The Tremendous Event

The Tremendous Event written by Maurice Leblanc, translated by Alexander Texeira de Mattos

1924.

TOC

Part the First

• Chapter I. The Suit
• Chapter II. The Crossing
• Chapter III. Good-Bye, Simon
• Chapter IV. The Great Upheaval
• Chapter V. Virgin Soil
• Chapter VI. Triumph
• Chapter VII. Lynx-Bye
• Chapter VIII. On the War-Path

Part the Second

• Chapter I. Inside the Wreck
• Chapter II. Along the Cable
• Chapter III. Side by Side
• Chapter IV. The Battle
• Chapter V. The Chief's Reward
• Chapter VI. Hell on Earth
• Chapter VII. The Fight for the Gold
• Chapter VIII. The High Commissioner for the New Territories

AUTHOR'S NOTE

The tremendous event of the 4th. of June, whose consequences affected the relations of the two great Western nations even more profoundly than did the war, has called forth, during the last fifty years, a constant efflorescence of books, memoirs and scientific studies of truthful reports and fabulous narratives. Eye-witnesses have related their impressions; journalists have collected their articles into volumes; scientists have published the results of their researches; novelists have imagined unknown tragedies; and poets have lifted up their voices. There is no detail of that tragic day but has been brought to light; and this is true likewise of the days which went before and of those which came after and of all the reactions, moral or social, economic or political, by which it made itself felt, throughout the twentieth century, in the destinies of the world.

There was nothing lacking but Simon Dubosc's own story. And it was strange that we should have known only by reports, usually fantastic, the part played by the man who, first by chance and then by his indomitable courage and later still by his clear-sighted enthusiasm, was thrust into the very heart of the adventure.

To-day, when the nations are gathered about the statue over-looking the arena in which the hero fought, does it not seem permissible to add to the legend the embellishment of a reality which will not misrepresent it? And, if it is found that this reality trenches too closely upon the man's private life, need we object!

It was in Simon Dubosc that the western spirit first became conscious of itself and it is the whole man that belongs to history.

The Tremendous Event

CHAPTER III. SIDE BY SIDE

The jaded horse was incapable of further service. They had to abandon it, after emptying the saddle-bags and removing the rug, which Dolores wrapped about her like a soldier's cloak.

They set out again. Henceforth the girl directed the pursuit. Simon, reassured by Isabel's letter, allowed Dolores to lead the way and twenty times over had occasion, to remark her perspicacity and the accuracy of her judgment or intuition.

Then, less anxious, feeling that she understood, he became more talkative and abandoned himself, as on the previous day, to the burst of enthusiasm which the miracle of this new world awakened in him. The still unsettled coast-line, the irresolute river, the changing hues of the water, the ever-varying forms of the heights and valleys, the contours of the landscape, hardly more definite as yet than those of an infant's face: all of this, for an hour or two, was to him a source of wonder and exaltation,.

“Look, look!” he cried. “It is as though the landscape were amazed at showing itself in the light of day! Crushed until now beneath the weight of the waters, buried in darkness, it seems embarrassed by the light. Each detail has to learn how to hold itself, to win a place for itself, to adapt itself to new conditions of existence, to obey other laws, to shape itself in accordance with other purposes, in short, to live its life as a thing of earth. It will grow acquainted with the wind, the rain, the frost; with winter and spring; with the sun, the beautiful, glorious sun, which will fertilize it and draw from it all the appearance, colour, service, pleasure and beauty which it is capable of yielding. A world is being created before our eyes.”

Dolores listened with a charmed expression, that spoke of the delight which she felt when Simon spoke for her benefit. And he, all unawares, meanwhile became kindlier and more attentive. The companion with whom chance had associated him was assuming more and more the semblance of a woman. Sometimes he reflected upon the love which she had revealed to him and asked himself whether, in professing her readiness to devote herself, she was not seeking above all to remain by his side and to profit by the circumstances which brought them together. But he was so sure of his own strength and so well protected by Isabel that he took little pains to fathom the secrets of this mysterious soul.

Three times they witnessed murderous conflicts among the swarm of vagabonds who were checked by the barrier of the river. Two men and a woman fell, but Simon made no attempt to defend them or to punish the criminals:

“It is the law of the strongest,” he said. “No police! No judges! No executioners! No guillotine! So why trouble ourselves? All social and moral acquisitions, all the subtleties of civilization, all these melt away in a moment. What remains? The primordial instincts, which are to abuse your strength, to take what isn't yours and, in a moment of anger or greed, to kill your fellows. What does it matter? We are back in, the troglodyte age! Let each man look to him-self!”

The sound of singing reached them from some where ahead, as though the river had transmitted its loud echo. They listened: it was a French rustic ditty, sung in a drawling voice to a tuneful air. The sound drew nearer. From the curtain of mist a large open boat came into view, laden with men, women and children, with baskets and articles of furniture, and impelled by the powerful effort of six oars. The men were emigrant sailors, in quest of new shores on which to rebuild their homes.

“France!” cried Simon, when they passed.

“Cayeux-sur-Mer,” replied one of the singers.

“Then this river is the Somme?”

“It's the Somme.”

“But it's flowing north!”

“Yes, but there's a sharp bend a few miles from here.”

“You must have passed a party of men carrying off an old man and a girl bound to two horses.”

“Haven't seen anything of that sort,” declared the man.

He resumed his singing. Women's voices joined in the chorus; and the boat moved on.

“Rolleston, must have branched off towards France,” Simon concluded.

“He can't have done that,” objected Dolores, “since his present objective is the fountain of gold which some one mentioned to him.” “In that case what has become of them?” The reply to this question was vouchsafed after an hour's difficult walking over a ground composed of millions upon millions of those broken sea-shells which the patient centuries use in kneading and shaping of the tallest cliffs. It all crackled under their feet and sometimes they sank into it above their ankles. Some tracts, hundreds of yards wide, were covered with a layer of dead fish on which they were compelled to trudge and which formed a mass of decomposing flesh with an intolerable stench to it.

But a slope of hard, firm ground led them to a more rugged promontory overhanging the river. Here a dozen, men, grey before their time, clothed in rags and repulsively filthy, with evil faces and brutal gestures, were cutting up the carcass of a horse and grilling the pieces over a scanty fire fed with sodden planks. They seemed to be a gang of tramps who had joined forces for looting on a larger scale. They had a sheep-dog with them. One of them stated that he had that morning seen a party of armed men crossing the Somme, making rise of a big wreck which lay stranded in the middle of the river and which they had reached by a frail, hastily-constructed bridge.

“Look,” he said, “there she is, at the far end of the cliff. They slid the girl down first and then the old, trussed-up chap.”

“But,” asked Simon, “the horses didn't get across that way, did they?”

“The horses? They were done for. So they let them go. Two of my mates took three of them and have gone back to France with them.... If they get there, it'll be a bit of luck for them. The fourth, he's on, the spit: we're going to have our dinner off him.... After all, one must eat!”

“And those people, where were they going!” asked Simon.

“Going to pick up gold. They were talking of a fountain flowing with gold pieces... real gold coins. We're going too, we are. What we're wanting is arms: arms that are some use.”

The tramps had risen to their feet; and, obeying an unconcerted and spontaneous movement, they gathered round Simon and Dolores. The man who had been, speaking laid his hand upon Simon's rifle:

“This sort of thing, you know. A gun like that must come in handy just now... especially to defend a pocket-book which is probably a fat one.... It's true,” he added, in a threatening tone, “that my mates and I have got our sticks and knives, for when it comes to talking.”

“A revolver's better,” said Simon, drawing his from his pocket.

The circle of tramps opened out.

“Stay where you are, will you?” he bade them. “The first of you who moves a step, I shoot him down!”

Walking backwards, while keeping the men covered with his revolver, he drew Dolores to the end of the promontory. The tramps had not budged a foot.

“Come,” whispered Simon. “We have nothing to fear from them.”

The boat, completely capsized, squat and clumsy as the shell of a tortoise, barred the second half of the river. In, foundering she had split on the sloping shore a deck cargo of timber, now sodden, but still sound enough to enable Rolleston's gang to build a footbridge twelve yards long across the arm of the river.

Dolores and Simon crossed it briskly. It was easy after that to go along the nearly flat bottom of the keel and to slide down the chain, of the anchor. But, just as Dolores reached the ground, a violent concussion shook the chain, of which she had not yet let go, and a shot rang out from the other bank.

“Ah!” she said. “I was lucky: the bullet has struck one of the links.”

Simon had faced round. Opposite them, the tramps were venturing on, the footbridge one by one.

“But who can have fired?” he demanded. “Those beggars haven't a rifle.”

Dolores gave him a sudden push, so that he was protected by the bulk of the wreck:

“Who fired?” she repeated. “Forsetta or Mazzani.”

“Have you seen them?”

“Yes, at the back of the promontory. You can understand, a very few words would enable them to make a deal with the tramps and persuade them to attack us.”

They both ran round to the other side of the stern. From there they could see the whole of the footbridge and were under cover from the snipers. Simon raised his rifle to his shoulder.

“Fire!” cried Dolores, seeing him hesitate.

The shot rang out. The foremost of the vagabonds fell. He roared with pain, holding his leg. The others hurried back, dragging him with them, and the promontory was cleared of men. But, though the tramps could not risk going on the footbridge, it was no less dangerous for Dolores and Simon to leave the protected area formed by the wreck. Directly they became visible, they were exposed to Forsetta's or Mazzani's fire.

“We must wait till dark,” Dolores decided.

For hours, rifle in hand, they watched the promontory, on which a head and shoulders or gesticulating arms appeared at frequent intervals and from which on several occasions also the threat of a levelled rifle forced them to hide themselves. Then, as soon as the darkness was dense enough, they set off again, convinced that Rolleston's trail would continue to ascend the Somme.

They travelled quickly, never doubting that the two Indians and the vagabonds would pursue them. Indeed, they heard their voices across the water and saw fleeting glimmers of light on the same bank as themselves.

“They know,” said Dolores, “that Rolleston went in this direction and that we, who are looking for him, are bound to keep to it.”

After two hours' progress, during which they groped their way, guided from time to time by the vague shimmering of the river, they reached a sort of isolated chaos into which Simon wearily cast the light of his electric torch. It consisted of enormous blocks of hewn stone, sunk in some lighter, marble, as far as he could see, and partly awash.

“I think we might stop here,” said Simon, “at all events till daybreak.”

“Yes,” Dolores said, “at daybreak you go on again.”

He was surprised by this reply:

“But you too, I suppose, Dolores!”

“Of course; but wouldn't it be better for us to separate! Soon Rolleston's trail will leave the river and Forsetta is sure to catch you up, unless I draw him off on another trail.”

Simon did not quite understand the girl's plan:

“Then what will you do, Dolores!” he asked.

“I shall go my own way and I shall certainly draw them after me, since it's I they want.”

“But in that case you'll fall into the hands of Forsetta and Mazzani, who means to avenge his brother's death....”

“I shall give them the slip.”

“And all the Brutes swarming in these parts: will you give them the slip too?”

“We're not discussing my affairs, but yours: you have to catch Rolleston. I am hampering your efforts. So let us separate.”

“Not at all!” protested Simon. “We have no right to separate; and you may be sure that I shan't leave you.”

Dolores' offer aroused Simon's curiosity. What was the girl's motive? Why did she propose to sacrifice herself? In the silence and the darkness, he thought of her for a long while and of their extraordinary adventure. Starting in pursuit of the woman whom he loved, here he was bound by events to another woman, who was herself pursued; and of this other woman, whose safety depended on his and whose fate was closely linked with his own, he knew nothing but the grace of her figure and the beauty of her face. He had saved her life and he scarcely knew her name. He was protecting her and defending her; and her whole soul remained concealed from him.

He felt that she was creeping closer to him. Then he heard these words, which she uttered in a low and hesitating voice:

“It's to save me from Forsetta, isn't it, that you refuse my offer!”

