Chapter Thirty. The Englishman of the Boulevard Haussmann.

A calm, boundless waste of sunlit sea. Three men, haggard, blear-eyed, and staring, sat in dejected attitudes in a small, open boat. The blazing noonday sun beat down mercilessly upon their uncovered heads, reflecting from the water’s unruffled surface, blinding them by its intense glare.

There was not the faintest breath of wind, not a speck upon the clearly-defined horizon—nothing but the wide, brilliant expanse of the Pacific. Long ago all hope of rescue had been abandoned. One of the ragged, unkempt trio was lashed tightly to the thwarts for, having slaked his thirst with sea water, he had developed insanity, and his companions had bound him fast where he sat, wide-eyed and dishevelled, giving vent at frequent intervals to the drivel of an idiot, plentifully punctuated with horrible imprecations.

The two others, thin-faced, careworn, and anxious, sat silent, motionless, in blank, unutterable despair. Ever and anon their aching, bloodshot eyes wandered wearily around in search of a passing sail, but never once had a mast been sighted, for they were out of the track of the ships. In dress each bore a resemblance to the other, inasmuch as numbers were painted conspicuously on their backs, while the wrists of the one who had become demented were still in bracelets of rusted steel, although the connecting link had been broken. They were three bearded, dirty, repulsive-looking criminals, who, having been so far successful as to escape from New Caledonia, had discovered, to their dismay and horror, that their bold dash for liberty had been in vain—that they had escaped their taskmasters only to be ultimately overcome by thirst and starvation.

The heat was awful. The blazing sun parched their mouths, and set their brains aflame with fever. Though now and then they sucked the horn hilts of their knives in an endeavour to alleviate the all-consuming thirst, yet their throats were too dry to utter scarcely a syllable. Rowing was useless, conversation was useless, hope was useless. Abandoned to despair, they were patiently awaiting the moment when body and soul would part. They suffered most because they still remained sane.

Six days ago Hugh Trethowen and two fellow-prisoners had been told off from the labour gang to convey stones from the seashore to a spot several miles distant, where a road was being made through the forest. Unaccompanied by the warder, they had made several journeys with the ox-cart, when, on returning to the beach, they observed, to their surprise and satisfaction, that a boat had been run ashore from a ship lying on the opposite side of the headland, and that the crew had left it, evidently proceeding inland in search of provisions.

The prospect of escape immediately suggested itself, and ten minutes later the three men had embarked, and were rowing swiftly round another headland, so as to avoid being observed by those on the ship. After proceeding a couple of miles along a shore they well knew was deserted, they turned the boat’s head and made straight for the open sea. Excited at the prospect of freedom, all three bent to the oars, exerting every muscle, for they were compelled to get out of sight before their absence was discovered, otherwise they would be pursued and most probably shot down.

Onward they pulled, until the island was only just visible, a dark blue line upon the far-off horizon: then after pausing for half-an-hour’s rest, they resumed rowing with courage and confidence inspired by thoughts of the free life that lay before them.

The cool breeze of evening refreshed them, and through the long night they struggled on, bending to their oars with a will, even singing snatches of songs to the rhythm of the oars in the rowlocks. Never since their transportation had they experienced such joy as during those first few hours of freedom on the wide silent sea. But happiness does not allay hunger, and when about midnight they thought of food, they discovered to their dismay that there was not a morsel of anything eatable or a drop of fresh water in the boat.

Deep gloomy forebodings succeeded their brief period of happiness, and just before dawn the hungry, adventurous fugitives threw themselves down in the bottom of the boat and slept. In the morning the wind dropped, and there was a dead, breathless calm, that had since been unbroken.

Hugh Trethowen sat motionless and helpless, enduring in silence agony indescribable. Whither they were drifting he knew not, cared not. He knew his fate was sealed.

His companion was the man who had spoken to him on that evening when he was hesitating whether he should abandon belief in an Almighty Power, and now, as he leaned beside his fellow-convict, he was wondering which of them would die first. His brain was on fire; he could not move his eyes without acute pain, for their sockets felt as if they had been filled with molten lead. The pains through his cramped limbs were excruciating, yet he was in a drowsy lethargy—conscious and alive to the fact that the bodily torture was fast sapping his life; that ere the sun went down he would be dead.

The hours of furnace heat wore on more slowly than before: hunger, thirst, and madness waxed fiercer.

