He was sinewy as a leopard, but it would have been a strong man who could have stood against me then, and I held him like a vise. Even by the dim light of the lantern I could see his face grow livid, his lips blue, and his eyes almost start from their sockets. He struggled like a fish in a net, poor wretch! But at last his knees went from under him. Slowly, slowly, he yielded, and I felt him limp as a sack in my arms. One effort, and I flung him from me through the open door of the dungeon, and heard him fall with a half-smothered cry. He lay there like a log, and, closing the door after him, I picked up the key and turned the lock.
Then I waited in the silence, slowly arranging my disordered dress. When I had finished, I lifted up the lantern, and as I did so heard a faint cry: “Open! Open, de Vibrac!”
There were a hundred agonies in the voice; but he had made me pass through them before. I laughed in my turn at de Bresy, as I repeated and finished his quotation:
“... Facilis descensus Averni:
Sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras,
Hic opus, hic labor est.”
CHAPTER XXI
THE SHAME OF VIBRAC
Even as the words fell from my lips, their other meaning flashed upon me in vivid, insistent light, and the mockery I flung at the poor fool, there battering at the door with frantic hands, rebounded upon me with double force. It was I—I, whose steps could not be retraced. It was I, who was held prisoner in shades to which the darkness of that dungeon was sunlight.
And with this thought came the first sharp sting of remorse. But I had burned my ships. I could do nothing. Whether I stood fast to my evil compact with Achon or held back, the result would be the same. Those whom, in my madness, I had betrayed were compassed on all sides. For them there was no escape. And there was none for me. My path was before me; onward, where my revenge held out a Tantalus’ cup, whose sweetness would never touch my lips. I put aside the thoughts that came crowding upon me in that stifling air, and, seizing the lantern, went back alone, whence we had come, two together. As I shut the first door I stopped to listen if any sound could be heard from the dungeon, but all was silent. Slowly I went upward, closing the doors after me, and at last reached the landing. Fortunately there was no one there. I replaced the lantern in its niche, locked the door carefully, and, slipping the key in my pocket, made my way back to the Prince’s apartments.
De Bresy was disposed of for a time. Luck and his own folly had favored me in that, but there still remained Comminges to be dealt with.