"My fault! . . . Now aren't you convinced, as I am, that this is a ramification of my fault, ending in acul-de-sac? So that all the eruptive forces immobilized in the direction of this blind alley have found a favourable position . . . so that all these forces . . . you grasp the idea, don't you?"
Simon grasped it all the less inasmuch as Old Sandstone was becoming more and more entangled in his theory, while he, Simon, was wholly absorbed in Isabel and had ears for hardly anything but what she was telling him.
They were all three a little way outside the barricades, among the groups of tents around which the soldiers, in overalls, and fatigue-caps, were moving to and fro and preparing their meals. Isabel's face was already more peaceful and her eyes less uneasy. Simon gazed at her with infinite tenderness. In the course of the morning the fog had at last dispersed. For the first timesince the day when they had travelled together on the deck of theQueen Mary, the sun shone in a cloudless sky; and one might almost have thought that nothing had occurred between that day and this to divide them. All evil memories faded away. Isabel's torn dress, her pallor and her bruised wrists were the reminder merely of an adventure already remote, since the glorious future was opening out before them.
Inside the barricades, a few soldiers scurried round the arena, stacking the dead bodies, while others, farther back, stationed on the wreck of theVille de Dunkerque, removed the sinister shapes hanging from their gibbets. Near the submarine, in an enclosed space guarded by many sentries, some dozens of prisoners were herded and were joined at every moment by fresh batches of captives.
"Of course," resumed Old Sandstone, "there are many other obscure points; but I shall not leave this until I have studied all the causes of the phenomenon."
"And I," said Simon, laughing, "should very much like to know how you managed to get here."
This was a question which possessed little interest for Old Sandstone, who replied, vaguely:
"How do I know! I followed a crowd of good people. . . ."
"Good looters and murderers!"
"Oh, do you think so? Yes, it may be . . . it seemed to me, sometimes. . . . But I was so absorbed! So many observations to make! Besides, I was not alone . . . at least, on the last day."
"Really? Who was with you?"
"Dolores. We made the whole of the last stage together; and it was she who brought me here. She left me when we came in sight of the barricades. For that matter, it was impossible to enter this enclosure and examine the phenomena more closely. Directly I went forward, pom-pom went the machine-gun! At last, suddenly, the crowd burst the dike. But what puzzles me now is that these eruptions seem already to be decreasing in violence, so that we can foresee the end of them very shortly. True, on the other hand. . . ."
But Simon was not listening. He had caught sight, in the arena, of the captain commanding the detachment, with whom he had not been able to exchange more than a few words that morning, as the officer had at once gone in pursuit of thefugitives. Simon led Isabel to the tent, set aside for her, in which Lord Bakefield was resting, and joined the captain, who cried:
"We are straightening things out, M. Dubosc. I've sent a few squads north; and all these bands of cut-throats will fall into my hands or into those of the English troops, who, I'm told, have arrived. But what savages! And how glad I am that I came in time!"
Simon thanked him in the name of Lord Bakefield and his daughter.
"It's not I whom you should thank," he replied, "but that strange woman, whom I know only by the name of Dolores, and who brought me here."
The captain related how he had been operating since three o'clock in the out-posts of Boulogne, where he was garrisoned, when he received from the newly-appointed military governor an order instructing him to move towards Hastings, to take possession of the country as far as mid-way between the two coasts and to put down all excesses ruthlessly.
"Well, this morning," he said, "when we were patrolling two or three miles from there, I saw the woman ride up at a gallop. She told me ina few words what was happening inside these barricades, which she had not been able to pass, but behind which Simon Dubosc was in danger. Having succeeded in catching a horse, she had come to beg me to go to your assistance. You can imagine how quickly I marched in the direction she gave me, as soon as I heard the name of Simon Dubosc. And you will understand also why, when I saw that she in her turn was in danger, I rushed in pursuit of the man who was carrying her off."
"What then, captain?"
"Well, she returned, quite quietly, all alone on her horse. She had thrown the Indian, whom my men picked up in the neighbourhood, rather the worse for his fall. He says he knows you."
Simon briefly related the part which Antonio had played in the tragedy.
"Good!" cried the officer. "The mystery is clearing up!"
"What mystery, captain?"
"Oh, something quite in keeping with all the horrors that have been committed!"
He drew Simon to the wreck and down, the companion-ladder.
The wide gangway was littered with emptybags and baskets. All the gold had disappeared. The doors of the cabins occupied by Rolleston had been demolished. But, outside the last of these cabins and a little before the cupboard into which Antonio had locked Rolleston on the previous evening, Simon, by the light of an electric torch switched on by the officer, saw a man's body hanging from the ceiling. The knees had been bent back and fastened to keep the feet from touching the floor.
