Part 53

But every throat set up a cry and every finger pointed in one direction, and a rush of the crowd swept her down the steep hillside. You may conceive how the women greeted that straggling party of unhorsed, dejected men, some of whom were wearing bloody head-bandages, others of whom limped painfully, as, supported by their comrades, they made their way back to the camp of the Light Brigade. And the irrepressible cry broke from Moggy, as Jems ambled towards her, grinning foolishly:

“The divil baste your hide! What call have you to be alive, and me raising the widdy’s cry for you? Give me your ear, you sorrow o’ the worruld!”

But when she saw that his round face was white and drawn, and that his left arm dangled helplessly; and that a bright red stream was running from the deep sword-thrust in his side, the woman’s heart got the better of her. She uttered a great maternal cry of love, and tenderness, and sorrow, and caught him, fainting, in her brawny arms.

LXXXVI

Dunoisse had been arrested on the steps of the English Embassy upon the night of the Monster Ball at the Élysée. Not a moment too soon, it may have been, for the safety of the chicken that had hatched out of the basilisk-egg.

Having himself suffered the slow torture of imprisonment, who should know better than Sire my Friend, how to refine and embroider upon the sufferings of a prisoner? Dunoisse was assigned to the care of the Commandant of the Fortress under minute and particular instructions, which were, by that official, scrupulously carried out.

Solitude and Silence were the regimen prescribed for the captive. Save the Commandant, or the priest who would on rare occasions be admitted to administer religious consolation--no one might speak to Dunoisse, or answer when spoken to, save by certain strictly-regulated signs. Pens, pencils, ink and paper, newspapers and books--manuals of devotion excepted--were sternly prohibited. In order to guard against communication between the prisoner and the soldiers of the garrison, blinds were nailed over the windows of the barracks looking on that restricted space upon the ramparts, where Dunoisse was permitted to take the air.

The room allotted to him in the prison of the Fortress was one of a suite of three that had in 1840 accommodated a certain political gamester, ruined by the failure of an ambitious _coup_ at Boulogne. Luck had turned; the penniless plunger had swept the board, and broken the bank. Now, lifted and borne high upon the tidal wave of Fortune, he could look down upon Powers and dignities by whom he had been despised.

The cage that had held the Imperial bird--repaired at the time of his incarceration--was now dilapidated and leaky. The floor of uneven bricks was damp and chilly, the plaster of the ceiling was tumbling down. The paper hung upon the walls of weeping stone in folds and festoons--the rusty iron sashes of the thickly-barred windows would neither shut or open. With the fever and ague of the Dobrudja still upon him, Dunoisse, denied the comfort of fire or extra bedding, invalid nourishment, medical attendance, or the commonest human intercourse; would have died, or sunk into a lethargy of inertia ending in death, but for one thing.

Habitual criminals, when subjected to the system of solitude and silence, either become imbecile or are rendered tenfold more brutal, degraded, and dangerous than they were before. Under the same process, men and women of wide education and high intelligence condemned by the laws of Government for political offenses--although the alternative of idiocy or insanity be open to them as to the felon or the murderer--usually emerge from the ordeal--presuming they survive?--confirmed in their convictions, strengthened in determination, fortified by suffering for endurance of greater ills. The enthusiast has become a fanatic, the propagandist has become a leader. The cause for which the man or the woman has suffered becomes flesh of the flesh and bone of the bone.

That intention of atonement--vague, unspecified--that determination to unmesh the net that he had woven--upheld and supported this man. Otherwise the fatigue-party of four soldiers with spades, the box of tarred planks, and the blanket of quicklime would have been called into requisition--and Sire my Friend would have been disappointed of a reprisal he had planned.

He had not given Dunoisse the room for nothing. On the stone lintel of the low, barred window was scratched, perhaps with the point of a nail or a pair of scissors, a fragment of erotic verse beginning:

“_O charmante Henriette! Mon ange, ma belle!_...”

