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

so anxious! He maintained that you were both occupying old torture-chambers⁠ ⁠… death-chambers.⁠ ⁠…”

It was as though these words aroused him violently from a dream and made him suddenly see that it was madness to converse in such circumstances.

“Go away!” he cried. “François is right! Oh, if you knew the risk you are running. Please, please go!”

He was beside himself, as though convulsed by the thought of an immediate peril. She tried to calm him, but he entreated her:

“Another second may be your undoing. Don’t stay here.⁠ ⁠… I am condemned to death and to the most terrible death. Look at the ground on which we are standing, this sort of floor.⁠ ⁠… But it’s no use talking about it. Oh, please do go!”

“With you,” she said.

“Yes, with me. But save yourself first.”

She resisted and said, firmly:

“For us both to be saved, Stéphane, we must above all things remain calm. What I did just now we can do again only by calculating all our actions and controlling our excitement. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” he said, overcome by her magnificent confidence.

“Then follow me.”

She stepped to the very edge of the precipice and leant forward:

“Give me your hand,” she said, “to help me keep my balance.”

She turned round, flattened herself against the cliff and felt the surface with her free hand.

Not finding the ladder, she leant outward slightly.

The ladder had become displaced. No doubt, when Véronique, perhaps with too abrupt a movement, had set foot in the cave, the iron hook of the right-hand upright had slipped and the ladder, hanging only by the other hook, had swung like a pendulum.

The bottom rungs were now out of reach.

VIII Anguish

Had Véronique been alone, she would have yielded to one of those moods of despondency which her nature, brave though it was, could not escape in the face of the unrelenting animosity of fate. But in the presence of Stéphane, who she felt to be the weaker and who was certainly exhausted by his captivity, she had the strength to restrain herself and announce, as though mentioning quite an ordinary incident:

“The ladder has swung out of our reach.”

Stéphane looked at her in dismay:

“Then⁠ ⁠… then we are lost!”

“Why should we be lost?” she asked, with a smile.

“There is no longer any hope of getting away.”

“What do you mean? Of course there is. What about François?”

“François?”

“Certainly. In an hour at most, François will have made his escape; and, when he sees the ladder and the way I came, he will call to us. We shall hear him easily. We have only to be patient.”

“To be patient!” he said, in terror. “To wait for an hour! But they are sure to be here in less than that. They keep a constant watch.”

“Well, we will manage somehow.”

He pointed to the wicket in the door:

“Do you see that wicket?” he said. “They open it each time. They will see us through the grating.”

“There’s a shutter to it. Let’s close it.”

“They will come in.”

“Then we won’t close it and we’ll keep up our confidence, Stéphane.”

“I’m frightened for you, not for myself.”

“You mustn’t be frightened either for me or for yourself.⁠ ⁠… If the worst comes to the worst, we are able to defend ourselves,” she added, showing him a revolver which she had taken from her father’s rack of arms and carried on her ever since.

“Ah,” he said, “what I fear is that we shall not even be called upon to defend ourselves! They have other means.”

“What means?”

He did not answer. He had flung a quick glance at the floor; and Véronique for a moment examined its curious structure.

All around, following the circumference of the walls, was the granite itself, rugged and uneven. But outlined in the granite was a large square. They could see, on each of the four sides, the deep crevice that divided it from the rest. The timbers of which it consisted were worn and grooved, full of cracks and gashes, but nevertheless massive and powerful. The fourth side almost skirted the edge of the precipice, from which it was divided by eight inches at most.

“A trap-door?” she asked, with a shudder.

“No, not that,” he said. “It would be too heavy.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know. Very likely it is nothing but a remnant of some past contrivance which no longer works. Still⁠ ⁠…”

“Still what?”

“Last night⁠ ⁠… or rather this morning there was a creaking sound down below there. It seemed to suggest attempts, but they stopped at once⁠ ⁠… it’s such a long time since!⁠ ⁠… No, the thing no longer works and they can’t make use of it.”

“Who’s they?”

Without waiting for his answer, she continued:

“Listen, Stéphane, we have a few minutes before us, perhaps fewer than we think. François will be free at any moment now and will come to our rescue. Let us make the most of the interval and tell each other the things which both of us ought to know. Let us discuss matters quietly. We are threatened with no immediate danger; and the time will be well employed.”

Véronique was pretending a sense of security which she did not feel. That François would make his escape she refused to doubt; but who could tell that the boy would go to the window and notice the hook of the hanging ladder? On failing to see his mother, would he not rather think of following the underground tunnel and running to the Priory?

However, she mastered herself, feeling the need of the explanation for which she had asked, and, sitting down on a granite projection which formed a sort of bench, she at once began to tell Stéphane the events which she had witnessed and in which she had played a leading part, from the moment when her investigations led her to the deserted cabin containing Maguennoc’s dead body.

Stéphane listened to the terrifying narrative without attempting to interrupt her but with an alarm marked by his gestures of abhorrence and the despairing expression of his face. M. d’Hergemont’s death in particular seemed to crush him, as did Honorine’s. He had