With that strange faculty possessed by dying persons he seemed to live the chief incidents of his career over again, each vividly and in rapid succession. But in all his wife was the central figure. The thought that he should never see her again—that now, when within an ace of regaining freedom and returning to her, he was to be cut off—roused him. Struggling against these gloomy apprehensions, he ground his teeth and, resting his elbows on his knees, determined to conquer pain and cheat the Avenger.

Taking the handkerchief from his forehead, he dipped it into the sea and again bandaged his head.

The other man looked up and moaned. He had passed the active stage of suffering. All grew more and more like a confused dream, in which he saw nothing clearly, except, at intervals, the grave sadness of Trethowen’s face, as he sat awaiting insanity or death.

The groans of his fellow-sufferer did not escape Hugh. He groped about and found a small piece of canvas to lay under the man’s head; it was all he could do to make him comfortable.

There was but little difference in the condition of all three now. Even the madman’s fit had passed away, and he was lying back motionless, with bright, fevered eyes gazing aimlessly upward into the cloudless vault of blue.

After a long silence, broken only by the gasps and agonised groans of the suffering men, the convict by whose side Hugh was lying stirred uneasily, and turned his wide-open, glassy eyes towards his companion. “Tre—Tre—thowen!” he gasped hoarsely.

Hugh started up in surprise. All his strength came back to him in that moment. It was the first time he had been addressed by name since his transportation.

“How do you know me?” he inquired in French, regarding the prostrate man with a new interest.

The other sighed as he pressed his hand to his burning brow.

“Dieu!” he cried, “this awful heat will drive me mad.” Then, looking round with wolfish eyes, he asked: “What was I saying? Ah, yes, you—you don’t recognise me? I cannot hide my identity any longer. I’m dying. Does a beard make such a great alteration in a man’s countenance?”

“Recognise you! How should I?” asked Hugh, now thoroughly aroused from his lethargy.

“Then you don’t—remember—the Comte Chaulin-Servinière—at Spa?”

“Count Lucien!—Valérie’s cousin!” cried Hugh, in incredulous astonishment, as he suddenly recognised the man’s features. “Why—good God! yes. Only imagine, we have been comrades so long, yet I failed to recognise you. How came you to be sent to this infernal doom?”

“It was her doing.”

“Whose?”

“Valérie’s.”

He ground his teeth viciously, and his bright eyes flashed as he uttered her name.

“How is that? Remember she is my wife?” Hugh exclaimed with wrath.

“Yes—alas for you?”

“What do you mean?” asked he, gazing at him fixedly, half inclined to accept his words as the manifestation of approaching madness.

“You—you married her. Ah! I know how it was all brought about. It was an evil hour, an accursed day, when you tied yourself to her, for her murderous clique have made us both their victims. I meant to live and escape, so that I could bring upon her that merciless judgment she richly deserves, but I—I’m dying. Dieu! Give me water! Just one drop!” he implored piteously. “For the love of heaven give me Something to drink. My throat’s on fire. Can’t you see I’m choking?” he added in a husky, intense voice.

Hugh looked into the dying man’s face and shook his head sadly.

“Ah! none. I comprehend,” he moaned. Then, with a sudden fierceness, he cried: “I’m dying—dying. Ciel! I shall never have the satisfaction of witnessing her degradation, of seeing her white neck severed by Monsieur Deibler at La Roquette!”

“Tell me. What do you mean by victims?” inquired Trethowen breathlessly.

The astonishment at discovering the identity of his comrade had given him renewed strength.

Again the man passed his hand across his drawn, haggard face, and wiped the death-sweat from his brow.

“I haven’t the strength—to tell you all. Ah! water—for God’s sake give me water!”

His tongue, swollen and red, was protruding from his mouth as he lay panting for breath and clutching at his parched throat in a paroxysm of pain.

When this had subsided, he continued—

“Now—now, before it’s too late, swear—swear by all you hold sacred to do my bidding.”

“What do you mean? I don’t understand.”

“If—if I tell you the secret and you escape from this, you’ll be able to take my place as a living witness of her guilt—you’ll be able to wreak vengeance upon her in my stead; to end a career, dark and dishonourable, shadowed by a terrible crime.”

“Relate the facts,” urged the younger man impatiently, for he well knew that the other’s strength was fast failing, and feared lest the end should come before he could narrate the story.

“You have not sworn. Take an oath to deliver her up to justice should you escape, then I will show you the full extent of her villainy.”

