The Complete Short Stories of Wilkie Collins. Уилки Коллинз
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his back on the spectators, and fixing his eyes again on the green baize of the table at which he stood.
“Prisoners, have you any objection to make, any evidence to call, invalidating the statement by which Citizen Danville has cleared himself of suspicion?” inquired the president.
“He has cleared himself by the most execrable of all falsehoods,” answered Trudaine. “If his mother could be traced and brought here, her testimony would prove it.”
“Can you produce any other evidence in support of your allegation?” asked the president.
“I cannot.”
“Citizen Superintendent Danville, you are at liberty to retire. Your statement will be laid before the authority to whom you are officially responsible. Either you merit a civic crown for more than Roman virtue, or — ” Having got thus far, the president stopped abruptly, as if unwilling to commit himself too soon to an opinion, and merely repeated, “You may retire.”
Danville left the court immediately, going out again by the public door. He was followed by murmurs from the women’s benches, which soon ceased, however, when the president was observed to close his notebook, and turn round toward his colleagues. “The sentence!” was the general whisper now. “Hush, hush — the sentence!”
After a consultation of a few minutes with the persons behind him, the president rose, and spoke the momentous words:
“Louis Trudaine and Rose Danville, the revolutionary tribunal, having heard the charge against you, and having weighed the value of what you have said in answer to it, decides that you are both guilty, and condemns you to the penalty of death.”
Having delivered the sentence in those terms, he sat down again, and placed a mark against the two first condemned names on the list of prisoners. Immediately afterward the next case was called on, and the curiosity of the audience was stimulated by a new trial.
Chapter IV
The waiting-room of the revolutionary tribunal was a grim, bare place, with a dirty stone floor, and benches running round the walls. The windows were high and barred; and at the outer door, leading into the street, two sentinels kept watch. On entering this comfortless retreat from the court, Lomaque found it perfectly empty. Solitude was just then welcome to him. He remained in the waiting-room, walking slowly from end to end over the filthy pavement, talking eagerly and incessantly to himself.
After a while, the door communicating with the tribunal opened, and the humpbacked jailer made his appearance, leading in Trudaine and Rose.
“You will have to wait here,” said the little man, “till the rest of them have been tried and sentenced; and then you will all go back to prison in a lump. Ha, citizen,” he continued, observing Lomaque at the other end of the hall, and bustling up to him. “Here still, eh? If you were going to stop much longer, I should ask a favor of you.”
“I am in no hurry,” said Lomaque, with a glance at the two prisoners.
“Good!” cried the humpback, drawing his hand across his mouth; “I am parched with thirst, and dying to moisten my throat at the wine-shop over the way. Just mind that man and woman while I’m gone, will you? It’s the merest form — there’s a guard outside, the windows are barred, the tribunal is within hail. Do you mind obliging me?”
“On the contrary, I am glad of the opportunity.”
“That’s a good fellow — and, remember, if I am asked for, you must say I was obliged to quit the court for a few minutes, and left you in charge.”
With these words, the humpbacked jailer ran off to the wine-shop.
He had scarcely disappeared before Trudaine crossed the room, and caught Lomaque by the arm.
“Save her,” he whispered; “there is an opportunity — save her!” His face was flushed — his eyes wandered — his breath on the chief agent’s cheek, while he spoke, felt scorching hot. “Save her!” he repeated, shaking Lomaque by the arm, and dragging him toward the door. “Remember all you owe to my father — remember our talk on that bench by the river — remember what you said to me yourself on the night of the arrest — don’t wait to think — save her, and leave me without a word! If I die alone, I can die as a man should; if she goes to the scaffold by my side, my heart will fail me — I shall die the death of a coward! I have lived for her life — let me die for it, and I die happy!”
He tried to say more, but the violence of his agitation forbade it. He could only shake the arm he held again and again, and point to the bench on which Rose sat — her head sunk on her bosom, her hands crossed listlessly on her lap.
“There are two armed sentinels outside — the windows are barred — you are without weapons — and even if you had them, there is a guardhouse within hail on one side of you, and the tribunal on the other. Escape from this room is impossible,” answered Lomaque.
“Impossible!” repeated the other, furiously. “You traitor! you coward! can you look at her sitting there helpless, her very life ebbing away already with every minute that passes, and tell me coolly that escape is impossible?”
In the frenzy of his grief and despair, he lifted his disengaged hand threateningly while he spoke. Lomaque caught him by the wrist, and drew him toward a window open at the top.
“You are not in your right senses,” said the chief agent, firmly; “anxiety and apprehension on your sister’s account have shaken your mind. Try to compose yourself, and listen to me. I have something important to say — ” (Trudaine looked at him incredulously.) “Important,” continued Lomaque, “as affecting your sister’s interests at this terrible crisis.”
That last appeal had an instantaneous effect. Trudaine’s outstretched hand dropped to his side, and a sudden change passed over his expression.
“Give me a moment,” he said, faintly; and turning away, leaned against the wall and pressed his burning forehead on the chill, damp stone. He did not raise his head again till he had mastered himself, and could say quietly, “Speak; I am fit to hear you, and sufficiently in my senses to ask your forgiveness for what I said just now.”
“When I left the tribunal and entered this room,” Lomaque began in a whisper, “there was no thought in my mind that could be turned to good account, either for your sister or for you. I was fit for nothing but to deplore the failure of the confession which I came to St. Lazare to suggest to you as your best plan of defense. Since then, an idea has struck me, which may be useful — an idea so desperate, so uncertain — involving a proposal so absolutely dependent, as to its successful execution, on the merest chance, that I refuse to confide it to you except on one condition.”
“Mention the condition! I submit to it before hand.”
“Give me your word of honour that you will not mention what I am about to say to your sister until I grant you permission to speak. Promise me that when you see her shrinking before the terrors of death tonight, you will have self-restraint enough to abstain from breathing a word of hope to her. I ask this, because there are ten — twenty — fifty chances to one that there is no hope.”
“I have no choice but to promise,” answered Trudaine.
Lomaque produced his pocketbook and pencil before he spoke again.
“I will enter into particulars as soon as I have asked a strange question of you,” he said. “You have been a great experimenter in chemistry in your time — is your mind calm enough, at such a trying moment as this, to answer a question which is connected with chemistry in a very humble way? You seem astonished. Let me put the question at once. Is there any liquid or powder, or combination of more than one ingredient known, which will remove writing from paper, and leave no stain behind?”
“Certainly!