Dunoisse knew the handwriting for that of his late master. Reminiscent of that old intrigue, it had few stings for him, who had done with intrigue forever. There were other inscriptions, in the same hand--philosophical, heroic, amatory, cynical--upon the mantelshelf, upon the balustrade of the staircase, upon the parapet of the ramparts where the prisoner was allowed to exercise. Two beds of earth were here, containing some straggling untended annuals. A few sickly violets were trying to bloom in the shadow of the chill gray stone. Beneath the rampart, fosse and marsh were flanked by the canal that was edged by tall straggling poplars, standing ankle-deep in the grim green-black waters that wind snakily across the plain. Beyond the canal rose the _demi-lune_--beyond this mass of comparatively modern masonry was yet another fosse. And then, the interminable marshes spreading to the misty horizon, and beyond these--the world.

What was taking place out there? Were nations striving against nations? Were Fire and Iron, Lead and Steel, Death, Famine, and Pestilence playing their parts in the dreadful Theater of War? Were those secret treaties, those signed contracts, those imposed oaths, bearing fruit, not in the defeat of an enemy, but in the destruction of an ally? Had those vast sums of poured-out gold purchased for Sire my Friend the vengeance that would be sweeter to him than victory? To pace upon those ancient stones, tainted by his dainty, mincing footsteps--and wonder--and be kept in ignorance of what was common knowledge to the drummers of the garrison, the scullions of the Commandant’s kitchen--was torture to Dunoisse.

Treachery.... Ever since that night of his unexpected return to the Abbaye, the thought of treachery had held and obsessed him. It had flavored his food. He had tasted it in his drink. Unknown to himself, the traveler’s cold accusing glance had stricken terror to the soul of the Greek or Slav or Turkish innkeepers who had overcharged him, the peasants who had robbed him, and the knavish servants who had stolen the fodder from his horses, and the rugs from their backs. The nomad Tartar who refused payment for shelter in his flea-ridden tent of felt, and a share of the rancid boiled mutton smoking in his sooty caldron because it would, to his untutored mind, be a sin to barter for silver the sacred privilege of hospitality, was puzzled by that chilly, questioning look.

Suspicion had rankled in the man like a poisonous thorn or an eating ulcer. Seated near some pretty woman in a public conveyance or a public place, he would wonder with whom the charming stranger was deceiving her husband or playing her lover false? Drawing rein before some Wallach peasant’s hut of turf and reeds at eventide, as the bronzed, black-eyed maiden drew the woolen threads from the distaff stuck in her wide, embroidered girdle, the look the traveler cast on her would question: “Are you as pure as you appear? Does this virginal exterior cover a spotted conscience?” And when his dog fawned upon him, he would think, even as he caressed it: “Ah, but suppose I fell, attacked and worried by other dogs, would you defend me against them, or would you not rather aid the pack in tearing out my throat?” And as the thievish innkeeper had quailed, and the innocent young woman or the pure young girl had trembled beneath that chill regard of his, the dog would quail and tremble too, and slink guiltily away. And the heart of the man would contract in a bitter spasm, and drops of sweat would start upon his forehead. For to the generous it is anguish to suspect.

* * * * *

One does not know what would have been the end of this man--to whom no man might speak--who was not even permitted to dibble in the earth of Sire my Friend’s old flower-beds lest he should scratch a message on the arid soil that might meet some friendly eye; who might not even feed with crumbs--saved from his scant meals--the doves upon the ramparts--lest some written communication from that tabued world outside, cunningly attached to a leg or hidden beneath a wing, should reach him in his captivity. Perhaps inertia would have ended in collapse, mental or bodily. But that in his crying need of friendship, he found a Friend at last.

The Breviary and Vulgate, with the _Imitatione Christi_ of Thomas à Kempis--left in Dunoisse’s cell by some cynical whim of his Imperial jailer--proved to contain within them fountains of healing for his sick and suffering soul. Unguessed, undreamed-of beauty and delight and sweetness had lain hidden in the narrow columns as in the closely-printed pages. The casual reader became a student, the student a scholar, long before he knew.... And the Denier denied no longer. Dayspring banished the darkness; Faith revived in him--he could pray again. How strange it is, that only when the meanest and humblest of our fellow-creatures turn from us, do we seek the companionship of One Who is King of Kings.