The dying man’s terrible earnestness alarmed him.

“How can I do so until I am convinced?” he argued. What proof was there, he reflected, that Valérie had been false to him? After all, perhaps these wild words were the irresponsible expressions of a person whose mind was unhinged.

At that moment the madman in the boat’s stern started up with a fearful oath, afterwards laughing, fiendishly, and keeping up a hideous gibbering which added to the horror of Trethowen’s surroundings.

“Answer me,” said his companion, in a low, guttural voice. “Will you take the oath?”

He hesitated, remembering that she was his wife, the woman he trusted implicitly, and whom he still adored, believing her to be good and pure. Yet here was a chance to ascertain something about her past, the secret of which had been so strangely preserved by Egerton. The temptation proved too great. To humour an imbecile, he thought, was justifiable.

Turning to the dying man, he exclaimed suddenly—“I swear.”

The anxious wearied expression on the man’s face almost momentarily disappeared on obtaining a decisive answer from his comrade, and after a few moments’ silence he grew calmer, and his breathing became more easy.

In obedience to a motion from him, Hugh placed his ear closer, at the same time passing his arm gently under the sufferer’s head.

“A few years ago,” he said feebly, “three English students lived in Paris, on the first floor of a dingy old house in the Quai Montabello, facing Notre Dame. Their names were Holt, Glanville, and Egerton. They were—”

“Egerton! I have a friend of that name!”

“Yes, it was he! Like many other hare-brained denizens of the Quartier Latin, they frequently passed their evenings at the Bal Bullier. One night while dancing there, Egerton met a young and handsome woman. Her charms were irresistible, and he fell madly in love with her, young fool that he was! She was poor when these men first knew her, and, discovering that she was in the chorus at the Chatelet, they bestowed upon her the name of ‘La Petite Hirondelle.’ She was a clever woman, and not to be easily overtaken by adverse fortune. Indeed, hers had already been an adventurous career, and she had few scruples—”

“What was the woman’s name?” asked Hugh anxiously.

“She had many. But—I was telling you. The man with whom she lived was an expert thief, and she, a voleuse also, was his accomplice, being an adept at abstracting jewellery from counter-trays in shops she visited on pretence of making a purchase. The money upon which they had been living was the proceeds of an extensive plate robbery at a mansion at Asnières, which had been perpetrated by this man and a youthful assistant; the man you know as Adolphe Chavoix.”

“Chavoix! Your friend!”

The other nodded. He had spoken in broken sentences, without looking up and his breath now came with hard laboured gasps in the intervals, as if speaking and keeping silence were alike a pain to him. The stronger man felt touched with a reverent pity for the weak one at his side.

Again the swelling in the dying man’s throat increased his agony. His thoughts wandered, and he uttered fierce imprecations with words that had neither meaning nor context.

“Valérie! Valérie!” he cried in deep guttural tones, after giving vent to a volley of fearful oaths. “It’s you—your accursed treachery that has brought me to this! I die—I die in horrible torture the death of a dog, while you laugh, take your ease, and congratulate yourself upon getting rid of me so easily. Diable!” he screamed, making a desperate but futile effort to raise himself, “Trethowen shall know all—everything, and if he lives you will—ha, ha! you’ll die in greater degradation than myself. You shall suffer—by Heaven you shall—”

His hands were clenched and his face distorted by an expression of intense hatred and dogged revenge. He closed his eyes, as if to shape his thoughts, and lay for some time motionless, while Trethowen, who had watched the changes of his countenance and listened to the wild allegations against his wife, whom he thought so pure, sat regarding him anxiously, awaiting the convict’s further revelations.

Egerton and Valérie had met in Paris, he reflected. He had not been mistaken when jealousy had taken possession of him on that day he found them together in the studio. This truth cut short his resolution not to prejudge her without a full knowledge of the facts. It rose suddenly in his mind and covered every thought with a veil. His resolution broke down, and he argued with himself against it.

Clutching his arm, Bérard turned his fevered eyes again upon him, with an expression of terrible earnestness.

“I want,” he said, articulating with difficulty—“I want to tell you something more.”

“Concerning her?”

Making a gesture in the affirmative, he raised his head and glanced with eager eyes over the gunwale at the dear, calm sea.

“Water!” he implored piteously. “I—I must have some—some of that. My throat! Ah! I can’t breathe.”

Hugh noticed his effort to dip his hand into the sea, and arrested his arm, exclaiming in a calm voice—

“No, by Heaven! you shan’t. That means death. Hope on; we may both live yet.”

