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L'Orme

<h4>CHAPTER XVII.</h4> There is nothing like remorse:--it is the fiery gulf into which our passions and our follies lash us with whips of snakes. What language can tell the feelings of my bosom, while I stood and gazed upon the lifeless form of Helen's brother, as he lay before me slain by my hand? And oh! what words of horror and of agony did I not read in every line of that cold, still, mindless countenance, as it glared at me with an expression still mingled of the anger which had animated him, and the pang with which he had died. It was terrible beyond all description. My whole heart, and mind, and brain, and soul, was one whirl of dreadful sensations. I had done that which it was impossible to recal--I had taken from my fellow-being that which I could never restore--I had extinguished the bright mysterious lamp of life; and where, oh, where, could I find the Promethean flame wherewith to light it again to action and to being? In vain! The irrevocable deed had gone forth; and sorrow, and tears, and regret, and agony could have no more effect upon it than on the granite of the mountains that surrounded me. It was done! It was written on the book of fate! It was between me and my God,--a dreadful account, never to pass from my memory. I felt the finger, that had branded murderer! on the brow of Cain, tracing the same damning word in characters of fire upon my heart. And yet I gazed on, upon the thing that I made, with horror amounting to stupefaction. Like the head of the Gorgon, it seemed to have turned me into stone; and though I would have given worlds to have banished it for ever from my sight and my memory, I stood with my eyes fixed upon it as if I sought to impress every lifeless lineament on my remembrance with lines that time should never have power to efface. A heavy hand, laid upon my shoulder, was the first thing that roused me; and turning round, I beheld Pedro Garcias, the Spanish smuggler, standing by my side. The discharged gun was still in my hand; the bleeding corpse lay before me; and had he had occasion to ask who had done the deed, whose consequences he beheld, I am sure that my countenance would have afforded a sufficient reply. No one but a murderer could have looked and felt as I did. "How did this happen?" asked he bluntly, and without giving me either name or title; for no one could look upon the humbling object before us, and cast away one name of honour upon earthly rank. For a moment, I gazed upon the smuggler wildly and vacantly; for the strong impression of the thing itself had almost banished from my mind the circumstances that preceded it; but recollecting myself at length, I gave him a scarcely coherent account of what had happened. "You should not have seduced his sister," replied the smuggler, fixing his large dark eye upon me. "You men of rank think that the plain bourgeois feels not such a stain upon his honour as the loss of his child's or of his sister's virtue. But they do--they do, as bitterly, as keenly, as madly, as the proudest count that ever spread his banner to the wind." "Seduce his sister!--seduce Helen!" cried I, turning quickly upon him. "It is false! Who dares to say it? I would not wrong her for a world--not for a thousand worlds!" "That changes the case," replied the smuggler. "He wronged you then, and deserved to die. But come away from this spot. Fie! do not look so ghastly. We shall all wear his likeness one day, and it matters little whether it be a day sooner or a day later. But come along to the mill. Harm may come of this; for his father will not want friends to pursue this deed to the utmost. Come, come! You shall not stay here, and risk your life too. One dead man is enough for one day at least. Come!" So saying, he hurried me away to the mill, where we found the door apparently locked, the wheel at rest, and the miller out; but on tapping three times, thrice repeated, we were admitted by the miller, who seemed somewhat surprised to see me with Garcias. The event that had driven me there was soon told; and after a consultation between the two, it was agreed that, beyond all doubt, I might compromise my own life, and the security of my family, by remaining in France. How far they were right would have been difficult to determine, even had my mind been in a state to have examined the question. The privileges of the nobility were great, but not such as to have secured my immunity, if it could have been proved that the homicide had been intentional. Nothing remained for me, according to their showing, but once more to try the air of Spain, till such time as my pardon could be obtained, which might, indeed, be long; for it had lately been the policy of the prime minister to strike every possible blow at the power of the nobility, and to show less lenity towards any member of their body, than to those of the common classes. Little did I heed their reasoning on the subject. The conclusion was all that reached my mind; and the idea of there being an absolute necessity for my quitting the country was in itself a relief. Even to think of remaining in those scenes was horror, and to have met Helen's