“Of course,” he said. “He's terribly dangerous.”

She replied, in a still lower voice and in the tone of one making a confession,:

“You must not let the threat of a Forsetta influence your conduct.... What happens to me is of no great account.... Without knowing much about my life, you can imagine the sort of girl I was: a little cigarette-seller hanging about the streets of Mexico; later, a dancer in the saloons at Los Angeles....”

“Hush!” said Simon, placing his hand over her mouth. “There must be no confidences between you and me.”

She insisted:

“Still you know that Miss Bakefield is running the same danger as myself. By remaining with me, you sacrifice her.”

“Hush!” he repeated, angrily. “I am doing my duty in not leaving you; and Miss Bakefield herself would never forgive me if I did otherwise!”

The girl irritated him. He suspected that she regarded herself as having triumphed over Isabel and that she had been trying to confirm her victory by proving to Simon that he ought to have left her.

“No, no,” he said to himself, “it's not for her sake that I'm staying with her. I'm staying because it's my duty. A man does not leave a woman under such conditions. But is she capable of understanding that?”

They had to leave their refuge in the middle of the night, for it was stealthily invaded by the river, and to lie down higher up the beach.

No further incident disturbed their sleep. But in the morning, when the darkness was not yet wholly dispersed, they were awakened by quick, hollow barks. A dog came leaping towards them at such a speed that Simon had no time to do more than pull out his revolver.

“Don't fire!” cried Dolores, knife in hand.

It was too late. The brute turned a somersault, made a few convulsive moments and lay motionless. Dolores stooped over it and said, positively:

“I recognize him, he's the tramps' dog. They are on our track. The dog had run ahead of them.”

“But our track's impossible to follow. There's hardly any light.”

“Forsetta and Mazzani have their torches, just as you have. Besides, the firing, would have told them.”

“Then let's be off as quickly as possible,” Simon proposed.

“They will catch us up... at least, unless you abandon your search of Rolleston.”

Simon seized his rifle:

“That's true. So the only thing is to wait for them here and kill them one by one.”

“That's so,” she said. “Unfortunately....”

“Well?”

“Yesterday, after firing at the tramps, you did not reload your rifle.”

“No, but my cartridge-belt is on the sand, at the place where I slept.”

“So is mine; and both are covered by the rising water. Therefore there are only the six cartridges of your Browning left.”

CHAPTER IV. THE BATTLE

All things considered, their best chance of safety would have been to plunge into the river and escape by the left bank. But this plan, which would have cut them off from Rolleston and which Simon did not wish to adopt except in the last extremity, must have been foreseen by Forsetta, for, as soon as light was clear enough, they saw two tramps going up the Somme on the opposite bank. Under these conditions, how were they to land?

Shortly afterwards, they saw that their retreat was discovered and that the enemy was profiting by their hesitation. On the same bank as themselves, some five hundred yards down-stream, appeared the barrel of a rifle. Up-stream an identical menace confronted them.

“Forsetta and Mazzani,” declared Dolores. “We are cut off right and left.”

“But there's nobody in front of us.”

“Yes, the rest of the tramps.”

“I don't see them.”

“They are there, believe me, in hiding and well sheltered.”

“Let's rush at them and get by!”

“To do that, we should have to cover a bare patch under the cross-fire of Mazzani and Forsetta. They are good shots. They won't miss us.”

“Then what!”

“Well, let's defend ourselves here.”

It was good advice. The cargo of marble blocks, piled higgledy-piggledy like a child's building-bricks, formed a thorough citadel. Dolores and Simon climbed it and at the top selected a fort, protected on all sides, from which they could see the slightest movements of their enemies.

“They're coming,” Dolores declared, after an attentive scrutiny.

The river had deposited along the banks trunks of trees and enormous roots, drifting it was impossible to say whence, which Forsetta and Mazzani were using to cover their approach. Moreover, at each rush forward they protected themselves with broad planks which they carried with them. And Dolores called Simon's attention to the fact that more things were moving across the bare plain; more shields improvised of all sorts of stray materials: coils of rope, broken parts of boats, fragments of pontoons and pieces of boilerplate. All these things were creeping imperceptibly, with the sure, heavy pace of tortoises making for the same goal, along the radius that led to the centre. And the centre was the fortress. The tramps were investing it under the orders of Mazzani and Forsetta. From time to time a limb or a head appeared in sight.

“Ah!” said Simon, in a voice filled with rage. “If only I had a few bullets, wouldn't I stop this inroad of wood-lice!”

Dolores had made a display of the two useless rifles, in the hope that the threatening aspect would intimidate the enemy. But the confidence of the attackers increased with the inactivity of the besieged. It was even possible that the two Indians had scented the ruse, for they scarcely attempted to conceal themselves.

To show his skill, one of them—Forsetta, Dolores declared—shot down a sea-gull skimming along the river. Mazzani accepted the challenge. An aeroplane, humming in their direction and flying lower than most, seemed suddenly to drop from the clouds and silently glided across the river, over the blocks of marble. When it came level, Mazzani threw up his rifle, slowly took air and fired. The pilot was hit, bore downwards, heeled over on either side alternately, until he seemed about to capsize, and passed on, disappearing in a zig-zag flight like that of a wounded bird.

And suddenly, Simon having shown his head, two bullets fired by the two Indians ricoehetted from the nearest stone surface, detaching a few splinters.

“Oh, please don't be so imprudent!” Dolores implored.

A drop of blood trickled down his forehead. She staunched it gently with her handkerchief and murmured:

“You see, Simon, those men will get the better of us. And you still refuse to leave me? You risk your life, though nothing can affect the issue?”

He pushed her away from him:

“My life is not at stake.... ft or yours either.... This handful of wretches will never get at us.”

He was mistaken. Some of the vagabonds were within eighty yards of them. They could hear them talking together; and the men's hard faces, covered with grey stubble, shot up from behind their bucklers like the head of a Jack-in-the-box.

Forsetta was shouting his orders:

“Forward!... There's no danger!... They've no ammunition!... Forward, I tell you! The Frenchman's pockets are stuffed with notes!”

The seven tramps ran forward as one man. Simon levelled his revolver briskly and fired. They stopped. No one was hit. Forsetta was triumphant:

“They're done for!... Nothing but short-range Browning bullets!... At them!”

He himself, protecting his body with a piece of sheet-iron, ran up at full speed. Mazzani and the tramps formed up in a circle at thirty or forty yards.

“Ready!” bellowed Forsetta. “Out with your knives!”

Dolores remarked to Simon that they must not remain in their observation-post, since most of their enemies would be able to reach the foot of the fortress unseen and slip between the marble blocks. They slid through a gap which formed a chimney from the top to the ground.

“There they are! There they are!” said Dolores. “Fire now!... Look, here's a chink!”

Through this chink Simon saw two big ruffians walking ahead of the rest. Two shots rang out. The two big ruffians fell. The party halted for the second time, hesitating what to do.

Dolores and Simon profited by this delay to take refuge at the extreme edge of the river. Three single blocks of marble formed a sort of sentry-box, with an empty space in front of it.

“Charge!” shouted Forsetta, joining the men. “They're trapped! Mazzani and I have got them covered. If the Frenchman stirs, we'll shoot him down!”

To meet the charge, Simon and Dolores were obliged to stand up and half-expose themselves. Terrified by the Indian's threat, Dolores threw herself before Simon, making a rampart of her body.

“Halt!” ordered Forsetta, restraining his men's onrush. “And you, Dolores, you leave your Frenchman! Come! He shall have his life if you leave him. He can go: it's you I'm after!”

Simon seized the girl with his left arm and drew her back by main force:

“Not a movement!” he said. “I forbid you to leave me! I'll answer for your safety. As long as I live those brutes shan't get you.”

And, with the girl pressed against the hollow of his shoulder, he stretched out his right arm.

“Well done, M. Dubosc!” jeered Forsetta. “Seems that we're sweet on the fair Dolores and that we're sticking to her I Those Frenchmen are all alike! Chivalrous fellows!”

With a wave of the hand he gathered up the tramps for the final attack:

“Now then, mates! One more effort and all the notes are yours! Mazzani and I bag the pretty lady. Is that right, Mazzani!”

All together they came rushing on. All together, at an order from Forsetta, they hurled, like so many projectiles, the pieces of wood and iron with which they had protected themselves. Dolores was not hit, but Simon, struck on the arm, dropped his Browning at the very moment when, he had fired at Mazzani and brought him down. One of the tramps leapt upon the pistol, which had rolled away, while Forsetta struggled with Dolores, avoiding the girl's dagger and imprisoning her in his arms.

“Oh, Simon! I'm done for!” she screamed, trying to hang on to him.

But Simon had the five tramps to deal with. Unarmed, with nothing but his hands and feet to fight with, he was shot at three times by the man who had picked up his pistol and was clumsily firing off the last few cartridges. He staggered for a moment under the weight of the other brutes and was thrown to the ground. Two of them seized his legs. Two others tried to strangle him, while the fifth still kept him covered with his empty pistol.

“Simon, save me!... Save me!” cried Dolores, whom Forsetta was carrying off, wrapped in a blanket and bound with a rope.

He made a desperate effort, escaping his assailants for a few seconds, and, before they had time to come to close quarters again, acting on a sudden impulse he threw his pocket-book to them, shouting:

“Hands off, you blackguards! Share that between you! Thirty thousand!”

The bundles of notes fell out of the leather wallet and were scattered over the ground. The tramps did not hesitate, but plumped down on their hands and knees, leaving the field to Simon.

Fifty yards away, Forsetta was running along the river, with his prey slung over his shoulder. Farther on, the two tramps posted on the other bank were punting themselves across on a raft which they had found. If Forsetta came up with them, it meant his safety.

“He won't get there,” Simon said to himself, measuring the distance with his eye.

With a quick movement, he snatched the knife of one of his aggressors and set off at a run.

Forsetta, who believed him to be still struggling with the vagabonds, did not hurry. He had, so to speak, rolled Dolores round his neck, holding her legs, head and arms in front of him and crushing them to his chest with his rifle and his brawny arms. He shouted to the two men on the raft, to stimulate their ardour:

“Here's the girl! She's my share.... You shall have all her jewels!”

The men warned him:

“Lookout!”

He turned, saw Simon at twenty paces' distance and tried to throw Dolores to the ground with a heave of the shoulder, like an irksome burden. The girl fell, but she had so contrived matters, under cover of the suffocating blanket, that at the moment of falling she had a good grip on the barrel of the Indian's rifle; and in her fall she dragged him down, with her.

The few seconds which Forsetta needed to recover his weapon were his undoing. Simon leapt upon him before he could take aim. He stumbled once more, received a dagger-thrust in the hip and went down on his knees, begging for mercy.

Simon released Dolores' bonds; then, addressing the two tramps who, terror-stricken when on the point of touching ground, were now trying to push off again:

“See to his wound,” he ordered. “And there's the other Indian over there: he's probably alive. Look after him too, you shall have your lives.”

The tramps were scattering so rapidly in the distance, with Simon's bank-notes, that he gave up all idea of pursuing them.

Thus he remained master of the battle-field. Dead, wounded, or in fight, his adversaries were defeated. The extraordinary adventure was continuing as it were in a savage country and against the most unexpected background.

He was profoundly conscious of the incredible moments through which he was passing, on the bed of the Channel, between, France and England, in a region which was truly a land of death, crime, cunning and violence. And he had triumphed!

He could not refrain from smiling and, leaning with both hands on Forsetta's rifle, he said to Dolores:

“The prairie! It's Fenimore Cooper's prairie! The Far West! It's all here: the attack by Sioux, the improvised blockhouse, the abduction, the fight, with the chief of the Pale-Faces coming out victorious!...”

She stood facing him, very erect. Her thin silk blouse had been torn in the struggle and hung in strips around her bosom. Simon added, in a tone of less assurance:

“And here's the fair Indian.”

