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

body was trembling. Her heart was beating furiously, like the clapper of a bell. Nevertheless she had the mad courage to catch hold of the two uprights and go down.

It did not take long. She knew that there were twenty rungs in all. She counted them. When she reached the twentieth, she looked to the left and murmured, with unspeakable joy:

“Oh, François⁠ ⁠… my darling!”

She had seen, three feet away at most, a recess, a hollow which appeared to be the entrance to a cavity cut in the rock itself.

“Stéphane⁠ ⁠… Stéphane,” she called, but in so faint a voice that Stéphane Maroux, if he were there, could not hear her.

She hesitated a few seconds, but her legs were giving way and she no longer had the strength either to climb up again or to remain hanging where she was. Taking advantage of a few irregularities in the rock and thus shifting the ladder, at the risk of unhooking it, she succeeded, by a sort of miracle of which she was quite aware, in catching hold of a flint which projected from the granite and setting foot in the cave. Then, with fierce energy, she made one supreme effort and, recovering her balance with a jerk, she entered.

She at once saw someone, fastened with cords, lying on a truss of straw.

The cave was small and not very deep, especially in the upper portion, which pointed towards the sky rather than the sea and which must have looked, from a distance, like a mere fold in the cliff. There was no projection to bound it at the edge. The light entered freely.

Véronique went nearer. The man did not move. He was asleep.

She bent over him; though she did not recognize him for certain, it seemed to her that a memory was emerging from that dim past in which all the faces of our childhood gradually fade away. This one was surely not unknown to her: a gentle visage, with regular features, fair hair flung well back, a broad, white forehead and a slightly feminine countenance, which reminded Véronique of the charming face of a convent friend who had died before the war.

She deftly unfastened the bonds with which the wrists were fastened together.

The man, without waking immediately, stretched his arms, as though submitting himself to a familiar operation, not effected for the first time, which did not necessarily interfere with his sleep. Presumably he was released like this at intervals, perhaps in order to eat and at night, for he ended by muttering:

“So early?⁠ ⁠… But I’m not hungry⁠ ⁠… and it’s still light!”

This last reflection astonished the man himself. He opened his eyes and at once sat up where he lay, so that he might see the person who was standing in front of him, no doubt for the first time in broad daylight.

He was not greatly surprised, for the reason that the reality could not have been manifest to him at once. He probably thought that he was the sport of a dream or an hallucination; and he said, in an undertone:

“Véronique⁠ ⁠… Véronique⁠ ⁠…”

She felt a little embarrassed by his gaze, but finished releasing his bonds; and, when he distinctly felt her hand on his own hands and on his imprisoned limbs, he understood the wonderful event which her presence implied and he said, in a faltering voice:

“You! You!⁠ ⁠… Can it be?⁠ ⁠… Oh, speak just one word, just one!⁠ ⁠… Can it possibly be you?” He continued, almost to himself, “Yes, it is she⁠ ⁠… it is certainly she.⁠ ⁠… She is here!” And, anxiously, aloud, “You⁠ ⁠… at night⁠ ⁠… on the other nights⁠ ⁠… it wasn’t you who came then? It was another woman, wasn’t it? An enemy?⁠ ⁠… Oh, forgive me for asking you!⁠ ⁠… It’s because⁠ ⁠… because I don’t understand.⁠ ⁠… How did you come here?”

“I came this way,” she said, pointing to the sea.

“Oh,” he said, “how wonderful!”

He stared at her with dazed eyes, as he might have stared at some vision descended from Heaven; and the circumstances were so unusual that he did not think of suppressing the eagerness of his gaze.

She repeated, utterly confused:

“Yes, this way.⁠ ⁠… François suggested it.”

“I did not mention him,” he said, “because, with you here, I felt sure that he was free.”

“Not yet,” she said, “but he will be in an hour.”

A long pause ensued. She interrupted it to conceal her agitation:

“He will be free.⁠ ⁠… You shall see him.⁠ ⁠… But we must not frighten him: there are things which he doesn’t know.”

She perceived that he was listening not to the words uttered but to the voice that uttered them and that this voice seemed to plunge him into a sort of ecstasy, for he was silent and smiled. She thereupon smiled too and questioned him, thus obliging him to answer:

“You called me by my name at once. So you knew me? I also seem to⁠ ⁠… Yes, you remind me of a friend of mine who died.”

“Madeleine Ferrand?”

“Yes, Madeleine Ferrand.”

“Perhaps I also remind you of her brother, a shy schoolboy who used often to visit the parlour at the convent and who used to look at you from a distance.”

“Yes, yes,” she declared. “I remember. We even spoke to each other sometimes; you used to blush. Yes, that’s it: your name was Stéphane. But how do you come to be called Maroux?”

“Madeleine and I were not children of the same father.”

“Ah,” she said, “that was what misled me!”

She gave him her hand:

“Well, Stéphane,” she said, “as we are old friends and have renewed our acquaintance, let us put off all our remembrances until later. For the moment, the most urgent matter is to get away. Have you the strength?”

“The strength, yes: I have not had such a very bad time. But how are we to go from here?”

“By the same road by which I came, a ladder communicating with the upper passage of cells.”

He was now standing up:

“You had the courage, the pluck?” he asked, at last realizing what she had dared to do.

“Oh, it was not very difficult!” she declared. “François was