"Vorski! Vorski!" she groaned, stricken by the recollection of her husband. "He's Vorski's son!"
Suddenly she felt herself seized by the throat and saw, close to her own face, the distorted face of the Breton woman.
"He's your son!" spluttered Honorine. "Curse you! You are the monster's mother and you shall be punished for it!"
And she burst out laughing and stamping her feet, in an overpowering fit of hilarity.
"The cross, yes, the cross! You shall be crucified, with nails through your hands! . . . What a punishment, nails through your hands!"
She was mad.
Véronique released herself and tried to hold the other motionless: but Honorine, filled with malicious rage, threw her off, making her lose balance, and began to climb into the balcony.
She remained standing outside the window, lifting up her arms and once more shouting:
"François! François!"
The first floor was not so high on this side of the house, owing to the slope of the ground. Honorine jumped into the path below, crossed it, pushed her way through the shrubs that lined it and ran to the ridge of rocks which formed the cliff and overhung the sea.
She stopped for a moment, thrice called out the name of the child whom she had reared and flung herself headlong into the deep.
In the distance, the man-hunt drew to a finish.
The heads sank one by one. The massacre was completed.
Then the motor-boat with François and Stéphane on board fled towards the coast of Brittany, towards the beaches of Beg-Meil and Concarneau.
Véronique was left alone on Coffin Island.
Véronique was left alone on Coffin Island. Until the sun sank among the clouds that seemed, on the horizon, to rest upon the sea, she did not move, but sat huddled against the window, with her head buried in her two arms resting on the sill.
The dread reality passed through the darkness of her mind like pictures which she strove not to see, but which at times became so clearly defined that she imagined herself to be living through those atrocious scenes again.
Still she sought no explanation of all this and formed no theories as to all the motives which might have thrown a light upon the tragedy. She admitted the madness of François and of Stéphane Maroux, being unable to suppose any other reasons for such actions as theirs. And, believing the two murderers to be mad, she did not even try to attribute to them any projects or definite wishes.
Moreover, Honorine's madness, of which she had, so to speak, observed the outbreak, impelled her to look upon all that had happened as provoked by a sort of mental upset to which all the people of Sarek had fallen victims. She herself at moments felt that her brain was reeling, that her ideas were fading away in a mist, that invisible ghosts were hovering around her.
She dozed off into a sleep which was haunted by these images and in which she felt so wretched that she began to sob. Also it seemed to her that she could hear a slight noise which, in her benumbed wits, assumed a hostile significance. Enemies were approaching. She opened her eyes.
A couple of yards in front of her, sitting upon its haunches, was a queer animal, covered with long mud-coloured hair and holding its fore-paws folded like a pair of arms.
It was a dog; and she at once remembered François' dog, of which Honorine had spoken as a dear, devoted, comical creature. She even remembered his name, All's-Well.
As she uttered this name in an undertone, she felt an angry impulse and was almost driving away the animal endowed with such an ironical nickname. All's-Well! And she thought of all the victims of the horrible nightmare, of all the dead people of Sarek, of her murdered father, of Honorine killing herself, of François going mad. All's-Well, forsooth!
Meanwhile the dog did not stir. He was sitting up as Honorine had described, with his head a little on one side, one eye closed, the corners of his mouth drawn back to his ears and his arms crossed in front of him; and there was really something very like a smile flitting over his face.
Véronique now remembered: this was the manner in which All's-Well displayed his sympathy for those in trouble. All's-Well could not bear the sight of tears. When people wept, he sat up until they in their turn smiled and petted him.
Véronique did not smile, but she pressed him against her and said:
"No, my poor dog, all's not well; on the contrary, all's as bad as it can be. No matter: we must live, mustn't we, and we mustn't go mad ourselves like the others?"
The necessities of life obliged her to act. She went down to the kitchen, found some food and gave the dog a good share of it. Then she went upstairs again.
Night had fallen. She opened, on the first floor, the door of a bedroom which at ordinary times must have been unoccupied. She was weighed down with an immense fatigue, caused by all the efforts and violent emotions which she had undergone. She fell asleep almost at once. All's Well lay awake at the foot of her bed.
Next morning she woke late, with a curious feeling of peace and security. It seemed to her that her present life was somehow connected with her calm and placid life at Besançon. The few days of horror which she had passed fell away from her like distant events whose return she had no need to fear. The men and women who had gone under in the great horror became to her mind almost like strangers whom one has met and does not expect to see again. Her heart ceased bleeding. Her sorrow for them did not reach the depths of her soul.
It was due to the unforeseen and undisturbed rest, the consoling solitude. And all this seemed to her so pleasant that, when a steamer came and anchored on the spot of the disaster, she made no signal. No doubt yesterday, from the mainland,they had seen the flash of the explosions and heard the report of the shots. Véronique remained motionless.
She saw a boat put off from the steamer and supposed that they were going to land and explore the village. But not only did she dread an enquiry in which her son might be involved: she herself did not wish to be found, to be questioned, to have her name, her identity, her story discovered and to be brought back into the infernal circle from which she had escaped. She preferred to wait a week or two, to wait until chance brought within hailing-distance of the island some fishing-boat which could pick her up.
But no one came to the Priory. The steamer put off; and nothing disturbed her isolation.