Was it emotion, or excessive fatigue after her protracted efforts? Dolores staggered and seemed on the verge of fainting. He supported her, holding her in his arms:

“You're surely not wounded?” he said.

“No.... A passing giddiness.... I have been badly frightened.... And I had no business to be frightened, since you were there and you had promised to save me. Oh, Simon, how grateful I am to you!”

“I have done what any one would have done in my place, Dolores. Don't thank me.”

He tried to free himself, but she held him and, after a moment's silence, said:

“She whom the chief calls the fair Indian had a name by which she was known in her own country. Shall I tell you what it was?”

“What was it, Dolores?”

In a low voice, without taking her eyes from his, she replied:

“The Chief's Reward!”

He had felt, in his inner consciousness, that this magnificent creature deserved some such name, that she was truly the prey which men seek to ravish, the captive to be saved at any cost, and that she did indeed offer, with her red lips and her brown shoulders, the most wonderful of rewards.

She had flung her arms about his neck; he was conscious of their caress; and for a moment they stood like that, motionless, uncertain of what was coining. But Isabel's image flashed across his mind and he remembered the oath which she had required of him:

“Not a moment's weakness, Simon. I should never forgive that.”

He pulled himself together and said:

“Get some rest, Dolores. We have still a long way to go.”

She also recovered herself and went down to the river, where she bathed her face in the cool water. Then, getting to work immediately, she collected all the provisions and ammunition that she could find on the wounded men.

“There!” she said, when everything was ready for their departure. “Mazzani and Forsetta won't die, but we have nothing more to fear from them. We will leave them in the charge of the two tramps. The four of them will be able to defend themselves.”

They exchanged no more words. They went up the river for another hour and reached the wide bend of which the people from Cayeux had told them. At the very beginning of this bend, which brought the waters of the Somme direct from France, they picked up Rolleston's trail on a tract of muddy sand. The trail led straight on, leaving the course of the river and running north.

“The fountains of gold lie in this direction evidently,” Simon inferred. “Rolleston must be at least a day's journey ahead of us.”

“Yes,” said Dolores, “but his party is a large one, they have no horses left and their two prisoners are delaying their progress.”

They met several wanderers, all of whom had heard the strange rumour which had spread from one end of the prairie to the other and all of whom were hunting for the fountain of gold. No one could give the least information.

But a sort of old crone came hobbling along, leaning on, a stick and carrying a carpet-bag with the head of a little dog sticking out of it.

The dog was barking like mad. The old crone was humming a tune, in a faint, high-pitched voice.

Dolores questioned her. She replied, in short, sing-song sentences, which seemed a continuation of her ditty, that she had been walking for three days, never stopping... that she had worn out her shoes... and that when she was tired... she got her dog to carry her:

“Yes, my dog carries me,” she repeated, “Don't you, Dick?”

“She's mad,” Simon muttered.

The old woman nodded in assent and addressed them in a confidential tone:

“Yes, I'm mad.... I used not to be, but it's the gold... the rain of gold that has made me mad.... It shoots into the air like a fountain,... and the gold coins and the bright pebbles... fall in a shower.... So you hold out your hat or your bag and the gold comes pouring into it.... My bag is full.... Would you like to see!”

She laughed quietly and, beckoning to Simon and Dolores, took her dog by the scruff of the neck, dropped him on the ground and half-opened her bag. Then, again, in her sing-song voice:

“You are honest folk, aren't you?... I wouldn't show it to any one else.... But you won't hurt me.”

Dolores and Simon eagerly bent over the bag. With her bony fingers the old woman first lifted a heap of rags kept there for Dick's benefit; she then removed a few shiny red and yellow pebbles. Beneath these lay quite a little hoard of gold coins, of which she seized a generous handful, making them clink in the hollow of her hand. They were old coins of all sizes and bearing all sorts of heads.

Simon exclaimed excitedly:

“She comes from there I... She has been there!”

And shaking the mad woman by the shoulders, he asked:

“Where is it?” How many hours have you been walking? Have you seen a party of men leading two prisoners, an old man and a girl?”

But the madwoman picked up her dog and closed her bag. She refused to hear. At the most, as she moved away, she said, or rather sang to the air of a ballad which the dog accompanied with his barking:

“Men on horseback.... They were galloping.... It was yesterday.... A girl with fair hair....”

Simon shrugged his shoulders:

“She's wandering. Rolleston has no horses....

“True,” said Dolores, “but, all the same, Miss Bakefield's hair is fair.” They were much astonished, a little way on, to find that Rolleston's trail branched off into another trail which came from France and which had been left by the trampling of many horses— a dozen, Dolores estimated—whose marks were less recent than the bandits' footprints. These were evidently the men on horseback whom the madwoman had seen.

Dolores and Simon had only to follow the beaten track displayed before their eyes on the carpet of moist sand. The region of shells had come to an end. The plain was strewn with great, absolutely round rocks, formed by pebbles agglomerated in marl, huge balls polished by all the submarine currents and deep-sea tides. In the end they were packed so close together that they constituted an insuperable obstacle, which the horsemen and then Rolleston had wheeled round.

When Simon and Dolores had passed it, they came to a wide depression of the ground, the bottom of which was reached by circular terraces. Down here were a few more of the round rocks. Amid these rocks lay a number of corpses. They counted five.

They were the bodies of young men, smartly dressed and wearing boots and spurs. Four had been, killed by bullets, the fifth by a stab in the back between the shoulders.

Simon and Dolores looked at each other and then each continued in independent search.

On the sand lay bridles and girth, two nosebags full of oats, half-emptied meat-tins, unrolled blankets and a spirit-stove.

The victims' pockets had been ransacked. Nevertheless, Simon found in a waistcoat a sheet of paper bearing a list of ten names—Paul Cormier, Armand Darnaud, etc—headed by this note:

“Foret-d'Eu Hunt.”

Dolores explored the immediate surroundings. The dues which she thus obtained and the facts discovered by Simon enabled them to reconstruct the tragedy exactly. The horsemen, all members of a Norman hunt, camping on this spot two nights before, had been surprised in the morning by Rolleston's gang and the greater number massacred.

With such men as Rolleston and his followers, the attack had inevitably ended in a thorough loot, but its main object had been the theft of the horses. When these had been taken after a fight, the robbers had made off at a gallop.

“There are only five bodies,” said Dolores, “and there are ten names on the list. Where are the other five riders!”

“Scattered,” said Simon, “wounded, dying, anything. I daresay we should find them by searching round! But how can we? Have we the right to delay, when the safety of Miss Bakefield and her father is at stake! Think, Dolores: Rolleston has more than thirty hours' start of us and he and his men are mounted on excellent horses, while we.... And then where are we to catch them!”

He clenched his fists with rage:

“Oh, if I only knew where this fountain of gold was! How far from it are we! A day's march! Two days'! It's horrible to know nothing, to go forward at random, in this accursed country!”

CHAPTER V. THE CHIEF'S REWARD

During the next two hours they saw, in the distance, three more corpses. Frequent shots were fired, but whence they did not know. Single prowlers were becoming rare; they encountered rather groups consisting of men of all classes and nationalities, who had joined for purposes of defence. But quarrels broke out within these groups, the moment there was the least booty in dispute, or even the faintest hope of booty. No discipline was accepted save that imposed by force.

When one of these wandering bands seemed to be approaching them, Simon carried his rifle ostentatiously as though on the point of taking aim. He entered into conversation only at a distance and with a forbidding and repellent air.

Dolores watched him uneasily, avoiding speech with him. Once she had to tell him that he was taking the wrong direction and to prove his mistake to him. But this involved an explanation to which he listened with impatience and which he cut short by grumbling:

“And then! What does it matter if we keep to the right or to the left! We know nothing. There is nothing to prove that Rolleston has taken Miss Bakefield with him on his expedition. He may have imprisoned her somewhere, until he is free to return for her... so that, in following him, I risk the chance of going farther away from her....”

Nevertheless, the need of action drew him on, however uncertain the goal to be achieved. He could never have found heart to apply himself to investigations or to check the impulse which urged him onward.

Dolores marched indefatigably by his side, sometimes even in, front. She had taken off her shoes and stockings. He watched her bare feet making their light imprint in the sand. Her hips swayed as she walked, as with American girls. She was all grace, strength and suppleness. Less distracted, paying more attention to external things, she probed the horizon with her keen gaze. It was while doing so that she cried, pointing with outstretched hand:

“Look over there, the aeroplane!”

It was right at the top of a long, long upward slope of the whole plain, at a spot where the mist and the ground were blended till they could not say for certain whether the aeroplane was flying through the mist or running along the soil. It looked like one of those sailing-ships which seem suspended on the confines of the ocean. It was only gradually that the reality became apparent: the machine was motionless, resting on the ground.

“There is no doubt,” said Simon,, “considering the direction, that this is the aeroplane that crossed the river. Damaged by Mazzani's bullet, it flew as far as this, where it managed to land as best it could.”

Now the figure of the pilot could be distinguished; and he too—a strange phenomenon— was motionless, sitting in his place, his head almost invisible behind his rounded shoulders. One of the wheels was half-destroyed. However, the aeroplane did not appear to have suffered very greatly. But what was this man doing, that he never moved?

They shouted. He did not reply, nor did he turn round; and, when they reached him, they saw that his breast was leaning against the steering-wheel, while his arms hung down on either side. Drops of blood were trickling from under the seat.

Simon climbed on board and almost immediately declared:

“He's dead. Mazzani's bullet caught him sideways behind the head.... A slight wound, of which he was not conscious for some time, to judge by the quantity of blood which he lost, probably without knowing.... Then he succeeded in touching earth. And then... then I don't know... a more violent hemorrhage, a clot on the brain....”

Dolores joined Simon,. Together they lifted the body. No foot-pads had passed that way, for they found the dead man's papers, watch and pocket-book untouched.

His papers, on examination, were of no special interest. But the route-map fixed to the steering-wheel representing the Channel and the old coast-lines, was marked with a dot in red pencil and the words:

“Rain of gold.”

“He was going there too,” Simon murmured. “They already know of it in France. And here's the exact place... twenty-five miles from where we are... between Boulogne and Hastings... not far from the Banc de Bassurelle....”

And, quivering with hope, he added:

“If I can get the thing to fly, I'll be there myself in half an hour.... And I shall rescue Isabel...

Simon set to work with a zest which nothing could discourage. The aeroplane's injuries were not serious: a wheel was buckled, the steering-rod bent, the feed-pipe twisted. The sole difficulty arose from the fact that Simon found only inadequate tools in the tool-box and no spare parts whatever. But this did not deter him; he contrived some provisional splices and other repairs, not troubling about their strength provided that the machine could fly for the time required:

“After all,” he said to Dolores, who was doing what she could to help him, “after all, it is only a question of forty minutes' flight, no more. If I can manage to take off, I'm sure to hold out. Bless my soul, I've done more difficult things than that!”

His joy once more bubbled over in vivacious talk. He sang, laughed, jeered at Rolleston and pictured the ruffian's face at seeing this implacable archangel descending from the skies. All the same, rapidly though he worked, he realized by six o'clock in the evening that he could scarcely finish before night and that, under these conditions, it would be better to put off the start until next morning. He therefore completed his repairs and carefully tested the machine, while Dolores moved away to prepare their camp. When twilight fell, his task was finished. Happy and smiling, he followed the path on his right which he had seen, the girl take.

The plain fell away suddenly beyond the ridge on which the aeroplane had stranded; and a deeper gully, between two sand-hills, led Simon to a lower, basin-shaped plain, in the hollow of which shone a sheet of water so limpid that he could see the bed of black rock at the bottom.

This was the first landscape in which Simon perceived a certain charm, a touch of terrestrial and almost human poetry; and at the far end of the lake there stood the most incredible thing that could be imagined in this region which only a few days earlier had been buried under the sea: a structure which seemed to have been raised by human hands and which was supported by columns apparently covered with fine carving!

