The Casque's Lark Part 28

"Schanvoch," resumed Victoria with a shudder and carrying both her hands to her forehead, "my son is dead--I shall neither accuse nor excuse him--but a horrible mystery underlies this crime--"

"Listen," I replied, as several circ.u.mstances that had slipped my memory at the first pangs of my grief now came back to my mind. "When I arrived before the door of my house, I knocked; only the distant sound of Sampso's cries answered me. A moment later the lower window of my wife's room was opened. I ran thither. The shutters were being pushed aside to give pa.s.sage to a man, while Ellen cried for help. I pushed the man back into the room, which was dark as a tomb--in the darkness I struck and killed your son. Almost immediately after I felt two arms thrown around my neck--I imagined myself attacked by a new a.s.sailant--I made another thrust in the dark--it was Ellen, my beloved wife, whom I killed--"

And my sobs choked me.

"Brother--brother," said Victoria to me, "this has been a fatal night to us all--"

"Listen further--above all to this," I said to my foster-sister, controlling my emotion: "At the very moment when I recognized the voice of my expiring wife, I saw by the light of the moon a woman perched on the cas.e.m.e.nt of the window--"

"A woman!" cried Victoria.

"It is she probably whose voice deceived me," observed Sampso, "by announcing to me a message from Victoria."

"I think so too," I replied; "and that woman, doubtlessly the accomplice of Victorin's crime, called to him, saying it was time to flee, and that she now was his, seeing he had kept the promise that he made to her."

"A promise?" Again Victoria pondered. "What promise could he have made to her?"

"To dishonor Ellen--"

My foster-sister shuddered and said:

"I repeat it, Schanvoch, this crime is wrapped in some horrible mystery.

But who may that woman have been?"

"One of the two Bohemian dancers who recently arrived at Mayence.

Listen. Seeing that she received no answer from Victorin, and hearing the distant but approaching clamors of the soldiers who were angrily hastening to my house, she leaped down and vanished. A second after the rumbling of her cart informed me of her flight. In my despair it never occurred to me to pursue her. I knew I had just killed Ellen near the cradle of our son--Ellen, my dearly beloved wife!"

I could not continue. Tears and sobs deprived me of speech. Sampso and Victoria remained silent.

"This is a veritable abyss!" resumed the Mother of the Camps. "An abyss that my mind can not fathom. My son's crime is great--his intoxication, so far from excusing, only serves to render the deed all the more shameful. And yet, Schanvoch, you know not what love this poor child had for you--"

"Say not so, Victoria," I murmured, hiding my face in my hands. "Say not so--my despair becomes only more distressing!"

"It is not a reproach that I make, brother," replied Victoria. "Had I been a witness of my son's crime, I would have killed him with my own hands, to the end that he cease to dishonor his mother, and Gaul, that chose him chief. I refer to Victorin's love for you because I believe that, without his being in a state of inebriety and without some dark machination, he never would have committed such a misdeed--"

"As for me, sister, I believe I see through this infernal plot--"

"You do? Speak!"

"Before the great battle of the Rhine an infamous calumny was spread over the camp against Victorin. The army's affection for him was being withdrawn. Your son's victory regained for him the soldiers' affection.

See how that old calumny becomes to-day a frightful reality. Victorin's crime cost him his life--and also his son's. His stock is extinct. A new chief must now be chosen for Gaul. Is this not so?"

"Yes, brother, all that is true."

"Did not that unknown soldier, my traveling companion, know when he revealed to me that a crime was being committed in my house--did he not know that unless I arrived in time to kill Victorin myself in the first access of my rage, your son would certainly be slaughtered by the troops who would undoubtedly rise in revolt at the first tidings of the felony?"

"But how," put in Sampso, "was the army apprised so soon of the felony, seeing that no one left the house?"

Struck by Sampso's observation the Mother of the Camps started and looked at me. I proceeded:

"Who is the man, Victoria, who tore your grandson from your arms and dashed his life against the ground? The same unknown soldier! Did he yield to an impulse of blind rage against the child? Not at all!

