[III.]
[THE PROPHECY FULFILLED.]
She was right. The evening wore away slowly. The servant cleared the table and trimmed the fire. Sieur Sarpy, instead of retiring to his private chamber, wheeled his chair to the hearth, and resumed the reading which he had interrupted before supper. Zulma continued to hold Blanche on her knee and, sitting before the glowing fire, they both dropped off into sleep. With the child, it was genuine slumber mingled with pleasant dreams, as the smile upon her lips and the lines that played upon her brow and cheeks clearly testified. With Zulma it was not real sleep, but somnolence, or rather the torpor of dim meditations. Her eyes were closed, her head was thrown back upon the rocking chair, her limbs were somewhat extended, while an air of forced resignation or preparation for the worse was set upon her noble features. The blue and yellow flames of the chimney flickered wantonly upon her face; the moan of the wind around the gable drummed into her ear, while the slow flight of the hours which she heeded not, yet noted distinctly from the strokes of the old clock, lapsed her soul farther and farther away into the vague spaces of oblivion. Gradually Sieur Sarpy, yielding to the influence of heat and solitude, dropped his book upon his knee, and closed his eyes for a brief respite of repose. But for the outside sounds of nature and an occasional gust in the fire place, everything within that room was as silent as the grave. The respiration of its three living beings was barely audible, a proof that at least none of them suffered from physical pain. Everything betokened peace and security. If the rest of the country-side was wild with war or the rumours of war, the Sarpy mansion lay in the bliss of a profound unconsciousness.
Suddenly Zulma moved about in her seat, and rolled her head from side to side on the chair, as if a vision was flitting before her and the light of the hearthstone. She slowly opened her eyes, closed them again tightly in order to strengthen their force, and opened them a second time. Ten o'clock struck. She had been resting for two hours. It was time that she should rise and retire to her room. She sat up erect and, in doing so, looked directly forward again. She could not be mistaken. There was really a shadow between her and the fire. By a rapid effort of her strong will, she acquired full consciousness and recognized Batoche. Another glance of almost aching velocity revealed to her that his brow was placid, his eye soft, and that the traces of a smile lingered at the corners of his lips. This spectacle at once reassured her. She felt that all was not as bad as it might have been or as she had fancied it was.
"Batoche," she said holding out her right hand, "you have surprised me, but it is a delicious surprise. You cannot imagine how glad I am to see you. Sit down."
Then little Blanche awoke and sprang from Zulma's knee into the arms of her grandfather.
"I knew it," she sobbed. "I knew he would come."
"Yes," replied Zulma. "Blanche told us, when we feared evil had befallen you, that you would surely come. She is a dear girl, and a prophetess like her grandfather."
A moment later Zulma had aroused Sieur Sarpy, and after a few preliminary words of welcome, Batoche was installed in a chair before the fire, with Blanche upon his knees, and asked to recount his story in its minutest details. Zulma had not dared to put him the single predominant question which was present in her mind, partially trusting, as we have seen, to the serenity of the old man's countenance, but he, with his usual keen insight, answered it before entering upon the course of his narration.
"It is all wrong and yet all right," he said with a swift wave of his arm.