Dolores stepped out of it. Tall and shapely, with slow, sedate movements, she walked in to the water, among some stones standing upright in the lake, filled a glass and, bending backwards, drank a few sips. Near by, a trace of steam, rising from a pannikin on a spirit-stove, hovered in the air.

Seeing Simon, she smiled and said:

“Everything's ready. Here's tea, white bread and butter.”

“Do you mean it!” he said, laughing. “So there were inhabitants at the bottom of the sea, people who grew wheat?”

“No, but there was some food in that poor airman's box.”

“Very well; but this house, this prehistoric palace?”

It was a very primitive palace, a wall of great stones touching one another and surmounted by a great slab like those which top the Druid dolmans. The whole thing was crude and massive, covered with carvings which, when examined closely, were merely thousands of holes bored by molluscs.

“Lithophagic molluscs, Old Sandstone would call them. By Jove, how excited he would be to see these remains of a dwelling which dates thousands and thousands of centuries back and which perhaps has others buried in the sand near it... a whole village, I dare say! And isn't this positive proof that this land was inhabited before it was invaded by the sea? Doesn't it upset all our accepted ideas, since it throws back the appearance of men to a period which we are not prepared to admit? Oh, you Old Sandstone, if you were only here I What theories you could evolve!”

Simon evolved no theories. But, though the scientific explanation of the phenomenon, meant little to him, how acutely he felt its strangeness and how deeply stirring this moment seemed to him! Before him, before Dolores, rose another age and in circumstances that made them resemble two creatures of that age, the same desolate, barbarous surroundings, the same dangers, the same pitfalls.

And the same peace. From the threshold of their refuge stretched a placid landscape made of sand, mist and water. The faint sound of a little stream that fed the lake barely disturbed the infinite silence.

He looked at his companion. No one could be better adapted to the surrounding scene. She had its primitive charm, its wild, rather savage character and all its mysterious poetry.

The night stretched its veil across the lake and the hills.

“Let us go in,” she said, when they had eaten and drunk.

“Let us go in,” he said.

She went before, then turned to give him her hand and led him into the chamber formed by the circle of stone slabs. Simon's lamp was there, hanging from a projection in the wall. The floor was covered with fine sand. Two blankets lay spread.

Simon hesitated. Dolores held him by a firmer pressure of the hand and he remained, despite himself, in a moment of weakness. Besides, she suddenly switched off the lamp and he might have thought himself alone, for he heard nothing more than, the infinitely gentle lapping of the lake against the stones upon the beach.

It was then and really not until then that he perceived the snare which events had laid for him by drawing him closer to Dolores during the past three days. He had defended her, as any man would have done, but her beauty had not for a moment affected his decision, or stimulated his courage. Had she been old or ugly, she would have found the same protection at his hands.

At the present moment—he realized it suddenly —he was thinking of Dolores not as a companion of his adventures and his dangers but as the most beautiful and attractive of creatures. He reflected that she, perturbed like himself, was not sleeping either, and that her eyes were seeking him through the darkness. At her slightest movement, the delicate perfume with which she scented her hair, mingled with the warm emanations that floated on the breeze.

She whispered:

“Simon.... Simon....”

He did not reply. His heart was oppressed. Several times she repeated his name; then, no doubt believing him asleep:, she rose and her naked feet lightly touched the sand. She went out.

What was she going to dot A minute elapsed. There was a sound as of rustling clothes. Then he heard her footsteps on the beach, followed almost immediately by the splash of water and the sound of drops falling in a shower. Dolores was bathing in the darkness.

Simon was next hardly able to detect what was scarcely more perceptible than the swan's gliding over the surface of the pond. The silence and peace of the water remained unbroken. Dolores must have swum towards the centre of the lake. “When she returned, he once more heard the pattering of drops and, the rustle of clothes while she dressed.

He rose suddenly, with the intention of going out before she entered. But she was quicker than he anticipated and they met on the threshold. He drew back, while she asked him:

“Were you going, Simon?”

“Yes,” he said, seeking a pretext. “I am anxious about the aeroplane... some thief....”

“Yes... yes,” she said, hesitatingly. “But I should like first... to thank you....”

Their voices betrayed the same embarrassment and the same profound agitation. The darkness hid them from each other's eyes; yet how plainly Simon saw the young woman before him!

“I've behaved as I should to you,” he declared.

“Not as other men have done... and it is that which touched me.... I was struck by it from the beginning....”

Perhaps she felt by intuition that any too submissive words would offend him, for she did not continue her confession. Only, after a moment's pause, she murmured:

“This is our last night alone.... Afterwards we shall be parted by the whole of life... by everything.... Then... hold me tight to you for a little... for a second....”

Simon did not move. She was asking for a display of affection of which he dreaded the danger all the more because he longed so eagerly to yield to it and because his will was weakening beneath the onslaught of evil thoughts. Why should he resist? What would have been a sin and a crime against love at ordinary times was so no longer at this period of upheaval, when the play of natural forces and of chance gave rise for a time to abnormal conditions of life. To kiss Dolores' lips at such a moment: was it worse than plucking a flower that offers itself to the hand?

They were united by the favouring darkness. They were alone in the world; they were both young; they were free. Dolores' hands were outstretched in despair. Should he not give her his own and obey this delicious dizziness which was overcoming him!

“Simon,” she said, in a voice of supplication. “Simon.... I ask so little of you I... Don't refuse me.... It's not possible that you should refuse me, is it! When you risked your life for mine, it was because you had a... a feeling... a something.... I am not mistaken, am I?”

Simon was silent. He would not speak to her of Isabel, would not bring Isabel's name into the duel which they were fighting.

Dolores continued her entreaties:

“Simon, I have never loved any one but you.... The others... the others don't count.... You, the look in your eyes gave me happiness from the first moment.... It was like the sun shining into my life.... And I should be so happy if there were a... a memory between us. You would forget it.... It would count for nothing with you.... But for me... it would mean life changed... beautified.... I should have the strength to be another woman.... Please, please, give me your hand.... Take me in your arms....”

Simon did not move. Something more powerful than the impulse of the temptation restrained him: his plighted word to Isabel and his love for her. Isabel's image blended with Dolores's image; and, in his faltering mind, in his darkened conscience, the conflict continued....

Dolores waited. She had fallen to her knees and was whispering indistinct words in a language which he did not understand, words of plaintive passion of whose distress he was fully sensible, and which mounted to his ears like a prayer and an appeal.

In the end she fell weeping at his feet. Then he passed by, without touching her.

The cold night air caressed his features. He walked away at a rapid pace, pronouncing Isabel's name with the fervour of a believer reciting the words of a litany. He turned towards the plateau. When almost there, he lay down against the slope of the hill and, for a long time before falling asleep, he continued to think of Dolores as of some one whose memory was already growing dim. The girl was becoming once more a stranger. He would never know why she had loved him so spontaneously and so ardently; why a nature in which instinct must needs play so imperious a part had found room for such noble feelings, humility and delicacy and devotion.

In the earliest moments of the dawn he gave the aeroplane a final examination. After a few tests which gave him good hopes of success, he went bade to the dwelling by the lake. But Dolores was gone. For an hour he searched for her and called to her in vain. She had disappeared without even leaving a footprint in the sand.

On rising above the clouds into the immensity of a clear sky all flooded with sunlight, Simon uttered a cry of joy. The mysterious Dolores meant nothing to him now, no more than all the dangers braved with her or all those which might still lie in wait for him. He had surmounted every obstacle, escaped every snare. He had been victorious in every contest; and perhaps his greatest victory was that of resisting Dolores' enchantment.

It was ended. Isabel had triumphed. Nothing stood between, her and him. He held the steering-wheel well under control. The motor was working to perfection. The map and the compass were before his eyes. At the point indicated, at the exact spot, neither too much to the right nor too much to the left, neither overshooting nor falling short of the mark, he would descend within a radius of a hundred yards.

The flight certainly took less than the forty minutes which he had allowed for. In thirty at most he covered the distance, without seeing anything but the moving sea of clouds rolling beneath him in white billows. All he could do now was to fling himself upon it. After stopping his engine, he drew closer and closer, describing great circles. Cries or rather shouts and roars rose from the ground, as though multitudes were gathered together. Then he entered the rolling mist, through which he continued to wheel like a bird of prey.

He never doubted Rolleston's presence, nor the imminence of the fight which would ensue between them, nor its favourable outcome, followed by Isabel's release. But he dreaded the landing, the critical rock on which he might split.

The sight of the ground showing clear of the mist reassured him. A wide and, as it seemed to him, almost flat space lay spread Eke an arena, in which he saw nothing but four disks of sand which must represent so many mounds and which could be easily avoided. The crowd kept outside this arena, save for a few people who were running in all directions and gesticulating.

At closer quarters, the soil appeared less smooth, consisting of endless sand-coloured pebbles, heaped in places to a certain, height. He therefore gave all his attention to avoiding collision with these obstacles and succeeded in landing without the slightest shock and in stopping quite quietly.

Groups of people came running about the aeroplane. Simon thought that they wished to help him to alight. His illusion did not last long. A few seconds later, the aeroplane was taken by assault by some twenty men; and Simon felt the barrels of two revolvers pushed against his face and was bound from head to foot, wrapped in a blanket, gagged and deprived of all power of movement, before he could even attempt the least resistance.

“Into the hold, with the rest of them!” commanded a hoarse voice. “And, if he gives trouble, blow out his brains!”

There was no need for this drastic measure. The manner in which Simon was bound reduced him to absolute helplessness. Resigning himself to the inevitable, he counted that the men carrying him took a hundred and thirty steps and that their course brought him nearer to the roaring crowd.

“When you've quite done bawling!” grinned one of the men. “And then make yourselves scarce, see? The machine-gun's getting to work.”

They climbed a staircase. Simon was dragged up by the cords that bound him. A violent hand ransacked his pockets and relieved him of his arms and his papers. He felt himself again lifted; and then he dropped into a void.

It was no great fall and was softened by the dense layer of captives already swarming at the bottom of the hold, who began to swear behind their gags.

Using his knees and elbows, Simon made room for himself as best he could on the floor. It must have been about nine o'clock in the morning. From that moment, time no longer counted for him, for he thought of nothing but how to defend the place which he had won against any who might seek to take it from him, whether former occupants or new-comers. Voices muffled by gags uttered furious snarls, or groaned, breathless and exhausted. It was really hell. There were dying men and dead bodies, the death-rattle of Frenchmen mingling with Englishmen, blood, sticky rags and a loathsome stench of carrion.

During the course of the afternoon, or it might have been in the evening, a tremendous noise broke out, like the sound of a great sheaf of rockets, and forthwith the numberless crowd roared at the top of its voice, with the frenzied fury of an insurgent mob. Then, suddenly, through it all, came orders shouted in a strident voice, more powerful than the tumuli Then a profound silence. And then a crack; of sharp, hurried explosions, followed by the frightful rattle of a machine-gun.

This lasted for at least two or three minutes. The uproar had recommenced; and it continued until Simon could no longer hear the fizzing of the fireworks and the din of the shooting. They seemed still to be fighting. They were dispatching the wounded amid curses and shrieks of pain; and a batch of dying men, was flung into the hold.

The evening and the night wore through. Simon, who had not touched food since his meal with Dolores beside the lake, was also suffering cruelly from the lack of air, the weight of the dead and the living on his chest, the gag which bruised his jaw and the blanket which wrapped his head like a blind, air-tight hood. Were they going to leave him to die of starvation and asphyxia, in this huddle of sticky, decomposing flesh, above which floated the inarticulate plaint of death?

His bandaged eyes received a feeling as though the day were breaking. His torpid neighbours were swarming like slimy reptiles in a tab. Then, from above, a voice growled:

“No easy job to find him!... Queer notions the chief has! As well try and pick a worn oat of the mud!”

