The Secret of Sarek Part 12

"Maguennoc has been killed."

This time Correjou lost all his composure: and his features expressed that sort of insane terror which Veronique had repeatedly observed in Honorine. He made the sign of the cross and said, in a low whisper:

"Then . . . then . . . it's happening, Ma'me Honorine? . . . Maguennoc said it would . . . . Only the other day, in my boat, he was saying, 'It won't be long now . . . . Everybody ought to get away.'"

And suddenly the sailor turned on his heel and made for the staircase.

"Stay where you are, Correjou," said Honorine, in a voice of command.

"We must get away. Maguennoc said so. Everybody has got to go."

"Stay where you are," Honorine repeated.

Correjou stopped, undecidedly. And Honorine continued:

"We are agreed. We must go. We shall start to-morrow, towards the evening. But first we must attend to Monsieur Antoine and to Marie Le Goff. Look here, you go to the sisters Archignat and send them to keep watch by the dead. They are bad women, but they are used to doing that.

Say that two of the three must come. Each of them shall have double the ordinary fee."

"And after that, Ma'me Honorine?"

"You and all the old men will see to the coffins; and at daybreak we will bury the bodies in consecrated ground, in the cemetery of the chapel."

"And after that, Ma'me Honorine?"

"After that, you will be free and the others too. You can pack up and be off."

"But you, Ma'me Honorine?"

"I have the boat. That's enough talking. Are we agreed?"

"Yes, we're agreed. It means one more night to spend here. But I suppose that nothing fresh will happen between this and to-morrow? . . ."

"Why no, why no . . . Go, Correjou. Hurry. And above all don't tell the others that Maguennoc is dead . . . or we shall never keep them here."

"That's a promise, Ma'me Honorine."

The man hastened away.

An hour later, two of the sisters Archignat appeared, two skinny, shrivelled old hags, looking like witches in their dirty, greasy caps with the black-velvet bows. Honorine was taken to her own room on the same floor, at the end of the left wing.

And the vigil of the dead began.

Veronique spent the first part of the night beside her father's body and then went and sat with Honorine, whose condition seemed to grow worse.

She ended by dozing off and was wakened by the Breton woman, who said to her, in one of those accesses of fever in which the brain still retains a certain lucidity:

"Francois must be hiding . . . and M. Stephane too . . . The island has safe hiding-places, which Maguennoc showed them. We shan't see them, therefore; and no one will know anything about them."

"Are you sure?"

"Quite. So listen to me. To-morrow, when everybody has left Sarek and when we two are alone, I shall blow the signal with my horn and he will come here."

Veronique was horrified:

"But I don't want to see him!" she exclaimed, indignantly. "I loathe him! . . . Like my father, I curse him! . . . Have you forgotten? He killed my father, before our eyes! He killed Marie Le Goff! He tried to kill you! . . . No, what I feel for him is hatred and disgust! The monster!"

The Breton woman took her hand, as she had formed a habit of doing, and murmured:

"Don't condemn him yet . . . . He did not know what he was doing."

"What do you mean? He didn't know? Why, I saw his eyes, Vorski's eyes!"

"He did not know . . . he was mad."

"Mad? Nonsense!"

"Yes, Madame Veronique. I know the boy. He's the kindest creature on earth. If he did all this, it was because he went mad suddenly . . . he and M. Stephane. They must both be weeping in despair now."

"It's impossible. I can't believe it."

"You can't believe it because you know nothing of what is happening . . . and of what is going to happen . . . . But, if you did know . . .

Oh, there are things . . . there are things!"

Her voice was no longer audible. She was silent, but her eyes remained wide open and her lips moved without uttering a sound.

Nothing occurred until the morning. At five o'clock Veronique heard them nailing down the coffins; and almost immediately afterwards the door of the room in which she sat was opened and the sisters Archignat entered like a whirlwind, both greatly excited.

They had heard the truth from Correjou, who, to give himself courage, had taken a drop too much to drink and was talking at random:

"Maguennoc is dead!" they screamed. "Maguennoc is dead and you never told us! Give us our money, quick! We're going!"

The moment they were paid, they ran away as fast as their legs would carry them; and, an hour later, some other women, informed by them, came hurrying to drag their men from their work. They all used the same words:

"We must go! We must get ready to start! . . . It'll be too late afterwards. The two boats can take us all."

Honorine had to intervene with all her authority and Veronique was obliged to distribute money. And the funeral was hurriedly conducted.

Not far away was an old chapel, carefully restored by M. d'Hergemont, where a priest came once a month from Pont-l'Abbe to say ma.s.s. Beside it was the ancient cemetery of the abbots of Sarek. The two bodies were buried here; and an old man, who in ordinary times acted as sacristan, mumbled the blessing.

All the people seemed smitten with madness. Their voices and movements were spasmodic. They were obsessed with the fixed idea of leaving the island and paid no attention to Veronique, who knelt a little way off, praying and weeping.

It was all over before eight o'clock. Men and women made their way down across the island. Veronique, who felt as though she were living in a nightmare world where events followed upon one another without logic and with no connected sequence, went back to Honorine, whose feeble condition had prevented her from attending her master's funeral.

"I'm feeling better," said the Breton woman. "We shall go to-day or to-morrow and we shall go with Francois."

Veronique protested angrily; but Honorine repeated:

"With Francois, I tell you, and with M. Stephane. And as soon as possible. I also want to go . . . and to take you with me . . . and Francois too. There is death in the island. Death is the master here. We must leave Sarek. We shall all go."