eyes, after slaying her brother, would have been a thousand times worse than death. "Come, cheer up, Count Louis!" cried Garcias; "I did not think to see so brave a heart as yours overset by a thing that happens to every one now and then. Give him a horn of La Mancha brandy, Señor Miller; 'twill comfort his heart, and get rid of such foolish qualms. In the meanwhile, I will go out and see after the body. If no one has come near it, and I can get it down to the river, I will cast it in below the fall. The waters are full, and it may go down for ten or fifteen miles, so that nobody will hear more of it, and the Count may stay in his own land. But if they have discovered the business, our young Seigneur must lie here till midnight, and then be off with me into Spain. I shall meet my good fellows in the mountains; and then the douaniers who would stop us must have iron hands and a brazen face." I let them do with me whatsoever they liked. It seemed that those fine ties which connect the mind and the body were so far broken or relaxed, that the sensations of the one had no longer their effect upon the other. My heart was on fire, and my thoughts were as busy as hell could wish; but I scarcely saw, or heard, or knew what was passing around me; and I let Garcias and the miller manage me as if I had been an automaton, without exerting any volition of my own. I drank the raw spirit that the miller gave me; and indeed it might as well have been water. I suffered him, when Garcias was gone, to pour on his consolations, which fell cold and heavy upon my ear, but found not their way to my heart. Nor, indeed, did he seem to understand the cause of that despairing melancholy in which I was plunged, attributing my grief to fear of the consequences, or to dislike to quit my country. I had not the spirit even to repel such a supposition, though my feelings were very, very different. The absorbing consciousness of guilt prevented me at first from even remembering or thinking of the impassable barrier now placed between me and Helen. That was an after-thought, infinitely painful, it is true, but it came not at once. The only thought which occupied me--if, indeed, thought it can be called,--was the mental endeavour to qualify the bitterness of my feelings, by remembering that the act which had so suddenly plunged me into misery was not a voluntary one; and I had continually to reiterate, to press upon my own mind, that it was accidental, and to call up the memory of every painful circumstance, in order to assure myself that I was practising no self-deception. Then, too, came the consciousness that I had pointed the gun; and a thousand times I asked myself, what would have been my conduct had I not stumbled over the rock?--Would I have fired? Would I have refrained? I know not; and still my own heart condemned me, and branded me with the name of murderer. It seemed long, long ere Garcias came back; for to those who despair, as well as to those who hope, each minute lingers out an age. When he came, he brought the news that the body had been removed before he had arrived at the spot; and that, by creeping on behind the trees, he had caught a glimpse of the persons that bore it, who were evidently proceeding towards the château. As he spoke, I covered my eyes with my hands, as if to shut out the view of Helen's first sight of her brother's corpse. She had fled so fast at the first sound of footsteps, that she could not have known who it was had approached; but now she would see him, bleeding from a wound by my hand; and by the place where he was found, she would easily divine who was the murderer. It wanted but that thought to work up my agony to the highest pitch, and it burst forth in a torrent of passionate tears. "Fie! fie!" cried Garcias. "Señor, are you a man? I would not, for very shame, have any one see you look so womanly. You have slain a man!--good! Had you not good cause? Were he alive again, and were to offer you a blow, would you not slay him again? If you would not, you are yourself unworthy to live; for the man that outlives his honour, is a disgrace to existence. A man once told me I lied," continued the smuggler, advancing and laying his gigantic hand upon my arm, to call my attention, while the dark fire flashed out of his eyes, as if his heart still flamed at the insult. "He told me, I lied! We were sitting in a peaceful circle upon the green top of the first step of the Maladetta, where it juts out over the plain, with a precipice two hundred feet high. He told me, I lied, in the presence of the girl I loved--he told me, I lied; and I pitched him as far into the open air as I have seen a hurler cast a disk. I can see him now, sprawling midway between heaven and earth, till he fell dashed to atoms on the rocks below. And think you that I give it one vain regret, one weak womanish thought? Did he and I stand there again, with the same provocation, I would send him again as far--ay, farther, were it possible. Come come," he added, "no more of this! Miller, give him another cup of consolation." The smuggler took, perhaps, the best way of teaching me to bear the weight of what I had done, by showing me that there were others who