At Christmastide--for the snow lay on the marshes and the ramparts--the fosse and the canal were frozen--and the church bells of the distant town had rung the carillon of Nöel at midnight--they admitted a confessor to the prisoner in his cell.

* * * * *

“What is the news, my Father? What has happened in the great roaring world whose voice has never reached me since these walls of Cyclopean masonry rose up about and penned me in? War had been proclaimed when I was arrested.... Has there been War? Is there War now?” Dunoisse asked.

* * * * *

But the priest made answer to his eager questions:

“My dear son, to gain admittance here I have pledged my word that I will not discuss with you any worldly matter. Let me, while I have the opportunity, give you news of the Kingdom of God.”

* * * * *

Dunoisse, so long a willing exile from that Kingdom, had been by slow and painful stages finding his way back there. Now, with the aid of the Church, he cleansed his sin-stained soul in the lustral waters of Confession. He was absolved. He received the Bread of Life.

* * * * *

It seemed to him at the supreme moment that a burning ray of Divine Light penetrated and illumined him. He saw himself clearly as he had never seen himself before. He understood how he had fallen from his old ideals, and strayed from the way of cleanliness and honor. He realized that Sympathy had been the missing link between himself and his fellow-men. He had loved one man. He had worshiped one woman with an overwhelming, guilty passion. Both friend and mistress had deceived him; and for this reason he had reared a wall of icy doubt between himself and the rest of Humanity.

You might have smiled, could you have seen him at this juncture trying to love his silent jailers, guessing at their hidden lives, wondering about their wives and families, probing without the aid of words, to reach their conjectural hearts.

And it seemed to him that they looked more pleasantly upon him. Probably it was so, for his black eyes had lost their piercing hardness, and his smile was no longer bitter and edged with scorn. Yet he suffered more, for the melting of the ice within his bosom had freed the springs of our common nature. He yearned for human kindness and human companionship. He thirsted for the voice and the grasp of friendship. He longed inexpressibly--and none the less that he knew himself to have forfeited the right to this--for some pure woman’s devoted love.

He looked out over the ramparts as the snows vanished, and a rosy tinge that spoke of coming spring stole over the leafless copses, and young green grass-blades peeped in the sheltered hollows; and the yellow aconite and the pale primrose bloomed, and the tall scraggy poplars of the thawing marshes showed the black knots of bud. He had never been beloved, it seemed to him.... Doubtless his mother had loved him--poor old Smithwick, dead many years ago, had certainly loved him. Adjmeh might have loved him--as some pampered pretty animal loves the master who tends and feeds it. Henriette had entertained a sensuous, fanciful passion for him. But Love he had never known, in its fullness, as it may exist between woman and man.

Once he had met a woman with a noble, earnest face and calm, pure, radiant eyes, and had gone upon his world’s way and had forgotten her. They had met again, on the night of the _coup d’État_, at the French Embassy in London. And her glance had pierced to the quick through his armor of selfishness, and vanity, and lust. She had not spared him reproach, though at their parting she had softened and relented. She had said in effect: “Though you are nothing to me now, I might have loved the man you used to be!” What had he not lost by that change? What might he not have gained had he chosen, instead of the easy road of pleasure, the stony path of rectitude! Dimly he began to realize what an inestimable treasure of tenderness, what an inexhaustible mine of shining loyalty, and glowing faith, and pure passion, had lain hidden in the heart of Ada Merling, for the lover who should prove himself worthy of the supreme boon.

Had the lover come? Was the great gift bestowed, or yet withheld? Dunoisse wondered as he paced his daily hour upon the Fortress ramparts, followed by the two warders who were bound to keep him in sight. Was she wedded or free? He asked himself this question over and over. And, by the stab of pain that followed when he said: “She is a wife!” he knew....

