Maurice Leblanc - The Secret of Sarek

"Some one… yes… there is some one… Look…"

The two accomplices came forward. On a heap of rubble, piled up in an angle of the wall, a man lay sleeping, an old man with a white beard and long white hair. A thousand wrinkles furrowed the skin of his face and hands. There were blue rings round his closed eyelids. At least a century must have passed over his head.

He was dressed in a patched and torn linen robe,[Pg 260] which came down to his feet. Round his neck and hanging over his chest was a string of those sacred beads which the Gauls called serpents' eggs and which are actually sea-eggs or sea-urchins. Within reach of his hand was a handsome jadeite axe, covered with illegible symbols. On the ground, in a row, lay sharp-edged flints, some large, flat rings, two ear-drops of green jasper and two necklaces of fluted blue enamel.

The old man went on snoring.

Vorski muttered:

"The miracle continues… It's a priest… a priest like those of the olden time… of the time of the Druids."

"And then?" asked Otto.

"Why, then he's waiting for me!"

Conrad expressed his brutal opinion:

"I suggest we break his head with his axe."

But Vorski flew into a rage:

"If you touch a single hair of his head, you're a dead man!"

"Still…"

"Still what?"

"He may be an enemy… he may be the one whom we were pursuing last night… Remember… the white robe."

"You're the biggest fool I ever met! Do you think that, at his age, he could have kept us on the run like that?"

He bent over and took the old man gently by the arm, saying:

"Wake up!… It's I!"

There was no answer. The man did not wake up.

[Pg 261]Vorski insisted.

The man moved on his bed of stones, mumbled a few words and went to sleep again.

Vorski, growing a little impatient, renewed his attempts, but more vigorously, and raised his voice:

"I say, what about it? We can't hang about all day, you know. Come on!"

He shook the old man more roughly. The man made a movement of irritation, pushed away his importunate visitor, clung to sleep a few seconds longer and, in the end, turned round wearily and, in an angry voice, growled:

"Oh, rats!"

[Pg 262]

The three accomplices, who were perfectly acquainted with all the niceties of the French language and familiar with every slang phrase, did not for a moment mistake the true sense of that unexpected exclamation. They were astounded.

Vorski put the question to Conrad and Otto.

"Eh? What does he say?"

"What you heard… That's right," said Otto.

Vorski ended by making a fresh attack on the shoulder of the stranger, who turned on his couch, stretched himself, yawned, seemed to fall asleep again, and, suddenly admitting himself defeated, half sat up and shouted:

"When you've quite finished, please! Can't a man have a quiet snooze these days, in this beastly hole?"

A ray of light blinded his eyes: and he spluttered, in alarm:

"What is it? What do you want with me?"

Vorski put down his lantern on a projection in the wall; and the face now stood clearly revealed. The old man, who had continued to vent his ill temper in incoherent complaints, looked at his visitor, became gradually calmer, even assumed an amiable and[Pg 263] almost smiling expression and, holding out his hand, exclaimed:

"Well, I never! Why, it's you, Vorski! How are you, old bean?"

Vorski gave a start. That the old man should know him and call him by his name did not astonish him immensely, since he had the half-mystic conviction that he was expected as a prophet might be. But to a prophet, to a missionary clad in light and glory, entering the presence of a stranger crowned with the double majesty of age and sacerdotal rank, it was painful to be hailed by the name of "old bean!"

Hesitating, ill at ease, not knowing with whom he was dealing, he asked:

"Who are you? What are you here for? How did you get here?"

And, when the other stared at him with a look of surprise, he repeated, in a louder voice:

"Answer me, can't you? Who are you?"

"Who am I?" replied the old man, in a husky and bleating voice. "Who am I? By Teutates, god of the Gauls, is it you who ask me that question? Then you don't know me? Come, try and remember… Good old Segenax-eh, do you get me now-Velleda's father, good old Segenax, the law-giver venerated by the Rhedons of whom Chateaubriand speaks in the first volume of his Martyrs?… Ah, I see your memory's reviving!"

"What are you gassing about!" cried Vorski.

"I'm not gassing. I'm explaining my presence here and the regrettable events which brought me here long ago. Disgusted by the scandalous behaviour of Velleda, who had gone wrong with that[Pg 264] dismal blighter Eudorus, I became what we should call a Trappist nowadays, that is to say, I passed a brilliant exam, as a bachelor of Druid laws. Since that time, in consequence of a few sprees-oh, nothing to speak of: three or four jaunts to Paris, where I was attracted by Mabille and afterwards by the Moulin Rouge-I was obliged to accept the little berth which I fill here, a cushy job, as you see: guardian of the God-Stone, a shirker's job, what!"

Vorski's amazement and uneasiness increased at each word. He consulted his companions.

"Break his head," Conrad repeated. "That's what I say: and I stick to it."

"And you, Otto?"

"I think we ought to be on our guard."

"Of course we must be on our guard."

But the old Druid caught the word. Leaning on a staff, he helped himself up and exclaimed:

"What's the meaning of this? Be on your guard… against me! That's really a bit thick! Treat me as a fake! Why, haven't you seen my axe, with the pattern of the swastika? The swastika, the leading cabalistic symbol, eh, what?… And this? What do you call this?" He lifted his string of beads. "What do you call it? Horse-chestnuts? You've got some cheek, you have, to give a name like that to serpents' eggs, 'eggs which they form out of slaver and the froth of their bodies mingled and which they cast into the air, hissing the while.' It's Pliny's own words I'm quoting! You're not going to treat Pliny also as a fake, I hope!… You're a pretty customer! Putting yourself on your guard against me, when I have all my degrees as an ancient Druid, all my diplomas, all[Pg 265] my patents, all my certificates signed by Pliny and Chateaubriand! The cheek of you!… Upon my word, you won't find many ancient Druids of my sort, genuine, of the period, with the bloom of age upon them and a beard of centuries! I a fake, I, who boast every tradition and who juggle with the customs of antiquity!… Shall I dance the ancient Druid dance for you, as I did before Julius Caesar? Would you like me to?"

And, without waiting for a reply, the old man, flinging aside his staff, began to cut the most extravagant capers and to execute the wildest of jigs with perfectly astounding agility. And it was the most laughable sight to see him jumping and twisting about, with his back bent, his arms outstretched, his legs shooting to right and left from under his robe, his beard following the evolutions of his frisking body, while the bleating voice announced the successive changes in the performance:

"The ancient Druids' dance, or Caesar's delight! Hi-tiddly, hi-tiddly, hi-ti, hi!… The mistletoe dance, vulgarly known as the tickletoe!… The serpents' egg waltz, music by Pliny! Hullo there! Begone, dull care!… The Vorska, or the tango of the thirty coffins!… The hymn of the Red Prophet! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Glory be to the prophet!"

He continued his furious jig a little longer and then suddenly halted before Vorski and, in a solemn tone, said:

"Enough of this prattle! Let us talk seriously, I am commissioned to hand you the God-Stone. Now that you are here, are you ready to take delivery of the goods?"