may be received and assimilated. There, Monsieur le capitaine, you have our ‘process’—if I may borrow a term from the jargon of your modern alchemists.
“You must be aware by this time, Sir, that I am seeking to hide nothing from you, that I come down indeed to very perilous details. I will go even so far as to add that the conditions favorable for this operation may be found in any room whatever, provided such room be tightly closed, perfectly silent, and darkened to a half light; and provided also, it be laid on a line from North to South. This latter specification is necessary in order to keep at sufficient tension (by drawing on the magnetic forces of the Earth itself) the magnetic current which,for its part, any strong and wilful man can find in his own physical being when he so pleases.
“Now, Monsieur le capitaine, I dare hope you have been furnished with all the facts that you desired to know?”
The invincible, all-powerful clutch which fastened me helpless to my chair, seemed to have paralyzed my tongue and some of the functions even of my brain. I was in full possession of consciousness. I could still think clearly and logically; and I could feel—what despair indeed was mine! But volition, the power to act, had left me; and my combativeness, also, my rage, my fury against these drinkers of human blood, these assassins of the girl I loved, were weakening, vacillating, melting away into a hazy, vaporous, indistinct emotion.
The Marquis Gaspard, after a pause, was again speaking, with that same obtrusive, labored, sinister urbanity.
“Monsieur le capitaine,” said he, “at the risk of seeming intolerably repetitious, I must here revert to something I have mentioned at least twice before, the fact, to wit, that everything under this roof is at your beck and call, without fear or refusal, save one single thing. Eventually, alas, we shall be constrained to broach the painful subject of that single thing, which, to our extreme regret, we shall haveperforce to deny you. Will you not, therefore, carefully examine your mind in all its nooks and corners the better to acquaint us—and as specifically as possible—with all your desires? My honor as a gentleman, they will be satisfied, if the satisfaction be within our power.”
He fell silent, and looked up as though expecting me to speak. Indeed, with the final syllables of his last phrase, a curious, and very complex, sensation began coursing through me. At first, it was a sort of tingling in all my veins and arteries, where my blood seemed to be moving faster as my heart beat with a gradually increasing force. Then I began to understand: little by little, by imperceptible degrees, the control over me was slackening; an influence which my mind could not comprehend was lifting the weight that had settled on my limbs. I was not free, by any means; but neither was I completely helpless as before; so that, when the Marquis Gaspard repeated his question, directly, this time, and without so many mellifluous detours—“Monsieur, what do you wish?”—I was able to answer easily, and with absolute sincerity.
And answer I did—an answer that expressed the deepest, most ardent feelings in my heart: “There is nothing I wish, Monsieur. Kill me, as you have killed the girl I love. But kill me quickly: I am ready!”
In reply the Marquis Gaspard, as he had so often done before, laughed a laugh in that queer falsetto voice of his; and therewith, on the instant, the mysterious weight came down again upon my shoulders, while the clutch tightened again upon my nerves and muscles. Once more I was a prisoner, securely bound, my tongue clinging limp and lifeless to my teeth. Inert, body and soul, I felt the ironical voice of my conqueror again laving me with its scalding mirth.
“My word, Monsieur le capitaine! What are you dreaming of? Badly indeed I must have expressed myself! Are you not taking me for somefeuCartouche of the good old days, for some Monsieur de Paris, perhaps? Hah! Hah!”
And this time, as he laughed, he shrugged his shoulders in affected resignation; and I found a certain ironic exaggeration in the sweep of the hand with which he again took out his snuff-box.