Accordingly, he was but the instrument of some ambition that is as concealed as it is ferocious. Only one man had an interest in the double murder that has just extinguished your stock--because, once your stock is extinguished Gaul must choose a new chief--and the man whom I suspect, the man whom I accuse has long wished to govern Gaul!"

"His name!" cried Victoria, fixing upon me a look of intense agony. "The name of the man whom you suspect--"

"His name is Tetrik, your relative, the Governor of Gascony."

For the first time since I first expressed my suspicions of her relative, did Victoria seem to share them. She cast her eyes upon the corpse of her son with an expression of pitiful sorrow, kissed his icy forehead several times, and after a moment of profound reflection she seemed to take a supreme resolution. She rose and said to me in a firm voice:

"Where is Tetrik?"

"He awaits your orders in the next room, I presume, with Captain Marion.

What are your orders?"

"I wish them both to come in, immediately."

"In this chamber of death?"

"Yes, in this chamber of death. Yes, here, Schanvoch, before the inanimate remains of your wife, my son and his child. If it was that man who wove this dark and horrible plot, then, even if he were a demon of hypocrisy and bloodthirstiness, he can not choose but betray himself at the sight of his victims--at the sight of a mother between the corpses of her son and grandson; at the sight of a husband beside the corpse of his wife. Go, brother. Order them in! Order them in! Then also, we must at all cost find that unknown soldier, your traveling companion!"

"I have thought of that--" and struck with a sudden thought, I added: "It was Captain Marion who chose the rider that was to escort me."

"We shall question the captain. Go, brother. Order them in! Order them in!"

I obeyed Victoria and called in Tetrik and Marion. Both hastened to answer to the summons.

Despite the grief that rent my heart I had the fort.i.tude to watch attentively the face of the Governor of Gascony. The moment he stepped into the room, the first object he seemed to notice was the corpse of Victorin. Tetrik's features immediately a.s.sumed the appearance of unspeakable anguish; tears flowed copiously down his cheeks; clasping his hands he dropped on his knees near the body and cried in a voice that seemed rent with grief:

"Dead at the prime of his age--dead--he, so brave--so generous! The hope, the strong sword of Gaul. Ah! I forget the foibles of this unhappy youth before the frightful misfortune that has befallen my country!"

Tetrik could not proceed. Sobs smothered his voice. On his knees and cowering in a heap, his face hidden in his hands and dropping scalding tears he remained as if crushed with pain near Victorin's body.

Standing motionless at the door, Captain Marion was the prey of profound internal sorrow. He indulged in no outbursts of moans; he shed no tears; but he ceased not to contemplate the corpse of Victoria's grandson with a pathetic expression, as the little body lay in my son's cradle; and presently I heard him say in a low voice looking from Victoria to the innocent victim:

"What a calamity! Ah! poor child! Poor mother!"

Captain Marion then took a few steps forward and said in short and broken words:

"Victoria--you are to be pitied--I pity you. Victorin loved you--he was a worthy son--I also loved him. My beard has turned grey, and yet I found a delight in serving under that young man. He was the first captain of our age. None of us can replace him. He had but two vices--the taste for wine and, above all, the pest of profligacy. I often quarreled with him on that. I was right, you see it! Well, we must not quarrel with him now. He had a brave heart. I can say no more to you, Victoria. And what would it boot? A mother can not be consoled. Do not think me unfeeling because I do not weep. One weeps only when he can; but I a.s.sure you that you have my sympathy from the bottom of my heart. I could not be sadder or more cast down had I lost my friend Eustace--"

And taking a few steps, Marion again looked from Victoria to her little grandson, repeating as his eyes wandered from the one to the other:

"Oh! the poor child! Oh! the poor mother!"

Still upon his knees beside Victorin, Tetrik did not cease sobbing and moaning. While his grief was as demonstrative as Captain Marion's was reserved, it seemed sincere. Nevertheless, my suspicions still resisted the test, and I saw that my foster-sister shared my doubts. Again she made a violent effort over herself and said:

"Tetrik, listen to me!"