The Knight of Malta

“But this is a child!” said the commander, looking at his adversary with a sort of contemptuous compassion.

“Your mother! Your mother!” whispered Pog to Erebus.

“Yes, a child, the child of those whom you have murdered,” cried the unfortunate youth, striking the commander in the face with the breadth of his sword.

The livid countenance of the old soldier became purple; transported with anger at this insult, he threw himself upon Erebus, saying, “Lord, thy will be done!”

Then ensued a parricidal struggle.

And the darkness suddenly fell upon the scene, as if nature herself revolted at the sight.

Thunderbolts rent the clouds, the tempest let loose its fury, and the very rocks trembled upon their foundations.

The parricidal combat continued with undiminished rage.

With clasped hands, Pog, with ferocious eagerness, enjoyed the frightful spectacle.

“At last, after twenty years, I taste one moment of true, ineffable happiness. Roll, O thunder! Burst forth, O tempest! All nature takes part in my vengeance!” cried he, in savage joy.

Honorât, unable to account for his own feelings, cried in dismay:

“Enough! enough!” and tried to separate Erebus and Pierre des Anbiez.

Pog, endowed for the moment with superhuman strength, seized Honorât, paralysed his efforts, and said, in a low voice, trembling with rage and excitement, “My vengeance!”

Erebus fell.

“Pierre des Anbiez, you have killed your son! Here are your letters, here are the portraits, you can see them,” cried Pog, in a voice that rose above the storm, and he threw at the feet of the commander the casket which Hadji had stolen from Peyrou.

Suddenly a thunderbolt struck with a noise impossible to describe. The heavens, the bay, the ruins, the rocks, and the sea, appeared to be on fire.

A terrible explosion followed, and the very earth trembled; a part of the ruins of the abbey fell away, while a blast of wind, breaking and driving everything in its path, enveloped the entire bay in its irresistible and tremendous whirlpool.

CHAPTER XLII. CONCLUSION

Three days after the dreadful combat between Pierre des Anbiez and Erebus, the black galley and the polacre of Luquin were anchored in the port of La Ciotat.

The great clock in the hall of Maison-Forte had just struck nine. Captain Trinquetaille was walking softly on tiptoe through the gallery where the Christmas ceremonies had taken place, directing his steps toward the apartment of Mlle. des Anbiez. He knocked at the little door of the oratory. Stephanette soon came out of the door.

“Ah, well, Luquin,” said the young girl, anxiously,

“how has he passed the night?”

“Badly, Stephanette, very badly; the abbé says there is no hope for him.”

“Poor child!” said the young girl, “and how is M. Commander?”

“Always in the same state, seated at the youth’s bedside like a statue; he never moves or speaks or sees or hears. Father Elzear says if M. Commander could only weep, he might be saved, if not – ”

“Well?”

“If not, he fears his head,” and Luquin made a gesture indicating the alarm felt for the commander’s mind.

“Ah, my God, if that misfortune should be added to all the others!”

“And how is Mlle. Reine?” asked Luquin.

“Always suffering. The sad ceremony of the baptism yesterday affected her so deeply! Monseigneur wished her to be with him sponsor to this poor young pagan whom they called Erebus, so that he can die a Christian. My God! at his age never to have been baptised! Fortunately, Father Elzear has given him the sacrament! Ah, poor young man, he will bear the Christian names that monseigneur and mademoiselle have given him only until this evening.”

“And how is monseigneur?” asked Luquin.

“Oh, as to monseigneur, he would be on his feet and with the commander if we would listen to him. Abbé Mascarolus says an ordinary man would have been killed by such a wound, and that monseigneur must have a head as hard as iron to have resisted that heavy club. Thank God, he who gave that blow will not give any more.”

“Speaking of that, Stephanette, you know they have not been able to find the body of Pog-Reis under the ruins of the abbey?”

“He was only an infidel, but, oh, to die without burial!” said Stephanette, with a shudder. “How was he buried under the ruins?”

“This is what M. Honorât told me, and he ought to know. The moment the unfortunate young man fell, wounded by the commander, Pog-Reis, as they called him, seized M. Honorât, so as to prevent his separating the two combatants. Suddenly, as you know, the thunderbolt burst in the middle of the bay It struck the Red Galleon; her powder took fire, and she was blown up, and carried with her the other galley, already seriously damaged by the culverin of Master Laramée. Not a pirate escaped. The waves of the bay were so high and so powerful that the best swimmer would have been drowned a thousand times over.”

“But, Pog-Reis?” asked Stephanette.

“The explosion was so tremendous that the earth trembled. M. Honorât told me this: ‘The pirate, startled, then left me. I ran to the commander, who had already been thrown on the body of his son. He was embracing him, as he sobbed. At the time of the explosion Pog-Reis was standing on the ruins. Those old walls, shaken by the commotion and violence of the wind, suddenly fell and crushed him beneath their weight’ This morning, some fishermen coming from the bay said the stones were so enormous that they could not be moved, and so they had given up all hope of finding the body of the brigand.”

“My God! my God! What a disaster, Luquin, and how it proves that Heaven is just See, the two galleys of these brigands were struck and not one escaped! And Pog-Reis crushed under the ruins of the abbey!”

“No doubt, no doubt, Stephanette, Heaven has done much; but it has not done all, there remains yet another account to settle.”

“What do you mean?”

“When we heard this explosion at sea, and when we set sail for Maison-Forte, and a little faster, too, than I wished, for the tempest was driving my polacre over the waves like a feather in the air, you see – ”

“That is true, Luquin, we thought we were lost What weather! what waves! we thought we had escaped one danger only to fall into another.”

“Yes, yes. Ah, well, what was it passed within range of my cannon during the hurricane?”

“How do I know? I was too much frightened and too much occupied with my mistress to see what was happening around us.”

“Indeed, Stephanette! Ah, well, it was the chebec of that cursed Bohemian whom hell leaves on this earth I know not why. Yes, it was his chebec that was near us. He had, by chance, anchored his ship so far from the galleys that he did not feel the explosion. Two hours after, when he had brought M. Commander, M. Honorât, and that poor young man on board the galley, taking advantage of the commander’s forgetfulness, who neglected to have him hanged, he had the audacity to set sail again, and it was he we saw pass us, returning, no doubt, to the south, where he will be drowned or burned if the good God wishes to finish the example he has already given us in destroying the two galleys of these infidels. That is what I wish may happen to him.”

“Come, come, Luquin, you are so enraged against this wretch; do not think of him any more. Yet it was he who brought on board the black galley Mlle. Reine, me, my companions, the prisoners, the recorder Isnard and his clerk, who were among the captives, and who never ceased to call him our deliverer. So do have a little pity on your neighbour – ”

“My neighbour! that miserable vagabond! My neighbour! the neighbour of Satan! That is what he is!”

“Ah, how wicked you are in your hatred!”

“Come, now, that is pretty good!” cried Luquin, in a fury, “that is the way you defend him now! You can do no more than regret him. Besides, he said, really, that you would regret him, and perhaps he was not wrong!” “Indeed, if you begin your jealousy again, you will make me regret him.”

“Regret him – him! you dare – ”