“Take my boat-hook,” said another voice. “You can use it to turn the stiffs over like a scavenger sorting a heap of mack.... Lower down than that, old man! Since yesterday morning, the bloke mast be at the bottom....”

And the first voice dried:

“That's him! There, look, to the left! That's him! I know my rope around his waist.... Patience a moment, while I hook him!”

Simon felt something digging into him that must have been the spike of the boat-hook catching in his bonds. He was hooked, .dragged along and hoisted from corpse to corpse to the top of the hold. The men unfastened his legs and told him to stand up:

“Now then, you! Up with you, my hearty!”

His eyes still bandaged, he was seized by the arms and led out of the wreck. They crossed the arena, whose pebbles he felt under foot, and mounted another flight of steps, leading to the deck of another wreck. There the men halted.

From here, when his hood and gag were removed, Simon could see that the arena in which he had landed was surrounded by a wall made of barricades added according to the means at hand: ships' boats, packing-cases and bales, rocks, banks of sand. The hulk of a torpedo-boat was continued by some cast-iron piping. A stack of drain-pipes was followed by a submarine.

All along this enclosure, sentinels armed with rifles mounted guard. Beyond it, kept at a distance of more than a hundred yards by the menace of the rifles and of a machine-gun levelled a little way to the rear, the swarm of marauders was eddying and bawling. Inside, there was an expanse of yellow pebbles, sulphur-coloured, like those which the madwoman had carried in her bag. Were the gold coins mixed with those pebbles and had a certain number of resolute, well-armed robbers clubbed together to exploit this precious field? Here and there rose mounds resembling the truncated cones of small extinct volcanoes.

Meantime, Simon's warders made him face about, in order to bind him to the stump of a broken mast, near a group of prisoners whom other warders were holding, like so many animals, by halters and chains.

On this side was the general staff of the gang, sitting for the moment as a court-martial.

In the centre of a circle was a platform of moderate height, edged by ten or a dozen corpses and dying men, some of the latter struggling in hideous convulsions. On the platform a man who was drinking sat or rather sprawled in a great throne-like chair. Near him was a stool with bottles of champagne and a knife dripping with blood. Beside him was a group of men with revolvers in their hands. The man in the chair wore a black uniform relieved with decorations and stuck all over with diamonds and precious stones. Emerald necklaces hung round his neck. A diadem of gold and gems encircled his forehead.

When he had finished drinking, his face appeared. Simon started. From certain details which recalled the features of his friend Edward Rolleston, he realized that this man was no other than Wilfred Rolleston. Moreover, among the jewels and necklaces, was a miniature set in pearls, the miniature and the pearls of Isabel Bakefield.

CHAPTER VI. HELL ON EARTH

A rascally face was Wilfred Rolleston's, but above all a drunkard's face, in which the noble features of his cousin Edward were debased by the habit of debauch. His eyes, which were small and sunk in their sockets, shone with an extraordinary glitter. A continual grin, which revealed red gums set with enormous, pointed teeth, gave his jaw the look of a gorilla's.

He burst out laughing:

“M. Simon Dubosc? M. Simon Dubosc will pardon me. Before I deal with him, I have a few poor fellows to dispatch to a better world. I shall attend to you in three minutes, M. Simon Dubosc.”

And, turning to his henchman:

“First gentleman.”

They pushed forward a poor devil quaking with fear.

“How much gold has this one stolen!” he asked.

One of the warders replied:

“Two sovereigns, my lord, fallen outside the barricades.”

“Kill him.”

A revolver-shot; and the poor wretch fell dead.

Three more executions followed, performed in as summary a fashion; and at each the executioners and their assistants were seized with a fit of hilarity which found expression in cheers and the cutting of many capers.

But when the fourth sufferer's turn came—he had stolen nothing, but was under suspicion of stealing—the executioner's revolver missed fire. Then Rolleston leapt from his throne, uncoiled his great height, towered above his victim's head and buried his knife between his shoulder-blades.

It was a moment of delirious delight. The guard of honour yelped and roared, dancing a frantic jig upon the platform. Rolleston resumed his throne.

After this, an axe cleft the air twice in succession and two heads leapt into the air.

All these monsters gave the impression of the court of some nigger monarch in the heart of Africa. Liberated from all that restrains its impulses and controls its actions, left to itself, with no fear of the police, mankind, represented by this gang of cut-throats, was relapsing into its primitive animal state. Instinct reigned supreme, in all its fierce absurdity. Rolleston, the drink-sodden chieftain of a tribe of savages, was killing for killing's sake, because killing is a pleasure not to be indulged in everyday life and because the sight of blood intoxicated him more effectually than champagne.

“It's the Frenchman's turn”; cried the despot, bursting into laughter. “It's M. Dubosc's turn! And I will deal with him, myself!”

He stepped down from his throne again, holding a red knife in, his hand, and planted himself before Simon:

“Ah, M. Dubosc,” he said, in a husky voice, “you escaped me the first time, in a hotel at Hastings! Yes, it appears I stabbed the wrong man. That was a bit of luck for you! But then, my dear sir, why the deuce, instead of making yourself scarce, do you come running after me... and after Miss Bakefield!”

At Isabel's name, he suddenly blazed into fury:

“Miss Bakefield! My fiancee! Don't you know that I love her! Miss Bakefield! Why, I've sworn by all the devils in hell that I would bury my knife in the back of my rival, if ever one dared to come forward. And you're the rival, are you, M. Dubosc? But, my poor fool, you shouldn't have let yourself get caught!”

His eyes lit up with a cruel joy. He slowly raised his arm, while gazing into Simon's eyes for the first appearance of mortal anguish. But the moment had not yet come, for he suddenly stayed the movement of his arm and sputtered:

“I have an idea!... An idea... not half a bad one!... No, not half! Look here.... M. Dubosc must attend the little ceremony! He will be glad to know that the lot of his dear Isabel is assured. Patience, M. Dubosc!”

He exchanged a few words with his guards, who gave signs of their hearty approval and were at once rewarded with glasses of champagne. Then the preparations began. Three guards marched away, while the other satellites seated the dead bodies in a circle, so as to form a gallery of spectators round a small table which was placed upon the platform.

Simon was one of the gallery. He was again gagged.

All these incidents occurred like the scenes of an incoherent play, stage-managed and performed by madmen. It had no more sense than the fantastic visions of a nightmare; and Simon felt hardly more alarmed at knowing that his life was threatened than he would have felt joy at seeing himself saved. He was living in an unreal world of shifting figures.

The guard of honour fell in and presented arms. Rolleston took off his diadem, as a man might take off his hat in sign of respect, and spread his diamond-studded tunic on the deck, as people might spread flowers beneath the feet of an advancing queen. The three attendants who had been ordered away returned.

Behind them came a woman escorted by two coarse, red-faced viragoes.

Simon shuddered with despair; he had recognized Isabel, but so much changed, so pale! She swayed as she walked, as though her limbs refused to support her and as though her poor distressful eyes could not see plainly. Yet she refused the aid of her companions. A male prisoner followed her, held on a leash like the others. He was an old, white-haired parson.

Rolleston hurried to meet her whom he called his fiancee, offering her his hand and leading her to a chair. He resumed his tunic and took his place beside her. The clergyman remained standing behind the table, under the threat of a revolver.

The ceremony, of which the details must have been arranged beforehand, was short. The parson stammered the customary words. Rolleston declared that he took Isabel Bakefield to be his wife. Isabel, when, the question was put, bowed her head in assent, Rolleston slipped a wedding-ring upon her finger; then he unfastened from his uniform the miniature set in pearls and pinned it to the girl's bodice:

“My wedding-present, darling,” he said, cynically.

And he kissed her hand. She seemed overcome with dizziness and collapsed for a moment, but recovered herself immediately.

“Till this evening, darling,” said Rolleston, “when your loving husband will visit you and claim his rights. Till this evening, darling.”

He made a sign to the two viragoes to lead their prisoner away.

A few bottles of champagne were opened, the clergyman received a dagger-thrust as his fee and Rolleston, waving his glass and staggering on his legs, shouted:

“Here's the health of my wife! What do you say to that, M. Dubosc? She'll be a lucky girl, eh? To-night makes her King Rolleston's bride! You may die easy, M. Dubosc.”

He drew near, knife in hand, when suddenly there broke out, from the arena, a succession of crackling noises, followed by a great uproar. The fireworks were beginning again, as on the night before.

In a moment the scene was changed. Rolleston appeared to sober down at once. Leaning over the side of the wreck, he issued his commands in a voice of thunder:

“To the barricades! Every man to his post!.... Independent fire! No quarter!”

The deck resounded with the feet of his adherents, who rushed to the ladders. Some, the favoured members of the guard of honour, remained with Rolleston. The remaining captives were tied together and more cords were added to the bonds that bound Simon to the foot of the mast.

However, he was able to turn his head and to see the whole extent of the arena. It was empty. But from one of the four craters which rose in the centre a vast sheaf of water, steam, sand and pebbles spurted and fell back upon the ground. In the midst of these pebbles rolled coins of the same colour, gold coins.

It was an inconceivable spectacle, reminding Simon of the Iceland geyser. The phenomenon, was obviously capable of explanation by perfectly natural causes; but some miraculous chance must have heaped together at the exact spot where this volcanic eruption occurred the treasures of several galleons sunk in times gone by. And these treasures, now dropping like rain on the surface of the earth, must have slipped gradually to the bottom of the huge funnel in which the new forces, concentrated and released by the great upheaval, were boiling over now.

Simon had an impression that the air was growing warmer and that the temperature of this column of water must be fairly high, which fact, even more than fear of the pebbles, explained why no one dared venture into the central zone.

Moreover, Rolleston's troops had taken up their position on the line of the barricades, where the firing had been furious from the first. The mob of marauders, massed at a hundred yards beyond, had at once given way, though here and there a band of lunatics would break loose from the crowd and rush across the slope. They toppled over, ruthlessly shot down.; but others came on, bellowing, maddened by those golden coins which fell like a miraculous rain and some of which rolled to their feet.

These men in their turn spun on their heels and dropped. It was a murderous game, an absolute massacre. The more favoured, those who escaped the bullets, were taken prisoners on the line of the barricades and set aside for execution.

And suddenly all grew quiet again. Like a fountain when the water is turned off, the precious sheaf wavered, grew smaller and smaller and disappeared from sight. The troops remaining at the barricades completed the rest of the assailants, while the satellites who made up the guard of honour gathered the gold in rush baskets collected at the fore of the wreck on which Rolleston was performing his antics. The harvest did not take long. The baskets were brought up briskly and the sharing began, a revolting and grotesque spectacle. Eyes burned with greed, hands trembled. The sight, the touch, the sound of the gold drove all these men mad. No famishing beasts of prey, disputing a bleeding quarry, could display greater ferocity and spite. Each man hid his booty in his pockets or in a handkerchief knotted at the corners. Rolleston put his into a canvas bag which he held clasped in his arms:

“Kill the prisoners, the new ones as well as the others!” he shouted, relapsing into drunkenness. “Have them executed! After that, we'll string them all up, so that they can be seen from everywhere and nobody will dare attack us. Kill them comrades! And M. Dubosc to begin with! Who'll attend to M. Dubosc? I haven't the energy myself.”

The comrades rushed forward. One of them, more agile than the rest, seized Simon by the throat, jammed his head against the broken mast and, pressing the barrel of his revolver against his temple, fired four times.

“Well done!” cried Rolleston! “Well done!”

“Well done!” cried the others, stamping with rage around the executioner.

The man had covered Simon's head with a strip of cloth already spotted with blood, which he knotted round the mast, so that its ends,. brought level with the forehead and turned upwards, looked like a donkey's ear, which provoked an explosion of merriment.

Simon did not feel the least surprise on, discovering that he was still alive, that he had not even been wounded by those four shots fired point-blank. This was the way of the incredible nightmare, a succession of illogical acts and disconnected events which he could neither foresee nor understand. In the very article of death, he was saved by circumstances as absurd as those which had led him to death's threshold. An unloaded weapon, an impulse of pity in his executioners: no explanation gave a satisfactory reply.