“Well,” he continued, “I can see there is no help for it. Another bit of glossing will be far from wasted here. Your pardon, Monsieur le capitaine, if I, who should not, remind you, that the three men you see before you are three of the most reputable gentlemen of the Kingdom of France. This right hand of mine was never soiled with a drop of blood. Count François here, born in 1770, grew up in the days of yourRevolution and was a ‘philosopher’ of the Jean Jacques style in the days when Rousseau was all the rage. Believe me, what he saw of the France of that time, a nation gone entirely mad, and bent on turning into a slaughter-house, disgusted him forever with Samsons and guillotines. As for the Vicomte Antoine, he came into the world in season to figure among thoseenfants du sièclewho borrowed the pen of Alfred de Musset to wring the hearts of an admiring world with words of tender lassitude and languishing despair. Poor makings for a cannibal, in truth, monsieur! No, I can see the effects of the reading people do in these modern days. Too many novels, too many novels! A bad diet, I take it, for impressionable, imaginative minds. Who said a word here about killing anybody? The idea of putting you—or Madame de X....—to death had not occurred to us in the remotest degree. Count François, as I may have intimated, has a bit of the moralist under his skin. Give him half a chance and he starts preaching at you! Well, he will explain, if you choose to ask him, and have the patience to bear the consequences, how wholly improper it would be for men possessing the Secret of Long Life, for Men who really know what Living means, to deprive simple ordinary people of any portion of that brief course whichleads them unfailingly and miserably to the Hereafter. We have the Powers Above to thank, Monsieur, that our Secret,theSecret, makes (barring a few chance exceptions, so infrequent as to be negligible), no cruel demands upon us. So far, Monsieur le capitaine, I have added a full century to my appointed years. Believe me, none of those additional days have I stolen from the lives of others. No, we are not of those who kill! Can you, Monsieur, a soldier, say as much? Many young people, to be sure, boys and girls alike, have passed through our laboratory. That I cannot deny. Nor could I swear that they departed thence without leaving something of their ultimate vitality. But, at the worst, their loss was a very slight, a very unappreciable one, Monsieur le capitaine; and this loss I might condone with the reflection that a single extra day of life for an ancient sage like me ought surely be worth some sacrifice—a sacrifice, I repeat, quite exceptional in point of fact, since all of the contributors on whom we draw, having once accomplished their generous task, return safe, sound and happy to their normal pursuits. Your friend, for instance, Madame de X...., is by no means so far gone as you imagine. When, tomorrow evening, she goes back to her home from another trip to ... Beaulieu, no onewill take the trouble to observe that she is lighter by some pounds than at the time she went away—a relatively few ounces of blood, and bone, and flesh, which we have claimed from her youthful substance. Concede the fact yourself, Monsieur le capitaine: your indignation was a bit excessive. So now, I suppose, we are at the end of our misunderstandings. From what you have just said I gather simply that you have no particular desires except, I dare say, an early solution of your Adventure. In the latter case, Monsieur, we might proceed. What do you say? Shall we look for such a solution in a friendly spirit ... together?”
Again the iron grasp upon my being was loosened for the fraction of a second; I was permitted to nod in acquiescence.
The Marquis Gaspard hitched about in his chair; and, as his body lay back in the deep cushions, I noticed, on either of the arms of gilded wood, a small withered hand, the desiccated skin of which, faultlessly manicured, was as glossy as ancient ivory. The Count François and the Vicomte Antoine, whether of their own accord or in imitation of their respective parent and grand-parent, relaxed into similar comfortable positions, their hands also, broader and less wasted, likewise resting on their carved chair-arms—which they quite encircled, what with fingers and palm. I could not help observing these details; for a clear, definite conviction mysteriously seized upon my mind that those talons, of such innocent and genteel exteriors, had their nails somehow buried in every part of my tortured flesh.
The marquis was again speaking: “Monsieur le capitaine, I consider you an intelligent man; and I will not do you the injustice of supposing for an instant that you have failed to divine the nature of the restriction which I have always been careful to introduce expresslyinto all my offers of service and hospitality. The time has come—believe me, I am more pained than you thereat—for us to touch more directly upon this restriction. As I have repeatedly assured you, Monsieur le capitaine, our house is wholly, entirely, absolutely at your disposal; but you will understand, knowing what you know, that you will never be allowed to depart from it. Everything here is yours for the asking, everything! Everything save one single thing: your freedom!
“In thus detaining you against your will, our sorrow, Monsieur le capitaine, knows no bounds, no bounds whatever. I say that in behalf of the three of us; for I know that the count here, and the vicomte, feel the same regret as I. But what else can we do? In our heart of hearts, we regard ourselves as absolutely not responsible for any of the consequences that may result from your visit to our abode. Chance, and your own—very pardonable—curiosity, are to blame. A thousand to one chance—and it went against you! It was your ridiculously unreasonable misfortune to have seen last evening something that no mortal man could be allowed to see: Madame de X.... on the Col de la Mort de Gauthier. But your bad luck did not end even there. In your rambling search for your lady, it was your second mischance tocome dangerously near our refuge. From that point on we were helpless. Knowing, perhaps, that we exist, knowing perhaps where we live, knowing perhaps the kind of visits we are occasionally obliged to receive, you know far too much, Monsieur le capitaine; for the Secret preserves its efficacy only so long as it remains a Secret. It must, by nature, be the exclusive appanage of a few Living Men. Let the generality of Mortals even suspect its existence, and it is finished. Our Secret, you see, Monsieur, is an essentially aristocratic one. Its exercise presupposes the subservience of a great number of inferior creatures, who must endure labor, suffering and fatigue for the profit and welfare of a few master beings. I need not remind you that the humanitarian prejudices, the democratic sentimentality, of the present age would not take kindly to such a notion. Your politicians, who flatter and fawn on a vulgar demos more vilely than any of my comrades, the royal pages, ever courted theRoi Bien Aimé, would tear their hair in oratoric indignation if they ever discovered that for the past hundred and seventy-five years one man has been allowing himself to avoid death in defiance of all equalitarian principles. So much so, Monsieur le capitaine, that we three, among the most well-intentioned gentlemen in the Kingdom, as Iboasted not long since, find ourselves obliged to hide like brigands in this out-of-the-way spot, and behind a labyrinth of boulders, precipices and thickets certain to keep all intruders away.
