Part 29 (1/2)
Under the most indifferent words there seemed to palpitate and to struggle a pa.s.sion which was but partially restrained, and ever on the point of breaking forth. Her letters read like the conversations of timid lovers, who talk about the rain and the weather in a tone of voice trembling with desire, and with looks burning with pa.s.sion.
”Could she really be in love with me?” Daniel thought, ”and could that be her punishment?”
Then, again, swearing, like the roughest of his men, he added,- ”Am I to be a fool forever? Is it not quite clear that this wicked woman only tries to put my suspicions to sleep? She is evidently preparing for her defence, in case the rascal who attempted my life should be caught, and compromise her by his confessions.”
Every letter; moreover, brought from the Countess Sarah some news about his betrothed, her ”stepdaughter.” But she always spoke of her with extreme reserve and reticence, and in ambiguous terms, as if counting upon Daniel's sagacity to guess what she could not or would not write. According to her account, Henrietta had become reconciled to her father's marriage. The poor child's melancholy had entirely disappeared. Miss Henrietta was very friendly with Sir Thorn. The coquettish ways of the young girl became quite alarming; and her indiscretion provoked the gossip of visitors. Daniel might as well accustom himself to the idea, that, on his return, he might find Henrietta a married woman.
”She lies, the wretch!” said Daniel; ”yes, she lies!”
But he tried in vain to resist; every letter from Sarah brought him the germ of some new suspicion, which fermented in his mind as the miasma fermented in the veins of his men.
The information furnished by Maxime de Brevan was different, and often contradictory even, but by no means more rea.s.suring. His letters portrayed the perplexity and the hesitation of a man who is all anxiety to soften hard truths. According to him, the Countess Sarah and Miss Ville-Handry did not get on well with each other; but he declared he was bound to say that the wrong was all on the young lady's side, who seemed to make it the study of her life to mortify her step-mother, while the latter bore the most irritating provocations with unchanging sweetness. He alluded to the calumnies which endangered Miss Henrietta's reputation, admitting that she had given some ground for them by thoughtless acts. He finally added that he foresaw the moment when she would leave her father's house in spite of all his advice to the contrary.
”And not one line from her,” exclaimed Daniel,-”not one line!”
And he wrote her letter after letter, beseeching her to answer him, whatever might be the matter, and to fear nothing, as the certainty even of a misfortune would be a blessing to him in comparison with this torturing uncertainty.
He wrote without imagining for a moment that Henrietta suffered all the torments he endured, that their letters were intercepted, and that she had no more news of him than he had of her.
Time pa.s.sed, however, carrying with it the evil as well as the good days. Daniel returned to Saigon, bringing back with him one of the finest hydrographic works that exist on Cochin China. It was well known that this work had cost an immense outlay of labor, of privations, and of life; hence he was rewarded as if he had won a battle, and he was rewarded instantly, thanks to special powers conferred upon his chief, reserving only the confirmation in France, which was never refused.
All the survivors of the expedition were mentioned in public orders and in the official report; two were decorated; and Daniel was promoted to officer of the Legion of Honor. Under other circ.u.mstances, this distinction, doubly valuable to so young a man, would have made him supremely happy; now it left him cold.
The fact was, that these long trials had worn out the elasticity of his heart; and the sources of joy, as well as the sources of sorrow, had dried up. He no longer struggled against despair, and came to believe that Henrietta had forgotten him, and would never be his wife. Now, as he knew he never could love another, or rather as no other existed for him; as, without Henrietta, the world seemed to him empty, absurd, intolerable,-he asked himself why he should continue to live. There were moments in which he looked lovingly at his pistols, and said to himself,- ”Why should I not spare Sarah Brandon the trouble?”
What kept his hand back was the leaven of hatred which still rose in him at times. He ought to have the courage, at least, to live long enough to avenge himself. Hara.s.sed by these anxieties, he withdrew more and more from society; never went on sh.o.r.e; and his comrades on board ”The Conquest” felt anxious as they looked at him walking restlessly up and down the quarter-deck, pale, and with eyes on fire.
For they loved Daniel. His superiority was so evident, that none disputed it; they might envy him; but they could never be jealous of him. Some of them thought he had brought back with him from Kamboja the germ of one of those implacable diseases which demoralize the strongest, and which break out suddenly, carrying a man off in a few hours.
”You ought not to become a misanthrope, my dear Champcey,” they would say. ”Come, for Heaven's sake shake off that sadness, which might make an end of you before you are aware of it!”
And jestingly they added,- ”Decidedly, you regret the banks of the Kamboja!”
They thought it a jest: it was the truth. Daniel did regret even the worst days of his mission. At that time his grave responsibility, overwhelming fatigues, hard work, and daily danger, had procured him at least some hours of oblivion. Now idleness left him, without respite or time, face to face with his distressing thoughts. It was the desire, the necessity almost, of escaping in some manner from himself, which made him accept an invitation to join a number of his comrades who wanted to try the charms of a great hunting party.
On the morning of the expedition, however, he had a kind of presentiment.
”A fine opportunity,” he thought, ”for the a.s.sa.s.sin hired by Sarah Brandon!”
Then, shrugging his shoulders, he said with a bitter laugh,- ”How can I hesitate? As if a life like mine was worth the trouble of protecting it against danger!”
