Adrift in Pacific and Other Great Adventures – 17 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Jules Verne
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the castle, and had the machinery capable of producing these phantasmal effects. As to Doctor Patak’s peculiar assertion that he was chained to the ground by some force, it could only be supposed that he had been the sport of some illusion. What was most likely was that his limbs had failed him simply because he was mad with terror, and that Franz declared to the young forester.
“What!” said Nic Deck, “would it be at the moment he wanted to run that his legs would fail the coward? That is hardly likely, you must admit.”
“Well,” continued Franz, “let us admit that his legs were caught in some trap, probably hidden under the grass at the bottom of the ditch.”
“When a trap closes,” said the forester, “it hurts you cruelly, it tears your flesh, and Doctor Patak’s legs have no trace of a wound.”
“Your observation is correct, Nic Deck; but if it be true that the doctor could not get away, it must be that his legs were caught in some snare.”
“Then I will ask you how this snare could open of itself to set the doctor at liberty?”
Franz was too much puzzled to reply.
“But, count, I leave to you all that concerns Doctor Patak. After all, I can only speak of what I know of myself.”
“Yes, let us leave the doctor, and speak of what happened to you, Nic Deck.”
“What happened to me was clear enough. There is no doubt I received a terrible shock, and that in a way that is unnatural.”
“There is no appearance of a wound on your body?” asked Franz.
“None; and yet I was struck with terrible violence.”
“Was it just when you put your hand on the ironwork of the drawbridge?”
“Yes; just as I touched it, I seemed as if I were paralyzed. Fortunately my hand which held the chain did not leave go, and I slipped down into the bottom of the ditch, where the doctor found me senseless.”
Franz shook his head with the air of a man whom these explanations left incredulous.
“You see,” continued Nic Deck, “what I have told you is no dream; and if for eight days I remained full length on the bed, without the use of arms or legs, it is not reasonable to say I must have imagined it all.”
“I do not attempt to do that,” said the count; “it is only too certain you received a brutal shock.”
“Brutal and diabolic.”
“No—and in that we differ, Nic Deck. You believe you were struck by some supernatural being, and I do not believe there are supernatural beings, either good or evil—”
“Will you then explain what happened to me?”
“I cannot do that yet, Nic Deck; but rest assured all will be explained, and in a most simple manner.”
“May God grant it so!”
“Tell me,” said Franz, “has this castle belonged all along to the Gortz family?”
“Yes; and it belongs to it now, although the last descendant of the family, Baron Rodolphe, disappeared and no one has heard of him since.”
“When did he disappear?”
“About twenty years ago.”
“Twenty years?”
“Yes. One day Baron Rodolphe left the castle, of which the last servant died a few months after his departure; and no one has seen him since.”
“And since then no one has set foot in the castle?”
“No one.”
“And what is thought about him in the neighbourhood?”
“It is supposed that Baron Rodolphe died abroad a short time after he disappeared.”
“Then it is supposed wrong, Nic Deck. The baron is still alive—at least he was so five years ago.”
“He is alive?”
“Yes, in Italy—at Naples.”
“You have seen him?”
“I have seen him?”
“And during the five years?”
“I have heard nothing about him.”
The young forester thought for a moment or so. An idea had occurred to him, an idea he hesitated to formulate. At length he made up his mind, and, raising his head and knitting his brow, he said,—
“It is not supposable that Baron de Gortz has returned to the country with the intention of shutting himself up in the castle?”
“No—It is not supposable, Nic Deck.”
“What object would he have in hiding himself, in never letting anybody come near him?”
“None,” replied Franz de Télek.
And yet this was the thought which had begun to take shape in the mind of the young count. Was it not possible that this personage, whose existence had always been so enigmatic, had taken refuge in the castle after he left Naples? There, thanks to superstitious beliefs skilfully acted upon, would it not be easy for him to live in isolation, to defend himself against every unwelcome search, it being understood that he knew the state of mind that prevailed in the surrounding country?
But yet Franz thought it useless to launch the Werstians on this hypothesis. It would have been necessary to have put them in possession of facts which were too personal to him. Besides, he would have convinced no body, and that he saw clearly enough when Nic Deck added,—
“If it is Baron Rodolphe who is in the castle, we shall have to believe that Baron Rodolphe is the Chort, for only the Chort could have treated me in that way.”
Desirous of not returning over the same ground, Franz changed the course of the conversation. After employing every means to reassure the young forester as to the consequences of his attempt, he made him promise not to renew it. That was not his affair, it was the business of the authorities, and the Karlsburg police would know how to discover the mystery of the Castle of the Carpathians.
The young count then took leave of Nic Deck, recommending him to get well as quickly as possible, so as not to delay his marriage with the fair Miriota, at which he promised to be present.
Absorbed in his reflections, Franz returned to the “King Mathias” and did not go out again that day.
At six o’clock Jonas served his dinner in the large room, when by a praiseworthy feeling of reserve neither Master Koltz nor any of the villagers came to trouble his solitude.
About eight o’clock Rotzko said to the young count,—
“You have no further need of me master?”
“No, Rotzko.”
“Then I will go and smoke my pipe on the terrace.”
“Go, Rotzko, go.”
Lounging in an armchair, Franz again began to think of all that had passed. He was at Naples during the last performance at the San Carlo Theatre. He saw the Baron de Gortz at the moment when, for the first time, this man appeared to him, his head out of the box, his look ardently fixed on the artiste as if he would fascinate her.
Then his thoughts recurred to the letter signed by this strange personage, which accused him, Franz de Télek, of having killed La Stilla.
Lost in his recollections, Franz felt sleep come over him little by little. But he was still in that transition state when one can perceive the least noise, when a surprising phenomenon took place.
It seemed that a voice sweet and modulated made itself heard in this room where Franz was alone, quite alone.
Without knowing whether he dreamt or not, Franz rose and listened.