Monsieur Lecoq by Émile Gaboriau (romance novel chinese novels .txt) 📕

back again upon the narrow shelf of rock, the difficult and dangerous operation which he had planned accomplished.

Not without a terrible effort; not without torn and bleeding hands and knees.

But he had succeeded in obtaining the rope, and now he was certain that he could make his escape from his dangerous position. He laughed gleefully, or rather with that chuckle which was habitual to him.

Anxiety, then joy, had made him forget M. d’Escorval. At the thought of him, he was smitten with remorse.

“Poor man!” he murmured. “I shall succeed in saving my miserable life, for which no one cares, but I was unable to save him. Undoubtedly, by this time his friends have carried him away.”

As he uttered these words he was leaning over the abyss. He doubted the evidence of his own senses when he saw a faint light moving here and there in the depths below.

What had happened? For something very extraordinary must have happened to induce intelligent men like the baron’s friends to display this light, which, if observed from the citadel, would betray their presence and ruin them.

But Corporal Bavois’s moments were too precious to be wasted in idle conjectures.

“Better go down on the double-quick,” he said aloud, as if to spur on his courage. “Come, my friend, spit on your hands and be off!”

As he spoke the old soldier threw himself flat on his belly and crawled slowly backward to the verge of the precipice. The spirit was strong, but the flesh shuddered. To march upon a battery had always been a mere pastime to the worthy corporal; but to face an unknown peril, to suspend one’s life upon a cord, was a different matter.

Great drops of perspiration, caused by the horror of his situation, stood out upon his brow when he felt that half his body had passed the edge of the precipice, and that the slightest movement would now launch him into space.

He made this movement, murmuring:

“If there is a God who watches over honest people let Him open His eyes this instant!”

The God of the just was watching.

Bavois arrived at the end of his dangerous journey with torn and bleeding hands, but safe. He fell like a mass of rock; and the rudeness of the shock drew from him a groan resembling the roar of an infuriated beast.

For more than a minute he lay there upon the ground stunned and dizzy.

When he rose two men seized him roughly.

“Ah, no foolishness,” he said quickly. “It is I, Bavois.”

This did not cause them to relax their hold.

“How does it happen,” demanded one, in a threatening tone, “that Baron d’Escorval falls and you succeed in making the descent in safety a few moments later?”

The old soldier was too shrewd not to understand the whole import of this insulting question.

The sorrow and indignation aroused within him gave him strength to free himself from the hands of his captors.

“Mille tonnerres!” he exclaimed; “so I pass for a traitor, do I! No, it is impossible⁠—listen to me.”

Then rapidly, but with surprising clearness, he related all the details of his escape, his despair, his perilous situation, and the almost insurmountable obstacles which he had overcome. To hear was to believe.

The men⁠—they were, of course, the retired army officers who had been waiting for the baron⁠—offered the honest corporal their hands, sincerely sorry that they had wounded the feelings of a man who was so worthy of their respect and gratitude.

“You will forgive us, Corporal,” they said, sadly. “Misery renders men suspicious and unjust, and we are very unhappy.”

“No offence,” he growled. “If I had trusted poor Monsieur d’Escorval, he would be alive now.”

“The baron still breathes,” said one of the officers.

This was such astounding news that Bavois was utterly confounded for a moment.

“Ah! I will give my right hand, if necessary, to save him!” he exclaimed, at last.

“If it is possible to save him, he will be saved, my friend. That worthy priest whom you see there, is an excellent physician. He is examining Monsieur d’Escorval’s wounds now. It was by his order that we procured and lighted this candle, which may bring our enemies upon us at any moment; but this is not a time for hesitation.”

Bavois looked with all his eyes, but from where he was standing he could discover only a confused group of moving figures.

“I would like to see the poor man,” he said, sadly.

“Come nearer, my good fellow; fear nothing!”

He stepped forward, and by the flickering light of the candle which Marie-Anne held, he saw a spectacle which moved him more than the horrors of the bloodiest battlefield.

The baron was lying upon the ground, his head supported on Mme. d’Escorval’s knee.

His face was not disfigured; but he was pale as death itself, and his eyes were closed.

At intervals a convulsive shudder shook his frame, and a stream of blood gushed from his mouth. His clothing was hacked⁠—literally hacked in pieces; and it was easy to see that his body had sustained many frightful wounds.

Kneeling beside the unconscious man, Abbé Midon, with admirable dexterity, was stanching the blood and applying bandages which had been torn from the linen of those present.

Maurice and one of the officers were assisting him. “Ah! if I had my hands on the scoundrel who cut the rope,” cried the corporal, in a passion of indignation; “but patience. I shall have him yet.”

“Do you know who it was?”

“Only too well!”

He said no more. The abbé had done all it was possible to do, and he now lifted the wounded man a little higher on Mme. d’Escorval’s knee.

This change of position elicited a moan that betrayed the unfortunate baron’s intense sufferings. He opened his eyes and faltered a few words⁠—they were the first he had uttered.

“Firmin!” he murmured, “Firmin!” It was the name of the baron’s former secretary, a man who had been absolutely devoted to his master, but who had been dead for several years. It was evident that the baron’s mind was wandering. Still he had some vague idea of