And so she remained for three days. Fate seemed to have reconsidered its intention of making fresh assaults upon her. She was alone and her own mistress. All's Well, whose company had done her a world of good, disappeared.
The Priory domain occupied the whole end of the island, on the site of a Benedictine abbey, which had been abandoned in the fifteenth century and gradually fallen into ruin and decay.
The house, built in the eighteenth century by a wealthy Breton ship-owner out of the materials of the old abbey and the stones of the chapel, was in no way interesting either outside or in. Véronique, for that matter, did not dare to enter any of the rooms. The memory of her father and son checked her before the closed doors.
But, on the second day, in the bright spring sunshine, she explored the park. It extended to thepoint of the island and, like the sward in front of the house, was studded with ruins and covered with ivy. She noticed that all the paths ran towards a steep promontory crowned with a clump of enormous oaks. When she reached the spot, she found that these oaks stood round a crescent-shaped clearing which was open to the sea.
In the centre of the clearing was a cromlech with a rather short, oval table upheld by two supports of rock, which were almost square. The spot possessed an impressive magnificence and commanded a boundless view.
"The Fairies' Dolmen, of which Honorine spoke," thought Véronique. "I cannot be far from the Calvary and Maguennoc's flowers."
She walked round the megalith. The inner surface of the two uprights bore a few illegible engraved signs. But the two outer surfaces facing the sea formed as it were two smooth slabs prepared to receive an inscription; and here she saw something that caused her to shudder with anguish. On the right, deeply encrusted, was an unskilful, primitive drawing of four crosses with four female figures writhing upon them. On the left was a column of lines of writing, whose characters, inadequately carved in the stone, had been almost obliterated by the weather, or perhaps even deliberately effaced by human hands. A few words remained, however, the very words which Véronique had read on the drawing which she found beside Maguennoc's corpse:
"Four women crucified . . . . Thirty coffins . . . . The God-Stone which gives life or death."
Véronique moved away, staggering. The mystery was once more before her, as everywhere in the island, and she was determined to escape from it until the moment when she could leave Sarek altogether.
She took a path which started from the clearing and led past the last oak on the right. This oak appeared to have been struck by lightning, for all that remained of it was the trunk and a few dead branches.
Farther on, she went down some stone steps, crossed a little meadow in which stood four rows of menhirs and stopped suddenly with a stifled cry, a cry of admiration and amazement, before the sight that presented itself to her eyes.
"Maguennoc's flowers," she whispered.
The last two menhirs of the central alley which she was following stood like the posts of a door that opened upon the most glorious spectacle, a rectangular space, fifty yards long at most, which was reached by a short descending flight of steps and bordered by two rows of menhirs all of the same height and placed at accurately measured intervals, like the columns of a temple. The nave and side-aisles of this temple were paved with wide, irregular, broken granite flag-stones, which the grass, growing in the cracks, marked with patterns similar to those of the lead which frames the pieces of a stained-glass window.
In the middle was a small bed of flowers thronging around an ancient stone crucifix. But such flowers! Flowers which the wildest imagination or fancy never conceived, dream-flowers, miraculous flowers, flowers out of all proportion to ordinary flowers!
Véronique recognized all of them; and yet she stood dumbfounded at their size and splendour. There were flowers of many varieties, but few of each variety. It was like a nosegay made to contain every colour, every perfume and every beauty that flowers can possess.
And the strangest thing was that these flowers, which do not usually bloom at the same time and which open in successive months, were all growing and blossoming together! On one and the same day, these flowers, all perennial flowers whose time does not last much more than two or three weeks, were blooming and multiplying, full and heavy, vivid, sumptuous, proudly borne on their sturdy stems.
There were spiderworts, there were ranunculi, tiger-lilies, columbines, blood-red potentillas, irises of a brighter violet than a bishop's cassock. There were larkspurs, phlox, fuchsias, monk's-hoods, montbretias. And, above all this, to Véronique's intense emotion, above the dazzling flower-bed, standing a little higher in a narrow border around the pedestal of the crucifix, with all their blue, white and violet clusters seeming to lift themselves so as to touch the Saviour's very form, were veronicas!
She was faint with emotion. As she came nearer, she had read on a little label fastened to the pedestal these two words.
"Mother's flowers."
Véronique did not believe in miracles. She was obliged to admit that the flowers were wonderful, beyond all comparison with the flowers of our climes. But she refused to think that this anomalywas not to be explained except by supernatural causes or by magic recipes of which Maguennoc held the secret. No, there was some reason, perhaps a very simple one, of which events would afford a full explanation.
Meanwhile, amid the beautiful pagan setting, in the very centre of the miracle which it seemed to have wrought by its presence, the figure of Christ Crucified rose from the mass of flowers which offered Him their colours and their perfumes. Véronique knelt and prayed.
Next day and the day after, she returned to the Calvary of the Flowers. Here the mystery that surrounded her on every side had manifested itself in the most charming fashion; and her son played a part in it that enabled Véronique to think of him, before her own flowers, without hatred or despair.
But, on the fifth day, she perceived that her provisions were becoming exhausted; and in the middle of the afternoon she went down to the village.
There she noticed that most of the houses had been left open, so certain had their owners been, on leaving, of coming back again and taking what they needed in a second trip.
Sick at heart, she dared not cross the thresholds. There were geraniums on the window-ledges. Tall clocks with brass pendulums were ticking off the time in the empty rooms. She moved away.