walked under it so lightly. Wondering at his coolness, yet envying it, I took another and another cup of the spirit, till I began to find some relief, and could look around me and gain some knowledge of the external objects. It was then I perceived the reason why the miller had been so slow in admitting us. The whole place was strewed with various contraband goods, which had not yet been deposited in their usual receptacle, which was apparently an under-chamber, reached by a trap-door in the floor of the mill, so artfully contrived that it had escaped even my eyes in my frequent visits to the place. It now stood open; and no sooner did Garcias perceive that the brandy and his conversation had produced some effect upon me, than, pointing to a low bed in one corner, he advised me to lie down and go to sleep, while he helped the miller to conceal the salt and other prohibited articles, with which the floor was encumbered. I said I could not sleep; and he made me take a fourth cup of brandy, which soon plunged me at least into forgetfulness. How long I lay I know not; but when I woke, the interior of the mill was quite dark, except where a moonbeam streamed in through a high window and fell upon the dark gigantic figure of Garcias standing with the miller near the door, apparently in the act of listening. At the same time a high pile of salt, moved to the edge of the trap-door, but not yet let down, proved that the smugglers had been interrupted in their employment. In an instant a tremendous knocking, which had most probably been the cause of my waking, was repeated against the mill-door, and a voice was heard crying, "If you do not open the door, take the consequences, for I give you notice that I shall break it open: I am François Derville, officer of his majesty's douane; and I charge you to yield me entrance." "Ay, I know you well!" muttered Garcias to himself, "and a bold fellow you are too.--See, miller, by the loop hole," he continued in the same under-tone,--"see whether there is any one with him?" The miller climbed up to a small aperture high in the wall, which apparently commanded a view of the door; and after looking through it for a moment, while the blows were reiterated on the outside, he descended, saying, "He is alone: I have looked all up the valley, and no one is near him; but I see he has got an iron crow to break open the door." "He will not try that when he knows I am here," said Garcias; and elevating his voice to a tone that drowned the knocking without, he added, "Hold! Derville, hold! I am here,--Pedro Garcias:--you know me, and you know I am not one to be disturbed; so go away about your business, if you would not have worse come of it. "Pedro Garcias, or Pedro Devil!" replied the man without, "what matters it to me? I will do my duty. Therefore, let me in, or I will break open the door;" and a heavy blow of his crow confirmed this expression of his intention. "The man is mad!" said Garcias, with that calm, cold tone which very often in men of stormy passions announces a more deadly degree of wrath than when their anger exhausts itself in noisy fury;--"the man is mad!" and stooping down he took up one of the heavy wooden mallets with which he had been breaking the salt. In the meanwhile, the blows without were redoubled, and the door evidently began to give way. "Take care what you are doing!" cried Garcias, in a voice of thunder; "you are rushing into the lion's den!" Another and another blow were instantly struck: the door staggered open, and the douanier stood full in the portal. Garcias raised his arm--the mallet fell, and the unhappy officer rolled upon the floor with his scull dashed to atoms, like an ox before the blow of the butcher. He made no cry or sound, except a sort of inarticulate moan, but fell dead at once, without a struggle. "Good God! what have you done?" cried I, starting from the bed where I had hitherto lain, and approaching Garcias. "Punished a villain for breaking the law of every civilized land," replied the smuggler; "for no country authorizes one man to infringe the dwelling of another without authority; and he had no authority, or he would have shown it. At least," he added in a lighter tone,--though, perhaps, what he did add, proceeded from a more serious feeling--for that dark and wily thing, the human heart, thus often covers itself, even from ourselves, with a disguise the most opposite to its native character,--"at least, I hope he had none. At all events, he knew well what he was about: I warned him beforehand: and now--I think he will never break into any one's house again.