“In the circumstances, our embarrassment should not be hard to understand. You have happened on us, Monsieur le capitaine, much as a wasp might strike into a spider’s web, tearing everything to pieces. If you were left at liberty to return whence you came, carrying the shreds of our Secret in your pockets, it would be the jolly end of us, now would it not? I am speaking, as you well realize, without a trace of exaggeration.
“Consider a moment, Monsieur le capitaine! Try to imagine the prodigies of prudence and cunning we have had to perform, the limitless sacrifices we have had to make, to ensure our safety and our independence in the various countries where we have had to live. For one thing, we have always been moving from this place to that. The business of a Wandering Jew would be child’s play compared with our many flights and migrations. But the discomforts attendant on such things have been the least of our troubles. Monsieur le capitaine, when my master died, I was still a comparatively young man, and François here was a mere boy. His mother I had married twenty yearsbefore, in France—still young and beautiful she was, and as strict in her loyalty to her husband as conjugal happiness demands—neither too much nor too little, that is. I loved her dearly; and my great joy, at first, was to think of taking her along with me to share the new destiny I had in store. But then I reflected: was it wise, was it prudent, to entrust to a woman a Secret on the keeping of which depended whether I should come to be another Count de Saint Germain, and perhaps, indeed, an older and a more learned one? Could I stake, on a female’s discretion and wisdom, the outcome of a game to last for years and years, when winning would make us literally immortal, and a single uncautious word would spell certain ruin? Alas! You understand: I could not! I submitted accordingly, Monsieur le capitaine, to the torture of seeing the mother of my only child perish before my very eyes, while, all along, I could have preserved forever the smile of her lips and the sweetness of her caresses. Such a price the continuance of our lives as Living Men exacted. And twenty years thereafter, my son, in his turn, to prevent the Secret of Long Life from becoming entangled in skirts, sacrificed his wife. Such facts will enable you, Monsieur le capitaine, to estimate the value of this formidable knowledge, which we havepreferred to two lives no less precious, you must admit, than your own. I have said two lives, with a view to a reasonable statistic. There may have been more. A few moments ago you saw how pale and weakened your friend, Madame de X...., appeared. It is no simple matter to give up some eight or ten pounds of living substance to another person.... Then, there are the accidents to take account of.... We have had such lamentable occurrences to regret, unfortunately ... though very few, very very few.... In any event, you can see that the ransom of our lives must be a heavy one, though a capricious Circumstance has decreed that others should pay it for us.... Alas, Monsieur le capitaine! You surely will not be surprised if it has fallen to you now to assume a portion of the cost....
“You must, in short, pay something; and I am certain I can rely, in such a matter, on your liberality as a gentleman of parts.... What puzzles me rather is the kind of currency that might be passed between us....”
At this point he broke off, and looked first at the one and then at the other of his two companions, who, first one and then the other, wagged their heads in doubt. A moment or so must thus have passed.
“Monsieur le capitaine,” the marquissuddenly resumed; “if we were living a hundred years earlier, in 1808 instead of 1908, our difficulties would be easily superable. For, I must tell you: this is not the first time we have been embarrassed by the inconvenient presence with us of an intruder—living or dead as the case may be. Forgive my using such a term for you; it is accurate, however seemingly discourteous. Yes, I remember, to mention only one such episode, a poor Neapolitan who, some eighty odd years ago, died in our house most inopportunely. We were living in Naples at the time. The police service of the Bourbons was a pretty ramshackle affair; none the less I was afraid of considerable annoyance, should it ever occur to the Gentlemen of the Guard to ask how that particular person happened to be found dead so far from his own home. I decided to anticipate any indiscrete inquisitiveness. A felucca from Malta happened to be lying in port. We went aboard long before any one in town could possibly have begun to work up interest in the death of that unfortunate man. The felucca set sail; and no one found any objection to raise against the departure of three kind-hearted old gentlemen noted for the promptness with which they paid their bills. From Malta we took another boat to Cadiz; and from Cadiz we went on to Seville, wherewe were sure no citizen of the Two Sicilies would ever suspect our presence.
“But nowadays, alas, the earth has become much smaller, and the telegraph, especially, has seriously complicated our manner of living. Take your case, Monsieur le capitaine. I have no doubt that in the course of the next few hours, any number of official dispatches will be sent out over all this region, broadcasting the news that you are missing and asking light on the mysterious failure of your mission. There is another difficulty. At the time of our settling here, I was obliged, through the obnoxious provisions of French law, to make a declaration before your magistrates, in order to acquire legal title to this homestead. So you see, the authorities know who I am; or at least they think they know who I am. You can rely upon it: if you were to drop out of sight, an army of detectives would come looking for you, and turn this house upside down from cellar to attic. You know that I am right. Well, there we are, in a blind alley as it were. We cannot let you go away, alive and free, as you came. Nor can we keep you here, a prisoner—or a corpse....”