In any case, he did not make a movement which might attract attention and he remained like a corpse within the bonds which held him fixed in a perpendicular position and behind the veil which hid his face, the face of a living man.

The hideous tribunal resumed its functions and hurried over its verdicts, while washing them down with copious libations. As each victim was condemned, a glass of spirits was served, the tossing off of which was meant to synchronize with a death-struggle. Foul jests, blasphemies, laughter, songs, all mingled in an abominable din which was dominated by Rolleston's piercing voice:

“Now have them hanged. Tell them to string up the corpses! Fire away, comrades! I want to see them dancing at the end of their ropes when I come back from my wife. The queen awaits me! Here's her health, comrades!”

They touched glasses noisily, singing until they had escorted him to the ladder; then they returned and immediately set to work upon the loathsome business which Rolleston had judged necessary to terrorize the distant crowd of marauders. Their jeers and exclamations enabled Simon to follow the sickening incidents of their labours. The dead were hanged, with head or feet downwards alternately, from everything that projected from the ship's deck or its surroundings; and flagstaffs were stuck between their arms, with a blood-soaked rag floating from each.

Simon's turn was approaching. A few dead bodies at most divided him from the executioners, whose hoarse breathing he could hear. This time nothing could save him. Whether he was hanged, or stabbed the moment they saw that he was still alive, the issue was inevitable.

He would have made no attempt to escape, if the thought of Isabel and Rolleston's threats had not exasperated him. He reflected that at that moment Rolleston, the drunkard and maniac, was with the girl who for years had been the object of his desire. What could she do against him? Captive and bound, she was a prey vanquished beforehand.

Simon growled with rage. He contracted his muscles in the impossible hope of bursting his bonds. The period of waiting suddenly became intolerable; and he perferred to draw upon himself the anger of all those brutes and to risk a fight which might at least give him a chance of safety. And would not his safety mean Isabel's release?

Something unexpected, the sensation of a touch that was not brutal but, on the contrary, furtive and cautious, gently persuaded him to silence. A hand behind his back was untying his hands and removing the ropes which held him bound against the mast, while an almost inaudible voice whispered in his ear:

“Not a movement!... Not a word!...”

The cloth around his head was slowly withdrawn. The voice continued:

“Behave as if you were one of the gang.... No one is thinking about you.... Do as they do.... And, above all, no hesitation!

Simon obeyed without turning round. Two executioners, not far away, were picking up a corpse. Sustained by the thought that nothing must disgust him if he meant to rescue Isabel, he joined them and helped them to carry their burden and hang it from one of the iron davits.

But the effort exhausted him: he was tortured by hunger and thirst. He turned giddy and was seeking for a support when some one gently seized his arm and drew him toward Rolleston's platform.

It was a sailor, with bare feet and dressed in a blue serge pea-jacket and trousers; he carried a rifle across his back and wore a bandage which hid part of his face.

Simon whispered:

“Antonio!”

“Drink!” said the Indian, taking one of the bottles of champagne; “and look here... here's a tin of biscuits. You'll need all your strength....

After the shocks of the frightful nightmare in which he had been living for thirty-six hours, Simon was hardly capable of surprise. That Antonio should have succeeded in slipping among the gang of criminals accorded, after all, with the logic of events, since the Indian's object was just to be revenged on Rolleston.

“Did you fire at me with a blank cartridge?” asked Simon, “and saved my life!”

“Yes,” replied the Indian. “I got here yesterday, when Rolleston was already beginning to drive back the mob of three or four thousand ruffians crowding round the fountains. As he was recruiting all who possessed fire-arms and as I had a rifle, I was enlisted. Since then, I've been prowling right and left, in the trenches which they've dug, in the wrecks, more or less everywhere. I happened to be near his platform when they brought him the papers found on the airman; and I learnt, as he did, that the airman was no other than, yourself. Then I watched my opportunity and offered myself as an executioner when it came to a matter of killing you. But I didn't dare warn you in his presence.”

“He's with Miss Bakefield, isn't he?” asked Simon anxiously.

“Yes.”

“Were you able to communicate with her!”

“No, but I know where she is.”

“Let's hurry,” said Simon.

Antonio held him back:

“One word. What has become of Dolores?”

He looked Simon straight in the eyes.

“Dolores left me,” Simon replied.

“Why?” asked Antonio, in a harsh voice. “Yes, why? A woman alone, in this country: it's certain death! And you deserted her?”

Simon did not lower his eyes. He replied:

“I did my duty by Dolores... more than my duty. It was she who left me.”

Antonio reflected. Then he said:

“Very good. I understand.”

They moved away, unobserved by the rabble of henchmen and executioners. The boat—a Channel packet whose name Simon read on a faded pennant: the Ville de Dunkerque; and he remembered that the Ville de Dunkerque had been sunk at the beginning of the upheaval—the boat had not suffered much damage and her hull was barely heeling over to starboard. The deck was empty between the funnels and the poop. They were passing the hatch of a compion-way when Antonio said:

“That's Rolleston's lair.”

“If so, let's go down,” said Simon, who was quivering with impatience.

“Not yet; there are five or six accomplices in the gangway, besides the two women guarding Lord Bakefield and his daughter. Come on.”

A little farther, they stopped in front of a large tarpaulin, still soaked with water, which covered one of those frames on which the passengers' bags and trunks are stacked. He lifted the tarpaulin and slipped under it, beckoning to Simon to lie down beside him.

“Look,” he said.

The frame contained a skylight protected by stout bars, through which they saw down into the long gangway skirting the cabins immediately below the deck. In this gangway a man was seated with two women beside him. When Simon's eyes had become accustomed to the semidarkness which showed objects somewhat vaguely, he distinguished the man's features and recognized Lord Bakefield, bound to a chair and guarded by the two viragoes whom Rolleston, had placed in charge of Isabel. One of these women held in her heavy hand which pressed on Lord Bakefield's throat, the two ends of a cord passed round his neck. It was clear that a sudden twist of this hand would be enough to strangle the unfortunate nobleman in the space of a few seconds.

CHAPTER VII. THE FIGHT FOR THE GOLD

“Silence!” whispered Antonio, who divined Simon's feeling of revolt.

“Why?' asked Simon. “They can't hear.”

“They can. Most of the panes are missing.”

Simon continued, in the same low tone:

“But where's Miss Bakefield?”

“This morning I saw her, from here, on that other chair, bound like her father.”

“And now?”

“I don't know. But I suppose Rolleston has taken her into his cabin.”

“Where's that?”

“He's occupying three or four, those over there.”

“Oh,” gasped Simon, “it's horrible! And there's no other way out?”

“None.”

“Still, we can't....”

“The least sound would he Miss Bakefield's undoing,” Antonio declared.

“But why?”

“I am sure of it.... All this is thought out.... That threat of death to her father; it's blackmail. Besides....”

One, of the women moved to a cabin door listened and returned, sniggering:

“The chit's defending herself. The chief will have to employ strong measures. You're resolved to go through with it, are you?”

“Of course!” said the other, nodding in the direction of her hand. “Twenty quid extra for each of us: it's worth it! On the word of command, pop! And there you are!”

The old man's face remained impassive. His eyes were closed; he appeared to be asleep. Simon was distracted:

“Did you hear! Isabel and Rolleston: she's struggling with him....”

“Miss Bakefield will hold out. The sentence of death has not been issued,” said Antonio.

One of the men keeping watch at the entrance to the gangway now came along on his rounds, walking slowly and listening. Antonio recognized him:

“He's one of the original accomplices. Rolleston had all his Hastings stalwarts with him.”

The man shook his head:

“Rolleston is wrong. A leader doesn't concern himself like that with trifles.”

“He's in love with the girl.”

“A funny way of being in love!... He has been persecuting her now for four days.”

“Why does she refuse him? To begin with she's his wife. She said yes just now.”

“She said yes because, ever since this morning, some one has been squeezing dear papa's throat.”

“Well, she'll say yes presently so that it shan't be squeezed a little tighter.”

The man bent down:

“How's the old chap doing?”

“Impossible to say!” growled the woman, who held the cord. “He told his daughter not to give in, said that he'd rather die. Since then, you'd thinking he's sleeping. It's two days since he had anything to eat.”

“All this sort of thing,” retorted the sentry, moving off, “isn't business. Rolleston ought to be on deck. Suppose something happened, suppose we were to be attacked, suppose the enclosure was invaded!”

“In that case, I've got orders to finish the old man off.”

“That wouldn't make us come out on top.”

A short time elapsed. The two women talked in very low tones. At moments Simon seemed to hear raised voices from the cabin:

“Listen,” he said. “That's Rolleston, isn't it?”

“Yes,” said the Indian.

“We must do something, we must do something,” said Simon.

The door of the cabin was flung open violently. Rolleston appeared. He shouted angrily to the women:

“Are you ready? Count three minutes. In three minutes strangle him,” and, turning round, “You understand, Isabel? Three minutes. Make up your mind, my girl.”

He slammed the door behind him.

Quick as thought, Simon had seized Antonio's rifle, but, hampered by the bars, he was unable to take aim before the villain had closed the door.

“You will spoil everything!” said Antonio, crawling from under the tarpaulin and wresting the rifle from him.

Simon, in turn, stood up, with distorted features:

“Three minutes I Oh, poor girl, poor girl!”

Antonio tried to restrain him:

“Let's think of something. There must be a porthole in the cabin.”

“Too late. She will have killed herself by then. We must act at once.”

He reflected for a moment, then suddenly began to run along the deck and, reaching the hatch of the companion-way, jumped to the bottom. The gangway began with a wider landing where the sentry sat playing cards and drinking.

They rose. One of them commanded:

“Halt! No passage here!”

“All hands on deck! Every man to his post.” shouted Simon, repeating Rolleston's words. “At the double! And no quarter! The gold! The rain of gold has started again!”

The men leapt to their feet and made off up the companion. Simon darted down the gangway, ran into one of the two women, whom his shouts had attracted, and flung the same words at her:

“The gold! The rain of gold! Where's the chief!”

“In his cabin,” she Replied. “Tell him!”

And she made off in her turn.

The other woman, who held the cord, hesitated. Simon felled her with a blow on the point of the chin. Then, without troubling about Lord Bake-field, he rushed to the cabin. At that moment, Rolleston opened the door, shouting:

“What's up? The gold!”

Simon laid hold of the door to prevent his closing it and saw Isabel, at the back of the cabin, alive.

“Who are you?” asked the villain, uneasily.

“Simon Dubosc.”

There was a pause, a respite before the struggle which Simon believed inevitable. But Rolleston fell back, with haggard eyes:

“M. Dubosc?... M. Dubosc?... The one who was killed just now?”

“The same,” said a voice in the gangway. “And it was I who killed him, I, Antonio, the friend of Badiarinos whom you murdered.”

“Ah!” groaned Rolleston, collapsing. “I'm done for!”

He was paralysed by his drunkenness, by his state of stupor and even more obviously by his natural cowardice. Without offering the least resistance, he allowed himself to be knocked down and disarmed by Antonio, while Simon and Isabel rushed into each other's arms.

“My father!” murmured the girl.

“He's alive. Don't be afraid.”

Together they went to release him. The old lord was at the end of his forces. It was all that he could do to kiss his daughter and press Simon's hand. Isabel too was on the verge of swooning; shaken with, a nervous tremor, she fell into Simon's arms, faltering:

“Oh, Simon, you were just in time. I should have killed myself!... Oh, what degradation!... How shall I ever forget?”

Great as was her distress, she had nevertheless the strength to check Antonio's hand when he raised it to stab Rolleston:

“No, please don't.... Simon, you agree, don't you. We haven't the right....”

Antonio protested:

“You're wrong, Miss. A monster like that has to be got rid of.”

“Please!...”

“As you will. But I shall get him again. We have an account to settle, he and I. M. Dubosc, lend me a hand to tie him up!”

