The Companions of Jehu

“Then,” said the officer; “stand aside, and let us take up the bodies of your comrades.”

“That is but right,” said Morgan, and he turned aside to a wall about ten paces distant and leaned against it.

The gate opened. Three men dressed in black entered the courtyard and picked up the bodies one after the other. Ribier was not quite dead; he opened his eyes and seemed to look for Morgan.

“Here I am,” said the latter. “Rest easy, dear friend, I follow.”

Ribier closed his eyes without uttering a word.

When the three bodies had been removed, the officer of the gendarmerie addressed Morgan.

“Are you ready, sir?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied Morgan, bowing with exquisite politeness.

“Then come.”

“I come.”

And he took his place between a platoon of gendarmerie and a detachment of dragoons.

“Will you mount the cart, sir, or go on foot?” asked the captain.

“On foot, on foot, sir. I am anxious that all shall see it is my pleasure to be guillotined, and that I am not afraid.”

The sinister procession crossed the Place des Lisses and skirted the walls of the Hôtel Montbazon. The cart bearing the three bodies came first, then the dragoons, then Morgan walking alone in a clear space of some ten feet before and behind him, then the gendarmes. At the end of the wall they turned to the left.

Suddenly, through an opening that existed at that time between the wall and the market-place, Morgan saw the scaffold raising its two posts to heaven like two bloody arms.

“Faugh!” he exclaimed, “I have never seen a guillotine, and I had no idea it was so ugly.”

Then, without further remark, he drew his dagger and plunged it into his breast up to the hilt.

The captain of the gendarmerie saw the movement without being in time to prevent it. He spurred his horse toward Morgan, who, to his own amazement and that of every one else, remained standing. But Morgan, drawing a pistol from his belt and cocking it, exclaimed: “Stop! It was agreed that no one should touch me. I shall die alone, or three of us will die together.”

The captain reined back his horse.

“Forward!” said Morgan.

They reached the foot of the guillotine. Morgan drew out his dagger and struck again as deeply as before. A cry of rage rather than pain escaped him.

“My soul must be riveted to my body,” he said.

Then, as the assistants wished to help him mount the scaffold on which the executioner was awaiting him, he cried out: “No, I say again, let no one touch me.”

Then he mounted the three steps without staggering.

When he reached the platform, he drew out the dagger again and struck himself a third time. Then a frightful laugh burst from his lips; flinging the dagger, which he had wrenched from the third ineffectual wound, at the feet of the executioner, he exclaimed: “By my faith! I have done enough. It is your turn; do it if you can.”

A minute later the head of the intrepid young man fell upon the scaffold, and by a phenomenon of that unconquerable vitality which he possessed it rebounded and rolled forward beyond the timbers of the guillotine.

Go to Bourg, as I did, and they will tell you that, as the head rolled forward, it was heard to utter the name of Amélie.

The dead bodies were guillotined after the living one; so that the spectators, instead of losing anything by the events we have just related, enjoyed a double spectacle.

CHAPTER LIV. THE CONFESSION

Three days after the events we have just recited, a carriage covered with dust and drawn by two horses white with foam stopped about seven of the evening before the gate of the Château des Noires-Fontaines. To the great astonishment of the person who was in such haste to arrive, the gates were open, a crowd of peasants filled the courtyard, and men and women were kneeling on the portico. Then, his sense of hearing being rendered more acute by astonishment at what he had seen, he fancied he heard the ringing of a bell.

He opened the door of the chaise, sprang out, crossed the courtyard rapidly, went up the portico, and found the stairway leading to the first floor filled with people.

Up the stairs he ran as he had up the portico, and heard what seemed to him a murmured prayer from his sister’s bedroom. He went to the room. The door was open. Madame de Montrevel and little Edouard were kneeling beside Amélie’s pillow; Charlotte, Michel, and his son Jacques were close at hand. The curate of Sainte-Claire was administering the last sacraments; the dismal scene was lighted only by the light of the wax-tapers.

The reader has recognized Roland in the traveller whose carriage stopped at the gate. The bystanders made way for him; he entered the room with his head uncovered and knelt beside his mother.

The dying girl lay on her back, her hands clasped, her head raised on her pillows, her eyes fixed upon the sky, in a sort of ecstasy. She seemed unconscious of Roland’s arrival. It was as though her soul were floating between heaven and earth, while the body still belonged to this world.

Madame de Montrevel’s hand sought that of Roland, and finding it, the poor mother dropped her head on his shoulder, sobbing. The sobs passed unnoticed by the dying girl, even as her brother’s arrival had done. She lay there perfectly immovable. Only when the viaticum had been administered, when the priest’s voice promised her eternal blessedness, her marble lips appeared to live again, and she murmured in a feeble but intelligible voice: “Amen!”

Then the bell rang again; the choir-boy, who was carrying it, left the room first, followed by the two acolytes who bore the tapers, then the cross-bearer, and lastly the priest with the Host. All the strangers present followed the procession, and the family and household were left alone. The house, an instant before so full of sound and life, was silent, almost deserted.

The dying girl had not moved; her lips were closed, her hands clasped, her eyes raised to heaven. After a few minutes Roland stooped to his mother’s ear, and whispered: “Come out with me, mother, I must speak to you.” Madame de Montrevel rose. She pushed little Edouard toward the bed, and the child stood on tiptoe to kiss his sister on the forehead. Then the mother followed him, and, leaning over, with a sob she pressed a kiss upon the same spot. Roland, with dry eyes but a breaking heart – he would have given much for tears in which to drown his sorrow – kissed his sister as his mother and little brother had done. She seemed as insensible to this kiss as to the preceding ones.

Edouard left the room, followed by Madame de Montrevel and Roland. Just as they reached the door they stopped, quivering. They had heard the name of Roland, uttered in a low but distinct tone.

Roland turned. Amélie called him a second time.

“Did you call me, Amélie?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied the dying girl.

“Alone, or with my mother?”

“Alone.”

That voice, devoid of emphasis, yet perfectly intelligible, had something glacial about it; it was like an echo from another world.

“Go, mother,” said Roland. “You see that she wishes to be alone with me.”

“O my God!” murmured Madame de Montrevel, “can there still be hope?”

Low as these words were, the dying girl heard them.

“No, mother,” she said. “God has permitted me to see my brother again; but to-night I go to Him.”

Madame de Montrevel groaned.

“Roland, Roland!” she said, “she is there already.”