In an instant the brave girl had resolved on a sublime act of self-sacrifice. Realizing that Fandor was done for if the pursuit continued, she made up her mind to interrupt this dreadful man-hunt. But how? By a terrible, a tragic ruse. In the darkness she ran to the water-side, threw herself into the lake, where she swam about vigorously, splashing with might and main so as to attract attention.
The hoped for result followed. The men heard the noise, they thought it was their quarry escaping, confusion grew worse confounded.
All this she had expected; but, alas! one grim consequence of her act she had not foreseen. In the fierce eagerness of their pursuit, the officers did not rest content merely to dash off on the fugitive’s traces; fully believing it was Fantômas trying to escape, they fired off their revolvers, hardly stopping to take aim. A ball struck Elisabeth, she gave one despairing shriek, and it was a wounded, half-drowned woman M. Havard brought ashore.
All crowded round the unfortunate girl, who still lay unconscious, and presently she was carried to the restaurant, where the Grand Duchess Alexandra was the first to kneel beside her, exhausting every means to recall her to life. She alone had seen all, and had guessed the true explanation of the terrible adventure. Her own love story a tragedy, herself a heroine in her day, the grand duchess could not fail to understand the motives that had guided Elisabeth, while the young girl’s noble self-sacrifice, her marvellous courage, had won the great lady’s highest respect and admiration.
Waiting till the police had completed their inquiries, the grand duchess herself organized the transport of the injured woman. She was determined to take her home with her and had her carried to her house in the Parc des Princes; there she summoned to her bedside the highest medical talent to be found in Paris. Doubtless she hoped by thus devoting herself to Elisabeth Dollon, by soothing away so far as was possible the girl’s dreadful anxieties, to repair, as much as in her lay, the cruelties of her lover, of Fantômas, the man she loved in spite of everything.
Two days had passed, and during that time Elisabeth Dollon’s condition, far from improving, had actually grown worse. The surgeons, called in one after the other, had departed, shaking their heads ominously; the ball had struck Elisabeth full in the chest and grazed the lungs. “She may be saved; it is possible she may recover!” such had been Professor Ardell’s
pronouncement. He had prescribed absolute quiet, rest, a light diet, but alas! had not concealed the serious apprehensions he felt for the patient’s life.
It was in a feeble, breathless, almost inaudible voice, that Elisabeth appealed to the Grand Duchess Alexandra.
“You have had no news of him yet?” she asked.
The grand duchess, seeing the girl was awake, had drawn up a chair to the bedside and was holding between her slim, aristocratic fingers, Elisabeth’s little hands.