Эжен Сю
The Knight of Malta
CHAPTER XL. THE CHALLENGE
The commander sent for the chaplain of the black galley to descend into his chamber. While Pierre des Anbiez confessed his sins, – with the exception of the murder reserved for the great act of penitence of the order, – and received absolution, the Bohemian went up on deck. The first person whom he met there was the captain of the Holy Terror to the Moors, by the Grace of God.
Hadji, affecting an easy and impertinent familiarity, approached Luquin Trinquetaille and said to him: “Who would have believed, my boy, that we would see each other again here, when that pretty girl enraged you so much by giving me flame-coloured ribbons at Maison-Forte?”
This excess of impudence rendered the worthy captain speechless a moment, then, putting his hand on his sword, he was about to attack Hadji, when the overseer reminded him that the Bohemian was under his protection by order of the commander.
“There is another place where we will meet, you villain,” said Luquin, “and that will be under the gallows where you will be hanged; for, zounds! although the office of executioner is repugnant to me, I would sell my polacre even to have the right to put the rope around your neck.”
“Ingrate, you do not think of the grief you would bring upon Stephanette; the poor girl loves me so much that she would die of sorrow to see me hanged, and especially by you.”
“You lie, you lie like a dog. Oh, that I could tear your cursed tongue out by the roots!”
“You would be right, my boy, to tear out my tongue, for it was my honeyed words which opened the way to this pretty girl’s heart A little while ago, on board my chebec where she was with me, she said, as she leaned her head on my shoulder – ”
“You lie, you blaspheme!” cried Luquin, in fury.
“She said, as she leaned her head on my shoulder,” continued the Bohemian, with imperturbable coolness, “‘What a difference, my handsome captain, between your gallant and charming language, and the tiresome twittering of that long-legged heron that flutters around me so clumsily.’ That is the way she spoke of you, my poor boy.”
“Here, overseer,” exclaimed Luquin, pale with rage, “permit me to cut this villain’s face with a few blows of my sabre scabbard.”
“If his words wound you, do not listen to them,” answered the overseer. “The commander entrusted this pagan to me, and I cannot permit any one to do him harm.”
Luquin uttered a groan of concentrated wrath.
“After all,” continued the Bohemian, with a disdain-ful self-conceit, “that girl is rather good-looking, but you have made her so silly, my boy, that the conversation I had with her yesterday was enough to take away any desire to continue the interview. You can marry her when you please, my boy, only when you see her look sad, you need only mention my name to make her smile tenderly, since the memory of me will live in her heart eternally. Poor girl, she told me so yesterday as she kissed my hand as if I had been a lord.”
The indignant Luquin could hear no more. Shaking his fists at the Bohemian, he turned away abruptly, followed by the derisive laugh of the vagabond.
As we have said, the sun was just sinking and the sea was calm. In the distance, between two points of the rocks at the depth of the bay, could be seen the Red Galleon and the galley of Trimalcyon anchored near each other, while not far from them lay the chebec of Hadji.
The boat which had brought Hadji balanced on the waves, fastened to the stem of the black galley. The sky was clear, with the exception of a belt of reddish gray clouds around the setting sun.
Captain Hugues, the artilleryman, approached the overseer who guarded the Bohemian, and said to him, as he shook his head and pointed to the west:
“Brother, I do not like those clouds which are gathering down there, they are threatening, we are in a dead calm. If the sun, as it sets, scatters these clouds, the night will be beautiful; if, on the contrary, the cloud covers the sun before it sets – ”
“I understand you, Brother Hugues, we will have a shift of the wind, a hurricane, and the night will be bad,” replied the overseer. “Fortunately, we have time yet.” And, turning to Hadji, he said, “Little it matters to you or to yours to be hanged in a storm or a calm.”
“I prefer to be hanged in a storm, overseer; the wind rocks you like a cradle, and you fall asleep sooner in eternity,” replied Hadji, with a disdainful indifference.
