Memoirs of Arsène Lupin, Maurice Leblanc [librera reader txt] 📗

“You can’t think how delighted I am things have turned out so much better than I expected. Here you are, safe! The water has not even had time to reach you. What luck we’ve had! You’re feeling all right?”

She whispered so low that he hardly heard it:

“No.⁠ ⁠… My ankle.⁠ ⁠… Their ropes twisted my foot and cut into it.”

“That will soon be all right,” he said. “The important thing is to get back to the shore. Your two executioners will have certainly landed by now and must be scrambling up the staircase as hard as they can climb. So we have nothing to fear from them.”

He got to work quickly. He took the two oars, which de Bennetot had not taken the trouble to remove⁠—unless perhaps he had thought that if the boat were found it would look less suspicious if the oars were in it⁠—and began to row towards the shore, telling her how he had come to her help in the nick of time, in a cheerful, careless voice, as if nothing more extraordinary had happened than happens at an ordinary picnic.

“Let me introduce myself in a rather more formal way, though I’m not particularly presentable at the moment, since I am only dressed in my shirt, one stocking, and a knife hanging from a string from my neck,” he said. “I am Ralph d’Andresy, at your service⁠—since chance willed it. And a very simple chance it was.⁠ ⁠… I overheard a conversation.⁠ ⁠… I learned that there was a plot in action against a certain lady. So I took the liberty of forestalling it. I hurried down to the beach, undressed, and when the two cousins came out of the entrance of the tunnel I slipped into the water. All I had to do then was to hide behind your boat and catch hold of the stern when they started to tow it out to sea. And that was what I did do. Neither of them had the slightest idea that they were taking out with their victim a champion swimmer who had made up his mind to save her. But I’ll tell you more about it later when you’re in a state to understand. I’ve got an idea that at the moment I’m babbling away to the empty air.”

He paused.

“I’m feeling very ill,” she murmured. “I’m utterly worn out.”

“I can tell you what to do,” he said quickly. “Lose consciousness. Nothing is so restful as to lose consciousness.”

She seemed to follow his advice, for after a little moan or two, she began to breathe quietly and regularly. He covered her up with the rug and fell to rowing again.

“It’s better as it is,” he said to himself. “I can act exactly as I like without having to explain what I’m doing.”

The fact that there was no one to listen to him did not prevent him from indulging in a sustained monologue, with all the satisfaction of a man who is exceedingly pleased with himself and everything he does. The boat moved quickly towards the shore. The dark mass of the cliffs loomed ahead.

When the keel of the boat ground its way into the pebbles, he jumped out of it, then lifted the unconscious young woman, with an ease which demonstrated the uncommon strength of his muscles, and carried her to the foot of the cliff.

“Boxing champion also,” said he⁠—“to say nothing of the Greco-Roman style. I don’t mind telling you, since you cannot hear me, that I found these useful accomplishments in my inheritance from father⁠ ⁠… and a jolly lot of others! But enough of this trifling. Rest here, under this rock, where you’re safe from the treacherous waves.⁠ ⁠… I shall be back presently. I expect you will be very keen on taking vengeance on those two cousins. That makes it necessary that the boat should not be found and that they should believe you thoroughly and completely drowned. So do not be impatient.”

Without wasting any more time he put this plan into execution. Once more he rowed out the boat to the open sea, pulled out the rowlock and his stocking out of the hole, and, sure that it would sink, took to the water again. As soon as he reached the shore, he put on his clothes which he had hidden in a cranny in the cliff.

He went back to the young woman and said: “Come, the next job is to climb to the top of the cliff; and it’s not the easiest job in the world.”

Little by little she came out of her swoon and he saw faintly the glimmer of her open eyes.

With his help she tried to stand upright, but uttered a cry of pain, and would have fallen but for his arm. He lowered her to the ground, took off her shoe, and found that her stocking was all bloody. It was in no way a serious injury, but uncommonly painful. He used his handkerchief as a temporary bandage. They had to be getting on their way; and he hoisted her on to his shoulder and began the ascent of the staircase.

Three hundred and fifty steps! If Godfrey d’Etigues and Oscar de Bennetot had had great difficulty in carrying, the two of them, the young woman down, what an immense effort was demanded by the ascent, and that from a young man! Four times he had to stop, streaming with sweat, feeling that he would never be able to go on. Nevertheless he went on, all the while with a cheerfulness no fatigue could dash. At the third halt, having sat down with the girl on his knee, he found that she was laughing faintly at his jokes and unflagging spirit. At last he finished the ascent with her charming form hugged tightly to him, his hands and his arms assuring him of its supple firmness.

When he reached the top he gave himself but the shortest rest, for a fresh breeze had risen and was clearing the sky.