Night and Morning Part 41

At this sally, the coiners, who had gathered round the table, uttered the shout with which, in all circ.u.mstances, Frenchmen receive a bon mot.

"Humph!" said Gawtrey. "Who responds with his own life for your fidelity?"

"I," said Birnie.

"Administer the oath to him."

Suddenly four men advanced, seized the visitor, and bore him from the vault into another one within. After a few moments they returned.

"He has taken the oath and heard the penalty."

"Death to yourself, your wife, your son, and your grandson, if you betray us!"

"I have neither son nor grandson; as for my wife, Monsieur le Capitaine, you offer a bribe instead of a threat when you talk of her death."

"Sacre! but you will be an addition to our circle, mon brave!" said Gawtrey, laughing; while again the grim circle shouted applause.

"But I suppose you care for your own life."

"Otherwise I should have preferred starving to coming here," answered the laconic neophyte.

"I have done with you. Your health!"

On this the coiners gathered round Monsieur Giraumont, shook him by the hand, and commenced many questions with a view to ascertain his skill.

"Show me your coinage first; I see you use both the die and the furnace. Hem! this piece is not bad--you have struck it from an iron die?--right--it makes the impression sharper than plaster of Paris. But you take the poorest and the most dangerous part of the trade in taking the home market. I can put you in a way to make ten times as much--and with safety. Look at this!"--and Monsieur Giraumont took a forged Spanish dollar from his pocket, so skilfully manufactured that the connoisseurs were lost in admiration--"you may pa.s.s thousands of these all over Europe, except France, and who is ever to detect you? But it will require better machinery than you have here."

Thus conversing, Monsieur Giraumont did not perceive that Mr. Gawtrey had been examining him very curiously and minutely. But Birnie had noted their chief's attention, and once attempted to join his new ally, when Gawtrey laid his hand on his shoulder, and stopped him.

"Do not speak to your friend till I bid you, or--" he stopped short, and touched his pistols.

Birnie grew a shade more pale, but replied with his usual sneer:

"Suspicious!--well, so much the better!" and seating himself carelessly at the table, lighted his pipe.

"And now, Monsieur Giraumont," said Gawtrey, as he took the head of the table, "come to my right hand. A half-holiday in your honour. Clear these infernal instruments; and more wine, mes amis!"

The party arranged themselves at the table. Among the desperate there is almost invariably a tendency to mirth. A solitary ruffian, indeed, is moody, but a gang of ruffians are jovial. The coiners talked and laughed loud. Mr. Birnie, from his dogged silence, seemed apart from the rest, though in the centre. For in a noisy circle a silent tongue builds a wall round its owner. But that respectable personage kept his furtive watch upon Giraumont and Gawtrey, who appeared talking together, very amicably. The younger novice of that night, equally silent, seated towards the bottom of the table, was not less watchful than Birnie. An uneasy, undefinable foreboding had come over him since the entrance of Monsieur Giraumont; this had been increased by the manner of Mr.

Gawtrey. His faculty of observation, which was very acute, had detected something false in the chief's blandness to their guest--something dangerous in the glittering eye that Gawtrey ever, as he spoke to Giraumont, bent on that person's lips as he listened to his reply. For, whenever William Gawtrey suspected a man, he watched not his eyes, but his lips.

Waked from his scornful reverie, a strange spell chained Morton's attention to the chief and the guest, and he bent forward, with parted mouth and straining ear, to catch their conversation.

"It seems to me a little strange," said Mr. Gawtrey, raising his voice so as to be heard by the party, "that a coiner so dexterous as Monsieur Giraumont should not be known to any of us except our friend Birnie."

"Not at all," replied Giraumont; "I worked only with Bouchard and two others since sent to the galleys. We were but a small fraternity--everything has its commencement."

"C'est juste: buvez, donc, cher ami!"

The wine circulated. Gawtrey began again:

"You have had a bad accident, seemingly, Monsieur Giraumont. How did you lose your eye?"

"In a scuffle with the gens d' armes the night Bouchard was taken and I escaped. Such misfortunes are on the cards."

"C'est juste: buvez, donc, Monsieur Giraumont!"

Again there was a pause, and again Gawtrey's deep voice was heard.

