Seven Frozen Sailors Part 22

A lovely landscape spread out below me. It was years since I had seen it. The rivers flowing through a champagne country to the sea. The white houses and thatched roofs of the villages: the red-brick streets of Benevent. How well I knew it all! It recalled memories of the past.

The thought flashed upon me in an instant.

The last time I was here was with Marc. We desired again to take our walk--to see our old haunts of bird's-nesting and berry-gathering. It was the day before he married Cecile.

I rose, wiped the perspiration from my brow, and continued my ascent. I reached the highest level of the coach road, where, for half a league, it takes its course through a narrow defile between two precipitous hills, whose rocky sides no time can change. I looked back.

The open carriage containing Cecile and her husband I could see on the road, far in the distance. They were driving at a good pace. "They will pa.s.s me in the defile," I said, and hurried on. Why, I knew not.

Presently the sound of wheels on the soft, sandy road was plain enough to the ear.

Nearer and nearer came the rumble. There were some juniper bushes of giant growth a little further on the road. It was a question which would reach them first, the chaise or I.

I had the start; but horses are quicker on their legs than men.

As it turned out, we reached them almost, together. I was slightly in advance, however.

The road here was very narrow. Two vehicles could hardly pa.s.s. I took to the rough gra.s.s. Pus.h.i.+ng aside the boughs of a bush that was directly in my path, and intending to take my stand before it, and wave my hat as the carriage pa.s.sed, I came suddenly upon--Marc!

It was he!

He stood with a wild fire of jealousy in his eyes, his hat on the gra.s.s beside him; his arm raised, a pistol in his hand, his finger on the trigger!

It was a supreme moment.

My courage did not desert me. I was calm.

The carriage was pa.s.sing.

I made a dash at his arm, to strike the weapon from his hand. I stumbled and fell at his feet. Instantly I looked up. I wished to shout, but my tongue refused its office. It was glued, parched, to the roof of my mouth. There would be murder! Cecile would be killed--and by Marc! My eyes were riveted on the trigger of his pistol! He pulled it! There was a tiny flash--a tiny puff! No more! The weapon had missed fire. We were concealed by the bushes. The carriage drove by at a rapid pace. Cecile was saved for the time!

I gave a sigh of relief. Then came upon me the feeling of wonder that Marc was back. Marc, whom I had seen three years before to meet with his end--whom I had mourned as dead.

All this flashed across my mind in an instant. I rose to my knees, to my feet. I placed my hand on his arm. I looked into his eyes. His face was changed; there was terrible emotion in it.

"Marc," I said, as quietly and with as much self-command as I could summon.

He suffered my hand to remain on his shoulder, and continued to look in the direction the chaise had taken; toward M. Andre's chateau. We stood thus a second or so. Then, turning upon me, he gasped, in low, choked, guttural accents of reproach and of the deepest despair, "Cecile! Cecile!"

What could I say? My conscience smote me heavily. I had told my best friend's wife that her husband was dead! That I knew it--had seen him meet his death! And upon my testimony she had acted. Marc and M.

Andre--she was the wife of both! It was terrible to witness the agony of the wretched man. It was not for me to break in upon that sacred pa.s.sion of grief.

"Cecile!" he murmured, as the pistol dropped from his hand, and he sank fainting in my arms.

I placed him gently on the rough gra.s.s by the roadside, raising his head, and loosening the collar of his s.h.i.+rt.

For an hour he remained in a swoon, broken only by incoherent cries, that at rare intervals fas.h.i.+oned themselves into language. Then it was always "Cecile!"

I had a flask of brandy in my pocket. I got water from a little mountain spring close by. I bathed my poor comrade's temples, and gave him a reviving draught of the spirit and water. I rubbed his cold hands, and beat them, to restore him to consciousness.

At last he came to. How can I describe my joy when I found that he was, to all appearance, sane. For the attempt to shoot the unfortunate woman was the act of a madman. That attempt had happily been frustrated.

What was now to be done? You will see, from my coolness and presence of mind in this danger, that I am able to act in an emergency. While Marc lay swooning on the gra.s.s by my side, I had had time to think. My course, my duty, were alike clear to me. I had been innocently--though I can never forgive myself--the cause of Cecile's second marriage. I must not conceal this from Marc. My shoulders are broad. The truth must be told. I must tell it.

"Just now, Marc," I said, shaking him gently by the hand, "you were not Marc Debois. You were a madman intent on murder--the murder of her whom he loved best in the world!"

"Name her not!" he burst out, throwing up his head and pressing his hands to his eyes; "faithless--false wretch!"

"Through me."

"Through you?"

"Listen. A fortnight ago I was put ash.o.r.e at Benevent, after three years' existence, for I will not call it life, in that island, on whose sh.o.r.es I thought I saw you swallowed up by the sharks. Cecile--"

He started back a few paces from me at the mention of her name.

I continued, however.

"Cecile came to me; questioned me. I told her you were dead. It is my fault. You see, Marc, all the fault is mine. She had been faithful to her marriage vow, till certain news of your death reached her. Then she was free to marry. Alas! that mine was the tongue that gave her the freedom!"

"Curse you, Pierre Crepin!"

He was becoming terribly excited. I begged him to be calm.

"I am a man, Marc. I can die like one. If you were reasonable, you would know that I have always been your good friend. You are unreasonable--"

"I _am_ unreasonable? I shall live only for vengeance! First, I will kill you; then greybeard Andre; then--then her!"

"And then, Marc?"

"Myself!"

"You have your pistol. I have no weapon. You will not shoot me in cold blood? That is not Marc Debois, even now!"

"Fetch one!" he shouted, imperatively. "No! Stay! I cannot trust you!

We will draw lots for this!"

It was useless to reason, to expostulate, to advise. He was mad. It remained to fight. I commended the issue to Providence, and prayed that neither of us, unfit for death, miraculously saved and brought back to the sound of human voices, might fall.

He pulled two bents from a tuft of the mountain gra.s.s growing on a hillock near us--one shorter, one longer,--and presented them to me for choice.

"You can trust me!" he said, with a wildly ironical smile.

To hesitate was to be shot in cold blood. I felt this, and acted with resolution.

"I can trust you, Marc."

"Short fires first!"