In a shed near the quay, however, she saw the sacks and boxes which Honorine had brought with her in the motor-boat.
"Well," she thought, "I shan't starve. There's enough to last me for weeks; and by that time . . ."
She filled a basket with chocolate, biscuits, a fewtins of preserved meat, rice and matches; and she was on the point of returning to the Priory, when it occurred to her that she would continue her walk to the other end of the island. She would fetch her basket on the way back.
A shady road climbed upwards on the right. The landscape seemed to be the same: the same flat stretches of moorland, without ploughed fields or pastures; the same clumps of ancient oaks. The island also became narrower, with no obstacle to block the view of the sea on either side or of the Penmarch headland in the distance.
There was also a hedge which ran from one cliff to the other and which served to enclose a property, a shabby property, with a straggling, dilapidated, tumbledown house upon it, some out-houses with patched roofs and a dirty, badly-kept yard, full of scrap-iron and stacks of firewood.
Véronique was already retracing her steps, when she stopped in alarm and surprise. It seemed to her that she heard some one moan. She listened, striving to plumb the vast silence, and once again the same sound, but this time more distinctly, reached her ears; and there were others: cries of pain, cries for help, women's cries. Then had not all the inhabitants taken to flight? She had a feeling of joy mingled with some sorrow, to know that she was not alone in Sarek, and of fear also, at the thought that events would perhaps drag her back again into the fatal cycle of death and horror.
So far as Véronique was able to judge, the noise came not from the house, but from the buildings on the right of the yard. This yard was closed with a simple gate which she had only to push and whichopened with the creaking sound of wood upon wood.
The cries in the out-house at once increased in number. The people inside had no doubt heard Véronique approach. She hastened her steps.
Though the roof of the out-buildings was gone in places, the walls were thick and solid, with old arched doors strengthened with iron bars. There was a knocking against one of these doors from the inside, while the cries became more urgent:
"Help! Help!"
But there was a dispute; and another, less strident voice grated:
"Be quiet, Clémence, can't you? It may be them!"
"No, no, Gertrude, it's not! I don't hear them! . . . Open the door, will you? The key ought to be there."
Véronique, who was seeking for some means of entering, now saw a big key in the lock. She turned it; and the door opened.
She at once recognized the sisters Archignat, half-dressed, gaunt, evil-looking, witch-like. They were in a wash-house filled with implements; and Véronique saw at the back, lying on some straw, a third woman, who was bewailing her fate in an almost inaudible voice and who was obviously the third sister.
At that moment, one of the first two collapsed from exhaustion; and the other, whose eyes were bright with fever, seized Véronique by the arm and began to gasp:
"Did you see them, tell me? . . . Are they there? . . . How is it they didn't kill you? . . . They are the masters of Sarek since the others wentoff . . . . And it's our turn next . . . . We've been locked in here now for six days . . . . Listen, it was on the day when everybody left. We three came here, to the wash-house, to fetch our linen, which was drying. And thentheycame . . . . We didn't hear them . . . . One never does hear them . . . . And then, suddenly, the door was locked on us . . . . A slam, a turn of the key . . . and the thing was done . . . . We had bread, apples and best of all, brandy . . . . We didn't do so badly . . . . Only, were they going to come back and kill us? Was it our turn next? . . . Oh, my dear good lady, how we strained our ears! And how we trembled with fear! . . . My eldest sister's gone crazy . . . . Hark, you can hear her raving . . . . The other, Clémence, has borne all she can . . . . And I . . . I . . . Gertrude . . ."
Gertrude had plenty of strength left, for she was twisting Véronique's arm:
"And Corréjou? He came back, didn't he, and went away again? Why didn't anyone come to look for us? It would have been easy enough: everybody knew where we were; and we called out at the least sound. So what does it all mean?"
Véronique hesitated what to reply. Still, why should she conceal the truth?
She replied:
"The two boats went down."
"What?"
"The two boats sank in view of Sarek. All on board were drowned. It was opposite the Priory . . . after leaving the Devil's Passage."
Véronique said no more, so as to avoid mentioning the names of François and his tutor or speakingof the part which these two had played. But Clémence now sat up, with distorted features. She had been leaning against the door and raised herself to her knees.
Gertrude murmured:
"And Honorine?"
"Honorine is dead."
"Dead!"
The two sisters both cried out at once. Then they were silent and looked at each other. The same thought struck them both. They seemed to be reflecting. Gertrude was moving her fingers as though counting. And the terror on their two faces increased.
Speaking in a very low voice, as though choking with fear, Gertrude, with her eyes fixed on Véronique, said:
"That's it . . . that's it . . . I've got the total . . . . Do you know how many there were in the boats, without my sisters and me? Do you know? Twenty . . . . Well, reckon it up: twenty . . . and Maguennoc, who was the first to die . . . and M. Antoine, who died afterwards . . . and little François and M. Stéphane, who vanished, but who are dead too . . . and Honorine and Marie Le Goff, both dead . . . . So reckon it up: that makes twenty-six, twenty-six . . . The total's correct, isn't it? . . . Now take twenty-six from thirty . . . . You understand, don't you? The thirty coffins: they have to be filled . . . . So twenty-six from thirty . . . leaves four, doesn't it?"