Again he broke off. Then inclining his head slightly to one side, and pushing his lips forward into a grimace of amusement, he laughedonce more in the same thin, high-pitched, crackling tone.
“I seem to note a movement of surprise in you,” he now continued. “I imagine you are thinking of your friend, Madame de X...., and you are objecting that she comes here, goes away, comes back again, and that others, doubtless, of our contributors do likewise without any untoward consequence resulting. And you are right. But do you suppose that she or any one of her co-workers knows the slightest thing about us and about what we are doing, that any one of them is in the least conscious of the philanthropic service he or she is rendering? Monsieur le capitaine, our disposition to solitude has always inclined us to choose very secluded spots for our abode in whatever neighborhood we are living. The road to our door is necessarily a long one, and our guests would have good reason to complain had we not, from the very outset, devised a means of sinking them into an hypnotic slumber which spares them all consciousness of fatigue. On such a system, for that matter, our security itself depends, as you can readily see. By virtue of it, we are able, whenever we set up our household for ten or twenty years in some hospitable region, to survey the inhabitants for their strongest and most robust members, to select, in the end, thosewho are freest and most independent in their habits and manner of living. These latter, only, become collaborators in our Secret. And may I, in this connection, reassure you, in case there should be some temptation to jealousy on your part: Madame de X.... was not chosen by us for her pretty eyes, though these may, I grant you, be the brightest pair in the world; but because she lives, for most of the time, quite apart from any relatives, and because her country house, situated at some distance from Toulon, requires frequent protracted absences from the city; and her occasional disappearances are not, therefore, likely to cause uneasiness in her husband or in any of her friends. I hope, now, Monsieur le capitaine, that your mind is at rest on that point....
“ ... as I wish mine were on the issue of your adventure! We have reached this conclusion in our talk thus far: that you cannot leave this place alive and free; on the other hand, you cannot remain here a prisoner, and much less a corpse. Oh, of course, we might conceivably take unfair advantage of the situation you are in, kill you, and carry your body to some place where no possible suspicion could fall upon us. But for all you may be thinking or may actually have said, we are not murderers, Monsieur le capitaine, nor anythingresembling murderers. For that reason we shall not kill you, even were the temptation to do so to be very great indeed....
“Such being the case, our problem is to discover some way of not killing you ... a problem which I regard as difficult enough to merit consulting the views of each of us, yours included, Monsieur le capitaine!”
The marquis once more opened his snuff-box and offered a pinch first to the count and then to the vicomte. Then he helped himself; and this time he sneezed, voluptuously, into his handkerchief.
Each in turn, at a deferential nod of their respective father and grandfather, first the count and then the vicomte proffered their suggestions; and so long had I been listening to the shrill falsetto of the marquis, that the sharp, low-pitched enunciation of the other two almost made me start with surprise, paralyzed though I was.
“Monsieur,” said the count, addressing the Marquis Gaspard, “you are right on every point; and especially in what you said of the danger we incur from the presence of Monsieur le capitaine in this place—a danger enhanced by the fact that Madame de X.... is likewise our guest at the present moment. We cannot think of sending her away before this evening, whether to Toulon or to Solliès. That would expose her too soon to the fatigue of the return journey. She is still extremely weak, and neither you nor I, in the very worst circumstances, would consent to risking an innocent life. Now tomorrow morning, this neighborhood will be full of soldiers—we can depend upon that. For, obviously, Monsieur is very close to thegovernor: his absence will be noticed, and a thorough search made. We have every reason to fear a visit ourselves; and in such an unfortunate event we shall be compelled to conceal two persons instead of one: a double danger, if you think as I think.”
“I do,” said the marquis.
The count bowed and proceeded:
“The path of virtue is not the easiest to follow in a case like this: no end of criminal or treacherous devices suggest themselves for relieving us of our present embarrassment. To mention one: few people in Toulon are unaware of the relations existing between Madame de X.... and Monsieur le capitaine. It would be a simple matter to account for his disappearance by turning suspicion upon this estimable young lady. Can there be any doubt of that? Tomorrow police and soldiery will be searching this territory inch by inch. On the Mort de Gauthier, not far from the carcass of Monsieur’s horse—that clue it is too late to obliterate—they find the captain’s lover! Nothing more would be necessary: of course—a “crime passionel,” served to the taste of the metropolitan press! The work of a jealous woman! The eagerness of the public to accept such an exciting hypothesis would divert all attention from us without fail. And Madame de X....,mark you, would meanwhile be unable to defend herself from a charge the very monstrousness of which would quite confound her. That unfortunate girl could never explain to herself, let alone to her judges, her incomprehensible presence in such improbable surroundings.”
