Leroux staggered back against the wall and stood there, scowling like a devil. It was evident that my answer had been totally unexpected. I had never seen him under the influence of any overwhelming emotion, and I did not at the time understand the cause of his consternation.
Jacqueline was clinging to her father, and the old man looked from one to the other of us in bewilderment, and shook his white head and mumbled.
"Did you—know this, madame?" cried Leroux fiercely to Jacqueline.
"Yes," she replied.
"So this is why you pretended to have forgotten. You remembered everything?"
"Yes."
"You lied to shield yourself?"
"No, to shield him," she cried. "Because he was my only friend when I was helpless in a strange city. You did not steal my money, did you, Paul?" she added, turning swiftly upon me. "No, you have paid me. You were keeping it for me."
"You lie!" yelled Leroux, and he struck her across the mouth as he had struck me.
I writhed in my bonds. I pulled the heavy table after me as I tried impotently to crawl toward him, sending the wheel flying and all the papers whirling through the air. I cursed Leroux as blasphemously as he was cursing Jacqueline. I saw a trickle of blood on her cut lip, and the proud smile upon her face as she defied him.
And at the door was the pale face of Philippe Lacroix.
Leroux turned on me and kicked me savagely, and dragged the table to the far end of the room, and struck me repeatedly, while I struggled like a madman. The oaths and execrations that streamed from my lips seemed to be uttered by another man, for I heard them indifferently, or rather something that was I, deep in the maze of my personality, heard them—not that pitiful, puny, goaded thing that fought in its bonds until it ceased, panting and exhausted.
There followed a long silence, while Leroux strode furiously about the room. At last he stopped; he seemed to have made up his mind.
"I understand now," he said, nodding his head. "So you are the man who took this woman to the Merrimac. And then to your home, and Louis d'Epernay followed you there, and, naturally, you killed him. Well, it is intelligible. You were not acting for Carson after all, but were infatuated with this woman. Well—but——" He wheeled and turned to Jacqueline. "I will marry you still!"
She did not deign to answer him nor to wipe away the blood that trickled down her chin.
"Do you know why?" he bawled.
She raised her eyes indifferently to his. I saw that, though her spirit was unbroken, she was weary to death.
"Because you become part heir of the seigniory by your husband's death!" he shouted; and then he took Charles Duchaine by the arm and began shaking him violently.
"Listen, you old fool!" he cried. "Your son-in-law is dead—Louis d'Epernay!"
Charles Duchaine looked at Leroux in his mild way. He had put one arm round his daughter, and he seemed to understand that Simon was maltreating her, and to wish to defend her; but his wits were still wandering, and I saw that he understood only a little of what was passing.
"Louis d'Epernay is dead!" cried Simon, shaking the old man again.
"Well, well!" answered Duchaine, stroking his long beard with his free hand. "So Louis is dead! Did you kill him, Simon?"
"No, I didn't kill him," Simon sneered. "Wake up a little more, Duchaine. Do you know what happens now he is dead?"
"I expect you to get some more money, Simon," answered the old man with an ingenuousness that made the reply more stinging than any intended irony.
Leroux burst into a mirthless laugh.
"You are quite right, Duchaine," he answered. "And I am not going to mince matters. I have a hold over you, and you will do my bidding. You will assign your share to me as your son-in-law."
I saw Jacqueline looking at me. I would not meet her gaze, but at last her persistence compelled me. Then I saw her glance toward the wall.
The two broadswords hung there, within arm's reach, above the broken mirror. My heart leaped up at the thought of her valour. She had no mind to yield!
But I shook my head imperceptibly in answer, and looked down at my bonds.
"I don't want you to marry my daughter, Simon," said old Duchaine mildly. "I saw you strike her in the face just now. No gentleman would do that. Come, Simon, you know you are not a gentleman; you ought not to think of such a thing. Jacqueline would not be happy with you. What does she say?"
"I don't care what she says," snarled Leroux. "I will take care of that."
I had been trying hard to devise some method of freeing myself. My struggles had relaxed the ropes around my wrists sufficiently to allow my hands two or three inches of movement, and I hoped, by hard work, to loosen them sufficiently to enable me to get at least one hand free.
Then I felt that something hard was pressing into my back, just within reach of my right thumb and forefinger. My fur coat, which was still round me, was twisted, so that the inside breast-pocket was behind me, and I fancied that the hard object was something that I had placed in this receptacle.
I let my thumb and finger travel up and down it. It had the form of a tiny knife, with a heavy, rounded handle.
And suddenly I knew what it was. It was the knife with which Louis d'Epernay had been killed!
I must have put it in my breast-pocket at some time, intending to throw it away, and it had slipped through a hole in the lining and gone down as far as the next ridge of fur, where it had become wedged.
