第16章 MY TRIUMPHANT FINALE(3)

His nerveless fingers felt their way to the wall and faintly rapped a summons.

"Valerian!" he said, "I shall not live through the night.Watch with me."The faint raps sounded clearly in the stillness of the great building, and Valerian dreaded lest the warders should hear them, and deal out punishment for an offence which by day they were forced to wink at.

But he would not for the world have deserted his friend.He drew his stool close to the wall, wrapped himself round in all the clothes he could muster, and, shivering with cold, kept watch through the long winter night."I am near you," he telegraphed."I will watch with you tillmorning."

From time to time Sigismund rapped faint messages, and Valerian replied with comfort and sympathy.Once he thought to himself, "My friend is better; there is more power in his hand." And indeed he trembled, fearing that the sharp, emphatic raps must certainly attract notice and put an end to their communion.

"Tell my love that the accusation was false--false!" the word was vehemently repeated."Tell her I died broken-hearted, loving her to the end.""I will tell her all when I am free," said poor Valerian, wondering with a sigh when his unjust imprisonment would end."Do you suffer much?" he asked.

There was a brief interval.Sigismund hesitated to tell a falsehood in his last extremity.

"It will soon be over.Do not be troubled for me," he replied.And after that there was a long, long silence.

Poor fellow! he died hard; and I wished that those comfortable English people could have been dragged from their warm beds and brought into the cold dreary cell where their victim lay, fighting for breath, suffering cruelly both in mind and body.Valerian, listening in sad suspense, heard one more faint word rapped by the dying man.

"Farewell!"

"God be with you!" he replied, unable to check the tears which rained down as he thought of the life so sadly ended, and of his own bereavement.

He heard no more.Sigismund's strength failed him, and I, to whom the darkness made no difference, watched him through the last dread struggle; there was no one to raise him, or hold him, no one to comfort him.Alone in the cold and darkness of that first morning of the year 1887, he died.

Valerian did not hear through the wall his last faint gasping cry, but I heard it, and its exceeding bitterness would have made mortals weep.

"Gertrude!" he sobbed."Gertrude!"

And with that his head sank on his breast, and the life, which but for me might have been so happy and prosperous, was ended.

Prompted by curiosity, I instantly returned to Muddleton and sought out Gertrude Morley.I stole into her room.She lay asleep, but her dreams were troubled, and her face, once so fresh and bright, was worn with pain and anxiety.

Scarcely had I entered the room when, to my amazement, I saw the spirit of Sigismund Zaluski.

I saw him bend down and kiss the sleeping girl, and for a moment her sad face lighted up with a radiant smile.

I looked again; he was gone.Then Gertrude threw up both her arms and with a bitter cry awoke from her dream.

"Sigismund!" she cried."Oh, Sigismund! Now I know that you are dead indeed."For a long, long time she lay in a sort of trance of misery.It seemed as if the life had been almost crushed out of her, and it was not until the bells began to ring for the six o'clock service, merrily pealing out their welcome of the new year morning, that full consciousness returned to her again.But, as she clearly realised what had happened, she broke into such a passion of tears as I had never before witnessed, while still in the darkness the new year bells rang gaily, and she knew that they heralded for her the beginning of a lonely life.

And so my work ended; my part in this world was played out.Nevertheless I still live; and there will come a day when Sigismund and Gertrude shall be comforted and the slanderers punished.

For poor Valerian was right, and there is an Avenger, in whom even my progenitor believes, and before whom he trembles.

There will come a time when those self-satisfied ones, whose hands are all the time steeped in blood, shall be confronted with me, and shall realise to the full all that their idle words have brought about.

For that day I wait; and though afterwards I shall be finally destroyedin the general destruction of all that is unmitigatedly evil, I promise myself a certain satisfaction and pleasure (a feeling I doubtless inherit from my progenitor), when I watch the shame, and horror, and remorse of Mrs.O'Reilly and the rest of the people to whom I owe my existence and rapid growth.