She could no longer speak; her tongue faltered. Nevertheless the terrible syllables came from her mouth; and Véronique heard her stammering:
"Eh? Do you understand? . . . That leaves four . . . us four . . . the three sisters Archignat, who were kept behind and locked up . . . and yourself . . . . So—do you follow me?—the three crosses—you know, the 'four women crucified'—the number's there . . . it's our four selves . . . there's no one besides us on the island . . . four women . . . ."
Véronique had listened in silence. She broke out into a slight perspiration.
She shrugged her shoulders, however:
"Well? And then? If there's no one except ourselves on the island, what are you afraid of?"
"Them, of course!Them!"
Véronique lost her patience:
"But if everybody has gone!" she exclaimed.
Gertrude took fright:
"Speak low. Suppose they heard you!"
"But who?"
"They: the people of old."
"The people of old?"
"Yes, those who used to make sacrifices . . . the people who killed men and women . . . to please their gods."
"But that's a thing of the past! The Druids: is that what you mean? Come, come; there are no Druids nowadays."
"Speak quietly! Speak quietly! There are still . . . there are evil spirits . . ."
"Then they're ghosts?" asked Véronique, horror-stricken by these superstitions.
"Ghosts, yes, but ghosts of flesh and blood . . . with hands that lock doors and keep you imprisoned . . . creatures that sink boats, the same, I tell you,that killed M. Antoine, Marie Le Goff and the others . . . that killed twenty-six of us . . . ."
Véronique did not reply. There was no reply to make. She knew, she knew only too well who had killed M. d'Hergemont, Marie Le Goff and the others and sunk the two boats.
"What time was it when the three of you were locked in?" she asked.
"Half-past ten . . . . We had arranged to meet Corréjou in the village at eleven."
Véronique reflected. It was hardly possible that François and Stéphane should have had time to be at half-past ten in this place and an hour later to be behind the rock from which they had darted out upon the two boats. Was it to be presumed that one or more of their accomplices were left on the island?
"In any case," she said, "you must come to a decision. You can't remain in this state. You must rest yourselves, eat something . . . ."
The second sister had risen to her feet. She said, in the same hollow and violent tones as her sister:
"First of all, we must hide . . . and be able to defend ourselves againstthem."
"What do you mean?" asked Véronique.
She too, in spite of herself, felt this need of a refuge against a possible enemy.
"What do I mean? I'll tell you. The thing has been talked about a lot in the island, especially this year; and Maguennoc decided that, at the first attack, everybody should take shelter in the Priory."
"Why in the Priory?"
"Because we could defend ourselves there. Thecliffs are perpendicular. You're protected on every side."
"What about the bridge?"
"Maguennoc and Honorine thought of everything. There's a little hut fifteen yards to the left of the bridge. That's the place they hit on to keep their stock of petrol in. Empty three or four cans over the bridge, strike a match . . . and the thing's done. You're just as in your own home. You can't be got at and you can't be attacked."
"Then why didn't they come to the Priory instead of taking to flight in the boats?"
"It was safer to escape in the boats. But we no longer have the choice."
"And when shall we start?"
"At once. It's daylight still; and that's better than the dark."
"But your sister, the one on her back?"
"We have a barrow. We've got to wheel her. There's a direct road to the Priory, without passing through the village."
Véronique could not help looking with repugnance upon the prospect of living in close intimacy with the sisters Archignat. She yielded, however, swayed by a fear which she was unable to overcome:
"Very well," she said. "Let's go. I'll take you to the Priory and come back to the village to fetch some provisions."
"Oh, you mustn't be away long!" protested one of the sisters. "As soon as the bridge is cut, we'll light a bonfire on Fairies' Dolmen Hill and they'll send a steamer from the mainland. To-day the fog is coming up; but to-morrow . . ."
Véronique raised no objection. She now acceptedthe idea of leaving Sarek, even at the cost of an enquiry which would reveal her name.
They started, after the two sisters had swallowed a glass of brandy. The madwoman sat huddled in the wheel-barrow, laughing softly and uttering little sentences which she addressed to Véronique as though she wanted her to laugh too:
"We shan't meet them yet . . . . They're getting ready . . . ."
"Shut up, you old fool!" said Gertrude. "You'll bring us bad luck."
"Yes, yes, we shall see some sport . . . . It'll be great fun . . . . I have a cross of gold hung round my neck . . . and another cut into the skin of my head . . . . Look! . . . Crosses everywhere . . . . One ought to be comfortable on the cross . . . . One ought to sleep well there . . . ."
"Shut up, will you, you old fool?" repeated Gertrude, giving her a box on the ear.
"All right, all right! . . . But it's they who'll hit you; I see them hiding! . . ."
The path, which was pretty rough at first, reached the table-land formed by the west cliffs, which were loftier, but less rugged and worn away than the others. The woods were scarcer; and the oaks were all bent by the wind from the sea.
"We are coming to the heath which they call the Black Heath," said Clémence Archignat.
"Theylive underneath."
Véronique once more shrugged her shoulders:
"How do you know?"
"We know more than other people," said Gertrude. "They call us witches; and there's something in it. Maguennoc himself, who knew a greatdeal, used to ask our advice about anything that had to do with healing, lucky stones, the herbs you gather on St. John's Eve . . ."
"Mugwort and vervain," chuckled the madwoman. "They are picked at sunset."