I could just get my finger and thumb round the point of the blade. The ropes scored deeply into my wrists as I worked at it, but I felt the lining give, and presently I had worked the blade through and had the knife out by the handle.
But it was made for thrusting more than cutting, and I had to pick the ropes to pieces, strand by strand.
Jacqueline had been imperceptibly edging away from her father and Leroux; she was now standing immediately beneath the rusty swords. And outside the door I still perceived Lacroix, motionless.
It flashed across my mind that he understood the girl's desperate ruse, and that he was waiting for the issue. I picked furiously at the ropes which bound my hands, and a long strand uncoiled and whipped back on my wrist.
Suddenly I heard old Charles Duchaine bring down his fist with a vigorous thud upon the end of the table.
"I'll see you in —— first, Simon!" was his unexpected remark.
"What?" cried Simon, taken completely aback.
"No, Simon," continued the old man in his mild voice once more. "You are not a gentleman you know, and you are not fit to marry Jacqueline."
Leroux thrust his hard face into the old man's.
"Duchaine, your wits are wandering," he answered. "Listen now! Have you forgotten that the government is searching for you night and day? It was a long time ago that you killed a soldier of the Canadian forces, but not too long ago for the government to remember. It has a long memory and a long arm, too, and at a word from me——"
It was pitiful to see the change that came over Duchaine's face. He shook with fear and stretched out his withered hands appealingly.
"Simon, you wouldn't betray me after all these years of friendship?" he cried. "Mon Dieu, I do not wish to hang!"
"Keep calm, Charles, my friend," responded Simon glibly. "I am ready to return friendship for friendship. Will you acknowledge me as your son-in-law and heir?"
"Yes," stammered the old man. "Take everything, Simon; only leave me free."
"Well, that is more reasonable," said Leroux, evidently mollified. "I am not the man to go back on my friends. I shall give you a cash return of ten thousand dollars. You have not forgotten the old times in Quebec?"
"No, Simon," muttered Duchaine, looking up hopefully at him.
"If you had ten thousand dollars, Charles, you could make your fortune in a week. They play high nowadays, and your system would sweep all before it."
"Yes, yes!" cried the dotard eagerly. "If only I had ten thousand dollars I could make my fortune. But I am old now. My little daughter has gone to New York to play for me. You did not know that, Simon, did you?" he added, looking at him with a cunning leer.
"She cannot play as well as you, Charles," said Leroux. "You have played so long, you know; you have the system at your fingers' ends. There is nobody who could stand up against you. Do you remember Louis Street and the fine people who were your friends? How they will welcome you! You could become a man of fashion again, in spite of your long exile in these solitudes. Do you recollect the races, where thousands can be won in a few minutes, when your horse romps home by a neck? And the gaming-tables, where a thousand dollars is but a pinch of dust, and the bright lights and the chink of money—and you winning it all away? You can have horses and carriages again, and all houses will be open to you, for your little error has long ago been forgotten. And you are not an old man, Charles."
"Yes, yes, Simon!" cried the old man, fascinated by the picture. "It is worth it—by gracious, it is!"
Jacqueline swung round on Leroux. I saw her fists clench and her bruised lip quiver.
"Never, Simon Leroux!" she said. "And, what is more, my father is not competent to transfer his property, and I will fight you through every court in the land."
"I was coming to you, madame," sneered Simon. "I don't know much about the courts in this part of the country, but you will marry me to save the life of your lover."
"No!" she answered, setting her teeth.
He seized her by the wrists and dragged her across the floor to me.
"Look at him!" he yelled. "Look into his face. Will you marry me if I let him go free?"
"No!" answered Jacqueline.
"I swear to you that he shall be thrown from the top of the cataract unless you give your consent within five minutes."
"Never!" she answered firmly.
"I will denounce your father!"
"You can't frighten me with such stuff. I am not a weak old man!"
"You will think differently after Charles Duchaine has been hanged in Quebec jail," he sneered.
His words received a wholly unexpected answer. The dotard leaped forward, stooped down, and picked up the heavy roulette-wheel.
He raised it aloft and staggered wildly toward Leroux.
Simon turned just in time. The wheel went crashing to the floor and bounded and rebounded out of the room and along the little hall. Philippe jumped in terror from the place where he crouched.
And then the last strand broke, and I was free to slip the cords from my limbs.
"You old fool!" screamed Leroux, catching Duchaine by the wrists. But Charles Duchaine possessed the strength of a madman. He grasped Leroux round the waist and clung to him, and would not be shaken off.
"Kill him!" he screamed. "He is a spy! He has come to betray me to the government!"
What followed was the work of a moment. I saw Jacqueline pull down both broadswords from the wall. She flung one down beside me just as I was staggering to my feet.
Leroux shook off the old man at last. He turned on me. I swung the sword aloft and brought it down upon his skull.