The Indian lost no time. Knowing the ruse which Simon had employed to remove the guards, he expected them to return at any moment, no doubt escorted by their comrades. He therefore shoved Rolleston to the other end of the corridor and bundled him into a dark cupboard.

“Like that,” he said, “his accomplices won't find their chief and will look for him outside.”

He also bound and locked up the big woman, who was beginning to recover from her torpor. Then, despite the exhausted condition of Lord Bakefield and his daughter, he led them to the companion.

Simon had to carry Isabel. When he reached the deck of the Ville de Dunkerque, he was astounded to hear the rattling sounds and to see the great sheaf of pebbles and water spurting towards the sky. By a lucky coincidence, the phenomenon had occurred just as he announced it and caused an excitement by which he had time to profit. Isabel and Lord Bakefield were laid under the tarpaulin, that part of the wreck being deserted. Then Antonio and Simon went to the companion in quest of news. A band of ruffians came pouring down it, shouting:

“The chief! Where's Rolleston!”

Several of them questioned Antonio, who pretended to be equally at a loss:

“Rolleston? I've been hunting for him everywhere. I expect he's at the barricades.”

The ruffians streamed back again, scampering up on deck. At the foot of the platform they held a conference, after which some ran towards the enclosing fence, while others, following Rolleston's example, shouted:

“Every man to his post I No quarter I Shoot, can't you, down there!”

“What's happening?” whispered Simon.

“They're wavering,” said Antonio, “and giving way. Look beyond the enclosure. The crowd is attacking at several points.”

“But they're firing on it.”

“Yes, but in disorder, at random. Rolleston's absence is already making itself felt. He was a leader, he was. You should have seen him organize his two or three hundred recruits in, a few hours and place each man where he was befit suited! He didn't only rule by terror.”

The eruption did not last long and Simon had an impression that the rain of gold was less abundant. But it exercised no less attraction upon those whose work it was to collect it and upon others who, no longer encouraged by their leader's voice, were abandoning the barricades.

“Look,” said Antonio. “The attacks are becoming fiercer. The enemy feels that the besieged are losing hold.”

The slope was invaded from every side; and small bodies of men pushed forward, more numerous and bolder as the firing became less intense. The machine-gun, whether abandoned or destroyed, was no longer in action. The chief's accomplices, who had stood in front of the platform, finding themselves unable to enforce their authority and restore discipline, leapt into the arena and ran to the trenches. They were the most resolute of the defenders. The assailants hesitated.

So, for two hours, fortunes of the fight swayed to and fro. When night fell, the battle was still undecided.

Simon and Antonio, seeing the wreck deserted, collected the necessary arms and provisions. They intended to prepare for flight at midnight, if circumstances permitted. Antonio went off to reconnoitre, while Simon watched over the repose of his two patients.

Lord Bakefield, although fit to travel, was still badly pulled down and slept, though his sleep was disturbed by nightmares. But Simon's presence restored to Isabel all her energy, all her vitality. Sitting side by side, holding each other's hands, they told the story of those tragic days; and Isabel spoke of all that she had suffered, of Rolleston's cruelty, of his coarse attentions to her, of the constant threat of death which he held over Lord Bakefield if she refused to yield, of the nightly orgies in camp, the bloodshed, the tortures, the cries of the dying and the laughter of Rolleston's companions....”

She shuddered at certain recollections, nestling against Simon as though she feared to find herself once more alone. All around them was the flash of fire-arms and the rattle of shots which seemed to be coming nearer. A din at once confused and terrific, made up of a hundred separate combats, death-struggles and victories, hovered above the dark plain, over which, however, a pale light appeared to be spreading.

Antonio returned in an hour's time and declared that flight was impossible:

“Half the trenches,” he said, “are in the hands of the assailants, who have even penetrated into the enclosure. And they won't let any one pass, any more than the besieged will.”

“my!”

“They're afraid of gold being taken away. It seems that there's a sort of discipline among them and that they're obeying leaders whose object is to capture from the besieged the enormous booty which they have accumulated. And, as the assailants are ten or even twenty to one, we must expect a wholesale massacre!” .

The night was full of tumult. Simon observed that the dense layer of clouds was breaking up in places and that gleams of light were falling from the starry sky. They could see figures darting across the arena. Two men first, then a number of others boarded the Ville de Dunkerque and went down the nearest companion way.

“Rolleston's accomplices returning,” murmured Antonio.

“What for? Are they looking for Rolleston?”

“No, they think he's dead. But there are the bags, the bags filled with coin, and they are all going to fill their pockets.”

“The gold is there, then!”

“In the cabins. Rolleston's share on one side; his accomplices on the other.”

Below deck quarrels were beginning, followed almost immediately by a general affray, which was punctuated by yells and moans. One by one the victors emerged from the companion way. But shadows crept down it all night long? and the newcomers were heard searching and destroying.

“They'll find Rolleston in the end,” said Simon.

“I don't care if they do,” said Antonio, with a grin which Simon was to remember thereafter.

The Indian was getting together their arms and ammunition. A little before daybreak, he awoke Lord Bakefield and his daughter and gave them rifles and revolvers. The final assault would not be long delayed; and he calculated that the Ville de Dunkerque would be the immediate objective of the assailants and that it would be better not to linger there.

The little party therefore set out when the first pale gleams of dawn showed in the sky. They had not set foot on the sand of the arena before the signal for the attack was given by a powerful voice which sounded from the bulk of the submarine; and it so happened that, at the very moment when the final offensive was launched, when the besieged, better armed than the attackers, were taking measures of defense which were also better organized, the roar of the eruption rent the air with its thousand explosions.

Then and there, then enemy's onslaught became more furious, and the besieged began to retreat, as Simon and Antonio perceived from the disorderly rush of men falling back like trapped animals, seeking cover behind which to defend themselves or hide.

In the middle of the arena, the scorching rain and the showers of falling pebbles created a circular empty space; nevertheless, some of the more desperate assailants were bold enough to venture into it and Simon had a fleeting vision in which he seemed to see—but was it possible!—Old Sandstone running this way and that under a strange umbrella made of a round sheet of metal with the edge turned down.

The mob of invaders was growing denser. They collided with groups of men and women, brandishing sticks, old swords, scythes, hill-hooks and axes, who fell upon the fugitives. Simon and Antonio were twice obliged to take part in the fighting.

“The position is serious,” said Simon, taking Isabel aside. “We must risk all for all and try-to find a way through. Kiss me, Isabel, as you did on the day of the shipwreck.” She gave him her lips, saying: “I have absolute faith in you, Simon.” After many efforts and two brushes with some ruffians who tried to stop them, they reached the line of the barricades and crossed it without hindrance. But in the open space outside they met fresh waves of marauders breaking furiously against the defences, including parties of men who seemed to be running away, rather than pursuing a quarry. It was as though they themselves were threatened by some great danger. Fierce and murderous for all that, they plundered the dead and wildly attacked the living. “Look out!” cried Simon. It was a band of thirty or forty street-boys and hooligans, among whom he recognized two of the tramps who had pursued him. At sight of Simon, they egged on the gang under their command. By some ill chance Antonio slipped and fell. Lord Bakefield was knocked down. Simon and Isabel, caught in an eddy, felt that they were being stifled by a mass of bodies whirling about them. Simon, however, succeeded in seizing hold of her and levelling his revolver. He fired three times in succession. Isabel did likewise. Two men, dropped. There was a moment's hesitation; then a new onslaught separated the lovers.

“Simon, Simon!” cried the terrified girl.

One of the tramps roared:

“The girl I Carry her off! Shell fetch her weight in gold!”

Simon tried to reach her. Twenty hands opposed his desperate efforts; and, while defending himself, he saw Isabel pushed towards the barricades by the two tramps. She stumbled and fell. They were trying to raise her when suddenly two shots rang out and both fell headlong.

“Simon! Antonio!” cried a voice.

Through the fray Simon saw Dolores, sitting erect on a horse all covered with foam. Her rifle was levelled and she was firing. Three of the nearest aggressors were struck. Simon contrived to break away, run to Isabel and join Dolores, to whom Antonio at the same time was bringing Lord Bakefield.

Thus the four were together again, but each was followed by the rabble of persistent marauders, and these were reinforced by dozens of others, who loomed out of the fog and doubtless imagined that the stake in such a battle, in which the number of their opponents was so small, must be the capture of some treasure.

“There are more than a hundred of them,” said Antonio. “We are done for.”

“Saved!” cried Dolores, who now ceased firing.

“Why?”

“Yes, we must hold out... one minute....”

Dolores' reply was drowned in the uproar. Their assailants came along with a rush. With their backs against the horse, the little party faced in all directions, firing, wounding, killing. With his left hand Simon discharged his revolver, while with his right hand, which gripped his rifle by the barrel, whirling it to terrible effect, he held the enemy at a distance.

But how could they resist the torrent, continually renewed, that rushed upon them. They were submerged. Old Lord Bakefield was struck senseless with a stick; and one of Antonio's arms was paralysed by a blow from a stone. Any further resistance was out of the question. The hideous moment had come when people fall, when their flesh is trampled underfoot and torn asunder by the enemy's claws.

“Isabel!” murmured Simon, crushing her passionately in his arms.

They dropped to their knees together. The beasts of prey fell upon them, covering them with darkness.

A bugle sounded some distance away, scattering its lively notes upon the air. Another call rang out in reply. It was a French bugle sounding the charge.

A great silence, heavy with fear, petrified the hoardes of pillagers. Simon, who was losing unconsciousness, felt that the weight above him was lightened. Some of the beasts of prey were taking flight.

He half-raised himself, while supporting Isabel, and the first thing that struck him was Antonio's attitude. The Indian, with drawn face, was gazing at Dolores. Slowly and steadily he took a few steps towards her, like a cat creeping up to its prey, and suddenly, before Simon could intervene, he leapt on the crupper behind her, passed his arms under hers and dug his heels into the horse, which broke into a gallop along the barricades, towards the north.

From the opposite direction, through the mist, appeared the sky-blue uniforms of France.

CHAPTER VIII. THE HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR THE NEW TERRITORIES

“My fault!... Now aren't you convinced, as I am, that this is a ramification of my fault, ending in a cul-de-sac? So that all the eruptive forces immobilized in the direction of this blind alley have found a favourable position... so that all these forces... you grasp the idea, don't you!”

Simon grasped it all the less inasmuch as Old Sandstone was becoming more and more entangled in his theory, while he, Simon, was wholly absorbed in Isabel and had ears for hardly anything but what she was telling him.

They were all three a little way outside the barricades, among the groups of tents around which the soldiers, in overalls, and fatigue-caps, were moving to and fro and preparing their meals. Isabel's face Was already more peaceful and her eyes less uneasy. Simon gazed at her with infinite tenderness. In the course of the morning the fog had at last dispersed. For the first time since the day when they had travelled together on the deck of the Queen Mary, the sun shone in a cloudless sky; and one might almost have thought that nothing had occurred between that day and this to divide them. All evil memories faded away. Isabel's torn dress, her pallor and her bruised wrists were the reminder merely of an adventure already remote, since the glorious future was opening out before them.

Inside the barricades, a few soldiers scurried round the arena, stacking the dead bodies, while others, farther back, stationed on the wreck of the Ville de Dunkerque, removed the sinister shapes hanging from their gibbets. Near the submarine, in an enclosed space guarded by many sentries, some dozens of prisoners were herded and were joined at every moment by fresh batches of captives.

“Of course,” resumed Old Sandstone, “there are many other obscure points; but I shall not leave this until I have studied all the causes of the phenomenon.”

“And I,” said Simon, laughing, “should very much like to know how you managed to get here.”

This was a question which possessed little interest for Old Sandstone, who replied, vaguely:

“How do I know! I followed a crowd of good people....”

“Good looters and murderers!”

