Page:Dumas - Tales of Strange adventure (Methuen, 1907).djvu/59

Rh it! "while the Monk repeated some words that sounded like a prayer. Then they ascended the state staircase and passed through the Marquis's apartments. The vast rooms, all shut up and empty, lighted only by the trembling light of a single candle which the Intendant carried, had a solemn, almost terrifying, aspect. Coming to the door of the study they stopped and listened, their hearts beating wildly with excitement.

"Do you hear?" asked the Intendant.

"Perfectly well," said the Abbé.

"Hear what?" asked the Monk.

"What! you don't hear those groans, more like a man's death-rattle than anything else?"

"Quite true," the Intendant's two companions agreed with one voice.

"You see I was not mistaken?" resumed the latter.

"Give me the key," said Father Delar, making the sign of the cross, " we are men, of honourable and Christian life; we have no right to be afraid; let us go in."

He proceeded to open the door; but for all the trust the man of God reposed in his Divine Master, his hand trembled as he put the key in the lock.

The door opened, and all three halted in amazement on the threshold. The room was empty! Slowly they advanced into the great apartment, with its walls all covered with books and pictures. Everything was in its place,—except only the portrait of the Marquis, which had broken the nail from which it hung and fallen from the wall. There it lay on the ground, a hole through the canvas where the head was.

The Abbé pointed out the picture to the Intendant.

"There lies the cause of your terror," he said, with a sigh of relief.

"Yes, that accounts for the crash," returned the Intendant; "but the groans we heard, did the picture utter them?"

"We certainly did hear groans," the Monk assented.

"Look there, on this table! what do you make of that?" suddenly exclaimed Bonbonne.

"What? what is there on the table?" asked the Abbé.

"Look at that candle only just extinguished," cried Bonbonne; "why, the wick is still smoking; feel the wax, it is still warm."

"It is so indeed! " admitted the two other witnesses of these facts, which certainly seemed supernatural.

"And," went on the Intendant, " here is the Marquis's seal, which he wore on his watch-chain, and with which this envelope addressed to his Notary is sealed without being fastened down."

The Abbé fell back more dead than alive in a seat; he had not strength left to fly.

The Monk remained standing; and without any visible signs of fear, like a man detached from the things of this world, he endeavoured to fathom this mystery, the cause of which he did not know, though he saw the effect without comprehending the final object.

Meantime the Intendant, whom devotion to his master's house inspired with courage, was turning over one by one the pages of the will which he had examined the day before with his master.

He reached the last, and a cold sweat broke out upon his forehead.

"The will is signed! " he muttered low. The Abbé started violently where he sat, the Monk bent over the table, the Intendant gazed from one to the other of his companions.

A moment of tense, grim silence fell between the three men, and the bravest of them felt his hair bristle on his head.

Presently all three bent their eyes once more on the document. A codicil had been added—the ink was still wet—conceived in these words:

"My wish is for my body to be buried at the Carmelite Church in the Place Maubert, beside my ancestors.

"Executed at my Château of Grosbois, this 27th April, 1774, at seven o'clock in the evening. ""

The two signatures, that of the will and that of the codicil, together with the codicil itself, were written in a hand less firm than was the general text of the will, but still perfectly legible.

"Let us say a De profundis, gentlemen," said the Intendant gravely; "it is very evident the Marquis is dead."

The three men knelt down reverently, and repeated together the orison of the dead, and afterwards remained for minutes wrapt in meditation before finally rising to their feet.

"My poor master!" said Bonbonne, "he had given me his word of honour to