The Temptress Part 48

The prospect of escape immediately suggested itself, and ten minutes later the three men had embarked, and were rowing swiftly round another headland, so as to avoid being observed by those on the s.h.i.+p. After proceeding a couple of miles along a sh.o.r.e they well knew was deserted, they turned the boat's head and made straight for the open sea. Excited at the prospect of freedom, all three bent to the oars, exerting every muscle, for they were compelled to get out of sight before their absence was discovered, otherwise they would be pursued and most probably shot down.

Onward they pulled, until the island was only just visible, a dark blue line upon the far-off horizon: then after pausing for half-an-hour's rest, they resumed rowing with courage and confidence inspired by thoughts of the free life that lay before them.

The cool breeze of evening refreshed them, and through the long night they struggled on, bending to their oars with a will, even singing s.n.a.t.c.hes of songs to the rhythm of the oars in the rowlocks. Never since their transportation had they experienced such joy as during those first few hours of freedom on the wide silent sea. But happiness does not allay hunger, and when about midnight they thought of food, they discovered to their dismay that there was not a morsel of anything eatable or a drop of fresh water in the boat.

Deep gloomy forebodings succeeded their brief period of happiness, and just before dawn the hungry, adventurous fugitives threw themselves down in the bottom of the boat and slept. In the morning the wind dropped, and there was a dead, breathless calm, that had since been unbroken.

Hugh Trethowen sat motionless and helpless, enduring in silence agony indescribable. Whither they were drifting he knew not, cared not. He knew his fate was sealed.

His companion was the man who had spoken to him on that evening when he was hesitating whether he should abandon belief in an Almighty Power, and now, as he leaned beside his fellow-convict, he was wondering which of them would die first. His brain was on fire; he could not move his eyes without acute pain, for their sockets felt as if they had been filled with molten lead. The pains through his cramped limbs were excruciating, yet he was in a drowsy lethargy--conscious and alive to the fact that the bodily torture was fast sapping his life; that ere the sun went down he would be dead.

The hours of furnace heat wore on more slowly than before: hunger, thirst, and madness waxed fiercer.

With that strange faculty possessed by dying persons he seemed to live the chief incidents of his career over again, each vividly and in rapid succession. But in all his wife was the central figure. The thought that he should never see her again--that now, when within an ace of regaining freedom and returning to her, he was to be cut off--roused him. Struggling against these gloomy apprehensions, he ground his teeth and, resting his elbows on his knees, determined to conquer pain and cheat the Avenger.

Taking the handkerchief from his forehead, he dipped it into the sea and again bandaged his head.

The other man looked up and moaned. He had pa.s.sed the active stage of suffering. All grew more and more like a confused dream, in which he saw nothing clearly, except, at intervals, the grave sadness of Trethowen's face, as he sat awaiting insanity or death.

The groans of his fellow-sufferer did not escape Hugh. He groped about and found a small piece of canvas to lay under the man's head; it was all he could do to make him comfortable.

There was but little difference in the condition of all three now. Even the madman's fit had pa.s.sed away, and he was lying back motionless, with bright, fevered eyes gazing aimlessly upward into the cloudless vault of blue.

After a long silence, broken only by the gasps and agonised groans of the suffering men, the convict by whose side Hugh was lying stirred uneasily, and turned his wide-open, gla.s.sy eyes towards his companion.

"Tre--Tre--thowen!" he gasped hoa.r.s.ely.

Hugh started up in surprise. All his strength came back to him in that moment. It was the first time he had been addressed by name since his transportation.

"How do you know me?" he inquired in French, regarding the prostrate man with a new interest.

The other sighed as he pressed his hand to his burning brow.

"_Dieu_!" he cried, "this awful heat will drive me mad." Then, looking round with wolfish eyes, he asked: "What was I saying? Ah, yes, you-- you don't recognise me? I cannot hide my ident.i.ty any longer. I'm dying. Does a beard make such a great alteration in a man's countenance?"

"Recognise you! How should I?" asked Hugh, now thoroughly aroused from his lethargy.

"Then you don't--remember--the Comte Chaulin-Serviniere--at Spa?"

"Count Lucien!--Valerie's cousin!" cried Hugh, in incredulous astonishment, as he suddenly recognised the man's features. "Why--good G.o.d! yes. Only imagine, we have been comrades so long, yet I failed to recognise you. How came you to be sent to this infernal doom?"

"It was _her_ doing."

"Whose?"

"Valerie's."

He ground his teeth viciously, and his bright eyes flashed as he uttered her name.

"How is that? Remember she is my wife?" Hugh exclaimed with wrath.

"Yes--alas for you?"

"What do you mean?" asked he, gazing at him fixedly, half inclined to accept his words as the manifestation of approaching madness.

"You--you married her. Ah! I know how it was all brought about. It was an evil hour, an accursed day, when you tied yourself to her, for her murderous clique have made us both their victims. I meant to live and escape, so that I could bring upon her that merciless judgment she richly deserves, but I--I'm dying. _Dieu_! Give me water! Just one drop!" he implored piteously. "For the love of heaven give me Something to drink. My throat's on fire. Can't you see I'm choking?" he added in a husky, intense voice.

Hugh looked into the dying man's face and shook his head sadly.

"Ah! none. I comprehend," he moaned. Then, with a sudden fierceness, he cried: "I'm dying--dying. _Ciel_! I shall never have the satisfaction of witnessing her degradation, of seeing her white neck severed by Monsieur Deibler at La Roquette!"

"Tell me. What do you mean by victims?" inquired Trethowen breathlessly.

The astonishment at discovering the ident.i.ty of his comrade had given him renewed strength.

Again the man pa.s.sed his hand across his drawn, haggard face, and wiped the death-sweat from his brow.

"I haven't the strength--to tell you all. Ah! water--for G.o.d's sake give me water!"

His tongue, swollen and red, was protruding from his mouth as he lay panting for breath and clutching at his parched throat in a paroxysm of pain.

When this had subsided, he continued--

"Now--now, before it's too late, swear--swear by all you hold sacred to do my bidding."

"What do you mean? I don't understand."

"If--if I tell you the secret and you escape from this, you'll be able to take my place as a living witness of her guilt--you'll be able to wreak vengeance upon her in my stead; to end a career, dark and dishonourable, shadowed by a terrible crime."

"Relate the facts," urged the younger man impatiently, for he well knew that the other's strength was fast failing, and feared lest the end should come before he could narrate the story.

"You have not sworn. Take an oath to deliver her up to justice should you escape, then I will show you the full extent of her villainy."

The dying man's terrible earnestness alarmed him.

"How can I do so until I am convinced?" he argued. What proof was there, he reflected, that Valerie had been false to him? After all, perhaps these wild words were the irresponsible expressions of a person whose mind was unhinged.

At that moment the madman in the boat's stern started up with a fearful oath, afterwards laughing, fiendishly, and keeping up a hideous gibbering which added to the horror of Trethowen's surroundings.

"Answer me," said his companion, in a low, guttural voice. "Will you take the oath?"

He hesitated, remembering that she was his wife, the woman he trusted implicitly, and whom he still adored, believing her to be good and pure.

Yet here was a chance to ascertain something about her past, the secret of which had been so strangely preserved by Egerton. The temptation proved too great. To humour an imbecile, he thought, was justifiable.

Turning to the dying man, he exclaimed suddenly--"I swear."

The anxious wearied expression on the man's face almost momentarily disappeared on obtaining a decisive answer from his comrade, and after a few moments' silence he grew calmer, and his breathing became more easy.

In obedience to a motion from him, Hugh placed his ear closer, at the same time pa.s.sing his arm gently under the sufferer's head.