"You wear a wig, I think, Monsieur Giraumont? To judge by your eyelashes your own hair has been a handsomer colour."

"We seek disguise, not beauty, my host; and the police have sharp eyes."

"C'est juste: buvez, donc-vieux Renard! When did we two meet last?"

"Never, that I know of."

"Ce n'est pas vrai! buvez, donc, MONSIEUR FAVART!"

At the sound of that name the company started in dismay and confusion, and the police officer, forgetting himself for the moment, sprang from his seat, and put his right hand into his blouse.

"Ho, there!--treason!" cried Gawtrey, in a voice of thunder; and he caught the unhappy man by the throat. It was the work of a moment.

Morton, where he sat, beheld a struggle--he heard a death-cry. He saw the huge form of the master-coiner rising above all the rest, as cutla.s.ses gleamed and eyes sparkled round. He saw the quivering and powerless frame of the unhappy guest raised aloft in those mighty arms, and presently it was hurled along the table-bottles cras.h.i.+ng--the board shaking beneath its weight--and lay before the very eyes of Morton, a distorted and lifeless ma.s.s. At the same instant Gawtrey sprang upon the table, his black frown singling out from the group the ashen, cadaverous face of the shrinking traitor. Birnie had darted from the table--he was half-way towards the sliding door--his face, turned over his shoulder, met the eyes of the chief.

"Devil!" shouted Gawtrey, in his terrible voice, which the echoes of the vault gave back from side to side. "Did I not give thee up my soul that thou mightest not compa.s.s my death? Hark ye! thus die my slavery and all our secrets!" The explosion of his pistol half swallowed up the last word, and with a single groan the traitor fell on the floor, pierced through the brain--then there was a dead and grim hush as the smoke rolled slowly along the roof of the dreary vault.

Morton sank back on his seat, and covered his face with his hands. The last seal on the fate of THE MAN OF CRIME was set; the last wave in the terrible and mysterious tide of his destiny had dashed on his soul to the sh.o.r.e whence there is no return. Vain, now and henceforth, the humour, the sentiment, the kindly impulse, the social instincts which had invested that stalwart shape with dangerous fascination, which had implied the hope of ultimate repentance, of redemption even in this world. The HOUR and the CIRc.u.mSTANCE had seized their prey; and the self-defence, which a lawless career rendered a necessity, left the eternal die of blood upon his doom!

"Friends, I have saved you," said Gawtrey, slowly gazing on the corpse of his second victim, while he turned the pistol to his belt. "I have not quailed before this man's eye" (and he spurned the clay of the officer as he spoke with a revengeful scorn) "without treasuring up its aspect in my heart of hearts. I knew him when he entered--knew him through his disguise--yet, faith, it was a clever one! Turn up his face and gaze on him now; he will never terrify us again, unless there be truth in ghosts!"

Murmuring and tremulous the coiners scrambled on the table and examined the dead man. From this task Gawtrey interrupted them, for his quick eye detected, with the pistols under the policeman's blouse, a whistle of metal of curious construction, and he conjectured at once that danger was at hand.

"I have saved you, I say, but only for the hour. This deed cannot sleep.

See, he had help within call! The police knew where to look for their comrade--we are dispersed. Each for himself. Quick, divide the spoils!

Sauve qui peat!"

Then Morton heard where he sat, his hands still clasped before his face, a confused hubbub of voices, the jingle of money, the scrambling of feet, the creaking of doors. All was silent!

A strong grasp drew his hands from his eyes.

"Your first scene of life against life," said Gawtrey's voice, which seemed fearfully changed to the ear that beard it. "Bah! what would you think of a battle? Come to our eyrie: the carca.s.ses are gone."

Morton looked fearfully round the vault. He and Gawtrey were alone. His eyes sought the places where the dead had lain--they were removed--no vestige of the deeds, not even a drop of blood.

"Come, take up your cutla.s.s, come!" repeated the voice of the chief, as with his dim lantern--now the sole light of the vault--he stood in the shadow of the doorway.

Morton rose, took up the weapon mechanically, and followed that terrible guide, mute and unconscious, as a Soul follows a Dream through the House of Sleep!