Heaven knows I struck to kill; but my wrist was feeble from the ropes, and the blade fell flat. It drew no blood, but Leroux dropped like a stricken ox upon the floor.
"This way!" gasped the old man.
He pulled at Jacqueline's arm, and half led and half dragged her through the open door behind his chair, I following. Lacroix sprang into the room, called, but whether to us or to the other ruffians I did not know. Leroux sat up and looked about him, dazed and bewildered.
Then I was in the little room with Jacqueline and Duchaine, and he turned and bolted the door behind us. He seemed possessed of all the strength and decision of youth again.
When I stood there before the room had been as dark as pitch, but now a flicker of light was at the far end. A voice cried:
"M'sieur! M'sieur! I have not forgotten thee!"
It was Pierre Caribou. I saw his figure silhouetted against the light of the flaring candle which he held in his hand.
Duchaine had placed one arm about his daughter's waist, and was urging her along. But she stopped and looked back to me. I saw she held one broadsword in her hand, as I held the other.
"Come, monsieur!" she gasped.
But I was too mad with the desire to make an end of Leroux to accompany her. I wanted to go back. I tried to find the bolt of the door in the gloom, but while my fingers were fumbling for it Jacqueline came running back to me.
"Quick, or we are lost!" she cried.
"I am going back," I answered, still fumbling for the holt Duchaine had drawn.
"No! We are safe inside. It is a secret room. My father made it in the first days of his sojourn here in case he was pursued, and none but Pierre and he know the secret. Ah, come, monsieur—come!"
She clung to me desperately, and there was an intensity of entreaty in her voice.
I hesitated. There was no sound in the room without, and I believed that the two ruffianly followers were ignorant of what had happened, and had not dared to return after being driven away.
But I meant to kill Leroux, and still felt for the bolt.
As I fumbled there the door splintered suddenly, and Jacqueline cried out. Through the hole I saw the oil-lamp shining in the outer room.
The door splintered again. All at once I realized that Leroux was firing his revolver at the panels. It was fortunate that we both stood at one side, where the latch was.
Then I yielded reluctantly to Jacqueline's soft violence. I followed her through the dark chamber, under an archway of stone, and through a winding passage in the rock. Pierre's candle flickered before us, and in another moment we had squeezed through a narrow opening into a chamber in the cliff.
On the ground were five or six large stones, and Pierre began to fit them into the aperture through which we had passed. In a minute the place was completely sealed, and we four stood and looked breathlessly at one another within what might have been a cenotaph.
Not the slightest sound came from without.
We were standing in a stone chamber, apparently of natural formation, but finished with rough masonry work. It was about the size of a large room, and I could see that it was only a widening of the tunnel itself, which continued through a narrow exit at the farther end, running on into the unknown depths of the cliff.
From the freshness of the air I inferred that it connected with the surface at no distant place.
The entrance through which we had come had been made by blasting at some period, or widened in this way, and then cemented, for the stones which Pierre had fitted into it exactly filled it, so that it was barely distinguishable from where I stood, and I am certain that it would have required a prolonged scrutiny on the part of searchers on the outside to enable them to detect it.
And even then only dynamite or blasting-powder could have forced a path, and it would have been exceedingly difficult to handle such materials within the tunnel without blocking the approach completely, while leaving open the farther exit.
The chamber seemed at one time to have been prepared for such a contingency as had occurred, for there were wool rugs on the stone floor, though they had rotted and partly disintegrated from the dampness.
There were a table and wooden chairs, also partially decayed. The mouldering fringes of some rugs protruded from a bundle wrapped in oil-paper.
Pierre Caribou opened this and shook them out on the ground. Except where their edges had been exposed, they were in good condition, and were thick enough to lie upon without much discomfort.
The interior of the cave was pleasantly warm, though moist.
"M. Duchaine, he make this place in case gov'ment come take him," explained Pierre as he placed the rugs on the floor. "No can find, no can break down stone door. Other way Simon not know—only m'sieur and me. Old Caribou he come that way; he see you tied and know it time to come here. Soon time to kill Simon come as well."
"When in Heaven's name will it come?" I cried.
"Come soon. His diable tell me," answered Pierre Caribou.
The chamber was as silent as the grave, except for the gurgling of a spring of water somewhere and the occasional pattering fall of a drop of moisture from the roof. And truly this might prove our grave, I thought, and none would find our bones in this heart of the cliff through all the ages that would come.
The flight seemed to have exhausted the last flicker of vitality in the old man, for he sank down upon the blankets in a somnolent condition. I could readily understand how his perpetual fear of discovery, intensified through many years of solitude, had grown to be an obsession, and how Leroux's idle threats had stimulated his weakened will to one last effort to escape.
Jacqueline knelt by his side. She paid no attention to me, except that once she asked for water. Pierre brought her some from the spring in a tin cup, and when she raised her head I could see that her lip was swollen from the blow of Leroux's fist.