The Vicomte Antoine had raised his head: “Such barbarity, such cowardice, would be worse than murder outright and stain our hands darker than with blood: you would make us the vilest of cads, Monsieur.”
There was an abundance of heat in his tone. The count turned toward him and bowed with a nod of approval:
“I agree with you, and no rational gentleman devoted to a life in accord with Nature, would ever allow an innocent head to fall under an unjust punishment. But observe, nevertheless: no court would ever convict the lady on pure supposition; and all direct evidence of a crime would be wanting....”
The vicomte interrupted: “I grant you that a court might acquit, Monsieur; but the public never. And this woman, convicted through our agency of having lived according to her heart, would be the victim of general hostility and opprobrium. Her honor would be smirched forever, and her life ruined.”
“That is true,” the count again admitted.
The squeaky laugh of the marquis took them both to task:
“Enough, gentlemen! Spare us your preciosities, I beg of you. There you are, at it again, indulging your usual fatuities in behalf of the widowed mother and her ten children! Will you gentlemen never tire of sentimentalizing—playing with those soap-bubbles of yours: Humanity, Fraternity, Love, Nature? Does neither of you see that the security of our Secret is perhaps of more importance than the so-called good name of a woman who has already, of her own accord, made herself the talk of a county? The solution you have suggested, Sir, is by no means unworthy of consideration. I do not, however, regard it as the best. I think that before deciding on any course we should review all the possibilities before us. It is your turn, Vicomte. Have you something practicable to propose?”
The youngest of the three men hesitated. Finally he said:
“May it not be that the solution lies in the very magnetic forces over which we have control? I am thinking of yours particularly, Monsieur, so prodigiously powerful, when you choose to exert them. It has occurred to me that we might send the captain home, free to all appearances, but still retained under suchan influence that every word he uttered would be dictated by us. We could gain some days in that way; and then....”
The smile on the lips of the marquis was almost a sneer:
“Then what?” he questioned.
The vicomte failed to find an answer, and the marquis supplied one for him:
“Then ... nothing! Where could such a comedy end? How long do you think we could stand the strain? It is no easy matter to keep our hold on an old man ready for the grave. Could we, without a moment’s respite, and till the end of the world, suppress the individuality of a man like Monsieur le capitaine, youthful, robust of body, and strong of will? Nonsense, Monsieur! Utter nonsense! Find something better than that, Vicomte. Come, gentlemen, you have heads! Use them!”
But the count and the vicomte added not a word. The staccato laugh of the marquis alone continued to grate through the silence of the hall.
Suddenly my flaccid arteries began to dilate again under stronger pulsations of my heart. As had been my experience a few moments earlier, a diffuse tingling spread through all my fibres, and the paralyzing grasp upon me was relaxed anew. But on previous occasions my freedom had been only half restored and for very brief intervals. Now I was free, free from head to foot—a liberty without any restraint whatever; and the sensation of possessing it was destined to endure. I raised my head in astonishment. On my eyes the eyes of the marquis rested; but no imperious commands were emanating from them now.
A temptation flashed across my mind: to leap from my chair, spring upon my captors, and, disarmed as I was, make a fight to the death against them. And a second thought also came to me: the thought of fleeing.
But I contented myself in the end with a shrug of the shoulders. What could I do, after all? Speedier than my flight, more powerful than any violence, the unerring glance dartingfrom the old man’s eyes would have halted me, overwhelmed me—that I well knew. If indeed he was now loosening the unseen bonds that held me, much as shackles are removed from a prisoner once the doors of the gaol are closed, I was in reality no less a captive than before; and any strength I may have had, though I was now ostensibly free to use it, seemed hardly dangerous to my three antagonists.
So I sat there motionless in my chair.
When the marquis now addressed me it was in a very gentle tone indeed.
“Monsieur le capitaine,” said he, “I am sure you are at present in a much more reasonable frame of mind and that you understand perfectly at last the kind of people with whom you are dealing: just plain decent people like yourself—only a great deal older, and with lives, for that reason, necessarily more precious. Yes, that is the whole question, really: to safeguard, first of all, these marvelous, virtually immortal lives we three are living, and then, if, and so far as possible, to do something for you; just as we always do the best we can for the men and women who serve us in the manner I have explained. A simple situation, isn’t it? I am inclined to trust your sense of fair play, Monsieur le capitaine. You will admit that we have treated you considerately thus far,refraining from unseemly harshness even when you had tried our patience sorely. Our desire you see, is to regard you not as an enemy but as an ally, a co-worker, a friend. Fundamentally both you and we have the same object in view. That enables me, without further delay, to invite you to take a part in our deliberations. You have heard what has just been said. Unfortunately no workable plan seems to have come from it. I wonder whether you, perchance, can think of some egress from our difficulties?”