--Shut the door, miller, and let us have a light." The coolness with which he contemplated the body of his victim produced very strange and perhaps evil impressions in my breast. Certainly, in that small, silent court of justice which every man holds within his own breast, both upon his and upon other people's actions, I condemned the deed I had seen committed; and I found myself, too, guilty; but his crime seemed so much more enormous than mine, that the partial judge was willing, I am afraid, to pardon the minor offender. But it was the example of his calmness that had strongest effect upon me; and I began to value human life at less, since I saw it estimated so low by others. Neither Garcias nor the miller seemed to give one thought of remorse to the deed; the miller speaking of it in his cool, placid manner, and Garcias treating it as one of those matters which every man was called to perform at some time of his life. Both of them also justified it to themselves as an act of absolute necessity for their own security. To what crime, to what folly has not that plea of necessity pandered at one time or another in this world? From the statesman to the pick-purse, from the warrior to the cut-throat, all, all shield themselves behind necessity from the arrows which conscience vainly aims at the rebellious heart of man. The question now became how to dispose of the body; but the smuggler soon arranged his plan, with an art in concealing such deeds, which, though doubtless gained in the wild hazardous traffic he carried on, I own, made me shudder with associations I liked not to dwell upon. Without any apparent reluctance, he raised the corpse in his arms, and carried it out to a crag that overhung the stream, having an elevation of about a hundred yards perpendicular. Underneath this point were several masses of rock and stone, a fall on which would infallibly have produced death, with much the same appearances as those to be found on the body of the douanier. But without trusting to this, Garcias carried the body to the top of the rock, and cast it down headlong upon the stones below, which it spattered with its blood and brains, and then, rolling over into the river, was carried away with the stream. The next thing was to cast down the iron crow, which might have been supposed to drop from his hand in falling; and then the smuggler broke away a part of the mould and turf that covered the top of the rock, leaving such an appearance as the spot would have presented had the ground given way under the officer's feet. All this being done, he returned to the mill; and telling me that it would soon be time for us to set out, he applied himself to concluding the work in which he had been disturbed by the arrival of the douanier, as calmly as if the fearful transactions of the last half-hour had left no impress upon his memory. The only thing that might perchance betray any regret or remorse was the dead silence with which he proceeded, as if his thoughts were deeply occupied with some engrossing subject. At length, however, he turned to the miller: "Come, give me a horn of the aguardente!" cried he, with a sigh that commented on his demand; "and stow away those two lumps of salt yourself.--Have you put the door to rights? It will tell tales to-morrow if you do not take heed; and wipe up that blood upon the floor." So saying, he cast his gigantic limbs upon a seat, mused a moment or two with a frowning brow; and I thought I could see that he strove to summon up again, in his bosom, the angry feelings under which he had slain his fellow-creature, to counterbalance the regret that was gaining mastery over his heart. His lip curled, and his eye flashed, and, tossing off the cup of spirits which the miller proffered, he cast his mantle across his shoulders and prepared to set out. Had he shown no touch of remorse, there would have existed no link of association between his feelings and mine; but I saw that though his heart had been hardened in scenes of danger and guilt, it was still accessible to some better sensations. There was also a similarity in the events which had that day happened to us both, that created a degree of sympathy between us; and I rose willingly to accompany the smuggler, when he announced that he was ready to depart. To my surprise, however, he turned not towards the door by which we had entered, but going into a small sort of closet, in which appeared a variety of sacks, and measures, and other accessories of a miller's trade, he bade me do precisely as he did. For my part, I saw no means of exit from that place; but I found that there were more secrets in the mill than I had dreamed of. Choosing out a large spare millstone, that lay upon the floor of the closet, Garcias mounted thereon, and dropped his arms by his sides, when instantly the stone began to sink under his weight, and he disappeared by degrees like some gigantic genius in a fairy tale. The miller handed him a lantern the moment he had descended sufficiently to be clear of the hole through which the stone had sunk. He then jumped off the millstone, which rose up rapidly in its place, counterbalanced by some other weight; and on my stepping upon it, it again descended with me, when I found myself in a sort of cave, whether artificial or natural I know not, but which ran some way into the rock under the mill. The miller followed with a key, and a gourd fashioned into a bottle, which he bestowed upon me, and which I afterwards found to be full of brandy. He then opened a small door which gave us egress close to the water-wheel; and bidding him farewell, we issued forth, and in a moment stood in the moonlight by the side of the river. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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