The old man's hands were moving restlessly. Jacqueline bent over him and whispered, and he stirred and cried out petulantly. He missed his roulette-wheel, his constant companion through those years, his coins, and paper. In his way perhaps he was suffering the most of all.
"I go now," Pierre announced. "To-morrow I come for you, take all through tunnel. You stay here till I come; all sleep till morning."
"I will go with you, Pierre," I said, still under my obsession. But he laid his heavy hand upon my arm and pushed me away.
"You no kill Simon," he answered. "Why you no kill him again when you have sword? Only diable can kill him. When time come diable tell old Caribou. You sleep now. I not work for you now. I go for take my woman and gal safe through tunnel to place I know. When my woman and gal safe I come back to m'sieur and ma'm'selle."
It was a brave and simple declaration of first principles, and none the less affecting, because it came from the lips of a faithful, ignorant old man. It was just such simple loyalty that natures like Leroux's never knew, frustrating the most cunning plans based on self-interest.
I realized the strength of Pierre's argument. His duty lay first toward his kin; then he would place his life at his master's service. But he would have to cover many miles before he returned.
He went without a backward glance; but I saw his throat heave, and I knew what the parting meant to him. The feudal loyalty of the past was all his faith.
I flung myself down on my blanket. I was utterly exhausted, and with that dead weariness which precludes sleep. The candle was burning low and was guttering down upon one side, and a pool of hardening grease was spreading over the table-top.
I walked over to the table and blew it out. We must husband it; the darkness in the cave would become unbearable without a candle to light.
I lay down again. The silence was loneliness itself, and not rendered less lonely by the occasional cries of the old man and the drip, drip of water. I could not see anything, and Jacqueline might have been a woman of stone, for she made not the least movement.
But I felt her presence; I seemed to feel her thoughts, to live in her.
At last I spoke to her.
"Jacqueline!"
I heard her start, and knew that she had raised her head and was looking after me. I crawled toward her, dragging my blanket after me. I felt in the darkness for the place where I knew her hand must be and took it in mine.
"Jacqueline," I said, "you know I did not steal your money, don't you?"
"Forgive me, monsieur," I heard her whisper.
"Forgive me, Jacqueline, for I have brought heavy trouble upon you. But with God's aid I am going to save you both—your father and you—and take you away somewhere where all the past can be forgotten."
She sighed heavily, and I felt a tear drop on my hand.
"Jacqueline!" I cried.
"Ah, M. Hewlett"—the weariness of her voice went to my heart—"it might have been different—if——"
"If what, Jacqueline?"
"If there had not been the blood of a dead man between us," she moaned. "If—you—had not—killed him!"
Her words were a revelation to me, for I learned that she had mercifully been spared the full remembrance of what had happened in the Tenth Street apartment. She thought that it was I who had killed Louis d'Epernay.
And how could I deny this, when to do so would be to bring to her mind the knowledge of her own dreadful guilt?
The dotard stirred and muttered, and she whispered to him and soothed him as though he were a child. Presently he began to breathe heavily, as old men breathe in sleep. But Jacqueline crouched there in the same motionless silence, and I knew that she was awake and suffering.
And then my watch began hammering again, just as the alarm-clock had hammered on that awful night in my apartment when I crouched outside the door, not daring to go in. My mind was working against my will and picturing a thousand possibilities.
What was Leroux doing? He would act with his usual hammer force. All depended on Pierre.
The hours wore away, and we three lay there, two waiting and one dreaming of the old days of youth, no doubt. I tried to light the candle to see the time, but my shaking hand sent it flying across the cave, and when I searched for my matches, I found that the box was empty.
It seemed an eternity since we had come there. It is one thing to wait for dawn and quite another thing to wait where dawn will never come.
It must be day. And still Pierre did not come. As I lay there, listening for his returning footsteps, I heard Jacqueline breathe at last.
She was asleep from weariness after her long night's watch. Somehow the thought that she had passed into the world of dreams comforted me. For a brief time the dreadful accusation of murder had been lifted from my head, and my numbed mind was free to follow my will and leave its mad career of fancy. I could act now.
Why should I not follow where Pierre had led? If Leroux had captured him within his hut, as seemed only too likely, he would never return, and we should wait in vain. And with each hour of waiting our chances to escape grew less.
I resolved to follow the exit for a little distance to see whither it led, and if I could discover the light of day.
So I took my sword and sallied out through the passage in the cliff.
I entered the tunnel, sword in hand, keeping both arms stretched out to feel my way. I resolved that I would always keep the left hand in contact with the wall upon that side, so that, in case the tunnel should divide, by reversing the process I could ensure my safe return.