I beseech you—you who read these lines that I am writing, struggling perhaps to decipher the crude scrawling of this pencil now worn to the wood, bear me witness that my Adventure was a terrible adventure, fraught with a horror beyond humanity, beyond life. All that night long—it was my last night, remember—I was not my normal self, but rather like a dreamer caught in the terrors of some ghastly nightmare; and if I chanced, while groping in the depths of that abyss, to forget, for a moment, that I was a man, and was able to think, for a moment, of betraying the cause of Men, of Mortal Men, for the profit and comfort of the Men of Prey, the Ever-living Men, do you who read my full confession, measure my weakness with the measure of your own; and do not condemn me lightly!
Yes, of just that I was guilty! And any crime was in vain.
When the Marquis Gaspard had twice repeated his question: “Can you, perchance, think of some egress from our difficulties,” I, yes, I, André Narcy with lowered head and cheeks aflame, made answer. And I answered with these literal words:
“Monsieur, open your doors and let me depart in peace; and let Madame de X...., the girl I love, go also. Give me your word of honor as a gentleman that this lady will never again be called to this house; and I, for my part, will give my word of honor as a soldier, never to breath a word to living person, man or woman, free mason or priest, of anything that I have seen or heard here, or even of your existence!”
The Marquis Gaspard was on his feet almost before I had finished:
“Monsieur,” said he, with a wave of the hand, “I congratulate you! That is what I had been hoping to hear! Your proposal affords me unbounded satisfaction: I would fain see in it the beginning of a perfect understanding between us, with promise of the further success certain to spring from such perfect accord.”
He sat down again, felt his pockets for hissnuff-box, took it out, reflected a moment, and then, with another toss of the head, resumed:
“Alas, Monsieur, I am deeply pained at my inability to accept, offhand, a proposition in itself so generous. Pray do not mistake my meaning: I have the sincerest regard for your word of honor as a soldier. I hold for it the same high esteem which you profess for my word of honor as a gentleman. Both, we may rest assured, are of pure alloy, more precious than gold, more trusty than steel. I have implicit confidence in you, Monsieur le capitaine, as you will have the charity to believe! But—have you considered carefully, Monsieur le capitaine? The Secret which you would take in trust so courageously is a burden that weighs more heavily than you realize perhaps. What is needed to betray it? A word merely, a single imprudent word! Who, other than a man bereft of speech, could undertake to withhold such a word eternally? Why, Monsieur le capitaine, how can one deny it? Look at the matter as it actually stands! I ask you: do you never talk in your sleep? Do you always sleep out of hearing of others? Can you be certain never to have a fever, a delirium? That might be enough! That might be enough! You can see the point, I am sure: good faith, by itself, has no practical value in such a seriouscircumstance. It is no discourtesy to you if we must reject, to our extreme regret, the offer of a promise which might be dangerous to the honor of the man brave enough to make it—with the most earnest intentions, as I know.”
The old man here bowed to me with a very formal deference. When he proceeded, it was with a change of tone:
“But, whatever the course we are finally to adopt, it would help to know with reasonable accuracy, beforehand, whether we may be exaggerating the probability of immediate danger. Monsieur le capitaine, no one is better placed than you to enlighten us on that detail. Will you not tell us therefore: are we right, or are we wrong, in assuming that, with this coming dawn, a patrol will begin looking for you in this neighborhood?”
Without speaking, I nodded in the affirmative.
“Ah,” commented the marquis, with deep concern.
He sat thinking for some moments.
“Your horse,” he finally continued, “they tell me its carcass is lying out there on the Col de la Mort de Gauthier.”
Again I nodded.
His next words were uttered in a subdued tone almost as though he were thinking aloud to himself:
“So the real search will begin there! The important thing is to have it a brief one. Time is a capital consideration. The speediest solution should be the best....”
He had opened his snuff box, and with one of his fingers was stirring the tobacco about, absent-mindedly:
“Beyond a doubt.... The danger will be less in proportion as it be brief.... Those people will hunt and hunt, and keep hunting for a long time.... A long time, except on one condition....”
He looked at me, and once or twice again he tossed his head in his characteristic manner:
“Except on one condition—the condition that they find immediately ... what they are looking for! What would satisfy them? You, of course, nothing, nobody else—you, alive or dead ... preferably dead!...”
I was certain he was preparing to broach the subject of assassination; and I had quite prepared myself:
“I am in your power,” I observed coldly.
But the marquis frowned and answered curtly:
“Monsieur le capitaine, I thought I had explained to you that we would not kill you even were the failure to do so to cost us dearly.”
He shrugged his shoulders; and then, turning to his two companions, he said:
“I see no alternative: we must organize, stage as it were, some ingenious situation, fit to deceive those investigators, who, for that matter, start with no prepossessions, and are a very ordinary lot of numbskulls into the bargain. It will not be so difficult to arrange something. All we need is a corpse, at the foot of a precipice; a safe distance from here, naturally, and not too far from the Mort de Gauthier....”
Again he relapsed into thought, his eyes fixed on the floor.
