Part 29 (1/2)
”They have means of vengeance certain and prompt, and they never spare.”
Astona departed without seeing us. Eive closed the door, and Davilo and I, hastily and unperceived, followed the spy to the gate of the enclosure. Some one waited for her there. What pa.s.sed we could not hear; but, as we saw Astona and another depart, Davilo spoke imprudently aloud--
”She has the secret, and she must die. ?Nay? (as I would have expostulated), she is spy, traitress, and a.s.sa.s.sin, and merits her doom most richly.”
”Hist!” said I, ”your words may have fallen into other ears;” for I thought that beyond the wall I discerned a crouching figure. If that of a man, however, it was too far off, and dressed in colours too dark, to be clearly seen; and in another instant it had certainly vanished.
”Remember,” he urged, ”you have heard that one quite as dangerous is under your own roof; and, once more, it is not only your life that is at stake. What you call courage, what seems to us sheer folly, may cost you and others what you value far more than your life. An error of softness now may make your future existence one long and useless remorse.”
Half-an-hour later, having warned the women to their rooms--ordering a variety of disinfecting measures in which Martial science excelled while they were needed there--I opened the door of the death chamber to those who carried in a coffer hollowed out of a dark, exceedingly dense natural stone, and half-filled with a liquid of enormous destructive power. Then I lifted tenderly the lifeless form, laid it on cus.h.i.+ons arranged therein, kissed the lips, and closed the coffer.
Two of Davilo's attendants had meantime adjusted the electric machinery. We carried the coffer into the apartment where this worked to heat the stove, to keep the lights burning, to raise, warm, and diffuse the water through the house, and perform many other important household services. Two strong bars of conducting metal were attached to the apparatus, and fitted into two hollows of the coffer. A flash, a certain hissing sound, followed. After a few moments the coffer was opened, and Davilo, carefully gathering a few handfuls of solid white material, something resembling pumice stone in appearance, placed them in a golden chest about twelve inches cube, which was then soldered down by the heat derived from the electric power. Then all infected clothes and the contents of the death chamber were carried out for destruction; while, with a tool adjusted to the machinery, one of the attendants engraved a few characters upon the chest. Whatever the risk, I could not part with every relic of her we had lost; and, after pa.s.sing them through such chemical purification as Martial science suggested, I took the three long chestnut locks I had preserved.
Velna's quick fingers wove them into plaits, one of which I left with her, one bound around my own neck, and one reserved for Eveena. As soon as the sun had risen, I had despatched a message to the Prince, explaining the danger of infection to which I had been subjected, and asking permission notwithstanding to wait upon him. The emergency was so pressing that neither sorrow nor peril would allow me to neglect an emba.s.sy on which the lives of hundreds, and perhaps the safety of his kingdom, might depend. Pa.s.sing Eive as I turned towards Eveena's room, and fevered with intense thirst, I bade her bring me thither a cup of the carcara. I need not dwell on the terribly painful moments in which I bound round Eveena's arm a bracelet prized above all the choicest ornaments she possessed. To calm her agitation and my own by means of the charny, I sought the keys. They were not at my belt, and I asked, ”Have I returned them to you?”
”Certainly not,” said Eveena, startled. ”Can you not find them?”
At this moment Eive entered the room and presented me with the cup for which I had asked. It struck me with surprise, even at that moment, that Eveena took it from my hand and carried it first to her own lips.
Eive had turned to leave the room; but before she had reached the threshold Eveena had sprung up, placed her foot upon the spring that closed the door, and s.n.a.t.c.hing the test-stone from my watch chain dipped it into the cup. Her face turned white as death, while she held up to my eyes the discoloured disc which proved the presence of the deadliest Martial poison.
”Be calm,” she said, as a cry of horror burst from my lips. ”The keys!”
”_You_ have them,” Eive said with a gasp, her face still averted.
”I took them from Eveena myself,” I answered sternly. ”Stand back into that corner, Eive,” as I opened the door and called sharply the other members of the household. When they entered, unable to stand, I had fallen back upon a chair, and called Eive to my side. As I laid my hand on her arm she threw herself on the floor, screaming and writhing like a terrified child rather than a woman detected in a crime, the conception and execution of which must have required an evil courage and determination happily seldom possessed by women.
”Stand up!” I said. ”Lift her, then, Enva and Eirale. Unfasten the shoulder-clasps and zone.”
As her outer robe dropped, Eive s.n.a.t.c.hed at an object in its folds, but too late; and the electric keys, which gave access to all my cases, papers, and to the medicine-chest above all, lay glittering on the ground.
”That cup Eive brought to me. Which of you saw her?”
”I did,” said Enva quietly, all feelings of malice and curiosity alike awed into silence by the evidence of some terrible, though as yet to them unknown, secret. ”She mixed it and brought it hither herself.”
”And,” I said, ”it contains a poison against which, had I drunk one-half the draught, no antidote could have availed--a poison to which these keys only could have given access.”
Again the test-stone was applied, and again the discoloration testified to the truth of the charge.
”You have seen?” I said.
”We have seen,” answered Enva, in the same tone of horror, too deep to be other than quiet.
We all left the room, closing the door upon the prisoner. Dismissing the girls to their own chambers, with strict injunctions not to quit them unpermitted, I was left alone with Eveena. We were silent for some minutes, my own heart oppressed with mingled emotions, all intensely painful, but so confused that, while conscious of acute suffering, I scarcely realised anything that had occurred. Eveena, who knelt beside me, though deeply horror-struck, was less surprised and was far less agitated than I. At last, leaning forward with her arms on my knee and looking up in my face, she was about to speak. But the touch and look seemed to break a spell, and, shuddering from head to foot, I burst into tears like those of an hysterical girl. When, with the strongest effort that shame and necessity could prompt, aided by her silent soothing, I had somewhat regained my self-command, Eveena spoke, in the same att.i.tude and with the same look:--
”You said once that you could pardon such an attempt. That you should ever forgive at heart cannot be. That punishment should not follow so terrible a crime, even I cannot desire. But for _my_ sake, do not give her up to the doom she has deserved. Do you know” (as I was silent) ”what that doom is?”
”Death, I suppose.”
”Yes!” she said, shuddering, ”but death with torture--death on the vivisection-table. Will you, whatever the danger--_can_ you, give up to such a fate, to such hands, one whom your hand has caressed, whose head has rested on your heart?”
”It needs not that, Eveena,” I answered; ”enough that she is woman. I would face that death myself rather than, for whatever crime, send a woman, above all a young girl, to such an end. I would rather by far slay my worst enemy with my own hand than consign him to a death of torture. But, more than that, my conscience would not permit me to call on the law to punish a household treason, where household authority is so strong and so arbitrary as here. a.s.sa.s.sination is the weapon of the oppressed and helpless; and it is not for me so to be judge in my own cause as to p.r.o.nounce that Eive has had no provocation.”
”Shame upon her!” said Eveena indignantly. ”No one under your roof ever had or could have reason to raise a hand, I do not say against your life, but to give you a moment's pain. I do not ask, I do not wish you to spare her; only I am glad to think you will deal with her yourself--remember she has herself removed all limit to your power--and not by the shameless and merciless hands to which the law would give her.”