But, now that he had proved this so amply, he very quickly asked for the letter, and read it. Like the chief surgeon, he, also, was struck and amazed by the wickedness of M. de Brevan.
“But here is exactly what we want,” he exclaimed,—“an irrefragable proof of complicity. He would never have dared to abuse Miss Ville- Handry’s confidence in so infamous9 a manner, if he had not been persuaded, in fact been quite sure, that Lieut. Champcey would never return to France.”
Then, after a few minutes’ reflection, he added,—
“And yet I feel that there is something underneath10 still, which we do not see. Why had they determined11 upon M. Champcey’s death even before he sailed? What direct and pressing interest could M. de Brevan have in wishing him dead at that time? Something must have happened between the two which we do not know.”
“What?”
“Ah! that is what I cannot conceive. But remember what I say, doctor: the future reserves some fearful mysteries yet to be revealed to us hereafter.”
The two men had been so entirely12 preoccupied13 with their thoughts, that they were unconscious of the flight of time; and they were not a little astonished, therefore, when they now noticed that the day was gone, and night was approaching. The lawyer rose, and asked, returning Henrietta’s letter to the doctor,—
“Is this the only one M. Champcey has received?”
“No; but it is the only one he has opened.”
“Would you object to handing me the others?”
The excellent doctor hesitated.
“I will hand them to you,” he said at last, “if you will assure me that the interests of justice require it. But why not wait”—
He did not dare say, “Why not wait for M. Champcey’s death?” but the lawyer understood him.
“I will wait,” he said.
While thus talking, they had reached the door. They shook hands; and the chief surgeon, his heart fall of darkest presentiments14, slowly made his way to the hospital.
A great surprise awaited him there. Daniel, whom he had left in a desperate condition, almost dying,—Daniel slept profoundly, sweetly. His pale face had recovered its usual expression; and his respiration15 was free and regular.
“It is almost indescribable,” said the old doctor, whose experience was utterly16 at fault. “I am an ass7; and our science is a bubble.”
Turning to Lefloch, who had respectfully risen at his entrance, he asked,—
“Since when has your master been sleeping in this way?”
“For an hour, commandant.”
“How did he fall asleep?”
“Quite naturally, commandant. After you left, the lieutenant17 was for some time pretty wild yet; but soon he quieted down, and finally he asked for something to drink. I gave him a cup of your tea; he took it, and then asked me to help him turn over towards the wall. I did so, and I saw him remain so, his arm bent18, and his head in his hand, like a man who is thinking profoundly. But about a quarter of an hour later, all of a sudden, I thought I heard him gasp19. I came up softly on tiptoe, and looked. I was mistaken; the lieutenant was not gasping20, he was crying like a baby; and what I had heard were sobs21. Ah, commandant! I felt as if somebody had kicked me in the stomach. Because, you see, I know him; and I know, that, before a man such as he is goes to crying like a little child, he must have suffered more than death itself. Holy God! If I knew where I could catch them, these rascals22 who give him all this trouble”—
His fists rose instinctively24, and most undoubtedly26 something bright started from his eyes which looked prodigiously27 like a tear rolling slowly down one of the deep furrows28 in his cheek.
“Now,” he continued in a half-stifled voice, “I saw why the lieutenant had wished to turn his face to the wall, and I went back without making a noise. A moment after that, he began talking aloud. But he was right in his senses now, I tell you.”
“What did he say?”
“Ah! he said something like, ‘Henrietta, Henrietta!’ Always that good friend of his, for whom he was forever calling when he had the fever. And then he said, ‘I am killing29 her, I! I am the cause of her death. Fool, stupid, idiot that I am! He has sworn to kill me and Henrietta, the wretch30! He swore it no doubt, the very day on which I, fool as I was, confided31 Henrietta and my whole fortune to him.’”
“Did he say that?”
“The very words, commandant, but better, a great deal better.”
The old surgeon seemed to be amazed.
“That cunning lawyer had judged rightly,” he said. “He suspected there was something else; and here it is.”
“You say, commandant?” asked the good sailor.
“Nothing of interest to you. Go on.”
“Well, after that—but there is nothing more to tell, except that I heard nothing more. The lieutenant remained in the same position till I came to light the lamp; then he ordered me to make him tack32 ship, and to let down the screen over the lamp. I did so. He gave out two or three big sighs, and then goodnight, and nothing more. He was asleep as you see him now.”
