The Clique of Gold, Emile Gaboriau [if you liked this book .txt] 📗

very much like death itself. When he was aroused for a time, he always asked in an almost inaudible voice,—

“Are there no letters for me from France?”

Invariably, Lefloch replied, according to orders received from the doctor,—

“None, lieutenant.”

But he told a falsehood. Since Daniel was confined to his bed, three vessels had arrived from France, two French and one English; and among the despatches there were eight or ten letters for Lieut. Champcey. But the old surgeon said to himself, not without good reason,—

“Certainly it is almost a case of conscience to leave this unfortunate man in such uncertainty: but this uncertainty is free from danger, at least; while any excitement would kill him as surely and as promptly as I could blow out a candle.”

A fortnight passed; and Daniel recovered some little strength; at last he entered upon a kind of convalescence—if a poor man who could not turn over in bed unaided can be called a convalescent. But, with his returned consciousness, his sufferings also reappeared; and, as he gradually ascertained how long he had been confined, his anxiety assumed an alarming character.

“There must be letters for me,” he said to his man; “you keep them from me. I must have them.”

The doctor at last came to the conclusion that this excessive agitation was likely to become as dangerous as the excitement he dreaded so much; so he said one day,—

“Let us run the risk.”

It was a burning hot afternoon, and Daniel had now been an invalid for seven weeks. Lefloch raised him on his pillows, stowed him away, as he called it; and the surgeon handed him his letters.

Daniel uttered a cry of delight.

At the first glance he had recognized on three of the envelopes Henrietta’s handwriting. He kissed them, and said,—

“At last she writes!”

The shock was so violent, that the doctor was almost frightened.

“Be calm, my dear friend,” he said. “Be calm! Be a man, forsooth!”

But Daniel only smiled, and replied,—

“Never mind me, doctor; you know joy is never dangerous; and nothing but joy can come to me from her who writes to me. However, just see how calm I am!”

So calm, that he did not even take the time to see which was the oldest of his letters.

He opened one of them at haphazard, and read:—

“Daniel, my dear Daniel, my only friend in this world, and my sole hope, how could you intrust me to such an infamous person? How could you hand over your poor Henrietta to such a wretch? This Maxime de Brevan, this scoundrel, whom you considered your friend, if you knew”—

This was the long letter written by Henrietta the day after M. de Brevan had declared to her that he loved her, and that sooner or later, whether she chose or not, she should be his, giving her the choice between the horrors of starvation and the disgrace of becoming his wife.

As Daniel went on reading, a deadly pallor was spreading over his face, pale as it was already; his eyes grew unnaturally large; and big drops of perspiration trickled down his temples. A nervous trembling seized him, so violent, that it made his teeth rattle; sobs rose from his chest; and a pinkish foam appeared on his discolored lips. At last he reached the concluding lines,—

“Now,” the young girl wrote, “since, probably, none of my letters have reached you, they must have been intercepted. This one will reach you; for I am going to carry it to the post-office myself. For God’s sake, Daniel, return! Come back quick, if you wish to save, not your Henrietta’s honor, for I shall know how to die, but your Henrietta’s life!”

Then the surgeon and the sailor witnessed a frightful sight.

This man, who but just now had not been able to raise himself on his pillows; this unfortunate sufferer, who looked more like a skeleton than a human being; this wounded man, who had scarcely his breath left him,—threw back his blankets, and rushed to the middle of the room, crying, with a terrible voice,—

“My clothes, Lefloch, my clothes!”

The doctor had hastened forward to support him; but he pushed him aside with one arm, continuing,—

“By the holy name of God, Lefloch, make haste! Run to the harbor, wretch! there must be a steamer there. I buy it. Let it get up steam, instantly. In an hour I must be on my way.”

But this great effort had exhausted him. He tottered; his eyes dosed; and he fainted away in the arms of his sailor, stammering,—

“That letter, doctor, that letter; read it, and you will see I must go.”

Raising his lieutenant, and holding him like a child in his arms, Lefloch carried him back to his bed; but, for more than ten minutes, the doctor and the faithful sailor were unable to tell whether they had not a corpse before their eyes, and were wasting all their attentions.

No! It was Lefloch who first noticed a slight tremor.

“He moves!” he cried out. “Look, commandant, he moves! He is alive! We’ll pull him through yet.”

They succeeded, in fact, to rekindle this life which had appeared so nearly extinct; but they did not bring back that able intellect. The cold and indifferent look with which Daniel stared at them, when he at last opened his eyes once more, told them that the tottering reason of the poor man had not been strong enough to resist this new shock. And still he must have retained some glimpses of the past; for his efforts to collect his thoughts were unmistakable. He passed his hands mechanically over his forehead, as if trying to remove the mist which enshrouded his mind. Then a convulsion shook him; and his lips overflowed with incoherent words, in which the recollection of the fearful reality, and the extravagant conceptions of delirium, were strangely mixed.

“I foresaw it,” said the chief surgeon. “I foresaw it but too fully.”

He had by this time exhausted all the resources of his skill and long experience; he had followed all the suggestions nature vouchsafed; and he could do nothing more now, but wait. Picking up the fatal letter, he went into the embrasure of one of the windows to read it. Daniel had in his wanderings said enough to enable the doctor to understand the piercing cry of distress contained in the poor girl’s letter; and Lefloch, who watched him, saw a big tear running down his cheek, and in the next moment a flood of crimson overspread his face.

“This is enough to madden a man!” he growled. “Poor Champcey!”

And like a man who no longer possesses himself, who must move somehow, he stuffed the letter in his pocket, and went out, swearing till the plaster seemed to fall from the ceiling.