The Price of Things Part 43

A great wave of relief swept over Stepan. So he was not to be the instrument of justice after all!

How profoundly he thanked G.o.d!

But the irony of the thing shook him.

Harietta would pay with her life for having maltreated a dog!

Truly the workings of fate were marvellous.

CHAPTER XXIII

The days in prison for Harietta, before and after her trial, were days of frenzied terror, alternating with incredulity. She would not believe that she was to die.

Stanisla.s.s and Ferdinand, and even Verisschenzko, would save her!

She loathed the hard bed at St. Lazare, and the discomfort, and the ugliness, and the Sister of Charity!

She spent hours tramping her cell like a wild beast in a cage. She would roar with inarticulate fury, and cry aloud to her husband, and her lovers, one after another, and then she would cower in a corner, shaking with fear.

The greatest pain of all was the thought that Stepan and Amaryllis would marry and be happy. Once or twice foam gathered at the corners of her lips when she thought of this.

If she could have reached Marie, that would have given her some satisfaction--to tear out her eyes! For Ferdinand Ardayre had told her how Marie had given her up, working quietly until she had all necessary proofs, and then denouncing her.

When Stanisla.s.s had returned from the Club, whither she had despatched him for the evening, so that she might be free to dine with Verisschenzko, he found that she had already been taken away.

The shock, when he discovered that nothing could be done, had nearly killed him--he now lay dangerously ill in a Maison de Sante, happily unconscious of events.

For Ferdinand Ardayre the blow had fallen with crus.h.i.+ng force. The one strong thing in his weak nature was his pa.s.sion for Harietta--and to be robbed of her in such a way!

He battled impotently against fate, unable even to try to use any means in his possession to get the death sentence commuted, because he was too deeply implicated himself to make any stir.

He saw her in the prison after the trial, with the bars between and the warders near. And the awful change in Tier paralysed him with grief. On the morrow she was to die--the usual death of a spy.

Her hair was wild and her face without rouge was haggard and wan.

She implored him to save her.

The frightful pain of knowing that he could do nothing made Ferdinand desperate, and then suddenly he became inspired with an idea.

He could at all events remove some of the agony of terror from her, and enable her to go to her death without a hideous scene. He remembered "La Tosca"--the same method might serve again!

He managed to whisper to her in broken sentences that she would certainly be saved. The plan was all prepared, he a.s.sured her. The rifles would contain blank cartridges, and she must pretend to fall--and afterwards he would come, having bribed every one and made the path smooth.

He lied so fervently that Harietta was convinced, her material brain catching at any straw. She must dress herself and look her best, he told her, so as to make an impression upon all the men concerned; and then, when he had to leave her, he arranged with the prison doctor that she might receive a strong _piqure_ of morphine, so that she would be serene. She spent the night dreaming quite happily and at four o'clock was awakened and began to dress.

The drug had calmed all her terrors and her dramatic instinct held full sway.

She arranged her toilet with the utmost care, using all her arts to beautify herself. In her ears were Stanisla.s.s' ruby earrings and she wore Stepan's ring and brooch.

Death to her was an impossibility--she had never seen any one die.

It was a wonderfully fine part she would have to play, with Ferdinand there really going to save her! That was all! She must even be sweet at last to the poor sister, whom she had snarled at hitherto.

If she could only have seen Stepan once more! Stanisla.s.s and his broken life and fond devotion never gave her a thought or troubled her at all.

After she was free, she would find some means to pay out Hans! She hated him. If it had not been for Hans and his tiresome old higher command with their stupid intrigues, she would still be free. That she had betrayed countries--that she was guilty in any way never presented itself to her mind.

All Verisschenzko's pa.s.sionate indictment had fallen upon unheeding ears.

The morphine now left her only sufficiently conscious for fundamental instincts to act.

She felt that she was a beautiful woman going to be the chief figure in a wonderfully dramatic scene. Nothing solemn had touched her. Her brain was light and now only filled with cunning and _coqueterie_; she meant to charm her guards and executioners to the last man! And ready at length, she walked nonchalantly out of the prison and into the waiting car which was to carry her to Vincennes.

Now the end of all this is best told in the words of a young French soldier who was an eye witness and wrote the whole thing down. To pen the hideous horror I find too difficult a task.

"Sunday--11 in the evening.

"We had only returned at that moment from our day's leave, when the Lieutenant came to us to announce that we should be of the _piquet_ to-morrow morning for the execution of Madame Boleski, the spy.

"He said this to us in his monotonous voice as though he had been saying 'To-morrow--_Revue d'Armes_'--but for us, after a whole day pa.s.sed far from barracks, it was a rather brusque return to military realities!

"At once it became necessary that we look through our accountrements for the show. No small affair! and for more than an hour there was brus.h.i.+ng and polis.h.i.+ng of straps and buckles. It was nearly two o'clock in the morning before we could turn in.

"Many of us could not sleep--we are all between eighteen and nineteen years old, and the idea to see a woman killed agitated us. But little by little the whole band dozed."

"Monday morning.

"At four o'clock--reveille. We dress in haste in the dark. Ten minutes later we all find ourselves in the courtyard.

"'_A droit alignement couvres sur deux_.'

"The Lieutenant made the call."

"The detachment moves off in the night, marching in slow cadence--that step which so peculiarly gives the impression of restrained force and condensed power.

"We leave the fort and gain the artillery b.u.t.ts--true landscape of the front! Trenches, stripped trees, abandoned wagons!

"And in the middle of all that--our silhouettes of carbines, casques and sacs.

"Absolute silence.

"We stop--we advance--and suddenly in the dawn which has begun, we arrive at our destination--the execution ground.

"'_Cannoniers--halte! Couvres sur deux. A droite alignement_.'"