"Or tradition too," continued Gertrude. "We know what's been said in the island for hundreds of years; and it's always been said that there was a whole town underneath, with streets and all, in whichtheyused to live of old. And there are some left still, I've seen them myself."
Véronique did not reply.
"Yes, my sister and I saw one. Twice, when the June moon was six days old. He was dressed in white . . . and he was climbing the Great Oak to gather the sacred mistletoe . . . with a golden sickle. The gold glittered in the moonlight. I saw it, I tell you, and others saw it too . . . . And he's not the only one. There are several of them left over from the old days to guard the treasure . . . . Yes, as I say, the treasure . . . . They say it's a stone which works miracles, which can make you die if you touch it and which makes you live if you lie down on it. That's all true, Maguennoc told us so, all perfectly true.Theyof old guard the stone, the God-Stone, andtheyare to sacrifice all of us this year . . . . yes, all of us, thirty dead people for the thirty coffins . . . ."
"Four women crucified," crooned the madwoman.
"And it will be soon. The sixth day of the moon is near at hand. We must be gone beforetheyclimb the Great Oak to gather the mistletoe. Look, you can see the Great Oak from here. It's in thewood on this side of the bridge. It stands out above the others."
"Theyare hiding behind it," said the madwoman, turning round in her wheel-barrow. "Theyare waiting for us."
"That'll do; and don't you stir . . . . As I was saying, you see the Great Oak . . . over there . . . beyond the end of the heath. It is . . . it is . . ."
She dropped the wheel-barrow, without finishing her sentence.
"Well?" asked Clémence. "What's the matter?"
"I've seen something," stammered Gertrude. "Something white, moving about."
"Something? What do you mean?Theydon't show themselves in broad daylight! You've gone cross-eyed."
They both looked for a moment and then went on again. Soon the Great Oak was out of sight.
The heath which they were now crossing was wild and rough, covered with stones lying flat like tombstones and all pointing in the same direction.
"It'stheirburying-ground," whispered Gertrude.
They said nothing more. Gertrude repeatedly had to stop and rest. Clémence had not the strength to push the wheel-barrow. They were both of them tottering on their legs; and they gazed into the distance with anxious eyes.
They went down a dip in the ground and up again. The path joined that which Véronique had taken with Honorine on the first day; and they entered the wood which preceded the bridge.
Presently the growing excitement of the sistersArchignat made Véronique understand that they were approaching the Great Oak; and she saw it standing on a mound of earth and roots, bigger than the others and separated from them by wider intervals. She could not help thinking that it was possible for several men to hide behind that massive trunk and that perhaps several were hiding there now.
Notwithstanding their fears, the sisters had quickened their pace; and they kept their eyes turned from the fatal tree.
They left it behind. Véronique breathed more freely. All danger was passed; and she was just about to laugh at the sisters Archignat, when one of them, Clémence, spun on her heels and dropped with a moan.
At the same time something fell to the ground, something that had struck Clémence in the back. It was an axe, a stone axe.
"Oh, the thunder-stone, the thunder-stone!" cried Gertrude.
She looked up for a second, as if, in accordance with the inveterate popular belief, she believed that the axe came from the sky and was an emanation of the thunder.
But, at that moment, the madwoman, who had got out of her barrow, leapt from the ground and fell head forward. Something else had whizzed through the air. The madwoman was writhing with pain. Gertrude and Véronique saw an arrow which had been driven through her shoulder and was still vibrating.
Then Gertrude fled screaming.
Véronique hesitated. Clémence and the madwoman were rolling about on the ground. The madwoman giggled:
"Behind the oak! They're hiding . . . I see them."
Clémence stammered:
"Help! . . . Lift me up . . . carry me . . . I'm terrified!"
But another arrow whizzed past them and fell some distance farther.
Véronique now also took to her heels, urged not so much by panic, though this would have been excusable, as by the eager longing to find a weapon and defend herself. She remembered that in her father's study there was a glass case filled with guns and revolvers, all bearing the word "loaded," no doubt as a warning to François; and it was one of these that she wished to seize in order to face the enemy. She did not even turn round. She was not interested to know whether she was being pursued. She ran for the goal, the only profitable goal.
Being lighter and swifter of foot, she overtook Gertrude, who panted:
"The bridge . . . . We must burn it . . . . The petrol's there . . . ."
Véronique did not reply. Breaking down the bridge was a secondary matter and would even have been an obstacle to her plan of taking a gun and attacking the enemy.
But, when she reached the bridge, Gertrude whirled about in such a way that she almost fell down the precipice. An arrow had struck her in the back.
"Help! Help!" she screamed. "Don't leave me!"
"I'm coming back," replied Véronique, who had not seen the arrow and thought that Gertrude had merely caught her foot in running. "I'm coming back, with two guns. You join me."
She imagined in her mind that, once they were both armed, they would go back to the wood and rescue the other sisters. Redoubling her efforts, therefore, she reached the wall of the estate, ran across the grass and went up to her father's study. Here she stopped to recover her breath; and, after she had taken the two guns, her heart beat so fast that she had to go back at a slower pace.
She was astonished at not meeting Gertrude, at not seeing her. She called her. No reply. And it was not till then that the thought occurred to her that Gertrude had been wounded like her sisters.