“Ah,” he replied mechanically, his head sinking slowly back upon his companion’s arm. Presently he resumed, in low, broken tones, sometimes so feeble that the anxious listener could scarcely catch them. “I told you that when these students first met this woman she was poor. Cruel in her coquetry as was her wont by nature, she encouraged the attentions of Egerton, although his pocket was light as his heart. The artist adored her, with the same passionate ardour that dozens of men have done, yourself included—”

“Do you mean that Valérie was a thief’s mistress?” he cried in amazement, as the truth flashed upon him.

“Yes.”

“I don’t—I can’t believe it. How can you prove it? What was this man’s name?” he demanded.

“Victor Bérard,” and he hesitated for a second. “The unfortunate devil who afterwards, in order to assist her in a nefarious plot which has been only too successful, assumed the name of the Comte Lucien Chaulin-Servinière!”

“What! You!” cried Trethowen, scarcely believing his ears, and withdrawing his hand from the prostrate man’s head with a feeling of repulsion. “You were her lover!”

“Yes,” he continued, unmoved by his companion’s astonishment. “Remember when Egerton met her he believed she lived at home with her mother, who kept a little estaminet. He told her of his love, and she made pretence of entertaining true, honest affection for him. It was not long, however, before he discovered that she was no better than the rest of the women who sipped sirops at the Bullier. He found that in a handsome suite of rooms in the Boulevard Haussmann there resided a rich Englishman, named Nicholson. With this man she had a liaison, and when the artist charged her with it she admitted the truth, telling him that the Englishman held such power over her that she dare not refuse to visit him.”

“Was that the truth?”

“Judge for yourself by subsequent events. This man Nicholson was a diamond merchant, and the safe in his rooms frequently contained gems worth large sums. Egerton fostered a murderous hatred towards this man, whom he had never seen, but who was the only obstacle to his happiness. One day he met them both in the Bois, and she introduced him. On subsequent occasions the two men met, and the artist ingratiated himself with his rival. Ah!”

He paused, and gasped for breath. Then, resuming, said—

“I—I needn’t go into details. It is sufficient to say that she grew tired of Nicholson, and announced the fact to Egerton, remarking that if she could free herself from the odious bond she would become his mistress. This—this had the—desired effect. A few days later Nicholson was found dead in his room. He had been murdered by Egerton—”

“Jack Egerton a murderer?”

“Yes. And the safe, which had contained a quantity of valuable uncut stones, had been ransacked.”

“Great heavens! you cannot be speaking the truth! Do you mean to say that this Nicholson was killed by my friend Egerton?”

“Yes. Stabbed to the heart,” he replied faintly, with closed eyes.

“Do you expect me to accept this without proof?” asked Trethowen.

The prostrate man opened his eyes. In them the film of death had already gathered.

“I—I—can—prove it. He killed Nicholson because—because he loved Valérie?”

“Was she aware of his intentions?”

“No, no—mon Dieu!—no!” he gasped.

“Tell me all the circumstances which led to the tragedy,” demanded Hugh, with fierce impatience.

“It’s a long story. The whole facts would astonish you. You remember—your brother—was murdered? Ah! Dieu! My throat! I’m choking! My head! It’s all so strange! Yet now I—I feel quite well again—quite—well!”

The colour had left his lips, and his eyes, although wide-open, were dim. The death-rattle was in his throat.

“For God’s sake, tell me more before you die?” implored Hugh, bending over him.

But the convict took no heed.

“Valérie! Valérie!” he moaned in a hoarse, feeble voice.

His jaw suddenly dropped, and the light went out of his face.

Trethowen placed his hand upon his heart, but there was no movement. The spark of life had fled.

Scrambling along to where the madman lay silent and motionless, he touched him on the shoulder. A second later, however, he started back, as he became conscious that to the thwarts was bound a corpse.

Hugh Trethowen was left alone with two bodies to suffer death by slow torture, the horrors of which he had already witnessed.

Shading his aching eyes with his hand, he struggled back and gazed around.

No sign of assistance—only a wide stretch of horizon unrelieved by a single hope-inspiring speck.

The revelations made by the dead man had killed all desire for life within him. With a heart bursting with grief at finding the woman he loved so well guilty of such vile dishonour, he cast himself into the bottom of the boat and lay awaiting his end, praying that his agony might not be protracted.