“And how did his eyes look when he fell asleep?”
“Quite calm and bright.”
The doctor looked like a man to whom something has happened which is utterly inexplicable33 to him, and said in a low voice,—
“He will pull through, I am sure now. I said there could not be another miracle; and here it is!”
Then turning to Lefloch, he asked,—
“You know where I am staying?”
“Yes, commandant.”
“If your officer wakes up in the night, you will send for me at once.”
“Yes, commandant.”
But Daniel did not wake up; and he had hardly opened his eyes on the next morning, about eight o’clock, when the chief surgeon entered his room. At the first glance at his patient, he exclaimed,—
“I am sure our imprudence yesterday will have no bad effects!”
Daniel said nothing; but, after the old surgeon had carefully examined him, he began,—
“Now, doctor, one question, a single one: in how many days will I be able to get up and take ship?”
“Ah! my dear lieutenant, there is time enough to talk about that.”
“No, doctor, no! I must have an answer. Fix a time, and I shall have the fortitude35 to wait; but uncertainty36 will kill me. Yes, I shall manage to wait, although I suffer like”—
The surgeon was evidently deeply touched.
“I know what you suffer, my poor Champcey,” he said; “I read that letter which came much nearer killing you than Crochard’s ball. I think in a month you will be able to sail.”
“A month!” said Daniel in a tone as if he had said an age. And after a pause he added,—
“That is not all, doctor: I want to ask you for the letters which I could not read yesterday.”
“What? You would—But that would be too great an imprudence.”
“No, doctor, don’t trouble yourself. The blow has fallen. If I did not lose my mind yesterday, that shows that my reason can stand the most terrible trial. I have, God be thanked, all my energy. I know I must live, if I want to save Henrietta,—to avenge37 her, if I should come too late. That thought, you may rest assured, will keep me alive.”
The surgeon hesitated no longer: the next moment Daniel opened the other two letters from Henrietta. One, very long, was only a repetition of the first he had read. The other consisted only of a few lines:—
“M. de Brevan has just left me. When the man told me mockingly that I need not count upon your return, and cast an atrocious look at me, I understood. Daniel, that man wants your life; and he has hired assassins. For my sake, if not for your own, I beseech38 you be careful. Take care, be watchful39; think that you are the only friend, the sole hope here below, of your Henrietta.”
Now it was truly seen that Daniel had not presumed too much on his strength and his courage. Not a muscle in his face changed; his eye remained straight and clear; and he said in an accent of coldest, bitterest irony,—
“Look at this, doctor. Here is the explanation of the strange ill luck that has pursued me ever since I left France.”
At a glance the doctor read Henrietta’s warning, which came, alas40! so much too late.
“You ought to remember this, also, that M. de Brevan could not foresee that the assassin he had hired would be caught.”
This was an unexpected revelation; and Daniel was all attention.
“What?” he said. “The man who fired at me has been arrested?”
Lefloch was unable to restrain himself at this juncture41, and replied,—
“I should say so, lieutenant, and by my hand, before his gun had cooled off.”
The doctor did not wait for the questions which he read in the eyes of his patient. He said at once,—
“It is as Lefloch says, my dear lieutenant; and, if you have not been told anything about it, it was because the slightest excitement would become fatal. Yesterday’s experience has only proved that too clearly. Yes, the assassin is in jail.”
“And his account is made up,” growled42 the sailor.
But Daniel shrugged43 his shoulders, and said,—
“I do not want him punished, any more than the ball which hit me. That wretched creature is a mere44 tool. But, doctor, you know who are the real guilty ones.”
“And justice shall be done, I swear!” broke in the old surgeon, who looked upon the cause of his patient with as much interest as if it were his own. “Our lucky star has sent us a lawyer who is no trifler, and who, if I am not very much mistaken, would like very much to leave Saigon with a loud blast of trumpets45.”
He remained buried in thought for a while, watching his patient out of the corner of his eye, and then said suddenly,—
“Now I think of it, why could you not see the lawyer? He is all anxiety to examine you. Consider, lieutenant, do you feel strong enough to see him?”
“Let him come,” cried Daniel, “let him come! Pray, doctor, go for him at once!”
“I shall do my best, my dear Champcey. I will go at once, and leave you to finish your correspondence.”