He loved her. Happy for her that Fate had sundered them, if by any remote chance she might have loved a man so little worthy of her as Hector Dunoisse. But she never would have ... she never could have.... He tried to follow her in thought as she went upon her selfless way. He saw her pure, sweet influence shed on other hearts to soften, and uplift, and cheer them. He saw the poor relieved by those generous hands. He heard the sick, healed by her skilled and gentle ministrations, blessing her. He dreamed of her--with a cruel pang--as endowing some true man with the priceless treasure of her love. He pictured her with their children rocked in her arms and nourished at her bosom. He imagined her growing old, and moving down the vale of years, leaning on the stalwart sons and matronly, handsome daughters, who should look up to her even as they aided her, in perfect confidence; and whose children, inheriting their tender reverence for that dearest mother, should love and trust her, too. And a great yearning swelled in his desolate heart, and his aching, mateless soul rushed out across the void to her....

“Ada!...”

In the anguish of his loneliness he lifted his arms to the wild, gray sky of March, and, in a voice that was like the wailing of the bitter wind across the marshes, cried on the beloved name:

“Oh, Ada!--Ada!...”

And--spun to the merest spider-thread of sound by infinite distance, her unforgettable voice answered ... beyond doubt or question answered:

“_I hear you.... Oh, where are you?_”

LXXXVII

He could not doubt that she had heard and answered. There was no explanation possible. It had happened, that was all. You may rub shoulders, in the course of a morning’s walk down one of the big world’s crowded thoroughfares, with a hundred men and women who are genuinely convinced of the impossibility of such communication between the minds and souls of those who, separated by countries, or continents, or oceans, are not even aware of one another’s whereabouts. But the hundred-and-first will be initiate. She or he will have felt the tightening of the invisible spider-thread, experienced the thrill, known the familiar touch upon the brow or breast--heard the beloved voice speaking at the inner ear. And, like Dunoisse, having experienced, they will refrain from questioning. It has happened.... When the time comes, it will certainly happen again....

Not long after, during an attack of fever, Dunoisse dreamed that he awakened in the chill gray dawn of a February morning to see Ada Merling sitting by his bed. It seemed so natural to have her there, and so divinely sweet and comforting, that he lay for a long time gazing at her, dwelling on each dear, remembered trait and lovely feature, breathing her atmosphere, drinking her in. She wore in this his vision of her, not the gray nurse’s dress of Cavendish Street, but a plain black gown, though the frilled white muslin cap of his remembrance sat close and sober, as of old, upon her rich, brown, waving hair, and the cambric apron made a splash of white upon the blackness of the dress. The lines of the pure features were a little sharpened, the eyes larger, the sensitive, clearly-cut lips were closely folded. She looked sadder ... older.... Even as he realized this she smiled; and such a radiance of beauty kindled in her, and shone forth from her, that he cried out in rapture and awakened; and in his weakness shed tears on finding himself a prisoner and alone.

But the dream, following the answer on the ramparts, left a clear impression. She was living, and yet unwedded, and she had not forgotten him--not quite forgotten him! The conviction of this gave him new strength to live. Later on he received another intimation, not from the living world beyond the ramparts and the poplared marshes, but from the other World that is beyond the Veil.

It came to him one day at dusk with a crisping of the hair and a shuddering of the flesh that was not terror--rather wonder and awe, and solemn gladness. The day had been dark and rainy. His lamp had not been lighted, the scanty fire burned low in the rusty grate. Dunoisse sat thinking, leaning his elbows on the table where his silent servitor had set his meager supper. And suddenly the recollection of his mother as he had last seen her rose up in him. The whisper of her woolen draperies seemed to cross the rough brick floor, her thin light touch was between his eyebrows, tracing there the Sacred Sign. And almost without conscious volition her son rose up, placed a rush-seated chair opposite his own at the poorly-furnished table; filled a goblet with pure water, cut bread, laid it upon a plate, sprinkled a Cross of salt upon it, and set it for his unseen guest.... Then he resumed his own seat and ate, comprehending that she wished it. And as he ate he talked, in low, soft murmurs, as though answering.... Depend upon it, one never pours out one’s hidden self so freely as when one speaks with the beloved dead.