But the Vicomte Antoine raised an objection.
“A corpse, yes! But we haven’t one, Monsieur. Where can we get a corpse? Can you be thinking of breaking a grave, somewhere?”
The marquis came out of his revery, and laughed aloud:
“Antoine, there you are again—the inevitable touch of Gothic! Will you never get cured of your romanticism? What a thrill! A dark night! A cemetery! Three men stealing up to a vault with pick-axes.... The idea is not only romantic: it is asinine. Do you suppose the stupidest police sergeant, even, would stop at the first skull and cross bones he came to, and immediately draw up the death certificateof our friend, the captain, here? And that death certificate, precisely, we are looking for, are we not! For the world, for every living person in it, Monsieur le capitaine must be a dead man, and of a death as simple and as easily explainable as possible. Then only can we feel secure!”
His jocular mood vanished. He looked up at me again with deepest concern.
“Monsieur,” he said, “I am profoundly sympathetic with you! I realize how hard it must seem to lose one’s self—one’s name, one’s professional and social position, one’s very individuality. That, alas, is the lot in store for you! You will be allowed to live—that I have promised, and I reiterate the promise now. But you will nevertheless have, in some cemetery, a grave with a stone and an epitaph upon it, and under the sod, a coffin with your mortal remains. There is no escape from that; and I beg you to be as resigned as possible!”
An icy chill ran the length of my spine. For death I had been long preparing; but I was beginning at last to see that dying was not what threatened me: it was a question of something else, of something worse, perhaps.
The Vicomte Antoine persisted in his objection:
“But those mortal remains, where are we....”
The marquis cut the sentence off with an oblique downward movement of his hand and arm:
“Here!” said he.
In the silence which followed, I could hear the violent leap of my heart and feel the drops of chilling sweat as they gathered about my temples. I was afraid, with that indescribable sensation of fear which one has of the dark, or of the ghosts and phantoms that walk by night. The falsetto of the marquis did little to allay my weird uneasiness when his voice again came to my ears. He was speaking to me:
“Monsieur le capitaine, I have been weighing the pros and cons in my mind carefully and thoroughly. But now my decision has been made. From it all our further deliberations must proceed. You, of course, can have no rational objection to it, since you could devise no means for solving the problem before us when your turn came. You will be so kind, accordingly, as to consider the present recourse settled beyond appeal.”
He raised his right hand as though about to take an oath:
“Monsieur le capitaine, up to this day, you have been Monsieur André Narcy, captain of cavalry, staff officer at the fortress of Toulon. You are no longer such: Monsieur AndréNarcy, captain of cavalry, staff officer of the said fortress, is hereby suppressed, and nothing can save him, since his life has become a mortal menace to the Ever-living Man. You, Monsieur—henceforth I cannot call you Monsieur le capitaine—will continue to live under such name as shall be pleasing to you; but you shall continue to live here, a prisoner in this house—at least for a certain length of time; for it is by no means a life-long captivity that we are obliged to impose upon you. Our sojourn in this place may be shortened. Out of consideration for you, we will undertake to limit your restraint to a maximum of three years, dating from today. We will change our residence as soon as we may safely do so, without arousing unduly hazardous suspicions. We will take you with us. Then, on any spot on earth which you may designate—we require only that it be distant—we will set you at liberty, gladly, and without demanding any pledge of silence whatsoever from you. Why such a pledge, indeed? Your story, should you tell one, would be that of an unknown adventurer—or that of an imposter, should you have the extravagant audacity to attempt a resuscitation of Captain André Narcy. Thirty or forty months before this time on this 22nd of December, 1908, Captain André Narcy was found dead; and,unquestionably identified, was buried with military honors. Such a story, I repeat, and as you know well, would send you to an asylum for a much longer time than the three or four years we ask of you. No, you will be silent without a pledge and silently begin life over again—a new life, which, I trust, will be happy, prosperous, and free from accidents, even from accidents less tragic than the one which has brought your present life to an end this very hour!”
I had listened, with a deathly chill in my heart. The marquis leaned forward toward me.
“Do you accept this recourse—of your own free will?” he asked.
I threw my shoulders back and mustered the little strength that still remained in me. With head high I answered:
“I am in your power. There is nothing for me to accept or to refuse. I have no choice in the matter.”
To my surprise, my answer, easy as it must have been to foresee, strangely disconcerted my prosecutor. I saw him bite his lips, and look hesitatingly first to his right and then to his left. After a time, he resumed, abruptly, and with a curious plaint in his voice:
“Monsieur, I am disappointed in you, and I confess to you quite frankly that this resignation you are affecting does not serve mypurposes at all. Remember, if you will be so kind, exactly who we are. In my view, you and I do not stand toward each other in the position respectively of victim and executioner. And you have an absolutely free choice in agreeing or in refusing to submit to what we ask of you.”
I was quite unable to fathom the meaning of this man who was addressing me in this incomprehensible language. I made no answer.