“Oh, do you think so! Yes, it may be... it seemed to me, sometimes.... But I was so absorbed! So many observations to make! Besides, I was not alone... at least, on the last day.”

“Really! Who was with you!”

“Dolores, We made the whole of the last stage together; and it was she who brought me here. She left me when we came in sight of the barricades. For that matter, it was impossible to enter this enclosure and examine the phenomena more closely. Directly I went forward, pompom went the machine-gun! At last, suddenly, the crowd burst the dike. But what puzzles me now is that these eruptions seem already to be decreasing in violence, so that we can foresee the end of them very shortly. True, on the other hand....”

But Simon was not listening. He had caught sight, in the arena, of the captain commanding the detachment, with whom he had not been able to exchange more than, a few words that morning, as the officer had at once gone in pursuit of the fugitives. Simon led Isabel to the tent, set aside for her, in which Lord Bakefield was resting, and joined the captain, who cried:

“We are straightening things out, M. Dubosc. I've sent a few squads north; and all these bands of cut-throats will fall into my hands or into those of the English troops, who, I'm told, have arrived. But what savages? And how glad I am that I came in time?”

Simon thanked him in the name of Lord Bakefield and his daughter.

“It's not I whom you should thank,” he replied, “but that strange woman, whom I know only by the name of Dolores, and who brought me here.”

The captain related how he had been operating since three o'clock in the out-posts of Boulogne, where he was garrisoned, when he received from the newly-appointed military governor an order instructing him to move towards Hastings, to take possession of the country as far as mid-way between the two coasts and to put down all excesses ruthlessly.

“Well, this morning,” he said, “when we were patrolling two or three miles from there, I saw the woman ride up at a gallop. She told me in a few words what was happening inside these barricades, which she had not been able to pass, but behind which Simon Dubosc was in danger. Having succeeded in catching a horse, she had come to beg me to go to your assistance. You can imagine how quickly I marched in the direction she gave me, as soon as I heard the name of Simon Dubosc. And you will understand also why, when I saw that she in her turn was in danger, I rushed in pursuit of the man who was carrying her off.”

“What then, captain!”

“Well, she returned, quite quietly, all alone on her horse. She had thrown the Indian, whom my men picked up in the neighbourhood, rather the worse for his fall. He says he knows you.”

Simon briefly related the part which Antonio had played in the tragedy.

“Good!” cried the officer. “The mystery is clearing up!”

“What mystery, captain?”

“Oh, something quite in keeping with all the horrors that have been committed!”

He drew Simon to the wreck and down, the companion-ladder.

The wide gangway was littered with empty bags and baskets. All the gold had disappeared. The doors of the cabins occupied by Rolleston had been demolished. But, outside the last of these cabins and a little before the cupboard into which Antonio had locked Rolleston on the previous evening, Simon, by the light of an electric torch switched on by the officer, saw a man's body hanging from the ceiling. The knees had been bent back and fastened to keep the feet from touching the floor.

“There's the wretched Rolleston,” said the captain. “Obviously he has got no more than his deserts. But, all the same.... Look closely....”

He threw the rays of the lamp over the upper part of the victim's body. The face, covered with black clotted blood, was unrecognizable The drooping head displayed the most hideous wound: the skull was stripped of its skin and hair.

“It was Antonio who did that,” said Simon, remembering the Indian's smile when he, Simon, had expressed the fear that the ruffians might succeed in finding and releasing their chief. “After the fashion of his ancestors, he has scalped the man whom he wished to punish. I tell you, we're living in the midst of savagery.”

A few minutes later, on leaving the wreck, they saw Antonio who was talking to Dolores near the spot where the submarine strengthened the former line of defence. Dolores was holding her horse by the bridle. The Indian was making gestures and seemed to be greatly excited.

“She's going away,” said the officer. “I've signed a safe-conduct for her.”

Simon crossed the arena and went up to her:

“You're going, Dolores?”

“Yes.”

“Where!”

“Where my horse chooses to take me... and as far as he can carry me.”

“Won't you wait a few minutes 1”

“No.”

“I should have liked to thank you.... So would Miss Bakefield....”

“Miss Bakefield has my best wishes!”

She mounted. Antonio snatched at the bridle, as though determined to detain her, and began to speak to her in a choking voice and in a language which Simon did not understand.

She did not move. Her beautiful, austere face did not change. She waited, with her eyes on the horizon, until the Indian, discouraged, released the bridle. Then she rode away. Not once had her eyes met Simon's.

She rode away, mysterious and secretive to the last. Simon's refusal, his conduct during the night which they had passed in the prehistoric dwelling must have humiliated her profoundly; and the best proof was this departure without farewell. But, on the other hand, what miracles of dogged heroism she must have wrought to cross this sinister region by herself and to save not only the man who had spurned her but the woman, whom that man loved above all things in this world!

A hand rested on Simon's shoulder:

“You, Isabel!” he said.

“Yes.... I was over there, a little farther on.... I saw Dolores go.”

The girl seemed to hesitate. At length, she murmured, watching him attentively:

“You didn't tell me she was so strikingly beautiful, Simon.”

He felt slightly embarrassed. Looking her straight in the eyes, he replied:

“I had no occasion to tell you, Isabel.”

At five o'clock that afternoon, the French and British troops being now in touch, it was decided that Lord Bakefield and his daughter should make part of an English convoy which was returning to Hastings and which had a motor-ambulance at its disposal. Simon took leave of them, after asking Lord Bakefield's permission to call on him at an early date.

Simon considered that his mission was not yet completed in these days of confusion. Indeed, before the afternoon was over, an aeroplane alighted in sight of the camp and the captain was asked to send immediately reinforcements, as a conflict appeared inevitable between, the French and a British detachment, both of which had planted their colours on a ridge overlooking the whole country. Simon did not hesitate for a moment. He took his place between the two airmen.

It is needless to describe in all its details the part which he played in this incident, which might have had deplorable results: the way in which he threw himself between the adversaries, his entreaties, his threats and, at last, the order to withdraw which he gave to the French with such authority and such persuasive force. All this is history; and it is enough to recall the words uttered two days later by the British prime minister in the House of Commons:

“I have to thank M. Simon Dubosc. But for him, there would have been a stain upon our country's honour; French blood would have been shed by English hands. M. Simon Dubosc, the wonderful man who crossed what was once the Channel at one stride, understood that it would be necessary, at least for a few hours, to exercise a little patience towards a great nation which for so many centuries has been accustomed to feel that it was protected by the seas and which suddenly found itself disarmed, defenceless, deprived of its natural ramparts. Let us not forget that Germany, that very morning, with her customary effrontery, offered France an alliance and proposed the immediate invasion of Great Britain by the whole of the united forces of the two countries. Britannia delenda est! Mr. Speaker, it was Simon Dubosc who gave the reply, by achieving the miracle of a French retreat! All honour to Simon Dubosc!”

France at once recognized Simon's action by appointing the young man, high commissioner for the new French territories. For four days longer he was ubiquitous, flying over the province which he had conquered, restoring order, enforcing harmony, discipline and security. Pursued and captured, all the bands of pillagers and spoilers were duly brought to trial. Aeroplanes sailed the heavens. Provision-lorries ran in all directions, assuring travellers the means of transport. Chaos was becoming organized.

At last one day, Simon called at Lord Bake-field's country-house near Battle. Here too tranquillity had returned. The servants had resumed their duties. Only a few cracks in the walls, a few gaps in the lawns reminded them of the hours of terror.

Lord Bakefield, who appeared to be in excellent health, received Simon in the library and gave him the same cordial welcome as on the Brighton golf-links:

“Well, young man, where do we stand now?”

“On the twentieth day after my request for your daughter's hand,” said Simon, smiling, “and as you gave me twenty days in which to perform a certain number of exploits, I come to ask you, on the appointed date, whether I have, in your opinion, fulfilled the conditions settled between us.”

Lord Bakefield offered him a cigar and handed him a light.

He made no further reply. Simon's exploits and his rescue of Lord Bakefield when at the point of death, these obviously were interesting things, deserving the reward of a good cigar, with Isabel's hand perhaps thrown into the bargain. But it was asking too much to expect thanks as well and praise and endless effusions. Lord Bakefield remained Lord Bakefield and Simon Dubosc a nobody.

“Well, see you later, young man... Oh, by the way! I have had the marriage annulled which that reptile Rolleston forced upon Isabel.... The marriage wasn't valid of course; but I've done what was necessary just as though it had been. Isabel will tell you all about it. You'll find her in the park.”

She was not in the park. She had heard that Simon had called and was waiting for him on the terrace.

He told her of his interview with Lord Bakefield.

“Yes,” she said, “my father accepts the position. He considers that you have satisfied the ordeal?”

“And you, Isabel!” She smiled:

“I have no right to be more difficult than my father. But remember that there were not only his conditions: there was one added by myself.” “Which condition was that, Isabel!” “Have you forgotten!... On the deck of the Queen Mary!” “Then, Isabel, you doubt me!” She took both his hands and said: “Simon, it sometimes makes me rather sad to think that in this great adventure it was not I but another who was your companion in danger, the one whom you defended and who protected you.” He shook his head:

“No, Isabel, I never had but one companion, you, Isabel, and you alone. You were my only aim and my only thought, my one hope and my one desire.” After a moment's reflection, she said: “I talked of her a good deal with Antonio, on the way home. Do you know, Simon, that girl is not only very beautiful, but capable of the noblest, loftiest feelings! I know nothing of her past; according to Antonio, it had its unsettled moments. But since then... since then... in spite of her present mode of life, in spite of all the admiration which she attracts, she leads an existence apart. You alone have really stirred her feelings. For you, from what I can see for myself and from what Antonio told me— and he, after all, is only a rejected and embittered lover—for you Dolores would have laid down her life and that from the first day. Did you know that, Simon?”

He was silent.

“You are right,” she said. “You can't answer. However, there is one point, Simon, on which I ask you to tell me the absolute truth. I can look you straight in the face, can I not? There is not in the depths of your being a single memory that comes between us?... Not a weakness!... Not a disloyal thought?”

He pressed her to him and, with his lips on hers, said:

There's you, Isabel, and you alone: you in the past and you in the future.”

“I believe you, Simon,” she declared.

The wedding took place a month later; and they went to live in the wreck of the Ville de Dunkerque, the official residence of the French high commissioner of the new territories.

It was here that the draft agreement was signed, in accordance with Simon Dubosc's proposal and his preliminary investigations, for the great canal which was to bisect the Isthmus of Normandy, allotting to each country, right and left, an almost equal portion of land.

Here too was signed the solemn covenant by which Great Britain and France declared eternal friendship and laid the foundations of the United States of Europe.

And it was here that four children were born to Isabel and Simon.

In after years, Simon often went on horseback or by aeroplane, accompanied by his wife, to visit his friend Edward Rolleston. When he had recovered from his wounds, Rolleston set to work and became the manager of a large fishing-in-industry on the new English coast, in which he employed Antonio. Rolleston married. The Indian lived alone for a long time, waiting for her who never came and of whom no one ever spoke. But one day he received a letter and went away. Some months later, he wrote from Mexico announcing his marriage to Dolores.

But Isabel and Simon's favourite walk led them to Old Sandstone's house. He lived in a little bungalow, close to the prehistoric dwelling by the lake, where he pursued his researches into the new land. The showers of gold, now exhausted, no longer interested him; moreover, the problem had been solved. But what an indecipherable riddle was this building, standing on a site of the Eocene period!

“There were apes in those days,” Old Sandstone declared. “There's no doubt of that. But men! And men capable of building, of ornamenting their dwellings of carving stone! No, I confess this is a phenomenon which unsettles all one's ideas. What do you make of it, Simon?”

Simon made no reply. A boat was rocking on the lake. He took his place in it with Isabel and rowed with a care-free mind; nor did Dolores' image ever rise from this limpid water, in which she had bathed on a certain voluptuous evening. Simon was the husband of one alone and this was the woman whom he had won.

THE END