"There's the wretched Rolleston," said the captain. "Obviously he has got no more than his deserts. But, all the same. . . . Look closely. . . ."
He threw the rays of the lamp over the upper part of the victim's body. The face, covered with black clotted blood, was unrecognizable. The drooping head displayed the most hideous wound: the skull was stripped of its skin and hair.
"It was Antonio who did that," said Simon, remembering the Indian's smile when he, Simon, had expressed the fear that the ruffians might succeed in finding and releasing their chief. "After the fashion of his ancestors, he has scalped the man whom he wished to punish. Itell you, we're living in the midst of savagery."
A few minutes later, on leaving the wreck, they saw Antonio who was talking to Dolores near the spot where the submarine strengthened the former line of defence. Dolores was holding her horse by the bridle. The Indian was making gestures and seemed to be greatly excited.
"She's going away," said the officer. "I've signed a safe-conduct for her."
Simon crossed the arena and went up to her:
"You're going, Dolores?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"Where my horse chooses to take me . . . and as far as he can carry me."
"Won't you wait a few minutes?"
"No."
"I should have liked to thank you. . . . So would Miss Bakefield. . . ."
"Miss Bakefield has my best wishes!"
She mounted. Antonio snatched at the bridle, as though determined to detain her, and began to speak to her in a choking voice and in a language which Simon did not understand.
She did not move. Her beautiful, austere face did not change. She waited, with her eyes on thehorizon, until the Indian, discouraged, released the bridle. Then she rode away. Not once had her eyes met Simon's.
She rode away, mysterious and secretive to the last. Simon's refusal, his conduct during the night which they had passed in the prehistoric dwelling must have humiliated her profoundly; and the best proof was this departure without farewell. But, on the other hand, what miracles of dogged heroism she must have wrought to cross this sinister region by herself and to save not only the man who had spurned her but the woman whom that man loved above all things in this world!
A hand rested on Simon's shoulder:
"You, Isabel!" he said.
"Yes. . . . I was over there, a little farther on. . . . I saw Dolores go."
The girl seemed to hesitate. At length, she murmured, watching him attentively:
"You didn't tell me she was so strikingly beautiful, Simon."
He felt slightly embarrassed. Looking her straight in the eyes, he replied:
"I had no occasion to tell you, Isabel."
At five o'clock that afternoon, the French andBritish troops being now in touch, it was decided that Lord Bakefield and his daughter should make part of an English convoy which was returning to Hastings and which had a motor-ambulance at its disposal. Simon took leave of them, after asking Lord Bakefield's permission to call on him at an early date.
Simon considered that his mission was not yet completed in these days of confusion. Indeed, before the afternoon was over, an aeroplane alighted in sight of the camp and the captain was asked to send immediately reinforcements, as a conflict appeared inevitable between the French and a British detachment, both of which had planted their colours on a ridge overlooking the whole country. Simon did not hesitate for a moment. He took his place between the two airmen.
It is needless to describe in all its details the part which he played in this incident, which might have had deplorable results: the way in which he threw himself between the adversaries, his entreaties, his threats and, at last, the order to withdraw which he gave to the French with such authority and such persuasive force. All this is history; and it is enough to recall thewords uttered two days later by the British prime minister in the House of Commons:
"I have to thank M. Simon Dubosc. But for him, there would have been a stain upon our country's honour; French blood would have been shed by English hands. M. Simon Dubosc, the wonderful man who crossed what was once the Channel at one stride, understood that it would be necessary, at least for a few hours, to exercise a little patience towards a great nation which for so many centuries has been accustomed to feel that it was protected by the seas and which suddenly found itself disarmed, defenceless, deprived of its natural ramparts. Let us not forget that Germany, that very morning, with her customary effrontery, offered France an alliance and proposed the immediate invasion of Great Britain by the whole of the united forces of the two countries.Britannia delenda est!Mr. Speaker, it was Simon Dubosc who gave the reply, by achieving the miracle of a French retreat! All honour to Simon Dubosc!"
France at once recognized Simon's action by appointing the young man high commissioner for the new French territories. For four days longer he was ubiquitous, flying over the provincewhich he had conquered, restoring order, enforcing harmony, discipline and security. Pursued and captured, all the bands of pillagers and spoilers were duly brought to trial. Aeroplanes sailed the heavens. Provision-lorries ran in all directions, assuring travellers the means of transport. Chaos was becoming organized.
At last one day, Simon called at Lord Bakefield's country-house near Battle. Here too tranquillity had returned. The servants had resumed their duties. Only a few cracks in the walls, a few gaps in the lawns reminded them of the hours of terror.
Lord Bakefield, who appeared to be in excellent health, received Simon in the library and gave him the same cordial welcome as on the Brighton golf-links:
"Well, young man, where do we stand now?"
