Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) (616 page)

``I am afraid you will get very wet, lieutenant, before long,’’ and then, looking at Ral, he thought with great conviction: ``Wet! He wouldn’t mind getting drowned.’’ Standing stock-still he fretted and fumed inwardly, wondering where precisely the English ship was by this time and where the devil that thunderstorm had got to: for the sky had become as mute as the oppressed earth. Ral asked:

``Is it not time to haul out, gunner?’’ And Peyrol said:

``There is not a breath of wind anywhere for miles.’’ He was gratified by the fairly loud mutter rolling apparently along the inland hills. Over the pool a little ragged cloud torn from the purple robe of the storm floated, arrested and thin like a bit of dark gauze.

Above at the farm Catherine had heard too the ominous mutter and came to the door of the salle. From there she could see the purple cloud itself, convoluted and solid, and its sinister shadow lying over the hills. The oncoming of the storm added to her sense of uneasiness at finding herself all alone in the house. Michel had not come up. She would have welcomed Michel, to whom she hardly ever spoke, simply as a person belonging to the usual order of things. She was not talkative, but somehow she would have liked somebody to speak to just for a moment. This cessation of all sound, voices or footsteps, around the buildings was not welcome; but looking at the cloud, she thought that there would be noise enough presently. However, stepping back into the kitchen, she was met by a sound that made her regret the oppressive silence, by its piercing and terrifying character; it was a shriek in the upper part of the house where, as far as she knew, there was only Arlette asleep. In her attempt to cross the kitchen to the foot of the stairs the weight of her accumulated years fell upon the old woman. She felt suddenly very feeble and hardly able to breathe. And all at once the thought, ``Scevola! Was he murdering her up there?’’ paralyzed the last remnant of her physical powers. What else could it be? She fell, as if shot, into a chair under the first shock and found herself unable to move. Only her brain remained active, and she raised her hands to her eyes as if to shut out the image of the horrors upstairs. She heard nothing more from above. Arlette was dead. She thought that now it was her turn. While her body quailed before the brutal violence, her weary spirit longed ardently f or the end. Let him come! Let all this be over at last, with a blow on the head or a stab in the breast. She had not the courage to uncover her eyes. She waited. But after about a minute — -it seemed to her interminable — -she heard rapid footsteps overhead. Arlette was running here and there. Catherine uncovered her eyes and was about to rise when she heard at the top of the stairs the name of Peyrol shouted with a desperate accent. Then, again, after the shortest of pauses, the cry of: ``Peyrol, Peyrol!’’ and then the sound of feet running downstairs. There was another shriek, ``Peyrol!’’ just outside the door before it flew open. Who was pursuing her? Catherine managed to stand up. Steadying herself with one hand on the table she presented an undaunted front to her niece who ran into the kitchen with loose hair flying and the appearance of wildest distraction in her eyes.

The staircase door had slammed to behind her. Nobody was pursuing her; and Catherine, putting forth her lean brown arm, arrested Arlette’s flight with such a jerk that the two women swung against each other. She seized her niece by the shoulders.

``What is this, in Heaven’s name? Where are you rushing to?’’ she cried, and the other, as if suddenly exhausted, whispered:

``I woke up from an awful dream.’’

The kitchen grew dark under the cloud that hung over the house now. There was a feeble flicker of lightning and a faint crash, far away.

The old woman gave her niece a little shake.

``Dreams are nothing,’’ she said. ``You are awake now. . . .’’ And indeed Catherine thought that no dream could be so bad as the realities which kept hold of one through the long waking hours.

``They were killing him,’’ moaned Arlette, beginning to tremble and struggle in her aunt’s arms. ``I tell you they were killing him.’’

``Be quiet. Were you dreaming of Peyrol?’’

She became still in a moment and then whispered: ``No. Eugne.’’