I had only proceeded a few steps when the air grew cold and sweet. And before I had traversed two hundred yards I saw a dim light in the distance. This was no candle light, but that of day. So I had endured all those agonies of mind with the open air but a short distance away!
As I advanced I fancied that I heard the soft pattering of feet behind me.
I halted and listened intently. I crouched against the wall and waited. But I heard nothing now except the distant roaring of the cataracts. How sweet they sounded now!
I listened intently, leaning against the wall and facing backward, holding my sword ready to meet any intruder. But there was no sound from within, except the soughing which one hears in a tunnel; and satisfied at last that I had been the victim of an over-wrought imagination, I pursued my course.
The light grew brighter, but very slowly, until all at once I saw what seemed to be the gleam of an electric arc-light immediately ahead. It dazzled and half blinded me.
I started backward; and then the noble morning star disclosed herself, swinging in the sky like a blazing jewel in a translucent sea.
Before me was a projecting piece of rock, which had shut off the view, and but for that warning star I must have gone to my death. For my foot was slipping on ice—and I was clinging to the cliff-wall upon the other side of the tiny platform, where I had stood with Pierre, and the Old Angel thundered over me.
And, instead of noon, as I had thought it to be, it was only dawn, and the distant sky was banded with faint bars of yellow and gold, and the fresh morning air was in my nostrils.
I picked my way back, inch by inch, across the ice which coated the rocky floor for a few yards within the tunnel, until I stood in safety again.
The full purport of this discovery now came to me, and it filled me with frantic joy. For, since the cave connected with that platform beneath the cataract, it was evident that by crossing the ledge, a dangerous but not precarious feat, I should enter the main tunnel again and come out eventually beyond the hills, even allowing for a preliminary blunder into the wrong track.
The greatest danger lay in the possibility of Leroux or his aids lying in wait for me somewhere within the tunnel, and I had not much fear of that, for I did not believe they suspected that our cave connected with the main passage. It was more likely that they would wait in Duchaine's room till hunger drove us out.
So I started back to Jacqueline. But I had not gone six paces before I heard a scream that still rings in my ears to-day, and a shadow sprang out of the darkness and rushed at me. It was old Charles Duchaine. His white hair streamed behind him; his face bore an expression of indelible horror and rage, and in his hand he held the other sword.
With a madman's proverbial cunning he had pretended to be asleep; then he must have followed me stealthily as I made my journey of exploration; and now, doubtless, he ascribed all his wrongs and sufferings to me and meant to kill me.
His fears had snapped the last frail link that bound him to the world of sense.
He struck at me, a great sweeping blow which would almost have cut me in two. I had just time to parry it, and then he was upon me, raining blows upon my out-stretched sword. He was no swordsman, but slashed and hewed in frenzy, and the steel rang on steel, and the rust from the blades filled my nostrils with its sting.
But, though his attack was wild, the vigor of his blows almost beat down my guard. At last a random blow of mine swept the weapon from his feeble old hand and sent it whirling down the cataract into the lake below.
Then he was at my throat, and it was fortunate that there was firm rock instead of slippery ice beneath us, or we should both have followed the sword.
He linked his arms around me and wrestled furiously, and his weight and height so much surpassed my own that they compensated for his weakness. We swayed backward and forward, and the star dipped and swung over us, as though we stood upon the deck of a rolling ship.
"Calm yourself, for Heaven's sake, monsieur!" I gasped as I gained a momentary advantage over him. "Don't you know me? I am your friend. I want to save you!"
But he was at me again, trying to lock his hands about my throat; and, even after I had controlled him and pinned his arms to his sides, he fought like a fiend, and never ceased to yell. On either hand the rocks and tunnel gave back his howls with hideous echoes that rolled into the distance as though a hundred demons were at strife.
"You shall not take me! I have done nothing! It was years ago! Let me go! Let me go!" he screamed.
I released him for a moment, hoping that his disordered brain would calm enough for him to recognize me, and that, when he saw my motives were peaceful, he would grow quiet.
But suddenly, with a final howl, he sprang past me, Sweeping me against the wall, and leaped out on the ledge.
I held my breath. I expected to see him stagger to his death below. But he stood motionless in the middle of the little platform and stretched out his arms toward the raging torrent, as though in invocation. Then he leaped across with the agility of a wild sheep and rushed on into the tunnel beyond.
I drew my breath thickly and leaned against the wall, overcome with nausea. The physical shock of the struggle was, however, less appalling than the thought of Jacqueline.
I had no hope that the old man would ever return, or that his crazed brain remembered the way home to the cave. He would wander on through the tunnels, either to perish in them miserably, or to emerge at last into the snow beyond and die there.
Unless Leroux found him.
I started back, keeping this time to the right side of the tunnel, until I heard the gurgling of the brook. Then I heard Jacqueline's footstep.
"Who is it?" she called wildly. "M. Hewlett! My father!"