He left the room with these words; and Daniel turned to the letters, which were still lying on his bed. There were seven of them,—four from the Countess Sarah, and three from Maxime. But what could they tell him now? What did he care for the falsehoods and the calumnies46 they contained? He ran over them, however.
Faithful to her system, Sarah wrote volumes; and from line to line, in some way or other, her real or feigned47 love for Daniel broke forth48 more freely, and no longer was veiled and hidden under timid reserve and long-winded paraphrases49. She gave herself up, whether her prudence34 had forsaken50 her, or whether she felt quite sure that her letters could never reach Count Ville-Handry. It sounded like an intense, irresistible51 passion, escaping from the control of the owner, and breaking forth terribly, like a long smouldering fire. Of Henrietta she said but little,—enough, however, to terrify Daniel, if he had not known the truth.
“That unfortunate, wayward girl,” she wrote, “has just caused her aged52 father such cruel and unexpected grief, that he was on the brink54 of the grave. Weary of the control which her indiscretions rendered indispensable, she has fled, we know not with whom; and all our efforts to find her have so far been unsuccessful.”
On the other hand, M. de Brevan wrote, “Deaf to my counsel and prayers even, Miss Ville-Handry has carried out the project of leaving her paternal55 home. Suspected of having favored her escape, I have been called out by Sir Thorn, and had to fight a duel56 with him. A paper which I enclose will give you the details of our meeting, and tell you that I was lucky enough to wound that gentleman of little honor, but of great skill with the pistol.
“Alas! my poor, excellent Daniel, why should I be compelled by the duties of friendship to confess to you that it was not for the purpose of remaining faithful to you, that Miss Henrietta was so anxious to be free? Do not desire to return, my poor friend! You would suffer too much in finding her whom you have loved so dearly unworthy of an honest man, unworthy of you. Believe me, I did all I could to prevent her irregularities, which now have become public. I only drew her hatred58 upon me, and I should not be surprised if she did all she could to make us all cut our throats.”
This impudence59 was bold enough to confound anybody’s mind, and to make one doubt one’s own good sense. Still he found the newspaper, which had been sent to him with the letter, and in it the account of the duel between M. de Brevan and M. Thomas Elgin. What did that signify? He once more read over, more attentively60 than at first, the letters of Maxime and the Countess Sarah; and, by comparing them with each other, he thought he noticed in them some traces of a beginning disagreement.
“It may be that there is discord61 among my enemies,” he said to himself, “and that they do no longer agree, now that, in their view, the moment approaches when they are to divide the proceeds of their crimes. Or did they never agree, and am I the victim of a double plot? Or is the whole merely a comedy for the purpose of deceiving me, and keeping me here, until the murderer has done his work?”
He was not allowed to torture his mind long with efforts to seek the solution of this riddle62. The old doctor came back with the lawyer, and for more than half an hour he had to answer an avalanche63 of questions. But the investigation64 had been carried on with such rare sagacity, that Daniel could furnish the prosecution65 only a single new fact,—the surrender of his entire fortune into the hands of M. de Brevan.
And even this fact must needs, on account of its extreme improbability, remain untold66 in an investigation which was based upon logic67 alone. Daniel very naturally, somewhat ashamed of his imprudence, tried to excuse himself; and, when he had concluded his explanations, the lawyer said,—
“Now, one more question: would you recognize the man who attempted to drown you in the Dong-Nai in a boat which he had offered to you, and which he upset evidently on purpose?”
“No, sir.”
“Ah! that is a pity. That man was Crochard, I am sure; but he will deny it; and the prosecution will have nothing but probabilities to oppose to his denial, unless I can find the place where he changed his clothes.”
“Excuse me, there is a way to ascertain69 his identity.”
“How?”
“The voice of the wretch is so deeply engraven on my mind, that even at this moment, while I am speaking to you, I think I can hear it in my ear; and I would recognize it among a thousand.”
The lawyer made no reply, weighing, no doubt, in his mind the chances of a confrontation70. Then he made up his mind, and said,—
“It is worth trying.”
And handing his clerk, who had been a silent witness of this scene, an order to have the accused brought to the hospital, he said,—
“Take this to the jail, and let them make haste.”
It was a month now since Crochard had been arrested; and his imprisonment71, so far from discouraging him, had raised his spirits. At first, his arrest and the examination had frightened him; but, as the days went by, he recovered his insolence72
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