The commander appeared on deck. The assembled chevaliers separated and respectfully made way for him. Pierre des Anbiez was dressed entirely in black. His face seemed paler and more sad than usual. At his side he wore a heavy iron sword, and a long dagger in its bronze scabbard; on his right hand he wore a glove of black buffalo skin, his left hand was naked. He made a sign to the Bohemian and threw down before him his left gauntlet. Hadji picked it up and was about to speak, when the commander, with an imperious gesture, showed him the boat which had brought him to the galley. Hadji descended and embarked, and was soon on his way to the vessels of the pirates.
Astonished at the commander’s action, the chevaliers and Honorât de Berrol, who was among them, looked at each other in surprise. The commander followed the Bohemian’s departing boat with his eyes, then, turning to the group around him, said, in a loud voice:
“Brothers, in a little while we will attack the galleys of these miscreants; they are anchored near each other. The long-boat will be put to sea, half the soldiers will descend into it, and, while the black galley attacks the Red Galleon, the long-boat will attack the other pirate vessel.” Then addressing the king of the chevaliers, he continued: “You will command the black galley, brother, and the Brother de Blinville, the oldest lieutenant of the galley, will command the long-boat. Now, overseer, strokesman, all, ply your oars! the sun is setting and only an hour of daylight is left us to chastise these miscreants.”
Although the chevaliers had not understood why Pierre des Anbiez abandoned the command of the black galley and the long-boat, they hastened to execute his orders.
A part of the crew, well armed, embarked in the longboat of the galley, which was put to sea under the orders of the Chevalier de Blinville, and the two vessels, with full force of oars, directed their course toward the entrance of the bay.
The commander having ordered Captain Trinquetaille to remain on board the galley, the polacre was directed by the second in command, and followed the black galley’s movements.
Honorât approached the commander, and said: “I wish to fight at your side, M. Commander. Reine des Anbiez was my betrothed. Raimond V. has been a second father to me, and my place should be the post of danger.”
Pierre des Anbiez looked steadily at Honorât, and answered: “It is true, chevalier, you have a double vengeance to wreak upon these robbers. To assure the freedom of Reine, I have consented to fight in single combat with one of the pirate captains. I need a second. Will you accept that duty?”
“You, monsieur, you accede to such a proposition!” cried Honorât, “do such honour to these miscreants!”
“Will you or will you not draw the sword and the dagger when I draw them, young man?” rudely interrupted Pierre des Anbiez.
“I can only be proud to do what you do, M. Commander; my sword is at your orders.”
“Go, then, and arm yourself, and hold yourself in readiness to follow me when I descend.”
After a moment’s silence, he added: “You see that long-boat doubling the point; she will bring on board my galley Reine des Anbiez and the captives from La Ciotat.”
“Reine!” cried Honorât.
“There she is,” said the commander.
In fact, the long-boat of Hadji was rapidly approaching; the Chevalier de Berrol soon recognised Reine, Stephanette, and two other young girls, besides twenty inhabitants of La Ciotat, captured when the pirates made their descent upon the city.
The chevaliers were ignorant of the agreement made between the commander and the Bohemian. They could not understand why the pirates returned their prisoners in this manner.
When the long-boat was within range of the voice, the commander ordered the overseer to lift the galley’s oars and wait for this craft, which soon reached them.
Pierre des Anbiez advanced to the height of the first rower’s seat, and there received his niece, who threw herself in his arms with all the effusion oi affectionate gratitude.
“And my father?” cried the young girl.
“Your return will relieve his anxiety, my child,” replied the commander, who did not wish to inform Reine of her father’s condition.
“Honorât, is it you?” said Reine, extending her hand to the chevalier, whom she did not see at first “Alas! my friend, under what sad circumstances I see you. But who is with my father, pray? Why did you leave him alone?”
“Reine, our aim was to rescue you, and I followed the commander. Father Elzear is at Maison-Forte with Raimond V.”
“But now I am free, will you not return with me to my father?”
“Return with you? No, Reine, I must remain with the commander. To-morrow, no doubt, I will see you. I bid you a tender farewell, Reine. Farewell, farewell.”
“With what a serious air you bid me farewell, Honorât,” cried the young girl, struck with the chevalier’s solemn expression. “But there is no danger, they will not attack the pirates; what good can be done by remaining here?”
“No, doubtless they will not fight,” said Honorât, with embarrassment “The commander only wishes to assure the departure of these wretches.”
Pierre des Anbiez, having given his orders, approached Reine and took her by the hand, as he said: “Come, hasten, my child; embark at once, the sun is sinking. Luquin Trinquetaille will take you on board his polacre, and before to-morrow morning you will be in the arms of your father.”
Then addressing the captain of the Holy Terror to the Moors, who was darting furious glances at the Bohemian because this vagabond never took his eyes from Stephanette, and affected to speak to her in a low voice, the commander said: “With your life you will answer for Mlle, des Anbiez. Depart this instant. Conduct her to Maison-Forte with the other young girls and her attendant. The men will remain and reinforce the crew of my galley. Come, farewell, Reine, embrace me, my child; say to my brothers that I hope to take them by the hand to-morrow.”
“You hope, uncle, – pray, what danger is there?”
“The sun is setting, embark at once,” said the commander, without replying to the question of his niece, as he led her to the boat which was to conduct her to the polacre.
While Reine exchanged a last look with Honorât, the Bohemian, still insolent and satirical, approached Luquin, holding Stephanette’s hand in spite of her resistance, and said to him: “I give you this pretty girl, my boy; marry her in all confidence. Alas! my poor little thing, I must resign you. I will remember all your tenderness.”
“What! my tenderness!” cried Stephanette, indignant.
“It is true we agreed to say nothing about it before this cormorant.”
“Luquin, to your boat!” cried the commander, in an imperious voice.
The worthy captain was compelled to swallow this new insult, and to descend in haste to his boat in order to receive there Mlle. des Anbiez.
Five minutes after the polacre, commanded by Luquin, set sail for Maison-Forte, bearing Reine, Stephanette, and two other young girls so miraculously saved from the fate which threatened them.
When the polacre had departed, the Bohemian approached the commander respectfully, and said:
“Pog-Reis has kept his word, monseigneur.”
“I will keep mine. Go, wait for me in your longboat.”
The Bohemian bowed and left the galley.
Pierre des Anbiez said to the Chevalier de Blinville, who was to command the galley in his absence:
“The hour-glass is full; in a half-hour, if I do not return on board, you are to enter the bay and attack the pirates according to the orders which I have given to you; the black galley will fight the Red Galleon, and the boat will fight the other vessel.”
“Shall we begin the attack without waiting for you, M. Commander?” repeated the lieutenant, thinking he had not understood the instructions.
“You will begin the attack without waiting for me, if I do not return in a half-hour,” replied the commander, in a firm voice. One of his men brought to him his hat and large black mantle, on which was quartered the white cross of his order. He then left the galley, followed by Honorât, to the great astonishment of the chevaliers and the crew.
Hadji stood at the helm of the little boat; four Moorish slaves took the oars, and soon the light craft bounded over the swelling waves in the direction of the western point of the bay.
Pierre des Anbiez, wrapped in his mantle, turned his head and threw a last lingering look upon his galley, as if to assure himself of the reality of the events which were taking place. He felt himself dragged, so to speak, by an irresistible force to which he submitted in blind obedience.
After some moments of silence, he said to Hadji: “Where does that man expect me?”
“On the beach, near the ruins of the Abbey of St. Victor, monseigneur.”
“Make your crew row faster, they do not advance,” said Pierre des Anbiez, with feverish impatience.
“The waves are high, the cloud is gathering, and the wind is going to blow; the night will be bad,” said Hadji, in a low voice.
The commander, absorbed in his own thoughts, did not reply to him. The sun’s last rays were soon obscured by a large belt of black clouds, which, at first heavy and motionless upon the horizon, began to move with frightful rapidity. Deep and distant bursts of thunder, a phenomenon quite common during the winter season of Provence, announced one of those sudden hurricanes so frequent in the Mediterranean.
CHAPTER XLI. THE COMBAT
The clouds piled high in the west, spread rapidly over the sky which had been so serene. The increasing murmur of the waves, the plaintive moan of the wind, which was gradually rising, the distant rolling of the thunder, all announced a terrible storm.
The little boat reached the shore, a lonely beach girded by blocks of reddish granite. The commander and Honorât landed, when Hadji, who had preceded them a few steps, stopped and said to Pierre des Anbiez, “Monseigneur, follow this path hollowed out of the rock, and you will soon arrive at the ruins of the Abbey of St. Victor. Pog-Reis awaits you there.”
Without replying to Hadji, Pierre des Anbiez resolutely entered a sort of crevasse formed by a rent in the rock, and scarcely large enough for a man to pass through.
Honorât, not less courageous, followed him, reflecting at the same time that a traitor, placed on the crest of the two rocks between which they rather glided than walked, could easily crush them by rolling upon them some one of the enormous stones which crowned the escarpment. The tempest was gradually approaching. The loud voices of the wind and the sea, which threatened more and more, at last burst forth into fury, and were answered from the height of the clouds by the thunderbolts. The elements had entered upon a tremendous struggle.
The commander walked with long strides. In the violence of the storm he saw an omen; it seemed to him that the vengeance of Heaven clothed itself in a terrible majesty before striking him.
The more he reflected, the more the strange dream related by the Bohemian appeared to him a manifestation of the divine will.
By one of the ordinary phenomena of thought, Pierre des Anbiez in one second recalled every detail of bloody tragedy which was the consequence of his love for the wife of Count de Montreuil, the birth of his unfortunate child, the death of Emilie, and the murder of her husband. All of these events came back to his mind with awful precision, as if the crime had been committed the day before.
The narrow passage which wound across the rocks enlarged somewhat, and the commander and Honorât issued from this granite wall, and found themselves opposite the ruins of the Abbey of St. Victor. In this spot they beheld no one.
The interior basin of the bay formed a deep cove. At the south it was shut in by the rocks through which they had just passed; at the north and at the west, by the half-destroyed buildings of the abbey; at the east could be seen the road in which the two galleys of the pirates were anchored.
The imposing pile of the abbey ruins, the wreck of vaults and heavy arches, the crumbling towers covered with ivy, outlined their sad, gray forms upon the black clouds which hung lower and lower over the solemn scene.
A wan, bleak day, which was neither light nor darkness, threw a strange and weird radiance over the rocks, the ruins, the beach, and the sea. The waves roared, the wind howled, the thunder rolled, yet no person appeared.
Honorât, in spite of his courage, was struck with the awful and dismal scene which lay around him. The commander, wrapped in his long black mantle, his form erect, his face anxious and gloomy, seemed to evoke evil spirits.
In a deep, sepulchral voice, he called three times: “Pog-Reis! Pog-Reis! Pog-Reis!” No answer was heard.
An enormous owl uttered a doleful cry as it flew slowly and heavily from a vault, as massive as the arch of a bridge, which had once been the entrance to the cloister.
“Nobody comes,” said Honorât. “Do you not fear an ambuscade, M. Commander? Perhaps you have placed too much confidence in the words of these wretches.”
“Divine vengeance assumes all forms,” replied Pierre des Anbiez.
He then relapsed into silence, gazing abstractedly at the heavy arcade, which formerly served as an entrance to the cloister, and whose interior was now enveloped in dense shadow.
Suddenly a pale winter ray threw its wan light over this arch, casting a livid, fantastic illumination over the solemn scene.
A thunderbolt broke and reverberated, and, by a strange coincidence, at the same moment two men issued from the obscurity of the vault, and with slow and deliberate steps advanced toward the commander and Honorât de Berrol.
These men were Pog and Erebus.
Pog held a naked sword in his right hand; his left arm was around the neck of Erebus, and he reclined tenderly upon the young man, as a father would lean upon a son. Erebus also held an unsheathed sword in his hand.
Both continued to approach the commander and Honorât.
Suddenly Pierre des Anbiez stood for a moment petrified, then, without uttering a word, quickly stepped back, seized the arm of the Chevalier de Berrol, and pointed to Pog and Erebus, with a gesture of terror.
Notwithstanding the change produced by years in the countenance of Pog, the commander recognised in him the Count de Montreuil, the husband of Emilie, the man whom he believed he had killed, and whose portrait he had preserved as an expiation of his crime.
“Have the dead come back from the grave?” said he, in a low voice, recoiling and dragging Honorât with him as Pog advanced.
The Chevalier de Berrol was ignorant of all that pertained to that terrible tragedy, but he felt a secret horror, less at the appearance of the two pirates than at the evident fright of the commander, whose intrepidity was so well known.
Then, as if to render the solemn scene still more awful, the tempest increased in violence, and the thunder grew louder and more frequent.
Pog stopped.
“Do you know me? Do you know me?” said he to the commander.
“If you are not a ghost, I know you,” replied the commander, fixing a look of amazement upon the husband of Emilie.
“Do you remember the unhappy woman whose murderer you were?”
“I remember, I remember, I accuse myself.” And the commander struck his breast in the act of contrition.
At these words, uttered in a low voice by Pierre des Anbiez, Erebus, whose countenance expressed the rage of desperation, raised his sword, and started to throw himself upon the commander.
Pog restrained him with a firm hand, and said to him: “Not yet.”
Erebus rested the point of his sword on the ground, and raised his eyes to heaven.
“You owe me a bloody reparation,” said Pog.
“My life belongs to you. I shall not lift my sword against you,” replied the commander, bowing his head upon his breast.
“You have accepted the combat. I have your word. Here is your adversary,” and he pointed to Erebus. “Here is mine,” and he pointed to Honorât.
“Take up your sword, then,” cried the Chevalier do Berrol, who wished at any cost to put an end to a scene which, in spite of himself, chilled him with horror.
He advanced toward Pog.
“They first, we afterward,” answered Pog.
“This instant, this instant! Take up your sword!” cried Honorât.
Pog, addressing Pierre des Anbiez, said, in an imperious tone: “Order your second to await the result of your fight with the young captain.”
“Chevalier, I pray you to wait,” said the commander, with resignation.
“Defend your life, murderer!” cried Erebus, rushing upon Pierre des Anbiez with uplifted sword.
“But this is a child!” said the commander, looking at his adversary with a sort of contemptuous compassion.
“Your mother! Your mother!” whispered Pog to Erebus.
“Yes, a child, the child of those whom you have murdered,” cried the unfortunate youth, striking the commander in the face with the breadth of his sword.
The livid countenance of the old soldier became purple; transported with anger at this insult, he threw himself upon Erebus, saying, “Lord, thy will be done!”
Then ensued a parricidal struggle.
And the darkness suddenly fell upon the scene, as if nature herself revolted at the sight.
Thunderbolts rent the clouds, the tempest let loose its fury, and the very rocks trembled upon their foundations.
The parricidal combat continued with undiminished rage.
With clasped hands, Pog, with ferocious eagerness, enjoyed the frightful spectacle.
“At last, after twenty years, I taste one moment of true, ineffable happiness. Roll, O thunder! Burst forth, O tempest! All nature takes part in my vengeance!” cried he, in savage joy.
Honorât, unable to account for his own feelings, cried in dismay:
“Enough! enough!” and tried to separate Erebus and Pierre des Anbiez.
Pog, endowed for the moment with superhuman strength, seized Honorât, paralysed his efforts, and said, in a low voice, trembling with rage and excitement, “My vengeance!”
Erebus fell.
“Pierre des Anbiez, you have killed your son! Here are your letters, here are the portraits, you can see them,” cried Pog, in a voice that rose above the storm, and he threw at the feet of the commander the casket which Hadji had stolen from Peyrou.
Suddenly a thunderbolt struck with a noise impossible to describe. The heavens, the bay, the ruins, the rocks, and the sea, appeared to be on fire.
A terrible explosion followed, and the very earth trembled; a part of the ruins of the abbey fell away, while a blast of wind, breaking and driving everything in its path, enveloped the entire bay in its irresistible and tremendous whirlpool.
