The Mystery of the Lost Dauphin Part 35

Again he embraced her and together they recalled incidents of the past.

"Do you remember," he asked, "how in prison a wall separated us and we were never permitted to speak together? Well, I used to place my ear to the wall and listen for your footsteps."

"Charles Louis," she said with a great effort, "if love of your sister has caused you to seek me, prove that love by granting a request."

"Ask my life if you will."

"What I ask may be more difficult to give. I am going to beg you,--listen!--to renounce what you have so long desired. Be very calm.

The Revolution submerged the throne, the altar and whatever our family represented and supported. Providence has replaced us on the throne; the great days of the monarchy have returned; the churches have been re-opened; our country has been reconciled to its monarchs and its G.o.d,--the G.o.d who has placed the crown upon our uncle's head rather than upon yours. G.o.d has perhaps selected you as the victim, innocent tho you be. He has required your sacrifice and he continues to require it. To what do you aspire today? Are you thinking of placing arms in the hands of our father's executioners? Have you come, Charles Louis, to win the applause of h.e.l.l?"

He could not answer for gazing upon her.

"Your duty is to retire to peace and quietude. Whatever be your rights, your duty is to stifle your pretensions. I a.s.sure you this is true."

"And my children, Therese? My sons? I have the sons which have been denied to both you and Ferdinand. No one but me can present an heir. My seed has fallen upon blessed ground in being mingled with the people."

The d.u.c.h.ess experienced great anger, as she always did at any allusion to her sterility, and she retorted harshly:

"The heir whom you present is from a woman of low extraction, the fruit of a union unsanctioned by the Catholic Church. And you dare aspire to the throne? Remember the Corsican! He also sought to improvise a dynasty. All that survives of that farce is the daughter of a real emperor and the son of the adventurer, sheltered by that emperor's throne. If you believed yourself a king, why did you marry a plebeian?

Why did you not restrain your pa.s.sions? And you complain of your fate?

As for your heart, you have followed its impulses. I married my cousin because the state required the union--Ferdinand separated from his loved Amy Brown and abandoned his children, one of them a son, in order to marry Caroline. Are you willing to do likewise? I know well you are not. Believe me, believe me, Charles Louis, life is not what we would wish but as G.o.d ordains it to be. Your fate has been to live far from the throne--Resign yourself to the decree. Do not violate the most holy PRINCIPLE, the PRINCIPLE for which our father died. He adjures you from the tomb to accept your lot."

Her eloquence subjugated him, for she spoke from her heart's conviction.

"G.o.d was G.o.d, yet he lived and died a man," she continued. "Live then and die a man, my brother. Will you?--a man of the people."

In a transport of abnegation, he kissed her cheeks and said:

"I will."

In confirmation of his promise, he drew the casket of doc.u.ments from his breast and held them toward her.

"Here they are," he said. "Here are the papers which sustain my claims.

They are of such a nature, especially the testimony of the unhappy Pichegru, Charette, Hoche and Josephine that I could demand the throne by presenting them in a court. I despoil myself of my personality, of my strength. I become again Naundorff, the obscure mechanic, the impostor, the convict, the outlaw! Take the papers, Marie Therese, I give them to you. The sacrifice is accomplished. Have you more to ask of me? And now, sister, holy love of my life, all that remains to me of my mother,--call me once more Charles Louis--let me rest my forehead on your breast."

She was scarcely able to control herself. He attracted and repelled her by turns. She was about to extend her hand for the papers when, by the light of the setting sun, intense and red, he so greatly resembled her father that she dared not accomplish her purpose. With involuntary reverence, she said:

"No, Charles Louis, the papers are yours. Keep them. Promise me, only, that you will not misuse them. I shall be satisfied with your word. I ask this of you because I must. Accept your fate, as I accept mine.

Accept it as you would a cross. O Charles Louis, the Past is irrevocable, your Past and mine, and who knows which of us has suffered the more greatly? Farewell, farewell, my brother. Do not forget your oath."

"I shall remember it, my sister. G.o.d bless you! I have received all that I expected from you. I count this day happy. I shall remove with my family to Holland. May my children never suffer the pangs of poverty! I trust that no further a.s.saults will be made upon my life. And now, for one moment--"

He laid his head upon the lady's shoulder and wept.

Chapter VIII

THE AMBUSH

As Naundorff left the garden, a man, hidden amid the shrubbery advanced cautiously and reached the little gate holding there a short conversation with one of the spies, La Grive.

"He carries a casket which must be captured. I reiterate my previous instructions. That casket must be seized. Where are Sec and Lestrade?"

"Within two steps. Shall I call them?"

"Keep very quiet. Remember to make no use of firearms. If he make no resistance, do not harm him. Run. Find the others. He is almost here."

"Very well."

The two spies, disguised as guards, separated. Volpetti waited back of the gate and on Naundorff's arrival, he solicitously held it open.

Naundorff did not look toward the other, but even had he, the black hair and beard of Albert Serra would have misled him completely. He was surrounded by the party of spies, who were in turn surrounded by de Breze and the Carbonari. The latter were concealed by the foliage, from a height dominating the path. Like the spies, they had planned to use firearms only in case of an extremity.

