The Secret of Sarek, Maurice Leblanc [the ebook reader .txt] 📗

wished to seize in order to face the enemy. She did not even turn round. She was not interested to know whether she was being pursued. She ran for the goal, the only profitable goal.

Being lighter and swifter of foot, she overtook Gertrude, who panted:

“The bridge.⁠ ⁠… We must burn it.⁠ ⁠… The petrol’s there.⁠ ⁠…”

Véronique did not reply. Breaking down the bridge was a secondary matter and would even have been an obstacle to her plan of taking a gun and attacking the enemy.

But, when she reached the bridge, Gertrude whirled about in such a way that she almost fell down the precipice. An arrow had struck her in the back.

“Help! Help!” she screamed. “Don’t leave me!”

“I’m coming back,” replied Véronique, who had not seen the arrow and thought that Gertrude had merely caught her foot in running. “I’m coming back, with two guns. You join me.”

She imagined in her mind that, once they were both armed, they would go back to the wood and rescue the other sisters. Redoubling her efforts, therefore, she reached the wall of the estate, ran across the grass and went up to her father’s study. Here she stopped to recover her breath; and, after she had taken the two guns, her heart beat so fast that she had to go back at a slower pace.

She was astonished at not meeting Gertrude, at not seeing her. She called her. No reply. And it was not till then that the thought occurred to her that Gertrude had been wounded like her sisters.

She once more broke into a run. But, when she came within sight of the bridge, she heard shrill cries pierce through the buzzing in her ears and, on coming into the open opposite the sharp ascent that led to the wood of the Great Oak, she saw⁠ ⁠…

What she saw rivetted her to the entrance to the bridge. On the other side, Gertrude was sprawling upon the ground, struggling, clutching at the roots, digging her nails into the grass and slowly, slowly, with an imperceptible and uninterrupted movement, moving along the slope.

And Véronique became aware that the unfortunate woman was fastened under the arms and round the waist by a cord which was hoisting her up, like a bound and helpless prey, and which was pulled by invisible hands above.

Véronique raised one of the guns to her shoulder. But at what enemy was she to take aim? What enemy was she to fight? Who was hiding behind the trees and stones that crowned the hill like a rampart?

Gertrude slipped between those stones, between those trees. She had ceased screaming, no doubt she was exhausted and swooning. She disappeared from sight.

Véronique had not moved. She realized the futility of any venture or enterprise. By rushing into a contest in which she was beaten beforehand she would not be able to rescue the sisters Archignat and would merely offer herself to the conqueror as a new and final victim.

Besides, she was overcome with fear. Everything was happening in accordance with the ruthless logic of facts of which she did not grasp the meaning but which all seemed connected like the links of a chain. She was afraid, afraid of those beings, afraid of those ghosts, instinctively and unconsciously afraid, afraid like the sisters Archignat, like Honorine, like all the victims of the terrible scourge.

She stooped, so as not to be seen from the Great Oak, and, bending forward and taking the shelter offered by some bramble-bushes, she reached the little hut of which the sisters Archignat had spoken, a sort of summerhouse with a pointed roof and coloured tiles. Half the summerhouse was filled with cans of petrol.

From here she overlooked the bridge, on which no one could step without being seen by her. But no one came down from the wood.

Night fell, a night of thick fog silvered by the moon which just allowed Véronique to see the opposite side.

After an hour, feeling a little reassured, she made a first trip with two cans which she emptied on the outer beams of the bridge.

Ten times, with her ears pricked up, carrying her gun slung over her shoulder and prepared at any moment to defend herself, she repeated the journey. She poured the petrol a little at random, groping her way and yet as far as possible selecting the places where her sense of touch seemed to tell her that the wood was most rotten.

She had a box of matches, the only one that she had found in the house. She took out a match and hesitated a moment, frightened at the thought of the great light it would make:

“Even so,” she reflected, “if it could be seen from the mainland⁠ ⁠… But, with this fog⁠ ⁠…”

Suddenly she struck the match and at once lit a paper torch which she had prepared by soaking it in petrol.

A great flame blazed and burnt her fingers. Then she threw the paper in a pool of petrol which had formed in a hollow and fled back to the summerhouse.

The fire flared up immediately and, at one flash, spread over the whole part which she had sprinkled. The cliffs on the two islands, the strip of granite that united them, the big trees around, the hill, the wood of the Great Oak and the sea at the bottom of the ravine: these were all lit up.

“They know where I am.⁠ ⁠… They are looking at the summerhouse where I am hiding,” thought Véronique, keeping her eyes fixed on the Great Oak.

But not a shadow passed through the wood. Not a sound of voices reached her ears. Those concealed above did not leave their impenetrable retreat.

In a few minutes, half the bridge collapsed, with a great crash and a gush of sparks. But the other half went on burning; and at every moment a piece of timber tumbled into the precipice, lighting up the depths of the night.

Each time that this happened, Véronique had a sense of relief and her overstrung nerves grew relaxed. A feeling of