She had seen Ral set upon by a mob of men and women, all dripping with blood, in a livid cold light, in front of a stretch of mere shells of houses with cracked walls and broken windows, and going down in the midst of a forest of raised arms brandishing sabres, clubs, knives, axes. There was also a man flourishing a red rag on a stick, while another was beating a drum which boomed above the sickening sound of broken glass falling like rain on the pavement. And away round the corner of an empty street came Peyrol whom she recognized by his white head, walking without haste, swinging his cudgel regularly. The terrible thing was that Peyrol looked straight at her, not noticing anything, composed, without a frown or a smile, unseeing and deaf, while she waved her arms and shrieked desperately to him for help. She woke up with the piercing sound of his name in her ears and with the impression of the dream so powerful that even now, looking distractedly into her aunt’s face, she could see the bare arms of that murderous crowd raised above Ral’s sinking head. Yet the name that had sprung to her lips on waking was the name of Peyrol. She pushed her aunt away with such force that the old woman staggered backwards and to save herself had to catch hold of the overmantel above her head. Arlette ran to the door of the salle, looked in, came back to her aunt and shouted: ``Where is he?’’

Catherine really did not know which path the lieutenant had taken. She understood very well that ``he’’ meant Ral.

She said: ``He went away a long time ago’’ grasped her niece’s arm and added with an effort to steady her voice: ``He is coming back, Arlette — -for nothing will keep him away from you.’’

Arlette, as if mechanically, was whispering to herself the magic name, ``Peyrol, Peyrol!’’ then cried: ``I want Eugne now. This moment.’’

Catherine’s face wore a look of unflinching patience. ``He has departed on service,’’ she said. Her niece looked at her with enormous eyes, coal-black, profound, and immovable, while in a forcible and distracted tone she said: ``You and Peyrol have been plotting to rob me of my reason. But I will know how to make that old man give him up. He is mine!’’ She spun round wildly like a person looking for a way of escape from a deadly peril, and rushed out blindly.

About Escampobar the air was murky but calm, and the silence was so profound that it was possible to hear the first heavy drops of rain striking the ground. In the intimidating shadow of the storm-cloud, Arlette stood irresolute for a moment, but it was to Peyrol, the man of mystery and power, that her thoughts turned. She was ready to embrace his knees, to entreat and to scold. ``Peyrol, Peyrol!’’ she cried twice, and lent her ear as if expecting an answer. Then she shouted: ``I want him back.’’

Catherine, alone in the kitchen, moving with dignity, sat down in the armchair with the tall back, like a senator in his curule chair awaiting the blow of a barbarous fate.

Arlette flew down the slope. The first sign of her coming was a faint thin scream which really the rover alone heard and understood. He pressed his lips in a particular way, showing his appreciation of the coming difficulty. The next moment he saw, poised on a detached boulder and thinly veiled by the first perpendicular shower, Arlette, who, catching sight of the tartane with the men on board of her, let out a prolonged shriek of mingled triumph and despair: ``Peyrol! Help! Pey —  —  — rol!’’

Ral jumped to his feet with an extremely scared face, but Peyrol extended an arresting arm. ``She is calling to me,’’ he said, gazing at the figure poised on the rock. ``Well leaped! Sacr nom! . . . Well leaped!’’ And he muttered to himself soberly: ``She will break her legs or her neck.’’

``I see you, Peyrol,’’ screamed Arlette, who seemed to be flying through the air. ``Don’t you dare.’’

``Yes, here I am,’’ shouted the rover, striking his breast with his fist.

Lieutenant Ral put both his hands over his face. Michel looked on open-mouthed, very much as if watching a performance in a circus; but Scevola cast his eyes down. Arlette came on board with such an impetus that Peyrol had to step forward and save her from a fall which would have stunned her. She struggled in his arms with extreme violence. The heiress of Escampobar with her loose black hair seemed the incarnation of pale fury. ``Misrable! Don’t you dare!’’ A roll of thunder covered her voice, but when it had passed away she was heard again in suppliant tones. ``Peyrol, my friend, my dear old friend. Give him back to me,’’ and all the time her body writhed in the arms of the old seaman. ``You used to love me, Peyrol,’’ she cried without ceasing to struggle, and suddenly struck the rover twice in the face with her clenched fist. Peyrol’s head received the two blows as if it had been made of marble, but he felt with fear her body become still, grow rigid in his arms. A heavy squall enveloped the group of people on board the tartane. Peyrol laid Arlette gently on the deck. Her eyes were closed, her hands remained clenched; every sign of life had left her white face. Peyrol stood up and looked at the tall rocks streaming with water. The rain swept over the tartane with an angry swishing roar to which was added the sound of water rushing violently down the folds and seams of the precipitous shore vanishing gradually from his sight, as if this had been the beginning of a destroying and universal deluge — -the end of all things.

