CHAPTER II
A CRIMINAL'S SPEECH AGAINST HIMSELF
We can readily understand that sleep hardly visited Arnauld du Thill's eyes that night. He lay stretched upon his straw litter, his eyes wide open, entirely engrossed with reckoning up his chances, laying plans, and marshalling his resources. The scheme he had devised, of substituting himself for poor Martin-Guerre once more, was an audacious one doubtless, but its very impudence endowed it with some chance of success.
Since luck favored him so marvellously, should he let his own audacity betray him?
No; he quickly adopted the course he was to follow, and left himself free to adapt his movements to events as they might shape themselves, and to unforeseen circumstances.
When day broke, he examined his costume, found it unexceptionable, and devoted himself anew to acquiring Martin-Guerre's gait and attitudes. His mimicry of his double's good-natured demeanor was so perfect as almost to be exaggerated. It must be confessed that the miserable blackguard would have made an excellent comedian.
About eight o'clock in the morning, the cell-door grated on its hinges.
Arnauld du Thill suppressed a startled movement, and assumed an air of tranquil indifference.
The jailer of the night before reappeared, introducing the Comte de Montgommery.
"The devil! now the crisis is at hand!" said Arnauld du Thill to himself. "I must be on my guard."
He waited anxiously for Gabriel's first word when he should look at him.
"Good-morning, my poor Martin-Guerre," Gabriel began.
Arnauld breathed again. The Comte de Montgommery had looked him straight in the face as he called him by name. The misunderstanding began again, and Arnauld was saved!
"Good-morning, my dear, kind Master," he said to Gabriel, with an effusiveness of gratitude which was in truth not wholly feigned.
He had the assurance to add,—
"Is there anything new, Monseigneur?"
"The sentence will be pronounced this morning in all probability," Gabriel replied.
"At last! God be praised!" cried Arnauld. "I long for the end, I confess. There is no conceivable doubt now,—nothing more to fear, is there, Monseigneur? The right will surely triumph?"
"Indeed I hope so," said Gabriel, gazing at Arnauld more intently than ever. "That villanous Arnauld du Thill is reduced to desperate remedies."
"Is he really? And what infernal scheme is he hatching now?" asked Arnauld.
"Would you believe it?" said Gabriel; "the impostor is trying to renew the old confusion."
"Can it be?" cried Arnauld, with uplifted hands. "What is his pretext, in God's name?"
"Why, he has the assurance to claim," Gabriel replied, "that after the hearing was at an end, yesterday, the jailers made a mistake, and took him to Arnauld's cell, and you to his."
"Is it possible?" said Arnauld, with a capitally feigned gesture of surprise and indignation. "What proof does he give in support of that impudent statement,—upon what does he base it?"
"This is what he says," said Gabriel. "It seems that he, like you, was not taken back at once to prison yesterday. The court, when they withdrew to consult, thought that they might desire to question one or both of you further; so the guards left him in the vestibule below, as they left you in the courtyard. Now he swears that was the cause of the error, and that it had been the custom to leave Arnauld in the vestibule and Martin in the courtyard. The jailers, when they went to take their respective prisoners, naturally confused the one with the other, according to his story. As for the guards concerned, they are the same ones who 'have always had charge of the two, and these human machines only know their prisoners, without being able to distinguish their persons. He bases his new claims upon such absurd reasons as those; and he is weeping and shrieking and asking to see me."
"Have you seen him, Monseigneur?" asked Arnauld, eagerly.
"My faith, no!" said Gabriel. "I am afraid of his tricks and his wiles. He would be quite capable of deceiving me and leading me astray again. The blackguard is so bold and clever withal."
"Ah, Monseigneur defends him now!" rejoined Arnauld, feigning discontent.
"I am not defending him, Martin," said Gabriel; "but we must agree that his brain is full of expedients, and that if he had applied himself to earning an honest living with half the skill—"
"He's an infamous villain!" cried Arnauld, vehemently.
"How severe you are upon him to-day!" replied Gabriel. "But I was thinking to myself as I came along, that after all he has not caused anybody's death; that if his condemnation is pronounced in a few hours, he will surely be hanged within a week; that capital punishment is perhaps an excessive penalty for his crimes, and that in short we might, if you choose, ask for mercy to be shown him."
"Mercy for him!" Arnauld du Thill repeated with some hesitation.
"It requires thought, I know," said Gabriel; "but come now,—you have thought about it; what do you say?"
Arnauld, with his chin in one hand, and rubbing his cheek with the other, remained for some seconds pensive without replying; but at last, having made up his mind, he said firmly,—
"No, no! no mercy! That will be much better."
"Oho!" replied Gabriel, "I did not know you were so vindictive, Martin; you are not generally so, and only yesterday you were pitying your adversary, and would have asked nothing better than to save his life."
