The Bagpipers

by George Sand

I thought I must be pretty near the entrance and could surely catch up with them within or without. I returned through the arch by which we had entered, and searched carefully along the little path beside the cemetery; but no! my comrades had disappeared just like the bagpipers; it seemed as if the earth had opened and swallowed them up.

I had a moment of horrid worry, thinking I must either give up the whole thing or return to those devilish caverns and take myself all alone into the traps and terrors they were preparing for Joseph. But I asked myself whether, even if the matter concerned only him, I could quietly leave him in danger. My soul answered no, and then I asked my heart if love for Thérence wasn't quite as real a thing as one's duty to one's neighbor, and the answer I received sent me back through the dark and slimy archway and along the subterranean passages—I won't say as gayly, but at any rate as quickly as if I were going to my own wedding.

While I was feeling my way forward I found, on my right, an opening to another passage, which I had not found before because I then felt to my left; and I thought to myself that my comrades in going out had probably found it and turned that way. I followed the passage, for there was no sign that the other way would bring me any nearer to the bagpipers. I did not find my comrades, but as for the bagpipers, I had not taken twenty steps before I heard their din much nearer than it sounded the first time; and presently a quivering kind of light let me see that I was entering a large round cave which had three or four exits, black as the jaws of hell.

I was surprised to see so clearly in a vault where there wasn't any light, but I presently noticed that gleams were coming from below through the ground I trod upon. I noticed that this ground seemed to swell up in the middle, and fearing it was not solid, I kept close to the wall, and getting near to a crevice, I lay down with my eye close to it and saw very plainly what was going on in another cavern just below the one I was in. It was, as I afterwards learned, a former dungeon, adjoining an oubliette or black hole, the mouth of which could still be seen thirty years ago in the upper hall of the castle. I thought as much when I saw the remains of human bones at the lower end of the cave, which the bagpipers had set up in rows to terrify the candidate, with pine torches inside their skulls. Joseph was there all alone, his eyes unbound, his arms crossed, just as cool as I was not, listened contemptuously to the uproar of eighteen bagpipes, which all brayed together, prolonging a single note into a roar. This crazy music came from an adjoining cave where the bagpipers were hidden, and where, as they doubtless knew, a curious echo multiplied the sound. I, who knew nothing about it then, fancied at first that all the bagpipes of Berry, Auvergne, and the Bourbonnais were collected together in that cave.

When they had had enough of growling with their instruments, they began to squeal and squall themselves, and the walls echoed them, till you would have fancied they were a great troop of furious animals of all kinds. But Joseph, who was really an unusual kind of man among our peasantry,—indeed, I hardly ever knew his like,—merely shrugged his shoulders and yawned, as if tired with such fool's play. His courage passed into me, and I began to think of laughing at the farce, when a little noise at my back made me turn my head. There I saw, at the entrance of the passage by which I had come, a figure which froze my senses.

It was that of a lord of the olden time, carrying a lance and wearing an iron breastplate and leathern garments of a style no longer seen. But the most awful part of him was his face, which was actually like a death's head.

I partly recovered myself, thinking it was only a disguise some of the enemy had put on to frighten Joseph; but on reflection I saw the danger was really mine, because, finding me on the watch, he would surely do me some damage. However, though he saw me as plain as I could see him, he did not stir, but remained stock-still like a ghost, half in shadow, and half in the light that came up from below; and as this light flickered according as it was moved about, there were moments when, not seeing him, I thought he was a notion of my own brain,—until suddenly he would reappear, all but his legs, which remained in darkness behind a sort of step or barrier, which made me fancy he was as it were floating on a cloud.

I don't know how long I was tortured with this vision, which made me forget to watch Joseph, and scared me lest I was going mad in trying to do more than it was in me to perform. I recollected that I had seen in the hall of the castle an old picture which they said was the portrait of a wicked warrior whom a lord of the castle in the olden time, who was the warrior's brother, had flung into the dungeon. The garments of leather and iron which I saw before me on that skeleton figure, were certainly like those in the picture, and the notion came into my head that here was a ghost in pain, watching the desecration of his sepulchre, and waiting to show his displeasure in some way or other.

What made this idea the more probable was that the ghost said nothing to me, and evidently took no notice of my presence,—apparently aware that I had no evil intentions against his poor carcass.

At last a noise different from all others attracted my eyes away from him. I looked back into the cave below me, where stood Joseph, and something near him very ugly and very strange.