When they arrived on the following day on the hunting ground, he, as well as the other hunters, received their instructions, and had their posts a.s.signed them by the leader. He found himself placed between two of his comrades, in front of a thicket, and facing a narrow ravine, through which all the game must necessarily pa.s.s as it was driven down by a crowd of Annamites.
They had been firing for an hour, when Daniel's neighbors saw him suddenly let go his rifle, turn over, and fall.
They hurried up to catch him; but he fell, face forward, to the ground, saying aloud, and very distinctly,- ”This time they have not missed me!”
At the outcry raised by the two neighbors of Daniel, other hunters had hastened up, and among them the chief surgeon of ”The Conquest,” one of those old ”pill-makers,” who, under a jovial scepticism, and a rough, almost brutal outside, conceal great skill and an almost feminine tenderness. As soon as he looked at the wounded man, whom his friends had stretched out on his back, making a pillow of their overcoats, and who lay there pale and inanimate, the good doctor frowned, and growled out,- ”He won't live.”
The officers were thunderstruck.
”Poor Champcey!” said one of them, ”to escape the Kamboja fevers, and to be killed here at a pleasure party! Do you recollect, doctor, what you said on the occasion of his second accident,-'Mind the third'?”
The old doctor did not listen. He had knelt down, and rapidly stripped the coat off Daniel's back. The poor man had been struck by a shot. The ball had entered on the right side, a little behind; and between the fourth and the fifth rib, one could see a round wound, the edges drawn in. But the most careful examination did not enable him to find the place where the projectile had come out again. The doctor rose slowly, and, while carefully dusting the knees of his trousers, he said,- ”All things considered, I would not bet that he may not escape. Who knows where the ball may be lodged? It may have respected the vital parts.
”Projectiles often take curious turns and twists. I should almost be disposed to answer for M. Champcey, if I had him in a good bed in the hospital at Saigon. At all events, we must try to get him there alive. Let one of you gentlemen tell the sailors who have come with us to make a litter of branches.”
The noise of a struggle, of fearful oaths and inarticulate cries, interrupted his orders. Some fifteen yards off, below the place where Daniel had fallen, two sailors were coming out of the thicket, their faces red with anger, dragging out a man with a wretched gun, who hurled out,- ”Will you let me go, you parcel of good-for-nothings! Let me go, or I'll hurt you!”
He was so furiously struggling in the arms of the two sailors, clinging with an iron grip to roots and branches and rocks, turning and twisting at every step, that the men at last, furious at his resistance, lifted him up bodily, and threw him at the chief surgeon's feet, exclaiming,- ”Here is the scoundrel who has killed our lieutenant!”
It was a man of medium size, with a dejected air, and lack-l.u.s.tre eyes, wearing a mustache and chin-beard, and looking impudent. His costume was that of an Annamite of the middle cla.s.ses,-a blouse b.u.t.toned at the side, trousers made in Chinese style, and sandals of red leather. It was, nevertheless, quite evident that the man was a European.
”Where did you find him?” asked the surgeon of the men.
”Down there, commandant, behind that big bush, to the right of Lieut. Champcey, and a little behind him.”
”Why do you accuse him?”
”Why? We have good reasons, I should think. He was hiding. When we saw him, he was lying flat on the ground, trembling with fear; and we said at once, 'Surely, there is the man who fired that shot.'”
The man had, in the meantime, raised himself, and a.s.sumed an air of almost provoking a.s.surance.
”They lie!” he exclaimed. ”Yes, they lie, the cowards!”
This insult would have procured him a sound drubbing, but for the old surgeon, who held the arm of the first sailor who made the attack. Then, continuing his interrogatory, he asked,- ”Why did you hide?”
”I did not hide.”
”What were you doing there, crouching in the bush?”
”I was at my post, like the others. Do they require a permit to carry arms in Cochin China? I was not invited to your hunting party, to be sure; but I am fond of game; and I said to myself, 'Even if I were to shoot two or three head out of the hundreds their drivers will bring down, I would do them no great harm.'”
The doctor let him talk on for some time, observing him closely with his sagacious eye; then, all of a sudden, he broke in, saying,- ”Give me your gun!”
The man turned so visibly pale, that all the officers standing around noticed it. Still he did what he was asked to do, and said,- ”Here it is. It's a gun one of my friends has lent me.”
The doctor examined the weapon very carefully; and, after having inspected the lock, he said,- ”Both barrels of your gun are empty; and they have not been emptied more than two minutes ago.”
”That is so; I fired both barrels at an animal that pa.s.sed me within reach.”
”One of the b.a.l.l.s may have gone astray.”
”That cannot be. I was aiming in the direction of the prairie; and, consequently, I was turning my back to the place where the officer was standing.”
To the great surprise of everybody, the doctor's face, ordinarily crafty enough, now looked all benevolent curiosity,-so much so, that the two sailors who had captured the man were furious, and said aloud,- ”Ah! don't believe him, commandant, the dirty dog!”
But the man, evidently encouraged by the surgeon's apparent kindliness, asked,- ”Am I to be allowed to defend myself, or not?”
And then he added in a tone of supreme impudence,- ”However, whether I defend myself or not, it will, no doubt, be all the same. Ah! if I were only a sailor, or even a marine, that would be another pair of sleeves; they would hear me! But now, I am nothing but a poor civilian; and here everybody knows civilians must have broad shoulders. Wrong or right, as soon as they are accused, they are convicted.”