Lieutenant Ral, kneeling on one knee, contemplated the pale face of Arlette. Distinct, yet mingling with the faint growl of distant thunder, Peyrol’s voice was heard saying:

``We can’t put her ashore and leave her lying in the rain. She must be taken up to the house.’’ Arlette’s soaked clothes clung to her limbs while the lieutenant, his bare head dripping with rain water, looked as if he had just saved her from drowning. Peyrol gazed down inscrutably at the woman stretched on the deck and at the kneeling man. ``She has fainted from rage at her old Peyrol,’’ he went on rather dreamily. ``Strange things do happen. However, lieutenant, you had better take her under the arms and step ashore first. I will help you. Ready? Lift.’’

The movements of the two men had to be careful and their progress was slow on the lower, steep part of the slope. After going up more than two-thirds of the way, they rested their insensible burden on a flat stone. Ral continued to sustain the shoulders but Peyrol lowered the feet gently.

``Ha!’’ he said. ``You will be able to carry her yourself the rest of the way and give her up to old Catherine. Get a firm footing and I will lift her and place her in your arms. You can walk the distance quite easily. There. . . . Hold her a little higher, or her feet will be catching on the stones.’’

Arlette’s hair was hanging far below the lieutenant’s arm in an inert and heavy mass. The thunderstorm was passing away, leaving a cloudy sky. And Peyrol thought with a profound sigh: ``I am tired.’’

``She is light,’’ said Ral.

``Parbleu, she is light. If she were dead, you would find her heavy enough. Allons, lieutenant. No! I am not coming. What’s the good? I’ll stay down here. I have no mind to listen to Catherine’s scolding.’’

The lieutenant, looking absorbed into the face resting in the hollow of his arm, never averted his gaze — -not even when Peyrol, stooping over Arlette, kissed the white forehead near the roots of the hair, black as a raven’s wing.

``What am I to do?’’ muttered Ral.

``Do? Why, give her up to old Catherine. And you may just as well tell her that I will be coming along directly. That will cheer her up. I used to count for something in that house. Allez. For our time is very short.’’

With these words he turned away and walked slowly down to the tartane. A breeze had sprung up. He felt it on his wet neck and was grateful for the cool touch which recalled him to himself, to his old wandering self which had known no softness and no hesitation in the face of any risk offered by life.

As he stepped on board, the shower passed away. Michel, wet to the skin, was still in the very same attitude gazing up the slope. Citizen Scevola had drawn his knees up and was holding his head in his hands; whether because of rain or cold or for some other reason, his teeth were chattering audibly with a continuous and distressing rattle. Peyrol flung off his jacket, heavy with water, with a strange air as if it was of no more use to his mortal envelope, squared his broad shoulders and directed Michel in a deep, quiet voice to let go the lines holding the tartane to the shore. The faithful henchman was taken aback and required one of Peyrol’s authoritative ``Allez’’ to put him in motion. Meantime the rover cast off the tiller lines and laid his hand with an air of mastery on the stout piece of wood projecting horizontally from the rudder-head about the level of his hip. The voices and the movements of his companions caused Citizen Scevola to master the desperate trembling of his jaw. He wriggled a little in his bonds and the question that had been on his lips for a good many hours was uttered again.

``What are you going to do with me?’’

``What do you think of a little promenade at sea?’’ Peyrol asked in a tone that was not unkindly.

Citizen Scevola, who had seemed totally and completely cast down and subdued, let out a most unexpected screech.

``Unbind me. Put me ashore.’’

Michel, busy forward, was moved to smile as though he had possessed a cultivated sense of incongruity. Peyrol remained serious.

``You shall be untied presently,’’ he assured the blood-drinking patriot, who had been for so many years the reputed possessor not only of Escampobar, but of the Escampobar heiress that, living on appearances, he had almost come to believe in that ownership himself. No wonder he screeched at this rude awakening. Peyrol raised his voice: ``Haul on the line, Michel.’’

As, directly the ropes had been let go, the tartane had swung clear of the shore, the movement given her by Michel carried her towards the entrance by which the basin communicated with the cove. Peyrol attended to the helm, and in a moment, gliding through the narrow gap, the tartane carrying her way, shot out almost into the middle of the cove.