“Once more I ask you, Monsieur,” he insisted: “Do you consent freely and heartily to the death of Captain André Narcy; and do you consent freely and heartily to survive him, at the simple cost of a few years of pleasurable captivity?”
I made no effort to understand, this time. I shrugged my shoulders and answered bluntly:
“No.”
Once and again the marquis tossed his head.
“Monsieur, you are making a great mistake,” said he; and his bright, restless eyes swept me with a glance of severe disapprobation: “A great mistake, Monsieur! I am a very very old man. May I plead indulgence for my years and employ toward you the language a grandfather might use toward one of his children’s children? You are a stubborn bad-tempered boy—naughty, would be almost the word. You are rebelling petulantly against aninexorable destiny which, nevertheless, is deaf to the whimpering of men. Yes, it is childish of you; your conduct is not seemly in a grown man. I hope you cannot be imagining that a simple ‘no’ from you is going to cause us so very much embarrassment, or that we are going to commit suicide just because you refuse a real favor at our hands! Agreed: we will not kill you, whatever happens. But do not speculate too rashly on the horror of bloodshed which we so deeply feel. You have little to gain from it. You have been able to see from what I have told you how little, on the whole, we hesitate where women are concerned. Nothing would be easier that to sacrifice the so-called honor of the girl you love in exchange for the peace of mind of us three old men. No, nothing would be easier—as the count here explained to you, only a moment ago.”
And at this point he too shrugged his shoulders. After a moment’s pause, he resumed:
“What do you say, Monsieur? Shall we stop all this nonsense, and play the game with cards face up on the table? Look here: my idea, as I intimated, is to deceive the civil and military authorities of Toulon, and the newspapers and the public of Toulon, in regard to what has actually happened to you. They will, in other words, believe you dead. Your death certificatewill be duly filed, your obituary written, your grave dug, and filled. In such a case, no one will ever dream of looking for you away off here in this lonely mansion, where you will continue to live, temporarily, the life that we are living—temporarily, I say; for as I promised a bare moment ago, you will be set at liberty again, and as soon as possible, in some distant country. What is there so terrible in all that for a man in your situation—unmarried, without dependents, without serious responsibilities of any kind? Now, for staging the first act of this trifling comedy, your coöperation is absolutely indispensable. This fictitious corpse they are to bury with military honors, honors worthily your due, Monsieur, why—I cannot produce it with the wave of a magic wand over a cucumber, as some fairy godmother might do in a Christmas tale; but I can produce it in a manner quite as satisfactory—only, to do so, I must have your help, a help which, I repeat, must be freely, spontaneously, proffered!”
I had listened I know not whether with greater surprise or alarm. At his concluding words I saw the Count François and the Vicomte Antoine turn with one movement toward their respective parent and grandparent, their eyes aflame with a sudden intelligence as though some revelation which had not yet dawned onme had come to them. Once more I mustered all the forces of my faltering will; and I said:
“Why all this beating about the bush? You have the upper hand. Why so particular about the precise form of blackmail you will eventually resort to? I have already offered my life in ransom for the life of Madame de X....? Do you want me to repeat that offer? Very well! I am still ready. Do your will upon me!”
Several times the Marquis Gaspard waved a broad wide-open hand from right to left, each gesture timed to an exclamation of protest:
“Tic tac too! Did ever you see a worse case of balkiness? Monsieur, for the dozenth time, and as you know perfectly well: nobody but you has raised the question of throat-cutting! No, it’s a simple matter of what you call, with some generosity I must say, the good name of a woman; which presumptive good name is to be saved or sacrificed, as you chance to decide, and at a price of which you are thoroughly aware. However, I will concede a point: once this so-called good name has been saved, I will, if you think it in the least important, add the further stipulation that the object of your concern shall never again be invited to this place, that she shall henceforth and forever be excused from that special collaboration with us which, a few moments ago, seemed to arouse inyou a very understandable compassion. What more can you ask, Monsieur? The question may now be stated thus: will you pay for madame, or shall madame pay for you?”
He had not completed the antithesis before I nodded in assent. The marquis rose: “I thank you,” said he with great solemnity. “I have your word of honor. Between a man like you and a man like me that is quite enough.”
Meanwhile the count and the vicomte had also risen to their feet.
“Gentlemen,” said the marquis to them in a tone of command, “I noticed that you at last had understood me. Be so good, accordingly, as to attend to all the preparations necessary for the work that is now before us. No time must be lost, since the dawn is close at hand. For my part I must rest a moment, to collect myself.”
He had stepped over, meanwhile, to one of thedormeusesof the complicated backs and arm rests, the curious design of which had attracted my attention when I first came into the room. He sat down, or rather, he buried himself, in one of these chairs. I saw him relax against the cushions, which seemed calculated to fit every projection and indentation of his form.
There he rested, with arms folded and eyes closed.