She once more broke into a run. But, when she came within sight of the bridge, she heard shrill cries pierce through the buzzing in her ears and, on coming into the open opposite the sharp ascent that led to the wood of the Great Oak, she saw . . .
What she saw rivetted her to the entrance to the bridge. On the other side, Gertrude was sprawling upon the ground, struggling, clutching at the roots, digging her nails into the grass and slowly, slowly, with an imperceptible and uninterrupted movement, moving along the slope.
And Véronique became aware that the unfortunate woman was fastened under the arms and round the waist by a cord which was hoisting her up, like a bound and helpless prey, and which was pulled by invisible hands above.
Véronique raised one of the guns to her shoulder. But at what enemy was she to take aim? Whatenemy was she to fight? Who was hiding behind the trees and stones that crowned the hill like a rampart?
Gertrude slipped between those stones, between those trees. She had ceased screaming, no doubt she was exhausted and swooning. She disappeared from sight.
Véronique had not moved. She realized the futility of any venture or enterprise. By rushing into a contest in which she was beaten beforehand she would not be able to rescue the sisters Archignat and would merely offer herself to the conqueror as a new and final victim.
Besides, she was overcome with fear. Everything was happening in accordance with the ruthless logic of facts of which she did not grasp the meaning but which all seemed connected like the links of a chain. She was afraid, afraid of those beings, afraid of those ghosts, instinctively and unconsciously afraid, afraid like the sisters Archignat, like Honorine, like all the victims of the terrible scourge.
She stooped, so as not to be seen from the Great Oak, and, bending forward and taking the shelter offered by some bramble-bushes, she reached the little hut of which the sisters Archignat had spoken, a sort of summer-house with a pointed roof and coloured tiles. Half the summer-house was filled with cans of petrol.
From here she overlooked the bridge, on which no one could step without being seen by her. But no one came down from the wood.
Night fell, a night of thick fog silvered by themoon which just allowed Véronique to see the opposite side.
After an hour, feeling a little reassured, she made a first trip with two cans which she emptied on the outer beams of the bridge.
Ten times, with her ears pricked up, carrying her gun slung over her shoulder and prepared at any moment to defend herself, she repeated the journey. She poured the petrol a little at random, groping her way and yet as far as possible selecting the places where her sense of touch seemed to tell her that the wood was most rotten.
She had a box of matches, the only one that she had found in the house. She took out a match and hesitated a moment, frightened at the thought of the great light it would make:
"Even so," she reflected, "if it could be seen from the mainland . . . But, with this fog . . ."
Suddenly she struck the match and at once lit a paper torch which she had prepared by soaking it in petrol.
A great flame blazed and burnt her fingers. Then she threw the paper in a pool of petrol which had formed in a hollow and fled back to the summer-house.
The fire flared up immediately and, at one flash, spread over the whole part which she had sprinkled. The cliffs on the two islands, the strip of granite that united them, the big trees around, the hill, the wood of the Great Oak and the sea at the bottom of the ravine: these were all lit up.
"Theyknow where I am . . . .Theyare looking at the summer-house where I am hiding,"thought Véronique, keeping her eyes fixed on the Great Oak.
But not a shadow passed through the wood. Not a sound of voices reached her ears. Those concealed above did not leave their impenetrable retreat.
In a few minutes, half the bridge collapsed, with a great crash and a gush of sparks. But the other half went on burning; and at every moment a piece of timber tumbled into the precipice, lighting up the depths of the night.
Each time that this happened, Véronique had a sense of relief and her overstrung nerves grew relaxed. A feeling of security crept over her and became more and more justified as the gulf between her and her enemies widened. Nevertheless she remained inside the summer-house and resolved to wait for the dawn in order to make sure that no communication was henceforth possible.
The fog increased. Everything was shrouded in darkness. About the middle of the night, she heard a sound on the other side, at the top of the hill, so far as she could judge. It was the sound of wood-cutters felling trees, the regular sound of an axe biting into branches which were finally removed by breaking.
Véronique had an idea, absurd though she knew it to be, that they were perhaps building a foot-bridge; and she clutched her gun resolutely.
About an hour later, she seemed to hear moans and even a stifled cry, followed, for some time, by the rustle of leaves and the sound of steps coming and going. This ceased. Once more there was a great silence which seemed to absorb in space everystirring, every restless, every quivering, every living thing.
The numbness produced by the fatigue and hunger from which she was beginning to suffer left Véronique little power of thought. She remembered above all that, having failed to bring any provisions from the village, she had nothing to eat. She did not distress herself, for she was determined, as soon as the fog lifted—and this was bound to happen before long—to light bonfires with the cans of petrol. She reflected that the best place would be at the end of the island, at the spot where the dolmen stood.
But suddenly a dreadful thought struck her: had she not left her box of matches on the bridge? She felt in her pockets but could not find it. All search was in vain.
This also did not perturb her unduly. For the time being, the feeling that she had escaped the attacks of the enemy filled her with such delight that it seemed to her that all the difficulties would disappear of their own accord.
The hours passed in this way, endlessly long hours, which the penetrating fog and the cold made more painful as the morning approached.
Then a faint gleam overspread the sky. Things emerged from the gloom and assumed their actual forms. And Véronique now saw that the bridge had collapsed throughout its length. An interval of fifty yards separated the two islands, which were only joined below by the sharp, pointed, inaccessible ridge of the cliff.