"On the twentieth day after my request for your daughter's hand," said Simon, smiling, "and as you gave me twenty days in which to perform a certain number of exploits, I come to ask you, on the appointed date, whether I have, in your opinion, fulfilled the conditions settled between us."
Lord Bakefield offered him a cigar and handed him a light.
He made no further reply. Simon's exploits and his rescue of Lord Bakefield when at the point of death, these obviously were interesting things, deserving the reward of a good cigar, with Isabel's hand perhaps thrown into the bargain. But it was asking too much to expect thanks as well and praise and endless effusions. Lord Bakefield remained Lord Bakefield and Simon Dubosc a nobody.
"Well, see you later, young man . . . Oh, by the way! I have had the marriage annulled which that reptile Rolleston forced upon Isabel. . . . The marriage wasn't valid of course; but I've done what was necessary just as though it had been. Isabel will tell you all about it. You'll find her in the park."
She was not in the park. She had heard that Simon had called and was waiting for him on the terrace.
He told her of his interview with Lord Bakefield.
"Yes," she said, "my father accepts the position. He considers that you have satisfied the ordeal."
"And you, Isabel?"
She smiled:
"I have no right to be more difficult than my father. But remember that there were not only his conditions: there was one added by myself."
"Which condition was that, Isabel?"
"Have you forgotten? . . . On the deck of theQueen Mary?"
"Then, Isabel, you doubt me?"
She took both his hands and said:
"Simon, it sometimes makes me rather sad to think that in this great adventure it was not I but another who was your companion in danger, the one whom you defended and who protected you."
He shook his head:
"No, Isabel, I never had but one companion, you, Isabel, and you alone. You were my only aim and my only thought, my one hope and my one desire."
After a moment's reflection, she said:
"I talked of her a good deal with Antonio, on the way home. Do you know, Simon, that girl is not only very beautiful, but capable of the noblest, loftiest feelings? I know nothing of her past; according to Antonio, it had its unsettled moments. But since then . . . since then . . . in spite of her present mode of life, in spite of all the admiration which she attracts, she leads an existence apart. You alone have really stirred her feelings. For you, from what I can see for myself and from what Antonio told me—and he, after all, is only a rejected and embittered lover—for you Dolores would have laid down her life and that from the first day. Did you know that, Simon?"
He was silent.
"You are right," she said. "You can't answer. However, there is one point, Simon, on which I ask you to tell me the absolute truth. I can look you straight in the face, can I not? There is not in the depths of your being a single memory that comes between us? . . . Not a weakness? . . . Not a disloyal thought?"
He pressed her to him and, with his lips on hers, said:
"There's you, Isabel, and you alone: you in the past and you in the future."
"I believe you, Simon," she declared.
The wedding took place a month later; and they went to live in the wreck of theVille de Dunkerque, the official residence of the Frenchhigh commissioner of the new territories.
It was here that the draft agreement was signed, in accordance with Simon Dubosc's proposal and his preliminary investigations, for the great canal which was to bisect the Isthmus of Normandy, allotting to each country, right and left, an almost equal portion of land.
Here too was signed the solemn covenant by which Great Britain and France declared eternal friendship and laid the foundations of the United States of Europe.
And it was here that four children were born to Isabel and Simon.
In after years, Simon often went on horseback or by aeroplane, accompanied by his wife, to visit his friend Edward Rolleston. When he had recovered from his wounds, Rolleston set to work and became the manager of a large fishing-industry on the new English coast, in which he employed Antonio. Rolleston married. The Indian lived alone for a long time, waiting for her who never came and of whom no one ever spoke. But one day he received a letter and went away. Some months later, he wrote from Mexico announcing his marriage to Dolores.
But Isabel and Simon's favourite walk led them to Old Sandstone's house. He lived in a little bungalow, close to the prehistoric dwelling by the lake, where he pursued his researches into the new land. The showers of gold, now exhausted, no longer interested him; moreover, the problem had been solved. But what an indecipherable riddle was this building, standing on a site of the Eocene period!
"There were apes in those days," Old Sandstone declared. "There's no doubt of that. But men! And men capable of building, of ornamenting their dwellings of carving stone! No, I confess this is a phenomenon which unsettles all one's ideas. What do you make of it, Simon?"
Simon made no reply. A boat was rocking on the lake. He took his place in it with Isabel and rowed with a care-free mind; nor did Dolores' image ever rise from this limpid water, in which she had bathed on a certain voluptuous evening. Simon was the husband of one alone and this was the woman whom he had won.