I caught her as she swayed toward me. "He has gone, Jacqueline," I said. "I went into the tunnel to try to find the way. He had been feigning sleep, and he crept after me. I tried to stop him. He was so frightened that I thought it best to let him go. He ran on into the tunnel——"
"We must find him," she said.
"He will come back, Jacqueline."
"He will never come back!" she answered. "He must have been planning this and waiting for me to sleep. For years he brooded over his danger, suspecting everybody, and the shock of last night unhinged his mind. He may be hiding somewhere. We must search for him."
"Let us go, then, Jacqueline," I answered.
In fact, there seemed to be no use in remaining any longer. If Pierre were on his way back, we ought to meet him in the tunnel; and if he had been captured, delay spelled ruin.
So I led her back into the tunnel on what was to be, I hoped, our final journey. We reached the ledge. The star had faded now, and the whole sky was bright with the red clouds of dawn.
Very cautiously we picked our way across the platform, clinging to the wall. It was a hideous journey over the slippery ice, beneath the thunder of the cataract; and when at length we reached the tunnel on the other side, I was shaking like a man with a palsy.
But, thank God, that nightmare was past. And with renewed confidence I went on through the darkness, with Jacqueline at my side, feeling my way by the deeper depression in the ground along the centre of the tubular passage.
At length I saw daylight ahead of me—and there was no sound of the torrents.
Fortune had led us where I had wanted her to lead—into the open space where the gold was. From there I knew that I could strike the passage which led into the sleigh road under the hills. Half an hour's travel ought to bring us to the rocking stone at the entrance, and safety.
But I found that I had entered the mine from a third point, and that some forty feet away from the place where I had emerged before. This time we were inside the cave in which Leroux and Lacroix had piled the sacks of earth.
I was looking out beyond them toward the rivulet, and on my right hand and on my left the tunnel stretched away, leading respectively toward the château and to the rocking stone at the entrance.
I left Jacqueline in the cave for a few moments and went into the smaller one near by, where I had seen the provisions on the preceding day. I found a small box of hard biscuit, with which I stuffed the pockets of my coat, and, happier still, a small revolver and some cartridges, to which I helped myself liberally.
Then I went back to Jacqueline.
We must go on. Half an hour more should see us outside the tunnel beyond the mountains. And this was the day on which Père Antoine would be expecting me.
It seemed incredible that so much could have happened in four-and-twenty hours.
But there was no sign of Charles Duchaine. And I did not intend to jeopardize our future for the sake of the crazed old man.
"Jacqueline," I said, "let us go on. Perhaps your father is on his way outside the tunnel."
She shook her head. "We must find him first," she answered.
"But that is impossible," I protested. "How can we go wandering among these dark passages when we do not know where he has gone? You know he is invaluable to Leroux, and he will come to no harm with him. If we get free, we can return with aid and rescue him."
"We cannot go without my father," she answered, shaking her head in determination.
"But——"
"Oh, don't you see that we must find him?" she cried wildly. "But you must go. You cannot be burdened with me. Give up your hopeless mission to rescue us, monsieur, and save yourself!"
At that my hopes, which had been so high, went crashing down.
"Jacqueline," I said, "if we can find your father you will come with me? Because it has occurred to me," I went on, "that if he had come this way, his footprints would be in the mud beside the stream. It would take an hour or two for them to fill up again. So, perhaps, he did not come this far, but is hiding in some cave in the tunnel through which we came. Will you wait for me here while I go back and search?"
She nodded, and I went back into that interminable tunnel again.
I went along the tunnel in the direction of le Vieil Ange. It was broad day now, and the distance between the cataract and the open ground where the gold had been mined was sufficiently short for the whole length of the passage to be faintly visible.
It was a reach of deep twilight, brightening into sunlight at either end.
I picked my way carefully, peering into the numerous small caves and fissures in the wall on either hand. And I was about half-way through when I saw a shadow running in front of me and making no sound.
It was Duchaine. There could be no mistaking that tall, gaunt figure, just visible against the distant day.
He was running in his bare feet and, therefore, in complete silence, and he leaped across the rocky floor as though he wore moccasins.
I raced along the tunnel after him. But he seemed to be endowed with the speed of a deer, for he kept his distance easily, and I would never have caught him had he not stopped for an instant at the approach of the ledge.
There, just as he was poising himself to leap, I seized him by the arm.
"M. Duchaine! M. Duchaine! Stop!" I implored him. "Don't you know that I am your friend and only wish you well? I am your friend—your daughter Jacqueline's friend. I want to save you!"
He did not attempt violence, but gazed at me with hesitation and pathetic doubt.
"They want to catch me," he muttered. "They want to hang me. He has got a gallows ready for me to swing on, because I killed a soldier in the Fenian raids. But it wasn't I," he added with sudden cunning. "It was my brother, who looks like me. He died long ago. Let me go, monsieur. I am a poor, harmless old man. I shall not hurt anybody."