"Yesterday, yesterday," muttered Arnauld, "yesterday he had not played us this last trick, which is to my mind more shameful than all the others."
"That is very true," Gabriel remarked. "So you are very decidedly of the opinion that the culprit should die?"
"Mon Dieu!" replied Arnauld, with a sanctified air, "you know, Monseigneur, how my soul revolts at violence and revenge, and all deeds of blood. My heart is torn to be compelled to yield to so cruel a necessity, but it is a necessity. Consider, Monseigneur, that so long as this man who resembles me so closely is still in the land of the living, I can never lead a peaceful, happy life. This last bold stroke which he has just struck shows that he is incorrigible. If he is sentenced to be kept in prison he will escape; if he is banished he will return, and therefore I shall always be anxious and in torment, expecting every moment that he will come back to worry me, and unsettle my whole life again. My friends and my wife will never be sure that they really are dealing with me, and suspicion will always be rife. I must always be on the watch for renewed struggles and fresh attacks on my identity. In short, I can never say I am really in possession of my own personality. Therefore I must in my grief and despair do violence to my character, Monseigneur; I shall doubtless mourn all the rest of my days for having caused the death of a fellow-creature; but it must be, it must be! To-day's imposture removes my last scruples. Arnauld du Thill must die! I yield to necessity."
"So be it, then, he shall die," said Gabriel. "That is to say, he shall die if he is condemned, for judgment has not been pronounced yet."
"What do you say? Isn't it certain?" asked Arnauld.
"It is probable, but not certain," was Gabriel's reply. "That devil of an Arnauld addressed a very crafty and convincing speech to the judges yesterday."
"Cursed fool that I was!" thought Arnauld.
"While you, on the other hand, Martin," continued Gabriel, "you, who have just demonstrated to me with such admirable eloquence and conviction the necessity for Arnauld's death, could not, you will remember, find a single word to say before the court yesterday, nor could you adduce a single argument or a single fact to aid in the triumph of truth. You were confused and remained almost dumb, in spite of my urgency. Although you had been informed as to your adversary's arguments, you did not know how to meet and reply to them."
"The reason is, Monseigneur," was Arnauld's response, "that I am at my ease with you alone, while all those judges frightened me. Besides, I confess that I relied upon the righteousness of my cause. It seemed to me that justice would plead for me better than I could for myself. But that seems not to be the case with these men of the law. They want words, nothing but words, I can see now. Ah, if it could only begin again, or if they would hear me even now!"
"Why, what would you do, Martin?"
"Oh, I would pluck up a little courage, and then I would speak. It would not be a difficult matter by any means to demolish all the proofs and allegations of Arnauld du Thill."
"I tell you that would not be an easy matter!" said Gabriel.
"Pardon me, Monseigneur," replied Arnauld; "I can see the weak points in his strategy as clearly as he can see them himself, and if I had been less timid, and if words had not failed me, I would have told the judges—"
"Well, what would you have told them, pray? Just tell me."
"What would I have told them? Why, nothing could be simpler."
Thereupon Arnauld du Thill set to work to refute his speech of the evening before, point by point. He unravelled the events and the mistakes of the double existence of Martin-Guerre and Arnauld with so much the more facility, because he had tangled them up himself. The Comte de Montgommery had left certain matters still obscure in the minds of the judges, because he had been unable to explain them to his own satisfaction, but Arnauld du Thill elucidated them with marvellous clearness. The result of his discourse was to show Gabriel the two destinies of the honest man and the rascal as clearly and sharply defined and distinguished, for all the confusion there had been in. regard to them, as that between oil and water when put in the same vessel.
"Have you then been collecting information at Paris on your own account?" asked Gabriel.
"Without doubt I have, Monseigneur; and in case of need I could furnish proofs of what I say. I am not easily excited, but when I am driven into my last intrenchments, I can make energetic sorties."
"But," Gabriel continued, "Arnauld du Thill invoked the testimony of Monsieur de Montmorency, and you do not reply to that."
"Indeed, I do, Monseigneur. It is very true that this Arnauld has been in the constable's service, but his was a disgraceful employment. He must have been a sort of spy for him, and that fully explains why he attached himself to you, to follow you about and watch your movements. But though such people are employed, they are not acknowledged. Do you suppose that Monsieur de Montmorency would choose to accept the responsibility for the doings and sayings of his emissary? No, indeed! Arnauld du Thill, perched at the bottom of the wall, would not really dare to call upon the constable; or if he did venture in despair of his cause, Monsieur de Montmorency would deny him. Now, to sum up—"
And in his clear and logical resume, Arnauld successfully demolished, bit by bit, the edifice of fraud which he had so skilfully constructed the preceding day.