THE END
Transcriber's Note: The following typographical errors present in the original edition have been corrected.In Part I, the following corrections were made.In Chapter I, "To day another ship" was changed to "To-day another ship", "more so to-morow" was changed to "more so to-morrow", and "Quite badly" was changed to "Quite baldly".In Chapter II, a comma was added after "the Comte de Bauge'sCastor", and a comma was changed to a period before "It's here".In Chapter IV, "reconqueror the lost ground" was changed to "reconquer the lost ground".In Chapter VIII, a missing period was added after "a sound of voices", "foot-prints of the rubber soles" was changed to "footprints of the rubber soles", and a missing period was added after "I don't know".In Part II, the following corrections were made.In Chapter I, "Eocence and Pliocene" was changed to "Eocene and Pliocene", "precipitious sides" was changed to "precipitous sides", and "out or reach" was changed to "out of reach".In Chapter II, "Le Harve and Southampton" was changed to "Le Havre and Southampton", missing quotation marks were added before "and our horses perhaps won't last" and "I've just come from there", "indispensible words" was changed to "indispensable words", missing periods were added after "flew off at a gallop", "barring their progress", and "propounded by the exceptional circumstances", and "proof of my loyality" was changed to "proof of my loyalty".In Chapter III, "some where ahead" was changed to "somewhere ahead", "split on the sloping shore" was changed to "spilt on the sloping shore", and "the firing, would have told them" was changed to "the firing would have told them".In Chapter IV, "took air and fired" was changed to "took aim and fired", and a quotation mark was removed after "Where is it?".In Chapter VI, "he perferred to draw" was changed to "he preferred to draw", and "passing the hatch of a compion-way" was changed to "passing the hatch of a companion-way".In Chapter VII, "One, of the women moved to a cabin door listened and returned" was changed to "One of the women moved to a cabin door, listened and returned", "you'd thinking he's sleeping" was changed to "you'd think he's sleeping", "The gangay began" was changed to "The gangway began", a period was changed to a comma after "Every man to his post", "The assailants hesistated" was changed to "The assailants hesitated", a quotation mark was removed after "the laughter of Rolleston's companions....", "then enemy's onslaught" was changed to "the enemy's onslaught", and "losing unconsciousness" was changed to "losing consciousness".In Chapter VIII, a missing period was added after "was unrecognizable", "by which Great Britian and France" was changed to "by which Great Britain and France", "fishing-inindustry" was changed to "fishing-industry", and "Eccene period" was changed to "Eocene period".
Transcriber's Note: The following typographical errors present in the original edition have been corrected.
In Part I, the following corrections were made.
In Chapter I, "To day another ship" was changed to "To-day another ship", "more so to-morow" was changed to "more so to-morrow", and "Quite badly" was changed to "Quite baldly".
In Chapter II, a comma was added after "the Comte de Bauge'sCastor", and a comma was changed to a period before "It's here".
In Chapter IV, "reconqueror the lost ground" was changed to "reconquer the lost ground".
In Chapter VIII, a missing period was added after "a sound of voices", "foot-prints of the rubber soles" was changed to "footprints of the rubber soles", and a missing period was added after "I don't know".
In Part II, the following corrections were made.
In Chapter I, "Eocence and Pliocene" was changed to "Eocene and Pliocene", "precipitious sides" was changed to "precipitous sides", and "out or reach" was changed to "out of reach".
In Chapter II, "Le Harve and Southampton" was changed to "Le Havre and Southampton", missing quotation marks were added before "and our horses perhaps won't last" and "I've just come from there", "indispensible words" was changed to "indispensable words", missing periods were added after "flew off at a gallop", "barring their progress", and "propounded by the exceptional circumstances", and "proof of my loyality" was changed to "proof of my loyalty".
In Chapter III, "some where ahead" was changed to "somewhere ahead", "split on the sloping shore" was changed to "spilt on the sloping shore", and "the firing, would have told them" was changed to "the firing would have told them".
In Chapter IV, "took air and fired" was changed to "took aim and fired", and a quotation mark was removed after "Where is it?".
In Chapter VI, "he perferred to draw" was changed to "he preferred to draw", and "passing the hatch of a compion-way" was changed to "passing the hatch of a companion-way".
In Chapter VII, "One, of the women moved to a cabin door listened and returned" was changed to "One of the women moved to a cabin door, listened and returned", "you'd thinking he's sleeping" was changed to "you'd think he's sleeping", "The gangay began" was changed to "The gangway began", a period was changed to a comma after "Every man to his post", "The assailants hesistated" was changed to "The assailants hesitated", a quotation mark was removed after "the laughter of Rolleston's companions....", "then enemy's onslaught" was changed to "the enemy's onslaught", and "losing unconsciousness" was changed to "losing consciousness".
In Chapter VIII, a missing period was added after "was unrecognizable", "by which Great Britian and France" was changed to "by which Great Britain and France", "fishing-inindustry" was changed to "fishing-industry", and "Eccene period" was changed to "Eocene period".