First Person Paramount Part 27

"A test?" I sneered.

"Yes, a test," said he.

Next instant I uttered a scream of agony, for a burning pain had suddenly pierced my thumb. I looked at it and saw that a long needle had been inserted down the joint between the nail and quick. Jussieu was already busy at my forefinger. "Mercy mercy," I shouted. "I'll tell you the truth, the truth!"

"Then speak!"

"She has them, Marion!"

"Once more, Jussieu?" said Sir Charles.

Again that penetrating agony. Again I raved and screamed. Again I swore I'd tell the truth.

"Speak!" cried Sir Charles.

"They are in Sir William Dagmar's library, where I said before, behind----"

"Once more, Jussieu!" interrupted the surgeon.

I lost sight of the agonizing periods. I fainted more than once and was restored to life by pain. Sometimes I lied, more often still I shrieked aloud the truth, and was not credited. But at last growing wise under the torture, I perceived what my inquisitor wished me most to say, and I vowed time after time that Marion possessed the jewels, and Marion alone. At last Sir Charles decided to believe me, and my mangled hand was grudgingly released. I was by then well-nigh incapable of feeling, and they might have murdered me without exciting in my breast one added solitary pang.

I fell into a heavy sleep before they left the room, and when I awoke I was benumbed and very listless. I became, however, gradually aware that much had been done during my unconsciousness which must have lasted hours. The table remained in the room, and a lamp thereon cast a yellow glitter round the plastered walls. To the left of my chair there yawned a deep hole in the floor, something coffin shaped, with bricks and earth and stones heaped against the wall behind. Two spades were sticking in the rubble, and a pick. Very patently it was a grave, my grave! I gazed at it with a sort of solemn wonder, but I thought it might prove a friend, if it would only save me from such horrors as I shuddered to remember I had lately undergone. After a time I realized that I was listening to a faint bubbling sound that seemed to issue from my grave. Then I noted in the shadowy depths a whitish froth, and understood! My grave promised me, as well as death, obliteration, nay, absolute annihilation. It was partly filled with seething quicklime!

Beudant came and made me eat and drink. I was very faint and only asked him for the time. He told me it was two o'clock upon the fourth day of my imprisonment.

While wondering at the news, I fell asleep. Beudant awoke me with more food and drink. Again I fell asleep, and again I awoke to find myself being softly carried from the cellar of my grave, into an adjoining room that was also situated underground, for it, too, was plastered walled and windowless. It contained, however, a long rack furnished with some dozens of champagne, neck downwards, and most carefully bestowed.

"A good vintage! I should say," I said to Beudant. Satan himself could not have made me to speak to Jussieu, except with sneers.

"You shall judge, monsieur!" replied the negro, and when he set me down, he took a bottle from the rack and proceeded to unfold the cork.

"Why this sudden kindness to an _ame d.a.m.nee_!" I asked indifferently.

"Has my last hour come?"

"G.o.d knows, monsieur; but you are, I think, to have a visitor, and I have orders! Kindly drink!"

He poured out a full cup of the frothy nectar, and held it to my lips.

I quaffed it slowly, and felt the life blood surge anew along my veins.

Also I felt my lacerated hand begin to pain, and soon I groaned aloud.

Beudant on instant was a kind physician, and I blessed him as he poured some warm and grateful balsam on the wounds, and bound my injured fingers in a swathe of silk.

"Beudant." said I, "whichever takes me, Beelzebub or Satan, when I go, I'll sing your praises to him as a man of heart."

"Peace, blasphemer!" grated Jussieu.

"Peace yourself, you canting hound!" I cried.

For answer he smote me on the mouth. But that was too much even for me, who till that moment honestly believed that I was dest.i.tute of pride. I discovered at the touch of a blackfellow's paw that, at all events, I had a pride of race. I filled my lungs with air and shouted like a Stentor: "Help! Help! Murder! Murder!"

Jussieu shook like a leaf. "You blasted pig!" he muttered--very low.

"G.o.d strike you dead!"

Truly his religion, for all his preaching, was not deep.

But Sir Charles Venner's voice answered at once, in very angry tones: "Beudant, Jussieu, what the devil are you doing?"

Next instant the door opened. I saw the tail end of a flight of brick steps, and into the room rushed Marion Le Mar, followed less quickly by the surgeon, who stopped to lock the door behind him. The girl stopped midway on the floor. But I did not look at her. I was too deeply agitated, and I wished to gather up my strength for later use.

I heard Sir Charles repeat his question. Jussieu replied--"Master, he blasphemed, and I struck him on the mouth."

Pride of race is a curious thing. I found I could not argue with the negro, though he had lied.

The surgeon whipped his servant with a dozen scorching words, then strode beside my chair.

"For this insult, Hume," he said, "I offer you my sincere apologies.

Such a thing will not occur again!"

"Give me another cup of wine," I cried, "and I'll forgive you."

Within a moment it was held up to my lips, and I drained it at one draught. I was pa.s.sionately craving strength to show my hate to Marion.

Heaven! How I hated her!

"More?" asked Sir Charles.

"No," I answered sullenly; my eyes fell upon the floor.

"Mademoiselle Le Mar denies that you gave her any packet, Hume?"

"Does she?"

"Yes, and she is here to confront you?"

"Why?"

"To induce you to confess your falsehood!"

"And if I don't?"

"It will go harder with you than before!"

I ground my teeth. "Bah!" I snarled, "you doubt her word, or you'd not have brought her here. I see your game, you wish to make her own her theft by witnessing my torture. But you will fail, you fool. Do you forget that she betrayed me? She'll laugh to hear my screams!"

Marion spoke for the first time. "Sir Charles," she began, in low vibrating tones, "this man looks very ill. What have you done with him, and what is the matter with his hand?"

"He will tell you," said the surgeon curtly.

I looked up at her for the first time. Her eyes were dilated, and full of pa.s.sionate questioning.