They did not utter a word. With hands tight-clasped, they resigned themselves to the inevitable. Their death was assuming the aspect of an event decreed by destiny. The machine had been constructed far back in the centuries and had no doubt been reconstructed, repaired and put in order at a more recent date; and during those centuries, worked by invisible executioners, it had caused the death of culprits, of guilty men and innocent, of men of Armorica, Gaul, France or foreign lands. Prisoners of war, sacrilegious monks, persecuted peasants, renegade Chouans and soldiers of the Revolution; one by one the monster had hurled them over the cliff.
To-day it was their turn.
They had not even the bitter solace of rage and hatred. Whom were they to hate? They were dying in the deepest obscurity, with no hostile face emerging from that implacable night. They were dying in the accomplishment of a task unknown to themselves, to make up a total, so to speak, and for the fulfilment of absurd prophecies, of imbecile intentions, such as the orders given by the barbarian gods and formulated by fanatical priests. They were-it was a thing unheard of-the victims of some expiatory sacrifice, of some holocaust offered to the divinities of a blood-thirsty creed!
The wall stood behind them. In a few more minutes it would be perpendicular. The end was approaching.
Time after time Stephane had to hold Veronique[Pg 176] back. An increasing terror distracted her mind. She yearned to fling herself down.
"Please, please," she stammered, "do let me… I am suffering more than I can bear."
Had she not found her son again, she would have retained her self-control to the end. But the thought of Francois was unsettling her. The boy must also be a prisoner, they must be torturing him too and immolating him, like his mother, on the altars of the execrable gods.
"No, no, he will come," Stephane declared. "You will be saved… I will have it so… I know it."
She replied, wildly:
"He is imprisoned as we are… They are burning him with torches, driving arrows into him, tearing his flesh… Oh, my poor little son!…"
"He will come, dear, he told you he would. Nothing can separate a mother and son who have been brought together again."
"We have found each other in death; we shall be united in death. I wish it might be at once! I don't want him to suffer!"
The agony was too great. With an effort she released her hands from Stephane's and made a movement to fling herself down. But she immediately threw herself back against the draw-bridge, with a cry of amazement which was echoed by Stephane.
Something had passed before their eyes and disappeared again. It came from the left.
"The ladder!" exclaimed Stephane. "It's the ladder, isn't it?"
"Yes, it's Francois," said Veronique, catching her[Pg 177] breath with joy and hope. "He is saved. He is coming to rescue us."
At that moment, the wall of torment was almost upright, vibrating implacably beneath their shoulders. The cave no longer existed behind them. The depths had already claimed them; at most they were clinging to a narrow ledge.
Veronique leant outwards again. The ladder swung back and then became stationary, fixed by its two hooks.
Above them, at the opening in the cliff, was a boy's face; and the boy was smiling and making gestures:
"Mother, mother… quick!"
The call was eager and urgent. The two arms were outstretched towards the pair below. Veronique moaned:
"Oh, it's you, it's you, my darling!"
"Quick, mother, I'm holding the ladder!… Quick!… It's quite safe!"
"I'm coming, darling, I'm coming."
She had seized the nearest upright. This time, with Stephane's assistance, she had no difficulty in placing her foot on the bottom rung. But she said:
"And you, Stephane? You're coming with me, aren't you?"
"I have plenty of time," he said. "Hurry."
"No, you must promise."
"I swear. Hurry."
She climbed four rungs and stopped:
"Are you coming, Stephane?"
He had already turned towards the cliff and slipped his left hand into a narrow fissure which remained between the draw-bridge and the rock. His[Pg 178] right hand reached the ladder and he was able to set foot on the lowest rung. He too was saved.
With what delight Veronique covered the rest of the distance! What mattered the void below her, now that her son was there, waiting for her to clasp him to her breast at last!
"Here I am, here I am," she said. "Here I am, my darling."
She swiftly put her head and shoulders in the window. He pulled her through; and she climbed over the ledge. At last she was with her son.
They flung themselves into each other's arms:
"Oh, mother, mother, is it really true? Mother!"
But she had no sooner closed her arms about him than she drew back a little, she did not know why. An inexplicable discomfort checked her first outburst.
"Come here," she said, dragging him to the light of the window. "Come and let me look at you."
The boy did as she wished. She examined him for two or three seconds, no longer, and suddenly, giving a start of terror, ejaculated:
"Then it's you? It's you, the murderer?"
Oh, horror! She was once more looking on the face of the monster who had killed her father and Honorine before her eyes!
"So you know me?" he chuckled.
Veronique realised her mistake from the boy's very tone. This was not Francois but the other, the one who had played his devilish part in the clothes which Francois usually wore.
He gave another chuckle:
[Pg 179]"Ah, you're beginning to see things as they are, ma'am! You know me now, don't you?"
The hateful face contracted, became wicked and cruel, animated by the vilest expression.
"Vorski! Vorski!" stammered Veronique. "It's Vorski I recognise in you."
He burst out laughing:
"Why not? Do you think I'm going to disown my father as you did?"
"Vorski's son! His son!" Veronique repeated.
"Lord bless me, yes, his son: why shouldn't I be? Surely the good fellow had the right to have two sons! Me first and dear Francois next!"
"Vorski's son!" Veronique exclaimed once more.
"And one of the best, I tell you, ma'am, a worthy son of his father and brought up on the highest principles. I've shown you as much already, haven't I? But it's not finished, we're only at the beginning… Here, would you like me to give you a fresh proof? Just take a squint at that stick-in-the-mud of a tutor!… No, but look how things go when I take a hand in them."
He sprang to the window. Stephane's head appeared. The boy picked up a stone and struck with all his might, throwing him backwards.
Veronique, who at the first moment had hesitated, not realising the danger, now rushed and seized the boy's arm. It was too late. The head vanished. The hooks of the ladder slipped off the ledge. There was a loud cry, followed by the sound of a body falling into the water below.
Veronique ran to the window. The ladder was[Pg 180] floating on the part of the little pool which she was able to see, lying motionless in its frame of rocks. There was nothing to point to the place where Stephane had fallen, not an eddy, not a ripple.
She called out:
"Stephane! Stephane!…"
No reply, nothing but the great silence of space in which the winds are still and the sea asleep.
"You villain, what have you done?" she cried.
"Don't take on, missus," he said. "Master Stephane brought up your kid to be a duffer. Come it's a laughing matter, it is, really. Give us a kiss, won't you, daddy's missus? But, I say, what a face you're pulling! Surely you don't hate me as much as all that?"