I took his hand in mine.
"M. Duchaine," I answered. "I wish you everything that is best in the world. I am your friend; I want to save you, not to capture you. Come back with me, monsieur, and I will take you away——"
The wild look came into his eyes again.
"No, no!" he screamed, trying to wrest himself from my grasp and measuring the distance across the ledge with his eye. "I will not go away. This is my home. I want to live here in peace. I want my wheel! Monsieur, give me my wheel. I have perfected a system. Listen!" He took me by the arm and spoke in that cunning madman's way: "I will make your fortune if you will let me go free. You shall have millions. We will go to Quebec together and play at the tables, as I did when I was a young man. My system cannot fail!"
"M. Duchaine," I pleaded, "won't you come back with me and let us talk it over? Jacqueline is with me——"
"No, no," he cried, laughing. "You can't catch me with such a trick as that. My little daughter has gone to New York to make our fortunes at M. Daly's gaming-house. She will be back soon, loaded down with gold."
I saw an opening here.
"She has come back," I answered. "She is not fifty yards away."
"With gold?" he inquired, looking at me doubtfully.
"With gold," I answered, trying to allure his imagination as Leroux had done. "She has rich gold, red gold, such as you will love. You can take up the coins in your fingers and let the gold stream slip through them. Come with me, monsieur."
He hesitated and looked back into the darkness.
"I am afraid!" he exclaimed. "Listen, monsieur! There is a man hiding there—a man with a sword. He tried to capture me to-day. But I was too clever for him." He laughed with senile glee and rubbed his hands together. "I was too clever for him," he chuckled. "No, no, monsieur, I do not know who you are, but I am not going into that tunnel alone with you. Perhaps you have a gallows there."
"Do you not want the gold, monsieur?" I cried in exasperation. "Do you not want to see the gold that your daughter Jacqueline has brought back from New York for you?"
I grasped him by the arm and tried to lead him with me. My argument had moved him; cupidity had banished for the moment the dreadful picture of the gallows that he had conjured up. I thought I had won him.
But just as I started back into the tunnel, holding the arm of the old man, who lingered reluctantly and yet began to yield, a pebble leaped from the rocky platform and rebounded from the cliff. I cast a backward glance, and there upon the opposite side I saw Leroux standing.
There was something appalling in the man's presence there. I think it was his unchanging and implacable pursuit that for the moment daunted me. And this was symbolized in his fur coat, which he wore open in the front exactly as he had worn it that day when we met in the New York store, and as I had always seen him wear it.
He stood bareheaded, and his massive, lined, hard, weather-beaten face might have been a sneering gargoyle's, carved out of granite on some cathedral wall.
He stood half sheltered by the projecting ledge, and his aspect so fascinated me that I forgot my resolution to shoot to kill.
"Bonjour, M. Hewlett," he called across the chasm. "Don't be afraid of me any more than I am afraid of you. Just wait a moment. I want to talk business."
"I have no business to talk with you," I answered.
"But I did not say it was with you, monsieur," he answered in sneering tones. "It is with our friend, Duchaine. Holà, Duchaine!"
At the sound of Leroux's voice the old man straightened himself and began muttering and looking from the one to the other of us undecidedly.
In vain I tried to drag him within the tunnel. He shook himself free from me and sprang out on the icy ledge, and he poised himself there, turning his head from side to side as either of us spoke. And he effectively prevented me from shooting Leroux.
"Don't you know your best friends, Duchaine?" inquired Leroux; and the white beard was tipped toward the other side of the ledge.
"I don't know who my friends are, Simon," answered Duchaine, in his mild, melancholy voice. "What do you want?"
"Why, I want you, Charles, my old friend," replied Leroux in a voice expressive of surprize. "You old fool, do you want to die? If you do, go with that gentleman. He comes from Quebec on government business."
But I could plead better than that. I knew the symbol in his imagination.
"M. Duchaine! Come with me!" I cried. "He has a gallows ready for you back in that tunnel!"
It was a pitiful scheme, and yet for the life of me I could think of no other way to win him. And, as it happened, the word associated itself in the listener's mind as much with the speaker as with the man spoken of, for I saw Duchaine start violently and cling to the icy wall.
"No, no!" he cried; "I won't go with either of you. I am a poor old man. It was my brother who shot the soldier, and he is dead. Go away!"
He burst into senile tears and cowered there, surely the most pitiful spectacle that fate ever made of a man. The memories of the past thronged around him like avenging demons.
Suddenly I saw him turn his head and fix his eyes upon Leroux. He craned his neck forward; and then, very slowly, he began to walk toward his persecutor. I craned my neck.
Leroux was holding out—the roulette wheel!