And then he found himself rising up, bidding God-speed and farewell to the guest unseen, in a solemn form of words quite strange to him. And then he knew himself alone.

Upon the following morning, being unexpectedly visited by the Commandant, he said to the official:

“Sir, I already know what you have come to tell me. My mother died yesterday.”

The Commandant started, and dropped a paper. It was a telegraphic message from the Minister of the Interior, conveying, and bidding him impart the news. He asked the prisoner:

“How did you hear this?”

And Dunoisse smiled so strangely in answer that the Commandant’s next official report contained the sentence quoted hereunder:

“_No. X.--the officer confined during His Imperial Majesty’s pleasure--is undoubtedly becoming insane._”

“_Zut!_” said de Morny with a shrug, when Sire my Friend showed him this communication. “That is what you wanted, is it not?” He added: “You have used the man, and broken the man! When you need him again--he will not be available. Brains of such caliber as his are not often found under a Staff-officer’s cocked hat. Leave him shut up--and they will find them plastered on the wall one morning.... Heads are softer than walls; madmen always remember that!”

He shrugged again, and the shrug and the cynical inflection dismissed the subject of discussion. But not many weeks subsequently the Commandant again visited Dunoisse, and said to him abruptly:

“You are free.”

“Free!...”

Dunoisse trembled in every limb, and caught at the table to save himself from falling. So well had the instructions of Sire my Friend been carried out, that all hope of being delivered out of his bondage had abandoned him. It was almost appalling to learn that he might now ask questions. He faltered out:

“How long have I been here?” and was told:

“About six months.”

Six months!... If they had said six years, Dunoisse would have believed them. Could it be possible that such slow, interminable agonies as he had drunk of, such painful resignation as he had fought for and won, had been packed into so short a space of time as half-a-year? He asked for a mirror he had been denied--and they brought him one. He looked in it, and saw a face bleached to the tint of reddish ivory, framed in white hair that fell in waving locks almost to the shoulders. The long straggling mustache and beard were of white with streaks of blackness. From the deep caves under the arched black eyebrows the bright black eyes of Hector Dunoisse looked back at him. But they looked with a gentleness that was new. And the smile that hovered about the sharply-modeled lips had in it a sorrowful, patient sweetness that the smile of Dunoisse had never had previously. It was partly this change that had caused the Commandant to report the prisoner as insane.

Dunoisse’s watch and chain, with his penknife, pencil-case, and razors were now restored to him, with his clothes and a portion of the considerable sum of money that had been taken from him at the time of his arrest. A military barber of the garrison trimmed his hair and reduced the mustache and beard to more conventional proportions. Attired in a well-worn suit of gray traveling clothes, hanging in folds upon his stooping emaciated figure, you saw the late prisoner take leave of the Commandant and step into a closed carriage that was waiting in the courtyard, with an officer of police in plain clothes seated by the driver on the box. When the carriage rumbled out under the great square gate-tower erected in the fifteenth century by the Count of St. Pol, the man inside had an access of nervous trembling. He shut his eyes, and presently the shadow passed, and he could look upon the free, fair world again.

* * * * *

It was the end of October; the gaunt poplars had shed their yellowed leaves, and the haws were scarlet on the bushes. Mists hung over the marshes--the odor of decaying vegetation came to Dunoisse with each free breath he drew.

He could no longer judge of time, and the watch they had returned to him had not been wound up. It seemed to him a drive of many hours before the carriage stopped. He was told to get out, and obeyed. He found himself in a graveled enclosure outside a railway-station. His meager baggage was deposited. The carriage was driven away. It was so marvelous to have a porter come and pick up his battered valise and light portmanteau, and so overwhelming to be asked where the latter was to be labeled for, that Dunoisse, standing on the Paris departure platform, could only stare at the interrogative porter, and answer after a bewildered silence:

“I really do not know!”

* * * * *