With such facility in argument, and such a flow of words, Arnauld du Thill would have made a very distinguished advocate of our times. He had the misfortune to live three hundred years too soon. Let us have pity on his shade!
"I believe that all this is unanswerable," he remarked to Gabriel when he had finished. "What a pity it is that the judges cannot hear me again, or that they have not heard me now!"
"They have heard you," said Gabriel.
"How so?"
"Look!"
The door of the cell opened, and Arnauld, entirely bewildered and somewhat alarmed, saw the president of the tribunal and two of the judges, standing grave and motionless on the threshold.
"What does this mean?" asked Arnauld, turning toward Gabriel.
"It means," replied Monsieur de Montgommery, "that I suspected my poor Martin-Guerre's timidity, and wished that his judges, without his knowledge, should hear the unanswerable speech they have just heard."
"Wonderfully well done!" rejoined Arnauld, breathing freely once more. "I am a thousand times obliged to you, Monseigneur."
Turning to the judges, he said in a tone which he tried to render bashful,—
"May I think, may I hope, that my words have really established the justice of my cause in the enlightened minds which are at this moment arbiters of my destiny?"
"Yes," said the president; "the proofs which have been furnished us have convinced us."
"Ah!" said Arnauld du Thill, triumphantly.
"But," continued the president, "other proofs, no less certain and conclusive, compel us to state that there was a mistake yesterday in remanding the two prisoners to their cells,—that Martin-Guerre was taken to yours, Arnauld du Thill, and that you are now occupying his."
"What!—how's that?" stammered Arnauld, thunderstruck. "What do you say to it, Monseigneur?" he added, addressing Gabriel.
"I say that I knew it," replied Gabriel, sternly. "I say again, Arnauld, that I desired to make you out of your own mouth furnish proofs of Martin's innocence and your own guilt. You have forced me, villain, to play a part which I abhor; but your unparalleled insolence yesterday made me understand that when one enters upon a struggle with such as you he must use the same weapons, and that frauds can only be conquered by fraud. However, you have left me nothing to do, but have been in such haste to betray your own cause that your cowardice has led you on to meet the trap that was set for you."
"To meet the trap, eh?" echoed Arnauld. "So there was a trap, was there? But, in any event, you are abandoning your own Martin in my person; don't deceive yourself about that, Monseigneur!"
"Do not persist, Arnauld du Thill," interposed the president. "The mistake about the cells was contrived and ordered by the court. You are unmasked beyond a peradventure, I assure you."
"But since you agree that there was a mistake," cried the irrepressible Arnauld, "who can assure you, Monsieur le President, that a mistake was not made in executing your orders?"
"The testimony of the guards and jailers," said the president.
A Criminal's Speech against himself.
"They are in error," retorted Arnauld. "I am really Martin-Guerre, Monsieur de Montgommery's squire, and I will not submit to be convicted in this way. Confront me with your other prisoner, and when we stand beside one another dare to choose between us,—dare to distinguish Arnauld du Thill from Martin-Guerre, the culprit from the innocent! As if there had not already been confusion enough in this cause, you must needs add to it. Your conscience will prevent your coming to any such conclusion. I will persist to the end, and in spite of everything, in crying, 'I am Martin-Guerre!' and I defy the whole world to give me the lie or to produce facts to contradict me."
The judges and Gabriel shook their heads, and smiled gravely and sorrowfully at this shameless and unblushing obstinacy.
"Once more, Arnauld du Thill," said the president, "I tell you that there is no longer any possibility of confusion between Martin-Guerre and yourself."
"Why not?" said Arnauld. "How can he be recognized? What mark distinguishes us?"
"You shall know, miserable wretch!" said Gabriel, indignantly.
He made a sign, and Martin-Guerre appeared upon the threshold.
Martin-Guerre without a cloak! Martin-Guerre mutilated, and with a wooden leg!
"Martin, my good squire," said Gabriel to Arnauld, "after miraculously escaping from the gallows which you helped him to ascend at Noyon, was less fortunate at Calais in avoiding an act of vengeance which was only too justifiable, intended to punish one of your infamous deeds: he was hurled headlong into an abyss in your stead, and compelled to suffer amputation of one leg; but by the mysterious working of the divine will, which is just when it appears most cruel, that catastrophe has now served to establish a point of distinction between the persecutor and the victim. The judges here present can no longer be deceived, since they may now recognize the criminal by his shamelessness, and the innocent man by his disfigurement."
Arnauld du Thill, pale and overwhelmed, and crushed beneath the terrible words and withering glances of Gabriel, no longer tried to defend or to deny himself; the sight of poor crippled Martin-Guerre rendered all his lies of no effect.
He fell heavily to the floor, an inert mass.
"I am lost!" he muttered,—"lost!”