"Come along, Charles, my friend," he cried. "Come, let us try our fortunes! Don't you want to stake some money upon your system against me?"
The old figure leaped forward over the ledge, and in a moment Leroux had grasped him and pulled him into the tunnel.
I whipped my revolver out and sent shot after shot across the chasm. The sound of the discharges echoed and re-echoed along the tunnel wall.
But the projecting ledge of rock effectively screened Leroux—and Duchaine as well, for in my passion I had been firing blindly, and but for that I should undoubtedly have killed Jacqueline's father.
The mocking laughter of Leroux came back to me in faint and far-away reply.
I saw the explanation of the man's presence now. He must have met Duchaine that morning as the old man was flying or wandering aimlessly along the tunnel. They had reached le Vieil Ange together, and Leroux had probably had little difficulty in inducing the witless old man to take him back into the secret hiding-place.
It was lucky that we had not been there when Leroux discovered it. We must have crossed the ledge only a moment or two before them.
I hastened back to Jacqueline, and encountered her in the passage just where the light and darkness blended, standing with arms stretched out against the wall to steady herself; and in her eyes was that look which tells a man more surely than anything, I think, can, that a woman loves him.
"Oh, I thought you were dead!" she sobbed and fell into my arms.
I held her tightly to support her, and I led her back to the gold cave. In a few words I explained what had occurred.
"Now, Jacqueline, you must let me guide you," I said. "Don't you see that there is no chance for us unless we leave your father for the present where he is and make our own escape? We can reach Père Antoine's cabin soon after midday, and we can tell him your father is a prisoner here. He would not come with us, Jacqueline, even if he were here.
"And if he did, he might escape us on the way and wander back into the tunnels again. Leroux has no cause to harm him. Surely you see that, dear? He needs him—he needs his signature to the deed which is to give him your father's share of the seigniory. Just as he wants you, Jacqueline. And he shall never have you, dear. So I shall not let you go back, or he would get you in the end. Unless——"
I stopped. But she knew what I had thought.
"Unless I kill myself," she answered wildly. "That is the best way out, Paul! I am fated to bring nothing but evil upon every one with whom I come in contact. Ah, leave me, Paul, and let me meet my fate, and save yourself!"
Again I pleaded, and she did not respond. It was the safety of us two, and her father's life assured, against a miserable fate for her, and I knew not what for me, though I thought Leroux would give me little shrift once I was in his power again.
She was so silent that I thought I had convinced her. I urged her to her feet. But suddenly I heard a stealthy footfall close at hand, between the cave and the cataract.
I thought it was Charles Duchaine. I hoped it was Leroux. I placed my finger on Jacqueline's lips and crept stealthily to the passage, revolver in hand.
Then, in the gloom, I saw the villainous face of Jean Petitjean looking into mine, twelve paces away, and in his hand was a revolver, too.
We fired together. But the surprize spoiled his aim, for his bullet whistled past me. I think my shot struck him somewhere, for he uttered a yell and began running back along the tunnel as hard as he could.
I followed him, firing as fast as I could reload. But there was a slight bend in the passage here, and my bullets only struck the walls. So fortune helped the ruffian, for when I reached the light he was scrambling across the ledge, and before I could cover him he had succeeded in disappearing behind the projecting rock on the other side.
So Leroux had already sealed one exit—that by the Old Angel, where the road led into the main passage. God grant that he had not time to reach the exit by the mine!
If I made haste! If I made haste! But I would not argue the matter any further. I ran back at full speed. I reached the cave.
"Jacqueline! Come, come!" I called.
She did not answer.
I ran forward, peering round me in the obscurity. I saw her near the earth-sacks, lying upon her side. Her eyes were closed, her face as white as a dead woman's.
White—but her dress was blood-soaked, and there was blood on the sacks and on the stony floor. It oozed from her side, and her hand was cold as the rocks, and there was no flutter at her wrist.
The bullet from Jean Petitjean's revolver that missed me must have penetrated her body.
She lived, for her breast stirred, though so faintly that it seemed as though all that remained of life were concentrated in the faint-throbbing heart-beats.
I raised her in my arms and placed a sack beneath her head, making a resting-place for her with my fur coat. Then with my knife I cut away her dress over the wound.
There was a bullet-hole beneath her breast, stained with dark blood. I ran down to the rivulet, risking an ambuscade, brought back cold water, and washed it, and stanched the flow as best I could, making a bandage and placing it above the wound.
It was a poor effort at first aid, by one who had never seen a bullet-wound before, and I was distracted with misery and grief, and yet I remember how steady my hands were and with what precision and care I performed my task.
I have a dim remembrance of losing my self-control when this was done, and clasping her in my arms and pressing my lips to her cold cheek and begging her to live and praying wildly that she should not die. Then I raised her in my arms and was staggering across the cave toward the tunnel which led to the rocking stone.