She was saved.
But, on raising her eyes to the hill opposite, shesaw, right at the top of the slope, a sight that made her utter a cry of horror. Three of the nearest trees of those which crowned the hill and belonged to the wood of the Great Oak had been stripped of their lower branches. And, on the three bare trunks, with their arms strained backward, with their legs bound, under the tatters of their skirts, and with ropes drawn tight beneath their livid faces, half-hidden by the black bows of their caps, hung the three sisters Archignat.
They were crucified.
Walking erect, with a stiff and mechanical gait, without turning round to look at the abominable spectacle, without recking of what might happen if she were seen, Véronique went back to the Priory.
A single aim, a single hope sustained her: that of leaving the Isle of Sarek. She had had her fill of horror. Had she seen three corpses, three women who had had their throats cut, or been shot, or even hanged, she would not have felt, as she did now, that her whole being was in revolt. But this, this torture, was too much. It involved an ignominy, it was an act of sacrilege, a damnable performance which surpassed the bounds of wickedness.
And then she was thinking of herself, the fourth and last victim. Fate seemed to be leading her towards that catastrophe as a person condemned to death is pushed on to the scaffold. How could she do other than tremble with fear? How could she fail to read a warning in the choice of the hill of the Great Oak for the torture of the three sisters Archignat?
She tried to find comfort in words:
"Everything will be explained. At the bottom of these hideous mysteries are quite simple causes, actions apparently fantastic but in reality performedby beings of the same species as myself, who behave as they do from criminal motives and in accordance with a determined plan. No doubt all this is only possible because of the war; the war brings about a peculiar state of affairs in which events of this kind are able to take place. But, all the same, there is nothing miraculous about it nor anything inconsistent with the rules of ordinary life."
Useless phrases! Vain attempts at argument which her brain found difficulty in following! In reality, upset as she was by violent nervous shocks, she came to think and feel like all those people of Sarek whose death she had witnessed. She shared their weakness, she was shaken by the same terrors, besieged by the same nightmares, unbalanced by the persistence within her of the instincts of bygone ages and lingering superstitions ever ready to rise to the surface.
Who were these invisible beings who persecuted her? Whose mission was it to fill the thirty coffins of Sarek? Who was it that was wiping out all the inhabitants of the luckless island? Who was it that lived in caverns, gathering at the fateful hours the sacred mistletoe and the herbs of St. John, using axes and arrows and crucifying women? And in view of what horrible task, of what monstrous duty? In accordance with what inconceivable plans? Were they spirits of darkness, malevolent genii, priests of a dead religion, sacrificing men, women and children to their blood-thirsty gods?
"Enough, enough, or I shall go mad!" she said, aloud. "I must go! That must be my only thought: to get away from this hell!"
But it was as though destiny were taking specialpains to torture her! On beginning her search for a little food, she suddenly noticed, in her father's study, at the back of a cupboard, a drawing pinned to the wall, representing the same scene as the roll of paper which she had found near Maguennoc's body in the deserted cabin.
A portfolio full of drawings lay on one of the shelves in the cupboard. She opened it. It contained a number of sketches of the same scene, likewise in red chalk. Each of them bore above the head of the first woman the inscription, "V. d'H." One of them was signed, "Antoine d'Hergemont."
So it was her father who had made the drawing on Maguennoc's paper! It was her father who had tried in all these sketches to give the tortured woman a closer and closer resemblance to his own daughter!
"Enough, enough!" repeated Véronique. "I won't think, I won't reflect!"
Feeling very faint, she pursued her search but found nothing with which to stay her hunger.
Nor did she find anything that would allow her to light a fire at the point of the island, though the fog had lifted and the signals would certainly have been observed.
She tried rubbing two flints against each other, but she did not understand how to go to work and she did not succeed.
For three days she kept herself alive with water and wild grapes gathered among the ruins. Feverish and utterly exhausted, she had fits of weeping which nearly every time produced the sudden appearance of All's Well; and her physical suffering was such that she felt angry with the poor dog forhaving that ridiculous name and drove him away. All's Well, greatly surprised, squatted on his haunches farther off and began to sit up again. She felt exasperated with him, as though he could help being François' dog!
The least sound made her shake from head to foot and covered her with perspiration. What were the creatures in the Great Oak doing? From which side were they preparing to attack her? She hugged herself nervously, shuddering at the thought of falling into those monsters' hands, and could not keep herself from remembering that she was a beautiful woman and that they might be tempted by her good looks and her youth.
But, on the fourth day, a great hope uplifted her. She had found in a drawer a powerful reading-glass. Taking advantage of the bright sunshine, she focussed the rays upon a piece of paper which ended by catching fire and enabling her to light a candle.
She believed that she was saved. She had discovered quite a stock of candles, which allowed her, to begin with, to keep the precious flame alive until the evening. At eleven o'clock, she took a lantern and went towards the summer-house, intending to set fire to it. It was a fine night and the signal would be perceived from the coast.
Fearing to be seen with her light, fearing above all the tragic vision of the sisters Archignat, whose tragic Calvary was flooded by the moonlight, she took, on leaving the Priory, another road, more to the left and bordered with thickets. She walked anxiously, taking care not to rustle the leaves or stumble over the roots. When she reached open country, not far from the summer-house, she felt sotired that she had to sit down. Her head was buzzing. Her heart almost refused to beat.
