XX
The invincible, all-powerful clutch which fastened me helpless to my chair, seemed to have paralyzed my tongue and some of the functions even of my brain. I was in full possession of consciousness. I could still think clearly and logically; and I could feel—what despair indeed was mine! But volition, the power to act, had left me; and my combativeness, also, my rage, my fury against these drinkers of human blood, these assassins of the girl I loved, were weakening, vacillating, melting away into a hazy, vaporous, indistinct emotion.
The Marquis Gaspard, after a pause, was again speaking, with that same obtrusive, labored, sinister urbanity.
“Monsieur le capitaine,” said he, “at the risk of seeming intolerably repetitious, I must here revert to something I have mentioned at least twice before, the fact, to wit, that everything under this roof is at your beck and call, without fear or refusal, save one single thing. Eventually, alas, we shall be constrained to broach the painful subject of that single thing, which, to our extreme regret, we shall have perforce to deny you. Will you not, therefore, carefully examine your mind in all its nooks and corners the better to acquaint us—and as specifically as possible—with all your desires? My honor as a gentleman, they will be satisfied, if the satisfaction be within our power.”
He fell silent, and looked up as though expecting me to speak. Indeed, with the final syllables of his last phrase, a curious, and very complex, sensation began coursing through me. At first, it was a sort of tingling in all my veins and arteries, where my blood seemed to be moving faster as my heart beat with a gradually increasing force. Then I began to understand: little by little, by imperceptible degrees, the control over me was slackening; an influence which my mind could not comprehend was lifting the weight that had settled on my limbs. I was not free, by any means; but neither was I completely helpless as before; so that, when the Marquis Gaspard repeated his question, directly, this time, and without so many mellifluous detours—“Monsieur, what do you wish?”—I was able to answer easily, and with absolute sincerity.
And answer I did—an answer that expressed the deepest, most ardent feelings in my heart: “There is nothing I wish, Monsieur. Kill me, as you have killed the girl I love. But kill me quickly: I am ready!”
In reply the Marquis Gaspard, as he had so often done before, laughed a laugh in that queer falsetto voice of his; and therewith, on the instant, the mysterious weight came down again upon my shoulders, while the clutch tightened again upon my nerves and muscles. Once more I was a prisoner, securely bound, my tongue clinging limp and lifeless to my teeth. Inert, body and soul, I felt the ironical voice of my conqueror again laving me with its scalding mirth.