Naundorff pa.s.sed through the gate, deep in thought. His sister's voice was in his ears; he felt again her caresses. His mind was at peace and the incert.i.tude regarding his individuality set at rest. Had she not called him brother? Now he was tranquil, free from tormenting doubts.

Despoiled of his rights, perhaps, but impostor or maniac never! He thought of Amelie, dreading to tell her the result of the interview.

Suddenly a hand was placed over his mouth, his arms were pinned to his sides and he could neither cry nor defend himself. Volpetti searched him and possessed himself of the case of papers with a triumphant laugh.

There was no need to employ force; nevertheless, through an excess of precaution the spies gagged their victim and tied his hands.

All this was accomplished with the utmost celerity. Naundorff had been reduced to immobility when de Breze and the two Carbonari ran up. Using cudgels, they stunned Lestrade and disabled La Grive. De Breze then devoted himself to Sec, and Giacinto turned, infuriated, on Volpetti.

This king of spies held the papers, determined to keep them at the cost of his life, and was for this reason unable to handle his hunting knife with his accustomed dexterity. The Sicilian dealt him a vigorous blow on the collar bone which caused him to drop the case of papers. Lights danced in his eyes and he felt as tho about to swoon. With a great effort he recovered his senses sufficiently to aim a blow at Giacinto's neck, as the Sicilian stooped to grasp the case. The wound would have been fatal had not Giacinto evaded it by a rapid movement which resembled the spring of a tiger. All the evil which his family had suffered from Volpetti flashed thro lis mind and outweighed Naundorffs interests; he forgot the papers for his own grievances, especially his brother's body hanging from the gibbet. Clinching his white teeth, he dashed upon the enemy, knocked the knife out of his hand and jerked the false beard from his face. Volpetti lacked neither courage nor coolness, but he was a constructive intelligence rather than a physical force.

Giacinto was much the younger and just now impelled by a homicidal vertigo. Volpetti sought to rise, but Giacinto pushed his head back and knelt with one knee upon his breast. In an access of savage joy, he cut through his neck, accompanying the action with dreadful oaths and invocations to the Madonna.

While the Sicilian satiated his thirst for vengeance, one of the other spies, La Grive, regained his footing and fought desperately with Louis Pierre, whom he quickly so battered with fist blows that the Knight of Liberty lay p.r.o.ne upon the gra.s.s. La Grive next turned his attention upon Giacinto and Volpetti. The latter lay dead in a pool of blood. The case of papers was near. He remembered the leader's injunction: 'The casket must be saved, at all costs.' Seizing his opportunity, while Giacinto feasted his eyes upon his dead enemy, he grasped the papers and ran off, soon being lost among the trees. So vanished the last proofs of Naundorff's ident.i.ty.

The defeat was complete. It was the culmination of the lengthy drama initiated in prison and developed in London, Dover, Picmort and Paris.

While La Grive possessed himself of the papers Rene was engaged in combat with the brutal and athletic Sec. At length he dispossessed him of his hunting knife and threw him senseless, as he thought, to the ground. Then he ran swiftly to Naundorff and cut his cords. Sec watched his opportunity. Gliding noiselessly toward his vanquisher, he aimed a bullet which made Rene spin around and fall lifeless to the ground. It had pierced his heart.

Meanwhile, the d.u.c.h.ess, motionless on her garden seat, was powerless to summon the courage to return to the castle. Scarcely could she restrain herself from running after Naundorff, calling, "Brother, brother!" The sun no longer reddened the sky. The evening was chill. Suddenly a shot rang out. She shuddered but remained paralyzed, in the throes of conflicting emotions. The branches rustled and swift footsteps hurried along the path. Was this an apparition? A young girl in black, her face framed in a glory of golden hair, her hands raised menacingly and dropping blood! It was the image of her mother, her eyes gleaming, her mouth livid and mutely p.r.o.nouncing maledictions and her forefinger held prophetically and accusingly in the d.u.c.h.ess's face.

Marie Therese de Bourbon fell upon the ground, writhing and groaning: "Mother, mother!"

Chapter IX

GIACINTO'S FATE

Soliviac nimbly leaped to the wharf from a skiff and held out his hands to Louis Pierre and Giacinto. He uncovered respectfully to Naundorff and Amelie and caressed Baby d.i.c.k's head, as the little fellow clung to his adoptive mother's hand.

Amelie, in deep mourning, was the shadow of her former self. Wasted away, almost blue in her pallor, her sunken eyes surrounded by red circles, and of an agonized expression, she was indeed the picture of the unhappy queen; not the queen in faces and crowned with roses, but the queen of the prison and the guillotine. Like unto Marie Antoinette, sorrow only augmented her grace and dignity. When she held her hand to Soliviac to be kissed, no court might show so regal a movement.

Naundorff opened his arms to Soliviac, both shedding tears.

"When do we start?" the former asked, as though longing to be off.