She could not see the place of execution from here either. But, on turning her eyes, despite herself, in the direction of the hill, she received the impression that something resembling a white figure had moved. It was in the very heart of the wood, at the end of an avenue which intersected the thick mass of trees on that side.
The figure appeared again, in the full moonlight; and Véronique saw, notwithstanding the considerable distance, that it was the figure of a person clad in a robe and perched amid the branches of a tree which stood alone and higher than the others.
She remembered what the sisters Archignat had said:
"The sixth day of the moon is near at hand.Theywill climb the Great Oak and gather the sacred mistletoe."
And she now remembered certain descriptions which she had read in books and different stories which her father had told her; and she felt as if she were present at one of those Druid ceremonies which had appealed to her imagination as a child. But at the same time she felt so weak that she was not convinced that she was awake or that the strange sight before her eyes was real. Four other figures formed a group at the foot of the tree and raised their arms as though to catch the bough ready to fall. A light flashed above. The high-priest's golden sickle had cut off the bunch of mistletoe.
Then the high-priest climbed down from the oak; and all five figures glided along the avenue, skirted the wood and reached the top of the knoll.
Véronique, who was unable to take her haggard eyes from those creatures, bent forward and saw the three corpses hanging each from its tree of torment. At the distance where she stood, the black bows of the caps looked like crows. The figures stopped opposite the victims as though to perform some incomprehensible rite. At last the high-priest separated himself from the group and, holding the bunch of mistletoe in his hand, came down the hill and went towards the spot where the first arch of the bridge was anchored.
Véronique was almost fainting. Her wavering eyes, before which everything seemed to dance, fastened on to the glittering sickle which swung from side to side on the priest's chest, below his long white beard. What was he going to do? Though the bridge no longer existed, Véronique was convulsed with anguish. Her legs refused to carry her. She lay down on the ground, keeping her eyes fixed upon the terrifying sight.
On reaching the edge of the chasm, the priest again stopped for a few seconds. Then he stretched out the arm in which he carried the mistletoe and, preceded by the sacred plant as by a talisman which altered the laws of nature in his favour, he took a step forward above the yawning gulf.
And he walked thus in space, all white in the moonlight.
What happened Véronique did not know, nor was she quite sure what had been happening, if she had not been the sport of an hallucination, nor at what stage of the strange ceremony this hallucination had originated in her enfeebled brain.
She waited with closed eyes for events which did not take place and which, for that matter, she did not even try to foresee. But other, more real things preoccupied her mind. Her candle was going out inside the lantern. She was aware of this; and yet she had not the strength to pull herself together and return to the Priory. And she said to herself that, if the sun should not shine again within the next few days, she would not be able to light the flame and that she was lost.
She resigned herself, weary of fighting and realizing that she was defeated beforehand in this unequal contest. The only ending that was not to be endured was that of being captured. But why not abandon herself to the death that offered, death from starvation, from exhaustion? If you suffer long enough, there must come a moment when the suffering decreases and when you pass, almost unconsciously, from life, which has grown too cruel, to death, which Véronique was gradually beginning to desire.
"That's it, that's it," she murmured. "To go from Sarek or to die: it's all the same. What I want is to get away."
A sound of leaves made her open her eyes. The flame of the candle was expiring. But behind the lantern All's Well was sitting, beating the air with his fore-paws.
And Véronique saw that he carried a packet of biscuits, fastened round his neck by a string.
"Tell me your story, you dear old All's Well," said Véronique, next morning, after a good night's rest in her bedroom at the Priory. "For, after all,I can't believe that you came to look for me and bring me food of your own accord. It was an accident, wasn't it? You were wandering in that direction, you heard me crying and you came to me. But who tied that little box of biscuits round your neck? Does it mean that we have a friend in the island, a friend who takes an interest in us? Why doesn't he show himself? Speak and tell me, All's Well."
She kissed the dog and went on:
"And whom were those biscuits intended for? For your master, for François? Or for Honorine? No? Then for Monsieur Stéphane perhaps?"
The dog wagged his tail and moved towards the door. He really seemed to understand. Véronique followed him to Stéphane Maroux's room. All's Well slipped under the tutor's bed. There were three more cardboard boxes of biscuits, two packets of chocolate and two tins of preserved meat. And each parcel was supplied with a string ending in a wide loop, from which All's Well must have released his head.
"What does it mean?" asked Véronique, bewildered. "Did you put them under there? But who gave them to you? Have we actually a friend in the island, who knows us and knows Stéphane Maroux? Can you take me to him? He must live on this side of the island, because there is no means of communicating with the other and you can't have been there."
Véronique stopped to think. But, in addition to the provisions stowed away by All's Well, she also noticed a small canvas-covered satchel under the bed; and she wondered why Stéphane Maroux had hiddenit. She thought that she had the right to open it and to look for some clue to the part played by the tutor, to his character, to his past perhaps, to his relations with M. d'Hergemont and François:
"Yes," she said, "it is my right and even my duty."
Without hesitation, she took a pair of big scissors and forced the frail lock.
The satchel contained nothing but a manuscript-book, with a rubber band round it. But, the moment she opened the book, she stood amazed.
On the first page was her own portrait, her photograph as a girl, with her signature in full and the inscription: