Читать книгу The Viking's Skull - John R. Carling - Страница 6

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Mrs. Breakspear sat by the open casement enjoying the deep beauty of the evening. The air was still and clear, and over the bay hung one star sparkling in a sapphire sky.

Idris, seated with her, had eyes for nothing but the yacht Nemesis, which still lay out in the offing, rising and falling with the motion of the tide, and showing a tiny light at the stern.

"Look, mother!" he cried suddenly. "They are putting out a boat."

By the faint starlight they could see in the boat seven men, one of whom steered while the rest rowed. Their garb was that of ordinary French seamen, but Mrs. Breakspear noticed with surprise that each was armed with cutlass and pistol.

"Why are they not coming to the harbour?" asked Idris, a question which found an echo in his mother's mind.

The boat glided smoothly on, and finally vanished behind the cliffs to the east of the town.

"I wonder whether old Baptiste is watching them?" said Idris. "He said that the men in the yacht were smugglers, and that they would come ashore this evening. And sure enough they've come."

"If the men in that boat are smugglers, don't you think, Idie, that they would wait till it is much darker?"

Idris was forced to admit the reasonableness of this remark.

"Why are they all wearing swords? Perhaps they are Vikings, after all?" he went on, loth to believe that such heroes had vanished from the earth.

His mother shook her head in mild protest, not knowing that there was a good deal of latter-day Vikingism in the enterprise that was taking these seven men ashore.

Now as Mrs. Breakspear sat in the silence and solemnity of the deepening twilight she became subject to a feeling the like of which she had never before experienced. A vague awe, a presentiment of coming ill, stole over her; and, yielding to its influence, she resolved, before it should be too late, to carry out a purpose she had long had in mind.

"Idie," she said, closing the casement and moving to the fireplace, "come and sit here. I have something to tell you."

Wondering much at her grave manner the little fellow obeyed.

"Idie," she began, "you have been taught to believe that your father died when you were an infant. I have told you this, thinking it right that you should know nothing of his sad history. But, sooner or later, you are sure to hear it from others: told, too, in a way that I would not have you believe. Therefore it is better that you should hear the story from me: and remember to take these words of mine for your guidance in all future years: and if men should speak ill of your father, do not believe them: for who should know him better than I, his wife?"

She paused for a moment: and Idris, new to this sort of language, made no reply.

"Idie, your father is not dead."

Idris' eyes became big with wonder.

"Then why doesn't he live with us?" he asked.

"Because," replied his mother, sinking her voice to a whisper, "because he is in prison."

As prison is a place usually associated with crime, Idris naturally received a shock, which his mother was not slow to perceive.

"Idie, you know something of history, and therefore you know that many a good man has found himself in prison before to-day."

"O yes: there was Sir Walter Raleigh, and that Earl of Surrey who was a poet: and—and—I can't think of any more at present, but I can find them in the book."

"Well, your father, like many others in history, is suffering unjustly."

"What do they say he did?"

"They say," replied his mother, once more sinking her voice to a whisper, "they say he committed murder. But he did not: he did not: he did not. I have his word that he is innocent. I will set his word against all the rest of the world."

"How long is he to remain in prison?"

"He is never to come out," replied Mrs. Breakspear; and, unable to control her emotion, she burst into a fit of sobbing.

Idris, touched by the sight of his mother's grief, began to cry also. Now for the first time he understood why his mother so often wept in secret. How could men be so cruel as to take his father away from her and to shut him up in prison for a crime he had not committed?

"Why didn't they put him under the guillotine?" he asked, when his fit of crying was over.

A natural question, but one that caused his mother to shiver.

"Do not use that awful word," she said. "He was condemned to death, but the sentence was afterwards changed."

Certain past events were now seen by Idris in a new light.

"Mother, I know in what prison father is. It is the one on the moorland over there," he exclaimed, indicating the direction with his hand.

"You are right, Idie: and now you know why I live at Quilaix. It is that I may be near your father. I am happier here—if indeed I may use the word happy in speaking of myself—than in any other place. I have a beautiful house at Nantes, but I cannot live there in ease and luxury while your father is deprived of everything that makes life bright. Now listen, Idie, for I am going to require of you a solemn promise. Since your father did not commit the murder it is certain that some one else did. I want you to find that man."

"I, mother?"

"Of course I do not mean now. In after years. When you are a man."

"But supposing the murderer should be dead?"

"You must find him, living or dead: if living, you must bring him to justice: if dead, you must show to the world that your father was guiltless of the deed. He himself, confined as he is within prison walls, can do nothing to establish his innocence: and as for me, I have the feeling that I shall not live long. Grief is shortening my days. To you, then, I leave this task: to it you must devote your whole life. You will be spared the necessity of having to earn your living, since you are well provided for. But though health, strength, and fortune be yours, you will find these advantages embittered by the constant thought, 'Men think me the son of a murderer!' Will you let the world do you this injustice? Will you not try to clear your father's memory? Will you not ever bear in mind your mother's dearest wish?"

Moved by her earnestness Idris gave the required promise, consoling himself over the present difficulty of the problem by the thought that it would perhaps seem easier in the days to come.

"You have not forgotten the story we read the other day," continued his mother, "of the great Hannibal; how, when he was a boy his father, leading him to the altar, made him swear to be the lifelong enemy of Rome? You, too, must make a similar oath. Bring me the Bible."

Idris brought it, and at his mother's command laid his hand upon a page of the open Book, and repeated after her the following words:—

"I swear on reaching manhood to do my best to establish my father's innocence. May God help me to keep this oath!"

"Say it again, Idie."

Idris accordingly repeated the vow, feeling somewhat proud in thus imitating the Carthaginian hero.

His mother brushed back the curls from his forehead and looked earnestly into his eyes.

"Little Idris! little Idris!" she murmured. "Am I acting foolishly? I am forgetting that you are only seven years of age—scarcely old enough to understand the meaning of what you have just uttered. No matter: when you are older, if you are a true son, as I feel sure you will be, you will not require the memory of this oath to teach you your duty. And now I will tell you the story of the murder, and why your father came to be suspected of—— Ha! what is that?" she gasped, breaking off abruptly. "Listen! O, Idie, who is it?"

They had believed themselves to be alone in the house. Mrs. Breakspear, before retiring to this sitting-room, had made fast the outer doors as well as the lower windows. In such circumstances, therefore, it was alarming to hear footsteps ascending the staircase—footsteps which Mrs. Breakspear instinctively felt to be those of a man, and not of a woman; footsteps, not of Old Pol, but of a stranger! How had he gained access to the house, and what was his object?

The unknown visitor had mounted to the head of the staircase and was now advancing along the passage leading to the room in which Mrs. Breakspear sat. Unable to speak from surprise and fear mother and son gazed at the door with dilated eyes as if expecting to see some awful vision.

The door was pushed open, and Mrs. Breakspear could scarcely suppress a scream at sight of the man who entered, for his face was hidden behind a black silk vizard, such as might be worn at a bal masqué, and through the holes of the vizard two eyes could be seen sparkling, so it seemed to Mrs. Breakspear, with a sinister expression. A low-crowned soft hat covered his head; and a cloak, reaching to his heels, completely concealed his person.

He came forward a few paces, glancing round the room as he did so, and seeming to derive satisfaction from the fact that it contained no persons more formidable than a woman and a child.

"You are alarmed, madame, but without reason," he began. "It is not my purpose to do you hurt—" he paused for a moment, and then added, "unless your obstinacy should call for it."

The man's voice was altogether strange to Mrs. Breakspear. He spoke in French, but with an accent that somehow impressed her with the belief that he was an Englishman: one, too, accustomed to move in good society.

"The first fact I would impress upon your mind is this," continued the stranger, "that you are alone, unprotected, in my power absolutely. If you raise your voice there is no one either in the house or in the street to hear you. The town is practically deserted. All are gone to the Pardon, a fact I have taken into my calculations. If you will reflect upon this, it may facilitate my errand."

These words, and the tone in which they were spoken, did not tend to allay Mrs. Breakspear's fears. With difficulty she gathered voice to speak.

"Who are you?"

A smile appeared beneath the fringe of the silken vizard.

"This mask is sufficient proof that I wish to conceal my identity."

"What do you want?"

"A more sensible question than your first, since it brings us to the point at once. I require, nay, I demand of you, the Norse altar-ring now in your keeping."

"What reason have you for supposing that it is here?" said Mrs. Breakspear, growing bolder.

"Do not equivocate." The eyes in the mask flashed like polished steel. "I know it to be in your possession. Do you deny it?" Mrs. Breakspear was silent. "You do not deny it? Good! The ring being here, I demand it."

"Why do you want it?"

"I decline to be catechised. Give me the ring."

"You are evidently a gentleman by education, if not by birth." The stranger gave a start at this. "And yet you seek to act the part of a common thief, a part you would not dare act," she cried with spirit, "were I a man, and not a defenceless woman."

The man shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

"I did not come to listen to moral vapourings, but to receive the ring."

"And what if I refuse to comply with your demand?"